He sits down in front of me, and I don’t waste any time. “So, before you tell me anything, I have an idea.”
He gives me a wary smile. “Okay.”
“Well, I was going to make a suggestion.” I clasp my hands together on the table.
“What suggestion?”
“I wondered if maybe the best thing for us is to write up a contract.”
Ryan’s reaction tells me I’m right. His eyes widen and he licks his lips. “A contract?”
I sigh. “Look, I know when we first met you didn’t want to be with anyone, let alone a Dom. But the thing is, this is who we are. If we want to embrace who we are, we have to figure out a way to make this work for us. But what we do is completely up to us. What happened to you…. I know—”
“You don’t know anything!” Ryan hisses. His sudden anger surprises me. It also has me wanting to punish him for his rudeness, but I push it aside for now.
“And why is that?” I point out gently. Ryan snaps his jaw shut. He looks like he’s about to say something as he lowers his eyes, but I beat him to it. I speak softly. “All I know so far is your previous Dominant betrayed you. I’m going to assume he hurt and abused you. To know you, I need to know a little more. With me, you let yourself be free and allow me to take control, and I know you enjoy it. We both do.”
“So what if I like it? It doesn’t mean I want you to hit me. You said you wouldn’t hurt me.” Betrayal fuels the fire in his eyes.
Shaking my head, I implore him. “I won’t ever hurt you or do something you’re not ready for. This is why we set out rules and guidelines in the contract. What I will do is push you out of your comfort zone in order to make you fly. I want to help you.” Something in my words interests him.
Ryan fidgets in his seat. “Help me how?”
“Help… heal you.”
He’s silent until he finally replies with a whisper. “How can you heal me?”
I hold his eyes. “We sign a contract. We enter into a D/s relationship.”
Ryan shakes his head. “You think I can do this again? You think this will help me?”
I place my hand on top of his. “I do. I figured it out yesterday.” I chuckle without humour. “You’ll never hear me call myself an expert when it comes to the BDSM lifestyle. I don’t have years and years of experience. But I’ve been trained. I know how to be a good Dom, and I know every relationship is different. Neither of us can go into this with assumptions of what we’re going to be like. You’ve never met a Dom like me, and in turn, I’ve never met a sub like you. The first of the few facts we’d have to acknowledge is that you don’t trust me.” I steamroll ahead when he tries to interrupt me. “Not completely, and not yet. But trust takes time. It’s clear you were in a bad relationship with a despicable man who called himself a Dom, and this is the only thing I know about it. I think it was emotional, psychological, and physical abuse.” I pause before continuing. “I get the feeling from David you’ve really bulked up since he last saw you. Perhaps the abuse is why you built yourself up to seem intimidating? You don’t want to appear as a submissive; you don’t want to seem weak. If anything, you want to appear to be a Dominant. And on the night we met, you were a brilliant actor. But I know now it was all a well-created façade. You are a submissive, baby. Just as I am a Dominant.”
Ryan’s eyes water and my heart clenches as he squeezes my hand.
“You can’t deny your desires, Ryan. You can’t suppress who you are anymore; otherwise, it’ll eat you up inside. And you know as well as I do the last thing a submissive is, is weak. In a D/s relationship, the Dom might seem to have the control, but he doesn’t. At the end of the day, the submissive does.”
“I thought that,” he whispers. “But all I felt was weak when I was with… Luke.”
“And it doesn’t surprise me.” His eyes flit to mine. A waitress brings us our coffees and we say our thanks. “If you used your safeword, and he ignored it and continued to do something you weren’t comfortable with, he took your power away from you. It is not your fault. It’s his. And I can understand why you’d deny yourself after your submissive desires led you to him.” The last word is said with as much vitriol as I can manage.
Ryan nods.
“If I’m right, I think the only way we’ll work together is if we do what is natural to us. To have a contract with rules and boundaries specific to us. Tell me, baby. Did you and Luke have a contract?”
He sighs, and I can see the disappointment is aimed at himself. “No.”
I growl. What Dominant doesn’t have a contract?
Ryan sits back but keeps one of his hands in mine. “I was stupid. We met at a nightclub. I was drunk, and when he asked if I was a sub, I admitted I was. He told me he was a Dominant and it was fate. He got us a hotel room. He was so charming and friendly the first night. He worked away a lot, so I only saw him maybe twice a month. That was his reasoning for no contract. Luke kept saying, when he was around more, we’d write one up. After the second month, he became… aggressive. He wouldn’t react immediately after I used my safeword. He’d delay. They were the warning signs, but I ignored them. He was so good-looking and charming. I was enamoured. I had no idea how… abusive he’d become. He kept calling me either slave or whore. Into the third month, he saw me more and more. I suggested a written agreement a few times already, but he shrugged it off and said we didn’t need one. The last time I saw him, four months after we met, I said I wanted one or we were through.”
I nod. “Good, you deserve—”
His eyes flash to mine. “He raped me.”
My lips part in shock and my hand tightens. All I can do is shake my head. “Ryan. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
He shrugs. “After the way he’d started to behave, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But that night…. I mean, you’ve seen his handiwork.” His free hand hovers over his stomach before his index finger lightly touches his nose.
