Unrestrained (9 page)

“I’m sorry. I didn’t anticipate my reaction to you intersecting with . . .”

“You owe no one an apology for being in love with your husband, Athena. You gave a hundred and twenty percent to every part of the vow. I’m honored that I’m the first you’re trusting with all of this. Ready to look at the inside?”

“I’m not sure.” She gave a half laugh, then shook herself. “Of course. We can go in through the sunroom.”

“All right.”

He rose, held out his hand. When she offered hers, he laced their fingers, gave her a smile and tugged her to her feet. As he opened the sunroom door, he released her, but only so that he could shift the touch to the small of her back, grazing her hip as she moved inside.

The sunroom was more of a nook, her favorite reading spot. It held one roomy easy chair, a side table and a walnut portable heating unit, a rug laid on the floor before it. There was a small bookshelf that held both her electronic reader in its charger and some print selections, the latest in her reading list. There was enough wall space for a couple of paintings, watercolor studies of anemones.

Roy had called it her nest. On rainy days in particular she loved sitting here reading, watching the drops slide down the glass and the garden view change with the movement of the wind. In the past couple of years, she’d spent a lot of her time at home here, wrapped in a blanket, dozing over her books, wishing she never had to leave the room, never face the emptiness of the rest of the house.

“That statue . . . it’s quite wonderful, but I’m not perfect, Dale.” She felt a little foolish, stating the obvious. It made her sound egotistical.

As Dale turned toward her, he hooked a thumb in his jeans pocket. “But you strive to be, in all aspects of your life. Where do you relinquish control, Athena?”

Because of the size of the room, he stood close to her, the walls behind each of them reinforcing that proximity. When he shifted toward her, the smallness of the room increased considerably. The forest green color of his shirt filled her vision. “I’m thinking you carve out pockets of time,” he continued. “Like when you’re in this room, reading a book for your own pleasure or looking at your garden. It’s your space, your time. That’s your moment to breathe. But that’s not the same as putting yourself in someone’s hands, letting them take the reins, is it?”

She shook her head, though she wasn’t sure how to answer his initial question. He didn’t press her for a response, however. Instead, he clasped her hand again. “I certainly hope you aren’t perfect. Else I’ll have to make shit up to punish you.”

The comment startled a laugh out of her, and his eyes twinkled. “Doesn’t that break some kind of Dom code?” she asked.

“Not mine. Now show me the house, woman. It looks like it’ll take days to get through it.”

“Hardly.” But she took the lead at his gesture, and began to familiarize him with the different rooms. Library, parlor, living areas, kitchen, bathrooms.

She mentioned polite details about the uses of the rooms, things she might have told any guest. After a few comments, he shifted his grip to her wrist, gave it a squeeze. “No more talking, Athena, unless it’s something I need to know. Be quiet and let me form my own impressions.”

He’d done the same in the gardens, only here he clearly had a different agenda. As they proceeded, she thought she might be watching how he approached missions. Evaluating terrain, resources, contingencies. Only this mission was one that involved her intimately.

He examined the tools Lynn had in the kitchen, drawing out a broad pancake spatula and slapping it against the flat of his hand, making her jump. He paid her no mind, however, putting the spatula back and moving to the refrigerator. On its stainless steel surface, Lynn kept a magnet clip to hold reminders of the week’s menu. He removed the clip, checked its grip on his fingers. Opened the freezer to study the shape and size of the ice in the icemaker.

With everything he noticed, her mind filled with provocative images. Him putting her on her stomach on the butcher block table, tying her arms and legs to it so he could apply that spatula for her “less than perfect” moments. Letting the ice glide along her back, melt and trickle down the valley of her spine as she wiggled and squirmed. He’d give her several more sharp slaps for moving. When her clit was engorged, he’d clamp the magnet clip on it, making her beg for mercy from the discomfort and overwhelming sensation at once.

They moved on to the bathrooms. He tested the strength of the shower rod and filled up the Jacuzzi tub the few inches necessary to run the jets. Reaching down, he ran his fingers over them, checking the water pressure and how easy it was to adjust the direction of the stream. In turn, she saw herself on her back in the tub, her knees pulled up over the side, her arms tied to the safety bar on the wall as he held her spread legs centered in front of a jet until she came, screaming from the inexorable water pressure.

