To Say I Love You (Another Way Book 3) Read online

  We lay there on the floor in our living room while the rain pounded on the roof, and I wondered if there were any leaks. Then I wondered if this was real life, if people actually did things like lay around naked with their lover in the middle of the day.

  Then again, I couldn’t think of anything else I’d prefer to be doing. Not when his head was resting on my chest, each one of his exhalations traveling over my skin while he quietly played with whatever part of me was closest. Holding him like this, like there was no world outside of the two of us—it was what I lived for.

  When Will sighed heavily, I knew he was going to move. And probably make me move, too.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “I need to put some dry clothes on and check my e-mails.”

  He ran his hand down my side and kissed me again, slower this time, then hauled himself up and pulled me to my feet with him. In hindsight, I probably should have expected the sharp slap to my butt when I bent down to retrieve the lost towel. I yelped. It stung.

  I stuck my tongue out at him, then really did run back to the bedroom, knowing full well it would earn me another slap if he caught me.

  There were e-mails to catch up on. I hadn’t been lying about that. Some from work, some from friends, others social media notifications I deleted without reading. I was generally avoiding the world outside my little Southern bubble.

  When the rainstorm stopped, I ducked back outside, more determined than ever to tackle the recalcitrant plants that were taking over my yard. The rain had softened the dirt, making it easier to work over, and the smell of wet, freshly dug earth was surprisingly pleasing.

  Later, after lunch, I dragged him off the couch and into the car.

  “Where are we going?” he grouched, upset I’d forced him into the passenger seat instead of letting him drive. He was a terrible passenger.

  “Just somewhere I wanna show you.”

  “I swear, Jesse, every day we spend here, your accent gets a little broader.”

  I punched him on the arm for that.

  “Hey! It’s adorable. I love it. I feel like I’m being seduced by an old Southern gentleman.”

  “Watch it on the ‘old.’”

  “I’m older than you.”

  “And you’d do well to remember it. I can really turn on the Southern charm if you like, though,” I said. “But it’s all very chaste. Ice cream parlors, holding hands, me making sure you’re taken back to your parents before curfew.”

  He snorted with laughter. “I like ice cream. But I don’t think we’re really at that sort of place in our relationship.”

  “Nah. Me either.”

  I parked at the edge of the woods. It was mostly used by dog-walkers and kids. There was a playground a little farther back, if you knew where to look. Will rolled his eyes and gave me an exasperated look.

  “You dragged me all the way out here for this?”

  I reached over him into the glove compartment, pulled out a bottle of lube, and raised my eyebrow.

  “You’re dirty,” he said. “I like it.”

  I laughed, pocketed the bottle, and slid out of the car to lock it securely before we left.

  It was a nice walk. I’d taken Baby through here a few times when Will was working away. There was a main path that had been cleared for people wanting to walk along the route that looped round and led back to the parking lot. Not everyone stuck to the route, though. Still, it was pretty difficult to get lost. If you walked long enough in any direction, you’d hit either a path or the highway.

  “How do you know this area, then?” Will asked, linking his fingers with mine as we walked along.

  “From when we were kids. We used to come out here tracking—making maps and building forts and stuff like that.”

  “I wasn’t really an outdoorsy sort of kid.”

  I grinned at him. “You don’t say?”

  “Watch it,” he muttered.

  “Me and the other kids in the neighborhood used to build rope swings too, attempted a few tree houses, but those never stayed up very long. It was all about trying to lure the girls out here, but they always used to complain about all the bugs.” I never thought of myself as a country boy, and my childhood had been far from idyllic. We’d had to deal with being poor most of my early life. My dad had had a good job but worked long hours, and my mama had come from the sort of background that expected her to be a homemaker, not a breadwinner.

  “Is this why I’m wearing good sneakers?” Will grouched as I led him up one of the lesser-known paths. I hadn’t followed it in years, but it was still there, and the memories were quick to come back.

  “It’s not even that muddy,” I said. “You can survive a bit of dirt, I’m sure.”

  “What if there are other people about?”

  I stopped and looked at him. “When has that ever stopped you before? Come on, Will. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  I kept walking a few steps in front of him so he could follow where I was putting my feet and ignored his mumblings about how adventurous in the bedroom and in the boardroom was different from fucking in the woods.

  My plan was to stay as far away from any clearings or paths as possible, which minimized the chance of anyone coming across us, although there were definitely still people around, so we couldn’t scream the place down. That did mean veering even farther off the paths, though.

  When I finally stopped, it was at the crest of a hill, affording us a little bit more protection, if we wanted it. I turned to him, my man, just a bit sweaty and delicious, and he gave me a look that made me want to sink to my knees.

  Because it was him, I did.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh?”

  “I like the way you look from this angle,” I said. “Sir.”

  “So you drag me all the way out here so I can take care of you? Is that it? So much for that old-fashioned idea that the Master is in charge of his submissive.”

  “It’s not that,” I said, frustrated, then remembered my place and took a deep breath before continuing. “There are so many experiences I want to have. This is one of them, and I want to have it with you. Only with you.”

