Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
G race woke slowly with a delicious lassitude deep in her bones and the kind of contentment she usually only dreamed about in those enchanted, wistful hours before the cold light of dawn blew the cobwebs away and the harshness of reality set in.
Today was different. She was so warm and satisfied she didn't want to free herself from the little bubble of enjoyment she was floating in, so it took her a while to realise she wasn't at home in her own lonely bed.
Gradually though, the scorching heat at her back and the heavy, unfamiliar weight draped across her midriff brought those more lucid thoughts prodding, unwelcomed, into her rapidly clearing mind. And that wasn't the only thing that was prodding her.
Grace almost laughed out loud.
As clarity returned and she found herself in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar house, that was her first rational thought?
Huh! Well, why the heck not? was the only notion that followed. She wiggled her butt ever so gently against the hard body plastered up against her. There was a delightful residue of warmth still present in the deep tissue of her glutes. Not enough to hurt, just enough to remind her of the wonderfully gratifying night she had spent under Xavier's control.
The man was a revelation! Never in her life, and her considerable experience as a masochist, had she ever felt as if something was missing from her kink encounters and her subsequent sex life, but in just a matter of weeks, Xavier had shown her there was so much more!
Contentment washed wistfully through her psyche. She really wished she could stay like this forever. That this was her reality.
Okay, so she'd like a baby to go hand in hand with that reality, but what she had here and now was a damn fine start. Maybe even enough for her to put her baby dream off for twelve precious months so that they could explore this kind of togetherness.
Because, surely, if they were together for any length of time, Xavier would decide he wanted more than the degree of separation he was currently set upon?
Xavier nuzzled his lips against her neck. In the muted, early morning light, she could both see and feel the evidence of his overnight stubble. He was normally impeccably clean-shaven, so evidence of that bit of scruff seemed strangely intimate. Like she was seeing a little bit of him normally hidden from the rest of the world.
It sent a shudder of longing skittering down her spine. She wanted to find out what other parts of himself he kept locked away from public view.
Her thoughts were rapidly replaced by the drugging feeling of Xavier gently sinking his teeth into the erogenous spot where her shoulder met her neck and inching his hand seductively up her chest until he cupped one heavy breast in his palm.
"Mm…I can't remember the last time I woke up to such a delicious morsel, all soft and warm and just lying there ready for me to eat her up for breakfast." He chuckled as he laid a seductive trail of mixed nibbles and kisses all the way from her shoulder to that sensitive spot behind her ear.
"Well, as long as you're going to feed me too," she replied, twittering breathlessly as he rolled her beneath him.
Jeez! Was that really a giggle that had left her lips?
She didn't have time to ponder the fact before his lips took hers in a deep, thorough kiss.
What followed touched Grace on a far more profound level.
Xavier proceeded to make love to her as if she were the most precious creature in the world. He was slow and gentle, and Grace was stunned at the intense degree of pleasure he wrought from her body without so much as a single smack or the slightest hint of pain.
It wasn't something she had even thought possible.
And yet he played her body as if it were a finely tuned instrument, cajoling her to heights she never believed achievable without the intervention of impact play.
He suckled at her breasts as if he were worshipping their bounty while he slipped slowly inside her hot, wet channel.
His fingers were everywhere, sweeping gently over every inch of her sensitised skin like he was mapping out each rise and dip with his fingers and committing them to memory.
His body undulated languidly against hers, frustrating her with a subtle yearning, but throughout their joining, he refused to speed up or drive deeper. He just kept up a slow, languid pace that both touched and frustrated her in equal measure. It was unlike anything she had ever known.
But, finally, as she whimpered and writhed in quiet torment, the climax that eventually came upon her took Grace completely by surprise. It was like she'd been blindsided.
One moment, she'd been flailing in distraction, the next, she'd been hurled over the edge of a waterfall, floundering and gasping for breath as the orgasm washed through her with a force that she hadn't seen coming and which left her absolutely dumbfounded in its wake.
"Do you like eggs and bacon?" Xavier asked her ninety minutes later when she padded into his sleek, streamlined kitchen with its accents of black and steel, wearing one of his dress shirts.
She finished rubbing at her damp hair with a fluffy grey towel before perching herself on a high, leather topped stool at the shiny marble breakfast bar which was so much more relaxed than the formal dining room she had spied through the adjacent doorway.
They had cleaned up together in the shower, where he had soaped every inch of her body with the pleasant, spicy body wash that always reminded her of him.
Of course, one thing had led to another and they had ended up getting a lot dirtier before they had finally gotten clean. The memories still tickled the corners of her mind with a mellow fulfilment that Grace wanted to make her permanent reality.
"Yes, and I'm starving. All that exercise has given me an appetite."
She grinned at him when he winked at her lasciviously. It was yet another side of him that she'd never seen.
He looked so very different from the sadist she had come to know as he puttered around his kitchen dressed in worn jeans and a snug, burgundy turtleneck top which hugged the delicious contours of his torso.
But Grace liked what she saw, and she wanted to see a lot more of it.
