Submission
A sudden POP! from the street below was followed by car alarms. It made Riley jump and she shut her eyes, though she composed herself as quickly as she could. He could see her fear from the way her body trembled; he felt it hanging in the air between them. Her hair was a jumble of waves cascading behind her back and it felt soft in his hand as he brushed a lock off her left shoulder. She flinched from his touch and Ashe felt his throat tighten.
“It’s only a car backfiring,” he whispered and she nodded, opening her eyes again though she kept her gaze on a spot in the middle of his shirt.
For the next few minutes, Ashe circled her. The exhaustion he’d felt earlier was gone. Anger still coursed through him but there was relief, too, like a heavy weight suddenly lifted from his shoulders. Knowing what he was didn’t guarantee that she’d stay with him, but at least there would be nothing hidden between them.
Ashe watched the way her body responded to his movements, trembling in waves. He knew his silence unnerved her as much as waiting seemed to terrify her.
Should he tell her to get down on her knees now and serve him as a submissive served her Sir? Should he order her to lay on his lap and spank her, watch her skin bloom red with his marks before running his fingers along her face wet with her tears and telling her she was a good submissive? Even if she’d grow wet from the combination of pain and pleasure, was it really what she wanted? Or was she simply afraid to lose him to someone else, someone like Catriona who seemed to be waiting for her to surrender, and therefore she felt she had to be whatever Ashe wanted her to be?
If she really wanted to see all of him, would seeing him the way he used to be complete her idea of him, the one so different from the man she met in that elevator? What then would it accomplish if it would only destroy everything they had together? And destroy her as well? Ashe remembered the day he’d promised her he’d never let anyone hurt her, least of all, him. Atlantic City where he’d lip-synced his love to her no matter how silly it made him look.
So much for all his promises, not when he’d break every single one of them right now. He failed Riley the moment Catriona re-entered his life.
Ashe stopped his deliberate circling and stood in front of her, lifting her chin with his finger and forcing her to gaze up at him. He wanted to see the innocence in her eyes one last time before he took it away.
“You keep asking me to show you the real me, all of me, even when he’s been here the whole time,” Ashe began. “You keep insisting you need to see the man that I used to be when I was with her, even when the man that I am now is the man I want to be. I’ve been made a better man by your love, but that doesn’t seem to satisfy you.”
Riley looked up, her blue eyes meeting his as her brow furrowed. How beautiful she was in the early morning light that filtered through the blinds, he thought. Ashe brought his hands up to her neck, his fingers curving at her nape, his thumbs stroking her jaw.
“This is me, and this is who I am with you. I will never be any other man but this.” Ashe bent his head and kissed her, just brushing his lips against hers before pulling away. “I would rather let you go than destroy you more than I already have, and I’d rather sell my soul to the devil than show you the man that I was with Catriona: arrogant and cruel, because I didn’t know then what I really wanted. Just as I would never ask you to show me the drug addict that you were three years ago, I’m not going to show you the man that I was with no good reason to do so. That part of my past will remain in the past, even if it means not having you in my future.”
His voice broke and his breath caught in his throat as he abruptly let her go and walked out of the room. No matter how much he loved her Riley deserved a normal life, one without him and his ego. He ran down the stairs, intending to check into a hotel nearby to save Riley the trouble of going back to her apartment. He still had a performance that evening and needed to rest.
At the front door, Ashe was about to slip his feet into his trainers when he heard Riley’s voice calling his name. He stopped, closing his eyes as she came closer and her hand touched his arm. He leaned against the wall for support, keeping his back to her.
“Please look at me, Ashe,” she whispered.
“I can’t.”
Riley ducked under his arm and slipped in front of him, standing between him and the wall. She looked up, still dressed in her black negligee, her hand caressing his stubbled jaw. She was all softness and grace, nothing like the man that he was, broken and hardened on the inside by the things he’d done. His history with Catriona played and replayed on a loop inside his head.
“We can’t go on like this, Riley,” said Ashe. “We can’t keep running around in circles while Catriona wins at every turn, all because I don’t want to see you hurt any more. I made you a promise a long time ago and I won’t go back on it, even it means I have to let you go.”
“You don’t have to. I’m sorry.”
Ashe felt her arms around his neck and savored the warm softness of her lips against his. Her kiss began as a soft caress of skin against skin, her fingers behind his neck playing with his hair, breaking through the defenses he’d built. When her tongue slipped between his teeth, he captured it and she moaned, her body melting into his arms.
