She lifted her gaze, jerked it really. Her face was flushed a faint pink color.
“I know there’s more to this story than you’re willing to share. I also know this has more to do with the restraints than the flogging. And that’s okay. If you aren’t ready to talk about it, I can wait., but I want you to be honest with me. If something isn’t working in the future, let me know. If I had realized you were so distraught, I never would have proceeded.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
He cringed and shook his head. “We aren’t role-playing right now. You don’t have to call me Sir. We’re just two people eating together and talking.”
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth in response.
Gage leaned forward and set his elbows on the table. It brought him closer to her. He wanted to read her face. If nothing else, her expressions gave away at least part of what she was feeling. “How long has it been since you were flogged?”
“Um, a few years.”
“Okay. See? Easy. We’re making progress. How long since you were restrained?”
“The same.”
“Okay. So, same person?”
“Yes,” she whispered, flinching and drawing back from him.
Fuck. Some bastard scared her. He paused. “You were with another Dom at the time?”
“Yes.” Her voice was weaker, and she stood abruptly and carried several things to the kitchen counter.
He took that to mean she was done with tonight’s sharing session. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Was she raped?
“I think Thor wants to go outside,” Kayla muttered.
Gage turned to see his dog standing at the back door. Before he could get up, Kayla opened the slider and let him out. “He might take a dump in your yard. Do you have a grocery bag or something I can use to clean it up?” Gage asked as he stood.
“No worries. I’ll get it later.” She turned to him and pulled her shoulders back, standing at her tallest. “I’m sorry about Friday. It won’t happen again.”
“Kayla…” He approached her and stepped right into her personal space, making her back up, but the counter was behind her, and she ran out of space fast. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Your reactions to different stimuli are just that—reactions. You deserve validation for whatever you’re feeling at any given time. I’ve told you that. I’m not remotely angry with you. If anything, I’m rather pissed with myself for not recognizing I had pushed you too far. Forgive me?”
She swallowed, and her eyes went big. “Of course.”
Jesus, had no one ever apologized to her before? He thought hard about his next words. This woman was damaged. Someone had abused her mentally or physically or both. No wonder she was skittish and quiet. She was petrified. How had this never occurred to him?
Gage reached for her face with both hands and held her cheeks, gently lifting her chin until she met his gaze. “I want to help you. It’s obvious you’re looking for a Dom and trying to reenter the D/s world. I assume you recognize yourself as being submissive. I also know this is hard for you. You must trust me on some level, or you wouldn’t have asked me to flog you.”
She nodded subtly, even though he still held her face in his palms. He didn’t think she was breathing.
“How about if I agree to work with you, and you agree to let me in a little at a time?”
“Let you in?”
“Give me more information about your past.”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open.
“Kayla…” He set his forehead against hers. “I’m not asking you to bare your soul right this second. I’m only asking you to throw me a bone every once in a while. Can you do that? You choose when. You choose what. I won’t pressure you.”
She hesitated and then nodded again. “Yes, Sir.”
He smiled. “Sir again, huh?”
Kayla lowered her gaze.
“You’re very tense.” He lowered his hands from her face to her shoulders and squeezed, mostly because it was obvious she wasn’t comfortable holding his gaze any longer.
Gage pulled her into his chest and held her tight. He’d give anything to fast-forward in time to a date in the future when he would have more details about this gorgeous, damaged woman. And he would. There was no doubt he would get her to open up. But how long would it take?
Chapter Four
Kayla stared at Gage’s chest. Damn him for saying and doing all the right things. It made it so much harder for her to separate her feelings for him from her needs. Why did the very man whom she’d chosen to trust with her submission also have to be someone she found unbelievably attractive? And why the hell had she agreed to submit to him?
She’d known him from work first, and later was shocked to see him at Extreme. The first time she ran into him there, she did so literally, coming around a corner and crashing into his solid body. He reached out with both hands to steady her on her feet. When she lifted her gaze to meet his, both of them gasped.
But then Gage smiled, and her heart melted the slightest bit after years of frigidity. His mouth had turned up on one corner that night. “Kayla,” he muttered.
She’d instantly warmed, her entire body responding to the man who held her biceps in his huge palms and squeezed. The sexy K-9 director from the police academy was into BDSM?
He was perceptive enough that night to recognize when she panicked. She flinched, knowing her face had gone totally pink with embarrassment. And she stared daggers at him, daring him to say a word about her choices.
Gage’s smile had fallen, and his brow furrowed. “Kayla, don’t look so petrified. Code of conduct here, hon. We don’t discuss what happens at Extreme outside of Extreme. Your secret’s safe.” He winked then. And she nearly died.
But that was separate. Unrelated to the fact he was the only man inside Extreme she trusted enough to scene with. Well, Rider, perhaps, but he had a girlfriend and was so newly into her, he barely glanced around.
