“Thought what?” His voice was soft and closer than before. He was right behind me. “Talk to me, please.”
“Nothing.”
“Aleena.”
It was that commanding tone that hit something deep inside me. “You hurt me, Dominic.” He caught his breath and I quickly clarified what I meant. “I don't mean physically. I mean, my ass hurts, but that's not the point. What you did, or didn't do, with your mom, it hurt me, and then you say you're sorry.”
“I am.”
“But then, instead of...” My voice hitched. “Instead of taking care of me and showing me how sorry you were, you treated me like...like I was just there to be used.”
“Used you.” There was pain in those words. His arms went around me, pulling me back to him, pulling me onto his lap. “Oh, baby, I'm so sorry.” He kissed my forehead. “I didn't think.”
I wanted to push him away and leave. To quit like I'd originally said I would. I also wanted to press myself closer to his chest and never leave.
“I promised to teach you and then I fucked it up.” His hand moved up and down my arm slowly. “I let myself get caught up in how much I wanted you and forgot how innocent you are.”
I almost laughed at that, but I let him talk. I needed to know what he was thinking before I could decide what I wanted to do.
“A good Dominant is supposed to take care of the Submissive in the relationship, but sex was never about a relationship or emotions. There were clear rules set in place before sex, and I never had to worry about...after. I'm good at dominating in the bedroom, at making sure my partner comes, but this...this is a part of it that's new to me.” He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my head so our eyes met. “I failed to do my part.” He brushed his fingers across my cheek. “All I thought about was wanting to make you come, and I didn't even consider how it would...” He looked away.
“Hey.” I reached up and put my hand on his cheek, turning his face back to me. “It's okay. I understand.” And I did. He'd thought he was making it up to me by making me come so hard I couldn't see straight. On that part, he'd succeeded.
“It's not okay.” His expression was serious. “I don't know if I can
not
be this way, not be in control.”
“I'm not asking you to be submissive.” I didn't fully understand what the capital 'S' term meant, but I knew enough to get my point across. “But I need you to teach me what it means to be in your world.” I swallowed hard. “But only if you want this to be more than sex. I can't do this if this is all there is.”
He captured my hand and turned his head, kissing my palm. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” he murmured. He turned back towards me. “I want more.”
My heart gave a wild leap. He bent his head and brushed his lips across mine, a gentle touch.
“Now, lay down on your stomach.”
I stared at him. He couldn't be serious.
“Part of being a Sub means obeying when your Dom tells you something,” he said. “Trusting him.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “And that means the Dom has to earn the trust.” He kissed my temple. “Please, Aleena.”
I did as he said, my stomach clenching. I heard him moving around, but couldn't see well enough to see what he was doing. Suddenly, the scent of cinnamon filled the air. He moved the sheet and I sucked in a breath when I felt his hands on my ass. As he began to rub what I assumed was lotion into my stinging skin, I started to relax, the pain fading.
He paused for a moment and leaned down to kiss my shoulder blade. “We can do this.”
I didn't say anything as he went back to massaging in the soothing lotion. He was right. We were in new territory for both of us, but we could do it.
Chapter 7
Aleena
“I can’t, Mom.”
I kept my attention focused on the planner in front of me. I had my tablet flat on the table and both my phone and Dominic’s beneath it as I added a series of meetings, parties, lunches, breakfasts, brunches—Friday was going to be hell. We had breakfast, brunch, lunch
and
a tea scheduled.
Tea.
What in the world was I supposed to wear for
tea
?
He was meeting somebody who was flying in from England and I’d been told to set up tea.
So I’d talked with Amber. While I handled his personal day-to-day schedule, my job was a cakewalk compared to hers. She dealt with the ins and outs of the Winter Corporation and moved from one business to another, depending on which arm needed her the most. Right now, it was
Trouver L’Amour
and we’d ended up talking to Fawna. Between the three of us—or rather between Amber and Fawna, with me making notes and listening intently, tea was now on the schedule. I rarely had a chance to eat much at these meetings, so I wasn’t worried about eating myself sick.
No, the real problem was going to be staying on top of everything.
