Captive Heart (8 page)

             
“We could go out,” Saskia said with a half-smile. “We could go to one of those high-end restaurants you like. I really did like that Greek one you took me to the other night. Like I said, I don't know how this whole chorizo thing is going to turn out anyway.”

             
“I will eat your chorizo and love it,” he said, backing it up with a kiss. “Sometimes I just think I'm changing from the man you went so crazy for. Like today, I had an article about the Egyptian forehead candles up on my computer and a colleague saw it. You know what he said to me...”

             
He recounted the conversation with Bryant Jameson in detail, giving a bit of background about their relationship in the firm. Saskia got a kick out of the story, and it naturally led to her telling him about her day. She had finished editing the Egyptian video and would be uploading it to her Youtube channel either that night or the next morning, the sooner, the better, of course. Fabio's work had kept him from helping her with the video, but she had told him about the comedic bits. Walking into her apartment and finding her finishing filming, a candle strapped to her forehead, had been particularly funny. Her excitement over the project's completion pleased him, and his firm's victory in the tech company case seemed to please her as well. He ate his chorizo burrito and enjoyed it. While not the best he'd had, the trouble she had gone through to make it for him made up for any deficiencies in taste.

             
They sat cuddling on the couch, watching TV, their minds eventually turning to other things. As the sky turned to night outside, Saskia turned off the television and made her man look at her. “So, about what you were saying earlier, about not knowing if you're still quite the person that you were...”

             
“That was just tiredness talking, Saskia. Don't bring it up again, really.”

             
“I'm curious by nature, Mr. De Lucca. If I weren’t, we wouldn't be together in the first place. Right now, I'm curious what it is that you think you're losing.”

             
Fabio knew he had been putting it off. Saskia was too perceptive to be fooled, however. He supposed it was better to get it out in the open now than later. “Control,” he answered.

             
“There's that word again. You talked about it on our first night, and you keep mentioning it. What does control mean to you? Is it a dom thing?”

             
With a heavy heart, Fabio rose and paced before her, an agitated hand mussing his sleek black hair. “Control is everything, Saskia. Everything. Maybe not to you, but then you've had a good life. You have a loving family, a hometown full of friends. You moved to New York and found almost instant success. I know I don't have to tell you the odds against that. I grew up here. In the foster care system.”

             
Even admitting
that
much was a vicious betrayal of his standards of control. He had learned volumes about her past while telling her none of his. He told no one. “Don't pity me,” he said in response to the look on her face. “It's just what happened. Many had it far worse than me in that system, but I wish I could also say that many had it better. It was one reason why I could never choose criminal law as my focus. There was too much risk of running into people I used to know.”

             
To his surprise, Saskia spoke with understanding rather than pity. “You couldn't show any weakness. You chose law to prove that you weren't weak. But that just moved you to a world where you could show weakness even less.”

             
“Every office has a loudmouth, even law firms,” he announced with uncharacteristic exasperation. “Jameson is ours. By tomorrow that story will be all over the office. Fabio and his Egyptian head candles! Can you imagine?”

             
Surely this statement would make her angry. It sounded like he was calling her research stupid, and he realized it too late. Saskia was nothing if not canny, however. Those mercurial blue-green eyes studied him like they were unlocking a puzzle. “I can imagine what Jameson said about you before.”

             
“Ha. He said nothing. He wouldn't have dared.”

             
“Exactly. You can bet that a month ago he was telling everyone who would listen that you were a dick and to stay away from you. Now, he feels like he can come up to you and make jokes. Is that really so bad?”

             
Fabio could not contain his energy and paced some more. “I don't know.”

             
He felt Saskia behind him, her soft hands sliding over his shoulders. “You still haven't answered my question. Is it a dom thing?”

             
“We've had this talk. I chose you over the lifestyle. I do not regret my decision.”

             
“Sure you do. It's part of who you were, has been for years, long before you met me.”

             
“And I still have it--”

             
She made him look at her. “Yes. When I instigate it.”

             
“As is proper. Being a dom doesn't mean I am not a gentleman.”

             
Now she smiled and gave him that big-eyed look. The Saski-Blue look, as her friends back home had called it. “Is being a gentleman what you're worried about? Or are you afraid that acknowledging your needs would be another loss of control?”

             
Saskia had done a lot of things to Fabio since they had become a couple. But this was the first time she'd truly had him at a loss for words. He stood dumbstruck, replaying what she had said. It seemed so obvious, yet he had never even thought of it.

             
“Wait here. I want to try something.”

             
Saskia slipped into her walk-in closet. Several minutes later a completely different woman stepped out. She looked like Saskia, but the black leather bodice and matching thigh-high black boots were new. The disturbing confidence with which she handled the riding crop in her hand was a new addition to her persona as well. On her black leather belt he caught the glint of nickel plating: serious handcuffs, the twins of the set he had first used on her.

             
“What?” He felt like a fool, gawking, but he could not help it. Not with her looking so unbelievably hot in the dominatrix getup. “When did you get that?”

             
Saskia laughed musically, “Oh, who would have thunk that Ruby had some wild days back when she was married to Zane? Turns out, the shop she went to was still there in Greenwich Village.”

