Another way Read online

  “I’m not sure Steven would appreciate that,” I told him.

  “Steven doesn’t mind,” Laura said. “As long as it’s not him who I’m asking to be whipped and restrained, he’s happy.”

  “I still can’t believe you ended up with such a vanilla guy,” Will said warmly, sitting on the arm of the chair.

  “We fit,” Laura said simply. “He’s had to make a lot of compromises to be with me, too, you know. He accepts who I am… I wasn’t joking when I said that he is okay for me to be involved in the scene as long as I don’t ask him to join me.”

  “Has he ever subbed for you?” I asked.

  “No,” she laughed. “Steven really is the most nonkinky man you’ll ever find.”

  We talked for a while longer before Will excused both of us to get new drinks. Once we were in the relative privacy of the kitchen, he got much closer to me.

  “There’s a possibility of me doing a demo tonight,” Will said with his hand on my lower back, steadying me. “How do you feel about that?”

  I winced. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. It doesn’t matter if I don’t. Laura will happily take over for me, I already checked with her.”

  “Oh.”

  “Jesse,” he leaned into my personal space. I welcomed the invasion. “I will spank a reaction out of you if I have to.”

  “Shit,” I murmured as my body responded to his words. “Who would you be doing it with? What’s the demo?”

  “That’s better,” he chuckled. “It would be with Cooper. A rope bondage workshop.”

  “Who’s Cooper?”

  “The boy who got a drink for Laura earlier.”

  I was hyperaware that his hand had crept under the hem of my T-shirt to stroke the hot skin of my lower back. It made it hard for me to think, but eventually the mental image of a lean, toned blond boy came back to me. My Master wanted to tie this guy up? No freaking way.

  “I don’t think I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Thank you,” Will said, and I got the impression his words held more weight than an outsider might hear. I raised an eyebrow at him in question. “You’ve given me a great excuse,” he said with a wry smile.

  “Is it a problem?”

  “No, not at all,” he said, stroking my skin languidly with his thumb.

  “Okay, good. I still want to watch, though.”

  “Me too,” Will said. “I might learn something.”

  It was very disconcerting having other people in our playroom, where Laura was setting up her demo. I helped her sort out the lengths of rope, more familiar with the surroundings there than she was, although working with Laura again was nice. She didn’t ask me to call her Mistress; I was her equal now.

  “You and Will seem very happy together,” she commented as she let her hair loose to redo it in one of the full-length mirrors.

  “Shannon said the same thing,” I laughed.

  “Well, it’s true. You’re a great match, if I do say so myself.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Jesse,” she said in a very deliberate tone. I caught her eye in the mirror.

  Laura sighed and walked over to the playroom door, closing it softly so no one could overhear our conversation. She sat down carefully on the edge of the play table, balancing herself in the tight corset that wrapped around her waist.

  “I brought you into this world,” she started, looking around the room. “So I feel responsible for watching out for you, even though we’re not in a relationship any longer.”

  I smiled at her and nodded, hopping up onto the table next to her. “You mean a lot to me, Laura. You’re like my big sister. No, scratch that, Jennifer and I hate each other.”

  She laughed and dropped her head sideways so it rested on my shoulder. “Jesse, you’re in love with him.”

  I could have protested. Or argued. But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she sighed. “Don’t talk, just listen to me for a minute, okay?”

  My silence was her answer.

  “I’m guessing that you haven’t broken up with Adele, because you would have told me if you had. I supported the fact that you continued your relationship with her while we were together because I was clearly giving you something that you needed. When we met, Jesse, I knew right away that you’d be the most beautiful submissive. You own that title. It’s always been clear to you that being a sub doesn’t indicate any kind of mental or physical weakness.

  “Because of the nature of these kinds of relationships, it’s not uncommon for a sub to fall in love with their Dom. That was never a problem for us because I’m so totally committed to my husband. Those boundaries were easy for us to abide by.”

  I went to speak, but she pressed a finger to my lips. “Shh. You can’t have them both, sweetheart. It’s not the same as being with me at the same time as you were with her. There is something very special and very beautiful between you and Will, and I’ve never met Adele, so I can’t comment on your relationship with her. But she doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Can I say something now?”

  “Sure,” she laughed.

  “Will asked me to be his boyfriend.”

  “Oh,” Laura said lightly. “What did you say?”

  “I said I needed to think about it.”

  “When was this?”

  “Over two months ago.” She hit me around the back of the head. Hard. “Ow! Fuck! What was that for?”

  “For leaving the poor man hanging for over two months!”

  “Can’t argue with that,” I muttered, rubbing the sore spot on my head. “It hasn’t affected our D/s relationship.”

  “Like fuck it hasn’t!” she exclaimed.

  “It hasn’t!” I argued.

  “Do you have feelings for him?”

  “Yes.” Admitting it out loud made me feel sick.

  “And he has feelings for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do your feelings for Adele come into this?”

  “I don’t know!” I wailed. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “This is hurting her more than breaking up with her would.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe my fucking ass.”

