To Sir

by Rachell Nichole

“You need sleep,” he stated.

  “I guess we’re still in the bedroom, so I’ll let that one slide.” She grinned. Maybe the next four weeks wouldn’t be so bad.

  “I didn’t say go to sleep. I said you needed sleep, a truthful statement.”

  “Are you okay with a bedroom sub or whatever it’s called?”

  “I’ve never had one before. Any long-term sub I’ve had, that’s been more of an all-the-time deal.”

  “How many have you had?” she asked. She shouldn’t have, but she’d shared with him, and it was a two-way street.

  “Only two live-in subs. The rest have been ones I’ve played with at the club, usually.”

  “Do you always get off when you play?”

  “No. It depends. Especially at the club. We’re careful of sex on the premises. I always get satisfaction when I play, but I don’t usually come, if that makes any sense. There’s this thing called Domspace; it’s like subspace, where the rush of endorphins dulls the outside world, heightens the experience, and is like its own amazing high. That’s what I play for. The control, the power exchange, and the mental state.”

  She blinked at him a few times, not sure what to say to that. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  “I told you it wasn’t about pain. Except maybe for the pain sluts.”

  She laughed. “What?”

  “Pain sluts. People who like the pain aspect of the lifestyle, or ones who are only in it for the pain or can only get off from pain.”

  “Oh. Do you think you can shut it off, though? Not be a Dominant when we’re not in a scene?” Because he was the bossiest man she’d ever met.

  For a moment, he didn’t answer. “I don’t know, but I’d like to try. If that’s a limit, I’ll respect it. But you have to expect me to fuck it up. Maybe a lot.”

  “Fair enough.” He was compromising. She could appreciate that.

  “Like right now, I want to tell you to go to sleep while I go finish cleaning the kitchen and cook you dinner.”

  “Nope. Not gonna work.”

  “See? I figured that. Which is why I haven’t told you to get some sleep, even though I should. Even though I need to take care of you the same way I need you to let me hold you down or restrain you when we play. You really won’t even let me take care of you like that, will you?” God, he sounded so sad.

  Was her need to be independent that kind of need? She’d always thought so. But maybe not. If he could compromise and try to respect her limits, maybe she could give in a little too. As long as it was only a little. “You wouldn’t get very far, even if I wanted to let you. Unless you plan on making boiled salt for dinner. ’Cause that’s about all I have in the house.”

  His eyes brightened. He was like a kid, staring up at her with hopeful eyes. If she gave in on this, would it only be a matter of time before he plowed right over her hard limits altogether? It could be a slippery slope, but he’d been pretty good at helping her embrace her darker nature and catching her when she fell.

  “Tell me to get some sleep,” she whispered.

  He beamed at her. “Really?”

  “Really,” she said, smiling. Aside from making him deliriously happy, she also seriously needed the sleep. And a home-cooked meal wouldn’t suck either. “But don’t make a habit of it.”

  He leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose. “Get some sleep, sweetheart. Apparently, I’m going to the grocery store.”

  She sighed, closing her eyes. A second later, he was wrapping blankets around her and ruffling her hair.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  She didn’t respond. As she drifted off to sleep, she heard the soft click of her bedroom door and couldn’t help the contented, safe feeling that wrapped itself around her just like the blankets. Was this what it felt like to belong to someone?

  Liz realized in a sudden rush that she didn’t hate it. Not even a little bit.

  Chapter Twelve

  Chase couldn’t stop smiling. His. She was all his for four whole weeks. He took a minute outside the bedroom door to digest the information, his cheeks becoming sore from holding the smile on his face. His life might be falling apart around him, but right now that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the woman sound asleep—if she knew what was good for her—in the bedroom behind him.

  He rolled his shoulders and neck, rubbing his hand on his dark-wash jeans to soothe the glorious sting there. After a few moments, he pulled his head back to reality and got to work, tackling first the rest of the kitchen, then dining and living spaces. He sneaked into her office last, taking a deep breath. This was probably the equivalent of having her inside his playroom. He ran his hand along the wall, trying to absorb what had just happened. He’d mulled it over as he worked.

