Fortune (11 page)

He made her stand in front of him and talk first, only because he found it an effective way of both disciplining her and turning her on.

“Eyes up,” he snapped when he noticed her gaze dropping for the fourth time to his full-on erection. “You can worry about that later. Answer me. Why are you being punished?”

“Um. For hiding?”

“Yes. For hiding and saying no and generally being an uncooperative little pain. Next time Sir wants to lick your wet little pussy, what are you going to do?”

“Um…” she said, shifting from foot to foot.

“Spread your legs wide and let him do it?”

“Yes Sir.”

“What if Sir wants to do something else you don’t like? Something you’re really terrified of?”

“Um… I have to do it anyway.”

“No.”

“No?”

“In this case, I made you do it because a little oral never hurt anyone. But you can always say no if you have misgivings. I’ll consider your thoughts, at least. Okay? But there’s a respectful and forthcoming way to discuss your issues and then there’s acting like a stubborn baby. Guess what you did tonight?”

“Acted like a stubborn baby?”

“Mm-hm. And I have a feeling, knowing you, it won’t be the last time.” He took her hands in his and pulled her closer, looking into her eyes, enjoying the tension there. “I’m going to give you a spanking over my knee just to drive the lesson home, because you earned it and I’ll never let you wiggle out of anything you’ve earned. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir,” she whispered, staring down at his cock again. Naughty little miscreant. She probably wasn’t listening to a word he said. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

He had to rearrange his swollen shaft to pull her over his lap. She was so sweet, so hesitant. He loved over-the-knee spanking, loved holding a woman’s body against his, disciplining her. Kat’s curves were delicious, shapely and soft against his thighs.

“Put your hands on the floor, or around my leg if you’d rather. Just keep them out of the way. Or should I hold them?”

“You better hold them. Sir,” she added, remembering.

He took her hands in one of his, held them at the small of her back. “Don’t fight me. Just relax as much as you can and breathe through the blows when they get hard.”

“How hard?”

“Harder than the spanking you got at Masquerade. But not as hard as you probably deserve. And I suppose,” he said, stroking her tense ass cheeks, “we should agree on a safeword now, on principle, even though I have no intention of pushing your boundaries. Is there one you particularly like?” He was just wasting time now because it was so fun to look down at her perfectly formed ass.

“I don’t know,” she said, as he expected. “I can’t think of one.”
I know, but your ass is fucking beautiful to look at and it’s killing me, how you’re trembling over my lap.

“If you ever feel you can’t take any more in our future games, say the word ‘mercy.’ Okay? Loud or soft, and I’ll stop. Don’t forget.”

“Okay. Yes Sir, I won’t.” She sighed, tensing again. It was all he could do not to fling her down on the bed and have his way with her. Her ass was driving him to the brink of madness.

“And don’t use it unless you have to. Don’t play games with me, girl, or I’ll know.”

She looked back over her shoulder at him.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Kat?”

“Could you please get on with it before I piss myself from anxiety?”

Stifling a chuckle, he brought his hand down on her right cheek. She was silent until the fourth or fifth smack when she made a soft pleading sound. He ignored her, warming her up with firm, carefully placed smacks until her entire bottom was uniformly pink. She would bruise less this way, as much as he wanted to mark her. Later. Baby steps. He babied her, his novice subby, but the pleading sounds increased steadily in volume and he had to tighten his grip on her hands when she started to jerk and pull away.

“No. Be still and take it.”

“It hurts!”

“Yes, it does. This is a punishment spanking.” He stroked her crimson cheeks, letting her rest for just a bit. “I know it hurts, but I’m not trying to turn you on right now. I’m trying to teach you a lesson.”

Trying to teach her a lesson but enjoying the show in the meantime. She was kicking, yelping, moaning—and he enjoyed every moment of it. He wanted it to last, and for her part, he could practically hear her getting wetter with every word he spoke. The words were part of the game, the exchange, the turn-on. In fact, the words were the most important part. The mental aspect, the psychological backstory, the verbal exchange, it was the basis of the whole thing. He spanked her squirming, kicking form a little more, until he was afraid she’d either come or cry if he kept going, and then he released her.

She jumped away from him and backed against the wall. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. He watched her to see what she’d do, what she’d say. She said nothing though, just stood and watched him. He stared at the beating pulse at her neck, her body so vitally beautiful to him. Maybe he saw a little adulation in her eyes warring with shame or fear. Whatever it was, it was gorgeous to look at, so he let her stand there a few moments and compose herself before he reached out his hand.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked her.

She looked at his cock again, still rock-hard, still jutting up against his belly. One-track mind, this one.

“I do have to go home. But maybe not just yet. Sir.”

She took the hand he offered. He pulled her back to him, smelled her sugary sensual scent. He pushed her down under him on the bed, turning her onto her stomach so he could see the deep red spank marks on her ass. He caressed the hot globes for long moments, squeezing them with his hands. He felt rich. He felt wistful.
One thousand cranes for a wish.
He reached for a condom and knelt between her legs, spreading her wide. She opened for him without resistance, making a small sound of anticipation. He leaned over her with one hand braced on either side of her head.

“You make me happy,” he murmured against the back of her neck. She shivered under him and he felt like shivering too. “You’re a good girl and I’m very pleased with you.”

She hid her face, biting her fist, unable or unwilling to say anything back. He moved into her slowly, inch by inch. She moaned and arched her hips back against him.

