Thirteen
My eyes followed Leo as he locked the front door and turned off the Open sign in the window the moment the clock turned six and the last customer had slipped out. He turned to where I sat behind the register and I gulped from the weight of his stare.
“You ready?”
Again, I attempted to swallow the apprehension he had a way of eliciting inside me. I nodded and stood on jellied legs. My gaze flickered to his hands and I noticed he hadn’t yet suited up for our playdate. Leo turned from me and my brow furrowed as I watched him take a seat in one of the two chairs near the coffee bar.
“You agreed to whatever I want,” he said smugly. “I want to talk.”
Motioning toward the chair opposite him, a little smile tugged at his lips. I tongued the back of my top teeth in an effort to hide my sneer. Of course he wanted to talk. I should’ve seen this coming. I took the few steps to erase the distance between us and dropped into the comfy chair, crossing my legs away from him.
Leo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, dropping his head for a beat before holding me captive with his blue eyes. “This isn’t what I had in mind initially, but after our conversation on the phone it became very clear to me that I’ve misled you.”
For some reason, my chest constricted and lit up with a prickle of painful electricity.
“When I first met you, I was instantly aware of your submissive predisposition—something I assume, now, you barely recognized within yourself. So I flirted and made that remark about punishment. I went home that night telling myself over and over again that I had to wait a few more days before asking you out or otherwise Oliver would kill me.”
Flirted? That dark stare and whisper of a smile as he alluding to tanning my hide was Leo’s definition of flirting? I didn’t speak up as his words continued to flow, detonating little mind blowing bombs in me along the way.
“But the next day, you and that little laugh asking me if I’d come upstairs to punish you…I couldn’t resist. Sloane, I should’ve asked you out first. I shouldn’t have driven us halfway down a road you’d never even set foot on with my impulsiveness. But if I’d made it clear that I wanted to do more than play, be more than sex—that I wanted to get to know you, to date you, to take you places and attempt to make you smile by using more than my body I don’t think you would’ve said yes. We wouldn’t be here right now if we’d done things in order. I don’t know anything about your past, why you’re here, why you ran from that idiot who hurt you, but I know whatever skeletons you have in your closet…” Leo paused and sucked in a ragged breath as if preparing himself for the rest of his statement. Or maybe he was preparing me. I breathed in deeply too and our eyes met as I exhaled. “You let me race us down this road to punish yourself. You used me,” he finished.
I sucked in a breath and let my eyes fall to the floor. I’d forgotten one thing. Leo read me so well; it was as though he was the creator of the cipher that translated me for the rest of the world. My silence and the way I shifted admitted without words that he was right. Guilt flooded me and the magnetism we’d had from the very start pulled my knees toward him and my eyes to his.
“I am not two different men, Sloane. I’m one man with distinct sides—differing emotions, differing actions—but I’m always me. To classify me as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde solely based on the fact that I can be both gentle and severe is…” he sighed and shook his head with widened eyes. “Honestly, it’s insulting. You want to know why people talk about their respective roles when it comes to S and M? Because it needs to be crystal clear that Dominant and submissive are only titles during agreed upon times. I’m a sexual Dominant, I’m not an asshole. And if you’d take the time to get to know me the way I want to know you, you could see who I am in totality instead of filing me away under Jekyll and Hyde because that’s easier than learning who I am.”
My mouth dropped open as regret churned in my stomach. My heart grew heavier with every line hardening his expression. I didn’t know what to say. He’d assessed me so perfectly, so effortlessly, I couldn’t refute a word he’d said. All I had was an apology resting on my tongue, unable to escape.
“So like I said,” he began, his face softening a bit and easing some of the tension in my muscles. “This isn’t what I thought we’d be doing tonight, but there it is.”
“I—” My voice snuck out before a shudder claimed me and I rearranged in my chair, uncrossing and crossing my legs. “I needed to hear that,” I said. “You’re right…about everything. I’m sorry for mislabeling you—but what you said about me punishing myself—”
Suddenly, my eyes wet with tears as the rationale of scolding myself via Leo’s aggression finally clicked, filling me with even more shame.
“Let me tell you something I’ve learned,” he interrupted, leaning in once more, heating the space around me and quelling the stress I felt. “You might’ve initially been drawn to what I offered to free your inner demons. It’s okay to feel that way. Play can be very therapeutic. But that isn’t why you’ve continued to let me dominate you. Once you completely break through those old feelings, you’ll evolve as submission shows you who you really are. Sexually submissive women are some of the strongest women I’ve ever known. And you are no exception.”
“How does being submissive translate into strength?” I asked skeptically.
A warm hand found mine and for the first time since we’d sat down, I felt that fiery connection linking us together on a higher plane. The feeling of his skin against mine soothed me, warned me, and beckoned my heart all at the same time.
“It’s like I’ve told you before, you’re the one with the choice. The strength it takes to choose to be defenseless and to allow yourself the often incomprehensible ability to find freedom in bondage and discipline…is significant. And personally,” he said with a smile, “it’s the sexiest thing in the world to see.”
