Disciplined by the Dom (4 page)

Like a man made of metal and restraint, he pivoted his head to look at Lola. “Mistress Lola, might I beg a favor?”

She smiled at his formality. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Stay away from your office for a short while.”

~  ~  ~

Catie had begun to shiver. Her body was covered in gooseflesh, and her nipples were almost painfully hard. Her mind had been racing since Jake had left her—naked, alone—in Lola’s office. Her thoughts had begun to spin so fast that they’d lost all sense of proportion and balance, and she’d found herself thinking crazy things:
He’s told everyone. They’re all watching. They all hate you. They will punish you.

And yet she was wet. She could feel the cold January air on the wetness still seeping between her legs. The thought of being punished by Jake was…

“Oh God, what is wrong with me?” she said aloud.

The sound of her own voice startled her. The following silence seemed to heighten her solitude, like a persistent ringing in her ears that just kept getting worse. Anyone could come in at any time. She should leave. She was probably about to be exposed, she was about to lose everything, and the only thing she couldn’t handle would be…to be cast out. To be totally rejected by these people—and this place—that she’d come to like. She wanted to be at home here. Wanted to be a part of it. She genuinely loved the ethos: to know yourself and to help others.

No, she couldn’t handle it if they kicked her out. If she had to face them, knowing they knew her for what she was and hated her… She didn’t know why, exactly, but the thought sent her into a panic, and she shied away from it. She should leave. She should run away before…

But then she’d remind herself that she believed Jake, for some reason. Believed his promises. It made her realize how much she normally disbelieved: no one ever really did what they said they would. No one could really be relied upon.

But she didn’t have any reason to believe him more than she believed anyone else, beyond how she’d felt when he’d looked at her. She really was being a fool.

This back and forth went on and on, the volume steadily rising with each volley, each thought building upon the last, until she thought she would actually lose her mind.

And then, the door opened.

Jake stood there, towering over her with his dark eyes and his dark hair that had come slightly unkempt. He looked like authority personified. He walked in and quickly closed the door behind him, and his eyes never left her body as he did so. Catie felt herself blush. With apparent effort, he lifted his gaze and looked her in the eye.

“Kneel,” he said.

Catie startled, suddenly pulling out of her crazed thoughts and back to the present. She wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly. “What?”

“
Kneel
.”

She felt nervous, and instinctively tried to grab at the fabric of her dress, an old habit that gave her something to do with her hands when she felt uneasy, but this only reminded her that she wasn’t wearing a dress. She was naked. She blushed all over again, and then she saw the look in Jake’s eyes, and felt again that unfamiliar mix of fear and arousal.

She fumbled slightly getting to her knees. When she did, she sat back on her calves, as she had before, and looked up at him.

Just looking up at him gave her a little twitch down below. She heard his intake of breath and grew worried.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

“No,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse. “A good beginning.”

She suppressed a smile. Why did that feel so good? It was like a different flavor of good from when she’d provoked his disapproval and the implied threat of discipline, but still sweet. Sweet, as opposed to spicy.

“Catie, pay attention,” he said, and she focused on him. He was perfectly still. Almost unnaturally still. She hadn’t realized how much normal people moved when they weren’t thinking about it until confronted with this absolute, controlled stillness.

“If I am to train you, we must first negotiate the nature and method of your training.”

“Ok,” she said. “That makes sense.”

His chest expanded as he took a great breath. The moment stretched while Catie wondered what she’d done wrong.

He said, “You will address me as ‘sir’ while in session.”

She blinked. Of course. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you cold?”

Catie had almost begun to feel normal in her nudity, even sitting—kneeling—before a fully clothed man. As though it were just an everyday thing. Now she remembered her nakedness and felt a renewed gush of pleasure at the thought. She looked down at her nipples; they were still hard. And she didn’t feel cold. Well, she did, but not unpleasantly so. It added something.

“I don’t think so,” she said carefully.

“Be precise. You must always be precise about what you feel, or things might go very badly.”

“I am, but I don’t want you to close the window,” she said. And then a little shamefacedly, “I think I like it.”

He gave the briefest of smiles. “Good.”

Catie preened.

Jake began to walk around her in a circle, looking her up and down. She turned her head to follow him, but snapped her head forward again at the merest look from him. For some reason his expression was easy to read—easier than others’—and she was good with most people. Acting had taught her to look for and respond to emotion. But with Jake, it was almost like she didn’t have a choice.

“You are aware of what Volare is about?” he said.

“Yes.” There was a pause. She added, “Sir.”

“Then tell me.”

Catie hadn’t expected to be grilled. It felt like a school examination, and she was gripped with the anxiety of being terminally unprepared, even though she knew this. Didn’t she? She racked her brain.

“It’s about knowing yourself by testing your limits. Knowing yourself so well that you can be of use. And service.” She tried desperately to remember the motto. Something about flying? Learning to fly through the practice? “About helping?”

“Close enough.” She thought she heard him smile. “Yes, knowing yourself through exploration of the extremes, of one’s boundaries. And then some people use that knowledge to ultimately be of service to others, though it’s not required. And then throughout it all is the incredible sex.”

“Oh thank God,” she said, and then immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. A second later, she removed it. “
Sir
,” she added.

She heard a chuckle, and then his hand was on her shoulder. It was large, larger than she’d expected, but smooth. And warm. So very, very warm. He kept it there while he moved around her, until he stood very close to her face. She couldn’t help but notice she was just about at the perfect height for…

“Catie,” he said.

Would she do it? If he asked her to suck him off, right here? If he
ordered
her to? The truth was, she wanted to. She couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like, how big he was, what he’d taste like…

“Look up,” he said.

She did. He looked down at her, and she could see the desire in his face. He threaded his fingers through the hair at the back of her head and she bit her lip.

