by Jenna Barton
We held hands, stopping only to gather phones and carry-out bags and shake hands with Isolde, who liked to pat our cheeks.
Walt grinned down at me as he opened my car door.
“Careful going home, sweetheart.” He took my hand again, his thumb sliding over my knuckles. Sweetheart made me smile every time he said it, intoxicated over him. He knew it.
“I’ll see you soon.”
After a final pass of his lips over mine, he started down Main Street, then stopped.
“Hey, Erin? Brush your teeth.” He chuckled and turned for his truck once more.
Oh, no, buddy.
Pursing my lips, I reached in my bag, following him as I turned the white tablet in my fingers.
“Walt?”
He stopped, grinning playfully, not seducing.
“Have an Altoid.” I smirked and slid the little mint between his lips. He caught my retreating hand in his and leaned over it, tracing the rise of my thumb with his tongue, finishing with a tiny bite at my wrist.
“See you,” Walt said, cocky and flirtatious and infuriating in the best way possible. I watched him walk from me, not caring that he most likely heard my whimpering after his broad shoulders fading into the early evening light.
At home, I brushed my teeth four times. Plus mouthwash. Then a final brush, just for insurance.
I arranged myself as he instructed, kneeling, palms open and upright on my knees. Hair pinned loosely with a few waves escaping—a deviation, but because he liked it that way. And not a single, scant item of clothing on my body.
Ready.
His key tumbled in the front door and he rustled in. Two heavy thumps. Bags, one with clothes for the next morning, most likely. And another one. The wheeled carry-on he called his toybag.
“Erin? I’m here, do you hear me?”
Not only were my eyes downcast, I realized, they were winched shut. I sat as I was supposed to, but my body was in revolt, shaking at the already soaring adrenaline in my veins. His voice, his presence and what they forecast spiked me close to overload.
“You can answer as I ask you questions, Erin.”
“Y—” I paused, so ready to say it. A simple response to him. It felt like opening a gate to a long sought-for country. “Yes, S—” My eyes clouded a little and I furrowed my brow at the tears. Not the time.
So hyper-aware of everything around me, I felt the air change when he came into my bedroom. After a matter of seconds, I felt his hand on my cheek, tracing down my jawline. Once again, the little quakes took over my body, covering my skin and arcing toward him.
“Hey…Erin?” His voice resonated through my body, settling in my navel.
“H…h…”
Oh damn!
I tried again, swallowing at the thick lump in my throat.
“Hello,” I replied, barely whispering a ragged whisper.
My adrenaline surged, and I tried to focus on the conversation I’d had with Claire, her advice for the first few minutes. I’d be overwhelmed, she reasoned, because I had so many ideas but little practical application of them. There were suggestions about breathing and staying in the moment—something Claire said frequently—and when I sniffed at her suggestion before I could censor myself, her soft laugh joined mine.
A mantra, she suggested. Something to keep me in the now, with Walt.
With Sir. For the next few hours: Sir.
Moment to moment…moment to moment…moment to moment.
My teeth began to chatter noisily and I wobbled, threatening to fall over in front of him.
Suddenly the comforter from my bed was floating around me; I felt him descend to the floor and sit in front of me. He took my hands, his thumbs brushing over my wrists.
“Hey, sweetheart, look at me.”
I glanced up quickly, then looked down again.
“girl, look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
I twisted the ends of my comforter around me, still shivering, and buried my face in the deep folds. He would see me undone and useless to him. Aftercare. He would have to take care of me. I couldn’t do it myself this time. And Walt had made sure I understood he wanted to take care of me afterward.
“Erin, we’re going to be honest about this, remember? Above everything.”
“I—shit! I’m terrified I’m going to do it wrong. I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re okay, Erin. That’s why I’m here. You don’t have to know the answers now.”
I looked up and found Walt sitting before me on the floor, legs crossed, in the same pair of battered jeans he’d worn the night we met and a navy T-shirt. No scary dungeon-wear, no weird alter-ego. Walt. Just like he promised.
Moment to moment…
I counted my breaths and felt my body still. With the absence of the high tension, my thoughts slowed as well, clearing to my mantra. Nothing more.
He slid forward, our knees barely touching.
“I’d like to try something.”
“Yes, S—”
“Hey, let’s just try yes and no, okay? This formal stuff’s too much for you right now.”
“I’ve attached so much meaning to it.” The simple insight surprised me.
“That’s understandable. You’ve waited a long time for this.”
I glanced up at him, hardly containing a smirk that wouldn’t be possible between couples at the Enclave. “You’ve made me wait long enough for this.”
“I’ve waited long enough for this myself.”
We stared at each other for a long moment. The balance of the evening could have gone either way in those minutes, but I sensed there would be no coming back if I let nervous giggles dilute the live current hovering between us. I sat back on my heels and nodded to him.
“All right, and we’re going slow, no script, no expectations?”
“Okay.”
He picked up a few strands of my hair and let it fall through his fingers.
“What is this, Erin?”
“Um…”
“Shhhh. Go with me.” He drew my hair through his fingers again. “What is this?”
“My hair,” I answered, wondering.
“Go with me, Erin. Don’t question it.”
