The Contract (Nightlong #1) (18 page)

“You’ve got these dimples in your lower back and when you sit at the table and lean forward to apply make-up, they show. They’re lovely.”

I flushed deep crimson and smiled. “I’ll sign–this–it. Okay.”

I scribbled my name with my heart so firmly lodged in my mouth, I could hardly breathe let alone form words. My ribs were in pain, my heart smashing so hard. I tossed him the paper and ran from the coffee shop as he shouted my name, my real name, Ciara. I ran for the bus and once I was safely seated onboard, I smiled.

Oh, I smiled.

I just knew… I had to give that man time to heal whatever it was he was working on healing.

Oh, if I could just get to the bottom of him… have him in my arms for just a few minutes, I’d die so happy. So, so happy.

Never mind the fact he was rescuing me from a horrible shared house, a day job I hated, a night job which kind of made me too tired for the day job, not to mention that I’d get out of paying bills and I could buy whatever I wanted… do whatever I wanted…

I was still afraid, oh I was, but I was hopeful. I’d get to see him everyday and maybe one day, hold him close and kiss him. My pelvic floor roiled with just the thought of him kissing me, tugging me close.

Me, holding his hair in my hands. Feeling his breath on my skin. His fingers on my face.

I stepped off the bus that evening and dashed past my housemates, running straight to my bedroom upstairs. I locked the door and threw off all my clothes, looking in the wardrobe mirror at my naked body. He was right, I did have deep dimples in my lower back.

I touched them and imagined him touching me.

I laid on my bed with my legs spread wide and touched myself for the first time in my life, thinking of Dante with his hand around his cock, his eyes focused on me as he pleasured himself. Such angry, deep-green eyes and those big manly hands, veins popping.

I imagined him kissing my breasts and licking them slowly, gently. I became very aroused quickly, experiencing something I never had before. It made me so hungry for his love. A sleepy spirit inside of me had awoken and I became aware of the purring lioness I really was, desperately in need of a tussle in the grass with her tiger.

“Dante,” I moaned, as I came, and came again – for him, because of him – maybe even with him. (If he was across town doing the same thing.)

Oh, Dante.

It was the perfect name to cry out as I came, shuddering and clutching my thighs together around my hand.

2010

IT WAS THE FIRST NIGHT he visited me at the Knightsbridge house for
that purpose
. To be spanked, I guessed. He had a key for the basement room and I didn’t honestly know what to expect when he showed up for our first home session – because I hadn’t seen the dungeon yet.

I was ludicrously happy, however. Happy to be living in a house he was taking care of for me. Happy he had given me an expenses account on top of that. Happy he was in my life: full stop.

I had a huge double bed in my bedroom, large closet space… all the stuff I could ever need in the kitchen. Appliances galore. The shower in my en suite kind of sucked but I was in heaven… and no other stinky housemates to share my space with!

He finally showed me into the dungeon in the basement and it was gothic, sort of even medieval, with metal loops nailed into the walls at strategic points and dull lighting. He had a gymnastics box, one of those vaulting boxes. I didn’t know what for! There was a plain wooden cross on one wall and on another, just some leather cuffs attached to the wall where I assumed his hands and feet would go.

“What do you think?” he asked.

I felt overwhelmed and expressed as much. “I’ve never done hardcore BDSM. It’s all new to me. I just did a lot of role play at Miss Lindy’s.”

He nodded, a little disappointed. “There’s no rush, is there?”

I hopped up onto the vaulting box and kicked my legs back and forth. “Why do you do this, if you don’t mind me asking? And why pay out so much, for little old me?”

“Maybe I think you’re a sound investment.”

“You’d know about investments, wouldn’t you? Being all… I don’t know…”

“A businessman, you mean?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, trying to keep my eyes from straying to his healthy sized package. I also meant that he seemed cold and calculated – treating me like my being in his life was just ‘a deal’, when I was actually in his life because I wanted to be.

He strode around the room and told me, “When you’ve got a job as stressful as mine, you can’t come home and sling the TV on, sink a beer and that be it. I can’t explain how stressful it really is but let me say, the sort of release I need comes only from being broken open. I’ve had other girls spank me, big deal… but now, I want much more from you. We’ve made a deal and I’ll let you enjoy this house, live as you please… and in exchange you’ll protect my secrecy and keep all this confidential. You’ll help me rescind my daily worries as you, pardon the term, destroy all my willpower.”

