Owning Wednesday (7 page)

“I know. It has.” She stared down at the table and took a small sip of wine.

“Let me tell you what I’ve been thinking about, Wednesday. Look at me, please. When I talk to you, I’d like you to look at me.” Just like that, the authority crystallized in his voice, and he’d already taught her a rule. She took a deep breath and obeyed, and his gaze held hers.

“Before we take this any further, I’m going to be blunt with you. An arrangement like you and Vincent shared would not be enough to satisfy me.”

“I know. That’s why I feel kind of scared.”

That quiet, open admission gave him hope for them. “Thank you for being honest. I’ll always want you to tell me how you feel. One of my kinks, I suppose,” he said with a half smile. “I’m going to want to know you inside and out.”

“If I’m going to be yours.”

“If you’re going to be mine. You see, the better I know you, the more easily I can…” He almost said
love you
but thought better of it and said, “The more easily I can make you happy.” For him, loving and being happy were the same thing. For her, well…he wasn’t so sure. “Have you ever been in love?”

“No, I never have.”

“Why?”
Open up to me, Wednesday. Tell me.

“I guess because love is so messy and makes people strange.”

He couldn’t hide his smile at that, although he tried to. “So what you and Vincent had—that wasn’t strange?”

“You disapprove of Vincent.” She frowned. “You disapprove of me for staying with him so long.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t tell me what I approve or disapprove of. I only want to express to you that Vincent and I are different, as different as night and day. I’m sure he was an excellent dominant to you, but you’ll find I’m not much like him.”

“Yes, that’s pretty clear to me already.”

Their food arrived then. They ate in tense silence as he retreated, regrouped. Things weren’t going well. By this point he’d thought they’d be discussing preferences, specifics, how she would address him, what she would wear, the days they would get together. Instead he was racking his brain for a way to salvage things.

When the silence grew ridiculous, he fell back on the only thing he could think of. “You know, this is what he wanted for you. What he wanted you to find.” She didn’t have to ask who
he
was.
He
might as well have been sitting at the table with them. “Do you still love him so much? Is it really too soon for us?”

“I didn’t love him. I don’t.”

“You did. You do. You’d return to him right now if he’d let you.”

She looked up at him as if she’d been slapped, then turned away, completely closed off. She placed her utensils beside her plate.

Dinner had been an unparalleled disaster.

Daniel sighed loud and long and signaled the waiter for the check.

He drove her home in tense silence. Was he giving up? Not even. For the moment he was—he would give her some time and space, then he’d try again. He escorted her to the door of her apartment and was going to bid her good night, when she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

Tears. Fucking tears from this woman. From
any
woman, but especially this one.

“Wednesday, don’t…” he said, but it was too late then. Too late.

He pushed her inside her apartment, shut the door, and took her in his arms. He kissed her hard, trapping her hands at the small of her back, both of her hands that fit perfectly in one of his. With the other hand, he pressed her nape, drawing her closer, tasting her, taking what he’d fantasized about for so many months.

Finally she pulled away, but he didn’t let go. With a sigh, she pressed her body against his and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You know—I want it, but I don’t want it. I can’t explain. I don’t understand it myself—”

“Shh, it’s okay. I understand. I do. Just trust me. For now just trust me.” He nuzzled her cheek, and she turned her face up to his, offering her lips to him. He kissed her thoroughly, voraciously. This time it was he who broke away.

“Turn around,” he said in an urgent voice, hoping she’d obey. And wonder of wonders, she did. He kept her hands trapped in his. Gently but firmly he pressed her shoulders against the wall, telling her without words not to move. With his other hand, slowly, oh so slowly, he traced a line down her back, over the curve of her hips, then dropped his fingertips to the tops of her thighs. He inched up the hem of her dress with steady pressure. She let him do all these things, standing still with her back trembling against his front.

He was harder than he’d ever been in his life, wild with desire, but somehow he managed to only touch her. What he really wanted to do was tear off her dress and thrust deep inside. He only inched that hem up little by little, caressing her velvet thighs as he went. She clenched her hands inside his, and she tensed as he hooked his fingers in the top of her panties.

“Be still,” he whispered. “Just let me touch you.”

She shivered as he eased her panties down to the tops of her stockings, and left them to rest at the apex of her thighs.

“Part your legs.” She obeyed with a soft, excited sound. He traced his fingers down her front, caressing her intimately, exploring every lovely fold and crevice of her slick center. As he cupped her mons, he pressed his hips forward against her ass. His raging hard-on nestled perfectly between her ass cheeks. She took deep, halting breaths, her hands still trapped there in his, between them, in fists.

He delved lower, past her swollen clit to the moisture, hot and wet, between her legs. He dipped his fingers inside her.

“Daniel,” she whimpered.

He tightened the hand that trapped her wrists, and lowered his head to whisper against her cheek. “Wednesday, be my submissive. Give me as much as you can give me, and I’ll live with that. For a while anyway.”

“Okay,” she said. “Yes. Okay.”

“I’ll never hurt you. Trust me, and you and I, we’ll figure things out.”