  Could he deal with her limits? His other two subs had wanted more. Had needed to cede more power to him, and he’d never been quite satisfied with that. But he would miss the daily submission. With Suzanna, he’d always texted or called, left her instructions, taunted her with what he was going to do to her when she got home from work. She’d loved his constant attention. And he didn’t know if he would be able to go without it. It was one thing not to have had the constant submission since he hadn’t had a full-time submissive under his protection and care. It would be another thing entirely to train Liz without complete domination.

  Whatever he did, he had to make sure he didn’t let Liz weasel her way any further under his skin. Not until he was sure she would be happy with their arrangement. He’d already let himself get too wrapped up in her. Because she was so different from anyone else he’d ever met. And maybe because he selfishly wanted something to distract him from the fact that he was slowly losing everything else in his life that he cared about. So no matter what happened over the next four weeks, he had to find some way to protect himself, to stop from getting attached to Liz in case she ran away again. Or decided she couldn’t handle the lifestyle.

  He let that idea sit for a bit and parked his ass in Liz’s desk chair. The temptation to open her computer and read her work was almost overwhelming. As he glanced at the notes and various mess of papers around him, he knew he couldn’t clean this space. It was sacred to Liz in a way he could understand. He didn’t belong in here meddling. So he rocked in the desk chair, his mind still reeling, warning him that he’d maybe done exactly what he always did—bitten off more than he could chew.

  He needed a sounding board. And it wouldn’t hurt to check in on Dusty and see if he’d had any brilliant ideas to pull them out of the hole they were in. Digging in his pocket for his phone, Chase walked back toward the front of Liz’s cottage. He found the key right on the floor where he’d left it and locked the door behind him as he dialed D’s number.

  “Hey, my man, what’s up?”

  “Two things. I think I found a sub…maybe. And—”

  “Fuck the other thing. Please, God, tell me it’s the writer.”

  Chase laughed his head off. He couldn’t help it. The surety mixed with hope in Dusty’s voice was too much. He sank into his car and leaned back into the leather. “Yeah, it’s the writer.”

  “Hot damn, boy. I never thought you’d do it!”

  “Oh, we did it. And then some. A couple of times.”

  Dusty’s giggle resounded in his car as his phone connected to the Bluetooth.

  “Kick-ass. Well, man, I’m of course delighted for you. That rocks my socks. I knew I saw that sparkle in her eyes the first time she stepped into the club. Rumor had it you brought someone in with you the other night. We’ve been so wrapped up in the drama I didn’t think it was good to bring it up since you’ve been…”

  “Say it, D.”

  “Moody as a teen girl on the rag.”

  “Ugh. Gross.” Chase shook his head to clear it of that particularly gruesome image as he navigated the car through the neighborhood and to the local grocery store.

  Dusty laughed. “Hey, you asked.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.” Chase grew q
uiet. The silence on the other end of the line was classic Dusty behavior. Letting things rest until Chase was ready to own up and talk. The number of times Dusty’s silent treatment hadn’t worked could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over.

  “She’s got some heavy limits. And we’ve just begun negotiations.”

  “Okay, like what?”

  “Well, for starters, she’d always kind of considered herself vanilla.” Chase grinned. Vanilla she was not.

  “Yikes. You’ve agreed to be her first Dom?”

  He didn’t respond for a second. He was getting too close to the grocery store. This was not a conversation he could have in public. So he turned the opposite way and drove down a street. He wasn’t sure where it led, but he could always use GPS to get back to the store when he was done talking.

  “Not exactly. That’s one of the limits. Well, the only one we’ve really discussed so far. She wants to be dominated in the bedroom, and that’s it.”

  “Like the literal bedroom or…”

  “No, sexually.” It should be weird talking to D about this kind of stuff, but it wasn’t.

