The remote lay at her side. She’d finished flicking through channels; even with a satellite dish and 206 of them, there still wasn’t anything she wanted to watch. She’d left it on a channel that showed England playing Pakistan in cricket. She didn’t know what the heck was going on, and the Urdu-speaking announcers weren’t helpful to her, but it left her free to muse. Somehow, having turned the television on, she was reluctant to give up on it entirely for the evening, and she was determined not to watch one of the shopping channels.
She sipped softly. The last two days she’d thrown herself at her work, spending all her time fixing ugly code. She thought she found the bug that had gotten her called in on this one in the first place. Just once she wanted to see a company that recognized that unreadable code was unmaintainable before the code broke.
She knew what she was doing because she’d done it before. She was avoiding thinking about Nolan. When he’d stared at her, something in her turned to jelly. And when he said he didn’t mind being called sir, that had stirred loose a whole slew of repressed fantasies. He hadn’t meant what she was thinking, of course. Cops were used to being called sir, and she supposed a sergeant had people under him who called him sir all the time. It was a harmless comment. It wasn’t his fault that Nolan was built like her fantasy dom. Would you like to use those handcuffs on me, Sir? She almost wished he’d arrested her.
The batter, if that was what they were called in cricket, was banging his bat on the ground rather loudly. She looked up but not in time to catch him in the act. The match had been going on for an hour, and as far as she could tell, England hadn’t gotten a chance to swing at anything yet. The cricket bat looked like a paddle but was way too heavy for any sort of sensible play. She wondered how it would feel to bend over the sofa with her skirt hiked up and be struck by a wooden paddle. It was one of those things she couldn’t do to herself, not effectively, but the idea of it made her squirm and rub her legs together. I am not going to get wet watching cricket. She picked up the remote and flicked through channels again, without really seeing what she was looking at.
She’d made a profile on a BDSM social network site, but she hadn’t done much with it, so not surprisingly, it hadn’t attracted any potential partners. A couple of “Doms” had IM’d with her, but one was even more inexperienced than her, and the other one had creeped her out. Maybe she was too picky or unwilling to take chances, but she’d learned to trust her hunches. Turning her fantasies into reality was not worth any cost. It seemed pretty unlikely that she’d be experiencing any paddling soon or even a spanking. I might not like it even if I did. There’s lots of things that are hot to think about but that I don’t want to do. Maybe that should be one of them. But still, I want to try.
She was pretty sure she’d like it if Nolan was doing the spanking, though. Why couldn’t she get the man out of her mind? Maybe it was because she’d been naked in front of him. She had a fantasy about that—being naked in front of a clothed man, kneeling at his feet. But being naked for ritual wasn’t supposed to be about her sexual fantasies. Although all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. It might be easier to have a faith that put sex in a completely different box than religion.
The cricket batsman was pounding on the ground again, and she focused back on the screen. But no one was pounding anything; the pretty English chef was making a soufflé and talking about it in sinful tones. Someone’s knocking on my door. Who would knock on my door at this hour?
No one ever knocked on her door late at night. She had friends, but even the ones she knew mostly from online were fifty miles away by car. Her neighbors ignored her. She wasn’t sure when or why it leaked out that she was a witch, but everyone seemed to know it. That was fine. She was by nature pretty solitary. Small, isolated houses didn’t make for a lot of incidental contact, and people would rather drive into town than borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor anyway.
She debated kicking off her pink bunny slippers but shrugged. She didn’t need to be putting on a front, no matter who it was. She stood on tiptoe, looked through the peephole, and saw a mess of red and white. Roses, she realized after a moment. But she couldn’t see a face.
Nolan. She didn’t know whether that was a psychic hunch or desire speaking to her. But none of her fantasies had involved roses or anything G-rated. If someone meant to do her ill, putting flowers in front of the peephole was exactly what they’d do. It was eight o’clock at night, it was dark, and no one lived near enough to hear her scream.
“Who is it?” she yelled.
The roses disappeared, and Nolan’s face appeared. “Nolan Coralone.” Score another one for hunches. How many times did she have to be taught to trust them? But she was glad she didn’t open the door, because he probably would have lectured her. What was he doing with roses, anyway?
Once again, she was tempted to take off the bunny slippers. At least she hadn’t gotten into jammies yet. She’d kept her denim shorts on because once she started stripping off clothes, it was harder to avoid the erotic fantasies and the sense of longing and absence they brought. Better to be hated for who you are than loved for what you’re not. Isn’t that what they say? Screw that. She wasn’t going to make him wait while she put on makeup, but the slippers she toed off and then kicked under the little display cabinet to the right of the door.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were going to open the door,” Nolan said when she finally did. “But I can’t blame you for being cautious.”
Even now she wondered why she was thinking of letting him in. Being a cop didn’t make him safe; there were plenty of corrupt cops out there. But her gut feeling was that he was a good guy. Too bad I can’t read auras, but the only time I see one is when I have a migraine. If he meant her ill, he could force his way past her easily enough. And he looked gorgeous even out of uniform in a denim shirt and blue jeans.
He handed her the bouquet of roses, and she took it by the base where the stems were wrapped in foil. There was an awkward silence.
