CHAPTER 17
Beth fanned her face again while trying to think logically. Wow, she couldn’t believe they’d just had that conversation. Now, writing this while horny out of her mind was like food shopping while starving. “Focus. Sex therapy cap on. Maturity. You can do this.”
She stood and climbed up the ladder and sat on the bed, smiling as she looked all around again before getting back to the white page before her. She wrote a number 1 then tapped the tip of the pen on the paper. “No. Sex.” Starting with the most obvious.
She scratched it out and wrote another number 1 only for her brain to refuse anything formulaic. Maybe numbering was putting her in the wrong frame of mind. Not like a list of dos and don’ts, but a list of…ideas. Right. What kind?
Her mind kept returning to his interpretation of BDSM. Binding, dominating, subduing Ma Petite. She fanned her face, craving every one of those. Would he be okay with her just taking his ideas? I just so happen to want what you want. Likely not. Was there something else she wanted?
Mr. Bishop has not been allowed to touch and taste before. Oh God, that. All that, every bit of it, of him. But what and how? The obvious answer was her becoming his sacrificial sex lamb and the S part of the acronym was all her, it’s who she was at her core, she thought. Giving herself to be consumed by him, dear God yes. Yes, a million times.
She aimed her burning revelations at the page, but her hand remained locked with fear. Do it. Don’t think about it, just do it.
She wrote, I want Mr. Bishop to….
She scratched it out and started again. I want you to let me…
Again she scratched it out. I want Mr. Bishop to participate… Dear God, why couldn’t she get this?
She crumpled the paper up tight and started over. I want to give myself to Mr. Bishop. To do with as he needs.
She refused her sudden urge to scratch it out. It’s what he wanted, and she wanted. She again fanned her face at all the things he might do when fulfilling that. It brought her to the next question of when and where and how often? It was a lifestyle so that meant doing things outside the bedroom. Her heart was back at hammering at that. Him dominating her in any sense at any time was arousing out of her mind.
But what about giving him pleasure? Directly? She was so desperate to do that.
She wrote number two. I need… She scratched that.
I have to have your pleasure. That wasn’t even proper English. She scribbled it out.
I have to have the ability to give you pleasure. Again, she scratched it out.
You must give me permission to pleasure you. This is not negotiable! She scratched off the exclamation mark, not wanting to seem bossy.
She hadn’t really said anything about domination yet and those particulars and he’d definitely want her input.
Her hand trembled in strain from gripping the pen so hard. She let out a frustrated sigh. “Come on,” she cried, “you can do this. Like an assignment in class, you’ve done tons of these.”
I want to learn about submission and dominance with you. As vague as it was, it was correct. The Bishop side of him had never been allowed to taste and touch and she’d never been touched or tasted except by him.
She ripped the page out and crumpled it, starting over.
I want you to dominate me. Outside the bedroom first, then inside the bedroom. Maybe in degrees? Non-sexual first then sexual. Slowly?
Pure masochism. She never wanted to hurt him or deny him in this. And she’d suffered long enough with denying herself pleasure.
She tore the paper out and crushed it into a tight ball in her hands, throwing it next to the others.
By the time she was done, she had nearly a dozen balls of trials next to her but forgot to put the Bishop in the final draft. His Bishop. No. Her Bishop. She eyed the pile of papers, ready to see what all she’d missed.
The door opened and she gasped in surprise. The sight of him made her forget all about the slop on the bed as delicious perfection in only jeans filled her vision. “I wasn’t done,” she said, breathless.
He set a bag down and headed her way. Panic hit her and she gathered all her balls of shame, shooting a glance at him. “These are…drafts,” she said, yanking the covers over them.
She turned to find him standing right next to the bed, tall enough to cross both his arms on the mattress and stare at the burial. “Ma Petite is hiding her messy process?”
“Very, very messy, yes,” she agreed, breathless.
He looked at her for several seconds. “It’s the messy process that holds the real truth of things.”
Her mouth hung open before she countered with, “You may be right, but I’d rather it in a neat…finished format.”
