“I want the marks.” She twisted to look back at him. “I want to still have them when…”
His gaze met hers, and the dark predatory gleam was gone from his eyes. “When what?”
Twice tonight he’d been vulnerable, tender, and both times she’d nearly abandoned her plan and told him who she was.
No, she wouldn’t actually have told him who she was. She wasn’t suicidal. She would have said something to push him away, save him…from her.
He was relaxed, his expression soft and almost sleepy.
This was it, the moment when she either stuck to her guns, or abandoned months’ worth of work because he’d dominated her, pleasured her, and hurt her, better than anyone ever had before.
Put like that, what she needed to do was obvious. If only she could ignore the slimy feelings sliding around in her gut—guilt and dread an unpleasant combination making her feel vaguely ill.
Oddly those emotions were followed by irritation.
Irritation with herself for being so dramatic.
Irritation with him for eliciting a true, deep level of submission she hadn’t known she was capable of and certainly hadn’t anticipated.
Irritation with him for unknowingly making her feel guilty when she normally wouldn’t have.
Life had taught her that right and wrong were flimsy ideas sheltered people thought were solid and fixed. White and black.
She didn’t believe in the simplistic dichotomy of black versus white. She saw the shades of gray, but wasn’t quite so melancholy or dramatic as to claim she lived in shadows.
If anything, her life was the golden hour, that precious time just before sunset when the light was soft red and gold and there were no shadows, only a feeling of gilded stillness, impish and fleeting.
You don’t have to feel guilty. You’re not going to hurt him, just use him for information. He’s a billionaire—everyone around him is using him for something, and vice-versa.
And you didn’t manipulate him during the scenes, just before and after. What happened in the scene was pure, unrelated to what you’re about to do.
It was a paper thin distinction, but she clung to it.
He’d asked “when what?”
And it was time for her to answer.
Alena took a deep breath, reminded herself how much she’d put into getting here, and did what she needed to do.
“When I have to spend tomorrow night alone. I wish we had one more night together.”
His lips parted as he sighed. She wanted to kiss him.
Alexander ran one hand from the top of her ass along her spine and into her hair. She tensed, but he didn’t grab. Instead he cupped the back of her head and gently pushed her down until her cheek rested on her forearms once more.
He began kneading her ass and thighs—he was working the muscles to make sure they didn’t cramp, but like a deep tissue massage, it hurt.
She yelped and twitched when he hit a particularly sore spot. And each time he did, her ass clenched around the plug.
And her pussy throbbed in response to his caring cruelty.
After many long minutes he finished. Gathering her hair in a tail, he tugged gently. “Up on your elbows.”
Last time she’d done this, it had been so he could slide his cock into her mouth. This time once she’d raised her chest and shoulders, his hand moved from her hair to her dangling breasts, and he plucked her nipples.
“I had planned to play with your breasts.” Alexander punctuated the statement with a little flick of her nipple.
Alena’s pussy throbbed as he rolled her right nipple then tugged twice before releasing it to play with her other breast.
“You want to know what other dark things I imagined?” His voice had deepened, and she was no longer sure this was aftercare.
Was it another intermission?
“Are you trying to scare me off?” she asked.
“No. Not anymore. You like it when I tell you… When I describe what I’d do to you.”
And her butt cheeks throbbed and her ass clenched around the plug, still deep inside her, an ever present reminder of her submission.
He grabbed her ass and squeezed. She yelped.
“Did that hurt?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good.”
He pinched her ass, eliciting another cry. She was mentally preparing herself for the scene to start up again when he grabbed the base of the plug and wiggled it side to side. Alena shivered and raised her hips.
“Stay. I mean stay still.” She heard the correction, and her heart clenched.
Alexander worked the plug with small tugs, then started to pull harder, forcing her body to open around the wide section.
Used and stretched as she was, it didn’t hurt, but it was uncomfortable. And it was also arousing. Her pussy throbbed with desire even as she whimpered.
“Shhh, relax now.” He gently tugged her nipples, as if rewarding her for holding still as he withdrew the plug.
She whimpered when it slid all the way out, the whimper becoming a moan as he pressed it in again, starting up a rhythm. The thrusts were gentle, her well worked and lubed ass opening easily as the plug pressed in only to be withdrawn again.
“I’d planned to fuck your ass too. Dildos. I’d use dildos, in graduated sizes. Force your ass to open.” He wiggled the plug. “Would you like that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I told you I wanted to do dark things to you.”
He’d gone quiet when they first got to this room, but now he was speaking more, as he had during the climax of the scene, and with the same more casual cadences that he normally used.
It was puzzling, because the contrast was so stark. She wanted to ask him about it, to find out why he’d first claimed to prefer being “succinct” only to become a masterful dirty talker.
She wanted answers, but those weren’t the answers she was here to get.
He withdrew the plug. Her body pulsed as her ass clenched fully closed for the first time in over an hour.
Alexander slid his arm under her shoulders and help her to ease off his lap and onto the couch beside him. She hissed when her weight pressed down on her abused ass.
