by Cynthia Dane
He’s looking at me. Judging me. The kind of judgment that sizes up how good it would be to take another plunge in my body. His sleepy, alcohol-ridden eyes look as good to me in my likewise drunken state. “Fuck that, Katie. I would lick your pussy wide open first.”
“Oooh, you smooth talker!” I lean in closer, and I know my whisky breath is all over his face. “Take me to bed right now.” My mouth is dangerously close to his ear. I grip his upper arm and think about licking the base of his neck. Even though I’m drunk, I know that’s a bad idea in public. I’m pushing it already.
His fingers play with the ends of my hair that have fallen out of my twist. “I want to tear this bun apart and pull your hair while I fuck you,” he growls into my ear.
We’re so close to kissing. His hand is on my thigh. My hand is searching for his. The bartender comes up and then quickly turns around when he sees us. We’re lucky the bar is so empty now.
“I was thinking of something a bit different,” I say with a different grin. “How about I tie you to a chair and slam my pussy in your lap?”
Chuckling, Ian picks up my empty glass and licks the rim. “Tie me up, huh? I’m not into that. I’d much rather tie you up and bite those pink nipples of yours. Oh yeah. I remember what color they are.” Before I can admonish him, he breathes into my ear, his voice deliciously deep. “I want to bring you to the brink of orgasm so many times that you beg me… beg me… to finish you off, your screams echoing off my bedroom wall while I completely lose myself in you.”
I shiver. It almost sounds good. Minus the tying me up part. “Ian…” I sober up a bit, but not enough to save me from my oncoming folly. “I’m not sure that would work.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” He’s serious. Too serious. “We’re both Doms. It wouldn’t work out, Katie.”
He takes a tentative drink and puts his glass back down. His hand is still on my thigh, and it tightens there, invigorating my lust but not satisfying my heart. “Not even for a little while?”
I don’t know what’s come over me. I really shouldn’t be lusting over Ian like this. Wanting him to hold me, to kiss me, to give me a hard time both in and out of bed. I feel like my high school friends swooning over him. Are any of my high school friends here with him like this right now? No. It’s all Kathryn Alison.
Domme.
I can’t ignore who I am. Ian isn’t going to submit to me, and I’m not going to submit to him. It would make us both too uncomfortable. We want completely different things from the other person. We really should end things here. Maybe we’ll hook up a few more times… why couldn’t tonight be one of those nights?
I ask him as much, and watch his brows furrow.
“Because I won’t be happy with just sex, Katie.” His voice is soft, but I can hear a Dom’s sternness in it. Already he’s talking to me like a sub, and I don’t care much for it. “If we make this a regular thing, then I want to dominate the fuck out of you.”
I bristle.
His tongue coddles my earlobe, and I feel myself turning into mud all over him. No. I have to resist. I have to push away from his inviting embrace. “I want to slowly strip you and bite every part of your body. I want to make you suck my cock until you choke on everything I give you.” Okay, man… okay… “I want to spank your pretty ass until it’s so pink you can’t sit for a week. And then I want to bend you down, listening to you shriek in ecstasy into my pillow as I fuck you bareback, your tight cunt growing tighter until you draw me in so deep that I can’t help but be siphoned by every muscle in your body. And then I want to watch my cum drip out of you and onto my bed. Then make you clean it up while you call me sir.”
My brain is gone. I don’t even know what the fuck to say.
“Does that sound good, Katie?”
He knows my answer. He knew it before he started describing that shit. Even though my body is shivering at the images, at the way his voice spills into me and fills my chest with nerves, I say the first thing that comes to my mind. “I don’t think I’d like that.” It sounds suffocating. Demeaning. Also, I don’t do bareback.
“No? Then I guess it can’t happen. I’m not going to do anything you’re thinking of right now. Let me guess. Cock rings and calling me a bad boy?”
He’s not making fun of me. He knows how a Domme like me rolls. I don’t really do humiliation, but I can be a harsh Mistress depending on the sub’s wants. Ian wouldn’t want that. If he were a sub, he’d want me to make him worship me. That’s what I want, anyway.
To feel like a queen.
A goddess.
Not a slave. The one without the real power.
Lots of women love that shit. That’s fine. I get it on a superficial level. But it’s not me. I get off hardest and feel freest when I’m the one calling all the shots. The thought of a man, even one like Ian, holding me down and pounding me until I scream a safe word makes me nervous, not exhilarated.
Even so, I want him. I want to feel his mouth on my body, his arms wrapped around me and filling me with that same warmth from before. It shouldn’t be too much to ask…
Maybe…
In my drunken haze, I suggest something that I will come to regret in due time. Yet right now it sounds so sound that why the fuck wouldn’t I suggest it?
“Let’s have a friendly wager,” I say, stroking his thigh with my fingertips. He’s getting hard. I want his cock in my mouth, but only if I get to tie his hands behind his chair. “About the presentation on Friday.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. One of us will definitely lose… but if one of us wins? Then we get something from the other person.”
“Go on.”
I open my mouth and seal my fate. “The loser has to submit to the other person for one night. Whatever the other person wants. Safe word for only extreme shit.”
