Page 13 of Once Upon a Dream
Peas.
And here I was acting like my dress was the sartorial manifestation of a Geneva Convention violation. Acting like Lorne had paddled my bottom raw before he fucked me.
I nearly snort at myself through my tears. Some fierce Domme I am. A few pea-sized welts and I might as well have had a vibrator between my legs.
I hate the following week. I hate work, I hate not working. I hate being with people and I hate being alone.
I don’t go to the club, and whenever I masturbate, I think of Lorne fucking me against a wall, his stubbled jaw scratching my neck as the nettled-dress scratched my bottom. I think of the reverent aftercare—the kisses and the ointment.
I think of his jagged, male sigh as he used my cunt to come.
I never do put any more ointment on the welts. I find that the idea of not feeling them is worse than the irritated skin itself, and when they finally feel better after a day or two, I am strangely bereft.
There’s only so many times a horny vice president can use a vibrator, and there’s only so many nights Morgan Leffey can endure being this restless and inflamed.
On the eighth day, I break, and I find myself walking into the trendy but economical—and ostentatiously eco-friendly—offices of Lothian and Associates. It’s late, and Lorne is the only one still there.
I leave my Secret Service people outside.
Inside the glass and concrete space, I move to Lorne’s private office, where a light spills out into the dim co-working area. When I get to the door, I see him turned away, leaning over some papers while a hand lingers over his laptop keyboard, as if he’s about to take notes but can’t decide which ones yet.
“Would you give it up for me?” I ask, stepping into the room. “Being a Sir to me?”
His posture stiffens, and for a moment, I think he won’t turn to face me. But then he does.
No mask, no dress-up. Just thick, dark hair that threatens to curl at the tips, just those bold eyebrows and those whiskey eyes. Just a jaw that could cal
ibrate protractors, and that greedy, sculpted mouth.
He lifts his gaze to me, and I see wariness there. But also love.
Fuck, he loves me. Still, somehow. After everything.
“In a heartbeat,” he answers. “I’d give it up in a heartbeat for you.”
I move around his desk so I can lean against it. Our knees touch.
My voice is thick when I ask, “Why?”
“You know why. I love you. I’d rather have you than anything else. But is that what you want?”
I’m starting to cry again, and I swipe at my cheek. “No. Isn’t that stupid? I left you, I shut you out, I thought if we weren’t together, I wouldn’t be the kind of woman who wants her husband to choke her during sex.”
“And what kind of woman are you now?”
I offer him a tremulous smile. “The kind of woman who wants her ex-husband to choke her during sex.”
I can tell he’s struggling to keep the space between us, that he’s fighting the urge to take control of me physically. I offer him my wrists, and without a second’s hesitation, he circles them both and yanks me into his lap.
He’s already hard underneath my ass, and when I curl into his chest, I don’t feel like two different women—one who has her own Secret Service agents outside and one who would like to be fucked over a desk.
I just feel like one woman. One Morgan.
“I had this idea,” I murmur into his chest, “of whom I wanted to be. And it wasn’t a switch. It wasn’t a woman who enjoyed kneeling, ever, ever. It was so clear in my head of whom I should be. Even when I would never tell another woman the same thing. Even if I would tell a switch or submissive that she was wrong for having the same idea I did.”
Lorne kisses my hair. “Ideas are meant to guide us, to help us—not the other way around. We can’t suffer and sacrifice just to keep the idea in place if it doesn’t serve us anymore.”
“My whole life is ideas, Lorne. My entire career, my present, my future—it’s all spoken about as ideas. As beliefs.”
