“Just thinking I’m feeling too comfy to move for sex.”
I shook with laughter. “But what kind of mistress would I make if we don’t have sex?”
He didn’t reply at first. I’d meant it as a joke, but his face was serious. Way too serious.
“Not a mistress.” He tilted back his head and gazed up at me. “My Sir.”
It felt different hearing him say it when we weren’t playing or having sex. He made it sound so matter-of-fact.
“Do you fully know what that means?” I asked slowly, capturing his hand and linking our fingers.
“Not everything but some.” He glanced down at our interlaced fingers. “That night I came by when your father was worried about you, I overheard a bit of your conversation with Declan.”
“Which part?”
“About being a Dom and something to do with a drop.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Eavesdropping?”
“Purely by accident.” He looked so sincere I believed him. “I did some digging on my own but only surface-level stuff. Will you explain it to me?”
“What exactly do you want me to explain?”
“What it means that you’re a Dom and me calling you Sir. Maybe about a Dom drop?”
My throat felt constricted at all he wanted to know. I’d meant to reveal only a little to him tonight, but since he seemed genuinely curious, why not?
“First, why don’t you tell me what you think about calling me Sir? I thought you would’ve questioned me more about it, but you didn’t.”
“It’s like I said.” He planted a kiss at the base of my neck. “You wanted me to call you Sir, and I wanted you. I would’ve said anything to have you.”
“But…”
He eased back from me and smirked. “Why are you so sure there is a but?”
“There better be a but. Otherwise, your butt will be sore tonight.”
“Not exactly a threat if that’s what I want.”
“I’m talking more than just fucking you, Charles.” I grabbed his ass with my free hand and squeezed. “I’m talking spanking you.”
“With your hand?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
Was it my wishful thinking, or did he have a hitch in his breath as he asked that?
“I’ll tell you when you finish summing up what you think about calling me ‘Sir.’ I recall you were at a but.”
“No, you were talking about my butt.”
“Charles,” I growled his name, and a shiver ran through him.
“Okay, fine, I guess I like it.” He was back to that serious frown again. “You see me differently than how the rest of the world does. The business community sees me as someone with clout, power, and wealth. All you see is me as a man. One you boss around, and I love that. I love not being in control when I’m with you.”
He described his submission so beautifully I had little left to add. Maybe he was ready to hear the whole truth of who I was and what I wanted from him. Even if I still doubted my ability to give it to him.
“I get off on it too,” I admitted. “I guess I always have, but I joined the community after I met Heath. In that time, I’ve dominated several subs, but none has ever given me the kind of high you do. I think it’s because the greater the power of the one submitting, the more dominant it makes me feel.”
The words floated between us a couple of minutes as we just lay there, sorting through each other’s words. We had to be careful. We still had a family that wouldn’t be expecting this from us.
But it felt so right—Charles and me.
“I never meant for our affair to get this far, August.”
“Neither did I.” Not at first anyway.
“So we continue as we are, exploring my submission even more?”
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s all I can afford to want.”
I wanted to deny that, but I understood. There was no future for us if we kept our affair a secret, and as things stood between us, neither of us was willing to go public. We had a lot left to learn about each other.
“I dropped by the house yesterday afternoon. You said you’d be here, but you weren’t.”
I glanced down at him in surprise. He never told me that. It all hit me at once. Me telling him I would be home but not, then brushing him off last night, only to show up today with Jackie.
“I lied about that.”
“I figured.”
His body had gone tense, and I hated that. “It’s only because I didn’t want to explain what I was doing at my therapist.”
“You have a therapist?”
“Yeah. I’ve had one since James, that’s my other father, came back into our lives.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“I shouldn’t have lied.” I sat up on the floor. “I never planned to explain fully to you, though, so the lie seemed best.”
“Explain what?”
“Come on. Let me show you.”
I helped him to his feet, and we stepped over the blankets. I led him upstairs, grabbed a key from the drawer in my bedroom, then brought him to my “man cave.”
“It’s not really a man cave, is it?” Charles asked.
“No.”
I opened the door and stepped aside for him to enter first. I followed him and closed the door. Charles didn’t advance into the room, and I had to reach around him to flick on the light.
Everything was exactly the way I’d wanted it to be when I started redecorating the room. The wine-red couch against one wall, the bed outfitted with new head- and footboards to accommodate restraints. A long wooden slat across one wall with hooks from which hung my assortments of floggers, ticklers, whips, and canes.
“Oh my god,” Charles gasped, moving over to the display case I’d been setting up the day I’d sent him the dick pic.
He peered through the glass at the different toys I’d bought. Butt plugs, anal beads, vibrators, cock rings, cock cages, restraints, blindfolds, and even a handheld fuck machine.
“You use all this?” he croaked.
“Some more than others. I cater to a sub’s needs, so I keep them at hand. That way a sub has many selections to choose from if they don’t have their own.”
“What is that one?” He pointed at a blue cylindrical-shaped toy.
“That’s a pleasure sleeve.”
“What’s it used for?”
“This one’s specially designed for transmen who experience growth to their privates,” I explained, sliding the glass aside, then picked it up and showed him. “It’s from medical-grade silicone and uses suction to create sensation.”
“That’s incredible. I didn’t know they needed special things.” I closed the glass.
He walked around with wide eyes, examining the items and asking questions like a child in a candy store that needed to know all the flavors of the sweets in the jars. I gradually relaxed as there seemed no criticism at all in his questions. He just wanted to know how something worked.
“But why do you have so many?” He turned to me. “How many subs do you anticipate coming here?”