His Absolute Domination: The Billionaire's Paradigm (#5) (A BDSM Erotic Romance) (The Billionaire's Ultimatum, Book Two) (10 page)

I thought so, yes.

I met Cole Dyerhaven near the obscured
entryway to Carousel on Wednesday evening. Cole said he was a long
time member of the BDSM community in our emails back and forth, and
he seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

I told him I just wanted this to be a
one time thing, but I didn't know how that worked. Just this, just
a spanking.

In his reply, he said he'd consider
it, but if he liked me he didn't know if he'd let me go that
easily. As he was the dominant, he said, it was his choice of what
I did. He controlled me and he ordered me around and he owned me. I
was his.

I didn't think it worked like that.
From what Lucent said, it was my choice. It did sound appropriate,
though. And, I was the one who searched for him and reached out for
contacts. Cole replied and he sounded like he knew what he was
doing. Seeing as I had no idea what I was doing, and my only
personal experience before this was with Lucent, I assumed this was
how it was.

An act, somewhat? Yes.

I remembered a thought I had before
when Lucent and I were together in the library. If I wanted him to
control me, I needed to let him control me. If I wanted Cole to
dominate me, then I needed to let him. After, if I didn't want him
to anymore, then that was it.

Right? Yes, it must be.

We met in a nearby park
before our show.
Our
show
, I thought. What a weird thing to
think. I didn't even know him, but...

"Kneel before me," he said immediately
upon seeing me.

I wore a long coat to hide my clothes.
Cole said I needed to wear special attire for this or else it
wouldn't work. He didn't exactly say it like that, though. No, he
ordered me to go to a specific place and buy specific things. I
didn't exactly have the spare money for too much, but I purchased
everything on my limited budget. I hoped they were the proper
clothes for this.

I knelt, feeling odd. My knees,
covered by the long coat, touched against the paved pathway near a
bench in the park. Glancing up at him, I checked him
out.

He was handsome, I supposed. Not
really what I looked for. He looked far too cocky and confident,
with a sinister type of sneer on his lips. His eyes glimmered in
the faint moonlight like wicked gems, but it really looked like a
suitable appearance for this. Lucent was more of a subdued and
dominating person, but Cole appeared overt and obvious about it. I
thought that must be a good thing.

He leered down at me and brushed aside
his dark hair. "Reveal yourself to me," he said. "Open your
coat."

"I'd rather wait until we're inside,"
I said. "It's cold out here and someone might see me
and..."

He glared down at me. Why? "If you're
not willing to submit to me, I must be wasting my time."

"What?" I stammered. It hurt. It
didn't hurt because of this person saying it to me, Cole, some
random man I'd spoken with a handful of times through email. It
hurt because it sounded similar to what Lucent had said the other
day.

You can't accept what I
need, nor what I want. You act like this is some game, Miss Tanner,
and you wait here, thinking that I'll treat you like a poor,
homeless kitten and take you in, except I don't want that. I want a
slave. I want you to bow to my every whim and ignore every possible
concept of pleasuring yourself so that you can perfectly pleasure
me. I require submission and you offer me defiance
instead?

Dejected, feeling so lost and
hopeless, realizing that Lucent wasn't the only one who found me a
waste of time, I slumped forward. I stared at the ground, pathetic
and alone.

I could do this, though. I didn't need
to defy everyone, did I? I didn't necessarily want to. I was just
curious. I... I wanted Lucent to understand and accept me,
and...

Slowly, I unbuttoned my coat and
opened it. Cole ogled me openly, admiring my outfit.

I wore a fake leather skirt with
fishnet stockings and black heels. Above that, barely covering my
upper body, I had a sleeveless black top that exposed my stomach.
More fake leather, or latex, or whatever it was. I didn't know. I
asked the man at the store for the most inexpensive things, and he
showed me them. They chafed and annoyed me, itching at my skin, but
it was just for now, just this once, so it didn't
matter.

Right?

Cole ordered me not to wear underwear,
too, but I didn't do that. I wore a regular pair that looked nice
and matched my black skirt. It shouldn't matter if I wore
underwear, I thought, and I wasn't about to fully expose myself in
front of an entire club full of people. The spanking was
embarrassing enough as it was, and...

"Good," he said. "Stand. Cover
yourself again. Let's go."

I didn't even know him. "Shouldn't we
talk first?" I asked. "What do you like to do? Where do you
work?"

He paused and stared at me. I liked
when Lucent watched me, but I didn't like how Cole was looking at
me right now.

"There's no need," he said. "Stop
talking. You may speak to answer questions that I ask you, but
that's it. You're submitting to me, remember? I am your master
tonight."

"Oh," I said. This sounded...
correct... but... "What about safewords?" I asked.

Cole let out a loud sigh. "Fine. Your
safeword is logomachy. Understood?"

Was that a game of his? Logomachy was
a dispute concerning words, and I'd requested a safeword, so it
seemed kind of sarcastic and mean. He even said it meanly.
Antagonistic. Logomachy was also a card game, sort of. Different
from the ones Lucent and I played before, but the thought made me
smile.

"No more," he said. "Understood? You
shouldn't be smiling, either. You can smile when you've pleased me,
and you definitely haven't done that yet. You've kind of pissed me
off, actually."

Pissed him off? Well, he was pissing
me off! I was the submissive, though. Was I allowed to get pissed
off?

Lucent
, I'd asked him.
For that contract,
would you ever tell me to do something you knew I'd
hate?

Miss
Tanner
. His words sounded nice and
pleasant and soft.
The contract isn't
about that. If you signed it--though I must make it rather clear,
again, that you won’t. Ever--but if you did, I would definitely
order you to do things that you hated.

