Submissive's Journey (Masters of Blackstone Book 1), page 14
“The better to twirl in, yes?” She laughed but waited with him at the intersection. Smiling, he wrapped her in his arms. “I bet you’re an amazing teacher, Julia Moran.”
“Some days I’m extraordinary, others I hope for snow days.” She shrugged and glanced around. “Fingers crossed.”
Sanity and good sense reigned him in. The first time he kissed her would not be a quick nip that he would have to walk away from. His balls already hated him for sporting an erection for hours. “Yes well, you need to get home and get a good night’s sleep.”
He saw the disappointment register in her eyes. For hours, he’d been trying to find a single good reason to not take her to his hotel room and now there were too many to count. Despite Maxwell’s assurances Julia was doing so well in every other area of her life, claiming it was only her blackouts and desperation to be played with roughly that had him concerned. “Nothing an experienced dominant couldn’t get a handle on in short order.”
Everett wished he shared his friend’s optimistic outlook. Experience he had in spades, having trained and enjoyed more submissives than a man probably had a right to, but everything about this girl—“
“Obviously, I misread the signals.” She tried to keep her voice even as she said, “Light’s changed.”
She tried to move from his embrace to cross the road, but he held her back. “My car is right around the corner. We can say goodbye here.”
“Julia.” He said her name so firmly, she stilled as suddenly as a deer caught in headlights. He kept his movements, slow and easy, in case she panicked and bolted as one. He met her gaze and gently stroked her cheek. Her lips parted and a fine tremble started beneath his hands. If she only knew what she was doing to him, she would try so much harder to keep her fear in check. “Don't worry. You didn’t misread anything.”
“I didn’t?”
He pushed her bangs behind her ear. “I want you, Julia. I’m just very concerned, you’re not ready for a commitment yet, and well, to be quite honest, I’m tired of being a temporary Dom. I want my own submissive, one I know will be there for me at the end of a long day.”
Julia took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I understand. I’m here, and you’re there. A Long distance relationship isn’t ideal for either one of us.”
Everett started chuckling, but her annoyance was clear when she demanded, “What?”
“Ideal flew out the window the moment I saw you tonight.” He bumped his forehead to hers and met her gaze. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I don’t want to walk away from you. I don’t want to tuck you into your car and have that be the last time I ever see you.”
Confusion clouded her eyes.
“I’d like to see you again before I return to Savannah.”
“To play?”
“Yes, Julia, to play. Would you enjoy doing a scene with me?”
“Yes, Sir.” She smiled broadly.
HAPPINESS LIKE SHE hadn’t felt in a very long time bubbled through her. Everett held her hand as they walked to where her car was parked. It wasn’t far, and for a second she thought she was on the wrong block. Then she noticed the snow— really noticed the snow. She jerked her hand from Everett’s to run panicked to the empty parking spot her car had occupied before. Distraught, she turned in a full circle. “Oh, no fucking way!”
She screamed and pulled her hair. She stomped her foot in the soft, wet snow that came to the middle of her shin. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! They did not declare a fucking snow emergency!”
“Your car was towed, I presume?”
“You think?” She answered sarcastically. “I cannot fucking believe this!”
Everett spun her around and shoved his gloved hand halfway into her open mouth.
Julia was sure she was ready to say something more, but his hand stalled any thought.
“Enough!” he demanded in what she immediately recognized as a low, firm Dom voice. The slick material against her tongue tasted like leather, so she assumed the gloves were genuine, and as much as she was not really happy about having his hand shoved so deeply into her mouth, she could see the insane logic behind his action. He’d wanted her quiet and he didn’t want to be bit. He succeeded in both. “You have some serious issues, Julia, and I don’t know if I can be the one to help you.”
Every hope of the moment before fled and she felt sick to her stomach.
“Normally, I would cane a slave for every curse word uttered, but with you—no, you are an impossible task.”
She blinked at the last part, and then blinked faster, fighting against tears, because it made her wonder if he was telling her the truth. Am I a lost cause? I’ll never find someone who can handle me?
