I swayed my hips, making the movement more dramatic. “Yes, Master,” I said when I stood between his legs.
“I forgot to do something earlier.” He stood up and drew me toward him.
“Really?” I asked; it certainly felt like he’d been thorough. “I can’t imagine what.”
He smiled down at me, and even though my body was weak and weary, when he looked at me the way he currently was, with love and desire and passion so evident in his expression, I’d walk across oceans for him.
“I forgot this,” he said and lowered his lips to mine. I sighed in complete bliss as he kissed me. His lips, his mouth—I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of them or take them for granted. The kiss wasn’t long, but it was enough to speed up my heart and to make me think maybe I really wasn’t that tired.
But he broke off the kiss and whispered against my lips. “I’m going to take a shower. Good night, my lovely.”
“Good night, Master.”
I waited until he made it into the bathroom before settling in on the floor. I squirmed a bit. It obviously wasn’t as comfortable as a bed, but it was a lot better than sleeping on the floor directly. I closed my eyes, telling myself I was just resting them and I’d wake up when he got out of the bathroom.
It was cold when I woke up. And dark, I realized, opening my eyes. I reached for the blanket and touched an arm. My heart jumped to my throat before I realized it was Nathaniel.
“Did I wake you?” He’d situated himself between my legs and hiked my gown up to my waist. No wonder I was cold. In the darkness, he was cloaked in shadow. I couldn’t make out his features; it was almost as if I’d conjured him.
“Mmm,” I hummed, suddenly aware I was naked from the waist down and completely spread for him. “I think you did.”
“How very, very rude of me.” He trailed his fingers up and down the insides of my inner thighs. Lightly, barely touching me. My body ached for more, yet I remained totally still. Totally at the mercy of my Master.
He teased me with his fingers and each brush of his fingertips awakened more and more nerve endings in my body until I was panting with need. If he could just move his fingers up, just a little bit higher, and touch me right where I needed.
“Perhaps I should make it up to you for waking you up at this ungodly hour.” His fingers drifted up, slowly, and went just a little bit farther, but stopped right before he got to where I really craved him. “What do you think, Abigail?”
“I would like that very much, Master.” I spoke it calmly and in a tone that in no way resembled the “Yes! Damn it, yes!” I shouted in my head.
“Or maybe I could just go back to sleep,” he mused, but didn’t move. “Of course, it would be such a shame to have used all that energy getting out of bed to just go back to sleep.”
I snorted. “All that energy?”
“I was in the middle of the most delightful dream.”
The entire encounter was feeling more and more dreamlike. The feel of him and the sensation he created inside me combined and swirled together in a way that when taken with the darkness made everything mysterious. If I closed my eyes, it could be anyone touching me. And though I didn’t want anyone except Nathaniel’s hands on me, I had to admit the thought aroused me.
“Tell me your dream, Master,” I said.
“I was sleeping,” he said, lowering his head, sweeping his lips across my knee. “And I woke to find a beautiful woman flying across the room to me.”
“She was flying?” I asked. Nathaniel was always so practical, so exacting, I’d always assumed his subconscious would be the same. I had no idea his mind was even capable of thinking about flying women.
“It was a dream,” he said, as if that explained everything. And it would have if anyone other than Nathaniel was having it. “Women can fly in dreams.”
I wasn’t in the mood to debate whether his dreams could or should follow the personality he presented to the world. I was way too interested in hearing about what happened and finding out if he’d ever move his fingers so they did more than tease me. “Of course they can. Please go on.”
“She whispered to me softly and sat on the edge of my bed. She shimmered all silver and white and then she was gone. I reached out to touch her and she disappeared.”
For some reason hearing him describe his dream made me sad. “It doesn’t sound like a happy dream.”
He lifted my leg slightly and placed a kiss on my knee’s underside. “You haven’t heard the best part yet.”
“There’s more?”
His tongue licked the skin he’d just finished kissing. “Yes, because when I couldn’t find her, I looked over the side of my bed. And do you know what I saw?”
The floor? The answer danced on my lips, but I shook my head. “No, what did you see?”
“I found a woman even more beautiful. In fact, she was so beautiful, I had to climb out of bed to get a closer look.” He lifted his head and ran his hands up along my waist.
My body responded immediately and I sighed.
He whispered against my skin,
When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window
And the sunbeams catch her
Glistening white on shoulders,
He paused to kiss my shoulders. First one and then the other.
