by Chloe Cox
So far, so good.
He’d walked up those stairs convinced that he would explain some things, that would be that, and she’d be on her way.
And then she’d said the one thing that could have compelled him to change his mind. He did not see that one coming, that was for sure. Once she’d said she needed his help as a Dom to get over what that idiot did to her, he was just a goner, no hope for him at all. As a Dom, first of all, he couldn’t turn away a sub that needed his help. But it was like she knew he’d spent the last few years reliving the times he’d failed a woman who needed his help, and knew he’d make up for it in any way he could.
Except she didn’t know any of that. She couldn’t. And thinking about Jennie or the Asala family again should set him on edge, like it always did. Only now he had a naked Lena draped over him, and he felt…
In control. Normally he only felt like that in the topspace of dominating a sub, usually in a scene. It was that same feeling he’d had earlier, like just her presence calmed him, took off that edge in him that was always looking for a bad guy to fight.
He frowned. That was dangerous freaking thinking, right there. Chance knew enough to know that no one else was going to fix him but him. That wasn’t how people worked, and looking for that in someone else was as bad as a woman who thought she could fix a broken man and got herself into a bad situation as a result.
Focus on the present. Focus on what you promised her you’d do.
Well, at the present moment, he was very much enjoying the prospect of Lena in his bed for the foreseeable future. And the prospect of keeping her naked for as long as he wanted.
He smiled. Good thing it was his prerogative to set the rules. It was good to be a Dom.
But first things first. He needed confirmation that this was the right thing for her. He needed to hear it in the light of day, and he needed her to hear his own reservations—informed consent wasn’t just some byword. He’d need it before he broke out the toys or set any rules.
Slowly and carefully, so he wouldn’t wake her, he shifted Lena onto her side, next to him. She only sighed, and settled down on to her back, giving him an unbelievable view.
Damn, she had to be cute when she was sleeping, too.
Chance pulled on an old pair of sweats, then padded to the bathroom and got a warm, wet washcloth, which he then wrung out and brought back to the bed. They had made a considerable mess. Normally he wouldn’t just pass out without cleaning up, but that night had been anything but normal. Still, it was his job to take care of her, no matter what the outcome of their coming conversation. No woman went neglected in his bed.
So he’d take care of her.
He climbed back onto the bed and gently began to wipe her down with the washcloth. Didn’t take long for that to wake her up.
But she woke up smiling.
“That feels good,” she murmured.
He bent her leg at the knee so he could get to her inner thigh, and she opened her eyes with alarm. Then she tried to hide it.
Interesting.
“What are you doing?” she asked, leaning up on her elbows.
He grinned. “Cleaning you off so I can mess you up again,” he said. “If I decide that’s the way to go.”
Her cheeks darkened. God, she was beautiful.
“I like you on me,” she said quietly.
Chance paused. She hadn’t said that seductively, or teasingly, or…anything but quietly and earnestly. He was instantly hard. He looked up to see if she was retreating from that little unplanned moment of vulnerability, and yup, sure enough, she wouldn’t meet his eyes now.
“Are you sore?” he asked.
She shook her head, mute.
He said, “Last night was something.”
“Amazing,” she murmured.
“Yeah, it was. It was also what we might call off the books,” he said, running the washcloth up her leg. He heard her breathing quicken. “Not part of our official arrangement. That will begin today, conditional upon a few things.”
Her eyes went wary. Chance gently stroked her with the washcloth while he met her eyes, wanting her to get the message: he’d take care of her, no matter what.
“What do you mean?”
“Easy, sweetheart,” he said. “Don’t get spooked. This is a big thing you want to do, and I need to make sure you know what you’re getting into, and that you’re doing it for the right reasons. I’m cautious because I don’t want you to get hurt. Ok?”
She visibly relaxed, but not all the way. What had she expected the conditions to be—something he wanted from her? Like she expected him to take his pound of flesh?
Yeah, she had some issues to work out.
“Ok,” she said, eyes still a bit narrowed. She pulled herself up so that she was leaning against the headboard, and pulled her legs up to her chest. Covering herself in a protective stance, defensive as hell, however unconscious. That wouldn’t fly when—if—they got started, but now wasn’t the time to go at her defenses head on.
She said, “So what conditions?”
“Well, first things first: before we get into what it would mean for me to train you as your Dom, you need to know what I was going to tell you last night,” he said, feeling…strange. He should have the tightness in his gut, the feeling running up and down his spine, just thinking about this.
He didn’t. He was just focused on her. The Zen of Lena.
Chance trapped her with his stare, wanting her to know that this was important.
“I don’t know what image you have of Doms. If it’s from books and movies or even the internet, it’s probably wrong. Or at least not one hundred percent right.”
“Strangely, as an actress and a writer, I am familiar with the concept of fiction,” she said, smiling slightly. She seemed relieved, her shoulders dropping another fraction of an inch. On familiar ground. Good.
Give her a preview.
