by Holley Trent
He switched off every light he passed and followed Valerie out the front door, which he locked.
She’d changed into a pair of flats, which were moderately less sexy than the boots had been. He would have preferred to see those firm legs lengthened by a pair of high heels, but being on a boat, they weren’t going to be the best choice of footwear.
He put her suitcase in the back of the truck next to his and hopped into the cab.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Not willing to let some things be a surprise?”
“Oh, I suspect you have plenty of surprises in store for me. Why make this be one?”
“You’re right about the surprises.” He backed off the short parking pad into the circle and steered past the green-and-white balloon clusters and “OPEN HOUSE” sandwich board signs Carine had probably put up.
“So, I guess you did some fishing around about me in my absence,” he said.
“What makes you think that?”
He kept his gaze locked on the road to squash the compulsion to lock what Heidi called his “Dom stare” on her. Heidi had known him for too long, so she thought it was funny, but it worked just fine on everyone else. “You seemed upset to find out I practice BDSM.”
“I’m sure lots of folks who hang out at Clay’s practice it,” Valerie said. “You do a little more than practice, don’t you?”
He didn’t see where that merited a response.
“You don’t have to tell me. I suspect you’re not inclined to, but I am curious about where you got that practice if Clay’s is the only place around that you’d have an outlet for it.”
“Suffice it to say I travel a lot.”
“I see. Do you keep a submissive waiting for you in every city you visit?”
“I’m surprised no one told you I don’t keep any at all.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s the hmm for?”
“Is there anything I need to know about you?”
“In what regard?”
“Meaning, how badly do I need to stay away from you?”
“Why would you want to stay away from me? Have I been unkind to you? Have I overstepped my bounds? Or do you simply find me unattractive?”
Now he did glance over at her in time to see her roll her eyes.
If he weren’t driving, he might have grabbed her chin and make her look at him and keep her gaze on him while he was querying her.
Instead, he added the insult to his mental list. He’d address it later.
“I think I asked you enough questions that you could answer at least one of them,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “You’re always honest with me, so I’ll be honest with you. No, I obviously don’t find you unattractive. I don’t have a type, per se, but I’d certainly rank you high on my list of people I like to look at.”
“The highest?”
“No.”
“Who’s above me?”
She squirmed in her seat and fixed her gaze out of the passenger’s window. “None of your business.”
“We’ll see about that.” He put his right hand against the back of her neck and flexed his fingers just a bit to make her pay attention to him.
She let out a little sigh of what sounded like pleasure and turned forward, body relaxing under his touch.
Thatta girl.
“Is he someone you’ve fucked?” he asked.
“No.”
“Someone you know personally?”
“No.”
He pinned his gaze to the road ahead again and his hand back on the wheel, figuring he’d let the discussion pause with that. He didn’t think he had an excess of ego, but he didn’t like the idea of her harboring fantasies about someone else in her life, either. He wanted all the brainpower she could spare being devoted to him and what he would do to her, and not to some other man who probably didn’t deserve her any more than Tim did.
When he’d cleared a particularly winding stretch of road, he took his hand from the wheel and set it on her knee.
Reflexively, she opened her legs for him, but he didn’t plan to linger. So was too far away, and playing wasn’t compatible with safe driving. It was good to know she took cues well…which made him wonder again.
“Are you involved with someone else?”
“No. Not for a long time.”
That revelation should have satisfied him, but instead, it jogged more questions in his mind. He needed to see where her head was before he did anything with her that fell afoul of the mainstream.
They could figure out some mutually beneficial arrangement. He could promise to give her what she needed for as long as she was willing to accept it, and he’d agree that it was for a short time only. Then they could reassess from there.
“I’d like to make a proposal,” he said.
“Uh-oh,” she said softly.
Again, he stopped himself from doing that stare. “If you’re so inclined while we’re away, we can do some scenes. No strings attached unless otherwise negotiated.”
She didn’t answer, so he stole a glance at her.
She was looking straight ahead, expression neutral. Either she was thinking about it or giving him the old shoulder, but he wasn’t going to push her. He’d show her what he thought about the silence later, after she’d turned on the green light and let him have control.
“No strings,” he repeated.
“I need more information. Not all doms are created equally.”
Smart girl.
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you get off from inflicting pain?”
“To a small degree. I don’t consider myself a sadist, though I do enjoy seeing my partner endure short periods of discomfort to please me. Do I need to elaborate further?”
“That’s good enough to start. What are your top fetishes?”
“I don’t think you know me well enough to ask that.”
“I’m just trying to make sure I don’t get hurt.”
“Why, are you used to doms not taking no for an answer?”
“That was sometimes true with one particular partner, but more likely the case would be that I push myself too far past my limits because I’m not always aware that lines have blurred. I think that when I get into a particular headspace sometimes that I forget that I have a life outside of the bedroom that I need to be mindful of and that I need to protect. So, I’ll do anything at that moment to keep the pleasure coming, only to regret it later. I don’t like having regrets.”