“Neat,” he said, eyeing the pile again. “What if I like messy and raw? Real?”
“This is real,” she assured, pointing to the tablet glued to her chest. Oh God, he was actually pushing to see it? “I don’t want you to see those,” she said firmly. “It’s like…watching somebody practice singing a song, there’s a lot of stalls and voice breaks and mistakes.”
He was shaking his head slowly at her. “Not the same. There are no mistakes in this, Ma Petite.”
“Just read this one.” She shoved it at him before he tried to force the issue more.
He took the tablet and she suddenly wanted to snatch it back. Instead, she buried the papers even further under the covers.
“Ma Petite,” he muttered softly, already reading.
No time to cringe and worry, he was now looking at her, gaze all burning. “What?” she finally gasped, unable to take his silence. “I put what I want. Like you told me to.”
“You did,” he said.
What was he surprised about? That she had, or what she wanted. “You don’t have to do any of it obviously.”
“Obviously,” he muttered as if the word didn’t begin to apply. He faced away now, reading.
“There’s not much there, it’s just a start.”
“There’s a whole world here, Ma Petite,” he said quietly.
God, what was that tone supposed to mean? It was almost accusing. Threatening. Definitely threatening. “Well, it is a lifestyle and not that I want to be in it or am into it like some people.”
She stared at his gorgeous inked back. Her hands lay in fists in her lap, needing to touch the broad expanse of silky muscle. Lick it. Suck it. Dig her nails in it.
“Mon Dieu,” he muttered, like something pained him.
She remembered that meant MyGod. Really? “You can say no,” she reminded, trying not to be upset.
He chuckled, his back still turned. “Like hell I can or would.”
She swallowed, still confused. “What does that mean?”
He turned and she tensed the second his gaze torched her. “It means exactly what it sounds like, Ma Petite.” He looked at the tablet. “There’s only one part I’m not sure I understand. You want me to dominate you first in non-sexual things.” He eyed her with questioning eyes.
“Uhhh, well…” Crap, she hadn’t thought of examples. “Just…when you tell me to do things outside the bedroom, I… submit? Do them?”
He gave a half grin that said he was no more informed than before.
“Okay, I clearly didn’t think that one through enough,” she admitted, pulling her knees to her chest in a choke hold.
“I would love to make suggestions,” he said, looking at the paper then back at her again. “But I’ll need a little more to go on. Are you wanting a dog and master type of dynamic, Ma Petite?”
“No!” she cried, not even bothering to think.
“I’m not judging you, I’m trying to understand,” he said with that sexy grin, placing his arms on the bed while holding the tablet. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of with me. You can do no wrong in my eyes with this. And I’m willing to dominate you in and out of the bedroom, in every burning degree imaginable, but I need to understand what you want so I can do it perfectly for you.”
She was suddenly on fire with that clobbering clarification. “Oh. I think…I may be asking for things I don’t know enough about to explain,” she said, inadequate shame creeping up her cheeks.
He eyed her in silence until she was breathless.
“Give me the messy truth under the covers Ma-Petite.”
Panic returned. “No!”
He tsked at her, his head shaking. “You don’t want this.” He tossed her the tablet.
“What?”
“I give you one command outside of sex and you tell me no. Either you don’t really want it, or it’s not something you can do?” He gave a light shrug of indifference. “Maybe you need to think on it some more. I brought the clothes Mah-Mah has for you. Do you want to shower before bed?”
Her heart hammered in her chest, scattering her thoughts. She focused on what he’d first said, her not really wanting it or unable to do it. Dammit! “Fine,” she said, even said it while looking right at him. “Yes, I want to shower and yes, you can have my messy process.” Before she could change her mind, she yanked the covers back and began scooping them up and dumping them before him, throwing the final few into the pile.
He was grinning at her.
“Now what?” she wondered, trying not to be pissed.
“I think you also need to finish that dynamic, Ma Petite.”
“What do you mean?”
