ROAR (42 page)

She buried her finger inside herself and rubbed the wetness over her slickened nubbin.

Slap!

“Ow!”

The stiff leather implement came down hard where her thighs met her butt. “I did not give you instruction to touch your clit. Now, two fingers inside you.” This time, she did only as instructed. “Pump them in and out.”

He stopped whipping her.
But I’m not there yet!
Had she groaned out loud or only to herself?

He definitely breathed harder. Was he merely taking a break? No, he was in much better shape than that. She bit the inside of her lower lip and buried her middle and pointer fingers inside her to her third knuckles.

Was he touching himself now as he watched? She pictured him firmly stroking the length of his hard cock. She moved faster, imagining him ramming it inside her.

Would he let her touch him tonight? Jack him off? Suck him off?

You’ll do whatever he tells you to do and nothing more.

K
ristoffer released his cock from his pants and, using his thumb and index finger, stroked its rigid length. Watching and listening as she pleasured herself stirred up a need inside him. He ached to bury himself inside her, but wouldn’t do so until he was sure he wouldn’t bail on her when they returned to Denver. He needed to be able to face himself in the mirror—not to mention
her
in the morning—without guilt or regret.

He pulled on his cock’s most sensitive nerve endings and let his mind wander to Gunnar’s boardroom where her fantasy—and now his—unfolded. The key tattoo high on her ass intrigued him again. He’d have to ask her about it later.

Kristoffer’s breathing grew more rapid as he pictured himself fulfilling her fantasy. When she moaned, nearing her climax, his hand froze.

Fuck.
What the
fuck
was he doing? He wasn’t ready to be pleasuring himself with someone other than Tori. Remembering to make this about Pamela, he returned his cock to where it belonged and picked up the tawse.

Slap
.

He aimed for high on her ass to avoid her hand. Pamela moaned. His gaze rested on the globes of her reddened ass. She panted for air, her mewling sounds torturing him even more. He needed to put an end to this scene.

“Come for me, Sprite.”

Her fingers returned to her clit, and her hand moved faster.

Slap
.
Slap
.
Slap
.

“I’m coming! Oh, Christ! Yes!!!” Her hips bucked, and he imagined what it would feel like having her squeezing his cock at this moment if they ever made love. “Yes! God, yes!”

When she screamed her release, his cock jolted, but he kept it inside his pants. She continued to rub her clit in slower movements as she came down from her orgasmic high.

“That’s my girl.”

“Did you come, too?”

“Topping again so soon? Didn’t you learn anything from your time with those bowls of rice?” He’d thought she’d maintained focus fairly well after that session.

“I did, Sir!” She sighed, sounding a bit frustrated—whether at him or herself, he wasn’t certain.

“Your submission alone is what pleases me, nothing else.” Would she ever just stay in the moment and stop worrying about meeting his needs? Probably not. Apparently, it was in her makeup, just as the Dom couldn’t stop trying to meet his submissive’s needs.

But he wasn’t in the headspace yet where he could go any further than they had tonight.

“Let me help you up.” Placing his hand on her upper arm, he guided her onto her feet. He removed the tie from her eyes. She blinked a few times, and he realized he’d had the blindfold on her for several hours.

“I’m sure my hair is a wreck.”

Her strawberry-blonde strands were tousled, looking as if she’d just gotten out of bed.

“No, it’s fine.”
Sexy
.
Beautiful
.

When Pamela tried to take a step, she nearly collapsed until he steadied her. “Sorry. I didn’t realize how far I’d spread my thighs apart. I might need a minute to get them back into their joints.” She laughed, bringing a smile to his lips as well. He held on to her until she nodded that she could proceed on her own. Still, he was reluctant to let her go.

“You probably need some privacy in the bathroom to clean up before we move on to aftercare.”

“I’m looking forward to my couch time tonight, Sir.”

The image of a naked Pamela sitting on his lap flashed before his mind. Fire and brimstone had been licking at his ass all night. Why not feed the flames a bit more?

His primary duty as a Dom was to see to Pamela’s needs.