Tim wasn’t a big fan of regrets, either, and he had the chance, he’d track down whatever dom or doms who’d made her so squirrelly about giving her consent again and put a fist through their faces. Fetishists had bad enough reputations from unfounded shit without people fucking things up by not offering their partners basic respect and for not learning their cues.
“I would do my best not to push you to places that hurt in ways you don’t like,” he said, “but I’d expect you to communicate with me and tell me what’s going through your head.”
He caught her slow nod in his periphery.
“I like to experiment,” she said. “Pain, I like it sometimes. I don’t make a very good slave—I’m gonna be upfront about that—but I like some rough play when I’m in the right headspace. I’m not a great actress, so role-playing would be awkward, but if you’d like me to verbalize what I want, I can be articulate enough.”
Damn. “It’s been a long damn time since I’ve gotten to play with a pro.”
“I’m not a pro. Just not a novice.”
“Close enough in my book.”
She’d make things so much easier, at least as far as sex was concerned.
Not too easy, though, he hoped. If she was too perfectly compatible, he was going to be a fucking bear when it was time for her to pack up her few belongings and move on to the next place—strings attached or not.
He hadn’t felt so optimistic about the prospect of suitable companionship fo
r years, so naturally, she was going to go away. That was the way shit always happened in his life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Valerie had felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her chest when she’d told Tim what she liked. She knew in part that relief was because he’d probably understand what all those words meant and wouldn’t judge her for her preferences. But as she stepped onto the deck of his boat, there was that niggling, gnawing tug at the back of her mind that kept her on her guard. She’d promised herself she was going to opt out of kink going forward because it didn’t seem compatible with her aspirations. A good partnership required time and some degree of stability in her life. She didn’t have those things and she wouldn’t have them in the near future, either.
She shouldn’t have led Tim on, but, damned if she wasn’t curious. If she didn’t indulge that curiosity, she’d drive herself mad from all the what-ifs.
He carried her suitcase and purse below deck of his boat, and Valerie stood at the railing clutching her phone and looking around at the boats bobbing nearby.
Hell of a lifestyle.
She could only half believe she was having a little sip of it herself now and certainly would have never imagined it was possible growing up. Money had been tight for as long as Valerie could remember—even after her grandmother had moved in with Valerie, Leah, and their mother to help out. Then, of course, her mother had died and most of the income Valerie and Leah had was from Social Security Survivors Benefits. There was no excess. They didn’t have name-brand clothes or take fancy trips. Valerie and her sister never, ever forgot that every penny they got had come to them because someone they loved had died.
As an adult, Valerie’s motivations had been steered toward comfort, not excess. She still wasn’t sure what motivated Tim.
At the touch of his hand to her back, she started and clutched her chest. “Shit. Sorry. I’m not usually so skittish.”
“I said your name twice and asked if you wanted to watch me get this thing moving. You were totally zoned out.”
She forced out a breath and tucked some hair behind her ears that had somehow managed to escape her gel’s cement-quality hold. “I’m good at that, zoning out. Apparently, that makes me a good sub.”
Tim pressed his lips tightly together and stuffed his hands into his shorts’ pockets.
“You look like you don’t agree.”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure I do. Compartmentalizing is one thing, but I’d expect you to be lucid enough to recognize that your body is telling you to stop.”
“Some doms might tell me that it’s their job to determine what my stopping point is.”
“You don’t agree with that, and neither do I. Sounds like you’ve been running into a lot of untrained wannabes up in D.C.”
She turned her hands over in concession. “I thought I had a good thing once a couple of years ago.”
“And?”
“It just stopped being good.”
His jaw shifted side to side a few times and he narrowed that steely gaze. He didn’t seem to be chastising her, though, but more like making sense of her. She hoped he could.
Someone should.
She fiddled her phone and pulled her gaze away from his.
“I’m going to unfasten the dock lines and get the engine going,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular, just out into the Atlantic where we can float aimlessly until it’s time to come home.”
“When will that be?”
“You’ll tell me.”
“Oh.”
He stepped through the cockpit door, and though he left it open, she didn’t follow.
She wanted to take a moment to acclimate herself to the vessel since she really hadn’t had a chance the night she’d met Tim at Clay’s.
She walked around the narrow deck, skimming the wall with one hand to aid her balance as she went, and counting architectural features. Windows—or maybe they were portholes—ladders, doors. At the rear, she stopped, her curiosity getting the better of her. The boat had to have a name, and she hoped it would be emblazoned across the vessel’s backside like screen-printing on her sister’s favorite pair of booty shorts.
She leaned down and read the words upside down. Good Neighbor.
“Cute.”
“What is?”
If it weren’t for Tim’s hands at her waist, she might have toppled over the railing and lost whatever little dignity she might have had before stepping onboard.
