Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
I n preparation for her “first date” with Rev, Vera had brought a change of clothes to work. As she finished putting them on, she gave herself a once-over in the mirror behind her office door.
Black jeans with a studded pewter belt, and a dove gray sleeveless V-neck knit shirt that clung to her curves. Silver snake bracelets wound around her wrists, slim matching squiggles dangling from her ears. The comb that pulled her hair back on one side showed the four gleaming rings along the shell of that ear.
Normally she would have donned square heeled and silver trimmed boots, but mindful of Rev’s warning, she chose athletic shoes she kept for walks in the Garden District at lunchtime when she needed the extra exercise.
She leaned in to ensure her makeup didn’t need touching up. Yes, it was fine. She looked the way she desired to look. There was a leashed energy to Rev, and she wanted to be handed that leash. Wanted him to trust her with all the explosive power and need she could sense behind it.
“Miss Veracity Morgan?”
The formal address on the other side of the door had her brow raising. As she pulled it open, Bastion’s dark eyes were dancing, his firm mouth in a mischievous curl. “There is a very polite and exceedingly attractive man in the lobby saying he’s here for you. He brought lemon bars for the office, homemade I believe, and I’ve already tasted one. If he made them, you’re out of luck, girlfriend. I’m kidnapping his ass and keeping him chained in my kitchen.”
“Wait, lemon bars?” Cyn’s office was across the hall, and she appeared in her door. “Brought by a hot male?”
“Very hot,” Bastion confirmed. “And so sweetly polite. He can call me ‘sir’ all day long.”
“Down,” Vera told him, and tossed Cyn an equally severe look. “You have your own hot guy. Go back to work.”
“Yeah, right.” Cyn was already headed for the stairs. Her lean body moved like the trained fighter she was. She had abundant and untamed brown curls around foxlike features, and her big brown eyes could draw a man like bait on a bear trap. If that man had the right appreciation for it, Cyn could teach him that fear, pleasure and pain were all the same under her command.
Despite her admonishment, Vera had no worries about Cyn poaching. First, none of the five women would ever think of crossing that line. Second, their resident sadist had discovered her match in Mick, a former cop and special agent. He gave her everything she needed as a Mistress, while she inflicted everything he needed on his overtaxed soul.
“Do not scare him,” Vera called after her, then shot Bastion a look.
“Yep, on it. I’ll keep her from devouring him.” Bastion pivoted toward the back stairs, since he could beat Cyn to the lobby that way. “And while I’m not suggesting you cut short the anticipation of your arrival in that mouthwatering outfit, he’s attracting attention. You never bring boys home. Everyone’s all a-flutter.”
Vera chuckled, but when she returned to her desk to get her purse, she realized she was tense, and wondering if she should have had Rev meet her elsewhere.
She examined the unexpected reaction. She wasn’t worried about Cyn intimidating Rev. She was worried about what Cyn might think about her choice, and what it revealed about Vera. Which was crazy. These women knew everything about her.
No. They knew everything she wanted to share, plus a few additional things that had shaken loose over the years as trust in their friendship grew. She wasn’t insecure, but her soul was well-guarded. She surrounded herself with the people who would protect and care for it in the way she did herself. But like everyone, she had a vulnerable underbelly. Her attraction to Rev, so new and unexpected, meant that underbelly was exposed, and it might show things to herself, and to them, that she hadn’t had to handle before.
Okay, well, so be it. She accepted the raw emotions and took a few cleansing breaths. A handsome man was waiting for her. He had that delightful mix of patience—knowing what was worth waiting for—and impatience—a man’s desire, rising in proportion and proximity to what he wanted—that the best male submissives had.
When he’d held her hand during their stroll at the roadside overlook, his grasp had a comforting, caressing weight. As if he was holding her, through everything she was doing, thinking and feeling.
During the initial infatuation, it was easy to have such idealistic thoughts. Much as she didn’t want to compare anything about this to that, she’d done the same with her ex-husband. It was true until it proved itself untrue, until his attention had been replaced by resentment, restlessness, and a readiness to break the bond already broken.
After it had happened, she’d felt tapped out, like she had nothing left worth having. And she didn’t want anything, other than to feel nothing.
When it came to love, there were checkpoints of honesty and trust that had to be navigated to reach the deeper levels of the heart, to create the bond that could last through a lifetime journey together. Donovan hadn’t been ready for that. At least not with her.
Initially, she’d judged him for it, and the words “shallow” and “lazy” still came too easily, because the scar he’d left was deep. However, she knew now the failure of their relationship wasn’t a failure of her life. They’d had their time together, learned what they needed to learn, and then the journey continued separately. That was all.
It was human to want to have a more complicated explanation for a pain that large, but the soul’s path was the soul’s path.
Skye appeared at her door with her inquisitive dark eyes and spiky blond hair, shaved on one side. Her moon-shaped face gave her a fairy child look. With her brilliant mind, she navigated TRA’s tech and communication needs. With her strong will, she’d won the heart of Tiger, a sexy and dangerous biker. Who also happened to be a volatile alpha submissive.
“Okay?” she signed. Because the four other women were fluent in ASL, Skye could use it with them when she chose, instead of her library of recorded voices.