The only strike against Gage was he’d been in the army. Simon was in the military. Where she totally trusted cops, she had a legitimate fear of what the military did to a man. In her experience, it altered them somehow, or else Simon had simply been a jackass to begin with and she was too smitten to notice. The idea made her cringe every time she thought about it. So she chose not to think about it.
Gage cleared his throat and brought her back to the present. “Do you have a fear of public scenes?”
She tipped her head back to look up. “What?”
He shrugged. “I thought maybe you were thinking about people watching you Friday night. If that’s the case, we could do a scene here, where no one can watch. It might help you get over the hump.”
She thought about his words. She didn’t have an aversion to public scenes at all. He wasn’t hitting the mark. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have a good idea. Perhaps doing something private would ease her back into the fetish world and keep everyone in the club from knowing she was freaked out. “We could,” she muttered.
Gage smiled. “Whatever you need, I’m all yours.” He turned his body so her back hit the counter and he had her trapped against the edge.
And then Thor gave a single bark, startling her. She twisted to see him sitting politely outside the sliding door.
Gage released her and stepped away to let the guy back inside. “Hey, buddy. Find someplace to sit while I take care of this pretty lady.” He scratched Thor on the head and turned back to Kayla.
“I can’t believe how perfectly trained he is.” She glanced at Thor. “I mean, I get it. He was military trained and now works with other police dogs, but it’s still amazing.”
“Yeah. He’s the best.” Gage stepped back into Kayla’s space and planted his hands on the counter on both sides of her body. “Now, where were we?”
She grinned. “You were about to do a scene with me to prove you are the master of all Doms and can conquer my biggest fears.” Holy shit. She couldn’t believe she said that.
<
br /> “By all means then.” He stepped back and took her hand, dragging her to the living room area. “How about you lose the sassy and assume a submissive role?”
“Yes, Sir.” She giggled, but then straightened her face and took the position more seriously.
Gage led her by the hand to the couch and sat, pointing at the floor. “Kneel here.”
Kayla easily assumed the position she was beyond familiar with, though it had been a long time since anyone commanded her in her own home, or anyplace other than the club. She shook, but clasped her hands behind her back to steady herself.
He stroked a hand through her hair, weaving his fingers between sections of curls. “You’ve had a lot of practice at this. It comes second nature to you. Almost eerily so.”
She didn’t comment. He was more right than he knew.
“And yet, it’s been a while.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I suspect two years. That’s when you moved back to Vegas, right? Same time I arrived.”
He knew more about her than she suspected. And she wondered what rumors he’d heard around the precinct. She’d been gone four years when she returned. A few people at the station knew her and remembered her from her childhood, but everyone was respectfully discreet about her return. She didn’t know if they were told by the captain to keep their mouths shut and their questions to themselves, or if they took one look at her and felt the need to zip their lips. Either way, she was grateful. The only person who knew anything about her absence was Chief Edwards. And she trusted him with her life. He would never tell her secrets to a soul.
“But you’re from Vegas, originally.”
“Yes.”
“I think I’ve heard that your dad was a cop?”
“Yes. He died on duty right after I finished high school. Shot by a kid who was high and selling drugs on a street corner.” She dipped her head lower after divulging that to him. Why was she so quick with answers all of the sudden? She never talked about her family.
“God, Kayla. I’m so sorry. That must have been hard.”
“Impossible.”
“So you left town.”
She didn’t move. Question and answer time was over.
“Mmm,” Gage added. “Okay, I’ll stop grilling you for now.” He leaned forward, still twirling a lock of her hair with his fingers. “I sense the anxiety you’re experiencing, and I assume you feel it most of the time. That’s why you need the release.”
“I guess.” She shrugged. He was spot on, but she didn’t want to admit it so easily out loud.
“How about we go back a step and you let me spank you? You’ll get the release you need doing a scene we’ve already done before in a safe environment where you don’t have to worry about stopping me if you need to.”
She thought about that. It was a good idea. And it had been so long since she’d gotten that kind of release—the last time Gage had done it to her in fact. A few weeks ago. “That would be great. Sir.”
“I’ll take it slow and easy. We’ll do what makes you comfortable this time. Nothing more.”
“Okay.”
“Kayla, can you take your clothes off for me?”
She lifted her gaze. “How about my shirt and pants?”
He nodded. “That’ll work. I don’t like to spank or flog anyone through their clothes. I told you that the other night.”
“Yes, Sir.” She stood and unbuttoned her shirt, wondering what he was thinking, praying he didn’t have sexual intent. She could barely handle the idea of being spanked right now. Sex was totally out of her comfort zone. And she was very much aware that although it might seem prudent to work through her anxieties about submission in the privacy of her home, at the same time it opened the door for things to escalate.
Gage gave away nothing while he watched her remove her shirt, kick off her shoes, and then wiggle out of her pants. She set everything on the coffee table and stood before him feeling surprisingly self-conscious.
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m nervous.” She watched his face.
