"One more thing." They'd arrived back at the condo. Darcy undid her seat belt and turned to regard Katrina regretfully. "You did misbehave. If he told you not to do something, whether or not you agree with him, you're the submissive. You willfully disobeyed, and you do have a punishment coming. Take it with grace and dignity. Don't hide your emotions, even if you're not comfortable showing them. He needs to see your tears, your guilt, your misery. Otherwise he won't know if the punishment has been effective."

Though she didn't agree with Keith, she did feel guilty for defying him and flouting it in his face. He had given that order out of concern for her safety, and he'd offered alternatives to her plan. In retrospect, she realized he'd been very flexible. She was the one who hadn't reacted responsibly or respectfully. For so long, she'd called the shots in all her relationships. a.s.suming a submissive role was going to be a tough transition. Now she understood a little better why Keith had originally refused to train her.

What if she wasn't cut out for this lifestyle? She'd lose her chance to be with Keith. Over the course of dinner, as the four of them sat at her small dining room table and chatted while they ate, Katrina renewed her internal commitment to exploring her submissive side. It was there. She'd found the majority of their scene the night before intensely enjoyable, and part of that came from the fact that Keith was calling the shots. It had made her feel more herself.

After dinner, Darcy yawned and stretched. "Trina, I'm sorry. I missed my nap, and it looks like I'm in for an early bedtime. If you don't feel comfortable staying here tonight, you're more than welcome to stay with us. I have a very nice guest room."

Malcolm seconded the invitation. Keith watched the exchange silently.

Katrina declined. "Thanks, but I'm not going to let this jerk scare me away from my life. I'll be fine."

Malcolm pursed his lips together, but one glance at Keith had him relaxing. Keith stood and took his plate to the sink. "I'll stay with Kat tonight. f.u.c.ker comes near her, and he won't know what hit him."

Keith walked Malcolm and Darcy to the door. Kat had stayed upstairs to tidy the kitchen. He liked that she never left the dishes for the next day. A dirty sink bothered him first thing in the morning. It went against his need for order. Kat went against his need for order. He was going to need to adjust his expectations, because she wasn't his usual submissive. He wasn't sure she had it in her to be as submissive as he required, and that could seriously derail his plan to keep distance between them.

Last night and this morning, he'd caught glimpses of submissiveness. He'd tapped into it, but he didn't know how to keep her there. He didn't know if it was possible, only that he needed his submissive to behave.

Mal stopped just outside the door. Darcy paused a few feet away, her gaze demurely averted to give them some privacy. He liked Darcy. He thought she was good for Mal. But that didn't mean he knew what role she could play in his life. In the past, Mal's girlfriends had been inconsequential to Keith. He'd known those relationships wouldn't last. Darcy, he knew, was permanent. She was The One. He was going to have to figure out how to integrate her into his tiny inner circle.

Malcolm stifled a yawn. "Thanks for staying with her. Call me tomorrow before you leave. Trina will blow her top if we're all hovering around, but we can't leave her alone for long. We have to catch this b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and soon."

Keith shook his head. "I'm not leaving her alone. I'll call to check in with you tomorrow, but I can guarantee she won't be alone for a second." Whether she liked it or not.

They hugged, a macho, manly display of affection that involved pounding each other on the back. Without waiting for permission, Darcy rose to her toes and kissed Keith's p.r.i.c.kly cheek, and then the couple left. There went another woman who didn't find him intimidating.

Keith ascended the stairs slowly, not sure what he'd find at the top. Kat had already been upset with him before this whole mess. As the stress of the day wore on them both, she'd become increasingly obstinate.

Silence greeted him. A quick sweep of the place nearly stopped his heart. She knelt on the floor in the middle of the living room, naked, with her hands linked behind her neck in the pose he'd required the night before.

He approached, but she never lifted her gaze. Last night she hadn't been nearly this disciplined. Her eyes had darted anywhere she detected movement. That was a natural reaction. Good submissives had a tight rein on those impulses. They were controlled when they needed to be, and they ceded control when their Dominant required it.

