40 Dane #2
“But how?” She looks at the painting then back to me. “You painted this before you saw me—” She flushes.
“Saw you naked?” I finish for her.
“Yes.” She smiles back sheepishly.
“From the moment we met and started talking, I’d close my eyes and see you. I painted you after we spoke one night, and it felt right to hang it.”
“It’s a beautiful painting. And maybe a little creepy.”
The playful smile on her lips tells me she’s back to being sassy, and my pulse quickens in my throat. I pinch her hip, and she yelps. “You love it,” I say.
Lindsey studies me, her gaze more intense than I’m used to. I don’t blink, just wait. Eventually, one of her hands leaves my shoulder, and she threads it into my hair. Her fingers glide through the short strands, the sensation sending a shiver up my spine.
“Are you sure you want to be mine?” Her tone attempts to sound playful, but I hear and see her fear, the fear that I don’t mean what I say. It makes sense given what I know about her past, and I feel like an idiot for not seeing how wrong I’ve gone about this with her.
“I don’t say things I don’t mean. Or have you forgotten?”
Her fingers slide from my hair to my jaw, playing with my beard now. “I haven’t. But I’m not like the others. I’m new to this, and half the time, I don’t know what I’m doing, and—”
“What others are you speaking of?” I stop her.
“Your other submissives.”
“There are no others.”
She tugs on my beard. “Will you please stand? I can’t take you there anymore.”
I give her a knowing smile, loving that she’s proving how right she is for me.
I stand and lead her toward the kitchen table.
When she’s seated, I sit at the head of the table near her.
I don’t miss the way her eyes stare at the spot where I had her last time, her clamped nipples pressed into the wood and her ass in the air while I spanked her.
“Lindsey.” I draw her attention back to me. Her eyes are dilated again, and her breathing has changed. “I meant what I said.” I take her hand on the table in mine and squeeze. “There are no others. You’re the only one I want. The only one I need.”
“I know you don’t do what we’re doing with anyone else, but your clients—”
“You’re not hearing me,” I stop her again. “There are no others.”
“What?”
“I’ve spent the last two weeks since I left your cabin helping my clients find Doms to match their needs. I’m still in the process of helping some find new Doms, but we’ve ended our relationships. Like I said, there are no others.”
“What? Dane, no!”
Her panic confuses me. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s your work, your job! What are you going to do now?” Before I can reply, she asks, “Is that why Morgan said you asked about working for them again?”
“She told you about that?”
She exhales a hard breath. “You can’t give up income for me, and I’m sure your submissives depend on you.”
My clients were disappointed and upset, rightfully so, but I didn’t leave them in the lurch. I needed to do what was right for not just me but them as well. It was unfair not to give them my full attention.
“I’m not, baby. I’m not giving up anything for you. I’m giving it up for me.”
She stares at me, confused, but before I speak, I take a few calming breaths, not only to calm myself but also to calm Lindsey. When the air around us has settled, I scoot my chair closer to her so that our knees are touching and I can take both of her hands in mine.
“Hang with me, because I swear this will all have a point.” I rub my thumbs over her knuckles, and she nods.
“I’ve told you a bit about my parents, but the home they kept wasn’t a nice one.
They fought a lot and were cruel to each other.
They weren’t in a dynamic like we are, but my dad lorded over my mom and me like a king.
She turned to me because she needed a friend, and I was that for her.
To my dad, I was a worker, a person beneath him.
“When I left home at eighteen, I’d already battled with my own dominant tendencies. I didn’t want to be like him, but I also didn’t know how to be any other way. So I found kink, found a Dom who taught me a lot of what I know. I found a way to be a better man than my father and accept who I am.”
I take a breath. “The life I’ve built since then has worked for me. I found peace in the woods and comfort in my dynamics with my submissives online. For years, I’ve had no desire to disrupt what I built or attempt to bring someone into my life that could be more. Until I met you, Lindsey.”
Her cognac-colored eyes become glassy, and her grip on my hands is so tight, our fingers are turning white.
“It’s okay,” I hush. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She shakes her head. “It’s just…You’ve been through a lot, and I feel honored that I’m the one you chose to let in.”
“You’ve been through a lot, too. You’re an incredible woman, and I’m the one who’s honored that you’ve trusted me the way you have.”
She looks down at our hands then back into my eyes. “I still don’t understand why you gave up your clients for me.”
“I didn’t give them up—I let go because it was time, for them and for me.
But you? You’re mine. You’re the only partner I want in my life.
And if you’ll let me, I want the honor of taking care of you, of being the Dom you deserve.
The kind of man you’d want not just for yourself but for Kasandra, too. ”
At the sound of her daughter’s name, a tear drips from the corner of her eye. I release one of my hands from hers and wipe it off her cheek.
“Everything you’ve been saying sounds like you’re proposing,” she says.
I consider telling her that, in my own way, I am. The relationship we have is still building, and we’re not ready for marriage yet, but our dynamic, the training collar I’m going to offer her…I hope one day it will all lead to that. Not just marriage but a permanent collar.
That thought alone would’ve scared me once, but not with Lindsey. With every day that passes, I see more and more that I want anything and everything that has to do with her. I hope that, after all is said and done, she does, too.
“Is marriage something you’d want?” I voice.
She blinks and nods. “There was a time when I would have said no, but that was before I met you.”
I kiss her knuckle softly. “That’s good to hear, because I feel the same way. I should have asked you that sooner.”
“We’re learning and growing together, Dane.”
“We are.” For a moment, I mull over what to say next. My plans for tonight got derailed a bit, but we needed to have this discussion, and I’m glad we were able to be open and honest with each other. It means what we’ve been building is strong.
I pull my hands from hers, and my eyes drop to the velvet box I’d laid in front of her seat before she arrived. She follows my gaze, and her breath picks up.
“I did want to make a different kind of proposal tonight. We can discuss it if that’s what we’re both ready for.”
“Sir?” Her voice is soft as she uses my honorific instead of my name, but I can hear the bit of excitement in it.
“Open it, baby.”