The image of me sitting at his feet returned, and my heart leaped. Yes!
No! I told it fiercely, frowning at Tamara. I couldn’t get all mushy over a stranger like this. It made no sense. “I’m a switch!”
“Yeah, but everyone else on the couches is a Dom,” she pointed out. I looked around and realized she was right. Damn it!
“When was the last time I subbed for anyone?” I reasoned. “A couple of years, right? I’m seventy-one point two percent Domme right now!”
I was sitting at the end of a couch closest to the bar, and Josh stood only a couple of feet away, looking down at me with an amused expression. Indulging me, the way he might be an unruly submissive.
Fuck him.
“Seventy-one point two?” Ben asked, grinning.
“I have a spreadsheet,” I said, scowling. “I add all my D/s partners to it after I play, and seventy-one point two is the figure right now. I earned this seat!”
I didn’t like that Josh was standing over me. It almost made me headspace, and I didn’t need that right then. Getting to my feet, I stared him out, and he returned the gaze with a slightly raised eyebrow. I could almost hear his voice in my mind: You’re out of your league.
Behind me, Mel asked, “How about you, Josh? What percentage of Dom are you?”
“I don’t have any figures written down,” he said. It was the first time I’d heard him speak, and the quiet, intense timbre of his voice just made him sexier, if that was even possible. “But I’ve only ever bottomed for one scene, and that was just to see what it was like for my submissives.”
Dominant, sexy, and a responsible top? Argh-the more I dragged this out, the more unreasonable I was gonna look. And everyone was
already watching us.
Holding out for a couple of seconds more, just to prove to myself that I wasn’t under his spell, I stepped aside. “Go ahead.”
To his credit, he didn’t gloat, just sat down with a nod of thanks.
The only available cushion was the one at his feet, and I was so not going to give him the satisfaction of sitting there. Grabbing the cushion, I threw it down beside the arm of the opposite couch, and Tamara scooted across to make room for me, biting back a giggle.
Conversation resumed, but now and then I looked over to find Josh studying me. When I caught him at it, he didn’t look embarrassed; he just gave a small smile and transferred his attention elsewhere.
I’m so never subbing to this guy, on principle.
* * * *
Josh
I’d only been back from England a couple of months, sans my
cheating ex-wife, when I’d felt my sadistic side begin to bite. The launch of a new fetish club downtown had seemed like a chance to get back into the local scene, and I’d waited for the opening night with an impatience I hadn’t felt for a while.
I’d bumped into Heidi and Tim in the parking lot. It had been a long time since I’d seen either of them, and the reunion was warm. We’d headed inside and grabbed drinks, then moved over to a specific area at Heidi’s insistence.
I recognized a good few people from way back when, but there were some new faces. I’d just about managed to fix names in my mind when the last woman was introduced to me.
Lena.
She was youthful and energetic, but older than her style of dress indicated. The tiny skirt and pigtails left me thinking she had a schoolgirl fetish-not my style-but when she stood up to put herself on level footing with me, challenging my right to her seat, I reassessed her quickly.
I’d come across my fair share of stubborn women in my time, and Lena was fairly easy to read. If I was right, she was pissed off and intrigued simultaneously, and determined not to back down.
I sensed there was far more to her than met the eye, and my sadistic impulses surfaced once again, sending a thousand questions my way. What would it be like to break down that overly tough exterior, to make her gasp with a word, to order her to her knees, and to watch her tremble as she obeyed?
My gut told me she wasn’t the age-playing ‘little girl’ she’d appeared to be at first glance. And I wanted to know more.
An hour or so after she’d reluctantly given up her seat, sitting on the floor as far as possible from my feet as she could, a few people left our
corner in favor of the dungeon area. As soon as there was free space, Lena took a spot on the couch opposite, her posture relaxing a little once she was back on a level with me.
More people headed to the play space in the dungeon, or off to dance, and soon there remained only a couple playing their own murmured mental scene, Lena and me.
Her eyes widened a little as she realized it, and for a second I thought she’d excuse herself and find somewhere else to be. To her credit, she decided against it, shooting me a fleeting smile.
Taking her cue, I leaned forward and offered her my hand. “Lena,
right?”
Her skin was warm against mine, and the handshake was brief. She was
on her guard. “Yeah. Sorry about earlier. I’m kinda stubborn when I want to be.”
“Know the feeling. Don’t apologize.”
Her husky, distinctive voice had a soft Southern undercurrent, which I hadn’t noticed before. I didn’t let myself ponder what it would sound like in different situations; made breathless by my kiss or reduced to a plea under my hands.
Lena offered to buy me a drink before I could make the same gesture. I opted for a beer and spoke her name as she jumped up.
She turned, expectant and a little nervous. I told her, “When you get back if you sit on the couch, we’ll get to know each other as friends. If you sit on the floor…”
She bit her lip as the unspoken implication sank in, and I shrugged, ending the moment. “The offer’s there.”
With a nod, she fled toward the bar, and I watched her go with a small smile. Somehow I doubted she’d sit at my feet that night, however
much I wanted to bend her to my will. She’d be worth waiting for, though, and she was interested.
Lena lingered at the bar for a little longer than she needed to,
chatting with the bar staff. There was a lightly held tension in her shoulders, despite her feigned casualness; I didn’t need to hear her thoughts to know there was a debate waging within her.
And the more I pursued her, the more she’d run away. She seemed to have made up her mind about me already. Let her; I could be patient
when I needed to be, and when I wasn’t working, I had nothing but free time on my hands.
When she returned, she set down our drinks before sitting on the
couch a couple of feet from me. Curling her feet under her and nestling into the corner, she gave me a smile that was a little more relaxed. “So where have you been the past couple of years? I’ve been on the local scene for a while, and I don’t remember seeing you anywhere.”
I let her lead the conversation; something she seemed more than
comfortable with, once time and alcohol had lowered her defenses a little. A genuine passion filled her face as she described her work as a computer programmer, and I didn’t interrupt her, more than a little fascinated by the way she gestured and spoke.
Maybe she was even a little too much for me to handle. As she’d informed me earlier, she was seventy-one point two percent Domme, and if she hadn’t submitted in a couple of years-hadn’t felt the urge to do so- then she might not want to start again now. I knew better than to act as though we were inevitably going to get together.
I couldn’t take her for granted.