by Opal Carew
She arrived early and ordered a soothing cup of tea to calm her nerves that felt like they were jumping like live wires. Her hands felt like blocks of ice and she kept them curled around the warm mug.
She watched him walk in the door. Handsome. Muscled. A few inches over six feet which made him one foot taller than she was. He probably outweighed her by eighty or ninety pounds as well—all of it pure muscle by the look of him.
As beautiful as he was to look at, Corinne couldn’t help but think how all that hard muscle could hurt. Steven had been beautiful as well . . .
God, what was she doing? She had to be out of her mind to want back in to the lifestyle, to willingly give Nate or any other man permission to do with her as he would. To give her choices over to another man. Panic clawed at her throat. When Nate reached her table, Corinne all but leapt to her feet, sending the chair skidding across the tile floor.
“I shouldn’t have called you,” she said in a rush.
She brushed by Nate. The insane fear that he might not let her pass had her heart rate soaring and her belly roiling. In another minute, she’d lose the contents of her stomach all over him. But he stepped aside.
She made it to the side of her car just as her stomach heaved and she emptied the soup and crackers she’d had for lunch onto the asphalt. With her nerves wound tight, she hadn’t had dinner.
“That’s it. Get it out.”
Nate’s strong voice drew nearer then he dropped to a crouch beside her.
“Breathe,” he said softly.
When she had nothing left in her, she felt weak, wrung out. She braced herself with a palm on the fender to keep from falling onto her ass or her face on the cold damp pavement.
“Easy. Breathe through it. Give yourself a moment,” Nate said.
She tried to get to her feet but flopped back. Nate’s arms came up to catch her, but when he saw she’d gained her balance, he lowered them.
“Better?” Nate asked, his tone soft.
She nodded.
“Think you can stand now?”
She didn’t know for sure but, using the car for support, she made it to her feet. Nate rose slowly with her, arms outstretched to catch her should she fall. Again, now that they were standing toe to toe and she had to tilt her head way back to meet his gaze, the difference in their sizes struck her.
Nate’s brows were lowered as his eyes caressed her, but the expression in those dark eyes changed, deepened. “I can see you’re afraid of me, Corinne.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“I’m a Dom, remember. I know how to read a submissive even if that sub hadn’t just bolted out of the coffee shop like she was being chased by the devil himself and then spent the last five minutes emptying her stomach in a parking lot.”
She nodded and released a shaky breath. “Point taken. Nate, I don’t mean to lead you on. I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have called you. I shouldn’t have brought you here for nothing.”
“No problem about that. What is a problem is your fear. It’s stopping you from living your life.” He frowned. “You need to sit down.” Nate held out his hand. “Give me your keys.” When she complied, he unlocked her driver’s side door and held the door for her while she seated herself behind the wheel, sideways so her feet were on the pavement. Nate handed her keys back to her and braced an arm on the roof of the car.
“I’m a mess, Nate,” Corinne said. “I don’t know if that will ever change. I want this though I must be wired wrong, out of my mind to want this again.”
Nate’s eyes went hot with anger. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not wired wrong. You’re not crazy. Stop that right now. It was Steven who was wrong. Steven’s pleasure was not linked to yours as it should be between a Dominant and his submissive. Steven got off hurting you in ways he liked it and didn’t care that you didn’t. Don’t let him continue to dictate how you live your life. Don’t let him continue to cause you to doubt yourself and how you choose to give love and to receive it.”
His anger for her, his outrage on her behalf, struck her deeply. She closed her eyes, on the verge of tears at his compassionate words and the vehemence behind them.
Nate’s voice became gentle. “Come home with me for one hour, Corinne.”
Corinne opened her eyes. “One hour?” She shook her head. “Why? What will only one hour prove?”
Nate smiled. “For one thing, you’re already thinking it’s a negligible period of time and that’s acceptable to you. First steps, remember?”
Her insides tightened. “I need to know what your expectations are.”
Nate met her gaze, his direct and uncompromising. “I expect your complete obedience and submission. I realize that at first you won’t know what complete obedience is with me and I’ll teach you just what that entails—all that entails. But while I will demand your obedience, I don’t want you to ever feel you can’t talk to me about anything that makes you uncomfortable or ask me to explain a command I’ve issued if what I want is unclear.”
Corinne’s breathing picked up at Nate’s words, her submissiveness responding to him. He was saying everything she so longed to hear but what about what he wasn’t saying? “What about pain? Do you like to give pain?”
“What if I applied my hand or a flogger to your beautiful ass? If I tied you, bound you so completely you couldn’t move, couldn’t free yourself and would only be free when I decided to release you?”
Heat surged through her.
“What are you feeling right now?” Nate asked.
She was aroused for the first time in over two years. “Excitement,” she said in a whisper.
“Your body remembers what it needs,” Nate said, his tone gentle. “To answer your question about pain, yes, there would be pain.” Something feral glimmered in his eyes. “Because I like it.” He paused, letting that sink in, then added, “I enjoy inflicting pain and I would do so, but only pain that will give you pleasure.”
Desire built within her feeding the flames. Everything she’d ever wanted, dreamed about was what Nate was promising, but then so had Steven . . .
