Another way (27 page)

My hand stilled over his ribs. “Are you sure you want that? It’s a big step.”

“Yeah. I don’t think I can keep you a secret much longer. You’re too important to me.”

The next kiss was difficult—neither of us could stop smiling.

We showered together. Under the heat of the water, I washed his back and let him stroke me to orgasm until I dropped to my knees, the water washing the sticky mess down the drain as I used my own lips and tongue to bring about his own.

Will left not long after we’d dressed, after long kisses on the doorstep—I didn’t want to let him go. While he was out, I took it upon myself to thoroughly clean the house. The stereo system in the living room was loud enough for the music to carry; I put on some classic Chili Peppers to keep my energy levels up as I started on the second floor, collecting up all of the laundry that needed to be done.

I sorted Will’s shirts that needed to be taken to the dry cleaners and put them in a pile for him to take them out. All of the clothes that could stuff into the washer were packed in there, and I set that going, then started on the kitchen.

As the afternoon drew on, I started to run out of jobs to do, and ended up in the playroom, polishing and waxing our stuff to keep my mind occupied. I didn’t want to linger on what was happening on the other side of town—how Will’s family was going to react to the news and whether I’d need to put him back together in the same way he’d supported me after my mother had called.

Finally, at about four in the afternoon, I heard his car pull up outside. I was in my room with my laptop and the window propped open so I could hear him.

“Jess?” he called as the door closed behind him.

“Up here,” I yelled back. My heart was thudding in my throat.

I tried to concentrate on the page I was reading, a list of MA history courses, but I was reading the same line over and over again without any of it going in.

“Hey,” he said from the doorway.

My head jerked up so quickly it hurt my neck. “Hey,” I said, my throat hoarse. “How did it go?”

He crossed to me and gently set my computer on the floor. “My mother very much wants to meet you,” he said softly. I wanted to ask “what about your dad?,” but I held back.

As if he was reading my mind, he leaned in and kissed my cheek. “My dad too.”

“That’s good,” I said, returning his kiss. “I need to know everything though, you should know that.”

“Okay,” he laughed. I settled back into the corner of the couch and pulled his back to my chest. Will played with my fingers as he spoke. “I tried the gentle approach, telling them that I’d met someone and that I’m insanely happy, more than I’ve ever been before.”

“Aww,” I teased him, kissing his hair.

“Shut up,” he mumbled. “I wanted them to know that we were already, you know, sort of established in our relationship.”

“Did you tell them I’m living here?”

“Let me tell the story,” he said bossily.

“Go on, go on.”

“So, my mom was all beaming and happy and stuff, and then she asked when she could meet
her.
” He started to rub my palm with his thumbs. “And I said there was something else I needed to tell them, and that your name is Jesse, and you’re definitely not a her. Then I said, ‘I’m gay’, just in case there was any confusion.”

“Then what did she say?” I pressed.

“Well, they were both really quiet for a moment. Then my mom said ‘oh, Will’, that she’s known since I was a teenager and why didn’t I tell her sooner. And that she still wanted to meet you.”

“And your dad?”

“God, you’re annoying,” he laughed. “He didn’t say anything until I was leaving. Then when I was walking out, he stopped me and asked if I was sure. And I said yeah, I was really, really sure. And he said ‘okay’.”

“Is that good?”

“I think so. My mom said that nothing would stop her from loving me.”

“There’s nothing that would stop me from loving you either,” I said.

“You sap,” he laughed. I took a deep, cleansing breath and felt him relax back into my chest again.

“Do you think we’re out now?”

He lifted both of my hands and placed them over his chest. “I want for us to be,” he said. I flattened my hand and moved it over his heart.

“I want for us to be too,” I said.

We were quiet for a long time, and if I didn’t know him so well I would have thought he was sleeping. But this was Will, and he was likely lost deep in thought.

“Do you know what today is?”

“Um, Sunday?” I said with a laugh.

“Well, apart from that,” he said with a smile. “Laura introduced me to you two years ago today.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. It doesn’t feel like two years, right?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Hmm.” He sat up and stretched his arms above his head. Then he moved to the other end of the couch and tugged my wrist, reversing our previous position. I rested my head on his shoulder and loved him for wrapping his arms too tightly around my chest. “Collaring.”

“Yeah. What does it mean, exactly?”

“Well, it’s something unique to each couple, I suppose,” he said. “Some people consider it equal to marriage—that it’s a lifelong bond and commitment. To some people it’s just a D/s thing, or a strictly personal agreement. I think we’d all agree though that it’s an important declaration. For me, it’s saying that I’m going to take care of you in all the ways I know you need. For you, it can be whatever you want it to be.”

“Equal to marriage?” I echoed.

Will laughed. “Trust you to pick up on that bit.”

“No, I like it.”

“Okay. What are your reservations? Because I know you have them.”

“I don’t want things to change,” I said vehemently. “Our relationship
works.
I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that.”

“We don’t need to change anything, baby,” he assured me.

“If I start this MA course, I won’t have as much time for us any more,” I said, regretting the words even as they left my mouth.

“You think that matters to me?” he said teasingly.

I shrugged, pulling his hands into mine on my lap. “It’s a new challenge for us.”

“The first of many, I’m sure.”

“Should we have that children conversation now, do you think?” I said. “We might as well get it all out of the way at once.”

“Sure,” Will said, shifting to get comfortable. “So. Children.”

“Yes.”