Ten minutes had passed, Vera saw. Chagrin kicked in. There was a line between playing the Mistress card to tease a man’s desires, and being rude.
“I’m okay,” she confirmed. “He’s something new to me. It’s putting me deeper in my head.”
Skye stuck out an elbow, as if offering Vera an escort. Vera gave the arm a playful squeeze. Though not overweight, Skye was far softer than Cyn, since she preferred spending time with her screens instead of working out. But just like with the rest of the women, Cyn had harassed Skye into learning basic defensive skills to give herself an edge in sticky situations.
Vera smiled, remembering Cyn’s caustic response to Skye’s attempt to avoid their sessions. “Yes, I know being the ‘old lady’ of a former member of the Fallen Angels MC keeps you off the strike list of most petty criminals. But there’s always the chance someone hasn’t gotten the memo. Or is too stupid to realize that if he touches a spiky hair on your adorable head, Tiger will remove his internal organs and eat them in front of him.”
Each woman was protective of the others in her own unique way. Skye had installed top-end security systems on their personal and work devices. Abby did their taxes and guided their investment decisions. Ros looked after everyone however they needed it. With a listening ear, with financial help and a wide network of seemingly never-ending contacts and resources.
The women watched after their employees in much the same way. TRA was a family company. You didn’t get kicked out of it unless you didn’t respect or value it the way you should. Ros didn’t tolerate fools.
Once they reached the second floor, Skye stayed there. She understood the importance of a Mistress’s entrance. The staircase continued along the curved wall, down into the spacious foyer, where Bastion manned the reception desk. Still out of sight, Vera paused, listening to Rev respond to Bastion’s question about where he worked.
“I’m a janitor at the middle school,” he said. “When I not doing that, I help out at God’s Light and Voice Church.”
“You work around teenagers?” Bastion tossed his next teasing comment toward Cyn. “I thought Mick held the top masochist award.”
“Maso…masochist?” Rev felt his way around the word. “What does that mean?”
He asked without self-consciousness. As Vera continued down the steps, Bastion and Cyn were exchanging a look. Probably a what is Vera doing with a male this inexperienced? expression.
“In that context, it’s a person who enjoys suffering,” Vera said. “Who derives sexual pleasure from it.”
She kept her volume at the level where it wouldn’t be overheard through the open French doors on either side of the foyer. On one side was the bullpen for a dozen junior and senior account executives, the overflow from Cyn’s department, who took up the second floor. Abby’s accounting staff and Vera’s HR and legal team were in the opposite wing.
Rev’s gaze was on her, which meant he’d been watching the stairs for her while he spoke to them. As she came into view, one stair at a time, she saw his appreciation grow. She didn’t wear jeans often, but she could make them work for her. His expression said they were performing above expectations.
She could say the same for his. He wore belted dark blue jeans and a forest green, short-sleeved shirt with brown buttons. Casual wear, but nice enough to say he’d taken care with his appearance for her.
When he recalled himself enough to absorb what she’d said, he looked startled. “Oh.” His gaze moved to Cyn. “Mick…your man,” he said cautiously. “You mean…he likes you to hurt him.”
“Prodigiously.”
“Which means a lot.” Bastion shot Cyn a don’t-be-a-bitch glance.
It wasn’t like Cyn to be cruel, not like that. But pushing past the kneejerk surge of anger, Vera realized her friend was testing how Rev handled the needling. If he didn’t have the confidence to hold his own on that, he wouldn’t do so on other things that would serve Vera the way she needed. From Cyn’s viewpoint.
As she’d said, they were all protective of one another, but she needed to remind Cyn about the things that were her call, not anyone else’s.
“That one I know.” Rev offered Cyn and Bastion an unabashed smile. “Teena Joy, the aunt who raised me, told me a ‘prodigious amount of worry does nothing but make us miss the good the day brings us.’ She liked to say that, whenever I got too caught up in my head.”
He nodded to them politely, and when Vera reached the bottom stair, resting her hand on the polished wooden finial, as round as the moon, he was there. He held a small box tied with a black ribbon. A purple paper flower dusted with glitter was attached to it. It was like the one on the shoes she’d been wearing.
“Did you do that, or did you resort to child labor?”
“The girls in Miss Sweeney’s art class dressed this up for me.” His eyes twinkled. “I expect you don’t usually wear sneakers. I thought you’d like to make them more you.”
Aware of Cyn and Bastion’s fascinated stares, she took the box and untied the ribbon. Rev relieved her of it and the paper flower, so she had a free hand to pluck off the top of the box. Inside were two sneaker charms, purple rhinestones with silver edging, to thread onto her laces.
“May I?” With her standing on the bottom step, they were face-to-face, and his gaze roved over every feature. “I thought a lot about you this week,” he told her.
“Same,” she answered. “And yes. But let’s do that in the parking lot. I think we’re disrupting the workflow here.”
“Oh no, not at all,” Bastion said, tucking the handset to the office phone under his ear and riffling through a folder. “We’re not paying any attention to the bunny-level cuteness that is the two of you.”
Vera rolled her eyes, though the teasing filed down the edges of her baffling anxiety. Glancing up, she saw Skye leaning against the second-floor railing. Ros was beside her, her boss’s gaze speculative but reassuring. Abby was on her other side, her red hair falling forward over her shoulder. She was smiling at Bastion’s comment.
