Slice of Pi 2 (7 page)

Owen turned over to look at her. Even though she was still focused on the ceiling, she could feel him watching her, calm and placid, his dark eyes asking nothing. It was pleasant to be looked at so peacefully. “I'm getting the impression that you avoid relationships. That's working all right for you?”

“So far.” Iris shrugged. “None of my partners have really wanted relationships, and that suits me all right.”

“What if you had a partner who wanted a relationship?” Owen propped himself up on his elbow.

Iris looked over at him. “Are you asking to make this more serious?”

“It's pretty early to suggest that. I'm talking purely hypothetically.” Owen's expression stayed neutral.

Iris looked back up at the ceiling again. “I don't know. I don't think I'm really relationship material.” It was simpler to just keep these things sex-only. If someone really got to know her, they'd see that she wasn't good at the relationship aspects beyond sex. All those emotional hang-ups, the resistance to marriage and settling down, the fear of opening up. But if it was just sex . . .

“We could do this again if you wanted.” Iris kept her expression placid as she turned her head to look at Owen.

“Do what?” Owen's tone was hesitant, because either he didn't know what she meant or he knew
exactly
what she meant and was afraid to believe it.

Iris pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked over at him. He was gorgeous lying there on the bed, so spread out and open, and she could easily see herself giving him what he wanted and getting something out of it for herself. “I don't mind being dominant in bed. As long as we can keep things low key, no strings attached and all that, I'm happy to play that role for you.”

It was hard not to notice the way Owen's eyes lit up with eagerness and excitement. His voice remained calm when he spoke, but she could tell he was trying to sound more casual than he felt. “You'd do that? You'd be interested?” He licked his lips. “I'm not interested in a pity fuck, though. I've done that and it was no good for anyone.”

“No, I'd never give someone a pity fuck.” She wouldn't sleep with someone unless she wanted to. “I'm into this. I've never done anything like it before, but I'm smart. I could learn. You could teach me what you want, and I could give it to you.” The more she talked, the better it sounded. She flashed back to that feeling of power she'd had as she'd sat astride him, directing his pleasure as well as her own, and shivered involuntarily at how much she'd really, really liked it. And wanted more of it.

Owen looked wary. “I haven't told you the really kinky stuff yet.”

Iris considered. She couldn't think of anything she wouldn't try, but maybe she just didn't know enough to find out what she wouldn't try. “I guess I'd just tell you what I wasn't into if we got there.”

“And what's in it for you?” Owen's disbelief continued to grow, as if he couldn't imagine why someone would want to sleep with his hot self. He pushed up to a sitting position.

Iris tried not to laugh. He was serious, so she had to be. “I'm sure I'm going to get some pretty awesome orgasms out of the deal and not have to exhaust my own hands. That seems like a good enough deal for me. Plus, I could use a little excitement.” She sat up as well, so they were facing each other on the bed.

Owen tapped his lips in thought. “I'd love to explore, but I don't have a schedule that's really conducive to any late-night play.”

“I'm free after five on weekdays, and I'm free most weekends.” Iris considered the overlap in their schedules. “We can just play it by ear. No long-term plans.”

“I like that.” Owen nodded. “We'll take each session one at a time.”

Iris was starting to get into the idea. “So where can I learn about this stuff? I want to do it right. I assume there are ways to do this wrong.”

“I'm not much more experienced than you are, but I've got a sense of what I'm into, and I can send you some websites and books. Read up, find out whether this is something that actually interests you, and we'll have a conversation to discuss limits and interests.” Paradoxically, he became quite take-charge when discussing the means by which he was going to submit. Iris couldn't really understand that disparity. This wasn't a weak man. This man was confident, sexy, self-assured. The idea of making him submit to her was becoming more and more intriguing.

“That sounds good.” Iris considered her own feelings. “I'm excited about this.” She sounded surprised, and that was because she actually
was
surprised. She hadn't expected the emotional upswing. “I haven't done anything new in a while. This is probably the least boring thing I've done since . . . since I don't even know when.” The more she thought about it, the more enticing it became.

