Safeword: Matte - In Training (18 page)

“Someone struck you in the face and I didn’t
get a phone call?”

“I handled the situation and had to hurry to
make it back to court in time after lunch. Plus, there was no need
to call you and worry you. I’m fine. I let him hit me on purpose so
I’d have an excuse to pummel him. He aimed for my nose and I tucked
my chin so he hit my forehead. It’s really no big deal. I could’ve
kept him from striking me if I’d wanted, but a bicycle police
officer was looking right at us, and…” She shrugged and smiled
mischievously, but he didn’t smile back.

“I want you to turn this case over to
someone else.”

“No.”

Their waitress appeared to get their drink
order, and when she left Sam said, “If I’d called you afterwards,
what would you’ve done?”

He shook his head and sighed. “It’s not that
I’d have done anything, it’s just…” He looked away a few seconds,
obviously angry, and finally looked back to her to finish his
thought. “If I were in a wreck and ended up with a lump on my
forehead with some bruising around it, and you didn’t know about it
until you saw me that evening, how would you feel?”

Sam sighed and slumped her shoulders. He
wasn’t just angry, he was hurt. “I’m sorry. You’re important to me,
and I should’ve called.”

“Why didn’t you?”

The table had a decorative inlaid wood
pattern, and Sam traced it as she thought. It wasn’t just that
there was nothing he could do — she hadn’t wanted to deal with his
anger, and had hoped her forehead wouldn’t look too bad, so she
could tell him about it after he’d seen she was fine. However, if
she put it that way, it would sound as if she was placing the blame
on him. She wasn’t sure how else to word it, though.

Looking up, she said, “I don’t want to
change who you are. I love your protective streak, but I need you
to let me handle this. The male attorneys don’t have their wives
and girlfriends swooping in to save them, and I need to show my
colleagues I can handle this without my fiancé jumping in to rescue
me.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m getting there. Can you promise me that
if I call you about something like this in the future that you
won’t jump into action? I need to handle this through the legal
system. I taunted him a little to make sure he hit me while the
officer was looking, and I’ve pretty much slam dunked my client’s
case. He tried to make it personal, but it’s business to me.”

Ethan stared at her as he
tried to figure out how to tell her he couldn’t promise, and Sam
decided it was a good time to make her final point. “And one more
thing — can you not be pissed at
me
when someone hits me?”

Ethan dropped his head forward and stared at
the table. “I love you.”

“I love you, too; but why do you tell me you
love me so often when you’re upset with me?”

He didn’t look up as he said, “It’s not so
much I’m telling you as…reminding myself.”

Sam blinked, speechless.

“I wanted a strong
partner.” He looked up and met her gaze. “I’m trying to
remember
why
I
thought this was such an important quality.”

“Because weak people annoy you?” Sam smiled.
“Because you needed someone who could handle your intensity?
Because you wanted a partner, and not someone in need of a
caretaker?”

He returned her smile. “All true
statements.” His sigh was one of frustration as his smile faded.
“I’m angry at him, and you happen to be the one sitting in front of
me. I’m a little ticked at you for allowing him to strike you, and
for placing yourself in a situation to be struck, but I’m not mad
at you — though my feelings are hurt you didn’t call. I’m not sure
I can promise to never swing into action when someone hits you, but
I’ll promise to think my actions through before I do anything, and
to try very hard to keep from intervening when it involves your
career.”

The rest of their dinner was amiable, and
Ethan even smiled a few times as Sam related the details of her
scuffle with Masterson.

She saw Ethan’s face harden again when she
reached for the check, but she ignored him and slid her credit card
into the leather holder as she continued their conversation about
what to do after they ate. He seemed to agree in principal that it
was fair for her to pay every other time, but the reality annoyed
him. Still, Sam thought it ridiculous for him to shoulder the
burden when she made more than enough money to help.

The air was crisp as they walked hand in
hand the few blocks to the billiard club, and Sam considered how to
make who paid for dinner less contentious.

