by Sionna Fox
“You never asked.”
Having her words repeated back to her stung. “But you had the power to change the rules, why didn’t you?”
“Because the rules were what you wanted. You wanted a Master; I wanted you. I thought it was the only way to keep you.”
She took his hand then, tired of denying that she wanted to comfort him, and for him to comfort her. “What do we do now?”
“I have no fucking idea, kitten.” He squeezed her hand and twined their fingers together.
She laughed a little; Ian had never been much for cursing. “Me either, Sir.” She leaned her head on his shoulder and looked at their hands, his long, bony fingers entwined with hers, resting on the cool granite counter. He turned and kissed the top of her head.
“Maybe you could tell me what you do want, Kate.”
She turned her face into his shoulder and groaned. “I’d have to know what that is first. What do you want?”
“I don’t want to unduly influence your decisions.” That sounded like the man she knew. “But I want to try again with you. I want more of this, you and me, no rules, no roles. I can be your Master when you need one, Kate, but I want to be your lover too. I don’t want to do this full-time either.”
“I never realized part-time Master was an option.” It sounded so foolish when she said it out loud. Of course, it was an option. There were as many ways to do this as there were people who did it.
“I should have talked to you.”
She squeezed his hand in return. “I think we might be able to agree that we both should have said a lot of things we didn’t.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, his stubble rough against her lips. She kissed him again, closer to his mouth. He turned his head and their lips met, a brush then harder, more demanding. He turned completely in his seat to face her, snaking his free hand into her hair, taking control and guiding her to rotate toward him on the stool. He lifted their hands from the counter and directed her arms around his neck. With both of his hands free, he moved them to her waist and lifted her onto his lap.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he murmured into her mouth.
She did as she was told, and he lifted her off the stool, placed both hands under her butt, carried her out of the kitchen, and up the stairs to the bedroom.
Eight
He laid Kate on the bed, her legs still wrapped around his hips, resting on his knees above her. She glanced around the room as he unzipped his hoodie and dropped it on the floor—nothing had changed, the place was practically a shrine to the home it had once been. He hadn’t had the heart or the energy to move anything, still clinging to the hope that she’d come back. He couldn’t even move the position of his bed without it feeling like a major overhaul of his life.
A crease formed between her eyebrows as she propped herself up on her elbows. “Ian?”
He ghosted his lips over her neck, the feel of her whole body shivering under him going straight to his groin.
“Ian, wait.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze.
“Have you been with anyone?”
“Yes. But not here.” The idea of being with anyone else at all had been largely unappealing. Bringing someone into their bedroom was unthinkable. “Have you?” He knew she’d say yes, there had been an open box of condoms in her bedside drawer, but he held his breath waiting for her answer anyway.
“Yes. Once.” She crossed her arms over her chest, daring him to ask jealous questions.
He wasn’t stupid enough to ruin this chance at starting again. “It doesn’t matter.” He unfolded her arms and brought his face back to the spot at the base of her neck that was guaranteed to make her toes curl. “We’re here now.”
He bit down, a gentle nip that elicited a tiny whimper as she stretched her neck to one side for more. He could contemplate jealousy later. They’d both have to get tested again at some point. They’d always used condoms anyway—Kate had explained early on that hormonal birth control wasn’t for her and left it at that. They’d never discussed the possibility of more permanent solutions. But for now, he had to focus. She was in his bed, and he was not going to fuck this up. Every other worry or question could wait.
He backed off her neck. He didn’t want to her to have to wrap herself in a scarf everywhere she went for the next week. “I don’t want to leave any more marks.”
He rucked up her shirt instead, exposing her waist and her belly, following the line of her ribcage with his mouth as she lifted herself up to take the shirt off. On her back, her breasts spilled out of her bra toward her collarbone. There, where no one else would see, he wasn’t afraid to leave marks. He sank his teeth into the soft swell of her flesh, pulled and pinched at the soft skin of her belly and the crests of her hipbones. All the places he used to dot with clamps and clothespins when the force of his fingers and teeth weren’t enough for her.
She squirmed under him. God, he’d missed this. The way she’d whimpered and wriggled under his hands. The way she’d force herself to stay still if he told her to. Tonight, he wanted all of her natural reactions, wanted to hear and feel her like it was the first time.
“Hey.” She cupped his cheek. “Where’d you go?”
“Sorry. It’s…” Memory swamped him, despite having her here and now, shirtless underneath him. He wasn’t sure how to do this. Be himself with her. No rules, no roles, no matter what he’d said downstairs.
“I know. But stay here.”
He kissed her mouth as he skimmed his hand over the smooth cup of her bra before tugging it down to expose her dark pink nipple. “I’m here.” He sucked it between his teeth to a hiss and a groan from above his head.
“Fuck, yes. Like that.”
He bit her again and snaked his hand around her back to take the damn bra off, fumbling with the hooks slightly. He yanked it away from her arms and tossed it across the room. She laughed underneath him as he stared at her naked chest, stroking a nipple with his thumb.
“You look like a kid on Christmas.”
