Dark Attraction: The Corde Noire Series (7 page)

He grabbed her hands. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

She ripped the blindfold away. “I’m stopping it.” Sam expected to see him glowering at her; instead, she was greeted by a playful smirk. “What’s so funny?”

He sat back on the sofa. “You’re a very uptight woman, Sam Woods.”

She stood up. “If you had somebody asking you all of those personal questions, you’d be uptight, too.”

“We’re not finished here.” His arms went around her and before she could stop him, he had her pinned to the sofa. “Time for another approach.” And then … he kissed her.

The touch of his lips was so unexpected, Sam became completely incapacitated. She had been kissed before, but never like this. His lips were teasing her, urging her to give in to him. Sam wanted to cave, to surrender to Doug’s embrace, and for a moment she did. She kissed him back, opening her mouth, allowing him to delve deeper. As his arms tightened around her, the trickle of desire in her belly turned into a raging torrent. Then, her ever-present inner voice reawakened, reminding her this was not a good idea.

But it was Doug who pulled away first. “So you can hand yourself over to passion.”

She tried to wiggle out from under him. “You just surprised me.”

He held her to him, not letting go. “Keep telling yourself that, Sam. I know better. I felt it in your kiss.”

“Was kissing me part of the lesson?”

He let her go. “Tomorrow night, we’ll try again.”

She stood from the sofa. “Tomorrow night? You must be crazy.”

He rose to his feet, his eyes once again hard and cruel. “If you’re going to trust me, there are some barriers that need to be torn down. The physical distance between us is one. Kissing you was a way to speed up the process.”

“What are you going to do tomorrow night, rape me?”

He straightened out his shirtsleeves. “I never take a woman who doesn’t want me.”

“Well, I don’t want you.”

“That’s not what your kiss told me.”

Sam wanted to lash out, tell him to never come back, but secretly she wanted to kiss him again. It had been the best kiss of her life.

Doug moved away, heading for her front door. “Expect me around seven.”

“Don’t bother coming back,” she called across the room.

His hand on her doorknob, Doug turned to her. “Tell me you don’t want more, and I will never see you again.”       

Sam opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, but the words got caught in her throat.

“That’s what I thought.” He opened the door. “I’ll make sure to bring more wine tomorrow night.” He stepped into the hall and then glared at her. “Lock this behind me.”

After he shut the door, Sam scurried across the room. When her lock clicked, she saw his shadow move away from beneath the door. Leaning against the wall, she slowly sank to the floor, utterly drained. This was not good. It was the beginning of something dangerous and stupid, and … she giggled. Sam couldn’t wait to do more.

A few minutes after seven, Sam was pacing the floorboards of her living room. She had rushed home from work and quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a loose fitting T-shirt. In her bathroom, as she had been checking her reflection, she itched to put on makeup and then remembered Doug’s feelings on the subject. Best to face him with just mascara and a bit of gloss; understated and simple.

All day at work, Sam had thought about Doug and that kiss. She had analyzed it, deconstructed it, and relived it, but she could never make sense of it. If his kiss was any indication of the lessons to come, Sam had no choice but to be his willing student.

Walking from the bathroom, she was hit by a sudden chill.

“Not now,” she muttered.

Her senses reached into the cold and instantly picked up on the female presence. In the corner of her bedroom the white mist returned, rising up like a funnel, while a shape tried to form inside of it.

She waved at the unfinished form. “Can’t we do this another time?” A knock at the front door made her jump. “Here I am talking to ghosts and jumping when a man knocks on my door. I should have my head examined.”

Ignoring the mist, Sam barged through her bedroom door. Trotting across the hardwood floor, she reached for her front doorknob.

“Why wasn’t your door locked?” Doug scolded as soon as he saw her.

Still wearing his slightly rumpled blue suit, he held an open bottle of white wine in his hand.

“I knew you were coming over, so I didn’t lock the door.”

He came inside, scowling. “From now on, always keep your door locked.”

“Why are you so obsessed with me locking my door?”

Doug brushed past her. “Because I can’t have anything happening to you.”

Shutting the door, she whispered, “Yes, sir.” 

He stopped behind her. “I heard that. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t do it again.” 

