Fearless Read online

  She’d been braced for so much worse, for so long now, that her nerves no longer knew how to settle for anything less than absolute panic. She almost got up and walked away from the table before the full meaning—and sexual lack thereof—of his words finally permeated all that baseless certainty that her brain had built up.

  “The kitchen?” she echoed, a startled pang bursting in the pit of her stomach.

  “For a start.” He took the last bite of his breakfast before pushing his plate aside in favor of nursing his coffee mug. He watched her, that incredibly relaxed and super personable smile on his face. The one that said he was nothing but trustworthy and would never hurt anyone, including her. She trembled, knowing better than to believe it.

  And yet, where was the threat? She rubbed her hands against her hips. There was a trap waiting for her somewhere, but she couldn’t see it. What she could see was how unbearable it would be if she didn’t have something to do with her time. Like at Hadlee and Garreth’s house, where they’d all but jumped to assure her she didn’t have to help them every time she tried. As if she were too fragile to cook a meal or wash a load of clothes, or sweep a damn floor. After that first week, she couldn’t even lose herself in her job; Ethen had stolen that from her too. He’d left her with nothing to do but stand in front of a window all day, staring out… sometimes at him.

  She shuddered.

  “I can do that,” she finally agreed.

  “Good.” His smile widened, even as he hid it behind another sip of his coffee. “Finish your breakfast, please, and we’ll move on to the next issue.”

  She still had half an egg left and a lot of shredded toast on her plate. Shifting in her seat, she picked up her fork and tried to sop up loose breadcrumbs with her egg. “What other issue?”

  “Rule Number Eight,” he said, taking another swig of coffee before lowering his cup to the table. His fingers remained hooked in the handle. He looked so relaxed, so calm, and yet the bomb he dropped was brutal enough to shake her. “In this house, submissives are allowed neither to discipline themselves, nor to pleasure themselves.”

  He’d seen. Somehow last night, without her hearing him or knowing it, he’d seen her doing… oh God! Kitty shoved back from the table, vaulting up from her chair before she knew she was going to move.

  “Sit down,” Noah ordered, the quiet thunder of his suddenly steely voice as sharp as the crack of his whip had been earlier. That sharpness snapped beneath her panic and the submissive in her reacted. As fast as she’d shot to her feet, Kitty was back in her chair.

  “You’re not my submissive,” he said, that note of steel that had so completely bound her to his will melting once more into softness. “Sadly, right now you’re not anybody’s submissive and I think that might be a huge part of the problem.”

  Now, here it came. The seedy order thinly disguised as an offer. A choice that wasn’t really one at all. Jesus, how stupid could she be?

  He tipped his head, the corners of his mouth curling even as his eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’m going to offer you my dominance?”

  Something on her face must have given away the direction her wildly churning thoughts had shot in. Despite that curl, he wasn’t smiling anymore. Although he hadn’t moved, he didn’t look quite as relaxed either.

  “Aren’t you?” She locked her hands in her lap to quell their shaking, but it didn’t work.

  “There is no way for me to do that right now without violating your consent.”

  Tiny shivers danced through her, up the backs of her legs, across the flesh of her belly and her back, all the way up into her breasts. Her nipples peaked, at instant odds with nearly all the rest of her, including her mouth. “Why would you want to do that?”

  She could have bit her own tongue off. Why would she say that? Why that of all things? Not, what makes you think I would give you consent? Or even, what makes you think I would welcome that? She didn’t know Noah. She wasn’t comfortable around him. He scared her, but then everything scared her. So really, that hardly ranked as an argument.

  “I don’t believe you are in the right place mentally for me to do that,” he said bluntly. “I’m not comfortable at this point in entering into anything binding, not even as simple play partners. But that is what you need. Isn’t it?”

  Her shivers grew shivers.

  His thumb lightly tapped the table as he studied her. “It’s the reason you crawled into bed last night, clinging to my old strap, and cried yourself to sleep.”

