Parker shook his head. “You’re injured. Rest. I’m not climbing on top of you, and you definitely aren’t kneeling.”
She shook her head. Normally the thought of kneeling in front of him, taking his hard cock into her mouth and pleasuring him, would make her wet, but right now it was too painful. “No, Sir, I’m not going to move. Although I could scoot a little. But I was wondering…if maybe you could kneel in front of my face on the bed here, with my head on the pillow, maybe you could get your cock in my mouth.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“It will help me sleep.” She wasn’t sure it was true, but she thought it was an argument he might yield to.
Whether he believed her or not, he moved into position. His cock was thick and erect, a size most men would be proud of, although she knew from experience that he could get even bigger.
She turned her head and sucked his cockhead in, wrapping her fingers around his shaft. Then she let go and lifted his cock so she could lick his balls. She never thought she’d be into that, but the way it made him shiver was worth it. Parker was so strong and so in control, but a lick and he was overcome with the sensation. It made her feel powerful, and even though she loved to yield, she was proud to have such an effect on him.
She stroked him that way for a while, feeling him get even harder as she did so. His balls, silky smooth, tightened.
She licked up the shaft until she reached the head and tasted his precum. She loved the taste of him, salty and sweet, but a thought hit her. “You haven’t been letting anyone else do this to you?”
“You know you’re the only one who is allowed to touch me without a condom on.”
She smiled. Even then, they used one for everything but oral sex. He kept himself safe, and he kept her safe too. She tightened her grip the way he liked it and stroked harder, pumping him. He grew in her mouth as she took more of him in. Her lips could barely reach her fist, even when she let the head of his cock tickle the back of her throat. She swallowed, knowing it created a sensation he loved, and then moved her head in time with her hand. Her knee was starting to hurt, and she knew he wouldn’t approve of her letting that go on for long. Somehow, the fact that he wouldn’t approve mattered more than the actual pain.
He groaned, his breathing getting more ragged, and she knew he was close. She wanted to cup his balls in her other hand—he loved that—but twisting like that wouldn’t feel good. It was almost as if she was bound, in a way. The thought excited her. She loved to be restricted by his control, and she let herself imagine for a moment that he had been the one to make her immobile, rather than her injury.
Then his cock swelled, and she readied herself. Pulsing, he gushed into her mouth, warm and hot, his strong taste filling her nostrils as she swallowed his seed. He spurted again and again. Had it been a while for him? Surely he hadn’t been waiting for her. She hadn’t even been able to assure him she’d make it Saturday. Either way she took everything he had, and only when his pulsing stopped did she lower her head back to the pillow and let his cock slip from her mouth. She closed her eyes, breathing him in and reveling in the sensations for a moment. See, even hurt I can still serve.
He stroked her hair. “Such a good girl,” he told her.
She swelled with pride. Her eyes flickered open to see the satiated and pleased look on his face, and then she closed them. It meant even more to her that she could satisfy him even when not anywhere close to 100 percent. She felt fuzzy again—the last remnants of the drugs in her system, perhaps, combined with her sexual and submissive sides both having been satisfied. She felt his hands softly stroking her skin and knew she was going to drift off before she opened her eyes again.
“Sleep, pretty darling,” he sang to her. It took her a while to place the song, not quite a lullaby: The Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers.” She didn’t remember ever hearing him sing before, and she wanted to stay awake to hear the whole song, but she also wanted to let his voice carry her back to sleep, and it did.
* * * *
She woke up for breakfast, but the pain caused her to take some more drugs, and she was soon back to sleep. When her eyes opened again, she was surprised to see Alicia there at her bedside.
“Where’s Parker?”
“He’s off getting some things from your apartment.”
“I can take care of myself. He could just take me back there.” The thought of Parker going through her stuff did not make her happy. She didn’t have anything she wanted to conceal from him, exactly, although she’d left the bed unmade. My Hitachi. Crap. Well, he bought it for me. He can’t be too offended that I use it.
