by Eva Gill
By the time Jonah finished speaking he sat in front of her on his knees, his head resting against her.
Anya was taken aback by his passionate statement because she had never suspected he had this side to him, and because she was scared of getting too involved too soon after her split with Alex. She took his hands in hers and frowned as she searched for the right words.
“Jonah, I want that, too, but not right this moment. I need a little time to think, time to breathe. Everything that’s changed in my life has happened recently, and I’m not ready to walk from one Master/slave relationship into another.” She was terrified of scaring him off, but had to be honest. “Can we spend a little time getting to know each other before we jump into anything involving marks and permanence?”
He nodded. “Of course, let’s go and get some coffee and dessert in the meantime.”
He pulled her up to her feet and they navigated the minefield of pillows and clothing with Anya following him down the stairs, through the dining room and into the kitchen. As they passed the table she bit her lip.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. There are broken plates and glasses.”
Jonah shrugged. “Casualties of war, don’t stress! I’ll clean everything up tomorrow. Would you like to sleep over tonight? It makes sense, we might not be done yet…” He winked as he pulled coffee cups down from a shelf and switched on the Nespresso. “What time do you need to be at the office?”
Anya sank to the floor, sitting with her back to the cupboard. “Thanks, I would like to stay, if that’s really okay. As for work, I only have appointments after lunchtime.”
He brought coffee to her, passing the mug down before joining her on the floor. “I really meant that. I care for you Anya, whether we take things slow or not. You are always welcome here.”
They sat quietly enjoying the coffee, making small talk, until Jonah was startled from his lazy mood. “Crap! I forgot dessert!”
She put a hand on his arm when he tried to stand. “I don’t want dessert, I am happy with coffee.”
Jonah smiled at her. “Okay, tell me, where are you living now?”
He sat back again, cradling his mug while she spoke about life post-Alexander.
“I have a small room near my office, it’s not much, but it will do for now.” Misery rolled off her in waves.
“It can’t be easy being confined after the life you got used to with Alex.” He lifted his head. “Anya, I have a hell of a lot of space here, if you need to, why not move in here? I know you could probably do better, but I rattle through this old house like a ghost all alone, honestly, the presence of another human would be nice.”
“Thanks Jonah, I will think about it. I do appreciate the offer, really,” she said as she patted his leg.
They finished their coffee and walked back up the stairs. Anya paused in front of the large window overlooking the pool, staring wistfully at the water glimmering in the moonlight.
“Is it heated? The pool?” she asked, following Jonah the rest of the way.
“Yes. I haven’t really spent any time in it, though.”
Anya helped him tidy up the mess they’d left earlier and then jumped on the bed, curling up under the duvet, squirming around in the soft sheets. When Jonah joined her she snuggled close to him and murmured, “I can’t believe I get to fall asleep beside you.”
He stroked her hair. “I know, me too. I am glad you are here, thank you for staying with me.”
After a moment’s hesitation Jonah pulled her onto her back. “Listen, I need you to know that I don’t want the type of relationship that you had with Alex. I want a girlfriend, and I want kinky sex, not a twenty four seven slave or submissive.” He took a breath. “The Realm is great, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think I am the kind of person who can handle the intensity of the lifestyle and rules everyone else seems to live by. And I thought about the marking skin desire, and when you want to wear my marks, you’ll ask for them.”
Anya smiled up at him in the dark. “Oh, will I, now? I like that idea for a relationship, it sounds… I want to say easy, it sounds normal, God knows I haven’t had normal in forever.” She curled up against him. “Let’s talk more in the morning, or another time, when things aren’t so fresh in our heads, or so raw.”
***
When Anya woke up the next morning she was tightly cradled in Jonah’s arms under the covers, and felt no desire to move, but her bladder thought differently. She carefully wiggled out from under his arm and scooted off the bed, padding to the bathroom to relieve herself.