"Have you managed to come to a decision about what we discussed at dinner last night?" he asked tentatively when they finally sat down to eat. "Or have I kept you so busy you haven't had time to think about it?" The grin crinkling his face reminded her of a cheeky little boy, an analogy so far removed from everything she thought she knew about Xavier that she felt another fierce tug of yearning to get to know him better. A whole lot better.
But the kind of relationship he was suggesting wasn't one that was going to fulfil that desire. Was it?
Of course, on the other hand, the hard no, which had been her initial gut reaction had mellowed into more of a maybe.
Perhaps she needed to think of what he was proposing as the first step. Then, a little further down the line, when they were a bit more comfortable with each other, they could revisit their options.
Grace sighed and busied herself by adding cream and sugar to her coffee and stirring it thoughtfully before taking a fortifying sip.
Damn it, he was looking so damn hopeful too, those dark, smouldering eyes of his burning away the final little bit of resistance with their intensity.
Grace braced herself for the inevitable discussion. "I have to be honest; I can't say it's something I've ever had even the remotest inclination to try," she admitted, hedging her bets. "Plus, I don't really understand how it's going to work. You said remote 24/7. How can that even be a thing?"
"Well, for a start, our relationship would be exclusive."
Grace frowned at Xavier over the rim of her cup. "I thought it pretty much already was. I certainly haven't scened with anyone else since I started coming to Club Risqué and didn't think you had either."
Xavier nodded cautiously, a tiny indent forming on his brow, in between his eyes, which was not quite a frown, but more a mark of concentration. "Okay, officially exclusive then. Plus, we would both have a far more explicit understanding of exactly where we stand with each other. What is expected in each of our roles in our relationship."
"So, it would be a relationship then, even if we don't live together? Would it be a permanent one?"
Xavier tipped his head to the side and gestured with his upturned hands in a very Gallic shrug. "Well, as permanent as any relationship can hope to be, I guess, since none of us know what the future holds."
He took her hand in his, and captured her gaze, his own completely earnest. “But I can honestly say I have feelings for you, Grace. Deep feelings. I want you in my life, and I don’t see that changing.”
If anything, that made things even more perplexing. On the one hand, Grace was buoyed by the fact that Xavier seemed to be implying this could be a forever thing and he was fully prepared for that eventuality. On the other hand, would he really want to live all of the rest of his life in some parody of a committed relationship?
"What if things don't work out?" Grace voiced her biggest concern. "If I did agree, and I don't like the way it's going, where do we go from there?"
She pursed her lips and gazed at him seriously, conscious of how the light from the window behind him threw his features into a shadowed relief, preventing her from seeing his expressions fully. "How much say do I get in this scenario?"
Xavier held her eyes with his own. "Of course, there will always be the opportunity to negotiate within the parameters of our relationship. This isn't just about me, I want you to be happy too, Grace," he assured her sincerely as he took a bite of his breakfast.
Grace followed suit, using the eating time to try to get things clear in her head. Could she really be happy in the kind of relationship he was proposing? Even for a relatively short amount of time?
She might be a masochist, but if she was honest with herself, she was a submissive to a far lesser extent.
Contrary to popular opinion, being a masochist and being a submissive were not mutually exclusive. Just because she welcomed pain as part of her sexual makeup, did not necessarily mean she also wanted to surrender herself to the control of a man. Even if they did renegotiate things to something that was more palatable to her, would that always be a stumbling block?
She was strong-minded and had a successful, high-powered job that was probably equal to Xavier's. She was fiercely independent and self-reliant and had lived alone for almost the same amount of time as he had. She was more than capable of making her own decisions and really didn't know how she would react to someone making them for her, whatever the reasons. While she was turned on by a man's domination in the bedroom—or, more often, in the club—she wasn't convinced it was anything she would welcome in her everyday life.
And yet here she was, seriously considering something that was probably the very antithesis of everything she truly believed in.
And why the hell was that? Was she mad?
Was it altogether fair to Xavier that, in her own mind, she was looking at his proposal as a possible 'stepping-stone', a way of promoting and cementing their relationship? An attempt to give him what he wanted, despite the fact that, in reality, it was a million miles away from her own wants and desires, in the hope that she would be able to renegotiate things into something somewhat more appealing later on.
A guilty little voice whispered inside her head… Did that mean she was manipulating the situation?
No, Grace decided. She was just choosing Xavier's scenario as a starting point, and at some point in time, they would compromise, just like any couple in any kind of relationship would do. That's surely what a strong relationship was about after all, co-operation and concession until both parties reached a mutually satisfactory agreement.
Okay, so she wasn't being entirely up front about her own desires to be a mother, preferably with the role of wife coming before it. But in truth, Xavier's rather unconventional idea of having a Master/slave relationship in which the couple didn't ever live together, was so far removed from her own ideas, they weren't even in the same ballpark. So much so that now didn't seem like the right time to bring it up.
And if her conscience was trying to prod her with the whispered truth that hers wasn't even a lifestyle choice, well, right now, she chose to ignore it.