“So what about now?” Owen checked the clock. “I can head out if you want, but I'd love to stick around, maybe go to dinner later.”

Iris didn't often want guys to stick around after sex, but Owen was different. She felt comfortable around him. “No, don't go yet. You should stay for dinner.” She swung her legs down off the bed. “I think I could use a shower. I'd invite you to join me, but I'm afraid that shower is too small for one person, let alone two.”

“Nah, I'll hop in after.” He waved her off. “Go enjoy.”

Iris padded off to the bathroom, putting a little extra swing into her hips as she walked. Sexual adventures, the likes of which she had never explored, with a really hot guy who wanted her to boss him around?

She could get used to this.

5 

After showering, Owen mentioned
he was starving, and they returned to that little restaurant near the beach that Iris had pointed out earlier, where they ate delicious food and talked about current events and topics of vague substance without sharing anything else personal. Owen suspected they'd both had enough of the heavy stuff that had come earlier that afternoon, and he certainly didn't feel the need to be serious again. Iris was kind enough not to make fun of him for thinking six o'clock was “eating late,” and he didn't harass her about hating seafood even though she lived in Florida.

Owen scraped up the last remnants of cherry pie from his plate and then set the fork down, feeling content and oddly more hopeful than he had been in a long time.

“So are you one of those bakers who can't enjoy something if they didn't make it?” Iris teased, twirling her fork in the air, which was still holding her last bite of peach pie, before popping it into her mouth.

Owen laughed. “I'm more picky than other people, probably, but I'll never turn down pie.” And this had been a pretty damn good one, if he was being honest. He pushed his plate away from him by an inch, as if that would make it go away. He hated the way an empty dessert dish looked after he'd finished it. Probably something about being a baker, or just something about hating dirty dishes. Dirty anything. He found he could never get anything done unless his workstation was immaculate, except for the flour that would of course cover everything all the time. Realizing he was staring blankly at his plate, he made eye contact with Iris again to find her smiling. He liked her smile, even if she always looked like she was up to no good. Actually, he liked that, too.

He checked his watch. It was already after seven, and even though his drive home was only about forty-five minutes, he had to be waking up for work way too soon. He spotted the waiter and called him over for the check.

“We're splitting this, of course,” Iris said when the check arrived. She snatched the bill right out of its case and looked at it, lips pursed, her glasses down on her nose in that “annoyed schoolmarm” look that he was going to get way too into if he wasn't careful.

He grabbed the paper out of her hand. “Let me get it. You're on vacation here and I didn't pay for the room or anything.” He held up a hand. “No arguments.”

Iris narrowed her eyes, but she acquiesced. “All right, fine. But next time, it's on me.”

Next time. Owen turned those words over in his mind, very much liking the sound of them.

The sun was setting when they left the restaurant, leaving a scarlet smudge on the horizon and faint pink rays fading into the darkening night sky, and Owen couldn't help staring as they walked back to the hotel. He seldom watched the sun set over the water like this. He should make a point to do so. The Gulf of Mexico was lovely to visit. Maybe his mother was right; he didn't take enough vacations.

Iris paused at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the second-floor balcony of the hotel. She was wearing a sundress and sandals, her hair perfect and her makeup impeccable, the picture of decorum and grace, and Owen wanted to look at her all night long. She smiled up at him. “I had a nice time today.”

“Me, too.” He returned her smile. They lingered a moment longer than normal, staring into each other's eyes, before she broke the gaze and climbed up the stairs to her room. He followed her into the room and gathered his bag up off the bed.

“Don't forget to send me that info.” Iris was standing in front of the door when he went to leave. When he gave her a blank look, she rolled her eyes. “The websites and books. I want to learn how to rock your world.”

He hadn't been sure that she was serious, and even now couldn't be fully confident that she wouldn't run away as soon as she started to do some research about his interests. That would be all right. He had come not to expect much from these sorts of arrangements. Iris would hardly be the first to turn tail and run at a full view of his kinks, and it was best not to get his hopes too high.

