by Sophie Stern
“I’ll go over the measurements and get you some quotes,” he said. “I’ll have one of the other carpenters give you a call with some numbers and you can decide what works for you. Thank you for the sandwich, and thank you for the drink. They were both very good, and it’s been a long time since someone was kind to me.”
He turned, then, and he left, walking out the door.
Fuck.
I’d fucked up, and my panties were still soaked.
Chapter 6
Raiden
I marched out to the truck, pissed that I’d let my emotions get the best of me. How the hell had I managed to get into such a situation? And with her? Blair Hopper was a beautiful woman, but I didn’t need a beautiful woman. I needed no woman. That was what I needed. I needed to focus on work and finding myself. I needed to focus on becoming a better person as much as I could.
Falling for an inexperienced submissive? That was at the very bottom of my to-do list. What the hell had just happened? She’d gotten under my skin in the very best way, and I was hard as a rock as I left her house in a hurry.
I got into my truck and slammed the door, and then I drove back to the office. I sat down and started going through my post-visit tasks. I drew up some ideas, got the prices, and put together a proposal for Blair. I could pass it off to Patrick or Josiah the next day. One of them could help her out.
Only, I didn’t want them to.
I wanted to be the one helping her.
Why the hell had I walked out the way that I had? I should have known better than to even start toying with the idea of flirting with her. I didn’t need that kind of complication, and yet…
There was something more to Blair. There was something she wasn’t telling me – or anyone. I didn’t know what her secret was, but I wanted to know. I was wildly curious about this woman and whatever it is that she was hiding.
She made me feel so fucking alive. She hadn’t even done anything that special. She’d made a sandwich. It was more than that, though. It was a gesture of thoughtfulness, and gestures meant a lot to me. When I was with Angela, she never did anything like that. Oh, she’d let me play with her at the club, and she’d let me tie her up, but she was never really into the day-to-day stuff that is supposed to accompany romance.
She’d definitely never made me a sandwich just because she thought I might be hungry. Angela couldn’t even be bothered to go to the grocery store most of the time.
Was that was this was about?
Was I trying to replace Angela?
Why was I doing this to myself?
Unable to focus, I finally picked up the phone and called June. She’d be able to help me. Nobody else could give me the advice and the honesty that I needed right now, but I liked to consider June a friend. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey Raiden,” she said. “What can I do you for?”
“I didn’t know anyone under the age of 70 talked like that.”
“Funny.”
“It’s not.”
“Okay, whatever. You called me,” she pointed out the obvious.
“I have a question for you,” I said. I’d never felt the need to slow things down with small talk. That was just a waste of everyone’s time.
“Shoot.”
“That girl from the club.”
“Blair.”
“Yeah,” I said. “How much do you know about her?”
“She passed her background check with flying colors, if that’s what you mean. Psych analysis was good. Raiden, you know I’m strict about this shit.” She almost sounded irritated that I’d called and questioned her, as though I didn’t trust her to keep the club members safe. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, sighing. Was there really something I was missing? Why did I feel like there was more to Blair than what I saw on the surface?
“What’s this about? I can’t give you her number.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “As it turns out, she’s my new client.”
“No!”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “There’s just…she said she’s never had a Dom before.”
“There’s nothing wrong with not having a top,” June pointed out.
“You let newbies into your club?”
“Sometimes. When they pass all of the exams and evaluations and when they’re vouched for by a current member,” she said. “In those cases, yeah, I’d be fine with it, and I am.”
“Someone vouched for her,” I realized suddenly. That was how she’d managed to sneak into the club. She’d been vetted by a current member, so someone knew that she was good enough for Anchored. They understood that she could be one of us. Why the hell hadn’t they guided her, though?
“Yeah. Listen, Raiden, I’m not trying to be rude, but is there a problem? Or are you just kind of crushing here?”
“Sorry,” I said, ignoring the second question. I actually was crushing, and it was a stupid thing to do.
“It’s fine. I just have a meeting and…”
“And you’ve got stuff going on. Understood. Sorry to bother you.”
“You never have to be sorry,” June said. “Raiden, why don’t you come by the club later this week? There are some classes happening on Wednesday night. You could assist if you wanted to.”
I didn’t hesitate.
“I’d love to,” I said. If nothing else, it would help clear my head. It would get me thinking about things that didn’t involve her. I could use a little bit of distraction in my life. Besides, I owed June. She’d let me keep coming to the club even as a single man, and that was, in most clubs, totally unheard of. She could have easily kicked me out for not having a partner, but she didn’t.
“Great. See you then,” June said, and she hung up the phone.
Wednesday.
If I could make it to Wednesday, then everything would be okay.
*
I made it until Tuesday morning.