The anger in his voice was unexpected. By the time she turned to confront him, he was already in her kitchen, searching her cabinets.

Approaching the bar, Sam curiously noted his hurried movements, and the way his suit clung to his muscular frame.

Retrieving a single wineglass from her cabinet, he filled it with the pale yellow wine. “I want you to drink this.”

She eased around the bar. “What about you?” 

“I don’t need it. You do.” He held up the glass to her. “Drink it all down.”

“You want me to chug the wine?”

He shoved the glass at her. “Yes. It will help relax you.”

She took the glass from him. “Why do I need to relax?”

“Because I can’t fuck you to get you to relax, so this is the next best thing.”

After bobbing the glass in her trembling hands, Sam quickly drank back the wine.

After she emptied the wineglass, he refilled it. “Tonight, we’re going to see how you do with being tied up.”

“Are you going to hang me from the ceiling?”

“No.” He set the wine bottle on the countertop. “I promise it will not be anything you can’t handle.”

“Why do you want to tie me up? What purpose can that serve?”

“It serves my purpose.” He pointed to the glass in her hands. “Now drink.”

While he removed the yellow tie from around his neck, she eased back a few more gulps. Taking the glass from her, he pointed to the hallway that led to her bedroom. “In there. I want you on the bed.”

With butterflies swarming in her stomach, Sam headed for her bedroom. At the door, she glanced back at him.

“Go and sit on the bed,” he directed

“Just sit?”

“Why? What else did you have in mind?”

She ignored him and kicked off her tennis shoes. Sitting down on the bed, she placed her hands in her lap and kept her eyes on the floor, afraid to look at him.

“This is an exercise to see how well you follow instructions.” His blue suit jacket landed on the bed next to her. “If you can’t follow my instructions, I will punish you.” He lifted her hands. “Hold them up.”

Sam’s stomach twisted as he cinched the yellow tie around her wrists, tightly binding them together. “Lie back. Close your eyes.”

Closing her eyes, the trickle of excitement she had felt since meeting him at the door began to skyrocket out of control.

The bed sank next to her and she could hear the rustle of his clothing close to her ear. “You are to lie perfectly still. No matter what I do, you can’t move. Do you understand?”  

Her throat suddenly dry, she nodded. Sam could smell his cologne as he came closer, and then his shirt tickled her arm. He rested his hand on her thigh and squeezed the muscle. She flinched as his hand moved upward. When he slid his hand between her legs and cupped her crotch, she gasped.

“You have to trust my touch. I should be able to touch you anywhere, and you will enjoy it.”

His hand pressed deeper into her crotch, and she was about to protest when he kissed her hard on the lips.

This time his kiss was insistent, forcing her mouth open, letting his tongue touch hers. While he kissed her, he kept pressing his hand into her crotch. Her resistance was melting, and she wanted to slip her arms around him, then felt the pull of the tie binding her wrists. His hand rose up from her crotch, over her stomach, and settled on her right breast, squeezing it.

On impulse, she pushed him away.

He broke off from kissing her. “I told you not to move,” he growled into her ear.

Before she knew what was happening, Doug flipped her over on her belly and then straddled her thighs. Her bound hands were trapped beneath her. The slap across her right butt cheek took her breath away. Although it didn’t hurt, she was appalled that he had hit her. As she struggled to get up, another slap connected with her left butt cheek.

“Move again and I will pull down your jeans and really teach you a lesson.”

The menacing tone of his voice made her stop squirming. He stayed on top of her, pressing her into the bed for several agonizing minutes. His hands worked their way up from her butt to her back.

Gently, he began to massage her shoulders and neck. His fingers deftly worked out a knot in her lower neck.

“You’re too tense.” His fingers skillfully manipulated her neck from side to side, searching for the slightest spasms. “We need to work on getting you to relax more.”

Relax? How was she supposed to relax with him spanking her one minute and massaging her the next?

“See?” he whispered in her ear. “You’re already enjoying this.” He kissed her ear. “Do you want more?”

Did she want more? Did she want to go on with this game of his?

Doug rolled off her. Pulling her back against his chest, he reached around and untied her wrists. Once freed, she expected Doug to get up from the bed, but he didn’t. He held her against him; his arms wrapped tightly around her.

