Chapter Three

She’d already washed her hair and shaved her legs and underarms when she heard the door open. Tense with excitement, she expected Jared to step into the shower with her, but he dawdled over ripping into some sort of packaging and running water in the sink, humming under his breath the whole time. Then his voice came to her through the curtain. “Princess, brace your hands against the wall beneath the showerhead, spread your feet and bend over until the spray is hitting your lower back.”

Confused and a bit anxious, Grace followed his instructions, waiting breathlessly for his next move. She didn’t have to wait long. The rings supporting the shower curtain clinked over the rod as he pushed it forward and stepped in behind her. She wanted to look at him but didn’t dare when they were in Sir/Princess mode.

A couple of thumps told her he’d set something on the edge of the tub before the curtain closed once more, and then his calloused hands slid over her hips. His thick, hard cock pressed against her ass when he leaned over her back, blocking the spray. “Have you had an enema before?”

Her eyes widened. They hadn’t done this thirty years ago—but, of course, Alec had been a surprise that night. “Um…yes, Sir?”

“There is no right or wrong answer, Princess,” he chuckled. “So you have?”

Back then she hadn’t, but he wouldn’t know that.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Medicinal or recreational?”

Well hell, how was she going to explain that? She hadn’t had appendicitis yet. “Medicinal.”

“What for?”

She sighed. “Sir, you’re ruining the mood.”

“Tell me, Princess,” he rumbled, anchoring her against his chest with an arm around her waist.

“Constipation, okay?” Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a lie—at the time, she’d thought that was what it was and given herself an enema that resulted in a ruptured appendix and a four-inch scar on her abdomen.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

If only he knew. “No, Sir.”

“I haven’t required an enema when I fucked you here before,” he said, his other hand drifted down until his fingers teased the crease between her buttocks. “But since we’re having company for Christmas, I think we should do the hospitable thing and cleanse first.”

Thirty years ago, she would have been chafing at the word required. Now it made her shiver.

But then another word caught her attention. “We, Sir?”

“Of course, we. How else will I know it’s done right?”

His angular feet looked huge between hers, and Grace bit her lip as she watched rivulets of water wind down his muscular calves. This wasn’t quite how she’d envisioned spending any part of her very limited time with him, but she couldn’t deny the idea turned her on. So did the silky steel of his thighs rubbing against hers, and the rough fingertips grazing her sensitive folds, making her squirm inside. The scent of wet, masculine flesh, making her suck in air like she’d just finished a marathon.

Skin hunger. God, how had she lived so long without the primal satisfaction of skin on skin? She was starved for it, aching for it, and suddenly nothing mattered but the compulsion to push back into him, to feel his hands all over her body.

“So how do you feel about that, Princess?”

Grace blinked and heat surged into her cheeks when she remembered what he was talking about. “Does it really matter?”

“Of course it matters.” His tongue trailing between her shoulders drew a shiver from her. “It may not change the outcome, but I’d like to know ahead of time if you’re going to freak so I can be prepared.”

When she didn’t answer, Jared’s fingers dipped into her vagina and Grace choked back a moan. Unfortunately, they didn’t stay long but instead spread the embarrassing flood of slick moisture back over her anus.

“Awfully quiet,” he murmured. That was the only warning she got before his fingertip forged into her. She went up on her toes with a moan, her nails scratching at the cold tile. Chills rose on her arms as he twisted deeper, and she burned with both embarrassment and arousal at the sensation of being probed. Oh God, it had been so long!

“You still haven’t told me how you feel about the enema, Princess.”

“I’m not really in a chatty mood right now, Sir,” she told him through clenched teeth, provoking a chuckle.

“You’re already due a punishment. Don’t make me add to it. And no coming,” he added. “That’s for later.”

There was no holding back her groan of dismay. How much later? she wanted to whine. But Jared had no idea how profoundly she needed him already, much less that there was a stopwatch running on their time together, and she couldn’t very well tell him. Steeling herself against the searing pleasure of his explorations, she watched the water swirling past their feet and imagined it was an icy mountain stream.

That might have worked if Jared hadn’t eased his hold on her waist and brushed his fingers over her clit.

“No fair!”

“Fair doesn’t turn you on.”

“Try me, Sir,” she growled.

“My goodness, somebody’s developed a very smart mouth in the space of one morning.”

Grace would have laughed then if her need weren’t so critical. God, if only he knew.

“You’re not going to freak, are you?”

Although he sounded pretty certain, Grace shook her head emphatically. She’d lived the last half of her life steeped in bitter regret over things she’d left unsaid and undone, at the trust he’d earned but she’d failed to give, and she wasn’t about to hold anything back now. For better or worse, Jared was getting all there was to have of Grace Hendrick. She belonged to him, body and soul, for the next eleven-plus hours.

