The Enticement: The Submissive Series (15 page)

“Wealthy, drunk, high-society wife who also happens to be the submissive of her CEO husband.” He closed his eyes, deep in thought; then he looked at me. “Like I said, it was wrong of me to judge you.”

“You said you did it before. Do you often run into drunk, wealthy, high-society submissives?”

He laughed, though there seemed to be a hint of sadness clouding his amusement. “Just once before. Though she wasn’t drunk.”

“The blonde with the skin you like to mark?”

All traces of joviality left his face, and I realized I’d guessed right on both accounts. There was a sadness in him and it was tied to the blonde.

“Yes,” he said simply. “Her.”

Her.

He spoke it quietly and though it was a small word, it held a lot of weight and I wondered how long he’d been carrying that particular burden. Still, I wasn’t one to pry and he didn’t seem to be the sort to chatter.

He turned his face to look out the window and I studied his profile. Such rugged and handsome features. What had happened between him and his blond submissive with the fair skin to put such sadness in his eyes?

I had a sudden urge to track whoever it was down. Jeff seemed like such a strong and steadfast man, plus he was a firm and commanding Dominant. But we all had our own stories and people saw only what we wanted them to see for the most part. Whatever had happened between Jeff and the blonde was between them.

“You’re a lot alike,” he said out of the blue. “Wealthy, sassy, strong.”

“I’ll admit to sassy and strong, but I married into wealth.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Though I’d have married Nathaniel if he were a pauper.”

“She used to say the same. That it was just money.” He snorted. “I always thought it was easy to call it
just money
when you had plenty of it.”

“True.”

“I’m sorry.” He turned back to me and gave a half smile, though I saw right through it. “I didn’t mean to make the conversation about me.”

I leveled my gaze at him. “Does she know?”

“Know what?”

“That you still love her.”

He looked stunned, like he couldn’t believe I’d correctly nailed his feelings. But he was saved from having to answer by Nathaniel’s return.

“All traces of ginger gone,” he said, walking into the living room. “Jeff, can I get you something to drink?”

Jeff stood up and I wasn’t sure, but he looked relieved he didn’t have to reply to my question. “No, I better be on my way.”

I stood to walk with him to the door. Nathaniel came alongside me and put his arm around my waist. I sighed in contentment.

Jeff shook Nathaniel’s hand. “It was an honor being invited this afternoon. Thank you.”

“I’m glad it worked out for you to join us.”

Jeff smiled at me. “Abby, it was a privilege and thank you for the lessons you taught me.” He winked. “And by the way, you’re no lightweight.”

We said our good-byes to Jeff and Nathaniel led me to the bedroom. Apparently, when I’d been talking with Jeff, he’d been busy. Soft piano music greeted me when he opened the door. He’d pulled the shades so the room was dim and one of the trays that had been delivered earlier was in the middle of the bed.

“Looks like you did more than wash your hands, Master,” I said, taking note of the pillows piled on top of the bed.

“You never got to eat,” he said, pulling me forward. “And I wanted to give you time to talk with Jeff.”

“You never ate
and
you didn’t climax.”

He turned me so we faced each other and he pressed his forehead to mine. “You worry about me too much, Abigail. You need to focus on doing what I ask and leave the rest to me.”

“I love you; of course I’m going to worry.” I pressed my lips to his in a soft kiss. “Besides, you need to keep up your strength.”

He smiled against my lips. “Trust me. When it comes to you, I have enough strength for half a dozen men.”

“Half a dozen, Master?”

“Maybe a dozen.”

“That seems more likely.”

He pulled away and I was struck anew by the love and desire in his eyes. “Now come with me and we’ll have a little picnic in bed. And if you’re really worried about my strength, you can feed me a bite or two.”

I felt almost giddy climbing into bed. He propped me up on the pillows and fluffed a few around me. I felt like a princess.

“Take the robe off, Abigail.”

Okay, I felt like a naked princess. But I shrugged out of the robe, just slightly peeved that he kept his clothes on. Not that I minded being naked; I just wanted him to be naked, too. I enjoyed looking at his body, imagining all the things he could do to me, remembering the way he tasted.

“Are you with me?” he asked. “You look like you’re someplace else.”

“I’m imagining you naked.”

