“Am I acting like this is weird?” he asked, turning it back on her.
“You’ve told me numerous times that you’re not the dating type, basically that we’ll never be together again, and tonight you asked me on a date. Was it just because I coerced you into it, or did something change your mind?”
“I don’t get coerced into doing things I don’t want to do,” he said, watching her eyes carefully for a reaction.
She smiled tentatively. “But I think you’d have a panic attack if I told you that these pancakes mean we’re dating, am I right?”
Yes. No. Fuck.
“I don’t have panic attacks,” he said. “But I’ve missed you. And I’ve been thinking that I should probably change my policy on dating if a nice girl came along.”
“Am I a nice girl?” Her lips hovered over a piece of pancake on her fork, as if she were waiting for him to respond before she’d take a bite.
“That’s what I’m having a hard time figuring out,” he admitted. “You’re compassionate, obviously, or you wouldn’t have been concerned about the other actresses’ well-being. And you’re a nurse, which is a good, respectable job—”
“Are you saying the women you work with at the website are somehow less respectable than me? Because that is such a double standard. What about you? You work there too.”
“Maybe it is a double standard. But I’m not excluding myself. I have no illusions that what I do is something to write home about.”
Grace put her fork down. She seemed upset and he had no idea why, since he’d been complimenting her. Where had he gone wrong?
“You need to respect all women,” she said, “not just the women you deem worthy of your respect because they seem like “nice girls”. I’m sure the actresses you work with are all nice girls, and you shouldn’t blow them off as unworthy of dating just because of their job. It’s your job too, after all.” She stared into her coffee cup, gripping the handle until her knuckles turned white.
Ahh. So that’s where she was going with this.
“You misunderstood me,” he said quietly. “I most certainly do respect women who know what they want sexually, who aren’t shy about their sexuality and their bodies, and who make an honest living, even if it’s on a BDSM porn site. And I treat them with respect when we do scenes together.”
“But they’re not good enough to bring home to mom, is that it?” she asked. “And I’m…what’s the word you used? Vanilla? You broke up with me because you think I’m so vanilla, I know you did. But now it makes me safe and okay to date, is that right?”
“You didn’t seem so vanilla when you were over my knee, coming all over yourself while I spanked the hell out of you.”
Her perfectly-shaped mouth dropped open and she gasped, quickly turning her head from side to side as if to see if anyone had overheard him, since he hadn’t exactly kept his voice down. No one was looking at them.
A pretty pink blush crept up her cheeks. “I don’t know what I am, Ian. I really don’t. If you’d asked me three years ago to bend over I’d have probably not been into it. It wasn’t until I saw…those videos…that I realized how hot it could be. I’ve never done that sort of thing before.”
“And I’ve never done this sort of thing before,” he admitted, gesturing at the two of them sitting, eating a meal together. On a date with a woman he cared for who also knew his true predilections in bed.
“Then I guess we’re both on new territory,” she whispered.
“So maybe I should learn how to play the boyfriend again for you, and you could learn how to be my after-hours sex-slave for me.”
“No, you’ve got it backward, Ian,” she said, smiling. “If you’re going to learn how to play the boyfriend, as you put it—it wouldn’t be for my sake. It would be for your own.”
He laughed. She was right. He needed to get over his fear of dating, especially now that he’d reconnected with the one girl he’d never forgiven himself for leaving. Grace wasn’t afraid to tell him what he needed to be told, even if it upset him. It was an unusual trait for a submissive, which was probably why he wasn’t used to it.
Grace wasn’t a submissive. But she wasn’t vanilla, either. And she didn’t seem to like being referred to as a “nice girl” in a way that differentiated her from the “nice girls” that he tied up and whipped on the website.
“Perhaps that’s true,” he admitted. “And perhaps if you want to learn how to be my sex-slave, it would be for your own benefit.”
Grace smiled and took a sip of her coffee. “Oh, I already knew that it would be for me. Why do you think I came to you in the first place?”
*
Later that night, Grace couldn’t fall asleep, even though she’d only drunk the decaf coffee. The conversation she’d had with Ian kept replaying itself in her mind. Well, the conversation, and the other stuff. The spanking. The blowjob. The mind-boggling orgasm he gave her.
But out of all of the evening’s experiences, what she couldn’t figure out was—why date her again now, after so long? She’d certainly seemed to surprise him by being open to kinky stuff. It didn’t seem right that Ian thought she was somehow more “dateable” than all of the other women he’d played with over the years. If she’d agreed to be on the website for the whole world to see, would he have immediately relegated her to the un-dateable category and waited for some other “nice” girl to come into his life? It didn’t make sense. He had her as when she truly was young and innocent, and apparently he couldn’t stand the idea of never being able to express his true sexual desires.
And now that he had told her his true needs…could she be that for him? Could she be both?
She didn’t want to be just the nice girl anymore. How could she know if Ian was really interested in dating her again, or just in the idea of dating someone he’d always thought of as “respectable” now that he was reevaluating his long-term relationship goals? She needed to be with someone who respected her as a person, not just her job or so-called vanilla lifestyle. How ironic, that he was drawn to her for being vanilla but relished when she let herself be seduced by his dominance.