He answered her with a sharp tug but didn’t dispute the point. He felt like a kid on Christmas. She reached hesitantly for the hem of his T-shirt. Before, he would have stopped her and told her he’d get undressed when and if he wanted to. But they were making up new rules for the game, and he didn’t want to make either of them wait.
“Go ahead, kitten.”
Her hands skimmed up his torso from hip to waist, her palms flat across his chest as he raised his arms to pull the shirt over his head. She grasped him by the belt loops and pulled him closer. “I want to feel you.”
He covered her body with his own. Resting on top of her, skin to skin, he lifted her arms above her head and held her hands in his. He nosed at her ear. “Like this?”
She nodded into his neck. They rested there. It had been over a year since he’d felt this content, not even the heaviness of his erection in his jeans could disturb him. He’d take whatever she wanted to give him tonight, even if it was only this. He’d hold her down, shelter her under his body, for as long as she liked. She lifted her hips under him restlessly.
He nipped gently at her earlobe. “Look at me, Kate.”
She opened her eyes and turned her head to meet his gaze.
“Is this all you want right now?” He pitched his voice soft and low, almost a whisper. Whatever came next was up to her.
She bit her lip. Without rules to govern the script, neither of them knew what they were doing, but whatever came next had to be up to her. They’d had a quick, hard fuck on her tiny twin bed the other night, but that hardly counted as make-up sex. That was avoiding-the-subject sex.
“Spank me,” she whispered.
He lifted up onto his forearms, away from her. “Are you sure?”
She took a deep breath and nodded, and when she spoke, her words were strong and clear. “I need you to.”
* * *
Kate watched him scrutinize her face for any indication that she was kiddin
g herself with this. But she arched an eyebrow and held firm. She’d meant what she said. He slid away from her entirely and arranged the pillows at the headboard so he could sit up against them.
“Take off your pants and come here.” He crooked his finger at her and pointed at his lap. She did as she was told and settled her naked body over his thighs and gripped the covers.
“Good girl, kitten.” He swept her hair to the side so he could look her in the eye. “What are your safewords?”
“Red for stop, yellow to pause, green for go.” She rattled off the generic list, not ready to reclaim their words yet.
“When was the last time you were spanked?”
“Not since you, Sir.”
“How far do you want this to go?”
Sometimes spanking had been for fun, a few light swats as a preamble to something more. Sometimes it had been a punishment, his hand landing on her backside over and over until she let go and sobbed. “I need…hard. Far.”
He nodded once but said nothing. He took a deep breath and ran his hands over the backs of her thighs and buttocks. She tensed for a second, remembering she purposely hadn’t shaved her legs that day. Shaving would have absolutely meant it was a date and she had hoped it would end in sex.
Ian laughed. “When has not shaving your legs ever stopped either of us, Kate?”
She snorted into the comforter. “Never. I don’t know why I ever think it will.”
“And you know you don’t need to apologize for it. I don’t care.”
He placed his left hand on the small of her back and continued to stroke her skin with his right, not breaking contact. He smoothed his hand over her bare cheeks, traced a fingertip up the crack, spread his palm wide and cupped a whole cheek in his hand. When he lifted it away, she flinched. She was out of practice.
His palm landed with a gentle slap. It stung, but not much. He slapped again, on the other cheek, with the same measure of force. Slowly and carefully, he broke her in, increasing the force and pace of his blows, warming her skin gradually under his palm. He matched each strike side for side, and she suspected the demonstration of control was as much for his benefit as for hers. He could still do this, still be careful with her, even when his cock twitched against her hip each time his hand landed.
“Why did you want this, Kate?” He rubbed her skin between spanks, his fingers playing over her hot and hypersensitive flesh, dipping in the crease between her legs, barely flirting with her pussy.
She struggled to speak through the haze of arousal and stinging skin, his fingers so close to where she ached for them to go. She shook her head and buried her face in the folds of the comforter. She didn’t have words for this.
He spanked her, hard this time. Her eyes watered, and her throat clogged. “Do you think you need to be punished, kitten? Is that it?”
He hit her again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that were coming and nodded into the mattress.
“Are you sorry now?” Again, he landed a hard smack on the crease at the top of her thigh.
“Yes, Sir.” She snuffled into the covers, holding back tears even though she’d as good as asked for them.
“Do you want to cry? Is that what you need right now? Tell me where you are, Kate.”
He held back until she choked out. “Green. Make me cry. Please.”
He hit her several times in succession, each one harder, with no rhythm, no breaks between blows. “Let it go, kitten.” His voice was low and soothing, his left hand on the small of her back large and warm, grounding her even as his right hand lit up her backside.
She broke with a long, stuttering wail, curling in on herself, sobbing. Ian let her roll away from his hand and turned her on her side so that he was spooned around her. He pulled her close and kissed her nape, covering her with his warm body, stroking her arm as she cried.
“It’s okay, kitten. You’re okay; let it go.”
She cried herself out, tears and snot staining the comforter she held to her face. She’d spent more time crying in the last few days than she had all year. She hadn’t let herself cry when she’d left, no matter how much she wanted to, no matter how lonely those hotel rooms were, she’d been hard. When her colleagues had talked about burning out on all the senselessly preventable tragedy in their work, Kate had nodded, but had left her rage at a simmer to carry her through.