“Would you rather be alone or with Parker?” Alicia asked.
“With Parker,” Karen admitted.
“Thought so,” replied Alicia smugly. “It’s almost as if you planned it. Is that knee really hurt?”
For a moment, Karen started to protest, and then she realized Alicia was teasing. “All part of my master plan. Although honestly, if I was going to spend a weekend with Parker, I’d much rather be able to kneel. I’m sure he’s going to get tired of gimpy me.”
Alicia nodded. “So why were you off with that guy instead of doing something with Parker anyway?”
“Because Parker is just for Saturday afternoons.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the way it’s always been, and he’s never asked me for more.”
“Was that guy kinky?”
“Not that I know of.” Karen giggled. “Actually, he could be gay for all I know, although his dating profile claimed otherwise. He did offer to sleep with me, but he didn’t exactly ooze romance or even seem physically attracted to me.”
Alicia nodded. “I used to date vanilla guys. They never did it for me, and now, well, I think I’ll stay with Craig, but if something were to happen to him, I think I’d want another dominant man in my life, you know? If I wanted anyone. Still not sure why you were off with that guy.”
“I want more, Alicia. Kink is great, and I love it. I feel awesome submitting to the right man—well, to Parker. But surely most guys, kinky or not, would be happy to have a woman who was eager to please?”
“Some of them don’t know what to do with a woman like that. I think it’s the whole virgin-whore dichotomy. If a woman doesn’t want sex, she’s frigid. If she does, she’s a slut. I don’t know. I never had any luck until Craig.”
Karen pulled herself up to a sitting position. She’d been in one place too long. She sat next to Alicia on the edge of the bed. “Maybe. I’m getting older, Alicia. Okay, everyone’s getting older. I want to have kids and a relationship, not just a series of kinky lovers.”
“You want stability.”
“Well, not so much for its own sake. But for the kids, yeah, a guy whose gonna stick around. I’ve been having the time of my life the last few years, but I don’t want to get old and look back and realize I’m alone and missed my chance. I guess I’m having a midlife crisis of sorts.”
“Aren’t you supposed to buy a red sports car?”
“And date a blonde who is ten or twenty years younger than me? I think that’s guys. Hell, maybe that’s why Parker was with that girl a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I can feel my biological clock ticking, and I want to do something about it.”
“Maybe you should tell Parker that.”
“He’d run in horror.”
“Maybe not.”
“Oh, please. You’ve seen his basement. All the work he’s put into making that a dungeon? I’m sure he’d be real pleased to replace that with a playpen.”
“But you love him.”
Karen sighed. “Yes. Dammit.”
“You can’t just replace that.”
“I have to.”
“Well, if you do…you’re not going to be able to do it without doing one thing first.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell him how you feel. And what you want.”
Ugh. Didn’t Alicia understand? If Parker wanted those things, he’d
ask. “He’ll break my heart.”
“Exactly,” said Alicia.
“Exactly?” Karen blinked at her crazy friend.
“And then you’ll be able to move on.”
“But I don’t want to…” Move on, she started to say. Why couldn’t life be simple and easy? And yet, that was part of what she loved about Saturday afternoons with Parker. It was simple. Life’s problems faded away, and she did whatever he told her to do and let him have his way with her. She didn’t have to puzzle out anything complicated. He knew her so well, and she had come to trust him so much that she didn’t even worry about her safe word. She had one; she didn’t even remember what it was for sure. Some kind of citrus fruit. She knew if she simply yelled safe word, he’d stop, but she was also confident that he wouldn’t do anything to make her say it.
“Communication is the key to having a good relationship,” said Alicia as a car pulled up outside. “Sounds like the boys are back. I’m going to help make some lunch for everyone. I still say if you’re smart, you’ll tell him exactly what you feel.”
“Have you always told Craig what you feel?”