He let his gaze roam up her body. He’d seen her similarly dressed before. Why should tonight be any different? “Nothing happens that you don’t specifically request, Kayla. I promise you that. You can trust me.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“I need you to spank me, Sir.” That was exactly what she craved. She knew the release would be the best thing for her current state of anxiety, a state she’d been in for two years if she admitted it fully to herself. Sure, she’d done a few scenes, but nothing that reached deep enough to really allow her into a deep sub space where the world disappeared and left her raw with emotions that would ooze away. She longed to feel that again. She believed Gage could do it for her.
She’d been there before. It had been years. But she’d been there. And she wanted it back.
Would he lay her across the coffee table, or the back of the couch, or his lap? She shivered at the idea of settling across his knees.
“Come here.” He reached out with one hand.
She stepped up to his knees.
He set his hands on her waist. “Your nerves are palpable.”
“I’m sorry.” She tried to stand still, calm her racing heart, slow her breathing. She lost.
“You don’t need to be sorry. Just an observation. And I’m wondering what’s making you so nervous. I’ve spanked you twice before. You’ve had a setback with the flogging.” He squeezed her waist, making her feel things she didn’t want to feel, a tightness in her stomach that had lain dormant for so long she thought it would never return.
The memory of what it felt like to be a sexual being was so distant she barely recognized it.
“I want to be sure you aren’t pushing yourself too far too soon.”
She nodded. “I’m good.”
“So, in the past, you’ve been able to enter a sub space that freed you from your stress?”
“Yes.” She didn’t always call him Sir, but he never commented on it. Perhaps it wasn’t important to him.
Simon had insisted.
Gage was decidedly not Simon.
She trembled as he tugged her around to his side. “I want you to lie across my lap, baby.” His voice had changed, deepened, softened.
Kayla held her breath as she did what he said. Two years she’d been without a Dom. Two years. Gage didn’t know it, but he was the best Dom she’d been with in that time. Two spankings at the club, unless she counted the failed flogging from the other night. All the other Doms she’d done a scene or two with before approaching Gage hadn’t held a candle to him.
Both of those spankings had been in a controlled environment on a bench. Both times she was wearing a dress and thong. Gage had pushed the dress above her butt to expose her cheeks, but that had been it.
When she lowered across his lap now, her heart pounded. Perhaps this wasn’t the best-laid plan. It was more intimate, making it difficult to deny the sexual feelings she always ignored with Gage. He helped ease her across his thighs so her chest hung heavy on one side and her pussy extended on the other.
The man’s thighs were hard with muscle. He didn’t have soft spots on his body. She couldn’t reach the ground with her hands, so she grabbed his shin, proving her point. Even his lower legs were rock solid.
He set one hand on her lower back and held her steady. With his other hand, he palmed her ass, squeezing and molding her flesh while her embarrassment rose at the exposure, assuming he was intently staring at her exposed skin. His hand smoothed down until he reached her thigh, which he continued to massage in the same way.
Kayla sucked in a breath. Try as she might to keep this experience strictly based on the release she would receive from the spanking, she couldn’t control the way her pussy clenched as he stroked her thighs. Her nipples puckered and pressed against her bra. And dammit, she was wet. It was a struggle to keep from squirming and drawing attention to her plight. Her l
egs were separated, but not far. She wanted to squeeze them together and squelch the pressure at her sex.
“You okay?” he asked, his palm spreading wider on her lower back.
“Yes.” The word was more of a breath, and she cringed inwardly thinking she sounded needy—and not in the way she’d intended this to go.
“Safe word?”
“Red.”
“Use it, Kayla. Don’t wait until you’re falling apart.”
“’K.”
Gage lifted his hand, and she sucked in another breath, waiting for the first strike, willing it. She prayed for him to get on with it, hoping his spanking would distract her from the fact she was struggling to disassociate the dormant sexual longing from the present physical need for release. Weren’t the two things mutually exclusive? She’d always thought so. They certainly were with Simon. The bastard took what he wanted from her both sexually and physically without a care in the world for the connection.
But now, as Kayla lay across the lap of a Dom who was nothing like her ex, the line between the pulsing need in her pussy and the desire to be spanked faded.
The first strike landed on one cheek, followed quickly by a second swat to the other cheek. Gage immediately squeezed the offended flesh, switching back and forth to soothe her skin.
Kayla bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes wide as she fought to keep from moaning.
Holy fuck. Her pussy grew wetter. She slammed her legs together as the moisture seeped into her thong. Oh my God. This can’t be happening.
This wasn’t at all what she intended. She’d managed to let Gage spank her at the club without this reaction. Hadn’t she? Or maybe she’d been lying to herself. But here, in her home, across his lap, practically naked and exposed, Kayla wanted more.
She squirmed against his hand, her mind refusing to acknowledge that what she really wanted was for him to reach between her legs.
“Kayla? Baby? You okay?”
“Yes, Sir.” Her voice was weak. She scrunched up her face when she heard her tone. She sounded like a woman in the throes of sex, not one enduring a simple spanking scene.
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