Yellow (The Safeword Series, #2) (3 page)

She rolled her coal lined eyes. “Honey, I don’t waste time on being nice or blowing smoke up people’s asses. Life’s too short to be fake.” She leaned back in her seat and took stock of me like she was seeing me for the first time. “What happened to the firecracker from last night?”

I didn’t answer her right away, going to the chair in front of her desk and plopping onto the cushion. The truth was one I’d been fighting all day. I never should have answered his text. It was more than the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his hands felt on my body, the look in his eye, like he was starving for me.
Me
.

I’d completely forgotten about my story, my name, anything outside of his hand pounding my bottom. Four strikes and I’d forgotten this was all pretend. I’d counted down the hours until my work day was over, spent the three hours after pouring over outfit after outfit, Youtubeing makeup tutorials, and I almost went shopping with money that I didn’t have...for him.

And now that I was here, and hearing that men, possible sources, would be noticing me, wanting me, and putting me that much closer to my story - it was irrelevant. I didn’t dress for them. I was here for the man in the black mask. It was terrifying to think about because the last time I’d been ready to throw away everything for someone, I ended up alone and forgotten.

When would I learn?

I picked up the folder with my name on it, filling out the tax paperwork and putting aside the attachment I had to this virtual stranger. “Just first day jitters.” I initialed and signed all the pertinent places. “I’m still in awe that I’m here, actually.”

“You’re a natural and you’re gonna do awesome,” Mary assured me.

I glanced up from my folder and saw she was pouring cherry red wine into two glasses. When I was done, she offered one to me and toasted me, wishing me luck and clarifying that was just custom because I didn’t need luck.

I smiled and laughed with her, trying to swallow the guilt. Sooner or later, the truth would come out. This place, her identity...would it ruin her? Ruin her career? How could I do that to her?

How could I do that to him?

I forced a smile, thoughts rattling in my head.
You’re not exposing anyone
. The devil on one shoulder consoled me.
You’re just telling a story
. The angel just shook its head in silent condemnation.

“Do you know what time it is?”

The office door had already clicked shut, so I knew Mary hadn’t heard him, but I still blushed, keeping my distance.

It wasn’t fair.

He looked even sexier than last night. His suit was charcoal gray, his dark hair slicked back and intensifying the angular perfection that was his face. The only thing that was masked was his eyes and nose. He wore the same black mask from the night before.

I couldn’t look at him any longer than a few moments because my cheeks were on fire; the ones on my face that gave me away immediately...and the other ones that remembered his palm.

Stop thinking about the spanking. Stop thinking about the spanking...
“I’ve got to head downstairs to check in with Liza.”

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. We’re going to Dungeon #3, where I expected you to be at 8PM.” He glanced at the watch on his wrist, though I knew he was the kind of man who knew the time, because it stood still and moved at his whim. “It is now 8:15. I should give you a lick for every minute that you left me waiting-”

“Left you waiting?” I slipped in, focusing on something besides the fact that the word ‘lick’ had suddenly become the sexiest word I’d ever heard. “You could have any woman here. Why would you wait for me?”

His lips became a thin line and I knew I was screwing this submissive thing up again. When he stalked in the opposite direction, my butterflies flew from my gut to my throat and I almost called out after him. He stopped a few feet away, in front of a marble table leaning against the wall and some framed piece of art.

My mouth opened, a croak coming out.
Wait! I’m afraid. I’m a fraud. Any closer and it’ll be too late, you’ll have me right where you want me.
But he beckoned me with a finger instead of reading my mind. Reading my apprehension for what it really was: guilt.

If I was smart, I’d walk away, but, damn it, I was completely idiotic. And horny. And curious.

When I got closer, I realized it wasn’t a piece of art at all on the wall, it was a mirror. The glass was framed in ornate ivory and silver. He wasn’t looking at any of it. He was gazing at my reflection.

“Why you?” he mused softly. “You don’t see what I see?”

I bit my lip, sure my cheeks were the same color as my red skirt, so that was all I saw. “A blushing, mouthy girl in a costume?”

