Sylvie raised her glass. “To new experiences,” she said, a small smile playing over her lips. Owen lifted his glass in kind, leaning forward as they lightly clinked glasses. The brandy was delicious, smooth and mellow, and he savored its warmth as it slid down his throat.
Sylvie.
Owen suddenly realized he had been thinking of her as Sylvie, the Mistress falling away, ever since their thighs had touched in the car, and he’d felt the sexual tension between them, not only his, but hers as well. Now he couldn’t stop his mind from leaping to a place he knew he was a fool to go. He gave himself a mental shake, even while his heart surged with ridiculous hope.
“You were trembling when you watched Master H. and slave Mark.” Sylvie said. “The sight of slave Mark’s blood was difficult for you, but also exciting. Tell me what was going through your mind as you watched them. Tell me what was going through your heart.”
My heart. Do you really want to know?
Owen took another sip of the fine brandy, swirling it on his tongue. Despite the quiet, desperate longing that had sprung up inside him, he knew too that she was right. He needed to talk this through, to figure out where his head was at about the intense scene he’d witnessed.
“I was scared,” he admitted.
“Of?”
“That he would hurt slave Mark. Go too far.”
“What else were you scared of?”
“What do you mean?”
“For yourself. What frightened you about your own reaction? I could feel you trembling, Owen. And yet you were aroused—deeply aroused by what you witnessed.”
“Yes,” Owen said softly. He drank the rest of his brandy. Sylvie reached for the bottle, giving him a questioning look. He nodded, holding out the snifter, into which she poured several fingers.
As she settled back, Owen lifted the glass in her direction and gave a small laugh. “Courage in a bottle,” he said, before taking a healthy swig. The brandy was doing its work, easing some of the coiled tension he’d been carrying since the moment Master H. had pulled the sharp knife from its leather sheath.
Sylvie was watching him, her expression kind and earnest, as if she genuinely wanted to understand what he had experienced. This, he realized, was part of what made her so good as a Domme. She really paid attention, and beyond that, she actually cared.
He decided to be completely honest, for a change. He’d tell her the raw, unvarnished truth. He took another fortifying drink of the strong liqueur and blew out a breath. Focusing on a watercolor of a small stone house surrounded by a riot of colorful flowers, Owen felt as if he were balancing on the edge of a cliff, with Sylvie standing below, her arms spread wide to catch him.
Taking a breath, he dove.
“I know this must sound really weird, maybe even sick, but the sight of his blood got me hard, even though it also freaked me out. I couldn’t tear my eyes away when Master H. used that blade, drawing it over slave Mark’s skin, leaving those bloody trails in its wake…”
He paused, glancing at Sylvie. She was leaning forward, her eyes fixed on his face, her lips lightly parted. Oh god, he wanted to kiss her. It took every ounce of control not to reach for her, to pull her into him, to cover her mouth with his.
“Go on,” she urged softly.
Owen forced himself to continue. “The fantasies I have surrounding the blood play. I’ve never told a soul…” He trailed off, feeling his face heat. He drank the last of the brandy but kept the glass cradled in his hands as he stared down into it.
Sylvie reached for him, lightly stroking his thigh with her fingers. Just her touch sent a jolt of electricity directly to Owen’s cock. “Are you ashamed of your desires?” she asked gently. “Do you understand that fantasy can become reality, but only if you wish it so? You are the one who gives yourself permission to experience it. It is perfectly okay to have erotic fantasies others might label sick or perverted. What they think is their problem, most certainly not yours.”
When Owen didn’t reply, she continued, “You choose how you live, Owen. You choose how you express your sexuality. It’s nobody’s business but your own.”
Owen nodded gratefully, biting back the words he wanted to say. “Thank you,” he whispered instead. He closed his eyes as she continued, letting her smooth, sexy voice flow over him.
“I have brought many fantasies to life for my clients over the years. I had one client whose secret dream was to be roasted on a spit over an open fire. Another wanted pins stuck into every inch of his flesh, even the head of his penis.” Owen winced at the thought.
