“It is true I was bored. And lonely. And I had no idea what you were doing all those nights. I assumed you were cheating on me, Declan, and I just didn’t know what to do. I needed attention. Craved it, really. But I didn’t want to go out and touch anyone else. I wanted your touch. Your love.”
He sat on the bed now, his weight making the mattress shift, a subtle change in her balance enough to make her feel a semblance of caring from him. She continued. “Your attention. Remember how it was when we met? You were so focused on me. You were so into me. I was the center of your world and you made me feel like a queen. If I didn’t feel well, you moved heaven and earth to get me what I needed. When I had a success, you were my biggest champion. And when other guys looked at me, you were like a cobra, striking without mercy because you owned me.”
Declan smiled, then blew a long breath out, nodding. This time, his smile reached his eyes. He gestured for her to continue.
“So at first I just looked for comfort wherever I could find it. I shopped. I got manis and pedis and massages and facials. I hung out with the wives of the men at your work and supported your 120 hour work weeks. You seemed happy and I thought I was happy. But then you became more distant, so I found comfort in food. And Netflix. A pint of ice cream and five seasons of Weeds is a great escape when your husband is just this guy who gives you everything you want materially but only touches you once a week, and sometimes even then just a kiss. No affection, no cuddling, no sex, no intimacy.”
He frowned and dipped his head down, running a hand through his bed-headed hair. It was just messy enough for her to understand that while he was dressed, he had rushed to coordinate everything this morning. It must have been a last-minute decision, which for some reason made her feel better. His shoulder muscles rolled under the movement and she stared at his rippled chest, the little section of skin peeking out from his collar, feeling so close yet so far.
“And no surprise – I got fat. Well, gained ten or fifteen pounds.” Miss Sally made a questioning look. “Okay, twenty.” Declan grinned, a conspirator’s smile of understanding, not of mockery. “So then you tormented me.” His grin faded into a guilty frown. “Everything was my fault for being lazy, for gaining weight, for being unattractive. I think it was right around then when you started seeing her,” she elaborated, pointing at the dom, “because you turned from negative to outright mean and cruel. I assumed you were fucking someone else.”
“Why did you stay in the relationship, Jennifer?” Miss Sally asked, her voice kinder than Jennifer thought possible. Ah, how that woman could get to the point. Declan looked like he’d been slapped, right down to the red marks on both cheeks, right at the bone.
Tears flowed unabated down Jennifer’s cheeks. She didn’t try to wipe them, letting them pool along her nose, slipping up into her nostril at times, dripping off her chin onto her bare breasts, then traveling down the valley to her belly button. “Because I still love him,” she choked, bending her head down and burying her face in her thighs.
Declan’s arms slid around her, brushing against her bare knees, his chest settling into her shoulder, his musky, spicy scent taking over all her air, sucking the oxygen out of the room as she inhaled him, exhaled him, and became nothing but them for a few precious minutes. He nuzzled her hair, stroked her neck, and she stopped crying, instead reveling in what she’d wanted all along.
This connection.
He pulled back and wiped the remnants of tears from under her eyes. “So – John? Did you ever sleep with him?”
“No! No!” she hissed viciously, needing him to trust her. “He wanted to meet with me but there was no way I would do that.” Oh, how she’d wanted to, though. His words made her feel like a goddess again, made her feel wanted and needed and primal. How many orgasms had those emails induced? How many nights had Declan spent at the office, leaving her alone in their big, fancy house with every toy a woman could want, when a cheap piece of paper printed from an email and a Rabbit gave her more comfort than money could buy?
False comfort. Fake sensuality. Here was the real thing, staring at her and making her want to find the exact right words to unlock the box of their marriage, to open it to sunlight and kill off whatever had strangled them both.
Declan frowned. “I read all the emails, Jen. I know what he said to you.” Miss Sally held up a stack of papers and smirked.
