Instead, he moved around to the front of the bed, leaning over so he could see my face. “It’s a plug,” he said, heat glazing his eyes. “It’s going to help you.” He pushed the hair away from my face. “You have no idea how amazing it looks, your ring stretched around it. And knowing it’s all to get you ready to take my cock...” His breathing hitched. “I could probably come just from looking at it.”
“I…” Licking my lips, I shifted my hips, groaning as the plug moved inside me. It wasn’t enough though. Not nearly enough. “I need more.”
“You’ll get it,” he promised.
Then he disappeared from view.
I was acutely aware of everything. The sound of the water being turned on, then off.
His footsteps.
The creak of the door to the closet.
Footsteps again.
Then he was releasing me from the bed posts. I knew better than to move without his permission. I didn’t even want to know what it would feel like to be spanked with the plug in my ass. He took a moment to caress my wrists and then my ankles.
“Sit up on your knees.”
I obeyed, gasping as the plug shifted inside me again. He came around the front of me with a cuff in his hand. It was leather and fur-lined like the others, but not attached to anything.
“This will be easier if you can behave.” He took my wrists and bound them together in front of me. “You’re going to keep your legs spread just like you would if you’d still been tied, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded.
“If you don’t, I’ll get the spreader bar, but it’ll make turning you over more difficult, and I’d rather not have to interrupt what I’m doing.”
I nodded again.
“You remember the word, Aleena?”
There was something in his voice that I didn’t recognize, but I didn’t question it. “Yes, sir.”
He held up what I hadn’t seen before. A collar. Not some leather and studs or spikes kind of thing, but it was still a collar. Black velvet with small silver loops at regular intervals around it.
“These are for attachments,” he explained, touching each one. “It can be a leash for leading or pulling. A way to bind your neck to your legs and contort your body in ways you can’t imagine.” He reached out and lightly touched one of my nipples. “Or to connect to nipple clamps.” His eyes slid down my body. “Or clamps in other places.”
Oh, fuck.
“But that’s for another time.” He knelt on the bed in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head to look up at him. “I’ve never had a Sub I could teach like you. I’ve always just met up with women from the clubs or others who knew my…perversions,” he said it softly, with a weird little smile. “But you…”
My breath hitched as he touched my mouth with his fingertips.
“Just how far can I take you, Aleena?” The need to hear it was clear on his face.
Licking my lips, I answered honestly, “I don’t know. But I’m willing to find out.”
His eyes blazed and he held up the collar. “I want to put this on you,” he said. “But you need to understand what it means. Some Subs wear their own collars for decoration or as part of what they like, but it’s different when a Dom gives one to a Sub, asks a Sub to accept one.” His voice softened and, for a moment, his eyes slid away from me. “One like this, it’s a sign of...ownership.”
My stomach clenched but I didn’t make a sound. I needed him to clarify.
He looked at me again. “I’ve never given a Sub a collar, because that would imply we had an understanding between us, that they were mine.” His fingers rubbed across the velvet and I could almost feel the touch on my own skin. “But I bought this one for you.”
Fuck.
“Will you accept it?”
I didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to consider anything but the fact that he’d bought it for me. Only me. This was something no one else had of him.
“Yes.”
His entire face lit up and, as he leaned forward to fasten the collar around my neck, he brushed his lips against my cheek. Before drawing back, he whispered in my ear, “Now, my darling, my beautiful girl, I want to take you everywhere.”
He climbed off the bed and stripped out of his clothes in only a few seconds. I had only a glimpse of his amazing body before he was behind me again. I felt something attached to the back of the collar and then felt something on my back. I had just enough time to realize it was a leash of some kind before he was bending me forward again, pulling the wedge out of the way so I was taking my full weight on my elbows.
Then he put his mouth on my exposed pussy and licked from top to bottom.
Being taken this way was different than anything I’d felt before and I keened, eyes closing as he held onto my hips, using his lips and tongue to send pleasure coursing through my body. He stabbed his tongue into me, his fingers digging into my flesh. I couldn’t breathe as he drove it in again, then turned his attention to my clit. It was too much and I tried to twist away. The attempt was laughable.
Dominic’s shoulders wedged me in place and in desperation, I tried to move against him. “Please…please…please…”
“Tell me what you want,” he said. He pressed an open mouthed kiss on the inside of my thigh. “I’ll give it to you. But you have to tell me.”
“Make me come. Please, sir…please…please…”
He pushed two fingers inside me and scissored them. My pleas turned into a wail. I was too full. And then he pushed his thumb against the base of the plug in my bottom. I’d almost forgotten about it, the stretch and burn in the back of my mind until his touch moved things.
With a harsh groan, I came, but he didn’t stop, his mouth devouring me even around words I could barely grasp. “That’s it. You’re soaking me, Aleena. Give me more…more…”
I was already shaking with the urge to come again and then he was leaning over me. Every nerve in my body was on fire, every sense heightened. I could feel his cock, hard against my back. Feel the wet dripping down my thighs. Smell the aftershave he’d put on that morning mingling with the scent of sex. The scent of me.