“That’s my girl,” he praised, pressing a lingering kiss on her shoulder. Then he withdrew from her and aimed the showerhead at the wall before turning her to face him. “But first things first. Put your foot up on the ledge”

She obeyed at once and wasn’t the least bit surprised when he picked up a can of shaving cream from the corner of the tub and squirted a mound of white foam into his palm. Thirty years ago, she’d been deeply conflicted about his shaving her. Was it sexy to have him touch her that way, so possessively and yet so clinically? Of course. But it also triggered some annoyance and self-doubt. Women were supposed to have pubic hair, and he’d made her feel like hers was something to be ashamed of.

Not today. Years of studying the power dynamics in BDSM for books she could never finish had shown her that this ritual wasn’t about judgment or Jared’s wanting to change her—it was about his Dominance and her submission. Period. She had submitted reluctantly before. Today she would obey with her whole heart, knowing nothing would please him more.

Going down on one knee, Jared spread the shaving cream over her closely trimmed bush. Then he reached back and produced a straightedge razor.

Grace’s hand flew to cover her crotch. So much for obeying with her whole heart. But that blade looked wicked-sharp and she didn’t want to spend her one night with him in the emergency room getting stitched up.

“There’s a perfectly good safety razor on the caddy,” she said tentatively.

He studied her face for a moment. “Do you trust me, Grace?”

She could have kicked herself. Not only had she not obeyed, but she’d displayed the same lack of trust that had cost her thirty years without him.

Tears in her eyes, she removed her hand without a word.

Jared smiled at her then. “Good girl.”

Thrills of happiness and pain and fear ricocheted through her—what was it about those particular words?—but instead of falling apart, she smiled back. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You’re welcome, Princess. Now don’t move.”

He got right to work, shaving from the center of her mons outward, and his expression was so serious, so intent, she hardly noticed the delicate scrape of the razor over her skin. Jared was unbearably beautiful, with water misting his eyelashes and beard, darkening his blond curls, and beading on his broad, heavy shoulders. He was a work of art, and she devoured him with her eyes, storing up every detail until he said, “Turn around and bend over with your hands on the wall again so I can shave the back.”

Oh dear, this was new.

But she obeyed without hesitation, her heartbeat thick in her throat as he spread the shaving cream between her cheeks and carefully shaved whatever, hopefully minimal, hair was back there. When he was finally done, he used the handheld showerhead to rinse the sensitive flesh he’d just shaved. By the time he was done, she was practically clinging to the ceiling and yowling in her efforts not to come. God, hadn’t she been punished enough already?

“Good girl,” he finally pronounced.

She had about five seconds to enjoy the glow of accomplishment before he held a disposable enema in front of her face and gloated, “Now for the real fun…”

An hour later, she knelt in Jared’s bedroom, naked and squeaky-clean inside and out.

Her ass in the air, her hands clasped behind her back and her forehead on the floor, Grace wallowed in red-hot desire. The cleansing had been almost as brutally intimate and embarrassing as she’d feared. He’d kept her in the shower, holding the solution inside her, until the water ran cool and she was practically dancing with discomfort, then he’d dried her off thoroughly before letting her void. And then he’d insisted on staying and told her she should be grateful he’d let her use the toilet.

But the intimacy, while excruciating, had thrilled her to the bone. She was laid bare to him, completely open to him, and she was accepted. Wanted. Cosseted and coveted.

Had anything ever aroused her more?

“I’m really surprised you’re taking all this without a whimper.” She heard one of his knees crack as he crouched beside her on the carpet and ran a hand over her ass. A thousand words crowded behind her lips, but she remained silent.

“You’ve always been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Princess, but now…” His sigh filled the air. “Sit up, sweetheart. Might as well get the rest of this out of the way before Alec gets here.”

The blood rushing out of her head made her sway for a second and he grasped her upper arm to steady her. “You okay?”

At her nod, he nodded pensively too. He’d dressed in the black slacks and white dress shirt she remembered from that long-ago night, and this time he even wore socks and shoes.

And here she’d thought she couldn’t possibly feel any more naked…

He took her hand in his. “Seriously, Grace, how did you find out about Alec and me?”

It was tempting to just lay it all out for him, but Jared was a diehard pragmatist. If she told him about the magical cupcake, he’d probably think she’d cracked her skull in the fall and rush her to the emergency room.

Instead, she gave him a loving smile. “Sometimes a woman just…knows.”

“Not every woman would be so accepting of a lover who’d experimented with another man.”