Everett used his free hand to brush the tears from her cheeks.
Is that why I’m still alone? Not because I’m being too picky, because I’m an impossible task?
Sudden sobs broke in her chest and she sputtered around his glove.
“I am going to remove my hand from your mouth and you are going to answer my questions calmly and quietly, all right?”
Julia nodded, tears flooding over her cheeks. When he removed his hand, she reflexively rubbed her lips, the corners of her mouth tender from being forced so wide. “Are you okay? No blood?”
“No blood, Sir.” she whispered, keeping her gaze lowered.
“You curse entirely too much.”
“I know,” she agreed softly, not meeting his gaze.
He gave her a hard look. She was quite certain the green-gold glow of halogen street lamp was doing nothing for her skin tone and was almost guaranteed her mascara ran in black drips over her cheeks.
“If I took a cane to your ass, one strike for each curse word you uttered in a day, what would the number be today?”
She wrapped herself in her arms, terrified he might seriously be considering doing just that. Does he believe for a second I will give him an honest number?
“If you had to guess,” he pressed.
Taking her face in his hands, he forced her gaze up.
“A lot. Ten, maybe?”
“Ten?” He laughed. “You’re a math teacher, love. Nice try but I imagine you’re much better with numbers than that. Try ten in the last two minutes.”
“I did very well inside the diner, I didn’t cuss once,” she said, and then, seeing his raised eyebrow, amended, “Three times, right?”
“Yes, three, and the rest of the day?”
She sighed heavily. “A hundred.”
“Wow.”
“Look, this isn’t going anywhere. You have established that I curse. I curse a lot. I should fucking stop saying the word fuck.”
Everett pinched her cheeks so hard between his gloved hand that her eyes watered but he succeeded in shutting her up. “Have you always been this obstinate?”
Her vision blurred with new tears, and though she tried to look away, he held her face firm, even though her nose was starting to run with snot. “No, sir”
“What happened to you, Julia?”
She shrugged.
“That’s no answer, love. Honesty and openness between us or this goes no farther. I’m already considering this trip was a waste of time.”
He doesn’t want me now, and it’s my own fault. Trevor warned me. Is this what I wanted? To run him off? I’ve spent a year insisting I was ready for a dominant again. Almost twelve full months spent convincing myself I need a dominant if I am ever going to be happy and fulfilled again, and now I carelessly blow the best opportunity I had of making it happen? What is wrong with me? Gaze downcast, Julia whispered, “I may have some anger issues.”
“Clearly. You will tell me what your thoughts are on this matter.”
She nodded, tears and snot pooling on the leather, making his gloves shinier, slicked wet beneath the glow of the street lamp. “The Julia I was when my mother lived died a long time ago. I was alone. Abandoned. Not a single friend or relative stepped forward when she passed.”
Everett tipped her chin up to meet her gaze. “Foster care didn’t work for you?”
She shook her head. Life as a ward of the state had altered her view of the world irreparably. “I was homeless for most of a year.”
“You were fourteen?”
“Yes, Sir,” she answered softly. It was hard, so damn hard. Remembering, Julia barely held back her tears. “For a while Jasper controlled me, then he died too. This is what’s left. I’m empty except for rage and need.”
“Need?” He released her face suddenly and she ground her teeth together to keep from screaming at him. “What do you need?”
Everything that was stolen from me! My childhood. My faith in humanity. Safety. Security. Trust. Bending and choking on phlegm, she managed to reply, “I don’t know.”
“Try again. Tell me.”
“I haven’t had a lot of normal, so I guess I’m still trying to figure it out.”
Everett waited for her to straighten. “I know what I need out of a committed relationship. Do you want to hear?”
Julia nodded rapidly, grateful the focus was off her for a minute.
“Companionship, partnership, respected boundaries.”
“Oh!” she gasped. “Those are really good ones, but does wanting a partnership mean you don’t want a slave?”