“I know, I know,” he whispered. “I know you’re turned-on. I’ll make you come.” She was alive beneath him, reacting to each touch, each stroke without inhibition. Her hands made fists beside her head, grasping at the covers. He pressed those hands into the bed, gripped them in his own and trapping her so she couldn’t escape. She came not long after that, rippling jerks and a gasp of wonder, and he came too in waves of deep, explosive pleasure. All of it—tasting her, spanking her, getting to see her walls fall down—it all coalesced into one shimmering peak of ecstasy.

He fell over her, feeling emptied and replete. He lay over her a long time, just nestled inside her, until his cock softened and he had to slip the condom off and pull away. Still she didn’t move. He put his ear down on her back and listened to her faint, steady heartbeat. He basked in her lovely scent, the scent he already recognized. He tried to memorize the feel of her skin against his. He breathed her name in her ear, felt her long, soft exhalation.

“Ryan,” she whispered.

“Yes, doll?”

“I have to go.”

Chapter Six

Kat stayed in her room almost all of Sunday. She didn’t want to face her mother. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She needed to be alone. Ryan called and she didn’t answer. At dinner she watched the chatter of her large family like a spectator. She felt numb, confused. Detached. Her foray into submission at Ryan’s home had sent her world lurching sideways. Pleasure and fear warred with some other new emotion she felt.
Love.

But that was ridiculous. It all came down to the deep intimacies he demanded and the bodily responses she’d felt. The idea of love was ludicrous and she hated herself for mooning over him. Basically he was just really, really good in bed. She tried to convince herself that’s all it was and then tried to forget him altogether. Without success.

After dinner she wandered into her father’s small TV room. He was watching a cowboy movie, his favorite. In Westerns the good guys and bad guys were always blatantly obvious. In life, Kat thought…not so much.

“Little princess,” he said in Russian as she pulled up a chair beside him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

He grunted. “Something is wrong. You are troubled tonight.”

After a moment she sighed. “I just don’t know, Papa. I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what,
zaika
?”

“I don’t know how to change. I don’t know how to stop doing things that…that make me…unhappy…” Her throat closed on the last word, making a pathetic strangling sound that very much expressed how she felt. Her papa reached for her hand, clasped it tightly.

“You must not be unhappy. This is not good.”

“I know.”

They both fell silent, sat together in comfortable stillness. Her papa always soothed her when no one else could, because he would just hold her hand and make no other demands on her. She looked down at his hand in hers, parchment white, with more liver spots than she remembered. Her papa was getting old. She was getting old. Life was rolling along, rolling past her with a velocity she didn’t know how to halt.

“How did you know, when you met Mama?” she asked. “How did you know she was the one for you? Did you love her right away?”

He blinked, looking past her, considering. “Ah, Katyusha,” he murmured. “I don’t remember.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you know what?” he said a moment later. “It does not matter how or when you know. It matters that you love, not how you know or how you find it. If you love, you love.” He looked back at his cowboy movie, waved his other hand in a light gesture. “Katya, you think too much. You have too much intelligence. This is my fault, I fear.”

Kat laughed softly. “Yes. It’s all your fault.”

He squeezed her hand, warm gentle pressure. “Are you… Are you in love?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?
Poufft.
” He tore his gaze from the flickering Western to look over at her hard and took her chin in his hand. “It is very important to know. And yet not important at all. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Nope. Not at all.”

“Ah well. You know…love…it begins in the heart, not up here,” he said, tapping her temple. “It is not thinking and knowing,
zaika
. It is feeling. How do you feel? Mama tells me it is the doctor you are seeing. This is true?”

“Yes. I suppose.”

“And how do you feel about him?”

“I don’t know. That’s just it. I don’t know how I feel about him.”

“Knowing is nothing. How do you feel? Here?” He laid a hand on her heart. She looked at him, considering.

“I feel scared,” she finally said. “I feel anxious.”

“Oh.” Her father’s brows drew together and he turned back to his show. “In that case…”

She waited a moment. “In that case, what, Papa?”

He stared back at her, a million miles away. She kissed him on his cheek and squeezed his hand. She watched the rest of the Western with him in silence until his grip loosened on her hand and he drifted to sleep. When Kat left to go up to her room and get ready to go out, her mama watched her closely but, for once, held her tongue.

* * * * *

The gay club was the place to be Sunday night. For years she’d come here to soak in the fun. The place was cavernous, dark, smoky, a thousand times cooler than Masquerade. The music was louder and more current, and the man flesh was definitely hotter, albeit not interested in her. Still, it was a great place to lose herself. At least it used to be.

Kat felt more and more like an outsider at the clubs. Since she’d taken a few weeks off, since her tumble down the stairs, since
him
…the clubs didn’t feel the same. She felt trapped between her past life and her future—a future she didn’t know yet. She felt alone, stranded. No one talked to her. She realized there was only one person who wanted to talk to her and that was the person whose calls she’d ignored all day. She left her phone at home, thinking to escape him, thinking to come out to the clubs and have a blast the way she always had. Thinking to prove to herself that she didn’t need him at all.

To her chagrin, she found she had never wanted him more.

She made her way through the throngs of hard, sweaty bodies and pounding drumbeats to the fresh coolness outside. She headed to a pay phone only to realize she had no change. She sweet-talked a lesbian in line out of some change and returned to the phone only to remember she didn’t know his number. She thought just a moment before she turned and began to walk. So convenient, that he lived in Cambridge. Cambridge was close, a few blocks walk. She knew his street and was fairly sure she would remember his house. She looked at her watch. It was nearly one. She hoped she remembered his house or she might really alarm somebody.