“All right. If you don't like what you see, that's cool, too. No pressure or anything. No strings.”

“Got it. No strings.” Iris nodded. “Can you send me the info tonight? I've got the Amazon app on my iPad and three days with nothing to do but lie on the beach and soak up sun. And no friends to do it with.” She pushed out her lip in a forced pout that made Owen laugh. “Really, I'll end up staying in the hotel room and playing games on my laptop if I'm not careful.”

“Sure, sure. I'll do it when I get home.” He ran a hand through his hair, which still felt beach-tousled despite washing. In reality, he was going to have a hard time sleeping tonight after he sent that list to Iris, and he knew it already. “Can I get your email address?” He pulled out his phone to type it in.

“Yup.” She took his phone right out of his hands and entered it herself, then handed it back. He pocketed the phone again, and they were back to the quiet that happened when two people weren't quite ready to say goodbye yet. She stepped away from the door, but he still felt reluctant to leave.

Better to just get this done and over with, though. “I'll email you tonight.” He nodded and headed for the door.

“All that and no kiss?” Iris asked, her voice playful but with an edge of concern that he could pick out even without knowing her very well.

Owen turned back around. “Well, I'd hate to leave you with no kiss.” He leaned down to her height, pressing his lips gently to hers. The kiss was soft, simple, and brief, a taste of what could be. Of course, he wanted none of that softness. He wanted fierceness, boldness, a biting intensity that made him forget himself in her. Even as he thought that, drawing away from her plush lips, he reminded himself to take it easy. Best not to get drawn in.

Iris blinked up at him with dark lashes and blue, blue eyes, then smiled. “Have a safe drive.”

“Thanks. Have a nice vacation.” He stepped out into the warm, salty evening air.

---

Owen's email came about an hour and a half later, when Iris was sitting on the bed in the hotel room trying not to be distracted by the overwhelming emptiness of the room and the smell of salt spray and Owen that lingered even though he was gone. It was a nice scent, a mixture of cinnamon and vanilla, and she hadn't even been aware of its presence until he left. Now, without him, the room seemed desolate, and she'd decided to ignore her loneliness by firing up her laptop and using the surprisingly stable hotel Wi-Fi connection to do some gaming. She had played through everything that PI Games produced, but she was well entrenched in several other games and had plenty to choose from. Her coworkers knew she gamed, because everyone at the company gamed, but they didn't know the depth of her hobby. She always felt outside of their world, her creative outlets at work limited to the color coding of her file folders. It chafed sometimes, knowing she was inches away from a world of imagination and design, and her role was to manage paperwork. Sighing, she settled into
Kerbal Space Program,
a wonderful and endlessly frustrating game that was occupying a fair amount of her free time.

Right after her most recent spacecraft blew up on the launchpad, her phone dinged that she had received an email. She only had her phone set up to automatically check her personal email, the one she rarely gave out, so she knew it had to be important. Thumbing open the lock screen, she saw that Owen had sent that email, and she logged out of
Kerbal
with a sudden rush of adrenaline, wanting to read his words on her larger screen.

Hi, Iris. I had a great time today. If you're still looking for stuff to read, here are some of the books I was thinking of. You don't have to read all of them, or any of them, but if you want to try this out, you might find them helpful. If you read through them and like what you see, you might want to poke around on Fetlife. It's like Facebook for kinky people. Let me know what you think, and have a great rest of your trip.

Owen

Iris skimmed the email and then moved right down to the list. He'd included a half dozen books. The time at the top of her laptop screen said it was only 9:30. She could definitely get started on this reading tonight. She told herself it was because it was too early for bed, and she was unlikely to get her spacecraft to launch tonight, but really she was just eager. Navigating to Amazon, she found a Kindle version of the first book on the list—
The New Topping Book—
ordered it to her iPad, and settled in against the down pillow, pulling the sheet around her.

---

Halfway through the book, she finally set her iPad aside on the nightstand a couple of hours later, the surface glowing in the dark hotel room. She'd left the lights off, and now with the screen to the side, she noticed the darkness of the room . . . and how horny she'd become reading about sexually dominating—topping—Owen.

