by Maren Smith
Leaning forward, her knees touching his thighs, she tied the blindfold around the back of his head and gave him a light kiss on the edge of his lips. He smelled so good. “What’s your color?”
“Green.”
“Can you focus on my voice right now? Tell me what it sounds like? Any different from before?” She kept her palms gently on his face and shoulder.
His brows furrowed. “I can’t tell much of a difference, except for the fact that I want to listen to you talk, hum and sing all day and all night. Your voice is like the beach at night. It calms me and makes me think of my early teen years when everything was simpler. I love your voice. Keep talking to me, please. I think that will help keep me in green.”
“All right. Reach out, please. I’d like you to touch me.”
He didn’t waver at all, just placed his hands straight out in front of him. She lowered her head into his palms.
“That’s my head.”
He laughed and took a fistful of her hair in his grasp, giving a light tug. “Yeah, I kinda figured that out. I love the way your hair slides through my fingers. It’s calming, something I could do all day. And when I feel like taking you, I can just…” He bunched up her hair and yanked her quickly to his mouth. “Yeah, I can still do that. I like that. Hold still, please.”
“Okay.”
He relaxed his grip on her hair and pressed his whole face into her strands, taking a deep inhale. “I love how you smell, some sort of fruit conditioner, I want to say it’s citrusy, and tangy. I like it.”
“Thank you.”
“Okay, what’s next?”
She drew herself closer, straddling his lap and leaned in to kiss him. He took the moment to grab her head and pull her closer, devouring her with his mouth. His tongue leaving no part of her untouched, and she moaned into his lips.
“You taste amazing,” he said when he finally released her. “Like a cross between chocolate and coffee. Wait.” He licked Grace’s lips slowly, and she shuddered in pleasure. “The creamer you use. That stuff that’s mostly peppermint and cream. I can taste it more than the coffee.”
“Good job.” She pulled back, though she wanted to stay on his lap like this for the rest of the day. “Okay, keep those senses in mind. How you said you feel, what makes you feel safe. My mango-and-papaya conditioner, the beach, the peppermint mocha creamer and coffee, all of it. We’re going for a little walk.”
He tensed beneath her.
“Chris, I’m not going to push you past your limit. We’re just going to edge closer to it. Just a little walk. Think you can do that?”
“Yeah,”
“Color?”
“What?” he croaked.
“What’s your color, big guy?”
“Shit. Um, greenish yellow, whatever is in between that but closer to green than yellow, but still in between. Like avocado. I think I’m avocado. Yeah, definitely avocado or guacamole with lemon in it, yeah that’s it.”
“Breathe, Chris.”
“What?”
“Take a deep breath. One, two, three, four, five.” She did it with him. “Now exhale, one, two, three, four, five.” She exhaled, listening as his breaths evened out. “Just keep talking to me. I can tell you’re nervous. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Where are we going?” His voice sounded littler, more afraid than she’d ever heard him.
“Just a small circuit of this room. No farther. This is just for you to understand there’s nothing here that can hurt you. Yeah, if I let you bump into the table, you might get a bruise, but that’s it. For the record, I won’t let you bump into it. I think bruises are for the occasional paddling which I’m hoping you will give me later.” She joked, knowing he’d like that idea.
His laugh sounded a lot more relaxed as she listened to him stand up. “Yeah, I like that idea a lot.”
“Just do exactly what I say, please.”
“Bossy little thing, aren’t you?”
“Like you’re surprised,” she said, grinning. She backed up five paces and stood across from him. “Okay, can you hear my voice and tell where I am?”
“Yeah, I heard you take some really loud steps. Five, actually. Do you always stomp, or am I just getting Spidey senses or something?”
“Batman would be more appropriate, but no, I was doing that so you could hear me better.”
“So, you’re about five steps, maybe four of mine away, straight in front of me.”
“Yep, the coffee table is right behind me, touching the back of my knees right now. I’m going to move again. Listen.” This time she shuffled across the floor to the other side of the room so she was against the far window. “You hear me still?”
“Yeah, that wasn’t quite as loud, but I still got you.”
“Here’s what I’d like you to do. Walk over to the coffee table, pick up the remote, then bring it to me.”
“Um.”
“Color?”
“The coffee shop mermaid mixed with that coffee holder, so almost yellow.”
“Do you want to slow this down?”
“No.”
“If you’re almost yellow, then shouldn’t we—”
“I said no!”
“Bad boy. Yelling at me and interrupting me when I’m trying to be a good fake Domme.”
His low chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. “You’re a good little girl. Trying to take my mind off the situation so I can focus on blistering your ass. But make no mistake, you won’t be sitting for the rest of the day after I’m done with you.”
“You’ll have to catch me first.”
“Game on.”
“Proceed, please.” She loved that he was so willing to try this even though it was making him nervous. He was strong, slightly bullheaded since he wouldn’t give her a clear yellow. But they both knew who was in charge of this moment, and it wasn’t her. He was empowering himself with every step he took toward that coffee table. Slow clomping steps, probably with his arms straight out like a super cliché zombie.
“Okay, you’re really close to that table. Careful you don’t hit your shins.”
