I could refuse, but I expected Jason would point out he’d given permission for me to be with Damien. I hesitated, struggling to understand why I was here with Jason’s former mentor and not my husband.
“Gemma,” Damien took my hands and squeezed them, “I’m here to help. This isn’t a scene.”
When he let go, I knelt and crushed my knees together.
Damien sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped before him. “You’re wound up tight. I expect you think you’re going to screw up and do something that will displease your Master. Yes?”
“Yes, it’s my natural ability to do stupid things when I’m overeager to please,” I said with a half-hearted smile.
“You need to centre your rambling thoughts so that in less than two hours’ time you can kneel before your beloved Master and tell him what he wants to hear. Nothing else will occupy your thoughts but him, and that mindfulness starts now.”
From his bedside drawer, he extracted what appeared to be a black leather hood.
Shit! He expected to calm me with that contraption? With my heart pounding, my stomach knotted tighter than my tattoo patterns. I couldn’t believe the audacity of the man or that Jason had agreed to this. Why would he think it would help me?
I’d worn a hood once before. A strangely suffocating experience, which imposed a form of sensory deprivation with a solitary hole by the nostrils to breathe through. Recollecting the brief hooding, which had happened before my rape, I’d not panicked, rather I’d found it relaxing once I’d accepted the lack of sensory awareness. Except, since then, I didn’t cope well with confined spaces.
He rose and reaching out, stroked my hair, collecting the ponytail. “You will remain still and think of nobody but Jason. Not yourself or friends. Not your artwork, not lovely little Joshua, not your silly worries about the ceremony or piercing. You will think how you’re going to be the most devoted submissive to your loving Dominant.”
Before I could question his approach, the heavy hood covered my head, and he’d blanketed me in blackness.
Chapter 21. The Hood
Did Damien know about my fears? I clutched my throat and grappled with the desire to rip the hood off my head. He hadn’t bound me, and I was free to remove it. The choice remained mine. I panted, desperately sucking air through my nostrils and blinking frantically in the darkness. Not one glimmer of light found its way under the hood. The blackness swathed me, trapping me, and I could only respond by shutting my eyes.
“You can breathe. Take deep breaths.” Damien’s took my trembling hand away from my neck and held it. “I’m not leaving you alone.”
The hand helped. Cool and dry, unlike my clammy one, its size and strength reminded me I was safe. Dominants, for all their bravado and love of power, valued safety above all things. If he saw me freak out, he’d be there, ready to rescue me. I listened to him, as he repeated his instruction. Breathe slowly.
The claustrophobia lifted with each slowing of my breaths. My fingers, which gripped his hand like a claw, loosened. In the silence, I heard the ticking of the clock on the wall and focused on each imaginary swing of the pendulum.
He released my hand. “Think about the first time you met Jason. Imagine you are telling me your story. Don’t speak, picture those special moments.”
Concentrating on my breath control, I absorbed the darkness and muted sounds. My tense muscles started to relax, my head emptied of unwanted feelings and images, and I replaced them with others.
I recovered the memory of the first time I had met Jason. He’d been standing by a photocopier, cursing. His overt sexiness, enhanced by his smart suit and blond hair glinting under the lights, had re-ignited my dormant passions. Who was he? I hadn’t known he was my CEO, nor had I knowingly lusted after my boss. It had been a natural attraction between man and woman.
I shifted forward in time, to when we’d made love for the first time on his super-sized bed at Blythewood House. I’d been in awe of his prowess as he reawakened my traumatised sexual being.
Months later, his eyes had glistened with tears when he’d proposed to me in Scotland. Jason had hurt my feelings and he, for those brief moments, had stripped his emotions bare, allowing me a glimpse behind the Dominant I’d come to know. I’d accepted his offer of marriage because those tears said love to me.
Under my hood, my eyes stung with my own unshed tears as I recalled his heartfelt words of love.
The necklace he intended to place about my neck during the collaring ceremony had been my everyday companion long before our visit to Switzerland. The first time I’d worn it, he’d told me I was his and only his. It had been the occasion of my birthday, not long after his proposal and during a visit to Rome. I remembered exactly what he said to this day.
“Soon, we will be married, and you will wear a wedding band, and everyone will know you are my wife. To me you are much, much more. You are my submissive. I want to give you a gift, a remembrance of the bond between us.” He’d held up the collar necklace. Given its intricate design—numerous tiny diamonds encased in a gold chain, I’d known it was ludicrously expensive.
I flashed forward, to another day of vows and promises. My handsome husband on our wedding day and his delight when I’d vowed to obey him. We’d discussed our matrimonial vows at length, and he’d warned me he wouldn’t consider the promise trivial. We’d agreed to use simple vows during the wedding ceremony itself, and I left the obedience element to a private moment in the bridal suite. Several of my relatives had joked about obedience as if the requirement was outdated and abominable to a modern marriage. I’d laughed off their perspective, thinking little did they know about my own opinions.
Jason, as my husband, couldn’t force me to do anything. Even as his submissive in those early days of our relationship, his control over me had been limited to scenes. Yet, I’d given him my obedience willingly.
Secretly, in my heart, I’d always wanted my submission to go beyond the bedroom, and my marital vow enabled Jason to enforce matters he considered significant enough to form the foundation of our marriage. The day after our wedding, he’d invoked the requirement for the first time when he instructed me to obey him in all matters regarding my personal safety and protection. I consented, and he never revoked the stipulation—my first rule.
However, we weren’t perfect. Under the black cowl, I scowled as I succumbed to negativity. Jason had a possessive nature and, on occasion, he’d treated me more as an asset than wife.
He liked me to dance for him. Often my rebellious nature came to life through my need to dance, and many times I’d done it for my personal gratification. That solitary desire had created tension between us many times. The years had changed me, and him. Now, when I danced for him, the tension lifted. He had my undivided attention, no competition or distractions. I still danced for others but he knew only my passion in my performance was given to him.
I straightened my shoulders, smiling in the darkness.