The meetings were all business related, but that didn’t keep Dominic from keeping both me and Amber with him. It was mentally exhausting and I understood why Fawna had always kept such thorough notes.
I’d never realized anybody could have a life as complicated as Dominic.
I was constantly recording details, looking up information and having to dig up information from the previous week.
It was a good thing I was organized and detail-oriented because Dominic was not.
Unless…
A hand landed on my thigh.
I caught my breath.
He was staring at me.
“I’m afraid I can’t do lunch on Friday.”
Swallowing, I leaned forward and grabbed his phone, bringing up the already crammed schedule and showing it to him. Dominic barely glanced at it. “I’m booked from about seven right up until I plan on dropping down on my couch in the evening with a beer in my hand, Mom.” His fingers traced a path on my inner thigh and my nipples tightened.
I wanted to lean into his touch, but at the same time, I wanted to put some distance between us.
His eyes closed and he blew out a breath, but he didn’t stop touching me either. “I’ll have to have Aleena see when my schedule clears up some.” Then he arched a brow and gave me a twisted sort of smile. “Would you like her number, Mom?”
Even I heard the sharp sound of her
No
as it cracked through the phone. I frowned.
His fingers tightened on my thigh for a moment. “Right, then. I’ll get back to you when I have a better idea when I’ll have some free time.”
He hung up the desk phone without looking, his free hand back to tracing a pattern on my thigh.
“You realize…” I had to pause and steady my voice before I could continue. It was insanely difficult to concentrate with the nerves in my leg shooting electricity straight up to my groin. “You realize I have absolutely no desire to talk to her, right?”
“Oh, I know that.” Dominic’s blue eyes glowed with banked need. “And I knew she wouldn’t accept. It got her off the phone, though, didn’t it?”
He pulled his hand away and said, “We’ve worked enough.” He checked the time and went to stand up.
“We need to finish making sure all the schedules are down for the next few weeks.” I shook my head even though my body was screaming at me to beg him to touch me again. “You have some meetings in your calendar that aren’t in mine. If you’d let me sync them…”
“No.” His gaze slid back to the hem of my skirt and I squirmed uncomfortably. He might as well have been looking at me in my underwear, the way he watched me. But after a moment, he sighed and looked back at the agenda. “Okay, let’s finish—or at least find a stopping point. Oh, leave some time open the first week in April.”
“April?” I waited for more information, but he just made a low noise of affirmation in his throat.
Sighing, I continued to go through the calendars, checking things off and asking a few questions. Sometimes, it took him a couple of minutes to think back. The man was so sharp, it astounded me sometimes, but I’d come to realize his brain was like a giant metal filing cabinet. All the information was there, but he had to flip through the folders to find it because he was already on to something else.
Restless, I raised from my chair, stretching my legs as I leaned forward, one hand braced as I finished flipping through the tablet. The calendar on it was the main one. Dominic might not let me sync his to mine, but once I had everything from his agenda transferred to this one, I’d just sync this one to mine and be done with it.
Everything matched up—
I gasped as Dominic slid his hand up my leg, under my skirt.
“Dominic, we’re in the—”
“Sir.”
I swallowed. We'd spent some time discussing the role he'd be teaching me. Once I'd been sure he understood I would only be submissive when it came to sex, I'd been fine with it. I just hadn't realized that sex would be taking place outside of the house or a hotel room.
“Say it, Aleena.”
“Sir…” It came out in a slow, shaky breath and heat exploded through me as he cupped my ass. “Sir, we’re in the office.”
“I know. I locked the door earlier.”
Instinctively, I glanced at the door and then I found myself staring at the windows. The nearest building wasn’t that far away. “The windows.”
“Nobody can see in. Privacy treatment.” His finger brushed against the soft cotton of my panties. “I want to fuck you here, Aleena. If you don’t want me to take you standing up, bend over my desk.” He paused and then asked, “You remember the word?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bend over.”
I did. I felt his hands on my skirt, but he didn’t pull it down. He pushed it up, baring my simple black panties. I wished I'd worn something sexier, but I hadn't been thinking I'd be doing this at work today.