I scowl but try to keep my voice calm. “Don’t you dare blame yourself, Ryan. This is not your fault.” Unable to help myself, I lean over the side of the table and take his mouth in a gentle kiss, running my fingers through his hair.
“I like your kisses,” Ryan murmurs.
I release something between a chuckle and a cough. I knew he was abused, but raped? Fuck. I’ve never wanted to kill someone until now. Murderous thoughts are a new thing for me. How could someone do that to him? To anyone?
Our food is delivered and we pull apart. The waitress seems flustered. “Sorry for the wait. It just got crazy busy in here.”
We glance around and realise she’s right; the café is crowded. I hadn’t even noticed. “No worries. Thank you.” When she leaves us and we start to eat, I say to him, “It must’ve been difficult, but thank you for telling me. I’m glad I know.”
He scoffs. “You mean, how I was weak?”
“No!” I place my cutlery down and grab him by the back of the neck, imploring him with my eyes. “You listen to me. You were never weak. He did something to break your trust, to try to break you. He was the weak one.” He’s a criminal. He should be in jail. He should be suffering.
“I…” Ryan bites his lip. “I feel better after telling you. As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt lighter. Like there’s a weight off my shoulders. When I said I spoke to Derek, I meant that I told him Luke became abusive. I didn’t tell him everything. It feels good to tell someone, and I’m glad it’s you.”
I caress his nape before letting go. Picking up my knife and fork, I speak quietly. “And, boy?” With the pet name, I have his attention. “I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself weak again.”
Ryan shudders. It’s not fear; it’s just emotional for him. “Yes, Sir.” With a shared smile, it seems as though we’ve taken a huge step forward together. We start shovelling food into our mouths, starving after the morning’s activities. It’s nice like this. Eating together in peaceful quiet. Well, we’re quiet, but the room is loud with chatter and various noises. Luckily, we both seem to enjoy people-watching.
Once we’ve quenched our hunger and thirst, we buckle up in our seats, and Ryan faces me before I can start the car. “What did you want to do? How did you want to move forward together in order to heal me?”
By his sudden animated behaviour, it’s as though he sees a light at the end of his tunnel. As if I’ve shown him a possible future for us, for him to embrace who he is in a safe environment, and he’s clinging to it.
“I want you. As my sub. As my boyfriend.” His eyes snap to mine and gazes at me intently. “I don’t live the twenty-four-hour lifestyle. I won’t dominate you or control you anywhere besides the bedroom. Unless the situation calls for it, the only place I’ll demand control is the bedroom.”
“Eventually, you’ll want to top, right?” There’s sadness in Ryan’s eyes.
“I don’t mind bottoming,” I say, tilting my head. “There are many things we can do, Ryan.”
He shakes his head. “I just…. I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Between my thumb and forefinger, I capture his chin. “It’s okay. A limit is a limit. This is why we set them, so no one does something they’re not comfortable with.”
Ryan takes a minute to consider what I’ve said. “So, I still have control outside the bedroom?”
“Yes. Outside the bedroom, we are equals in everything. Again, unless your needs require me to dominate you. But, Ryan?” I wait until he meets my eyes. “In the bedroom, you have none. You hand it over to me. Yes?”
He shudders. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
Ryan gives me the smallest, but no less beautiful smile. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good boy.” I stroke his jaw. “It could take some time. But I’m proposing we write up an agreement for a three-month contract.” I want to say that if it doesn’t work out, we can try for a vanilla relationship. But, at those repeated words, his whole body seems to sigh in relief. Ryan’s chocolate eyes fill with a timid hopefulness, and he’s as beautiful as ever. “I accept your proposal, Sir.”
My breath hitches and I gaze into his eyes. I’m going to have a contract with Ryan Scott . Ryan Scott is going to be mine . “Are you sure?”
He nods. “Yes. I want to do this. With you, Henry. I mean, Sir .”
“Then we’ll do this.” I grin widely. “You and me.”
“You and me.”
We seem to move together at the same time. Both moving forward until our lips meet. His mouth turns pliant under mine as he submits to me. I control the kiss with my tongue in his mouth and my hand at his nape. My fingers knot in his hair. Ryan’s legs part, allowing me to slide my other hand from his thigh to his groin. Without me having to say anything, Ryan’s hands are fisted at his sides. He’s offering himself to me and it’s beautiful. As my hand cups him through his jeans, I continue to kiss him slowly and languidly as if I have all the time in the world. I almost can’t believe we’re making out in my car, but I can’t give a fuck. I don’t care who sees us, as long as they know this man is mine. Ryan moans and kisses me back but never challenges my dominance, never takes over. My Ryan. So beautifully submissive.
In this moment, I know we’ll be okay. With each piece of himself he lets me see, he’ll become free. I’ll help him learn to trust again. Not only to trust in his lover, but also trust in his Dominant. I’ll help heal him. Through time, he’ll let me in more and more, and I’ll learn everything there is to know about Ryan Scott.