She could now handle the flogger with ease, and she loved a good, hard spanking, especially when it was followed by intense love making. She was coming to crave the biting kiss of a single tail whip. She was increasingly interested in the cane, but hadn’t yet found the nerve to let Cooper use it on her. Happily, while he continued to offer it from time to time, he never insisted.
With each new erotic torture he introduced, he expected her to be the one to ask for it. Though it had been embarrassing, especially at first, to have to ask for her spanking or her whipping, it definitely added an extra zing of edgy excitement to their play. She was even learning the classic slave positions, assisted by Abbie, who was grace personified.
She had never felt at once so calm and energized. Truly at peace for perhaps the first time in her life, she no longer woke up with the frenetic need to go, go, go every second of the day. She still taught aerobics and weight training, and she still liked to run along the beach at dawn, but the underlying edginess that had once propelled her through her days had vanished.
Now that things were slowing down at work, Cooper had suggested they might take a four-day trip out on the sailboat together, as practice for the longer trips he hoped to take eventually. Ryan and Ella, the easiest bosses she’d ever worked for, said it was no problem—have fun. Abbie had assured her she’d cover her classes.
They were heading out the next morning. Lainey couldn’t help but notice that Cooper, who had already begun packing for the trip, had placed a cane in his gear bag—the one she’d admired at an impact toy fair held on the island the week before. It was long and thin, the handle covered in black suede. Just the whistling sound of the rattan cutting through the air made her shiver with both fear and desire.
“Don’t worry,” he’d soothed when she’d protested that he’d better not even think of using that thing on her. “I bought this cane because it’s pretty and I like the way the handle is weighted. But you know how this works. I won’t use it on you without your express request. Not until you get down on your knees and ask me properly.”
When he talked like that, his voice deepened, taking on a command that was palpable and deeply exciting to her. She could not get enough of Cooper Hanson. She was crazy in love and chronically in lust.
But the cane? No. No way. Not happening.
She’d watched caning scenes a number of times in the main dungeon. She’d been both horrified and fascinated by what she observed. Mostly it seemed manageable, only leaving red marks on the skin. But some of them went way too far, in Lainey’s opinion, raising dark red welts, a few actually oozing droplets of blood.
Yikes! No way was she going to let Cooper do that to her.
But that cane he’d packed… It was so pretty. Sexy, even. She shuddered a little as she thought about what the sting of a cane would feel like against her ass. She’d want to be bound, of course. Easier to keep your position that way, which would be important with something as dangerous as a cane. A sudden move while an impact toy was in motion could result in its missing its target, never a good thing.
What was she even thinking about that for? It was all academic, as no way was she going to let him use that thing on her. At least not any time soon. Or if she did, he’d have to promise to go easy. At least at first. But that was for another day. Definitely not any time soon. He could put whatever he wanted in that gear bag. That didn’t mean they were going to use it.
They set out early the next morning, gear and food supplies already packed. “I have a surprise for you,” Cooper said as they walked along the dock toward his sailboat. “I finally picked a name for the boat. I think you’ll like it.”
As they got closer, she saw the words painted in shiny black calligraphy on the hull: The True Love. Lainey laughed with delight. It was the name of the boat Kathryn Hepburn and Cary Grant shared in her favorite movie, The Philadelphia Story.
“I love it,” she exclaimed. “Thanks, Dexter,” she added, using Grant’s character name from the movie.
“My pleasure, Tracy,” he replied, using Hepburn’s name.
They untied the boat and raised the anchor. Once they’d motored far enough out to sea, they would hoist the sails. They were headed to Savannah, Georgia, where they’d spend two nights in a bed and breakfast Cooper had arranged for them. The other two nights, the first and the last, would be spent on the boat.