Taming Naia (4 page)

Christ, were all his staff just like him? Bossy jerks? She humph’d and turned away.

Oliver remained nearby but at least he didn’t sit with her. Naia stewed, watching the people around her but not really seeing anything at all. She was so wrapped up in what she was going to say to him, what she was going to do. How dare he do what he did, leave like he did, then treat her like she was nothing when she came to give him a piece of her mind?

It was almost half an hour before he bothered to turn up. He was in the same jeans and shirt, his sleeves still rolled up like they had been when he had spanked her. The sight of his hands, his forearms, his hulking form, sent shivers through her, reminding her of her still unfulfilled need. It was as if her own body betrayed her with its desire for him.

“Ms. White,” he greeted, but didn’t sit down.

Meeting his gaze heated her face to what she imagined was a deep crimson. She’d chalk it up to anger, not embarrassment though.

“Professor.” She held his gaze, rage giving her strength.

“What can I do for you? I was under the impression our business was concluded,” he said, his expression unreadable. Was he really so unaffected, so cool?

“Our
business
? You call that
business
?” she asked, scooting around the booth to stand.

“Watch your tone and lower your voice, Naia.”

“Oh, it’s Naia now, is it?” she asked, coming to her feet, her voice even louder.

“I’m warning you,” he threatened.

She wasn’t scared of him. “You’re warning me about what, professor? What are you going to do to me? Walk away like the cold jerk you are?”

Grabbing her arm hard, he brought his mouth close to her ear. “Watch out, I’m not going to say it again. What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“You’re hurting my arm,” she said, tugging it free. “Between you and your security guard, I’ll be black and blue tomorrow.” People at the surrounding tables were staring at them now.

He looked furious. “Not another word until we are in my office. Walk,” he said, gesturing for her to go ahead.

She did as he said, she didn’t want a scene any more than he did really. And to be honest, she could use some time to collect her thoughts. What
was
she going to say? What
did
she want? Hadn’t he done what he had said he would do? What she had asked for? What more would she be begging for tonight?

They walked through the club to a private elevator. Liam inserted a key to call it. The doors opened and they entered, the silence thick between them. They both stared straight ahead as the elevator climbed to Liam’s office and the doors opened. Naia was about to step out but froze.

“What the…”

“It’s safe, you can walk through,” he said, stepping ahead of her onto what appeared to be a glass floor in his office.

She followed, in awe of her surroundings. Glass covered the floor and three of the walls. “You can see everything but I gather no one can see you?”

“Correct,” he said, leaning against his desk and folding his arms across his chest.

“What if it… breaks?” she asked, testing her heel lightly against it.

“It won’t.” His voice was hard, his gaze harder. “Why are you here?”

She turned her full attention to him. He looked so big as he stared down at her and she wondered if he was trying to intimidate her.

“I want to know why you left me like that,” she said, copying his posture, trying to look as self-assured as he did even as she shuffled her weight from one foot to the other.

“We were through. You asked my forgiveness. I told you I’d need to punish you before I gave it. You agreed and took your punishment. I gave my forgiveness and left. That was the extent of our agreement, if I understood it correctly.”

“What about my sucking your cock? Where did that fit in?” She turned bright red, flinching at her own words, but it was all she had left.

He dropped his gaze from hers for a moment before returning his attention to her. He’d been thinking about it. Good. Maybe he wasn’t made of steel after all.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I took advantage and I’m sorry for that, Naia.”

Their eyes locked for a brief moment where she felt she glimpsed him, the
real
him she remembered before she had made a mess of everything. She let her arms fall to her sides and her eyes filled with tears. “Liam,” she said, her voice small, unable to stop the assault of tears that poured down her cheeks.

* * *

Liam dropped his hands and watched Naia come apart. Against his better judgment, he walked to her and wrapped her in his arms, holding her tight to his chest, her face pressed against him. He could feel her tears through the thin fabric of his shirt and one hand came to cradle the back of her head as he rested his chin on the top of it.

“Jesus, Naia. Why the hell did you have to walk back into my life?”

That only served to turn the crying into full-out sobbing where her body began to shudder with her breath.

After some time, she stepped back and turned her face up to his. “I thought you hated me. That’s why I came back in here tonight, to tell you to go fuck yourself.”

He had to chuckle at that.

“Don’t laugh at me. You’re still a jerk. How could you do what you did, wind me up to the point you did, take your pleasure from me, and then walk out? How dare you?”

It was like she just remembered that she was mad. He laughed a deep, hearty laugh and when she raised her arm, ready to strike, her tears forgotten, he caught her wrist midair and held her at arms’ length. “I’m laughing because you’re funny. You just can’t let anyone else have the last word, can you? You have to say something. You had that at school too. Time to grow up, Naia,” he said, letting her go and turning to the monitors on his desk.

“What now?” she asked his back.

He punched a few keys on the keyboard and turned back to her. “What would you like now? Why are you here?”

“I thought that would be obvious to a grownup like you,
professor
.”

“Watch it or I’ll take you over my knee and this time, you won’t be sitting down for a week.”

“I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“You bet right,” he said, stepping toward her, his smile gone.

She took one step backward.

“Now are you ready to be a big girl and tell me what you want? Last time I’ll ask. I mean it.”

He studied her and he hoped to God she’d just do it. She’d just say what he wanted her to say, what he knew she wanted to say.

“I want… a chance,” she said, struggling to keep the façade of confidence in place. But he could see through it now, right down to that little eighteen-year-old girl who’d come into his classroom ten years ago and turned his life upside down.

“Go on.” He wanted it as bad as she did, but she needed to say it. She needed to grow up.

“I want a chance with you. I want what I wanted ten years ago but nothing stands in our way now. I want to be with you, Liam.”

