Chapter 10
Lydia
“You’re grounded,” he says. “You’re not going anywhere. I swear to god, if you leave my presence without permission, I am going to make what I just did to you look like a Caribbean cruise. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say. “I still speak English.”
He gives me a look that suggests he might do all that again, but I know he needs at least some time to recover. Primal knotting orgasms take a lot out of him.
“I don’t know where this reservoir of attitude you’re pulling from is located, but find a different attitude.”
“Are you going to try to find Veronica?”
“I’m going to try to find the cat she is,” he says.
“We wasted a lot of time already. She could be blocks away by now. It’s not very safe for cats outside. You fucked up when you let her out.”
He grips me by the fabric at the back of my shirt, scruffing me up like a naughty kitten. “Are you not punished enough?”
I let out an excited little squeak.
“My god,” he groans to himself. “You aren’t. I’m going to have to do this again. But right now I have to sleep. And you do too.”
“What about the cat?”
“Don’t worry about the cat,” he says.
But I do worry.
I sneak out after he’s asleep. I don’t like Veronica, but I don’t want her to be hurt as a cat.
I don’t know how much human mind she got to keep inside her head.
She won’t know where she is. She won’t know what to do.
Is she going to be able to hunt? She could scavenge, I guess. But that’s not very nice.
I wear a long coat over my pajamas as I walk the streets, calling for Veronica by her name. There aren’t many people out at this time, and the ones that are out are either walking their dogs, or planning shady things, or going to get laid, or also looking for their cats.
I can’t find her. I told myself I’d just look for a few minutes and then go inside, but I can’t just leave her out here. I do see another cat, a big black one, but that one doesn’t answer me when I call either.
Time gets away from me as I circle a few city blocks, dropping into the late-night stores to ask if they’ve seen a cat answering to Veronica’s description. They haven’t.
The one thing that does make me feel good is that I don’t see any sign of an injured animal anywhere. If she had the sense to avoid traffic and dogs, she might be okay. She could even be hiding somewhere, watching me freak out. I bet she’d enjoy that.
Eventually I give up and go home. The clock on the oven when I let myself in says 3:14 a.m. I yawn as I take my coat off, and think about a shower. I don’t want to get into bed covered in city stuff.
“Nice of you to turn up.”
I turn the light on and find Simon sitting on my couch. He makes it look small, cute, and very domestic. Meanwhile, he looks big, wild, and mad.
He gets up, rising above me as he closes the distance between us and takes firm hold of me.
“You told me you speak English,” he says. “But I’m starting to think that’s not the case. If you spoke English, you’d have understood when I told you to stay home because you are grounded.”
“Ow!” I complain as he propels me into a corner after smacking my ass.
“Stand there,” he says.
What the hell is he playing at? This seems so silly and pointless. Standing in a corner like a naughty student isn’t going to suddenly make me manageable. What might make me easier for him to handle is knowing that something is being done about Veronica.
“I’m tired,” I say. “I want to go to bed.”
“And you will. You’ll go and get cleaned up and go to bed soon enough, once I’ve determined it’s time.”
“You’re so controlling.”
“You’re so disobedient,” he says.
“I don’t have to obey you. This isn’t 1840.”
“You do have to obey me,” he says. “Because I intend to make you. Haven’t you figured it out yet?
You’ve stepped out of normality. The old rules don’t apply to you anymore.
You’ve seen things nobody else has seen, and you’ve done things you should never have done.
You’re not protected by normality anymore. ”
He raises a good point, one that I hadn’t considered before.
The way he’s acting is kind of crazy, but this whole situation is super crazy, and beyond natural.
Supernatural, even. If I was to complain to someone about it, what would I even say?
How would I make a police complaint? They could say I gave Veronica some kind of poison tea and that’s why she’s missing.
Oh, my god, I could end up being the only one who was actually in trouble with the law.
I have played all of these cards incredibly wrong.
“How long do I have to stand here, then? Am I supposed to be learning something?”
“That would be too much to ask,” he shoots back.
“Salty,” I note.
He is back, leaning over me, using his height to full advantage. My face is still in the corner, but I feel his presence very close, his lips right next to my ear as he murmurs soft threats of a terrible, carnal nature.