“There’s nothing wrong with these fantasies, don’t you see?” Sylvie said, her voice earnest. “They tap into something dark and secret, yes, but not evil. Not dirty. Not wrong. My goal as a Domme is to nurture these fantasies and bring them to life. To teach you to accept and embrace that part of you and help you realize its power and beauty.”
Owen opened his eyes, regarding Sylvie in silence. She looked so beautiful right now, and somehow vulnerable, her feet tucked beneath her like a little girl, her eyes wide and serious as she held forth. Her words were like a healing balm over the burn of his hidden shame. She was absolving him of the sin of his desires. She understood. For the first time in his life, Owen no longer felt alone.
“Many people have erotic associations with the spilling of their blood,” Sylvie continued. “As you saw tonight, it can be done safely between two people who trust each other and know their limits. Master H. gave slave Mark what he needed. What we watched at the club wasn’t only a demonstration of slave Mark’s submission and grace, it was an act of love between them. I think it was the intimacy we felt, more than anything else, that was so moving.”
“Yes!” Owen cried, as the tight rein he’d been trying to keep on his emotions suddenly slid from his grasp. “The intimacy. That thing I can never have with you.” Oh god, he’d said it. He’d actually said it out loud. What was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking at all. He was still affected by the adrenaline that had pooled in his system when he’d watched the intensely intimate display between Master H. and his slave boy. He was reacting to Sylvie’s sweet, earnest gaze, the promise of her words, and the curve of her soft cheek. And yet he could never have her, never touch her. She was off-limits, kept forever out of his reach by virtue of their “professional” relationship.
Owen knew he should shut up but he kept talking, as if his words had a mind of their own. If nothing else, he would give voice to what was inside—he had to. “Intimacy,” he repeated. “That thing that by its very nature isn’t allowed.” He was unable to keep the urgency from his voice. “You can concoct all the elaborate, staged fantasies in the world within the four walls of your professional dungeon, but at the end of the session, I put on my clothes, thank you and hit the road.”
He leaned toward her, too revved up to hold back another second. “I need more, don’t you see? I need a woman who is there 24/7, not just for sixty minute intervals once or twice a week. Damn it, I’m thirty-nine,” he blurted. “I’ve spent my whole life denying these feelings, telling myself they were just sexual fantasies, not something I needed in order to be fulfilled. I grew up thinking I had to be a man, and men didn’t have submissive feelings. Men were the bosses—they ran things, they accomplished things, they controlled things. Real men didn’t kowtow to some woman. Real men didn’t cry and the only permissible emotion was anger.”
He hit his knee with his fist, remembering the many times his father had taunted him for being a “baby” when he was younger, and later, a “pussy”, the ultimate insult in his father’s book. “I bought into the stereotype, or at least I pretended to. I got married to a woman I never really let know me, because it seemed like the thing I was supposed to do. I doggedly stuck it out for nearly a decade, even though I knew we couldn’t meet each other’s needs. I would probably still be with her if she hadn’t had the brains to call it quits for us both.” Owen ran his fingers through his hair and brought them down over his face, ru
bbing it. He almost never talked about his failed marriage, keeping it tucked away like an old wound he didn’t want the world to see.
“Go on,” Sylvie said gently, surprising him. He’d half expected her to show him the door the minute he moved from a clinical dissection of his erotic reactions to the blood play scene to the much more personal topic of his longing for love.
She was watching him with an enigmatic expression and Owen suddenly had the strange feeling she was hanging on his words, weighing them in some way he didn’t yet comprehend. Well, he’d come this far. He wouldn’t back away now. He would lay it all out there, and let the chips fall where they may.
“In these weeks since I’ve been coming to your dungeon, I’ve learned something about myself. This isn’t just a kink for me. It isn’t an itch you can scratch during our sessions and then send me on my way. I want a woman who understands my need to submit, my lust for erotic pain, but also my longing for a real connection. A relationship, a chance to explore not only the sadomasochism that binds people like us together, but the passion. That thing that connects two people in way nothing else can. The thing that is left when all else is lost.”
