“The hell I won’t. If you need me to spank you every fucking night I will. Gladly.” His voice growled out, and he cupped her chin none too gently, jerking her face around. He held her, squeezing tighter until she met his blazing eyes. So blue, so fierce. “Is that what you need, Rae? You need me to spank you here and now?”
“It’s not about that at all.” His grip was brutal, so she pushed her heartache to anger.
Anger was much easier to deal with. “You can’t spank me and take me to bed and think everything’s going to be okay.”
“Let’s see, shall we?”
“No.” After worrying for so long that she couldn’t refuse him, she felt a grim, cold lake spreading within her as soon as she said it. He didn’t release her, so she pushed across that lake, slipping and sliding toward an endless maw of dread. “Ozymandias.”
He jerked his hand away as though her face seared the flesh off his fingers. Her heart splintered, shards of ice piercing throughout her body. He’d done exactly as he promised. So why did she feel like she was dying inside?
“I can’t…” Her voice quivered, but she kept a tight grip on her face and hands. She would not cry. She would not throw herself into his arms. She wouldn’t dissolve into a needy immature mess that he had to mop up on his way to the university. “I can’t do this.”
His face sagged. His breath rushed out on a sigh as though a linebacker had blind-sided him and pile-drove him to the ground. “Rae. Darlin’. I don’t understand. If you’re afraid again…”
“I’m not afraid.”
Of anything but turning into a co-dependent addict in your bed.
“Then what?” He looked so bewildered and tragic that she couldn’t help bursting into tears. Still, she kept her hands clutched on that purse, refusing to touch him. “I’ll do anything, Rae. If you need to stay with Miss Belle for awhile, I understand. We’re moving fast, I know. I just… I love you, Rae. I want you so bad I can’t see straight.”
“You…deserve…better.” She gulped in a deep breath and jumped headlong into the icy dark water turmoiled in her heart. “I’m a mess, Conn. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m falling apart our very first weekend together and I’m afraid I’ll drag you down.”
He made a low growl of protest, so she threw her hand up to silence him. If he interrupted her, she might never get it all out.
“I
am
dragging you down. I need too much. I’m a basket case already and you shouldn’t have to…to…babysit me each and every night because I need this or that and I don’t even know why!”
She gulped hard, trying to dislodge the boulder crushing her chest. “You’ll get bored eventually. Right now it’s a game, playing teacher’s pet, but you’re going to get tired of dealing with my insecurities and fears. You’re too much of a man to be stuck with a whiny wimp like me. I’m a doormat, Conn, and I always will be. I’ll always need—”
“God, I hope so.” His low voice thrummed in the tight confines of the car, tight with intent but not angry. Silence thickened, driving her to meet his gaze. His face had softened from the tight chasms of worry. He didn’t touch her, but he looked at her with such emotion, raw and honest and fervent, with so much love it took her breath away. “I hope you’ll always need me, Rae. Is that what you truly think of yourself? Do you think that needing me makes you weak?”
She shook her head. “Needing you to…control me. Taking command, dominating me, spanking me, whatever you want. That makes me weak. I’ve never had a will when it comes to you.”
He closed his eyes a moment, a fine tremor in his shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice had thickened, telling her his pulse had skyrocketed with her words. She was trying to warn him off, and she’d merely succeeded in arousing him. Fiercely, judging by the blaze in his eyes.
“You couldn’t be further from the truth, darlin’. Don’t you know that you make me the man I am? You challenge me to grow into the man I can be, always pushing, always exploring new boundaries. Not just yours, but mine. You trust me to take care of you, to take you to the limits of what you can comfortably endure, always trusting me to take you back safe and sound. Do you think just anyone could trust me like that? Can anyone else test me like you?
“For years, I dated ‘normal’ women and tried to hide what I was, but it never worked out. I was miserable, living a lie and pretending that I was happy, when inside this great yawning pit of need grew and grew and grew. You fill that pit, Rae, you fill me to bursting. I don’t have to hide from you. You’ve already seen my worst, and even more amazing and wonderful to me, you enjoyed it. For the first time in my life, I don’t resent my needs. Truth is, if I were anyone else, safe and boring like Dick, then you wouldn’t need me so much. You need to equal my need, darlin’. We’re matched in that regard. So if you’re a needy doormat, then I’m a needy asshole who’s going to cry like a baby if you send me packing.”
