Role Play (Silhouette Studios)

by Katana Collins

  They were a committed couple. In love. Were they also members of LnS like Ash? That would explain a lot. That little detail; the way he stroked her backside after hitting her, the same way Ash had done to me while they fixed the lighting. That was a Dominant thing. It had to be. Or Jude was just a talented actor and had done his research.

  Maybe this wasn’t the same as what my dad did to my mom. To start with, it was consensual. My mother didn’t have a safeword to make the abuse stop. It stopped when Dad wanted it to. Or when he fell asleep. Whichever came first. This film was opening my eyes. Maybe…you could be in love and enjoy this lifestyle. You could be a normal healthy couple by day, and kinky as fuck at night, and still be healthy and happy. And maybe, just maybe, being with Ash wouldn’t be breaking that promise I had made to myself all those years ago.

  Beside me, Miguel dropped his boom and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “Great scene, huh?”

  I swallowed and nodded, my gaze drifting once more to Ash, across the room. His eyes were on me, his lips set in an angry, firm line. His eyes narrowed, darting to Miguel. Was he jealous?

  “Those college aged guys are going to eat this shit up.”

  I snorted and tugged my phone from my back pocket, turning it back on. I always set it to airplane mode in a shoot for obvious reasons. I had a text from my mother waiting for me.

  I read today that cheese is more addictive than cocaine. Be careful with what you eat at craft services. All that processed food can’t be good. Love you.

  I sighed. If only she knew how much cheese I ate. I had no doubt my mom loved me. She loved me so much that she held onto me for dear life. I was her life raft in an otherwise sinking ship. But when I disappointed her, she couldn’t stand to look at me. The disappointment was a loss all of itself for her. I rubbed at my eyes. Being controlled by my mom was the status quo for so long in my life… is that why I enjoyed BDSM? Was it a familiar behavior that I gravitated to because of nearly two decades of my mother’s controlling nature? Of my mom trying to get control back of her own life by lording over mine?

  I felt so confused. Because I liked what I had felt with Ash. I craved it. Wanted it. I was choosing it. But what if those choices actually weren’t really choices? What if I only liked this lifestyle because of my history with my mom and dad?

  It was all so fucking confusing. I didn’t know what to think. What thoughts were my own anymore? A headache thrummed at the front of my forehead and I pinched the bridge of my nose against the burning in my sinuses. I ducked my head away from Ash’s searing gaze, landing on where Jude and Marlena were holding hands.

  I could not become my mother. Like mother like daughter was not going to be the phrase people said at my funeral. “Let’s break for lunch, everyone,” Ash announced. “Be back here at one o’clock, please.”

  Lunch. The thought of eating had my stomach turning. From somewhere above us, I heard the air conditioner click on, but even with the direct flow of frigid air, my skin was flushed. Heat radiated off of me and dots flooded my vision. I needed to get away from the set. From Jude and Marlena. From Ash.

  Not waiting for any of the other crew members, I rushed out of the sound stage, down the hall past craft services until I turned the corner, away from everyone. Yanking open the maintenance closet, I slammed the door behind me. The doorknob pressed into my lower back, its cold metal permeating through the thin cotton of my shirt. I closed my eyes even though the closet was nearly black. Only a sliver of light from the crack at the base of the door filtered in, spilling yellow over my flip flops.

  Even with my eyes pressed firmly closed, the room still tilted. The floor spun until I felt like it had switched places with the ceiling and I was upside down.

  Heavy footsteps pounded outside and I slunk deeper into the closet, sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the dirty floor. “Lucy?” Ash’s voice was close, somewhere outside in the hallway. Why was he looking for me? Why did he care? “Lucy?” he called again, his voice even closer this time. I pressed my lips together, barely breathing as if he could recognize, let alone hear, the sound of my breath.

  From within my pocket, my phone chimed, the ring tone blaring through the silent closet. My muscles clenched, seizing like they were hit with a bewitching spell.

  No. No, no, no… I fumbled around, yanking my cell phone out of my pocket and silencing it. It was too late. Why did I give him my stupid number Thursday night? Damn vodka.

