Submissive Desires (10 page)

Maura boldly met his eyes when she continued, though. “But how about next weekend – maybe get together on Friday at a really nice hotel and spend a long weekend in bed?”

The only hint of how much she’d startled him with her suggestion was a tiny widening of his eyes.

Other than that, he remained entirely cool, calm, and collected, as she’d come to expect from him. A shudder rippled through her body uncontrollably when she thought – and realized, deep in her heart –

that this man would and could punish her in the way she needed it – unrelentingly. Strictly. Mercilessly.

That no amount of screaming or tears or begging would ever deter him.

Oblivious to the people departing around them, Simon asked, “Did I just hear you correctly? Are you suggesting that we have sex next weekend?”

Her tinkling, nervous laugh caught the attention of several couples around them, but they were in their own little world, despite the oddity of having such an intimate discussion in a very public place.

“Yes.”

“Look at me.” A straightforward, uncompromising command.

With some difficulty – her shyness around him was legendary – she did as she was told.

Simon studied her, taking his time, feeling no compunction to ease her discomfort until he got some sense of her feelings about what she’d just said. Why now? Why all of a sudden, he wondered. If he’d known all it would take to get her to offer herself to him was putting a little pressure on her physically, 43

then he’d’ve done it months ago. “What prompted this?” he couldn’t keep himself from asking, finding no answers in her clear, hazel eyes.

She couldn’t hold his gaze, coloring delicately and trying to look down, but he wasn’t going to let her get away with that. He wanted to know why, and his finger wouldn’t let her move her head down.

“Maura, look at me.” Her eyes melted into his again. “I don’t like having to repeat myself, woman.

Tell me why you’ve all of a sudden decided that you want to sleep with me.”

“I didn’t all of a sudden decide anything,” she shot back, surprised to see him fight a smile.

She might be submissive, he mused, but she was no one’s lap dog. He liked that. A submissive with no fire, no independence, no spark of personality and individuality was of absolutely no interest to him. He wanted a well-rounded person, with their own thoughts and opinions who was willing and able to express them and not subjugate every molecule of themselves to him. Submission was that much sweeter when his woman had to fight against herself to do so.

“We’ve known each other for what, almost six months? And we’ve been dating for four or so? Isn’t it about time?”

“There’s no such thing as ‘about time’,” he growled, but then he couldn’t believe he was arguing against something he wanted so much he could taste it – he dreamt about how she would feel beneath him

– how that lustrous, creamy skin would look decorated with red, welted stripes – if she would scream and cry as he punished her or try to bear it stoically . . . his body tortured him with those thoughts and many more explicit ones twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and had been doing so since just after they’d started corresponding. She was everything he wanted, and he’d known he had to have her for quite some time.

But she was reticent, and Simon was not about to push her – he was terrified of pushing her away from him rather than towards him. So he’d been patient. Hell, he groused in his mind. He’d been a freakin’

saint, barely ever kissing her; his mind discounted their incredibly hot goodnight kisses as expected. But otherwise, he’d been more of a gentleman with her than he’d been with any other woman in his life except his mother.

If he believed in it, he would have had to say it was love.

But he most expressly didn’t, so he just chalked it up to the fact that he wanted her in bed, and wasn’t willing to take the chance of frightening her away by coming on too strong.

That was it. That was all it was – certainly nothing more than that.

“What made you decide all of a sudden that we should be together? My kiss just now?”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a while – a long while. I just haven’t thought that the time was right.”

Simon barely kept himself from snorting. If he lived to be five thousand years old, he would never understand the feminine tendency to determine that there were black and white, right and wrong times for things in relation to the opposite sex. It was on the tip of his tongue to needle her a little, and ask what she thought would be different about having sex with him now, as opposed to waiting a month, but he wasn’t about to give her any ideas in that direction.

“And it’s right now?” he questioned carefully.

She was biting her lip. “I think so.”