But he had to admit that the thought of cuddling with her pierced the wall of loneliness surrounding his heart. Tori had been the complete opposite, preferring to be alone after an intense scene. She’d soak in the tub for an hour before joining him in bed. How many times since the wreck had he indulged his own need to hold her by wrapping himself around her unyielding, contorted body? She could no longer push him away, but couldn’t show him any affection, either. Not the way a vibrant Pamela could.

Don’t compare the two women.
Play fair.

“Be thinking about what you’ve experienced tonight, and meet me in the living room.”

She smiled, warming his heart even more. “Thank you, Sir!” She ran off to the bathroom to do as he’d instructed.

Alone in the bedroom, he selected a dress shirt from his closet, thinking it best she not remain nude. When she walked back into the room a few minutes later, sooner than he’d expected, he wasted no time slipping her arms into the shirtsleeves. “There.”

The sight of her in his dress shirt nearly made him come undone anyway.
Damn
. He really hadn’t thought anything through very well tonight when it came to how he’d respond to her. “Button yourself up.”

As it was, he’d be doomed to face some potent fantasies in rather close quarters with her the rest of their days here in California, especially after whipping her to orgasm as she fantasized about him.

Truth be told, the memories from this night would haunt him even longer if he didn’t figure out what kind of relationship he wanted with Pamela. At a minimum, they’d agreed to date and to continue her training, but with him as her Dom, not merely a Top or trainer.

When he saw her grappling with the front of his shirt and that she hadn’t lined the buttons up into the correct holes, he brushed her hands aside. “Here. Let me.”

“Sorry. Men’s shirts confound me. Everything’s backwards.” Her self-deprecating smile charmed him. The warmth of her breasts radiating through the fabric of the shirt as his knuckles brushed over them led him to pull the shirt away from her body and close each one from collar to tails in record speed.

He took her hand and led her into the living room. “Let’s listen to some music.” He realized the stereo still played from when she’d been counting rice earlier. The mellow trumpet of Wynton Marsalis playing “What is This Thing Called Love?” filled the room.

He reached to skip that selection until Pamela said, “One of my favorites.” His hand stilled.
Figured
. They had so much in common.

Kristoffer sat on the sofa and pulled her onto his lap, covering her bare legs with a fleece throw. His mind kept warning him this was a colossal mistake. In the past when he’d held her like this, she’d been fully clothed.

While they both needed a little aftercare tonight, her needs came before his. He wrapped his arms around her. With his right hand, he pressed her head against his shoulder. Something inside him calmed, as if a roiling sea had been reduced to a serene lake.

Pamela sighed. “This is nice, Sir.”

Swallowing against the lump in his throat, he closed his eyes. For a brief moment, he imagined when he’d held Tori willingly in his arms like this.

“I could stay like this forever.” Pamela’s words jarred him back to the present before he drifted too far into the past. His focus needed to stay on the beautiful submissive who had given herself into his care.

Dom up, and treat her right.

“I’m enjoying our time together, too, Sprite. Having you submit to me like this was incredible.” He hadn’t expected to become this attached to her in such a short time.

“I tried. Nothing intruded on the scene after the rice counting, and it was—unbelievably intense.”

To lighten the mood and steer away from reliving the moment when she’d exploded in that orgasm, he tapped her nose and grinned. “Not to mention you made a noteworthy transformation from earlier this evening.”

“Thank you, Sir. I never want to have to count another grain of rice as long as I live. But it really did seem to help me with my focus.”

“Glad to hear that the discipline I chose helped.”

She grew silent. Then, out of the blue, asked, “How did you come to be called Roar?”

“My full name is Kristoffer
Roar
Larson. Roar is my paternal grandmother’s maiden name.”

“What an unusual surname.”

“In Norway, it’s not all that rare.”

He might as well continue to do a debriefing on tonight’s scenes. “What else have you learned tonight?”

“So much that I’ll need time to process most of it. Would it be okay if I sort it out in tonight’s journal entry?”

“Good idea, but overall, what are your thoughts?”