She cocked her head and watched him chew the inside of his lower lip. He was nervous. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Jared McLain was actually afraid she was going to reject him.

Which she had, the first time. Oh, she hadn’t intended the rejection to be permanent—she’d just needed some time to think, to come to terms with it all. His sexual explorations with Alec Ruston, years before he met her. The idea of taking two extremely dominant lovers at once. And most importantly, her own submissive nature.

Squelching a sigh of regret, she asked wryly, “Will it make you feel better if I experiment with another woman?”

Though he looked startled, the speculative gleam in his eye told her such a scenario might make him feel very good indeed. Too bad—she wasn’t going to be touching anyone but him tonight. Except maybe Alec.

“I’m having a hard time getting a handle on your mood,” he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d been dipping into the cooking sherry.”

“You don’t have any cooking sherry.” Ignoring his unspoken question, she asked, “So I gather you both decided sex was better with a woman between you?”

“Not just any woman,” he said pointedly, shifting until he was on one knee and resting his forehead against hers. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Grace tilted her face until they were eye to eye and nose to nose, then she touched her lips briefly to his. “Not nearly as long as I’ve waited for you.”

When the doorbell rang, neither of them moved, and it would have been fine with her if they stayed locked together this way forever. She’d never been so totally absorbed in him. It was as if they were melting into one being.

Jared groaned and took her mouth hungrily, seeking her tongue with his and twining them together with exquisite care. All too soon, he pulled away.

“I love you, Grace,” he whispered. “Marry me.” Leaning back, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box.

Oh God, he’d had a ring in his pocket that night? The joy and pain colliding in her heart were so intense that she couldn’t catch a breath. Realizing the full extent of what she’d thrown away doubled her agony, but she toughed it out, determined not to waste a second of their time together.

Squeezing out a raspy “Yes, of course,” she closed her eyes and nodded until the urge to howl had subsided. She’d shed too many tears already.

He was slipping the stunning emerald solitaire onto her finger when Alec said from the doorway, “I can come back later. Or not.”

“Congratulate me, Alec,” Jared said, rising to his feet and pulling her up with him. “I just became the luckiest man in the world.”

Too overwhelmed by emotion to be concerned about her nudity, Grace wiped her eyes and glanced at Alec. “Wait, please.”

The collar that Jared always loved to see her wearing when they played was in his underwear drawer, and she pulled it out with a new reverence. Jared had always claimed that his domination was nothing without her submission, but back then she just didn’t it. She hadn’t been able to reconcile her feminist ideals with her submissive nature, and the slim black leather collar had seemed demeaning, as if wearing it would make her…less, somehow. An object, a toy to be owned rather than a person to be loved and respected.

Now she understood what it represented, and she wanted to weep at how little she’d trusted Jared. How little she’d trusted herself.

When she returned, she knelt at his feet and presented the collar to him with both hands. “I don’t deserve it, Sir, but please, may I wear it?”

He considered her for a moment, his eyes roving over her face. “Just for tonight?”

“I’d wear it forever if I could, Sir,” she said, letting all the yearning in her heart show in her eyes. “But I’ll settle for tonight.”

“You’ve been calling me Sir all afternoon, even before the scene started, and you let me push your boundaries a lot farther than I ever have before. Now you want to wear my collar without my having to twist your arm. Why?”

Grace swallowed hard. It killed her that he even had to ask. “Because you’ve earned my trust, Sir—over and over, in a thousand ways, and I was a fool not to realize it.”

“But why today? What’s changed?”

“I have, Sir,” she told him baldly. “I’m thirty today, and I finally see that trusting you doesn’t mean I’m naïve. Making myself vulnerable to you doesn’t make me weak. And wearing your collar doesn’t make me less than you. Being yours doesn’t take away anything away from me, Sir—it makes me…whole. And I need that, Sir. So much. I don’t want to live another day without it,” she finished in a choked whisper.

Jared cupped her cheek in his palm. “Oh, my love, you don’t know how hearing those words from your lips thrills me.”

He took the collar and stood behind her, watching her face in the mirror with unadulterated possessiveness. “This isn’t your permanent collar, Princess—we’ll have to work on that—but I hope you understand that once I put it on, there’s no going back. You’ll belong to me 24/7. Whatever it takes, whatever you need, we’ll work it out, but you’ll be mine to do with whatever I please.”

No going back. Oh, how she wished it were true!

Nodding, she gave him a tremulous smile. “Yes, Sir. Please. There’s nothing I want more.”

Jared fastened the collar around Grace’s throat and then grasped her shoulders in his strong hands, smiling at her in the mirror. “Good girl.”