Sun, Sand, and Submission [Libertine Island 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic)

by Diane Leyne

  “No. When I want that, I’ll have you naked!”

  “Like hell. And besides, I brought my own resort wear.”

  She could hear him count to ten under his breath. “Why don’t you show me what you brought?”

  She opened her suitcase and hesitantly brought out the beautiful flowered wrap she’d purchased. It had cost a fortune, but it was too pretty to resist. She’d bought the matching bikini as well. The damned suit was smaller than anything she’d ever worn before, but now she felt herself coloring. Had she totally fucked up? She looked down uncertainly at the beautiful clothes she had purchased. She’d wanted to look nice for Max, she realized. She wanted to look beautiful and sexy and desirable and make him forget he was just doing her a favor.

  She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. She couldn’t do anything right any more. She felt a tear slip from here eye and then another, and then she was sobbing. Then Max’s strong arms pulled her close. He rubbed her back and murmured soothing nothings into her ear until the tears slowed down and finally stopped.

  She tried to pull back, but he held her tight to him.

  “I’m okay now.”

  “Maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t. But you are my sub, and I’ll hold you in my arms if I feel like it.”

  “Oh. You are teaching me a lesson of some sort.”

  “Damn it, Aly. I’m trying to comfort you. Stay still and accept it. And then you can explain to my why all those pretty clothes made you cry.”

  * * * *

  “You’re not really my Master. I rejected you, remember.”

  Max felt her words pierce his heart, but he forced himself to answer calmly.

  “I remember. But we only have a week to get you ready for your debut as my sub. We might know it is temporary, but our audience has to believe us. Once we leave again, we can tell everyone that it didn’t work out. You decided that the sub lifestyle wasn’t for you, and we parted amicably. But going in, you have to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the subject.”

  He released her and was disappointed when she pulled quickly out of his arms.

  “I do have a basic knowledge. I’ve done a lot of reading. I’m a journalist, remember? I know how to research.”

  He sighed. “Reading is not doing. Your responses need to be automatic, at least when it comes to the basics.”

  “For example?”

  “For example, when we go into the dining room, you will not pull out a chair and sit down without permission. When you meet another Dom or even a sub, you will not greet them.”

  “Why not?”

  “You will not greet the sub unless you have permission from the two Doms involved. You will only speak to another Dom when spoken to and only with my permission. You’ll address me as Sir or Master and, in public, you’ll only speak in response to a direct question from me. And you’ll either answer ‘Yes, Sir’ or ‘No, Sir.’ And no asking why once we get there. In fact, you can start practicing now by taking my word as law and just obeying. Can you do that? Those are basic sub behaviors. If you can’t do that, we might as well just go home now.”

  “I won’t be able to ask any questions?”

  “I can see how that would be difficult for you. We’ll set a time every day when we are in private that you can ask me any and everything you want. Can you live with that?”

  “I guess I’ll have to.”

  He stared at her.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good girl!” He was pleased to see her grin at the compliment before immediately wiping the smile off her face. “While you won’t be expected to be a fully trained sub day one, you are supposed to be there to learn, which means that not only do you need to be trained in the basics before we go, you have to expect me to correct you while we are there and when I do, you have to accept it gracefully. A sub who questioned or defied their Master would expect to be punished.”

  She looked at him with a defiance and passion that went straight to his cock. Damn, he wanted her more today than he had before they broke up. She was too thin, but he could fix that, given a little time.

  He put his hands on his hips and waited for her work through what was troubling her.

  “Are you going to make me be your puppy, Sir?”

  “Aly, that is the absolute best way to get you used to obeying my every command without question, without hesitation, without even conscious thought. But you really don’t want that, do you, even though you agreed to it in our temporary contract. Answer me honestly, Aly. I won’t be mad.”

  “Well, Max, Sir, I want do a good job at this, I don’t want to embarrass you or myself, but I don’t know if I could give you that level of submission, at least not without resenting you for it.”

  “Fair enough, pet. A good Master understands and respects their sub’s limits. If we were really going to be together, I’d insist you at least give it a try, but we can achieve the same result either way, it will just take longer.

  “So, pet, make your decision. Do you want me to spend the next few days working on your basic training, pushing you hard so that your reactions to my instructions are automatic, or do you want to go in cold like this and spend most of your time being punished? Just in the last five minutes, if we’d been on the island, you would have racked up at least three punishments. Make up your mind. I’ve got better things to do than stand here and argue with you. Besides, I won’t be the one with the red ass, but I would be the one…You know what, don’t bother with the pre-training. I’ll enjoy doling out corrections.”

  He grinned down at her, aware that his grin was not pleasant. It wasn’t meant to be. He saw her absorb his words, and when she accepted the wisdom of what he said. He relaxed, as she relaxed.

  “Did you really think the clothes were pretty?”

  This time his grin was genuine. She could always surprise him. Life with Aly would never be dull.

