"It's meant to hurt. It's a spanking."

"But..."

"May I?" Ian asked, and Grace nodded, having no idea as to what she was agreeing. She couldn't think straight, all of her energy was focused on the pain and on Ian, the man who had an obvious erection from giving her that pain.

"Ah yes," Ian murmured appreciatively. He slid his fingers inside her pussy, and only then did she realize just how wet she'd become. She was dripping with arousal, the insides of her thighs were shiny and slick with it. She'd left a wet spot on Ian's khaki pants. "It may have hurt, but you liked it."

"Yes," she admitted, because the proof was there for them both to see. She'd have been embarrassed if it was anyone but him. At least with Ian, she knew that he was turned-on by the fact that she practically came all over herself from a hard spanking.

"You have the perfect ass for spanking," he said with a smile. "I've been fantasizing about doing that to you since we first started dating." He rolled her over on his lap and sat her up so she sat on her sore bottom, the bare skin rubbing against the canvas-like material of his khakis. He kissed her lips and slid his hand back between her thighs again.

"I wish you'd told me back then. We've wasted so much time-"

"You weren't ready for it then like you are now. You took your first spanking so well," he said, finding her clit. "I'm so glad I was the one to administer it."

Grace tried to focus on breathing, but soon her whole world narrowed again, and became Ian's fingers rubbing hard, tight circles against her clit. She didn't hold back as she moaned, trying to get more contact with his fingers. He sped up the rate and her womb clenched, convulsing as she climaxed right there on his lap. His embrace was both comforting and restraining-the strength he surrounded her with suggested he'd give as much pleasure as pain, whether she liked it or not-a thought that brought her climax crashing down on her. Moving her hips with abandon, she twisted in his arms, secure in the knowledge that Ian would keep her safe as he took her to the peak and back.

Ian slipped his fingers out of her and held them in front of her face so she could see they were slick and shiny. "Do you know what you taste like?"

The thought had never crossed her mind to find out. Why would she want to? But then Ian slowly pushed his fingers past her lips, invading her mouth, and she sucked instinctively, licking her juices from his hand.

"You must taste delicious," he said, watching her as she continued to lick his fingers, running her tongue over the tips.

This was nice, the invasion, the way he violated her mouth. She wanted more of that, more of the surrender, but that didn't make sense. There were no words to tell him that, or no words that she knew of. So she just kept sucking his finger, grinding herself on his lap.

He laughed as if he knew what she wanted, what she needed. "Okay. Get on your knees between my thighs."

The rubber mat was kind on her knees, and she sat back on her haunches, looking up at him. He really was incredibly good-looking. If he wasn't a porn-site Dom he could be a movie star or something. Men this good-looking didn't usually exist in her world-it was almost as if he'd become hotter since she knew him. Remove the straight-laced business-suited veneer and find a dangerously sexy Dom with a penchant for whipping girls in bondage.

How strange that here she was, on her knees completely naked, and he was fully dressed sitting on a chair.

If anyone she knew saw her now they'd think she'd gone completely mental. But the door was locked, the cameras were off, and it was just a little consensual fun between...whatever they were. Old friends? New lovers? No one ever had to know. It was her secret.

Ian unzipped his khaki pants and slid them down his thighs, freeing his cock from the black boxer-briefs he wore beneath. The tip was almost purple and shiny with pre-come.

"I thought you couldn't do this," he said, his blue eyes staring into hers.

"For you, I can. At least, I want to." She looked at his cock with longing. "I really want to try, Sir."

Ian smiled at her and she held his gaze as she took the head of his cock past her lips. He tasted like salty sex, like her own juices had tasted, but with a hint of his own masculine musk.

She put some suction into it, covering her teeth with her lips as she pulled more of him into her mouth.

"You're a pro, Grace. Someone has taught you well in my absence. I'm almost jealous enough to spank you again."

A pro, huh? She laughed, the sound muffled by his cock, and continued doing everything she'd read about and seen online from the woman who sucked off the dildo to get out of bondage, on this very same porn-studio set. Even pretending to know what to do made it easier, although she honestly had no idea what to do about his testicles, so she avoided them.

"I want to stand up," he said, and she pulled herself off of him reluctantly, but stayed on her knees. "Good girl. Now I can fuck your mouth."

Those words, that's what she wanted. She just didn't know before. Ian took her face in his hands and slowly entered her mouth, sliding his cock over her tongue, reaching farther and farther down the back of her mouth with each thrust.

"Relax your throat, don't gag," he warned, and she tried to do just that as he thrust deeper into her mouth, faster, in and out. "You are so fucking sexy, Grace."

She sucked hard and he let go of her hair, pulling out just in time to come all over her neck and breasts. It splattered like warm water on her skin.

He rocked back on his heels with a groan and pulled his pants back up. "That was incredible. Don't move, I'm going to clean you up."

"Yes, Sir." She stayed still as a mannequin, kneeling on the floor, feeling the tickle of the come dripping down her chest. Now that she had nothing else to focus on, she realized that her ass was still burning. If she looked at it in a mirror, would there be red handprints on her skin?

She hoped so. The idea of him marking her turned her on.

Ian came back with a warm wet washcloth, shaking his head when she reached for it. "No, this is my job," he said, carefully cleaning his come from her body. He walked back to the bathroom and she heard him rinsing out the washcloth. He hadn't told her to move so she remained on the mat, wondering what would happen next. Was she supposed to get dressed now?

But then he came back with a fresh, wet cloth and sponged her body down, cleaning the drying arousal from her thighs and soothing her bottom. The washcloth rubbed across her nipples, reminding her of yesterday's adventure. Even though Ian was bringing their experience to an end for the evening, her nipples budded into tight peaks at his attention.