“For me?” Duh. Nobody else lives here. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
“Yes, for you.”
“Thank you.” She stood there for a second and made up her mind. “Let me go find a vase. Come on in if you have the time.”
He stepped in as she made way for him. He stood a few feet inside while she rummaged through the display case for a vase. “I have all night,” he said.
Oh.
She took the green crystal trumpet vase to the kitchen to fill with water. She was glad to be away from him. Her heart was beating so hard it hurt. When she’d filled the vase and the roses were arranged neatly in it, soaking up the water and the nutrients from the little packet that came with the flowers, she took a few moments to breathe. I’m a powerful woman. I can handle this. I don’t need to be afraid of him or my desire.
Now she had to believe it or act on it until she was convinced. Magic was applied will, and it could bring change. It was time she applied hers.
She turned and walked back into the living room. She found him still standing, but he’d moved toward the couch. He turned from the TV when she entered. She walked past him, setting the vase on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “She makes everything sound delicious, doesn’t she?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Nigella Lawson,” he said, gesturing at the TV.
“Uh, I guess. I never watch.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Cricket got dull,” she explained.
He chuckled. “Cricket starts out dull.”
Common ground. She let out a breath. “So, um, what brings you here?”
He gazed into her eyes for a moment before answering, and she felt hot under so much attention. “You, Marisa. I couldn’t get you out of my head. After a while, I decided I didn’t want to.”
She blinked, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. Making small talk with him was awkward, but this was worse. Careful what you wish for. You might get it. “I bet you s
ay that to all the girls who you see naked.” Mentioning that incident seemed like a sharp retort when she started, but it didn’t do anything to diminish her embarrassment.
“Normally, I do things in the other order. Naked, then a visit to your house, then flowers. Soon I’ll be asking you out on a first date. I’m going backward through time.”
“Like Merlin.”
She expected a blank stare. She’d gotten lots of blank stares in her life. But he nodded. “From The Once and Future King,” he said. “What a great retelling of the Arthur legend.”
They grinned at each other like idiots for a moment. More common ground. At least he wasn’t her complete opposite. “How long do you think it will take you?”
He didn’t ask what she meant. “About five seconds, I think.” They watched each other, and she wondered if he was counting. “So are you free tonight?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Well, if the next step after me saying yes is that you walk out the door and forget you know me, I don’t think I’m up to that. But if I can reverse the flow of time, put you in forward again, perhaps pour you a glass of wine, and you’ll stay awhile, well, I might be free for that.”
His eyes twinkled. “It might require a little bit of magic.”
For a moment she thought he was poking fun at her, but there was no mockery in his eyes. “Won’t you stay and have a glass of wine, Sir?” she asked. She wished she could bite the last word as soon as she said it, but it slipped out of her mouth. That’s the problem with too much fantasizing. It changes reality. Magic was much better at changing the caster than anyone else, and the fact that she hadn’t been trying to weave a spell didn’t mean it wasn’t effective.
He locked eyes with her. “Please bring me a glass of wine, Marisa.”
She had to go to the kitchen to get a wineglass. That required getting the stepladder out from the pantry, which was right between the kitchen and the back door, as the extra glasses were stored in a cabinet over the fridge. She didn’t usually have any use for more than one. She didn’t dare hope that he’d missed her slip of the tongue, but maybe he wouldn’t make anything of it. The way he’d said yes, though, phrasing it as a request rather than saying “yeah” or “that would be nice,” made her wonder. There is no way that should be making me wet. She rinsed the dust off the glass, dried it, and poured the wine. She hoped he wasn’t too much of a snob for a Californian merlot.
When she returned, he’d moved to the chair she never sat in and didn’t know why she kept, an old chair with a high wooden back and well-padded leather arms and seat. Oddly, he’d tossed a pink cushion from the couch in front of him. She’d sort of imagined they might sit on the couch, talking at arm’s length at first, then perhaps building up to some snuggling. The TV might provide a distraction from the tension and ease the mood, but he’d turned the TV off while she was in the kitchen.
He’d moved her wineglass too, to the opposite corner of the coffee table, near the chair and far from where she’d been sitting on the sofa. She stood there, staring at him.
He smiled, slowly. “I thought that perhaps you’d like to kneel in front of me when you handed me my wine,” he said.
Her first thought was that she would throw the wine in his face. If that was his idea of how to treat a woman, he had better learn. Maybe the date would end with him going out the door and forgetting he ever knew her, if he was lucky.
She took two steps forward before she realized he’d asked her to do exactly the sort of thing she’d fantasized about so often recently. She shortened her stride and hoped he hadn’t seen the flash of anger in her face. Then, heart hammering, she knelt down in front of him on the pink cushion and raised the glass with both hands. Given what he had in mind, she supposed the cushion was considerate.
“Here you go,” she said.
He didn’t take it from her. His voice strangely casual, he said, “You said ‘sir’ so nicely a few moments ago. Do you think you could try it again?”
She nodded and took a deep breath, lowering the glass. “Here you go, Sir.” She raised the glass to him again, and this time he took it from her hand.
“Lovely. Good wine too. Beats my original plan of going out to a movie.”