“What are the rules of engagement? When does it start and stop? Or does it not? So many questions that need answering,” he said, taking hold of her ankles and tugging her toward him. When he had her sitting at the edge of the bed, he lay his head in her lap. “Mmmm,” he murmured. “Don’t move.”
“Nonsexual,” she reminded, winded already.
He lifted his boiling stare to her. “Is this sexual to you Ma Petite?”
She gasped, staring at his mouth. “Everything with you is sexual to me.”
He straightened and captured her face in his hands, his mouth hungry on hers, tongue lashing. He placed a hand over her butt and jerked her into his chest.
“I need to make you orgasm and I’m not waiting much longer to do it,” he said right in her mouth. “Go take your shower and figure that into your dynamic.” Both his hands were on her butt now, fingers pressing methodically until she moaned from it.
He pushed away from the bed and turned. “Go before I can’t stop. I need you to help control this.”
“Okay,” she finally said, unlocking her shaky limbs and making her way to the ladder. She paused, eyeing the slide on the other side and crawled over to it. She slid down, unable to stop her laugh then hopped up and walked around him, feeling the burn of his eyes on her. She
She peeked in the bag at the door and picked it up, then turned to find him still watching. “Doing as you said,” she informed, hoping he understood she meant submitting. She couldn’t take the boil in his stare a second longer and left out, holding on for dear life as she descended the stairs on limp noodle legs.
****
Sahvrin hated to call Jek and ruin the most intoxicating mood he’d ever been in, but he needed to know what was going on. “What’s happening?” he asked Jek when he answered.
“Stepping outside,” he muttered before giving a low whistle. “Our Katrina was loaded on the information front. “I asked if anybody else knew how to get here and she swears no. Said it took her all day to finally figure it out.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want anybody else trying that and accidentally getting lucky. She say anything more about our daughter?”
“Tons more,” Jek said, making Sahvrin’s stomach tense. “You wanna know?”
“Every detail.”
“Well,” he began, his tone going lighter. “She’s super smart with numbers, and I think we know where she gets that. And get this. She’s an amazing artist and doesn’t even know she inherited that talent. She’s obviously beautiful. That screen guard she had on her phone worked,” he muttered with a low chuckle. “I probably looked at a hundred pics of her from birth to present. She’s fucking amazing, Sahvrin. I’m really sorry we missed all those years though.”
“You and me both,” he said, still numb about it. “She looks tiny still.”
“She is, barely five feet.”
He shook his head, dread eating at him. “You think she’ll even want to be here? Out here? She doesn’t even know us.”
“One way to find out. But it’s not like we have a choice about it.”
“I know. Does Lazure know yet?”
“I updated him with all the information she gave and put it in our group box. Check it when you get a chance.”
“We need to get those eyes live on the waterways first thing tomorrow.”
“Agreed. After I get Beth situated, we’ll go into town and see if we can’t arrange a meeting with Thadious tonight.”
“Sounds good. We can chat about the details when it’s time. You ask about that name Bart gave? The Julien one? And don’t forget to give him the maiden name of her mother.”
“I will.”
“She doing okay with all this?”
“Like an angel.”
“Just so you know, I think she’s swamp material from what I’ve seen and heard from Mah-Mah and Lucas. Lucas might be in love,” he said in low laughter.
“He better not be,” Sahvrin said. “I’d hate to have to maim the adorable fuck.”
Jek laughed. “Wait till the women start lining up for that one.”
“And the men for Luseah, trust me, I don’t look forward to it.”
“I just checked on that storm,” Jek said. “Looks like it’ll turn and hit Alabama and Florida panhandle. But they have another one a week behind it we’ll need to get ready for.”
“Good. Anything else on her father or family?”
“Check the group chat, Bart put some things in it, nothing that stands out in my mind.
“I will. Looks like Mah-Mah is still bent on this party. That woman,” he muttered shaking his head. “At least there won’t be a hurricane on top of everything else,” Sahvrin said. “Now that we have leverage, we don’t want mother nature bringing tide surges that could drown everything.”
“You right about that,” Jek agreed. “Well, keep your eye on the group chat. Putting everything we find there.”
“Will do. Thanks.”
