11. Atticus #3
Pulling the cell away from my ear, I click into the picture she sent me and suck in an involuntary gasp.
Both rings are made of rose gold. The wedding band is fairly simple with twinkling pink diamonds set into the band.
The engagement ring is the showstopper. A rose gold band supports a bow made up of large oval-shaped pink diamonds with a white diamond sunk into the center of the bow.
“Fuck, Gaelle,” I mutter, lifting my cell back to my ear.
“What do you think? I can make the exact design I drew up for you back when we made the collar if you want. I can sell these, or I’ll just keep them as display rings. You hate them, don’t you?”
“They’re fucking perfect. They’re her. It’s like you made them just for her. Can you ship them to me? How much do I owe you?”
“I can do better than that. I can bring them to you,” she says a little smugly.
“How the fuck are you going to bring them to me? You’re in Boston.”
“Except I’m not. Holly and I are in Portland visiting her parents. She’s always wanted to visit Big Sky, so we can jump a flight and bring the rings to you before we head into the mountains for a babymoon.”
“I mean, it’d be great to see you both, but you said the rings are in Boston at your studio,” I remind her.
“I said they’ve been on display in the store. Holly and I came out to visit with her parents after we did a jewelry expo in Vegas. I had the rings with me as part of my display pieces.”
“Are you being fucking serious right now?” I laugh.
“Deadly serious. Let me check the flight listings.” She goes quiet for a moment. “There’s a flight from Portland to Bozeman tomorrow morning. We can meet you for breakfast, then head on up to Big Sky.”
“You basically have to drive past Rockhead Point to get up to Big Sky. I could cook for us all, and you could see the new place we’ve bought.”
“You bought a place? You and the girl, or you and Felix?”
“Felix and I own the building. It’s a converted warehouse that we’ve renovated so the ground floor is a studio space for Felix, and the first floor is our loft. Lemon is moving in, but she’s an aspiring clothes designer, so we’ll need more closet space.”
“Let me just quickly speak to Holly, although I doubt she’ll have a problem with it. She loves her parents, but they still insist on babying her even though she’s in her thirties, and after a few days they start to drive her crazy.”
“You still haven’t told me the price for the rings.”
“Call them a gift,” she says.
“Come on now, Gaelle. You know I can’t accept that.”
“Call it a gift with a caveat.”
“What kind of a caveat?” I ask.
“I want a tattoo.”
“That I can help with. What were you thinking and where?”
“I want a portrait of Holly and the baby over my heart.”
“I’d be honored, but a single tattoo doesn’t cover the cost of those big-ass diamonds.”
“Actually, only the center stone is a diamond. The pink stones are sapphires. How much do you charge per hour?” she asks.
“For portrait work…usually four hundred an hour.”
“So do the portrait for me, and then I’ll bank some hours for if we have another baby.”
“How about we just agree that any ink you ever have is on me? I know you and Hol. She’s a pain brat, and you enjoy torturing yourself almost as much. You’ll both be addicted after the first tat.”
“Deal,” Gaelle says, knowing I’m right. She and Holly got together after Holly was looking for a Dom or Domme who would consent to doing a scene with her.
She’d earned herself a reputation at the club they were members of as being a pain slut and trying to top from the bottom to earn herself more pain than most dominants were comfortable inflicting.
I was a visiting guest at the club the day they met.
Gaelle gave Holly what she wanted, but not in the way she expected.
She gave her some of the pain she craved, but she dominated her mind as well as her body.
It was one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever witnessed, watching Holly scream as Gaelle wrung orgasm after orgasm from her until what should have been pleasure became the pain she so desperately wanted.
While Gaelle has only ever been interested in women, Holly had been more bi-curious until they found each other.
Now, five years later, they’re married, have a fulfilling Domme/sub dynamic, and are expecting their first child together.
In short, they’re living the dream, and I couldn’t be happier for them.
“Speak to Holly, then let me know. We might need you to resize them if they don’t fit.”
“Of course, I have my stuff with me, so I can do that at your place if you’re putting it straight on her finger. I’m assuming you’ve asked her.”
Chuckling softly, I turn and glance in through my open bedroom door. “I didn’t ask exactly. I told her she had six weeks to make her own dress.”
“Jesus, Att, I know you think she’s the one—”
“I know she’s the one,” I growl.
“Okay, but it sounds like you’re domming her pretty hard, so just be careful that you don’t overwhelm her. I don’t want you to end up losing her because you’re treating her like your sub when it doesn’t sound like you’ve negotiated that part of your relationship.”
Exhaling, I try not to snap and tell her that she’s wrong, because if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve already questioned more than once if I’m moving too fast. I’ve questioned if I was wrong for fastening my collar around her neck before being honest with her about what it meant to me.
But even if I’m handling this all wrong, I won’t stop or slow down because this is right.
Everything about Lemon and me is just all right.
“I can’t lose her,” I admit, looking back at her sleeping body in our bed.
“Then talk to her. Consider this from her perspective. Make sure she’s with you, and that you’re not racing forward and just dragging her behind.”
Exhaling, I nod to myself. “I will. She wants this. Me. I’m sure of it. She calls me Sir. She kneels for me.”
“Then you won’t be risking anything by laying things out for her. It sounds like she’s already there. She might just need the dynamic explained to her.”
“I don’t know that I want or need a dynamic with her.
I just want her. I’m a pleasure Dom, Gaelle.
I want to make her come, and that’s not usually something that I have to negotiate into my sexual encounters.
Everyone wants to come, unless they’re a sadist who enjoys withholding pleasure to torture themselves.
Lemon isn’t a sadist, and she’s a big fan of me making her come…
a lot. If she decides she doesn’t enjoy calling me Sir and won’t kneel for me, I can live without those things, but I already know I can’t live without her. ”
Gaelle sighs, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a sigh of frustration. It sounds like a sigh of understanding.
“I’ll speak to Holly, and hopefully, we’ll see you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Gaelle. Hopefully, see you in the morning.”
After we’ve ended the call, I pause in the doorway, leaning against the frame as I watch Lemon sleep.
She looks peaceful, her hand curled beneath her cheek.
When she wakes up, I’ll talk to her about the collar and what it means.
I refuse to let this be a deal breaker for us, but Gaelle is right.
I need to explain what the collar means to me, even if she won’t really understand.
Crawling back into bed, I drag her into my arms and close my eyes.