After that, when she saw Jonah still sleeping soundly from the bathroom door, Anya made her way down to the dining room and kitchen, cleaned up the broken glass from the night before, stacked the dishwasher and started hunting coffee making goods. She tiptoed back to the bedroom, admiring the spacious passage and large rooms as she went, seriously thinking about Jonah’s offer of living with him. Jonah was stretching as she entered the room again, and turned to smile at her.
“Now this I can seriously get used to.”
She placed the coffee on his bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Nice isn’t it? Service in bed?”
They drank their coffee and she looked at Jonah, comfortably reclined in the bed, pillows all around him. She felt that deep love stir inside her. Up to this point she had worked very hard to suppress what she felt for him, but she didn’t think it was possible to keep it in much longer.
“Were you serious about me staying here?” She put her mug down and folded her hands on her lap.
Jonah nodded as he drank the coffee. “I am serious, you are more than welcome.”
Anya thoughtfully stared into her own coffee. “Okay, I need a few days, but if you think you can live with me I’d like to take you up on that offer.” She felt an inexplicable need to further explain herself. “You know, it’s not that I can’t afford anything, I just think it would be nice to be around another human, especially someone I actually like…”
Jonah stopped her rambling with a hand on her cheek. “Hush, it’s okay. I understand. Take your time, and when you go home today I’ll give you a set of keys so you can get in to come and go as you please. Okay?”
A single tear ran down her cheek when she looked up and met Jonah’s gaze. “People are nothing but kind to me. You, Alex…” She sniffled and wiped at her cheek. “I don’t deserve it. He saved my life, you know?” She looked at him with a bottomless well of hurt in her eyes.
Jonah sat upright and put his mug down to pull her into his arms. “Are you sure you did the right thing in leaving him? This much hurt can’t be the result of a good choice.”
She sat back. “I did the right thing, Jonah, I know I am going to hurt for a long time, and one day I’ll tell you the story of how exactly he saved me, but it will get better, easier.” She kissed him as the tears rolled down her cheeks. “I know, have known for a long time now, I belong with you.”
The significance of those words was not lost on Jonah, and he felt his own eyes tear up as he dragged her back into bed. Tears mingled with laughter as they drowned in the fall of her hair over their faces and the covers being flung around them.
Chapter 11
Four weeks after the first time they had sex, Anya arrived home after a particularly hard day at work, and walked in to find him in the kitchen making coffee. “Pour the wine, I need a glass, badly.” She kissed his cheek before sinking onto a chair.
Jonah reached for the bottle of Pinot Grigio in the refrigerator and poured a large glass for Anya.
“Want to talk?” he asked tentatively.
She shook her head and took a large sip. “Oh no, I absolutely don’t want to talk, I have done enough talking for one day.”
Jonah walked up behind her and rubbed her shoulders, pulling her suit jacket off and tossing it aside.
Anya moaned as he kneaded her tense muscles through the soft linen of her blouse, then she reached up and pulled his hands down to kiss them. “I do have a r
equest though, if I may?” When she felt him nod behind her and make a little noise of approval, she leaned against him. “You remember saying I’d ask you?”
It felt so awkward, she had always been ordered to obey, but when Jonah froze she knew he’d understood and remembered what she was referring to.
She turned to face him. “This is me asking, no, begging for your marks. Please make me forget my own name for a while.” She nuzzled his neck as she spoke.
From the position he was in behind her, instinct took over for Jonah. He didn’t say a word but slid one hand into her hair and twisted it the soft strands using it as leverage as he pulled her to her feet. He half dragged, half walked her to the basement door where he stopped and raised her face to his to kiss her deeply, and hard.
Anya whimpered in his grasp and gooseflesh rose on the skin of her arms as Jonah held her face still and gazed into her eyes. He read excitement there, and just a touch of fear. She trembled as he looked at her in the silence of the house. He’d never thought seeing those two emotions in a woman’s eyes would excite him so much.
Jonah released her, watching her stagger slightly in her heels.