“You clearly showed me the benefits of maintaining my focus.” She laughed. “Counting the rice was the most tedious thing I’ve ever done, but it was still so fresh in my mind when we returned to the bedroom that I think it helped me to focus on what you were doing and to not worry about what might be coming. That scene was earth-shattering, for lack of a better word.”

He shrugged, but smiled inwardly. “That works. You might swell my ego if you go any further, though.”

She grinned. “I’ll definitely be sure to be more attentive in the future, too.” The thought of having more scenes with her both thrilled and terrified him, but he’d promised to try. “You’ve also shown me something else about myself tonight, Sir.”

“What’s that?”

“I like surprises.” She sat up and smiled at him. “Not knowing what to expect all the time made the scene much more exciting.”

“Keeping you from trying to anticipate my every move isn’t easy.”

She nodded. “Bad habit of mine. One I need to break myself of if I want to enjoy what’s going on rather than always trying to figure out what might never happen.”

“Well stated.”

“Besides, your surprises are so much better than anything I could dream up on my own. Even when I thought I knew what was coming, like during the wax play scene, well, you turned the tables on me.”

“Doms take great delight in surprising their charges.” He met her gaze. “Whenever you find yourself trying to outguess your Dom, take a deep breath and find something to focus on, like your breathing or a spot on the wall if you aren’t blindfolded. Anything that will recenter you firmly in the moment.”

“Good tip. Your Dom instincts are spot on. You always know what I need, even if it’s not what I might want.”

“I want to reiterate how proud I am of you for using your safe gesture. Now I know going forward that I can trust you to communicate when you’ve hit your limit. It’s difficult to know limits for someone you haven’t played with much before. Don’t ever get so wrapped up in pleasing me that you won’t take care of yourself and me in that way.”

“I was nervous about it, but not as nervous as I was about another drop of wax—or so I thought—on my clit.”

He chuckled. “Just know that if I ever find out you’ve risked your safety by not using your safeword or gesture when you should, you’re going to be counting a lot more than fourteen hundred grains of rice.

They sat in silence a while, neither needing to talk. Then, out of the blue, he said, “Tell me about your tattoo. It has intrigued me since the night of The Denver Academy tour.”

She’d forgotten all about it and wondered what had made him think about it now. “I had it done when I came to a realization after getting some closure on a past relationship.” She sighed. “I had a period of feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I’d never find a Dom who would be anything but a fleeting part of my life.”

Kristoffer hoped he wouldn’t wind up being another disappointment for her.

“I found a quote that resonated with me—‘When one door closes, another one opens.’ I thought a key would be an excellent symbol to depict that sentiment. Not only is it the key to my future happiness, but one day, that key would be used by one special man to unlock my heart.”

Her romantic notions surprised him. She always seemed to be grounded and logical. The pressure to do no harm ramped up even more.

Before he turned her loose to go to her bedroom, he wanted to impart a little advice, in case he wasn’t able to fulfill her romantic dreams. “Sprite?”

“Yes, Sir?”

The obligation of being responsible for her happiness tore at his insides. What if he returned to Denver and Tori’s bedside and couldn’t continue to provide what Pamela needed? The duty to protect and care for her overwhelmed him for a moment. But the list he’d been working on earlier left him wondering if he knew what she wanted out of this relationship.

“What would make Pamela happy?”

She didn’t answer for several moments. “Finding a man who’s a friend first, Dom second. I think that’s what I love about how our dynamic has developed. Slowly, without sex derailing us before we started. In the past, I’ll admit I tended to jump into bed too soon.”

He found it hard to get the image of her sharing his bed out of his head.

She touched his chest. “That’s one of the reasons I placed most sex acts on my hard limits list at the academy and later with you when you first started training me. Now, I’m ready, if it’s what we both want.”

They were approaching unsafe territory again.
Rein her in
. “When’s the last time you were happy?”

“I find something to be happy about every day.”

“Not an answer to my question.”

“Sorry.” She paused so long he wondered if she meant she was sorry, but wouldn’t answer the question. Then she spoke again. “I guess I have to be honest. I’m happy right now. I was happy swimming laps at the pool. Happy in the limo. Perhaps living in the moment helps. All we have is one moment at a time.”