“I’d rather be naked, but you had an intense afternoon and you need some rest.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I feel fine.”

He lifted the dome off the tray and started filling a plate with almonds and blue cheese. “You don’t know what I have planned for tomorrow.”

That was enough to shut me up and he laughed at my shocked
expression. “Don’t look so scared. You handled today—you can take tomorrow.”

His mention of the next day reminded me of a question I had. “I was thinking, if you didn’t have other plans for me in the morning, that I’d call Julie and see if I could interview her for the blog.”

“Julie, Daniel’s submissive?” He fed me an almond.

I chewed, then said, “Yes, she’s new to the lifestyle and recently collared. I thought she’d make a nice contrast to my normal posts.”

“You mean since you’re a veteran and have been collared forever?”

I took the block of cheese he handed me. “Something like that.”

“I don’t have a problem with that. I can arrange what I had planned for another day.” He took a sip of wine. “In fact, I think that’s a great idea and will mesh nicely with what I have planned.”

“I don’t even want to know, do I?”

“Probably not.”

*   *   *

I
met Julie late the next morning at a café not far from the hotel. She’d obviously been at work at her flower shop; she wore a pink polo shirt with P
ETAL
P
USHERS
embroidered on the front.

“Love the name of your shop,” I said, sitting down in a plush brown chair.

“Thanks. We wanted something people would remember.” She took a sip of her latte and sighed. “Mmm, that is so good. We’ve been so busy this morning, I didn’t even get a chance to make a pot. And I stayed at Daniel’s last night and we got up late . . . Well, it was late when we got out of bed. We actually woke up early.”

Her matter-of-fact attitude about it made me smile. “I remember those days.”

“You say that like you don’t have them anymore.”

“We really don’t. It’s hard with the kids and all.”

She nodded and took another sip of her latte. “How’s the week going?”

“Good. Lots of new experiences. I’ll have plenty to write about—that’s for sure.” I took out my notebook and flipped it open to a blank page. “Like I said on the phone, I want to keep this really casual. I won’t use your name or anything that can identify you and if you don’t want to answer a particular question, you won’t hurt my feelings. You said you met Daniel when he came into your flower shop. Did you know he was a Dom then?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I had no idea, but when he left, my friend and business partner, Sasha, tried to steer me away from him.”

“Didn’t work, did it?” I asked with a grin.

“No.” Her smile was full of the love she felt for her Dominant. “We couldn’t stay away from each other. Even though it wasn’t until I attended a group meeting with Sasha that I discovered he was a Dom.”

“You went to a group meeting?”

“I’d always been curious and Sasha was . . . is a submissive.”

“I see,” I said, even though I wasn’t clear on the Sasha details; was she a sub or wasn’t she?

“Daniel introduced me to the lifestyle slowly and carefully. Sometimes, I think I’m ready for things, but he holds me back and makes me wait. I don’t always like it, but I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t almost always right.”

“Pesky Doms.”

She laughed. “Yes.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you and Daniel been together?”

“About four or five months.” She ran a finger along the edge of her collar. “I’ve been collared for about a month.”

I nodded and jotted that down. To be honest, I had no idea she was so new to the lifestyle. But her enthusiasm was like a breath of fresh air.

“You really have embraced your submissive nature,” I said. “Was it easy to accept?”

“Hell, no.” She laughed. “I actually turned my back on it for a while. But it felt like I was living a lie. I couldn’t give it up and still be me, you know? It was almost as if I was playacting at not being submissive.”

I jotted her words down. “That’s an interesting way to put it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe it quite that way. But it’s true—it would be like a part of yourself was missing.”

She nodded. “I’d have lost Daniel, too. He said he’d still have dated me even if I wasn’t submissive, but I couldn’t have asked him to ignore that side of his nature.”

“I don’t have to ask what it’s like having your first Dom be so much more experienced than you are. I was like that, too.”

“I think it’s better someone knows what they’re doing,” she said with a laugh. “That’s one of the benefits of belonging to a group—you get to pull from everyone’s experiences. The only problem with ours is like I told you—there aren’t any long-term couples.”

“That is a shame. Our group in New York has several.”

“Including you,” she said.

“We haven’t been very active the last few years. Since the kids were born.”

