by Force, Marie
That draws a smile from her. “You never know.”
I bring our joined hands to my lips. “I can’t wait to find out.”
She glances at me hesitantly. “Was there more? To your dream?”
Nodding, I say, “A lot more. You want to hear the rest?”
“Yes, please.”
“So polite. That pleases me greatly.”
She lowers her eyes in perfect supplication. “I aim to please you.”
I’m electrified by both her actions and her words. “Natalie… God.”
“Is that the wrong thing to say?”
“No, it’s fucking perfect. You’re perfect.” Because I can’t resist her for another second, I take her in my arms and kiss her with the wild passion that has grown and multiplied inside me as I described my erotic fantasies to her.
She returns my passion with her own, meeting my tongue stroke for stroke until we’re once again prone, me on top of her, wrapped up in each other.
I end the kiss slowly, in stages, reluctantly. “You’re not running from me in fear.”
“No. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m dying to hear the rest. Will you tell me?”
I press my rock-hard cock against her pubic bone. “Can I stay here?”
She runs her fingers through my hair. “I wish you would.”
I nuzzle her neck and continue my story.
She draws in a sharp deep breath.
God, I love her so much, and I love that we are lying here together talking about things that seemed so far outside the realm of possibility only yesterday.
She’s moving under me, in time with me as I press rhythmically against her.
“Flynn…”
“What, honey?”
“I want you inside me. Right now.”
Because she’s naked under the robe, it takes very little effort to push down my sweats and slide into her. “God, you’re so wet. So incredibly hot and wet.”
“I’ve never been more aroused in my entire life.”
“So you’re not disgusted?” I ask, thrusting into her repeatedly while her fingers dig into my biceps.
She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “What else is there? What else do you like?”
Keeping up the steady, driving pace, I lose myself in her as the words pour out of me.
I come out of the fog of desire I’ve slipped into to realize I’ve been fucking her harder than I ever have before, but she’s right there with me, taking everything I give her. Looking down at her gorgeous face, I see only love and passion, but no sign of fear. “Do you trust me?”
“With my life.”
“Do you love me?”
“I’ll love you forever.”
Knowing that gives me the courage I need so badly right now. I have given her my truth, and she still loves me. It is the most priceless of all the priceless gifts she’s given me. “I want your hands.”
Without taking her gaze off mine, she lifts her arms, offering her hands to me.
“Bring them together.”
She flattens her palms against each other.
Watching her face intently, I wrap my hand around both her wrists and bring them up over her head, pinning them to the cushion. We’re both well aware this is a major test. If we can do this, maybe, just maybe, there could be more for us.
I give her plenty of time to voice her objection, but my strong, brave Natalie never blinks. Instead, she raises her hips, asking me to move. I pick up the pace, stroking into her while watching her carefully for any sign of trouble. When I see none, I risk looking away to suck on one of the cherry-red nipples that stands at full attention.
Then I do something I haven’t done before. I close my teeth over the nipple, tight enough to cause a sharp bite of pain.
She gasps, and her pussy clamps down on me, nearly triggering my orgasm. But I’ve learned how to delay my gratification, sometimes for hours, so I’m able to power through it. “Talk to me, Nat. Tell me how you feel. If you talk to me, I can keep doing this.” I drag my tongue over the nipple that is now darker red than it was before. “Rather than watching you to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. Do that again… What you did before…”
I switch to the other side and begin with soft strokes of my tongue, adding a bit of suction after a minute or two. “This?”
“More.”
“Tell me. I want your words.”
“Bite it. Like you did before. Please…”
“You kill me when you’re polite, Nat.”
“I’m going to kill you if you don’t do it.”
I clamp down on her nipple, harder this time than the last.
She screams as she comes.
I drive into her one more time, taking my own pleasure in the midst of hers. Releasing her hands, I cup her breasts, running my tongue gently over the tips, soothing and caressing as she goes soft under me, her body yielding to me.
“Flynn…”
“Hmm?” I’m very busy enjoying her gorgeous breasts.
“I want to do what you dreamed about.”
Her words stop me short. I raise my head to meet her gaze. “How much of it?”
“All of it. I want everything that you want. More than anything, I want to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of having in a wife and lover.”
I’m stunned and humbled to have somehow won the love of this amazing woman. “Christ, Nat, you already are.”
“Not quite yet, but I will be. Will you teach me how to be everything you want and need?”
I’m so overwhelmed by gratitude, I can barely speak. “Yes, sweetheart, I’ll teach you.”
Chapter 4
“So what happens now?” I ask much later as we consume our favorite dinner from the nearby Italian takeout place—chicken piccata and Caesar salad. Flynn opens a bottle of chardonnay and pours a glass for each of us. We slept for hours after our life-altering conversation earlier, and woke starving—for food and each other.