“I’m not going to hit my shins. The table’s higher than that.” Thud. “Shit. Ahh, okay, you were right. Shin. I’m coming for you now, little girl.”
“Good. I miss you.”
She could hear his hard, unsure steps as he came closer. “You just miss having a red bottom. I’ll take care of that soon.” His arms were really long, so he made contact with her breasts before he fully stepped up to her. “Hmm, I found something else that makes me happy.” He squeezed them and took another step forward, so he was flush against her body.
“So where are we right now?” she asked, holding back the moan as he turned his attention to her breasts.
“Based on the room layout, if I remember correctly, I’m going to say the window on the back side of the suite.”
“Good job!” She reached forward to untie his blindfold, but his hands stopped her, grabbing her wrists gently.
“Not yet. Can you tell if anyone is out in the hall?”
“The hall?”
“Yeah, I want to walk a little farther, see like how you saw this place, even for just a minute or two. Over to the door to the stairs, then back. You okay with that?”
“Yeah, if you’re sure you’re okay.”
“I trust you to walk me past all these obstacles. I can’t remember what else to watch out for besides that table. Help a guy out?”
“Color?”
“Mint green. When you’re with me, I’m definitely green.”
“All right. When this is done, will you make love to me?”
He kissed her gently on the lips then pressed back from her. “After I take back my position as the most Dominant person in this room and paddle your ass.”
She laughed and walked around him toward the door. “Whatever you want. Sir. Follow my lead, and we’ll keep the bruises to a minimum.”
Chris
He tried
to keep his fears from taking over, but when he heard the click he assumed was the door opening, it was all he could do to keep from ripping the blindfold off and having a complete meltdown right there. And wasn’t that the way a big bad Dom should behave. That thought helped him to suppress the terror that tightened his throat and made his heart pound in his ears.
Breathing. Grace had unknowingly echoed the advice of his therapists. Breathe in to a count, out to a count, hold in between and focus on that.
“Coming?” She took his hand and rested it on her arm, as he’d done for her so many times, and stepped outside the room. He recognized the slightly cooler air in the hallway, the draft he barely noticed before.
“It smells different out here, doesn’t it?” he said. “A mixture of things, like cleaning products, and flowers… Do I smell flowers?”
She paused and guided his free hand to the right where it came into contact with soft, fluffy petals. “Yes, there is an arrangement here, on the table. Any other observations?”
“I can hear voices from the rooms. Usually, I don’t notice, but right now, they seem loud, if not clear.”
She started forward again, moving slowly but surely, while he shuffled his feet as if the rug would drop away at any moment. “Yes, that was one of the first senses that got keener for me. My hearing. I have to be careful, or I’m a terribly naughty eavesdropper.” She lowered her voice, and he detected irritation in her tone. “Of course, if people didn’t act like being blind also makes me deaf, and talk as if I can’t hear them, I’d hear a whole lot less!”
“That must be difficult. I’m afraid I’d have to enlighten them in your position.”
She sighed. “Watch your step, here. There’s a chair against the wall on your right. Color?”
“What?” He’d actually been enough into the experience, trying to imagine what the world was like for his princess, that his emotions had settled down. “Right now? Bright spring green. But—” In the near distance, a crash sounded, and he tensed all over again, his self-discipline tested, fingers on the hand not on Grace’s arm fisted to keep from ripping off the blindfold. “Yellow… What was that?”
“I don’t know either, remember? But let’s stop here and listen…. Maybe we’ll find out, and that will help you center again.”
He strained his ears, but, for a moment, all he heard was the low buzz of voices behind the hallway doors, then a very distinctive scent came to his nose. “I smell chocolate.”
“Very good. Me, too. Now, shh for a minute.”
He held steady, all his senses attuned when a voice carried to them. “Daddy, I spilled my cocoa all over my nightie.”
“A Little in trouble.” He chuckled. “Her book won’t be the only thing colored tonight.”
“Likely, but they are coming closer, and I don’t know if you want to be seen with me leading you.”
“Why not?”
“Well,” she mused, “first because you’re my Dom and should be doing the leading most would think. But, more importantly, I forgot my blindfold when we left the suite. So, shall we turn around?”
“Yes, but I need to practice tuning in to all this stimuli and not letting the rage come over me. This is good, princess.” He turned and bent, bringing his lips to where he hoped her cheek was and brushing over the soft skin. “You are good for me.”
Chapter 10
Chris
Chris tugged the blanket over himself, settled on the couch in the living area between their bedrooms. It got harder every night to slip out of the bed in Grace’s room once she’d fallen asleep, but it was for her, as well as his own, benefit. The night terrors came less often since he’d been at the Castle. In fact, since he’d been hooked up with his princess, he’d only had a couple, when they used to be a nightly affair, which left him hopeful but still wary.
What kind of a protector terrifies the protectee? He flipped to his other side, knowing he should probably head for his own bed but unwilling to be that far from Grace. Here, he could hear her even, slow breathing, the rustle of crisp sheets when she rolled over. The occasional murmur or sigh. He buried his head under a throw pillow, trying to lose himself in sleep. He had little enough else to complain about. Their every waking moment was incredible. They wandered from one part of the Castle to another, sharing the adventures available to them, trying out some of the more esoteric fun to be found anywhere but in the Dungeon.