Right now, he was both relieved and proud of her. He stopped at her side and ran his hand over her hair. He'd never grow tired of touching her silky dark tresses. Her eyelids fell to half-mast, and she swayed slightly, but she corrected her position without being told.

"Permission to speak, Master?"

He wanted to laugh at her military tone, but he schooled his features. Normally he would begin the conversation. Not answering immediately allowed his unspoken point to penetrate. While she could ask questions, she needed to learn to wait until he gave her permission to speak. She held her position, not fidgeting, though he knew she was growing anxious.

After almost a full minute, he relented. "Slave, I know you have something to say. Given everything that's happened today and the expression on your face, I'd have to be an idiot to miss that. In the future, you must wait for me to verbally acknowledge you first. Only then can you ask to speak."

Her eyes flicked up quickly before she remembered to keep her gaze on the floor. She opened her mouth to apologize but closed it without speaking. He read the contrition in every line of her body, and the sh.e.l.l around his heart cracked a little more.

He gave her time to put this information together, and then he grazed his fingertips along her cheek, urging her to look up at him. "What's on your mind, Kitty Kat?"

A brilliant smile curved her lips and lit her eyes. The smile vanished, a concession to the serious nature of what she had to say, but the light in her eyes didn't dim. "I'm sorry, Master. I'll try to do better next time."

He nodded, a gesture of his benevolence and a signal of his forgiveness for her slight transgression.

"Earlier today, I disobeyed you. More than that, I thought only about myself, and I failed to take into account your concerns for my safety. I didn't like the dictatorial way you told me I couldn't leave the condo. I should have told you that, but instead I got mad and openly defied you. Even after you explained yourself and offered alternatives, I refused to listen. I'm sorry for all of that, not just because you're my Master, but because you're my friend. I dismissed your concerns and I disrespected you. I accept my punishment."

In all the years he'd known Kat, she never failed to impress him.

"I accept your apology." He spoke softly, but he had no intention of forgoing her punishment. In the past, he'd made his submissives apologize because he didn't care enough to take the time and energy to physically punish them, and he liked to practice humiliation. He didn't need a psychiatrist to know why it appealed to him.

For the first time in his life, he felt the need to physically punish his slave, and it had nothing to do with humiliation. This had become about Kat and earning her respect, not about him. The desire to do right by her burned deep, a foreign feeling that unsettled him more than a little. She made him believe he could expect more from a woman than a warm body and a place to park his d.i.c.k. He would never find lasting happiness with anyone, but she offered the only respite he knew he'd ever find.

She inhaled, a sign of relief, and her shoulders relaxed. "Thank you, Master."

He sank down in the center of the sofa. "Lie down across my lap."

She crawled the short distance to him and draped herself elegantly over his lap. Voluntarily getting into position was a wonderful act of submission, and it really turned him on. Kat had a great a.s.s, and he was definitely an a.s.s man. While she would find little about this experience to like, he hoped to introduce her to an erotic spanking soon.

Submission aside, he needed to deal with the mechanics of the situation. "Scoot up a little bit, Kitty Kat. Arms above you." Reaching up forced a slight curve to her lower back, which fully exposed her v.u.l.v.a. "Turn your face to the back of the couch. Good. Now spread your legs a little wider."

She responded to his instructions beautifully. Now that she was in the perfect position, he spent some time caressing her a.s.s. Not only did he enjoy spending the time touching her, but it increased antic.i.p.ation.

The scent of her arousal reached his nose. "Are you turned on, Kitty Kat?"

She cleared her throat twice. "Yes, Master."

"Tell me what turns you on about this situation." He kept his tone gentle. It was an honest query, not an attempt to find something about which to deliver a reprimand.

"I like... I like when you touch me. I like being completely in your hands, knowing that nothing that happens tonight is up to me." Her voice came out soft, with a hint of breathlessness.