  Two shadowed feet blocked the light beneath the door, and the handle creaked in protest as it turned. The door swung open, framing Ash in stark white light, his phone still pressed to his ear. “Lucy.” Wrinkles dented his forehead as his gaze swept over me. And suddenly, he was standing in the closet with me, shutting the door behind him. Darkness swallowed us and he put his phone on the shelf, with the flashlight on.

  His touch was gentle as his hands wrapped around my elbows, guiding me to my feet. “Are you okay?” His voice was rough and he twirled his finger into a strand of my hair, twisting it around his knuckle.

  Blinking, I swallowed and tilted my chin to look up at him. “I’m fine.”

  It was an outright lie. He knew it. I knew it. If my tear-stained cheeks and heavy breaths weren’t obvious enough, my reluctance spun between us, filling what little space was left between our bodies as Ash stepped forward. My breasts were inches from his body. No, not inches, plural. Inch. Singular. One little inch separated us.

  Ash wrapped his arms around my waist, drawing me closer. Encasing me in his hold and pressing my body flush to his. His hands scooped up my back, grasping my hair at the back of my head, and with a gentle tug, my eyes were directed to his. “Don’t lie to me, Luciana.”

  It felt so damn good in his arms like that. It felt perfect.

  The intensity of his eyes was striking; a formidable power that seemed to wash over me with that one gaze.

  “Even if the truth is that you’re not ready to talk about it,” Ash said, sucking in a trembled breath, “Don’t lie to me.”

  I nodded. What else could I do? Sniffing, I licked my bottom lip, still able to taste the remnants of his tongue that had brushed across there hours ago. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  My heart slammed against my ribcage. My head spun. Every one of my senses was heightened and frazzled.

  He nodded, still looking down at me. “You liked being spanked earlier.” It wasn’t a question.

  I shook my head, no, and a cautious smile tipped his lips slowly. “What did I just say? Don’t lie to me…”

  Shit. I pulled in a breath, feeling the sting in my lungs, mustering the bravery to admit the truth. To admit something I had known for years about myself and couldn’t even say aloud in the privacy of my own home. Something I couldn’t even admit to Andrea. “I liked it more than Liza likes belting.”

  A heavy laugh shook Ash’s chest, but he didn’t release his hold on me. And his eyes never left my face. “You wanted it harder?”

  Another nod of my head.

  “Did I push too much? Too soon?”

  I swallowed hard and shook my head as I lifted my hands to his chest, grazing them over his tight muscles. No. He had pushed just the right amount. Just enough to pique my interest. He had no idea that it wasn’t him, but rather my mother’s text that had triggered my doubt. My biggest fear and insecurity.

  But I didn’t want to focus on that. I spent my entire life focusing on that in one way or another. Always trying to please her. I sought her approval like a hit of dopamine. I craved that acceptance. When I got it, I felt loved. When I didn’t, I wondered what I was doing wrong. Whenever I screwed up or made an honest mistake, my stomach plummeted to my toes, and I was terrified to see her disappointment, to feel how she pulled away. I would spend nights wondering how long until she would forgive me and come back to being my mother. And a darker part of me wondered, if I screwed up big enough, would it be the catalyst that spiraled her into another depression where I lost her for good? It was a lot
of pressure for one kid. Her love was conditional upon my perfection. And when I rejected her choices for me—even choices as trivial as the clothes she had picked for me, to important things such as my boyfriend whom she had chosen, and the major she had decided for me—it took a whole year for her to talk to me again.

  I raised my gaze to Ash’s muscled throat that begged to be licked. A spray of short chest hair peeked out from beneath his button-down shirt, now significantly more wrinkled than when we had started the day. He pushed a breath through his tight lips when I curved my fingers over his shoulders. As his fingers stroked the back of my neck, every nerve ending awoke with a fierce jolt, my nipples tightening from beneath my shirt. How long had it been since I’d been touched like this? Stroked? Cherished? A year? Two years? Maybe never. Never had a lover looked at me the way Ash does. Touched me with the focused intent of my pleasure.

  But Ash and I weren’t lovers. We were friends.

