RequiredSurrender (8 page)

The air around him crackled with anticipation. Harsh and
heavy breathing filled the silence, but all he focused in on was her panted-out
little breaths. Her small moans as her head whipped from side to side.

“Let’s try this.” He met her right on, hard and fast. Over
and over he tapped and snapped. Working the tail against her until she was
jerking and crying. Desperate. She was soaked he knew and he wanted a better
view of her. “Come chase it, kitty.” He leaned over, angling for a greater
vista. “Lift up and it’s yours. That’s right. A little higher now. A little
more.”

Her slick folds were too enticing. He needed to feel the
heat. Without a word he dropped the tail and splayed his hand on her stomach,
forcing her bottom half back down into the upholstery. He didn’t pause, he just
slipped two fingers into her tighter-than-tight little channel and searched
until he found it. The tiny place that held all her feminine secrets. When he
found it he stroked and petted it like he would a skittish cat.

Her head whipped from side to side, her hips flexed and
pivoted as she moaned. She jerked then stiffened when he heard the telltale breath
catch in her throat. “That’s my good little kitty. Come for me.”

He gave one last thrust with his fingers and held his
position in her as her whole body spasmed and she gasped out a cry that
reverberated around the room as hot and sweet honey gushed out of her.

“Christ.”

He ignored Dillon’s groan and leaned down to kiss her. “You
did good, sexy. Real good. Let me finish my game and then we’ll go and have
some serious playtime.”

He was pleased when she pressed her cheek into his palm and
smiled. Happy because this was the first time he’d ever seen her smile and damn
the sight was enough to take his breath away. But then she purred and this time
there was no mistaking the sound. His cock instantly throbbed with the need to
get into her.

“Such a good little pet,” he whispered and leaned down to
slowly bite her nipple. “You’re my good little pet.” He nipped her hard. “All
mine.”

Chapter Six

Jo followed Ted as she had all night long while he opened up
a whole new world to her. Although she’d gotten a taste of it through her
visits to the resort to meet the various Dom candidates he’d set up for her,
she always felt inadequate. Maybe inadequate was the wrong word. More like out
of her league. As if she were a high school sophomore visiting a college
senior’s party. But here with all the wonderful people they’d met and the
outrageous things she’d done with them and in front of them it was as if she
were an accepted peer and that bolstered her confidence. Of course, with a guy
like Ted wrapping one hundred percent of his attention around her, calling her
sexy and getting her off every chance he got it was no wonder she walking on
air.

“Right through here.”

By now Jo knew better than to scan the room. She kept her
eyes on him until the door closed and he walked them to the end. From her
peripheral vision she guessed they were alone in an empty room. She hadn’t
caught a glimpse of anything but walls and floor.

“I want you to have a look around.” Ted put his hands on her
shoulders and turned her around.

She’d been right on both accounts. They were alone and the
room was nearly empty except for a large leather lounge chair that sat off to
one side of the room. “We’re going to play a game that kitties love.” He went
to the closet and opened the door. Inside were a series of drawers that were
all labeled with black and white lettering. He opened one drawer and pulled out
a blindfold and after searching downward he opened another and got out a
package of some sort.

“As you can see there’s no furniture other than the chair I’ll
be sitting on while you play ‘find the balls’.” He held up the package and
shook it. Inside there were a number of colorful plastic caged balls with bells
in them. “To make the game more interesting, I’m going to blindfold you before
I drop each ball in a different location. You’ll have to listen so you’ll have
an idea which way to crawl to retrieve them. There’s six in all, and you’ll
have five minutes to find them.”

Piece of cake. The room wasn’t huge and it was empty.

He came to her and unclipped her leash. “And after you’ve
collected all six you must come and find me. Understand?”

She nodded and was going to sink to her knees, but he
grinned in that way she was coming to know, the one that meant “don’t try to
second guess me because you’ll never get it right”.

“Let’s make it a little more interesting even.” He slipped
the blindfold over her eyes and said, “You’d find the balls in a second if I
didn’t do this.” He turned her once, twice, three and after four times she
stopped counting because she got dizzy. At some point he scooped her up and
walked around with her. Then he put her down. “Put your hands out.” He’d
positioned her facing a wall, but she wasn’t sure which one, the sneaky beast.
“Pay attention. You only get one chance for each.”

