Dom Vs: Domme: The Deluxe Trilogy: A Billionaire Romance (Dom Vs. Domme Book 0) (31 page)

“I know that.” It’s something I’ve thought sometimes. We were supposed to go on a date a couple of weeks ago… but I stood him up like a total bitch. Only because I thought he was going to try to dominate me… and I wasn’t ready.

I’m still not. Not at this second, anyway.

“So let’s do it. Let’s go on a real date.”

“What’s this?”

“I’m not sure I would consider this a date.”

“No, guess not.” We’re only having lunch because of work. “What are we doing on this date, exactly? I want to know before I say yes.”

He’s rolling his eyes at me for the second time today. It drives me nuts, like he’s being condescending without saying a damned word. “I’m not going to spank you, Katie,” he mutters. “A vanilla date.”

Haha. A vanilla date.

“I was thinking dinner. Maybe a show if there’s something interesting to see. My family has year-round box passes at the cinema near my place. Father’s a bit of a movie buff. He and I go there a couple times a month to unwind and for him to go on about Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood.”

I don’t say anything.

“Digress. After that?” Before I’ve picked up my fork, Ian’s hand is on mine, here, on this table. Fuck all the tingles rushing through my body. Fuck the fact he does it to me. “We’ll see where the wind takes us. Not everything has to be perfectly planned.”

“I’m sure sex is on this wind.”

“Only if you’re truly interested.” Ian shrugs. “Like I said, nothing kinky” His hand continues to curl around mine. “Sometimes a man wants things simple.”

I can hear it in his voice. That same tone he always has when he’s about five minutes away from thrusting his cock into me. I shiver. Can he feel it in my hand? Yikes. That’s the same voice he had when he first seduced me. (Or did he seduce me? I thought it was fairly equal at the time. Now? I have no idea.) Same voice from the day of our presentations, when he led me to an empty room and gave me the time of my life.

Same voice he left me with a week and a half ago, when he promised to completely dismantle my Domme brain and rebuild it into a sub’s.

I shiver again, harder.

“You all right?”

Ian is a good Dom in that he always checks in with the current mental state of his partner. Even when we’re not being kinky, he’s always asking if I’m doing okay. I should appreciate it. Except when he does it, I’m always reminded of the fact that I might
not
be okay. Then I get trapped in this spiral of wondering if I’m doing the right thing.

Don’t make me think too hard, Ian.

“I’m fine.” I try to say it with an even voice, but sometimes it’s hard. Around him, anyway. I have to take my hand back, picking up my fork and spearing chicken and lettuce. Something to do. That isn’t him. “Just picking apart your motives in my brain.”

He gives me a
look.
You know the kind. Judgmental. Uncertain. Insecure. “Motives?”

“Please. I’m not dumb.” Spinach crunches between my teeth. Now that I have food in my system, I’m able to think clearer. My senses return, and nothing Ian Mathers does can shake me off my foundation. “You’re looking at me like I’m a piece of meat. I get it, buddy, you wanna fuck me. That’s fine. That can be quite…” I look right at his crotch. “Mutual.”

This time, he’s the one not answering.

“You’re not only looking at me as a potential date. You’re not even looking at me as a potential partner of any kind. All you see is a project.”

Ian clears his throat, his food still untouched, but his wine almost gone. “What am I supposed to think? You didn’t ask me for a relationship. You didn’t ask me for a casual thing. You asked me to…” He leans forward, voice low and commanding. Nope. Not getting through to me. “You asked me to bring out your inner submissive. That’s not the other things I mentioned.”

“It sure isn’t.” Hey, this chicken’s pretty good, especially with the Italian dressing. I’m glad he gave me some, but he better eat his before it gets cold. Salmonella wouldn’t look good on him.

“What do you want from me? That’s what I really want to know.” Finally, Ian starts eating. With purpose, I might add. “You keep coming to me, asking me to do things so far out of your comfort zone that you end up screaming and crying. Asking me to go farther with you? You’re asking a lot of
me.
Excuse me, Katie, but I need to see you in different ways. It’s the only way something like this can work.”

“Something like
this?
”

“Business and pleasure. Mingling.”

He’s right. I’m asking him to see so many sides of myself – the business side, the Domme side, the sub side – that he has to separate it all before he can put me back together again. It can’t be easy on him, mentally. Physically, he probably spends his whole time thinking about fucking me.

…I’m right, aren’t I?”

“So what do you
want
, Katie?” He always calls me that when we’re in private like this. I haven’t decided if I like it or not. When we’re fucking, I love it. So intimate and exclusive. When we’re in a non-sexual situation? It kinda grates on me. Kathryn has a much more sophisticated ring to it, especially coming out of a man’s mouth.

“I want a lot of things, Ian.” There are no cute nicknames for him. His name is already as short as it can get, and I’m not the type to say babe or honey. “Right now I want you to back off a bit.”

He sits back in his seat, both physically and emotionally detaching himself from me. Finally, I can breathe.

After two more bites of food, I say, “All right. Date. Vanilla date. No funny Dom stuff.”

“Well, now I’m not sure
I
want to…”

While he’s looking at me, I pull open my blouse. Easy to do with light clasps sewn in. Once I’ve got that man staring at my breasts and bra, I say, “Pretty sure you want to.”

His eyes furrow, but look! He’s not glancing away from these tits! “I can’t read you half the time. Just when I think I’ve got you figured out…”

I close my blouse and put it back together. “I surprise you. Yes, yes, you’re not used to that from women.”

“Now don’t be that way.”

I’ve irritated him. Good. The last thing I want is him getting complacent around me. Nevertheless, next thing I know, he’s slapped a notebook on the table and flipped it open to a certain page.

“What’s that?”

