Ha. He had no idea how tortured I was right now for not doing anything he’d said, except for the little slip up earlier when my hands went wandering on their own.

“Lie back down and lightly rub your fingers along your pussy lips. Don’t touch that clit.”

I moaned with each pretend pass over my wet skin. If I was actually touching myself, I’d be so sensitive it would be torture.

“Yes, that’s a good girl. With one hand sink two fingers into your cunt and get them nice and wet. With the other give each of those clips a tug.”

“Oh, yes.” If I ever had a choice in the matter again, I was totally reenacting this scene for real with the harem. Or even better if I could get Gray do to something like this with me.

“Push another finger in and draw those juices out. Let them run down your skin. Coat your hand and slide it down to your asshole. Don’t forget to keep tugging on those clips.”

After three days of orgasm denial and then this slow seduction of my mind I was on the verge of falling into a deep abyss leaving nothing but sensation. My world shrank into nothing but Foster’s voice and my imaginary Gray.

“Get your asshole nice and wet, slip a finger into the very edge and coat your hole. Pull as much of your juices down to lubricate your fingers and your asshole.”

Pleasure danced over my body. I was getting wetter by the second and my pussy tingled almost painfully. With every command he spoke, I pretended to follow, wishing it were Gray playing my body this way. Every word, every image, more blood rushed to my clit and nipples. Both were so full that I had to grip the arm of the chaise to keep from touching myself.

“Slide a finger all the way into your asshole. Pump it in and out, relaxing your muscles around it.”

“Oooh.” What I wouldn’t do for that to be Gray’s fingers.

“Now a second finger. Stretch that asshole open. One more. Push those fingers in there and fuck your ass with your fingers. Fuck yourself fast and hard. Let me hear your cries.”

I definitely liked some anal stimulation, and lord knew Ilario loved giving it, but I was blown away by how my mind was getting me way more turned on than any amount of physicality every had. I’d be adding mindfucking into the rotation.

I was so close to coming. The tiniest touch across my clit would send me over the edge. But that wouldn’t be happening, and I had a part to play.

“Please Foster, I need... please.” The angst in my voice was totally not faked. I did need, just not him.

His breathing was almost as heavy as mine. “Tell me what you need.”

Much more of this and I might come just from the words and the mind games. Time to push him over the edge. Ahem, by pretending he’d pushed me over. My When Harry Met Sally moment was ready to debut. “To touch my clit, to come.”

“How do your nipples feel now.”

I kept my voice breathy, which wasn’t hard considering the state I was in. “They’re on fire.”

“And your clit?”

“I feel like it’s taking up all the space inside my pussy lips. It’s never been so big.” No lie.

“Good, but how does it feel.” He sounded like an acting coach trying to get a better performance out of a student.

And I was so over it. This has started out kind of fun, because I knew it was slightly naughty. Now, I just wanted it over. But, I knew his Dom persona would be pissed if he came before he told me to. I pushed as far as I thought I could. “It’s pulsing, almost like I’m coming.”

“If I wasn’t so set on making you come today that would be your punishment. If you were my slave you’d walk around all day just like that, not being allowed to come until I put you on my lap and choked that orgasm out of you.”

“But she’s not yours, Foster.”

Then I died. I’m sure I did, because my heart stopped, fell into my stomach, ejected itself from my body and flopped onto the floor.

I whipped around to find Gray six inches behind me. He grabbed the phone, hung up, and stared at it. It was obviously the most interesting cell phone in the world, because he didn’t take his eyes off it. Either that, or he was trying to melt it with his brain.

Either way, my phone and I were so screwed. Not in the good way.

“Gray, I—” What? Was pretending to have phone submission with the king of the Doms in exchange for contact information and I’d hoped you wouldn’t find out? Not words that would be coming out of my mouth anytime soon.

He still didn’t look at me, and I think he was starting to crush my phone. “Don’t.”

What was I supposed to say? The fires of hell burned on his face and if that didn’t tell me how utterly mad he was, the way all the muscles in his arms were bunched up because his hands were clenched so tight would.

I couldn’t tell him that Foster Bennett was going to give me the number of someone he’d conveniently lost because Gray didn’t want me to pursue it. I certainly couldn’t say I wasn’t really going to come for Foster, that I had been planning to fake it, because, well, all evidence to the contrary. I was still stark naked.

So, I just stood there with one arm crossed grasping my elbow. My tiny shield from his anger desperately trying to figure out what to say to him to make this all better.

“How long has this been going on?” He barked the words like they wouldn’t have come out if he didn’t push them.

“About twenty minutes.” My voice may have actually squeaked.

He threw my phone onto the chaise. “Your affair with Foster.”

I took a step back. A la verga. “What? I’m not having an affair with him.”

“Oh, really? What the hell did I walk in on?”

Those muscles in his arms that had been bunched? They started to pulse. If I didn’t calm this situation way down, he was going to pop.

“A business deal. A one-time arrangement, in which I wasn’t holding up my end. He wanted me to do what he said, so I faked it. I would never—”

Faster than I could say betray, cheat, deceive, or cuckold, Gray had me around the waist and pulled me onto his lap.

I’ve never been a big lap sitter, probably because my own lap was too big for most men. Not Grayson. While I was sure my ass was crushing his thighs, he held me in his arms and stroked my hair.

