by Penny Wylder
I laugh. “Sure.”
As we’re walking to the dining room, I realize how weird that was. He didn’t do any of his Dom stuff. Is it because he’s trying to win the bet? Has he changed his mind?
The table is set with an array of sandwiches and drinks, and he sits down. I sit down across from him. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand lunch?” he smirks.
“No,” I say. “I don’t understand what just happened.”
He doesn’t say anything, just takes a bite of a sandwich and waits for me to continue.
“You were…nice. You didn’t tie me up of tell me what to do. It was just sex.”
“I can be spontaneous just like any other person. Kinky people are capable of having regular sex.”
“But why?” I ask. “I mean, are you trying to trick me into asking for the submissive stuff so you’ll win the bet?”
I see him freeze. He puts down the food in his hand, and when he looks at me, the playful light that was there is gone. “I’m sorry?”
“If I admit that I want to be submissive, you win. So if you don’t do that stuff and then I ask for it, you win and you get me for a whole month. Was that why you were so nice with the massage and the…” I trail off because the way he’s looking at me dries up all my words.
“You think that I’m trying to trick you so that I can keep you prisoner here for thirty days? After everything, that’s what you think of me?”
“No,” I say. “It just felt…odd.”
Matthew sighs and scrubs his hands across his face. “I’m capable of being kind, Emma. My every action is not build into trapping you into a lifestyle that you don’t want. I made the bet to get you here, so that you could see that this life isn’t what you thought it was. From the very beginning you’ve had this…preconceived notion about who I am. And I know that we have a lot of intimacy now, but you don’t know that much about me. I thought that after last night you would have gotten a pretty good idea of who I am, but clearly I was wrong about that, and you’re wrong about me.”
He stands and leaves the room, and the silence is huge. Crap. What on earth did I just do?
Fourteen
I walk after Matthew, and I can hear his footsteps ahead of me. He’s gone back to the playroom, and I find him cleaning the table that we just had sex on.
“Matthew,” I say, and he doesn’t look at me.
“I like you, Emma.” He stops, hands on his hips and looks at me. I can’t meet his eyes because I realize that I was wrong before. I wasn’t seeing him at his most vulnerable on the patio, I’m seeing it now. “I like you, and I know that I shouldn’t, because clearly we don’t want the same things. I had hoped…I don’t know what I hoped. But if you’re only here for the money, then you can have it. I’ve tried to show you that a Dom/sub relationship is about trust, and if you would really think I’d do something like that then you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t want the money.” I don’t even realize it until I say it, but it’s true. My gut churns and I think I might be sick. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, and I don’t know how to fix it, but I know that I want to fix it. “It’s not that.”
“Please, help me understand,” he says.
“Last night, when we were talking about my ex—”
“Jeremy,” he says, eyes darkening.
I nod. “Yeah. I didn’t…I couldn’t say how much he hurt me. How I can’t trust people. How every time I like it when you tell me to do something I feel sick to my stomach because I think it’s happening again. And I know, I know that you’re not like him.”
“Then why? Emma, I would never do that to you. I would never force you against your will, would never hurt you like that. Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
He takes a step towards me. “Yes, you do. You just don’t want to say it.”
“No. I’ve been trying to figure it out for the last three days and nothing.”
Another step. “Then tell me why you don’t want this. Everything about your reactions when we’re together tells me that you’re a sub and that you love it. So why do you keep running away from this? Why do you keep pushing it away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Another step closer. “Don’t lie.”
“Because I don’t want to be broken anymore!” The words burst out of me, and the tears follow. “After Jeremy left I was broken for a long time and I still might be broken and wanting this—wanting you— liking you telling me what to do makes me scared. But I do want it, and that means I must be broken, because a sane person can’t keep choosing to give up her freedom.” I run out of steam and I stand there, breathing hard, tears streaming down my face, and I know I’ve shocked him because he doesn’t look angry anymore.
He’s so close that I want to reach out and touch him, let him hold me, but he doesn’t move. “What about Lily?”
“What about her?”
“Do you think she’s broken? Do you think that she’s screwed up because she married Mark? I don’t know how much she’s told you about her relationship but he’s a stricter Dom than I am. They’re in a twenty-four-seven relationship. There’s never a moment when she doesn’t submit. Do you think she’s unhappy? Crazy?”
I take a second and think. Lily has been talking about Mark for years, and she’s never said anything but good things. There haven’t been any red flags when I’ve talked to her, and at the wedding, I’ve never seen her so happy. “No,” I whisper, “I don’t think that. Lily isn’t stupid. She’d never do something she wasn’t okay with.”
“Then why do you think you’re broken for wanting something that makes you feel good?”
“Because it scares me. What if I just end up in the same place I was?”
Matthew finally closes the space between us, and I hate that the tears flow harder. I thought I had been all cried out last night. I guess I was wrong. The warmth of his arms is so welcome, and I let go. I’m sure I’m his shirt, but I can’t stop.
He tips my head back, kissing me softly. “Maybe we should stop,” he says. “Maybe you’re not ready, and I don’t want to scare you away from this life because I calculated wrong.”