It was nearly an hour’s drive to the closest movie theater. “I’d say.” She wondered if he treated everyone woman he dated this way, but she supposed if his original plan had been to go see a film that it probably all stemmed from her one slip of the tongue. I barely know him. We’ve only met two times. How can I be doing this?
He was looking at her with an amused smile on his face, one eyebrow cocked upward. She wondered what he wanted. Oh. “I’d say, Sir?”
He laughed. “I’m not sure that statement goes horribly well with sir, actually, but never mind. It was honest and accurate. I frankly didn’t know what we’d do together tonight, but I knew I wanted to see you and get to know you better. Already, I’ve learned a lot. Are you comfortable?”
Comfortable? My chest is tight, and I’m anxious about what’s going to happen next. And kneeling has me aroused to the point that it hurts. But maybe he doesn’t mean that. “The cushion is very nice, Sir. My knees are fine.”
“That’s not what I asked, although it’s good information.” He stroked the underside of her chin, lifting it up slightly so that she had to look into his eyes. “I thought you might enjoy your position. Was I right?”
“Enjoy?” Her voice felt suddenly dry. Did he guess that she was turned on? The butterflies in her stomach were anything but enjoyable. Some things were so much easier to dream about than do. Maybe they should stay dreams. Or maybe I should go for it this once. “Um…”
“Um, what?”
“I’m anxious.” She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t come right out and say I’m wet and my breasts ache to be touched. “But I’m interested.” She wanted to turn away from him, afraid of what he might read in her eyes, even though she half hoped that he could so she wouldn’t have to actually answer his questions.
“Interested, hmm? Are you—” He stopped and shook his head. “No, maybe you’ve answered enough questions, and I should answer some of the questions you might have. I meant what I said about taking you to a movie, and the offer is still open, if you’d rather. You’re a very desirable woman. I know. I’ve seen you naked.”
She blushed at that but didn’t interrupt. He continued. “I want to spend time with you. I’m curious about you. You’re different than anyone I’ve known before. ”
“You mean because I’m a witch.” It was something that had been lurking at the back of her mind. Why would someone so skeptical be interested in her? In her usual blunt way, she charged forward. “But you don’t believe that any of what I do is real. If you think I’m a fraud—”
“I don’t think you’re a fraud.” He blinked and seemed to think it over. “You know, what I want to do with you requires a great deal of honesty and trust. I owe you the most honest answer I can give. I don’t believe in psychic powers, and I don’t believe in magic. But a fraud is someone who tries to pull one over on other people for gain. Sometimes that gain is just notoriety. But you haven’t done that. You didn’t try to gain anything from the publicity concerning Carla’s disappearance. You’re not trying to get anything. You’re not a fraud. You believe what you believe. I don’t think we’re that different than any other two people that don’t agree on politics or religion.”
She smiled slightly at that, although she wasn’t sure it was so simple. You could try to draw the parallels. Lots of people thought their prayers changed outcomes. Heck, she agreed with them. She didn’t think it was all that different from magic either, but she didn’t expect to get equal treatment from anyone, including the man in front of her. She wasn’t prepared to give up, either. At least the turn of subject had eased the ache in her pussy and the tightness in her nipples. Just sitting there that turned on would have been hard.
“There was something
about you, though, that indicated that you might be a sexual submissive. The way you objected to being called ma’am and Ms. Clarke indicated to me you probably weren’t a domme. The way you looked away when I said I didn’t mind being called sir suggested to me it might be more than that. So I thought I’d take a chance and see if maybe we had something in common by being different. Two sides of the same coin, if you will. Because I am a dominant. I like to be in control in the bedroom and sometimes outside it too. And I thought it was very possible that we two would fit together.”
So much for relaxing and getting less aroused. But her heart had quit pounding so hard at least. His frankness let her anxiety subside.
“Have you ever submitted to anyone before?” he asked.
She thought of asking him what made him think she was going to submit now, but she already had the moment she knelt and offered him the wine. The answer to his question was clear enough. “No.”
“Then I’m going to go very slow and be very explicit.” He glanced at the watch on his left wrist. “I want you to submit to me for an hour. During that time, I will expect you to do what I say and to let me do to you what I want to do. If you feel at any time that I’ve gone too far, you will say your safe word. Do you know what a safe word is?”
“It’s a word that when I say it, you stop and don’t play with me anymore.” Her heartbeat quickened again. She didn’t want to say the word, whatever it was. This might be her only chance, although she supposed she could work on that profile on the networking site and maybe even try to contact a dom herself.
“Correct.”
She remembered a scene from a book she read. “But to stop me from saying it, you won’t ever play with me again, so I have to mean it.”
He frowned, and for a moment she thought he was cross with her. “Um, no. If you say it, I will stop doing whatever I’m doing, release you from any bondage, make sure you are physically okay, then make sure that you are emotionally okay. And then we will talk, out of role, no ‘Sir’ or anything like that. If you wish, we’ll continue from that point, perhaps with modifications that we’ve negotiated. If you wish me to leave your house, that would be your decision. If you want me to stay and hold you, I’ll do that too.”
Submissive by Moonlight Page 3