He stood, his hands clenching at his sides, unable to stop the words that he knew once said, he could never take back. “You, Sylvie. I need you.”
Sylvie was staring at him, her eyes over-bright. Something cracked in Owen’s heart as a single tear spilled down Sylvie’s soft cheek. Impulsively he reached for her. He had never been able to bear the sight of a woman crying.
“God, I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot. I had no right—”
Sylvie jumped up, pushing his hands away. “No, no. It isn’t you.” She wrapped her arms protectively around her torso. “I understand what you are saying. The thing that is left is love, Owen. It’s love you are seeking, and I can’t give that to you. Not to anyone. I can’t take that risk again—”
She put her fist to her mouth, stifling a sound Owen thought might be a sob as she turned abruptly away.
His heart aching, Owen moved behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. How he wished he could stuff the words back into his mouth, swallow them and keep them hidden. What a jerk he’d been to even think he’d had a chance with this remarkable woman. “Look, I’m really sorry,” he tried now. “I said too much. I crossed the line. I’m—I’m just tired, I think. Too much excitement, too much brandy, that’s all it is. Please, just forget what I said. Forget everything.”
Sylvie didn’t answer. Her shoulders began to shake, soundless sobs racking her body. He stood helplessly behind her, not sure what to do. Finally he dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back, feeling defeated.
“I should go,” he said, at a loss.
Just then a strain of music began to play from somewhere in the room. Owen recognized the tune—Blue Moon. He realized it was coming from Sylvie’s purse. “Is that your phone, Sylvie? Shall I get it for you?”
Sylvie turned at last, mascara streaking down her cheeks, the tip of her nose pink from crying. “Oui, yes. It’s Chloé. She always knows, my Chloé.” Owen hurried toward the chair, grabbing Sylvie’s purse and bringing it to her.
Swiping at her eyes, Sylvie fumbled for her phone and pressed the screen. She launched into an incomprehensible stream of rapid French, half laughing, half crying as she spoke. Owen found a box of tissues and brought it to Sylvie, who smiled gratefully at him as she took one. Owen waited, hands shoved into his pockets, not sure what to do as Sylvie alternately spoke and then listened. Owen thought he heard his name mentioned a few times, but couldn’t be absolutely sure.
When Sylvie finally hung up, she wiped her eyes with the tissue and offered Owen a wan smile. “I’m sorry. I’m such a mess. Please forgive me.”
“Is everything okay? Your family in France?”
“What? Oh, yes, yes. Everything is fine. Chloé is my dearest friend. She—she has a gift. She always knows when something is wrong in my life.” Sylvie paused, adding, “or right.” She laughed through her tears, her smile so radiant that Owen found himself smiling back.
“Things haven’t gone right for me for so long, that when it finally happens, I don’t seem to know it. That is what she is telling me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” Owen was genuinely confused, though he was relieved that at least she had stopped crying.
“It’s really quite simple,” Sylvie said, coming closer to Owen.
Owen waited, not sure what was expected of him. Sylvie moved closer still. He didn’t step back, but held his ground, waiting, his heart beating as if it had little wings attached and was trying to burst free.
Sylvie reached for Owen’s face with both hands and pulled his head down to hers. “She has told me what I must do, and I think she is right,” she whispered.
And then she kissed him.
Chapter 10
Sylvie gave a small gasp when Owen caught her in an embrace and lifted her into his arms. The kiss, which had started gently, even tentatively, had quickly escalated, powered by a fire Sylvie had kept tamped down for far too long.
His mouth still on hers, Owen carried Sylvie to the bedroom and lowered her to the bed, falling on top of her with a masculine heaviness that at once comforted and thrilled her. Her erect nipples pressed against his chest through the fabric of their clothing.
Needing to feel skin on skin, she reached for his shirt, yanking the tails from his jeans and fumbling at the buttons. Rolling from her, Owen pulled off his shirt, tossing it away without looking, his eyes on Sylvie. He hooked his fingers under the narrow shoulder straps of her dress, dragging them down her arms. He reached for her breast, pulling it free of the bra, covering her nipple with his lips, his hot tongue swirling against her flesh.