“You are up to date with the club-mandated tests?”

He meant STD tests. She nodded. “Of course.”

“So am I.”

She thought about what that meant and shivered.

Jake said, “Do you understand what this means? It means I will fuck you. You will be mine for the duration of training, and that means you are asking a great deal of me. I will do my best, but I demand total honesty and total obedience, and I
will
punish you if you stray or if you lie to me. I will explore every last inch of you, Catie, inside and out, and you will hide nothing. Do you understand and agree?”

It was exactly what she couldn’t do, what she couldn’t agree to. And yet, Catie had never wanted anything more in her life. So she told one more lie.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

His fingers tightened, pulling her head back slightly. She stifled a groan.

“Trainees sometimes become…attached,” he said, and his voice had become a whisper. “That would be unwise. I do not become attached. It is not how I am built. Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am. As soon as our training commences, you must understand that it is both deeply personal and deeply impersonal at the same time. Individual feelings do not—”

“Has it commenced yet, sir?” she asked, looking up into his eyes. Immediately, she realized that she’d interrupted him. Oh God, how she wanted him.
Him
. She wanted to make him come just once with her, Catie, not the trainee. And she wanted to know that he wanted her.

He didn’t say anything. His jaw clenched and his fingers tightened their grip on her hair.

This is it, Catie
.

She’d never know what gave her the courage, but in that moment, she reached for the zipper on his expensive slacks. She never got close enough to touch it. With a growl, he yanked her to her feet, dragged her over to the desk, and pushed her down on top of it. The look on his face was pure animal need, and it was exactly what she wanted to see. She didn’t know where it had come from or who she had become, suddenly, without warning, but she knew what she wanted. She wanted him to take her, hard.

Jake held her there while he freed his cock, his eyes locked on hers. He pushed himself between her legs and paused for just a second, still holding her down. His eyes flashed and something churned deep within him.

“Please,” she said. “Quickly.”

He snarled, and then he plunged into her and fell on her neck, biting her and stretching her to her limit all at once. It hurt, and she loved the pain and the feeling of fullness together, complementing each other. She’d thought about this so many times, so many ways…

He fucked her hard, pounding deep into her again and again, and it sent her over the edge almost too quickly. She felt her inner muscles contract in quick spasms before the rest of her was ready and primed, and she was building for her second before she even knew what happened. Jake lifted her legs and hips off of the desk to go deeper, and when he drove into her this time, he looked her right in the eye and let her know he owned her.

She came again, and again, and again.

chapter
4

It had been a long week since Jake had discovered Catie in Lola’s office. A week since he’d agreed to train her, a week since his first—second?—incredible error of judgment regarding that woman. His mind kept returning to it in the least helpful of ways, reminding him that he should have been thinking about what he’d learned, how to design her training. Instead, he thought about what she’d felt like inside, like warm, wet velvet, and he’d thought about the look in her eyes, like she wanted to both fight and fuck, and the way she’d wanted it hard, just like he wanted to take her. He thought about the way she’d looked embarrassed when she’d said she wanted only him. He thought about that a lot.

No matter what his responsibilities, no matter how inappropriate the time or place, if he left his mind unoccupied for a moment, there she was.

And there was no more inappropriate time or place than right now or right here. He sat in the small office he kept at the back of the top floor of the haven he’d built for addicts, runaways, those in danger of hurting themselves. Stephan’s House. And he was waiting for Eileen Corrigan, Stephan’s mother.

He rearranged the many papers on his desk, all the things having to do with the new expansion, and leaned his head back against the old exposed brick. This building would be worth eight figures if he ever decided to sell it. He wouldn’t. The location, in the East Village, was too convenient for kids who might suddenly decide to get help. You never wanted to miss a walk-in.

What could she possibly want?

He hadn’t seen Eileen Corrigan in five years. He didn’t like to think about how she’d looked at him then. He would probably remember it for the rest of his life. There hadn’t been any tears. Just pure, unadulterated hatred.

He didn’t like to think about how she’d ever looked at him, if he were being honest, but when he was younger he could pretend, in the way boys do. And there was always Stephan and his father, and together they’d always gone off somewhere, away from Eileen Corrigan’s angry banging of pots and pans and muttered comments. In retrospect, it was likely that this was no accident.

His father had always had a talent for social situations. Jake had at least tried to learn to mimic that skill, if not embody it, the way his father and Stephan had.

“Sleeping on the job, huh?”

He snapped his head up and opened his eyes. There she was, Eileen Corrigan, in the flesh. She looked much older than he remembered, and yet somehow healthier. Her red hair was no longer permed, but was instead cropped in a modest bob. It struck him as matronly. Responsible, even. He felt disoriented; the Eileen Corrigan he had known had worn push-up bras to her son’s parent-teacher conferences.

“Eileen.”

“Don’t get up, Jake.” She sat down with alarming comfort on the chair opposite his desk. “We’ve got too much history for that crap.”

“All right.” He sat back down and looked at her. She met his gaze. She would. He suddenly realized he had no idea how to conduct this interview, and he was so unaccustomed to simply not knowing that he was now at a loss for words. He felt like almost anything he might say could be a horrible misstep, the kind of thing that would rend Eileen’s wound in two. Or his own.

“Well, aren’t you curious?” she said. She was almost smiling. Almost.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Quite.”

“The anniversary is coming up.”

“I know.”

“I see that you know. You’re preparing all kinds of stuff, it looks like.” She peered at the papers on his desk. “You’ve got quite a good operation going on here. I’m impressed.”

He winced, and she noticed it.

“I meant that, Jacob,” she said, and opened her purse, which he noticed was now a sedate cream color, rather than the lime green he remembered. “You done good.”