Re/Paired (Doms of the FBI Book 2)

by Michele Zurlo

  Mention of the second limit made her flinch, but she couldn’t let him derail the conversation. He might be the Dom in the relationship, but that didn’t mean he got to control the discussion. She had too much experience keeping people on track to fall prey to his authoritative suggestion.

  “Keith, it’s important for me to know why you’re treating me differently. I have to know you’re not doing this to humor me.” She felt the pull of his body like a magnet, urging her to sink back against him and let him do or say whatever he wanted. The impulse wasn’t easy to resist, but she did it.

  As he had the night before, he took her hand and placed it over the bulge in his cargo shorts. “I told you that I’m not doing this to humor you. I’m doing this mostly for selfish reasons. I know this is only training. It’s temporary. But I’ve wanted you on your knees for a long, long time.”

  The vehement, almost bitter confession startled her. While she didn’t lift her hand from his hard cock, she nearly toppled from the surprise. She braced her hand against the back of the sofa to provide the needed support. “You’re an opportunist.”

  She meant it to lighten his mood, which had gone decidedly dark. But he used the opening to take things to an even darker place. “Yes. I am. I use women, Kat. I’ve never had feelings for a single one of my subs. I pretended to care, but I truly didn’t give a shit about any of them. Some saw through my act and left, but most tried to change me. Those women, I dumped, and I wasn’t nice about it either. I can’t change. I’m warning you now. I’ve been this way for too long.”

  He’d lost her. She drew her eyebrows together as she tried to fit his skewed perception of himself with how she saw him. Finally, she shook her head. It didn’t work to jumble the pieces into clarity. “What way?”

  In one easy, fluid motion, he lifted her from his lap and set her on the sofa as far away as he could get her. She leaned against the back and the arm, facing him, and pulled her blanket closed around her to replace the security she’d lost along with his embrace. The sensations in her ass were muted now that her attention was firmly elsewhere.

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his clenched fists. “I held you last night because that’s what you should expect from your Master after a scene. You should expect to be pampered and cherished. You should expect affection and praise. It was the first time I’ve ever attempted something like that. I had to talk myself into it, and I had to force myself to follow through. You deserve that much consideration, Kat. You have the right to expect those things.”

  His confession hit her like a slap in the face. She flinched, but he wasn’t looking at her, and he plowed forward.

  “I’ve never spanked a sub for disobeying me. If they piss me off, I just get rid of them. They weren’t worth it to me. I didn’t care enough to punish them. But you…” He clenched his fists and laughed ruefully. “You’re different. I’ve never topped anyone who knew me as anything but a Dom. This is new territory for me. You may not have liked some of the things I did or the way I’ve treated you, but let me tell you, it’s a damn sight better than the way I’ve treated women since I figured out what use they were to me.”

  Malcolm had told her repeatedly over the years that Keith had a very utilitarian view of women. The full weight of that truth was just beginning to dawn on Katrina. She put a hand on his shoulder, an attempt to comfort him, but he slipped out of her grasp, standing to escape her touch. That stung a lot more than a slap on her ass.

  He paced away to stand across the room. Looking out the window with a clear line to the parking lot, he clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m trying to do right by you.”

  She didn’t want him to do right by her. She wanted him to want to be with her, which he did, but not in the ways she expected. Visions of the ways in which he’d pampered his girlfriends floated through her memory. Her mind played memories of him bringing various women a plate of food at a cookout, or a glass of water, or a jacket when it grew cold. For the first time, she saw the interactions through a new lens.

  First, he hadn’t let them talk very much. Katrina had thought perhaps he liked shy women, which knocked her out of the running, because she wasn’t timid. Now she understood it wasn’t shyness. They’d been prohibited from speaking unless spoken to.

  Second, he had controlled everything about their experience, choosing what they ate and drank, where they sat, and with whom they talked.

  Third, he had never actually had a conversation with one of his girlfriends in her presence. He’d talked to other people, including her, about a variety of topics, but never his dates. In most instances, her attempts to draw them in had been met with short answers, murmured after they’d looked to him for approval. Most of them had appeared once and never again. Katrina had always assumed a mismatch, but now she accepted that he’d been treating those women as arm candy.

  All at once she comprehended his struggle. He was trying to show her what she should expect from a Dom who loved her. He didn’t want her to settle for someone who treated her the way he treated his submissives.

  If she was going to have a chance at a future with Keith, she had to help him. The best strategy for changing a habit was to remove triggers that propagated it. The courage that had prompted her to proposition him in the first place returned. “I don’t want to call you ‘Master.’ I don’t want you to call me ‘slave.’ I don’t want to use titles at all.”

  He turned his head, staring at her over his shoulder with a deep frown on his face. “That’s not how it’s done. I’ve never known anyone who didn’t use titles.”

  She drew her legs closer and tucked her feet under the blanket. The air was warm enough, but his demeanor lent a chill to the room. “That doesn’t mean we can’t do it. I prefer to use your name, and I like when you call me Kitty Kat.”

  “Titles show respect.” His eyes glittered hard as granite.

