by Alison Tyler
I came out slowly and stood, feeling the way Alex must have, stiff from being in such a cramped and unnatural position. Jack watched me, and then he nodded. “All right,” he said. But I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t move, didn’t respond. “The two of us—”
“And Alex.”
He shrugged, but I didn’t press it.
“No other women,” he continued. “I don’t have a problem with that. I’m actually surprised that you did.”
I continued to stare at him, and I understood that he had been trying to give me a gift. Yes, it was payback. This intense form of discipline. But he’d thought the moving picture of him punishing another woman would have turned me on. (And he was right. I had gotten wet watching. But that didn’t mean I liked it.) Yet I knew that when he saw men on me, men whipping me, the visual floored him. That Dom in the club. Alex in our bedroom. He hadn’t realized I wouldn’t feel the same way. Maybe I hadn’t realized either.
“She’s a friend,” he added into my silence. “For years. She generally tops, as I’m sure you figured out. But every once in a while she needs a tune-up.”
“Like Alex?”
“Alex is more complicated,” Jack said, but he didn’t explain any further.
I felt off balance, naked, demolished.
Jack took a step closer, and he ran his fingers through my hair. “You want me to say it, don’t you? You couldn’t tell by the way I act? You want me to say it.”
I caught my breath. I thought I knew. But…
“Jesus, kid. I love you. Isn’t that clear yet?” And the tears came steadily now. Different tears. But enough to wet my cheeks, to taste salty on my lips.
“I’m not done with you, though,” Jack said, taking a final step closer. “We have unfinished business.”
Chapter Sixteen:
Everybody Loves a Happy Ending
I was eighteen the first time I heard “I love you” from a man. Brock whispered the words to me on our second date, his hand tightly gripping my hair, tipping my head back, anchoring me in place. His voice was gruff. His mouth was so close to my ear that his breath tickled my skin. I shivered all over at the tone of his voice, at the way he held me, and at the words he said. We were out on a park bench, in the dark, and I felt that anything could happen. Anything at all.
My best friend said later that Brock couldn’t possibly have meant the words—not really. Not yet. How could he, when we’d known each other for fewer than forty-eight hours?
He needed to say them. And I needed to hear them. That’s all that mattered.
But when Jack said he loved me, everything seemed to click into place. How brutal he’d been all night—emotionally brutal. Had he been trying to drive me off? Was this whole evening one more complicated, intricate test, by which he had tried to see if I could withstand this sort of pain, whether I would sign on for the ride or flee the chateau?
I wanted to say the words back. I wanted to say, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Yet Jack didn’t give me a chance. Unfinished business? I understood that meant I had disobeyed several times. Not leaving the room immediately upon his request when he was punishing Alex. Not turning to face him while suspended in that hateful cage. Unfinished business meant that I was going to be taking Juliette’s place and Jack was going to discipline a naughty sub for the third time at the club. What stamina he had. Tireless in the face of his duty.
He moved quickly, businesslike as he surveyed the equipment in the large antique wardrobe, while I quaked inside as I watched. He’d used a crop twice this evening already. Was he in the mood for something different? I could only imagine, standing still, waiting.
Jack reached for a cane, whippet thin, mean looking as ever. Seeing it in his grip was a powerful image. Jack looked right with a cane in hand. I could easily envision him as a headmaster of yesterday, keeping his students in line. But today he had only one misbehaving pupil, one naughty schoolgirl who’d left her attire on the floor, who was stripped down and ready to accept her punishment, however cruel it might be.
“Over the horse,” Jack said sternly, and I walked to the padded-leather spanking bench I’d been bound over earlier in the evening. I bent into proper position, and I waited for Jack to attach the restraints to my wrists and ankles. But he didn’t.
“Hold yourself still,” he said. “I don’t want you to stand up. I don’t want you to try and cover yourself. I don’t want any movement at all.” This last demand was carefully enunciated.
I don’t want any movement at all.
This was more difficult than it sounded. Being bound allows the freedom to wish one could move. But forcing oneself to stay still during a whipping can feel absolutely impossible.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He didn’t tell me to count. He didn’t give me a number, a ray of hope to shoot for. He simply stepped back and started. Unfinished business. That phrase echoed in my mind. This was only a portion of what he must have meant. If we were committed—and by his saying he loved me, I felt that we were—maybe Jack would be more open. Maybe he’d break out the old photo albums and show me what he looked like in school. Maybe he’d tell me about other girlfriends—or wives?—his past finally available for the sort of inspection that mine was to him.
Jack knew everything about me. Everything important, anyway. Jack didn’t see anything shameful in my desires. Or rather, Jack loved the shame I felt for the desires. The cane slashed into me, and I sucked in my breath and held myself steady, doing my best to behave. All night long, I’d been insubordinate. Now, I would make Jack proud.
Yet my mind wouldn’t quiet. I thought of one of the boys I’d dated during my freshman year in college, when I decided not to sleep with guys for a while. When I chose someone sweet, younger than I was, to hang around with. Dark curly hair. Bottle-green eyes. He sold popcorn at the theater near the school. We went out three times before he asked when we’d fuck. He’d been active earlier than most of the boys I knew—first time, in a graveyard—because he’d grown up in a small town, and there was nothing else to do.