Alexander stood. “Lay on your back, knees bent, legs spread so I can attend to you.”
The words were formal, and she felt a pang of regret that the dirty-talking, sometimes didn’t use complete sentences Alexander was retreating back into his taciturn shell.
He took the plug to the small in-room bathroom—easily distinguished by the familiar stick people plaque on the door.
Alena started to lay back so she could spread her knees as he’d ordered, but stopped.
This was supposed to be aftercare. He shouldn’t be giving orders, he should be helping her transition away from a submissive headspace.
It didn’t feel like last night’s aftercare. Playing with her nipples, fucking her ass with the plug rather than just removing it, had blurred the line.
He’d proven last night that he was both capable of, and good at, aftercare, so this deviation wasn’t the result of ignorance.
There was one, very obvious, explanation. Alexander was as affected by their scene, was as reluctant to end this, as she was.
Good, that will make this easier.
She shook her head to get rid of that nasty thought. Rather than lay back and lewdly spread her legs, Alena grabbed one of the large pillows and propped it up against the wrought iron “arm” of the daybed couch.
She stretched out on her side, arm on the pillow, head propped in her hand. Her other arm lay resting on her hip, and the urge to slide her hand down into her panties, to stroke herself to orgasm, was squeezing her.
Alena lifted her chin, kept her hand on her thigh, and waited.
A moment later Alexander emerged. The plug was nowhere in sight, but he held a stack of linen and a small bowl.
He stopped when he saw her, his gaze wandering from her toes up to her face.
“That wasn’t how I told you to wait.”
“I’ll move… I’ll obey, if we’re still scening. But if this is aftercare…” She arched an eyebrow.
Alexander’s lips compressed into a line. Then his shoulders sagged. Alena pulled her knees up to make room for him as he sat. She rolled onto her back, her shoulders and head propped up by the pillow so she could see him.
“It’s aftercare. My apologies.” He gingerly set the bowl of water down and dipped a washcloth into it.
As he wrung out the excess water, Alena stretched out one leg, sliding her foot across his thigh.
“I wasn’t complaining. Just clarifying.” She pointed her toes, rubbing them across the laces of his leathers. “I think neither of us is fully satisfied yet.”
This time when she arched her brow, she smiled.
Alexander grasped her ankle, lifting her foot away from his crotch. He bent his head and for a minute she thought he’d kiss her foot, and some long-buried saccharine part of her was giddy, citing that one ridiculously romantic scene in The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Alexander glanced at her, the corner of his mouth kicked up in a sexy little smirk, and then he yanked on her leg.
Alena yelped as she slid across the slick fabric, coming to rest with her butt nestled up against the side of his thigh, her knees bent.
Alexander laughed, and for a moment he seemed young and carefree. A man unmarked by life’s stresses and strain, wearing a simple gray t-shirt while he teased a girl.
Alena wiggled her ankle out of his grasp, then hooked her leg around his neck. His laughter died as his gaze turned hot. His attention drifted from her face to breasts, then to the apex of her thighs. He turned his head, breath fanning her leg as his hand skimmed down her thigh towards her pussy. Alena let her other leg fall open, her body splayed for him, every worry and dark emotion that had plagued her since he’d taken her off the spanking bench forgotten.
His fingers stopped a millimeter away from her soaked panties.
“You’re right,” he murmured against her skin. “This is aftercare. I shouldn’t play with you.”
“Oh, that’s just mean.”
“You enjoy mean.”
“I do.” Alena tightened her leg, forcing his head down. “Clearly neither of us is totally, fully satisfied. Why don’t we scene again tonight, while we still can?”
Alexander closed his eyes and turned his face into her leg. His teeth grazed her skin, causing goosebumps.
“We can’t. I can’t.”
“Why?” Alena rubbed her hand up and down his forearm, which was in easy reach since he’d planted his hand on the couch beside her waist.
“I’d want more. I told you that— I told you that I’d… The things I would do to you…they’re dark things.”
His quiet, halting words, laced with conviction, gave her pause. She hadn’t been scared when they talked before the scene. During the scene, even as he hurt her, even when he’d described doing things that were far beyond her personal limits, she hadn’t been scared. She’d been sure they were just dirty talk, not real possibilities, and as aroused as she’d been they’d sounded sexy and amazing.
She hadn’t been scared before.
But now she was.
Alena unhooked her leg from around his neck and scooted away.
He cleared his throat and looked at the far wall while she repositioned herself, once more reclined on the pillow, keeping her weight off her ass.
He seemed so far away, so sad. She stretched out one leg, resting her calf across his thighs.
“Alexander, this is a safe place to think about those things. Sharing a sub, BDSM in an office setting… they are hardly taboo fantasies in a place like this.” She gestured around them, smiling softly, while inside she wondered if he really would put a permanent collar around a woman’s neck, force her to service and fuck his friends and acquaintances.
No. Surely not.
That flash of fear had been a result of dealing with too many different feelings and juggling too many opposing needs.
