I nod slowly.
He winks. “I was told to be persuasive.”
“Why didn’t Edgar come himself?” I ask softly.
“He had a meeting. He’ll be there waiting for you, but right now, that’s where he is.”
I let my breath out. Squeeze the handle of my rolling suitcase. He isn’t in a meeting. He wants to play this game with me in the role of ‘Lauren’: someone he doesn’t know. He wants me near him, but he’s scared to have me there as Leah.
I rub my head. What does this mean?
“If I change my mind, Cecil, you’ll take me to the airport? You promise?” I ask.
He nods. “He doesn’t want you forced, Lauren. He told me, don’t make that girl feel like she’s being kidnapped.”
Cecil smiles a little, but it’s not funny to me. Goosebumps prickle over my arms as I try to weigh my options.
I think about the other girls. Whip-happy girls who want to see him suffer. I would be better for him than them. I picture him with one of them and burn with hypothetical envy. I could always take him up on his invitation and then break his rules. He may expect that. Surely he remembers last night, knows that Lauren is me. He called me back because he wants me. Leah.
And, even though it’s reckless, I still want him, too.
*
I sit on his bed, like the instructions in my bag of clothing told me to. I’m on my knees, my head bowed, my arms loose at my sides.
He walks in, and I lift my eyes to see him. He’s wearing leather pants and no shirt. He’s bruised and his eye is still black, but he looks in charge. Fierce. Breathtakingly honed and brutishly strong. Nothing like the broken man last night.
“Everything,” he says, “or nothing. No arguing with me. No fearing me. Do you understand?” He walks slowly over to the bed’s edge, where he stands to the side of the mattress looking down on me.
I nod, fixing my eyes on the mattress, even though I want to look at him.
“You may speak.”
His voice is sharp, startling me. I’m surprised to find my “Yes” is whispered.
“You submit to me. I will give you pleasure. Can you submit fully this time?”
I nod.
“Speak up.”
“Yes,” I say, more loudly than before.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes Master,” I murmur.
“But what? You don’t think I can hear your hesitation?”
“But I’m scared,” I answer honestly.
I hold my breath as he climbs up on the bed, sitting on his knees in front of me. He takes my chin in his fingers and tips my face up, so our eyes meet. Emotion rises like a bubble in my throat, keeping air from getting in. My head spins as I look into the eyes I know so well.
“Your fear is an insult,” he says. “I demand your trust. I won’t betray it.”
I find myself nodding. My insides are a riot. He’s not treating me like me at all, he’s treating me like just another sub. Like ‘Lauren’. Like this is nothing more than a game to him.
“I will give you everything I have,” he says, deep and slow, as if he can read my mind. “You will give me all of you as well. No corner will remain untouched. No part of you unexplored. I will possess you, completely, thoroughly. And from now on, as I’ve done with every submissive before you…I will call you Leah.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Leah
He eases me down onto my back and spreads my arms out. I’m surprised to feel something soft, wet, and warm come down on my shoulder, right beside the strap of my teddy. My eyes flutter and rush up to him. I find him smirking slightly and realize he just kissed me there.
“You may look at me while I tie you,” he says quietly.
Hearing him give me instructions like that stuns me for a second, but I quickly get over it and try to focus on playing my role. I look at his bruised and chiseled chest, then dare a quick glance at his handsome face. Was I really in this very room with him last night? It seems impossible to believe right now. Does he remember last night? He’s giving me mixed signals. I’m so confused.
He takes my hands in his—his touch is neither gentle nor firm, but disappointingly utilitarian, after the kiss I just received—and ties them with some binds that seem to have been attached to the bed, just hidden under the mattress.
“You look nice tied to my bed.” He’s crouching on the mattress beside me, the leather of his pants stretching around his hard, strong legs; his upper body stunning, even if it is marred by bruises and cuts. I let my gaze run up his lower abs and feel a little warm between my legs, despite the weirdness of this.
He moves between my legs and spreads my thighs with his big hands, then takes his pants down, revealing a huge, hard cock. I’ve never been a big fan of the c-word, but that’s what this is. A thick, long cock with magnificent balls hanging below. The head is pointed at his navel; the shaft already veined and straining.