Chance grabbed hold of her foot and rubbed it in his hands, chuckling. “Just you wait ‘til you find out what I’d do to my sub for that kind of smartass remark.”
Her sudden intake of breath was definitely noticeable, her skin flushed, her pupils dilated. Chance smiled at her, not gently, but hungrily, and kept going.
“Look, Doms aren’t cartoon-perfect, though some of them like to think they are. I’m a man who’s sexually dominant, and damn good at it, but I have flaws, like any other man. Big flaws. And I have a past full of fuck ups, though not involving BDSM,” he added. “It’s important that you know that. I have my own demons, Lena, and that’s why I was reluctant to get involved with you. The only way I normally get involved with women, and with submissive women, is no strings attached, and you…”
He sighed. He had her full attention.
“You’ve got some strings on you.”
“I do, do I?”
“You know you do.”
She tried to stare him down. Chance might have laughed, but he didn’t want to hurt her. He waited until she looked down, her long black eyelashes fluttering prettily on those smooth cheeks—just like a good sub.
“Listen,” he said, rubbing her foot with tender care. She was starting to relax under his touch, which was a good sign. “This—what you’ve asked me for? This is different. I take my duty as a Dom very, very seriously. I take that responsibility seriously. I take it so seriously that I take my ego out of it. It’s the most important thing in my world, and while I train you—if I train you, Lena—you become the most important thing in my world. It won’t be about me until I think you’re ready for it, though, trust me, I’ll look forward to that day,” he said, letting his mind drift briefly over all the ways he would take Lena for his pleasure. “But until then, it’ll be about you. Do you know what you’re getting into?”
“I think so,” she said, braving a look up. When she saw his face, she smiled, brightening up the room. “You sound like me—you come with a warning label. I think I might have been weirded out if you didn’t warn me about something.
Those guys who think they’re perfect are usually the ones you have to worry about.”
Would wonders never cease? His crazy, beautiful, untrained sub was smart, too.
“What’s your warning label?” he asked, stretching her leg out toward him. She was opening up, slowly.
She laughed, and it was shiny, glittering sound. “Irrevocably skittish? Oh, and prone to trusting the wrong people. So that’s a good sign, right, Mr. Guy I Inexplicably Trust?”
Lena was laughing at herself as she sat before him, naked, and let him massage her leg, working his way up, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still scared. Chance could feel it, an undercurrent working between them, some part of her silently asking him for reassurance.
He was used to reading subs. He wasn’t used to feeling this…connected. Not right away.
“Yeah, you do trust me,” he said. “Why?”
“I told you last night.”
“Not good enough. This is serious stuff. Answer me.”
He had stopped toying with her now, needing to get to the heart of this, and he could see her struggle. Good. She was putting effort into it, treating it seriously. If she hadn’t, he would have reconsidered everything.
“I can’t give you a solid answer,” she said finally, meeting his eyes. “And that bothers me at least as much as it bothers you. In the end, I just…do. Part of it is the way you looked out for me yesterday. Part of it is how Adra spoke about you, about your reputation. Part of it is Volare’s reputation. Part of it is what I felt last night. What I feel right now,” she said, taking a deep breath that seemed to reverberate throughout her whole body.
Chance was sure he felt it, too.
“But I’m not dumb,” she went on. “I know none of those things should be enough. It just feels right. And,” she said, “before you say anything, believe me: I think that’s crazier than you do, given what I’ve just been through. But I’m tired of missing out on things in life because I can’t trust that they’ll turn out perfectly. For some reason I trust you for this, and I am reveling in the novelty of that feeling. Besides, if you turn out to be an axe murderer, I…”
He raised an eyebrow.
She stopped, cocked her head, laughed. “I was about to say I don’t have anything else to lose, but an axe murderer would be going after heads, right? That…that would count as a loss. I retract the axe murderer comparison.”
“Formally?” he asked. This woman was just fun.
“Formally. Provided you’re as sane as everyone thinks you are, I don’t have anything else to lose.”
Well, he’d been there. To him it didn’t signify weakness or even desperation—sometimes rock bottom was where you found yourself.
In fact, Chance was beyond pleased. He hadn’t expected that. Not at all. Not with the whirlwind nature of this whole thing. But that had been an intelligent, thought out, considered answer, honest and realistic, and even a little insightful. It had been everything he might hope for in a potential sub.
“I’m glad you said that,” he said. “I can train you, as nuts as this has been.”
“I didn’t know I was being interviewed!”
She tried to kick him and he caught her easily, dragging her body down to his and spreading her legs just enough.
He saw her breath hitch and her lips part.
“I told you, I’m going to be assessing your needs,” he said, holding off just a little longer. “But more importantly, Lena, this stuff is serious. I need you to be honest with me like that all the time.”
“Well, that should be easy with all this insane trust.”
For a moment Chance was just lost, staring at her. She had relaxed into her new position, her breasts just perfect and beautiful and wanting to be kissed, her legs long and lean, her eyes shining, her smile easy.
This whole thing was just so…easy.
And she was looking at him in just the same way.
