Chapter 21

The next week flew by. I had three new clients and one regular. I went to Rest Haven to visit Mark. I rebooked my advertisements and paid a deposit to a freelance designer to put a website together for me and print some simple business cards. I started some gallop training with Admiral, and he was so pleased about this he almost bucked me off.

And then it was Wednesday. Or, as it had come to be known in the Caine household, Simon-day.

A knot of nervous anticipation twisted in my stomach at the thought of seeing him again, but it was soon dissolved by the heat that flooded through me as I remembered what he’d done.

Look at you, I chastised myself. He makes one silly pass at you, and what have you become? Remember what Jan said. Keep emotions out of it. This is business.

Business, business, business.

You make the decisions. You call the shots. Be hard-headed and, most importantly, protect yourself. If Simon is offended by your decision then let him go elsewhere. He doesn’t want a mistress to help him fulfil his desires, he wants a girlfriend. And if he can’t find one who’s prepared to whip him till he bleeds, he’ll be phoning you again soon enough.

An hour before he was due to arrive, my nervousness had been replaced by another emotion – one that I found was a lot easier to deal with.

Anger.

How dare he suggest a physical relationship.

How dare he presume he might touch me like that, in my own dungeon.

It was simply unacceptable. And as for Simon himself, the psychologist was right. He was simply trying to take advantage.

Admittedly, as a fee-charging dominatrix, I was dabbling in the sleaze industry. All right – more than dabbling. I was knee-deep and wading out. But that did not mean compromising my principles. It did not mean changing who I was; and what I was, and was not, comfortable doing.

After all, Simon would climb into his Jaguar and drive away from my dungeon and back to his luxury home and high-pressure job without giving me a second thought.

I, on the other hand, would be left to deal with the emotional fallout.

By the time he was due to arrive, I had been able to gain some muchneeded perspective on the incident and, thankfully, I’d also managed to subdue the memories of the rush of sensual pleasure I’d had from his touch. I had my plan of action ready. It was sensible and pragmatic, designed to protect me, my emotions and my interests. It included:

1. Greeting Simon formally and inviting him into the folly.

2. Sitting him down and explaining that I was sorry I’d ever allowed him to entertain the notion that things between us might go further.

3. Telling him that I’d be happy to carry on with our sessions as before, but that if he continued to suggest that our relationship progress then I was sorry, but I could no longer accept him as a client.

4. Thrashing him viciously to punish him for his forwardness in touching me that way.

Yet again, and despite my best resolutions to the contrary, I felt a pulsing warmth spread through the pit of my stomach as I remembered how his lips had felt as they’d brushed my skin. How the kiss had sent an instant jolt of pure electricity through every cell of my body, triggering a surge of lust that was all the more powerful for being forbidden.

I exhaled impatiently.

All right, then, admit it, I told myself. You’re sexually frustrated, and with good reason seeing as you haven’t had a man in your bed for more than a year. Now you need to do what Jan would advise you to do: separate the two feelings. Don’t become fixated on Simon just because he’s the first male to pay you any attention since Mark’s accident.

When his Jaguar purred into its parking place, I was ready and waiting, sitting up straight at my desk with my fingers laced together like a headmistress waiting for a naughty pupil to arrive.

I heard the scrunch of his footsteps as he approached. The soft creak of the door as he pushed it open. He stepped inside, turned to close it, and then his gaze met mine as he moved towards the desk.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, in response to my formal nod of welcome. ‘It’s been a hectic week. I’ve been in Dubai for most of it.’ He didn’t make any reference to what had happened between us last time. Clearly, he’d realised he had overstepped the boundaries with his request and had, on his own, decided to return our relationship to its original parameters. I was relieved about this, but at the same time strangely disappointed.

No doubt, this was because I hadn’t had the chance to personally put him in his place.

At any rate that was what I kept telling myself.

‘Go and undress,’ I ordered him. I wasn’t going to engage in small talk this time. In spite of the fact he was five minutes early, I wasn’t even going to offer him coffee first.

When he walked out from the bathroom I found myself eyeing his naked body in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to do before. He was superbly fit, I noticed. Barely an ounce of fat on his frame, with strong legs that were lightly tanned and well muscled, with a shimmer of pale brown hair, and defined thighs. On his perfect buttocks there was now no trace of the damage I’d inflicted the first time I had whipped him. And I knew what it was like to touch him there – his skin so warm and velvety smooth to the touch.

It was no use denying it. Simon had opened himself up to me and, in doing so, he’d invited me into his space, into his mind. Already I was becoming entangled, just as Jan had warned me I would. Already, it was going to be difficult to extricate myself and to think of him once again as no more than another client.

I could only be relieved I hadn’t allowed things to go any further.

‘Bend over the punishment horse,’ I told him.

I lifted the fine, flexible black whip from its resting place on the wall and let the lash at its end flick lightly over his thighs, teasing him, tantalising him with the promise of the punishment to come. I drew the length of the whip across his skin like a caress and then, with a flick of my wrist, brought it hissing down with purpose, lashing across his buttocks with a loud snap.

I brushed the whip sensuously across his skin before hardening my gaze and my resolve, and sending it down to bite viciously into his flesh a second time, leaving a bloom of red.

