Before fatigue can claim me, I untie my darling and remove the gag. Katie breathes deeply, sucking air into her lungs as if I had been drowning her. I leave the blindfold on a little longer. She knows better than to rip it off herself with the collar on.

She looks good in this collar. I should have her wear it more often.

“Well, that was good,” Kathryn says, stretching her arms above her head. She rolls toward me as I settle onto the bed, hand touching my chest and exploring what it can find with her blindfold on. “I’m assuming from the way you came that it was good for you too.”

I have no complaints, and tell her as much.

Eventually I take off her blindfold, and she looks at me with these baby blues that know how to make me come undone. Many men dream about their blue-eyed blonde, but I’m the lucky bastard who gets that and a personality that provides endless amusement. A personality I’m starting to miss, so I unclasp her collar and toss it onto the nightstand.

Right away, I’m not disappointed.

“That was rougher than you took it for.” She smacks my chest, her grin devious. “Had I known you were going to do that to me, I would’ve done some stretches earlier.”

I imagine her taking a break during our earlier meeting to do some lunges and splits. “What are you doing?” the man we were meeting with would ask. “Oh, just getting ready for my boyfriend to plow my pussy later,” she would respond.

I’d laugh if I weren’t so exhausted. My eyelids are heavy enough to knock me out.

“You know,” I begin, stroking her hair and curling her up in my arms, “I think it’s safe to say you’re more than done with the intermediate part of your training.”

“Intermediate, huh? Is that what you’ve been calling these past few weeks?”

Uh huh. Kathryn needed me to break her domineering habits when we were having scenes. I punished her justly, with spankings, hair-pulling, rough fucking, dirty words, orgasm denial, and even bites to her throat and shoulder until she learned to fully submit to my whims whenever the collar was on. Soon enough she was docile and willing for anything I presented. In turn, I learned the positions and words she responded to the best, and made sure to use them when she was being rewarded.

Child’s play.

“I know you’re not interested in lifestyle BDSM.” Her body tenses in my hold, and I caress her shoulder to soothe her nerves. “Neither am I. However, I think for your final round of training I’m going to propose we give it a whirl for a few days.”

“A few days?”

I sit up, even though I’m tired and my body is more ragged than an actual rag. I want nothing more than to sink on top of her, inhaling her scent and feeling her warm body against mine as we drift off to sleep.

“A ‘few’ meaning three at the most. I’m not that cruel.”

“You’re not cruel at all.” Even though she says it flippantly, those words hit my brain like a shock. I don’t know why. “But that’s asking… a lot. I don’t know anything about being a lifestyle submissive. Not even from a Domme’s end. I’ve never done that before.”

I can sense her discomfort, and I don’t blame her. Kathryn Alison has never considered being a lifestyle submissive, even when she’s indulging in wearing a collar and letting me call her filthy names as I take her in new and degrading positions. There’s a thrill in knowing that.

“It would mean serving me. Not only in sexual situations, but in everyday life.”

“At work, too?”

“We would keep it on the down-low, but yes.”

“I really don’t know about that.”

“We would sort it out before going for it.” Her skin is soft against my lips as I kiss her here, there, and a little bit of everywhere. If nothing else, I’ll use my body to relieve her mind. God knows she does that enough for me. “After that, you’ll be considered fully trained.”

“And then what?”

“Well, we go from there.”

Even if she had the collar on, I think Kathryn would still pull away from me and contemplate the underside of my covers. “Let me think about it.”

“All right.”

When she doesn’t answer me for a few minutes, I join her beneath the covers and snake my arms around her, bringing her as close to me as I can.

“You okay?”

“No.”

“What now?”

She doesn’t resist me, but I can tell I’m not her favorite person. “Where are we going from here, Ian?” Fuck my life, she brings this up every other day. “Okay, so once I’m ‘trained,’ what does that mean? It doesn’t mean I’m a sub.”

“You’re my sub.”

It’s dark beneath the covers, but I can still see her eyes staring back at me. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Huh?”

The covers pop up, and we’re hit with the light of the room. Kathryn’s hair is tangled, her body sweaty, and her thighs in desperate need of soaking in my tub. We don’t move. Not until I hear her out.

“You’re not training me to no longer be a Domme. I’m not making a radical shift in my life. I like subbing for you, Ian, but that doesn’t mean I want my life to revolve around it. I don’t even want our sex life to revolve around me wearing that collar. It’s an addition, not a lifestyle.”

“That’s what I meant…” Isn’t it?

“No it’s not.”

Apparently not!

“You going to put words in my mouth, love?” I tease her, but I mean it. “I don’t think of you as a submissive woman. Far from it. I’m only helping you, remember?”

“Like you don’t get anything out of it.”

“Of course I do. Who said I didn’t like you submitting to me? I’ve fantasized about it long enough.” I hope this isn’t going where I dread it’s going.”

Fuck me. It is.

Kathryn pinches my nipple. I wince, batting her hand away without a thought. “You get to pinch me, but I don’t get to pinch her.”

We’re silent.

“You’re the one who came to me, Katie. I don’t recall ever going to you and asking for you to dominate me.”

“I know. I just want you to know my thought processes.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ugh.”

“What?”

She pushes away from me, tossing back the covers and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her naked body glows in the light. The shine of sex. The sheen of a woman who should be relaxed and enjoying life.

“I hate it when men say that. ‘Fair enough.’ Gee, thanks for deigning my words intelligent enough to grace your ears. Thanks for dismissing everything I said at the same time.”

“That’s not what I…”

The bed shakes as she gets up, tossing her hair over her shoulder and rounding the bed toward the bathroom. “Doesn’t matter what you intended, Ian. It’s what you said.”

I don’t have time to admire her form, her beauty, her cunning and her ability to make me hard again with one shake of her hips. Kathryn is disappearing into my bathroom, shutting the door with finality behind her.

Suddenly she pokes her head out, glaring at me, testing my boundaries for a change. “All right. Let’s do it. Let’s see how far you can push me. Then we’ll talk about how serious this is. It will depend on how I feel afterward.”

The door closes again, softer this time. I smile. My mind is already full of the fun shit I’m going to do to her.

With her.

Chapter 4

KATHRYN

“Does this dress make me look straight?”

Eva turns on the dais, pulling a wedgie out of her ass, grimacing, and giving me a look that says “Answer right, damnit.”

I can’t.

I’m trying too hard not to laugh.

Seeing Eva in a dress isn’t enough. I know she wears one every blue moon or so, but those are very sexy numbers that show off her edges and the bite to her personality. The dress she’s wearing now, however, does anything but. It looks like a grandma dress. A pale, rosy pink that doesn’t scream vivacious but painfully Victorian. In fact, I’m almost certain that the last person to wear such a dress came from that century.