As she drifted off to sleep, the answer came to her.
She would be herself around him—nice, naughty, respectable, slut, whatever she felt like being—and let him introduce her to experiences she’d never thought she’d ever wanted before she first saw him on the website. The man who held the whip… But she still had a point to prove, and there was only one way to find out how Ian truly felt about her.
At some point in the near future, she’d just have to star in one of the BDSM porn website’s videos after all…
Chapter Six
‡
Grace received a text message from Ian the following afternoon while she was at work.
Grace, I’d love either a repeat of the meal we shared or what came before it. You?
She laughed as she quickly replied:
I vote for both, but perhaps in a more traditional order. Or have you forgotten you’re supposed to feed a girl *before* you attempt to get in her pants?
Ian’s response was typed clumsily. Pick u up ur house 8pm? Text me ur address.
Grace imagined he was on the set, and they were calling him to get moving. Ugh. The thought of him tying up and touching another woman, especially after what they shared last night…it just didn’t sit well with her. Then again, she’d had to live with the idea of Ian being with another woman the whole time they’d been separated. Their tentative reunion—she barely had him comfortable with the idea of dating her, much less dating exclusively, much less quitting his job over her. So.
She re-read what Ian wrote and sighed. He was obviously in a rush now.
Have a nice shoot, she replied, adding a frowny face emoticon and then deleting it.
*
Ian knocked on her apartment door only a few minutes past eight. He would have been on time but he had to sit in his Jeep for a few minutes blasting heavy metal to psych himself up first.
Then he was psyched but nervous, so he played a low-key country song from an AM station until his nerves stopped jangling, and headed up the elevator to Grace’s apartment with an old Tim McGraw song stuck in his head.
Why be nervous? It wasn’t like he hadn’t already walked this path to her apartment before, many times when they used to date. But being on a date with her last night was like dating a whole new woman. A woman who’d been an enticing combination of the girl he’d once loved and left…and a woman who might now be open to the idea of him being dominant in the bedroom. Hell, she’d already blown him…and done it exquisitely, despite her earlier protestations that she’d be no good at it.
He checked his watch at the same time her door swung open.
“Hi,” “Hello,” they both said simultaneously.
She wore a red sundress with matching red lipstick. It was both girly and so fucking sexy he wanted to claim her right then, just push into her apartment and fuck her right there on the floor.
“You look beautiful,” he said, eliciting a shy smile. A shy smile on red-painted lips. He had to take a deep breath to remind himself now wasn’t sex time. It was date time.
“So do you,” she replied, and then blushed, laughing like she always seemed to do when she was nervous. “I mean…never mind. Let’s go.”
He took her hand, never crossing the threshold to her apartment, and gave a little tug until she fell into his arms. Grace looked up at him with a surprised gasp.
It took all of his concentration to not kiss her, considering how close her lips were to his…those bright, lipstick-red lips. Oh God.
And then she stood on her tippy toes and kissed him, surprising him more than he could ever have done to her. No, Grace was no submissive. And that didn’t bother him in the slightest. Had he assumed all this time that he’d need someone in the lifestyle, a permanent slave?
Yes. His bedroom predilections for kink and everything he’d seen on his favorite BDSM forums online all pointed toward finding a partner for the Dominant/submissive life…someone to cherish and collar and own.
But Grace would never be owned by anyone, he could see that. She was her own woman, but she had a kinky streak a mile long, he could tell. She wasn’t vanilla, but she wasn’t a sub. Grace would find herself a regular vanilla husband, no doubt.
“But you’d miss the sex,” he muttered against her lips, scarcely aware he’d spoken the words aloud and not just in his head.
“I’d miss what sex?”
Fuck. He laughed. “You caught me so off-guard with that kiss that now I’m talking to myself.” He laughed again and leaned in to kiss her again, deeply, hoping she’d forget her line of questioning.
“You said, ‘but you’d miss the sex,’” she said. “As far as I recall, you were never interested in our sex life when we dated before, so there wouldn’t be much to miss.”
“I’m sorry you felt that way.” Ian forced himself to hold eye-contact, to not glance away in discomfort. “I think it was because I hid my true sexual predilections from you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “That must’ve made it hard for you to connect with me during sex.”
“Well, now that you know the real me, we should remedy that.”
A lascivious grin played across her beautiful face. “Perhaps we should. But I demand a proper date first.”
Demand? He stifled his laughter at her word choice. The girl had no idea that the women he usually found sexy never spoke to him like that…so why did he find her so damn desirable?
“And I intend to be a good date,” he said. He didn’t want to make her less feisty, or turn her into a something she wasn’t. Hell, it was fun talking to someone who wasn’t afraid of him, and who didn’t back down.
It would be even more fun to spank her for it later…when it was time.
They walked hand in hand down to his Jeep, and he gave her a boost to get in, enjoying the chance to put his hands on her bottom. She swatted him playfully.
“Watch those hands—I’m still sore! Where are we going for dinner?” she asked. Not a question a submissive would ask.