  “Damn. Like…no collar, no Sir, no orders on daily tasks, what she’s wearing? Nothing?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “You know there are a lot of different kinds of kink.” Chase couldn’t keep the edge from his voice. That was his new sub Dusty was talking about. And if this was what she wanted, there wasn’t a damned thing wrong with it.

  “Whoa there, big papa. I didn’t mean as in, Wow, how could somebody want that? I literally meant for you—like is that a possibility for you? You’re one of the most dominant Doms I know, Chase.”

  He wasn’t saying anything Chase hadn’t already thought. But what if he was right? What if Chase couldn’t give her what she needed? That had always been his problem as a full-time Dom—not being able to fulfill his subs’ needs. He didn’t know if he could go through that again. Feeling inadequate sucked. Big-time. He’d asked Liz to take a huge leap of faith and trust him to guide her in learning about this side of herself. What if he failed miserably? Again.

  “Truthfully, I don’t know. But I know I have to try. It’s on the hard-limit list for her. And I sort of had straight sex with her the other night. As in totally vanilla. With her on top to boot.”

  “Damn, babe. You got it bad for this girl.”

  He did. There was no use denying it. He hadn’t felt this alive or this whole in longer than he could remember. But shit, he had to be careful. If this didn’t work out, he would have nothing left. This would be it; he wouldn’t pursue any more long-term relationships. The third better be the charm, or he was SOL.

  “Yeah. I think I do. I, um, persuaded her to give it a shot. On a trial basis.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So this is doable, right? I’m not completely out of my mind?”

  “I don’t think you are. The fact that you’re even entertaining the idea means that it might actually work, crazy as it is.”

  “So what I needed to hear.”

  “Good. Now what was the second thing?”

  Chase turned around, backtracking to the grocery store and trying to wrap his mind around the other thing he’d wanted to talk to his partner about. He’d honestly forgotten in the midst of discussing Liz. He had it bad indeed.

  “Oh, yeah. Any breakthroughs on our business crisis?” He pulled into the grocery store’s lot.

  “Unfortunately not. But could that be tomorrow’s problem?”

  Chase could relate. “Very soon we’re going to run out of tomorrows,” he warned. It was a reminder not just for his friend, but also for himself. If he got too caught up in seducing Liz into being his for longer than four weeks, he might destroy the one thing he’d fought for his entire adult life—financial security and a place to call his own, where he could be himself.

  * * * *

  “Time for dinner, sweetheart.”

  Liz blinked and glanced up at Chase in the dim light filtering in from the hall. She swallowed a few times and stretched, her body protesting the movement. Oh, she was sore. And not necessarily in a bad way. He leaned down and brushed strands of hair from her face, cupping her cheek in his palm. Then he kissed her. It was a searing, passionate kiss that had her toes curling within seconds.

  She moaned, pulling his head closer and sitting up so she could reach more of him. It seemed she was insatiable where he was concerned.

  “Uh-uh. Not so fast.” He pulled back, and she pouted. He ran his thumb along her bottom lip roughly. “You are a little brat, aren’t you?”

  She nipped at his finger. He hissed, and his eyes turned dark, dominant. She shuddered under that gaze.

  “You’re going to have to pay for that.”

  Uh-oh. She didn’t know if she liked the sound of that. When he produced a blindfold from behind his back, she decided she most definitely did not. He sat on the bed beside her. She bit her bottom lip.

  “I thought it was time for dinner,” she whispered lamely, trying to worm her way out of putting that thing on.

  “Oh, it’s absolutely time for dinner. And this is the beginning of your four weeks of training. Negotiations start now. I want you to wear this at dinner.” He hung the eye cover from one finger. “And nothing else.”

  She opened and closed her mouth, inspecting the blindfold. It was the kind people wore to keep out the sunlight when they slept. It looked soft. Silky, even. “And if I refuse?”

