by Lily Harlem
Imogen was quiet. She knew what his dirt was. His penchant for sex clubs and watching and performing in filthy acts. It was clear he’d been very successful at keeping a low profile, at remaining anonymous when indulging his kinky habits.
“Imogen, are you okay?”
“Yes, fine. Listen, I should go, you probably have a million things to be doing if Katie’s not well.”
“You’re right, I have. But call me if you need to.”
“I will.”
“Promise.”
“Promise.”
“Miss you, see you when you get back, and have fun breaking that dry spell.” She laughed.
“I will, miss you too.” Imogen chuckled and hung up. Her smile faded and she sighed.
Clarris certainly had a journalist instinct; she would sniff and sniff, she’d be like a terrier on the trail of a rabbit.
But it wasn’t Imogen’s place to reveal Kane’s secret. She shuddered; his secret desires splashed around the pages of a newspaper would cause him so much pain. He was such a private man—that much was clear. She didn’t want to be part of any kind of public revelation, ever.
She helped herself to several grapes from a large bowl of fruit on the table and thought of the club again. It was a place where Kane clearly felt comfortable and in control. Somewhere he’d wanted to take her. He’d been testing the water about how she felt about his kinky side. Studying her reactions to Domination and submission.
There must have been lots of women in his life over the years at clubs like Sub Space. Why hadn’t he just chosen one of them to be his lover? Why all the dancing around with her, tricking her into a date at Ascot then whisking her to New York on the pretense—because Clarris had been right, that’s what it was—of it being a business trip?
She walked across an Oriental carpet, the threads soft on her bare feet. Was it because he just fancied her? Old-fashioned boy meets girl and wants girl to be his?
But it wasn’t that simple, was it? He wanted her to be his but to conform to his sexual appetites and sample the flavors he enjoyed. He’d said last night was vanilla, and for her it was perfect, but clearly he wanted to taste more and he couldn’t do that alone.
She slid her hands over her backside. He wanted to flog her, spank her, tie her up. There was no way she could deny the thought thrilled her as much as it made her belly tense with apprehension.
And if she did submit, would that mean he wouldn’t go to the clubs anymore? If they started a kinky relationship, would he be hers and hers alone?
That thought appealed to her very much. Kane Ward had been on her radar for a long time, and now things were happening between them, she didn’t want to mess it up. She admired him, fancied him, loved spending time with him. Which meant it was worth a go. She had to step into his world and be fully committed to trying on his kink and giving it a shot.
“Yes.” She clapped. “No more questions, just do it.” She glanced at a clock above the fireplace. It was nearly four. “No time like the present.”
She hurried into the bedroom and pulled out the pretty basque she’d bought earlier in the day. Quickly, she stripped out of her jeans and t-shirt and put it on. She removed her knickers then slipped into the stocking and her high heels.
She paused at the mirror on her way out of the room. “Bloody hell.” She looked sexy and flushed. The basque was beautiful, her pussy hair the same dark shade as the material.
She spotted the collar on the dressing table and reached for it. She secured it around her neck, knowing he liked her to wear it.
After a hastily applied slick of bright red lipstick, she walked into the main room.
From the hallway she heard a ping. The elevator had been called down to reception. He was here.
She rushed to the piano and stretched herself over it, ass in the air. The wooden surface was cool against her skin as she rested her cheek on it and stared out at the rooftops.
God, what was she doing?
What if it wasn’t him?
What if he had company?
She lifted up. Glanced over at the bedroom door. Should she dart back inside?
Fuck it. This was her plan. She could do this.
She tipped forward again, parted her legs. When he walked from the hall area into the main room, he’d see her buttocks facing him and waiting to be reddened. He’d see her pussy peeking out, ready to be fucked.
She swallowed; her mouth was dry and her heart tripping along. As she breathed, the warm air from her lungs fogged the surface of the piano.
A distant swoosh signaled that the elevator had arrived.
She strained to listen. Hoping to hell she wouldn’t hear voices.
She didn’t.
After a few seconds, the elevator doors shut and one set of footsteps walked into the room.
She stayed utterly still.
He stopped.
She clenched her fists.
“Imogen,” he said, a question sitting in the way he’d spoken.
“I want you to spank me, flog me, do whatever it is you need to do.” She moved her hips from left to right.
“That’s a very tempting offer.”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw him shrug out of his suit jacket. He draped it over the sofa and took a step closer.
“I’m sorry if I didn’t hit the spot for you last night,” she said. “Do whatever you need to do to me now.”
“Why would you say that about last night?”
He walked right up to the piano, but instead of stopping behind her, as she’d expected him to, he sat at the stool in front of the keys and looked up at her.
“Because I know what you’re into and we didn’t do that. None of it.”
“I told you sometimes vanilla is the best flavor.
“But—”
“I’ve wanted you for a long time, Imogen. I needed nothing more than to make love to you the way I did last night.” He smiled and closed the case over the keys. “There was nothing lacking, nothing at all, so please don’t think that was the case.” He paused. “Unless there was something missing for you?”
