“My feminist friends would kill me.”
“Those of us in the lifestyle are too busy having very good sex to worry about the gender wars. True, most submissives are women and most dominants are men. But I have several male submissives on my payroll, and I know every dominatrix in this town. I assure you the vast majority of my clients are men who want to be dominated by women. So you needn’t worry that you’re giving up your right to vote or right to equal pay. You’re only giving up boring vanilla sex, and I promise you, you won’t miss it. Say yes, Charlie. We know you want to.”
“Okay…yes. Fine. I want to.”
“Beautiful, brave, and honest—I may have to keep you. You can stay in the room next to mine. I’ll send my secretary to see you have everything you need. In the meantime, I’m afraid I have to behave myself and get some actual work done today.”
Charlotte took a slow, deep breath.
“Okay, I’ll stay for a few days. Maybe a month. I’ve been trying to take a vacation for two years.”
Kingsley turned his head and smiled at her with a cocked eyebrow.
“Ma chérie…this will be no vacation.”
And then he laughed and something in that laugh caused her toes to curl and dig into the rug under her feet. The laugh rippled up her body and wrapped around her hips and dug like fingers into her stomach.
“Right…” she said, suddenly very aware of her nakedness under the bathrobe. Knowing Kingsley still had the handcuffs on his wrists came as both a relief and a disappointment. “I should go and let you get to work, I guess.”
Charlotte started for the door but stopped before she leaving.
“I should probably take those off you,” she said, remembering the handcuffs.
Gasping, Charlotte found herself with her back pressed to the door and Kingsley’s arms imprisoning her on either side. The handcuffs dangled impotently off his right wrist.
“Pas de problème, Charlie. Anything that needs taking off…I will do it.”
At first fear alone kept Charlotte frozen to the door. She sensed the iron strength in Kingsley’s arms, in his body, that had her trapped in place. Kingsley pushed forward until his hips pressed into her hips, his chest into br**sts, and the fear turned to another feeling equally powerful but no less terrifying.
“Let me go,” she whispered.
“Non. Not yet.” Kingsley caressed the right side of her face with his fingertips. “You’re here to learn. This is your first lesson. The man I’ll train you for enjoys games like this…games of passion and fear. He will want you ready for him always. In the middle of the night he might wake you with his hunger. He may find you reading in the evening and without a word take your book from you and your clothes. You will try to pass him in the hallway, and he will stop you with his arms, turn you around, press you to the wall and force himself inside you. Comprende?”
Charlotte swallowed hard.
“So this is the lesson? Learning to keep my mouth shut while he does whatever he wants to me?”
Kingsley shook his head. He slid his hand from her face and down the front of her body. She inhaled as Kingsley cupped her left breast and gently kneaded her nipple with his thumb and forefinger.
“The lesson is that you must learn to speak when he does something you do not want him to do. Do you know what a safe word is, Charlie? We use them in my world.”
“No…” she breathed as liquid need began to gather in her hips.
“It’s a word, any word, that the two parties involved agree upon. It is the word that you must use to stop whatever is happening to you that you don’t want.”
“I can’t say no?”
“No. For this man I will train you for,” Kingsley said as he moved his hand lower over her quivering stomach, “the word no gasped in fear, in protest, will only stoke his passion further. It is a game, you see. The more you resist the more he will desire you. Say ‘no’ and he will carry on. Say ‘stop’ and he will not stop. Say ‘don’t’ if you wish but he will do whatever he will do. Tell me to stop. I dare you.”
Kingsley shifted his hand from her stomach to between her legs.
“Stop it,” she whispered although she didn’t mean it.
“Stop what? This?” Kingsley’s middle finger slipped inside her. Closing her eyes tight, Charlotte thrust her hips out and into Kingsley’s hand.
“Yes,” she replied, panting the word. “Stop that.”
“Should I stop this, too?” He pushed a second finger into her and began to move his hand, thrusting in and out of her with his fingers.
Charlotte nodded, unable to speak from the sheer pleasure of his touch.
She sensed Kingsley’s mouth at her ear.
“Non,” he said again. “I’m enjoying myself too much to stop. You feel exquisite inside. So warm, so wet…did you know if you touch right here—” Kingsley twisted his hand and pressed the tip of his finger hard and deep into a spot one inch inside her “—I can feel your pulse?”
“Kingsley…” His name was the only word Charlotte could push past her lips. He apparently took it as an encouragement because a third finger joined the second and Charlotte had to open her legs wider to take it.
“Now pretend for a moment that you aren’t actually enjoying this as much as we both know you are,” Kingsley said, making lazy circles with his hand inside her. “Shocking thought, oui?”