I shook my head, trying to get my mind around what he was saying. Half of me thought all this was a little far-fetched but he seemed to be taking it very seriously.

“Destroy all your willpower?” I said, in a deadpan way.

“Yes. There’s nothing like destroying a man to make him want to get back up and fight.”

I looked around the room, assessing all the implements of torture he wanted me to use on him. I could honestly think of easier ways of destroying his willpower. Like licking from his belly button to his throat and trailing my tongue up and around his jaw and to his earlobe. My fantasies about Dante had been running out of control since I’d signed his dumb-arse contract.

“Make you bend to my will, you mean?” I asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“I can do that,” I said, sounding confident.

“We can take this slow,” he reminded me.

“Maybe in time, I really will own you, you know?” I picked a nail and he nodded, a sort of grimace on his face.

“Maybe…” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stood there, staring across the room at me.

I smiled lazily and told him, “I call bullshit.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “You’re no way submissive. Nuh-uh. No way.”

“I am in here. In this room.”

“Then in here,” I gesticulated, referencing the room in which we were, “you’re bullshitting yourself you’re not the dominant you really are. I mean, look at you–”

“Ciara,” he growled slightly.

“Cleo,” I reminded him, because I wanted to live a secret life, too.

“Cleo,” he said with authority, “you’ll spank me and that’s an end to all this consternation.”

“Yes, I will spank you,” I agreed, “but while I’m spanking you, I’ll be thinking about you really being a dominant, and you’ll be thinking the same. Don’t ever imagine you have one over me, because you don’t. I see straight through you.”

“Right,” he exclaimed, “that’s enough spanking for tonight. Go to your room!”

“Okay,
Dad
,” I shrilled, feeling sarcastic.

I ran away and up the stairs, laughing my head off.

I thought he was absolutely full of shit.

Ten minutes later he found me on the bed reading and stood at the doorway. “Tomorrow night, you will spank me.”

I nodded even though I felt petulant. “Oh, if I must then.”

“Oh, and as part of your education, we’ll spend weekends in Paris and attend a club I know. You can watch how other people do it.”

“Whatever, man. Whatever you say.”

“By the way,” he kicked the floor, “why do you think I’m a dominant?”

I smiled. “Even when you say I’m in charge, you’re still really in charge. You nailed that contract to the wall, remember?”

“Only to remind you of your role.”

“My role is to masquerade as a dominant woman. I’m playing by your rules, not mine. Which means I’m not exactly the one in charge, am I?”

“I need to be spanked, Cleo,” he ground out.

I rose to my feet and pointed at him. “Fine, you make the rules. But you know what? Keep trying to tell yourself you’re not a dominant. It’s in the way you stand solid, the way you never shy away from looking me in the eye except when you mean to lie. The way you pinned that contract to the wall… I mean if that’s not your way of staking ownership over a woman, I don’t know what is!”

“You signed it!” he growled.

“Yes, I did,” I bit back with vigour, “because somebody has got to remind you how to be human, and for some reason that incredibly pointless responsibility has landed on me.”

I threw myself back onto my bed and he stood gnashing his teeth. Eventually he left the house, slamming the door on his way out.

Even when he was gone, you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.

He wasn’t just lying to me, he was lying to himself. This Irish bitch was strong and if he wanted someone to pick a fight with, oh he’d picked the right woman. Oh boy, had he!

***

WHEN he returned to the house the next day, I was more than ready for him. I’d had hours to make up a little game for him to play and when he walked through the front door, I made it clear there’d be no messing about and we were to get down to it right away.

In the dungeon I made him kneel shirtless, a nail varnish brush held between his teeth. The cheap varnish a vile black colour which never painted well, he was continually making a mess of painting my toes – and he was doing it on purpose.

“Oh, no, you’ve made another mess. Start again!” I bellowed.

Using a common or garden belt I usually paired with jeans, I strapped him one across the back and he grunted, showing me those angry green eyes as he pulled out some more cotton swabs and the nail varnish remover.

“Good, now start again. More mistakes… more pain.”

After maybe twenty lashes, he looked at me with tired eyes. “I’m all spanked out.”

I reached into my pocket and produced a nice red varnish which I wore often. “Okay, well, why don’t you use this nice polish and do my toes and fingers for me properly, then?”