Jack cut into me again, and I tensed and relaxed, absorbing the blow.
I’d never slept with the boy, moving right on to my lover at the grocery store, knowing that a college freshman wouldn’t be able to give me what I wanted, but a thirty-four-year-old might.
My thoughts were spiraling, ricocheting, making no sense. Pain generally clears my head. But this time, I was too wound up somehow to relax. Too distracted by the fact that Jack had said he loved me….
Again the cane landed, and again, and my mind slowed down, forced by the building fire in my skin to pay attention to what was actually going on. I gripped the wood of the structure to force myself to stay put, and Jack noticed and gave me two swift blows for cheating.
“Don’t hold on. I want you to keep yourself in place. Without assistance.”
He spoke through gritted teeth, and I obeyed, releasing my hold, balling my hands into fists instead.
My whole body trembled in between the strikes of the cane. Jack was pacing himself, seeming to choose exactly where to land each blow, sometimes running his fingers on my skin prior to marking me with precision, right where his fingers had touched moments before.
Until he landed an unexpectedly fierce stroke, and I flinched and stood, unable to stop myself, and Jack finally had a reason to grip me up, to carry me to the table, to bind me down. He’d been waiting this whole time for me to fail. I understood that. And he seemed almost electrified as he fastened the restraints into place.
Was he going to continue with the punishment? Or…
I was dizzy with longing by now. And relief flooded through me as I watched Jack strip.
He was going to fuck me.
Oh, yes, he was going to fuck me. Although he’d taken me roughly before whipping Juliette, it felt like years since he’d been on top of me, inside of me. It felt like decades since I’d seen him whi
p Alex, rather than hours. And when he climbed onto the table, his hands on my body, touching me, that’s when I felt myself becoming whole once more.
Chapter Seventeen:
Cherries in the Snow
Did I think that “I love you” would change everything? That the words would magically turn Jack into some tenderhearted prince? Or a docile shadow of his former Dom self?
To my delight, neither happened. Yes, he’d said he loved me. And the three little words made all the difference in our relationship. But not in the way I might have feared. Because my training by Jack intensified. He seemed more at ease leaving our gear around. There was less hiding of toys and tools. He’d leave a crop leaning against the corner in the living room for three days after he’d put it to use on my naked backside, only tossing it into the hall closet when an acquaintance from work stopped by to pick up papers.
“Can’t have that,” Jack winked at me, waiting for Allen to stop by. “He might think I beat you.”
There were handcuffs dangling from the cold-water faucet in the tub. A paddle on the kitchen countertop.
I love you had bound me to Jack.
And it had set him free. To be who he truly was. And to be that way without any fear.
The week after our trip to the club, Jack asked me to show him what I liked. To demonstrate for him how I made myself come when he wasn’t around. I hadn’t known it was obvious I did this. I’d never explained to any man how I touched myself solo. Was I embarrassed? I don’t know. The concept hadn’t come up. Although I assumed Byron jacked off solo, because otherwise, he was more monk-like than I could believe.
“Show me,” Jack insisted, “spread your legs, and show me. Or close your legs. Whatever you do. I want to see.”
I hesitated. And he didn’t rush me, didn’t seem to think this was disobedience on my part. He was patient.
“Different ways,” I said. “It’s not always the same.”
“Show me,” Jack demanded, his voice growing more powerful. “The first way.”
I stood and stripped, enjoying myself. Nervous, because I didn’t know what Jack would do with the information. But excited, nevertheless. Jack followed me to the bathroom, where I adjusted the temperature with both faucets and then got into the tub. He seemed surprised when I leaned all the way back on the cold porcelain, bending my knees and sliding forward until the water from the faucet was raining down between my legs.
“Like that?” he said, eyes glowing.
I shifted my hips. “Yeah—”
“That will get you off?”
The water was already working, and I was having a difficult time speaking.
“Yeah, Jack.”
“Show me.”
I changed the water temperature slightly, using my feet, and Jack laughed at my dexterity.
“You want hotter or colder?”
“Depends,” I said, growing breathless. “I like cold until I’m ready to come, and then gradually warmer until I get off.”
I shut my eyes for a minute. This bath had the perfect water pressure, and the sensations were working through me. The water combined with the fact that Jack was watching and talking to me, turned me on even more.
Jack said, “You’re close, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
The water stopped. Jack had turned off both faucets. “Get out and dry yourself off.”
I didn’t think of begging. I’d seen the look on Jack’s face as he’d put the crop into the closet earlier in the evening. I knew better than to mess with him. Meekly, I climbed out of the tub and let Jack wrap one of the large black towels around my body. He watched me dry off, and then he said, “What else? Show me another trick.”