“You know I was worried I would wake up this morning and think this was a huge mistake,” she said.
Chance feigned surprise, as though he hadn’t had that exact same thought, then gave her that wicked grin again. “Do you?” he asked.
“No. For some…again, inexplicable reason.” Lena pushed her foot into his lap, a little playfully, a lot provocatively. He was hard all over again. “This stuff gets explained eventually, right? Or is it just going to be one long mystery?”
“Oh, you’re going to be explaining things to me,” he said, running his hand up her thigh. “Whatever I want. You’ll answer my questions. You’ll obey my orders. Fundamentally, you are giving up control. Do you understand that?”
He stopped with his hand just over her sex, just resting on top of it, not moving, studying her face, her body, her eyes for any sign of reluctance. None. Just a slight fear, the kind that heightened her excitement, and…gratitude.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good. Now we talk about the terms of our arrangement,” he said.
And he slipped a finger inside her.
She let out a small sound of surprise and blinked, her wetness flowing over his hand.
“We need terms?” she asked. She was playing it cool, but her nipples were starting to tighten into pretty little buds, and he could see her start to swell.
“Hell yeah, we do,” he said, moving in slow circles inside her. “We’re gonna be doing some kinky stuff. You’ve gotta be clear on the rules going in. Safety is paramount, Lena.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said.
Her head was back on the pillow now, and her eyes were closed. She was sinking into the pleasure away from him. That wouldn’t fly. He leaned forward and slipped another finger into her.
“Oh!” She arched into his hand.
“Look at me, Lena,” he ordered. “You don’t come without me unless I tell you to, you get me? You don’t go off into your own private headspace unless that’s part of the scene. So you look at me. And right now? You aren’t coming until I tell you to.”
“But—”
“No. I want your full, undivided attention,” he said, moving ever so slowly, just enough to torment her. “Consider it an incentive.”
She glared at him. He was enjoying this too damn much.
“Ok,” she breathed. “What…what are the rules?”
“I’m gonna give you a checklist later to look over, but right now, can you think of any redlines you have? Stuff you just can’t do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know what a safeword is?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, well, think of it like a stoplight. Green, yellow, red. It’s my job to read you, but I’m not telepathic, so when I check in, you answer me. If you can’t answer me because you’re deep in subspace and have just spaced the eff out, I’m stopping. You’re not sure, need to take it slow, need to check in? Yellow. Red—”
“Means stop.”
He stopped his fingers. She frowned a little.
“And we’re gonna have to work on your manners, Lena,” he said. “Don’t try to talk over a Dom, sweetheart. Not this Dom. Not in this arrangement.”
“Ok,” she said. “What happens if I do?”
Just the suggestion of a glint in her eye. This one had a spark, but he knew that already, didn’t he?
“Discipline. Punishment.”
Her breath quickened again and she tightened around him. “What does that mean?”
“What I decide it means.”
She was squirming under him a bit, and he doubted she even knew it. So that was interesting.
“I’ll be figuring out what you need, what you respond to, what you avoid. We’re gonna find out what kind of sub you are, and what you want. But that means we have to explore. That part isn’t always fun.”
“Good thing I trust you for this.”
Lena locked eyes with him again, bracing herself while she moved her hips ever so slightly, her hands twisted up in his sheets.
“Uh huh, because while it might n
ot be practical to make you go naked all of the time,” he said, smiling as her eyes widened, “or keep you tied to my bed at all times, we’ll compromise.”
Oh man, he felt her get even wetter. His erection was starting to get painful.
“Compromise?” she said. Her voice had gotten breathy and her hips had started to move.
He decided to see how far she’d go. Push that button.
“Lena,” he said sharply. “Look at me. You will always be sexually available to me. All times, all places. At any moment, I might give you the order.”
Everything stopped—except her, clenching around his fingers.
“The order?”
“If I tell you to take off your panties and bend over, you’d better do it.”
She laughed, he guessed from embarrassment at how much that turned her on. She was as easy to read as a book, especially with his finger inside her. It was tough to keep his face stern. Even tougher not to just take her again right then.
“Ok,” she said, biting her lip.
Ok. He was glad to see that his instincts about her were still dead on. That was kind of a big play right out the gate, and she was still playing along with him.
“Most things I’m gonna be doing for your benefit, Lena,” he said, moving his finger a bit faster. “But some stuff I’m gonna do just because I want to.”
“Yes,” she said, panting. “I am totally in favor of that.”
“Hey, what’d I say? Don’t you close your eyes,” he said. “I didn’t say you could—”
“But I’m so close, Chance,” she said, looking him dead in the eye.
He immediately ceased fucking her with his fingers.
Well. He wasn’t wrong about that, either. She was already testing one of his rules, closing her eyes and talking over him to see what discipline meant. This one might be into provoking funishment without even knowing the word. Some Doms hated that sort of game, but Chance had always been a playful guy, just as long as it was on the up and up. And just his amazing luck to get a precocious, beautiful, responsive sub. Too bad she was being manipulative.
