Chapter Five
Bella stared across the room at her husband. What was she saying? What could she say that would make this all go away and give them a path to heal?
“Someone tried to ruin us. Not just you, Harry. Me, too. It was my life as much as it was yours and ours together. I deserved to fight for it.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I know. I do. But this…” She pushed back the sleeve of the robe to expose her wrist and the steel that encircled it. “This binds me to you, yes. It also binds you to me. We own each other. That’s what you told me when you placed it on me. We belong to each other. We face things together. We protect each other. Only you didn’t let me. You didn’t let me face it with you.”
“Bella…”
“You sent me away, Harry. You pushed me away from you and from us when you did that.”
Bella choked her tears down and saw the moment realization began to dawn. “I begged and I pleaded with you to let me stay, to let me help. Over and over you said no. Over and over you told me you’d handle it. You shut me out of our life, Harry. And you want me to come back? Now when the dust has settled and everything is smoothed out, you want me to come back and be part of your life again?”
“Our life,” he said softly.
“Not by that definition.”
“Then by what? It was never meant to be for this long.”
She didn’t know the answer to that. “I know, but I wasn’t ready and I don’t know when I will be. I began making a life here. I haven’t had a life apart from you or our kids since college.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do. I loved every piece of my life with you. As your lover, your submissive, your wife, and the mother of your children.”
“Loved? Are you saying you don’t want it anymore? Are you saying you don’t want me anymore?” He swallowed and in the quiet stillness of the room, she heard it. She heard the gulp of air. “Are you saying you want me to take your collar off?”
That was the biggest question of all for her and though she asked herself that question multiple times over the last year, to hear the words come out of his mouth, to hear them spoken out loud…
“I…” She couldn’t… Didn’t know how to answer him.
If she said yes and he uncollared her, a divorce would likely follow and she was fairly certain her heart wouldn’t be able to withstand that.
If she said no, what would happen? Would they return to business as usual with daily spankings and nightly bondage? Would he expect her to move back to Charleston? Give up teaching? Okay, no. He wouldn’t ask her to give up teaching. He didn’t ask her to do it the first time. She chose to devote her time to him, the success of his career, their children, and their community.
Harry pierced her with his eyes. He was primarily in shadow, but those gray eyes reached out and pinned her in place even as they beckoned her knees to fold under.
She was torn.
“You broke my heart when you sent me away, Harry.” She hadn’t expected a tear to drop down her cheek, hadn’t realized she was as close to crying as she apparently was, but tears didn’t lie. Not in this case. “You broke my heart.”
“Why did you cry last night during your spanking?”
Shock hit her first. Anger, followed by hurt surged inside her.
Didn’t he care about what she’d just said? Didn’t he care that he’d hurt her heart that badly?”
“Answer me, Bella. Why did you cry during your spanking last night?”
More tears joined the first. Wetness rolled down her face, over her chin, down her throat, and between her breasts, which were loosely covered by the robe.
“Did it hurt?”
“Y-yes. You know it did. I told you that.”
“I do know, yes. Was there any other reason for your tears?”
Any other reason?
Her breath shuddered out from between her lips and she fought the emotions welling up inside her, thinking back to last night, to the mass of feelings and nerve endings that were tangled, then unraveled with each slap on her ass.
“What do you want me to say?”
“If there was nothing more than it hurt, then I think you’ve got the beginning of the answer you’re looking for about your collar.”
“Over a spanking?”
“Spankings have always been more than just swats for you. That’s why you asked for them to be a daily ritual. But don’t think I minded. I certainly didn’t. Spankings are submission for you, more than anything, other than sex. More than ropes. More than chains and bindings. Spankings are your kink, Bella mine.”
He wasn’t wrong. He could hold her to him with a look, a word, his body far more than if he bound her. And the spankings? They put her in a frame of mind, filled with purpose the way exercise did for most people. Nothing else had ever done for her what a good, solid paddling did.
It was life changing the first time Harry put her over his knees. He said he wanted to try something and asked if she was game. She’d begged for spankings every time they were alone after that.
She’d been a year without them until last night.
The pain and the sting were overshadowed by the cathartic release felt in every cell and drop of blood in her body.
Her head had still been clouded and confusion still held her in its grasp, but the spanking had awoken a part of her that had been asleep for too many months. She hadn’t realized the tension in her muscles until he pulled it out one slap on her flesh after the other.
Harry settled back in the chair and crooked his finger. “Come here, Bella.”
She was torn and shook her head.
“If I have to come get you, you won’t like it as much as if you come to me on your own.”
He was probably right. He’d never harm her, but he’d strip her, he’d put her over his shoulder, he’d take her coffee away.