  Her heart fluttered, the vibrations of which she felt echoed all the way down through her stomach and in between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together. Hidden in her lap, her hands became fists. She fought to keep her breathing even and her expression properly masked, but inside, all she could think was: What else? Had he seen her touch herself? Had he seen her being Kitty-girl? Oh God, had he seen that?

  “It’s the reason you crawled through the house in the middle of the night,” he said, sinking both her stomach and her arousal and, for a fraction of a second, making it impossible for her to breathe. “I think you washed the dishes I said could wait, because you couldn’t bear the thought of them sitting in the sink. What else can’t you bear, love?”

  She couldn’t hold his unwavering stare and yet, she couldn’t make herself look away.

  “Do you even know?” he wondered out loud.

  Her chest felt so tight, it was strangling her heart. Her stomach was a nest of serpentine knots all flexing and tightening, and yet her nipples felt hard, swollen, aching to be touched. Pinched. Rolled, between the thumb and fingers he rested on the table when he could just as easily have reached out and caught her. Hurting her the way bad Kittys deserved to be hurt… needed to be hurt.

  Her shallow breaths shook. Her pussy heated and throbbed. Unable to stop herself from asking, instead of a question, it came out a plea: “Do you know?”

  He tipped his head, a single nod that made the shivers inside her go wild.

  “What?” She was almost afraid of the answer.

  “I know how to give you exactly what you need, and I will,” he promised. “But if you want it, you’re going to have to do one thing first.”

  She struggled to swallow. “What?”

  “You’re going to have to ask.”

  Chapter 7

  The moment he said ‘ask,’ Kitty froze in a mix of anxiety, disbelief, and despair. She pulled away from both the table and him, every inch of her verged on running. Yet, she didn’t. Something stronger kept her rooted while he said, “I’m offering you scenes, love. Nothing deeper or more lasting than that. But if you need it, and if you can work up the courage to come to me, I promise I will give you exactly what you crave each and every time.”

  She shoved her plate away from her, as if it were a physical representation of his offer. She still had half a breakfast left to finish before he intended to let her leave his table, but he knew when and where to pick his battles. His current engagement was far more important.

  “Y-you…” Kitty tried to laugh, but her shivery breaths wouldn’t let her. It came out too high-pitched and shuddery, and on the side of her neck, her pulse danced a frantic beat that he could see. “Y-you can’t possibly…”

  “I know,” he assured her. Only a very new dominant—or an unobservant one—could take more than a glance at her in this condition and not know what she needed more than anything was relief. Her shoulders were hunched under a burden she didn’t know how to bear. She stared at the table, looking small and lost and far too thin for a woman of her height. She needed to eat. She needed to put roundness back into her face, the slight bumps of her breasts and the boniness of her hips. She needed rest and, if nothing else, to ease the bruise-like half-moons beneath eyes that would have been lovely if they weren’t so damned haunted. “I know.”

  Had he blinked, he might have missed the way her chin lifted, the tiniest hint of ‘prove it’ creeping into her eyes. She wasn’t quite brave enough to say it out lou
d, however. Someone had beat that out of her. He couldn’t help wondering if it were too late to coax it back in.

  “Would you like a sample of what you can expect?” he softly challenged her. His hand itched for an immediate follow through—seize her by the hair, drag her out of her chair and straight to the floor. He could almost feel the back of her head under his boot. He could almost see the lines of her body relaxing as she gave herself up to total subjugation.

  The look in her haunted eyes said she already regretted her minute, unspoken defiance, and yet he thought he glimpsed a flicker of… what, hope? Wistfulness?

  Oh yes, she might be hesitating, but she was curious. Wry humor pulled at the corners of his mouth, but he suppressed it, not wanting her to think he was laughing at her. “You know what you have to do to get it.”