I hated fighting with him like this. We were defining new roles in our relationship and so far, that had been a bumpy road, even if we’d made progress. I took this rare opportunity and snuggled into him.

He sighed and tucked my head under his chin. “Was I not clear about what happens when I agreed to train you?”

“Not really.” We hadn’t talked about it. He said he would train me and that I had to do what he said when it came to my body. He would teach me about some of the different aspects of Dominance and submission. If I was honest with myself, and I was damn sure trying to be better at that little skill, it wasn’t like I didn’t know he’d be mad about this little tete-a-tete.

“Then let me be clear now.” He ran his fingers into my hair and gripped some of it between them, not being rough, but like he didn’t want to let go.

“If you want me to train you, you will not engage in any sexual activity, including masturbation or phone sex.”

I opened my mouth to interrupt and say, it wasn’t really phone sex. I got a finger over my lips to hush me instead.

“Words or otherwise. You can’t deny you were and still are, turned on, the evidence is currently on my jeans.”

Oh, Dios Mio, did I ever blush. Like from head to toe my body warmed right up in a hot flash of epic proportions. I hid my face in his neck, but nodded so he knew I understood.

“Unless I tell you to do so. You will not touch yourself, you will not let anyone else touch you, you will not come without my permission, and you sure as hell will not talk to Foster Bennett.”

I got the no touching or coming rules. But, not even talking to Foster? That wasn’t going to work.

Instead of using my feminine wiles...I was naked at the moment, I let his words prick at that sore spot of not wanting to be told what to do. I lifted my head from the nice warm refuge of Gray’s body, another dumb move. “I’m not sure I want to agree to that. What happens if I break your stupid rules?”

He didn’t flinch, simply looked me straight in the eyes, all the way to my confused soul. “We’re done.”

Done with what? The training or our entire relationship? I couldn’t take that chance. He’d been so on edge ever since we went to the club in the first place and there was definitely something between him and Foster Bennett that went beyond who had a bigger dick.

I wasn’t ready to give up my plans just yet. Gray didn’t need to know that.

I blinked, keeping the frustration and defeat from leaking out of my eyes. Gray wiped an escaped drop away but didn’t comfort me more. He was giving me time to agree, or not. The bastard had my number. I’d given it to him. I wanted him to have it. But not if it meant I’d never see it again.

Could I do this? Give up the new dream for the old one? Why couldn’t I have both?

“Fine. I’m sorry. I do want you to train me. I was just frustrated that nothing was happening. Forgive me?” I put on my best puppy dog eyes and frowny face. He never could resist that combination.

“Angel.” A truckload of tension left his body. He cupped my cheek in his hand.

This moment was the most touching I’d had from him in a long ass time. He was warm and electric. If he’d give this to me all the time I wouldn’t think twice about giving into his demands. I’d learned over the past few months that physical touch made me feel loved.

Marc had never gotten that. Did Gray?

“Teach me now,” I whispered.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“You’re not ready. This is a dark world you’re getting into, and I have to know you can handle it. I don’t want to break you.”

“I am ready. I’m not going to break. Why are you so stubborn? I want you, Gray. I always have.”

“I know.”

What was this, Star Wars? I know? “No Manches. You’re being ridiculous. I want you, and I’m pretty sure you want me. Or is that what this is about?”

I pushed off his lap and stood up. Every time I tried to get close to him, to move our relationship to the sex step, he turned me down. Ya think I’d know better by now.

“You don’t want me. You never have. God, I’m so stupid. I keep throwing myself at you, and you keep pushing me off onto other men. I’m surprised you haven’t just given me to Foster.”

Gray shook his head. “You honestly think I don’t want to fuck you? Do you have any idea how hard it has been for me the past six years to keep my dick in my pants around you? I have to jack-off every damn morning just so I won’t throw you against a wall and take you like a fucking animal the minute I see you. I’m constantly rock hard around you. I come into my own hand every damn night pretending I’m inside your cunt or even better, that fucking hot ass. Don’t think for one god-damned second, I don’t want to be inside you, watching you, making you come.”

We were both breathing like we’d been running a mile, and the blood whooshed through my ears. I was so tired of fighting with him over this.

I sank down between his knees.

“Then why don’t you do it? Right now. I’m naked, I’m so horny I could take a rhinoceros, and I want you. I need you. Fuck me.”

Gray gritted his teeth and that muscle in his jaw pulsed in time with my heart. “You’re. Not. Fucking. Ready.”

I threw my hands in the air. “What the hell do I have to do to be ready?”

“Grow the fuck up.”

“I’m twenty-four years old. I think I’m as grown as I’m going to get.”

“You went from being Daddy’s little girl to Marc’s Stepford fiancée. I don’t want a woman who doesn’t even know what she does and doesn’t like and who can’t make a god damn decision on her own.”

Christ. Was that what he thought of me?

“How can I? You won’t let me.”

“Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want to do. Go to the club, get screwed figuratively and literally if you must. I’m done trying to put you on the right path. You’re going to have to wander around the woods and hope you don’t get eaten by the big bad wolf, little girl.” Gray walked out the door.

Those tears I’d been holding in before streamed down my face. I was mad and sad and so fucking done. I couldn’t let him have the last word.

“Maybe I want to get eaten by the wolf. At least somebody would be eating me.”