His inquisitive attitude was making her wonder if he really wasn’t interested in having sex with her. Maybe she’d misread his signals. It had been known to happen. “Look, if you’d rather not – “

“No!” He was awfully, uncomfortably close to yelling. In fact his vehemence made her reel back a little. Simon softened his approach considerably. “No, I’m all for it. In fact, I have just the place in mind for us. I’ve been picturing you there since not long after we started talking. I think you’ll love it. Unless you’d prefer that I come to your house instead.” He figured she might want to be in a place that she was comfortable.

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Maura was thinking she wanted to be on neutral territory, and she was distracted by the idea that he had already been contemplating where they would make love the first time. It made her body tingle that he’d been thinking of her in that way for so long. “Why do you think I’ll like it?”

She didn’t seem to be much interested in having him come to her place, and that was fine with him. Whatever worked for her. He’d gotten to know her likes and dislikes pretty well in the past few months, and he never missed a detail, cataloguing them in his steel-trap mind as faithfully as he organized everything (and everyone) else in his life. Maura loved water. She loved baths, lakes, ponds, pools, and the ocean. Any way she could get it, she wanted to be in it every time she could.

“Because it’s a place that has big suites with in-room, in-ground, private pools done up like lagoons with lots of lush vegetation, and big four poster king-sized beds, with rails in the headboard that work perfectly with restraints – “ At her questioning, almost accusing, raised eyebrow look, he backtracked a little, realizing how that must’ve sounded to her. “I’ve been looking online for places for us to go our first time that would be special.” He raised his right hand as if swearing to God. “I’ve never taken anyone there, Maura. I promise.”

“I believe you.”

He didn’t know why her questioning look had his stomach in knots, or why her firm vow of faith in his word made him feel so much better, but it did.

“Well, is it a date?” she asked.

He caught her eyes and held them, taking one of her hands and raising the backs of her fingers to press his lips tenderly against them. “Yes, it is, if next weekend works for you, then I’ll move heaven and Earth to make it work for me.”

She smiled broadly. He loved the way she smiled so readily. She was almost always in a good mood. Almost.

“If you’ll tell me what hotel it is you have in mind, I’ll make the reservations.”

It was his turn to give her a raised eyebrow glare. “No, I will.”

Maura had some sort of bug up her butt about always wanting things to be as equal as possible.

She always tried to pay for their dinners out, sometimes beating him to the draw only because he wasn’t paying any attention to the fact that the bill had come. Simon was proudly old fashioned, and liked to pay for their dinners and movies. Maura was just as proudly a woman’s libber, to say nothing of the fact that she seemed to get enormous joy out of out maneuvering him on those rare occasions. She opened doors for him, she offered to drive them places – which he put the kibosh on immediately – and once, she’d tried to hold his chair out to seat him first. That had earned her a sharp swat, damn the fact that they were in a public restaurant. The imp.

“Then I’ll pay half when we check out.”

“You most certainly will not.”

She refused to acquiesce easily about some things, and this was one of them. “We’ll see . . . “

Simon took a step back, finally letting her up enough so that she could open her car door and slip in, but not before she got herself another smack to the bottom for being so impudent. “Hey!” she yelped back over her shoulder at him as she settled into the driver’s seat and buckled her seat belt.

Simon squatted next to the window she rolled down. “Hey what?” he reached in and brushed her long hair out of her eyes compulsively, just wanting to touch her in some way.

“No swatting me,” she pouted visibly.

“Ohhhhh yes. Lots of swatting you.”

They were contentedly silent for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay with this weekend?”

She nodded without an ounce of hesitation. He would have seen it as he was watching her every response avidly, compulsively.

Simon leaned in and kissed her quick. “I’ll let you know about two seconds after I get home tonight whether or not the weekend is okay with me. You can pretty much count on the fact that it will be.”

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Maura chuckled. “They can all overthrow their own damned governments this weekend, huh?”