  “Yes. I’ll never lie to you. They are very pretty, and I’m sure you’ll look lovely in them, but not on Libertine Island. Our reservation is for the twenty-second. If you like, we can go down a few days early and check out St. Maarten before heading to the island. It’ll give us time to get back in couple head space again and give you time to practice.”

  The idea just popped out. He hadn’t meant to ask that, but once the words were out, he realized that he liked the idea of spending a few days together. Just the two of them, with no part to play, held real appeal. He’d show her that they were good together. He held his breath as he waited to hear her answer.

  She looked up at him, her eyes questioning.

  “You can wear your new beach stuff.”

  Suddenly, she smiled brilliantly and it was like the years dropped away, and just for a second he could pretend that they were still together and planning a vacation instead of spying on Rebecca and playing parts.

  She looked down .

  “Sure. I mean it will be nice to wear these things, and we probably could use the extra time to get comfortable together again.” She looked up and stared straight at him. “And we need to talk about the sleeping situation.”

  “I thought you’d demand your own room.”

  “That would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? We need to act like a couple. This will help us get comfortable together again. In fact…” Aly hesitated.

  “Yeah, it’ll help. We need to get physically comfortable together if we are going to pull this off. And you understand that we’ll be expected to have sex when we play in public…well, we could probably do everything else in public and then tell everyone that we were retiring to our room for the actual sex…” He didn’t want to scare her off, so he was being very careful with his wording.

  “What about the private theme rooms I read about? Couldn’t we just retire to one of those and pretend?”

  “No, they are monitored, too.”

  “I thought they were private?”

  “Private from the other members, but the resort staff still monitor them to make sure that the subs ar
e okay. Some Doms can get carried away. I can’t think of a reasonable explanation of why we would retire to a private play room and then not fuck.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t…”

  “Shouldn’t what? Retire to a private play room?”

  “No, shouldn’t fuck.” Aly stopped. “Damn. That came out strange, I mean…”

  “I know what you mean…”

  “But I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. It would be easy for me, but you would have to be into it, or me or whatever. Hell, forget I said anything.”

  Max laughed. “If you are worried about me being able to perform, you don’t have to. I still find you incredibly attractive and would not have the slightest problem performing.”

  “But I wouldn’t want you to feel obligated or anything. Oh, damn. This is hard. We’ve both moved on, but neither of us are involved with anyone else…” Her voice trailed off, and she turned bright red. Max thought his cock couldn’t get any harder, but now it felt like it was trying to burst through his pants.

  “Are you saying you think we could be friends with benefits, at least during this little undercover operation?”

  “Um, yeah, we were always good together, you know, that way. And it might, I don’t know, be…” She hesitated, and she looked up at him, her eyes beseeching him.

  “Never mind. Forget I said anything. I’ll get someone else to help me.”

  “No way, baby. I’m committed to this little enterprise. And if you are worried that I won’t be able to perform my, er, duties, I give you exhibit A.” He indicated the tented crotch of his pants. He didn’t think that Aly could turn any redder, but she did. “Don’t worry. I can control myself. I’m not planning on jumping on you, but never worry that I’m not turned on by you or that I wouldn’t be able to perform, because I think your suggestion makes sense. Hell, baby, we were always good together in bed. And we are grown-ups. No reason we can’t enjoy ourselves while we check on Rebecca.

  “And about my earlier suggestion. Are you up for going down a few days early to get comfortable together again before we have to perform for an audience, from a couple perspective, that is. Wasn’t meant to be a sexual comment.”

  “We do have to perform together publicly, both as a couple and sexually. Give me a second to think.”

  While she was considering his suggestion, Max waited on pins and needles. Maybe he should have called up one of his single friends in the lifestyle and asked them to help Aly. Hell, any or all of the Hayes brothers would have said yes in a heartbeat. But no, he had to jump at the opportunity to be with Aly even though she’d probably kick him back to the curb once they’d seen that Rebecca was fine, so if she wanted to be friends with benefits for the duration, he would take full advantage and hopefully by the time they were done, she’d be interested in something more. Maybe if he gave her the best sex of her life, she’d consider restarting their relationship, officially.

  In the meantime, there was Rebecca. He figured she was fine and Aly was just overreacting because of the way he and she had broken up, but he wasn’t such a gentleman that he wouldn’t take full advantage of her worry to try to get back in her life, and getting into her pants was a good start.

  He considered some more. At least, he assumed Rebecca was fine. He knew that Jake had gone back to Seattle, but Duncan and Andie were on site, and no way would they allow someone to be pushed into anything. He should have just called and asked, but, no, he had to think with his dick.

  “I’ll book us something in St. Maarten and let you know the flight information. How does three nights sound? That’ll give us a chance to get used to pretending.”

  “Can you make it a week? I have a feeling I’m not going to be a very good student.”

  Chapter Six

  Aly looked out the airplane window at the blue, blue water below as the plane came in for a landing. At least she assumed it was coming in for landing. There was no sign of land or runway underneath the plane. All she could see was water. She looked around. The other passengers looked calm. Obviously they didn’t understand the situation.

