Disciplined by the Dom (16 page)

“I have a large extended family,” Jake finally said, smiling wryly as he deposited her bag by the side of the bed. “Sometimes they threaten to visit. I keep everything prepared almost like a good luck charm, to keep them away. So far, it’s worked flawlessly.”

She smiled weakly. She didn’t know what she wanted—or rather, what she wanted
most
—but the sight of him, standing there, still in his wet shirt, his hair still unruly and damp, looking at her with those molten eyes, was enough to make her feel a little crazy. She was being pulled so severely in so many directions that she was sure she must be vibrating under the tension.

“Catie,” he said. “I have to show you something.”

She shook her head, unwilling to speak. She couldn’t. She had no idea what she’d say or do. She was petrified of whatever came next.

Jake came close, and took her hands. “Please,” he said.

She was a goner.

chapter
16

Jake only led her up one floor, not bothering to turn on the lights, into a wood-paneled room that looked as though it could have belonged on an English country estate. Well, except for the projection screen pulled down across one wall. And the theater-quality projector in the middle of the room.

“I feel as though I owe you an explanation,” he said, walking to a shelf beyond the projector. “Well, a further explanation. Do you see these?”

Catie was just grateful to have something else to look at besides Jake. She stepped close and peered at the shelves. They were clunky canisters holding old-fashioned reels of film, with titles hand-written down the sides. Titles like, “The Seven Year Itch,” “Casablanca,” “The Big Sleep.”

“Those are great movies,” she said.

Jake’s face lit up. “You’ve seen them?”

“Some of them, yeah. Hey, ‘Sweet Smell of Success!’”

It was one of her favorite movies. Burt Lancaster as the most evil gossip columnist alive, using his power to ruin and corrupt everyone around him, all in pursuit of some twisted thing involving his sister.

“One of the best,” he said. “Sex, gossip, drugs, betrayal.”

That last word pierced her. “But there’s a happy ending,” she said.

“Not for Tony Harris,” Jake smiled a little sadly.

Catie turned stiffly back to the shelf, not wanting to look at Jake. No, Tony Harris didn’t have a happy ending in that film, not after he double-crossed everyone he met in the pursuit of success. He didn’t deserve a happy ending.
Neither do I
.

She pulled the canister off the shelf, only to catch sight of green leather where she’d expected to see wood paneling. She reached up to gather more of the canisters, expose the small leather box that seemed hidden there, when Jake grabbed her wrist.

His touch hit her like a live wire. She froze.

“So what’s so important?” she finally said. If she couldn’t handle just this conversation, if she couldn’t handle it any time he touched her…

“None of these are the originals,” he said, touching each canister one by one. “I’ve had to replace them all over the years. I wore them out.”

“You wore them out? You can do that?”

“Apparently. Incredibly difficult to replace, some of these.”

“So you’re a movie buff,” she said. This was good. Anything that got them talking about trivial, impersonal things was good. Or better, anyway.

“Not exactly,” he said, turning to face her. “Not by choice, necessarily.”

Catie scrunched up her face. “You were forced…?”

“No.”

“Good, because I was thinking, like, ‘A Clockwork Orange’…?”

He laughed. “I can’t believe you know film.”

“I watched a lot of television as a kid.”

“When you weren’t reading about Roman generals?”

She flinched. “I still can’t believe I told you about that. It’s actually not the greatest memory for me, you know? Kind of makes me seem pathetic and weird. Something I did to get close to my dad, and it turned out it was all a lie.”

He touched her face, and she lost her voice. The short distance between them seemed too large, unnatural, begging to be filled.

“I think we have more in common than either of us first thought,” he said.

She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak again. She wanted to scream,
no, don’t bring us closer, I can’t handle this
, but she found herself unable to stop it, unable to pull away.