“Hey, I never said I was smart.” Alicia grinned at her as she got up.
“Well then.”
“But actually, yes, most of the time. And if I’m dodging, he usually makes me.”
Karen waited until Alicia left the room, and then reached for her crutches.
PARKER MADE LUNCH, although Alicia insisted on helping. He’d left a sirloin roast slowly cooking in the oven, and when he came back, it was cooked through, succulent and ready to slice. He put large slices on artisan bread, and Alicia added slices of lettuce and tomato. Somehow he’d never ended up cooking for Karen. In the early days, he had wanted to maintain a clear distinction—they were dominant and submissive, not boyfriend and girlfriend, and letting her think otherwise would only bring heartache. Somehow the nature of their relationship became a habit, and the distance became comfortable. After that, he never even thought about making food for her. It was not something they did.
Her profile, he’d noticed, said that she loved a man who could cook.
When they were done, Alicia offered to clean up. But Craig shook his head. “You hang out with Karen. Parker and I will do the dishes.”
Parker looked at the man quizzically. He was fine doing the dishes, but it was only a matter of loading the dishwasher and washing the knife he’d used to cut the roast. The remainder of the roast could go in the refrigerator on the pan he’d cooked it in with plastic wrap around it to keep it fresh. He wasn’t used to being ordered around, especially in his own house.
“Yes, Master,” Alicia said.
Parker didn’t want to interfere in the relationship of another Master to his girl, so he said nothing. What he wanted was some alone time with Karen, but Alicia and Craig had been very helpful, and he wasn’t going to shoo them. So he went to the kitchen with Craig while Alicia and Karen went to the living room, sat on the couch, and turned on the TV. “I’ll wash; you dry,” he said.
“Right. Don’t you have a dishwasher?”
“Right here.” He opened the dishwasher and then looked at Craig. “What did you want to talk to me about, then?”
Craig chuckled. “I’ve been watching you today. As you picked up Karen’s stuff and made sure she had her teddy bear and her vibrator. The look on your face as you looked at a picture of her with her family in her kitchen. The way you fussed after her at dinner and made sure she was comfortable before you touched your own food. You care about her.” Craig rinsed off plates and handed them to him, and he loaded the washer.
“Of course I care about her,” said Parker. “She’s my sub. Caring for her is part of my job.”
“I think it’s more than that. You love her.”
Parker shrugged. “What is love? You could ask a dozen people and get a dozen different answers. She and I have something good, for sure.”
“And you want it to last.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“But you’re going to lose her if you don’t tell her how you feel.”
Craig had put Parker’s fear neatly into words. A lot of poly people in the scene used dating sites to find other partners. Usually, they were very open about their desire to maintain multiple relationships, and if that was what Karen wanted, he suspected she would have said so. Instead, her profile had been clear. She was looking for a long-term relationship with one person, even though she intended to date around “at first.” If she intended to keep coming over to see him every week, some poor guy was in for a hell of a surprise when Karen explained that.
He’d been burned by love too badly to say he loved someone without being sure. People said it and didn’t mean it. Like his ex-wife, twenty years ago. But how could someone be sure of something like that, when love didn’t even have a clear definition? How could he be sure he was being honest? He couldn’t. But I can be sure I’m committed to doing my best. That I’ll stick by her no matter what.
Parker took a glass from Craig’s hand. “I’ll tell her something. But I’m going to wait until she’s had her surgery. Right now she has to focus on that, and I’m not going to hit her with anything while she’s dependent on me.”
Chapter Seven
Tuesday morning was the surgery, and Parker heard the doctors tell her not to make any important decisions until giving the anesthetics twenty-four hours to wear off. A cold feeling overtook him as he watched through a glass window as the doctors sedated her and she lost consciousness. Sleep he could deal with, even drugged sleep. This was too close to seeing her dead.