“No, no, there wasn’t.” She shut her eyes. Damn it. She’d been stupid to offer her bare ass to him. He’d think she was mad or certainly naïve.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. He raised his right hand and undid the cuff. He then rolled it three times, very neatly, very precisely.
Imogen watched as he repeated the action with his left sleeve. When he’d done it, she started to stand straight.
“No,” he said, setting his gaze on her. “Stay like that.”
The tremble in her belly intensified, and she draped herself back over the piano.
“You just invited me to spank your pretty ass,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Does the invitation still stand?”
“Yes.”
God, this is it.
A slow smile spread on his face. “The thing is, though, my beautiful Imogen, you’re not quite ready for it.” He stood and walked to her side, placed his hand at the small of her back.
“I’m not?”
“No. You still have something to learn before my handprints adorn your buttocks.” He smoothed his hand over her ass cheeks, each one in turn. “And fine buttocks they are, I can hardly wait but I will resist.”
Imogen bit her bottom lip. Was he resisting because he’d already had his pleasure for the day?
“Kane…?” she asked.
“Yes?” He slipped his hand between her legs and dipped into her dampness.
“You went to the club, today.”
He stilled. “Yes. How—?”
“I saw you. I was shopping nearby.”
He stroked over her ass again, soft sweeping movements. “Quite a coincidence in a city of millions.”
She was quiet. There was no need to justify it—it had been a coincidence.
“I had a meeting with my friend,” he said. “Who owns the club. There was something I wanted f
rom him and he’s agreed. It was one of those requests that needed to be made in person.”
“Okay.” Relief swept through her. So he hadn’t been in a scene, making love, fucking someone else as she’d paced the floor.
“It will all become clear,” he said, “You must trust me.”
“I do.”
“Do you?” He pulled gently but firmly at her upper arm, forcing her to stand straight. “Do you really?”
“Yes.” She looked into his eyes. “Yes, I do.”
“I’m not just talking about trusting me in the everyday sense of the word. This is much more, much deeper.”
“Tell me, Kane. Don’t talk in riddles.”
He shook his head and turned away. “Fuck, this is happening much faster than I planned.”
“What is?”
“This. I wanted it to be normal between us…” He looked back at her, his gaze sweeping over the basque.
“Really? How can you say that when you took me to Sub Space last night?”
“I just wanted you to get a taste of it. I didn’t expect this…coming back to the offer of spanking your ass. You’re not ready.”
“You said that before, but don’t I get a say in it?”
“If I really was your Master, no, you wouldn’t.” He touched the collar about her neck and ran his finger around it, just brushing her skin.
“Kane,” she said quietly. “Don’t open a door for me then tell me not to step through it.”
He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed beneath his shirt. “I just don’t want to scare you away. I’m…” He pressed his lips together and shook his head slightly.
“Intense, hot, different.”
“Yes, different, certainly to any other man you’ve been with.”
“How do you know?”
He gave a half shrug. “I know.”
She couldn’t argue the case. He was right. He was different in so many ways. “I do trust you.”
“With your body? With your pleasure, with your pain, with everything I can give you and the new places I can take you to?”
“Yes. You’re an expert at what you do, isn’t that what the stars mean on your jacket?” She reached out and pressed over his shirt where she knew his three tattoos were. “And what you have here?”
He placed his hand over hers. “Yes, that is what the stars mean.”
“So show me. I couldn’t be in any safer or more qualified hands, could I?”
He shook his head. She wasn’t sure if it meant he wouldn’t show her or if he really thought he was the best man for the job.
“Kane?”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t have whet your appetite then told you off for wanting to take a bite. I should have guessed that’s how this would go. You’re inquisitive, intelligent, brave, it’s those qualities that I admire about you.”
He did? “So you’ll show me?”
“Yes. But we’re starting at the basics.”
“That works for me.” A flutter of triumph swept through her.
“A foundation for us to build on.” He stepped back and stared at the window.
Imogen let her arms hang at her sides. What would he want her to do? She had no idea what he meant by the basics.
He set his attention on her again and reached for his belt buckle.
Oh fuck. He was going to strike her with the belt. She’d wondered if that was his thing last night, when he’d taken it off and wound it around his hand. It was the way his muscles had tensed, how he’d held it, the electricity that had seared through the air, almost sizzling from him.
The belt would hurt like hell. She’d imagined his hand or a paddle, the flogger something to work toward. But the belt…
He undid the buckle then again slid it slowly from the loops. Once it was free, he let the belt hang down, the end skimming the floor. “Go and kneel in the center of that rug.”
She did as he’d asked, aware of her heels pressing on her bare buttocks as she got to her knees.
He moved behind her. “Wrists together.”
She pressed her hands close and linked her fingers.
He wound the belt around her forearms—not tight, loose, very loose, so much so that she could easily have shaken it away. If she’d moved her arms it would have fallen.
