Page 43 of Callback
A laugh bubbled out from her and she shook her head, taking a sip of coffee. “Guess not. But Iamsorry. I shouldn’t have pried… I shouldn’t have pushed you that much. I was thinking back to what if someone had pressured me to revisit some of Jack’s old things at the back of my closet? The thought of watching someone holding his stuff, treating it like something precious… well, anyway. I know it’s different, but I understand why you got upset.”
“I appreciate that. But you also helped me realize something last night. I need to move on from this paralysis she has over me. Over this room.”
“That comes in baby steps. Not with an actress you hardly know, barely trust, and isn’t even a real submissive barreling through all your shit like a tornado.”
I grinned. A tornado. It was the exact comparison I had used a couple of days ago.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Nothing. You’re just something else, you know that?”
“Something else being a disastrous weather system?”
I laughed, the feeling shaking my diaphragm. It was like a muscle that had been in hibernation for years; like stretching after a long, deep sleep. She took a bite of her chia seed pudding and moaned. “Oh my God, this is good. Is that honey in it?”
“Maple syrup,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if you ate honey on a vegetarian diet. You know… bees and stuff.”
“I do eat honey. But the maple is delicious, too.”
We ate the rest of our breakfast more or less quickly, with the occasional chit chat. I wasn’t the kind of Dom who wanted my sub to be silent and constantly serving. If anything… I preferred to serve her; as long as I was the one in control of that. We finished eating and she cleared some of the plates.
“So, what’s on the to do list for today?”
I took a long, low breath. “You’re going back into my closet. You’re going to look around at the various toys and ask all the questions you need to. You’re here to learn.”
She lifted a brow and dropping her hands from her hips, sauntered over to the closet. “Doyouneed a safe word for this?”
Maybe.“No, but we’re going to play it like a game. I’m going to go in first and sit at the back of the closet. And we’ll play like red light-green light, until you reach me and have your fill of looking around.”
“Okay,” she drew the syllables of the word out. “So, if you say red light, does it mean you’re uncomfortable and you need me to stop looking at something?”
“Yes. Yellow light will mean that I want you to slow down and look harder. It may mean that something you’re looking at deserves extra attention.”
“And what happens when I get to you?”
“That’s the catch… you’re not allowed to speak. The only words you’re allowed to say in that closet are your safe words. And when you reach me, that’s when you can ask your questions. But while you’re looking around… I just want you to see. Experience. Touch as many of the toys as you want.”
Her nose scrunched, a disgusted look on her face. “Are they… I don’t know,clean?”
I chuckled at that. “Every toy, every anal plug, every paddle gets thoroughly cleaned after each use. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“You want me to touch someone else’s anal plug?”
I paused. To an outsider, yeah, it would seem weird. “I want you to trust that I would never put you in harm’s way. I want you to touch and experience what you’re comfortable with. And I want you to trust me that everything in that closet has been soaked and sanitized. Even after you touch everything, after this week, I’ll personally clean everything in there.”
“You don’t have a cleaning service for that?”
“LnS does, but I prefer to do it myself. Then Iknowfor a fact that everything has been cleaned to my standards.”
“For a guy who tells others to trust him, you don’t seem to trust many people yourself.”
Boom.There it was. And it had only taken her a day and a half to see right through me. It was like a shiv to the kidney and it knocked me down for the count. “I don’t. Not since Layla.”
With the strappy little tank top she wore, her red hair fell in wisps down her shoulders, brushing her neck. She was classically beautiful in an effortless way. It made it so easy to get lost while staring at her. “I don’t either.” She tucked a hand into her back pocket and brought one of those bare, pale shoulders to her ear. “Trust many people, I mean. I’d like to blame Jack, because I prefer to blame him for everything,” she snorted despite herself and rolled her eyes. “But the truth is, I’ve always been this way.”
I shook my head. No way. “No one is born distrusting. There is a catalyst in your past… you’re just either unaware of it, or ignoring it.”
Her arm, still angled behind her, tightened visibly. The muscles at her triceps bunched into a tight little ball and her nostrils flared. “You just know everything, don’t you?”