In that, she was wrong. Everything that happened was up to her. She could stop it with a single word. "Remind us of your colors."

"Red, yellow, green."

"Excellent. I'm not going to lie to you. This is going to hurt." With that, he cupped his hand and delivered a firm swat to her left cheek.

She sucked in a breath and held it.

"Breathe, Kitty Kat. You're going to count for me. That was one." Forcing her to count would force her to breathe. He hadn't made her count before because he hadn't hit her very hard. The spanking he'd delivered that morning had been a punishment, yes, but it had mostly been for his pleasure, not because she'd climaxed in the shower without permission.

"One." She barely croaked the word, but the air in her lungs whooshed out. "That really hurt, Master."

He chuckled at the wryness of her tone. "The proper response is 'One. Thank you, Master.'" He smoothed his palm over the red handprint blooming on her a.s.s.

She inhaled again. "One. Thank you, Master."

In a perfect world, he would tell her how many she could expect. But this wasn't a perfect world, and he didn't know what she could take. Three might break her. Fifteen might elicit nothing more than a grunt or two.

He smacked again, this time aiming for her right cheek. She flinched, but the movement was concentrated mostly in her shoulders.

"Two. Thank you, Master." The tone of her voice had changed, softened a bit. She'd resigned herself to this punishment.

He delivered two more in quick succession, centering them on the same places he'd hit before. She counted them out, her voice steady and accepting. Three more introduced the first tenuous note to her tone. He watched her face and the lines of her body to see how much more she could take. It wouldn't be long now.

"Three more, Kitty Kat."

The sound of his palm meeting her flesh echoed from the room's high ceilings. A sob escaped on the ninth one. He centered the tenth over her glistening p.u.s.s.y, and she cried out, a high-pitched protest.

Carefully he turned her around to cradle her in his lap. He grabbed a soft throw she kept on the back of the sofa and draped it over her body. Tears wet her eyes, but none had fallen. He pushed her head down to rest on his shoulder.

"Never worry me like that again."

Keith held her in the solid coc.o.o.n of his arms. Every now and again, he turned her face up and kissed her temples and cheeks. Though she'd honestly thought he would enjoy punishing her, she didn't get the sense that he had. He'd punished her because he needed to, not because he wanted to, exactly the opposite of what had happened in the bathroom that morning.

She drew her finger up his sternum and along his collarbone, exploring solid evidence of his innate strength. "Keith?"

"Hmmm?"

"We need to talk."

He was silent for a long while, and then he heaved a sigh. "I know."

"I think I have more of an idea about what I want out of this." She didn't mean to sound so solemn, but that was how it came out, in a breakup tone. Beneath her, she felt his whole body tense.

"Fewer spankings?" He grinned, a valiant attempt to lighten the somber atmosphere that had descended over the room.

Planting both hands against his chest, she pushed away until she sat up on his lap. After a second, she rethought that move. Her a.s.s burned pleasantly when nothing touched it. He'd held her so that her thigh and hip bore most of her weight. Now that she was sitting on it, she realized exactly how thoroughly he'd spanked her. She probably wouldn't be sitting comfortably for a few hours.

Aside from the physical aftereffects, a well of peace had formed inside. She basked in the discovery of something so significant. How had she not known this capacity was hidden away? "Not necessarily, no."

He shifted, and she cringed at his trepidation. Maybe he knew they needed to talk, but he wasn't overly comfortable doing it. He'd released her when she sat up. Now he splayed one hand over her lower back. She felt his heat through the blanket still covering her body. It gaped open in the front.

To Keith's credit, he kept his gaze on her face, not once letting it stray to catch glimpses of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Are you upset because I changed the rules?"

She shook her head. Honestly, kneeling and apologizing seemed like an okay punishment for minor infractions, but they turned a larger issue into a joke. "I know I wasn't supposed to enjoy the spanking, but I didn't not enjoy it. If that makes sense."