  My knees hurt, there were sticks and rocks and stuff all over the ground, but I’d made the decision to get down there, so I was going to stay until he told me otherwise. He moved around the small clearing, and I took a deep breath, wondering what the hell would happen next.

  “Did you bring me out here for a session or for sex?” he asked.

  “For sex,” I said. He didn’t want me to elaborate on my reasoning, so I didn’t.

  “So you brought lube with you, but no rope or any corporal punishment devices, is that correct?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He made a noise low in his throat. “Stand.”

  I stood.

  “Lube is in your back pocket?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He led me over to a tree, wrapped my arms around it, and bound my wrists together by what felt like two elastic bands. It wasn’t exactly comfortable; the elastic dug into my skin, and I guessed it would leave red marks. I had to admire his ingenuity, though, and decided to stop telling him off for playing with the damn things all the time.

  Master moved behind me and rummaged through my pockets to find the small bottle of lube, then unbuckled my belt and tugged my jeans down to my knees.

  “Nice,” he said and dug his fingers into my ass cheeks. I’d taken to wearing jockstraps from time to time. Mostly becasuse they felt nice, and I knew he liked the way I looked in them. “I’m gonna fuck you, Jesse. But you’re going to earn it.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  A shiver traveled through me at his words. I had a pretty good idea how he was going to make me earn it. The trade-off for receiving pleasure from him was usually either stamina, strength, or pain, or a combination of all three.

  If I wanted to, I could easily escape from the simple bondage Master had put me in, and I guessed that was the point since we were outside and
technically, anyone could walk past at any time. There was no way I was going to move unless I had to. I took another deep breath and pressed the top of my head against the tree, sticking my ass out and back for him.

  It took some effort to be still and silent, the new environment making me want to stretch and wriggle and test how much I could wriggle. Master wasn’t touching me, and I guessed he was either watching me or putting something together. I needed to stay quiet if I had any chance of figuring that out in advance.

  “Here,” he said, and he was by my side with a short stick. “Between your teeth. It’s to stop you making too much noise.”

  His words were disdainful. He clearly didn’t expect me to be able to keep quiet. I vowed to do my best, to show him how good I could be.

  The faint woodsy taste and the smell of the forest around us only added to my arousal. Master moved back around and rubbed my ass with his palm before swatting it a few times to warm me up.

  “This is going to hurt,” he warned. “A lot. Brace yourself.”

  I clenched my teeth around the stick and the word “switch” danced through my mind just before one swished against my ass.

  It was like the cane: a bright burst of pain that was shocking, then hot, then throbbing as the mark settled over my skin. Master had never used a switch on me before. He would use things he’d bought from talented craftsmen, tools that were designed to perfection to elicit a certain type of reaction. This he’d created himself—a long, thin, whippy branch from the feel of it, stripped of leaves and pointy bits. If I knew my Master, and I did, he was probably going to try and break it on me.

  The jockstrap exposed the fleshiest part of my rear, and the second stripe landed inches below the first. I snarled against the stick and clenched those muscles, then forced them to relax as the pain bloomed and glowed. He hit me again, and again, then aimed the next few blows against the backs of my thighs.

  It hurt. This wasn’t sanitized pain, controlled in a clean, leather-covered playroom. It was harsh and raw and untamed. Master put his hand on my back, still clothed with my shirt, although I was sweating. It was a comforting gesture.

  “How many more can you take?”

  I breathed hard but didn’t move. Master chuckled and removed the stick from my mouth.

  “How many, Jesse?” he repeated.

  “I will take whatever you want to give me, Master.”

  “Don’t bullshit me. Your ass will break before my arm. How many?”

  I took stock reluctantly. Noting my pain levels would tug me out of the subspace he took me to by the simple act of dominating me.

  “Five, Sir,” I said. “Five more.”

  “Good boy,” he murmured and stroked my hair. “Five more.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Each of the next five stripes crossed one he had already made, making a crisscross pattern over my ass. With the stick gone, I wanted to howl, to scream, but there was no way of knowing if there was anyone close to us, and I didn’t exactly want the police to come running.

  “Good boy,” he repeated and skimmed his hand over my burning skin, soothing me gently. “Do you still want me to fuck you?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. Too quickly—he laughed at me.

  “You’re such a slut. All right. But you still have to work if you want to come.”

  Master was careful of my beaten ass as he gently prepped me, slicking the lubricant just inside my hole and taking hold of my hips.

  “Ease back in your own time,” he said. “You get to do the work now.”

  He’d used the rest of the lube on his cock. It was slick and ready as I rocked back, tentatively at first, then harder to try and take his whole length inside me.

  “Fuck, Jesse,” he grunted.

  He gathered my shirt in his fist. It acted as an anchor since he couldn’t grab hold of my ass like he would usually when fucking me in this position. The bark of the tree chafed my wrists, and I thought of the marks he’d leave on me after this session. They’d be everywhere. I’d be able to feel him everywhere.

  “Please, Sir,” I said, begging as the mental images blended with the physical. “Please.”

  “What?”

  “Please touch my cock.”

  “Have you earned that?”

