Crowne Rules

by Reiss, CD

  I was never a liar. I avoided answering questions I didn’t want to, and I was skilled at changing the subject. I’d fly to the moon and back to avoid outright deception, but I didn’t see any other way out of the situation. I couldn’t tell Logan about my deal with Amanda.

  “We’re waiting until it clears up,” I said. “Then she’ll go. It’s not safe.”

  Lying wasn’t a part-time job. Either it was a daily practice, or you sucked at it, and Logan knew rain wasn’t the type of thing I worried over.

  “Dante,” he said. “You said you’d keep your hands to yourself.”

  “I haven’t touched her.” Technically true. She had touched herself for me. I certainly had some plans to lay hands on her but not the way Logan was imagining.

  “And you’re not going to.”

  I was saved from telling him I’d do what I wanted, when and how I wanted, by the sound of the phone being put on speaker.

  Ella’s voice broke in. “Hi, Dante.”

  “Hello, Estella.”

  “You’re letting Mandy stay?”

  “Until it stops raining.” Lying on top of double-dealing. I was committed now.

  “Aww!”

  Oh, God, save me from a woman’s propensity to turn normal behavior into cutesy-pie sugarplums.

  “See,” she cooed. “I knew you had a heart. Thanks for taking care of her.”

  I had to guess that Logan hadn’t told Ella anything about the Hawkins tapes. If she’d known what Mandy could get caught up in by staying here, there was no way she would have been so excited.

  “Don’t thank him yet,” Logan cut in.

  I’d had more than enough of this, and the longer I stayed on the phone, the more likely I was to have to lie again.

  “I have to go,” I said. “I’ll call when Amanda heads out. Probably tomorrow or the next day.”

  She would too. Because I was in control of this situation, and I wanted her to leave. That would be that. I wasn’t going to fuck her, as Logan feared, and while I did have a heart, Ella was wrong that it was guiding my decision-making. I knew what I was doing, and I could prove it, if only to myself.

  Amanda had pledged to do whatever I asked of her, and it was time to test that promise.

  Chapter 10

  MANDY

  I’d finally won.

  I’d beaten Dante Crowne at his own game. I’d given him what he wanted, sure, but I was getting what I needed in return.

  The more I thought about it, the more ideal the whole thing seemed. I could hide out and have what promised to be excellent sex with someone I could never like enough to love. I would come back to Los Angeles well fucked and totally in control, glowing and confident and care-fucking-free.

  In the midst of unpacking, thinking wistfully of my favorite La Perla bra-and-panty set, which I hadn’t bothered to bring with me, Dante appeared in the door of my room holding a banker’s box with a smaller box on top of it.

  He placed the load on the desk, next to the antique typewriter. “I have audio dictation tapes,” he said, opening the smaller box. “We’re going to get you set up with this player.” He extracted a black plastic device the size of a whiteboard eraser. “You’re going to transcribe one.”

  As he opened the banker’s box and got out a little cassette, I bit my tongue against a “Says who?” since I was the one who had agreed to this deal. “I didn’t bring—”

  “I didn’t say you could speak.” He snapped the tape into the player and paused, waiting to see if I would be obedient.

  Wow. He was really bossy. Well, I could stay silent, but I didn’t have to make it that easy for him.

  “Like I said”—Dante continued uncoiling the wire on the headphones—“you’re going to listen to these tapes and transcribe them. Format like so.” He took a typed transcription from the box and laid it in front of me. “The name in caps. Colon. Tab. Type what they say. Nonverbal cues in brackets.”

  “Got it.” It was just dialogue between two people. Seemed easy.

  “Your accuracy is more important than your speed. Since I didn’t see a laptop in your things, you’ll have to use that.” He indicated the typewriter on the desk.

  My mouth fell open in shock. I’d been prepared to wash a dish or two, maybe clean the floors naked—suck his dick until my lips were swollen, let him fuck me until we were both worn out—but it was secretary stuff. I could live with that.