“Night bro. Get some sleep. Katrina is tied secure by the way. I’m not taking any chances with her. And uh… you okay?”
“Yeah…just a little numb.”
“I hear you man,” he said, sounding weighed down.
“What about you? You holding up these days?” Sahvrin realized how long it’d been since they all really connected outside of work.
“I’m good. Hey you remember Shelly? From Breaux’s Mart?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’m dating her.”
Sahvrin’s brows rose. “For how long?”
“Going on two months.”
“Wow! That’s a record?”
“Hell yeah it is.”
“You must like her,” he fished.
Jek gave a deep sigh and Sahvrin’s laughter erupted. “That much?”
“Yep. That much.”
“Well, damn. Glad to hear it. Now I won’t be the only Bishop walking around with an eternal hard on.”
Jek laughed at that. “I invited her to the party. I know it’s bad timing, but was thinking we could perform…make an impression on our women?”
Sahvrin grinned, never imagining Jek wanting such a thing. “I’d like that.”
“I’m sure Beth would too.”
“Maybe, yes.” He heard her on the stairs. “I gotta go. Talk to you later.”
He put his phone on the dresser and headed to the door. Fuck, she was fast. She knocked and he opened it, making her jump. “You don’t need to knock, Ma Petite,” he said, smiling at whatever she wore. A long white cotton gown with ruffles on the arms and neck. Then he realized it wasn’t a gown but a robe. She climbed up the ladder and sat in the bed, then undid the robe and struggled her way carefully out of it. “Glad you’re not wearing that in this heat,” he said, eager to know what she wore underneath. At glimpsing something red and lace, his cock jerked, and he slowly went to the bed to inspect.
When he stood at the foot, he smiled at how she now hid in the sheet.
“What are you laughing at?” she wondered, worry and offense on her brow.
He met her gaze, sliding his tongue over his lower lip. “I find it…fucking delicious,” he decided, “how shy you are around me.”
He watched his words light her up as she lay down on her back and pressed the covers at her sides while staring at the ceiling. “Well?”
He moved closer to her face, grinning more. “Well, what?”
She covered her face. “Did you read the junk I wrote?”
Shit, right. He went to his desk, sitting.
“What are you doing?“
“Reading them now.”
“What?! I left out of here so you could do it!”
He turned with a laugh. “I thought you left to go shower.”
“Yes, but it was a two-part…necessity!”
Mon Dieu, he loved this woman. He opened all the balled-up papers while she whined and complained in shock and disbelief. Once he had them open, he put them in a stack and made his way over to her with them.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, sounding panicked.
“I’m coming here to read them.”
“No!” she cried, horrified. “It’s not funny, Sahvrin, please don’t! I mean it!”
“Ma Petite,” he said, blocking her from trying to grab the pages now. “Lay still.” He laughed when she increased her efforts. “Are these your rules of engagement? Am I commanding wrong?”
“Stop teasing!”
Sahvrin’s laughter stopped when her sheet fell. She jerked it back up, breathless. “Fine, I’m…apparently not good at this, but neither are you!”
He drew back in surprise. “I gave two very simple commands. Nice ones,” he said, wanting her to know they could so easily be otherwise.
Her pretty mouth remained astonished even as her eyes glowed with a million watts of make me orgasm. She slammed herself back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling with a sigh. “Do it then. Read it right in front of me and make me feel stupid, since that’s what turns you on.”
“Is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Commanding things that turn me on? That’s a huge component in this dynamic, Ma Petite. It changes a lot.”
“No, it doesn’t have to but…I assumed that’s the point of the dynamic, to obtain some form of pleasure.”
“Ah, I see.”
“And not all pleasure is linked directly to your privates.”
“With you, I’m afraid it is.”
She gasped, lifting her head at him. “I do not get horny about everything.”
He laughed, putting his forehead on the bed then looked at her. “I meant it’s that way for me with you, everything you do is attached to my cock. And,” he said, getting serious as he studied her flush cheeks. “Did you not just say before your shower that everything about me is sexual.”