“How many of these tubs do you have? Are they the same model?”

“Three.” Her throat was dry. “Yes.”

When they reached the second level, she showed him the guest bedrooms as well as the upstairs library she used as her home office for days when she worked here, on either Summers Industries’ matters or fund-raising efforts. He studied the neat arrangement of her desk, her closed laptop. In the guest bedroom, he ran his fingers over the sturdy wood posts of the canopy bed. Another guest bed had a wrought iron head- and footboard. He spent extra time with that one, lifting the mattress and box spring to see horizontal supports beneath. Without the bedding, the thing looked like a medieval instrument of torture. Her heart thumped a little faster, thinking of the more extreme things she’d seen done at the club with racks.

There was only one more room on this hallway, but when he moved toward it, she spoke for the first time. He’d told her to speak when there was something he needed to know, after all.

“Not that room,” she said. “It’s our bedroom. I mean, my bedroom.”

He paused. “I’d like to see what your private space looks like. It tells me important things about you.”

“I . . . Not this visit. All right?”

He gave her a close look, but he nodded, moving past her and back toward the stairs. When they reached them, he moved down the steps first. She thought about putting her hand on his shoulder, using that broad expanse to steady her descent.

She’d offered to pay him to avoid this, this confusing mix of the emotional with . . . what she was seeking. Okay, what she sought was emotional, but it was supposed to have limited boundaries. It had to, right? This felt . . . out of control. Things were getting mixed-up again.

She sank down on the top step, staring at him. Though he was several steps below her, he stopped immediately, proving how aware he was of her. He turned, one foot braced above the other, his hand on the rail. “You move like you have two real feet,” she said. “I wouldn’t have even known.”

“Yeah.” Coming back up the steps, he sat next to her, the stair wide enough to accommodate them both, though their hips were brushing. He bent his leg to put his hands on the toe and heel of his boot. The prosthesis was a tight fit down in the boot, because it took him a moment to work it off. When he did, her eyes widened.

“Oh. I guess I expected it to look . . .”

“Like a foot? Yeah, some do. I think at some point they realized it was far more important to make it work like a foot than to look like one. You saw that guy that ran in the Olympics with the blades? The guy who designed those based them on a cheetah’s back legs.”

She studied the prosthesis, momentarily distracted from her agitation. A pair of rectangular metal plates formed the “foot,” the upper one curving up to form an “ankle” with a coil between the plates for shock absorption and to provide different adjustments that would allow it to articulate like a foot and ankle.

“There’s computer programming in it, to help with different terrain and propulsion. You can adjust the ankle height for different shoes, so I can wear my boots. I was really lucky. Even with my benefits, I couldn’t have afforded something like this, but I got into a special prototype study. Having the ability to flex the ankle piece gives me more options on everything, even something as simple as wearing boots. When you’re wearing a prosthesis that can’t flex, you can’t really wear a shoe or boot that goes above the ankle.”

“It’s remarkable.” She reached out toward it, then hesitated. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be rude.”

“You have my permission to touch, Athena. At least my Lee Majors leg.”

That attractive crinkle at the corners of his eyes almost made her smile. Sitting here on the steps like a pair of kids, things were easier. She touched the metal, followed it up above the ankle, where it attached to a rod.

“That goes up to the socket, where my knee rests.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Only if the socket is fitted wrong or I do the wrong things. You also have to change out the stump socks at different times, use different thicknesses, because your leg changes shape throughout the day.” He shrugged. “Like anything else, once you figure out how to maintain the equipment, it becomes routine. I shower only at night, because if I do it in the morning, my socket doesn’t fit right.”

“So no morning showers together.”

“Unless we’re planning to go back to bed for the day.” His gaze heated on her, and the uncertain feeling returned. She clasped her hands together as he replaced the boot, pulled down the cuff of his jeans. When he straightened, he put his hand on the banister, his other resting loosely on his knee. “Are you reconsidering, Athena?”