Once again I caressed him with the whip, this time letting the lash travel all the way up his thighs, pushing between them, stroking and teasing until it brushed softly against his scrotum. Simon was normally quiet during his sessions, but this time I heard a sharp inhalation of breath from him at the touch, and the sound of his pleasure sent a rush of warmth through my core.

Then I lashed out again, more gently this time, catching him with the shaft on his inner thigh.

The saner half of my brain was screaming at me, asking, ‘What are you doing? You’re playing right into his hands. He wants more from you, and while your voice has been telling him no thanks, your whip is telling him yes please. You fool!’

But the other half of my brain was immersed in the fantasy. For the first time, I felt the pleasure when he felt it, and when he felt the pain, I took pleasure from that too. I knew that he knew how I was feeling. How could he not, when I was stroking his inner thighs with the flexible shaft of my whip.

‘Oh, yes,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, yes.’

I had no idea whether he meant, ‘Yes, Emma,’ or, ‘Yes, Mistress.’ Who was he addressing? Perhaps he didn’t know either. My breath was coming fast. I was tingling all over. Every cell of my body felt alive, awakened. I brought down the whip again and again, knowing how much he wanted it, feeling, as if through osmosis, the pleasure he felt in submitting to the pain I gave him. For as long as this punishment lasted, I was in complete control of his fate and my own.

When I finally lowered the whip he straightened up. Red marks and crisscrossed lines on his skin spoke of the harshness of my beating. He turned towards me, naked and aroused, staring down at me with his brilliant blue eyes.

He took my left hand in both of his warm ones and lifted it above my head. The chain felt cold against my skin and he closed my fingers over it.

Then the right. He slid the handle of the whip from my grasp and placed it on the horse. My right hand was guided upwards to clasp the other chain. The message was clear. I was to stay there; his prisoner for now, trapped in place even though my bondage was through choice and not coercion.

‘You are amazing,’ he whispered. ‘You are so beautiful, my Mistress.’

What was I going to let him do to me? Would my body allow me to have any say in the matter at all?

Calmly, deliberately, he undid the bow that held the laces together at the top of my basque. With gentle fingers and extreme care he slowly pulled them apart. Inch by inch he eased the garment’s front fastening open. I stood there, watching him work, as he unlaced it completely, opened it up and let it drop to the floor.

My face felt hot with shame and shyness as I stood in front of him, naked from the hips up, exposed for the inscrutable regard of this man who was, still, a virtual stranger.

And yes, the humiliation was a turn-on.

‘Beautiful,’ he whispered again.

Tell him to stop. You have to. Now. You’re on a slippery slope here.

He bent forward and brushed his lips over my neck, moved his fingers down, following the line of my breastbone and then circling inwards, spiralling over the delicate skin of my breasts with a touch that was exquisitely light, before pinching my nipples briefly and sensuously, an action that seemed to activate an electric wire that hooked up directly to the pit of my belly.

Steady on, Emma … you’re going to lose yourself here … this is unwise. Folly indeed, at its most base.

My body had become a storm-zone of desire. A pulse was beating so hard between my legs that it almost felt painful. He bent forward, his tongue flicking at my nipples as his hands cupped my buttocks before moving down towards my thighs, his fingers following the fabric of the panties as they crept inwards and stroked, just for a single breathtaking moment, the moist area between my legs.

At what point, Emma, in this intimate little tableau, do you stop being a dominatrix and start becoming a prostitute?

For a moment his eyes met mine but I was clueless as to what he was thinking. Then he moved round to stand behind me and I could feel his chest against my shoulder blades and his erection pressing firmly into the small of my back. As his fingers brushed down over the front of my panties, easing their way under the fabric to move and press against my swollen lips, I couldn’t tell whether it was me or him who moaned as I felt his touch there. I longed for them to push inside, where I wanted them … where I needed them …

He’s going to be gone in an hour. Maybe he’ll be back, maybe he won’t. But one thing is for sure – these memories will always be here. You’ll never be able to think about this place in the same way again.

‘Enough,’ I gasped, and felt his fingers halt their sliding exploration. ‘Please, stop. Ochre. Hell, I mean … um … amber.’

I’d temporarily forgotten my own safe word. Such was the extent to which he’d addled my brain.

Gently, he removed his hands.

‘Enough for a minute? Enough for today?’ he asked, his breath warm in my ear. ‘Or enough, full stop?’

‘Enough for in my dungeon,’ I told him, sounding ridiculously out of breath. ‘Please … I’m sorry, I can’t go any further. Not now, not here.’

I was still holding onto the chains. Stupid, I know, since all that was keeping me there was my own grasp. I couldn’t let go. But just as if he’d tied me to them, he reached up and opened the fingers of my now-sweaty hands before lowering my arms to my side. I could smell myself on his hands; the salty-wet, warm fragrance of arousal.

Then he walked over to the chair by the entrance door, and picked up my trench coat which was folded over the back of it. He carried it over to me and slipped it around my shoulders, preserving my modesty far too late and doing so with just the hint of a smile.

I was beginning to regret the idiocy of my statement. Because, by saying, ‘no, not here’, I’d given him the unmistakable message ‘yes, somewhere else’.

And he’d understood it clear enough.

His smile widened very slightly as he stood in front of me and drew the lapels towards each other.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he said.