  She looked around for a flight attendant. She realized they looked calm, too. Maybe they weren’t all going to die.

  She felt Max take her hand and squeeze it gently. She didn’t want to die without making love to Max one more time and telling him she loved him.

  She looked over at him. The bastard looked all too calm. They were about to die, and he was smiling at her.

  Just then, she felt the bump of tires hitting pavement, and the plane started slowing down. They weren’t going to die. She closed her eyes. Thank you.

  And then the scramble began. People were standing and gathering their belongings. Max had booked them into first class, so they were at the front of the plane. He gathered their bags from the overhead bins while she collected her purse and they made their way through customs to the baggage claim area.

  She took the opportunity to look around at the other passengers, trying to decide if any of them were heading to Libertine Island. She saw two couples that she suspected were going there. Both women wore necklaces that could also have been considered collars, and they seemed to defer to their men.

  She looked up at Max and gestured toward the other couples. He pulled her close and whispered into her ear.

  “Yeah, I noticed them in the departure lounge when we changed planes in Atlanta. Just relax. We’re in a public airport. No one is going to expect you to sink to your knees at my feet. We’ll practice that some more at the hotel. For now, just stay calm and let me take the lead. Can you do that?”

  She nodded and went to pull away. When he didn’t release his hold, she looked up, ready to tell him off, but then she caught a look at his expression and forced herself to relax in his arms.

  She felt ridiculously happy when he smiled his approval and leaned down to kiss her forehead before releasing her.

  “Why don’t you sit over there and wait while I collect our luggage?”

  She started to argue. She was more than capable of collecting luggage, but then she restrained herself and smiled at him, moving to the seat he indicated and sat down. He smiled approvingly at her again.

  Dang. What was wrong with her? Why did his approval matter so much? Why did it make her feel so good?

  * * * *

  Half an hour later they were standing in the lobby of the Sonesta Great Bay Hotel. It was small, under three hundred rooms, but was bright and clean and sunny. He had booked them an oceanfront double room. The lobby was located between the third and fourth floors and decorated in cool whites and colorful tropical colors. She noticed a small casino to one side and stairs heading down to the restaurant and the beach.

  Their room was on the fourth floor just off the stairs. When they walked in, all she could see was the amazing view out the window of the bay. She could see a cruise ship on the other side of the bay and some buildings that she thought were downtown Phillipsburg.

  It wasn’t until she turned back to Max that she realized that the room held a single king-size bed. She felt a leap of excitement low down in her stomach, or maybe it was her pussy, but she tamped it down and forced herself to ignore the thought that immediately jumped into her head of making love with Max with the sound of the waves crashing in the background.

  He was already on the phone to the lobby.

  “Sorry, babe. The place is sold out. They said that if this isn’t satisfactory, they can call around and try to find us another room, maybe in their sister property the Sonesta Maho out by the airport. What do you want to do?”

  She looked at Max and then the bed and then out the window. Opening the balcony door, she stepped out. Looking down, she could see the two pools and the white sand beach. Without turning around she said, “Let’s stay here.”

  She felt rather than saw Max come out onto the balcony and stand beside her. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and her arm seemed to move around his waist of its own volition.

  She leaned h
er head onto his chest. It seemed so natural. She just wanted to stand that way for a while and enjoy the feeling of his warm, hard body holding her close and just forget about BDSM and Rebecca and why they were there. She was in a beautiful hotel room in a romantic location with the man she loved. He didn’t love her back, but she could and would pretend and store up memories for the future because she could not imagine loving anyone else. She’d tried to pretend that she’d moved on, but it was all a lie. He was the only man she’d ever really loved. Hell, she’d had a crush on him when she was ten and he was fifteen. She’d dated boys and then other men, but none of them had ever measured up to him.

  And now, for one week, she was going to obey him, serve him and act as if she belonged to him and instead of repulsing her, it was turning her on. She had to be honest with herself. Part of the reason she’d broken up with Max was that she’d been terrified of her own reactions. She’d loved what he did to her, and it scared her.

  So she’d walked away and had regretted it ever since.

  It was too late to get him back, but she could enjoy the coming week and pretend it was real. And if she could, she’d seduce him.

  “Aly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hate to break the mood. I’m enjoying being with you without seeing the disgust in your eyes. You’ve gotten better at hiding your hatred of my lifestyle, but if you are going to pass as a sub at the resort, I think we need to practice so you get comfortable. And if you do see anything that disgusts you, you’re going to have to hide it. You are going to have to be nonjudgmental about other people’s kinks. Can you do that?”

  Aly looked at Max. He looked sincerely worried.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve had a lot of time to think about my reaction when you told me about your lifestyle. Even if it didn’t appeal to me, I could, I should have handled that better. Don’t worry. I won’t offend anyone. But do we have to practice? Can’t I go in an inexperienced sub who is getting her feet wet?”