  “For such a beautiful woman, you’ve got a dirty mouth, you know that?” I said sarcastically.

  “You’re getting a spanking for that,” she said calmly.

  There was a light knock at the door. Laura raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Answer it,” was her command.

  I hopped off the table and opened the door to Master.

  “I was wondering what was taking you so long,” he said with a smile.

  “We were talking,” Laura said in her light, sweet voice. “Your submissive needs a spanking, Master Will.”

  “Oh, does he? What did he do?”

  “Just a disrespectful tone,” she said.

  “Feel free to take it out on him yourself if you like.”

  “I might do that, actually. It’s been a long time since I turned a pretty ass pink.”

  “Well, I was just checking on your progress. We’ll start the demo in about ten minutes, if that’s okay with you?” Master said.

  “Plenty of time. Drop your pants, boy.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I said softly as Will left us to it. It was so easy to fall back into the headspace of being Laura’s boy; she truly cared for me, I’d never doubted that. But she wasn’t my Mistress. Not anymore.

  I bent over the table, placing my hands firmly, palms down, for balance and spreading my legs. She tugged my black boxer briefs down until the waistband was cutting into the top of my thighs, uncomfortable as it trapped my cock.

  Laura rubbed my ass with a smooth, gentle motion, then let loose with three sharp slaps that had me yelping. Her smaller hands left a more stinging slap than Master’s larger, thudding blows. She hummed happily at my response and steadily spanked over the whole of my ass for at least a couple of minutes. There was no respite.
She was amazing.

  “Why am I spanking you, boy?” she commanded.

  “Because I was disrespectful.”

  “This is your place,” she said in her most fierce of Domme voices. “Bent over, with your ass belonging to me.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Good boy. Go and kneel in the corner. You can watch my demonstration from the floor.”

  The last thing I expected was for Will to join me on the floor to watch Laura’s demonstration. He sat with his back to the wall; I sat next to him and held his hand. It was probably more intimate than I wanted to be with him in the public setting, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.

  When she was done, everyone moved back downstairs, and the party broke off for people to play or use the different facilities that Will kept in the house. I spent another hour or so with Laura, talking about Carrigan and Sawyer, her daughters, then with Shannon and Three. I got along better with Shannon’s non-boyfriend than I expected to. He was slightly nerdy but very witty and fun.

  The last of Will’s guests left around midnight, and I stayed to help him clean up the playroom. I was coiling ropes while he disinfected all of the surfaces.

  “Laura was great,” I said absently.

  Will yawned. “Yeah. As always.”

  “And Cooper.”

  “As always,” he said again with a sad sort of smile.

  It dawned on me then, suddenly. “He was your sub,” I said, my eyes glassing over as it all made sense.

  “Yes,” Will said without emotion. “For a long time.”

  I nodded, my brows furrowed, then turned to go. I just didn’t understand my own emotions. I couldn’t figure out what was going on in my head or my heart. The need for some space was overwhelming.

  “Jesse, wait,” Will called, his hand grabbing my arm.

  “Not right now,” I said softly.

  “Jesse, on your knees, now,” my Master barked, and I shook my head.

  “Red, Master.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he groaned, his hands in his hair.

  “I’m sorry.” I tried to hold back the tears, an outward expression of my inner turmoil.

  “Baby, come here,” Will said gently, and the third time he asked me to stay seemed to be the charm because I fell into his arms.

  “I don’t know,” I sobbed into his shoulder. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?” he murmured.

  “What I’m feeling. I don’t understand why I’m acting like this.”

  Will took my hand and led me back down to his living room, to the chair where I’d knelt at Laura’s feet earlier. He sat down and tugged me into the seat next to him. I was surprised; normally when we snuggled together I would sit on his lap as he held me, helping me come down from the high of a session. But as soon as I was settled, he swung his legs over mine and curled into my side.

  He inhaled deeply with his face in my neck, smelling me before kissing me there so softly I might have imagined it.

  “I won’t apologize for Cooper,” he said quietly.

  “I didn’t ask you to,” I responded hotly.

  “We were together for a long time, Jesse. He was my first full-time sub, and for a while he was a lover and a partner too.”

  “Why did you break up?”

  Will sighed. “We lived almost 24/7 for a few months. And it almost killed me,” he chuckled darkly. “I didn’t like having to hide who I was and what I did for kicks. I could never invite my colleagues or friends over to watch a game after work, because there would be a naked man wearing a leather collar waiting for me at the door. Or my parents, Jesus, could you imagine what would happen if they stopped by without calling first? I couldn’t ask Cooper to be anything less than what he is, but I couldn’t keep giving him everything that he needed.

  “I have my own life,” he continued softly, and I realized that my arms had wound around him protectively. He fit as well in mine as I did in his. “I like my friends, and my social life, and my non-kinky life, which is very important to me. It’s more important than being a Master. Being a Dom doesn’t dominate who I am, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

  I laughed and shifted so he’d be more comfortable. “I never knew all of this.”