“Do you care that you broke my heart when you sent me away?”
“Do you care that you broke mine when you wouldn’t come home? When you wouldn’t so much as fucking talk to me? Come. Here.”
On feet that didn’t want to move, Bella shuffled toward him until she stood at his knees.
“How did you sleep?”
She’d slept wonderful, once she’d actually been able to. “Good.”
“Do you hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.” She hesitated and Harry reached for the tie at her waist. He pulled it loose, his eyes locked with hers. “Turn around. Lower the robe. And show me.”
He flipped on the lamp situated behind the chair and waited.
She’d done nothing wrong, but he had a way of making her feel like a child without saying a word. Nothing more than a look, a frown, a stance. His dominance wasn’t loud or flashy and she’d have never spared a glance for anyone like that. No, he was quiet and controlled, confident. That worked for her. He held himself to a higher standard, even back in college when he was nothing more than a fellow student, he had that kind of authoritarian reputation.
She was drawn to him like a moth to a flame and when he sent her away from him, she drifted cold through the days.
She gave him her back and let the robe slide down her shoulders. When the collar was around her waist, he pulled it the rest of the way, down below her bottom cheeks.
“There’s still a great deal of heat coming from your skin,” he said softly. “There will be a little bruising, I’m afraid. Did you miss being spanked?”
“Yes, H — Sir.”
“Was it too much last night?”
“No, Sir.” She’d wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t lie to him.
“That night at the club, seeing you stripped to a corset, boots, and a mask… Your back to the gathered crowd as I unlaced you, baring your back for the Cat… I was so proud that you were mine. I was so proud to show you off. My career. Our reputation in the community. Nothing mattered to me in those moments but us, you so strong and beautiful in your submission. You wanted it as much as I did. I swore I’d take care of you…” The more he spoke, the less steady his voice. He grasped her by the waist and urged her to face him again, the robe still around her thighs and still hanging on her wrists. Her breasts were bare, her nipples tight and hard. But he didn’t touch them. He didn’t even look at them.
Instead, he laid his head against her belly, kissed her ever so gently at the top of the scar where she’d had an emergency C-section when Noah was a breech baby.
That was one of those moments when Harry Walker was scared and looked so helpless it made every part of her ache.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry I sent you away. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting you out of the spotlight. I just didn’t want anyone to have the chance to drag you through the mud if they took me down. I didn’t know what I was up against. I… We… I’m so sorry, Bella.”
His tears leaked against her and rolled down her stomach and the emotion caught her off guard. It shouldn’t have. He’d shown depth and emotion before, but this was something she hadn’t expected.
And she had no idea what she was supposed to do, so she did the only thing that made any sense in the moment.
She slid to her knees and held him.
He’d been hurting and it was easier for her to stay away if she believed he hadn’t been. But that was her own stubbornness, her own way of getting back at him. He sent her away, so she’d just stay gone.
Neither of them had been fair to the other.
Married for so long with kinky secrets. Three kids in. And a successful political career.
But they’d never been through anything close to someone trying to ruin them. Not just ruin Harry, but their family, and for nothing more than an election.
Lives had been destroyed for less.
“We could have weathered it all together,” she said. “You didn’t have to do it alone. I know you’re my dominant, but you’re my husband, too, and we took vows to stand with one another, for better or for worse. When something threatens our relationship, we should be stronger together.”
His arms wrapped around her and with little effort and zero resistance on her part, he lifted her into his lap, cradling her against his chest. Her legs straddled his thighs and in the chair, it was a tight fit, but she wouldn’t have traded the intimacy and closeness for a more comfortable seat.
His breath warmed her neck, his scruff abraded her shoulder, his hands gripped her flesh, his fingers digging in.
She inched as close as she could get without crawling inside him
She was as in love with him today as she had ever been.
He was as broken without her as she was without him. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t glimpsed bits and pieces of it last night and this morning.
No one had ever had that kind of power over him and he’d sent her away to protect her, not caring what it did to him.
“I don’t want you to remove my collar, but I don’t want to go back to Charleston either.”
She hadn’t planned to say that, but both their defenses were down and it was better to get the truths out in the open.
His tear stained face tore at her and she wiped the remnants with her thumbs, licking at the saltiness. She was rewarded with heat filling his eyes.
Apparently, her desire for him was gearing up to play. Something else unplanned. He had a way of upending her life and what she thought she wanted. All by suggestion. All by his mere existence in most cases.
Because… In the end… All she wanted was him.
“What do you want to do? Where do you want to live?”
“Here. I don’t want to give up my teaching position and I want to live here.”
“Together?”
She both loved and hated the uncertainty in his question. “Yes. Together.” There was no point in denying that she wanted her husband back in her life, in her bed, and spanking her each and every morning as he’d done since she was nineteen.
