The Dom With the Perfect Brats (33 page)

Cross set her away with hands on her arms. “
If vanilla is what you want, we’ll make it work.”

She shook her head. “It’s not what I want and it’s not working
, but I can’t go back to the way things were either. I’m sorry...” A tear slipped free. “I’m so sorry I can’t be the submissive you want. But maybe I can be better. Try harder.”

“No.” Cross reached up and wiped the tear away. “I didn’t know what I wanted.
Not until I almost lost you both.” He wrapped a hand around the back of Izzy’s head and pulled her closer. “I want you, both of you, any way that I can get you. Vanilla, rocky road, covered in chocolate sauce and whipped cream...”

She chuckled and Izzy giggled.

“I know my ways were hard for you, Gemma.” He pinned her with a repentant expression. “I don’t ever want to make you feel like you’re not good enough. Never again. Either of you. You’re perfect. Bratty mouths and everything.”

Her ch
est filled with such happiness, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to jump up and down. Maybe they could go back to kink. He’d called her perfect. Maybe she didn’t have to try so hard to fit some mold and fail miserably every time. But she knew what his statement truly meant – what he was really saying. Cross loved them.

She tugged at her lip with her teeth.
“Do you think we could try being kinky again? See if we can make it work?”

His eyes narrowed
. “You’re sure you want that?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

His somber gaze shifted to Izzy. “Is this what you want too?”

Izzy’s eyes lit up as she nodded eagerly. “You love us, even though we’re bratty, Sir?”

Gemma shook her head. Well Izzy certainly snapped back to sub-mode quick. Or was she just sucking up?

Cross stroke
d Izzy’s cheek with his knuckles. “Yes. I love you both very much. Even though you’re bratty.”

Misch
ief danced in her eyes. “So if we go back to kink, we can be brats and not get punished?”

He snorted. “That’s not what I said
, but we can compromise. I won’t be as hard on you.” With their hands in each of his, he told him, “I’m a full-time Dom. Compromise goes both ways. If we go back to kink, you have to accept me how I am too. I promise to loosen up the reins if you promise to adhere to some rules. We can decide them together.”

Izzy looked at Gemma and nodded. “That sounds fair,” she said.

“Gemma?”

“Deal. One more thing though.” She hauled back and punched him in the arm.
“If you ever spank me in public again I get to do it to you!”

“Don’t push your luck, girl.” He grabbed her
offending hand and kissed it.

She
grinned stupidly. She was girl again. Such a silly thing but it made her give him those smitten googly eyes she always thought she was immune to.

“I might be rusty
, though,” he said, “so go easy on me, okay?”

Izzy and Gemma exchanged sly glances. “
Sure we will, Sir,” Izzy said.

He sighed. “I missed that coming from your sexy lips. Even
if you
are
being bratty about it. Now are you going to cook my dinner or do I have to get a wooden spoon out to motivate you?”

Gemma couldn’t wipe away her idiotic grin. He was back.
Her Cross – her Sir – was back.

Cross

“Mmm...look at his muscles when he carries those groceries.”

“Can you believe how many bags he can carry at one time?”

Cross eyed his bratty girls and put the food on the kitchen island. Immediately, they started unpacking the groceries and putting them away.

“You don’t have to praise me for doing the grunt work. I know what you really keep me around for.”

“Arm candy,” they replied in unison.

He smirked. “Yeah, that too.”

Six o’clock, almost on the dot. Malachi would be closing up shop and heading home soon. He drummed his fingers on the counter, plotting as he watched Gemma and Izzy. Sunlight was slanting through the window already. Days were shrinking even though it was only September. He took the girls’ coats off the table by the door and hung them up.

He noticed the shirt Gemma was wearing and smirked. He’d had shirts made for both of them that said
Sex Zombie
– a term Gemma had used a few times and it had become an inside joke. Izzy would only wear hers to bed, but Gemma wore hers everywhere – even to work sometimes. They had a lot of inside jokes lately. He loved it. It was what he thought family should be like.

As his girls threw themselves onto the couch, he browsed his records and selected Handel’s
Messiah
. He pulled it out of the sleeve and set it up on the turntable and placed the needle down at the beginning.

“I’m not sure what’s worse
,” Izzy said with a grin. “The fact that he makes us listen to Christmas music when summer isn’t technically over, or that he actually owns vinyl.”

“Tut tut, Izzy dear,” Gemma retorted in a fake British accent. “The man is trying to
give us some culture.”

“Your music gives me a headache. If you can’t handle this, I’ll put on some Rush.”

“Rush would be much better. How about you save this stuff for when you’re home alone, or it’s the Christmas season, Grandpa,” Izzy said with a mocking twist of her mouth.