The first ball landed behind her to the right. The second to
her right again. The third went left, but the trailing tinkle of the bell
sounded like it took a bad bounce and went right, or was that left? By the time
all six had been thrown she didn’t have a concrete plan, she just knew she was
going to head right and go from there.

“Remember. Down on all fours and keep your ass up, I don’t
want your tail touching the floor.”

She used her hands as a guide down the wall and once she
turned and landed on all fours she realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as
she thought it was.

“Time starts now.”

It was as if a gun went off in her head and she focused on
the race against the clock. Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought her technique
through. Quickly sweeping her hands out was not the best idea as the first ball
she came across she hit instead of grabbed and it sailed away. Following the
trilling bell inside was a mistake too because in her haste she knocked another
one away with her knee.

These setbacks, combined with Ted’s chuckles, only made her
more determined. She found one ball, then two and by the time she reached a
wall and another ball, she was faced with another dilemma. How to hang onto
them and still have her hands free to get more?

“Be creative.”

She stopped crawling and tilted her head. Creative? She put
one in her mouth, that was all she could fit and one between each of her hip
bones and the leather bikini bottom. They dug into her, but when he called,
“Three minutes left,” she dealt with the pain.

“Ass up, kitten, your tail is dragging.”

She found the fourth one and held onto it as she scampered
across the floor. Then five.

“A minute left.”

Her heart hammered and she scrabbled over the smooth
linoleum. She only had one more to go. It was probably that one that had the
bad bounce. It could be anywhere.

“Cold.”

A thrill went through her because he was helping her. She
turned right.

“Colder.”

She turned left.

“Warmer.”

She slowly crawled toward his voice, making sure her ass was
up. “Warmer.”

She continued to go in the same direction, sure now that the
last ball was near him.

“Thirty seconds, sexy.”

She was close. She could feel his heat and when she reached
a hand out and felt the leather on his boot she shivered.

“Very warm.”

She frantically searched the area around the chair and his
feet and then had an idea. Reaching with her free hand, she went up his calf.

“Getting hotter.”

That did it. She knew without a doubt that the ball was
right on his—

“Ooh, too bad. Time’s up.”

She came up to a kneeling position as the ball fell out of
her mouth. She’d been so close and hearing him chuckle this time really irked
her.

He took the blindfold off her and grinned. “Maybe next time
you’ll win.”

The thought of a future plan with him eased her
disappointment and got her smiling.

He wasn’t. On the contrary his expression went dead serious.
“I think I’m going to have to make it a rule that you smile at me at least ten
times a day.”

Those words slid right into her heart. No one had cared
enough to bother with her smiles. She doubted anyone had ever noticed how
infrequently she did it, but he had.

After she handed over the rest of the balls and he’d
unzipped her mask and took it off, she was shocked to discover she still felt
liberated. Unbelievably, she wanted to be his pet. And there was no shame in
that admission.

“Sexy?”

“Call me kitten,” she purred and laid her head in his lap.

Out of every possible scenario he’d played over in his mind
about how this night would go, the way it had unfolded was not even close. Jo
was a true submissive to the core. She was responsive, playful and smart. Maybe
too smart. Probably why she’d lost sight of her natural desires. Obviously,
what had happened to her had contributed on some level, but not on all levels.
Thinking about this had him wondering about Anjay. There was still something
about the situation that didn’t add up. Like the situation with her parents.
Could be—

He was yanked out of those thoughts when she shifted to
trace the outline of his hard-on through his pants with her mouth. It took him
longer than it usually would to notice the action as he’d gone numb in that
area a few hours ago, determined, if he was going to do this thing with Jo,
they’d go slowly. He wasn’t a guy who’d shared himself deeply with anyone in
years and he wasn’t about to do that again without one hand on the emergency
brake.

“I didn’t give you permission to do that.” He spoke softly
and brushed her hair back off her forehead.

“May I?”

“Not tonight. Come up here.” He lifted her onto his lap and
let her curl in. When she was settled he said, “I think we suit.”

She snuggled closer.

“It’s not going to be easy on you. I have specific tastes.
Likes and demands that I’ll want met. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so.”

“Tell me.”

“You’ll expect me to kneel at your feet when we’re at the
club.”

His head dropped back against the chair and he closed his
eyes.

“What?”

He took a deep breath and looked at her. “If and when you
come to the club with me you’ll be doing more than that for me.”

“I know. It was just a place to start.”

He put a finger under her chin and lifted. “You will always
be required to kneel at my feet. From now on whenever you’re in my company,
unless I tell you otherwise, you will sink to your knees beside me.”