  “That’s because I never told you,” he said solemnly.

  “Did you have any close calls? When he was here 24/7?”

  “More than I care to remember,” Will smiled. “My mother, once, asked me why I had a wooden chopping board on the TV unit. It was a paddle.”

  “The big square one?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, shit,” I laughed.

  “It is a chopping board,” he said, looking up at me. “I got it at Sears.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope. And one of my friends came here after work one night when I wasn’t expecting him. Cooper was naked and waiting just inside the door; thankfully I’d locked it and intercepted Brandon at the gate because Cooper just wouldn’t have thought to take himself somewhere else while I had company.”

  “So does he have a full-time Dom now?”

  “He has two,” Will laughed. “A couple that loves having a little slave boy. Our breakup was hard, because like I said, we were lovers too. I didn’t keep him chained at the foot of my bed every night. He was special to me.”

  “I’m sorry for freaking out.”

  “That’s okay.”

  I glanced at the clock. “I need to go. Adele will be home soon.”

  Will held me tighter for a brief moment, then climbed out of my lap. I got the impression he wanted to say something but was holding back.

  “Can we plan a date this week for a session? I’ve got plans for you.”

  I returned his smirk. “Tomorrow?”

  The smirk turned into a full, beaming smile. “Really? Yeah. That would be great for me, I can leave after my meeting. What time do you finish work?”

  “Four.” And Adele would have already left for the restaurant, so she wouldn’t know.

  “Great.”

  “But I won’t be able to do my pre-session warm up, so I’ll need you to ease me into it gently.”

  “I can do that,” he said with another smile. “Wait, you have a pre-session warm up?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “It gets me into the right frame of mind.”

  “Oh. I always thought you got into your headspace really easily.”

  “I suppose I do. You make it easy for me.”

  We were at the front door, and I was hovering, stealing for more time with him. There was an awkward pause, then his lips were on mine. I’d not even seen him coming toward me. He was just kissing me.

  After a moment of shock, I relaxed against his lips. He kissed me softly, carefully; no tongue at first as I welcomed the warm, dry skin of his lips against me, then he sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and ran his wet tongue over it.

  One of us whimpered. I don’t know who.

  His hands held my waist, holding me in place although our bodies weren’t pressed up against each other. I felt like a teenager at prom, gripping his strong upper arms to keep me standing while his kisses made my knees weak.

  Will broke away, resting his forehead against mine as I struggled to catch my breath. One fucking kiss and my heart felt like it was about to beat out of my fucking chest.

  “Shit. Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said to him. “I liked it.”

  And I kissed him again.

  Chapter Eight

  MY HOURS at work the next day ticked by slower than they ever had before. I usually had at least three staff on with me; where I worked might have been an independent bookstore, but it was a big one. So having one person call in sick put the pressure on a bit, and we had a big delivery, too, but instead of making the time go quicker, which is what normally happens when we’re pushed, I felt every minute.

  I knew that our relationship was growing, we were pushing the bo
undaries of what we could claim was part of our D/s arrangement. Actually, I thought I was doing a rather excellent job of denying to myself and everyone else around me how I really felt. Those emotions that related to Will were being kept squashed right down and locked away where I didn’t have to deal with them.

  The ache for him was huge by the time I made my way across town to his house. The drive was familiar to me, the twitchy feeling wasn’t. I hoped he would beat it out of me.

  Will met me in the kitchen, just his stance telling me we weren’t in our roles yet.

  “Hey,” he greeted me with a smile.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I thought I could watch your pre-session warm up,” he smirked at me.

  “Jeez,” I sighed, rubbing my hands through my hair. “I’m going to regret telling you that, aren’t I?”

  Will laughed. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I’ll probably mess up your headspace anyway.”

  “Take me upstairs?” I asked as a response. It was terrifying, asking that of him.

  He nodded silently, slipping into his own role, and I left, knowing that he’d follow me in a few moments to allow me time to get ready. The playroom smelled familiar again—of leather and man and the faint lemon of cleaning products. I stripped quickly and piled my clothes by the door, then assumed my kneeling position in the middle of the room.

  Surprising myself by finding my headspace easily, I settled to wait for my Master.

  He entered, shutting the door softly behind him, then crossed to the stereo system, ignoring me completely. It was another thing for me to focus on—my place in this hierarchy—and I slipped a little deeper into subspace.

  Master chose some softer jazz music that I’d heard before, but never in the playroom. For a moment I wondered what he had planned for the afternoon, then quickly reminded myself that he could do with me whatever he liked.

  “I would like to collar you, Jesse, is that okay?” he asked.

  I nodded silently, almost able to count his footsteps to the wall where he fetched my collar, then back to me to fasten it around my neck. Once I was marked as his, he silently unbuckled his pants and presented me with his semi-hard dick.

  Sometimes being a submissive is about fighting all of your natural instincts and instead letting another person control those subliminal thoughts. And other times it’s about following your instincts totally and completely.