“Now keep still,” he said, “Imagine you’re bound tight, by rope. It’s thick and rough and you’re trapped by it.”
“Yes.”
“Sir.” He cupped her chin and raised her face to his. “Yes, Sir.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said.
A light had come on in his eyes, excitement maybe? Being the person he was comfortable with? Having her kneeling before him? Or was it a combination of all three?
“I’m always Sir when you’re submitting to me. Which is what you’re doing now.”
She continued to gaze up at him.
“Cast your gaze down, at the floor.” He pressed the top of her head. “A good sub only looks at her Master if given permission.”
Imogen stared at an intricate pattern on the rug. “Yes, Sir.”
“Do you know what else a good sub does?”
“No, Sir.”
“A good sub always remembers their safe word.”
“I don’t have one…Sir.”
“So think of one. Nothing else can happen until you have told me what it is.”
She was quiet, her brain spinning. What should she choose?
“I’ll pick for you,” he said after several seconds. “Westminster Abbey.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Repeat it.”
“Westminster Abbey.”
“If I do or say anything that goes beyond what you can cope with, what’s pleasurable, all you have to do is say Westminster Abbey and it all ends.”
“Okay.”
“Never forget it.”
“I won’t.”
“It is of upmost importance that Westminster Abbey remains in your mind, even when you feel high, floaty, spinning, you must remember that’s your safe word, your safe place. Can you picture it?”
“Yes.” She shut her eyes and pictured the Abbey before her—she’d visited it several times. “It’s beautiful.”
“Just like you.” He stroked his hand down her cheek to her chin then up to her opposite temple. “Your skin is like silk,” he said. “The finest silk.”
She didn’t answer.
He trailed his hand down to her shoulder. “And the color of porcelain.”
He was almost speaking to himself.
“I’ve thought of this,” he said, “many times. Of showing you what your body can do when it truly connects with you mind.” He cupped her right breast over the basque. “The mind is so powerful. Giving yourself over, mind and body, to another person can be incredibly freeing. That’s what makes the binds all the sweeter—they’ll free you as much as they restrain you. Though not today, my darling, today you can move your arms at will, but I hope you’ll consent to being bound by me one day.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He hooked his thumb beneath her chin and raised her face again. “Look at me.”
She did. Right into his beautiful eyes.
He stooped, bent lower and lower still, then pressed his mouth over hers. He kissed her deeply, softly, his tongue probing.
Imogen found herself straining for more. The belt around her arms shifted. She wished it were tighter, that he had harnessed her firmly.
“And you taste,” he said, pulling back, “like the sweetest fruit, like everything I’ve ever wanted.” He frowned, stood tall and pushed his hand through his hair.
Imogen watched him. He seemed to be composing himself.
What the hell does he really want to do?
He turned and walked to the opposite end of the rug. He breathed deep, several times, his ribs expanding beneath his shirt.
She was about to speak but clamped her mouth. She wasn’t to talk without permission. It was a strange concept but surprisingly it came nat
urally.
He looked at her again. Flexed his fingers then balled them into fists.
Imogen dropped her gaze to the floor.
Within seconds she was staring at his polished shoes.
“Submitting,” he said. “Is about obeying. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Chapter Eleven
“Are you willing to obey?” Kane asked.
“Yes Sir,” Imogen replied.
“Then that will be today’s lesson.” He ran his hand into her hair and collected it in a bunch. He fisted it, forcing her to look up at him. “Do you have any questions?”
Imogen could feel the basque moving against her body with her rapid breaths. An image flashed through her mind. Tara, at the club, obeying her Master, being strung up and flogged then coming. Her Master had done that, taken her there. But what about him? He hadn’t climaxed.
“Yes,” she said. “One.”
“Then ask.” He frowned slightly.
“At the club, the second scene. Tara’s Master didn’t come—how does that work? How is that good for him?”
“Excellent question.” With his free hand, he popped open the top button on his suit trousers. “When two or three or more people are in a scene it’s not a requirement for everyone to come together. Vanilla couples put too much emphasis on that—what is it, the holy bloody grail to climax in unison?” He drew down the zipper on his fly. “In this world you’re stepping into, giving pleasure is as wonderful as receiving pleasure.”
She stared at his groin. His cock was straining behind the material.
“There will be times a Master gives his sub pleasure and he goes without, yet feels fully satisfied, and times when a sub gives pleasure without receiving.” He shoved at his trousers and they slipped down his thighs, exposing his hairy legs. He then tugged at the waistband of his boxer briefs and pushed them out of the way.
His cock sprang forward, long and thick and twisted with veins. The head was shiny and domed, and the root emerged from a tangle of dark hair.
Imogen stared at it. In the harsh light of day it was beetred, the veins bruised-blue.
He took it in his fist and rubbed up then down the length of it. “A Master owns his sub’s body.” He paused. “In this moment, right now, do I own yours?”