“I don’t want to stop,” I say, even though I’m shivering. “Please. Show me that I’m wrong. Show me that I don’t have to be afraid of this.”
He searches my face, and I don’t know what he’s looking for. “Are you sure?”
“Please.”
Another soft kiss. “You have to trust me.”
“I do.”
Another hesitation, another searching of my face. I know he’s deciding whether or not to move forward, and I desperately want him to. I need this. I need to feel that strange bond between us and be able to let go and let him take control and know that everything will still be okay.
Slowly, Matthew nods. “Strip and kneel.”
I don’t hesitate, pulling my lingerie over my head and putting it aside, I sink to my knees in front of him. My head is bowed, and I can’t see what he’s doing, but he’s moved away, and I hear the sounds of equipment being prepared.
It takes a few minutes, and when his feet come to stand in front of me again, I’m relieved. I don’t raise my head until I feel a hand on my shoulder. “Stand.”
I do, and when I look up I freeze. He’s bringing me toward that same X I watched at his party. My heart is beating out of my chest, but I put one foot in front of the other until I’m standing in front to it.
“What are your safewords, Emma?”
“Red and Lemon.”
He turns me to face him. “Step back and up.”
I step on the platform, and he gently lays me back against the X, which is at an angle now. Just enough that I’m not able to stand. Matthew buckles my wrists and ankles into the cuffs, and then more straps across my hips and chest. I’m suspended and spread open. “Can you move?” he asks gently.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Emma,” Matthew’s voice is calm. “Are you in pain?”
“No, Sir.”
“You are safe with me. What are your safewords?”
A way out. I have a way out. My breath calms and the restraints suddenly don’t feel as tight. “Red and Lemon.”
Fingers drifting across my cheek. “Good girl.”
I hear him step away, and the clicks and the soft scratch of a drawer. Panic suddenly rises again, and I pull on the restraints. “Matthew.”
He’s instantly by my side, and his hand drifts across my ribs. “I’m here. I would never leave you alone while restrained.”
Nodding my head, I haul in a deep breath.
“Let go,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about choices, because they’re not yours. They’re mine. What’s my name right now?”
“Sir.”
“Very good.” Another gentle touch across my stomach.
And then another, but it’s not his fingers. Tingling, brushing strands tickle down my skin, and I tense. I recognize what it is even if I can’t see. It’s a flogger. I bite my lip, and I fight the urge to hold my breath and tense my whole body. “Are you punishing me, Sir?”
A low chuckle, and the soft, warm feeling of his lips on my collarbone. I get chills as he drags his mouth down to my breast, covers my nipple. It hardens under his tongue and he teases the other one until it’s just as hard. “No, Emma. I want to make you scream, but I’m not punishing you.”
His words build heat under my skin, and I try to squirm, and I can’t. The flogger falls across my skin, not hard enough to hurt. It’s a solid pressure that leaves warmth behind as he moves it across me. It falls on my shoulders and my chest, slowly, rhythmically moving lower. Across my breasts, and the sudden bite on my nipples leaves me breathless. But he doesn’t stop, moving lower, the strands wrapping around my ribs. Harder, a little snap, just enough to let me know how much control he has and that he’s absolutely in control of how hard that flogger falls.
Slow, dragging strokes across my hips. So close to my pussy, the strands brush the outside. Matthew lets the flogger fall harder on my legs, and I have no idea if he’s going to go back to my pussy. I’m fully exposed to him, and if he wants to use it on me, he can. I won’t be able to stop him.
I realize that I’m wet at the thought. I’m completely in his hands, and…that’s okay. It doesn’t matter that I can’t see, I can feel the pulse of that between us. Every brush of that leather is an expression of trust between us. I’m choosing to give him the ability to hurt me, and he’s choosing to show me that even though he can, he won’t. He’s showing me that he can see what I need, even if in that moment, it’s pain. That he’ll give me what I need even if it’s something that I wouldn’t choose.
The flogger snaps across my thighs, and I gasp. The pain throbs, fading into the heat that’s rising all over my body, that’s growing in my core where I’m starting to ache. The flogger keeps moving, with harder strokes, and I never know where it’s going to land. Shoulder. Breast. Hip. Stomach. Knee.
A finger brushes my pussy and I try and fail to move my hips closer. “You’re wet,” he says and I can hear the smile. “I like that. Do you?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Open,” he says, and his finger touches my lips. I can taste myself on my tongue and my mind goes blank. Fiery arousal burns down my spine and I moan, trying to move, trying to get some relief. But there is none, especially since his clever fingers are at my pussy again, teasing, circling my clit, dipping inside to brush my G-spot. “Please,” I say.
My answer is the flogger starting up again, and even though I know the blows are harder, it doesn’t feel that way. Lines of heat and pleasure spiral from my skin wherever it lands, drawing in close and adding to the pressure of my rising orgasm. I never thought I’d be here, ready to come and he’s barely touched me.
“Sir, I need to come.” My words are more breath than voice.
“You will,” he says.
My hands curl into fists. “Please.”