He stepped behind me and I gasped when one of his arms circled my waist and the other stretched across my shoulders. The nearness of him was dizzying, his scent like something powerful and painfully out of my league. One look into the mirror, at him, and I saw that was all in my head. He stroked my shoulder with his fingertips, his touch sweeping upward to my chin.

He held me steady. “You are so much more than meets the eye, Sophia. Your eyes, the adorable way you blush...” His fingertips danced to my neck and I hitched a breath when he went lower still, skimming the valley between my breasts. “Your body is delicious, but that’s not why I’m here. That’s not why I asked you to meet me tonight.”

I was trembling, my voice sure to come out in a gravelly, unsure mess, but I tried to speak any way. “W-Why? Why did you ask me to meet you tonight?” I knew it was a bad idea, to look him in the eye if his touch was making thought and speech problematic; his eyes were the first thing that made me pause and flipped my world upside down.

I found his gaze and I saw the answer flashing in his gaze, holding me rapt.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said softly. Tenderly. So stark from the hard line of his jaw and his fiery green eyes.

When the hottest man you’ve ever laid eyes on chooses you, and looks at you like that choice wasn’t even a  hard one to make, what else do you say besides, “Let’s go to the room.”

I didn’t realize that I’d taken his hand, or that he
let
me take his hand until we stopped in front of the door for Dungeon #3 and he gently extricated himself from my hold.

He typed in the access code, slowly this time, like he was worried.

As soon as the door clicked shut behind us, I dove in with the apologies. “Sorry if I seem overly eager.” I sponged off my perpetually wet palms on my skirt. “And if I drenched your hand in sweat.”

He didn’t say a word, so I kept talking.

“It’s just, this is all so far from my element.”

“Submitting?” One word from him and he said it suspiciously. Like he was questioning his own sanity with every passing moment.

“Not submitting,” I lied, trying to tone down my nerves. The last time I’d come in this room, high off him, adrenaline, and the brazenness of grabbing him without permission, I’d been on some other plane of existence. A place where things that were created to inflict pain didn’t frighten me, they excited me. Where a man that I knew nothing about besides that he liked to hurt me, didn’t make me want to run as far away as humanely possible, but come closer. Delve deeper into his world of kink and agony. Delve deeper into my own dark desires.

I didn’t go skipping from whip to whip like last time. I waited until he told me what he wanted. What he needed. When he didn’t say a word, again, I filled up the silence with the mess in my head. “Feeling so strongly for someone is out of my element.”

His brow vaulted skeptically, so I decided to do something pretty crazy.

I told him the truth.

“I like you. I know how insane that must sound. I know nothing about you, besides that you’re a Dom, you’re clearly someone important, and you’re sexy as hell.” I took a breath, not thinking about how surreal all this was, or that I may be being a little too forthcoming. “When you texted me, I almost squealed. Squealed like some lovesick teenager.”
Oh my God Sophia. Stop. Talking.
“Not that I’m in love with you...” I groaned, turning back to the door. I was sure he was about to have some emergency, some reason to get him out of here and away from me, because I was clearly crazy. “I’ll just show myself out.”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I was facing the door, gripping the golden knob, squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t know if I’d imagined his question, but I’d already shown my crazy, so there was no use dialing back. “You’d have to be as insane as me to not be utterly done after what I just said.”

“Did I say I was done?” He didn’t pause for a response. “Did I tell you to do anything at all?”

I let go of the doorknob, but shock turned the rest of me to stone. Any movement would rouse me from this dream. I was dreaming, right? There was no way he was still interested.

“Turn around, Sin.”

I was almost more mortified than before, especially hearing him call me that name, but I sucked it up and pivoted back to him. I frowned in confusion when I saw he was smiling. My eyes dropped when I saw the tremor rippling through his shoulders. Since it wasn’t cold in the room and his lips were pursed like he was trying to hold back something, my jaw fell open.

“Are you laughing at me?!” I asked incredulously. Caught up in the moment, I flew back to him and smacked one of those trembling shoulders.

