Enamored (18 page)

He cleared his throat and undid his tie, looking around for someplace to put it.

“I want you to drop all your clothes on the floor,” she said. “I know your clothes probably cost you thousands of dollars. But I don’t care. I’m sure the concierge can arrange to have them cleaned.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Actually, toss me that tie. I like it.” She grinned and winked at him, giving him a reminder that it was still her, still Lauren behind the Domme.

He tossed it to her and she caught it with one hand. “I am such a ninja,” she said gleefully.

“Totally a ninja,” he agreed, then quickly added, “Mistress.”

She laughed. “Don’t procrastinate, sexy. I want to see you naked.”

With that, he unbuttoned his shirt, and tossed it on the floor as she requested. Beneath, he wore a tight white T-shirt that showed off his muscular frame and incredible full-sleeve tattoos.

“I love your tattoos,” Lauren said. He grinned and rubbed his head again, as if the compliment made him shy.

“Thank you ma’am.” He pointed to an intricate part of the tattoo on the back of his triceps. “Remember this one? I got it to commemorate my first flight.”

“Yeah, I really thought you were going to kill yourself.” She laughed. “I was the only one who’d go up with you for the first year you flew, remember?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.” Marc lifted the T-shirt off, and Lauren licked her lips slowly, imagining covering his broad chest with kisses. “It meant a lot to me,” he said. “You trusted me with your life.”

The sentiment made her smile, so she forgave him for forgetting to call her Mistress. “I still do. And this means a lot to me, Marc . . . that you’re submitting to me tonight.”

He pulled off his socks and shoes, then stepped out of his slacks and dropped them on the floor as well, now wearing nothing but black boxer-briefs and his tattoos.

“Underwear, off,” she ordered, and grinned.

His cock sprung out as he dropped his underwear.

“On your knees, Marc.” Lauren pointed to the lush white carpet, and he immediately obeyed. This was her fantasy come true. Marc, on his knees, naked, waiting to serve her. “I’m going to let you lick my pussy, Marc. Would you like that?”

“Yes, Mistress, I’m always happy to do that for you.” He moved in closer to her and started to uncross her legs for her, almost automatically putting himself into a dominant role. She slapped his shoulder like he was a naughty puppy.

“No. This is different. I am not submitting to the pleasure you give me. You are serving me, worshipping at my shrine. It’s a different mind-set, do you understand?”

He nodded slowly, and Lauren parted her legs. She hadn’t bothered to wear underwear. “You may begin, Marc,” she said, “but you may not stop until I say so. Now suck my clit.”

M
arc inhaled, relishing in the scent that was uniquely Lauren. He loved her pussy, loved everything about it. It tasted like salted honey, if that was a flavor. He could lick her for hours. She ran her hands over his shaved head, which spurred him to lick faster, to suck her clit full into his mouth and gently nibble her nether lips.

If this was her playing Domme, he could do it. Eating pussy wasn’t going to be a problem. In reality, she hadn’t asked much of him so far other than that he call her Mistress, take off his clothes, and eat her out. Nothing too big. So she was definitely going easy on him.

Too easy? What was going to happen later, when he was warmed up, primed, so to speak? The image of her snapping the flogger against her boot flashed through his mind. He really wasn’t sure he wanted to be on the receiving end of that thing. He’d love to pick it up and use it on her, though.

It didn’t make him a hypocrite. It made him a Dom, pure and simple. He was playing along right now, but his erection and his desire came from seeing how hot she looked, and how at ease with herself when she was in her role as Mistress Lauren. It was one of the things that drew them together as friends when they first met, over five years ago. Almost six, actually. Their friendiversary was coming up soon.

He’d have to get her something special.

“Keep going, Marc,” she gasped, and he obeyed, licking her clit faster, harder, and then he slid two fingers deep inside her wet cunt.

With a sharp sound, the flogger came down across his back. Marc jerked his head back and looked up in surprise more than pain.

“I didn’t say you could use your fingers. This is my body, Marc, that you are serving. You must ask permission. Don’t just take what you want.” She looked at him sternly, a look he’d seen make other subs whimper. He hadn’t even realized that getting flogged while licking her pussy was even a possibility. Apparently it was.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, sincerely. “Fuck.
Mistress
Lauren. I just wanted to make you come.”

“You don’t get it, Marc. You don’t
make
me do anything, not when I’m in charge. I give. I give you my orgasm. I let you serve me as I see fit. You don’t take it, you don’t
make
me.”

Her voice had lost any shred of teasing.

“Are you okay, Lauren?” he asked, concerned. What had just happened?

She flicked the flogger over his back lightly. “
Mistress
Lauren,” she whispered, and then she dropped the flogger to the floor.

“Carnation,” Marc said. “We need a break.”

“Okay,” she nodded, and to his surprise, a tear rolled down her cheek.

“I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to safeword out on you,” he said.

“That’s not why I’m upset. I’m upset because—damn it, Marc. You can’t
make
me, you’re not supposed to, not now . . . I don’t like it when I think I’m in charge and then I realize . . . I’m not. Not at all.”

“What did I do? I mean, I know I’m not supposed to finger you or touch you without permission. I get that now. But I think this goes deeper, baby. It’s okay, you can put your shield back up if it helps. You can be Mistress Lauren. But I want you to tell me what that tear means, please. Please, baby.”

“I wanted tonight to be fun, Marc.”