He couldn’t really even smile at that; it came a little too close to the truth for his comfort. Instead he straightened and patted her arm. “Drive carefully. Call me when you get home to let me know you got there.”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered dutifully, with just the right touch of sarcasm. She stopped just short of rolling her eyes, which proved to be a smart move considering the look he gave her.

“You’re not going to be such a smarty pants as of about five seconds after we’re alone in our room Friday. You can bet the farm on that.” He squashed a silver Stetson down onto his head, covering that wonderful pelt of salt and pepper hair and striding away, not giving her time to quip back, not that she would when she was concerned about the safety and comfort of her bottom.

46

The weekend was clear for both of them, and they arranged to meet at noon for lunch, then go to their hotel. Even though they were eating at her favorite barbeque place, Maura found she had absolutely no interest in anything that was put in front of her – not a huge platter of crisply fried onion rings, nor a big plate of fall-off-the-bone baby back ribs with tangy sauce. She had about two of the onion rings and one rib, and proclaimed that she was full.

Simon was having no such appetite problem. He didn’t often go out to restaurants, considering the isolation of his ranch house, and he ended up eating both of their money’s worth, easily. When she stopped eating, she leaned back in her chair, her arms folded over her chest in a touchingly defensive manner, as if she was hugging herself for comfort.

He used a wet nap to clean his hands up and tossed it onto the remainder of the ribs. That alone was a huge compliment to her – very little got between Simon and his food. Then he quietly put his hand on the table, palm up, saying nothing, just waiting for her to come to him. After a few long seconds, his timid bird finally pried her hand from its safe perch under her arm and laid it tentatively in his. He stroked his thumb over the back of her ice cold fingers. “Nervous?”

Maura nodded, not quite trusting her voice. Her stomach was trampolining all over the place, and she wasn’t sure yet whether or not she was going to be sick. What was it about this man that affected her so? She’d never reacted like this before with anyone! Granted, it had been a while – and she didn’t much like to dwell on exactly how long – but this was almost ridiculous. If she was truly concerned about her own safety with him, she shouldn’t be planning on sleeping with him.

But that was just it. She wasn’t at really concerned about her physical well-being with him. She was terrified about the safety of her heart. She knew, deep, deep down, that if he was as good for her as she thought he was going to be, that she would lose her heart to him in a big way.

To a man who didn’t believe in anything remotely resembling love in any way, shape, or form.

One of their emails back and forth had been on the topic of love, and he had given her his opinion on it quite bluntly – he thought it was a bunch of hooey that Hallmark and Harlequin had thought up to make money. He warned her flat out that he would never be a romantic and that he didn’t believe in love. Lust, yes. But not love.

That email had given her pause, but by then she was so interested in him, so completely hooked on him and what he promised so blatantly with his words and his voice and – once she’d met him – his body, that there was no way she could turn back now.

“A little,” she out and out lied. “Eat. Just because I can’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I’m gonna. I just wanted to make sure that you were all right, and you’re not going to faint on me.”

She gave him a small smile. “Nope. No fainting right now, although I can’t make any promises about later.”

He reclaimed his hand and dug into the ribs, smiling at her wolfishly over one. “I would consider it the ultimate compliment if I could give you an orgasm that would make you faint.”

“Simon!” she looked absolutely scandalized, but he looked like he’d marked that down as a goal, which only made her that much more worried.

When he was done, he paid the tab, with a glare at her when she tried to reach for her credit card much too late, darn it. Then he paid for the hotel room, and she practically stomped all the way to the room. “I want to pay my fair share – “ she was saying as a bellhop brought their bags in, but the room made her mouth hang open with no sound coming out while he was tipping the man and telling him to put the

“do not disturb” sign on the door, please.

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It was done in creams and pinks and florals that matched, with a huge, canopied oak four-poster bed with a crocheted cream canopy draped romantically over it. There was a door that led to what she assumed was the bathroom to the left, but the other part of the room contained a very large pool in an irregular shape that was surrounded by all sorts of tropical looking plants and flowers. It looked like they had their very own rainforest in the room!