There are very few times in my life where I think, hey, maybe you should learn to control your dick.

This is one of them.

I’m hard.

I’m hard because, right now, I want to tie her ass up, and then I want to fuck some sense into her.

She looks down and sees my chub, rolls her eyes, and growls as she stomps away.

I stick my foot out and catch the silk sheet. Three steps later, it’s on the floor and my wife is bare and fucking beautiful. Then she turns around and stomps once.

“You need to fix this mess and get a handle on yourself. We’re going to be parents soon!”

There are also a very few times when I have control, but don’t want it. This … This is one of them.

I grab my dick, stroke it, and smile at her.

“You are such a child!”

“You said to get a handle—”

“Grow up,” she mumbles. Then she turns around and stomps up the stairs.

I hear the bedroom door slam shut and decide I better go kiss it better.

When I reach the door, it’s locked.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I joke.

She doesn’t.

“Kitten, I will huff and puff, and then make you blow my brains out.”

Still nothing.

Son of a bitch.

I walk back downstairs and grab the album out of the garbage. No way in hell is that thing going out in the trash. For starters, it’s mine. And that night … That fucking night was about her, me, and a commitment that is deeper than love.

Bekah and I had never really talked about a wedding, but the couple times it was brought up, she mentioned not wanting her parents in the same room. They hate one another, and I couldn’t very well invite my family and leave hers out. Therefore, the topic was always discarded.

Then, it hit me one night in Italy after far too many drinks that I wasn’t waiting for everyone to have a change of heart and come together in perfect harmony. It wasn’t about them. It’s about us.

We were at a fellow Dom, Antonio’s, party when I saw Rafe, who had performed a beautiful ceremony for another couple we had spent time with a few months prior, and my wheels started turning. I knew we would return to the Shore, soon and didn’t want to wait until we did.

A week later, right before another one of Antonio’s party, she walked out of the bathroom wearing a dress that was almost too revealing to leave the house in, she was beaming.

Her dress was very short, nearly sheer, deep red, and stunning. It took a lot for her to finally look at herself through my eyes. I had never stopped telling her, training her with words and touch, to see and feel how beautiful she is, and it was clear that night that she had finally seen it. She never looked more beautiful.

I hold up the photo album and look at it.

She and I are standing before a Saint Andrew’s cross, her in that fucking dress, her arms wrapped in silk ribbon behind her back, and me holding a collar that had been locked in my car’s console for this moment time to come.

I rub my thumb across the picture over my wife, remembering the words she said to me that day.

“I humbly accept this collar as a symbol of your ownership of me. I promise to value your truth, rest in your strength, and grow stronger in your care. I pledge my life, servitude, and obedience. I am yours, and being yours means I know I will be looked after, treated, and tended to with the utmost care. In return, I offer the gift of myself to you … forever.”

I look at my face in another picture, seeing love, pride, and responsibility.

My words to her …

“I give you this collar as a symbol of ownership. I pledge to keep you safe, care for your every need, love you, and provide the discipline that you require. Wear it with pride and know that there is no other I would want to call me Master. Forever Steel, Bekah.”

I take a deep breath as I close the album, one which will be in the safe, not the fucking trash, because it’s more precious to me than gold. Then I grab the ring of keys to our many rooms, walk up the stairs, and unlock the door to our bedroom.

Sitting on the end of our bed, wrapped in the comforter, she turns so her back is to me. “I need privacy.”

Hormones.

After grabbing a suit and tie from my closet, I walk over to her, kissing the top of her head. “And I promised to tend to your utmost care. I’m gonna drive into work. I’ll send the car.”

I don’t wait for her to respond. I just walk out the door.