“I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Vera said, giving Rev the cue to follow her to the front door.
“Call us if you need us,” Cyn said. Not casually, her pointed glance at Rev a direct warning. Goddess . They were acting as if Vera hadn’t ever had a relationship outside the safe boundaries of the club.
Okay, maybe she hadn’t. At least nothing like this, and these women were smart enough to know the difference.
Rev had opened the door for Vera, but he turned at Cyn’s comment. “She’ll be safe with me,” he told her. His attention lifted, taking in the women on the upper level. “I promise.”
“You’ll be held to that promise,” Cyn said.
A familiar hardness crossed his expression, the resolve she’d seen when his cousin and aunt hadn’t wanted him to go off with Vera after church.
“I wouldn’t make it, unless I was going to hold myself to it,” he said.
When they reached her car, she leaned against it, watching him drop to a knee to thread the charms onto the laces of her sneakers. They sparkled in the sunlight. It was a thoughtful gift from a lover.
“So why would a man get pleasure out of being hurt by a woman?” he asked, his head bowed over the task.
“There are a lot of reasons, on the emotional side. But flogging or spanking, impact play, it can also stimulate the body, arouse it.”
He lifted his head, his attention sliding over her thighs, waist and breasts. When he reached her face, he had to take a breath, and his hand had curled over her foot. “Is that something you like doing to a man?”
“If it fits the man.” She cocked her head. “You don’t get embarrassed when you don’t know something.”
At his curious look, she clarified. “Not knowing what ‘masochist’ meant.”
A trace of a smile went through his gold-touched eyes. “Lots of things people don’t know, every one of us. I’d rather ask and learn, rather than pretend I know. The teachers at the school tell the kids they should be like that.”
He returned his attention to the lace adjustments. “Moses couldn’t string two sentences together without God’s help, and he fought God’s Will over it. He thought God was making a mistake. Some of it was the natural kind of worry, not wanting to be thrust out in front like that. Not wanting people to think he was dumb, and God chose wrong. But that the wrong kind of pride, thinking he knew better than God what kind of person is right for the job.”
Finished, he left his large hand on the top of her foot, and looked back up at her. “You came across my path for a reason. I just glad for it. Don’t need to think more about it than that.”
When he rose, she laid her hand on his biceps, holding him in front of her. “I have a very strong desire to kiss you, Rev. Full body against body, mouth taking over yours, and letting you inside mine. I’m not going to do it yet, but I just wanted you to know.”
Putting his hands on her waist, he gripped firmly. Though he didn’t draw her to him, she felt the desire there. “Good thing I don’t drive. You putting that in my head might end us up in a ditch.”
She smiled. “Where are we going?”
As he opened her car door so she could settle into the driver’s seat, he plucked out her seat belt and got it started. She took it from his hand and threaded it across herself, watching his gaze following its track between her breasts. She could feel the ready tension in his muscles, that erotic promise, so close with him leaning over her.
They might end up in a ditch after all.
When he saw she’d noticed his gaze, he shifted it. She touched his jaw. “You can look, Rev. I want you to look. I’ll tell you when you can’t. Same with touching. Understand?”
“Yes. When you use that tone, I want to call you Mistress, if that still okay.”
“That sounds fine with me. Why do you use Veracity instead of Vera, when you speak my name?”
“It bother you?”
“No. But I’d like to know.”
“Veracity means truth. I like that reminder. I like calling you that.” A faint shadow crossed his eyes. “And hoping what this is, between us, is a true and lasting path.”
Only time could confirm that, so she didn’t think he expected her to respond. Proving it, the shadows cleared with the next blink of his long-lashed eyes and he left her to get into the car’s passenger side. She hadn’t adjusted it since he’d been in it, so it still accommodated his long legs. He gave her the address for one of the state parks outside of New Orleans. The man liked his natural areas.
As she navigated through the congested inner-city traffic, he touched the car’s dashboard. “First car like this I seen in New Orleans. What made you choose it?”
“I like James Bond. Aston Martin is one of his preferred rides. Do you have a favorite Bond?”
“My aunt didn’t let me watch too much TV. It makes me…unsettled. But I watch movies in the player at school after hours. I seen the one that had the actor from Cowboys and Aliens . And Scrooge.”
“Daniel Craig and Albert Finney. You saw Skyfall .”
“Yeah, that was the name of it.” They were at a stoplight, and Rev had been studying her profile. He reached out, pausing over her ear, waiting for her nod. When he had it, he touched the rings along the shell, a caress that sent sensation rippling down her neck and over her breasts. “Who your favorite Bond?” he asked.
“My favorite hasn’t been cast yet. If they heed my barrage of social media posts, it will be Idris Elba.”
“ Concrete Cowboy .”
She shot him a surprised look. “Not the movie most people think of for him, but yes.”
“They showed it in one of the current event classes. I was cleaning the windows, and Mr. Dillon saw I was interested. He loaned it to me. It reminded me of here, with the horses and the carriages, only this was cowboys in Chicago. I like the unexpected.”