  Katrina shook her head. “Actions and tone of voice show respect. You’ve used titles for years, and you have no respect for a single woman you’ve been with.”

  He barked out a short, bitter laugh. “You sound like your brother.”

  The comparison didn’t rankle. Katrina admired both of her brothers. She recognized Keith’s defense mechanism, and she realized he was very close to kicking her to the curb. She put “fear of intimacy” at the top of his list of phobias.

  The ruthless prosecutor in her came out, which wasn’t always a good thing. “What do you want out of life, Keith? What do you see when you look into your future? Marriage? A loving wife? Children? What?”

  “Exactly like your brother.” A dull thud sounded as he leaned his forehead against the window with a little too much force. “No, Kat. I don’t see any of those things. I have no intention of ever getting married, and I sure as hell don’t want kids. I have no desire to deal with that kind of crap. Ever.”

  Again, his words hit her like a slap in the face. Though she’d said she didn’t want to change him, in the back of her mind, she’d assumed he wanted the same things she did. Well, she wasn’t sure about the having-kids part. Truthfully, she’d never felt the need to parent anyone. She liked being an aunt. Knowing she was going to give them back made it enjoyable to spend time with her nephews. Right now she didn’t want that chaos.

  But she did want to fall in love and get married. She did want a life partner. Best to rip off the scab quickly. “Why?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  She was close to turning him over her knee. “Try me.”

  Rocking back, he straightened up and turned to face her. “You grew up with a nice family. You always had something to eat when you got hungry, and you didn’t get the shit beat out of you on a daily basis.”

  Katrina’s heart squeezed painfully. She knew the outline, the barest details about his upbringing, so what he said wasn’t news to her, but it was vague. Malcolm kept Keith’s confidences to himself, as a good friend should.

  Now wasn’t the t
ime to push him on that issue. She stood and let the blanket fall to the floor. “Just because you grew up in a house like that doesn’t mean you have to live in one. It doesn’t mean you have to be alone your whole life.”

  Taking a chance, she crossed the room and stopped in front of him. He yanked the cord to the drapes and let them slide into place. It was probably best not to flash the neighbors or give her stalker ideas. She shivered in fear. Being with Keith made her feel safe, so considerations like that slipped from her consciousness.

  Keith folded his arms over his chest. “Don’t get ideas, Kat. I’m only good for one thing. Keep that in mind, and I won’t break your heart.”

  Too late for that. For far too many years, she’d nursed romantic intentions toward him. Those dreams didn’t go away easily, especially not when she had him within reach. Nonetheless, she rushed to assure him of the thing he needed to hear. The subtext of his concern brained her over the head, loud and clear. “I don’t have an endgame in mind.”

  It wasn’t a lie, because she didn’t want this to ever end.

  “I do.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer. “I’ll train you. You’ll figure out what you want from a D/s relationship, and then you’ll find someone who can give you what you need and treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

  Then he devoured her lips, plunging his tongue between them to take possession of her mouth. The passion he unleashed was completely at odds with the coolness of his stated intention. She lifted her knee and wrapped one leg around him in an attempt to get even closer. She wanted him inside her, their skin slapping together as he held her down and found solace in her body.

  But he tore himself away, reining in his baser instinct to regard her with icy eyes. “Get dressed. Pack an overnight bag. You’re staying at my place tonight.”

  __________

  Keith fumed at himself as he shifted into third and passed someone about to turn right into one of the many businesses lining the highway. He’d never meant to reveal so much about himself. He knew Kat too well to think he hadn’t whetted her appetite for making him her next project. She possessed a generous nature and a warm heart. If anyone she cared about was in need, she was the first one there to help them out.

  He didn’t want to be one of her fucking charity cases. He’d long ago come to terms with the way his life had to be.

  “Limits.” He growled the word at her.

  She whipped her head around and regarded him curiously, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You said you had a better idea about what you want from this training. I can’t give it to you if you don’t tell me what that is.”

  In the glare of lights from the multitude of parking lots, he saw her scrunch her nose as if she smelled something bad. “I guess when I said I wanted you to train me, I was asking you, Keith, not you, the Dom. I really didn’t think there would be a difference.”

  But there was. He put on a good face for her. With her, he could relax and be the person he wished he was. Dominating women tapped directly into his dark side. It was an outlet for the ugliness and bitter hate he harbored. She couldn’t have known that when she asked him to train her.

  He gritted his teeth. “Now you know there’s a difference.”

  She seemed unaffected by his grouchiness. He could hear the sound of gears churning in her brain, and he knew she was searching for a diplomatic way to make her point.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t like when you act like an asshole.” She paused, gauging his reaction.

  He didn’t react. He couldn’t. She didn’t usually describe him using terms like that. When she’d called him out on his behavior that morning, it was the first time she’d hurled names. Of course, beginning last night was the first time she’d seen what a bastard he could be.

  “I want to be treated as a person, a woman worthy of respect. You can tie me up and fuck me however you want, but you need to remember that I’m a person with thoughts and feelings. Sometimes I get the sense that you aren’t in your body when you’re with me. The look on your face just before you came on mine was cold and remote, almost hateful. You had the same thing going on last night when you wouldn’t take some of the clothespins off.”