“Well, maybe I meant that in reverse.”
“Did you?” he decided to ask, remembering he had commands in his arsenal now.
“No,” she finally mumbled. “But it applies in reverse.”
“Yes, it does.” He eyed her sheet cloaked body, hungry. “I’m going to read now, and you’ll lay still and be submissive, yes?”
Her eyelids fluttered in a hard eye roll, and he held back his laughter understanding what it was like to be aroused and angry all in one. Such a sexy fucking look on her.
He stared at the single line on the first page, his body locking up with pure lust. He moved to the second page, then the third, and fourth. By the tenth one, his cock had become a raging battering ram. “Ma Petite,” he said, finding it difficult to think past his craving to do what she begged for in those papers.
“What?” she asked, her soft voice a mix of shame and arousal.
“I see you tossed the Mean Bishop to the curb?”
“I actually didn’t, I had every intention of adding him back in, but the process was long, and I didn’t want to keep writing everything over and over while I worked out the more…difficult things. And you shower very fast,” she said, blaming him.
All he heard was the mean Bishop was the easy part for her. And that she asked for him first, andon every page after had him in a lust-crazed predicament.
“Obviously, I want him in, he was the first one I wrote. Of course I want him in,” she added yet again, her tone tender like she didn’t want him to feel left out.
That beautiful fucking angel. And hearing her say it all out loud put a burning ache in his balls. “Consider it done, Ma Petite angel,” he said, not saying another word until he finished with the rest of her sexual clues. He wanted all of them.
He went to his desk, getting a pen.
“What are you doing?”
“Making notes,” he said, returning to the bed, reading through each paper again.
“What kind?”
He circled all the clue words on every page then handed the stack to her.”
She took them and sat up, fixing the sheet so it was under both arms, covering her. She went from page to page now. “You circled words.”
“It’s the main message.”
She was quiet as she continued moving through the pages. “I see,” she finally said, her answer breathless.
“Tell me.”
She flicked a glance at him. “Make, want, I and me, and…Mr. Bishop.”
“Put it in order.”
She gave a light sigh then hurried through the difficult confession. “I want Mr. Bishop to make me,” she said, handing the stack of papers back.
“In degrees,” he added, watching her squirm in that sexy shame. “I just want to know exactly what you want,” he said, being patient. “And it’s good you are aware of it too.”
“So… now we both know.”
He took her hand and pulled it gently to his lips, placing a kiss on the top of it. “Did Ma Petite decide on the rules of engagement yet?”
“I think so,” she said, focusing on his mouth on her.
“Let me hear them.” He continued rubbing his lips along the soft skin of her hand.
“I can’t…think when you’re doing that.”
He paused the pleasure and lay her hand exactly at her side and waited, head propped on his palm.
“I can’t think while you’re staring,” she complained lightly, bringing his own sigh.
“Do I need to leave?” he wondered, amazed.
“No, just…give me thinking space.”
He made his way to the chair at his desk and sat.
“So…” she finally said after a full minute.
“Mon Dieu, just say it Ma Petite,” he begged. “It’s just words.”
“So for when and how long and…behaviors.”
He held his tongue, not wanting to interrupt her, but definitely wanting to know what the last one meant. “That can’t be all,” he finally said when it was obvious she was done.
“Well, no, but it’s the gist.”
“Ma Petite.” He sat forward looking at her laying there still. “I can’t know how to do this with gists.”
“Well, what particular thing do you need to know?”
“All of them,” he said, laughing.
She got on her side, looking at him. “I don’t know all of them.”
“Well…how will we know what to do?”
“We discuss it and figure it out.”
“You have to decide this.”
She gave a frustrated breath. “Why am I doing all the work?”
“It has to be you to decide.”
“Well, fine, I will, but how about you lay some options for me to pick from?”
He realized she couldn’t do it because she based all her decisions on the needs of others. He needed to fix that. “Starting with your top priority. You want Mr. Bishop to make you.”
“Not…just Mr. Bishop,” she corrected, hesitant.