His gaze lingered along her ear and neck, moving down to her arm and the swell of her breast, curve of her hip. “You unexpected, Veracity. It hurt to look at you, in the right ways.”
“You like trying to make me blush.”
“No ma’am. But that’s also unexpected.” His knuckle grazed her warm cheek. I guess men are always saying how beautiful you are.”
“Have you been in a long-term relationship, Rev? Or married?”
“Now, or in the past?”
“If you say now, it’s a long walk back.”
He grinned. “No. Not now. I had relationships, but mostly with women I met through the church. Nothing that took for long. About a year was the longest, and she off to college most of it, so it was more phone calls than anything else.”
“Why ‘relationships, but, ’ like they didn’t really count if they started at church?”
He didn’t immediately respond. At the next light, she glanced his way. Rev pressed his lips together. “People see a storm, they might like how it light up the sky, the thunder making the ground shake. It’s a show. But most don’t want to stand out in the rain, feel what a storm really all about.”
At her expression, he shook his head. “It not something that hurts me, Veracity. Not no more. My aunt say that’s why I need to be a janitor, don’t need to be more than that. There’s a balance to it. Some women hear my voice, see that I ain’t too hard on the eyes, she a fly to honey. Then she finds out more, and I become a mud fence. She don’t want to get too dirty with it.”
While that statement didn’t sit well with her, he’d made it clear from their last trip down this road he wasn’t seeking an opinion other than his own on it. But she did have to ask. “Do you think I’ll be that way?”
His eyes sharpened. “You saw me at the school. Saw my writing. Then you came to find me at the church. You interested in more. I’m interested in you, so I’m glad.”
She put her hand on his thigh, and he curled his hand over hers. They stayed that way until they reached the state park. The winding drive took them past camping spots and hiking trail markers. He had her stop at the one that said, “Wishes Mailbox, 3 miles.”
“Can you walk three miles?” he asked. “If you can, it’s worth it.”
“I can, if we stop for ice cream on our way back to town.”
He tapped the small backpack he’d placed at his feet. “I brought us some lunch and drinks.”
“A prepared man. I like that. But I’m still stopping for ice cream. What’s the Wishes mailbox?”
“It just a mailbox in a thinking kind of place. They leave pens and notebooks in it, so people can write down their thoughts to share with others. It has a good feel to it, like those kinds of places can have. There’s one up in North Carolina, at Sunset Beach, the Kindred mailbox. The person who put his one up wanted something like it down here.”
He exited his side and came around to open her door. “What your favorite flavor of ice cream?”
“Lately I’ve been in a salted caramel fudge vanilla mode. You?”
“They have ice cream sandwiches in the cafeteria. I like them.”
He guided her to a wide, well-tended trail. As they walked, she could see creeks and marsh land through the trees. They shared the scenery in silence, occasionally broken by relaxed conversation about their surroundings, stories about him working at the school or church, or her at TRA. What two people talked about who were testing the fit for the pieces of their lives.
Rev put a hand on her arm, stopping her in place. He also stepped forward, so she was partly behind him.
Now hearing the crackling of leaves that he’d heard, she saw an alligator emerge and ponderously cross the trail ahead of them. The pendulum swing of his head matched the sinuous movement of his body, the flat eyes, set so wide apart, capturing them in his view. He kept coming, at least fifteen feet from nose to tail. Then he was across, tail swishing through the fallen leaves on the other side of the trail. He slid into the shallows that led into deeper marsh waters and disappeared.
Rev shifted to her side, and they started walking again. “Good to give a big feller like that a wide berth when you know he coming. You okay?”
“Yes.” She chuckled at her nerves. “I was born and bred a city girl, so seeing wildlife like that so close can still take me by surprise. But thanks to Abby, who’s a Louisiana native, I know they don’t tend to bother humans unless someone has been stupid enough to feed them. What would you have done if he’d charged?”
“I would have told you to run and made sure you stayed ahead of me, so if he got anyone, it would be me. I’d hope I could stomp on him…dissuade him from dragging me off into the water, without hurting him too bad.”
Their bodies brushed as they walked. In the outside world, an intimate gesture might be interpreted as a chance to press for more. In a club, boundaries were well-defined. Subs asked permission for almost any liberty that hadn’t been pre-approved by a Master or Mistress. He walked the line between the two without much instruction.
“You hesitated over the word ‘dissuade.’ Why?”
“You don’t miss much.”
“I don’t. Keep that in mind. You didn’t answer the question.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Liked the way it sounded for this moment, but it’s a new-to-me word. Witford used it in his sermon the other day. I looked it up in the school dictionary, the big one on the pedestal in the library. Been there for twenty-five years.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Under the Ps there’s a paper flower glued to a card. It say, ‘I’ll love you perennially, March 2003.’”
“Is it signed?”
“No. But the flower is the kind of pink that Miss Wilhelm, our head librarian, wear a lot. She was in love with an assistant principal, Perry Walters. He was killed by a drunk driver years ago. Beau, my boss, was around back then, so we think she put it in there. She’s kind of reserved, strict with the kids, but fair.”
“You like her.”
“I do.”
“Because she’s reserved and strict.” She nudged him, and his smile deepened.
“It don’t hurt. She has nice hair, too. Smells good, and her eyes are a pretty brown. She don’t miss much, either.”