It’s dark now, and the wind is howling outside. The delivery guy told Flynn there’s more than eight inches of snow already on the ground and more coming overnight.
“Now,” Flynn says after taking a drink from his glass of wine, “we hammer out a contract.”
“Like a real contract?”
“Yep. Hold that thought.” He gets up and crosses the room to his office.
I watch him go, enjoying the view of him wearing only formfitting boxer briefs and nothing else. He’s magnificent and all mine. Though I’m still reeling from everything that happened earlier, I’m no longer agonizing over what will become of us. We’re in this together, and that’s all that matters.
Flynn returns, a packet of papers in hand. “The contract between you and me is not legal, but it’s a binding agreement for our relationship that outlines our hard and soft limits—in other words, things you absolutely won’t do as well as things that make you nervous but you’d be willing to try. It’s all negotiated in advance so there can be no misunderstandings during a scene.”
“Could I ask a question?”
“Always.”
This one requires some liquid courage, so I take a big sip of wine. “Will this… arrangement… involve other people?”
“No.”
“Just no? No discussion? Haven’t you done that before?”
“Yes,” he says tightly. “I’ve done it, but there’s no fucking way I’m sharing you with anyone. The thought of another man touching you… That’s a hard limit for me.”
“Okay…” I’m moved by his fiercely protective reaction, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in pushing his buttons a little. “What about another woman?”
His eyes widen, and he starts to say something that dies on his lips. “Sorry, I’m just a little startled that you asked that.”
I begin to laugh and can’t seem to stop. “After everything you’ve said to me today, that shocks you?”
“Coming from you, yes.”
“I’m sorry. Have I shattered your illusions about your sweet, innocent wife?”
“I’m discovering my sweet, innocent wife may not be as innocent as I thought she was.”
“Oh, she is, trust me, but I’ve done my research.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. I’m wondering why all the secrecy surrounding this lifestyle. Why does it matter if people know?”
“Most people keep kinky preferences secret because society, as a whole, doesn’t understand them. Too many equate kinky with perverted, and it’s not perverted if two consenting adults are doing things that were agreed to in advance. The need for secrecy in my case and that of my partners is because that kind of judgment would hurt our careers.”
“That’s kind of sad when you think about it.”
“It’s reality,” he says with a shrug. “People fear what they don’t understand. It’s easier and cleaner to keep it private. Plus it’s none of anyone’s fucking business.”
“True.”
“Another thing that people don’t understand is it’s not all about sex. It’s much more about the emotion. When two people are fully invested in a scene, it can be the most intensely emotional experience you’ll ever have—and that’s before anyone has sex.” He cups my face and slides his thumb over my cheekbone. “That’s magnified a thousand times when you’re in a scene with someone you love.”
It’s hard to imagine our lovemaking more intense than it already is, but I take his word for the fact that there is more—much more. “What else is in that contract of yours?”
“A checklist of possibilities. But first, I want you to look at this and see what you think. Most of the time, these things are hammered out verbally. But because of who we are and what we have to lose, we do paper contracts at Quantum. Everything about this lifestyle and our agreement is based on three core beliefs—safe, sane and consensual. Everything we do will be all three of those things or it doesn’t happen.”
He hands me two pages that outline our Dominant/submissive relationship. The Club Quantum logo sits at the top of both pages.
“Who has access to the clubs?”
“The five principal partners as well as our staff and the members we’ve admitted over the years.”
“How do you keep something like this a secret in your business?”
“We are very selective about who we admit, and it costs a million dollars to join as a regular member. Everyone who’s admitted into the club would have something big to lose if they talked about us or our activities or the club. We have people locked in custody battles, people with huge, prominent jobs outside the entertainment business, people with families who have no idea they’re in the lifestyle.”
“Does your family know?”
“No.”
“Does Addie know?”
“Nope.”
“She must suspect something after working so closely with you for so long.”
“Not to be flippant about our recent troubles, but you married me, slept with me, made love with me, spent weeks with me and only me, and you didn’t know.”
“True, but then again, I didn’t even know such a thing existed until I found Hayden’s room.”
“I’m not sure that Addie knows it exists either.”
“Is this why Hayden doesn’t pursue his feelings for her?”
“Yes.”
“So many things make sense in this new context.”
“And yet I still feel I have to say again—Hayden’s business is his and his alone. Until you, I have never told another living soul about his involvement in the lifestyle, just as I’m confident he’s never told anyone about mine.”
“I’m honored to be trusted with this, Flynn. I swear to you again that I will never speak of it to anyone. You have my word on that.”
“Even if our marriage disintegrates into a Hollywood disaster?” he asks with a wry grin that doesn’t quite touch his eyes. I know he has no desire to discuss the possible demise of our marriage, but he’s wise to be concerned nonetheless.
