Ready for Love

by Carolyn Faulkner

  "You're sure? I'm not hurting you?" His head was tilted a bit as he looked at me with more than a little bit of suspicion.

  "Not at all."

  He sank down again, fitting us together like we were made for each other, parting my legs around him. The short skirt of my dress had ridden up, and there was nothing between us besides his jeans and my terribly flimsy panties. I could feel him rising against me, against the cage that was his zipper.

  "You and Andre never ventured into that area?" he probed.

  I shook my head. "Andre was the staidest sexual partner I've ever had. Not that he didn't—" This time, I blushed. "Well, he took care of me. But he wasn't particularly…adventurous in the bedroom. I sometimes wondered if there wasn't an aspect of his sexuality that he kept hidden from me, but I never found one, even after he died. He just wanted normal, average, straight vanilla sex, and I couldn't really fault him for that. And he did make certain that I was, uh, satisfied by it."

  "No fireworks?"

  "Oh, no, lots of those. Just less dramatic ones than I'd experienced before. And the older he got, the less he was interested in sex, and that was okay, too. He didn't begrudge me the vibrators I kept in the nightstand—in fact, he encouraged it."

  His laugh surprised me. "Really? I don't know if I'd go quite that far, myself. Encouraging the use of something that can replace you? I don't think so."

  Fiddling with the collar of my dress, he asked, "Have you ever been interested in discipline? In spanking?"

  "I've always found the idea intriguing, yes. That's why I've always grilled you when you've loosened up enough to talk to me about it."

  He looked offended. "I'm always loosened up—especially with you!"

  "Yeah, but you get uncomfortable talking about things like this—admit it."

  There was a reluctant nod. "Less so with you, and less so the more we talk about it."

  "That's good—that's progress. There's no need to be embarrassed about any aspect of sex. You and Jane, I'm sure, had great sex, and my husband and I had pretty good sex."

  "How do you know that Jane and I had great sex?"

  The question distracted me from the way he was working on opening the buttons that ran down the front of my dress, his eyes darting up to mine every once in a while, to gage my reaction to what he was doing.

  The problem was that I had forgotten about the question entirely in favor of the feelings he was evoking within me by the time he'd undone the last one, coyly dipping his fingers beneath first one side, then the other, brushing the backs of them against my nipples as he did so elatedly.

  "No bra. Hmm."

  "It's in my purse. The end of the underwire was trying to shank me every time I moved, so I'll either do surgery and remove them and continue to wear it or throw it away when I get home."

  "Ah. So how did you know?"

  I frowned. "Know what?"

  That got a nipple tweaked hard, although I don't think it had the effect he intended it to, since all I did was gasp and arch against him.

  "Hmm. That's an interesting reaction to a very mild punishment." His fingers continued to pinch my nipple, but more gently, but it served as a very blatant reminder of what he could do. "How do you know that Jane and I had great sex?"

  Damn, now I was so distracted, I didn't think I could be coherent enough to answer his question. "Umm." The panting started earlier with him than it ever had with anyone I'd been with. "H-how—" Fingers clamped closed around that tender flesh as I arched against him, trying to both encourage and discourage him at the same time.

  "Gemma," he rasped very tenderly, in a way that didn't prepare me for what he was going to say at all. "If you don't answer my question quickly and stop making me repeat myself, there will be consequences that you might not enjoy so much."

  My gaze flew to his, and he didn't look at all as if he was bluffing.

  "What kind of…consequences?" I asked cheekily, as if I was weighing both sides of the equation to decide whether or not I was going to obey him.

  "The kind that will leave you standing on the train in in the morning. That'll make you stand at the bar rather than grab a table and have to sit down when you go out for lunch with the girls." Decker leaned down to whisper into my ear, "Consequences you'll think about before you fall asleep, then you'll dream about them and wake up wet and throbbing in the morning, even if your bottom is still sore. Or maybe because your bottom is still sore."

  I couldn't seem to keep still as he spoke to me. I don't know if it was the words themselves or how he said them—in a very firm, matter of fact way, as if this was something he did every day.

  And perhaps it was—or had been—but not to me!

  That was motivation enough to get me talking, though, which made him grin in a manner that made me want to wipe it rather violently off his face.

  "The reason I think you guys must've had great sex is the way you talk about her. A man who is that much in love with a woman—who was that attentive to her throughout the more mundane aspects of their lives—would have been at least as attentive to her in their bedroom."

  "That's a very pretty way to phrase it, thank you. And you are right. We did have wonderful and amazing sex."

  "He says blithely to the woman who's beneath him, who's likely going to have to try to live up to 'wonderful' and 'amazing'."

  "Perhaps, but not now."

  My eyes widened in surprise. "Not now?" I parroted back mindlessly.

  "No."

  He hadn't made a move to leave; Deck was still sprawled out on top of me, which was what made me question his statement. "Why not? It seems like all your parts are working, and I know all mine are, because there are far fewer moveable parts."

  I loved it when a big man giggled, for some reason.

  "Because I have a business meeting to go to in about an hour and a half, and you need to go retrieve your car from Simon and Kelly's."