  Her knee beneath the table was jiggling again, bouncing fitfully up and down. It made all the rest of her tremble, though he suspected she might have trembled anyway. Her lips certainly were. The tip of her tongue darted out far enough to wet them. Her eyes were a battlefield of longing and doubt, and as the seconds ticked on into minutes with no answer coming from her, he began to think that might, in fact, be his answer. He was about to stand, lay his hand on her shoulder—if she actually allowed him to touch her at this point—and tell her his offer would stand for as long as she might need it, but she broke first.

  “Please,” she haltingly whispered. Proving once and for all, it truly was the magic word. It was also as close to asking as he was in the mood to require.

  “Go to your bedroom. I want you standing at the foot of your bed, the strap in your hand. Be ready when I get there. Go on,” he said gently, when she made no move to obey. Her trembling had intensified. If he did nothing else today, he hoped he might help banish some of that fear. “What’s my name, Kitty?”

  She blinked twice. He hadn’t realized how unfocused her eyes had become until suddenly she locked them on him again. She’d been staring right at him, but it wasn’t him that she’d been seeing; he was sure of it.

  “Noah,” she quavered.

  “Go on, then.”

  She got up from the table, leaving her half-finished plate. Her soft footsteps retreated down the hall. He listened as she paused at the bathroom, then slipped inside. He listened carefully, but there was no sound of vomiting, which he took as a positive sign. The water did run, though, but only briefly. Then the door opened and she continued on to the bedroom.

  He heard the rustle of the closet door open and wire clothes hangers knock together. He heard her take up her position at the foot of the bed. Were this any other time and were she any other submissive, standing in her penitent pose to contemplate what had sent her there and what was yet to come, he’d have left her there to think a while. Ten minutes, maybe more. But she was frightened enough as it was, and that wasn’t the point of this.

  Draining all that was left of his coffee, Noah got up to follow her. With every step, he checked himself. He found his center of calm, but the Dom inside him was already perking. He had tremors of his own as he approached her open bedroom door. She hadn’t turned on the light, creating echoes of last night’s illicit view into what he seriously hoped had not been her bedtime ritual for long. If so, that ritual was about to be permanently interrupted.

  He turned on the light. No one else was in the house, but he still closed the door behind him. Not because he thought she might run, but because it enclosed them in that tiny backroom together. Increasing the intimacy between them. Could she feel the vibrancy of his authority as clearly as he could feel the warring emotions inside her? Her fear was palpable and that was what he attacked first.

  Standing exactly where he’d ordered her to, her hands moved on the strap’s handle, clutching and re-clutching with spastic nervousness. He could see the trembling of her knees even through her pants. That trembling did not ease the closer he came. He took the strap from her, moving it to his right hand out of her sight and her reach. He took her by the throat with his left.

  That was a risky move. She might have panicked, especially if what he was doing now in any way echoed abuse inflicted by her last dom. But she didn’t and he was careful to keep his touch firm, but light. He didn’t apply pressure, but he did hold her, his fingers resting lightly on her pulse. It jumped erratically beneath his fingertips, especially when he shifted close enough to bring his mouth to her ear. She shook, all of her, a thoroughly battered leaf still lost in the storms of her past.

  “This isn’t a punishment,” he murmured, letting his thumb stroke the curve of her neck. “I want you to remember that. You haven’t done anything wrong; you aren’t in trouble; I am not angry. This is a cleansing. This is just you and me, lighting a fire hot enough to burn away the ghosts. We can do this as often as you need, whenever you need, even if you must wake me in the middle of the night. Your safeword is red, and you will use it if for any reason you want me to stop. Is that clear?”

  She swallowed hard, her tense throat moving against his palm. Her nod was barely a quiver, but it was assent and he accepted it.

  “You may not keep your pants on. I need to see the damage I’m doing. Take them down.”

  Her hands were shaking so badly now she barely managed it, but he didn’t help her. She needed to do this on her own and he had all the time in the world. His hand kept its hold on her throat, even when she bent to push her jeans down over her hips. Gravity dropped them as far as her knees.

