The Commitment(90)

I kept quiet, lying there, fuming and scared and sad all at the same time. I wanted to cry and hit him and run away.

"Just do it."

He stroked his hand over my buttocks, lingering over the small of my back, then slipping his fingers between my cheeks.

"When I'm ready."

"I hate you."

He stopped his motions.

"Don't say that." He was quiet for a moment and all I heard was his breathing. When he spoke, hurt edged his voice which was barely above a whisper. "Not even in a moment of anger."

I realized how childish I was being. I didn't hate him. I hated being in that position. I hated everything that happened from the time I saw Kurt up until that moment. I said nothing, waiting. He did nothing, his hand still on my ass.

We were at some impasse of will, waiting to see who would crumble first.

Then, as if to assure himself, he spoke, his hand moving softly over my skin once more.

"You don't hate me, Katherine. You love me. Only me. You said so yourself."

I did. Only him, which was why I hated Kurt so much at that moment, because everything was perfect until he came along and screwed things up.

"I couldn’t help it that Kurt was there," I said, my voice breaking. "I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to have to deal with him. It's not my fault."

He leaned down, and tucked my hair behind my ear lobe, his mouth beside my ear, his breath warm on my skin.

"You didn't have to lie about him. You should have told me about seeing Sunita's video. You should have told me Maureen spoke to you about me."

"I didn't lie. I was going to tell you."

"I have no way of knowing if you would have. Now, because you didn't tell me right away, how can I trust you? Three things, Katherine, that you held back. Three important things."

"You have to choose to trust me when I say I was going to tell you. You said that to me once, if I remember correctly."

He said nothing and I said nothing for a few moments. I was getting tired of this whole scene, trying to give in and get this over with so we could move on but there was a part of me that wanted to fight.

I sighed. "I guess I didn't trust you enough yet to tell you. I guess I was afraid of what you'd do. I was afraid of you."

His hand stopped moving at that.

"Why? Have I ever done anything to make you afraid of me?"

I shook my head. "No. But maybe you didn't do enough to make me trust you completely," I said, trying to be as honest as I could. "Every time I tried to talk, you shut me up. You'd go into Dom mode and we'd have sex and that was it. You've been under so much emotional stress and turmoil, I was afraid this would be one more thing to hurt you and upset you. It meant nothing to me so I didn’t feel it should matter to you, but I was afraid it would and I was right. "

"That's exactly why you should have told me right away. I would have been upset. I would have been very jealous and hurt. But we would have discussed it, you could have reassured me that what happened with Kurt was nothing, and now, instead of me having you over my lap, ready for a spanking, you'd be massaging me like my favorite slave girl and then we'd be making love."

"You don't have to spank me. It's your choice."

"You took away my choice when you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth right away. It's because I've been too free with you, letting you get away with too much. Not disciplining you when you broke the rules because I enjoy you too much. Now, I have to reassert myself, reestablish my dominance. I have to punish you, Katherine."

"You don't need to reestablish anything. You don't need D/s to keep me at arm's length. We've been so happy. We don't need an agreement."

"We do. I do," he said, his voice exasperated. "I'm a Dominant, Katherine. I was when you met me. I am now. I need an agreement to keep myself in control. I loosened my control because of you, I opened up and let you in, and this is what happened. Now, I have no choice."

"Did you hear what you said?" I craned my neck to see his face. "You confirmed that you use D/s to keep people out of your life. You let me in. Don't shut me out now. I'm not just one of your subs."

He shook his head and it was as if he wasn't listening or didn't hear me. "I have no choice."

He said it with such finality that I knew he was going to go through with it. I gave in at that point, my body going limp. I didn’t say anything. I waited.

He appeared to sense the fight was all gone from me and started stroking my behind again. Was he trying to decide whether to go through with this? He was touching me so gently, I couldn't imagine he'd hit me to punish me at that point.

It was then I sensed that the fight was all out of him as well. His hand stopped moving and he exhaled heavily. Then, to my complete surprise, he removed his leg from across mine and released me. I scrambled up and stood in front of him, my legs all wobbly from adrenaline.