She returned with a small glass for him and white wine for herself.
“Do you want to show me around?” he asked.
The ice cubes clinked in the glass as she handed it to him. “Not really,” she answered.
He regarded her.
“It’ll ruin your image of me as neat and organized.”
And encroach on her personal space. “All the better.”
“Are you serious?” She squirmed a little, and he liked that.
“I’d like to see your place, yes.” He took a sip of the liquor. It wasn’t as fine as the stuff Connor stashed at the Running Wind, but it was more than serviceable. “I’ve been clear that I want to know all about you. Especially the things you don’t want me to know.”
“Why?”
“The Dom in me is curious.”
Color flooded her cheekbones, staining them red. She didn’t answer. Instead, she stared into the wine, obviously composing herself.
After expelling a breath, she met his gaze. “Fair warning, you might change your mind after looking around.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Little did she know this was only the first of her hesitations that he intended to destroy. “Where should I put my coat?”
“The back of the couch is fine.”
Rather than putting down his glass, he extended it to her, and she held it without protest.
He shrugged out of the leather bomber jacket and tossed it on top of hers before turning back to her.
“I could have taken it for you,” she said. “That was rude of me.”
“Yes. It was.” He looked at her, hard, uncompromising. To him, this wasn’t a game, and he was going to be damn sure she knew it. “We both know it’s happened more than once. Lack of civility is not something I find appealing, whether the behavior is intentional or not.”
“I…er…”
“It’s never acceptable, and it’s something I’m likely to punish a sub for.”
“I’m not a submissive,” she corrected quickly, breathlessly.
“Are you sure?” He made sure his voice was soft, rather than commanding. And that took a fuckton of effort.
He watched as the twin telltale streaks of red crept back onto her cheekbones. Her reaction was perfect. Pleasing. “Are you? Or are you secretly hoping you’ll push me far enough that I’ll have no choice but to take you in hand? Do you want me to make it easy for you? Shall I remove the choice so you can pretend it wasn’t consensual?” He added the last sentence quietly, so quietly that she had to lean forward to hear him.
“You’re my boss.” Desperation made her words rushed, slamming them together. But she was still looking at him, head tipped back, her hands clenched on their drink glasses.
Nathan wondered which one of them she was trying to convince. “I am, and I can be your boss in other areas, as well.” Then he clarified, “If you want it. And hear me clearly. You will have to ask. Take too long and I’ll change asking to pleading.”
“Nathan…”
“Do you have a safe word?”
“No.” Her answer was quick. Too quick.
“Choose one,” he instructed. It wasn’t a suggestion, and he knew she heard that in his tone.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“You were hoping,” he countered. “You knew what you were doing when you invited me up here.”
“I…”
“Be honest, Kelsey, with yourself, if not me.” He reined in his impatience. “You’ll never get what you want unless you are brave. Your choice.”
After a few seconds of silence, she admitted, “I want to be clear that this isn’t what I ultimately want for my life. I’ve fought for a really long time to make my own choices and decisions. I avoid men like you.”
“Like me?”
She sighed. “You know. Who like to be in charge. I prefer to make my own decisions. Being independent hasn’t always been easy.”
“Understood.”
“But there’s part of me that’s curious.”
He continued to wait for her, letting her work through things at her own speed. Emotion played across her face before she gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“I’ll use red.”
“You
have
been studying.”
She met his gaze. “And yellow for slow.”
“Good.” He smiled, and he knew she appreciated the approval by the way she exhaled. “Now that we understand one another, we can move forward. If you’re uncomfortable about something, say yellow.”
Her shoulders rose as she sucked in a deep breath. He was enchanted with the image of her on her knees, ankles and wrists tied to a spreader bar behind her.
“Do you punish your subs?”
“I typically scene with submissives at a club, with women who know what they want and make sure they get it.” He accepted the glass back from her. Her hand trembled so badly that the ice cubes clinked together.
She took several steps toward the French doors, putting some distance between them.
“Have you ever been punished for bad behavior?”
“No. I’ve never been with a Dom. Everything I know, or think I know, comes from reading, from websites, online groups, renting movies.”