His handsome face flipped from bemusement to shock.

He dropped his eye to his shoulder, then looked back at me, his face no longer surprised, but hard as stone. “Did you just strike me?”

Uh oh.

I couldn’t lie, even though the answer was clearly supposed to be, “No! Never!”.

I gulped, trying to stutter my way out of it. “Um, uh, er...”

And then he did the last thing I expected.

He roped my waist and snatched me to him. My body; soft, clumsy, fit his; hot, muscled. It was like we were two magnets and had finally found each other.

I tipped my chin upward and that insecure part of me that whispered to step away, pull back, run, was put on mute...just in time for his lips to collide with mine.

I
screwed up.

I knew it from the moment I walked through the doors of Hush that she would likely forget one of the golden rules of submission: punctuality. I hated to wait...and I hated that I stood in Dungeon #3 for a good five minutes. I realized I’d wait even longer, however long it took, to claim her.

I’d lost count of how many submissives had been mine for the evening; nameless, faceless women that I’d used for the sole purpose of getting off. This guilty pang was new for me, caring that I’d used them all as a means to an end completely foreign because I was on the other side with Sin. I knew it from the moment I saw her shocked expression outside the office, heat blooming in her cheeks like some flower that grew wild and reckless.

I needed more than a night with her. I needed more of her.

She undid me with little effort with the bite behind her words and the vulnerability in her voice that I would choose her. Standing in front of that mirror, gazing at her beautiful reflection, I wanted to wipe away every swipe of makeup; unravel the ribbon that held her corset together until she was bare. Until there was nothing left except Sophia. Then she’d see what I saw. She’d see the fire that burned the night we met that had nothing to do with how sexy her dress was. The fire was her.

So that’s why I did it, with my rational, currently annoying voice in my head whispering to abort. Even locked in the haze of lust it was clear any further play would be my continued undoing.

I ignored it, focusing instead on her growth, her gift of standing there, hands clasped, ready to submit when I was sure she was dying to speak and explore the room with the same wonder and glee that I’d gawked at last night.

Tonight, I gawked for a totally different reason. Those pale eyes were like windows to her soul and she hurled herself from the ledge, sharing something that should have made me get the hell out of dodge.

“I like you.”

And then she babbled on about how ridiculous that was and how I was probably ready to bolt. How could I not struggle to suppress my laughter? It was hilarious, because I knew in that moment that I was just as crazy and ridiculous as she was...because I liked her too.

Her strike had been a bullet to that part of me that was worried about being irrational and safe.

So I took a step off the ledge too.

I kissed her.

The fact that I didn’t kiss submissives, that this intimacy went beyond two masked strangers sweeping in and out of each other’s lives, was the furthest thing from my mind. I took her in my arms, so close that I felt every pulsing beat of her heart. It matched the racing drum in my own, and it was all the confirmation I needed.

Insane? Probably. Dangerous? Most definitely.

And I didn’t care.

My fingers slipped into her dark strands, the smell of mint and a soft, delicate fragrance flooding my nostrils. I brushed my lips across hers, wanting to savor the way she trembled. The way her lips parted in a sigh of complete abandon.

I lost it then, my tongue thrusting into her mouth. I tasted her moans, I embraced her surrender. My hands roamed, starting at her cheeks, holding her, then traveling down, fingertips skimming her breasts, gripping her waist, resting at the curve of her ass.

I lifted her, smiling when she let out a squeal.

“Where-what-”

“And that’s the final question I’ll allow, Sin.” I may have gotten carried away, lost in her, but I steered us back towards the needs we both craved. “You are to only speak when prompted. You are to only move, moan, writhe-” I gave her ass a playful squeeze when she pouted. “
Pout
when I give you permission-”

“Before you finish that thought...” She linked her legs tighter around my waist, just in case I was having second thoughts and wanted to drop her for interrupting me.

I shook my head, but gave her a nod to continue. Not that it mattered. I had a feeling that submissive or not, she would make herself heard.