Training the Dom (7 page)

It was weird, as if I was focused on all the tiny details. How his brown eyes seemed to change the more aroused he got. The irises looked golden, warm, as if a fire had been ignited somewhere deep inside him and only now was I able to see the blaze.

I was hyperaware of my body too. The way sweat ran along the side of my breast, tickling the skin as it slipped beneath the mound. The way my nipples seemed to absorb the pleasure I felt every time my breasts swung forward. I wanted him to reach up and squeeze them, pinch my nipples, pull at them until I couldn’t stand any more.

“Gareth—”

I don’t know how he knew, but his hands were suddenly exactly where I wanted them. His palms were cold from the metal, sending a sharp twinge through the stiffened and sensitive peaks.

“Yes.” I squeezed my eyes shut and ignored the easy beat we seemed to have slipped into. This was for me, as much as it was for him. I ground down on him, taking and taking every bit of desire and craving I’d had built up for him. Four months and a lifetime of longing for this special connection.

There it was. That pressure that seemed to tickle my clit from the inside out. The pins-and-needles sensations I’d get at the base of my spine when I was about to have a mind-blowing release. Harder I slammed myself down on him. Gareth caught my nipples between his fingers and squeezed.

That was it. The rush of pleasure didn’t roll through in a lazy wave. This time it was as if I exploded from every cell in my body. Joy and satisfaction so powerful, I’d never experienced that intensity before, ripping me apart. I couldn’t see past the haze, couldn’t think beyond
oh my god, oh my god
until my brain gave up and took whatever my body threw at it.

When my hearing returned, I realized that the buzz I was hearing was actually my voice. “More, more, more.”

Gareth sat up, taking me with him. My head was now pressed against the foot of my mattress and he spread my legs wide. Large, strong fingers were wrapped around my ankles, holding me open for him to take.

Finally take.

A single thrust and he was reseated back deep inside me. My clit, already sensitive from my orgasm, could barely handle the sensory overload as he began to fuck me hard. I wanted to keep my eyes open and watch him lose himself, but I was fast losing the will and the energy.

I settled for catching quick glances of his face on every thrust forward. He’d closed his eyes, so I couldn’t see that burning anymore. But it didn’t matter. His expression of unrepressed lust, joy, relief told me everything I needed to know.

“Liz,” he whispered as he tightened his hold on my legs.

“Do it. Fuck me. Make me come again.”

Gareth fell forward on me and curled his arms around my shoulders. I couldn’t move, could barely breathe as he fucked into me so fast I could feel each thrust in my bones.

He bit down on my neck, dug his fingers into me and cried out. I bucked my hips up, wanting to catch every ounce of his cum with my body. The change in angle and the strength of his body surprised me with a second orgasm.

God, this was it. I could die now.

Gareth finally stopped, though he didn’t move off me. I kept my eyes closed and enjoyed my victory. This was what I’d wanted, to be pressed beneath him, to feel protected and owned. His breath hot against my skin. Sweat rolling down my neck, tickling as it went. He licked at it and I couldn’t help but giggle.

“I love you,” I whispered against him.

If you were to ask me later, I would say that I’d never intended to say that at all, let alone after we’d finally had sex. I mean, I was certain I could fall in love with the right someone after such a short time, but there was no way he was ready for any declarations.

It really shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise then when he pushed himself off me, and rolled to the far side of the bed.

“What?” I don’t think I ever remember seeing his eyes quite that wide before. “What did you say?”

Shit.
“I’m sorry. It just came out. You know how things can be after great sex—”

“Book.”

My entire world screeched to a halt. “What?”

He was up, searching for his clothing on the floor. “I have to go.”

“You used your safeword.” My throated tightened and I didn’t think I was going to be able to breathe, let alone cry. “Gareth?”

“I’m sorry, Liz. I need to—I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t find the energy to follow him. I hugged myself and listened as he got dressed and left.

So that was that. The first man I’d ever felt I had a real connection to in my life, and I scared him off with three little words.

I knew he wasn’t scared to say them. He’d been in love, deeply, with his wife. Who the hell did I think I was that I could push my way into his life to try to take her place?

I was Liz. Silly little Liz, who thought she could reach out and take a small piece of something big and wonderful for herself.

Foolish Liz who ruined everything by not thinking.

I lay back on the mattress and tried to find the energy to cry.

Chapter Six

I’m not sure why I let Connie talk me into going back to the Tail Whip. There was no charity auction this time, and I couldn’t claim ignorance as to what when on in the club. She and Stephen had disappeared early on in the evening, leaving me to nurse my drink and watch a Domme flog a sub before she fucked him in the ass with a strap-on.

At least someone was having a good night.

The music filled the air, giving the place a happy vibe. The stage that had been present for the auction, I’d discovered was an actual part of the club. The curtains had come down and a St. Andrew’s cross filled a good portion of the area. It was far more intimidating to see someone tied to it here in this public place than it was to see Stephen’s.

The club wasn’t really a bar. They normally only served soft drinks and mineral water. Right then I’d been enjoying the effervescent taste of soda water with cherry, not the rum and Coke I desperately wanted.