“Do you really want to provoke me right now? Do you want to see what I will do with you when you displease me?”
“I know what you do. You growl and you spank and you threaten me, and none of it makes any difference really, but it seems to make you happy… ow!” I squeal as the inevitable slap lands on my ass. It’s good to know he is predictable that way.
“It should make a difference,” he says. “And if it doesn’t, maybe I’m not punishing you hard enough.”
“Maybe not,” I sass back. I don’t know why. It’s late, and I’m pissed at him for losing Veronica. That was a shitty thing for him to do. Oh. Okay. Maybe I do know.
“I always thought you were a good person,” I say, turning around. “And I tried to help you. And then you came here and let a cat person out of my bathroom…”
“I’m sorry, did I turn the manager into a fucking cat?” He purrs the question relatively softly, but with bite.
“No, but…”
“Do you want Veronica waking up in your bathroom, naked and vengeful?”
“No, but now nobody can even make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s resourceful.”
“She’s a cat right now. Her brain is the size of a walnut. I wanted to keep her safe and out of the way. I wanted to stop her from having evil plans. I tried to make her be a cat forever.”
“Fortunately for you, that’s practically impossible to do at the current level of development.” He frowns at me. “You should have never done this, and the fact that I let her out is not the problem.”
“It is, though.”
We’ve said all this before. We’re starting to repeat ourselves, which is how you know you’re fucked. We could have this argument forever, I suspect. He’s always going to say I did the bad thing first and I’m going to be mad at him for the bad thing he did second.
“You need to go to bed,” he says, gritting his teeth. “Before I whip your ass so hard you can’t sit for a month.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I sass back. I don’t feel sorry. I just don’t.
He turns me around to face him, and when I look up at him, I see something feral in his gaze.
“It’s a good time being whipped, is it?” He smirks slightly as he asks me the question.
“Well, no, but whatever. I can take it. And you won’t really hurt me anyway. So you’re threatening me with a good time, and we both know it.”
He gives me a very long look. “You have grown bold,” he says. “Much more so than when I first met you. You used to cower when I so much as frowned in your direction. Now you test me by basically daring me to spank you.”
“Yeah? And?” I let myself smirk a little back. The energy is shifting between us. I don’t know if either of us are really properly angry anymore. The underlying frustration might still be there, but none of the bitter bickering energy is.
His anger has melted and what’s left behind is a desire to dominate. I can feel it deep in my core.
“You’re enjoying this,” he accuses me, even as he picks me up against the wall, pressing me back to help hold me in place. I know what’s coming next, and of course I let it happen.
“So are you,” I moan back as he bites my neck, moves my clothes out of the way, and claims my pussy in one long, feral thrust.
The feeling of him just pushing inside me is enough to shift my brain chemistry in an instant. My body flushes with wet desire, flooding his cock with my arousal as he pulls back and then thrusts deeper and harder the second time.
“I’m going to fuck you into submission,” he promises me, his hands grasping my ass cheeks firmly, fingers digging in to keep me supported and still and right where he wants to use me.
“Good luck,” I moan in his ear before biting the lobe with a quick little nip that drives him wild.
He loves my resistance. The feeling of conquest and domination drives him, and there can be none of that if there is not something to overcome in the first place. I am sure he is not actually happy that I disobeyed him in so many ways, but I also don’t think he’d be this hard if I hadn’t.
“What do you say now?” He growls the question. “Do you have to obey me? Do you have to be a good girl for me?”
He slows the fucking for a moment, dragging his cock out of me in a long, slow, torturous fashion.
“Mngggh,” I moan incoherently. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be lectured. I just want to be fucked.
“Answer me,” he says. “Or I’ll take my cock out of you and you’ll go to bed unfucked.”
“You wouldn’t,” I gasp.
“I would,” he promises. “I’ll jerk myself off over your ass and you can go to bed wet with my cum drying on your cheeks and no orgasm.”
“Please, no,” I moan as he pulls out even further, almost to the tip.
“Oh, yes,” he grins, pushing his advantage. “Absolutely yes. Unless you promise to be a good girl for me.”
“I’ll be good,” I moan as the internal need overcomes pride, or truth for that matter. I’d say whatever he wanted if it meant he’d keep fucking me right now. I want him inside me so badly I’d do anything.