“Yeah, I’m not surprised. That’s quite a temper you’ve got.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Silly. That was an act. I don’t have a temper. It just helps to pretend I do sometimes. I can’t be everywhere at once, but the idea of me can.”
“You don’t have a temper?” He seemed pretty angry at the time. I thought he was angry when he disciplined me, but was he? He was intense, but he very calmly tied me up or pulled me over his knee, asked me sternly why I was being disciplined, and then laid into me. When it was over he held me and comforted me like I was something delicate and precious. He hadn’t yelled at me, and he’d been able to switch straight from disciplining to consoling in seconds. It was all so calculated and controlled, I realized. He wouldn’t be able to act that way if he’d lost his temper.
“No, I don’t,” he says. “And that sort of thing, yelling and anger, doesn’t work with a sub. It just frightens them and makes them more unhappy. You probably felt afraid and anxious after I yelled at you, which means you would have made more mistakes, and so sick and fearful that it kept yo
u awake and unfocused. I saw it in your eyes and as soon as I left the room I knew I’d made a mistake.
“So when I found you alone in the wings I thought I’d try something different. I made you look at me to focus. I added something physically restrictive by pressing on your throat a little. I told you you weren’t going to make any mistakes, and that you were going to do it for me. And when you agreed to do what I said, I gave you your reward straight away. Good girl. It worked. You danced perfectly.”
I stare at him. “Jesus Christ. You read me so easily.”
He taps the tablecloth with his forefinger. “It’s what I do. And watch your mouth.” He gazes at me a moment. “Then, of course, I couldn’t get you out of my head. You don’t know how happy I was that you were ten minutes late.” He grins.
My mouth falls open. “You beast. You wanted me to break one of your rules?”
“Dying for it. I hadn’t been happier in months.”
I look at him for a few minutes. He does look happy, in his stern, enigmatic way. He really does want to be my dom. Needs it, he says. It’s a little thrilling to be needed, and by someone who doesn’t seem to need anything from anyone at all. I thought I was the needy one.
But I still have questions. “And what about the, uh, daddy thing?”
His smile turns wolfish. “I told you. It’s because I like it.”
“Yes, but why do you like it?”
He thinks about this. “It’s something that doms who are caregivers like. It’s authoritative, but it’s also sweet, unlike “master” or “sir.” And it’s kinky as hell, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I whisper, my face burning.
“Plus it goes with the things I want to call you. Little one. Babygirl. Princess. Kitten.” He slants a sly look at me. “Did you not feel a little thrill when you called me daddy the other night, and did you not come a little harder?”
I duck my head and fiddle with the hair at the nape of my neck. Master. Sir. Daddy. The first two make me feel nothing. The third makes my insides somersault. “Maybe.”
“What did we say about lying?” he says, stern.
I flick my eyes up at him. “All right. I liked it.” And then completely freaked out about it afterward.
He spreads his hands in a well, there you go gesture. “Any more questions?”
I take a sip of wine and look at him. God, I do want him. So badly. Everything he’s said is crazy and strange, but none of it frightens me—at least, not in a get-up-and-leave sort of way. I think about what it would be like to date him just as regular people do, with movie nights and walking on the heath and taking turns to make dinner. It feels...flat. I mean, I want all that, but I want something more, as well.
But I haven’t finished with my questions.
“Would you see other women?”
He frowns like I’ve offended him. “No.”
“So...you’d be like my boyfriend?”
His hand caresses my shoulder. “Oh, sweetheart. It goes so much deeper than that. I’d own you.”
Own me. Be his. Utterly. That should frighten me, too, I suppose, but it doesn’t. I take a deep breath. “And what if it doesn’t work out?”
He slides a little closer to me, as if he can sense my agreement is on the tip of my tongue. He’s so confident. So assured. But then, he’s already shown me how good he is at reading me. All the same, he answers my question with the gravity I require. He’s so close that he doesn’t need to speak above a murmur. “It’s like any relationship. It grows and changes over time. Deepens, or falls apart. But I promise you, I would do everything I can to see that it doesn’t fall apart.”
“Would you promise to go easy on me at first?”