He exhaled and one side of his mouth curved into a real smile, one that touched his eyes. But there was darkness behind them. She had no idea what he wanted or needed from a woman.

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking for. What you could be getting into with me.” No, no, no! His brain was yelling at him to take her into his arms, to make love to her and just hold her like he had wanted to ten years ago, like he had wanted to when he saw her again for the first time last week. Like he wanted to earlier this night.

“You mean all this?” she asked, gesturing toward the club.

“Yes. I mean all this. It’s who I am, Naia. It’s what I like, what I want and need.”

Just then the curtains on the stage opened and the crowd below gathered to the foot of it.

Shit. He’d forgotten about this. Well, this was as good a way as any for her to see exactly what she’d be getting into with him.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

His eyes followed hers. “A caning.”

“A what?” she asked, unbelieving.

“A caning. Between consenting adults. Nothing goes on at this club unless all parties consent and I approve.”

“You approved of a caning?”

“It’s a BDSM club.”

“Oh.”

The stage was set simply. In the center stood a bench with a padded top, with rings attached to the legs facing away from the audience and leather restraints attached to the ones closest to them. All around was lit with what seemed to be a thousand candles, setting an almost romantic glow to the proceedings. The crowd grew quiet as two men walked a petite young woman onto the stage. She was a pretty blonde who kept her gaze down rather than scanning the room. She wore a very thin white cotton dress that just came to the very tops of her thighs and even from this distance, Naia could see the darkened points of her nipples. They reached the bench and turned so she stood facing the crowd between the two and one of the men read out her sentence. She was to receive twenty strokes with the cane.

The girl didn’t struggle as the men turned her to face the bench. She leaned over it when one of the men placed a hand at her back, guiding her downward. She slipped her hands through the two rings on the back legs, having to come up on the balls of her feet to do so, and wrapped her hands around the padded legs of the bench. The men bent down to spread her legs and bind each ankle with the restraints.

“Why isn’t she fighting?” Naia asked, the realization that she was aroused watching this, watching this girl being prepared to be punished, unsettling.

“Because she wants the punishment,” Liam answered.

The men then lifted her short dress, if you could call it that, and it slid over her back, exposing her bottom fully to those gathered. With her legs spread as they were, she was completely and wholly displayed.

When the men moved away, the girl remained still.

“What’s it like? Caning?” she asked.

“It’s very painful, intense,” Liam answered, watching the scene on the stage.

“Isn’t twenty strokes a lot?” she asked, the number seemed too much to her.

“She has taken it before,” he said. “I know her dom. This was a final resort. Besides, he wouldn’t give her more than she could handle.”

“That’s comforting,” she said. “What if it
is
too much?” she pushed.

“Then she’ll use her safe word,” he answered.

“And if he doesn’t stop?”

“He will. There’s a certain level of trust between a dominant and his submissive, Naia. It’s essential in a relationship like this. In fact, if you compare a vanilla partnering to this sort of relationship, you quickly reach a depth of trust that many never do in what is considered a ‘normal’ coupling.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said defensively.

“Don’t you? Think about it some more.”

She let it drop. Truth was, she wasn’t sure at all that he wasn’t right. She would never have let Liam punish her if she hadn’t trusted him.

Back on the stage, one of the men hooked a microphone over the girl’s ear, adjusting the mouthpiece so her breathing was broadcast over the speakers.

“The microphone?” This was too much.

“A public punishment is very different from one dealt between a dom and his sub at home, in private.”

Naia remembered her own spanking just earlier this night and her face turned red. He must have observed the change as he continued.

“Mentally it’s already a lot to give yourself over to someone like that. You know for yourself how you felt when you followed my instructions, bared yourself, and assumed a position that granted me power over you. Knowing all along that you chose it. Remember one very important aspect of this is the very definition of submission. It is
willingly given
. The sub holds a great deal of power, no matter how it looks to the observer.”

She glanced at him for one moment then quickly turned her attention back to the girl. Yes, she knew very well, still felt the shame of those moments before he’d begun the actual act of punishing her. And had she chosen, in any moment, she could have stopped it.

“When a sub is punished as she will be, publically, it’s not a light matter and the lesson will be truly learned and understood. Most scenes involve some level of physical pain or discomfort at least, but both parties desire it, need it even. Tonight is different for her. Tonight is to punish the girl. Not only to take pleasure or give it, but to truly punish. It will be quite painful for her both physically and mentally. But it will also gratify her on a level you don’t yet understand. This is a lifestyle. It’s not only about sex.”

Naia wondered what he meant by
you don’t yet understand.

“So she’ll have no privacy at all. Not even to cry.” It was strange to her that this fact kindled her own growing fire.

“How do you feel about that? About what you will be a witness to? Shall I take you back to the hotel or would you like to stay and watch?” he asked.

She kept her eyes on the stage as she thought about her answer. She didn’t want to leave, that part was easy. But how did she truly feel about what was happening? Habit wasn’t an option with Liam. Everything was so new with him and so foreign to her that she had no point of reference. It forced her to truly consider her feelings. “I feel afraid for her. I don’t know that he’ll really stop and she won’t have any say about it. But also, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this…” She turned to meet his eyes. “I want to watch. I don’t want to leave.”

He held her gaze. “If it were me, would you trust that I would stop?”

“Yes.” She didn’t have to think about that one.

He smiled a satisfied smile. “Then know that she trusts him to know how far to take her. Any experienced dom knows not to go past that edge but to play it, to ride that delicate line. That power is a part of the thrill for us.”

Once the girl was prepared, the men left and another man, a smaller, older man, came onto the stage carrying the long, thin cane. She’d expected someone big, not this man. But the cane in his hand made her heartbeat quicken and the girl on the stage seemed to suddenly be holding her breath.