Page 73 of Dominate Me

She’d tripped over the word. “You are. Absolutely.”

“Then that’s enough for me.” She was silent for several moments and with more hesitancy, she stated, “I like Gabby’s collar. It’s pretty.”

My cock twitched against her back. “What?”

“Nothing.” She spoke too quickly.

With one hand on her jaw, I turned her to face me and smiled. “You like the collar.”

A blush formed on her cheeks. It had nothing to do with the steam in the bathroom or the heat from the water. “It was nothing, I mean, I liked it, I just thought of it when you said I was yours. I’m not implying—”

I kissed her to silence her, slid my fingers into her hair and held her tight to me, explored her mouth like it was the first time.

Every moment with Haley was an experience I wanted to always feel like the first time.

Images of Haley collared, the ownership of it, flashed into my mind as our tongues lazily swirled together, our lips fused together. Her in a collar, spread eagle on my bed, metal glistening as I took her over and over and over.

“My job is to protect you, to take care of you, to give you what you need,” I whispered, pulling away from her, our lips still touching. “But in my time.”

And it’d be soon. I already knew those images still echoing in my mind would never go away. All of them would become a reality.

“Now tell me about your meeting with Ron,” I said, changing the subject, readjusting us in the tub.

“Timothy’s a prick, basically. He has no case, no legal way to go after the resort. But he’s refusing to drop it. I don’t even want to know how he’s affording his lawyer. Ron says we won’t lose, but if Timothy wants he can make it drag out.” Her chin fell to her chest. “God, I knew he was lazy. I knew he was a loser quickly after I’d married him. I’d wanted so badly to believe in him, to believe he would do what he talked about...his dreams, larger than life, they pulled me in and I thought I was on a pedestal, but I was so wrong about him. So young, so naive.”

She stopped abruptly and I let her wallow in her silence for a few moments until she shook her head, clearing whatever had dragged her down.

“What’s your favorite meal?” she asked just as abruptly as she’d gone silent.

“What?”

“Your favorite meal. Home-cooked. What’s something you eat that always makes you feel good.”

I laughed again, pressed my cheek to hers. My fingers trailed slowly up and down her arms to her abdomen, grazing her skin, her soft flesh above her belly button.

“You’ll think it’s silly,” I admitted.

Her smile went wide and amused. “Then you have to tell me.”

“Ugh. Fine.” I closed my eyes and remembered the small house I grew up in, before my dad’s firm took off, before we had money. They were good days, a mom and dad who laughed and touched each other constantly. A kitchen that hadn’t been updated since the seventies, yellow Formica countertops, brown stove. Whenever I thought of my mom I always remembered her dressed like she was going somewhere even though she didn’t work outside the home. But she loved baking and cooking in that small, dark kitchen.

“Tater tot casserole.”

She was silent for a moment, her lips pressed together until a sound burst from her. “I’m sorry...what?”

“Shh.” I couldn’t help but laugh with her. “I told you, you’d laugh. But we didn’t always have money, not until I was a young teenager and my dad scored a huge case that changed everything for him. Until then, he worked and mom stayed home. And she would cook casseroles, freezing leftovers so we could re-heat them. But there was something about the tater tots—”

“The way they grew soggy?”

“No, smart ass. I was a kid, they were good. It used to be my favorite meal, something mom always made for me. When my youth baseball league won a championship, when my football team lost the sectionals, when I came home with an A...the first time a girl broke up with me.”

She gasped, feigned shock. “No.”

“Yes. It happened. I was fourteen. I won’t discuss it. It scarred me for life.”

“You’re full of shit,” she said through her laughter.

I shrugged against her back before pulling her to her feet, the water was cooling and I wanted to hang out and talk more. Ask her about her favorite foods and movies and memories. There was so much we didn’t know about one another.

“Regardless, when I think of home, think of my mom, that’s always the first thing I think about.”

She turned to me as I dried her, slid a towel behind her back and pulled her against my wet chest. Her hand went to my chest, right above my heart. “I like that you have that.”

So pure. Sweet. God, I hoped I didn’t fuck this up with Haley. I pressed my lips to her forehead.

“I like that I have you.”

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