Nate leaned in closer to her. “Know this above all else: Nothing will happen that you don’t want. And I would never initiate any type of play without discussing your limits first and mine.”
Corinne blinked. “Your limits?”
“As your Dom, my responsibility as well as my concern is to keep you safe first and foremost at all times. There are lines I won’t cross if I think they will risk you in any way or if I think you aren’t ready for them. Will I push your boundaries? Yes. But it will be my job to learn what you can take and what will give you the most pleasure. A Dom’s job is to give his sub what she needs.”
His limits were tied to what was best for his sub or so he said . . . “What if something you’re really into is a hard limit for me?”
He eyed her. “Then we’d discuss it beforehand. We would take things slowly. Bring you back into the lifestyle slowly.” He exhaled deeply. “I can see that you’re afraid and with good reason. We will take things slowly. I’ve never lied to you, Corinne. Not about anything. I’m not lying to you now. You have my word on this. I’d like you to be open to trying new things before you decide something isn’t for you, but if you had a real aversion to something I wouldn’t force it. I would never force you.”
Corinne bit her lower lip and clasped her hands together. “I have hard limits.” She didn’t need to think about what they were.
“I’m listening.”
“No fists. No knives.” Her chest tightened. “And no suspension.” The memory of herself suspended on the hook in Steven’s dungeon while he beat her for the sake of beating her had her body shuddering.
Something flashed in Nate’s eyes then was gone. He nodded. “Safe word?”
“Stop. ‘Stop’ would be my safe word. I would want there to be no mistake. No misinterpretation.”
Nate’s features tightened. His brows lowered and his eyes gr
ew more avid on her as if he were searching for something inside her. Maybe it was the force with which she’d blurted her limits that had provoked the intensity of Nate’s regard. Nate wouldn’t know how she’d cried and begged and screamed her safe word to Steven only to have it ignored.
Her mouth quivered and she held his unwavering gaze just as steadily, though as a sub, her every instinct was to lower her gaze. She held his.
Nate’s eyes bore into hers. “Once you use your safe word, it’s over for me. Immediately. Everything stops.”
Corinne believed him but then she’d believed Steven too. She closed her eyes, needing a moment to herself, a moment out of his piercing gaze, out from under his dominance that she could feel like an aura over her and her own body yearning toward it.
And that was the bottom line. She wanted this. Craved this. Felt adrift . . . lost. She needed a man to take control, to own her. To do with her whatever he wanted. She wanted to surrender all to such a man. And not just any man. It struck her that she wanted that man to be Nate.
He was offering her a chance. She had to take it. Had to try. If she couldn’t get back her sexuality, she didn’t know what she’d do. She’d be forever lost. With her denying this part of herself, her life wasn’t working.
She opened her eyes and licked her lips. Her nerves pulled tighter. “You said to give you one hour?” She needed to reestablish the boundaries.
Nate nodded.
Corinne’s palms dampened, became slick with sweat. “Okay. One hour.”
Chapter Six
Nate checked his rearview mirror. Corinne was right behind him. He could see her, both hands on the steering wheel in a death grip.
She looked so lost and afraid. It sliced him open to see it. Again, he cursed himself for staying away from her.
There was a stoicism about her, a determination to get through, to endure. As much as she wanted to reenter the lifestyle, he could see her doubts about herself. Her confidence in her own judgement had taken a pounding. As much as her body had from the physical abuse Steven had heaped on her.
Just hearing her hard limits felt like a knife to Nate’s gut for what she’d suffered and had his jaw tensing in rage at what her husband—her Dom—had subjected her to.
Corinne’s list of limits wasn’t what was common in the lifestyle, things like no edge play, no use of certain instruments. No, Corinne’s list was that of a victim of assault. That’s exactly what she was. What had taken place between her and Steven was nothing short of abuse. Steven hadn’t been fulfilling a mutual need with Corinne but had been focused on hurting her. Though Nate didn’t doubt that Corinne had limits that were geared to the lifestyle, she wasn’t thinking of those now. Now, she was thinking like a woman who’d survived abuse and was terrified of it happening again.
Nate rubbed a hand down his face then up through his hair. He needed to bring her back. Show her how it should be between a Dom and his sub. Show her how it would be with him as her Dom, a man who loved her with every breath.
He’d been in love with her for so long. He hadn’t told her that tonight. He could see she was reeling from what he had told her. She wasn’t ready to hear how he felt about her. He hoped the day would come when he could and that she’d welcome his love.
She’d had counseling after her divorce from Steven. Her father had told Nate the therapist had been very good at helping Corinne. Nate figured it was due to that counseling that Corinne was able to try to get back this part of herself that was as innate and as much a part of her as her arms and legs. Yes, due to the therapist and to Corinne’s own inner strength. She was strong. That she was a submissive was proof of that. It took a strong person to be a submissive, to grant another that control. The power in the relationship was the submissive’s, a precious gift to grant or to withhold.
Steven hadn’t broken her. She hadn’t let him. Nate was going to do everything in his power to show her—to remind her of that and of her strength. And to show her just how much he cherished the gift of her submission. It was everything to him. She was everything to him.