She searched his face, struggling to contain the hope bubbling up inside her chest. “But
—”
“I need you, Rae, exactly the way you are. If that means spanking or cuddling, yelling or wrestling, going to bed or simply holding hands on a walk, we’ll do it. Because meeting your need fulfills my need. Loving you fulfills me completely. If you don’t let me take care of you, my own need will just eat me from the inside out like a black hole.” Gently, he cupped her cheek in his palm and brushed his thumb feather-soft over her lips. “Need me, darlin’. The more you need me, the happier I’ll be.”
She gave him a shaky smile and let him brush her tears away. “Then you must be one happy man because I need you so much I can’t breathe, I can’t think, for wanting you.”
“The happiest man alive,” he agreed solemnly.
Burrowing into his arms, she clutched his shirt and breathed his scent until the fear of losing him subsided. “I’m afraid I’ll fail you, Conn. I won’t be enough to keep you interested.”
He choked back a laugh and smoothed her hair. “Darlin’, I’m so interested I feel like a stallion breaking down his stall to get to the mare in heat.”
“The sex is great, yeah, but what about everything else? Your job, my job, our lives… I don’t want to only be your teacher’s pet.”
“I want to be in your life no matter what that means, and this teacher wants to pet you all over, forever, the rest of our lives. If that means quitting Drury so I can shingle a roof with you all day, then I’m there.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she protested miserably.
“I know, darlin’.” He tipped her face up to his but he didn’t kiss her. They shared the same air, breathing in each other’s exhale until she felt dizzy. Without stripping a single item of clothing, he was inside her, penetrating her, possessing her. “As long as we’re together, I don’t care what happens. We may live here forever, keeping Miss Belle out of trouble. I hope you’ll finish your degree at the college of your choosing. We’ve got the rest of our lives to decide what we’re going to do. We’re in this together, no matter what lies ahead. Who knows, maybe we’ll move back to Texas.”
“Oh, no, don’t even go there.” Rae pulled back, letting mock horror—that wasn’t so fake when she thought about living anywhere near his mother—fill her face.
He smiled but didn’t laugh, sliding his hand down to grip the back of her neck and hold her close. “Are we okay, then?”
“Yeah.”
The last bit of tension bled out of him. “Good Lord, Rae, you nearly gave me a heart attack. You’ve given me the most priceless gift of all. As long as you trust me not to hurt you…”
“I do trust you. Completely.” A thought flickered across his face, and although he didn’t speak of it, the muscle in his cheek ticked. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “Yes.”
Shaking his head, he turned the key in the ignition and the Mustang’s powerful motor purred to life. “You don’t even know what I was thinking about, darlin’.”
“You were wondering if I trust you enough to let you tie me to your bed.”
“How did…” His hands opened and closed hard repeatedly on the steering wheel. “Are you sure?”
“The night we made out on your couch, you said the only thing that could make it better was if I was tied to your headboard. I just ask—”
“Anything,” he replied immediately, whipping his head around to search her face.
“Don’t make me laugh like Richard did.”
A slow smile curved Conn’s lips, a heavy-lidded arrogance and barely veiled aggression that sent chills down her back and moistness between her legs. “If you laugh, darlin’, it’ll be because I told you to.”
“If you get a ticket—”
“It’ll be worth it.” Gripping the steering wheel so hard he feared it might crack, Conn concentrated on regulating his breathing. When his voice wasn’t rumbling with aggression, he continued. “We need to set some ground rules. First, I want you to know that I will never tie you up and then leave you. Never, not for any reason, will I leave the room when you’re helpless. At any time, give me your safe word and I’ll get you out of whatever I’ve used.”
“Okay.”
The tremor in her voice was faint, but enough to send his blood pumping harder. “I have a box under my bed that I’ve been accumulating the last few years. It—”
“Did you use those things on other women?”