  My response was a sharp squeeze of the muscles in my ass, tightening around him. He gasped, then chuckled, then reached around to grasp my cock. It didn’t take much in the way of action for me to react explosively, coming even though his hand wasn’t touching my bare dick. No, he made me come in my underwear like some horny teenager.

  The places he took me to never failed to amaze me.

  Still playing with my cock, he shuddered and came inside me. It was intense for me, knowing I was his sub, knowing my purpose in serving him was to give him this. My body. My submission. His to take control of.

  I would have been happy to stay there, bound and waiting until he was ready to set me loose. Not long after he pulled out of me, I felt sure fingers at my wrists, tugging the elastic bands off. We fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, and I hissed at the renewed spike of pain at the reverberations of the impact.

  “Sorry, baby,” he murmured, pulling me on top of him so my bare cheeks were exposed to the elements once more.

  This was familiar, coming down from an intense session with him, although we weren’t usually rolling around in leaves and dirt. I laughed at the absurdity of it, pressing my face against his neck as his arms kept me anchored to his body.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, stroking my hair back from my sweaty forehead.

  “Mm. Good.”

  “I love it when you’re incoherent.”

  Because I could, I stuck my tongue out and licked his neck.

  “Ew,” he complained and went to smack my backside in retaliation, only pulling back at the last second. “I don’t have anything with me to put on that,” he said, gently brushing his fingertips over the red skin instead. “You’re going to have to wait until we get home.”

  “I’m sure I’ll survive.”

  “I’m not. You’re pretty raw, baby. Those jeans are gonna rub when we’re walking back.”

  He was right, of course, although I didn’t find that out until at least twenty minutes later. It was strangely calming, laying there with him with nature all around us, no sounds from the outside world intruding.

  Will’s city-boy nature kicked in when a massive bug ran across his leg, and he screamed like a girl. Which was ironic, really, considering how quiet he’d made me be while he was dishing out his beating.

  Sitting down in the car was painful, more so when I tried to shift onto a less-sore bit. I let Will drive, knowing in advance it wasn’t going to be a comfortable experience, and he shot me worried glances the whole way back.

  “I’m fine,” I said, repeating it too frequently, then turning on the radio so I didn’t have to listen to his silent concern for the rest of the journey.

  Chapter 7

  Although I’d loved taking our D/s relationship out of the house into a wilder environment, I guessed Will hadn’t liked it so much. He was used to playing in an area where his emergency kit was close at hand: the bolt cutters and the first aid kit and the cream he used to soothe my bruises.

  The lack of a distinct playroom affected us both in different ways. It forced us into being more creative and more spontaneous, but it wasn’t the same as having a secure, designated space to play in. I loved the house, and loved that I’d gotten to spend so much time with my dad fixing it up. And there was no denying that trying to explain to my dad why there was a room he couldn’t go in, or a room decorated with leather furniture and sex toys, would be awkward. To say the least.

  In our house in Seattle, Will had transformed the attic space into a perfectly contained room with all our gear in it. Although we could, and did, have sex all over the house, it was reassuring to know there was a place we could go and lock the rest of the world out for a few hours while he did dirty a
nd depraved things to me.

  There was a reason why keeping our D/s relationship out of the bedroom was a good idea. More than anything else, it was where we made love. It wasn’t unheard of for a Master and his sub to be lovers too, but our relationship transcended the label of simply “partners.” He was everything to me. Our bed was where we expressed that, whether it was with sex or sleeping next to each other or chilling out or talking. I didn’t have a problem with Master spanking me in the bedroom. Sometimes a good spanking before bed was good for us both, and it was nice to go to sleep with a warm ass.

  Anything more than that, though, needed its own space. Space was one of the things we were short of.

  Will had started doing his two contractually obliged days in the office on Thursdays and Fridays. He’d come to this decision after a couple of weeks when, on Tuesday afternoon, he’d been asked to say overnight again for a meeting on Wednesday morning. On Friday afternoon, though, everyone was heading out, and no one was going to ask him to stay another day. My baby was sneaky, and I loved him.

  The only problem was traffic getting out of the city was horrific during rush hour, so he often worked late and got home around nine in the evening. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and a better situation than him having to stay an extra night.

  I’d been doing research on the Internet to try and find a BDSM community in Georgia, somewhere for us to get involved in. I’d always liked the camaraderie and openness with other kinky people. It was nice to be in an environment where there was absolutely no judgment from other members of the group.

  I had expected that to be thin on the ground in this part of the country, knowing what attitudes in the deep South could be like. In my experience kinky people congregated in bigger cities, though, where there was enough going on to distract from what people got up to in the privacy of their own homes, so I was hopeful there might be something here for us.

  I found a dedicated BDSM club in Atlanta, which I wasn’t expecting, and they had a regular gay-men-only night, which I definitely wasn’t expecting. There was a gay community here, but I hadn’t thought it would be big enough to warrant the club holding a night for kinky guys. There was a small joining fee and photographs on the website which showed a luxuriously appointed building. It looked a little sterile, and I definitely wasn’t opposed to clean, but in general, dark and dirty turned me on more.