  Friends. That word didn’t even make sense anymore. Not in the context of me and Ash.

  I instinctively shivered. He noticed the change in my body language immediately, pulling back to examine me. He released his hold on my hair and moved his hands to cup either side of my face, his thumbs resting at the corners of my mouth. Ash wasn’t just a man. He wasn’t even just a man into BDSM. He was the living embodiment of my mom and dad’s dynamic. And what I walked away from with my own mother. A challenge to that control I worked so hard to break free from. Or… was he? My mom forced me to choose between doing it her way in order to receive love and attention, or living my own life and feeling her absence. Ash wasn’t asking me to make that choice… yet. But he was bossy by nature. I had no doubt it was why he was such a successful director. The question remained, would that personality carry over into his home life or into the bedroom?

  He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t let him. Pushing onto my toes, I claimed his mouth, licking, searching, tangling against his velvet tongue. Ash moaned in surprise, pinning me against the wall of the closet with his pelvis. With a thrust of his hips, his erect cock—caged by cashmere dress pants—slid against my bundle of nerves. A stab of pleasure surged through my core.

  Excitement jolted down my spine as he slid his hands down, pushing open my legs. A searing white ball of fire sprang to life at the base of my stomach, clawing down between my thighs.

  I wanted to feel his rigid cock inside of me. I wanted those hands coming down hard on my ass again. I wanted to be marked, tied up, forced on my knees, his dick so far down my throat that tears sprang to my eyes and I gagged. I wanted those dry thrusts from earlier to be real and slick with wet desire.

  “That was your one pass,” he said quietly. “From now on, you offer your lips to me to kiss. You don’t just kiss me. Understood?”

  Fuck, that was hot. I nodded.

  “Turn around,” he demanded. Even though every ounce of self-preservation warned me not to follow his directions, I found myself spinning on my toes, facing the wall behind me. “Palms flat against the wall. You do not move them until I tell you to.”

  I lifted my hands, placing them gently against the cool, smooth wall, my breathing shallow and fast. Sparks of anticipation popped off in my belly and my clit felt swollen and achy.

  Reaching around, he popped open the button on my jeans. The baggy denim fell to the ground, pooling at my ankles with little effort at all. There was a sharp intake of breath behind me and I was certain he was taking in my red, lacy thong. “Surprised?” I asked over my shoulder. My sexy underwear was my dirty little secret. The little piece of myself I had kept from a couple years ago; so that despite my dowdy clothes and drab hair, I felt sexy. I just never expected anyone—especially not Ash Livingston—to see that side of me.

  “Surprised doesn’t even cover it, Luciana Rodriguez.”

  I stiffened at the use of my full name… I never told him my last name. Which meant he was digging. “Fuck,” he whispered, and dragged his fingers across the red lace at my hip.

  Sliding his other hand up my shirt, he cupped my breast, his thumb dragging along the underside of the swell. “This okay?” he whispered, his hot breath slamming into my earlobe.

  “God, yes,” I gasped, arching my back and pushing my ass against his flat front pants.

  I should be stopping this. Why wasn’t I stopping this?

  “Thank God,” he murmured. Then, with a nip of my ear, he shoved my bra up over my breasts. Finding my nipples, he pinched them between his fingers, tugging until a noise rolled deep in the back of my throat.

  Oh, yeah. That’s why.

  “You are fucking breathtaking,” he said.

  A self-deprecating chuckle flew past my lips, and I quickly closed my mouth, silencing the laugh. Breathtaking? Me? It was sweet of him to say it, but I knew what breathtaking looked like. I had been that gorgeous girl once before. And who I was right now? All glasses and messy ponytail and baggy jeans—I wasn’t breathtaking anymore, that was for sure.

  “You don’t agree?”

  I sighed. God, please don’t make me answer that. I’d spent the last two years avoiding situations like this. Statements like that. And as sweet as Ash was being, he was just a Dominant, trying to please a potential submissive. “Since when does a Dominant care whether or not his sub agrees?”

