I chewed my nail, debating.
What if I break up with you because of it?
He texted right back.
We'll break up if I don't. I realize now that this relationship won't work unless we follow the rules we drew up and committed to when we signed the agreement. The rules are there for a reason. Both of us need them. We can't be just a vanilla couple. I can't be a vanilla boyfriend, Katherine. I might try, but I'd fail and you'd eventually be dissatisfied. I'm a Dominant and you want submission in the bedroom, even if you haven't completely accepted what that means yet. We have to follow the rules or neither of us will be happy.
If you love me – if you really love me – the Dominant I am inside – you'll accept this and obey just as I have to accept that you really want submission underneath your uncertainty. You need my dominance to feel free.
I closed my eyes and bit my lip. Could I accept his command and obey? If I did, what would that mean?
Oh, fuck. I analyzed things too much. I had to go with my heart and my heart screamed that I couldn’t stand to lose Drake. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him. When I signed the agreement in the hotel room in the Bahamas, I did agree that he could punish me if I disobeyed his rules. He had every right to expect me to be completely open and honest about anything to do with our relationship. That was a necessity for power exchange to work. Trust. I had kept something from him, three things from him – deliberately.
I will obey.
It took a minute for him to respond, as if he didn't believe I'd agree.
Be waiting for me as I described. Be prepared to be spanked, Katherine. Then, be prepared to be fucked. I'll be there in 15.
I went to the bedroom, undressed despite the chill in the air, knelt on a pillow by the head of the bed, fastened a tie around my eyes to act as a blindfold, and waited.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
In about fifteen minutes, my cell phone rang twice – the signal that Drake was near. I had been kneeling quietly from the time he'd texted me back and now all my senses were acutely attuned to every sound of my own body, every scent in the apartment, every noise from the street.
Unlike the last time I waited for him, I wasn't aroused. I was dreading the spanking. I knew it would hurt – it wouldn't be the worst pain I had ever experienced but it would hurt. I knew I'd cry. I knew I'd feel humiliated. Most of all, I knew I'd feel completely mixed-up emotions about being spanked.
Of course, I could walk out at any moment. I could use my safe word at any time and the spanking would stop, but then I'd have failed Drake once more. As his submissive, I should accept his punishments as part of our relationship. I understood that, but there was a part of me that wanted us to transcend the rules. I thought that, somehow, he wouldn’t need D/s any longer after he found me. That he could let himself go with me and forget the need to so strictly control himself.
I was obviously wrong.
I tried to accept this was reality and let whatever he felt needed to happen happen, but it was so damn hard. I did want him to be a sexual Dominant with me. I wanted him to be my Master in the bedroom and my equal – my life companion – outside of it. If he really thought this punishment was necessary to make our relationship work so we could be together, I'd submit.
By the time Drake arrived in the apartment, I was already teared-up, the tears of regret slipping down my cheeks underneath a gap in the blindfold, which was inexpertly tied around my eyes.
I listened as he entered the apartment. The door creaked open, his boots dropped with a thunk thunk on the mat. The fridge door opened and I heard condiment jars clink in the door as he took out the Anisovaya. I couldn’t hear but imagined him shooting back the anise-flavored liquor, and wondered if he'd come and kiss me so I could taste it on his tongue as he usually did.
I heard him breathing from a distance, but he did nothing more for a long moment. Was he watching me over by the bed struggling to gain some composure, biting my bottom lip and breathing in deeply to calm myself?
The floor creaked as he came to the side of the bed where I knelt blindfolded on a pillow, my hands behind my back. I remembered to open my mouth and keep my lips slightly parted, but it wasn't easy for my emotions threatened to overwhelm me and my bottom lip quivered.
Then, he let out a heavy sigh.
He picked me up, and he sat down on the bed with me across his lap. I reached out blindly, slipping my arms around his neck. I had no idea where his face was in relation to mine but then I smelled the Anisovaya on his breath. He was looking right at me, his breath warm on my face, the anise sweet.
He kissed me, his lips on my cheek, kissing below each eye.
"Oh, Katie," he whispered. Then, his mouth found mine, his lips parting, tongue searching for mine, his arms pulling me more tightly against his chest. He kissed me deeply and I kissed him back, my heart almost exploding at the show of affection for me instead of anger. I pulled him against me as tightly as I could and this seemed to elicit an even greater response from him, his hands moving down my naked body, around my shoulder to my breast which he cupped and squeezed, pulling my nipple taut between his finger and thumb, sending a thrill of lust through my body right to my clit.
I expected him to spank me right away, hard and fast, punishing me for breaking the rules. Instead, he was arousing me with his touch, his kiss. He lay half on top of me, half on the bed beside me so that his hand was free to touch me. He slipped his fingers between my lips to feel my clit, stroking it slowly, sinuously. I moaned when his mouth moved down to kiss my shoulder and then claimed my nipple, sucking firmly, teasing it with the tips of his teeth.
His breath was warm on my belly, his tongue wet, trailing down from my navel to my naked pubes, slipping between my lips to stroke my clit and I couldn't stop from gasping, his tongue felt so good, silky and wet.
To my complete surprise, and when I was getting very close to orgasm, he stopped and pulled me up, depositing me over his knee as he had done earlier, one hand pressing down on my upper back, the other on the back of my thighs.
When he spoke, his voice was husky with lust.
"Will you lay quietly and submit? Don't speak," he said, his breath shaky. "Nod your head. If you won't submit, I'll have to confine you with my leg."