She shook her head, then nodded. Then shook it again. Laughed at herself.

“If it was just about sex, it would be easy,” he said quietly. “Where you’ve been, your marriage, you can’t do dating or casual anymore. Right?”

She nodded, swamped by a sudden sick feeling. She’d been too craven; he was about to call it off. But then he curled his hand over hers on her knees. “Everything you’ve told me today, everything I’ve seen, tells me you’re what I call a power sub. You crave submission, but it takes a hell of a firm and steady hand to bring you to that level of trust, because in order to please everyone, you’ve had to stay in control of every freaking detail. That’s why I asked you about relinquishing control. To make it work, Athena, you’re going to have to learn how to do that. And as you do, no matter what limits you and I set, a lot of emotional stuff is going to unfold.”

A hell of a firm and steady hand.
Those mesmerizing blue-green eyes projected a thrilling danger quality when he said that. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to run toward or away from it. She looked at her hands, twisted back into a knot beneath his, and sighed. “I’m sorry, Dale. I’ve been a Domme for so long, but here I am, one moment acting like a newbie sub, so high on the idea of a Master that I don’t care about contracts or limits. The next moment, you see my closed bedroom door and I want to make you leave, pretend I never did this.”

He shrugged, unoffended. “As far as experience, you
are
a newbie sub, which is why you were smart, choosing to work with an experienced Dom.”

“I didn’t really choose at all. I just saw you and knew . . . felt, that was what I wanted. In that moment.”

“An intuitive choice is still a choice. Sometimes better than a conscious one, especially for this.” He leaned against her shoulder, nudging her. “I’ll keep you safe, Athena. I can help you manage those initial feelings. You just have to trust me, girl.”

She turned her gaze up toward his attentive face then. Reaching out, she caressed his jaw, her fingertips touching his hair, the shape of his ear, the pulse in his throat. Those few sensations alone overwhelmed her. He watched her, not stopping her, but not encouraging, either. She withdrew her hand.

“I’m sorry. I . . . wanted to touch you.”

“Then you should ask me properly, Athena.”

Despite giving her the structure, the boundary, he had heat in those blue-green eyes, reminding her of his arousal in the gazebo. He would remain in absolute control, but he wanted her. He wasn’t detached at all. It was a heady awareness. Those “rash feelings” would help her move forward where she wanted to go, no matter how that path frightened her. But he’d told her he’d keep her safe.

A proper request came with a proper address, but he hadn’t given her specific direction on that. Perhaps he was waiting to see what would come most naturally to her.

“Please . . . may I touch you . . . sir?”

“No. But I’m going to touch you.”

Closing his hands on her upper arms, he pressed her back against the stairs, shifting so his knee pressed into the stretch fabric of the skirt, pinning her there. He loomed over her in the dim light of the stairwell, broad shoulders filling her gaze, his scent around her. When he leaned down, her helpless fingers curled against his sides, digging into his shirt.

“No touching me, Athena. Let go.”

She opened her fingers, so aware of how close he was to her. At first she thought he was going to kiss her, and she froze, but he moved lower, and that feeling eased. His chest slid against her breasts, then his mouth was on the pulse pounding heavily in her neck. The first contact of his lips made her shudder like a climax, intensified by his requirement that she simply lie there, held down by his strength, hands open and empty at his command. He traced that pulse with his tongue, making her whole body strain toward his without movement. When his hip bone pressed against her mound, she moaned.

He raised his head, his eyes holding hers. “You’re not sure about kissing yet. You tensed.”

“I—”

“I wasn’t asking a question, Athena.”

He bent again, moved to her jaw. Her skin was on fire, flame racing across her breasts, her thighs. “How do you masturbate, Athena? With a vibrator? Your hand?”

“V-vibrator.”

“Efficient, just like you. Until I come back for our first proper session, you won’t be using it. If you wish to have an orgasm that I haven’t ordered, you’ll use your hand. Your nondominant one.” He lifted her left hand, telling her he’d noticed she was right-handed. “If you can’t bring yourself to a climax with it within five minutes, you have to stop, and you can’t try again for twenty-four hours. You understand?”