They’d approached it a few times, but he got so tense, he always retreated, and, although Grace told him it didn’t matter, that their time fulfilled her every fantasy and even some she hadn’t known she had, he hated what he’d begun to think of as cowardice. What kind of a Dom had to avoid the Dungeon spaces for fear of losing his mind?
If he couldn’t get past this, maybe he should step back when his duty to Grace was over. She deserved better. But thoughts like that only made him wider awake. He considered going for a walk, but, in order to do that, he’d need to find someone to fulfill his role, and when a glance at his phone showed the hour to be nearly three a.m., he recognized the ridiculousness of that plan. Waking another one of the Doms so he could take a stroll? No… but sleep remained elusive.
If he didn’t get some rest, he wouldn’t be at his best to handle any situations that might come up the next day, but nothing made sleep harder to come by than watching the clock and thinking how little time he had left to sleep. I’ll be fine with six hours. With five… four. By four-thirty a.m., he was exhausted but still awake.
And yearning for his Grace. Could he take a chance? Odds were he wasn’t going to be sleeping anyway, so abandoning his lonely couch, he returned to the bedroom and slipped between the sheets. Like a flower turning toward the sun, Grace snuggled into his side. She gave a sweet sigh, and he wrapped an arm around her and zonked out.
A hot, dusty day in the Middle East. They’d been in the area for months, one week blending into the next, with nothing happening at all. The assignment to accompany the supply train was welcomed, something to do besides miss home and family.
The rumble of wheels took over, the whine of bullets, the explosion of the ICBM. Men shrieking in pain. Where were they? His guys… he was responsible for their welfare, but they’d had no warning. The road was clear. Their caravan could proceed with only a normal level of concern. No unfriendlies had been spotted in a week in the area. The local villagers were helpful and welcoming Everything that should have had him on edge but hadn’t. Sure, he’d been on the alert, as always, but the dead silence before all hell broke loose?
He’d warned his men never to let their guard down. That no day on these sands was safe. He warned them then… but they’d shaken their heads at him and pointed to the miles of open desert between them and the horizon. Only scattered boulders lay around big enough to conceal someone, but they’d have had to be there in the blazing sun with no movement the entire time the caravan crossed the open space.
He’d never forget it.
Or forgive himself.
His men picked off by the sniper hidden in the boulders beyond the track. Turned out at least one of the bastards had the ability to roast in the sun for at least seven hours with no movement to give himself away. The first truck flew into the air and landed upside down, its load of supplies scattered for yards all around. As well as the driver and gunmen—Smitty and Henderson. The next truck had its driver taken out by the snipers. Munoz. The third exploded into a million pieces. The fourth… Chris shoved the driver out and leapt out the other side seconds before it followed the explosion of the third. Unfortunately, the driver was the sniper’s next victim.
Joe! The man he’d been riding alongside all day, shooting the breeze and wishing they had one. The attack came out of nowhere. He’d seen nothing. He’d let them all down, and when the explosions stopped, the flames died back, and the dust settled, he stood alone, but for one driver, Garvey, who was bleeding from several wounds and didn’t look like he had long.
“Chris!” They were coming for him
now. “Chris!” A female voice. Another trick. Someone grabbed at his arm, and he came up fighting. “Chris, it’s me!”
He grabbed the assailant and dragged them close. “Where did you come from? Where are the rest of you? I’ll kill you all!”
“Chris!” Panic tinged the assailant’s voice, and he tightened his grip, squeezing the breath out of the bastard responsible for killing his guys. He’d show him how a US soldier treated those who harmed their troops. He could stop them from killing again. Except all his guys were already dead or dying. Maybe he should let the enemy combatant kill him, too, and avoid the shame of facing the colonel and letting him know how badly he’d failed. He ran from one to the next of his men, their bodies scattered over the sand and gravel. Dead. Or bleeding out. Their names ran in his mind over and over, Trent, Alden, Herst… He’d warned them, but not enough. Hadn’t made them wary enough.
Hadn’t seen the sniper himself. But now he’d pay.
The sniper had a knife, and he flailed, the edge of the blade slicing down Chris’ arm, the pain like acid burning, but he didn’t care if he died, as long as he took the bastard with him. The single enemy soldier on the scene of the entire company’s murder. No, he probably hadn’t set it all up, but he’d been the only one left there to mind the weapons. To watch the American troops torn apart by the booby traps and pick off any who were left alive.
A rumbling in the distance told of vehicles approaching but sound carried far here, with no other noise but the wind over the sand to detract from it. It was either this man’s people coming to pick him up and congratulate him for a job well done or possibly the good guys, following up on the explosions.
Either way, they’d find this sniper dead.
Tightening his grip on the guy’s throat, he heard a cry. A woman’s sob. He jerked back, panting, on the floor next to a high, four-poster bed.
Above him, Grace’s face. One hand was at her throat. Her unseeing eyes were wide in the light of the bedside lamp. Who had turned it on? “Chris?”