The skin of her a.s.s radiated heat, but the abused muscle there seemed to communicate to her c.l.i.t that something wonderful was about to happen. She was slippery with her own juices.

He slid a hand under the blanket and rested it on her bare thigh. Some of the tension drained from his shoulders. "It makes sense. You'll probably enjoy an erotic spanking very much."

Silently, she agreed. But that wasn't what she wanted to talk about. "Keith, did you deliberately do things to me you knew I wouldn't like because you don't want to do this? I don't want you to train me if that's not what you want." It was slightly better than outright telling him that she wanted him to want her. Desperation wasn't a fragrance she liked.

He exhaled a ragged breath and leaned his head back against the top of the couch. "No. Truthfully, I've been nicer to you than I have been to any of my subs. I've never held one before, not for comfort or closeness. As restraint, yes." His leg moved under her knee, wiggling from side to side in a physical display of his discomfort with the topic. "I'm not a cuddler. Sometimes I handcuff them to the bed so I don't have to worry that they'll try to touch me while I sleep. Mostly I don't let them sleep in the same room with me."

A hint of ruddiness colored his cheeks, and she knew he'd never revealed that piece of information to anyone before. The night before, he'd curled his body around hers. Right now, he wasn't holding her close, but he still touched her in an intimate way that provided a sense of comfort and closeness.

"Why?" Normally she didn't want to hear about a man's exes. With Keith, it was different. When he ended a relationship, those women never popped back up in his life again.

"Kat." Her name was his plea for leniency. He didn't want to delve into a painful subject. "Why don't you just tell me what you've realized about the things you want or don't want from me? So far, I have a list of your hard limits that includes no clothespins on your b.r.e.a.s.t.s and no e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. on your face."

Mention of the second limit made her flinch, but she couldn't let him derail the conversation. He might be the Dom in the relationship, but that didn't mean he got to control the discussion. She had too much experience keeping people on track to fall prey to his authoritative suggestion.

"Keith, it's important for me to know why you're treating me differently. I have to know you're not doing this to humor me." She felt the pull of his body like a magnet, urging her to sink back against him and let him do or say whatever he wanted. The impulse wasn't easy to resist, but she did it.

As he had the night before, he took her hand and placed it over the bulge in his cargo shorts. "I told you that I'm not doing this to humor you. I'm doing this mostly for selfish reasons. I know this is only training. It's temporary. But I've wanted you on your knees for a long, long time."

The vehement, almost bitter confession startled her. While she didn't lift her hand from his hard c.o.c.k, she nearly toppled from the surprise. She braced her hand against the back of the sofa to provide the needed support. "You're an opportunist."

She meant it to lighten his mood, which had gone decidedly dark. But he used the opening to take things to an even darker place. "Yes. I am. I use women, Kat. I've never had feelings for a single one of my subs. I pretended to care, but I truly didn't give a s.h.i.t about any of them. Some saw through my act and left, but most tried to change me. Those women, I dumped, and I wasn't nice about it either. I can't change. I'm warning you now. I've been this way for too long."

He'd lost her. She drew her eyebrows together as she tried to fit his skewed perception of himself with how she saw him. Finally, she shook her head. It didn't work to jumble the pieces into clarity. "What way?"

In one easy, fluid motion, he lifted her from his lap and set her on the sofa as far away as he could get her. She leaned against the back and the arm, facing him, and pulled her blanket closed around her to replace the security she'd lost along with his embrace. The sensations in her a.s.s were muted now that her attention was firmly elsewhere.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his clenched fists. "I held you last night because that's what you should expect from your Master after a scene. You should expect to be pampered and cherished. You should expect affection and praise. It was the first time I've ever attempted something like that. I had to talk myself into it, and I had to force myself to follow through. You deserve that much consideration, Kat. You have the right to expect those things."

His confession hit her like a slap in the face. She flinched, but he wasn't looking at her, and he plowed forward.