“A slave, no; but not solely a submissive in the bedroom either. I’m dominant and I’ll demand complete control in the bedroom, but there are some things I feel strongly enough about I need a few addition rules, which overlap into life. Mostly, I just want a partner willing to share fun and games with, work beside, and help make dinner.”
“I’m a disaster in the kitchen.”
“I’ll sign you up for cooking classes.”
“You’d do that?”
“Say you’ll give up cursing cold turkey for a chance to get to know me, Julia, because I believe you are special enough for me to desire it to be so, and someday I would like to have the opportunity to love you.”
“Oh, God. No, no, no. Don’t say that!” She spun away, giving him her back.
“Cussing is that important to you then?” he demanded, shaking her so hard her eyes popped open.
“No!” she wailed, tears falling in a torrential downpour, snot now so thick in her nose she had to pant through her mouth to breathe, and even that was getting difficult because there was also snot in her throat. “Tell me you will fuck my brains out or you want to have sex with me, but don’t lie to me about love. Love is a fairytale I am undeserving of and we both know it. You’ve already judged me an impossible task and I accepted I’m not special a very long time ago.”
Everett kissed her, and it wasn’t the gentle, teasing first kiss she imagined would happen between them with his tongue playfully teasing the seam of her mouth to convince her to open to him. No, he forged in, his tongue tangling with hers in a way that left her feeling like she’d never been kissed before, not really. It almost registered when his mouth closed over hers that she couldn’t breathe for real—too many tears, too much snot, too much tongue, but she didn’t care if she couldn’t breathe—Lord Draco was kissing her, claiming her, at her most gross, at her most disgusting.
Everett released her and it was a full second before she realized she wasn’t breathing. He held his gloved hand to her nose and insisted, “Blow!”
Julia shook her head, coughing around snot.
“I said blow!”
She obeyed, blowing her nose into his expensively covered palm. She blew again, before gagging in the snow. Everett held her shoulders while she tried not to throw up pancakes.
Holding her against his chest, he asked, “Better?”
Crying softly, snow blowing into her face, she answered, “I’m so embarrassed.”
He laughed, removing the now ruined gloves and shoving them, soiled, into his coat pocket. “Let’s get you home. I parked in the parking garage across the road.”
They walked in silence as the snow fell harder around them, and along the way his arm found its way around her waist. She spent the entire walk trying to be brave enough to ask all the significant questions: when can we get together, where, what do you want to do to me, do you have any peculiar kinks I need to know about?
They entered the multiple floor parking garage and her stiletto’s clicked loudly against the ground. The space seemed to amplify the sound and she tried to walk more quietly but it was impossible. Her toes were numb from the icy walk through the snow.
Reaching a large imposing vehicle, he spun her into his arms and captured her mouth with a kiss meant to steal her breath and conquer her body. She pulled away, complaining, “You kiss too hard.”
EVERETT ARCHED HIS right brow, not believing his ears. He’d never had a sub complain about his kisses before—and never mid-kiss. “I kiss like a dominant.”
He moved in for round two, again consuming her lips and forcing his tongue in. She jerked away. “You kiss like a bully! Slow down, don't rush.”
Flabbergast, he demanded, “You think you can tell me how to kiss, little dragon?”
“Someone needs to.”
“Did Jasper allow you to critique and tutor him on how to kiss you?”
She gasped. “No! Jasper didn’t kiss often; and if he did, it was to draw blood. To teach a lesson. To keep me in my place. I would have never dared to tell him anything. Submissives are seen and not heard. I’m sure you probably own the lot of his videos. Volumes and volumes lumped together after his death and sold for the bargain basement price of $99? Is that where you learned to kiss like a dominant?”
He’d been careless with his words, even though he’d begun to suspect Jasper had been abusive. Now he’d need to begin again. “My taunt was uncalled for. I apologize.”
Her sarcasm only fueled his need to know everything about the woman he’d believed he knew inside out. He couldn’t have been more wrong. He didn’t know her at all and he needed to remember that. He knew an image, a public persona, not the woman standing before him trembling.
