The Dom Project (25 page)

He flicked the switch. The Eiki roared and sprang into life, casting light onto the wall, counting down numbers.

“I saw someone else yesterday,” she said. “For a caning.”

“Oh,” he replied, out of shock more than anything else. Along the wall, two stubby corgis frolicked across a neatly manicured front lawn. A home video, obviously, long before they were a common thing. Interesting in its own regard, but not what they were looking for. “Well, thank you for telling me, although you really didn’t have to.”
I
don’t have any claim on you.
Not now.
Not yet.
“Can I ask how it went?”

“It was fine.”

That was all. No complaining, no bragging, no Picky Submissive commentary at all. Just...fine.

“Is that why you’re not sitting down?” His body was reacting to her announcement now, a subtle anger beating in his chest and something even more as primitive swirling below, making his half-hard cock suddenly rock fucking solid. Anger, because despite everything he told Andy and himself logically, he wanted her for his own. Arousal, because getting off on her being caned by someone else was part of the hopelessly twisted wiring in his brain that he’d long ago given up trying to untangle.

She blushed so deeply he could see it even in the dim lighting. Looked pointedly at the wall, where John had rigged up the second reel to play. More corgis, this time in early fall by the looks of the scattering of leaves. Thirteen seconds of footage, and then the screen went blank again.

“Answer me,” John commanded.

“I’m not wearing the pearls,” she said right back.

More corgis, swimming together in a backyard pool. It would have been hilarious, if not for the thick tension in the room.

“All right then.” He smiled. “Please.”

She let out a long breath, and the tips of her fingers shook. “I’m only a little sore.” She walked to the steel chair John had pushed in front of the screen but didn’t sit down. “I missed you. I wish it was easier for us. Or maybe it’s just me. But I don’t care.”

“Robin...” John slotted the next reel, then stopped and sighed. When the next movie didn’t start, she looked to him. “I know I said I want...everything, and I do, but if you just want to be friends, I’ll do that too. I want you in my life, whatever that means. But I won’t lie and pretend that I don’t want more. I’ll
always
want more from you. Even if you give me yourself, even if you give me everything, I’ll want more.”

“Greedy son of a bitch.” Seeing her wry little smile and knowing he’d put it there made the moment perfect, made this close, dark space seem more intimate than a bedroom. Over her shoulder, another corgi scene rattled into life.

“Only for you. I’m actually pretty low maintenance, outside of...this. Maybe even
too
low maintenance. But you make me—”

“Want to be a better man?” she finished, sweetly.

“Hell no. You make me a possessive asshole.” He tightened his hands into fists, then released them again. “I want to say I don’t like this side of myself, but...”

“Excuse you. Who was it that said ‘You can’t change me. People don’t change, Robin!’” Her imitation of him was terrible, a fake baritone and a bizarre bobblehead back and forth. She turned and jabbed him in the chest with the tip of her finger. “John Sun, you’ve
always
been an asshole. I’m only giving you a focus. Yes. A focus, for your not-so-latent asshole tendencies.”

“Like how Irina Mareau unleashes your inner exhibitionist?” He didn’t wait for her answer, just grabbed a wet wipe from the pack he’d brought down to clean the dust from the cans. The large one he held cleaned up nicely, but its label was blank. He wound up the reel inside—a thicker one, at least ten minutes by the look of it. Ten minutes of corgis. Riveting.

“Yes. And so do you.” She was so close now, looking up at him with those wise, innocent eyes. “You know who you are. You
like
who you are. And I’m on my way to being like that too. I want you to take me there.”

John wanted that too. He’d always wanted it, but wanting wasn’t enough. There were obstacles to overcome, inside each of them, between them, but coming from the outside world too.

Robin’s email.
Tear up the contract.

“And what about my brother, and my family?”

Her shoulders fell, then straightened again with new resolve. “Well, I can’t say what happened at that dinner wasn’t my personal nightmare. But I think it’s time to close up shop on
The Picky Submissive
anyway. Start a new journey, and a new blog to go with it. I can email my regular dedicated readers with the new address, and be more careful about identifying information. And as for your brother calling me a whore in front of your family...well, I can’t be your whore if I’m your girlfriend, now can I?”