“Do you think you might like to be?”
“Oh God… Really?” She regarded him, her hazel eyes wide, as if hoping he would relent and change the subject.
“You’re planning to go to Deviation this weekend,” he reminded her. “You’ll see a lot, hear a lot, experience a lot of different thoughts and emotions, maybe even participate in a couple of activities. You’ll want to be more comfortable with it than you seem to be right now.”
She nodded, but when she spoke, her voice was low and lacking the confidence she had at the office. “I’m not sure about it. Parts of it intrigue me, but I struggle against the feeling I shouldn’t want it. I’m an independent businesswoman, and I’ve been making my own choices since… I don’t know. Probably since my mother died. I don’t like being told what to do.” She shrugged. “I want to be a partner with any man I’m dating. An equal.”
“And yet, when you’re provocative—” He waited a moment. “As you have been…what then?”
“What happens at work is different.”
His reaction was swift and powerful. “Not if we have a relationship.”
“Seriously? Are you considering that?”
“And so are you,” he said softly.
Even from across the room, he heard her breath catch. She might not want to consider it, but she was.
“Don’t you have rules about fraternization?”
“No. Not unless things are problematic for either party or for others in the department. It happens less often than you think, except for when the couple breaks up. In any case, we can arrange a transfer for one of the people, elsewhere in the company if possible, or maybe to another Donovan holding. But we recognize that workplace entanglements happen. We try to mitigate potential damages, but we’re not going to fire someone for falling in love with a coworker. If we go forward, you won’t lose your job, but you can request a transfer, and I’ll do my best to accommodate it.” Nathan had an honesty-only policy, and he knew he was violating it. Fuck if he could stop himself, though. If they got involved, he wasn’t sure he’d allow her to move to another part of the company. He was already hot for this woman, and he wouldn’t let her go easily. If at all. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten the main thread of this conversation. Let’s go back to discussing punishment when the subbie is being intentionally rude at home. Would you have me ignore it? Or is it better to deal with it and try to correct the behavior?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with it.”
“And yet you wonder what it would be like to be over my knee with me ripping off your underwear before I spanked you.”
Kelsey swirled the wine and watched the liquid run down the inside of the glass before meeting his gaze again. “Yes.” Her word hung on the cool autumn night.
“Despite what you may think, I’m not mercurial. Rules would be discussed and agreed upon, and so would my range of punishments for breaking them.”
Across the room, they regarded each other. Him with interest and unusual protectiveness. Her with wariness in her wide, unblinking eyes.
“So let’s be clear. What happens if you’re rude to me in future, like you were a few minutes ago?”
That alluring blush was back again. “Maybe a spanking?”
God, what she did to him. His erection pressed insistently against his fly.
She brought her other hand up so that she was cradling the glass between both palms.
“More effective for you than anything else, such as a timeout? Or maybe a sincere apology from your knees? Writing out a hundred times that you’ll be better behaved in the future?”
Her mouth was set. “Those would probably piss me off, which probably wouldn’t get you the results you desire.”
“Good to know.” He smiled. “So what’s your most prevalent fantasy? Lying across my lap? Bending over and linking your hands behind your knees? Being secured to a spanking bench?”
Her eyes went wide, unblinking. “You have one of those?”
“I do, indeed.”
Nervously she brushed stray wisps of hair back from her face.
“Happy to show it to you.”
Frozen hell.
He couldn’t get the image out of his mind. The gorgeous Ms. Lane, naked, that hair in long, glorious disarray, strapped down, legs spread, pussy exposed, helpless to escape his paddle.
He hadn’t had many women in his playroom, but he would love to show her all of his toys, introduce them to her, give her experiences she’d only fantasized about.
Nathan gave her a moment to compose herself—and fuck, he needed one too—before reminding her, “I’m waiting for your answer.”
“Over the knee seems more personal, and I want to experience that sometime. And your spanking bench seems interesting.” She shifted. “Uhm, does it have to be for a punishment?”