“D. H. Lawrence?” I asked as he nuzzled my neck.
“I’ve been reading poetry lately.”
“I’m impressed.”
“There’s more,” he said, moving down my sides and placing kisses along my collarbone and breasts.
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown yellow
Gloire de Dijon roses.
His lips traveled even lower, brushing my hips as he continued.
She drips herself with water, and her shoulders
Glisten as silver, they crumple up
Like wet and falling roses, and I listen
For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.
In the window full of sunlight
Concentrates her golden shadow
Fold on fold, until it glows as
Mellow as the glory roses.
Nathaniel reciting poetry was enough to drive me wild. Throw in the way he was kissing his way down my body as well and I was as good as gone. I clutched his head as he made his way between my thighs and slowly inched his lips closer and closer and—
“Oh, my, shit!” I screamed as his tongue delved inside me.
He didn’t stop, but continued licking and swirling and nipping until I was writhing on the blankets, the pleasure so intense my toes were curled.
“I can’t . . . when you . . . fuck . . . please . . .”
He stopped long enough to say, “Come,” and I jerked against him, panting as I climaxed. He placed a soft kiss on my belly.
“Don’t you think that was the best part?” he asked.
I had no idea what he was talking about. “The best part of what?”
He laughed softly. “Go back to sleep, my lovely.” And with a press of his lips to my cheek, he climbed back on the bed.
I fell into that strange dream state where you think you’re awake, but you’re really asleep. I woke several times during the night, but Nathaniel remained where he was and in the morning, I’d convinced myself our entire encounter had been a dream.
Chapter Nine
I glared at the clock and went back to writing in my journal. Ten minutes until nine. Ten minutes until I had to do the damn, stupid tortuous exercises Nathaniel gave me before he left for his morning meeting.
“Fucking sadist,” I murmured, finishing the page I was on.
When I agreed to this week, I’d envisioned days spent doing what we’d done last night. Lots of play followed by lots of sex. Subspace and orgasms, thank you very much.
I glanced back at the clock. With a sigh, I put my journal aside, stripped my clothes off, and set the timer on my cell phone. I walked to the center of the room and knelt down. Within thirty seconds my knees were aching. My mind wandered and I thought back to the orders he gave before he left earlier.
He spoke in the firm voice that normally liquefied my knees, but it didn’t work this morning.
“Do you understand, Abigail?”
I was just a bit irritated, so I replied, “Explain one more time, Master.”
“From nine to noon, you will practice kneeling. Five minutes kneeling, five minutes rest. Ten minutes kneeling, ten minutes rest. Fifteen minutes kneeling, fifteen minutes rest. Repeat three times. And while you’re on your knees, perhaps you’ll find it beneficial to meditate on why I have you kneel.” He raised an eyebrow. “Understand?”
It’s really quite simple. He wouldn’t have believed me if I told him again it wasn’t clear. “Yes, Master.”
“Excellent. I want you waiting for me by the elevator at fifteen after twelve. Wear something I won’t have to remove if I want to fuck.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but instead he kissed my cheek and left.
I dreaded the next three hours. Kneeling. I decided I’d rather be looking for Elizabeth’s pink crayons. I’d rather be changing diapers and chasing Apollo around the house. Hell, I’d rather be working at the library cataloging new releases. Anything but kneeling in the middle of a hotel room, naked, for nearly three hours.
I made a list in my head of all the things I’d rather be doing and when I finished, I ranked them in the order I’d rather be doing them in. The timer hadn’t gone off when I finished so I translated the top five into German, in case I wanted to repeat them to Nathaniel next time I was trying to withhold my orgasm.
As soon as the timer sounded, I jumped up and grabbed my journal. For the next five minutes I wrote exactly what I thought of the kneeling exercise, complete with a detailed opinion of why it wasn’t good for my knees. Although I’d probably regret it later, I finished with a commentary on the questionability I now had surrounding the legitimacy of Nathaniel’s birth. Bastard.
I settled into my kneeling position for my ten minutes and decided I’d make a list of what I needed to buy to prepare the family for summer. The kids needed new clothes, Nathaniel had already taken care of opening the pool, but Apollo needed to go to the vet. I’d made significant progress when I realized I needed to pee.
I tried to put it out of my mind, but all that did was make the need more pronounced.
Damn.
