by Sherri Hayes
The table was in the back so there were fewer around us, but it was still busy. My gaze kept darting around every time someone moved or their silverware made a loud noise. I was jumpy and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been out with him before.
I nearly fell out of my seat when his hand covered mine.
“What’s wrong?”
My eyes met his as I held onto his hand. I took a deep breath and tried to figure out why I was having this reaction. The only thing that made sense was that he’d been too far away. As he held my hand, I felt myself calming.
“This is the first time we’ve been at a table.” At his confused look, I knew I had to try to explain better. “Before we’ve always been in a booth. You were close. I could touch you.”
He squeezed my hand gently. “I’m right here, even if I’m not always touching you.”
“I know,” I said, lowering my head.
“Eyes up,” he ordered. When I was looking at him again, his voice softened. “I know this is hard, Brianna, but you are going to have to learn how to be around people. I don’t know if it will ever be something you’ll be comfortable with, but it is something you have to learn to tolerate. That’s one of the reasons we’re having dinner out and not at home.” He released my hand, and brushed his knuckles against my collar. “Have you forgotten that I’m always with you?”
I shook my head. “No, Sir.”
He smiled, and ran the back of his hand along my cheek before returning it to his lap. I felt the loss of his touch immediately, but I felt better than I had before. He was right. I always had his collar. He was always with me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
When I opened my eyes, Logan and Lily were walking toward us. Logan arrived first with Lily standing just behind him to the right. Her head was bowed, but she was looking at me from beneath her lashes and smiling. It was then I realized it was the weekend and that she and Logan were playing. I hoped she’d be able to talk tonight.
“There you are,” Stephan said as Logan pulled out the chair beside me for Lily. I was glad we’d at least get to sit beside each other. I wasn’t sure how I would have done if I’d had to sit beside Logan. “I thought you’d gotten lost or something.”
Logan smiled. “No. Lily just had some trouble deciding what she was going to wear. Finally, I made the decision for her.”
“I’m glad you made it, then. I know how Lily is with her clothes.” Stephan winked at her and I saw her glare at him quickly before looking down again.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the exchange. Knowing they’d played together in the past still gave me a funny feeling I didn’t like. They seemed to have a connection I didn’t understand, and it frustrated me.
“Yes,” Logan said. “I see you and Brianna made it on time.” He looked at me, and I glanced down.
“Brianna isn’t obsessed with clothing, are you, Brianna?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Well, maybe you can share that philosophy with Lily. I like her to look nice, but she tends to go overboard at times. Isn’t that right, Lily?” Logan asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
Then I saw him nod his head in my direction before turning back to Stephan. I didn’t hear what he said, though, because Lily edged her chair a little closer to me and whispered, “I’m glad I didn’t get myself into too much trouble tonight. I was hoping we could talk during dinner.”
“Do you . . . do you get in trouble a lot?”
“Sometimes.” She frowned. “Most of the time it’s about running late because I can’t find the right thing to wear. You’d think I’d be better at time management given what I do for a living, but there is always one more thing that needs to be done before I leave. Only seems to happen when he’s home, though. I guess I get distracted.” She giggled.
I thought about that, and I guessed it made sense. She was an event planner, so she was used to details.
“But enough about me,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “How are things going with you and Stephan?” I felt my cheeks heating again. She laughed. “That good, huh?”
“Yes, and . . . and I wanted to ask . . .” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Is it normal?”
“Is what normal?” she asked when I didn’t continue.
“To feel warm. And . . . jittery?”
She looked confused. I hated when I wasn’t explaining things well enough. “When do you feel warm and jittery?”
“When he holds me. When he kisses me. And . . . and when he . . . touches me,” I whispered the last part.
Lily smiled and took hold of my hand. “That’s great,” she gushed.
I jerked from the sudden movement, and saw Stephan look in my direction. “Is it?”
“Of course it is. Don’t you like the feeling?”
“Yes.” I smiled shyly. “It’s nice. I like when he kisses me.” Then I asked the question that had been burning in my mind this afternoon. “Does that mean I’m . . . attracted . . . to him?”
She laughed. “It does.”
I smiled back at her and felt a weight lift off my chest. It felt good to understand what I was feeling and relate it to what I’d read in books. My gaze drifted over to where Stephan was in deep conversation with Logan. He’d angled his chair in a way that I knew he was still paying close attention to me and my well-being.
“So have you seen him naked yet?” Her abrupt question had me staring wide-eyed at her. When I didn’t answer, she prompted me again. “Well?”
“I . . .” I felt another blush spread across my cheeks.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “What did you think? See anything you liked?”
It felt weird to be talking about this, even with Lily. Thankfully, I was saved when Stephan asked, “What are you ladies over there giggling about?”
“Just girl talk,” Lily said.
“Hmm,” Stephan said.
As if on cue, the waiter came with our drinks. I’d somehow missed him coming to the table the first time.