The thought of money sent her mind to
considering how much he was pouring into the playroom he was
constructing in one of her unused basement rooms. He spent much of
his spare time with saws, sanders, drills, and tape measures, and
had plans for a Saint Andrew’s Cross, a cool bondage table, and
three varieties of spanking benches and horses. He’d already
converted a chair he found at a yard sale into an evil looking
bondage chair, and they had plans to go to IKEA one weekend soon to
buy cabinets and drawers. One wall already contained fancy hangers
for his floggers and other assorted impact instruments, and looked
like a piece of art.

Last weekend four huge, solid wooden columns
were delivered to her garage. He’d found them in a salvage yard,
and promised to make a new bondage bed for her bedroom with them.
While the idea excited her, he’d refused to let her pay for any of
his materials, and she worried he was depleting his available funds
more than he should. She had plenty of money and wanted to
contribute, but the man was too damned stubborn-headed for his own
good.

He won their first game of pool, and as they
started the second game she figured it was as good a time as any to
bring up her idea. She tried to be casual as she said, “I have a
proposition for you.”

He looked up from his perusal of the table.
“Sounds serious.”

She shrugged, hoping to keep the
conversation low-key. “Not really. We’ve talked about opening a
joint checking account to pay our shared expenses once we’re
married, and I’m wondering if it might make sense to go ahead and
open it now.”

Ethan shook his head and opened his mouth to
speak and she rushed to say, “Hear me out before you say no. Okay?
I’m tired of you getting upset when I pay for dinner. What if we
both contribute a few hundred dollars to an account, and then you
can use it to pay when we go out to eat?”

He didn’t say anything and she added, “When
it runs low we’ll both put another two or three hundred dollars in.
This way you’ll get to be the one who handles the check, and I
won’t feel as if I’m mooching off you.”

He lined his shot up and sank the three
balls before looking up to say, “Am I that transparent?”

“You are to me. I don’t know about others.”
She smiled, leaned into him, and stood on tiptoe to wrap her arms
around the back of his neck, making sure she didn’t bash his head
with the pool cue. “Sometimes I love the caveman in you, other
times I want to beat you over the head with your caveman club.”

She sobered and added. “I caught myself
turning dinner down a few nights ago because I didn’t want to have
to deal with who would pay. When I paid the waitress tonight you
looked as if you wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it.” She
stretched taller and pulled him down a few inches so she could
reach to kiss his chin. “It’s a problem we need to resolve, and
this is my solution. If you have a better idea that lets me pay
half the time without making you so uncomfortable, I’m all
ears.”

Ethan smiled. “All those years I looked for
someone submissive in bed, but in control of the rest of her life.”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I had no idea you’d be such
a willful, stubborn, headstrong pain in the ass.” He kissed her
forehead. “I love you, Sam. It’s a good solution. I’ll agree to it
if you’ll agree to wait to have checks printed after your name
includes mine.”

“You’re such a caveman.” She rolled her eyes
back at him as she smiled and added, “I’m good with that. It may be
Friday afternoon before I’ll have a chance to meet you at the bank
to open the account, this week is crazy busy.”

Chapter Ten

As the playroom equipment was built they
spent more and more time at Sam’s, with only the occasional night
at Ethan’s. They were generally together three or four nights a
week, and rarely did a day go by they didn’t see each other.

It was mid-March when Ethan broke the news
he’d need to be out of town for about a week. “My general manager
in Atlanta is good, but I want to go over all the tax information
before it goes to the accountant. I’m planning to drive to Atlanta
late Sunday evening and stay until I’ve been through everything. It
may take most of the week.”

Sam tried not to show the disappointment she
felt as she said, “It’s a good idea to go through it, and it’ll
probably be good for the men down there to see you around. The day
trips you’ve made to keep your hand in things have let you meet all
of the new hires, but this will give you more of a chance to see
them as they arrive in the morning and return in the evening, when
they aren’t necessarily on their best behavior.”