“My hair,” I repeated, more confident in him, dismissing my questions.
“It’s beautiful.” He glanced away, drawing his eyebrows together as he cleared his throat, then looked to me again. “The first time I saw you, I thought something crazy…it looked like you’d dripped moonlight over your head.” A small smile transformed his face, highlighting dimples, smile lines, and traveling to his now bright eyes.
“No one has ever seen me like you have.” I wanted to, needed to say it. My posture changed slightly and my shoulders squared. “Thank you, Sir.”
Quiet, but clear and steady. I’d said it. I’d looked into the eyes of this man who had won over so many parts of me and given him the one thing I thought I would never truly wrest from myself. I felt it release from me—physically. Instead of a yawning nothing, a sense of stillness like I’d never known, a true sense of what for years I’d deluded myself into believing I existed in, settled into my bones. And I wasn’t in control.
Sir has me.
His strong, sure hand moved from my hair to my cheek, his thumb gliding over the fragile skin at my temple. He smiled again.
“That’s my girl.”
The approval was apparent in every move of his body. It emanated from his direct, level gaze, the slight change in the pressure of his thumb on my skin, even the set of his jaw.
Pushing the comforter away from me, his hand hovered just above my shoulder, so close the heat pulsed into my skin.
“And this, Erin?”
“My shoulder, Sir.”
Our eyes held the other’s in an intense gaze, our breath finding the same rhythm.
“Erin, can I put my hands on your shoulders?”
“Yes, Sir.”
; His fingers traced the long muscles of my forearms, turned my palms over.
“My hands, Sir.”
Reaching past us, he tugged and the sound of a zipper followed. I fought at the flare of warning and stayed with him, just as I’d done when we hiked up to the moth traps. He drew something out and sat it on my knees.
Rope. White, silky, and slim. A hank of it, twisted, lay on my legs, waiting for use. On me.
“Erin, I’m going to wrap this around your wrists. And then I’m going to put the rope through the hard point over the door. That okay with you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He gazed down at me, chuckling. “Couldn’t get you to say ‘Sir’ five minutes ago. Now you won’t quit.”
“Sir. Sir. Sir. Sir.” I looked up at him, dozy and grinning. His hand smoothed over my head, his laugh lingering around me as he passed, rising to his feet.
Suddenly, his hands were hard on my arms, pulling me up to stand. He looked down at me, still relaxed, still smiling. But sharper, a little wary. Watching me.
“Okay?”
“Yes, fine.”
I looked on as he wound the rope, an infinity symbol containing my wrists and two of his fingers. Once he was satisfied with the placement of the bind, he removed his fingers and passed the opposite end through the bolt sunk into the doorframe and closed the door. My arms rose over my head, and suddenly my nipples twisted into hard points.
Vulnerable. Open. His.
“The door is here for you to lean against. Just hold the rope enough to stay steady, no gripping. I want you to face me.” His hands were on my shoulders again, guiding me. “If your hands feel tingly, or you have any sudden pain, I want you to tell me.”
“Okay—I mean, yes, Sir.”
He smiled and leaned down to my lips for a short kiss. “Don’t worry so much about saying the right thing. You just worry about steady, no grip, tingles, sharp pain, dizzy, no breath. Say it for me.”
“Steady. No grip. Tingles. Sharp pain. Dizzy. No breath.”
“Good girl.”
Good girl. Approval. Affirmation. His.
I raised my chin and stared at him, unable look away. In my ears, my pulse sounded, a strong and steady thud playing against the half-time glide of air across my mouth. Distant sounds—a neighborhood dog barking, the nightly settling of the roof as the wood contracted in the night air—were there, clear, but nothings. Every present part of me hung, balanced before him and where he was taking me. I would have followed him anywhere, given him anything, so enormous was this feeling I’d only known before as gratitude for safety after being lost in an unfamiliar place.
After another touch of his lips to mine, he walked back to the duffel bag he’d brought in. Methodically, he took out each of his implements, laid each one on my bed. When the large flogger he’d used on Claire that first night came out, his gaze shifted to mine. The question was implicit.
I didn’t look away, even though my cheeks flamed.
“We’ll see,” he said, grinning. The decision was his. Would it be reward or penance? “How are your arms? Open your fingers and wiggle them for me.”
He stepped to me, sliding something into his back pocket as he crossed the room. I complied, turning my arms and fingers under his hand.
“They’re okay.”
“You look more than okay.” He dropped a hand to my waist and trailed his thumb over my hipbone.
I shivered, sighing, and gasped a little under his hands. He touched me everywhere, with long, lingering passes of his palms on my skin. A small piece of my mind roused, objective and defiant, reminding me that I was naked, wrists tied, and nearly suspended from a piece of hardware bolted over my bedroom door, almost writhing as my boyfriend stroked my body. I ignored it, but the realization was too strong.
Moment to moment, Erin…c’mon…moment to moment…
His hand skimmed higher, rising to nestle under my ear, and this time the pad of his thumb traced my bottom lip. Nudging forward, I kissed his fingertip, parting my lips for him when he pressed against them. The shallow grooves skipped over my teeth, settling with his salty, warm skin on my tongue. I flooded there, and then between my thighs, at the pressure of his thumb in my open, waiting mouth.