That was when I found out that the other guys were busy with their own projects and that Miss Hopper really was my responsibility. I finished up the proposal and called her on the phone. She answered on the first ring, sounding breathless. Instantly, I wondered what she’d been doing. Was she exercising? Or had she been in the middle of masturbating?
“Blair?” I said. “It’s Raiden.”
“Oh, hey,” she said. Was it me? Or did she sound a little excited to have me be the one on the phone? “I was just…thinking about you, actually…”
Yeah, she’d definitely been masturbating. Fuck. The idea that she’d been touching herself to thoughts of me was just about the hottest damn thing I could think of. What did Blair Hopper look like when she was masturbating? Did she lay on her back with her legs spread? Was she the kind of girl who liked to get comfortable on her tummy and then slide her hands between her legs?
What was her secret?
“Is that so?” I asked, not giving away that I knew.
“Yeah, I, um…”
Her voice trailed off, and I almost bit my fucking lip. Was she serious right now? Fuck. I so didn’t need to have my dick hard at work.
“I’m just really excited…about…the, uh…”
“The bookshelves?”
“Yeah,” she said. “The shelves.”
I was alone in my office. I shared it with a few other workers, but they were out on jobs. I closed the door to make sure I had privacy, and then I sat down at my desk.
“Blair?”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Are you touching yourself?”
Silence.
It wasn’t my place.
I wasn’t her Dom.
I wasn’t dating her.
Hell, I wasn’t even planning to date her. Yet there I was, asking her if she was touching herself, and the worst part was that I still expected her to give me a totally honest answer.
“Blair?”
“What?” She whispered.
“I asked you a question.”
“I…I thought you just called about the bookshelves.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know what you were up to, kitten?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think you could be sneaky?”
“Yes.”
“You should know that a good Dom can always tell when you’re lying,” I told her. It was true, too. A lot of times, it took Doms and subs years to get into a good rhythm where they were in sync with one another. It could take a long time for a Dom to know exactly when his sub was being less-than-honest, but right now…
Well, it was obvious.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Why did you answer the phone, Blair?” I asked her. It was an important question. I wanted to see if she was going to be honest with both of us. Maybe she wasn’t paying attention and she picked up the call while she was watching porn. Maybe she wanted me to hear her touching herself because she liked me. Perhaps she was just curious as to what it would feel like to touch herself while she was talking to another person. Everyone had their own kinks. I wasn’t exactly the type of person to judge.
I couldn’t know what she was thinking unless she told me, though, so I hoped that she’d take the chance and choose to be honest. Then I’d be able to get to know her a little bit better. I’d get to find out exactly what it was that made Miss Hopper tick.
“I knew it was you,” she finally said.
“So?”
“So, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
I could practically hear her blushing.
“Is that right?”
The idea that she’d been thinking about me while touching herself was exciting to me. It had been a long time since I felt excited about anything or anyone, but Blair dipping her fingers into her body while imagining that I was the one doing it? Yeah, that did something to me.
“Yeah,” she said. “When I saw you at the club, I thought you were just…wow…you know? And then you were at my house, and…”
“Blair?”
“You just make me feel so many things, Raiden. Things I shouldn’t be feeling,” she whispered the words like a confession.
“Don’t stop touching yourself.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” I growled. I didn’t want her to stop. I wanted her to get closer and closer to the edge. I wanted her to come apart for me. I wanted her to feel wild and wanton and wonderful. “Keep rubbing yourself, kitten.”
“Raiden…”
“I want you to think about me at the club,” I told her. “I want you to think about the way I looked at you, and the way I made you feel, and I want you to touch yourself.”
I wanted her to do this for me.
I wanted her to touch herself and to fall apart simply because it pleased me. She wasn’t my submissive, and I’d do well to remember that, but just then, all I could think about was hearing her soft cries as she orgasmed.
“I’m close,” she said breathlessly, and I believed her. More than that, I knew what she was doing. She wasn’t just warning me that she was about to orgasm. She was, in a way, asking permission. Oh, it wasn’t as blatant as all that, but that’s essentially what she was doing. She was being a very good little submissive, and she was being good just for me.
Was I going to let her come apart for me?
Or was I going to make her beg?
She might be inexperienced. I was certain that she was. She’d even admitted to that. Still, she knew enough about the lifestyle to know that she couldn’t come without permission. She needed to get her Dom to okay the orgasm.
Unfortunately for her, I was feeling a little bit feisty, and I wasn’t letting her off that easily. She was going to have to communicate with me if she wanted to play with me, and besides, I didn’t want her first orgasm with me to be on the phone. I wanted more than that.
I wanted something a little more wild than that.
And I wanted her to prove that she was really interested in this thing between us. I didn’t want her orgasming simply because I’d been the one to call her. What if it had been someone else? Would she have come apart for them? The thought bothered me.