This was stupid. There was nothing for me here and the last thing I wanted was to try to find someone else to take me on another magical wonder ride through BDSM land. Connie would know I went home when she came looking for me. Hell, I would swing by the grocery store on my way and pick up a tub of ice cream. There had to be an action movie or bad horror film on TV tonight.

I’d swallowed down the last of my water when I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I don’t know who I’d been expecting to see, but the bleached-blond man with an eyebrow piercing and a tattoo on the side of his neck wasn’t it.

“You waiting for someone?” His smirk was…interesting.

“I came here with friends, but I think they’ve gone off to the back room.”

“And you’re sitting here looking all pretty.” His hand slid up to cup the back of my head, his fingers tightening in my hair. “A pretty-looking sub waiting for a good time. I’ll take you out back and show you one.”

“Thanks, but I’m not interested.”

In all fairness to blond boy, as soon as I said no, he let my hair go. I knew that despite the attitude, he wasn’t going to play if all parties weren’t happy with the arrangement. So when I blinked and realized that Gareth was standing directly behind him, I didn’t think anything of it.

Well, my brain hadn’t caught up to things.

I mean, it didn’t seem wrong for Gareth to be there. For a moment I’d forgotten that I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly three weeks. But then I realized he was wearing his glasses, not his contacts. He wasn’t here for a scene.

“Let her go.” His voice was so low I could feel the base of it rumble through me. Or maybe that was simply my reaction to him.

Shit, he was here for me.

Blond boy lifted his hand from my back and took a step away. “The lady said she wasn’t interested. I was about to walk away.”

“You better move your ass. If I see you even looking at my girl again I’ll fuck you up so hard you’ll wish I’d killed you.”

I’d frozen in spot on the stool, blond boy completely forgotten as Gareth stepped into view.
My girl
? He hadn’t said a word to me since that night, hadn’t bothered to even talk to Stephen to see how I was doing, if I’d managed to cry over him? Hell, if I’d managed to
stop
crying once the floodgates had opened.

“
My
girl?” I slipped from the stool, grabbing my purse.

“Liz.”

“Fuck you.”

I walked past the stage where the Domme was helping her man from the spanking bench she’d placed him on. His ass was a beautiful red and his face was streaked with tears. Those were the good kind, the ones brought out by reaching a spot so deep inside your head all the dark and nasty stuff inside you bled out.

I hadn’t felt that in a while.

“Liz!”

If I stopped and looked at him, I knew I wouldn’t have the strength to make a clean break. He wasn’t in love with me—fine. But if I allowed myself to continue to see him, knowing my feelings weren’t going to be reciprocated, that made me a fool. I am many things, but not that.

“Liz, will you stop and listen to me?”

“No. Go away.”

Stephen had driven us to the club, which meant I either had to walk, find a taxi or take the subway. The next stop was at least two blocks away. Gareth didn’t look as if he was about to let me go.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Too bad.” A taxi was my best bet. Though, there’s never one when you need it.

Gareth caught my arm and tugged at me to stop. When I whirled around and punched him hard on the chest, he staggered back, holding his hands up.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to talk to you.”

God, he looked shitty, as if he hadn’t slept in a month. Well, good. I’d hate to think I was the only one suffering through all this.

“I don’t think there is anything left to say.” Pushing my hair from my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a taxi coming toward us. “I’m going home.”

“At least let me drive you. I promise that once I know you’re home safe I’ll leave you alone. I won’t chase you into the apartment or anything.”

The drive wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes this late at night. There was next to no traffic on the streets. But I wasn’t sure if I could handle being in the same building as him, let alone the confines of a car for that long. Indecision had always been my enemy and the taxi drove past before I could make my body move to stop it.

“Please, baby.” Gareth reached forward and took my hand again, this time far gentler than before. “I promise to behave.”

My mouth had grown dry and my hands were starting to moisten. I tugged my hand away, and simply nodded. I don’t think I could have said anything.

“Thank you. I’m parked just down here.”

We walked in silence to his car. I wanted to believe that I wasn’t affected by the simple presence of a man, or the scent of aftershave. I’ve been my own woman since I moved from home and have been proud of what I’ve accomplished since then.

But my body remembered what Gareth had done to me. My traitorous skin prickled at the memory of his hands on it, the bite and sting in the muscles as he’d land spanks against my ass. My pussy clenched, longing to feel his cock press back into my core one more.

I stopped at the sight of his car. I couldn’t do this and come out the other end whole. “I’m going to wait for a cab.”

“Liz.” Gareth pinched the bridge of his nose. His shoulders tensed as he turned to face me. “I didn’t want to do this in public, but I will.”

“Do what?” I knew there was only a short list of things he wouldn’t do.

“This.”

My body wouldn’t move as he took the three steps to close the distance between us. I’d forgotten how much taller he was than me, how much I loved the look of his unshaven face. Gareth leaned down, slow enough to project what he was about to do. His mouth brushed against mine, setting the skin on fire.

“I’ve missed you and I’m sorry.” His whispered words were punctuated with a light kiss. “I hate myself for what I did to you.”