Ian slides the notebook across the table. I pick it up, holding it at the appropriate distance before my eyes focus on his tight, clean cursive handwriting. I’m struck by how masculine his penmanship is. Elegant, refined,
legible,
but very straight and narrow. Not a single stroke from the pen is wasted. Well, shit. Here I am, turned on by Ian Mathers’s handwriting.

“A to-do list. For you.”

So it says. At the top of the page Ian has written “K” for my name, I’m guessing. Below is a list written in shorthand. I barely make out “doesn’t let go easy” and “fights for control.” The other stuff is… pretty sexual.

Doesn’t like me coming inside her.

Or on her for that matter.

Talks back when I’m fucking her.

Says titles sarcastically.

“Did I miss anything?”

Scoffing, I take a pen out of my purse and scratch something down in my curlier handwriting.
“Thinks I’m a jerk.”

“Mature.”

“You’re mature.” I say it so quickly that I don’t realize what I said until it’s too late. By then, Ian is laughing, his ridiculous face looking beyond stupid as he makes fun of me.

By the time we’re finished with lunch, I don’t feel any better. We’ve set up a date for Friday after work, and I know it won’t be kinky, but I can’t help but feel he has an ulterior motive. Especially after showing me the notes he’s keeping.

I can’t think about it, though. Currently I have to be regular ol’ Kathryn, the one who knows it’s probably going to end in the hot sex I crave with him. Hot, non-domineering sex. Just him, me, and the creaking of his bed as we succumb to pleasure.

Now I’m turned on. When I catch a glance from him at the busy intersection, he smirks, and I can practically see the blood rushing to his cock.

Not today, buddy. Save it for Friday.

Chapter 3

KATHRYN

This morning all I could think about was what I would wear today. Whatever it was, it had to be functional for work, but also good for a date.

I don’t know what Ian and I are doing. After our lunch the other day, I’m not sure I want to know. I’ll either be so horny that I don’t care about what’s going on until he fucks me, or I’ll be so over his shit that I leave early and call everything off.

We’ll see.

The way I ended up dressing… you’d think I was trying to impress him. My dress is a crimson halter that matches nicely with my black flats I have to wear around the construction site. I decided on a plunging necklace to make sure Ian stares at my cleavage all day – without realizing that everyone else will be looking too. Oops.

It’s fine. I’m a professional. They… try to be professional. I could do without the foreman and his cronies muttering to each other with stupid smiles on their faces every time I walk by, but thems the breaks of being female in the presence of men.

At least Ian is looking. Although the only thing he’s commented on is my hair, worn up for work. What he doesn’t know is that I’m now in the bathroom, after work, getting ready for our
date.

First thing I do is take down my hair, combing it out so it falls nice and straight on my shoulders. Then I open my purse, searching for my makeup kit, because sometimes a girl needs to put on some red lipstick, light blush, and thank the heavens for liquid eyeliner.

Once I’m convinced I’m the most beautiful woman on Earth – for five seconds, anyway, until I notice a zit on my chin and promptly freak out – I collect my stuff and meet Ian in the foyer of his gutted hotel.

“Aren’t you a lovely vision?” He doesn’t take my arm. We’ve decided to keep this relationship a secret for now. Not because we’re ashamed, but because it’s so complicated that we don’t know how long it will last or if it’s worth the press we’d get. I can already see the papers discussing our marriage date – and how long it would take Ian to cheat on me – and I want to barf.

“Thanks.” I walk beside him out of the building and to the curb, where Ian hails a cab. He lives close enough that he’s been walking to and from the site every day. Saying something about needing the exercise if he’s not able to hit the gym.

I’m glad he’s keeping his physique in check, because I
know
under all these clothes he’s strong enough to, well, pick me up and carry me to his room.

I hide a grin of excitement as he closes the cab door behind me. Within ten seconds he’s sitting beside me, telling the driver to take us to the restaurant I stood him up at. As usual, we have things to prove to one another.

Although it takes one small glass of liquor to get me settled, I’m soon relaxed enough to laugh at one of his stupid jokes. So far he hasn’t said or done anything that implies domination. The more I think of this as a regular “vanilla” date, the more I’m able to see him as my equal in all areas, including sex. Remember, Kathryn? You are capable of this with a man like him.

Not always, but usually.

“There was this guy in my house,” Ian says, referring to his stint in a high-class frat in college, “who dated a new woman every month. Except you’d never guess, because all the girls looked the same. Red heads. Freckles. Some of them dressed differently, and a lot of them had the most basic names you’ve ever heard, but once we caught on… shit, we never let him live it down. The guy had a real fetish.”

I smile over my half-eaten dinner. “You mean like you and your thing for blondes?”

“Why do people keep saying that?”

“Because it’s
true.
By the way, how was Stephanie’s pussy?” I drink some water. “I know you think she’s me and all, but…”

“Why you gotta go there?” Ian is too relaxed from his drink to be offended. “That happened one time.”

“Yes, but it happened.”

I’m flirting with him for the first time in weeks. Probably because this is the first time in a long while I’ve felt comfortable around him. He has yet to make a move, let alone do something that makes me uncomfortable. I sit here thinking, “Well, we’re more than likely having sex tonight.” As the night wears on, I feel better about it. Not that I didn’t feel okay with it before – plus, I could always say
no
if I decide it’s not in the cards. There’s a good amount of power in that, even if he’s calling the shots.

Tonight, he is totally not calling the shots!

“I think you like tormenting me,” Ian says, leaning across the table. We’re sitting opposite one another, but the table is small, and it’s not difficult to slip my foot out of my heel and play with his ankle. The smile that instantly lights up his face as he realizes what I’m doing spurs me on to tuck my toes beneath the hem of his pants. “Yes. You like tormenting me.”