“You printed them out? While I was asleep?” The shame started to fade. So did the goodwill and hope. Fury returned. John had begged her to call him but she had terminated her account that day, hoping like hell she hadn’t given him enough information to track her down in real life. He’d stalked her Facebook and Twitter accounts, somehow found another email address she owned, and damn if she wasn’t sure he didn’t know her real name. It had all ended a few weeks ago and now she regretted every second.
“Yes – they’re entertaining,” Miss Sally said, tapping the top of the stack. “You should consider writing erotica.”
Jen snorted. “Like that’s a way to make a living.”
“I hate to interrupt this flatteryfest, but can we get back to my being cuckolded here? And not in a sexy, turn-on kind of way,” Declan fumed. Now he stood, hands on hips, eyes narrowed, looking all the more like the pissed off frat boy she had come to admire.
“Says the man whose paid dom is sitting right here with his wife,” she retorted, pointing out the obvious. He had the decency to appear ashamed for a moment, the look more mature and knowing than any frat boy from college. She wondered what he was thinking, and whether there really was any reason to try to save their relationship. Sometimes things were broken beyond repair. Right now, she felt like one of them.
“Did you ever touch him?” he asked, his voice more a pleading than a question. She could hear the unwhispered words please say no and she was ever so pleased to be able to answer what he wanted to hear. Her own restraint had been fairly simple; she never wanted to cross that line and go out into the night to find some stranger to fuck. Not her style. Not when all she really wanted was the man she was married to.
“No. I never met him, never talked on the phone with him, never texted. We barely chatted in IM and then we had the emails go back and forth. I swear to you, Declan, I never cheated on you.” His skeptical look made her add, “In person, I mean.”
“And I never, ever touched her,” he elaborated, pointing to Miss Sally’s bent head. She was really into whatever text conversation was going on, biting her lower lip, a touch of red lipstick staining one front tooth.
“Anyone else?” Please say no. Now it was her turn to hope. He scratched the back of his head and smiled, licking his lips as he bent down to her, the sheet moving and sliding down her bare legs.
He shook his head. “It was never about wanting someone else’s touch, Jen,” he crooned, lips pressing hers softly, bodies sliding against each other as he claimed her mouth, tongue parting her lips and drinking her in. She gave back fully, holding nothing within, her trust right there, ready to hand to him in a neat gift-wrapped box with a bow on top. They were close. So close. Yet so much remained to unravel between them.
The kiss deepened, hands exploring, Miss Sally’s presence no longer a distraction as he cupped her breasts, his knee parting hers and hip nudging her mons. His jeans scratched against her skin, the feeling a luxury of sorts, like she was virginal and needed coaxing, while he was proper and dressed, as if they just happened to slip and fall into each others arms in some comedy of errors. Her hands reached for his waistband and pulled the shirt out, untucking it, giving her access to his back, palms roaming and claiming as he took her mouth with his.
Breathing heavily, his erection pressing into her hip, he pulled back and panted lightly, a vindication of her own power over him. “May I make a suggestion?” he asked, chided and conciliatory. Jennifer twisted in his arms and lifted her hands with palms up in a gesture of “go on.”
“I have a proposal. Retract your safeword.” She knew this was coming
and rolled her eyes, a sour stomach descending quickly, making her tense where moments ago she had been goo. Nice goo. Relaxed, content goo. He held his palm out this time, halting her. “Let me say my peace.” She nodded and he continued.
“We have a serious problem.” He glanced at Miss Sally. “We have zero trust for each other. This isn’t a love problem. It’s a Declan and Jennifer problem.” He sounded like something out of a Dr. Phil episode, and she could feel her internal eyeballs rolling in her head as she tried ever so hard to stop the external ones from rotating. Throw in a Texas accent and a bad balding hairline and they could get cameras rolling and their own HBO special.
He took her hand, the touch jolting her. “For whatever reason, submission and domination – even our own version of it, weird as it is – is some sort of subtext here. You’ve already proven you’re one hell of a dom. I know I love being your sub.” He cracked a grin. “I asked Miss Sally to help me learn to dominate you in the bedroom. Like that cobra in college you adored.” Tiny caresses with his finger tips lit her wrist afire, stirring a flame of desire within. Her belly tensed and she felt a familiar warm wetness invade her body and thoughts. Oh, how this man could turn her on a dime.