“I know I haven’t been a member long, but I bet at some point the Orchid Club had an auction.” Her teasing tone hid the undercurrent of unease. “Slave auction is one of my favorite fantasies.”
“I am a cruel man.”
Alena’s heart clenched at the self-loathing she heard in his words.
“Alexander, sugar, there’s nothing wrong with you.” She was aware her accent had thickened, dropping the “r” and turning “sugar” into “suga’”. “Or if there’s something wrong with you, then the same thing is wrong with me, with all of us.”
“You’re lovely and...and radiant.” He exhaled heavily. “A Dom should tend to the needs of a submissive. I should want to take care of you… not— And I do. Want to take care of you. Now, in aftercare.” He turned his head away from her, lips pressed together as if he were trying to stop himself from saying more.
Alena swung her legs to the floor and stood.
He closed his eyes, as if he didn’t want to watch her walk away.
Alena straddled his legs, knees beside his hips, her still-aching ass perched on his leather-clad knees.
Alexander’s head whipped around and his brows were halfway up his forehead in surprise that she was sitting on his lap.
Smiling at the shock on his face, Alena cupped his cheeks. “Seems like you might need some aftercare. A scene should make you feel good.”
And just as he had before, he leaned his cheek into her hand. They stayed that way for several moments, and Alena let the silence wrap around them. She wouldn’t rush him.
“You’re the type of sub I should never partner with.” His words were soft and grim, but during the extended quiet his expression had relaxed.
“And what type of sub am I?” She rubbed his temples then ran her fingers back through his hair.
“The captured queen.”
Alena blinked in surprise. “Come again?”
“You’re…regal. Know your worth. Even if a Dom puts you on your knees and makes you lick his boots, you wouldn’t be humbled.”
“I don’t lick boots.”
“No monarch would.” His hands cupped her hips, and the first hint of a smile tightened the skin at the corners of his eyes.
Alena swayed forward, her breasts nearly brushing his face.
“Even when I had you strapped down…helpless…”
His breathing turned heavy as he spoke, his voice deepening, and Alena had to bite back a moan of desire.
“…there was a part of you I couldn’t touch. A sense that even as I used you, you were in control.”
“Now hold on just a minute. I didn’t top from the bottom.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you possess a sense of…reserve. A core of power that will never submit.”
You think I’m reserved, but really I’m lying to you.
Planning to betray you.
Alena rubbed his cheekbone with her thumb. “And that makes you…?”
“It makes me want to do terrible things to you.” He whispered the confession, then rested his forehead against her breastbone.
Alena stroked his hair. “I meant, does that make you the king, or maybe the knight sworn to protect the queen?”
The black knight was in play, sliding across the board, unaware of the hand that guided it.
“I think maybe you haven’t made peace with your Dominant needs.”
His only reply was to wrap his arms around her waist. Though his head rested between her naked breasts, there was nothing sexual about how he held her.
Alena made soothing noises and stroked his head and shoulders.
They stayed that way for a long time, Alexander’s breath fanning her belly, her fingers rhythmically raking through his hair then sliding along swells of his shoulders and down the flat plane of his back.
They couldn’t stay this way forever, and no matter how much she might want to, it was impractical to change her plan. Alena took a deep
breath and closed her eyes; when she exhaled she’d firmed her resolve.
“Alexander, why don’t we go change, then maybe we could have a drink, do some aftercare that way.”
He lifted his head. Once more he looked younger than she knew he was. “I’d like that.”
Alena slid off his lap. He stood and picked up one of the large, soft bath sheets, wrapping it around her shoulders.
He escorted her to the submissives’ changing room, his hands on the small of her back.
Alena opened the door, then looked back at him, smiling saucily. “See you soon?”
Alexander’s defeated, vulnerable aspect had shifted to the confident, slightly aloof manner she associated with her quiet man.
Rather than reply in words, he bowed slightly, looking up at her from behind the lock of dark hair that had fallen forward over his forehead.
Alena slid into the changing room and closed the door, her smile gone, replaced with grim resolve. She went to her locker, pulling out the outfit she’d chosen specifically for this moment.
It was time for her to use Alexander Wagner, and if her heart hurt at the idea, well…that was something she’d just have to live with.
Chapter 10
Alexander waited for her just outside the subs’ dressing room. He’d changed from his leathers and t-shirt into his gray slacks and button up shirt. Before changing, he’d detoured into the main dungeon to get his kit and her discarded dress.
The dress was tucked into a pocket in his kit. He had no intention of giving it back—instead he’d wrap it around his cock and use it to jerk off while remembering their time together.
And when he was done, he’d think about how it had felt to hold her, to rest his head against her while she’d petted him.
The door opened, and Alexander straightened.
Alena stepped out, and for the first time he saw her in street clothes.
She wore slim black slacks that stopped at the ankle. Her shoes were black flats with a red toe, while her blouse was a creamy white with long sleeves and a tie at the neck.
His fingers curled into his palms and he repressed the urge to reach out and tug on the dangling tails, undoing the bow and opening her shirt to expose her lovely neck.
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