A trickle of desire skated down my spine and settled low in my abdomen. I thought about the heavenly spinning feeling submitting to Leo had given me and indeed, it felt like freedom. It felt like tapping into a part of my soul I’d long forgotten and I wondered if my limits were pushed even further if I’d uncover my true self. My essential existence.
“If the submissive is the strong one, what does that make you?”
With startling blue flames for irises, Leo searched my face and held silent for a beat, still clutching my hand on my knee.
“Your shepherd.”
I thought about Melanie as he continued to lead me toward the inevitable with his convincing philosophies. I thought about her home—transformed into a dungeon of sin once a month. I thought about her stunning good looks at the party juxtaposed with her natural, everyday beauty at the coffee shop dressed down in loungewear. And I thought about her daughter, smiling shyly, completely unaffected by what Melanie must’ve kept private from her. Just like Leo had said after our first planned scene, the things Leo did to me, the things he wanted to continue to do, and the levels that I wanted to explore with him in return didn’t have to define me.
But could they transform me?
Leo let out a deep breath and cocked his head to one side, offering a subtle smile. “Do you have a cat?”
“What?”
“Do you have a cat? Or a pet of some sort? Something that needs to be fed? I assume you don’t have a dog since I’ve been to your apartment, but cats have a habit of hiding.”
I shook my head and furrowed my brow. “No, I don’t have any animals. Why?”
“So there’s no need for you to go back to your place tonight?”
Darkness settled behind his gaze and I remembered my free will. And as I shook my head and rose to my feet, I chose to fall into his darkness. I chose to wrap myself in all that he was, intent on seeing every part of him in between the two sides I’d already come to crave.
***
The chill in the air caused my breath to fog in front of me and I realized I was nearly panting with anticipation as Leo unlocked his door. With a hand at the small of my back, he ushered me inside and flipped on a light. From the street, the small bungalow house was as cute as the rest of Salem with its blue shutters and mums planted out front. But inside, the masculine décor screamed Leo Calloway. From the entryway, I caught a glimpse of the living room and kitchen around the corner but I didn’t move. I glanced over at the office to my left behind glass double doors and saw the massive bookshelves filled and almost overflowing. The large dark wood desk with a leather chair sitting behind it sent visions of Leo deep in thought, working on God knows what, through my mind.
I took a few steps and made my way down the short hall that left me standing with the kitchen on my right and the living room spread out in front of me. Large windows on the back wall of the house showed the wooded area behind his home bathed in moonlight.
“I love your house,” I breathed, taking in the gray leather, riveted sofa, metal coffee table, large flat screen TV above the white stone fireplace, and the two large abstract canvases on the wall. When my head turned to look over the kitchen, I felt him grab the collar of my jacket and the strap of my purse, slipping them off of me without a word. I made a move to glance back at him when he spoke.
“Don’t move.”
I sucked in a breath and kept my back to him.
“I’m done talking,” he rasped. “Are you?”
Impulsiveness overwhelmed me. The need to feel his lips against mine made me turn against his wishes and reach for him greedily, pushing up on my toes for a kiss. Leo’s hands, already sheathed in black gloves, snatched both of my wrists as he stepped into me, pressing my back against the wall and pinning my hands above my head.
Hot breath tickled my nose and cheeks as he moved his face close to mine, scanning me carefully. I sighed and dropped my gaze, letting go of control and praying for the spontaneity I’d craved right from the start. Only now, I wanted more. I wanted him to push me further and bend me just shy of my breaking point. I knew Leo would know where that line would be drawn and from the look in his eye, I could tell he was ready to approach it without crossing.
“I’m done talking,” he repeated through clenched teeth. “Are you?”
“Yes, Sir,” I sighed.
The groan from the back of his throat before he brought his lips to ghost over mine thickened my blood. Without making full contact, his tongue slipped into my mouth and I met him with a matched slow dancing lick. It wasn’t a kiss. It wasn’t anything I’d ever experienced, but the succulent sweetness of our tongues coyly lapping at each other was more erotic than the wildest of moments I’d spent with any other man. Leo’s kiss had the power to rule me and this—this had the power to make me do something I never envisioned I would do…
I struggled against him and Leo let up though he still held me by the wrists and with his stare.
“What? You want to move?” he asked.
I nodded and one side of his mouth kicked up in amusement. It was as if I could hear him thinking about letting me have my way just to see what I would do. His hands loosened their grasp and slid down my raised arms. Wetting his lips, he took a step back and gave one nod.
With shaking hands, I tugged my shirt over my head and tossed it aside, then undid my pants, shucking them to the floor before stepping out of them completely. Leo surveyed my body, clothed in only a simple red lace bra and black satin panties, and brought one leather-gloved hand to his chin.
“That’s what you wanted?” he breathed. “To undress for me?”
I gulped and shook my head no.
His eyes narrowed and I took a final breath. My last free breath before I gave him the thing he’d promised to earn. He’d earned it and I was ready for him to cultivate it, no longer feeling fickle or afraid of what he offered—sexually or emotionally. I was all in. And as I slowly lowered to my knees before him, looking up into his astounded eyes just once before lowering my head, the sound of the shuddering inhale he took imprinted itself in my mind forever.