Ian considers me for a long time. “You would submit to me?” He sounds genuinely surprised. And intrigued. His hand is dangerously close to my slit.
“Would you submit to me if you lose?”
His smile is ridiculous. It reminds me of Lana’s when she thinks she’s already won. Not so fast, buddy. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
Ian picks up one of his empty glasses, ice not yet melted. “Deal.”
I hold up another glass. “Deal.”
The glasses clink together.
I have no idea what I’ve done.
Chapter 16
IAN
The woman is insane. Absolutely, unequivocally insane.
Who? Oh, no, not Kathryn. She was drunk, not insane.
No, I’m talking about Lana Andrews, who has informed Kathryn and me that if we woo the council, “we’ll” be forking over $80,000,000 to buy The Grand.
Ha.
Hahahaha!
Who the fuck do she and Ken think they are? The Grand is worth half that, at best. No, it’s not a cheap piece of hot property. And I know they expect us to bargain them down, but from such an astronomical high? This whole charade gets more and more ridiculous as time goes by.
At least it’s Friday and we’re about to get this over with. As soon as Lana shares this bullshit, I turn to Valerie and have her go over everything she brought. I see Kathryn doing the same thing with her assistant. At least this time I saw for myself the nice pictures Kathryn brought. Her father is also with her this time. Probably to make sure she doesn’t fuck up.
Katie is not going to fuck up. She’s got this. I believe in her, and most of all, she believes in herself. I watched her rehearse. I critiqued her and she critiqued me. We both had good ideas for the other person that are sure to make it into our respective presentations.
It’s funny. We would probably make good business partners. We would make awful long-term lovers.
I’m still laughing. I woke up Thursday morning with a headache and a hard-on. I dreamed all night that Katie was on her stomach, on her back, bent over and sucking my cock. Doing whatever I told her to d
o. Lapping up whatever I offered and puffing out little “sirs” that made me feel like the biggest king in the world. What? She put those ideas in my head Wednesday night, when she made that ridiculous bet.
God, what a dumb bet. Like she would ever submit to me.
Let alone me submitting to her! The idea is so absurd. Regardless of the outcome today, I assume we forget what we promised when we were drunk. She was so blitzed off her drinks that I doubt she even remembers.
Katie – no, I should probably stop calling her that – looks at me before stepping into the council hall. I think there’s a smile on her face.
What is she thinking? I probably don’t want to know.
Just as Valerie confirms everything is in order, everyone and their grandmother enter the hall. It’s an old building that has seen a lot of use over the decades. Centuries, even. Well, maybe one century. I forgot to look at the plaque on the way in here.
Either way, it’s an old, gothic-styled building with ample seating for a small city. Because when this place was built, it was capable of holding the entire region’s population of two-thousand. Since then the city has not only grown to be the biggest in the region, but in this part of America. So to say the place is a bit packed with people who have a lot of feelings about The Grand is an understatement. From the minute we walk inside, we’re surrounded by strangers. Middle and low-income strangers. Many of whom had distant relatives who stayed in The Grand before attempting to make the American dream come true for them.
“We’re going to kick ass,” Kathryn says as we approach the front of the hall. Gray walls covered in stone carvings look down at us in between the judgmental eyes. Anyone who has a vested interest in who we are. It doesn’t help that I’m wearing one of my nicest suits and Kathryn looks like a New England senator in her tight, dark pencil skirt and peplum white blouse. She’s got her hair up, as usual. The glasses are a nice touch. I had no idea she wears them.
“Ma’am,” Anita hisses to her at our table. “One of the lenses is missing…”
“Oh!” Kathryn searches her clutch for an eyeglass lens. Really? She’s faking the eyeglasses? Whatever. They’re cute on her.
Before us is a high table where the council sits. Colleen Woodrow is already here, sitting beside her co-chair, an elderly gentleman who looks at us with disdain. Or maybe that’s how he looks. I’m unfazed either way.
I hope Kathryn feels the same. Both of the Andrews sit off to the side of our table. They’ll be opening the statements, talking about the real estate themselves since that’s what they do best. As for my father? He’s sitting in the first row behind me, giving me thumbs up. And… dear Lord, my mother is with him.
I feel like I’m back in school. This is my recital. Only this time both of my parents are here, instead of one showing up and the other fucking off to go to some conference or whatever.
What I’m saying is that they never both show up unless it’s really important.
This is really important.
Mr. Alison confers with his daughter about something before tugging on one of the tufts of her shirt. I can’t hear what he says about it, but Kathryn grimaces, as if he’s insulted her.
My fingers grip the edge of the table. Valerie has to say my name twice before I respond.
I wish I could say that today is a blur. Instead it drags on and on, partly because the weight of a community weighs on our shoulders. This goes beyond possible gentrification. This downtown area is long gentrified. Like forty years gentrified. No, the people who are here don’t necessarily live in this neighborhood. I know, because it’s people like me who live around here.
The people who are here come because they trace their ancestry here, or they have some connection to The Grand. That’s not hard to imagine because it’s such a monument in the area. Did I mention that presidents used to stay there? Lots of people who have been here for generations like to think they have some part of that history. Or they really love the building.