“Done.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes. Just like that. I’m no longer serving the people in the great state of South Carolina thanks to Glenn Briars. I can turn over what clients I have left and see if Roger wants to buy me out.”
“But South Carolina is your home.”
“Changing your mind?”
She was aware that’s what it sounded like. “No.”
He framed her face in his hands and she tilted her head to press her cheek into his palm. “You’re my home, Bella mine. I lived up here for four years in college. I can live out the rest of my life here if this is where you want to be.”
“Will you kiss me, Sir?”
“Every day if you’ll let me,” he whispered as he lowered his lips to hers.
The first touch after so long was like the very first time. Tentative. Breath mingling. Light and barely there. She didn’t know who was the one holding back, but she knew it couldn’t go on that way.
She licked at the seam of his mouth and was rewarded with his tongue pressing at the seam of hers. She opened and invited him inside.
* * * * *
Harry invaded her. He plundered and took from her mouth the kiss she’d offered.
She tasted of the sip of coffee from earlier, of morning breath, of Bella. It had been so long since he’d touched her lips, since he’d touched any part of her.
He fought between taking it slow and taking her hard in the chair.
They’d never been shy about where they had sex, not even their first time, but something about this time was different.
They’d been estranged. She’d tried to stay away, considered them separated. He didn’t want to fuck this up. He wanted to make sure he didn’t do anything that would drive another wedge between them.
He eased his mouth away and watched her open her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Concern etched lines in her brow. Harry smoothed them with his thumbs.
“Nerves,” he answered honestly.
“Me, too,” she admitted. “But I want this. I wanted this ever since I saw you last night.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because we didn’t need it to complicate unresolved issues.”
“Did the spanking complicate them?”
“I think it helped clarify them. But you know how much I love sex with you. It’s my favorite exercise. And you know I can’t think straight when we have sex.”
“Only if I make you come and come and come…” The last was said against her mouth just before he devoured her again. She wiggled against the front of his body and humped his lap. He grabbed her, careful of her still red and smarting cheeks, but he wanted her to know he was there, he was serious.
He pulled her up tight and she ground down on his denim covered erection.
“Please, Sir…”
“Please, Sir, what?”
“Please, Sir, everything…”
Harry chuckled. “Hold on to me.” He carefully eased them up out of the chair and she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. He held her at the side of the bed for a bit, relishing in her closeness, in her nakedness, in the soft plush weight of her in his embrace.
“Drop me, Sir… Drop me and take me.”
“I don’t think I want to drop you, but I will take you.” He lowered her to the mattress and tried to extricate himself from her, but she wouldn’t let go.
“Like this. Dressed.”
“Really?”
“Yes, please. It’s been a really long time, Sir. I don’t want to wait.”
He slipped one arm out from under her and unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. Her arms dropped from around his neck and reached inside his underwear to pull out his cock.
He hissed a breath out between clenched teeth. It had been so long since she’d touched him, since anyone other than his own hand had touched any part of him, especially that part. He’d been starving for her attention, her desire, her need for him. He’d been starving for a taste of her, a sniff of her, a feel of her.
She stroked him between her palms and he pushed his pants to his hips as she eased her legs wide, though kept them hooked behind his back.
“You can slow down, pet,” he said, stroking his fingers down her sides and up over her thighs.
“I don’t think I can.”
“You were ready to give my collars back a little bit ago.”
“Silly pet,” she muttered. “Not enough sleep, coffee, or sex.”
Harry snickered. “Is that a change of heart you’ve had? Always my little wildcat.”
She nodded excitedly and purred. “Always, Sir. Always.”
He kissed her hard, drawing a moan from her throat when he pulled her legs from around him and pushed them wide. “Keep them up and open. Don’t you dare lower them.”
“Y-yes, Sir.”
“You’re sure this is what you what? There’s no going back. No changing your mind. I sent you away and hurt us in the process. It was for the right reasons, but the action was wrong. I won’t let you go again.”
The wheels turned in her head. The play of thought through her eyes fascinated him. Intelligent, educated, high brow in some societal circles, infinitely complex, his Bella had intrigued him from the very beginning.
She challenged his intellect, his morals, his values, his motives, and his sexuality. Someone like Bella submitting to him was more than he could’ve ever dreamed possible. And he knew a submissive woman in his life, in his bed was the only way he would have a woman. He’d known that from early on in his sexual discovery.
Taken by an older woman when he was barely eighteen who showed him all about taking a woman in hand, all about the quiet ego of a being a dominant, all about the pleasure of a woman on her knees at his feet and that if he found just the right woman, that pleasure would be equally hers, if not more so.
