“Doing what?” Stefan asked slowly.
“I’m tied to the bed. My hands are tied,” Renee described. “We’re naked, and you’re covering me with your body. I can feel the hardness of you. I’m blindfolded, and you’re mouth is close to my ear. You’re whispering to me as you fill me.”
“What do I say?”
“You tell me over and over that I belong to you,” Renee’s voice was a soft croaking rasp. “You’re taking me. Making me your property.”
“And in your fantasy, what are you doing?”
“I’m giving myself to you,” Renee whispered. “I’m arching myself up to meet your thrusts. I’m panting. Groaning. It’s like I’m trying to pull you deeper and deeper inside me.”
Stefan leaned forward, not realizing that now he was sitting on the edge of the chair. His own arousal swelled hard inside his trousers. He stared at Renee, mesmerized, watching the shape of her soft lips as she spoke, and the distant hypnotic expression in her eyes.
“Are you still touching yourself?”
“Yes. Faster now.”
“Is your arousal growing?”
“Yes. I’m so wet,” she confessed softly. “My fingers are slippery and warm. I can feel the soft folds of skin moving apart as I touch them… as I ease the tips of my first two fingers towards the opening.”
“Can you feel yourself edging closer?”
“I’m already on the edge,” Renee said. “I’m trying to make it last.”
Stefan rose slowly from the chair and stood facing Renee. Their eyes locked. She could feel the hot intensity of his gaze. Her bottom lip quivered. Her mouth fell open in a silent moan, and without her needing to tell him, Stefan knew instinctively that Renee had just slid her fingers inside herself. Her body began to shudder.
“Tell me quickly,” Stefan urged her. “Tell me what you feel right now.”
“Free,” she said. “Alive.”
“Is your fantasy still the same?”
“No!” she gasped “Not now. Now you’re behind me again, like you were tonight. I’m on my hands and knees, and you are behind me. You’re filling me… thrusting harder and harder. I’m shaking; the pleasure is like nothing…. nothing I ever imagined. You’re calling my name and… and I’m crying out as we… both… reach….!”
Suddenly Renee’s eyes seemed to roll back and her whole body spasmed, as if rocked by an earthquake. Her legs buckled, losing all strength. Her hips twisted and she began to fall.
Stefan reached out and caught her in his arms; held her in his powerful safe embrace. Renee went limp, spent and exhausted. Stefan held her for a long time, watching her face, feeling her body ripple with the aftershocks of her orgasm. And then gently he brushed a tendril of hair from her brow.
“That was beautiful,” he said slowly. “You are beautiful.”
And then he kissed her.
At first Renee thought it was a gorgeous dream; the delicious afterglow of her intense orgasm. And then she opened her eyes; felt Stefan’s lips covering hers, and she opened her mouth to welcome him instinctively, reveling in the thrill of his hunger.
His hold on her was both deliberate and possessive and she felt herself melting within the circle of his muscled arms. She felt his fingers entwining in her hair, holding her as his lips plundered and dominated hers. She felt the thrusting plunge of his tongue as it explored the contours of her mouth.
He kissed her with a savagery that she had never known before. Never.
It was as though he was feasting insatiably on the taste of her. His lips crushed hers and she responded without inhibition; bowed to his demand but equally willing. Then the intensity of the kiss began to transform, becoming more sensual and erotic, and she was able to meet and match his smoldering passion.
Renee was trembling uncontrollably. There was a sudden wildness in the air and a fizzing in her blood. She felt it as renewed fiery heat; a blazing urgent female need that burned out of control like a wildfire.
When it was too late – when she was already beginning to teeter over the edge – Stefan suddenly broke the kiss and held her face in his hands. His eyes burned into hers. Renee bit hard down on her kiss-swollen lip to stop herself from crying out as the ecstasy of her second climax turned her face into a rapturous mask.
And then she was falling again… drifting downward into a breathless dream-like state that felt heavenly.
When Renee’s eyes fluttered open again, Stefan was still holding her; still staring intently at her.
She gazed up into his eyes, breathless and weak. She tried to grasp what had happened; tried to put into words what they had shared.
“You… you owned me,” she said softly in awed wonderment. “I felt it…”
Stefan blinked in shock, and then pulled back from the embrace as if scalded by what he had done. He put a pace between them.
“I think you should go,” he said, his expression was stricken and the words were strangely painful to say, thick and clogging in the back of his throat. “Now.”
Day Five.
“Submissives must learn that sometimes a master needs to be cruel in order to be kind.”
“Put your clothes back on,” Stefan said. “There will be no training in the punishment room tonight. We need to talk instead.”
Renee re-dressed quickly, filled with a dreadful sense of foreboding. “Have I done something wrong?”
“No.”
“Have I displeased you?”
“No.”
Renee frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said meekly.
“You will. Take a seat.”
Stefan gestured to the living room sofa. Renee sat cautiously. “Wouldn’t you prefer me to kneel…?”
“No. Not tonight. Not now.”
She stared up at him with enormous worried eyes.