Because her breaths were coming in fast bursts, he decided to bring down her tension before ramping it up even higher in a few minutes, the ebb and the flow. The pace. The journey. The pain and the pleasure. And the way they could never be separated. “No. I’m happy to give you what you want without your misbehaving. I’d rather it, in fact. I want to give you orgasm after orgasm, making you scream from pleasure and not pain. That, Kelsey, you will have to ask for. You were going to show me around.”
She blinked, obviously reeling from his abrupt change of conversation, like he’d intended.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the mess.”
“I understand.”
As he followed her out of the kitchen, she pointed out the half bathroom and adjoining area containing a stackable washer and dryer. Then she took him into her office.
It was an absolute disaster of books, papers, photographs, prints, camera equipment and a desktop computer with an oversize screen. The walls were painted white. She had photographs spotlighted by track, gallery-type lighting. He recognized one as an Ansel Adams. Another, a portrait, might be the work of Annie Leibovitz.
Shelf after shelf contained cameras, all different types, digital as well as old-fashioned ones. Some were clearly collector’s items.
Most startlingly, she had several trash cans, all of which were overflowing with discarded work.
This room displayed a creative side of her that she kept carefully hidden, showing how exacting she was.
“It’s messy,” she said. “But I never seem to clean it up.”
“It’s because it’s part of your work in progress.”
She nodded. “I come back in here and pick up where I left off. I never start with a clean desk.” She rolled the globe of her wineglass between her hands. “I’ve never thought of it that way before, I guess. It’s as if I remember exactly where I was and what I was thinking. My photography is always unfinished. I can do something else to it, enhance one thing, blur another, change the focus, the saturation.”
“Trying to make it perfect?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have that kind of genius or patience. I just like to see what’s there.”
He wasn’t sure he understood at all. But he wanted to find out more.
Then she led him toward her bedroom. This room also had French doors and a patio. She had a queen-size bed with an inspiring wrought-iron frame. Though the bed was messy and an empty coffee cup had been abandoned on a nightstand, all of her clothes were hung up. Her closet door was cracked, and a number of dresser drawers stood open. One had lingerie spilling across the top.
“The bathroom’s over there…” She pointed then shrugged. “That’s all there is to see.”
“Except for the sex toys. Maybe some books?” He lazed against the doorjamb.
“Uhm…” Her face turned scarlet.
“Show me,” he said, his tone more of a command than an invitation.
He remained where he was, wondering whether or not she would comply. This, more than anything, would tell him what he needed to know about Kelsey Lane and how strong her submissive tendencies were.
A ghost of something that might have been nervousness or excitement, he couldn’t be sure which, crossed her face.
“I’m sure it’s nothing exciting compared to what you’re used to.”
“On the contrary. There’s nothing boring about you, Ms. Lane.”
She opened the bottom drawer of her nightstand.
From where he stood, he noticed she had quite an assortment.
Slowly she pulled out adult novelties and began to place them on the bed. She started with a purple dildo then added a vibrator with an angled head. Maybe for G-spot stimulation.
Next she brought out a thin paddle. The leather was likely faux as it looked more like a toy than a spanking implement. It had a word cut into it that he couldn’t make out, and she placed it upside down on the bed so he couldn’t read it. “What does it say?”
Her grip was wobbly as she turned it back over. “I… It was a gift at one of those adult-themed home parties. You know, you answer a trivia question right and you win a prize.”
“But you kept it. What does it say, Kelsey?” he repeated.
“
Slut.
” The word was barely a whisper, and she didn’t look at him.
“Really?” he asked softly. “What kind of slut?”
Her chin came up. “Mr. Donovan, I am not—”
“A fuck slut?” he interrupted. “For the right man? The right Dom?”
She sucked in a deep breath.
“I want you to be,” he told her. “The word can have a negative connotation, I’ll grant you that. But you see beyond it, don’t you? You know what it really means. A person who’s unashamed. Someone who enjoys sexual relations, who’s unafraid, uninhibited. Most of all, honest. I want you to be all those things with me. I want you to be proud of being
my
fuck slut. I want you to wear the word on your ass, want you to celebrate when I whisper it in your ear.”