She searched his face and he thought he heard her gulp as
she processed his words.

“It’s not going to be easy because I will eventually expect,
no I will require your complete surrender to me. This is the hardest thing a
submissive must do for her Dom. She must be honest, loyal and above all truthful
when she shares her fears, hopes, dreams and fantasies.”

“I can be those things.”

“Can? No, if you want me you must be those things.”

Her gaze lowered and he let her think about that for a
minute. Then he said, “What’s your day like tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” He adjusted her and leaned back in the chair. “I
know your work is mobile and you mostly work from home. I was thinking I’d take
the day off and hang at my house. Maybe you could bring your laptop and I could
see firsthand what you do for a living.”

“I guess I could.”

“It doesn’t take you all day, does it?” Ted’s stockbroker
seemingly never worked. He was always doing lunch or dinner with someone.

“No,” she sighed a warm breath against his neck and he
decided he could get used to this, “a couple of hours tops.”

“Great. The rest of the time we can spend going over certain
expectations. My list of rules and your new schedule.”

“Sounds like fun.”

Whether she meant that to be a joke or not he had no idea.
But he didn’t want to mislead her by any means. “I’m sorry to say it won’t be
fun. Once I outline the rules you’ll have to accept them and even if you don’t
agree with them you’ll have to follow them or else break them. Which wouldn’t
be wise because my discipline is not something you’ll want to face often if
ever. I’m warning you now. I can be as kind as the next man, but when I’m
defied, lied to or betrayed I become a different person. A guy you’re sure not
to like.”

She nodded and he hoped to hell she understood what he was
saying.

“I’m going to have Cam take you home now and later while
you’re lying alone in your bed I want you to think about what I just said. I
want you to think about everything you’ve shared with me so far and if there’s
more you need to tell me I want to hear about it tomorrow.”

“Like what?”

“If I knew that, kitten, I wouldn’t have asked.”

* * * * *

Jo did nothing but think about it all night and most of the
morning while she waited for Cameron to come by and take her to Ted’s. The
voice of reason and caution begged her to come clean and tell Ted everything,
but the devil on her shoulder whispered that he didn’t need to know. It wasn’t
as if those few left-out facts would change anything.

By the time they pulled up in front of his home she’d
decided to wait and see how things went with Anjay tomorrow night. Then if she
had to tell Ted she would.

Ted opened the door and all she could say as he motioned her
in was, “Wow, this is…beautiful.”

The exterior of his home looked like a Boston brownstone,
but the inside? All sleek lines with sharply clean contours. The various walls
were done in successive shades of taupe from light to dark with warm cream
woodworking that was nearly a foot wide around the high ceilings and floors.

“I thought I’d give you the tour first and then we’d go into
my office and you can show me how you work your magic.”

Jo was astounded by how big the place was. Three floors in
total, although she didn’t get to see the third floor. He explained that this
area was his personal space and it wasn’t time for her to see it. She didn’t
need to see it to react to it. Her body hummed and sexual anticipation built as
she imagined what was up there. She had to work hard to stay focused and was
glad when they went to the office.

Thirty minutes later, she pushed her chair away from the
desk and smiled. “That’s all there is to it,” she said, hooking her hair behind
her ears. “Then I wait. This one is going to go up another quarter and when it
does I sell.”

Ted was staring right at her, not at her laptop screen, and
said, “Amazing.”

“Not really. If you’d read the papers yesterday and
remembered about that embargo last week you’d probably have worked this all out
too.”

“Don’t shortchange yourself. Are you done for now?”

“Yes.”

“Come.” He stood and took her hand, pulling her up. “I want
to go through a few things with you.”

When they reached the living room and got within a few feet
of the Arctic-white leather sectional, he let go of her hand. “Have a seat.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of this. He was so not Dom-like
it was almost disconcerting. She watched him pace until he abruptly stopped.

“How do you feel about sleepovers?”

“Here?”

He nodded.

“I hadn’t considered—”

“Consider. Now.”

“Is this part of the schedule you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I could manage a night here or there.”

“Actually, what you’ll manage will be whatever I decide. A
simple yes or no will suffice.”

Okay, so Dom mode was escalating. She nodded.

“Good. Now do you remember what I told you about how you’ll
present to me?”

She looked up. “Present?”

He was staring at her. The heat and thrill from his
unwavering gaze was nearly enough to make her breathless.