Bella fit that description to a T.
She shifted and moved on the bed as he teased the outer edges of her sex. So hot. So wet. So plump.
“What’s it to be, Bella mine?”
She angled her hips, writhed and searched for his touch exactly where she wanted it. He knew the spot.
“Please, Sir.”
“I will. I just need an answer. Will this be the first in a very long time, or the last?”
Her eyes widened and horror marred her beautiful face. “No.” She shook her head, but his hips never stopped moving. “No. Not the last.”
“Then tell me… I want to hear you say yes.”
She was lovely this way. All full of need and heat and hunger.
The second he sank into her, she’d buck and whine.
He used his thumbs to tease the edges of her labia, but it wasn’t only Bella being teased. He enjoyed driving her wild. He enjoyed touching her after all this time. But he needed to slide inside her. He needed to seat himself all the way within her walls.
His cock dripped, the single drop sliding down the length. He stroked his finger through the thick fluid and touched it to her mouth. She greedily sucked the tip in. “Mmmm…”
“Bella… Say it. Don’t make me spank it out of you.”
“Oooohhh…”
“No, girl. Not ooohhh. Your bottom is too tender for what I’d do. I’d have to settle for your lovely pussy or your equally lovely breasts.”
She shivered through the heat in the room, the heat between them.
“Is that what you want?”
She continued to suck on the tip of his finger and his other hand continued to tease between her legs, never touching her clit, never giving her exactly what she was looking for. Oh, he would. And soon. Just not until…
“Bella,” he admonished. “Your answer…” He trailed his finger down from her mouth, down her chin, and with the aid of his thumb, he flicked at one of her nipples making her arch. He flicked the other one, slightly harder than the first, and she bowed up again.
Back and forth, he popped her nipples until she wasn’t sure she wanted to cry or beg. Her mouth opened and closed. Her eyes did the same.
Her palms returned to his cock, stroking the length, bumping up against the head. “I can come like this, pet. Is that what you want? I can torment your body, keep you from that climax you’re trying to find.”
“P-please no. Please, Sir.”
“Then tell me, Bella.”
He lifted his hand from between her legs and used both to pinch her nipples, to pull at them, to tug them, to twist them. She strained and the muscles in her thighs began to tremble.
God, he’d missed this. Holding her on a thin thread, playing her like a fine tuned instrument.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No… Yes… I don’t know.”
Harry let go of her nipples and she mewled. He dragged his short nails down her chest and stomach, using the flat of one hand to smack her clit. She howled. “What a lovely sound. Do you want another?”
She shook her head in the negative, but the word out of her mouth… “Yes.”
Again, he smacked her clit, returning his other hand to one of her nipples. For each smack on her pussy, on her clit, he also squeezed her nipple.
She humped the air and started to lower her legs. “Please, Sir…”
Awash in sensation, perspiration beading on her forehead and chest, Harry pinched her clit, rubbed it between his fingers. “Look at me. Focus on me. Good girl. The rebirth and new beginning for us or the last time we’ll be together, Bella. Answer me.”
Seconds ticked by as they stared at one another. Her breath heavy, her eyes hot with emotion and need. Her pussy wet and open.
He’d rarely seen her look so beautiful. She was lush, a goddess, his goddess…
“Always us, Sir. Always us. Please… Please, Sir…”
He kissed her gently. “Good girl,” he whispered. He let go of her nipple and angled his cock at her entrance. Slow and steady, he pushed inside, pushed inch by inch, pushed until he was all the way and his balls rested on her bottom.
She throbbed and still he held her clit.
He pulled out, then drove back in, and still he held her clit.
She whimpered, reaching for him, fisting her hands in the bed sheet, and still he held her clit.
“If I let go, are you going to come, Bella mine?”
His control was near to snapping and he knew by the tension in her body that she was, too. Even after a year apart, he knew her signs and signals like he knew his own name.
“Yesss…” she hissed. “Yes, yes, yes… Please, Sir. Please… Please let me come…”
“You’ve missed begging, haven’t you?”
“I h-have… Please…”
“How could I resist that? So pretty. So sweet, so desperate…” He thought to tease her more by making her choose between her orgasm and his cock, but he was afraid his cock would find a way to murder him if he so much as uttered a word.
With hard thrusts and one hand braced against one of her thighs, he let go of her clit and she screamed through the release, through the vice like clutching of his cock by her vaginal muscles, through the jerking of his hips as he emptied his come inside her.
Harry kept all his sounds buried. He wanted to groan and curse, but he wanted to hear only her. He wanted her sounds. They were like music to his ears and he could listen to that particular symphony for the rest of his life.
Lucky for him, he’d get to do just that.