Later. They would figure things out later. For now he fumbled into one of the condoms he’d secreted in his wallet in hopes he might need it before the night was through. He fucked her there against the wall, grasping and artless. His nerves sang at the feel of her skin sliding against his.

He couldn’t touch her enough. He couldn’t get close enough. When she came with a gasp, when she tensed beneath him, he remembered that night at Vincent’s and all the longing he’d done since then. All he could think was
I can’t let her go.

Afterward they slid to the floor, and he knelt over her and whispered it in her ear. “
Mine. You’re mine
,” as if he needed to convince her. He helped her up, pulled her dress over her head, and led her straight to the bed.

“What do you have that I can tie you up with?”

Wednesday thought a moment. “Stockings?”

“Too stretchy. I need something stronger.”

She didn’t have anything he could use, so he did what any desperate pervert would have done. He took a pair of scissors to her sheets. “I’ll replace them,” he said. She looked at him like he was nuts as he cut off the four long strips.
Wrist, wrist, ankle, ankle
. Enough for now. He had to tie this girl down.

“Come. Lie down here,” he said, patting the middle of the bed. She crawled to the place he showed her in her sexy black lingerie and shoes, her naughty little ass right up in the air. Delicious tease. Her hair was a mess now, all disheveled and falling down in strands around her face. The sight of her kneeling on the bed drove him to madness. He had to be inside her again.

Patience. Soon
. “Lie down on your back. Put your arms up.”

She did without a moment’s pause. Her eyes were shining with desire as he took one wrist and fixed it to the headboard and started to wrap the cotton strip around it in a knot she’d never be able to undo. The bonds were props, metaphor only. She was his, and after he finished with her that night, she’d be his even more. “I suppose now would be the time to discuss a safe word,” he said as he finished the first knot.

“I don’t need a safe word,” she said. “I trust you.”

“Even so, we’re going to have one at first. Don’t be a foolish little submissive. You’re too trusting.”

She smiled, gazing up at him. “Are you going to hurt me?”

He frowned back. “This isn’t a joke. Either you pick a safe word, or I will.” He tied her other wrist tighter, then knelt at the edge of the bed to remove her shoes and tie her ankles. Her twin bed was too small to spread her as he wanted her, but it would have to do. For now.

“How about ‘untie me, Daniel’? Not that you’ll ever use it, you reckless girl. But there it is, if you need it.”

“Okay.” She squirmed, testing her bonds to see how tight they were.
See? I’m not fucking around.

He sat beside her, still fully dressed, and stroked her cheek. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

“You’re the dominant.”

“It was a rhetorical question. Hush.”

She was a vision on the bed, her black stockings in sharp contrast with her white sheets. He touched her, starting with the velvet curve between her shoulder and neck. He moved down to her breasts, cupping and massaging them. He closed his fingers on the sensitive skin of her nipples and squeezed until he got the reaction he wanted—a protest. Her lips stayed closed tight, but she pulled away to the extent she could.

He made a soft sound and released her, flattening his hands against her rib cage. He could feel her short, halting breaths under his fingertips. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“
Yes, Sir
.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said, squirming again. He stilled her with pinch.

“You like to be hurt, though. Don’t you? It makes you feel good.”

She watched him with alert attention, as if she was trying to figure him out. It didn’t surprise him—he was doing the same thing to her. He moved his hands lower, over the lace of her garter belt and down to the elastic suspenders. “What else do you like?”

She didn’t answer. He traced across the soft skin at the tops of her thighs. She tensed as his fingers crept inward and caressed the crease of her mons. He smiled and delved one thumb between her pussy lips. He found her clit and stroked it.

“Do you like this?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Her hips reacted, though, rising, seeking more contact.

“Hmm. I see,” he said. “How about this?” He slid his hands lower and parted her labia before slipping two fingers into her warm, wet channel. He felt her clench and tense again. Her face was a mask of concentration and control.

“Don’t you like that?” He moved his fingers in and out, and she opened her mouth again. She arched her head back. With her halo of hair and her arms spread wide, she looked like some angel of dark lust and feeling. Still, she was staunchly silent. He moved a hand to one breast and teased the nipple again as he continued to finger-fuck her. “No words, Wednesday? How will I know what you like and don’t like?”

She licked her lips and gazed at him. “I…I like what you like. I want what you want.”

“What if I want to saw your head off with a pocketknife and use it as a bookend?”

She laughed softly. “Then I’ve seriously misjudged you.”

“What if I don’t want you to come? Ever? What if I like you crying and miserable?” He squeezed her nipple hard and watched her shudder. “How much pain do you really want?”

“Enough.”

“
Enough
. That’s illuminating.”

“Well, I don’t know. Vincent never asked me all these things. He mostly just did what he wanted.”

“I’ll do that too a lot of the time. We’ll have rules and protocols. You like rules and protocols?”

“I like what you like,” she said.

“Okay, I get it. So I’ll tell you what I like. I like obedience. I like submission. True submission, not the fuzzy-handcuff kind. I like transparency and honesty.” He moved his hand down to the curve of her hip and traced it. He still caressed her center, wet and silky. She was an ocean against his hand.