Chapter 4
Rachel
The pizzas arrived just as Penelope exited the bath, so Rachel almost dropped the boxes when she turned around to see Penelope walking out from the bedroom in a towel that didn’t quite cover her.
It wasn’t as if Rachel hadn’t seen Penelope naked before.
She had.
Plenty of times.
Penelope was usually naked for most of their impact play scenes, but this didn’t feel the same. It was intimate in a different kind of way.
A plump thigh slipped out from the towel, and Penelope sort of gurgled with laughter, and ran the rest of the way into the bedroom, the towel falling to the floor.
There was a flash of arse and Rachel closed her eyes and counted to twenty.
“I’ll be out in a minute!” came a singsong voice from the bedroom, and Rachel righted the pizza boxes and went to put them on the table.
When Penelope finally emerged from the bedroom, a towel turban-like around her hair and wearing silken purple pajamas that threatened to flash a bum cheek, her face was flushed pink and she was scrubbed clean.
Rachel wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen Penelope without makeup before. She’d always been perfectly put together, the very image of a submissive. There was something about seeing her so fresh-faced now that added a layer of vulnerability to the other woman.
They were going to be together for a full week, in dynamic for seven days, and that meant that they were going to get to see sides of each other that they hadn’t seen before.
Rachel couldn’t wait.
The pizzas were steaming hot, with hand-stretched bases and an interesting combination of flavors. One had blue cheese and mushrooms, and the other figs, goat cheese and prosciutto.
“These are amazing ,” said Penelope, before taking a huge bite out of the slice she held in her hand. “Good choices, Miss Rachel.”
Rachel couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. “Yeah? It does taste pretty damn good.” There was an awkward silence then, before she started speaking again. “I know we talked about stuff at home, but now that we’re here, do you want to go over boundaries and ideas for… you know…”
“Our dynamic?” Penelope was chirpy. “Absolutely. You tell me what you’d like to do, and we’ll do it.”
That wasn’t quite what Rachel had meant. For all the time that the two of them had been playing together, she’d never quite gotten a complete understanding of what Penelope wanted out of kink—namely because the other woman kept insisting that all she needed was to please Rachel.
But there were flashes of something—just as there had been before the bath—that hinted at a Penelope who was a little more demanding, who had opinions and desires outside of what she could be for a Domme.
Rachel wanted to know what those could be, and all the coaxing in the world didn’t seem to be having an effect.
“How about you tell me what you want to do,” she suggested, and Penelope’s ever-sunny smile dimmed just the slightest bit. “I mean, there must have been a reason why you wanted to come here, of all places.”
Penelope flushed and looked very intently at her pizza.
“Come on, Penny, we’ve traveled all this way. What’s the point if you don’t get out of it what you truly want?”
The other woman took another bite of pizza and then returned it to the box, leaning back to look at Rachel. A blonde curl fell down from beneath the turban, and she slipped it back distractedly. “What do you want, Rachel?”
The “Miss” was very deliberately missing.
That felt good.
“I want you to be honest with me. I’m not interested in fucking about in a dynamic where only one person is being authentic.
You’re fun to play with, that’s always been true, but I want more .
I want to hold space wherein you can explore your deepest desires—where you feel safe enough to truly let go.
That’s what I get out of being a Domme.” Rachel took a deep breath; her hands were trembling and she realized that she hadn’t known how much she was holding back.
“I don’t give a shit about how pink your arse turns when I flog you; that’s not why I’m here. ”