This was a different side to him, one she didn't get to see on the videos online. He was taking such good care of her, and so sweetly. It was a little hard to wrap her head around the fact that the same hands that spanked the hell out of her earlier were now gently caressing her.

She'd better leave before she started thinking stupid things, like this was more than whatever it was.

"So," he said, handing her back her work scrubs. "You remember what I said about how I'm not the dating type of guy?"

Grace didn't answer. Why? Why did he have to bring that up now, when she would have been so much happier just to go home and imagine? Maybe he thought it was important to not lead her on, but his words stung more than the spanking. She threw her scrubs into her tote bag and pulled out the jeans and top she'd brought with her to change into.

"I get it, Ian. It's fine. You don't want me to think you'll ever be my boyfriend again. You really don't need to remind me."

"Actually I was going to say that since we were both probably planning on going home to eat, we may as well...eat together. If you're hungry, that is."

Grace finished dressing and looked at him. What game was he playing? "No."

Ian laughed. "You're not hungry?"

"No, I am hungry. But we're either going on a date or we're not. If we're just meeting here for sex stuff, fine, we're not dating. But if I'm sucking your cock one second and you're inviting me out to eat the next, that's a date. And since you don't do that, then...no."

She pressed her lips firmly together. Did those words actually just come out of her mouth? And she just said "sucking your cock" like it was no big deal, when even the thought of doing that-much less casually dropping the words into conversation-would have never happened just last week. Ian had broken something loose inside her that had been wound too tightly, something that had been long-repressed.

Who'd have thought she was that kind of girl? And into that sort of thing?

He looked confused for a moment, as if he were taking in everything she'd said.

"Okay," he said finally.

"Okay what?"

"Okay, it's a date." He held his arm out to her. "Will you please come with me someplace that serves pancakes at midnight?"

Grace raised her eyebrows in surprise. Because if he's asking me out on a date, then everything changes.

Chapter Five.

Ian looked down at Grace, hoping she didn't leave him hanging with his arm held out like an old-fashioned escort.

"I like pancakes," she said warily, and looped her arm through his.

Her warm body next to his, fully clothed, felt good. But he couldn't remember the last time he'd been out on a date before-well, before Grace. Dating the women he worked with was out of the question, although he had slept with some of the single ones in the past. But they weren't interested in a relationship with him anymore than he was interested in a relationship with them.

He locked up the studio behind them, enjoying having her walking beside him to his car.

"Allow me," he said, opening the car door for her. He hadn't been out with her in years, but hopefully he could still remember how to treat a woman when she wasn't tied up. And not just any woman-Grace. What was it about her that made him change his "no dating" policy tonight, when she was the woman who made him start that policy in the first place?

Despite their history together, the Grace at his side was a different woman than the Grace he'd left behind, as much as he was a different man now than he'd been back then. Maybe that's why he felt nervous. In its own strange way, this was a first date.

I've got to start again at some point, right? He couldn't stay single forever or he'd end up one of those perennial bachelors like George Clooney, and that only sounded like a good plan for a decade or two. At some point that plan-that dying alone plan-would start to get real old, real fast.

In an ideal world, he'd get a job that he could talk about in polite company, meet a nice woman, get married, and have 1.5 kids and dog. It bothered him that he had to lie to his mother about how he paid the bills.

His mother thought he was actually putting his law degree to use, the degree she and his father had paid for when he was young and unappreciative. Passing the bar despite his relatively minimal amount of studying could only be attributed to his photographic memory, and not the grueling hours his fellow colleagues put in. Ian never told his family that he quit the firm after only a few years as a junior lawyer, despite the fat paycheck and his honest passion for law. He couldn't bear to let Mom down. She loved telling everyone about her son, the lawyer, who passed the bar on his first attempt.

He glanced over at Grace, who looked beautiful, her make-up slightly smudged, staring out the windshield as he drove. The seatbelt crossed her shoulder and over her breast, an everyday sort of restraint that no one but him would find sexy on a woman, he supposed.

Only as a Dom did he get his real needs met. His deeper, more intense needs. And he'd rather live in a small apartment and work for a few hours a day making BDSM videos than have a big house, fancy car, and work seventy-hour weeks only to come home to a wife who'd have a heart attack if she knew what he really wanted to do to her in bed. That was the life he'd envisioned himself having when he was with Grace in the past. A shy, prude vanilla wife who'd never fulfill his needs.

But those things he'd want to do to his future wife...all the sexual torments and delights he'd perfected over the years working as a Dom...they didn't fit into his mental picture of "wife". Could the woman that he hog-tied and whipped at night be the one he sat across the dinner table from, talking about how their days went? Could a woman who wanted to be a kinky sex-slave at bedtime be the one taking care of their child during the day? The two worlds seemed impossibly far apart, as far as he was concerned. Like a dream that could never come true.

And so he'd left Grace to seek out the other side, despite how much he cared for her, though neither lifestyle alone completed him.

They pulled up to the all-night diner, brightly lit both inside and out.

"Thanks for taking me out," Grace said as he opened the diner's shiny double doors for her. "I appreciate the gesture."

He was saved from responding when the hostess came to seat them.

"Do you want caffeine or no caffeine?" he asked, nodding over to the waitress.

"At midnight?" She scanned the menu. "Decaf for sure, with a short stack of pancakes. I need to get some sleep tonight."

"Decaf for me too, then, I guess," he told the waitress, and ordered eggs to go with his pancakes.

"Is this weird for you?" she asked, cutting her pancakes carefully when they arrived. Instead of pouring syrup on top, she poured it on the side of her plate and dipped each bite into it. He watched, fascinated by the way her mouth moved when she chewed and swallowed. The same mouth that was on his cock not too long ago.

Great. