Chapter 7
Seven
Wes
Mira was stunned when I wrapped my arms around her for the second time today. I felt it in her hesitation, but then she relaxed almost instantly, leaning into me. The hug was nice—nice enough to wake up my cock, and nice enough to make me ignore it.
I was attracted to her, no doubt about it, but it had always been more. And I’d never been surer of that. Here I was in Rawhide’s lobby, a Dungeon closer to me than one had been in months, and I didn’t care about playing—not if this woman was willing to spend time with me.
“Do you have a preference?” I asked pointing between the booth and the chair.
She pointed at the booth, and I moved aside to let her get to it. Her smile widened and she sat.
“Thank you. You’re a gentleman, Dr. Wes. That’s catnip for the ladies.”
“Honestly, I only want to be catnip to one.” The words came out before I even realized I’d said them aloud, but I didn’t take them back. Why would I? They were true, and the shy smile she gave me was worth showing my vulnerability a hundred times over.
“She’s a lucky girl,” Mira said coyly, and I shook my head, grinning ear to ear.
“So, what are we drinking, lucky?” I winked as a server set two menus down and looked at Mira expectantly.
“Hey, Mira,” the server said, gazing at her in a way that made me feel for the guy.
“Hi, Silas.” She glanced at him, smiled politely and then picked up the menu.
“You finished your creative writing assignment for Professor Dalton? Because you don’t want to piss him off like you did Stahlbaum. I was in the next class when she held you back.” He winced. “Sounded rough.”
Mira winced too. “Uh, thanks for reminding me, but it was a while ago now.”
“Sorry, but I hear Professor Dalton hands out three by fives like candy. Don’t want you to end up in trouble again.”
Mira’s face flushed pink, and she looked uncomfortably at me. “Silas, I can take care of myself and I’m sort of…” She pointed at me, and I held up a hand in greeting.
“Oh, right. Uh, shoot. What can I get you?” He pulled a pen out from behind his ear and a pad out of the pocket of his colorful apron.
“I’ll have…” Mira paused licking her lips, still looking anxious about Silas’s comments. Silas on the other hand was so focused on her that I thought he might faint. “A shot of tequila, and a margarita please.”
I ordered the same.
“Great, I’ll be back to take your food order in a few minutes,” Silas said cheerfully and left us.
“What’s a three by five and have you finished your assignment, young lady?”
She looked mortified by my question and admittedly that excited me.
“I was a very good tutor once, remember? I teach but also assist with motivation.”
Her cheeks burned red, but she boldly held my stare. “Three by fives are those recipe cards.”
I chuckled. “And? Does this professor hand out family recipes?”
She sighed. “No. The professors hand them out when you screw up, and you take them to the disciplinarian. It’s basically an appointment card for punishment.
And as for my assignment…” She looked as if she were considering my question but then she blurted.
“That’s none of your business, Doctor.” She swiftly changed the subject then by pointing out that I didn’t look like the margarita type.
I had unnerved her, and it thrilled me. It also made my pants uncomfortably tight.
“Hm?”
“I said, you really don’t look like the margarita type, Doc,” she repeated.
But now my brain replaced Doc with Daddy and the heat already gathered behind my zipper turned throbbing. But I wasn’t just base instincts in a body, so I ignored it—shoving my growing hunger for her deep down.
“It just feels like a margarita night,” I replied, forcing lightness to my tone, but my voice cracked a little. Shifting in my seat, I grabbed my napkin and tossed it in my lap.
“That bad, huh? How many roommates do you have?” She flipped the pages of the menu absently.
“My roommates are a cake walk compared to—”
She cut me off, looking me dead in the eye. “Nope.”
“Nope?” I repeated confused by more than just the random word she threw at me but also the firmness of her tone.
“I’m here to forget about my troubles, so don’t tell me we should be talking about my shit day instead of yours because you think mine is shittier, okay? It’s not a competition and to be honest, if you really want to be my friend, you’ll let me hear your shitty drama for once.”
“Okay.” My brow rose, but I chuckled. “That’s fair.” The Mira I knew from two years ago wouldn’t have done that. She’d have made a joke and shyly brushed off her own feelings. I was proud of this new side of her.
“Good. Now spill the tea.”
My mouth hitched up and instead of calling her bossy, I asked, “The shitty tea?”
Her freshly washed round face lit up in a smile and I cocked my head to admire it. She had a youthful glow, the natural kind, that would fool people about her age for years to come.
“Shittier the better.” She scrunched her nose, and I had to fight the urge to kiss the smattering of freckles that wrinkled with it.
