“Hold on. You’re not going to pass me around to other Dominants or something, are you?”
“No.” He smiled. The damn, sexy smile that dampened her panties. “I do not share well with others. I should say, I don’t share at all. Not my desserts, not my implements, and damn sure not my submissives. The only time I will allow a submissive of mine to play with another Top is if that Top is skilled in something I’m not, I trust the Top not to harm my submissive, and the submissive must ask me for permission. I will never volunteer my submissive to do something like that. I’m a Dominant, not a douche.”
“I have a feeling there are a lot of things I’m going to have to learn.”
“Since I’m pretty busy, and since I prefer an independent submissive over a clingy person, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with my requirements. One requirement I will not bend on is I do not like drama.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He shrugged. “We’re both adults. What I expect from you is if you have a problem with something at any time that you code and talk to me about it. You don’t pitch a hissy fit, you don’t give me the silent treatment, you don’t play mind games, you don’t get passive-aggressive. And in return, I will give you the same respect.” He smiled. “The only mindfucks I engage in are in the middle of a scene. But I don’t have time or energy to deal with drama. I won’t hesitate to walk away from drama without a look back.”
“Sounds fair enough.”
It’ll be a relief compared to James.
“By code, I mean you call
red
. It’s that simple. Whether it’s in the middle of a scene or like now, in the middle of a restaurant. You say
red
, and we stop and talk about whatever it is.”
“That simple?”
He nodded. “That simple. As for rules, for the basics, I want you to text me every morning when you get up, and every night before you go to bed.”
“Why?”
“Routine. We don’t live together. I want my submissive to have a routine to stick to when she can’t be with me.”
“Fair enough.” She took a sip of her tea.
“And you do not masturbate without texting me for permission first.”
She nearly spewed her tea over the table. “You’re not serious?”
She spotted his sly smile. “Oh, I’m absolutely serious. You want to do this or not?”
She blinked and studied him. His gaze never wavered from hers. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“But what if I don’t want you to have control over that?”
“Then you need to take that off the table now. But if you want orgasm play to be part of what we do, that’s one of my conditions.”
She swallowed hard. Her mind flashed back to the scenes she’d witnessed last weekend. And to the sexy, hot dreams she’d been having of Tony Daniels and his wicked, wicked ways.
As the seconds ticked by, his smile widened until he eventually said, “You’re not taking it off the table?”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s not a no.”
“It’s not a yes, either,” she shot back. “Sir.”
He smiled. “Good girl.”
Her pussy clenched.
I’m single. He’s single.
Why the fuck not?
“Okay,” she whispered. “Sir.”
“Okay that orgasm control and play is on the table?”
She nodded.
* * * *
Damn. And I’d just gotten my cock under control, too.
Not that he was complaining. A chance to have this woman squirming under his hands?
Yes, please!
He would go slow with her, though. He didn’t want to scare her off. He damn sure didn’t want to pressure her to do anything she might regret later.
“Let me tell you my thoughts,” he said, “and you correct me if there’s anything you want to change. Okay?”
She nodded.
He’d let the lack of a verbal answer slip this time because he could tell she was still wrapping her head around the situation.
“Orgasm play. Not the first night out, perhaps, but once you’re comfortable. I’ll keep my clothes on and only use hands or toys on you. And I won’t let anyone else touch you.”
She nodded.
“The reason I want you to hand over control of your orgasms to me is psychological,” he explained. “If you can’t have them when you want them, you want them all the more. That makes you more receptive during training to the reward phase.”
“Reward phase?”
He smiled. “Yes, reward.” He reached across the table and gently touched his index finger to the center of her forehead. “I’m going to show you how easy it is to rewire a brain to crave pain with pleasure.”
He noticed she didn’t lean away from his touch before he finally drew back.
“I’m not a dog,” she said.
“No, but I do enjoy puppy play.” When he spotted her frown, he quickly added, “
Human
puppy play. It has nothing to do with bio-dogs. I enjoy it from a training and discipline aspect.”
“I read about that. I think.” She looked unsure.
“It’s okay. That’s something we can talk about more tomorrow. Tell me about your hard limits.”
She looked like a deer in the headlights. “No choking. And I don’t want to have any of my limbs cut off. Sir. No bleeding. Not on purpose, at least.”
He liked her snarky sense of humor. “Well that’s a good thing, because I don’t like amputations myself. Normally, if I was in a relationship with someone, I’d go through an extremely exhaustive list with them, more than once, to find out what their likes and dislikes are. Since this is a slightly different situation and there isn’t any sex involved, and since you want to experience various things, we’re going to take a different approach.”
“I thought we were going to do orgasm play?” She almost looked slightly panicked.
Hmm.
“Sex and orgasm play are two different things,” he told her.
“Huh?”
“Yes, we’ll be doing orgasm play. Meaning I get you off if I so choose. You are not responsible for my orgasms.”
“What if I want to be?”
His cock throbbed again.
Down, boy.
“I appreciate that, but I’d rather not muddy the waters right now with sex. Nothing personal, and yes, I do find you attractive. But as a Dominant, I refuse to be a douche. That means until I feel the time is right, regardless of a sub’s thoughts on the matter, I keep sex off the table. That’s for your protection. Okay?”