He pointed out a root jutting across the trail to keep Vera from tripping over it, though his grip was secure enough on hers she doubted he’d let that happen. “Neither do you,” she noted. “Why no phone?”
“Gets in the way. You miss too much stuff. If they need me at school, they use the intercom system. ‘Rev, come to the West boys’ bathroom for a Code 15.’"
She shuddered. "Do I want to know what a Code 15 is?"
He chuckled. “It mean a child in the bathroom during class and they upset about something."
She glanced up at him, intrigued. "Okay, explain what that’s about.”
"When a student ask to go to the bathroom during the class, the teacher can tell if it just to do their business, or because something has upset them enough they need to go somewhere quiet to think on it some. Or cry over it. Teacher can’t leave the class, so they send up the call for me to go check on them. I come by, pretending to be cleaning.”
He winked. "The Code 15 happen more often for the girls' bathroom. Girls got a lot of drama at that age."
"I daresay. And you don’t ever worry…" Vera paused, concerned that the practical consideration might offend him, but he filled in the blank.
"Beau’s thoughts were like yours, at first. He told me never to be alone with the kids. Said they too messed up these days and will accuse me of doing things.”
He lifted a shoulder. “But I just busy myself cleaning outside the restroom and start singing in a low voice. Whatever God tell me to sing. They always come out.”
“Church hymns?”
“Every once in a while, but God do know his audience. Might be a boy band or Taylor Swift. Some R&B for the boys. That work pretty good.” His lips curved, a wry half-smile. “We sit on a couple of my buckets and talk it out. They good kids. Just a hard road for a lot of them, because of how confused they can be about the world. Plenty of times, they just need to hear what the kids do at Sunday school. We all get caught up in stuff, but we a village, all together. All they gotta do is reach out for help and kindness. No need to be afraid of doing that.”
He returned to her original question. “Village breaks down when all we talking to is screens, not looking each other in the eye to share what’s in the heart. That’s when we find that quiet and calm we all need, and when we realize we never alone.”
He paused. “Sorry. Sometimes I sermonize when I don’t mean to. I just feel it through me, and I have to say it.”
“It’s good stuff.” Listening to the rise and fall of his voice, Vera thought its gentle, appealing authority reached down into the well of what male strength was supposed to be. In Rev’s case, it pulled up an overflowing vessel. “You should write it down for your next singing sermon.”
He blinked. “Singing sermon?”
“Your cousin does the pulpit sermon. You do a singing sermon.”
He tapped his head. “It here. God give it to me when it ready to come, and I say it the way He makes me feel it.”
The trail had taken them to an open view of the water. As Vera drew in the heavy marsh scents, she saw a knoll up ahead, populated by a grove of wind-shaped junipers. The mailbox was planted inside their shelter.
A tidy border of smooth rocks and shells was around the base, a bougainvillea vine climbing the post. Two anchored benches were nearby. Small concrete animals had been tucked into the foliage. Vera suspected the whimsical pieces had been left by visitors, along with oyster shells tied to the juniper branches. They made a clinking noise in the light breeze. Many had messages written on them. It reminded her of the expression boards at the school. Proof that adults needed such things, just as children did.
The palpable energy here was laced with the poignant air of wishes voiced, dreams left to linger. As well as grief, celebration, deep thought.
“Why don’t you sit there, Mistress?” Rev pointed her to a bench as he went to the mailbox. He removed a spiral notebook and brought it to her, along with a pen. “You can look through this one while I set up our picnic.”
The purple cardboard cover was stamped with a silver fleur-de-lis. Vera opened the book in the middle, and began to read what had been left on the pages, in various handwriting styles and ink colors. Because of the humidity, the pages were a silken weight against her fingertips.
The first entry was from a girl who’d just graduated high school. She spoke of her hopes for her future, her enthusiasm for the North Carolina college she would be attending. Another page was claimed by a man grieving his father’s loss, followed by a woman dealing with cancer. Many entries expressed gratitude and pleasure for the serene space the mailbox offered.
She heard their voices in her head, people she might have passed on the streets in New Orleans—natives, transplants, tourists. Several entries were written in foreign languages.
While reading, she’d stayed aware of Rev’s movements, but when she realized there was more than lunch in the sizeable pack, she lifted her head. Next to a soft-sided cooler bag, he’d set up a half-shell sun shelter, like people used on the beach. A fabric screen attached to the front could be pulled down to keep out bugs. He’d spread a blanket on the ground inside it.
When he sat back on his heels and saw her watching, he explained. “Sometime when I come out here, I stay awhile. We stay as long as you like, but I didn’t want too much sun or the bugs to make that decision for you.”
He rose and came to her, sitting down on the ground by the bench instead of on it, one leg bent beneath him, one knee propped up. He laid his arm on the bench, in a curve that followed her hip, coiling around her without touching her, without imposing on her space. Wanting to be closer, but waiting for her to make the decision of how much closer.
“Would you read me some of the entries?” he asked.
She read him the ones she’d scanned, then several more. He looked pleased by the elated tone of those with milestones to celebrate, compassionate or sad over entries of longing and need. Like the one she read now.