Get it together, man. She needs a friend.
“See now that sounds dangerously like competition,” I said.
She laughed, throwing her head back, her silky blonde curls falling over her shoulders to her back exposing her delicate neck and more of those beautiful freckles on her shoulders and chest.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I said, giving her a mock serious look. “I’m here for it. And I’m highly competitive.”
Our drinks arrived and Silas stared at Mira’s smile. He looked bewildered by it.
“It’s been a while since I saw you smile like this,” he said sliding a plate with a couple of limes on it across to the middle of the table. “It looks good on you.”
She glanced at him, giving him a small, pressed smile. “Thanks.”
“I’ll grab you some chips and salsa to start but are you ready to order?”
“Um, I don’t know.” She glanced at me. “What about you?”
“I think we need some more time,” I said remembering how much she hated making decisions.
Silas nodded and left us to go tend to a large group that had just arrived.
“Pick an implement, Mira. If you can’t decide what you want to eat, what you want to do, or where we should go, I think you need some practice in decision making. Hmm?”
“And if I don’t choose?”
“It’ll be this.” I pulled the rubber paddle she hated from behind my back, and she gasped.
“Not that.”
“Yes, that. Now pick an implement and a position. You’ve got two minutes.” I looked at my watch.
“Two minutes?” she asked in disbelief.
“Tick tock.”
Flustered, she jumped up and down on alternating feet. “Uh, uh, uh, the…” She looked at me, her forehead wrinkled in the most adorable way. “Can I say hand?”
I smiled. “Hand is acceptable. Is that your choice?”
“I don’t know. Why can’t we just use the dice? I can roll them, and they’ll pick the implement, count, and position.”
“Because that teaches you nothing. And they don’t make dice for all life’s decisions.”
“Yes, they do. It’s called a Magic 8 Ball.” She gave me a tiny grin. One that had me holding back my own smile because she was so damn cute.
“Girlie.” I looked at my watch again while she looked back at the display of implements set out on the coffee table. “Less than thirty seconds, Mira.”
“Okay, okay.”
I could practically see the steam billowing out of her ears. I’d never met someone with such an aversion to making decisions in my life. Lots of subs didn’t enjoy picking implements though.
“Ten seconds.”
“Gah! Okay, hand.”
“And position?” I kept my eye on my watch.
“Uh. OTK, but maybe not hand then… I don’t know!”
“Out of time, Mira.”
“No,” she said, looking panic stricken.
“Yup. Come here.”
She came to me, despite the frown on her face. I cupped her chin in my hand. “We’re going to keep doing this, honey. Because decision making is important.” I released her chin, taking her wrist instead and moved us to the bedroom.
“Over the bed, girlie.”
She swallowed hard, her face worried as she eyed the paddle in my hand.
“Now, Mira.”
She leaned across the bed. “I should have just stuck with choosing your hand.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“Because sometimes I need more.”
I laughed. “Well, isn’t not enough better than too much?” But I knew the answer.
She looked over her shoulder at me. “No. It’ll leave me wanting more and then I won’t be able to think about anything else.”
“You can always ask for more.”
“Asking for more is hard, plus it bursts the bubble.”
I knew the bubble she spoke of. And it put things back in her control.
I lifted her skirt laying it up over her lower back. Giving her bottom a dirty squeeze, I leaned closer to her ear. “Or you could trust that Daddy knows when you need more.”
She buried her face into the covers. “I should know that. You always do.”
I smiled, stood upright and gave her thick bottom cheeks one last massage.
“Over the panties for ten, and then ten more on your fiery bare bottom.”
“Yes, Daddy.” Her voice shook a little with her reply and I practically felt her frisson of dread mixed with excitement in my own body.
“And, girlie?”
She looked at me.
“Your next decision will be sexual.”
She sucked in her bottom lip. And I gave her a wicked smile.
She lurched with the first swat, grabbing her bottom with both hands.
“Hands, Mira,” I warned. “They’ll get hit if you don’t control them and the paddle wasn’t made for hands; it was made for your bottom.”
She moved them quickly. “Yes, Daddy.”
Her legs went up with the next crack that echoed in the large room. The paddle touched the edges of her panties, leaving a small strip of red.
“Here’s another decision for you. Faster or slower? One hurts more, with no room to recover, but it’ll be over with sooner. The other gives you time to recover but drags it out.”
“I don’t know,” she said sounding tormented by having to make another decision so soon.
“Okay, I’m going to choose then.” I swatted her hard three times fast and she squealed, kicking her legs frantically.