The Dom Project (11 page)

She’d have to check the contract, but she was pretty sure piercings were out. That left...oh God.

Own it
.

She unclenched her legs and remembered to breathe.

Chapter Seven

“Not yet, not yet!” Robin cried out when she breezed through the door, raising both hands to her throat to block the string of pearls John was holding up for her.

His face must have fallen as he withdrew them, because she reached out to cup his cheek in apology.

“No, nothing like that. We’re still on. But I forgot to tell you something earlier. Well, actually I forgot to tell you
everything
earlier, you kind of distr—why’s there a board on your window?”

“Jim tried to get in. And do you remember that orchid I had for two years? He ripped through it looking for a key, and it’s on life support right now.” He sighed, although he really didn’t give a damn about the orchid now that Robin was here.

“Oh no...” Robin murmured. “Where is he now? He’s not here, is he?” When John dangled the pearls in front of her face, she laughed. “No, I suppose he isn’t.”

“I would have told you about it, but I guess I got distracted too. It doesn’t matter anyway. So tell me your news.”

She startled, but gathered her composure quickly. “Well, you remember Al?”

“Al Steelhammer, you mean?” He could guess the good news, but didn’t want to spoil her reveal.

“Yes, him. He called me today. He wants me to come look at his collection!” She lurched, as if she was about to hug him in joy, but then her eyes fell on the pearls clutched in his palm and she shrank back again, shy. Her body was so expressive. He had plans to bring that quality out more, very soon. “Oh, and he wants you to come along. I—I’d like that too. If you want.”

“To look over his never-before-seen Irina Mareau collection? Are you kidding me? Is that even a question? Yes!” This time it was his turn to step forward for a hug and then draw back at the last second. The in-between effect threw him off balance, like a sound wave too low for human hearing that still vibrated in his bones. He knew what it was, but he didn’t like compensating for it.

Robin seemed to sense his discomfort, because she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, lifted her chin and said softly, “I’d like to put on that necklace now.”

Yes
,
yes.

Her huge, patient eyes invited him in, as if she were a hypnotist’s subject in a silent movie, speaking all in subtle flickers and trembling. He stepped forward, the pearls drooping between his fingers, and pressed them to the front of her throat as he reached around the back of her neck and fastened them at her nape. They fell, dormant but not inert, to rest on her collarbone.

“You look like her,” he said. “Not physically, but just the way you hold yourself. Your aura—if you’ll forgive me getting a little new age on you—is old-fashioned. Coquettish. Like her.” He traced the necklace with the edge of his finger, wondering if the pearls felt cold against her throat.

“Thank you.”

He raised his finger from the necklace to her lips, almost touching but not quite, and made a
ssh
sound. Her eyes narrowed at the assumption. Then widened again with acceptance. Satisfaction stirred inside him, deep and tidal. He didn’t need to touch her to have her, not like this.

“Go into my bedroom. There are some things in there on the bed for you to put on. Get undressed, put them on and then put whatever lingerie you’re wearing now back on over them. I’ll wait out here.”

She nodded. God, he wished he could go with her, undress her slowly, bend her over the bed and run his hands up and down her sides and back to calm and comfort her before he finally reached between her legs...

The door to the bedroom closed. Robin was gone and he was alone.

* * *

Robin folded her dress and laid it on the dresser, then arranged her panties and bra on top. The contact high she’d gotten from John’s hands around her neck had floated her this far.

Now she was stark naked. In his bedroom. The realization hit suddenly and made her shiver. She hugged herself, and that only made it worse, because her fingers were so cold. She ran them up her sides in a vain attempt to warm them.

Her nipples had hardened into stiff buds.

That knowledge, gained from exploring her own body, eased her discomfort amazingly. No, it wasn’t so cold anymore, not really.

She sighed, and turned, and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored closet door. Her nakedness made the pearls stand out, or maybe it was the other way around.
I
want John to see me like this
. Slim hips cocked just so, hands caressing herself...