But Ashe couldn’t allow himself the pleasure of her body after what he’d been so close to doing; he pulled away, but Riley kept her hands behind his head.
“You’ve always been my Dominant. We just haven’t given it that name,” she whispered. Ashe frowned, shaking his head, but Riley placed her finger against his lips. “Whenever you mark me with your mouth and your teeth or even your hand, no matter how playful it may be, it’s still you telling everyone I’m yours. Every time you hold back my orgasms, when you make me beg for you, that’s you in control of me, telling me whom I belong to without having to say the words.”
“Riley—”
“And when you hold me down whenever you make love to me,” she took a deep intake of breath and leaned her mouth closer to his ear, “whenever you’re fucking me, that’s you owning me, Ashe. You never needed whips and chains to play the game. You never have, with me; not when I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s not that I want you to be the way you were with her, but I want you the way you are, and always have been, with me.”
As she drew away Ashe studied her face, her eyes gazing back defiantly at him. “Even if it’s painful?” he asked, frowning as he traced her lower lip with his thumb.
She nodded, her gaze drifting lower as if it shamed her to reply. Ashe tilted her head to face him, needing to see her eyes when she spoke.
“Especially then.”
Riley was right. Ashe needed neither paddles nor cuffs to do the things he had done to her before that morning, not when he had her willing submission, though this had never been on his agenda. He didn’t know if curiosity drove her to push him as she did, or the frustration of knowing that what had once given him so much pleasure was denied to her. Riley would never know that side of Ashe which had emerged through Catriona’s training, however, not when Riley brought out something very different in him.
Perhaps the years away from Catriona and what she had taught him had tempered him. Time and experience had made him realize that what really turned him on now had less to do with any sexual act and more to do with the person involved, Riley; with her, love was inextricable from sex. Ashe knew enough to realize that, whatever the cause, he needed to be gentle with her.
He saw the determination in her eyes; no matter what happened, she was going through with this. She’d challenged him, and although she hadn’t expected him to respond the way he did, turning into the Dominant she had demanded to see, she’d pushed her fear aside and waited. He slid the straps of her lace slip off her shoulders and a tug of his fingers sent it to the floor, leaving her wearing only a thong.
She knew better than to cover herself as she stood in the bedroom, back where it had all started, simply waiting as he retrieved a square, flat box from his closet.
He returned in front of her, and a look of uncertainty crossed her face a he started to open the lid.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Riley,” Ashe murmured. “I’d been saving this for our vacation, but there are other uses for it as well.”
Taking out the spring collection scarf by a well-known French designer, Ashe saw the fear disappear from her face. With a shy smile she watched him fold the silk floral scarf into a triangle, tucking the pointed tip with more folds. Though he’d planned to give it to her the following weekend during their trip to Miami, there was no better time than now for her to use it.
“Close your eyes,” Ashe murmured. As she did, he slipped the scarf over her eyes and secured it with a knot behind her head. He could have used one of the many sleep masks he owned, usually acquired from airlines and hotels, but there was no excitement in that; he’d miss the expression on Riley’s face when she realized he had another gift for her, only this time it was being used for something else. No one had ever pampered her before; even Gareth had admitted that he’d been broke when they were together and couldn’t spoil her as he would have liked. Spoiling Riley was something Ashe intended to do as often as she’d let him, even now.
For the next hour, Ashe showed her a part of him that no one had ever seen, not even Catriona. This was a side of him only for Riley, that of a Dominant madly in love with his woman, taking her pleasure to the limit. Her gasps filled the room, her voice breaking as she begged him to fill her, a request he denied her over and over again. He could not even call her his submissive, for deep into the experience he found himself wondering who was really dominating whom; his own self-control threatened to break each time her body arched toward him on the bed where he’d tied her with the scarves she used for her belly-dancing lessons, loving the way the bells tinkled every time she moved.
He left marks on her body with his teeth and his mouth, even his hands when he spanked her lightly for disobeying him. He couldn’t even remember what it was she had refused to do which merited that first slap of his hand against her rear; he remembered only the whimper that greeted the sting of his hand against her skin and the word that slipped between her lips.
More.
But there would be no more. Ashe wanted to make love to her the way he always did, with no masks, no pain and no more games. He untied the scarves that bound her, pulled off her blindfold and entered her, her arms clinging to him and her legs wrapped around his waist. As he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of rose and neroli, he felt her body shudder beneath him and heard his name whispered hoarsely. Then he silenced her cries with a kiss and opened his eyes to watch her break beneath him, losing himself completely in whatever he could take from her: her love, her heart, her soul.
Not her submission. Never that.