  They’d already discussed this issue. He didn’t see a reason to make the connection between his behavior and his description of the kind of Dom he was. She was a bright woman. Eventually she’d figure out he hadn’t lied.

  “I only want you to be a Dom during a scene.”

  He snorted. “You’re sure you want to be trained as a submissive? Because right now you’re about the farthest thing from submissive.”

  “Asking for things doesn’t make me not submissive. Being silent about what I want makes me a doormat. I refuse to let you wipe your feet on me.” She sounded confident, even a little derisive, but the way she twisted her finger in the fabric of her shirt told a different story.

  Keith had never once allowed a submissive to ask for anything. When he’d originally asked her what she wanted and she threw the ball back to him, he’d mentally categorized her with other submissives he’d kept. That had been a mistake, and he was only now realizing the magnitude of it.

  Kat represented so many firsts in his life. He’d known from the start that she wasn’t a 24/7 kind of submissive. Dominating her was proving to be more problematic than he’d thought. Never once had he considered that she’d lay down the law. He thought she’d put up with him until she reached a breaking point, and then she’d never speak to him again. He’d live on memories and fantasies.

  “No feet wiping. Noted.”

  He hit the button on the garage door opener and pulled his SUV inside. Normally he’d make her undress before he let her in the house, but he had a feeling Kat would rebel. He reached into the backseat for her bag, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Keith, I meant what I said about the title thing. I can submit to you just as well using your name instead of a title I’m just not comfortable using. Maybe one day I’ll feel differently. Right now I feel like it puts an artificial barrier between us.”

  Bullshit, she wasn’t comfortable calling him “Master.” She’d cried out his title and whispered it on a reverent breath. This was something else. He focused on her comment about the barriers. Using titles had always been a way to keep women at arm’s length. Kat had started out already close to him. No, it wasn’t the title that made her uncomfortable; it was the distance.

  Moving slowly, he retrieved her bag and set it on his lap. Old dog, new tricks. He could handle this learning curve. “No titles. For now.”

  She leaped on him, simultaneously pulling the bag from between them and tossing it into the seat she’d vacated. In the space of two seconds, she straddled him. He had a momentary glimpse of her smile before she peppered his face with kisses.

  Nobody had ever done something like this to him. Keith stiffened under the force of her onslaught. He sought to control her with his hands on her hips, but she only rolled her pelvis forward in a sultry move that made his cock stand up and take notice.

  A light feeling suffused his limbs. The strange sensation traveled up his body. “Happy you got your way, Kitty Kat?”

  She stopped, her hands resting on his shoulders and her forearms draped against his chest, and regarded him thoughtfully. “I’m happy you’re open to negotiation. I looked up all these protocols, you know, and I talked to Darcy. Negotiation and communication are vitally important to the success of a D/s relationship.”

  That light feeling took flight, replaced with a leaden sense of dread. A successful relationship didn’t end. This thing between them would eventually end, and Kat was going to get hurt. “You talked about this with Darcy? She’s going to tell Malcolm. A good submissive never keeps secrets from her Master.”

  Kat shrugged. He couldn’t tell if she’d changed her mind about not wanting Malcolm to know, or if she didn’t think Darcy would say anything. “It was a theoretical discussion. Neit
her your name nor penis size was mentioned.”

  Speaking of his penis, he shifted her back a little to ease the pressure there. “As long as you’re truthful, I don’t mind you bragging about my size.”

  She giggled. “I can’t imagine how to do that without sounding like a bad porno film. And then we’d have to show it off. There would probably be a tape measure involved.”

  Keith shook his head, but he was glad to see her in such a good mood. He’d been afraid that she might fixate on the idea of her stalker and remain tense the entire night. “Never going to happen.”

  He slid one hand from her hip to her breast and gave it a playful squeeze. She closed her eyes, and her breaths came a little faster. Damn, but she did love breast play. Perhaps he would introduce her to his set of suction cups.

  In the midst of his musings, she’d gone silent and still. When he lifted his gaze, he found her studying him again. She’d better not choose to use this moment to make him a project. He’d rip her clothes off, tie her to his spanking table, and stuff every hole in her body until she forgot about anything but the pleasure rioting through her system.

  “Let’s go inside.” He tapped her hip, an indication she needed to move.

  “Wait. One more thing.”

  Christ. Here it comes. He steeled his nerves. “Spit it out.”

  “I prefer to swallow.” She grinned briefly. “Seriously, though. This isn’t all about me, or it shouldn’t be. You have fantasies too. I’m willing to role-play. Actually, I’m kind of excited about it.”

  For all he’d fantasized, tantalized, or threatened, Keith had never once actually role-played with anyone. They’d all been down-and-dirty scenes. Plans for how to make it work played out in his head, not much differently from how he choreographed a raid.

  “Okay. I’m not set up for what I’d like right now. How about I figure it out and give you the details later?”

  She nodded. The self-satisfied smile on her face made his heart beat a little faster. She really wanted to do this.