Stephan
I loved watching Brianna relaxed and enjoying herself. It was rare, especially when we were out in public. She’d been nervous at first, which was understandable, but it seemed that whatever girl talk Lily had engaged her in significantly distracted her from her nerves.
The waiter set our drinks down in front of us, and I informed him we would need another minute.
“Do you know what you’d like, Brianna?” I asked, motioning toward her menu.
“No,” she said, quickly picking it up.
Turning my attention to my own menu, I looked over their steak selection. Logan loved his steak, which was the sole reason we were at this restaurant. Apparently, they had the best steaks in town. They had a decent selection, from prime rib to a chopped sirloin. I decided, however, to go with a nice rib eye since I’d never eaten here before.
Having made my selection, I looked over at Brianna. “Did you decide?”
Her menu was closed once again, and her hands were folded in her lap. “Yes.”
“Good,” I smiled. “You’ll order for yourself when the waiter returns.” I saw her tense and swallow, but she nodded. Good girl.
We didn’t have to wait long for the waiter to appear again to take our orders. I prompted Brianna to go first. She stumbled over a few words, but overall she did well. I squeezed her hand under the table to show my pride in her accomplishment.
After placing my order, Logan ordered for both him and Lily. I noticed she scrunched up her nose when he ordered broccoli for her side dish. She hated broccoli, but she didn’t get any say in what she ate on the weekends. That was part of their arrangement.
When we were left alone again, the conversation turned to Logan’s most recent trip to New York. He loved to travel, which was good since he did a lot of it with his job. I, on the other hand, hated it—plane travel, at least. If I could avoid it, which I normally could, I did. Most of the foundation’s business could be
conducted over the phone or through teleconferencing. It was rare that I even had to leave town, let alone fly across the country. The two times it had happened, I had hired a private jet and interviewed the pilots myself.
Logan’s line of work, however, was not only about fundraising for the hospital, it also involved lecturing at colleges around the country. His job was to promote the hospital in any and every way he could. He took Lily with him whenever possible, but given her own job at the foundation, it didn’t happen very often. I had no idea how they could stand being apart so much, but they made it work.
Brianna didn’t contribute to the conversation unless someone asked her a direct question. So when our meals arrived and we all began eating, I decided to change the subject. “Logan, I was telling Brianna how you and Lily became a couple. I thought it might be good for you to share with her why you chose to live the lifestyle with Lily when you’d not had any previous inclination.”
Logan glanced over at Lily and smiled before going back to his steak. “Lily is one of a kind. The moment I met her, I knew there was something about her. There was this connection. I knew I wanted to get to know her better, but to be honest, when she told me what she wanted I was bewildered. I couldn’t understand it. Why anyone would want that. Then . . .” he paused, taking a bite of his steak. “She dropped the other shoe and told me that my best friend—Stephan here—lived that way, too, and I’d never known.”
I chuckled, remembering the night Logan had showed up at my condo wide-eyed and nearly incoherent. All he kept saying was, “Is it true?”
“Once I calmed down, things started making more sense. I’d rarely seen Stephan out with other girls since he’d been home from college, and the few times I had, he’d always taken the lead. They’d always wait for him to speak first and introduce them, always stayed one step behind him when walking.” Logan took a few more bites of his meal before continuing.
Brianna was intently listening to every word he said. So much so, I had to nudge her to continue to eat.
“In the end, it came down to one thing. I liked her. A lot. I was clueless about it all, but I was willing to give it a try if it meant being with her.”
After Logan’s little speech, no one spoke. We all sat in silence, and I was hoping Brianna would speak up, ask a question, but she didn’t.
“Do you have anything you’d like to ask Logan, Brianna?” She looked up at me, and I could see the panic building. I leaned over, took her hand, and whispered in her ear. “I’m right here. You can ask him anything you want. No one is going to get upset.”
Her gaze met mine and she nodded. She tightened her hold on my hand and without looking at Logan asked, “Was it . . . hard?”
“To be what she needed me to be, you mean?”
“Yes,” she squeaked.
“At first it was. It still is at times, but I also see the benefits for both of us. There is strength there, a bond that I’ve never had before with another person. The hardest part is when I have to punish her. I love her. Causing her pain, mentally or physically, isn’t my favorite pastime. But I’ve also learned that it’s something she needs. If I slack on handing out discipline, she gets worse until I do something about it. It was a learning curve, but we’ve figured it out,” he said, smiling at Lily. She smiled back. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”
Brianna shook her head before dropping her head again.
“If you do, you know where to find me,” he said.
We finished our meal with dessert. I decided to order a large slice of chocolate cake for Brianna and me to share. She was timid at first, not wanting to take some for herself, so I took the first piece and fed it to her. “Now eat,” I ordered. She smiled shyly and picked up her fork.