Under his intense scrutiny, she cast her gaze down, submissively but her sarcastic comeback was anything but, “No, Sir, I overstepped. Clearly. Go ahead, please resume the complete and utter annihilation of my mouth.”
Everett walked away and pushed his hand through his hair. “If not Jasper, who taught you how to kiss?”
She rolled her eyes.
“I have all night, brat. I asked you a question and expect an answer.”
Julia's face crumpled and she dropped to her knees, folding forward and stretching her arms in front of her until she was pressed as flat to the ground as she could possibly get. He could tell by the slight shaking of her shoulders that she was crying. It pissed him off imagining her presenting herself to an abusive master this way. He imagined it didn't save her from the beating she feared.
“You’re going to ruin your white coat,” Everett chastised with an aggrieved tone. He roughly jerked her up by her neck and pulled her into his chest forcefully before wrapping his hands under both ass cheeks and lifting her. Reflexively she wrapped her hands around his neck and her legs around his waist. Good girl.
Julia met his gaze and answered his question, “His name was Manuel Trujillo.”
Everett frowned, recognizing the name, having read it in a news article. The man she’d been accused of murdering taught her to kiss? Jesus.
“I thought he was my boyfriend—”
He couldn’t hear her confessions now. He was already feeling way too connected, protective. He pushed her up against the passenger door of a boxy, black Mercedes SUV. Noting the gray soil ground into the front of her coat where her breasts had flattened against the concrete garage floor, he unfastened the buttons. He squeezed her breasts through the fur-like softness of her sweater dress as he kissed her exposed chest. Eyes wide, she watched him. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see fear in the depths of hers, and returned to her lips, kissing her as tenderly as he'd ever kissed anyone in his life. His heart soared when he felt her responding with equal caution.
When he pulled away and looked at her again, he saw her eyes had closed. Her dark, thick lashes fanned over her pale skin. “Julia.”
Her lips parted, and she whispered, “More. Please.”
A tear slid over her cheek and he knew he would never deny her. His mouth covered hers but allowed her to take what she wanted. His heart raced as she sucked his top lip in to her mouth then plunged her tongue in. As much as it was his nature to control both his sub and himself, he gave in to the ardor she was building in his core. He’d wanted her for too long. Obsessed over her. Fantasized about her.
Rubbing his hands over the bare skin between the top of her thigh high boots and her lace under garments, Everett moaned and the sound was accompanied by hers. “Sir, please! I need—”
In a blur, Julia tugged the hem of her dress up and his hands flew over her body, finding no skin. Frustration didn’t slow his intent, but reminded him of the one-piece embroidered-number she’d been wearing in Community Central. He tore at the crotch of her lingerie. The snaps holding the bottom piece together popped apart and he found himself with a handful of bare ass. Exploring the softest skin he’d ever touched, he rubbed his fingertips over her vulva and found it smooth, completely hairless and very, very wet.
He met her gaze. “Very nice, sweetheart.”
With her hands on his shoulders, fingers digging into his back, Everett could feel her trembling. She held herself stiffly and begged, “Please, Sir.”
He didn’t see fear in her eyes, he saw hunger. Raw need. Still he asked, “Stop?”
“No, Sir. I need…I need.”
“What do you need? Tell me.” He rubbed his thumb over her clit very, very softly, and she cried out, a harsh sob, imploring, “Please fuck me.”
Everett plunged two fingers in and she moaned. He couldn’t believe how tight and wet she was. Too tight, it made no sense. He assured her softly, “Slowly, let me give you pleasure slowly.”
Curling into her g-spot, he rubbed gently.
Julia pushed toward him as he thrust in and cried out in pain. “Green, Sir. Please!”
The sound of her pure desperation touched him deeply. In the moment, he knew he couldn’t reason it out. Later. He would figure Julia Moran, former slave of Jasper Madani later. He commanded, “Hug me tight. Hold onto me.”