             
“Oh, you must mean Diablo. I've shopped there. Great management--” Fabio had to violently shake his head to get his mind back on track. “Saskia, I get what you're trying to do, but I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not a switch, believe me. Trying it's just going to end badly for both of – Ow!”

             
Saskia had interrupted him with an expert snap of her riding crop to his shoulder. Had she been practicing with that thing? “Saskia, this isn't funny. We really shouldn't try – Ow! Cut that out!”

             
“We're going to start with spanking,” she said coyly. “It's basic and everyone understands it.”

             
“Saskia--”

             
Before he could say more, she reached up and pressed down on his shoulders. For reasons Fabio could not understand, he let himself be made to kneel. The idea should have abhorred him. It violated all he was. Instead it aroused in him a wild curiosity to see where she might be going with this.

             
“Actually, I've changed my mind,” she announced, her small frame suddenly towering over him. “I want you to lick my legs. If you're very good at that, I might let you lick something else.”

             
“Really?” he asked, beginning to play along. “And what might that be?”

             
Saskia slashed the riding crop at him, stopping short enough of his face to make him flinch. “Lick. Or get another taste of this.”

             
Things had gotten very confusing very fast. One concrete truth emerged though: Saskia was picking up the dom's art much faster than she was picking up cooking. Indeed, in this role she awakened hungers in Fabio he had not known he had: awakened and satisfied in turns. Pain was nothing to Fabio. Knowing how to dish it out meant knowing how to take it. The endorphin rush as she whipped and scratched him was unparalleled. He'd had his share of narcotic experimentation in his teens, but it had all been a waste of money. Saskia's fiendish, innate skill was where the real rush lay. But she had far more in mind than floggings and scratches. Those steel handcuffs at her waist were not just for show.

             
Could Fabio really cross that line? No, the question did not matter. He merely forced himself to wonder about it because he thought that he should. After all her teasing, taunting, and all-too-brief touches he was mad for anything Saskia wanted to do with him. Saskia's first dominatrix game had been brilliantly orchestrated. She had wrapped him up so thoroughly in it that Fabio had forgotten to worry about losing control. By the time he remembered to worry about it, it was already gone.

             
She shoved his naked body down onto her bed, shackling his hands above his head to the bed's frame. With him out of the way for the moment Saskia unbuckled most of the leather, letting it hit the floor. She left the boots on, however, and his engorged manhood throbbed in gratitude for it. She looked good enough in those things; he thought he might just have a fetish for them. It was something he hoped to explore more in the future. Saskia put her hands on her hips, modeling for him. In turn she admired him, her lover, godlike in his bonds.

             
“Are you going to show me all that I taught you, Saskia?”

             
She took up the riding crop again, slapped it against her palm. “Wrong. This is
me
teaching
you
.”

             
Saskia did not need candles or feathers. Using only her hands and her mouth she made Fabio feel like all the tools he preferred were those of amateurs. With her body she sweetly tortured his, no part of him off limits to her fingers or her tongue. Fabio was sure he was in for the blowjob of his life when her tongue finally ran up his shaft and she gave a nice hard suck to the head of his cock. She had tormented him for hours and he was ready for release. She did not follow up, however. Not that way. Instead Saskia straddled him, positioning herself for penetration.

             
“Condom, Saskia,” he urged. “Condom!”

             
“Oh yeah, that's another thing I've been waiting to surprise you with,” she said, grinning. “I started birth control.”

             
Always being in control meant that Fabio had never had intercourse with a woman without a condom. He was careful, practical, and never emotionally intimate enough with anyone to take this crucial step of paramount trust. Saskia had made the choice for him now, and his surrender to it was total, wonderful.
She
was wonderful. She rode him slowly at first, knowing the heights to which she had raised him and that she must be careful, lest it end too soon. Fabio De Lucca was not so easily vanquished, however. Steeling himself, he bucked his hips, urging her to go faster.

             
What followed carried with it all the mystery and intensity of their first night together. Having her in control was as good as making her lose it. Maybe, just maybe, control was not an enemy to be mastered and battled at all times. Maybe, just maybe, half its power was in knowing when to banish it and whom to banish it for.

             
This time, it was Saskia who climaxed first, if only by half a second. She held him within her for long moments afterward, savoring the feeling of his seed within her and him still hard and strong besides. Knowing how good it made her feel, Fabio used his willpower to stay hard long after he should have rested. But by then it felt so good again that the only thing for it was to begin again. This time, she let him go, and they enjoyed making love easily, gently.

             
Maybe, just maybe, losing control was not a bad thing. Especially when you knew how, in an instant, to get it back.

******

             
Saskia Bergen's simple little life in her Bronx apartment was getting crowded. Making a living as a blogger was still hard, but her star was rising. Eventually, her peers in the field began to take notice. Being interviewed by a leading fashion and entertainment news website had felt like the pinnacle. Being referred to in the article's text as “makeup expert Saskia Bergen” had been even better. There was less time for goofing off during the day, as answering emails from followers and comments on her blogs took up more and more time. At the end of her eighth month in New York, she was contacted by a respected underground filmmaker who was trying to put together an original web series. He wanted to know if Saskia would be interested in serving as lead makeup artist. His usual makeup crew was committed to another project, and with the buzz growing about Saskia, she seemed like the first place he should try. The offer was flattering, astounding, and scary all at once. Even with months crawling by, it felt like things were happening too fast.