  I lifted my hips to grind against him a bit. "But if your meeting's not for thirty minutes, we have more than enough time." I kissed him, pulling his head down to me and doing it properly, leaving the both of us breathless.

  But he was adamant, and, proving to me that I had no physical power over him in the least, he broke the hold I'd had on his neck with no effort whatsoever, then levered himself off me.

  I lay there resenting just how unaffected he seemed, while I was trembling and feeling weak and could barely manage to move my feet.

  Forcing myself to at least sit up, I reached for my purse, deliberately not looking at him because I was slightly miffed, and pulling up the Uber app on my phone.

  "What are you doing?" he asked from across the room. He'd put a lot of distance between us in a short amount of time, and I flattered myself to think it was because he wasn't sure he could control himself enough around me.

  Yeah, that was definitely the reason.

  "I'm getting an Uber to get me to my car."

  Suddenly, he was standing right next to me. "Cancel it. I'll take you to your car."

  "Okay," I agreed, shrugging my shoulders. I knew he had something against me Ubering, but I'd never really asked what it was. "But I like Uber, and it won't inconvenience you when you have somewhere else to be."

  Decker took my hand and I stood up at his behest, allowing him to draw me into the warm, safe harbor of his arms. I could feel him linking his fingers together at the small of my back. "Do you want to date me? Do you want our relationship to take that kind of a turn?"

  Blushing, I looked at his tie pin rather than at him, whispering, "Yes, yes, I do."

  I could feel him sigh in relief, feeling incredibly flattered by it.

  "And do you trust me?"

  Surprised by the question, I gave him a confused look. "Well, yes, I do."

  "Good. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. It is a very special thing, as far as I'm concerned, for a woman to honor a man with her trust." He cleared his throat, then pressed on. "And are you at all interested in having the same type o
f relationship as I had with Jane?"

  The truth was that parts of me desperately wanted to have exactly that kind of bond with him, although I was more than a bit uncertain about it. "Yes, I'm interested…curious. I—" I bit my lip. "I have to decide now? Can we talk more about this later?"

  He kissed my forehead. "Of course, we can. If we decide to go this way, you'll get sick of talking about it, because communication is so important in that type of relationship, much more so than in a less traditional style of relationship."

  Then he moved my chin up so that I was looking into those bottomless chocolate brown eyes. "But I'm going to proceed on the assumption that that's where we're headed—unless you have any strong objections to my doing that."

  "No, uh, I don't think so." I could barely believe that he and I had kissed after so many years, trying to get my head around having the rest of it was practically painful.

  "Then I want you to cancel the Uber because I asked you to," he stated, quietly but firmly. "If I hadn't wanted to take you, I wouldn't have made the offer." Then he simply stood there, waiting for me to obey him.

  I had no idea how long he'd wait—although I knew he could be very patient in regards to some things, I had a feeling that this was not one of them.

  So, I sighed loudly, exasperatedly, and cancelled it.

  "Happy?" I asked, with no small amount of sarcasm.

  I didn't expect him to kiss me that tenderly as he closed his arms around me in a tight hug. "Very. But three things."

  "What?" I asked, not very excited to hear what he was going to say.

  "One, I won't wait nearly as long next time for you to obey me before you'll find yourself over my knee, and two, lose the exasperated sigh and put upon tone. Someone is looking after you—that's a good thing."

  "And the third?"

  "I'll let you keep the Uber app on your phone, but I don't ever want you to Uber alone. I know it must sound ridiculously old fashioned of me, but it's much too dangerous for a single woman to do that. Share with someone, or find another way to where you need to go. If you call me, I'll move Heaven and Earth to get to you. If I can't come, call a licensed taxi or a car service. I'll pay for it."

  Besides the fact that I was saying in my head, "Over my dead body," about him paying for anything, I can't describe how it felt to have him speak to me that way. No one had tried to tell me what to do—outside of work—since I was a kid, and I was pleasantly surprised by how his tone and his words went straight to my lady bits.

  The anger I had expected would result by having someone try to boss me around never materialized. Instead, my mind latched onto what he'd said—that I have someone watching over me. It was a new, intriguing sensation, full of a warmth I'd never felt before. He wasn't ranting or yelling or issuing a thousand rules, not that I hadn't granted him, essentially, the power to do so.

  Instead, he had identified what he considered to be a threat to my security—one that I frankly hadn't thought much about, concentrating more on the convenience of it—and had issued an edict in an almost casual manner that only left me feeling wonderfully coddled and cared for.

  But I still grumbled a bit about it, nonetheless, turning away to bend down and get my purse off the floor, and he did it. He swatted me—hard!

  I straightened immediately and turned on him, rubbing my bum. "Ow! That hurt!"

  But he merely grinned. "I wouldn't have bothered if it hadn't. It's just a gentle reminder that there are now going to be consequences—that are going to be as immediate as I can manage to make them—to your actions in a way that you probably haven't anticipated for a while."

  He shrugged into his suit coat, grabbed his briefcase and looped his arm around my waist as we headed to the garage.

  As it happened, it was several weeks before we could get together again, between the demands of his job and the demands of my own.