“Look at me,” he ordered, tugging on the leash.
I let him pull me up on my knees again so that I could see him. My eyes caught movement and flicked down, watching him wrap his hand around his cock. Another tug and I looked up again.
“You came all over me, Aleena.” The lower half of his face was glistening and I flushed as I realized why.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry.” His voice was surprisingly soft. “I enjoy making you come, and those were particularly...delicious.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. I opened my mouth and tasted myself on his lips and tongue. He kept it brief, pulling back as he continued to stroke himself. I looked down again and I watched as the fat head of his cock disappear, then reappear, swollen and ruddy. I wanted it inside me.
“Now, Aleena, what do you want?”
Slowly, I looked up at him, surprised.
“You were very good and did as you were told. What do you want?”
I licked my lips and looked back down at his cock. “That.”
He smiled, looking pleased with my answer. He nudged my back and I bent over again, quivering in anticipation.
As he started to press inside me, he groaned. “You’re tighter. You feel it…don’t you?”
Who was he fucking kidding? Of course I felt it. I felt everything.
He tugged on the leash. “Answer me.”
“Yes, sir. Please, sir…”
“Good girl.” He continued to tug on it, not hard, just enough to remind me that it was there. That I was his.
So good…so good…
I didn’t even know I was talking, begging, pleading with him until he brushed his fingers across my mouth and said, “If you keep talking like that, this will be over before I’m ready.”
He pressed h
is thumb against my lips and I bit him. He growled and slammed into me, hard, his pelvis pushing against the plug in my ass.
The lava-hot explosion of pleasure that coursed through me was so intense, I screamed.
He did it again.
And again…
“Please!”
He jerked on the leash. “Please what…”
“Please sir!”
I came again.
With one final thrust and a string of curses, he joined me. And as he slumped over my back, his hands sliding under me to cup my breasts, I heard him breathe my name.
Later that night, I climbed into my bed.
Alone.
We’d rested in the room for a while after he removed the restraints and the plug. He’d held me, rubbed lotion into my wrists. We hadn’t talked, but that was okay. And then we’d gone our separate ways to shower and go to bed.
It felt odd to come in here alone after what felt like some of the most earth-shattering intimacy imaginable. My hand went to my neck where his collar had lain. It was back in the room, safely tucked away for the next time we were in there, but I could feel the ghost of it against my skin, as much a reminder as the ache between my legs of how much I belonged to him.
My whole body ached actually.
It wasn’t a bad feeling, but I was sore and I would have loved to be able to curl up against Dominic and have him hold me through the night.
But that was only a dream.
Thinking back to everything that had happened over the week, to everything he’d told me and everything I now knew, I realized it was pretty close to a miracle that he could even be with me like this, that we were even having something close to a real relationship. The collar had been a huge deal for him, I knew, even though it only symbolized what we were sexually.
Still, I felt hollow, lying in my big empty bed alone.
I wanted to be with him.
In his bed.
Or mine.
Even in the bed he’d crafted solely for the purpose of sex.
I had a lot, more than what any other woman had ever gotten from him. I was greedy though.
I wanted all of him.
5
Aleena
Nerves had turned me into a wreck.
For the fiftieth time, I smoothed down my skirt and then checked my make-up.
When I went to shut the compact, Dominic snatched it out of my hand and I watched, bemused, as he tucked it away. “Think you might need to powder your nose later, Dominic?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. “I hate to say this, but I think you’d need a slightly paler shade.”
“You’re cute.” He patted my knee and kept his hand there, his fingers squeezing lightly, a proprietary gesture that left me feeling warm inside.
“Since you don’t need it, can I have it?” I smiled at him sweetly.
“You don’t need it either.”
He traced a pattern on the inside of my thigh. That light touch sent a shiver up my spine, but I refused to be distracted.
“Come on, Dominic, give me my compact.”
He pretended to consider it and then gave me a slow, slightly wicked smile. “You can have it for a trade.”
“A trade?” I regarded him suspiciously.
“Yes.” His fingers worked higher under the hem of the simple, but stylish black dress I’d selected for the brunch. “You can have it if you give me your panties.”
I gaped at him. I scooted away so that his hand wasn’t near anything important. I didn’t, however, move completely away from his touch. His fingers lingered on my knee. “Not happening.”
“What’s the harm?”
“It’s stupid, it’s childish, and I’m not doing it.” I gave him what I intended to be a scathing look. Based on the amused expression on his face, it hadn’t worked. “You can’t even give me a good reason other than being perverted.” I allowed myself a smile to let him know it wasn’t meant as an insult.
Dominic rubbed his thumb over the surface of the compact. “Penelope is going to be there. I imagine it would piss her off to know I was standing there with your panties in my pocket while I shook hands.”