“‘I don’t think I’ll ever find someone to love me.’ Just that one line,” she noted, showing it to him. “Signed by Z. Can’t tell if it’s a man or woman, or a young person. But the ink looks smeared, as if they were crying when they wrote it.”
“Maybe if we look through them other books, or come back in a few years, we’ll find another entry. Maybe they won’t be alone no more.”
“And maybe they’ll have gotten over themselves and on with their lives.”
His brow creased. “It bothers you.”
“No. Not if it’s a teenager…” The entry had kicked her in a vulnerable spot, but she would tell him what was in her mind. “There are people who get stuck on that, and waste so much energy on it. I learned a long time ago the best cure for loneliness or staying away from that abyss in human nature is giving. Helping others. It’s presumptuous to second guess the Universe’s plan for you. Like what you were saying about Moses.”
“Sometimes we ask more of life than we need to ask of it.” He nodded slowly. “We turn our back on the table that’s already laden up with food and drink, looking for what's not there. But we can’t say if this person like that. They may be out there giving, doing all you say.”
Rev put his fingers on the text, his hand brushing the tips of her fingers clasping the book. “This a place to say something deep in your heart. No judgment. Have you ever felt like that? That you have so much love you want to give someone, a special kind of love just between you and him, that will be treated as special as it should be? And you been waiting and waiting to do it…what seem like forever.”
As he stared at her, her bitterness went away, taken like sand carried by the salty wind touching her lips.
“I guilty of turning away from that table,” he admitted. “I was looking for something not there, something I needed and wanted. But I think the same God that provided what's on that table put our paths together. Because now, I thinking if that table had half as much, or nothing on it, as long as I had this one thing I’ve been wanting, I’ll be okay.”
She didn’t say anything right away. He continued to stare at her, waiting her out. Waiting for whatever she wanted.
“How private is it here?” she asked.
His fingers curled next to her hip. “We didn’t see anyone in the parking lot, so we the only ones here for a while. But I can hear people coming, and see them at that lower point in the trail.” He gestured in that direction. “Gives us a few minutes before they see us, unless they know where to look.”
“Will you serve me as I desire, Rev?”
She gazed at the shelter when she asked, not at him. There were too many things inside her right now, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see her face reflected in his eyes.
“Yes ma’am. Yes, Mistress.”
She turned her mind away from herself, and let it rest on him. In him. She could almost hear the sound of his heart thudding against his chest. When she put her hand there, a jolt went through her, especially when he put his hand over hers.
She rose, and he did too. Once she reached the shelter, she put her hand on his ready forearm to remove her socks and shoes. When she stretched out on the blanket, she lifted her hands above her. It made her body lengthen and arch under his intent gaze. He ducked into the shelter with her, letting the screen fall against his back. One knee pressed into the blanket next to her hips.
“Take off my jeans and shirt, Rev.”
Watching her, he unbuckled her belt and slid it free. Every movement slow, reverent, but not too reverent. His gaze dropped to study the skin he was revealing, his fingers trailing along it without taking more liberties than she’d given him. She lifted her hips to help him get the jeans off. As she arched her back further so he could remove her shirt, his breath drew in. He took it carefully over her hair, then set her clothes aside in a folded stack.
“Sit back and look at me, Rev. Everything below the neck. You don’t have permission to look at my face, and though you can take as long as you like, you only get one look, from neck to feet. When you get to my feet, close your eyes and keep them that way, until I say otherwise.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She tracked his gaze’s passage over the column of her throat, her collar bones and curves of her shoulders, her upper arms, her breasts. She’d worn a black satin bra with a tiny white bow and black pearls between the cups. It had a front fastener, and his eyes rested there an additional second. She could imagine him slipping that clasp, opening up the cups to reveal her aching nipples and full curves to the hunger in his expression. But she stayed still, waiting to see how he followed her direction. The flood of sexual energy felt too good to rush.
He moved to the slope of her abdomen, the flare of her hips, the fit of her matching panties. When his attention passed over her covered mound, heat washed through her there. On to the columns of her thighs, and all the way to her painted toenails. Once he reached the same place, his eyes fell shut. His hand, braced on the ground next to him, had become a fist. Though he had physically maintained the position she’d dictated, his aura, that force field around him, felt as if he’d braced a hand on her opposite side, and he was curved over her like the shelter he’d set up. Only much, much closer.
She breathed slow, pulling that sexual fire from her core to her chest. The power of what was happening took over and drove the next command.
“Breathe deep, Rev. Think about what’s going on in your cock, your thighs.” Her eyes swept over that pleasurable terrain. “Draw that energy up into your chest. Keep drawing it up with every inhale. On the exhale, think about what you’ve seen. Repaint me against the inside of your eyelids. Did you like what you saw?”
“Lord, yes, Mistress. Good God above, yes.”
The emphatic response was underscored by male need. His voice was a rumble of heat. He’d described a storm, its thunder and lightning, as a mesmerizing show. Watching him follow her direction was every bit of one. She watched his shoulders rise, his chest expand, and knew what she wanted next.
“Take off your shirt, Rev. Keep your eyes closed.”