“Why?”
Why did you do it? Why did you leave? Why in hell are we standing here at one in the morning?

“You were right. I’d been hiding. I was scared if I moved on that it would be as if I didn’t love Rachael anymore.”

I pulled my head back, but didn’t move away.

Gareth closed his eyes. “The two of you would have gotten along famously. She was so much fun, loved to tease me, tease anyone. One minute she was there laughing at me, and the next they told me she was gone.”

And I’d been completely oblivious to the fact that he’d been still grieving. I thought he’d simply been too scared to move on. “I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be.” He kissed my forehead, before moving away. “Do you mind if we take this to the car?”

The night air was growing chilly, but that wasn’t what had me agreeing and following him. Gareth opened the passenger door for me and stepped back to let me in. One look at him and I knew that wasn’t going to work. I reached past him and opened the back door, sliding across the seat to the far side.

“What are you doing?” He leaned in and frowned at me.

“Just come back here so we can talk.”

The moment the door shut, I felt the change in the air. Gareth took up a generous part of the back, his head nearly touching the ceiling. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed being next to him.

Dammit, I still loved him.

He looked over at me and placed his hand on my leg. “This okay?”

“Yeah. Look, I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t give any thought to your feelings. I certainly shouldn’t have said what I did, heat of the moment or not.”

Gareth pushed his glasses up his nose as he struggled to speak. Finally he took them off and placed them behind him by the window. “I’ve been angry for a long time. When Rachael was first killed, I spent more time drunk than sober. She would have been so pissed if she’d seen me that way.”

“Is that why you stopped?”

“No. I’d ended up in the hospital after falling down the stairs drunk. I’d been lucky not to have broken my neck. After than I knew I had put the bottle down and smarten up. But I swore that if I couldn’t have her, then I’d do everything in my power to stay true to her.”

“You must have loved her very much.” I couldn’t imagine giving that kind of devotion to someone, let alone be on the receiving end.

God, I was such a liar. The three weeks since he’d walked out had shown me that if nothing else, Gareth would always have a piece of my heart, even if I didn’t have his. I would always love him.

“She was the first woman who encouraged my Dom tendencies in the bedroom. She’d read up on positions, techniques, encouraged me to try things. She wasn’t afraid of anything.”

I imagined it was the same as being in love for the first time. That rush you feel at first when everything is new, sexy, wild. “How long had you two been together?”

“Four years, but we’d only gotten hard-core into BDSM for the last year.”

Gareth’s hand had tightened on my knee. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to ground himself in the present, or if he was scared I was going to run away on him.

Regardless, I placed my hand over his and squeezed back. “So that auction?”

“Was my way of trying to get back into the land of the living. Stephen said it would be the perfect thing to try, meet someone and there’d be no strings attached. It would give me a chance to see if I really was a Dom, or if I’d only been that way with Rache.”

“So, me chasing you down at the university was unexpected.” Great, so I’d been stalking a still-grieving widower. Nice.

“Unexpected, but not unwelcomed.” Gareth turned to face me more, picking my hand up in his. “When you were standing there after my class, I wasn’t sure if I was more scared that you being there was a beginning or an end. I’d only just admitted to myself that I was lonely.”

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed each of my knuckles. “I tried to fool myself into thinking that if I kept things being only be about you, that I wasn’t betraying Rachael and I could still have something new for myself. But every time we got together, I saw in your eyes that it wasn’t enough. That you wanted more from me, and I wasn’t sure I could give it to you.”

“So the reason you didn’t want to fuck me was because you thought you were betraying your wife?”

“No. But it felt as though I was going to have to say goodbye to her. I didn’t know if I could do that.”

“I would never ask you to.”

“I realize that now. But when you said you loved me…I thought that was it. I had to make a decision and choose between you.”

Fear makes a person do strange things indeed. I was absolutely terrified that Gareth had tracked me down so he could give me a proper sendoff. That would have killed me. Driven by panic, I leaned in and kissed him hard. His tongue met mine, pushing and sliding against each other in an intimate caress. Stubble rubbed against my chin and cheek, keeping me focused solely on him. On us.

“I want you.” I moved to bite at his earlobe. “If you’re saying goodbye, wait until after because I really need to fuck you now.”

Gareth took my face in his hands and pulled me back. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. These past three weeks nearly killed me. It hurt almost as much as when I lost Rache, except this time it was my fault. I couldn’t do that to either of us.”

Oh. “So you don’t hate me?”

He chuckled and nipped at the end of my nose. “How the hell could anyone hate you?”

“You’d be surprised. There are at least three people at work.”

“Well, they’re morons.” Gareth looked straight into my eyes and smiled. “I wanted to tell you that I’m not sure how you managed to work your way into my heart so fast, but I love you, Liz.”

“You…” I was grinning like a fool.

“Love you. Yes.” He kissed her hard enough to make my head spin. “Now get on your knees and suck my cock.”

It’s impossible to drop to one’s knees in the backseat of a car with any bit of grace. Given the length of Gareth’s body, it was challenging to move myself between his thighs and still have enough room to get his jeans down. Working together, we managed to get one shoe and one leg free, making it far easier to yank down his briefs.