That’s fine. I still should be able to buy it and do what I want with it. Especially if doing what I want means restoring it to how it used to be!
This lets people feel like they have power. So when Ken Andrews gets up and starts talking about the rustic beauty of The Grand, complete with photos from its heyday, I see people in the stands raise their eyebrows and wait for the other shoe to drop.
“…One-hundred-and-thirty years ago, The Grand opened as more than a luxury hotel in the heart of what was once the downtown core,” Ken says with his regal charm. The man may not be the biggest around, but he carries himself like a big real estate tycoon. His wife looks at him adoringly, her smile supporting him as she crosses her legs and rewards his bravado with a hint of skin. These sorts of things don’t go by unnoticed with me.
Kathryn notices it too. She glances over her shoulder at me with a “Really? They’re flirting now of all times?” look. I agree. Tacky.
“The Grand is a place of history. It’s culture. It’s a building that everyone in this room can respect and want to see be great again. That’s why we are here today to propose a beautiful restoration. Not only will we….” We? Speak for yourself, Ken. You’re washing your hands of this whole situation. “…Will we restore the hotel from the ground up, but it will be more economically efficient and true to history than ever before. Not only that, but it will include an educational center so locals and tourists alike can learn more about the area’s rich history. I would like to turn the floor over to Ian Mathers, head of restoration and development.”
That’s my cue.
Valerie has set up my presentation for me. All I have to do is connect with my inner public speaker and remind these people that my family are some of the biggest hospitality masters in the business. We’re not targeting The Grand for shits and giggles or to prove to the world what big shots we are. We know how good we are. There’s a reason we have the highest collective revenue out of any other holding company in the region. We win the biggest awards in the world. Our hotels are the fucking best and we know it.
The design firm has done a remarkable job making our visions come to life. They’re blown up ten times the usual size now so most of the people around us can see the careful attention to historical accuracy and detail. We fully intend to make the hotel look like it came out of 1885. Even the uniforms we’ve picked out for the staff hark to that time.
“Staying true to the original vision of Humphrey Livingston is important to all of us at Mathers & Co.” I pause for effect, hoping it’s sinking in. The council is paying close attention, and neither of the Andrews have frowned. Even my parents look quite pleased with my ability to keep the audience placated. “Unfortunately some things must be replaced due to safety and environmental concerns, but we fully intend to replace them with better models that have the aesthetic of those faraway days. When you walk into the newly renovated Grand, you’ll be walking into the past.” Valerie unveils another photo showing a ball from 1896. She did a bang-up job dragging that out of the local archives.
It takes forty-five minutes for me to get through my spiel. You can’t tell from looking at me, but by the end I’m ready to collapse in my chair and let Kathryn take over. It’s hard business standing on your feet for that long and be charming with minimal breaths and sips of water. Still, that’s why I do this and my father doesn’t.
“Thank you for your consideration,” I say, and I receive a polite round of applause. “I would like to turn it over to our family’s partner, Kathryn Alison, head of cultural preservation.”
She stands, resolute, a far cry from the disorganized woman she was two weeks ago. Lana Andrews heaves a sigh of relief as Kathryn’s presentation starts without a hitch.
Five minutes in, I realize she’s out for blood.
This isn’t my Katie, the wolfish woman who bites her prey before howling like a lustful queen when pinned against a wall. This is Kathryn Fucking Alison, the woman who singlehandedly saved an entire library
system by the grace of her own will. This is the woman who flipped off every person – in her family and outside of it – who told her that she should get married and focus on being a businessman’s wife. You think I never heard about that? It runs rampant in our world, and my mother has always ranted about it. I can see her sitting there now, beaming in pride more for Kathryn than she did for me. I don’t take it personally. It’s probably some female solidarity thing.
Wearing that peplum top, pencil skirt, hair bun, and glasses, Kathryn looks like a stately professor, like the kind who teaches at Oxford, Harvard, pick an elite university. She’s passionate enough to be one of those. Right now she’s standing in front of the council, vehemently telling them that the current state of museums is a sorry excuse for educational institutions. She’s done her homework. Even I didn’t know that the one museum in the area hasn’t had an update of any kind in the past seven years. She’ll probably try to change that too.
“This heritage museum isn’t an ego stroke for our families,” she declares, slapping her pointer against a picture on an easel. “It’s about the legacy of every family in this area, going all the way back to the first settlers in 1745. Some of those families aren’t around anymore. That’s unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean they have to be forgotten. Take, for instance, the Lovejoys, who opened the first modern post office across the street from where The Grand is now. Nobody by the name of Lovejoy exists in the area now – I know, because I checked the Census. But we all know who they were. It’s those types of people we want to immortalize in the museum that will be going in the South Wing of the newly renovated Grand.”
I’m woefully uneducated on what kind of stuff is going on in the museum part. I’ve been so consumed with the renovations and turning it back into a thriving business instead of an abandoned building. Well, with that and the fact that every time Katie looks in my direction, her pencil skirt hugging her ass and her peplum top accentuating her hips and breasts… fuck me, she’s so damned hot.