Chapter 29
Alessa
It’s a miracle that I don’t slap her when she implies she wants to collar me like a dog!
Because that’s what Julianna Marcon must think I am: her bitch.
I may have been a virgin when we first hooked up, but I wasn’t immune to what this means. She thinks she’s some big sister figure right now—some pervy, incestual big sister figure, I’m sure!—who is going to teach me what people are thinking when they grind on me at a club. Like I don’t know! Seriously, she thinks I didn’t know?
Like I said before, I had one drink too many, but I am sobered up now. How else could I feel when there is a leash dangling from my throat?
Yeah. That’s right. I put it on. Why? Moment of weakness, I suppose. A stupid moment of weakness, because how am I supposed to look at this woman and not fall prey to her whim?
I’m wearing that sheer white negligee she bought for me a while back. Yeah. That one. I’m wearing that, no underwear, and my tangled, sweaty hair from the club piled on top of my head with nothing more than a few pins and a crystal clasp holding it together.
The collar is comfortable enough, I suppose. Not that I’ve worn any others before, of course. But this one has a soft leather lining that caresses my skin even when I quickly turn my head around. Otherwise, it’s a basic but nice piece of BDSM jewelry bought straight from the manufacturer. The leash is likewise sterling silver and adjustable for play. The end of it wraps tightly around Julianna’s hand as she looms from the edge of the bed, staring into my eyes.
“Think this would clear a few things up if I took you to the club like this?”
I’m on my knees, skin rubbing against the carpet whenever she slightly yanks that chain. Gotta admit… there’s a thrill to it. But I’m terrified. Not of her hurting me, but what this means.
What if this is a point of no return I’m never coming back from? We’re never coming back from?
“I think I would be mortified, honestly,” I mutter.
“Now, now.” She pats my cheek. At first, it’s soothing. But not two seconds later I’m fuming beneath this collar. How dare she, honestly? It’s one thing to spank me. It’s quite another to patronize me with a cheek pat. “This isn’t the kind of thing we would do in public. This is the kind of thing we do at home so we can further build our bond.”
She’s kidding, right? Build our bond? While I’m on my knees with a leash around my neck? She’s got to be kidding!
“Lessa,” she says to get my attention again. “I’m not doing this to humiliate you. I’m not doing it to make you hate me or, God forbid, yourself. This is both a trust exercise and meant to make us enjoy our relationship on another level. Namely…” She tugs on the leash. Like her pet, I move back, compelled to put my hand against her leg for leverage. We look like the most fucked up romance book cover since ‘50s pulp fiction. “Whenever we are apart, you will always be thinking of me. When another approaches you, I will be the first you think of. Understand?”
Oh, I understand. “I think of you already, madam.”
“You say that, but tonight’s actions imply otherwise. What do you say for yourself?”
What the hell else is there for me to say? “I’m sorry that I shook your trust tonight.”
“I never said anything about shaken trust. If anything, my main concern is that man thought it appropriate to approach you like that. It doesn’t matter what’s in your head if I’m not assured you’re protected without me.”
What is this? Does she want a five-mile radius free of people around me? Because not only is that impossible, it’s offensive! She does realize that I talk to people every day, right? It doesn’t matter if they secretly or not-so-secretly want me. As long as they keep their hands to themselves, they can ask me whatever they want, even if it’s a guise to get closer to me. Smell my perfume, shampoo, whatever creepy shit they do. Last I checked, I had a bodyguard following me around to keep weirdos from touching or harassing me, and nothing more.
“When we’re not together, Alessa,” she further explains, “the world needs to feel and see our connection. This,” she caresses the leash connecting my throat to her hand, “is everything. It’s there even when you can’t see it. You. Me. Together, we are one. It’s as simple as that.”
I scoff. “Somehow. I have a feeling this isn’t only about the club. You’ve been thinking about this for a while, Ms. Marcon.”
“You bet your gorgeous ass, lovely.”
For a moment, I see the real her behind the bossy fa?ade. There’s a “real” person behind the stoic businesswoman Julianna Marcon always presents herself as, even to me. I get rare glimpses of it, but as the days go on in our relationship, the more I become acquainted with the excited girl lurking behind brilliant blue eyes and a stoic poker face.
She looks like a woman I could comfortably kiss. A woman I could cuddle up with on the couch and want to spoon me in bed. She doesn’t look anything like the woman who seduced me in her office not too long ago.
She almost sucks me in.
This has two effects on me. The first lulls me into a fun sense of security, a reminder that, at the end of the day, this is nothing more than a sex game, a fantasy she wants to enact.
But it also scares me. Because what if the woman I’m falling in love with isn’t this one, but the fa?ade?
Yes. Falling in love.
Like I know she’s falling in love with me.
“This?” I wrap my hand around the leash, so close to her hand that I could touch her. I’ll let her initiate that, though. “The link between you and me, madam?”
A glimmer of the fa?ade returns. “Yes. Even when it’s not physically here, it remains between our hearts. Is that a hard concept to understand?”
“Not at all, madam.”
I close my eyes when she kisses me. I’m ready. To throw myself into this fantasy, that is.
Julianna wants to feel perpetually connected to me? I’m not a girl who is about to turn that opportunity down. I can hear the other interns yelling at me right now. “Do it, girl! Lock that shit down! Make her love you long enough to make you her first Mrs. Marcon!”