  He grinned. “Then I’ll tell you to wear it.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “I’ll put you over my knee,” he said simply. As if that was the only answer to their discussion. No compromises, no middle ground. Either she wore it, or she got spanked. A thrill shot through her. Damn, just the negotiation was getting her all hot and bothered.

  “Is this how all negotiations will go?”

  He smiled and took her hand. “No. Of course not. But I’ll push. And keep pushing until we hit a limit. But you have to communicate with me. You have to tell me, well, everything. When you like something, when you’re not sure if it’s quite right, when you’re starting to get overwhelmed, when you think you can’t take it any longer. Anything crosses that line, all you have to do is say the word.”

  “Like a safe word?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Someone’s been doing her research. I think no will be fine as an all stop. We can stick to plain old English for now.”

  “So if something’s freaking me out, or too much, or hell, not enough, that’s what I should say?”

  He nodded.

  “I-I think I can do that.” She’d never been the quiet type, but could she communicate what she was thinking and feeling as it happened? She didn’t know if she could be that honest and open with herself, let alone someone else. It would take a lot of trust.

  “Good.” He offered the blindfold again. She took it from him and ran her hands over the supple fabric and the elastic band. “Let’s pull your hair back.” It sounded like a suggestion, but she knew it was a command.

  She laid the blindfold on the bed between them and finger-combed her hair, then pulled it back into a braid at the base of her neck. Used to braiding, her fingers worked fast. Chase watched her every movement, and for a second she felt self-conscious, but when her gaze met the heat in his, all she could do was bathe in the warmth.

  “Are you ready?”

  No. She nodded.

  He lifted the blindfold and slid it over her eyes. What light had been shining in from the hall quickly vanished, and she gasped. A finger whispered down her cheek, across her neck, and down between her breasts. She inhaled sharply.

  “Relax, sweetheart.” Chase’s voice grounded her. She turned toward the sound and waited. A soft swish of fabric later and her body was exposed to the chill in the air. She shivered. Then Chase was tugging her off the bed, and she wobbled to her feet. He steadied her, still holding tightly to both her hands. Like this, s
he could hear every movement he made. And she could smell this delicious cologne he wore. It was dark and woodsy. Spicy. The perfect scent for a man like Chase.

  She took small steps to follow him out of the bedroom and down the hall. How were they not tripping over her clutter of boxes, junk, and garbage? Oh, right. Chase had cleaned. She tried to picture where they were in the house with every step, but she couldn’t really. He turned her body, releasing her hand and placing his on her shoulder. “The chair is directly behind you. Sit.” His hot whisper shot right to her core, making her inner muscles clench.

  He pressed the slightest bit on her shoulder, and she sat down into the chair. “Oh,” she exclaimed. The cold wood on her bare bottom was foreign yet soothing to the ache in her muscles. A swirl of scents surrounded her, and she held the rim of the chair to stay grounded. Chase’s pants whooshed as he walked away from her. What had he cooked?

  Anticipation unfurled inside her, coiling her nerves tighter with each second.

  “Open,” he demanded from somewhere in front and to the left of her. She parted her lips. A metal spoon slipped inside her mouth, and she closed her lips around it. Savory tastes assaulted her tongue as the liquid dripped off the spoon. Soup of some kind, but she wasn’t sure what. She moaned at the taste, and Chase pulled the spoon free.

  “You like?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.

  “Mm-hmm,” she whispered. She was perched on the edge of the chair now, waiting for the next bite.

  “Open,” he commanded.

  She did, and something cool and sweet pressed between her lips.

  “Bite.”

  She bit down, and the juicy, chocolate-covered strawberry exploded in her mouth. With each command, her body wound tighter, her nipples hardened, and her head started buzzing. Was this the subspace he’d been talking about? Living on this tightrope of wondering what was coming next and trusting Chase to take her somewhere magical? She chewed slowly, savoring every nuanced taste. Nothing had ever been so sweet on her tongue. She’d read a scene like this once in a book and scoffed. Being blindfolded couldn’t possibly make taste buds come alive, or so she’d thought. Now she knew the truth.