“Go downstairs and lay out three implements, tools for me to mark your skin with, and stand under the chains to wait for me.”
He turned away from her without any display of tenderness and walked back into the kitchen, where he picked up a pair of scissors, and fetched a bucket of ice from the large freezer. He stopped at the head of the stairs for a moment to calm his breathing. Jonah had managed not to show Anya how much this thrilled him, but he felt his heart race in his chest, and when he took that first step down he knew he was walking toward his future wife. Tonight he would mark her skin with his touch, and when he fucked her he would run his hands over the marks showing she was his, inexorably his.
***
The sound of Anya’s breathing resonated through the basement, and as Jonah entered he dimmed the lights, watching her jump at the change. Her back was turned toward him, and Jonah ignored her as he tossed the scissors onto the massage table nearby and moved to place the ice bucket beside them. He kept all his movements measured and calm and by the time he came to stand behind her, he felt the calm he had faked until those moments finally settle in him.
Jonah ran his hands up and down her sides, over her clothing, and buried his face in her neck. “How long shall I make you forget your name for?” he murmured in her hair, squeezing her breasts in his hands as he spoke.
Anya leaned into him and let her head fall back on his shoulder. “I am yours, sir, to do with as you please for as long as you wish.”
Jonah stepped away from her and walked toward the wall where his set of leather cuffs hung, lifted them off the hook and brought them to her, smiling when he saw the three implements she’d laid out: the crop, leather belt-strap and cane. He strapped the cuffs to her wrists and raised both arms to clip the attached carabiners to the chains, leaving her securely strung up and still fully dressed.
The clothing situation was soon to be rectified when he picked up the scissors from behind her and ran the edges over the fabric covering her breasts. Jonah smiled at her intake of breath and moved to stand behind her. He had no intention of uncovering her breasts tonight, and knelt down to slip the teeth of the scissors over the edge of her suit-skirt. Anya gasped as he cut her skirt all the way to the belt, rendering it irreparable and hanging only by the thin shred of fabric.
Jonah knew she liked the suit, and the destruction without protest was proof she submitted to his will. He was testing her reaction, and to him there was something obscene in destroying something so wantonly. Anya tried to move away when he ran the cold metal over her skin just above the line of her panties, but she was stuck in her position, stretched by the overhead cuffs. Jonah pulled the flimsy lace out of the way, to just below her arse, before he cut them off by snipping through the waistband at each hip. He wanted no fabric impeding his goals.
He dropped the panties to the floor after rubbing them between his fingers and feeling the obvious evidence of her arousal on them, smelling her feminine musk on the fabric. Then he tucked the remnants of her skirt to the sides of her hips.
The sight of her as he stood back to pick up the leather strap was a thing of beauty, as she hung there with her hair in disarray and lipstick smeared from his kiss, perfectly demure and covered from the front, from behind exposed and vulnerable. The pink and engorged lips of her sex hinted at her state from the cleft of her thighs as she arched her back. It took all of Jonah’s self-control not to plunge into her welcoming body.
He held the strap in his hands and took a few steps to end up in front of her, the soles of his bare feet thudding on the rubber tiles. Jonah brushed the hair from Anya’s face and lifted her chin.
“Before I do anything more, I want you to know you have safe words, okay? Just say orange if anything is worrying you or becoming too much and we can take a break. You say red, everything stops. Are we clear, baby?”
Anya nodded when he removed his hand from under her chin.
Jonah positioned himself behind her again, stroking the soft pale skin with the edge of the strap. “I don’t want you to count or to thank me, not for these. Just feel and enjoy the knowledge that I am warming up your skin for the crop and cane.” With one hand on her lower back Jonah raised the arm which held the strap and brought it down hard across her arse.
