Page 17 of Hard Discipline

Undressing before him, folding my clothes and putting them next to the couch, had been so incredibly awkward and yet it had also been so hot. Especially with him watching my every move, knowing he could see every part of my body. I found myself wanting to know if he thought I was pretty, or sexy, or whether any part of my body appealed to him. But I could barely bring myself to meet his gaze, let alone see what was in it.

Still, he’d mentioned that he’d found my strength interesting and that compliment went straight to my head like good champagne. And now that he has me in his grip, I’m clinging to it like an oyster with a piece of grit and polishing it into a pearl.

He’s so strong, so powerful, and if he thinks I have strength and that he wants to test it, then what I want is to be tested. And to beat him.

His gaze is overwhelming in its power and I want to look away, but I can’t. The force of his gravity is drawing me helplessly in, and I can hear someone breathing harshly and fast, and it’s me. I know it’s me.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he asks.

I want to nod but I can’t, not with the way he’s holding my head. “Y-yes,” I manage to force out, knowing better than to lie this time.

“Do you want me to stop?” There is no inflection in the words. It’s as if he’s asking me if I’d like a cup of tea.

I can’t look anywhere but up at his face and so I try to read it, read him. Is this a challenge? A dare? Does he want me to say yes? Does he want me to fight?

“Don’t think,” he murmurs, his voice low and dark. “And don’t try to second-guess me. What I want and my will are all that matters.”

I heave in a breath, trying to get my head around the question, because if his will is all that matters, then why is he asking me what I want? “But….I….d-don’t…” I try to get the words out, but my voice is shaking so much. “I don’t…understand…”

“No, of course you don’t.” He leans down further so we’re nose to nose and there is no escaping him. No escaping the delicious scent of his aftershave or the forceful hand in my hair, of the heat of his body so close to mine. “So, for future reference, the correct reply to that question is,whatever you will, Master.”

I open my mouth parrot the answer, but instead, he closes the distance between us and brushes his mouth over mine in the softest, most featherlight of kisses. Shock ripples through me. That’s the last thing I was expecting and the contrast of his hotmouth with the punishing grip in my hair makes everything in me go tight. I want to lean into his kiss and I’m unable to stop myself as I do, but his fingers tighten as he lifts his mouth from mine, holding me in place.

“Keep still,” he says. “You’ll accept what you’re given and nothing more.”

I’m shivering, oddly bereft, as if he’s taken a promised treat away from me and for no reason. My lips feel sensitized, the heat from his lingering, and all I want is for him to kiss me again and deeper, harder. But as he’s shown me from the beginning, what I want doesn’t matter, only what he does, and so I have to try and hide the longing in my gaze.

I know he sees it though, because that cruel mouth of his curves slightly, as if my desire amuses him. Then he lets me go, so suddenly that I nearly fall over. Rising to his full height, he turns and without a word he vanishes through the doorway, leaving me alone in the room.

It’s as if a storm front has passed, all the electricity in the room draining away. My scalp is still tingling from the force of his grip and my lips burn. Every muscle in my body is tense, my skin drawn tight over my bones, and the throb between my thighs won’t go away. I so desperately want him to touch me I can’t think.

I look down at my hands, my fingers digging into my thighs as if I’m trying to hold onto something to stop from falling, and all I can think is that this is way more intense than I’d expected.Heis way more intense than I’d expected, and I can’t deny that it’s testing me.

I could say my safe word if I wanted to, I know that, and I have to admit that I’m kind of tempted. I don’t know if I want his particular brand of intense, or maybe it’s more that I don’t know if I’m ready for it.

You aren’t and he told you that.

He did, but I didn’t listen. Perhaps I should have.

It would be easy to slip out now. To grab my dress, shoes, and purse, and scuttle away like a frightened rabbit. Go back to my dreary apartment and sit there in the middle of the wreckage of all the dreams I had for myself, of getting my degree and getting started on a career in financial analysis, with a view to starting my own company. All of them gone because some fucking man decided he could help himself to my courage and strength and sense of self, leaving me panic-stricken and a mess.

A thread of fury winds through me at the thought, thick and hot, and something in me hardens. No, fuck leaving. I’m not running away just because this is intense. Maybe Mr. Fairfax is being deliberately mean because he wants me to run, but fuck him too. He also said I had strength, that he wants to test it, and if this is part of his test then I’m going to fucking ace it if it’s the last fucking thing I do. I wasn’t the class valedictorian in high school for nothing.

So I sit there, my fingers still digging into my thighs, unmoving. Determined not to move even an inch so when he gets back he’ll have nothing to complain about. But time begins to move weirdly. I feel as if I’ve been sitting here for an hour, but maybe it isn’t an hour. Maybe it’s only been ten minutes. Or five.

I stare at the doorway but it remains stubbornly empty, and I have to breathe through a strange and burgeoning panic. Perhaps he’s gone. Perhaps he went out and left me here and he won’t come back till much later. Or perhaps he won’t come back at all.

There is no sound anywhere, the apartment perfectly insulated. I can see the lights of the city through the plate glass windows and other buildings surrounding us. Can they see me? Can they see me sitting here naked and trembling?

Time gets even weirder, slowing and elongating like hot taffy, and I can hear my own breath rushing in and out of my lungs.And somehow everything feels as if it’s getting tenser and tenser, and I’m going to scream if I’m not careful.

But just before I do, suddenly he comes back into the room carrying a wooden box, and all the tension in the room ratchets up even higher. He’s bringing that electricity back with him, too, and I can feel sparking all over my skin.

I sit up straighter, expecting him to glance in my direction, but he doesn’t, and that makes the ember of stubborn anger sitting in my gut burn hotter. Fine, if that’s how he wants to play it then, I’ll show him. I’m ready. I was born fucking ready.

Mr. Fairfax sets the box down on the floor next to the low slab of granite that is the coffee table, then begins taking things out. I watch him, my mouth getting drier and drier as I suddenly realize what all those things are — I’ve seen them in the web searches I did.

A black leather flogger. A red ball gag. A pair of jeweled clamps with a fine chain linking them. A heavy duty looking blindfold. Some black cuffs. A vibrator.

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