Stefan went to the bar and poured himself a drink. Then he paused for a long moment to thumb through the contents inside a slim manila folder he was holding in his free hand. He took a deep breath. Sighed. Turned to face Renee.
“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.
“Twenty six.”
“And how many lovers have you had?”
“Three.”
“Including the ex-boyfriend?”
“Yes, including James,” she admitted.
Stefan frowned. “Renee, when I look at you, do you know what I see?”
She grimaced. “A silly girl who is terrible in bed and who has her head filled with romantic notions about being a submissive? Someone so plain, and unspectacular that you would walk past me in the street and never give me a second glance… if I wasn’t paying you to train me.”
Stefan shook his head. “Nothing like that,” he said sincerely. “When I look at you I see a slim, attractive young woman who has no confidence in herself, or how she looks. I see someone who has enormous potential as a woman, and as a submissive. But I also see someone who doesn’t yet realize how big and bad… and how deceitful the world can be. I see someone who has had her self-esteem shredded, and who doesn’t yet know how to go about rebuilding her own sense of value.”
Renee looked at him searchingly. “You really think I am attractive?”
“Very. In every way.”
She smiled and it was the most beautiful smile Stefan has ever seen, her face reflecting every thing he had just observed. She was sweet, and naïve and vulnerable.
“Now look at me carefully,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”
Renee was so caught off guard by the question, she stammered for a moment. “I see a man,” she said. “Not a boy. And certainly not a pretty-boy. A real man.”
“Do you mean I am ugly?”
“Absolutely not!” Renee said impulsively. “I think you’re very handsome, in a very manly way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not manicured. It means you don’t fill your hair with product. It means you’re not the kind of pretty-boy who spends his days staring at his reflectio
n in the mirror… and I imagine you didn’t get your broad shoulders and those arms from pumping iron and admiring yourself at a gym.”
Stefan smiled wryly. “Fine. Now tell me who you see.”
“I… I don’t understand…”
Stefan took a sip of his drink. “You’ve told me how I look,” he explained. “That’s all on the surface, and as such, it’s unimportant to me. What I really want to know now is what kind of a man do you think I am.”
Renee didn’t understand why Stefan was asking her these questions, but she knew instinctively that her answers were important to him. For some reason they mattered – a great deal.
“Before I answer,” she said guardedly, “are you asking me as a man to a woman, or as a master to the slave he is training?”
“As a man to a woman.”
She took a deep breath. “I think you are a kind, honest man. A good man,” she began. “The four days I’ve known you have been the most intense of my life. In that time you’ve been very honest and patient with me. You could have taken advantage of me – God knows there have been plenty of times I wished you had – but you’ve always remained professional and honorable.”
“Until last night. Until I kissed you.”
“I didn’t complain,” she reminded him lightly, and then added more seriously. “I understand that you might feel you violated some kind of personal code, but I loved the way you kissed me. I’ll remember it until the day I die.”
Stefan grunted.
He took another, longer sip of his drink.
“So you think I am honorable?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“And you feel you can trust me?”
“I have already.”
“And is there any doubt – even the smallest, slightest doubt – that I have always been honest and open with you?”
“No.”
“Thank you. Now you need to look at these,” he said ominously.
Stefan handed Renee the manila folder. She opened it. Inside were six large black and white photographs and a single page typed report. Renee studied each photo in turn, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks. Her hand began to shake. A sudden cold sweat broke out across her brow and she felt she might be physically sick. One of the photographs slipped from her numb fingers and fell to the floor. When she had seen them all she looked up at Stefan and her eyes were filled with tears, her face wracked with anguish.
“You bastard!” she whispered hoarsely.
Stefan picked up the photo off the floor and thrust it back into Renee’s lap. “Look closely,” he said. He stabbed a finger at the figures in the grainy long-lens image. “That’s your boyfriend, James Matterson and that’s his wife standing next to him. The little girl holding his hand is his daughter.”
Renee screwed her eyes shut. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Stefan took the folder from her and held up the typed report.
“James Matterson is not in the mining industry,” he said coldly, reading through information he already knew. “He doesn’t work away for weeks at a time. He sells men’s clothing and works in a small shop in the main street of Bishop’s Bridge.”
“Why…?”
“His wife’s name is Connie,” Stefan ignored Renee’s question and went on relentlessly. “They have been married for six years. Their daughter’s name is Matilda. She has a speech impediment, and has just started school.”
“Why?”
Stefan flung the report down. On the bar was an envelope. He reached for it. “In here I have photographs of the three other women Matterson has been sleeping with, Renee. Do you want to see the pictures of the other women he has been lying to?”
“Why?” Renee screamed. “Why did you do this?”
“Because you need protection from yourself. Because you’re young and naïve!”
“You had no right!”
“But you had every right to know!” Stefan shouted back at her. “This bastard wasn’t going to take you back, Renee. He wanted to be rid of you. That’s why he said all those cruel things about you. That’s why he said you were a hopeless lover. He wasn’t coming back. He was leaving you. For good!”