Later on that night, after another memorable shower where I helped her to her second orgasm, I reluctantly sent her to her own bed. As much as I wanted Brianna sleeping beside me, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I wanted to be able to make love to her, hold her, and touch her the way I wanted. We weren’t there yet, and the last thing she needed was for me to do something in my sleep that I wasn’t aware of until it was too late. How I’d stopped myself the last two times we’d fallen asleep together was beyond me. It had taken all the willpower I had to stop. She was becoming harder and harder to resist.
Stephan
Sunday morning, Logan called to say Lily was asking to go to the mall—there was a big sale apparently—and he wanted to know if we’d like to come along. He thought it might help Brianna, and I had to agree. I knew we still had three months before school started, but she had a lot of ground to cover in that time if she was going to be able to not only drive herself to school, but deal with her teachers and classmates as well.
When I told Brianna we were going to meet Logan and Lily again today, her excitement was obvious. It lessened slightly when she learned we would be meeting them at the mall. As I opened the car door for her, I saw her reach up and touch my metal collar that was still securely around her neck before taking my offered hand and exiting the vehicle.
The mall was busy. Lily hadn’t been exaggerating on there being a big sale. Everywhere I looked there were banners touting anywhere from twenty to fifty percent off. Retailers were doing their best to drive business to their stores, and from what I could see, it was working. Over half the people we passed were carrying a bag of some sort.
Brianna held tight to my hand as we weaved through the crowd to the food court where I’d agreed to meet Logan and Lily. Every time someone would get too close, Brianna would use her other hand to grab onto my upper arm and pull herself closer.
Halfway there, I stepped off to the side, and turned her to face me. “Number?”
“Five.” She kept moving her eyes back and forth, trying to monitor all the people passing us.
“Eyes on me.” Her gaze returned to the front, and she gave me her full attention. “Thank you. Now explain to me why you’re at five.”
“All the people,” she whispered.
“What about them?”
“They’re so close. I can’t keep track of them. They keep moving.”
“Yes, they do. In places like this, no one ever stays in one place for too long. And if you’re never comfortable coming to a place like this by yourself that’s okay. It can be overwhelming. But today, right now, I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know. I just . . . I get scared.”
I hated seeing her like this. All I wanted was to make it better for her. “Is there anything I can do that will make you less scared?”
She didn’t answer right away, taking her time to think about the question. This was one of the things that made her a lovely submissive partner. Too often, a submissive was quick to answer with whatever they thought their Dom wanted to hear. Once Brianna understood that I wanted real answers from her when I asked, she took the time to think the answer through instead of spouting out nonsense that meant nothing at the end of the day.
I saw something change in her face, and before I knew what hit me, she was hugging me. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and her face nestled in against my chest. Before I could ask her anything, however, she started to talk. “When I was . . . was with . . . Ian, sometimes . . . sometimes, he’d attach a chain to my collar. I didn’t like it,” she said, shaking her head so hard it caused her entire body to twist in my arms. “It meant that I couldn’t get away from him, not even for a minute. And if I tried, he’d just pull the chain.” She fell silent.
I was sure I understood what she wanted and why after that explanation, and to be honest, the thought of having her on a leash was very appealing. However, I needed to be sure. This would be a bigger step into Dominance and submission play, one I needed to make sure she was ready to embark upon. The last thing I wanted was for it to trigger another one of her flashbacks. I rested my hands on either side of her cheeks, forcing her to look at me.
“You want me to put you on a leash? That would make
you feel more comfortable?”
She pressed her lips tight together and nodded. “I . . . I think so?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I didn’t like it . . . before, because it meant he had even more control over what I was doing and where I was. It meant he had better access to hurt me.” Her words were getting softer and more distant the longer she spoke. “I feel safe with you.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. She was amazing. Pressing a quick kiss to her lips, I took her hand and laced our fingers. “Stay close,” I said, as I continued walking toward the food court.
Logan and Lily were standing by a large column near the entrance when we arrived. I knew the minute Lily spotted us by the smile on her face. Lily’s reaction brought Logan’s attention to us.
“Now who’s the late one?” he teased.
Before I could respond, Brianna’s fingers began digging into my hand. When I looked down at her, all the color had drained from her face and she was staring in pure terror across the room. There was a man staring back at her with a look that told me he had more knowledge of her than he should.
“Who is that?” Logan asked. There was no way he could have missed the change in our demeanors.
“Brianna?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the man in question.
He took a step in our direction, and I felt Brianna tense. I’d only seen her react this way once before, and that was with Daren. It was all I needed to know. This man had played with her, at the very least. At most, he was one of Ian’s friends who’d abused her. Either way, this needed to be dealt with.
I forced her to look at me. “You will stay right here with Lily and Logan, do you hear me?” My voice was firm and commanding. She was to do as I said. There would be no deviation. She just stared back at me, not answering. I glanced up. The man had stopped walking, but was still watching us. “Answer me,” I demanded.
“Y . . . yes.”
Taking her hand, I placed it in Lily’s. I knew Brianna did much better with physical contact—preferably mine—but I needed to deal with the situation at hand, and there was no way she was coming with me.
