Chapter Six
Soren
The room has been ready for twenty minutes, but I’m still finding things to adjust.
I’ve turned the temperature up for Margot and left the weighted blanket she liked last week folded at the foot of the bed.
There’s fruit in the refrigerator, tea for afterward, and a robe in her size hanging in the bathroom.
None of it needs my attention, but I check the room again anyway, making sure everything she might want is within easy reach.
The second time has nothing to do with practicality.
I replace the floral candle with vanilla, move the weighted blanket from the foot of the bed to the chair, decide I preferred it on the bed, and put it back. Then I stand in the middle of the room and look around for something else to adjust.
There isn’t anything, because the room has been ready for twenty minutes.
I’m behaving like a hatchling, and I know it.
I’m still considering whether the lamp beside the bed is too bright when she knocks.
She’s right on time.
I open the door and immediately notice the difference a week has made.
The shadows beneath her eyes haven’t disappeared, but they’ve faded, and there’s more color in her face.
She looks rested rather than held together through determination alone, and when she smiles at me, my dragon gives a deep pulse of satisfaction.
She followed the rules.
“You slept.”
Her smile turns slightly sheepish. “Seven hours every night.”
“And breakfast?”
“Every morning. Sitting down, too, which I feel deserves extra credit.”
“It does.”
That earns me a wider smile.
I step aside to let her in, and when she passes me, I catch the scent of her hair. It takes me a second to place it, but once I do, I’m certain. It’s the same shampoo I used when I washed her hair last week.
I close the door behind her, and Margot catches me looking. “What?”
“Did you change your shampoo?”
Her hand goes automatically to her hair. “Oh. Yeah.” A flush creeps into her cheeks as she glances away. “I saw it at the store and recognized the bottle, so I bought some.”
My dragon responds before I can. A slow warmth spreads through my chest, satisfaction settling somewhere deep beneath my ribs at the thought of her standing in a store, recognizing something from our time together, and choosing to take it home with her.
I’m probably more pleased by that than I have any right to be.
“Do you like it?” I ask.
Margot looks back at me, still slightly pink. “I wouldn’t have spent that much on shampoo if I didn’t.”
I smile. “Fair enough. And the third rule?”
The smile slips.
There it is.
I lean back against the door and wait.
“I did it.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
She exhales through her nose. “You asked me to say no to one thing every day that I would normally agree to.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Every day?”
Her gaze drops for a moment before returning to mine. “Every day.”
I take a step toward her. “Was it difficult?”
“The first one made me feel like I was about to get fired, and yesterday I spent half the day feeling guilty because I made my mother call her own pharmacy.”
I have several questions about why a grown woman apparently requires her daughter to make routine phone calls for her, but they can wait.
“Did your mother manage?”
Margot gives me a reluctant little smile. “Yes.”
“And did you get fired?”
“No.”
“So the world survived.”
“Barely.”
I smile and settle my hands at her waist. “You followed every rule I gave you for an entire week, even when it was difficult. I’m proud of you, Angel.”
The endearment is out before I realize I’ve used it.
I’ve never given a client a pet name. Terms of praise, yes, when they want them, but nothing that belongs to them outside the dynamic. Nothing that has ever slipped out without thought.
Margot is as startled by it as I am.
Her smile fades, though not because she’s unhappy. Her lips part slightly, and for a moment she only looks at me. Then color rises into her cheeks and her gaze drops somewhere around the middle of my chest.
Interesting.
I could correct myself. Instead, I find that I have absolutely no desire to.
Two fingers beneath her chin bring her eyes back to mine. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
She gives me a look that says she’d like to argue, but she doesn’t pull away.
“You did well,” I tell her. “You’re allowed to feel good about it.”
Her throat moves when she swallows. “Yes, sir.”
“Good girl.”
Her breath catches.
I let my thumb brush once along her jaw before lowering my hand. “I promised you a reward if you followed the rules.”
Her eyebrows lift. “I thought you meant that figuratively.”
“I rarely say things I don’t mean.”
“Here’s your reward, Angel. Tonight you don’t lift a finger. I'll undress you. I'll take you apart slowly and I'll feed you. You spent a week taking care of yourself—now you get a night where every single thing is done for you, and all you have to do is take it, like my good girl.”