Arching a brow at the surprisingly vicious tone in her low voice, he glanced over at her.
She met his gaze without looking away, although her cheeks did color slightly. Her eyes flashed and she bristled with jealousy and righteous determination. She was more than willing to go to battle over using hand-me-downs of any sort.
He let his mouth quirk with approval. Finding her limits intrigued him, and he’d just found one. “Anything I used with other partners was given to them a long time ago. Every once in a while, I’d stumble across something that made me think of you, and I bought it for the box. Then I’d lie awake night after night dreaming what it’d be like if I ever had the chance to play with you.”
She gulped. “What…what kind of things?”
He smiled wider, letting his eyes burn with heat. “All sorts of things. However, I don’t want you to freak out. We’ll always talk about any new items in advance to make sure you’re never surprised or afraid. Some items are not for play, like the knife. I’m not into cutting or threats of real danger like that at all. The knife is purely for safety, and I’ll set it on the nightstand by the bed. If there’s an emergency, you have a panic attack, anything that tells me you need out of your bindings urgently, I’ll cut you free. That’s the only use the knife has.”
“Okay.” She swallowed hard, her eyes rather wide. “What sort of ties are you going to use?”
“What’d Dick use that time?”
Her mouth flattened, twisting like she’d eaten something bitter. “Dog collars and cables some people use to chain their dogs up.”
Bastard. If there’d been an emergency, how could he have cut her free of metal? “How’d you feel about that, darlin’?”
She turned and stared out the window. “I hated it. It was cheap, stupid crap he picked up at the hardware store on the way home. He didn’t put any thought into it. He didn’t really care about what it felt like. How I’d feel, staked out like a dog, especially when I know how much he hates them.”
From her letters, Conn knew the heartache and guilt she’d felt when she’d given up her dog. Wishing he could beat her inconsiderate ex into a pulp, he purred, “How do you feel about silk?”
“Scarves?”
“We already did scarves, but if you’re comfortable with those, yeah, we’ll use them again. I’m thinking something a little firmer. I bought some silken rope a year ago. Elegant, comfortable, yet incredibly strong and soft.”
“That sounds nice.”
He didn’t say anything about the quiver in her voice. Hell, he was so turned on just thinking about using the ropes he was going to have an accident, and not necessarily one that involved driving the car off the side of the road. “Speaking of collars…”
Her lips tightened but she didn’t refuse him immediately.
“I’m not into Master-slave play. I mean, we can play those roles occasionally if you’re curious, but I’m not a full-time Master, not like my brother. I don’t want you to wear a collar of ownership. But some submissives don’t feel truly bound unless their necks are controlled in some way, even if it’s just a scarf or the dominant’s hand. I don’t want to choke you, but I do want you to feel utterly at my mercy.”
Her hands trembled in her lap, but her voice was sure. “I hated the dog collar. I don’t want to feel stupid or worthless.”
“I know, darlin’. I’m not into humiliation play either. However, I do know you like to feel my control, to feel held down and helpless. Something special on your throat might add to that feeling, and I saw something today…” He let his voice fall off and shrugged. “It’s just a thought.”
“For you, Conn, I’ll try anything, at least once.”
He made the final turn into town and used the turns and slowdowns to gather his control.
“Thank you, darlin’. That means the world to me. I’ll show it to you, and if you don’t like it, tell me, okay?”
“Okay.”
He parked in front of the cottage instead of pulling the car into the side carport. “I’ll unload the car and see to the dogs if you want to take a shower.”
She blinked, as though surprised he wasn’t hauling her out of the car and tying her to the bed immediately. In fact, she looked rather disappointed. With a low chuckle, he drew her close and brushed his mouth across her lips. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to be naked and flat on your back in the middle of my bed, or I get to spank you first.”
A soft sound escaped her lips, her eyes widening.
“Starting now.”
She jumped out of the car and raced for the house. She paused at the door, though, watching him open the trunk. “Promise?”
He dragged his gaze from her jeans-encased ass to her face. “Absolutely.”