He held her firmly, pressed between his hard body and the railing, and she soothed herself from the fright with the sounds of his even breaths and the feel of his heart against her back.
“Am I going to have to put a harness and leash on you so you don’t get yourself in trouble, pretty girl?”
“I…hope you don’t like that.”
“Doesn’t really do anything for me, but if you need it, I’ll make sure you get it.”
“I don’t think I need it.”
“Good.” He released her from his tight hug but didn’t completely let go. He dragged his hands down her sides and gripped the fabric of her dress, tugging it up a bit.
She pushed involuntarily onto her toes to rub her ass against his crotch—to urge him on—but it was too far away. She’d never considered herself to be short, but Tim had left average in the dust by several inches.
“Careful, unless you want to give folks a show.” His wanton tongue lashed across her sensitive earlobe.
As her brain tried to make sense of the silky glide, her pussy clenched in response. Valerie moaned at the empty ache. “Maybe right about now, I wouldn’t mind a show.”
“For once, I would. They might like it so much that they’d start to expect it. Personally, I like to keep some things private.”
Right. Private.
He was right, of course. People were already starting to recognize her. If keeping her reputation aboveboard was her goal, she probably didn’t want to be spotted rubbing one out against Tim Dowd’s hard thigh.
She ducked out of his hold and continued her self-tour, though at a much faster pace.
Tim followed, chuckling quietly. “Do you have anyone you want to let know you’ll be away for a while? If so, you should do that now while you’re still the in range of cellular towers. You might be…mmm, tied up later.”
“T-tied up?” she stammered. She didn’t think he was being figurative.
Winking, he began to deftly unmoor the boat. “Mm-hmm. I’ll admit that’s one of my fetishes. You’ll have to find out the rest. I love rope. I love seeing women wear it.” He moved on to the next tether and unfastened that one, too. “I hope you’re flexible.”
___
Apparently, boats had autopilot just like planes did. Once Tim got the boat steered away from the shore and out into the sound, heading toward the Atlantic, he’d pulled Valerie up onto the small upper deck and plopped her onto his lap.
“Uh…is this safe?” She sat stiffly, eying the boats in the near distance.
“For the moment. I’ll go down and twiddle some knobs in a bit. Right now, I want to twiddle yours.” He spread her knees, so her legs dangled over the sides of the lounger and pulled her back against his chest.
“Oh, is that the plan for the evening?”
He nudged her panties aside, put her hand there to hold them in place, and slipped his fingers into her mouth. “Wet those.”
She lashed her tongue against the tips.
“You can do better than that, pretty girl. Or don’t you want them in your pussy?”
“Umm…” Yes. The answer is yes. She suspected he could probably set her off like a bottle rocket and would have to get that net hung on lower deck’s wall and fish her out of the water when she was done coming. She just hadn’t expected him to get down to business—as it were—when they could still so clearly see the coast behind them.
“You were so tight when I was tonguing you,” he said, swirling his fingers around her
mouth. “Are you still tight or did you play while I was gone?”
“Umm…” Shame crept into her cheeks, probably turning them an embarrassing shade of guilt red. And yet, she had nothing to be ashamed of.
She gritted her teeth.
“Did you touch yourself?”
“Yes.” She sounded bold. Didn’t feel that way, though.
He sighed and swirled his fingers some more.
She sucked them farther into her mouth and licked between them when he spread them.
Down below, her pussy gave another empty clench. She notched her fingers over a bit from the crotch of her panties and confirmed that what the breeze was cooling was her own arousal.
Tim grabbed her wrist and moved her fingers back into place. “You don’t get to touch again. You had your chance, and now I’ll have mine. Understand?” He pushed his fingers farther back, almost to her gag trigger, but she opened her throat and nodded.
“Good girl.” He kissed her cheek and slipped her fingers out of her mouth. “Tell me. How did you get off? Alone?”
“Yes.”
He slipped one thick finger into her, and her back bowed. He held her still. “I’m glad you were alone. Where were you?”
“At home.”
He pulled the fingers out and grunted. “I gave you my keys. You should have done it at my place. Sat on my pillow and left me a present for when I got home.”
The things that come out of his mouth!
Somehow, she managed not to squirm. And somehow, she managed not to say the first thing that had come to mind: “Why should I have?” Instead, she said, “I was only there to work.” Frustrated, she tried to bear down on his finger, but he moved it out of reach.
“The next time you try to get yourself off when I’m away, you will do that, understand? You’ll straddle one of those expensive pillows and will ground your clit and pussy against it until you come. Promise it and I’ll fuck you with my fingers some more.”
She did have to consider it for a moment. The rational, upright, professional woman part of her brain thought, “Nah. That’s ridiculous,” but the adventurous, sexually voracious submissive part of her brain urged her on. “Once doesn’t make a habit,” her conscience said. And Valerie couldn’t make what they were doing a habit. She’d already broken her own rules by discussing her past willingness to participate in fetish play in the first place.