He grabbed Izzy and sat on the couch. She squeaked as he pulled her over his lap. “I’m
so
glad we’re not vanilla anymore. I was about one ‘yes, dear’ away from wearing a sweater vest.” Cross spanked Izzy playfully for a few minutes.

“Get up and take off those jeans. The little gems on the back pocket are hurting my hand.”

“No, I will not take off my butt armor!”

“Suit yourself.” Cross pinned her with a hand on her lower back and started again, this time targeting the back of her thighs.

“Ow, ow! Stop!” She kicked her feet. “That hurts!”

“Duh
.” Gemma laughed. “Did you think that you could refuse to comply and he’d just magically become reasonable?”

Cross’
s gaze swiveled to Gemma. She shivered.

“Show her what she should have done, girl.”

Gemma got up and stood in front of him, hesitating. She watched him, playing with her bottom lip and shifting from foot to foot. The testosterone he feared was gone forever rushed back. One girl over his lap, freshly spanked, and one giving him big doe eyes – wanting to obey, but hating that she wanted to.

“Now
!” he barked.

She startled, then gave him a dirty look. Sulkily, she stubbed her sock-covered toe against the floor. “
Why
do I like this again?”

“Because you
’re a good girl and you like to please me.”

Her hand covered her eyes for a second then she dropped it down to her pants. The button and zipper on her jeans took forever for her to deal with, and he watched in amusement a
s she slid them down her legs and stepped out of them, biting her lip through the entire thing.

“Very nice,” Cross drawled. Her tiny blue panties showed off her gorgeous, inked legs. Izzy turned her head to watch.

“Now turn around and pull those down. Slowly.”

“What? No!” She frowned. “That’s too embarrassing. I can’t do that!”

“Are you going to be a good girl or a bad girl?” He growled, and managed not to smile when her gaze shot to his. He could tell she hoped he was joking.

“What if I choose bad girl?” She twirled her hair.

“Go ahead. It won’t take long to find out what happens.”

Cross stroked the back of Izzy’s legs and she squirmed. He urged her up off of his lap. “Kneel, little one.”

Obediently, Izzy knelt at his knee.

“Come here now, girl.”

Gemma moved to him, feet dragging in her reluctance. She stopped directly in front and he ran his hand up and down her bare thigh, over a proliferation of tattoos. Her eyelids half closed, like a cat that wanted to purr.

“What’s wrong?

“It’s just that I don’t like...” She paused and frowned.

“People looking at you, being asked to put on a show, or being embarrassed?”

“Being embarrassed. All of that is embarrassing.”

“Hmmm. I like looking at you and so does Isadora, and embarrassing you a little bit is fun.” He slipped a finger under the hip string for her underwear. “But for today I’ll be nice, since you were such a helpful girl. What do you want?”

She took a small step back. “What do you mean?”

Cross used the finger that was still tangled in the top of her panties to reel her back to him. He coaxed her into sitting on his knee. She watched his face from under lowered lashes.

“Have you ever thought about me when you’ve touched yourself?”

A flush crept up her neck to stain her cheeks. “
That’s none of your business!” She averted her gaze.

“
Everything you do is my business. Now what was I doing to you in that daydream?”

“Ugh! You’re mean! You were...” She stalled again.

He ran his hands over her body, then unhooked her bra and lifted her shirt. With a hand in her hair, he bit her neck. She whimpered. Angling her head back in his grip, he took her mouth, his fingers searching out a bared nipple. It was already standing at attention, so he toyed a moment then squeezed just a little too hard.

Gemma’s
green eyes went blank and her mouth opened. Slowly, he increased pressure. Her eyes rolled then closed and her hips squirmed rhythmically, rubbing her heat against his leg. Little gasps of breath stole in and out of her, erratic and tortured. Damn. She was so hot she was going to burn a hole through his jeans.

Izzy knelt quietly at his knee, watching intently.

Without giving Gemma any warning, he released his pressure and switched quickly to her other nipple. Her surprised yelp and moan made his cock ache. Fuck, he loved to hurt this woman.

“What was I doing to you?” he demanded harshly in her ear.

“H-hurting me.”

“Did you like it?”

“Fuck,” she mewled, gasping. His fingers were apparently making it hard for her to hold up her end of the conversation. “Yes, I liked it.”

“What did I hurt you with?”

“Whatever you wanted.”

“Did it make you come?”

Stubbornly, she pressed her lips closed. His fingers squeezed harder.

“Yes! Yes! It made me come,” she babbled. “Please stop, please stop, please stop.”

He took the pressure off of her nipple, stroking slow circles over it. Gemma made a loud sound of frustration mixed with disappointment.

“What’s the matter? You asked me to stop, so I did.”