“These films were given to me when I was boy,” he said, his fingers brushing against her cheek. “I don’t even remember who gave them to me. But when my mother had guests, which was more frequently than not, she would lock me in here. I watched these films, over and over again. I was only allowed out when she needed me for something—to parade me around, usually, take a photograph. She’d be this utterly…
affectionate
creature, in front of whomever, and then I’d be locked away again, until everyone left. Sometimes they wouldn’t leave for a long time. Sometimes days. I know most of these films by heart.”

“That’s horrible,” she whispered. “Days?”

He smiled. “There are much worse things.”

“But—”

“No, Catie, there really are. There are better men than me who’ve come through much worse with fewer wounds. But I am what I am, and I want to explain, so that you know not to take it—”

“Personally.”

He smiled again. How could he smile while talking about this? Is this why he seemed so remote? “Yes. Personally. Those were the only times she’d show me real affection, or, truthfully, seem to remember me at all. I tried to spend as much time with my father’s family as I could, but, for various reasons, I wasn’t always welcome. It was complicated. The results are that I am sort of…hollow. I recoil at affection. At intimacy. I cannot become attached in the way people normally do; I’ve tried, it fails miserably. So I don’t make those promises any longer. I can’t stand to disappoint people. I can’t stand to hurt them, as I inevitably do. I have made that mistake before, with terrible consequences.”

For the first time that she could remember, he looked down at the floor, his brows coming together in a brief expression of grief, as though remembering something he didn’t want her to see.

She didn’t know what to say. No, she didn’t know
which
thing to say—some small part of her was saying she should be happy to be let off the hook, that he was telling her he could never feel, never trust, never care what the hell she did. But she knew,
knew
, it was a lie. She’d seen him feel for others. He was brushing her cheek with utmost tenderness right now.

“I couldn’t stand to hurt you,” he said softly.

“Bullshit!”

He blinked.

“I’m calling bullshit again,” she said. “What are you doing right now? You’re being affectionate, you’re—”

“No,” he said, and he threaded his hands through her hair and tightened his grip. “I just can’t help but want you whenever I look at you.”

Everything stopped.

Then a rush passed through Catie’s body, flooded into every last corner, every crevice, every nerve. Her pulse pounded out a steady, rising beat, and she was afraid to move, afraid to breathe, unsure of what she’d do.

“That is part of what domination and submission means to me, Catie,” Jake said, his hand now moving down the length of her neck. She craned toward him helplessly, unable to stop her body from responding.

“It’s the way I can be close to people, through that ritual, those rules and roles. It’s hard to explain. It’s the way I can bring them and myself happiness. And it just…”

“It just
is
,” she finished for him. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she could feel her will weakening. But it was more than that. Something about what he’d said made sense to her on a deeper level. She thought about her own history, about her own past fighting through relationships that didn’t make sense, about holding on to people who were wrong for her, and pushing away people who were kind. She thought about how her mind relaxed into scenes with Jake. How those scenes had made her feel finally…free. Like the rules and the strictures made it safe to be herself.

It was the only time she felt totally sure of who she was.

“I don’t know whether it’s wise for you to continue training with me,” Jake said. “For your own sake.”

Catie’s eyes flew open. He was looking at her intently, with that same intense level of concentration he had whenever they’d…she wasn’t sure what they’d done. Had sex. Made love. But that look pushed her beyond rational thought, beyond all of her anxieties and worries about what the hell she was doing there, and before she knew it, she was speaking.

“I need it,” she said, and his hand stiffened on her neck. “You don’t understand. It’s like that for me, too, when you’re…when you dominate me.”

She remembered back to the first time they’d had sex, when he’d been overcome—when they’d both been overcome—in Lola’s office. How her body had been wracked by him, while inside she’d felt somehow peaceful for the first time in ages. She needed that now more than ever. She needed to lose herself in subspace, needed to lose herself in him the only way she knew how.

Catie looked Jake in the eye. Then she fell to her knees, kneeling before him the way he’d ordered her to at Volare.

“Please,” she said, her voice cracked. She suddenly couldn’t see a way to get through this without him. Without this. She couldn’t tell him why she needed it, but she did. “I need this, more than I can say. I need you to be…
Please
.”

