Following his gut. "Put your head back down on my leg. Be easy.”
As she complied, he started to stroke her hair and between her shoulder blades again, light caresses that made her shiver and unconsciously press closer to him. While he did that, he calmed himself and thought about what he wanted. What she might want.
“I need to tell you something, Daralyn. I need you to believe me, even if everything in your life has told you different.
“Okay.” Her voice was a whisper.
“Your uncle, what he told you? It’s the exact opposite of what a man wants from the woman he desires. He wants to see her pleasure. When I see you're getting worked up by what I'm doing, nothing makes me happier. Because your pleasure is what increases mine. The more you're enjoying yourself, the better it feels to me.”
As he watched her struggle with it, he drove down his anger, his impatience. Not with her, never with her, but with his aching wish that she didn’t have to deal with this pain, this conflict within her, fifteen years of conditioning by soulless family members.
“Do you still brush your hair before you go to sleep?” he asked. “Like Les taught you?”
Surprise flitted across her face. “Usually, yes.”
“Good. I’m going to do it tonight. I’m going to brush your hair, tuck you into bed, give you a good night kiss. A kiss that might go on about a half hour or so, but that’s all I’m going to be after.”
Pain fractured her features. “Because I’m too messed up to do what a woman could do for you,” she said dully. “Like Amanda.”
In a mere few words, she reminded him how much she noticed, as well as how complicated she was. Just like any other woman. Her face was filled with so many conflicting emotions it tore things apart inside him.
He brushed her cheek with his knuckles, did it slow, and she tipped her head into it, her lips resting against them. He ran his thumb over the dip of her chin. “One of your smiles does more for me than anything any other woman has. You make me want to give you the world. Don’t say something like that to me again, or I’ll give you another spanking. I may do it anyway, send you to bed with a smarting backside to help you remember.”
The quick flick of her eyes up to his, her parted lips, said he’d distracted her. And that she wasn’t exactly averse to his threat. It changed the direction of his reaction as well, but that direction was no less volatile than his fury.
“So,” he persisted in a calm voice—with effort. “Go get ready for bed, except for the hair brushing part.”
She rose, but at the bathroom door she stopped, fingered the jamb, her eyes on it. “Is there something you’d like me to wear, other than what I usually wear?”
Was it normal for new Doms and subs to have a whole other language happening underneath the spoken words? In the carefully posed question, he heard exactly what she was really asking.
What does my Master want me to wear?
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m really glad you asked.” Translation: You pleased me. You please your Master, with every fucking thing you do and say.
“A robe. Nothing else.”
She bit her lip. “If…I get wet like that again, I won’t be able to hide it.”
“I don’t want you to hide it.” He sent her a direct look, and at her uncertainty, he spoke to her gently, but with firmness. “Go do what I’ve asked.”
She nodded.
What he wanted to say was, I hope you’ll be so wet you can’t hide it. Because I want to see it. Taste it. Smell it. Watch it bathe my cock, feel it on my tongue, have you rub it against my body.
None of that would happen tonight. But he hoped he’d be able to get them closer to the moment and day it would.
As he shed his suit jacket and pulled off the tie, opened up the top couple buttons of his shirt, he was in an optimal position to watch her preparations, all the tempting views. Because though she now knew the appropriate times to close the bathroom door for privacy, she’d recognized, blissfully, that this was not one of those times.
She removed her bra. Hooked her underwear, took it down over her backside. A heart shape he wanted to cradle in both hands, knead that softness. She was killing him.