I had to think for a minute, and then I hung the towel on the rack and headed down the hall. Jack followed me to our bedroom, and he seemed surprised when I went toward the hamper. I know he thought I was going to choose something from our extensive collection of toys. But I didn’t want a vibrator. I wanted his T-shirt. I plucked yesterday’s white one from the top of the hamper and then chose a fresh pair of panties from my drawer. I slid on the silky red bikinis then lay down on the bed.
Jack took up his position against our dresser, staring at me as I used one hand to touch myself through my panties—stroking my nether lips, circling my clit—and the other to bring Jack’s shirt to my face, breathing in his scent. I was already close from the water experience.
“Why don’t you touch yourself naked?”
“I always start through a barrier.”
“But why?”
I thought of being a wise-ass. Of asking him which hand he jerked off with, and then querying, “But why?” Yet I was smarter than that. Not much smarter—a little smarter.
“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “That’s how I do it.”
He settled back against the wall and watched, my fingers moving faster now, my breathing speeding up, until I could sense the climax, could almost taste how good the wave of pleasure would ultimately feel. But maybe part of me knew he wouldn’t let me reach my limits. Part of me understood the torture of this game. Because I was prepared for the moment when Jack said, “Stop—” and I pulled my fingers away and looked at him.
“Now,” he said, “tell me what you think about.”
“What do you mean?”
“What stories are you telling yourself when you do that?”
For some reason, this was more difficult. The demonstrating had been fun, sexy. But revealing my fantasies—on demand, anyway—that was more difficult. Generally, I found myself an actor in Jack’s scripts. Things happened to me, at Jack’s direction. I didn’t call the shots.
“Come on, Samantha…” He didn’t continue, but all I had to do was think of the loving fashion he’d tucked that crop away, to know he was positively itching to use it on me this evening, if I would give him one good reason. Or maybe the word if wasn’t right. Maybe the word was when.
“You know,” I said, thinking fast. “All sorts of things.” I’d had one experience like this before, over Nate’s lap, telling him about a schoolgirl fantasy. But I sensed Jack wanted more. Jack wanted me to give him a range, to let him into the X-rated library of my mind. So that he could return there on his own, so that he could pull the fantasies off the shelves and peruse them at will.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Jack grinned. “Much better.” He was moving toward me as he spoke, and I sensed he was about to bind me down, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat on the bed, pushed my hands to my sides, and his fingertips took over where mine had been moments before. He stroked me through my satiny panties, his hand echoing the rotations and designs my own fingertips had been expertly creating.
“A favorite,” he said. “Tell me a favorite.”
“I meet you at your office,” I started. “After work. Everyone’s gone. I play a temp, a secretary taking the place of your regular girl. And despite everything I do, or how hard I try, I fail at all my tasks.”
As I spoke, Jack slowly started to work my panties down my thighs.
“And then—” he prompted.
“Well, it’s obvious, right? You have to punish me. You bend me across your desk, and you use a wooden ruler on me, when I accidentally disconnect an important phone call.”
“Naughty girl.”
“But the thing is,” I tell him. “You’ve gotten the client back on the line, and he’s listening on speakerphone as you stripe me with the ruler. As you make me beg and cry.”
“You like that,” Jack said, between my legs now, his mouth on me. “You like people hearing you, knowing that you’re getting the punishment you deserve. You like people knowing what you are.”
“Yeah.” Jack hadn’t needed me to tell him how I liked a man to lick me. He was a master at this, his tongue touching me perfectly. Light enough. Hard enough. Making talking seem impossible.
“Do I fuck you in your fantasy?”
“No—that would be a reward, and I’m such
a klutz at the job. Spilling coffee on your files—”
“Oh, that’s worth a serious over-the-knee spanking,” Jack said, his breath on me, sending me higher. “Skirt up and panties down.”
“Yeah,” I told him, “and then when you really need me to overnight a slew of important papers for a client, I’ve gone to the ladies’ room to touch up my makeup.”
“Is that where I find you?”
“I’m putting on my lipstick, fixing my mascara.”
“And what do I do then?”
“You make me take my panties all the way off and bend me over the sink.”
“And what do I do to you?”
“You have me watch my own reflection as you take off your belt and thrash me. And the sounds I make echo in the tiled room. And the tears streaking down my face embarrass me. But what’s even worse is when your actual secretary comes out of the stall, having heard everything, knowing she’s the queen in this environment. That I can’t begin to compete.”
Jack pulled back. He hadn’t let me come. I’d gotten close three times now, and I was bordering on desperate.
“Is your office fantasy the same every time?”
“No, Jack. But I fuck up every time. And you punish me in different ways.”
“Another one,” he said. “Outside of the office.”
I bit my lip, thinking. “I invite Elizabeth over to watch movies, because you’ve gone out of town.”
“I have?”
“Mmm-hmm. And she and I are messing around. Having a slumber party for grown-up girls. Making frilly drinks. Painting each other’s toenails. Watching Gladiator.”
“That’s not a chick-flick.”
I shrugged.
“And then what?”
We ruin the coffee table.”
“How do you do that?”
“Cherries in the Snow spills when I reach for my drink, and when I use remover to get the polish off, the chemicals wreck the wood.”