She looked up to find him looking down at her with those fiery eyes, his jaw set hard. Something in him shifted, something darkened. His chest rose, his shoulders broadened, and she felt his fingers on the back of her head.

“Show me,” he ordered.

She knew exactly what he meant. Just being on her knees in front of him in the submissive pose turned her on. But now, knowing what he wanted her to do—what he’d ordered her to do—she felt her nipples harden. She was wet already.

She reached up, slowly, and unzipped his fly. She didn’t know why she should be so nervous, but she was. Tentatively, she freed his cock, feeling the weight of it in her hand. And then she just stared at it. She hadn’t had much opportunity to study it in any of their earlier encounters, and now she wondered how she’d taken something so intimidating. It was bigger than she thought, fuller. She could feel his eyes on her and as she let her fingers trail down its length she felt herself slip, ever so slowly, into that freedom she felt in submitting to him.

She raised it to her lips and kissed the head.

His fingers fanned out through her hair, and then his grip tightened. He held on, and she loved knowing that he held her there at his will. She leaned forward to draw him into her mouth and was rewarded with a rumbling groan from somewhere deep within his chest. She sucked gently on the head, moving her fingers down the shaft, wanting to feel him swell in her mouth. His hands tensed, pulling on her hair. It should have hurt. It
did
hurt, and she wanted him to do it again.

She circled the base of his cock with her hand and pushed herself forward until she felt his swollen head bump against her throat. She couldn’t breathe, and she felt her eyes begin to water. She’d been overwhelmed by him in any number of ways already, but this was new. She wanted even more. She wanted him to come hot and hard in her mouth, wanted to know she’d made him lose control. She felt both powerless, her head held in his hand, and powerful, all at the same time. The need to please him had driven every other thought away.

She laved her tongue along the underside of his shaft and took him in her mouth again, faster and deeper than before, and as her hand found a rhythm with her mouth, Jake began to thrust, driving his cock to the back of her throat. She moaned, her clit throbbing, and she could tell he was about to come. She was nearly there when he yanked her head back and away from him.

His cock was huge and hard, wet with her saliva, a dark, red, angry color. She looked up at him, begging, wanting to finish him, not understanding. But he didn’t even give her a chance to speak.

“Get up,” he said, his voice choked and tight, and pushed her across the room, right up to the back of the leather couch in front of the screen.

They stared at each other for a moment, taking each other in. He loomed over her, dark and brooding, flexing his fists, breathing hard. His eyes trailed down her body, back up to her eyes, hungry. Catie knew what she wanted. She wanted him rough, she wanted him to push out every other thought. She needed the relief. And she wanted—needed—to know he couldn’t resist her. That when push came to shove, that even when his judgment told him otherwise, he would always choose her.

For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t. For a moment, she felt sorry that she had asked that of him, as unfair as it was for her to ask
anything
of him, given what she was already planning to take.

Then he raised one hand, and, with a twirl of his finger, made it very clear exactly what he wanted.

Catie opened her eyes wide and bit her lip. She couldn’t resist one last look at his cock, even harder and darker now. Then she slowly turned around, her waist up against the back of the red leather couch.

And waited.

She felt his breath on her neck first, and her own breath quickened in anticipation. It seemed ages before he moved, before he touched her, and she was already feeling lightheaded by the time she felt his hand under her skirt. He ran his hand along the seam of her underwear, and followed it down until he reached his fingers between her legs. She sighed as he stroked her, the contact both pleasurable and almost painful, she was so swollen. The fabric clung to her wetness where he gripped her, and she was sure she could come just like that if he stroked her long enough.

But then his hand was on her neck, on the muscle sliding down to her shoulder. He squeezed, and then quickly pushed her down, roughly bending her over the back of the couch. She made a sound, shortened by the pressure of the couch on her stomach, and bit her lip again, afraid that if she said anything, he’d stop. She wanted him so badly she could barely breathe.