I resisted the urge to squirm, trying to keep myself in proper position. I squeezed my Kegel muscles and my lower body started to tremble. How much longer did I have? Would Nathaniel want me to break position or pee on the floor?
“You can do it. You can do it. You can do it,” I chanted.
Fuck, how much time was left?
And why hadn’t I positioned myself so I had a clock in view?
When the timer went off, I dashed to the bathroom and sighed in sweet relief.
I added busted bladder and the potential of wet carpets to the list in my journal on why this was a poorly designed exercise. Then, knowing I had fifteen minutes of kneeling ahead of me, I went through several stretches.
Before resuming my position, I decided the next section of kneeling time would be spent thinking up painful tortures to perform on Nathaniel’s body. I dropped to my knees and started my plotting by beginning with his head and working my way down. I spent a lot of time on certain sensitive parts of his anatomy. Surprisingly, the fifteen minutes went by quickly.
I used the first few minutes after the timer went off stretching. I was walking toward the bedroom to get the paperback I was in the middle of reading when my phone beeped with an incoming text. I thought about ignoring it, but on the chance it was Linda, I decided to check.
It was Nathaniel. I bit back a groan. Probably he’d decided to add a task to the kneeling torment.
First hour is over. Thank you for doing this for me. I know it’s not easy and your obedience makes us stronger.
Guilt hit me in the gut. “Damn you, you manipulative bastard.”
But it had worked and for my remaining rest time, all I thought about was how I’d failed and how I could fix it. I was actually looking forward to the top of the hour.
Ten o’clock found me kneeling in the middle of the living room, head bowed, butt resting on ankles, palms on knees. For five minutes I worked on clearing my head of anything other than Nathaniel and the bond we shared. His text pained the part of me that longed to please him and wanted nothing more than his pleasure and approval.
The first five minutes passed quickly and I discovered myself looking forward to the following ten. When those were over, I spent my ten-minute rest writing in my journal again, this time reflecting on how my view of his kneeling plan had changed.
The fifteen-minute block was tough, but anytime I felt myself sliding toward complaining, I thought of him and pushed through the discomfort.
I wasn’t expecting his text when it came through at ten to eleven.
Almost finished, my lovely. I’m very proud of you. For your last hour, I want you to play with yourself during your rests, but you’re not allowed to come.
I groaned though I wasn’t sure why. Playing with myself and not coming was more along the lines of what I’d thought he’d have me do while he was in meetings. During my five-minute kneeling time I wondered if Daniel was having Julie do anything while he was in meetings all day. But they were local and Julie worked, so he probably wasn’t.
No, odds were I was the only submissive partner to someone at the conference. The thought made me feel secretive and sexy. I jotted those thoughts down in my journal during the first minute of my rest time. The remaining time, I worked my body into a frenzy thinking about the night before. Both the session before my shower and the middle of the night wake-up call I still wasn’t sure had actually happened.
It took several minutes of kneeling during my last fifteen-minute period before my body calmed down.
“Deep breaths,” I mumbled to myself. “You will not orgasm without his permission.”
Once my nerve endings had returned as close to normal as they were going to, I reviewed everything I’d learned that morning. I didn’t want to forget anything since I planned to do a blog post about my experiences. And I thought about how glad I was I didn’t have much longer to keep my orgasm at bay.
I’d have to meet Nathaniel outside by the elevator shortly after my time was up. That didn’t give me a lot of time to get ready. Hopefully he’d laid an outfit out for me to wear.
When my kneeling time was finally over, I went into the bedroom and climbed onto the bed. This time I didn’t think about the night before. The fantasy playing in my mind when I closed my eyes involved Nathaniel taking me in front of a group of people.
I jumped when a pair of hands joined mine on my breasts.
“Now this is a sight to come home to. No, keep your eyes closed,” Nathaniel said. “I might start making you wait for me like this every day.”
“I might like that, Master.”
“Keep your hands moving. Don’t stop just because I’m here.”
I moved my right hand back to my clit and teased it.
“There we go,” he said. “I was sitting in that boring meeting and I decided I didn’t want to miss out seeing you like this. Aroused and not able to come.”
I wondered if that meant he wasn’t going to let me come during his lunch break?
“And,” he continued. “I decided it didn’t make any sense for you to get all dressed and ready. Know why? Keep your hands moving.”
I restarted teasing my clit. “You’re going to fuck me,” I said