She eventually nodded. “Okay. Thank you. Sir,” she added.
“Let me also add that I won’t renegotiate in the middle of a scene. If I have you tied down and you beg me to do something outside of our original negotiation, it will not happen. I want you to be able to trust me, which means under no circumstances will I violate a boundary mid-scene. Trust can never be completely rebuilt once it’s shattered. I will stop a scene and wait until I feel you’re able to rationally discuss something if that’s what it takes, but I will not take a scene farther than our preset limits.”
He noticed she flinched a little during all of that. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Sir.” He noticed she was working to try to remember to add that to her answers.
“You reacted to something I just said. I saw it.”
She shook her head. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”
He mentally replayed what he’d just said. “No, I saw you reacted. I need you to tell me.”
* * * *
Dammit.
It was spooky how tuned in he seemed. She took a deep breath. “You probably should know up front I don’t trust easily. It’s not you. Nothing personal.”
He nodded. “All the more reason for me to take things slowly.” He wouldn’t take his gaze off her. “Is that what you reacted to? Me talking about trust?”
After a deep breath, she slowly nodded.
“Something you want to talk about tonight?”
“I’d rather not. Not here and now.”
“Understood. So how long do you want to continue doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Being trained as a submissive.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, with my work schedule, most of my available time is on the weekends. The less time we have to do this, the less I’ll be able to teach you. It’ll be cramming a ton of stuff into a very short amount of time.”
“Oh. Yeah.” She considered it. “I should probably have my last article in by the second week of June. It’s almost the end of March. How about until the last day of May, unless we decided to stop sooner?”
He nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’m going to be away for a couple of weeks in early June anyway. I have to go out to Denver to oversee the equipment installation in a new data center my company is building out there. Construction is on track. As long as there aren’t any delays, we start installs on June second. Once I’m out there, I need to be fully focused on what I’m doing. It’s going to be a monster pain in the ass to get it up and running in the time allotted. I’ll barely have time to eat and sleep, much less be social. So that’s perfect timing. A little over eight weeks.” He nodded. “That’s reasonable. And of course you’re free to alter the timeframe up or down if you want. It’s just my schedule might get in the way.”
“Yes, Sir.” It felt more comfortable every time she said it.
“And that’s another thing. Our professional lives have to come first. I won’t knowingly give you any orders that will interfere with your job, and there might be times we have plans that I’ll have to change or cancel if work issues come up. If any orders I give you cause you problems with work, you have to code and tell me that up front.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He smiled. “Good girl. What we do needs to be tempered with a good dose of common sense. If I give you an order that you cannot in all practicality perform, use your best judgment and talk to me about it when you can.”
“Yes, Sir.”
By the time they called for their checks an hour later, Shayla realized she’d had a more in-depth conversation with Tony in that short amount of time than she’d ever had with James in eight years. Including Tony initiating a frank, and thankfully brief, discussion about STDs and their sexual health histories even though they wouldn’t actually be having sex.
It reinforced her opinion that she could trust him to be a man of his word. She also knew more about Tony as both a person and as a Dominant, vanilla and kinky things, than she realized in retrospect that she’d ever known about James.
How could I have been so blind?
Yes, she’d dated a few guys before James, even slept with two of them.
Why did I settle for someone who, in retrospect, was a tight-lipped, secretive, deceitful sack of monkey shit?
Yes, it was pointless to keep kicking at that dead horse. She could second-guess herself until time ended and she likely wouldn’t have any answers.
It also wouldn’t change anything.
Moving the fuck on.
With the bills settled, Tony walked her out to her car. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow, pet,” he said, looking down into her eyes.
She blinked. “Pet?”
She suspected that damn smile of his would be her undoing. “Yes. Objections?”
She shook her head. “No, Sir.”
“Good girl.” He held her door open as she climbed in. “Be on time tomorrow, pet. I hate tardiness.”
“Yes, Sir.”
With that he closed her door and stepped back. She started the car and drove off.
* * * *
He waited until she drove away to get into his car. He immediately called Leah.
She sounded concerned. “What’s up?”
“Talk to me about Shayla.”
Her tone turned guarded. “What do you mean?”
“I had dinner alone with her tonight—”
“Oh? That’s good.”
“And I know you, Loren, Tilly, and Clarisse spent the day together yesterday. Talk to me about what’s going on with her.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bullshit. I’m guessing she had a dick for an ex.”
He heard Leah’s sigh on the other end. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because she confided in us and asked us not to tell anyone.”
Fuck
. “Am I stepping into a landmine with her? Tell me now before I get too involved with her.”
“What? Involved with her how?”
“She asked me to train her as my submissive.”
“Oh. Oh! That’s good, right?”
He rolled his eyes. “Quit screwing around, Leah. I’ll ask Seth to put you on chastity lockdown for me.”
“Tony, please. She confided in us something that happened. Yes, her ex was a dick. Not abusing her, as far as I know. But what he did that caused her to leave him hurt her badly. You need to ask her about it.”
“I plan to. I just wanted to go in armed with as much knowledge as I can get.”
Leah hesitated, no doubt trying to figure out how to answer him without breaking Shayla’s trust.