"I've never spanked a sub for disobeying me. If they p.i.s.s me off, I just get rid of them. They weren't worth it to me. I didn't care enough to punish them. But you..." He clenched his fists and laughed ruefully. "You're different. I've never topped anyone who knew me as anything but a Dom. This is new territory for me. You may not have liked some of the things I did or the way I've treated you, but let me tell you, it's a d.a.m.n sight better than the way I've treated women since I figured out what use they were to me."

Malcolm had told her repeatedly over the years that Keith had a very utilitarian view of women. The full weight of that truth was just beginning to dawn on Katrina. She put a hand on his shoulder, an attempt to comfort him, but he slipped out of her grasp, standing to escape her touch. That stung a lot more than a slap on her a.s.s.

He paced away to stand across the room. Looking out the window with a clear line to the parking lot, he clasped his hands behind his back. "I'm trying to do right by you."

She didn't want him to do right by her. She wanted him to want to be with her, which he did, but not in the ways she expected. Visions of the ways in which he'd pampered his girlfriends floated through her memory. Her mind played memories of him bringing various women a plate of food at a cookout, or a gla.s.s of water, or a jacket when it grew cold. For the first time, she saw the interactions through a new lens.

First, he hadn't let them talk very much. Katrina had thought perhaps he liked shy women, which knocked her out of the running, because she wasn't timid. Now she understood it wasn't shyness. They'd been prohibited from speaking unless spoken to.

Second, he had controlled everything about their experience, choosing what they ate and drank, where they sat, and with whom they talked.

Third, he had never actually had a conversation with one of his girlfriends in her presence. He'd talked to other people, including her, about a variety of topics, but never his dates. In most instances, her attempts to draw them in had been met with short answers, murmured after they'd looked to him for approval. Most of them had appeared once and never again. Katrina had always a.s.sumed a mismatch, but now she accepted that he'd been treating those women as arm candy.

All at once she comprehended his struggle. He was trying to show her what she should expect from a Dom who loved her. He didn't want her to settle for someone who treated her the way he treated his submissives.

If she was going to have a chance at a future with Keith, she had to help him. The best strategy for changing a habit was to remove triggers that propagated it. The courage that had prompted her to proposition him in the first place returned. "I don't want to call you 'Master.' I don't want you to call me 'slave.' I don't want to use t.i.tles at all."

He turned his head, staring at her over his shoulder with a deep frown on his face. "That's not how it's done. I've never known anyone who didn't use t.i.tles."

She drew her legs closer and tucked her feet under the blanket. The air was warm enough, but his demeanor lent a chill to the room. "That doesn't mean we can't do it. I prefer to use your name, and I like when you call me Kitty Kat."

"t.i.tles show respect." His eyes glittered hard as granite.

Katrina shook her head. "Actions and tone of voice show respect. You've used t.i.tles for years, and you have no respect for a single woman you've been with."

He barked out a short, bitter laugh. "You sound like your brother."

The comparison didn't rankle. Katrina admired both of her brothers. She recognized Keith's defense mechanism, and she realized he was very close to kicking her to the curb. She put "fear of intimacy" at the top of his list of phobias.

The ruthless prosecutor in her came out, which wasn't always a good thing. "What do you want out of life, Keith? What do you see when you look into your future? Marriage? A loving wife? Children? What?"

"Exactly like your brother." A dull thud sounded as he leaned his forehead against the window with a little too much force. "No, Kat. I don't see any of those things. I have no intention of ever getting married, and I sure as h.e.l.l don't want kids. I have no desire to deal with that kind of c.r.a.p. Ever."

Again, his words. .h.i.t her like a slap in the face. Though she'd said she didn't want to change him, in the back of her mind, she'd a.s.sumed he wanted the same things she did. Well, she wasn't sure about the having-kids part. Truthfully, she'd never felt the need to parent anyone. She liked being an aunt. Knowing she was going to give them back made it enjoyable to spend time with her nephews. Right now she didn't want that chaos.

But she did want to fall in love and get married. She did want a life partner. Best to rip off the scab quickly. "Why?"