“That’s…” I tried to ignore the stab of arousal that went through me. And the bit of vindictive pleasure at imagining the look on Penelope’s face. I made my voice as disapproving as possible. “Now that’s just plain juvenile, Dominic.”
He shrugged. “I’m also right.”
It took less than fifteen minutes after that to get to the offices of Trouver L’Amour. I climbed out, painfully aware of my nakedness under my dress. I’d chosen this one specifically because it was simple and would work for a multitude of occasions. It didn’t hurt that it also hugged my curves and the neckline showed off just a hint of cleavage.
I’d seen the appreciation in Dominic’s eyes when I’d come out of my room. I pulled that image to mind now as he helped me out of the car.
I can do this, I told myself.
He slid his arm around my waist and leaned in, kissing my temple. “Why are you so nervous? I can feel how tense you are.” His breath stirred my hair. “It’s not like you haven’t been to these things with me before.”
“But I haven’t.” I eyed the door and then slowed, turned to stare up at him. I shrugged and tried to laugh it off. “I’ve been to business functions. Aleena Davison, PA to Dominic Snow, has been to plenty of functions. But Aleena hasn’t been to many things with Dominic. And nothing this big. That’s…new. You asked me here on a date. This makes it our second big, public date and the first one was pretty much a bust. I know we went out to eat a couple times, but this...it’s…” I shrugged again, feeling lame. “It’s different.”
Dominic was silent for so long that I turn my head to look at him. He was staring off into the distance past my shoulder. As though he sensed my gaze, he turned to look at me, blue eyes thoughtful.
He slid his hand up my spine and then curled his fingers around my neck. The gesture was utterly possessive and yet protective at the same time. Heat bloomed in my stomach...and other places.
“I think,” he said, drawing each word out slowly as his fingers made small circles on my skin. “Maybe we should consider this our first date. The last one didn’t go well and it was my fault. I should have had thought that through better. There was no way I could do the things I needed to do and still spend the time with you that you deserved for a real date. I’m sorry for that.” His eyes darkened. “I need to do better and I know it.”
His thumb brushed against the hollow under my ear and my heart skipped a beat. I reached up to touch him, to let him know that we were okay. That it was all okay.
But it wasn’t.
He took a step back and I saw the anger in his eyes. It wasn’t towards me though. All that emotion was directed at himself.
I reached up and touched his cheek, his faint stubble scraping against my palm.
“Dominic,” I murmured. Hesitant, uncertain of what I wanted to say, I slid my hand higher and ran my fingers through his hair. “Don’t blame yourself. We’re both still new at this.”
He didn’t pull away again, but he didn’t move closer either. “I’m supposed to take care of you.” His voice was stark.
For a few brief seconds, I was so surprised at his words that I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to feel. And then the indignation came. “Take care of me?” I stiffened and pulled back my hand. “I don’t need anybody to take care of me.”
A faint smile tugged at Dominic’s lips. A hint of arrogance tinged his voice. Arrogance and something I couldn’t quite place. “That’s what I do, Aleena. You’re mine.”
His words didn’t change the entire tone of the moment, but it did give me pause. I took a deep breath and made myself think. We didn’t have a typical relationship and I knew there was nothing about us that could be described as typical in any way shape or form, but I wasn’t going to have him take me over, either. In some ways, I loved that he called me his, but in others, I didn’
t want him to think that I wasn’t my own person.
“Look.” I forced myself to think through each word, forced myself to consider everything I was feeling and thinking. “When we got into this, I knew it would be complicated, but you know me. Or, at least, I hope you do. By now, you should know me well enough to understand that I’m not a submissive. Not out here. It all stops at the bedroom door. I’m not going to stand by while you take care of things for me. You don’t own me.”
His hand was still curved around my neck, his eyes intense. I felt like he was staring straight through me, straight into my soul.
“Tell me something, Aleena.” Dominic pressed his forehead against mine, the gesture strangely more intimate than many of the things we’d done. “If somebody wanted to hurt me or harm me, would you let it stand?”
That was the last thing I expected to hear from him? And I didn’t have an answer.
He didn’t seem to need one. He brushed his thumb across my lip. “When I told you the truth about me, about what had happened, you took care of me.” Now his voice was raw. “You and I both know that was what you did. That’s what people who need each other do. They take care of each other.”
He brushed his mouth across mine.
A shiver of warmth raced through me.
He didn’t pull away, the words hot against my lips. “I didn’t protect you that night and I’m not happy about that.”
“You remember Joshua, don’t you, Dominic?” Penelope gazed at Dominic with a coy smile as she leaned up against a man who might have been a model. He had the right look.
They had been two of the first to arrive, followed quickly on the heels of several others, but we’d managed to stay out of their path until now. I wished we could have avoided them longer, but they’d followed us onto the balcony.
Penelope ran a hand down the man’s chest and leaned against him, but her eyes were on Dominic, not her pretty partner. They were dazzling together, I had to admit. Okay, he was pretty dazzling—Joshua. I don’t think I’d ever seen a man that pretty. And that was definitely the right word for him.