Rod of Correction_ Taken and Tamed(3)

He had put her on guard, somehow, which hadn’t been his intention. He could see how her body had tensed up at his choice of words, but he didn’t regret it. It was the perfect term for what he would demand of her. A certain amount of caution on her part was expected – even welcome. She would have to determine tonight just how much she trusted him – or didn’t.

“Do you require a dictionary definition of the word?” he asked, but not solicitously.

Her middle finger went up immediately, and Sunny founder herself disconcerted by the fact that it only seemed to increase the size of his smile – and even then, it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Point taken. The English minor understands the O.E.D.’s definition of submission.”

“How’d you know I minored in English?” She couldn’t recall having told him that . . .

Not in the least concerned by her question, he said, “You must’ve mentioned it, or perhaps Laura did.”

She wouldn’t have put it past Laura to have told Rod that she was into whips and chains – and she wasn’t, necessarily – or had spent a night in jail for speeding while they were in college, or that she had a raging crush on him. Laura was nothing if not a blabbermouth. Sweet, generous, and a whiz at math, but couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. It always amazed her that Laura had been able to keep her lips buttoned about her attraction to Rod. Miracles did happen.

“Oh.” Sunny shifted in her seat, as if he’d already spanked her and she was sitting on a sore behind, although the cause of her unease wasn’t that – it was a genuine interest in not leaving a big wet spot on his immaculately upholstered chair. “You’re going to have to elaborate, friend. I ain’t agreeing to just ‘completely submitting’. I have no interest at all in my family having to identify my remains when my body’s retrieved from a shallow grave -”

“Now there’s an interesting character reading.” She only paused slightly at his comment, “ – nor in being yet another notch on your bedpost.”

That had him chuckling – or whatever his equivalent was. The man wasn’t a fount of joviality even in the best of situations; she could probably count the number of times she’d heard him laugh on one hand.

What he did next surprised her. They had been sitting opposite each other, and he got up to take the chair next to her instead, sitting so close that his big jeans-covered knees were butting against her bare ones as they faced each other. Sunny wanted to move away from that contact, because, even as innocuous as it was, it rocketed to the area between her legs.

When he took each of her hands in his, she felt a rush of her own lubrication onto pink bikini panties as she fought with herself not to reclaim her hands and leave the room – and his house.

But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was no coward. So instead she steeled her spine and grasped his hands firmly, forcing her eyes to meet his.

Rod almost let himself grin at that, but he didn’t want to let her know what he’d seen – that he’d watched the thoughts flowing frantically through her mind as they played across her face – especially the impulse to flee – thoughts that she had tamed ruthlessly and, instead, sat there with him, contentedly, at least on the surface.

The conflict he’d seen there intrigued him, because he would have sworn she was much more in touch with the side of her that he was intent on bending to his own purposes. “It means that, for the rest of this weekend, whoever loses this hand will do anything the other asks them to do, until, say, seven o’clock Monday morning.”

Rod was amazed that she was still with him, but her only response to his outrageous terms was to raise her eyebrow. “Anything?”

“Well, I think that certain things would be considered ruled out automatically – nothing life-threatening, of course, nothing illegal, etc.”

“But lots of immoral?”

He stared at her with those steely eyes, not answering her question at first. “I’m absolutely serious about this, in case you were wondering if I’m kidding, or if I’m going to laugh it off once the game is played. Don’t agree to this unless you intend to commit to it. If you chicken out on me halfway through the weekend, I reserve the right to tease you about it until the day you die.” He cleared his throat and continued, “I’m sure nowadays submitting oneself – especially in the manner I have in mind for you – would definitely be considered immoral.”

There was that shiver again, keeping her nipples crested painfully, but her heart was also beating double-time. He seemed quite serious. She wondered if this should be anything she was seriously entertaining, but then she realized that she wouldn’t necessarily be the one who lost. She swallowed a big lump of apprehension – liberally mixed with sheer desire - at his words, but gave him a questioning look. “So, if I should win the hand, then I could tell you to do anything I wanted?”