He complied, and she held her breath, then let it spiral back down through her chest, feeling the impact in every erogenous zone. Beautifully sculpted muscle, as she’d expected. Tiny dark whorls of chest hair. His dark skin gleamed from the filtered light coming through the screen. The silver cross was now fully revealed, engraved with a flowing script. She spoke the words aloud.
“We walk by faith, not by sight.”
Since his eyes were closed, a smile touched his mouth, and the coincidence gave her one as well.
“Did Teena Joy give that to you?”
“For my thirteenth birthday.”
Propping herself on an elbow, she reached out. “Lean forward, Rev, and put your cheek on my thigh. Facing my voice.”
She guided him down, her hand moving from forearm to biceps to shoulder, then to his nape, caressing him there, hooking the chain over her fingers and then letting it go again.
He laid his cheek where she directed it, his mouth only a few inches from her damp cunt, just like at the overlook.
“Do you smell me, Rev? Smell my need?”
“Yes, Mistress. I want…” He cut himself off fast, his body jerking with the effort.
“It’s not wrong to ask me for what you want, Rev.” She bit back a tight smile. “Only to demand it.”
“It feels like demand, inside. But I want to ask for permission to use that…forcefulness. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. I like knowing it will be there, for me to call for it when I’m ready. Understand?”
“Yes, Mistress.” His response, touched with that same forcefulness, sent a tingle up her thigh muscles.
“Good. Now sit up again and remove your shoes and the rest of your clothes. Stay on your knees.”
It took some skill to do that and not look awkward, but he was a patient man, not rushing what didn’t need to be rushed. She savored the reveal, the bare hips, the stiff shaft of his cock that emerged as he pushed down his jeans and boxers. When she hummed her approval, he paused to absorb the sound, though he didn’t stop long enough to disrespect her order.
He wore white cotton boxers, pale against his brown skin. After he was done removing all of it, his clothes in a folded stack next to hers, she gave him another order. “Spread your knees to shoulder width, Rev, and put your hands on them.”
He complied, eyes still closed, lashes fanning his cheeks. She put her hand on herself, stroking, lifting into her touch. When she let out a breathy sound of pleasure, his mouth tightened along with the rest of his body, responding to what he could imagine.
“I’m looking at you while I touch myself, Rev. Would you like to hear me climax while I do that? Knowing it’s because I’m looking at you, wanting you? Making you sit next to me with your eyes closed, only able to look at that painted picture in your head?”
His voice came out even deeper than usual, vibrating through the lowest, most aware parts of her. “I can barely breathe, Mistress. I want you so much, but I want… I want to hear that desire in your voice. Know I doing what pleases you. It hurts and make me want to thank God a hundred times, that I’m worthy of that kind of gift.”
Goddess, she loved hearing what was going through a sub’s mind when he didn’t edit it, didn’t change a thing about the flow, straight from mind and cock to mouth.
“You said earlier what you’re feeling is like a demand. Tell me about that. In detail.”
A pause as he digested her meaning. Just as she’d hoped, he picked up on it, his voice getting deliciously rougher. “I want to press myself upon you, all your curves against me, feeling the way they fit, the way your hands might grip my shoulders, hold onto me. That plea in your voice as your pleasure rises, knowing that plea is for me too, as much as the command.”
She half-closed her eyes. His words ignited every nerve ending. “Breathe with me, Rev, that deep breath I talked about. Pull it from your testicles, through your cock, to the top of your head.”
Taking his hand, she guided it between her legs, pressing his fingers against the dampness of her underwear, holding them still there, letting him feel her swollen sex shift under his hand as she drew in matching breaths. His cock and testicles convulsed, the tip of his cock glistening.
“You don’t use rougher words, do you, Rev? Cock. Cunt. Ass.”
“No ma’am. But if those words mean something different to you, special or sacred, then that’s what they’ll mean to me.”
“In Tantra, the man’s sex is called a lingam, the woman’s a yoni. They’re just words, and they mean the same thing. It’s how you say them that makes them special or sacred.”
Under his touch, she stroked herself some more. His expression, even with closed eyes, was intent. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she said.
“I’m following what you doing, so I know what you like.”
“That’s good. But a man’s hand can give a woman different sensations, even doing the same things.” She changed the position of their fingers. “Take off my panties and put your fingers inside me, Rev. Gently.”
“Always, Mistress.” The resolute note in his voice was the same as had been there when he told Cyn he promised to care for her. It made her tremble.
He slid the garment off, then found his way back up her thighs with lingering touches, strokes with a yearning pressure. Her legs parted for him. As he eased in two fingers, he used a careful skill that told her it wasn’t his first time, but it wasn’t something he did often enough to get careless with the privilege. She let out a pleased moan, and a strong desire gripped his expression.
“That breathing you have me doing…everything in me is on fire, but it so still, too. Vibrating.”
“Yes. Move your fingers like you’d move your cock inside me, Rev. Go slow.”
He started to thrust, and she rolled her hips with the movement, lifting her body with the rhythm. She clasped his biceps, drawing him down toward her. “I want your mouth on my breast, Rev. Put it to good use.”
He touched his lips to the upper curve, exploring it like he had with his eyes. An inch at a time, making his way to her nipple without rushing. His body quivered, showing he was doing everything he could to go slow, to take his time. When he finally covered the nipple, the slow draw that led to a tender suckling pulled more low, harsh moans from her. She moved in a dance with his efforts.
