to give me a goosebump-inducing hard stare.
‘I might have twisted the truth a little,’ I admitted.
‘Tell me now. Services are ten miles away. If you want me to use the facilities again …’
‘No! I was trying to protect you. You can’t punish me for that.’
‘OK, so explain. What did you say?’
‘I might have let Kez believe a conclusion she jumped to. I didn’t say it myself.’
‘Stop covering your arse, my dear. You know it’s futile when I’m around.’
I blushed and felt a burning between my thighs.
‘She saw the cane in the back seat. I didn’t know what to say. I let her make up her own mind about it, and her own mind came up with an interesting alternative explanation.’
‘Which was?’
‘That it’s me who canes you.’
‘Oh, God.’ He laughed out loud for quite a while. ‘I think I’m going to need those services after all.’
‘It’s not my fault!’
‘No, no, I’m not blaming you. You couldn’t have done much else under the circumstances. It was a smart move to let her carry on thinking that.’
‘I thought she might try and report you for assault or something if she knew the truth. We know why we do what we do, but it’s quite hard to explain to someone on the outside. I just didn’t know where to start. So I didn’t start.’
‘And why should you? It’s our private life, babe. None of her business. But oh, dear.’ He chuckled again. ‘I’m just picturing myself in tight rubber trunks and a gimp mask. Not my style at all.’
‘Hmm, the gimp mask, no, but tight rubber trunks …’
‘Don’t go there. Unless you’d like a pair. Tiny little shiny rubber hotpants. What do you say?’
‘Uncomfortable.’
‘Exactly.’
Oh, no. Now I could see his mind whirring down a new path. Canes, butt plugs and now rubber. All I’d asked for was a bit of spanking. But I seemed to have created a kinky monster.
‘Anyway,’ I said, anxious to redirect him from this particular route. ‘The point is, I saved your bacon, so you should be grateful to me. And by “grateful” I mean gearing up for cooking me dinner followed by giving me a full body massage. Don’t you think?’
He conceded this point and we had a lovely post-hangover evening of smooching and snacking on the sofa before the scented oils came out.
‘So,’ he said as I lay beneath him in bed, my legs wrapped around his waist while he thrust slowly and rhythmically inside me. ‘You made me into your submissive. I feel I need to redress the balance. How shall I do it?’
‘Mmm,’ I said, grinding my hips to increase the friction. I was in no mood for a discussion. ‘Fuck me.’
‘I already am.’ He sped up to illustrate the point. ‘But I feel the need to reassert myself within the relationship. Show you I’m not your whipping boy.’
‘You know it,’ I gasped. ‘Oh, God, right there.’
He’d put his finger on my clitoris and I jerked upwards to meet the pressure.
‘Are you going to come for me?’ he whispered.
It wasn’t too long before I did, twisting beneath him while he pounded into me, preparing to lose control.
‘Mmm, you like that, don’t you?’ he panted. ‘But wait until tomorrow. I’m going to give you something to remember.’
The thought of it obviously excited him, because he spilled straightaway, his face stretched into a mask of rapture.
‘What?’ I yawned, enjoying the limp weight of him on top of me before he began to crush the breath from my body. ‘What are you going to give me?’
‘Wait and see.’
The three worst words in the English language.
7 August
He wouldn’t give me any kind of clue over breakfast, though he did bring the cane in from the car in a manner I’d describe as ostentatious. Or even threatening.
‘Don’t keep me in suspense,’ I begged, but he shook his head and waved the damn thing at me.
‘Suspense is good for you,’ he said. ‘Concentrates the mind.’
‘What shift are you on today?’
‘I’m back at nine.
James Kakalios
Tara Fox Hall
K. Sterling
Jonathan Maberry
Mary Balogh
Elizabeth Moynihan
Jane Hunt
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley
Jacquie Rogers
Shiloh Walker