Page 56 of Training His Pet

“Then kneel, or lie down, whatever you want,” he suggested. He could command her to heel, but he wanted her to talk freely and he’d already noticed the further into her submissive mind he pushed her, the quieter and more compliant she became. He was all for the obedience and loved being able to draw it out of her so easily, but she sheltered her words, and he didn’t want that right now.

Erika sank down to her knees, then rested back on her heels. “Oh, it’s not so bad.” She pushed her feet out from under her and sat on the step beside him. “It’s not great, though, either,” she mumbled.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, placing a chaste kiss to her forehead with his chuckle.

“Sometimes you’ll be even more uncomfortable. Just because I like it.” He kissed her again and hugged her to his side. “You sleep okay?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why I slept so long. I never nap.” She pulled her feet up to the edge of the step and hugged her knees.

“Maybe you should more often,” he said softly, running his hand over her back.

“Any word from your brother?” she asked, eyeing him from the side.

“No.” He pulled his hand off her and rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward lightly. “He said a few more days, so I doubt I’ll hear from him until Tuesday or Wednesday.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

“Hating your time so much?” He raised his brows.

“No,” she said instantly. “I just hate being off work.”

He glanced over at her. “You aren’t off work. You’re just working on a different kind of story.”

A small smile lifted the corner of her lips. “Yeah, I’m not sure this one is gonna make it into the paper.”

He laughed. “No, probably not the paper, but there’s a lot of lifestyle blogs and websites that would be interested in it.”

Her brow wrinkled as she seemed to consider what he suggested. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You don’t even have to use your real name. It’s pretty common for people in the lifestyle to take on a new ID for the internet.”

“I’m sure.” She nodded. “I bet it probably wouldn’t work out great if a boss or colleague were to stumble across this stuff on social media.”

“As open as society pretends to be, it’s still pretty judgmental and prudish when it comes to sexuality.” A fact he’d known well enough during his stint in the army.

She dropped her legs and turned, wincing a bit with her movements, and touched his arm. “I love this tat.” She traced the rank he’d had tattooed on before his last deployment. “The skulls inside the rank are done really well.” She leaned forward to inspect it more closely.

“You don’t have any tattoos from what I could see.” He smiled down at her.

She looked up the length of his arm at him with a grin. “Too much of a chicken.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t think that about you at all.”

“Needles.” She shivered visibly. “Hard limit.”

“I’ll make a note.” He grinned and moved his hand to her leg, resting it on her thigh. “You said your dad was military, you moved around a lot, I bet.”

Her eyes shifted away from him and she dropped her hand from his arm. “Yeah, typical army brat, I guess.”

“Did he do any tours overseas?” Dax asked.

“He did, but we didn’t go with. He was stationed in Korea for a year, families can’t PCS there.”

“Yeah, not really a family-friendly base.” Dax squeezed her knee. “What happened when he got out? I mean, what he’d do?” She’d said both her parents passed away after her father retired, but she hadn’t said how.

She eyed him for a long moment, as though she were deciding what to say and what to filter out.

“Something bad?” Dax asked, dropping all pretense of casualness. He could feel her body tensing beside him.

---