“He’s sorry already. He’s sorry in general, but—wait, you want to be my girlfriend?” The word sounded so strange to his ears, as if they were in a 1950s movie...well, the 1930s were close enough, and tradition had its own appeal.

“That’s what giving you everything means, isn’t it? Or marriage—” she put her hand over her mouth, still smiling with her eyes “—but let’s not go overboard.”

Marriage.
Holy shit.
“For me, it’s seeing you wear my collar. That doesn’t mean we have to be 24/7. I just need to know that you really want to be mine, even in public, even when it’s not 100 percent safe and in a controlled setting. No more tearing up contracts at the first sign of trouble. No more—oh my God. I can’t fucking believe it.”

“What?” Robin said, her hand flying away, hugging herself.

“Turn around.”

John had problems focusing in that moment, torn between the images on the screen and Robin, the curve of her neck rising from a crisp collar to her hair in a bun.

The images won out for now.

Irina Mareau unwound pearls from her body with supernatural smoothness of motion, coming to life right in front of them. He could reach out and touch a strand, his hand turning the color of old ivory as it slipped through time into the black-and-white world. As the pearls came away, Irina herself seemed to transform, a sweet shyness coming over her features. She cocked her head. Brushed her bangs across her forehead and ran her fingers through the pin curls over her ear, breaking them to ribbons. And then she
laughed
.

No sound, of course, but there was no mistaking the motion, the way she covered her mouth with one hand and her eyes lit up.

No other beauty in the world could compare. In photographs and film, Irina was said to be flirtatious, but poised, withdrawn even as she bared her entire body. More impenetrable than Greta Garbo, with a stare more piercing than Joan Crawford’s.

Here, she was shy, but somehow more
open
in that shyness. Did she know she was being filmed? Maybe not, although with a hand-cranked camera it seemed like stealth wouldn’t be possible—if John were the cameraman and wanted this shot, he might have made up some lie about needing to wind the film, or run through to the end of the strip and the excess would be cut. Maybe that’s what this man had done, all those years ago.

She chatted with the cameraman. Reached out of the shot to retrieve a robe, which she wrapped around her lithe, lovely body and tied. Not too neatly, not too primly, not bothering to hide the bare line of skin that fell from between her breasts down to her navel.

John counted under his breath. If the camera was the kind he assumed, shooting at silent speed, each hand-cranked shot wouldn’t last more than forty seconds. And midhand gesture, the image
jumped
.

Robin gasped.

Irina lay on the bed stomach down, foxy chin resting on her hands, feet kicking backward in the air. She looked straight at the camera and arched an eyebrow.
I
know
, the look said. Almost as if she’d seen John that night so long ago when he wrapped his fist around his cock and pumped himself to completion thinking of
her
kneeling at his feet.

I
know
,
and I don’t mind.

“Do you think that’s him behind the camera?” Robin asked in a breathy whisper barely audible above the Eiki’s rustle and hum. “Her lover?”

He reached out and touched her for the first time that night, settling his hands on her hips and drawing her to him, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen. She was warm and yielding against his body, fitting into his arms like she was made for him. “Let’s pretend he is. She’s playing with him, you know.”

“Yes,” Robin said, arching into him. If he looked down he’d see the curve of her throat, bared and inviting. “Playing.”

He took the invitation, cupping her throat and stroking her skin, testing the softness.

Irina opened her mouth to speak. No words in the silent reels, of course. Just the hypnotic hum of the projector, his own heartbeat pounding in his chest and Robin’s breaths.

“I wish we could hear her,” he mused, tracing Robin’s jawline with his forefinger.

“What—what do you want me to say?” So eager to play her part. So fucking eager he couldn’t hold back a second longer. He’d have settled for a reunion with candles and flowers and slow kisses, but a hard fuck in a dark basement suited him even more.