“You’re still around if someone needs you though. That counts for something. And you’re helping a lot of people with the blog. I hope I can help people one day.”

Julie was easy to talk with; she was down-to-earth,
intelligent, and lively. It didn’t take much to see why she’d captured the eye of someone like Daniel.

“You’re helping now,” I told her. “With the interview. Who knows? Maybe there’ll be a woman browsing through blogs looking for someone who’s taken the leap and she’ll come across the piece I write on you.”

She smiled and twirled her coffee cup. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

The café was relatively quiet with only a few people inside with us. We’d been talking in low voices and Julie had just finished sharing about her collaring ceremony when the door opened and we both jumped.

“Julie!” a tall, willowy blond woman called, approaching our corner seats. “Sasha said I’d find you here. Sorry to interrupt. Can I speak to you for a minute?”

Julie jumped up. “Are you okay?”

Whoever the woman was, she looked beautiful in an ethereal, angelic way. Her blond hair danced around her shoulders in loose waves and her eyes were a warm blue. She spoke animatedly to Julie for several minutes while I checked messages on my phone to give them privacy. The two ladies hugged and turned to me once again.

“Hi, I’m Dena,” the blonde said. “Again, I’m so sorry to crash like this, but I’m traveling the rest of the week and had to speak to Julie.”

I shook her hand. “Abby, and don’t worry about it. I think we were just about finished anyway.”

“No, no, don’t stop because of me. I’m really going. And thank you, Julie. I’ll call you when I’m back in town.”

“Speak soon,” Julie said. “I won’t mention anything to Daniel, but I still think you should tell Jeff.”

My head spun to Dena at Julie’s comment.
Jeff?
No way, it
couldn’t be. The fact that she was blond was just a coincidence. But the look on Dena’s face made me think maybe it was more. Her expression was a copy of the one Jeff had worn just the day before.

“I know I should,” Dena said. “But I can’t. I just . . . can’t.”

Julie looked just as sad. “Call me.”

The atmosphere had changed when we sat down after Dena left. Julie looked a bit shaken. She picked at the remnant of her blueberry scone.

“Everything okay?” I asked. I didn’t want to pry, but clearly something had upset her.

“Yeah. It goes back to what we were saying earlier. When you lie to yourself, you’re just playacting and it always leads to trouble.” She leaned forward with her head in her hands. “And I told her I wouldn’t tell Daniel.”

I thought that had
bad idea
written all over it, and even though we weren’t close, I felt I still needed to say something. “It’s none of my business, but I’m going to give you some advice anyway.”

She looked up. “I have a feeling I know what you’re going to say.”

“Then let me say it. I’d be very careful about keeping things from Daniel. It’s a slippery slope you don’t want to start down, because you’ll find you have a hard time working your way back up to the top.”

“I know. You’re right.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t like it if Daniel kept things from me. But I also gave Dena my word.”

I could almost see the emotions battling inside her as she tried to decide what to do. She sighed and I knew she wasn’t going to tell him. Her decision hung in the air for several long seconds.

“Well,” I finally said. “I can’t leave on a down note, so let me ask one more question.”

“Hit me with it,” she said, and some spark of her previous joviality returned to her eyes.

“Favorite thing Daniel wears in the playroom and you can’t say nothing. We all like our Doms naked.”

She laughed. “How did you know I was going to say that?”

“Because I know what I’d say.” I picked up the notebook and pen. “So? What’s it going to be?”

She leaned back into the chair and crossed her arms. “Give me a second. I have to think. When I tell you, will you tell me what yours is?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, it’s a tough call, but my favorite is when he wears a white dress shirt. I don’t care if it’s part of a suit or if he’s wearing it with jeans. Definitely a white dress shirt.”

I jotted that down. “You know the next question: why?”

“When we’re in the playroom and he’s wearing one and he slowly unbuttons his cuffs”—her voice had a breathy quality to it as she spoke—“his eyes are on mine and he begins to roll the sleeve up. Carefully. Methodically. All the while watching me. To see him preparing for whatever it is he’s going to do makes me all quivery inside. And then once he has it rolled up, you can see just a hint of muscle and you know that within minutes those muscles are going to be put to work for my pleasure?” She sighed. “White dress shirt. No question.”