“And all I want is to make you happy. That’s why I’m doing this, for you. I want you happy. But something shifted there, between us. Something cold came over you, and you weren’t the Mistress Lauren that I’ve been best friends with for so long. Why?”

She laid her head back against the chair and sighed. “It’s so fucking cliché I can’t even tell you. That’s how stupid it is.”

“It’s not stupid if it’s affecting how you feel, and our relationship.”

Lauren looked up, gazing into his eyes. Damn, she was so beautiful. “Is that what we have, Marc? A relationship? Or are we just friends who made a dangerous bet?”

“Both, I think. But that ‘dangerous’ bet is bringing us together. I’ve learned more about you in the past few days than I have in five years.”

“Almost six,” she said.

“Our friendiversary.” He liked the way the word Lauren had coined for the day they met at WhipperSnapper rolled off his tongue.

“I already told you that I became a professional Dominatrix when I was eighteen. I told you what happened, and why I got out of it. I told you that I love being a Domme now, but what I haven’t told you is . . . why it’s sometimes hard for me to submit to you, even though I trust you so much.”

Marc sat back on his haunches, still kneeling before her, rubbing her legs with his hands. He wanted to lift her up, cuddle her onto his lap, but he could tell that she needed to still be in a position of power right now. Something about the look in her eyes. The shield was up, she was Mistress Lauren.

“Ready for the cliché? I was raped. I know, happens all the time, and it can either wreck your life or it can break you into pieces and then you build yourself up again so you come back stronger than ever. That’s what happened to me. I was just a kid. In high school. A fourteen-year-old freshman and dating a senior. More clichés—he was on the football team, and I was one of only two freshman girls allowed on the cheerleading squad. I thought I was in love with him.”

Marc swallowed. He’d been waiting for this story ever since she mentioned making out in the backseat of her parents’ car and not wanting anything more. Bile rose in his throat. He wanted to kill the guy who’d harmed her. His hands bunched into fists instinctively, but he forced them to relax, to go back to stroking her thighs, soothing her as she spoke.

“I wasn’t ready. Idiot didn’t believe me. He said he knew I was shy and scared because it was my first time, but that once we got the first time over with I’d love it. I told him no, I just didn’t want to do it, and he . . . he ignored me. Like I didn’t exist, even though I was lying right underneath him, trying to close my legs, but I couldn’t, because his legs were wedged between mine. I tried to knee him in the balls, because that’s what everyone says to do if you’re going to get raped, and I knew that’s what was happening, even then. I was under no illusion that this was a misunderstanding. But with his legs between mine, I couldn’t knee him in the balls. Fuck, Marc, I felt so helpless.”

“You were fourteen?” Marc could barely choke the words out. His Lauren, oh God.

“I kept saying no, he kept going. He tore my skirt, and he shoved his thing inside me so hard I screamed. That’s when he said that he loved me, and he didn’t stop until he pulled out and came into a tissue. I was crying, snot was running down my face. And that was the only tissue he fucking had.”

She hadn’t looked at him once as she told her story, but Marc couldn’t help but notice that she’d called the guy’s penis a “thing,” perhaps that’s how she thought of it back then, when she was fourteen. Damn that motherfucking rapist.

“Lauren,” he whispered, and she looked at him, finally.

“Pathetic, I know.”

“Not pathetic. And I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

“Thank you. Me too. But after that, I was a take-no-prisoners bitch. I quit cheerleading. Tried to get my so-called boyfriend kicked off the team, but he just told everyone he’d broken up with me and I was trying to get back at him. No one believed me.”

“So he got away with it?”

“Of course. He’s grown up now, married with two kids. Lives in Arizona, I think. Or Nevada. Someplace hot.”

“How do you know?”

Lauren laughed mirthlessly. “He tried to friend me on Facebook.”

Marc could barely contain the growl of anger that raged through him.

“It’s okay, Marc. I mean, it’s not okay, but I’m okay. I learned that night that if I made it clear from the beginning who was in charge of the sex, then there wouldn’t be any more ‘misunderstandings.’ I was probably the only high school kid in existence who had a reputation for tying a guy up the moment things got intimate. It kept me safe, and it made becoming a professional Dominatrix my rather obvious post–high school career choice.” Now she laughed for real.

“Can I give you a hug?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, and they both stood. He wrapped his arms around her, wishing he could protect her forever from everything and everyone.

“I was really hoping to have a full scene with you tonight,” she admitted. “I still do love to play the Domme, and it’s not because I don’t feel safe with you. It’s become part of me, part of my kink. It turns me on.”

“We’re going to figure out a way to work this out, baby,” Marc said. “But I think the one good lick you gave me was about all of that flogger I feel like tasting.”

“Really?” She sounded disappointed, but not surprised.

“I’m not a switch, Lauren. I’m sorry. If I could be, I would. For you.”

“But you can’t.”

Marc looked at her, unable to keep the sadness from his voice. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose you.”

Lauren nodded. “Let’s pretend you don’t know about me getting raped. It’s not something I really like to rehash. I’ve moved forward. I even did therapy and stuff, back then.”

“I won’t mention it again unless you want to talk about it.”

“Thanks.” She looked relieved. “I’m going to take a bath and drink some wine, if that’s okay,” she said, reverting back to submission with surprising ease.

“Of course.”
I love you
, he almost said. But he didn’t. It felt so natural in his mind, it flowed.

I love you, Lauren
.

But the timing wasn’t right, they were both confused and everything was weird.

So instead he just smiled. “Enjoy your bath, baby.”