I take her hand and lead her farther into the room. She spots the robe waiting near the bathroom, then the blanket on the bed, and I watch recognition move across her face as she realizes I remembered what she reached for last week.
I stop in front of her and reach for the top button of her blouse, but I don’t touch it yet. “May I undress you?”
She nods automatically.
I raise an eyebrow.
A small smile tugs at her mouth. “Yes, sir.”
“Better.”
I undo the first button slowly, then the next, watching her face as I go.
There’s still nervousness there, but it isn’t the same tension she carried into this room last week.
She knows me now, at least a little. Enough that when I pause, she doesn’t rush to fill the silence or ask what she should be doing.
By the time I reach the final button, her breathing has changed.
I ease the blouse from her shoulders and set it aside before reaching for her bra. “Still with me?”
“Yes, sir.”
I remove it and let my hands settle at her waist, giving her a moment before continuing. Her skin is warm beneath my palms, and when I draw them slowly up her sides, she leans into the touch rather than holding herself rigid beneath it.
That small movement pleases me. She’s leaning in, not bracing against me.
Last week, I could feel every moment she nearly apologized for her body. Today, there’s still hesitation, but she isn’t trying quite so hard to disappear from my hands.
I slide my hands from her waist to her hips and gently turn her around. She goes easily, settling with her back to my chest.
“Relax for me, Angel.”
Her shoulders drop a little, though I can still feel the tension beneath my palms when I run them up her back.
I take my time with it, spreading my hands over the tight muscles beneath her shoulder blades before working my thumbs slowly along either side of her spine.
The heat from my palms sinks into her skin, and with each pass, some of the tension begins to ease.
Her shoulders gradually loosen beneath my palms.
“There,” I murmur. “That’s better.”
Margot exhales and lets her head tip forward, giving me easier access to the back of her neck.
I sweep her hair over one shoulder and work my hand gently along the muscles there, then down across her shoulder before returning to her waist. Each time I pass the same places, there’s a little less tension waiting for me.
I don’t hurry her. I want her to feel what I’m doing, and slowly, she stops trying to anticipate me. Her weight settles more comfortably beneath my hands, her breathing evens out, and each time I work my palms over her shoulders and down her back, she relaxes a little more.
When most of the tension has left her, I let my hands slide down to her waist and gently turn her to face me again.
Her hands find my chest as she turns, palms resting against me as though it’s the most natural place for them to go. I glance down at them, then back at her face.
“Good girl.”
The praise brings another flush to her face, but this time she doesn’t look away. She stays exactly where she is, hands resting against my chest, while I draw her closer.
After a moment, I let my hands fall to the waistband of her skirt. “Let’s get the rest of this off you.”
“Yes, sir.”
I undo the fastening and ease the skirt down over her hips, letting her steady herself against me as she steps out of it. Her underwear follows, and once she’s completely bare, I take her hand and lead her toward the bed.
She sits when I guide her down, then lets me ease her back against the pillows. I settle beside her, giving her a moment to get comfortable before I draw her closer.
“Part of your reward is that I’m going to edge you tonight,” I tell her, watching her face. “I’ll bring you close to coming, then make you wait for it, as many times as I decide. If it stops feeling good, you say yellow and we slow down, red and it ends. Color, Angel?”
Her breath is already unsteady. “Green, sir.”
She’s soaking wet, her pussy slick and ready for me, and the possessive, primal part of my dragon roars in my chest. It takes every ounce of my centuries-old control not to just bury my face in her and devour her right then.
When I part her, my thumb finds her swollen clit.
She jerks like I’ve put a live wire to her skin, a sharp gasp tearing from her lips.
“Easy, Angel.” I circle the hard nub, slow and deliberate, my fingertip radiating my dragon’s heat into her. “I’ve got you.”
I slide one finger into her tight, wet heat, then a second, stretching her.
She whimpers, her hips already lifting from the bed, chasing the pressure.
I curl my fingers, dragging them against the nub of her G-spot, and a strangled cry rips from her throat.
I fuck her with my hand, fast and hard, faster than she’s braced for, until she’s clenching around me, her spine bowing off the bed, right on the precipice—
And I stop. My hand goes perfectly still inside her.
She sobs, a broken, frustrated sound. Her hips buck against my motionless hand, chasing a friction that isn’t there. “No... Please!”