  The typewriter turned all of it into straight punishment, plain and simple.

  “You have a question,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “You don’t need to worry about anything except making sure that what’s on those tapes gets onto paper.”

  “What’s on them?”

  “Your next question will be about the process or practicality of doing this job. Any other question will be answered in a way you don’t like. Do you understand?”

  “Not really.”

  He pulled my note from the typewriter with a flourish. My words looked too small on the center of the page, and the typos I hadn’t seen in my pique glared at me.

  Ive seen rivers, and you aint one baby.

  “You did graduate from that garbage high school, right?”

  “It wasn’t garbage.” I would have sworn I punctuated it with apostrophes, but I was mad when I typed it.

  “It was obviously a waste of money. One sentence, and you’re missing a comma and two apostrophes. You’ll have to do better. If you ask the wrong questions or you’re careless in your work, you’ll be punished.”

  “You’re going to have to define punishment.”

  He flicked the paper onto the desk. “I’ll define it, then. And if you don’t like it, you can leave.”

  “Or the comma police will lock me up and throw away the key?” I taunted. It was kind of fun winding him up and watching the fury build behind his icy eyes.

  I don’t know what he thought he was accomplishing. I had this well in hand. Instead of arguing, I smiled at him with a half shrug, daring him to punish me the way he’d dared me to beg.

  “This isn’t a game, Amanda.”

  “Define punishment all you want, but my name’s not Amanda anymore.”

  In answer, he pulled the chair out from under the desk and placed it to the side, leaving the whole front unblocked. “Elbows on the desk.”

  “Elbows…?”

  “On the desk.”

  I stood there, realizing what position I’d be in if my elbows were on the desk as he commanded. I’d be bent over with my ass out, and for what?

  For the obvious punishment.

  He tapped the desk twice, not with impatience, but as a way of waking me up to the choice I had to make.

  Do it or don’t.

  Stay or leave.

  Yes or no.

  Do it, I decided. Stay. Yes.

  Stepping to the desk, I laid my elbows on the wood. Part of me couldn’t believe I was inviting Dante Crowne to do whatever he wanted to me.

  Part of me had been waiting to finish what we’d started in a closet so many years ago.

  “Lay your hands flat,” he said from behind me. Being unable to see his face made the command harder to resist and, at the same time, more dangerous.

  I flattened my palms against the surface, and I felt a gentle—yet commanding—downward pressure on my lower back. My spine curved at its authority, as if it wasn’t just pushing but interrupting the message from my brain that it needed to resist.

  “If you want to stop,” he said. “Just say stop.”

  “Okay.”

  I could have told him this wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t, and we both needed a moment to digest that. At least, I did, and I took his pause to mean the same.

  “Now,” he said. “I’ve is a contraction of I and have. The missing letters are replaced with an apostrophe. Spell it.”

  “Spell what?”

  “I’ve.”

  “I-vee-ee.”

  Smack.

  I almo
st choked on the pleasure of his hand connecting with my ass. My pride was furious with me, but it was no match for the pure, luxurious sting.

  “I’ve seen rivers,” Dante said. “I-apostrophe.” Smack. “Vee-ee.” Smack.

  Every time one of his slaps landed, I rocked forward onto my toes, my hips thrusting instinctively. It was like he was getting me in rhythm, forcing my body to move at his pace. It was ruthless, and I wanted more.

  “Continue.”

  “I’ve seen rivers, and you ain’t…”

  Smack. Harder than before, as if a new infraction demanded a new level of intensity.

  “It’s colloquial, but it has an accepted spelling.”

  Through my clothes, I felt his hand rest on my burning ass as he waited. The stinging skin was sensitive to every stroke.

  “A-I-N—” I paused, wanting another smack but wanting to please him more. “Apostrophe T.”