Nate’s phone had vibrated while he’d been in the diner with Corinne but he’d let the incoming call go to voicemail, not wanting to interrupt his conversation with her. He activated the truck’s Speakerphone now.
“Nate, it’s Mitch. Got the info you asked me for but I need to talk to you as well. Call me.”
Mitch was Mitch Turner, Blake County’s chief of police and a good friend. Nate hit redial. An instant later, Mitch’s wife Shelby answered Nate’s call, her voice coming softly through the truck’s speakers.
“Hey, Shelby, it’s Nate. How are you, honey?”
“Nate. I’m good. We’re all fine. Hoping to see you at Sara’s adoption party.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“It’ll be good to see you.”
“You too, honey.”
“Mitch mentioned that you called. I know he’s been waiting for you to call him back. I’ll get him.”
“Thank you. Give Sara a kiss from her Uncle Nate.”
“For sure.”
A moment later, Mitch was on the line. Without preamble, Mitch said, “Nate, got the info you wanted. Steven Jenkins is still behind bars.”
Nate had tensed in anticipation of Mitch’s response. Now his taut muscles eased. “Good to know.”
“You didn’t say why you wanted to know.” Mitch’s voice sharpened. “Any reason you thought Jenkins wouldn’t be there?”
Nate blew out a breath. “None. I don’t know if you’ve heard that Corinne is back in Blake.”
“No. How is she?”
“Hurting,” Nate said softly, feeling her pain as if it were his own.
“I’m sorry. That has to be hard on you too.”
Mitch knew of Nate’s feelings for Corinne. “Yeah. I wanted to make sure that Steven wasn’t able to get to her, wasn’t hassling her, and Corinne was too afraid to say anything about it.”
“I get that. She’s been through hell and is still coming out the other side.”
The anger and the compassion in Mitch’s voice were unmistakable. Nate could well relate. “I’m going to make it my mission in life to see that she gets through this, Mitch.”
“If she needs anything . . . If you need anything . . .”
Mitch didn’t need to say more between them. “Thanks, man. I’ll let you know. Later.”
“Later,” Mitch echoed.
Nate ended the call. His house came into view. He pulled into his double driveway and clicked the remote for the garage door to open. An instant later, Corinne parked beside him. He left his truck and went to her.
He hadn’t known for sure if she would come home with him tonight. He’d hoped. Oh, yeah, he’d hoped. And he’d wanted. Wanted her in a way he’d never wanted anything or anyone in his life. With that hope driving him, he’d made some preparations before leaving to meet her at the coffee house. Made some preparations for their first time together.
He hadn’t expected to have only one hour with her but he’d seen her need to have things between them defined, even the length of their first encounter and that’s why he’d established this boundary. This went beyond a sub’s need for structure. Corinne needed an out, an exit. She needed to know that a limit had been set. Nate was willing to give that to her. He’d give her whatever she needed to reassure her, to make her feel safe, protected and cared for.
He understood her fear and trepidation. He would take whatever time she was willing to give him.
As he left his vehicle, he thought of the evening he’d planned for them when he’d received Corinne’s call, an evening that would have lasted a lot longer than one hour. With his time shortened, he now contemplated the necessary adjustments. He intended to make the most of the next sixty minutes.
Corinne opened her door. Nate held out his hand to her, ostensibly to escort her out of the car, but the gesture was more than that, a symbol of her putting her faith in him.
By her slight
hesitation, Nate could see the significance of the gesture wasn’t lost on her. Corinne was an intelligent woman, an intuitive one. He held his breath waiting to see what she would do. If she would change her mind . . .
She put her hand in his. Nate felt satisfaction and joy spread through him. She would not regret believing in him.
Her hand was ice-cold and trembled slightly. Despite her fear, she’d entrusted herself to his care for the next while. In this moment, there was nothing in the world that could have meant more to him.
Gently, he rubbed her hand to warm it, then brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm before releasing her. “You’re freezing. Let’s get you inside.”
Her eyes were wide on his but she followed.
In the hall, he hung up her coat then his own jacket. He watched her take in his home. Though he’d kept a distance from her before that night she’d run to him, she had been here a couple of times.
“You added some things,” Corinne said.
“A few.”
Two years ago, he’d spent more time out of the U.S. than in it and he’d never done much in the way of furnishings or trappings that made the house a home. He still hadn’t done a lot, despite the fact that he was home a great deal more now that he was in business with his partners.
Corinne cleared her throat. “Could I use your bathroom?” She lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “If you have toothpaste, mouthwash? I’d like to clean up after being sick in the parking lot,” she said quietly.
“Sure. You’ll find what you need in the cupboard under the sink. New toothbrushes as well. Help yourself. Do you remember where the guest bathroom is?”
She nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Meet me in the living room when you’re ready.”
A short while later, Corinne joined Nate in the living room. Moving slowly she walked the length of the room, taking in her surroundings, yes, but also, putting distance between them. Nate let her, giving her space and hanging back.
Corinne stopped and softly touched a multi-colored afghan that was draped across the back of the sectional couch.