She kisses me harder, yanking the leash. She pulls me forward. I’m at her mercy now.
Before, my eyes were opened to these behind-closed-doors possibilities. I never thought of myself as submissive in the bedroom, but did I have a real chance to explore that before? I wouldn’t trust any of my exes to help me learn about that, let alone be a good partner in the realm of soft BDSM. Julianna, though? A woman as strong, dependable, and assured as her? She knows what she’s about. She knows what she wants from her relationships. Her older, wiser experiences scream that she’s ready to show me everything I’ve been missing in my life.
How fortunate I am to meet her…
“How proud would you be to be seen like this with me? Out there?”
I remain kneeling before her, my lips against hers while my knees and palms dig into the floor beneath us. She’s truly the dominant one in this situation. And me? Submissive to my excited core. She has her powerful, gorgeous suit on, and I’m in nothing but this sheer negligee. If we walked outside right now, I’d freeze! And that’s before the public would see my nipples and pubic hair beneath the white of this barely-there fabric. I’m her woman. Her lover. Her bedroom thrall she gets to do whatever she wants with. At least now I’m not ashamed to say that it’s driving me crazy.
Her finger grazes my nipple. Well, now I’m really crazy.
“I’m going to get you a real collar after this, lovely. Tomorrow we’re going to the jewelers to pick out something we both adore. Don’t worry. It’ll be appropriate for public wear. Unlike this outfit.” Julianna hooks her finger beneath my strap and forces it down my arm. My left breast almost falls out of this negligee. “This outfit is only for me to enjoy.”
She turns my head back toward her before I can respond.
“Promise me that you are mine, Lessa. And I will promise that I am yours.”
My eyes widen. “Truly?” Even now, with all the demands she has of me, it seems impossible. How could a woman like her be mine? I admit, I am prone to jealousy as well. Sometimes I see her in meetings with women. Beautiful, intelligent women who can go toe-to-toe with her in the boardroom. Women making deliveries who are so cute she double-takes at them. Women passing us by in restaurants and on the street who are so well put together that they have a confidence I never will. Am I afraid that one day she will realize these women are way more her type and more suitable for a relationship with her than I ever will be? Absolutely. A part of me – or many parts of me – worry every single day that Julianna’s going to wake up and wonder what the fuck she’s doing with me. Oh, well. It’s been a grand ride, right?
“Truly.”
I want to cry. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be so taken in that I cried. Yet here I am, falling hook, line, and sinker for her promises that may or may not mean anything at all.
“I’m yours,” I tell my girlfriend. “I’m totally yours.”
“And I’m yours, my sweet.”
When we kiss again, it’s with the unbridled passion I’ve come to expect from a woman like Julianna Marcon.
Dare I believe that this isn’t a fling? That this isn’t only a passing interest that she has in me? That this could last years? My life?
Dare I believe?
I’m not shocked when she takes me to bed. I’m not surprised when she takes off her clothes and makes love to me with my collar and leash still on. I’m anything but confused when the urgency with which she makes love to me overpowers everything else and makes me feel like I honestly, truly belong to her. She wasn’t kidding when she said we could be one. Yet… it feels so impossible to me! How could we possibly be “one” when we’re such two completely different people? When we’ve known each other for such little time? The way she kisses me doesn’t betray the differences between us. If anything, I’m able to forget that we are who we are. That I’m Alessa Penrose, a twenty-one-year-old intern with nothing else going for her other than her girlfriend… and that she’s Julianna Marcon, daughter of an old family fortune that goes back beyond when Europeans first settled on the West Coast.
When we’re naked like this in bed, you’d never guess that we were anything more than two simple people.
She wants me so badly. It’s in the way she thrusts between my legs, urgently taking me with her body, her heart, and pieces of her soul. This isn’t like the first time we made love in her office. Back then, it was all about the physical. The sexual. Now? I daresay we’re enjoying the finer fruits of actual lovemaking.
I wish it didn’t scare the damn piss out of me. I’m not ready to fall in love like this. I’m not prepared to throw myself to the first woman who comes along and says she’ll have me. That’s not healthy, right? That’s not how it works in the real world. This is some crazy fantasy I find myself in. Every thrust into my body brings me dangerously closer to reality, and that’s the last place I want to be. Ever.
I don’t even orgasm. I don’t have to. Having Julianna make love to me is enough to make me feel so good I can’t possibly come down from this high ever again.
But she comes. Hard.
I’ve never heard her make this sound before. For as much sex as we’ve had by now, I know I’ve never heard this guttural groan before. It’s not merely desperate. It’s needy.
For me.
I’m but a mere woman, you know? I’m petite compared to her. Yet I feel like a comparable vessel to whatever she wants to give me. When she climaxes, it’s more intense than usual. As though she has something to prove. Something to shove in my face.
This is what I can do. This is what I can do for you, Alessa.
Hot. Intense. All for me.
Slow, languid kisses commence before we’re allowed to acknowledge that it’s over. The leash is tossed to the other end of the bed. Right now, it’s only me and Julianna. We don’t need the leash to show the world how connected we are. Wherever we go, I know she’s there. In me. A part of me.
I don’t want this to end.