“I was thinking Chinese, is that okay?” And that wasn’t something a Dom would say. But it was so easy to talk to her without any roles or games or power play when they were out and about like this. Could he live a life like this?
As long as I get my kink on at night, yes. The realization felt good, like the date with Grace had suddenly become very important.
“I love Chinese!” she replied, and sat back in her seat, looking out the window, the seatbelt strap binding her beautifully.
Grace fit with him so perfectly, somehow. With her, he had immediately felt at home, from the moment he first saw her standing in front of the studio’s door.
Over lo mein and pork fried rice, she brought it up again. “So what did you mean then, that I would miss the sex?”
“You’re not a submissive. Someday, you’ll marry some vanilla guy and you’ll probably be very happy…but you’ll miss the sex. That’s what was running through my head when I said that.” Better to be honest from the start.
“You’re right,” she agreed, rolling the noodles with her fork and forsaking the chopsticks. “I’m no submissive, and I have no desire to be one. But…” she dropped her voice to a whisper and leaned in. “It gets me so hot when you tell me what to do when we were playing. I like the playing.”
“And I like playing with you too.” He smiled. Man, that was the understatement of the year.
“But this—” she gestured between them, indicating their low-key date. “Do you like this too?”
She looked cute, her brow furrowed with concern. Here he was worrying he’d scare her off in the bedroom and she was worried she’d scare him with the non-BDSM day-to-day stuff.
“I love it,” he admitted. “I feel very comfortable with you.”
“Me too.” She paused, a mischievous smile playing on those red lips. “Do you need a safeword, in case things get too normal for you, and you need me to stop being vanilla for a moment and I don’t know, kneel or something?”
Ian laughed so hard he sputtered ice water from his cup. “Check, please!” he called. “I think we need to have enough sex that you’ll know what you’ll be missing, what do you think?”
“Absolutely.”
*
“I can’t believe you brought an overnight bag.” Grace laughed as they walked down the hallway to her apartment.
“I know. Very presumptuous of me,” he winked. “But I figured you wouldn’t have the sorts of toys I like to play with.”
Toys? Images from the videos he’d done for the website flashed through her mind. Whatever was in Ian’s backpack couldn’t be too crazy, right? After all, it had to fit in the backpack.
Grace’s hand shook as she turned the key and unlocked her apartment door. She’d barely gotten the door open and shut again before Ian dropped his bag on the floor and pushed her up against the wall, pinning her arms above her head.
“Hi,” she said, looking him straight in the eye with a smile she hoped covered her nerves. At least she wasn’t blushing. Trembling all over, yes, but not blushing. Thank God.
“Not the response I was looking for,” he said, pressing in close to her. “Now that I have you, what shall I do with you?”
“Anything you want, Sir.”
His kiss came hard and fast, devouring her lips, her mouth, nipping at her neck. “Good girl.”
“I’m not such a good girl if I’m here with you, now am I, Sir?” she teased, and squealed as he hoisted her over his shoulder, fireman-style. Her dress flew up, exposing her panties. A cool breeze from the air-conditioning vent caressed her bare thighs.
“Bedroom. Now,” he demanded, smacking her ass through the light material of her panties.
“Second door to the left,” she replied breathlessly, forgetting that he knew exactly where her bedroom door was. This new Ian was so different when it was time for sex. And she liked it.
&nb
sp; He spanked her again, striding down the hallway so fast the carpet beneath his feet seemed to blur, at least to her upside-down vantage point.
Grace shrieked, laughing, when he tossed her on the middle of her queen-sized bed.
He stared her down. “You laugh when you’re nervous. Are you nervous now, Grace?”
“I was, then I wasn’t,” she answered. “Now I am again. You look…intense.”
“Do you remember your safeword?”
Yes, because I picked “safeword” as my safeword, like a newbie moron, she thought, but aloud she only said “Yes, Sir.”
“Take off your clothes.”
She sat up, grateful to not have any buttons or zippers to mess with. Her sundress lifted easily over her head and she tossed it on the floor, something she’d never normally do. The carpet in her bedroom was spotless, all of her clothes either in the hamper or neatly hung in the closet. But being with Ian made her feel an urgency she’d never felt with any other lover before…including the Ian she remembered from their past relationship. Sex with Ian without any secrets between them was clearly a whole new ballgame.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, pulling off his own T-shirt. His chiseled abs looked spectacular in the shadows thrown off by her bedside lamp. “Let me help you with that bra.”
Kneeling on the bed, he wrapped his arms around her and expertly dispatched her brassiere. God he smelled good. Not like cologne, or aftershave. It was subtler than that. Maybe she was smelling his deodorant. Either way, she wanted to nuzzle her face against his skin and inhale him.
“Do you want to see what’s in my backpack?” he asked.
She’d almost forgotten about his overnight bag. Had he even brought it into her room?
“Silence implies consent,” he said, pulling the bag up onto her bed.
“What if I said no?” she asked, not because she wanted to say no, but because the idea that silence implied consent sounded very much like a rule she needed to remember.
“Then that’s also consent.”
“What?” she couldn’t take her eyes off his bag, and how he unzipped it ceremoniously.
Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire Page 226