He reached over and punched me in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt because of the awkward angle. I refused to let go of his hand, still.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” he said. “I never expected to have kids. I can’t imagine myself having kids. But I don’t want to ever rule out that possibility.”

“I agree,” I said, causing Will to roll his eyes at me. “Oh, don’t do that. We’re only in our twenties. There’s plenty of time to have children later. We don’t have to make a decision now.”

“That was easy.” Will leaned over and kissed my cheek.

“Yeah. I like agreeing with you.”

“What about our D/s relationship?” he asked. “It feels like we’re entering this new stage of our relationship now. One where you’re a lot more settled and happy with who you are.”

As always, he was giving me plenty to think about. “I suppose I am,” I said. “I still find it hard to define myself as gay, but it’s very easy for me to say I’m yours.”

He squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to change your view of your sexuality to be with me. I mean, you can if you want to, but if you want to still be ‘bisexual’, that’s okay too.”

My silence was telling. Will laughed.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“I’m due to hold another play party at some point in the future,” Will said lightly.

“Hmm,” I said, to take up time while my whirring brain processed that possibility. “I know it’s something that you enjoy, doing demonstrations and stuff, and I think I would be okay being your guinea pig, you know, your model or whatever. But actual scenes between us are, I don’t know, intimate, and ours. I don’t know if I want to share that with anyone else.”

“In some ways, that makes me happier than if you said yes.”

“You’re strange.”

“No, I just know how important your independence is.”

I leaned over and kissed him softly. “That’s good. I suppose the only other thing is the whole ‘collar’ thing.”

“You don’t want an actual collar,” he said.

“It’s not that—” I started, but he cut me off.

“It’s okay if you don’t. ‘Collar’ can be a metaphorical term if that’s better…. I know couples who use rings or wrist cuffs or anything. We can do whatever we want.”

“I like this whole ‘making it work for us’ thing,” I said, turning my head to kiss his jaw.

“I know,” he said, kissing me back. “We can fix all of the downfalls of a traditional marriage.”

“I could be married to you,” I mused out loud. “You know. In a non-marriage kind of way.”

Will chuckled and hugged me tighter for a moment. “Do you trust me to make this work for us?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay. Then I’ll sort it all out. It’s gonna be alright, I promise.”

Chapter Twenty

T
HE
brown leather pants were back. This time, he wasn’t wearing a shirt with them.

Things had changed between us, as was inevitable with all of the time we spent together as a couple. One of my biggest challenges was learning to separate, in my mind, the difference between the man I loved and the man I obeyed.

Master wanted for us to work on finding our own headspaces for a scene together rather than spending the time before a scene apart, sometimes for as much as an hour before the session. And although I wanted that connection with him to grow, it was admittedly difficult getting there.

So, it was for that reason I was sat on the edge of our bed, watching Will struggle into those brown leather pants and trying not to laugh.

“Do you want a hand with that?” I asked, trying to hold back a smirk.

“I can do it,” he muttered, hopping on one foot to tug them up over his ass. His rather scrumptious ass. “It’s you insisting on takeout all the time. I’m getting fat.”

I snickered and didn’t say anything else. Having already stripped down to just my T-shirt and boxers, as soon as he was ready, I shucked those off, too, and reached for his hand. We ascended to the playroom together, tightly holding hands.

As Will—Master closed the door behind us, I assumed my normal position, waiting for him, and sank to my knees, letting out a deep exhale as I went. We had developed a new routine where Master would collect my collar first of all, and I’d take it before we went any further into the session. He stood before me with that thin band of tan leather between his hands, and I knew I needed to interrupt him.

“Permission to speak, Master?”

“Of course,” he said, sounding surprised.

“Please, don’t ask me any more.” I kept my eyes fixed on my hands, which were resting on my knees.

“Ask you what, Jesse?”

“About the collar. Please don’t ask, just take it. The answer is yes. It will always be yes.”

His fingers went to my hair, rubbing my head reassuringly as he walked silently around me and crouched at my back. Master kissed my left shoulder, letting his lips linger there, then kissed across my back to my right shoulder. He carefully placed the collar around my throat and gently fastened it at the nape of my neck. Then he kissed the buckle.

“I will never take this for granted,” he said, repeating the words that were written on our contract to each other. “I will never hurt you. I won’t ever let you fail.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. I wanted to tell him
I love you,
but it probably wasn’t the right time to say it.

The heat in the playroom was on, and it was warm already. I felt the prickle of sweat on my back as I sat there naked and itched for something more. Whatever he wanted from me, I was ready to give it. Master straightened up behind me and walked back around with his hand still gently caressing my hair.

He was giving me time to find my headspace for the session, but I wanted him to push me, for me to find out what my own limits were. As my Master, he was always challenging my perceptions of sexuality and sex, and I thrived on discovering these things with him.

“Open,” he said, tapping on my cheek.

Master drew his cock from the confines of the holy brown leather pants and stroked himself slowly, teasingly, as it filled with blood to its full potential and hardness. I was holding my hands behind my back, as was my normal waiting position, and I could feel my own cock responding to the sight of my Master touching himself. It was too fucking erotic—live porn.

I wanted desperately to lean forward and enclose the tasty flesh of his cock between my lips, but my training prevented me from moving without permission or a direct order. Even though I knew the likely outcome would be his cock in my mouth anyway.

Master was smiling as he ran the leaking head of his cock over my parted lips. I attempted a sneaky lick of the head, and received a warning slap round the face for my efforts. With his cock, of course. Master obviously decided that he liked the feel of that and proceeded to smack my face a few more times with his dick.