She was breathing harder, more heavily, and just when I thought she was about to come apart, I used the magic word that was going to break her heart.
“Stop.”
A pause.
A hesitation.
Her breathing seemed to halt completely.
“W-What?”
Oh yeah, she’d heard me.
She might not like it very much. Hell, she might not like me very much, but she’d heard me just the same.
“It’s time to stop.”
“B-B-But…”
“If you want to play with me, Blair, I’ll play with you, but we’re doing it in person. Not over the phone. Not the first time.”
“I…”
“Tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” she whispered.
“Blair, I’m coming over,” I told her. “We need to talk.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”
She ended the call, and I stared at my phone for a minute before looking back at the plans I’d thrown together. I really hadn’t expected things to go that way. Not with her. Not so fast. Blair had thrown me for a loop, and, well, that was kind of exciting to me.
It had been a long time since a woman surprised me at all, and even longer since I’d been surprised in a good way. Blair made me feel…sexy.
She made me feel a little bit wild.
A little bit excited.
She made me feel like no matter what happened next, things were going to get better and better.
I shoved my phone into my pocket and grabbed the plans. It was time to talk to Miss Hopper.
Chapter 7
Blair
“He’s coming over,” I whispered to Carolyn.
“What are you talking about?” She was in the middle of the grocery store, I knew. I could hear announcements coming through the phone. After I’d hung up the phone with Raiden, I hadn’t known what to do.
So I’d called my friend.
“Raiden,” I choked out. “He’s coming over. Here.”
“The guy who’s designing your bookshelves? Cool! That was fast. What do the plans look like? Any ideas?”
“Not that,” I whispered. “He knows I was masturbating on the phone.”
I could feel my face turning red even as I said the words out loud. What the hell was wrong with me? How the fuck had I thought it was okay to do that? I had been in the middle of watching a sexy video, touching myself, getting closer and closer, and the phone had rung. I had known it was him. I wasn’t expecting a call from anyone else.
Still, I hadn’t expected him to pick up on the fact that I’d been touching myself, and I was both wildly mortified and completely turned on by getting caught. Raiden was something else entirely. He was a kind of wild man who made me hot and sweaty and aroused, and the worst part was that I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
I knew he didn’t date. He definitely didn’t date girls like me.
He didn’t date girls who were naïve.
He definitely didn’t date girls who were liars.
“What?” Carolyn said. “Say that again. I think I heard you wrong.”
“You didn’t.”
She burst out laughing, and I could practically see her shaking her head at me. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly my proudest moment.
“You did. Damn. You’re kinkier than I thought you were. I didn’t give you enough credit. Here I was, worried about you. You had it in you the whole time.”
“Had what in me?”
“The ability to be a dirty slut: that’s what. What did he think?”
“He knew,” I hissed, flushing.
“Of course he knew. You masturbate louder than anyone else I’ve ever met in my life.”
“What?” I shrieked, reddening more. “How do you know that?”
“Dude, literal
ly every time I’m at your house, you get off at some point. You’re like sex in high heels.”
“No I’m not!”
“You are,” she said. “And he knows it. Are you going to fuck him?”
“What? No!”
“You should. He’s hot. He’s available. You’re hot. You’re available.”
“I just don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I whispered.
“It’s a horrible idea,” she agreed. “But you should still do it. Live a little. Have some fun. Raiden has the body of a god. You’d be doing the world a huge injustice by not sleeping with him.” I had to admit that it sounded reasonable, and it sounded a whole lot better than not having sex. “I have to go,” she said suddenly. “I have to check out.”
The call ended, and I just stared at the phone. Was she right? She was definitely right. I knew that she was right, but it was such a hard situation, and an even harder decision. Was I going to go for it? Was I going to be crazy, wild, and bold? Maybe I should be. Maybe I should be the type of person who decided to go nuts and just have some fun.
Was that what I should do?
Raiden had said he was coming over, so I didn’t really have any time to waste. I put my phone on the charger, changed into a tiny sundress, brushed my hair, and put on some lip gloss. Then I went to the living room and sat on the couch, staring at the front door, willing time to pass faster than it was.
It seemed like an hour and no time at all, but the knock came. I just stared at the door. My heart was racing, but I had to make a choice. The time for hesitation had passed.
It was now or never.
I chose now.
I got up and went to the door. I pulled it open without even asking who it was or what they wanted. It was him, though, and he looked down at me with fire in his eyes.
“Did you check to see who was at the door?” He asked.
A test.
It was one I’d failed, but we both knew that. He was a Dom, I remembered, and that meant taking care of a submissive’s needs. One thing that Doms loved to do was make sure their submissives were doing things like taking care of themselves. A good Dom wanted to know that their submissive was drinking water, or eating enough food, or doing things like checking to see who was at the door.