“Even then.”
He takes my hand and brings it to his lips. “Thank you for that, for everything today, for giving me the chance to explain, to bring you all the way into my life. I’m so full of gratitude where you’re concerned.”
“It’s odd because I felt so close to you before this, but now… It’s even more so than it was before. Thank you for letting me the rest of the way into your world, even though you didn’t want to.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. It was my misguided attempt to protect you, which backfired badly and undermined everything we’ve built together.”
I squeeze his hand, which is still wrapped around mine. “This isn’t something I would’ve thought I wanted, but listening to you describe it to me…” I fan my face, making him laugh. “I don’t know if I can do all of it, but I’m definitely curious and interested.”
“That’s an important first step. Now finish your dinner and read the contract.”
“Yes, Sir.”
My reply makes his eyes get very dark, and the connection between us in that moment is absolutely incendiary.
“Read,” he says in a low growl.
I smile at him before I return my attention to the documents.
The contract begins by outlining the timeframe for our agreement, which has been left blank. It goes on to cover a number of safety-related items, such as the hard and soft limits he’s already mentioned and the use of what’s referred to as a traffic-light system in which green means go, yellow means the sub is approaching his or her limits, and red means everything needs to stop right now. It covers the importance of open, honest communication between the Dom and the sub, and the proper form of address between a sub and the Dom.
Next is the availability of the sub, which is pretty much all the time, except for when the sub is at work or sleeping or otherwise engaged in his or her own activities. Then I read a line that says the terms of the agreement are enforceable by the Dom whether the couple is at home or in public.
I glance up at Flynn, who is watching me intently. “What?” he asks.
“At home or in public?”
He laughs, which softens his entire demeanor. “That’s where you get lucky. Because of who I am to the rest of the world, I won’t make you blow me in the men’s room at LaGuardia.”
“Thank goodness for small favors.”
“I believe you once said there’s nothing small about it.”
His comment cracks me up. I love that we’re laughing our way through what could’ve been a tense, uncomfortable conversation. It’s anything but that. With every clause and sentence I read in the agreement, I feel closer to him, to understanding the real him and what makes him tick. I want to know that. I want to know everything about him. “So define public for me, then. What does that mean for us?”
“Possibly, down the road, when you’re ready and I feel confident that you can handle it, we’d do a scene at the club.”
“In front of people we know.”
“Yes.” He eyes me with his head tipped in inquiry. “What do you think of that?”
“I-I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it? Just okay?”
“We’ll put public scenes on your soft limits list for now, and we can revisit it later. I have no intention of plunging you into this thing all at once, Nat. We’re going to ease you in and take it one step at a time. At first it will just be us, experimenting, playing, trying new things in private. A public scene at the club would only happen much later, if or when we both decide it’s time.”
“What if I never get there?”
“Then you never get there, and I’ll still love you with all my heart and be thankful every day that you’re my wife as well as my sexual submissive.”
“Could I… could we… maybe sometime… go to the club? Together?”
“That could be a
rranged.”
“I’d love to see it and to better understand what goes on there.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
His assurances help me relax some as I read about the exchange of respect between the parties as well as the expectations and rights of the Dom. These include the right to discipline his sub at any time but makes assurances that the Dom will never do anything that could be considered unsafe or that would leave permanent marks on the body of the submissive or create injuries that require medical intervention.
“How does punishment work?”
“Well, there are a variety of different ways that can be approached. It can be a spanking that’s intended to hurt more than arouse. I can make you stand naked in a corner for a period of time during which you’re expected to think about whatever behavior brought on the punishment in the first place, and then we’ll talk about it afterward. Sometimes it might be both those things together—corner time followed by a spanking. There are Doms who bring in canes and whips and all sorts of other implements to discipline their subs, but I’m not really into inflicting that level of pain. The worst you’d get from me is a flogging for really serious offenses.”
“There were whips in your playroom, or at least they looked like whips to me.”
“Those belong to a friend.”
“Oh.” I swallow hard at the thought of being whipped. “And what would count as a really serious offense?”
“Disrespecting your Dom, talking back, refusing to do what you’re told, failing to please me in some way.” He pauses before he says, “I can see your wheels spinning. What’re you thinking?”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be spanked for talking back to you.”
“This is only during sex. Feel free to sass me all you want the rest of the time. When we’re in there,” he says, pointing to the bedroom, “I’m in charge, and you do what you’re told or face the consequences. That’s how this works. By entering into this agreement, you’re ceding the power over your sexual satisfaction and personal well-being to me, which means you have to do what I tell you and trust me to know what you need. That’s how I do my job and ensure your safety—and your satisfaction.”