  “Repeat after me,” he said, shifting his grip from the front of her throat to the nape of her neck. When he applied gentle pressure, she haltingly bent over the metal footrail. “I’m a good girl.”

  Her hands fisted against the patchwork quilt as her cheek came to rest upon it. Her eyes were huge, her face pale. Her lips barely moved and there was little sound to it when she whispered, “I’m a good girl.”

  “I’m safe.” He stroked her back between her shoulders, every inch of her feeling as tense and tight as a drum.

  “I’m s-safe.” Her teeth chattered.

  From shoulders to hip, he did his best to soothe her with both his touch and the calm of his voice. “I am loved.”

  “I’m loved.”

  “I don’t need to be afraid of anything.”

  Her eyebrows quirked. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He waited while she struggled to give voice to the lie, and that was okay. It might be a lie right now, but it wasn’t always going to be. He would make sure of that.

  “Good girl,” he said, once she’d repeated the phrase. Patting her hip, he raised the hem of her shirt well off the target area. She had a small bottom, clad in a thin pair of white daisy-print panties. Her spine was too prominent for his taste. So were her hips.

  Eventually, he would take care of that, too.

  He gave her bottom a readying caress. An experienced dom, he’d taken many play partners. Every year, he took mini touring vacations to show off his whip skills, teaching it to others in exchange for a little traveling cash and places to stay along the way. It was a great way to see the world without emptying the wallet. In the process, he saw a lot of sights, made a lot of friends, and couldn’t count the number of submissives he’d topped—place after place, year after year. Some he’d whipped, some he’d spanked, most he’d fondled—little rubs like this, the tactical pleasure of a dominant man making physical contact with the submissive in his care. It was both deeply sexual and not at all sexual, and God knew, while he hadn’t fucked all—or hell, even half of them—he was not a monk. But this touch, this first contact of his bare hand to what wasn’t even her naked ass, was instantly the most seductive he’d felt in a very long time.

  Ethen, the asshole, had obviously taught her well. Her head was down, her ass up. Hips thrust back to offer her bottom with her legs widely spread. Without needing direction, she’d made herself open to him. Even with her panties still up and all the feminine parts of her still covered, she was available to him. He wouldn’t at all have mind
ed peeling that cotton cloth down and letting it fall on top of her divested jeans. He wouldn’t have minded filling his palm with the curve of first one buttock and then the other, squeezing and molding her flesh with his grip. He wouldn’t even have minded giving her a few roving smacks, just flesh to flesh, in a way that would have warmed her up for what was yet to come and yet, this was a test. Kitty was grading him now, and soft gentle pats or even warmups was not what she wanted.

  She wanted relief. She wanted absolution from the horde of sins—real or imagined—clawing at her back. If he ever met Ethen a second time, he was going to feed the man his own teeth, but for now Noah put his mind where it needed to be. Taking his hand off Kitty’s trembling backside, he stepped back into position.

  “Say it for me again,” he told her, shifting his grip on the strap, letting it become an extension of his ready arm. She’d chosen the widest one, the same one she’d taken to bed with her last night. Two strokes would cover the whole of her small bottom. Every stroke after that would ignite a painful fire, building on it lash after lash, without mercy or pause until the movements of her writhing body let him know she was done. That wasn’t going to happen any time soon. He could tell by looking at her, she’d been haunted for so long she didn’t know how to let go of it. He was going to have to show her. “I want you to repeat each phrase after every stroke I give you.”

  She hesitated, her brow furrowing further.

  “I am a good girl,” Noah supplied, helping her remember how it started.

  “I-I’m a good girl,” she whispered, and he struck.

  It wasn’t his hardest blow, but it wasn’t gentle. And yet, the only sign she showed as her flesh absorbed the impact was the catch in her breath and the tightening of her knuckles against the multicolored quilt. Her bottom barely flinched, though he knew it had to hurt.