He chuckled, but when he met her gaze, he was dead serious. “Doesn’t matter how you communicate with me, Mistress. Soon as I know you need to say something to me, you have my attention. Long as it takes you to say it.” He nudged her. “If you’re doubting that, I haven’t done as good a job as I should, proving it.”
She gave him a long look, that Mistress light taking over. Sliding off the bench, she moved to the cross bolted to the wall. Ben was straight, but though the cage was sized for a smaller woman, this utilitarian style was built for anyone. Which meant he’d probably used it for the private parties.
She gestured, telling Tiger she wanted to see how he looked against it. Rings for cuffs were on the upper pieces, and he hooked his fingers in them obligingly, aligning his feet with the bottom pieces so she could step back and inspect him.
As she took her time with it, the quiet that came over him was his subconscious—hell, all levels of his consciousness—recognizing those tells. The anticipation locked him into that starting chute for her, rousing his cock and centering him. It was a relief after the surf of volatile emotional terrain.
She moved in and put a palm on his chest, her expression suggesting she was checking on that, keying into the state of his head, the rhythm of his heart. Her gaze slid up to his face.
She signed something he didn’t understand. She would translate for him if it was needed, he knew. But the sudden flash of yearning he saw in her expression had him picking up on something for the first time.
Signing was the way she wished she could talk to him. She wouldn’t have to take her attention away to type into her phone, like she did now. Especially when what she had to communicate was more complicated.
“You’ve told me some of what happens to you as a sub,” she typed, “and why it went where it went for you. But all of us, Domme and sub, have fantasies of how much deeper we’d take it, if we didn’t worry about the bonds of reality or asking too much, crossing lines.”
She looked at him, her dark eyes fathomless on his. The ceiling fans moved the wisps of hair on her brow. The thin fabric of her lavender blouse creased against her side as her arm moved, fingers typing. “What do you imagine when you have your hand on yourself? 24/7 sub? Your Mistress putting a collar on you? Or her giving you specific, more extreme commands, to let you prove your devotion, your willingness to serve, out on aknife’s edge? Tell me what you’d really look for in a Mistress, if there were no boundaries. In yourself or her.”
He moistened his lips, and felt heat when her gaze zeroed in on the reaction. Maybe it was because he was a straightforward guy, or because of what their sessions already gave him, but when he was fantasizing, he was usually just rehashing things that had happened in scene. He might imagine less clothes on her, or her straddling him, since sex and getting fully naked wasn’t always on the menu during the club stuff.
He wasn’t sure if she’d be impressed by his answer, but she always wanted the truth. So when he opened his mouth, that’s what he intended to say. But something else surged out of his heart and overrode it.
“I’d want a Mistress who could dig deep enough to find me. Pull me out of where I live, where I’ve buried the best parts of me I thought were lost.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Had he really just said that aloud? He spoke it into that vast silence in his head, but the way emotion gathered behind her eyes, lips softening, told him he’d been heard. Maybe she felt some of the WTF he’d just experienced, because he saw a small flash of uncertainty, but then that was replaced by a thoughtful look.
She moved closer. Unbuttoning his dress shirt the rest of the way, she spread it open. She had him lower his arms so she could slide it off and drape it over a chair. The tank followed, her gathering it up then pulling it forward over his head, guiding him to straighten his arms before him so she could pull it off. She would have needed a stepstool if he’d raised his arms straight up. At the very least, she would have had to lean against him, rise on her toes, her body rubbing against his.
When his fuck-with-her teasing side kicked in like that with a Mistress, Skye was one of the best at getting ahead of it. She sent him a look that told him to behave or else. It didn’t always work, but it did today, especially when she cupped her hand over the tattoo on his shoulder. She kissed it, pressing her mouth to each animal. Giraffe, lion, tiger. Hermione was last, Skye’s lips lingering on the elephant’s scarred forehead. The look she senthim in her expressive eyes said she was giving each their due, for representing the life he’d embraced for himself.
As he’d said, he liked the life he currently had—well, at least until recently. But it never hurt to have that reinforced by a friend and Mistress he respected.
She moved her fingers to his throat. As she paused and held him there, she tightened her grip. A faint smile touched her lips as she confirmed and acknowledged his reaction. He loved her touch, loved the feel of the pressure of her hands, and when she got rough with him around his throat, it got him hard. But it wasn’t hinting at a collar that did that.
Maybe because he’d grown up feeling shackled and collared to something he wanted to escape, wearing an actual collar wasn’t one of his desires. If he ever considered himself owned by a Mistress, it would take a different shape. It would also underscore his active and daily willing submission to that ownership.
She had her leg against his, her hip bone pressed to his upper thigh. His breath stirred the feathers of her hair against her skin.I am all here. I am all yours. You have my full attention, Mistress.
He said it in his head. Then he said it with his lips.
She put her mouth on his chest, then the base of his throat, so he tipped his head back. She made him feel like she was drawing him into her in every way possible. Nourishing her. That was a new thought, but every session could go down a new road. Particularly lately, and particularly with her.
Christ, Alan Jackson’s “Look at Me” was going through his head, an ode to a woman in a way that was pretty much unconditional devotion.Darlin' can't you see I'd do anything you want me to? / I tell myself I'm in too deep / Then I fall a little farther every time you look at me…
She stepped back and moved toward a cabinet. Opening it, she showed him she kept some of the things she regularly brought to the club in there. There was other stuff, too, maybe things left by Ben or her own stuff she hadn’t used on Tiger before. She removed a flogger with a thick, medium length fall to it. The strands were black, the handle wrapped in purple and an engraved silver band that disappeared under the clasp of her hand.
A typed screen. “Housewarming gift from Ben.”
When she came back to him, she trailed the fall over his shoulders and the back of his neck. As she moved it over his chest, she shook it so the tickling feeling teased his nipples and abdomen. Her deft fingers slipped the button of his slacks, opening them so she could play along the waistband of his underwear. Then she took another step back and signaled him to remove all of it.
She wanted him against the cross naked while she remained fully clothed. The gleam of her jewelry, that tiny cross, caught the loft lighting, which also created tiny stars in her intent gaze.
After he complied and put his hands on the rings again, she tilted her chin up. He let the rings go and extended his arms upward on the cross, the back of his wrists against the smooth expanse of the upper pieces. He hooked his fingers behind the top edges to hold the stretch of his upper torso.
Her gaze followed every ripple of muscle. When he shifted his hips to adjust his feet and plant them more solidly, her attention went to his cock, high and hard for her. Her grip on the flogger tightened.
Shit.