“I know, but I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.” She paused cutting the
zucchini to look up and smile. “I’m sure we’ll both survive, and
I’m positive you’ll come up with a creative homecoming
celebration.”

He nodded. “Of course. But that’s next
weekend, and we still have this one to look forward to. It works
out for this to be your weekend off, so you can eat whatever you
want. I won’t be going up a size on anything this weekend, which
will make it easier for you to keep to your schedule next
week.”

“Won’t that put me behind in my
training?”

“Nope. You’re ahead of schedule and I think
maintaining this week instead of stretching will do you some
good.”

Sam felt her brow wrinkle as she said, “What
are you not telling me?”

He dried his hands and walked to her, took
the knife out of her hand, placed it on the cutting board, and
turned her towards him, caressing her cheek as he said, “When I
come back, I’ll want to reclaim you — to remind us both who you
belong to.”

Her insides ignited and her breath caught as
his words sank in. He was warning her it would be rough next
weekend, and he somehow thought taking it easy on her this weekend
would make up for it.

She reached behind her, grasped his hand,
and pulled it around to kiss his knuckles. “I’m fine with you
reclaiming me next weekend, but I don’t want you to take it easy on
me this weekend to try to balance things out.”

He stepped back and she returned to her
vegetables and began slicing again. He watched her a few seconds
and resumed rinsing the food prep dishes and loading the
dishwasher.

“I’d rather have some marks next week while
you’re gone.” She said. “Something to remember you with?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to arrange.” He gave
an evil chuckle. “I only said I was giving your ass a rest by not
moving up to the next size.”

They had a busy weekend, with a long bike
ride Saturday and a morning of hiking and bouldering Sunday. He
kept up her normal weekly maintenance schedule to be sure she
didn’t lose any ground, but he stayed true to his word and didn’t
push her any farther.

Sunday evening he took her far into subspace
and used his belt and a leather paddle to make sure she had bruises
and welts to remember him while he was gone. He lay with her until
she was asleep, and locked up on his way out the door.

* * * *

Tuesday evening she had a
good workout at the dojo, though it seemed odd without him. As a
matter of habit, she checked her phone in the locker room to see if
anything had come in during her workout, and found a text from
Ethan letting her know he missed her and was on his way back. Her
heart did flip-flops at the idea she’d see him soon, and she
admonished herself for being such a
girl
. It’d been less than
forty-eight hours since she’d seen him, and they’d talked for
almost an hour the night before via Skype! Still, she was glad he’d
finished faster than he’d originally thought, and she stopped to
buy some rocky road ice cream on the way home to celebrate. She
already had some of her favorite, but wanted to surprise him with
his.

She hadn’t cleaned the kitchen from
breakfast that morning, and she tossed everything into the
dishwasher. It was full, but she thought she could fit their ice
cream bowls in, so decided to wait until later to start it.

Settling into a comfortable seat in the
living room so she could see him pull into the driveway, she pulled
her laptop into her lap to get some work done while she waited.
When his headlights finally appeared she saved her work, closed her
laptop, and met him on the front sidewalk, jumping into his arms as
he neared, and attacking him with a kiss.

When she finally came up for air she
realized her legs were wrapped around his waist. Thank goodness it
was dark, so the neighbors weren’t likely to see. She hugged him
tighter and buried her face in the side of his neck, muttering,
“Wow, you feel good. I hadn’t realized how much I missed you until
you said you were coming home. You finished earlier than you
thought?”

He walked up the steps with her wrapped
around him, got them through the door and closed it behind them.
Sam’s heart skipped and everything between her legs throbbed as he
gently lowered her to the floor and pushed her shirt up to latch
his mouth onto her nipple.

He pushed her yoga pants to her knees and
slowly ran his fingers up her thigh. Gentle fingers stroked her
pussy lips until she moved her hips, and he moved his mouth to her
other nipple as he drove two fingers into her.