Nobody's Hero (50 page)

“What makes you think it’s Joni?”

She paused. “I heard it again last Sunday
when you were listening to those tapes in your office and realized
who’d been talking to me all these years.”

“You heard the tapes.” He closed his eyes,
then opened them again. His anguished whisper brought her hand up
to stroke his cheek. “What did you hear?”

Adam’s face blurred in front of her. “Just
enough to send me running home to my parents. She said how happy
you made her as her Master.” Karla’s heart pounded against her
chest, but she knew they needed to clear this up before they could
go any further. “You said she was the perfect slave. I thought I
could try one more time to be the slave you wanted, so I devised
the harem-girl scene. But that night I realized I never could be a
dutiful slave for you, the way she’d been. I couldn’t compete with
a…”

“Wait. You thought…?” Adam pulled her into
his arms and held her tight. “Oh, kitten, you terrified me that
night. Not at first. God, I loved watching you dance for me in that
harem-girl outfit. So fucking sexy. But when you told me you wanted
me to be your Master in that way, I freaked out. I was so miserable
in the Master role with Joni, especially at first. Luckily, we
managed to modify it enough to make it at least tolerable for me.
But I can never do the twenty-four/seven TPE ever again.”

Karla pulled away, dashed the moisture from
her eyes, and glared up at him. “Then why did you propose a
Master/slave arrangement for us?”

He grinned. “You, baby tiger, were supposed
to run kicking and screaming from the room, not kneel beside me so
gracefully and submit yourself to being my slave.”

She melted inside. “Oh, Adam, I wanted you to
love me so badly. At that point, I think I’d have done anything to
please you.”

“What changed?”

“I could no longer live with myself if I lost
who I was just to please a man. Even if that man was you. While I
still loved you heart and soul, I needed you to accept and love me
on my terms.”

“God, Karla, I…”

“Hush. I’m not finished.”

“Did you just tell your Dom to hush?”

“Y—” Her eyes opened wider. “My Dom?”

“You’d better believe it, kitten. I have no
desire to make you my slave, but you can’t deny your submissive
nature any more than I can deny I’m a dominant."

“I wasn’t trying to deny it. You were the one
who kept telling me I wasn’t submissive. I knew from the moment you
restrained me in those ropes at Marc’s house the freedom of letting
go of control; the excitement of letting the man I love control my
body and mind like that. I knew I wanted you to do it again and
again.”

“The ka-thunk factor, huh?” He smiled and she
grinned back.

“I can’t believe I told you that. Now it’s
gone straight to your power-loving head.

He chuckled and brushed a thumb over her
cheek. “What else do you enjoy about being a sub?”

“Well, I can’t really compare the sex we had
to what non-dominant sex would be like…”

“Nor will you ever. Kitten, I’m afraid you
are not destined to experience vanilla sex.”

“No, Sir. Nor do I want to. Everything about
sex with you, submitting to you, is so intense. So perfect for me.
When you go all Dom on me…”

He grinned before his eyelids narrowed and he
became serious. “Dominance isn't a club and bedroom only thing for
me, either. I'm used to being in charge of other people. I don't
demand total body and mind control, but with your strong,
independent streak, I'm going to piss you off more often than
not."

She smiled, but figured she could work on
that.

He grew even more serious. "What about
discipline? That’s part of the Dom/sub package. When you disobey or
get too bratty for me in a scene, you'll be punished.”

A shiver went down her back. “I understand,
Sir.” Oh, she loved calling him Sir again. “I don’t like being
disciplined. It makes me feel like a child and I don’t like giving
you any reason to think of me in that way ever again.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he
smiled.

“But I will accept your sexual dominance over
me and if I disobey in a scene, I'll accept the punishment. Just
don't expect total obedience otherwise. We'll discuss and negotiate
things we disagree on, like two adults. And, while I may sometimes
play the little girl for my Dom in a role-play, I'm completely
grown up. Just don’t confuse the two, Sir.”