He was waiting for her to follow instructions. A different, less physical pleasure pulsed through her, remembering. She broke away from her reflection and walked to the bed.

There were two toys resting on a folded towel. One was small, silver and glittering. The other, soft red silicone shaped like the letter U. Both somewhat mysterious at first, their functions became clearer when she picked them up and felt their weight. The silver toy was, in fact, a highly polished stainless steel butt plug, finished with a multifaceted red gem. The silicone U was a vaginal vibrator with one tip for stimulating the clitoris. She cataloged them with a familiar and nonsexual delight and even guessed at their value: they were well made, but not rare. The gem was only a pretty crystal.

Did she think this was an appraisal? They were meant to go
inside
her. She gasped. Her hand twitched, and the toys fell from her palm back onto the towel.

And then she grabbed them again, because a need surged inside her to be filled and fucked, and she didn’t see any reason to fight it.
Do it now.
For yourself.
For him.

There was a bottle of lube by the towel. John had thought of everything. All she had to do was follow orders. She put the vibrator back down, picked up the lube, dripped some on the blunted tip of the plug.

It was a small plug and she’d done some anal play before, so it wasn’t too intimidating but the fact that it had been
him
to choose it, to buy it, to lay out so neatly, to have done all that for
her
and it was just one step removed from fucking her himself? Now that
was
slightly intimidating.

As the crystal caught the light and glimmered, she remembered telling him, years ago, that she loved garnets.

She bent over onto the bed and spread her legs. It was hard to do this on her own, so damn hard, but it meant something. The face she had to be making into the quilt must be either pornographically obscene, or else incredibly awkward, the kind of grimace that could mean only one thing.

Or maybe they were one and the same.

She appreciated John giving her privacy to do this, to work through this subtle and juvenile humiliation.

And at the same time, she wished he was here, watching her, his look of desire helping her push through the shame. But then, maybe later...

It was the thought of his phantom presence by her side, together with the swelling urgency of her need, that finally broke her resistance. Oh, and it was so easy then, the cold, fierce thing sliding into her with the least pressure, the tight ring of her asshole drawing it in as she automatically clenched.
This isn’t dirty.
This is beautiful
, she told herself.
Or else it’s both.
One and the same.

The base with its little crystal was right
there
—a constant, insistent reminder of what she’d just done to herself—but it wasn’t uncomfortable. She reached around her, gently fingering the cool crystal, tracing her fingertips along the edges of its facets, following some indiscernible pattern. She wondered how it must look. If he would photograph her in it. Probably. He could have chosen something functional, with more and better features, for the same price, but he’d picked something specifically ornamental.

The vibrator too. Smooth and luxurious and minimalist in its styling, it was an alluring object, and the same red as the gem now nestled half-hidden in her ass.

She rose on to her left elbow, stroked between her legs with her right hand...and knew she wouldn’t need any lubricant for the vibrator. No hesitancy. She sat up on the edge of the bed, knees spread, cradled it in her palm and slid it into place: one arm of the U curled inside her sex, and the other thrust up between her labia to cover her clit. The whole thing seemed to cup her supportively, like she imagined John’s hand would, if he reached between her legs from the front and nudged two fingers into her and just held her. Such a wonderful, possessive touch—had he purchased this toy specifically to mimic it?

She slid off the bed and walked to the dresser very slowly, palms on her hips, legs pressed tightly together. Every step was a chord combining multiple new sensations. The unyielding plug, shifting and rolling. The silicone clinging and cupping, enough pressure to tease but not even begin to satisfy.

With shaky hands, she pulled on her red satin panties, fastened her matching bra and slipped into her heels. She took one last look in the mirror to check her makeup: a touch of dark eye shadow and lip gloss, none of it smeared.

Stepping in the heels felt insanely wrong, like she was about to fall over any second to compensate for the delicious, invading pressure. She tried to reassure herself.
It’s all right if I wobble.
He’ll think it’s sexy.
Which made her wonder what exactly John got out of this, especially after she was gone and he was alone with his memories, his photos...