The crack of leather on skin reverberated through the space, stunning him. He’d never thought it could be so loud. Anya jerked on her restraints as he brought the heavy strap down again on the other cheek. Jonah ran a hand over the two thick red welts. He repeated the two strokes, overlapping them slightly with the first welts and weaving a subtle pattern on her skin. Jonah took his time, and when Anya gasped and cried out in pain with the tenth set of strokes, he laid the strap aside and went to stand in front of her again.
With one hand Jonah lifted her face to look into her eyes, wracked with pain and showing endurance. She bit her lip as he kissed her forehead.
“You are going to take more for me, aren’t you, Anya?” Jonah whispered, the soft sound alien in the large room after the noise of the strap.
Anya nodded, even while tears ran down her cheeks. Jonah reached around her and cupped her burning arse in his palms, squeezing the heated skin and smiling as she bit back a cry. He patted her cheek softly, a little put-off when she flinched from the gesture.
“I will never slap you in the face Anya, I don’t want you ever flinching from my touch to your face, okay?”
She nodded.
“Good girl.” He picked up the crop and flicked it through the air. “Hmm, this is going to leave some pretty patterns over those welts,” he murmured cheerfully, and brought the head of the crop down hard on the back of her thigh.
Anya let out a scream and lifted her foot to get the thigh out of his aim from another smack. Jonah simply placed it on the other leg. He watched as she skipped from foot to foot yelping and squealing, her shoes falling off and her position becoming more strained without the height of heels. Jonah kicked her shoes out of the way and chuckled as he placed small and precise marks down the backs of her thighs, stopping when she shook her head violently, shouting, “Stop! Please stop, I can’t breathe. Oh God, that hurts!”
From behind her, Jonah yanked her head back with his fingers twisted in her hair. “If you can’t handle this, how on earth will you manage the cane?” He grunted the words in her ear. He was lost to himself, completely absorbed in the moment, and while he spoke, he laid a series of short and rapid blows down her one thigh, and then switched sides, until Anya yelled, “Orange!”
He stopped and tossed the crop aside.
She hung gasping in the restraints, hair plastered to her face with sweat and tears soaking her face down to the collar of her shirt. She opened her eyes and looked into his, and Jonah lowered his mouth to hers, pushing past the boundary of her lips to probe the depths of her mouth with his tongue. He k
issed her possessively as she mewled softly against his mouth, and when he released her she hung limp in the cuffs.
Jonah reached up and unhooked the cuffs from the chains, seeing her fingers turn a bad shade of blue from lack of blood, and bent her forward over the massage table. This was a much better position for the cane, he thought. When he picked up the cane he walked around and knelt beside where her head lay, her eyes mildly panicked as she saw it in his hands.
“No, please no…” she whimpered softly, hiding behind her hair at the sight.
He wiped the fall of hair from her face and whispered in her ear, “That’s not your safe word, Anya, do you want to use the safe word?” He stroked her back and saw her relax under his touch.
She took a deep breath before replying, “No sir.” She closed her eyes.
“Good girl,” he said as he stood and walked behind her, kicking her feet wider apart and folding her tattered skirt out of the way. He ran the tip of the cane over her already red and hot cheeks. Jonah saw the wide space beside her and lifted the cane, bringing it down with a thud on the bed beside her. Anya jumped and stared wide-eyed at the cane in front of her face as he lifted it away again.
She lifted her head to shake it again, over and over, mouthing the word ‘no’ as she did, and when the first stroke landed on her, she froze, every muscle in her body stiffening. It seemed to take a while for the nerves to comprehend the pain, and as he watched, her toes curled.
“You’re going to take ten of those for me Anya.”
Jonah laid another, and then a third stroke parallel. She was twisting and convulsing to try and avoid them, and he moved to hold her with a hand on the small of her back, pushing down on her as she struggled to catch her breath. He didn’t let her body get used to any rhythm; he kept going until he reached his goal of ten strokes. When he got to ten Jonah dropped the cane near the crop and ran his nails over the tiger stripes on her arse. Mingled with the belt welts and crop marks they formed a piece of art.