“Please,” he told her, and let go of her tempting throat to pull the chair in front of her. He held her hips with his left arm. Pushed down against the small of her back with his right hand until she bent at a beautiful angle, ass in the air and totally available to him.

Irina rolled on to her back on the bed, the robe falling open along the long line of her thigh. She stroked herself there, in silent longing, beckoning.

“Please,” Robin moaned. “Please.
Sir
.”

* * *

Robin was torn. Tugged between two life-changing events, two compelling personalities from across time, and she was the point where they intersected. Behind her, John, performing the by-now-familiar ritual of rucking up her skirt, baring the thigh-high stockings she wore clipped to her garter. In front of her, Irina Mareau, lying on her back and looking wide-eyed at the camera, her expression that of an attentive listener.

Did Irina Mareau feel this same passion, this same shameless desire, this same need to be wanted and coveted and
taken
?

Irina kicked one leg into the air and held it there, defying gravity. Defying history.

John pulled down Robin’s panties and expertly kicked her heels apart. She gripped the chair harder to keep from falling over. In front of her, the image of Irina smirking at the camera went still, flickered, became white light. She was gone.

Passed into history again, but alive in Robin, a secret second life that—just for now—was Robin’s and John’s alone to keep.

Here in the present, John hooked two fingers unceremoniously inside her, using them to lift her ass higher to him. She lowered her head, forced her way through the shame until she could present herself to him properly.

“I hope you’re not expecting some kind of courtship ritual.” His growling voice nearly drowned out the sound of the tearing condom wrapper. “Because, sweetheart, I am not wasting
any
time with you today.”

She should have been humiliated. Maybe she was. But she almost came right there and then, a spasm clenching her cunt tight like a fist, then clawing pleasure through the rest of her body.
So close
. “Please. Please.”

“
Fuck
.” He shoved into her, hard and fast and filling her completely on the first stroke, and she wailed at the shock to her body. She was wet and ready and begging for him and still—
oh God he’s everywhere
. “You let someone else cane your ass. It fucking turns me on, but that’s
my
ass.” He spread his palms across both her cheeks, laying his claim. “I’m going to show you.”

He pulled out of her then, slow and slick, pulled out until she could barely feel him at all, and the lack of him was just as intense a sensation as having every inch of him inside her. Her hips twitched, a desperate and automatic response because she couldn’t
move
.

She couldn’t move, and she loved it. Held there between the cold steel chair and his warm, hard body. She couldn’t think of any place in the world she’d rather be, especially when he reached down and slid the hard tip of his thumb up along the line of her slit, skirting cruelly past her clit.

“So fucking
wet
,” John said in a voice that was half growl and half moan, and slammed into her again, jolting the chair loudly against the cement floor and knocking a yelp out of Robin...especially when she felt his pussy-slicked thumb shoved knuckle-deep into her ass. “There. Mine.” Something like pain but softer jolted up her spine, and then the pleasure took her all the way at last, harsh and unforgiving and leaving her sobbing and tightening around him, around
all
of him.

He pumped his hips, fucking her with deep, deliberate strokes, and the whole time he kept his thumb hooked inside her, the fingers of the same hand digging into the soft flesh of her ass cheek. Keeping her spread open for him. Even when her climax faded, the carnal pleasure still shattered her. She couldn’t think.

She could barely breathe from the wanting.

She wondered how she must look, pussy swollen and tender and wet, ass pink and stretched and clenching, all of it raised up, shamelessly presented,
all his
.

“Come inside me,” she gasped out, not even thinking, just driven by primal instinct.

He laughed through what sounded like gritted teeth. “Oh, I plan on it. Eventually. But not today, baby. Safety first.”

“God, please.”
I
hate this.
I
hate condoms
,
I
don’t want to wait anymore to be yours.
Completely.
Because I’m ready for everything you want from me.
Everything.
“My mouth.”

He pulled out, the friction of his thumb against tightened flesh overwhelming every other feeling. “
My
mouth, and fuck, yes, get it open.”