“You want to tie me back up and hurt me?” she whispered.
“I want you to tell me what we should do next, Jen, to save whatever we can save here. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to love you and prove how much I want you.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, his stubble brushing against her, her back arching and stretching up just enough to tip him off that she, too, was interested. One nipple brushed against the fine hair that covered his chest and she melted into his body, breathing in his scent again with one measured breath, wishing the world away so they could just be.
“Do we have to do this,” she jerked her head toward Miss Sally, “like this?”
He thought for a few long seconds, then sighed, stroking her cheek with his thumb, her jaw in his palm. “Did you like what you did to me two days ago?”
Be honest, Jen. Honest. “Yes,” she sputtered, trying not to be embarrassed.
He smiled. “So did I. So let’s trust her, okay? She thinks this is a good idea.” Miss Sally looked up at that and appeared to want to interrupt, but closed her mouth and resumed texting. Jennifer wanted to know what that was all about. “And,” he added, “I’ve learned to trust her instincts.”
“More than you trust mine?” Jen whispered, the words out before she realized she’d said them. What part of her psyche had turned this into some sort of competition between her and Miss Sally? Rational Jennifer knew it wasn’t. Apparently, though, Possessive Jennifer was out for a cat fight.
Declan bit his lips and appeared to try – and fail – to suppress a shit-eating grin. “What,” he whispered, licking the curve of her ear, “do your instincts tell you?”
Her pussy leaped into her throat and wanted to jump his pole now. Struggling not to blurt that out, she looked at the Dom, looked at the gorgeous man she married years ago, and threw caution – and her safeword – to the wind. Lying back down, legs and arms splayed, she said loudly, “Okay. I retract my safeword.”
Miss Sally shook her head. “Too late.”
“What?” Jennifer sat up.
“It’s too late. I told Declan he had one minute and you took seventeen. Someone needs to pay for the transgression.” Jennifer scanned her face to see if Miss Sally was serious, because man did that sound like some kind of ridiculous, over-the-top fakery.
Nope. She was serious.
She took two steps to the bed, her Jimmy Choos making Jennifer willing to sign over a small digit, cut off with a rusty spork, to get a pair. Miss Sally threw the printed stack of emails on the bed.
“What are you – ?”
The dom cut her off. “Declan, you can’t learn to be a dom just yet. First, you need to be punished. I told you to make it quick and you chose to disobey me.” Declan stood, practically at attention. At least one part of him did, Jennifer noticed.
“Yes, Mistress.” The easy familiarity of seconds ago dissolved. He was cold and strange again.
“Restrain her. You are sure you retract?” Jennifer nodded. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Two minutes later and Declan had her tied up again, though Miss Sally ordered him to leave one hand unbound. Hmmmm, she thought. What’s that about? She closed her eyes and hoped this would go well. It had to. Whatever core of a relationship remained would come out over the next two hours.
A flutter of paper and Jennifer had the batch of emails thrust into her palm. “You’re going to read these,” Miss Sally ordered.
“Out loud?” Jennifer asked.
“No, to a classroom full of kindergartners next time you volunteer at a school in Namibia.” Miss Sally sighed dramatically. “Yes. Aloud. And you!” she turned and pointed at Declan, who stood in front of her, at the end of the bed, looking like a prep school boy now, stone-faced and neutral. “Put a pillow under her ass.”
Ah. Jennifer knew what was next. Declan’s finest skill, second to none. Well, lately it was second to making deals that kept the advertising firm in great shape. His tongue – ah, she started to look forward to this, but felt uncertain. Miss Sally had something up her sleeve. She hoped it wasn’t bigger than five inches in diameter.
“And you’ll read those as Declan goes down on you. No climaxing until you’ve read every word.”