He grinned again and reached out to cup her
breasts and gently squeeze them, avoiding the sensitive nipples.
“Oh, I assure you, I don’t look at you as a little girl anymore.
Nothing turns me on more than when the woman in you submits to me,
whether for pleasure or discipline. Lucky for you, the school-girl
fantasy never did anything for me. I’m not into Daddy Dom scening.”
His eyes became steely blue. “But seeing you as my very own
seductive harem-girl, having you play Nurse Karla for me, or just
having this beautiful and seductive Goth singer luring me into her
mighty net with her siren’s song are all the fantasies I hope to
fulfill every day for the rest of our lives.”

Oh that sounded so good. The rest of our
lives.

“You’re mine, kitten. Now, how long do you
need to plan a wedding?”

She pulled away from his arms. “An hour. We
can be at the county courthouse in an hour.”

Adam laughed aloud. “No, Karla. I don’t want
you to have any regrets. I’ll give you two weeks from tomorrow. But
that means we need to start home soon. I’m going to leave a letter
for your parents explaining the things I intended to say to them
when I asked for your hand.”

He said when, not if. She smiled. He was so
old-fashioned. She so wasn’t. Oh, she hoped he wasn’t looking for a
satin-and-lace kind of wedding day, although she did intend to see
him in his Marine uniform, at long last.

“I hope we’ll have your parents’ blessing,
but nothing they could say or do would ever keep me from marrying
you. They’re just going to have to get on board the USS
Montague
, because we’re setting sail and heading into the
sunset and there will be nothing but fair winds and smooth seas
wherever we go.”

Okay, up to a point, but smooth seas sounded
a little too dull. “But I like it rough, Sir.” She reached down to
cup his crotch and felt his erection, smiling at his pained
expression.

He grabbed her hand. “I said, not now,
kitten.”

Ka-thunk
. Her nipples hardened and she
found it hard to expand her lungs. She reached up and began
unbuttoning his jacket and then his shirt.

Adam grabbed her hands and stopped her. “What
do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to take these clothes off you,
Sir, and have my way with you.”

He didn’t release her hands. “We’re not
having sex, Karla. I don’t want to hurt the baby.”

She stepped back and pointed her index finger
at him. “Adam Montague, if you think for one minute I’m going to go
seven months or more without sex, then I…I may have to resort to
tying you to our bed to have my needs met.”

His pupils dilated and she wondered if
perhaps he wouldn’t enjoy that. Hmmm.

“Don’t even think it, kitten. Now, get
dressed. We need to get going. You have a wedding to plan. I don’t
want you waddling down the aisle to me about ready to drop a baby
in my lap.”

Karla giggled at the image he conjured up and
wondered what she’d look like nine months along. He swatted her
bottom, which only made her more determined they weren’t leaving
this house without having sex.

“Wait for me in your room, Sir. I’ll be there
in two shakes.

Adam sat on the bed and took the ring from
his pocket. He’d run over to his mother’s not to get a ring, but to
ask for the keys to Johnny and Kate Montague’s 1880s Deadwood
cabin. There was no place he wanted to honeymoon with Karla than
the cabin that had been such a happy place for him growing up.

When he’d told his mother he was intending to
get hitched, and had gotten her assurance she’d be in Denver for
the ceremony, she’d gone to her jewelry box and pulled out the ring
that his great-great-grandfather had given to his Irish bride all
those years ago. Johnny had been much older than Kate, too—and
they’d lived a long, happy life. He wanted the omen of longevity on
his side. The ring might be pretty plain by today’s
bigger-is-better standards, but it was steeped in love.

Tradition had it that Johnny had mined the
pink-tinted gold himself right there in the Black Hills and had the
ring made for Kate by a local craftsman. Adam needed all the omens
and luck he could get for as many years as possible together with
Karla—and this baby and any other children they might be blessed
with. But he’d learned with Joni there were no guarantees in life.
They’d just have to grab life by the balls and...

When he heard the bathroom door open, he
pocketed the wedding ring again and turned toward the door,
expecting to see her standing there, but she didn’t appear.
Thinking she wanted him to carry her luggage downstairs, he picked
up his seabag and walked into the bathroom, then tapped on the door
to her room.