He nodded submissively and I wasn’t sure if I liked or hated that look of defeat in his eyes. I wanted him strong, not weak. I wanted to know what he was thinking.

“Trixy said people have safe words. Do we need one?” I asked Dante as he got to work, using his hands to paint me this time.

“We could do with one, but I doubt I’ll ever need to use it.”

“Pick one, then.”

“Daltrey,” he said, his hands shaking as he painted my fingernails.

“Daltrey?”

“It’s a word. Just a word.”

He continued to paint my nails very well and I avoided looking at his back where I’d beaten him hard, but not too hard. He wore just his suit trousers and socks and I wore leather jeans and a boob tube. How we weren’t fucking already, I didn’t know. He was absolutely beautiful and it was clear I wanted him badly. Part of me thought I was just a toy to him, nothing more.

“Really nice,” I said afterwards, admiring his handiwork on my nails.

“I wasn’t too bad at art, when I was at school I mean,” he said, screwing the cap back on.

He stood up to walk away and collect his shirt, when I noticed how raw his back looked.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” I screamed, hating myself.

He swirled round and frowned, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re almost bleeding. Why didn’t you stop me?”

He swallowed and shook his head. “It’s not bad, at all. Looks worse than it is.”

“Upstairs, now,” I demanded.

I took him into my bedroom and rinsed a washcloth with cold water, sitting behind him on the bed to cool his skin, which hadn’t shown any marks as I struck him earlier, but was starting to turn purple now.

“It feels good,” he said, “the endorphins the body makes in response to pain help me feel relaxed.”

“Well I don’t feel relaxed, I feel horrible,” I said, and began to cry.

“Cleo, c’mon,” he said, “I’m a grown man, it’s nothing. Let me braid your hair or something. It’ll make me happy.”

“Braid my hair?” I said, laughing through tears.

“Yes, that’s what you sometimes used to let men do at Miss Lindy’s wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but… I never thought you would want to.”

He turned and eyed me. “Of course I want to touch your hair.”

“Let me rub some cream on you, first.”

I grabbed some Sudocrem from the bathroom, not sure if it was the right thing for Dante’s marks, but he didn’t tell me it wasn’t so I smoothed a thin layer of cream all over his emerging welts.

Why was this man, a man I loved with all my bones, asking me to hurt him?

“Thank you,” he said, when I was done rubbing him. “Now, sit.”

I sat at the stool in front of my dressing table and he knelt behind me. Dante was so tall, at least six-three, he didn’t need anything to hoist himself up high enough to reach for my hair.

I passed him a brush and as he started to comb through my long locks, I shut my eyes and smiled, the little act he was performing so relaxing. He never said a word as he spent more than half an hour brushing my hair.

Eventually he began plaiting it into a large braid running down the left side of my head and I passed him a hair tie when he asked for one.

“There we go, now we’re both all better,” he said, and kissed my cheek before standing up. “Fuck, my leg’s gone dead.”

I giggled, admiring my plait in the mirror, while also peering at him with one eye as he waited by the side of the bed for the dead leg to liven up.

All I wanted was to put my arms around him and hold him close, tell him he didn’t have to be like this anymore. He didn’t have to live a life like this.

Somehow I knew he wasn’t the sort of man to be told what to do. I also knew he was fucking crazy, giving me that contract.

I watched him throw his shirt back on and I stroked my plait as he got himself dressed again. If this was all he wanted me to do every night, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

“I’ve found a salon I think you’ll like. Your hair is in very good condition but I want it long enough to cover your lower back. Regular trims make it grow quicker, yes?”

“What?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”

“To cover my… lower back?” I repeated.

“I’ll set it up for you, if you like? Sexton will drive you.”

“What if I don’t want really long hair?”

“Why wouldn’t you want really long hair? Your hair’s beautiful.”

Again, with the compliments. I had to swallow my surprise and try to find words to reply with. “It’s the upkeep. Washing, drying, all that… it’s long already and difficult enough to keep in good condition.”

“Let the salon wash and dry it for you, then?”

“What? Like, everyday!”

“No, how about every other day?”

I grimaced. “I… I don’t feel comfortable with that. I’m already taking a lot from you. I don’t know if I want–”

“I’ll sort it out, don’t worry Cleo.”

He walked out of the room and reminded me, “Don’t forget the delivery people are coming tomorrow morning to bring some furniture for my room. I doubt I’ll be sleeping here, but it’s for just in case, you know?”