The flogger makes the journey down my body again, and I’m going to come, I’m not going to be able to stop it. Not after he’s turned me on like this, teased me. He pauses at my hips. “You have permission to come,” he says, voice rough. And then the flogger lands directly on my clit. Pain and pleasure burst through me together and I cry out, coming. It falls again, and again, and I sag against the restraints, the pleasure rendering me helpless.
I hear a thud, and then feel Matthew’s fingers. I jump. “Sensitive,” he laughs. “I should have used this on you earlier.”
There’s the soft hiss of fabric and the clinking of his belt and the sound of a condom foil. And then I feel his skin on mine, inch for inch. His cock is rock hard, pinned between our bodies. Matthew is covering my body with his, and he twists our fingers together. “Do you feel that?”
“What?” I ask, swallowing, “Sir?”
“For this moment, you’re mine.” His lips are at my ear and his voice is so soft it makes me shiver. “You’re wearing my cuffs, you’re bound to my cross, and you’re under my body. There’s nowhere to go. I can do what I like to you, and right now, I’m going to fuck you until you’re screaming. And then, maybe, I’ll fuck you some more.”
He slips inside me and my breath is suddenly short, and I become aware of what he’s saying. I can feel the cuffs on my wrists and the straps on my skin. I can feel how vulnerable I am on this X, and I can feel the way he’s pining me down. He’s everywhere, even inside me, and I can’t escape. Calm spreads through me like a ripple, thoughts slowing, and I suddenly feel like I can breathe. I’m not afraid, and I don’t want to get away. This feeling can’t possibly be wrong, and even though I know I have zero power, I don’t care. I’d give it all to him again. This doesn’t feel like submitting, it feels like the way things should be. It’s like a light has gone on in my head, and all the things he’s been saying coalesce in a way that makes sense.
Choosing to give him control doesn’t diminish me or make me less, it makes me brave. He doesn’t have any power that I don’t give him, and with the safeword I can always take it back. And deeper, this feeling of vulnerability, or trust, the fact that I can make myself powerless and not be afraid to be hurt…I never thought I’d feel that ever again. It feels like bubbles of joy are springing up underneath my skin, and I’m tearing up behind the blindfold.
“Do you understand?” he asks me.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Do you want to use your safeword?”
“No, Sir.”
Matthew presses his lips to my cheek. “Good girl.”
And then he starts to fuck me. I’m so wet, and I’m so ready, that I’m already on the edge with his first thrust. He kisses me long and deep, and I kiss him back as best I can without being able to move. I dance with his tongue, and I love the way he takes what he wants. He’s not afraid to take it because it’s his anyway—I gave it to him. I grip his hands harder and I can’t keep kissing him because I need to breathe. Every thrust of his cock knocks the wind from me and I never, ever want it to stop.
Matthew’s cock is stroking past my G-spot and hitting me hard and fast in that deep place that makes pleasure bloom everywhere and I need to come again. “Please, Sir, can I come?”
“I’m going to ride you hard,” he growls. “You have permission to come as many times as you like. And I want to hear you.”
He drives in again, and it’s like lightning. The orgasm crashes over me hard and fast, and I let him hear me, not quite screaming. I’m certainly not quiet though. The pleasure is there and gone in a flash, but Matthew hasn’t even slowed. It feels like that vibrator he left inside me: long, slow strokes that make me shudde
r with drawn-out pleasure and then speeding up until I’m barely holding on. And over again. And again. I haven’t come again even though I’m close, because Matthew knows exactly how far he can push me before he needs to pull back, damn him.
Suddenly I’m blind with light. He’s pulled off my blindfold and I can see him, so close and so real, those green eyes watching me. I can look down, just barely, and I see him pushing into me. The sight is like an electric shock to my arousal, and Matthew kisses me as I go over. I scream into his mouth, this pleasure a brilliant, brutal supernova. It sizzles along every nerve. I think I might be lit up, on fire, exploding like a firework and I don’t care because it feels so fucking good.
I come down and I’m dragging air into my lungs, gasping. Matthew is still touching me everywhere, and I tighten my fingers around his. “That…was very good…Sir.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
He grins. “Good. I’m just getting started.” And then he plunges in again.
* * *
I lose track of the times I come. Every orgasm bleeds into the next until it feels like my body isn’t capable of doing anything but producing pleasure. I’m drunk on it. Blind from it. My voice is hoarse from screaming. My muscles are so limp that there’s no way I would be able to stand, even if he would let me. I think we skipped dinner, because it’s dark outside. But I’m not hungry—I’m relaxed and satisfied and ready for sleep.
I know that he’s cleaning me up, washing me and cooling me, wrapping me in a blanket. He must have unbuckled me because I’m in his arms now, and being carried. I like how familiar this sensation is now, the gentle rocking movement and the warmth of his skin coming through the blanket.
He lays me down on a bed that isn’t mine, but is still familiar. We’re back in his bedroom, dark and comforting and perfect. I find my voice. “I thought I couldn’t sleep in your bed?”
“You’re still mine,” he says, voice low. “And I want you here, bound and inches away from me.” My arms are lifted and I feel the now normal sensation of being locked into cuffs. I try to pull down my hands, and I can’t.