I would
never
, he'd added
, absolutely never, demand that you do something that would
make you hate me, though. Do you understand the
difference?

This was that, I thought. This was
what Lucent meant when he said those things. I hated Cole ordering
me to do things, but I needed to understand that he wouldn't do
anything to make me hate him.

Right?

I didn't know for sure. I barely even
knew Cole. I knew his name and what he looked like. Cole Dyerhaven,
wearing gothic looking clothes with dark hair and sharp, glaring
eyes.

...

Cole ordered me around, bringing me to
a side entrance of the club. A man greeted us and eyed Cole
curiously, but didn't say much. Cole informed him he'd talked with
Samuel about a performance for tonight. The man nodded, but he
still didn't ease up off of glancing at Cole oddly.

"Nothing like last time," the man
said.

"Oh, no," Cole said, grinning. "She's
perfectly content with doing this. Aren't you, slave?"

Was I? I didn't know for sure, but I
nodded and quietly said yes.

The man shrugged as if that was it and
there was nothing more he could do. It struck me as odd, but this
whole club and BDSM things and Cole and all of it struck me as odd.
Lucent wasn't odd, he was regular, and I didn't understand how he
could be that way and this way at the same time.

We walked inside of the club, heading
through quiet hallways to a room alongside a stage. I saw all of it
through vague glimpses of clubbing scenery afforded to me while
looking between the pillars and shimmering gauze curtains that hung
between our passway and the main club floor.

Some people wore outfits like mine and
like Cole's, while others wore casual, regular clothes. I probably
could have shown up wearing the type of outfit I wore everyday, at
least from the looks of it. I supposed that didn't make a good
show, though. Also, maybe those people weren't submissives or
slaves or anything like that? Maybe they were something else?
Dominants, masters? Was there more, too?

Cole opened a door for me and guided
me inside with a rough shove. I almost tripped, but caught myself
on the door frame, then clambered inside.

"Our show is soon," Cole said.
"Kneel."

I knelt, but I wasn't quite sure
why.

Cole pulled a black collar from his
coat and clipped it around my neck. In the front, on a ring jutting
out from the too-tight collar, he attached the clip tie of a
leash.

"I'll lead you out like this," he
said. "You'll immediately bend over on the the table in the center
of the stage. That's all you need to do. I'll handle the rest, of
course."

The spanking, I thought. Yes. This all
sounded correct so far.

I remembered something Lucent told me,
though. "How many times will you spank me?" I asked.

Cole glowered at me and tugged hard on
his end of the leash, pulling me forward by my neck. "I'll spank
you as many times as I want," he growled. "Now shut up and stop
asking so many questions."

My eyes glistened with
tears and I wanted to cry. I didn't want to do this anymore. Lucent
was right. This was so much different, and if Lucent wanted me to
be like this, too, I couldn't. I understood now. I didn't like it.
I wanted Lucent to be like he always was, and this faint glimpse of
Cole, this knowledge of domination that I'd never known before...
it wasn't what I wanted. I
never
wanted this.

I was about to say that, to try and
stop all of this, maybe mention my safeword, but someone came to
the door before I could. They knocked and Cole opened it. Both men
whispered something back and forth, and Cole nodded.

He tugged on my leash, lighter now,
goading me on. "We're up," he said. "Do as I said and everything
will go perfectly."

I barely had time to nod or shake my
head, no, or anything before he started pulling me along.
Struggling to keep my balance, I stumbled forward, brought forth
like some animal. We walked alongside the stage, then up a set of
steps, and Cole marched me to the small table in the center.
Ignoring my fear, maybe not even realizing how scared I was, he
jerked my coat off my shoulders and flung it to the
ground.

I bent over across the table,
humiliated and scared. Was this what Lucent liked? I couldn't do it
and I needed to stop it, but I didn't know how. I glanced to the
side and saw a throng of people watching me. Someone at the head of
the stage spoke into a microphone and his words bounced through the
club, introducing Cole and I.

I didn't have a name. I barely heard
any of what the man said, but he didn't name me. I was Cole's
submissive, and that was it. I did have a name, though; I wanted my
name. I loved my name.

God is my
oath
. Lucent knew, too. He said it was a
powerful name. A special name, I thought. I always felt like
someone was watching over me, protecting me.

I paused, dumbstruck. Bent over the
table, staring at the wood, my eyes following a path in the grain,
I realized something both horrifying and beautiful.

Someone had been watching over
me.

Truth be told, Lucent wasn't God, and
I didn't expect him to be, but he did watch me. He worried, too. He
came to the library to protect me. He was special to me. He would
never do this. Never. I didn't even care if this is what he said he
liked, because I knew it was impossible for him to act like this. I
didn't know how I knew this, and maybe I was wrong, but I felt very
strongly about my idea.

The announcer ended his introduction
soon after my sudden brilliant epiphany. Cole wrenched my skirt up,
revealing my panty-clad ass. I wore panties and he'd ordered me not
to, which pissed him off. He seethed behind me, gritting his
teeth.

Harsh words spewed from his mouth,
strong, yet barely more than a whisper. "Defying me again? You
really don't understand what this is about, do you? It's a good
thing you're bent over this table already, because I'm about to
teach you a lesson."

No. I moved to get up, to go away, but
he grabbed the back of my head and pushed me into the table. With
his other hand, he smacked my ass hard.

It stung and I shrieked, writhing on
the table. This wasn't like Lucent's hand at all. This wasn't
anything like any part of Lucent. Cole was mean, angry, and
abusive.

He hit me again and I panicked and
tried to remember my safeword. What was it? Logo...

"Stop," I screamed while I tried to
remember. "No. Logarithm. Log..."