She glowered at him. “‘Please stop’ isn’t my safeword, Sir.”

“We were vanilla so long I had to make sure you hadn’t forgotten.”

“Bastard.”

“Nope, that’s not our safeword. That just gets you beaten harder.”

Her eyes glowed with mischief.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Too late. I thought about it.”

“Well
, stop it!” Cross laughed. He couldn’t help himself. The silly banter they brought into this D/s relationship was too much fun to stamp out of them. It was so good to laugh with them. To have fun. To be loved. Maybe it was unorthodox, but it worked for them.

She arched her back and pressed her clit against his
denim-covered leg, squirming. “I can’t stop it!”

“Poor girl.” He slid his fingers into her underwear and stroked through her wetness, then caught her clit between two fingers.
His playing with her brought her close to climax in a few short minutes, but letting her come right away wasn’t part of the plan. Her body tensed with her impending orgasm, and he stopped.

She
growled.

Ignoring her wordless objection, he dumped her on the floor and
rose to his feet.

Izzy shifted back to give him space to walk away, but instead he tapped her chin. “Open.” She opened her mouth and Cross shoved his two wet fingers into it. “Suck.”

She complied, adding some licking and nipping for good measure. His cock rebelled. Why did he torture himself this way? Other men would never understand how he suffered.

Gemma had knelt on her cushion
, sulking, after she’d stopped protesting. Cross pulled his fingers from Izzy’s magical mouth and wiped them on her cheek. She snapped her teeth at his offending fingers and he slapped her face gently.

“Be good,” he growled. “Up, both of you. Be naked.”

Quickly, they stripped.

“Go to my room.”

Izzy snickered. “Why, are you going to give us a time out?”

“Not exactly.” He followed them into his bedroom and ordered Izzy and Gemma to the foot of the bed. With an almost reverent slowness, he opened the drawer with the straps. He found what he wanted and unwound
the straps, remembering how he’d wound them up weeks before with the thought that he might never use them again. The cool suppleness of the leather felt like home in his hands – more than his parents’ house ever had.

When he turned around, Gemma had Izzy pressed back
against one of the bed posts, corralling her between her arms. They were kissing.

“Hey, hey,” Cross objected as though he hadn’t just been avidly watching.

“You were slow. We got bored.” Gemma smiled against Izzy’s mouth.

Izzy eyed him slyly. “Yeah. You snooze, you lose.”

Gemma sighed. “I love her. Do I have to wait for your permission to kiss her?”

“Never.” He laughed. “Unless it bothers you that I pull over to watch when you two start making out in the back seat.”

“The worst part was I hadn’t noticed we’d stopped.”

“I think the ice cream melted.”
Izzy grinned and clasped her hands at the small of Gemma’s back, tugging her even closer before doing a slow, soft kiss that made them both shut their eyes for a second.

Cross watched, thinking again that no porn could hope to measure up. Nothing
was fake between his girls – pure love and lust were so much better than any acting could be. And how could a man be upset when he was ignored for a moment like this?

Eventually they came up for air.
“Fuck the ice cream, Izzy. You taste better.”

“I’d rather not
fuck ice cream. It’s not my kink.”

Cross held up his hands to ward off their banter. “No more chatting. You’re being distracting.”

“So, are you going to give us something better to do with our mouths then?”

He stopped
and thought hard. There was something to be said for the idea of making them give him a two-girl blowjob then relaxing on the couch and having a beer. He’d used them that way before and it had worked well. Not only had he gotten off hard, but it had left both girls frustrated. Ordering them to get each other off afterward had made for a show better than anything he’d seen on cable. Reluctantly, he dismissed the idea.

“No. I have other plans right now.”

He grabbed the chair in the corner and stood on it to loop a leather strap through the ring hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the open area of the bedroom.

Izzy snickered. “If we ever had vanilla people over we’d have to come up with a reason why we have those all over in the ceiling. Swag lamps? Potted plants?”

“Isadora. Lie over the edge of the bed. Now.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Did I say no more chatting?” He grabbed a crop from the drawer and gave her four sharp smacks on the ass with the shaft.

She hissed and stomped her foot. “Sorry
!” A moment later she remembered the Sir. She was getting faster than Gemma, at least.

“Stay.” He balanced the crop across Izzy’s lower back as a reminder. “If the crop falls you’ll get two more.”

Grabbing cuffs from a drawer and buckling them onto Gemma’s wrists only took a moment. He tied the cuffs over her head to the leather strap dangling from the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” Gemma gasped in mock horror.

“We’re going to do an experiment, girl.” Cross sifted through the contents of the drawer, choosing various items and laying them out on the bed. He picked up the crop off Izzy’s back and laid it beside the other implements.