“I’ve been watching you in this skirt all day and thinking about doing just this,” he said. “Pushing it up and staring at you, open for me, then sliding my dick inside you. Would you like me to do that?”
I nodded then gasped as he brought his hand down on my ass. “Yes, sir!”
“Keep your voice down,” he warned.
I sensed more than heard him standing up and then he bent over me, his hands on either side of my shoulders, his body covering me.
“I want to hear you tell me what you want, Aleena. Be a good little Sub and do that for me.”
Heat flooded my face and I darted a glance at him. “I…” Swallowing, I hesitantly said, “I want you to…”
“Slide my dick in you,” he prompted. “Tell me you want to feel my cock inside you.”
He’d barely touched me and I was already wet and aching for him, just from that. “I want to feel your cock inside me…sir.”
“Good girl.”
He pulled down my panties, carefully helping me step out of them, and then placed them on the table—
arranged
them, like he was placing them on display. “I’m going to put them in my pocket when we’re done,” he told me. “You’re going to walk out of here with nothing under your skirt. Am I understood?”
I nodded.
His theatrical sigh left my skin prickling in anticipation and he slapped me, hard and fast, three times on my ass. “I think you like being punished, Aleena.”
“Yes, sir.” And it was true. When we were like this, I understood that while he was in control, I did have my own power. Obedience. My safe word.
His soft laugh drew my nipples tight.
“Don’t move.”
I didn’t dare. I wasn’t even sure if I could.
I heard the foil rip and knew he was getting a condom ready. As much as I hated having anything between us, I knew there was no swaying him and now, I didn’t care. If he was putting a rubber on, that meant he’d be inside me soon.
I felt the head of his cock probing me and I whimpered.
He stopped.
He didn’t just
stop
, either.
He pulled out entirely and turned me to face him.
Shaking with need and nerves, I stared at him. I didn't understand.
“You have to be quiet.” He smoothed my hair back from my face as he looked at me. “Can you be quiet, Aleena?”
Now I got it. Ducking my head, I whispered, “I don’t know, sir.”
It was becoming instinctive now, calling him
sir
when we were like this. I clamped my knees together when he stroked his thumb over my lip. “I’ll help you,” he said after a moment, his voice firm, as if he’d made a decision.
“Help…” And then I watched numbly as he reached up and started to loosen his tie.
He caught sight of my expression. I don’t know if I looked terrified or excited. It was a mixture of both. He continued what he was doing and stopped when the tie hung loose around his neck. He cupped my face and leaned in, the touch of his mouth surprisingly gentle considering the tension I could feel radiating off of him.
“I…” Licking my lips, I whispered against his mouth. “If you use that, how can…um…I can’t say…um…the word if you have me gagged?”
“Does the idea of being gagged scare you?” There was genuine concern in his voice and I knew he was remembering what had happened last night.
“A little.”
A lot
.
“And does it turn you on?”
“A little.”
A lot
.
That smile—that arrogant, pleased smile that I was coming to love—curled his lips. He kissed me again, just a brief one but a bit harder. “Then trust me.”
He reached behind me and a moment later, he was pushing my panties in my hands. “You’re going to hold onto these. If you want me to stop at any time, you just drop them. I’ll see it and I’ll stop. Okay?”
Nervous, I clamped the damp cotton in my hands and nodded. “Okay.”
“Yes, sir,” he reminded me, pressing his thumb to my lip.
“Yes, sir.”
It was the last thing I would say for some time.
He used the tie as a gag. My heart was already racing and heat flooded my face as my phone chirped. “You’re not available,” Dominic said, no emotion in his voice. A moment later, the desk phone rang and he repeated himself as he finished adjusting the tie.
It cut ever so slightly into the corners of my mouth. “Is that comfortable?”
I shrugged and his eyes darkened for a moment.
“I can't know if it hurts if you're not honest. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear.” He slid his finger under the edge of the tie at the side of my mouth and frowned. The gag loosened ever so slightly and he ran his fingers over my cheek. “I'm not a sadist. I don't want you in pain. I want to control your pleasure.”