It made me raise my chin, reacting like this, showing that disbelieving commentator inside me that I could take more. I wanted more—as much as he would give me. And I had no way to quantify it. There was no order to this sense of acceptance, being biddable under his hand, as a string of logic that started from what I thought was me. I wanted him—everywhere—but would wait, his hand the focus of his control over me, anchored at the single, sensitive point of his thumb against my tongue.
“God damn,” he said, taking his hand from my mouth. “You know, you’re something, Erin.”
Protection. Possession. His.
“Sir.” I looked down as the word crossed my lips, shutting my eyes hard at the cynical voice, suddenly louder and insisting I was attempting something I wasn’t capable of.
He glanced over my head, turned my wrists gently. “Yeah? You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Honesty, Erin, remember? What’s happening?” His hands were back on the rope at my wrists.
“No. No, Wa—Sir, please don’t. I was…No, it was you. You were everything.” And I remembered her, the girl who had scarred him so much before he understood who he was and what he wanted. Honesty was imperative, no matter how much it hurt. I swallowed hard, frustrated at the words so inadequate to the overwhelmingness of Sir in front of me. “Like I looked in a mirror and I was so close to it, I saw you instead of me.”
Sir’s eyelashes fluttered a little as he smiled, and his fingers skated over the softer, more sensitive skin of my exposed inner arm. They came to rest, his big palm splayed across my neck, and he lifted my chin, bringing my eyes to his. I knew the sensation of him looking over me, his practiced ease with evaluating where my head was as much as he’d come to read my body’s reaction to him.
“’S okay, sweetheart. I got you.”
I smiled, nodding. Of course he did.
The weight of his hand fell heavier against my jaw, more possession than a gentle cradling, and his fingers slid deep into my hair at the nape of my neck. From there, steady tension kept my head lifted to him.
“You don’t have to keep your eyes open, Erin. If you need to check out for a second, it’s fine. But I want you to tell me if you need more time, all right?”
“Okay, Sir.” I nuzzled into the warmth of his hand so I could stir the scent of his soap, and the leather from his steering wheel, and him around me.
“Gotta say, I do like hearing you call me Sir,” he said and kissed me.
The pressure of his fingers wound again through my hair, a measured climb in intensity. Everything about him, his knowledge of physically and mentally dominating a partner, his size and strength, made me aware of the forces of power and surrender. It was laced into the foundations of who we were becoming as a couple. And that was when I understood something I’d never be able to forget about this man. He was in control of himself first. It was why he had always been able to inspire it from me.
My head sank against his hand and I let myself exhale.
His shoulder shifted and his other hand moved away from my hip. The air around it whispered over me and his fingertips returned to my skin.
“Well, all right, then,” he said, chuckling softly. “Erin, this is the deer-suede flogger I showed you when we talked about tonight. Remember?”
It was small, compared to the dark buffalo-hide one he’d taken out earlier and left in full view on my bed. He wisped the velvety falls across my outer thigh, then dragged them along a slow course from knee to hip. A sound nearly as soft hummed over my lips, and my hips twisted after the lost sensation of suede on my skin.
“Erin? Remember?”
My spine shot straight behind me. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Sir. Yes, I remember.”
“Shhh,” he said easily. “Don
’t worry so much about the Sirs. Yes and no is fine.”
“But you like it.”
“I like watching you give yourself a little space to enjoy what you’re feeling a lot more than worrying about the right honorific. Okay, Erin?”
I looked up to him and nodded.
He curved his left arm along mine and offset himself against the door behind me, leaving my skin chilled from the absence of his body. His hand rose and he held the flogger in front of me, inches from my breast.
“This is new. Did I tell you that when I showed it to you?”
“No. I don’t remember.”
His hip shifted, pressing more of his body beside me and into the door. In the scant space between the flogger and my nipple, the velvety tips came closer, hovering. So close, I felt my skin arc toward them. Above my head, his fingers closed, one by one, around my arm.
“I got this for you. I saw it a few weeks ago and thought about your skin, about how pale you are. Thought black wasn’t right on you, but this light brown…it’s the color of a fawn.”
He dropped the strips of suede from above, like a waterfall, across the sloped skin under them. And beside me, his hand still firm around my arm, he watched. The falls came quicker, harder, skipped between my breasts with no way to predict where they would land. When the flogger snipped and stung, I gasped a little, and the sensation disappeared instantly, replaced by his fingers closing around my nipple, tugging.
“Oh, God.” I danced to the tips of my toes again under tensed thighs.
“To God from Sir in one quick step. I like that.” His mouth was by my ear, the flogger’s falls compressed into a spiny circle in his palm. He released my nipple and dusted across it with the clench of suede. “You know, I can almost see what you’re seeing, Erin. If I move my head just right—” his cheek pressed into my temple “—yeah, I can make out what it must look like to you, having your tits out and exposed for me. I can see the little chillbumps coming up on your stomach.”
Swish-swish. Smack.
“Your skin is one of the first things that got me hard for you.” He shifted his hips closer and proved he was no liar. “So damn pale.”