While the book itself was written in a very factual, no-frills manner, the authors seemed like they were right inside her head, addressing aspects of her personality that she'd never connected to sexuality before. Namely, her desire for control and her frustration in never having that control in the rest of her life, plus the dual-edged sword of responsibility and affection. She'd never imagined that she'd be into any kind of kink. First off, in all her halfhearted searches for good porn, she'd only seen a few clips where a woman was dominating a man, but this book addressed female dominants and male dominants equally. Maybe this wasn't as uncommon as Owen seemed to think. As for her, she kept wondering what it would be like to really go all in on this with Owen and see where it led.

The thought was a bit frightening but extremely arousing, and Iris felt herself getting more and more keyed up as she turned over the image in her mind from this afternoon of Owen beneath her, staring up at her with ecstasy, admiration . . . and respect.

She wasn't wearing anything, since one of the joys of hotel rooms was getting to lounge around naked, so it was a simple task to lie back on the bed and slide her hands over her belly and down between her legs. Masturbation had been one of her earliest hobbies, despite her father's fervent sermons from the pulpit about the evil temptation of the human flesh and how best to resist it. Even as it had lost some of its sparkle in the intervening years, she still always turned there in her simplest moments of need. Now she let a fantasy spin out in her mind's eye and felt her body respond immediately. She didn't know enough about dominance to have much to go on, but she could call on some stereotypes for the purpose of this fantasy. Owen would be kneeling. She liked that, the image of a man kneeling at her feet. Naked, of course. Maybe he'd wear a collar. She'd seen lots of images during her porn searches of women in collars. The thought of Owen, with his strong muscles and powerful physique, collared and submitting on his knees to her was . . . well, it was pretty fucking hot.

She began to brush one finger lightly over her clit as she continued setting the scene. What would she be wearing? She wasn't into the whole “leather” thing, although maybe she could get into it if he liked it. No, she'd rather be in a business suit. A professional woman, the picture of class and decorum. With nothing under her skirt, of course. She would stand with her legs apart, and Owen would duck his head under her skirt and bury his mouth between her thighs, licking and sucking her clit exactly how she liked it. She switched from light touches across her clit to more firm rubbing, back and forth with two fingers, remembering the press of his tongue. She could suspend her disbelief enough to relish the light brush against her sensitive flesh and almost feel his hot breath there again.

Maybe he'd want her to tie him down. Yes, oh yes. She'd have him lick her until she was going weak in the knees, and then she'd lay him out on the bed and tie him down so he couldn't move. Picturing him spread out beneath her, helpless and wide-eyed, had her already turned on so much that she was going to have to slow down or she'd come right then and there. She pictured his hard cock throbbing against his stomach, desperate for her touch, which she would obligingly provide.

In her mind, he would make all kinds of noises when she traced her fingers lightly over the head of his dick, barely brushing the skin. Probably delicious, throaty noises, like the ones she'd just begun to hear when he was beneath her earlier that day. That would be fun for a few minutes, but what she'd really want was to hear him beg. She pictured the way he would shift back and forth on the bed, restless with need. She'd need to tie him very securely so he couldn't do more than twitch. Then she would grasp his shaft and work him over, slowly and steadily, bringing him right up where she wanted him. Not too far, though. This sort of experience couldn't be rushed.

Iris shifted on the bed to give herself better access, bringing her other hand down to join the first. She spread her lips with one hand and continued rubbing back and forth over her clit with the other. When Owen was good and desperate, that was when she'd fuck him. Not for his pleasure, of course, but for hers. She would slide the condom on so slowly, making him squirm to know what was coming, and then ease herself down until he filled her. He filled her so very nicely, too, as she'd found out earlier that day. Maybe she would just sit like that, straddling his hips, with his hard cock all the way inside her, and rub herself to completion. He would have to watch, of course. She'd make him lie perfectly still, and then she'd take him in and out at the right angle to rub her G-spot. She could take her time with her clit, because there was no rush. He would have to wait for her.