  His breathing shifted, heavier than before, and when I snuck a glance over my shoulder, he had pulled back, examining me. “A good Dominant always cares if his submissive agrees. It's our job to care. Our job to see to it that nothing crosses a boundary. And it's the submissive’s job to be one hundred percent honest with us so that we don't unknowingly take things too far.”

  "Hence, the safewords?" I asked.

  Ash nodded. "Exactly. Have you been spanked before?"

  I shook my head no, but I knew my eyes countered the nonchalance of the movement. “Other than this morning, no.”

  My mind wandered back to that intense sting I felt this morning on set, followed by the tender drag of his fingers after getting spanked. Whatever instincts I had left in myself were screaming that Ash was a good man. He might bruise me, but he may just also heal me as well.

  He slid his hands down the sides of my body, over my ribcage until they trailed over my lace panties. With his fingertips, he followed the line of the thong as it dipped into my ass, edging his touch across my sensitive flesh, now covered in goosebumps. Then, pushing the crotch of my panties to the side, he dipped his finger into my opening. His touch hovered at my entrance as it grew wet, swollen, achy. I gasped and leaned back, trying to push his fingers deeper, but he countered my movement, pulling away and tsking his tongue.

  “Shhhh,” he cooed. “Patience.”

  “Patience?” I repeated, forgetting myself. “We’re on a one hour break in a supply closet and you’ve got your finger pressed against my pussy. I don’t think now is the time for patience.”

  I felt his chuckle behind me and rolled my eyes at his shoulders bouncing with the suppressed laughter. “You’re a little bratty… and I like it. We’re going to have to work on your back talk,” he said. “And in the meantime, I have to come up with a punishment for that.”

  You’re a little bratty and I like it. I shivered because, holy hell, I liked it too. “You say that like this will be a regular thing,” I said cautiously.

  He paused. “It won’t be,” he said, voice dark. “But at the same time, if I’m risking my job here at Silhouette, it’s not going to be for a quickie in the supply closet.” His voice was a harsh whisper and those words sank deep into my soul.

  Panic and warmth collided inside my chest, and I didn’t know how to feel or what to think about that.

  “I don’t do relationships. Not anymore. Is that something you are okay with?”

  Okay with? Hell, I preferred it. It was the sole reason I avoided dating. I nodded. “I don’t want to be tied down,” I said, and immediately cringed. Poor choice of words, Lucy.

  From over my shoulder, I could see the smile
flick at his mouth. “Well that’s a shame. I don’t do relationships, but I’m all for tying women down.”

  “I meant, um, I don’t want a relationship either.”

  His eyes sparked. “I see. Now, about that punishment…” The air was thick between us. Sparking with heady electricity and chemistry that was potent. “Arch your back. Hands on the wall. I will respond to ‘stop’ and that’s all. Clear?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, my voice graveled and rough.

  His touch disappeared from my skin. A drafty chill brushed over my bare backside, and when I moved to peek, his growl halted my movement. “Eyes forward.”

  I obeyed, jerking my forehead to face front once more.

  The moments waiting were tortuous. Something I was certain was part of the plan. Part of the punishment. When his hand came down against my ass, it was so hard and sudden, I gasped at the biting sting. My pussy clenched and I wiggled my thighs for some amount of friction; any bit of release I could find.

  “Nuh-uh,” he said, and nudged my legs wider apart with his knee. “Your pleasure is mine. I dictate when you come. When you’re touched. When you release. Understood?”

  I whimpered. I should be appalled. I should be running out of this closet and never looking back. But I wanted to feel what that pleasure would be first. Wanted to know why I craved this—because it had to be more than just a hit to the ass.

  He pulled back again, striking me three more times, each one harder than before. These were nothing near as tame as when I was draped over his lap this morning. It was raw and passionate and he grunted with pleasure each time his palm connected to my welting flesh.

  A shuddered breath tore through my lips. My clit was so swollen, it begged for attention with each pulsing ache.

  There was a rustle of movement behind me and when I looked down between my legs, Ash was kneeling behind me. His hands brushed up the backs of my thigh, caressing gently over the tender area he had just spanked. Then, edging my panties to the side, he slid one finger into me. The movement was slick and achingly slow, and we both gasped as I tightened around his finger.