“How can you know that?”
“Because he told me!”
Renee recoiled in shock. “You… you spoke to him?”
“Yes, dammit. He’s leaving town, Renee. He’s taking his wife and his daughter and he’s moving south. A long way south just a soon as he is discharged from hospital.”
Her mouth fell open. “He’s in hospital? How do you know that?”
“Because I put him there!”
Renee flinched. She sagged slowly back on the sofa and made a futile effort to dry the tears from her cheeks.
“You did? How? Why?” she sobbed.
“I hit him four times. Broke three of his ribs. He’ll be discharged in a few days, and then he will be moving south. Forever.”
Slowly, like a felled tree, Renee slumped down across the sofa, tucking her knees and curling herself into a ball.
And then she began to cry.
Stefan reeled away, hating himself. He seized the photographs and the typed report and tore them into shreds. He hurled them behind the bar and snatched at a bottle to refill his glass. Renee’s painful sobs stabbed at him like a knife to his heart.
Stefan drank the contents of the glass in a single gulp. Then he filled the glass and drank again, and prayed the burn of the alcohol would numb the churning sense of guilt and loathing that lay heavy in his gut.
Finally he couldn’t stay away from her any longer. He went to the sofa and peeled his jacket off. Tenderly he covered Renee and then slid down against the sofa beside her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Just tell me why? Please,” she pleaded tearfully.
Stefan didn’t look at her. He stared off into space. “Because I wanted to protect you,” he said heavily. “Because you were putting yourself through this hell to learn to be a submissive, and all for a man who is unworthy of you.”
Stefan raked his fingers though his hair and sighed guiltily.
“And because when I kissed you last night I felt exactly what you felt. I’m starting to care for you, Renee, and I wanted to drive you away and make you hate me before it was too late.”
* * *
Stefan sat in the dark for a long time after Renee left, trying to come to grips with his feelings.
This was a place he did not want to be; a place he hadn’t visited for a long time – a door he was scared to open.
A door he didn’t want to open – ever.
But the girl had forced herself in somehow, and he was damned if he knew how she had done it… and what he could do about it now.
He cared about her. He had said it, and he knew he meant it. But he didn’t know why.
He had trained many women in the art of submission over the years, and he had guarded his heart fiercely. None had come close to being anything more than subjects; objects. He trained them, he lectured them. He showed them how to act and how to please their masters… and then he sent them on their way. Hell, he couldn’t even remember half their names, let alone recall their faces.
And that’s what this girl should have been; just another body. Another face.
Renee.
In the dark he could remember vividly the kiss, but more importantly, the feeling he felt still lingered, like the scent of her perfume surrounding him, teasing and haunting his senses. There was something about her.
He did care about her. He cared for her.
But was he in love with her?
No. He wasn’t.
Not yet, anyhow.
He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for love again. He knew he wasn’t ready yet.
He shrugged. Maybe he would come to his senses and realize it was all an illusion. Maybe the next time he saw her he would look right through her like he had looked at all the other women. Maybe…
Okay, he admitted. I care about her… but I don’t love h
er.
Not yet.
He knew he was in jeopardy. It left him feeling unsure and unprepared. He was in danger of falling in love with this girl if he couldn’t work out why she made him feel the way he did and take steps to block her out; harden his heart.
Somehow she had found a chink in his armor. But where was the chink? How had he become vulnerable to these emotions that were so shockingly unfamiliar to him?
He wondered if it was because of her body. She was truly beautiful in an innocent unpretentious way. She didn’t realize just how beautiful she was. But there had been others of equal beauty, and he hadn’t cared about them.
Then he wondered if it was because she was so brave. Every woman that came to him was scared of him. That was natural. It was part of their obedience training. Even Renee was scared of him. But she didn’t fear him…
Then he thought back to another time and another place; another life. Was that the connection? Was there something similar about Renee that dragged these long-ignored feelings back to the surface?
He considered the question carefully, but he could find no comparisons. He was a different person now. Painfully, his world had moved on, and left him here, now, facing the thing he feared more than anything else.
The fear of falling in love… and Stefan didn’t know how to save himself except to cut himself off from her before it was too late.
* * *
Try as she might, Renee just couldn’t bring herself to cry over James Matterson.
She should. She had every right to be heartbroken. But Stefan’s words echoed in her mind:
‘I’m starting to care for you…’
She threw herself on her bed and rolled onto her back. She was tired, but she knew sleep would not come. She was too overwrought; too filled with adrenalin and confusion and uncertainty to sleep. She had to process this.
She remembered again the way he had kissed her. He had felt the wonder of the moment too.
She knew she loved him. She loved everything about him; from the way he treated her to the way he made her feel safe and secure. She loved his wisdom, his thoughtfulness. She loved the sense of stable security he radiated. But up until the moment he had kissed her, she was sure it was a one-sided love that would never amount to more than a beautiful fantasy. He was just too controlled; too in control.
Her Master's Kiss Page 4