“Open sesame.”

He did as she bid him and there, lying on the
bed on her side, dressed in the red harem-girl outfit she’d worn
for him the other night was Karla, her face half covered in a veil
and her left knee tented, revealing her long shapely legs and
thighs and just a glimpse of her bare pussy. His dick rose to a
full salute faster than he’d ever known it to before.

What the…?

“Karla, we have a long drive ahead of us.”
His voice sounded as if she had him in a chokehold.

“We have some unfinished business first.”

“I told you I wasn’t…”

Karla rose from the bed in one fluid motion,
amazingly agile. Playing to music heard only in her head, she began
to undulate her hips and belly as she made her way across the room
toward him. She lifted the veil up over her head, holding it by
both ends, then flung it behind his neck and drew his face down to
hers, thrusting her tits toward him.

“Karla…”

Her lips brushed against his. She smiled.
Damn her
. How was he supposed to keep his head when she
teased him like that? He managed to pull away, but his gaze lowered
to her tits, barely covered in her beaded bra. She grabbed his
forearm, whether to pull him toward her or keep him from running,
he wasn’t sure. Fiddling with the end of the veil, she wrapped it
around his wrist. His gaze went even lower, across her
still-flattened abdomen to the flare and bumping of her bangled
hips, which lured him into her net better than any sailor’s snare
ever could. The red scarves that made up her skirt hid her charms
again, thank God. He wasn’t going to indulge in his baser needs
today.

She pulled him by the wrist toward her twin
bed.
No, kitten. This isn’t going to happen
. Karla was
pregnant and he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize the
safety of this pregnancy. Joni said their stillborn son’s umbilical
cord had formed a knot, probably when he’d done a somersault months
before, the doctor had said, which had cut off the oxygen during
delivery.

Adam had always blamed himself for getting
too rough with her during her seventh month, right before he’d left
for Kuwait. No, sex in the later months would be strictly off
limits. Even now, he didn’t want to risk it.

So, why didn’t his feet get the message and
stop following her? Karla continued to hold onto the veil he
realized had been secured onto his wrist, then danced around him,
twirling him until he felt the backs of his knees pressing against
the mattress on her rack. When she pressed against his chest to try
to get him to lie down, he stood his ground. Next thing he knew,
she’d hooked his calf with her heel and ankle, much like she’d
downed Julio, and he went tumbling backwards. The rack creaked and
he was afraid they’d broken it.

Damn. Why did the image of sparring
playfully with Karla—after the baby was born, of course—turn him on
so much? They’d enjoyed that at the martial-arts center last month,
for sure.

Before he could recover from the loss of his
equilibrium—and maybe his mind—she tugged his arm toward the
headboard, continuing to shake her hips in a delightful way before
his eyes. Everything dimmed to the background and all he could
focus on were her hips moving that way, her tits, her sexy body.
But when he reached for her breasts, he found that only one of his
arms obeyed.

What the f…?

Looking up at the headboard, he discovered
his left wrist had been skillfully restrained to a knob on the post
by her veil. Hell, he’d been outflanked.

“Karla, what the fuck do you think you’re
doing?”

“Pleasing my Master.”

She smiled her seductive, all-woman smile and
shimmied her tits toward him. His dick grew harder. She reached out
to unbuckle his belt and undo the buttons at the fly of his
jeans.

“Karla…”

“Yes, Master?”

“Remember what happened the last time you
disobeyed? You will be disciplined for this—just as soon as you let
me go.”

“Is that a promise, Master?”

His dick sprang from the opening of his fly
and into her hot little hands. Oh, she’d better believe it was a
promise. But if she enjoyed orgasm torture so much, maybe he needed
to use something a little less desired. He may only have his hands
and his belt on him, but either would deliver what she needed in
the form of punishment for daring to restrain him like this.

Her hands cupped his balls and she lowered
her mouth to his dick, which bobbed in greeting as her tongue
encircled the head.
Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
. He wasn’t
going to be able to stand much of this before he embarrassed
himself.