  “Go on.” His fingers brushed the seam between my cheeks. I was so turned on I lost my place in the sentence, and he helped me as if he knew. “And you ain’t—”

  “You ain’t one bab—”

  He smacked my ass so hard I grunted like an animal.

  “Comma before baby, Amanda.” He paused, then said, “I’ve seen rivers, and you ain’t one, comma, baby,” before giving me two more sharp spanks.

  I could barely think. Sure, it hurt, but the sting of his punishment was strangely welcome, as if he knew exactly what I needed and it was more than stimulation.

  It was knowing I’d done something wrong and being set right.

  It was giving up control so I could get a better grip on it.

  “Okay,” I gasped. “Comma, baby.”

  That wasn’t good enough for him.

  “Okay?” Smack. “Am I your hairdresser?” Smack. “Your lunch buddy?” Smack.

  He paused to let me collect myself, but all I could think was how I wanted more. Needed it. My ass was tingling, and my clit was swelling. I felt my nipples stiffen against the lace of my bra, the weight of my breasts begging for him to cup them in one of those huge hands. He could have fucked me right over the desk, and I wouldn’t have resisted. I was so wet he could have slid right in.

  “No.”

  Dante leaned down so that our heads were close together. He wasn’t touching me anywhere, but I sensed his body behind me, his weight, his heat as he spoke softly. “The answer is, ‘Yes, sir.’”

  I twisted my head around so that I could meet his gaze. It was as pale and piercing as ever. “Seriously?”

  “When you’re being disciplined, yes, seriously.”

  Disciplined? My brain was screaming at me to tell him to fuck off, that he had no right—no right—but the only thing I wanted more than to tell him to stop was to get him to keep going, to hit me again, then let his fingers slip between my legs where the seam of my pants rubbed against my swollen nub.

  He was hard. This time, I didn’t have to see it to know it.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He smacked me once more, playfully this time, then pulled away entirely.

  “Get to work,” he said and left the room before I could check to see if he had the erection I’d assumed.

  I rested my head against the cool wood of the desk, resisting the urge to slip my hand into my pants and give myself relief. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would have felt like if he’d just let go of his control and slid into me where I stood. I ached with emptiness. I wanted to be full, bursting, breaking through the membrane of control. I didn’t need to love him or even like him. I could use him the way he’d use me given the chance.

  I didn’t know what he wanted with these tapes, and I didn’t care.

  I wasn’t done with him yet.

  Chapter 11

  DANTE

  Without offering aftercare that would confuse her, I left Amanda bent over the desk and changed into work clothes. The gutters weren’t going to clean themselves, and I hoped the fresh air would clear my head and wilt my hard-on. Getting carried away with her was so easy. Too easy. But maybe that was a good thing since I was trying to scare her off.

  The way she’d sighed acceptance when she knew what the punishment entailed, the way her body had rocked into the rhythm I set for her, was subtle but undeniable. Her reactions were uniquely hers, but they weren’t just readable—they went right to my muscle memory. Her every twitch was coded specifically for my senses, and for a moment, I’d lost myself in her pain.

  Stopping had taken superhuman effort. The path of her correction was laid out so clearly before me. Taking her pants down to renew the sting of my hand, then her underpants. When she was driven to tears, I’d stroke her wet cunt before—

  Stop.

  There was no point in even mentally finishing the process.

  I had plenty to do to keep my mind off my sore palms and hard dick. The house always needed maintenance, and I always took care of it. I got out a ladder and climbed up onto the flat roof, which was covered in reflective white TPO paper that was sealed against the bases of the solar panels.

  The rain’s patter against the roof was gentle and constant, syncopated with the sharper, less regular tappa-pause-tapping of Amanda typing below me. Despite the crawlspace over the ceiling, she could probably hear me walking around up here, my boots thudding over her head. I liked the idea of my presence lingering in the room with her—in the soreness of her ass, her defiance over commas, and her insistence on following my instructions anyway.