  But my body hadn't forgotten him in that time—nor the things he'd said or how he'd said them—not in the least. Frankly, it was just the opposite. My mind kept repeating scenes from that night over and over again in my dreams—and daydreams. I hadn't mooned over a man in so long, I'd've thought I didn't know how any more, but that proved not to be at all true.

  Not that we didn't communicate, we did—by every means available, short of homing pigeon. He checked in on me on a frequent basis, always asking how my day had been and really listening to what I said—as he always had before, too—making pertinent observations and asking before providing any potential solutions to whatever challenge I was facing.

  We had always kept in contact, but it had been more casual over those years than it was becoming. He was up earlier than I was, so there was almost always an email or a text from him waiting for me when I awoke, and I called him when I took a break, knowing that if I hung up the phone on him, he'd understand that I simply couldn't talk any longer and knowing that I wasn't going to have to deal with hurt feelings because of it, since he did the same to me.

  We both often lunched at our desks, sometimes while Facetiming, or at the very least, emailing back and forth, which was easier to do at work than texting.

  But it was the after-hours conversations that I loved best, when we weren't constrained by having to maintain propriety around the office.

  He'd been gone for ten days on a business trip, and I had been working myself to death, as usual, so I decided to take a Friday off before a Monday holiday, giving myself a nice four-day weekend when I could do absolutely nothing.

  Of course, there were errands to get done, but I decided to put those off till Saturday, giving myself a full day of being little more than a couch potato. I took myself out to breakfast at my favorite place, had a nice nap on the couch in the afternoon, and finally got around to binge watching Orphan Black.

  Long about seven or so, I got a call from him, his face popping up on my iPhone as it came through.

  His voice—which I was finding was a very potent aphrodisiac—was smooth and husky. "Good evening, honey."

  I was bowled over by the giddy feeling I got any time I interacted with this man now. I felt like a twelve-year-old with a schoolgirl crush.

  "Good evening to you, too. How's the business trip going?"

  "Wonderfully, we got the contract, and we're going to build one of the largest skyscrapers in the area."

  "Excellent!! Great job. I know you've been working on this for a while. I'm so proud of you—congratulations!"

  "Thank you." He sounded nicely pleased with himself.

  "Still going to be home next Wednesday?"

  I heard him moving around in the background and the sounds of a crowd, but that wasn't at all unusual, so I paid no attention to it. "Well, there's been a bit of a change about that, but I'll tell you about it later. How are you? Are you feeling better?"

  I'd had a touch of the stomach flu, but had gotten over it quickly. Of course, it had arrived last weekend, so I was sick inside the whole time, but, as I told him, I was now fit as a fiddle.

  "And ready for love, I hope," he added, completing the apropos lyric.

  "I could probably be convinced rather easily, if the right man came along," I flirted.

  That got me a low growl that made me think I was going to need to change my panties rather quickly.

  "He has; don't you forget that."

  I laughed. "I haven't. I was just teasing.

  "Testing is more like it. But that's to be expected."

  I had an idea as to what he might have been referring, but I wasn't absolutely sure. "I don't understand."

  "It's not at all unusual for a submissive to test her Dom's resolve about things."

  I was a bit taken aback. That was something I had never considered myself to be. "Is that what I will be to you?"

  "To a point, yes. How far we take that depends entirely on you. But if you're willing—and I assume you are, since we've gotten to this point. But I'll clarify that more with you when we meet again—to allow me to set rules for you and enforce them wi
th corporal punishment, then, yeah, that pretty much fits the bill of being a submissive."

  "Huh."

  "Hadn't thought of it that way, had you?"

  "No, I have to confess that I hadn't. I always saw it in conjunction with your marriage."

  Was that a car door I heard shut in the background? I wondered what he was doing, but the conversation was far too distracting for me to ask.

  "But we're not married. Therefore, there are no historical marital constructs to harken back to."

  "Just eons of history of women being forced to submit to men."

  "That's, unfortunately, true."

  I had to laugh. "Said with just the right amount of reluctance."

  "Well," Deck replied. "I hardly want the entire female contingent of the human race to be submissive to men. Just one of them in particular, and only to me."

  "That's reassuring, I think."

  He chuckled. "I hope it is. I don't want you to quit your job and stay at home, naked, waiting for me to come home and ravish you." There was a long pause. "Well, it's not that I don't want that, you understand—that's kind of the ultimate—"

  "Stop right there, junior, before you say something I'm going to make you regret," I warned.

  I loved to hear him laugh. "Exactly. I want you happy—which, for you, means your job and your friends and your freedom. I'm only going to curb your freedom a little bit. You won't even notice—"

  "Until I do something you don't like."

  "Until you do something that you would already know you weren't supposed to. I'm not going to try to catch you out. Unless it's something truly atrocious—"

  "Like what?"

  "Like…I don't know. Blatantly disregarding your safety—not eating for weeks—"

  I snickered. "As if that's going to happen."

  "I know. But something drastic like—or being blatantly disrespectful towards me, which I know is also not how you are. That would get you spanked immediately, without a discussion beforehand. I can't see you doing anything like that, but you never know."