Chapter 57
COLE
She was ready.
I brought her into sub-space, not that it took much doing. I made sure she remembered what she could do. How much she could handle.
That’s what it meant—her fighting against her cuffs. Her letting me fuck her with my hand. Her sucking my fingers like she was auditioning to be a porn star. She begged in this safe space, an admission of weakness she’d never make outside the four walls of this dungeon.
My Kate can handle pain. She has from that first time, in the Baltimore hotel room. She was born determined. She has more discipline than any woman I’ve ever met, than any person, other than me, of course.
But the cane is simply more than she can stand—even through her panties. Even when she was so close to coming that I could have gotten her off with a single tap of my thumb against her clit.
I drop the bamboo rod before her safeword’s past her lips. It only takes a few seconds to release the cuffs around her wrists. A few more to free her ankles.
She’s sobbing as I fold her into my arms—from pain, I’m sure, but also from disappointment. She wanted this as much as I did. More. She wanted to prove something to herself.
I carry her over to the bed.
I try to put her on her stomach so I can I get the arnica and ice. She clutches my arms, though, as if she’s afraid of falling. She does her best to wrap her legs around me, to bury her face in the crook of my neck.
“Don’t leave me,” she says. “I’m sorry. Don’t go. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry…. I need you. Please don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. And when that doesn’t soothe her, I fold my arms around her. “Hush,” I say, stroking her hair. “You’re safe now. I’m here.”
An eternity later, she lets me set her on the bed.
She hisses at the pressure of her weight upon her ass, and I pull myself up beside her, punching a pair of pillows into place against the headboard.
Sitting upright, I fold her into the nest of my body, cradling her in the circle of my arms and legs.
Grateful as I am that she’s finally calmed down, I grit my teeth when she settles against the ache of my still-hard cock.
Eyes closed, she rests her head against my collarbone. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I brush a kiss against her temple. “Don’t be. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”
“Show up my Dom in the middle of a scene?” Her words sound like they’re drenched in vinegar.
“Keep yourself safe. Protect yourself. Protect both of us. That’s the only way we can come down here next time—if I know you’ll use your safeword the way you’re supposed to.”
She takes a deep breath. Exhales on a shaky sigh. “There’ll be a next time?”
My cock twitches, hard enough that she must feel it. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Wolf. There’ll be a next time.”
“Don’t call me that,” she protests, but she wriggles closer to my body, her fingers stroking my forearms.
I tell myself she doesn’t mean anything by it. She can’t mean anything. Not after what I just put her through.
“Wolf—” she finally says after a long time.
“Don’t call me that,” I say, trying to imitate her tone.
“What am I supposed to call you?” She honestly sound surprised.
“Why don’t you start with my name? Cole. Call me Cole.”
She shakes her head. But she starts to trace my fingers where they’re clasped across her belly. “Cole,” she says.
I wait, but she seems content just to test the sound of my name. I try to relax against the headboard. I think about arctic winds and ice-blue glaciers and deserted snow fields surrounding the North Pole—no, not Pole, not anything that reminds me of my aching cock.
“Cole,” she says again. And this time she shifts her grip. She pulls my hands higher, so my palms are flush against her tits.
“Kate…” I groan.
She arches her back. I automatically catch her nipples between my thumbs and index fingers. She moans when I pinch them, then gasps when I twist.
“Kate,” I say again, and this time my voice is rocky with frustration.
“Cole,” she says levelly. And while I’m practicing my last, best imitation of a good man, she twists around to reach between my legs.
There’s not a man on Earth who could resist the pull of her fingers, measuring from root to tip. No Dom in the history of dungeons could refuse a sub as magnificent as Kate when she rolls to her side, fingers locked around my cock, pulling me with her, on top of her.
I can’t stop this. I can’t control her. I can’t control myself.
I’ve spent weeks barely holding myself in check. I’ve tested myself. I’ve vowed I will not fail.
But it doesn’t feel like failing, not when Kate’s hand is on my dick. It feels like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. Exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I trust her, exactly the way she trusted me, finding her way back home.
“My,” she says, tightening her grip. “What a big cock you have.”
I snarl as I reach behind me for the pillows. I manage to get a cushion beneath her cane-scored ass before I tear off her soaked panties, before I settle my hips between her thighs.
“The better to fuck you with, my dear,” I growl as I sink into her wet, ready heat.
All the weeks of my denial melt away in a heartbeat.
I should be talking, telling her she’s perfect, swearing we were made for this. I could rumble sweet words or snarl crude ones. But the clutch of her thighs steals away any thought of language. She strips me of everything gentle, everything noble. She reduces me to an animal.
We’re animals together. We move like this is some dance we’ve practiced for years.
She’s ready—we both are. I match my mouth to hers, kissing her fiercely as I set a brutal pace.
She catches my lip between her teeth, biting hard enough to hurt, and when I taste the salt of blood, I clutch her hair between my fingers.
She whimpers, and I loosen my grip, but when I glide home again, I realize it’s her striped ass that’s hurting. I tighten my arms around her, and this time I’m the one who rolls, taking her with me until she’s on top.
She rises up like a vengeful goddess, crimson hair billowing around her face. Bracing her hands against my chest, she rides my cock with trembling concentration.
Her thighs quiver. Her mouth pulls into a perfect O. She throws her head back, arching her neck like a thoroughbred, and when she comes, she howls.
I’m half a stroke behind her, raising my hips to match her pulsing core. I want to hold there. I want to make this last forever. I want to maintain perfect control.
But then her inner muscles seize again, and I break like a dam. She milks me, each spasm harder than the one before. I clutch at the sheets. I shift my grip to her thighs. I bellow sounds without words until I’m utterly emptied, completely undone.
I don’t know how long it takes for my mind to come back online. I’ve never been out like that before. I don’t lose control.
The fever that’s scorched my body for weeks is quenched. The fire is out, the one that consumed me while she was gone, stealing my appetite, drugging me into dreamless sleep, dulling me into a shadow of myself.
I feel awake. Alive. Energized by the cool chill of potential—all the code I can write, all the clients I can manage.
Kate sprawls across my chest, her hair flung across us both like a field of poppies. My cock still nestles inside her. She’s breathing hard. We both are.
I’ve tamed my Kate.
No. That’s a lie. I haven’t tamed her. She hasn’t been broken. She’s strong and she’s determined and she’s the reason I finally yielded, fucking her the way I’ve longed to do since that first night in Boston.
In a moment, I’ll remember how to move my arms. My legs, too. I’ll get us both some water. I’ll feed her dark chocolate, and I’ll rub arnica into her bruised flesh. I’ll take care of her because she’s my sub, because she’s my wife, because she’s something precious.
But that can wait for just a while. For now, I can feel her body. My body. Our bodies together.
And that’s enough.
That’s everything.
My Kate is home.