And yet, that’s the idea of commitment, isn’t it? That one of us, someday hopefully quite distant from now, will see the other one dead? He sighed. Hopefully that will come after a long, healthy life, and whichever one of us is alive will be able to look at the other and smile and know we had a very good run of it. Because I want Karen in my life for many, many years.
The surgery involved removing a small section of her hamstring and using that to knit the ligament that held her knee back together. It was dinnertime before they finally released her to go, and he’d spent some of the time working on his laptop, although with lousy Wi-Fi in the reception area, there was a limit to what he could do, and he didn’t want to leave the hospital in search of a better Internet connection. Her knee could bear a little weight, but the crutches had to support most of it. She had to lift her leg two hundred times a day and was instructed to put weight on it when she could, to the degree that she could.
“I’m famished,” she told him. It wasn’t a big surprise, since she had to fast for the anesthesia and hadn’t been able to eat since. He took her to his favorite steak place and watched her down a big twenty-ounce ribeye with mashed potatoes and a side of multicolored veggies. It was the first time he’d seen her actually eat more than he did.
It’s a shame I’m an ethical man. A glass of wine, a meal like this—it would be the perfect time to get her to agree to what I want. But I’ll wait the next twenty-four hours.
“You could drop me off at my place,” she said to him after the waiter had whisked away the plate.
“You’re staying with me until you’re all better.”
“That will take six months. I’m mobile. I can take care of myself.”
“Well, stay the week, anyway.”
She shrugged. “I never was any good at arguing with you.” But he thought she looked pleased.
He took her home, and they watched TV for a while before he tucked her into bed. He had some work to catch up on, as much as he wanted to join her, and he knew he’d be at least two hours. But as he worked he found himself getting distracted. His business had grown to the point it didn’t need his hands-on attention all the time. Some of the things he thought he’d have to do, like mailing customers who had asked questions, he discovered his assistant had already done.
Karen and I have always been good together. And we know what works. It’s time we made it a bigger
part of our lives. And I can take a day off now and then that isn’t a weekend, and the company doesn’t all fall apart.
He closed the computer, took of his clothes, and climbed into bed with her. He’d put her to bed with her wearing a shirt, but she’d taken it off. I suppose that doesn’t count as a major life decision. He spooned her, naked, and they woke up the next morning with her breast in his hand and his cock hard against her ass.
He was twenty minutes late to work, and it was totally worth it.
When he got home, he cooked for her, although she complained she wasn’t earning her keep. She stopped complaining when she tasted the food. He served her chicken redang, a spicy poultry and coconut stew he’d decided he had to learn to make after trying it in a Malaysian restaurant.
Well, she liked it. This is the time. He’d wanted to serve wine with the meal, but he didn’t want any alcohol to interfere with her judgment.
He pulled out a box he’d stored on the seat next to him and put it on the table. “I got this for you,” he said.
She looked at it for a moment. It was a white box, about six inches square. She lifted the lid. He watched her eyes carefully as she surveyed its contents. Inside was a silver tube a quarter inch in diameter, shaped into a circle just big enough to fit around Karen’s neck, with a small opening that allowed it to be fitted. It wasn’t an obvious collar, but anyone in the scene would know what it symbolized, and anyone outside would think it a slightly odd but pretty piece of jewelry.
“Karen, I love what we do on Saturdays. But I also love having you here in my bed every night. Waking up with you. Being with you. Would you accept me as your Master and be my slave?”
“You mean 24-7?”
“Yes. I won’t be in your face all the time. I can’t do that. I’m not proposing we stop doing our jobs or anything like that. But I am asking that we both be exclusive to each other. I will protect you and keep you, and you will serve me as you have every Saturday afternoon for so long. There’s a contract beneath the collar.”
Karen stared at the collar, reached out her hand to touch it, and then pulled it back as if it burned her. She reached beneath and pulled out the two sheets of paper the contract was written on and read it carefully before putting it down. She turned to look at Parker.
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