“Okay, you would like Sahvrin and or Mr. Bishop—“
“And or?” she wondered.
“Because you want both, Ma Petite,” he gently explained, ready to kick Sahvrin to the curb now that he knew how she felt about Bishop.
“Why are you laughing at me?” she asked, sounding genuinely upset and making him actually laugh.
“I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing because you’re the most amazing and beautiful woman I have ever met. I guess laughing is how I express what you do to me.”
The perplexed, worried look on her face was priceless. Like she must be flawed or doing something wrong.
“I’ve laughed more with Ma Petite than I have all my life, I think.” He gave a little shrug, not at all sorry for it. “One day you will be known in the swamps as the angel who raised me from the grave.”
The smile that slowly bloomed on her face along with her dreamy look brought his grin. “Okay, so, starting with when,” she said, her inhibition gone as though raising him from the dead had vanquished them.
“Yes, when,” he said, dying to make her orgasm now.
“I think the non-sex stuff can happen…all day.”
Before he got excited, he asked, “What exactly happens all day again?”
“You commanding me.”
“So now I just need to know what kind of commands you want.” He leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his legs, eyeing her.
“Well…maybe just…asking me to do things.”
“Things,” he said, annoyed with that term. “Like… go work in the garden, woman, go take a shower, feed the chickens?”
“No. Like… things with you.”
“Ma Petite, you think I’m being intentionally dense?” he asked, at her snippy tone. “I just need examples. Even one would help.”
“Like…command me to hold your hand or get you a drink of water or run you a bath or… make me give you a massage.”
Fascinating. “I just picked up another theme in your list.”
“What?” she worried, as if he considered them flaws.
“All of your examples seem to benefit me.”
She appeared confused. “Well, yes. That’s the idea?”
He had to laugh and when he was done, she was back to annoyed. “So, this is all for me?” Why was he surprised? She was his angel.
“The one dominating commands things he wants, and the one submitting gives it and likes giving it. What? Why are you looking like that?”
“I just wonder if Ma Petite has this right and since you’ve barely touched on it and can hardly remember even that, how about we wait to see what the instructions say. Or suggest.”
“What do you think I’m wrong about?” she wondered.
“Well, for one, you seem to be assuming that the one dominating must automatically use that to serve himself and I don’t feel like that’s right and if it is, I would want to definitely change that to include me commanding things I know you like as well.”
She licked her lips, her brows puckered in curiosity. “Like what?”
“Like me commanding you to give yourself an orgasm is the first one that comes to mind.”
The desire that lit her face lassoed his cock, forcing him to stretch his leg to make room. “Oh,” she said. “I…didn’t think of that.”
“But you like it.”
“Yes,” she said after many seconds. “And I like being commanded to… to do things to you.”
Fu-ck-ing-Dieu. “I can manage that,” he said, already fiercely aware of her desire to give him pleasure. He definitely understood that. “Would Ma Petite ever…care to switch roles?” Because he was sure being commanded sexually by her was somewhere in his fate.
The look of certain calamity on her face as she shook her head cracked him up. “Pretty sure commanding isn’t something I’m very good at. I can barely manage you commanding me.”
“We can practice with small things,” he said, ready to negotiate or beg. “You commanding me to rub your back or brush your hair.”
A smile spread on her pretty lips. “You want to brush my hair?”
“Mon Dieu, yes,” he said, feeling like she should know that.
“Okay.” Her smile got as big as her blush. “I think I can handle stuff like that.”
He was thinking once she got a taste of it, she may be able to handle a lot more. He wasn’t really into commanding her outside of sex and he wasn’t really into being commanded by her outside of it either. “Would you like to practice right now? Command me to rub your feet?”
He’d take any form of touching her at this point.
She gave a giggle and held her feet up, wiggling her toes. “Sahvrin, come rub my feet.”
The bossy way she said it was another clue to her preconceived ideas about dominance and submission. Sounded more like bully and victim to him. He wouldn’t be either of those, but he could damn sure dominate her in sex and submit to her sexual commands.
Dieu, that was like getting two heavens.