Well then, she’d give him some good ones.

She opened the door and stepped out.

* * *

Seeing her was like a punch to the gut. Shy, but determined, and for the first time unsteady on her heels. She’d dressed as requested in deep bloodred lingerie, not lace this time, but soft, touchable-looking satin. And her shoes, too, red and glossy like candy apples. Oddly enough, it was her hands that excited him the most, how she held them out to either side as if she were walking a tightrope, fingers delicately spread apart. All the tension in her body seemed to be curling and trembling there.

“Y—” he started, then had to clear his throat. “You’re going to want to move over to that area where I laid out the carpet.”

His floors were hardwood throughout, but for today he’d put out a plush floor rug, and hidden underneath it a folded duvet, for cushioning.

“Yes, sir.”

God, he could come just hearing her say that.

He reached as inconspicuously as possible into his front jeans pocket, although truth be told the discretion wasn’t necessary. She was too focused on trying to walk to notice anything else. As soon as she’d reached the carpeted area, her metal spike heels swallowed by the off-white shag, his fingers found the remote wedged into his pocket. Without warning her, he pressed it.

“Jesus!” she shouted, voice a couple of octaves higher than usual, and clutched the front of her panties. Staggered. Fell to her knees.

What he wouldn’t give to come up behind her and bend her forward, until he had her beautiful stunned face shoved into the carpet, her ass up for him to pull those panties aside and expose her, expose that pretty plug he’d found for her and her even prettier pussy, wet and clenching around the curved intrusion of the vibrator. He’d stroke her trembling thigh and spank her ass and then he’d hold the vibrator against her, giving her that tiny bit of pressure
just
as he made the vibrations stop...

Or he’d do none of that.

Because this wasn’t about him.

“Don’t touch yourself,” he told her, keeping his voice impassive.

She didn’t hear him. She had one hand on the floor, the other between her knees, head down, moaning.

He hit the off button and moved to her side, bending down over her. “Don’t touch yourself,” he repeated in an even lower voice. She panted and strained to hear him, to comprehend, but once she did, she rose to her knees and spread out her hands to either side again, brilliantly obedient. “It’s not quite enough, is it?”

“No, sir. Please...”

“Ssh.”

She went quiet, her back and ass arching and shifting, riding the unmoving vibrator in an incredibly appealing display of frustration.

He took his camera from the couch and paced around her in a circle, contemplating angles. Close-up shots of her hand came first. Then the backs of her ankles, some with her heel spikes askew, others after he gripped the spikes in his fists and straightened them so they were parallel, pointing upward.

She hitched her breath audibly as he positioned her.

He couldn’t resist pulling the spikes apart even farther, watching the tremors in her calves and her thighs as the angle became increasingly awkward until she had to gasp and spread her knees wider.

“Spread for me, that’s right. And don’t worry,” he said. “It won’t come out. Are your knees all right? Let me know if they start hurting.”

“Yes...sir.”

“Good. I think you’re going to be a fantastic model. Some of the positions I’m going to have you hold won’t be easy though. Especially when I turn on the button. I’ll let you come...after you’ve
worked
for it.” He let a harsh note enter his voice at the end.
Aggression
—oh yes. Just as fulfilling as the caning, maybe even more, because Robin’s need for it was so rich and complicated, beyond simple pain. To perform, to be seen, to satisfy and submit. He could take her there.

The first step would be to make her open her eyes. He loved that moment. Like a harsh slap, like stepping into an ice-cold bathtub. It forced her to come out of her body, face the reality of where she was and what she was doing. The shame and arousal and shock and bravery of that moment...he envied it. There was no room for shame on this side of the equation. To dominate meant to be self-assured and confident and to never second-guess himself, unless it was for
her
safety. John had to be solid and steady and sure for her, so she could have the room to fight herself and then make the peace.