To Sam, that was even more disturbing than being spanked.

“Answer the question. Do you want to do more?”

His arms felt so good. She figured whatever he had planned would be worth it if she could spend a few moments in his embrace.

“Yes, I want more.”

He kissed the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. “That makes me very happy.” He rolled away and stood from the bed. “I hope you like pizza. I’m having one delivered in a few minutes from a great little place down the street.”
     Disappointed, Sam slowly sat up. “Pizza is fine.”

Picking up his jacket, he stuffed his tie into his pocket. “What is your schedule tomorrow?”

“Ah, tomorrow I’m off.”

He tossed his jacket over his arm. “I have meetings most of tomorrow, but I will be back here after four. I want to have more time with you. We have a lot to work on.”

“What will you do to me tomorrow?”

The sound of her door buzzer rang throughout the apartment.

“That’s our pizza.” Doug dashed to her bedroom door. “I never disclose a lesson ahead of time, Sam,” he announced before ducking out of the room.

While Doug paid the pizza delivery guy, Sam set two places at her bar and refilled her wineglass. She had a strange feeling she was going to need it.

Sam said little while they ate. The incident in the bedroom had left her perplexed. She wasn’t sure why being with Doug was appealing to her, but it was. Having him puttering around her kitchen, serving her, and taking care of her made her feel special, almost wanted. She knew enough about Dominants to suspect Doug was treating her like she was already his.

“I have a few questions for you,” he said, after finishing his second slice of the spinach and artichoke pizza.

She snatched up her wineglass. “Why does that not surprise me?”

He wiped his hands on his paper napkin. “You never told me about your sexual experiences.”

She gulped back a large portion of her wine. “That’s right, I never did.”

He dropped the napkin on the counter. “Tell me now.” He retrieved his wineglass and took a sip.

Sam peered into her yellow wine. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Nothing as in you don’t want to tell me, is that it?”

“Something like that.”

He thumped his drink on the granite countertop. “For this to work, you’re going to have to open up to me.”

“I thought I already did that in the bedroom.”

“All right, let’s start with something simple. Have you ever been spanked by a non-family member before, like a lover?”

She shook her head. “What you did to me tonight was a first.”

“Did you like what I did?”

Her hand tightened around her wineglass. “What would you think of me if I said yes?”

“It’s what you think that matters, Sam.” He moved closer to her stool. “There is no right or wrong here. My only goal is to get you to be comfortable with who you are and what you want.”

“Comfortable? I doubt that will ever happen. I’m an uptight minister’s daughter with a lot of baggage to unload.”

“Everyone has baggage. I’m not free of the past, either. I just choose not to let it affect me.” His emotionless eyes dissected her face. “You’re curious to discover what pleases you. That’s a beginning.”   

“Or the beginning of the end, if you are looking at this from a biblical perspective.”

Doug chuckled as he collected his wineglass. “I have something else for you to consider. On a scale from one to ten, how much pain do you think would be too much? How far could I go before I reached your limit?”

Tracing the rim of her wineglass, Sam thought about his question. “What have your other subs been able to tolerate?”

“Depends on their experiences. Some can tolerate a lot, some not much at all.”

“Have you had a lot of subs? I know you said you had a girlfriend recently move out, but I—”

“She was my sub, not my girlfriend,” he interrupted. “We were together for two years, until she decided to explore a … darker side in submission.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s something I don’t do with subs. It involves pain and severe forms of punishment.”   

“Did you ever see her again?”

“Yes.” He took a hasty drink of his wine.

She put her wine down, dismayed by his tight-lipped answer. “Have you always been a Dominant?”

“I’ve always had the trait, but didn’t learn about the lifestyle until I graduated from college in Boston and came back home to New Orleans.”

Sam sat back a little on her stool. “So you’re from here.”

“My mother lives in the Garden District. My father died after I finished college, leaving me the family business to run.”

“The transportation business?”

He set his wineglass on the bar. “That’s right.”

“I don’t get it. What do you get out of this, Doug? Besides sex.”

“It’s not about the sex. It’s about the sense of fullness and happiness I get by providing the best direction for the relationship as possible. I enjoy the responsibility for the relationship, maintaining the parameters, structuring the training, and staying vigilant to the needs of my sub.”