His fingers moved in her, lips suckling her. She had to fight to get words out, but she’d win that fight because the Mistress in her wanted even more from him.
“Can you deny yourself for me, Rev? No climax for you, not until I say?”
He lifted his head enough to answer. “I want you to find your joy at my touch. From my touch. From looking at me.”
“Open your eyes and tell me more about what you want.”
Their faces were close, so when he obeyed, she saw the alpha lurking in those depths, able to partner with the beta, changing leads as the moment called for it, as experience and intuition had taught him. The gingerbread color had deepened to the darkness of fertile soil.
“Let it happen now, please. Mistress. For me.”
The orgasm gripped her, that red fire spiraling tight out of her core and adding to what was already rushing through her, hardening her nipple under his tongue as he put his head down and recaptured it. While he suckled more forcefully, he passed his thumb over her clit in featherlike brushes. He thrust his fingers in and out, in and out, curling them up against her G-spot. She gripped his shoulders, clawing at the flexing muscle as her head tipped back, throat arching, pressing her breast deeper into his mouth.
His free arm slid under her, palm flattening against her back, fingers spread to hold her up. He helped her work through every blissful spasm as she cried out her pleasure to the marsh and to all those wishes written on the notebook pages.
When the climax finally ebbed, she dropped a hand from his shoulder to the back of his head, over the short crop of his hair, pressing into the firm skull beneath it as he kept slowly teasing and sucking on her nipple.
“Oh Goddess…” When his fingers slid out of her, one last shudder of reaction followed the withdrawal from her slick flesh. She had him raise his head, his cock steel against her thigh, the wet tip leaving a kiss of reminder against her skin.
“There’s a song,” he said. His voice held the urgency of a man with a raging hard-on and no relief in sight. The sound caused one last ripple through her cunt, a tiny spasm of reaction. “One they play on the radio, that remind me of the songs they sing in church. One lyric of it go something like, “‘I’ll rise up a thousand times to do it all again… No matter the ache…’”
“I think I know that one. Sing it to me.”
His eyes glinted at the challenge she gave him, but he managed it, the uneven notes adding to the erotic pool immersing all her senses.
“‘Rise Up,’ Andra Day. Rev…you are an interesting man.”
“You a fascinating woman, Mistress.”
“I want you on top of me and inside me, Rev. No climax, no release. I want to feel you inside me.”
His nostrils flared. She loved seeing all the muscles tighten in his throat. “Sure you don’t torture people in that club you been talking about? Because you sure good at it.”
“A Mistress only tortures the sub who wants and needs that.” She flashed teeth at him. “Do you need to use anything? I’m on birth control, and I always use protection with my partners.”
His expression flickered. "It been over a year, and when I was with her, we used protection the whole time."
Over a year. It made his control even more impressive. “Rev.” The urgency in her voice increased.
He slid between her legs as she parted them for him. He paused to stare down at her. “Do you trust all men like this? This fast?”
She could claim that sex could be a casual thing that two adults could indulge on the first date if they wished. But she didn’t do casual sex, and this didn’t feel casual. She wouldn’t lie to him to protect herself.
“I only let a man get this close if I do trust him. And I find myself trusting you more than most.”
Emotions crowded into the small space, and then he slowly slid into her. She was still wet, but he showed tender respect for how sensitive post-climactic tissues could be as he worked himself inside. Watching his face as he did it, him in the throes of unreleased pleasure, and her on the sated side of it, was always an incomparable experience, knowing her sub was fighting his natural need to thrust and climax, just to serve her desires.
When he was hilt deep, she felt full and stretched. His muscles were rigid under her hands. She let them glide down his back, to his ass. A marvelous, muscular ass. She traced and teased the seam as she locked her legs over it.
“Mother Mary,” he muttered, his eyes starting to close.
“No. Look at me, Rev. Look at what I’m demanding of you and show me your willingness to submit to those demands. To serve my will with every ounce of your own.”
His face was still and tight, eyes showing the fire they were channeling. She passed her fingers over his lips, and he nipped her, unable to stop the reaction. Her cunt squeezed down on their joining point. She wasn’t above consciously stroking a man’s cock with her inner muscles, but the experience he’d given her meant her body was doing it for her, caught up in those lovely tiny aftershocks.
Eventually, she would have him withdraw, watch him get dressed, working around that impressive erection. She would tell him not to give himself relief between now and the next time they saw one another. She wanted him on the edge of that desire, feeling it, letting it expand to the full scope of the power it could carry. She would keep testing what he wanted to give her as a submissive.
Not just because it connected to who the man was, the elements that formed the shape of that part of himself, but because it was the kind of Mistress she was, that wanted that kind of response.
But for now, she let her awareness go beyond the two of them to the chirp of birds, the wind through the marsh, the oyster shell ornaments clinking in the juniper. Maybe she’d leave one herself, a memory of this. And because he’d told her there was no judgment here, she’d leave her own sentence in the book.
Would she be back later to see if it was still true, or just a wistful hope that departed with the passage of time, like the sun that always ultimately dropped behind the horizon?
I think I’ve found him. The one I want to keep.