God, she’d needed this.
“I’m sorry.” She sniffed when she was finally done. “I didn’t know that’s where it would go.”
He turned her over and kissed her forehead, brushing her hair away from her sticky, salty cheeks. “I thought it might.”
She squinted at him. “Why?”
“I know you, Kate. You don’t ask for a hard spanking unless you need to cry.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her face into his warm chest. He was right, of course. A serious spanking was taxing for both the giver and the receiver—Ian’s hand was probably numb by the end—but it was intimate and immediate, and even though other things might hurt more, she’d almost always turned to his hand when she needed to do penance, to let go of her faults and her fuck-ups and her hurts.
“Do you feel better now?”
She kissed his bony sternum, the hair there more silver than it had been when she left. “Thank you.” She lifted her head and pressed her palm to his cheek. “Thank you.”
He kissed her between the eyes, on the tip of her nose, then on her lips. She slid her hand into the hair at his nape, more silver hairs threaded there too. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and she slipped her leg between his and kissed him back, hard. His tongue dipped into her mouth, his teeth nipped at her lip. The arousal that had ebbed during her crying jag came roaring back to life as his tongue stroked hers and his hand gripped her hip.
She trailed her fingertips down his spine to trace the warm skin at his waistband around to his belt buckle. She fumbled with it one-handed, awkward and eager to have him naked and pressed against her, inside her, surrounding her.
His hand met hers, and they worked together to get him out of his pants. He shimmied them down his hips with his boxers and kicked them off onto the floor, leaving them both blessedly naked. She took his cock in her hand and stroked, running her thumb over the tip, remembering how that used to make him groan and pin her to the mattress so he could get a condom on and get inside her as quickly as possible. It still worked.
Except now he had to get up and go to the bathroom to retrieve a condom. He’d had no reason to keep them in the bedside table anymore. He truly hadn’t brought anyone back here. She lay on her back, the sheets rough against her sore ass, and tried not to think of the women he might have used any of those condoms with in her absence.
He was quick to return, already tearing open the packet, stopping at the edge of the mattress to sheath himself before climbing over her.
He pushed her thighs wide and sank into her slowly. The creases of her thighs burned, her muscles spread to their limit as her body stretched around him.
He wrapped an arm around her waist to prop her hips off the bed. “Is this okay? Tell me if you need to move.”
She nodded and flexed her hips to take him deeper. He kissed her, thrusting slowly. He leaned on the arm under her and let his free hand roam her skin, from knee to shoulder while he fucked her. They rocked against each other, kissing and touching, taking their time. This was not the quick and dirty fuck they’d had to avoid talking to each other. This was like coming home. Every groan and sigh was a slow burn, a building to something they’d forgotten they knew how to do to each other.
Kate’s breath caught in her throat, tears threatening to spill again. He kissed her temple. “Shh, kitten. Stay here. Stay with me here.”
He lifted his weight off her, pushing into her harder, faster. She reached for the headboard, using it for leverage to thrust back against him. He gripped her waist, long fingers digging into the crest of her hips as he sank into her again. She could see him getting
close in the way his eyebrows furrowed and his jaw set, could hear it in his ragged breath.
“Where are you, kitten?”
She didn’t answer but dipped her fingers between her legs and stroked her clit in time with his cock thrusting into her. He watched for a moment as she circled the tight bundle of nerves, arching her back into the sharp sensation of her fingers working herself as he fucked her.
He grinned wolfishly. “That’s it, kitten. Make yourself come. Let me hear it.”
It didn’t take much. He thrust into her hard, snapping his hips against hers, while she rolled her clit under her fingers. Her belly clenched, tremors rippling through her body as she got closer. She hooked her feet behind his back and arched up, taking him deep as she came, her body tingling with electricity as she screwed her eyes shut and shuddered to a halt, clenching around Ian’s still-moving cock. He thrust hard a few more times before his head dropped against her collarbone and he followed, emptying himself with a final groan into her chest.
“Let go, kitten.” Her legs were still locked around his waist.
She didn’t want to separate. But the risk, as ever, was too great. Especially now. Kate knew better. She unhooked her feet. He eased carefully out of her and rolled onto his side.
She turned, and he pulled her face into the hollow of his neck. They stayed there, catching their breath, until her stomach rumbled.
“Sorry.”
“We never did eat dinner.”
“What are our options?”
“Takeout. There is no way I’m dealing with all those little ingredient packets right now.”
She snorted. They ended up ordering pizza and eating in their underwear at Ian’s kitchen island.
“Will you stay tonight?”
“I don’t want to be in your way.”
“You won’t be. I don’t have anywhere to be. I can drive you back to your place now, if you’d rather…”
She knew he’d been hurt when she unceremoniously kicked him out of her apartment, but the cautious hope on his face now hit her hard. If she left, he’d worry about her safety and mental well-being after being emotionally wrung out, but he would be devastated for himself too. He needed her to stay for him.