  She was transcribing the tape that didn’t matter. Best not to think about how many mistakes she was making. Not because it mattered—she’d been given the meaningless tape—but because every mistake would be a chance for her to receive or walk away from punishment.

  I dreaded and desired both outcomes.

  A triangular puddle had formed in the center of the roof, where an inverted slope drew runoff to the downspout. The gutters must have been full of more garbage than usual. Leaning over the end of the house opposite her room, I cleared out the muck and tossed it over the side.

  The rhythmic nature of the work helped to soothe and settle my mind. For a while, I thought of nothing as I made my way around the perimeter, focusing instead on the movement of my hands and the cold making its way under my clothes.

  But as I traveled the roof’s edge toward the downspout, I found myself standing over the sound of her typing, and my body reacted like a teenager’s who was peeking into the girls’ locker room.

  Zero control. Pathetic.

  I was slipping with her.

  “Yes,” she’d said in a dark closet after I took my fingers from her mouth.

  I’d been so young and eager, inexperienced at taking control the way I wanted to. Amanda had been my first taste of dominance, and, typical virgin, I’d bungled it. Didn’t go as far as I wanted… and at the same time, I’d pushed things too far.

  Did I think I was going to make it right? Heal some adolescent wound?

  I didn’t know, and I couldn’t afford to find out.

  There was no question she’d deserve a spanking every time I checked her work. All I had to do was keep her ass red enough to get her out of the house and keep myself busy enough not to want anything else from her.

  I could do both of those things at the same time.

  As soon as the gutters were clear enough to function again, I made my way down the ladder.

  I had plenty of work like this to do. I could get the house back into shape and get rid of Amanda without going too far.

  Walking around the perimeter, I passed her window. She was biting her lower lip as she paused the tape, then she two-finger typed. Hunt. Peck. Hunt. Peck, peck.

  She wiggled in her seat as if relieving pain in a sore ass.

  That was mine. That wiggle. I owned it.

  Tearing myself away, I went back into the house, where her presence was like a force of gravity. The door to her bedroom was open. I could look in and see her squirm. Step in and demand she stay still. Walk in
and check her work.

  No. None of it.

  Maybe I was moved by her proximity or the lack of choices in Cambria. Maybe it was having a woman in a house I only stayed in alone. Maybe it was the surprise of her willingness.

  “Maybe it’s irrelevant,” I muttered, staring into the empty fireplace.

  My hands had to stay busy, and my mind had to stay occupied with tiny details, or I would succumb to the unanticipated, and unacceptable, charms of this woman.

  Chapter 12

  MANDY

  After snapping off the tape player, I pulled the headphones away and leaned back in my seat.

  With my ass still sore and my fingers confused by the new repetitive motion I demanded, I took a break and turned the phone on out of habit, but no dice. I still didn’t have a kernel of reception, even when I stepped out onto the patio. The rain had stopped, and the air smelled sweet, but it was too cold for me to stay out for long in the gathering darkness.

  Transcribing phone calls was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done. Stop. Type. Start. Stop. Type. Start. There had to be an easier way, but I wasn’t about to suggest it. If Dante wanted it done the easy way—whatever that was—he would have asked for it that way.

  I recognized the law firm’s name on the box. They were huge. Offices everywhere. I’d hoped for something juicy on the tapes, but the conversation was so boring I wondered why the lawyer would want to record it or why someone who wasn’t even on the call would want it typed up.

  But the work was so hard I had to concentrate fully. My sore bottom stopped bothering me when my mind was occupied, until the smell of dinner got too compelling to ignore.

  If I went into the kitchen and found he hadn’t made enough dinner for me, I was going to gnaw his arm right off.

  The patio doors from the kitchen were closed this time, and instead of making tea, Dante stood before a slab of meat on a cutting board. The table was set, the red wine was aerating in a carafe, and the chef wore a crisp, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his tight forearms. Even with splashing juices, it didn’t have a single spot on it.