She tugged at his zipper and he helped her, shrugging out of his pants and underwear, even while he continued to suckle at her breast. Sylvie moaned, needing more.
Placing her palms against his bare chest, she pushed Owen flat onto his back and straddled his thighs. Her dress was hiked to her hips and she reached for the hem, pulling the dress over her head and tossing it to the ground. She reached back to unclasp her bra, adding it to the heap of clothing beside the bed.
The crotch of her panties was soaked with her juices. Owen’s cock was rigid, a thick vein pulsing against the taut skin. She needed to feel him inside her. She hadn't wanted a man like this since—thrusting aside the thought, she rolled from Owen and leaned toward the night table, pulling open the lower drawer where she kept her sex toys and birth control. Feeling with her fingers, she extracted a condom packet and turned to face Owen.
He was watching her through narrowed eyes, his chest rising and falling with each ragged breath, his cock twitching against his flat belly. “I want you,” she said, as she pulled her panties down her legs and kicked them aside.
Owen’s eyes swept hungrily over her naked body and he licked his lips before answering in a hoarse voice, “I want you, too. More than anything.” He held out his hand for the condom, but Sylvie shook her head.
“I’ll do it.” Sylvie once again straddled Owen’s muscular thighs. Tearing the plastic wrapper, she rolled the condom over his rigid shaft. “Grip the bars over your head,” she ordered, pointing toward the iron bars that made up the headboard of her antique bed frame. Owen lifted his arms and reached back, gripping the bars, his elbows pointing outward on either side of his head.
“No matter what I do to you, you are not to let go. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he whispered. His pupils were dilated in the dim light cast from the lamp by the bed and his lips were parted and wet from their kisses. Unable to wait another second, Sylvie scooted forward, gripping his sheathed shaft and lowering herself slowly onto it.
The condom was pre-lubricated, but even if it hadn't been, it wouldn’t have mattered—Sylvie was sopping wet, her cunt swollen and throbbing with the need to feel him inside her. He groaned as she took his full girth, her muscles spasming a
gainst the hard cock buried inside her.
She reached for Owen’s nipples, twisting the little nubbins, Owen’s gasp of pain matching her moan of desire. She moved her hands over his chest, smoothing away the pain with her palms. Owen’s skin was hot beneath her fingers, his heart thumping against his sternum.
Sylvie stroked his cock with her vaginal muscles as she slid her hands upward toward his neck. She gripped his throat just beneath the jaw line, forcing his head up and back. Her hold wasn’t designed to choke, but rather to stake her claim. Owen’s eyes burned into hers as she pressed against his throat. Still he gripped the iron bars over his head as she rode him.
Owen’s eyes were closed, his breath rasping in his throat. Sylvie could feel the tremble in his limbs, and the skin on his throat and cheeks was flushed. “Sylvie,” he gasped. “Mistress Sylvie, I’m going to come!”
Sylvie released his throat and slapped him hard across his left cheek, making her own palm sting. Owen’s eyes flew open and he drew in a sharp breath. “You will not come until I tell you to come,” Sylvie said in a firm voice, daring him with her eyes to defy her. “Do you understand?”
Owen nodded. “Yes, Mistress,” he whispered throatily. His fingers were still tight around the bars.
Sylvie stroked the cheek she’d struck a moment before. “Good boy,” she murmured.
She began to move again, undulating as she lifted and lowered herself against his cock. She leaned forward, grinding her clit against his pubic bone as she moved, forcing him deep inside her as she whipped his chest with her flying hair.
She wanted to make it last, to keep him balanced on the edge of his own orgasm for as long as possible, pulling him back with the crack of her palm or a savage twist of his nipples, but she needed it too much. It had been too long. There would be time later for the slow, exquisite pleasure of sexual torture as she took full control.
The Story of Owen: One Man's Submissive Journey Page 10
