Page 54 of A Good Girl's Guide to Dominance
“Mostly?” I ask, although it comes out more like an exclamation.
“Alright, don't judge me,” he says, grinning. “I'm totally with you on feces and blood, but I have had a sub who liked being peed on … and I didn't hate it.”
My eyes bulge as a slow smile takes over my mouth. “Oh my god! You've peed on someone?”
“I must admit that I have.”
“Did she pee on you, too?” I ask, and when Rome doesn't answer, he speaks loud and clear. “Oh my god! Rome!”
“I told you not to judge me,” he says with a huge, adorable smile on his face. “Wow, I didn't know you were in the business of kink shaming, Miss Washington.”
After laughing, I manage to stifle it and act serious. “Ugh. Fine. No kink shaming. I just didn't expect that. Okay, I'm done. Anything else I should know about you?”
Rome hesitates a moment before saying, “No, that’s it.”
“Do you have a favorite kink?”
“Impact play,” he answers, this time with no hesitation. “But specifically with floggers. It’s my favorite toy by far. How about you? What’s your favorite kink?”
“Bondage,” I blab without thinking.
“Oh? Why?” Rome asks as he finishes his food and leans back with his wine glass in his hand.
I take my final bite of food and mirror his posture, leaning back in my seat. “Because it takes absolutely all control away from me. I can't move or shrink away to show my nervousness. I have no choice but to submit—to be completely controlled. To be used by someone of my choosing. To be owned. But I've never been with anyone who has the necessary tools and furniture to truly restrain me. I've worn cuffs and a ball gag before, but there's a lot of stuff out there that I haven't had the luxury of experiencing.”
Rome gazes at me for a moment, a smirk pulling one side of his mouth as he raises his glass and takes a long swig of his wine.
“What?” I ask, curious about his expression. “What’s that face for?”
Out of nowhere, Rome stands up and sets his glass down on the table next to his finished plate.
“Follow me. I want to show you something,” he says.
As exhilaration begins to course through my veins, I finish off my second glass of wine and rise to my feet. Rome smiles again before leading me out of the dining room and through another hall separate from the one that led us from the kitchen. We take a few quick turns and reach a closed black door that he opens with a twist of a gold knob, which leads to stairs that Romeimmediately descends. I follow him silently until we reach the bottom and the two of us stand before a large space shrouded in shadows and ominous darkness.
“What is this?” I ask. “I can't see a thing.”
“This,” he answers, “is my playroom.”
Rome turns to his left and flicks a switch on the wall, sending light traveling down the center of the basement like a lightning strike. Once it reaches the far end, it spreads out across the entire room, illuminating the space and jolting my heart like a shock from a defibrillator.
My eyes widen to the size of planets as I gasp and my jaw drops open. “Oh, my god.”
Twenty-Seven
My heart is a hammer striking an anvil. It beats so hard that I can hear it in my ears as I stand at the bottom of the stairs staring into what Rome called his playroom. I'm in awe of it, both excited and anxious about the display in front of me. This is like a dream, my most intense fantasy coming to life right before my eyes.
“How?” I ask, although there really is no answer. “You just bought all of this recently? This … I've never seen anything like this.”
Rome steps to the middle of the room, placing himself in the center of the biggest display of BDSM furniture and toys I have ever seen. His basement is practically … no, not practically … itliterallyis a sex dungeon dressed in black and gold.
The brick walls are painted black, including the fireplace at the far end next to the massive bed with four pillars reaching for the stratosphere. A gold sex chair rests comfortably next to a black spanking bench. There are two more black pillars in the center of the room, one covered in ropes, the other containing an assortment of floggers of all sizes and materials. A giantSaint Andrew’s cross stands in the back corner like a stalker lurking in the dark, while two glass display cases rest atop gold pedestals like decorative statues. Each glass case is stocked with sex toys, from wand vibrators to riding crops, handcuffs to blindfolds, dildos to butt plugs, chains to electroshock wands. It’s a collection and display unlike anything I have ever seen, and when Rome looks around, I can see that this is his happy place. He has never looked more in his element, grinning as he takes stock of the room he built for his personal pleasure.
“I owned some of this before I inherited everything my father left me when he passed,” he says, his eyes not on me but proudly gazing around the room. “But I needed to buy more when I purchased the house. I just couldn't let this space go to waste, and like I said upstairs, I refuse to live a vanilla life. So, I decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to go all out. I bought everything I could think of, but it was well worth the money.”
“Yeah, I bet it was,” I reply with a scoff. “I'm sure you've been having a great time with all of this at your disposal.”
Rome turns to face me, unarming me with his smile.