Declan’s face. Oh, his expression as Miss Sally’s words sunk in. It would have been funny under any other circumstance. Really. Any other situation and Jennifer would have laughed and sputtered, but right now she felt nothing but sheer horror, fear, and loathing.
Of all the orders Miss Sally could hand out, this would debase her and Declan the most.
That was the point, right? As Declan pulled one of the many pillows from the head of the bed and slid it under her ass, carefully positioning it under her sacrum for maximum angling, he pinched one buttock, hard enough to make tears fill her eyes and her cunt tighten in rapid response. Another pinch and a light slap made her insides turn into a pretzel.
“Ah, ah, ah!” Miss Sally chided. “None of that. That’s for later.” She pulled a small dressing bench away from the base of the bed and sat down primly, her legs in yet another pencil skirt, no stockings but with smooth skin that made Jen assume she waxed regularly. Her pussy was hairless, so of course her legs were. What does she think of my neatly-trimmed hairy bush? Jennifer wondered, then smacked herself in the head with her free hand. Trying to drive the thought out, she just battered her forehead in an attempt to make the ridiculous, nearly compulsive thoughts go the fuck away.
A sharp intake of air as Declan’s tongue touched her clit out of nowhere, his knees on the bed and his face now buried in her crotch. One hand cupped her left butt cheek while the other twirled in a counter-clockwise “O” at the opening of her passage. He flicked lightly – too lightly, just a tease but not a promise. Jennifer was keenly aware of Miss Sally, of her own nakedness, of Declan’s clothes, his normalcy, and their rift.
“Dear Jennifer,” she read as Declan’s tongue slid like sandpaper across her increasingly-lifeless flesh, “I’m flattered that you found my profile interesting. I know that by most people’s standards I am a bit kinky. I believe in exploring all sexual interests or fantasies – no rules, limits or taboos. I am single but would someday like a partner to share my life.” She felt Declan snort into her labia. The sensation was not unpleasant. “I haven’t found the right person yet. If you want a serious relationship and you’re interested, great! If you would rather have a casual relationship, that’s fine. If you want nothing more than an occasional evening of sexual abandon, no problem – that’s fine, too.”
“Oh, please,” Declan muttered, rolling his finger in a clockwise circle in such a tedious way that you would think he was yo-yoing. No passion. Just technique.
“No commentary!” Miss Sally ordered. He resumed licking, but Jennifer felt like he was nine thousand miles aw
ay. This was anything but arousing. It was downright shameful and horrifying. Then again, that was the point, right? Miss Sally’s punishments came with some significant psychological pain.
“Basically, the ball is in your court. What would you like to have happen now that you’ve made the first step? What would make you the happiest? Yours, John,” she finished, her voice dropping his name into oblivion. She was dry as the Sahara desert right now, no matter how much Declan’s tongue tried to ameliorate her complete lack of arousal.
“Continue,” Miss Sally insisted, gesturing at the emails.
“Wow! You responded fast! I’m interested in exploring the bounds of online sex,” Jennifer read. Declan sucked the index finger on his right hand and slid it, slowly, into her tunnel. Now she swallowed, the feeling stirring something within as he tongued and flicked her clit. “No promises of more, but if everything goes well, I might consider meeting you and acting out some of the incredible things we’ll be writing in the future.”
“So you swear you didn’t meet him?” Declan mumbled into her clit.
“I swear!”
“No commentary!” Miss Sally shouted, smacking Declan with a riding crop that she seemed to conjure from nowhere, like a Harry Potter spell turned kinky. He bucked his ass up at the stroke, then flattened his tongue, sucking her labia. She inhaled sharply and shoved the papers in front of her eyes again.
“I’m exploring the sensual side of me, trying to become less inhibited, interested in learning more about frustration and pleasure, limits and breaking them. I just finished a bubble bath and I dreamed of you as I stroked myself to orgasm. Tell me more, more, more! Direct me through a fantasy that will make me explode. Waiting and panting, Jennifer.” She felt so stupid. But oh, God, what Declan did right now started to feel so, so good. Nothing about John made her feel like this.
Mastering Him Page 9
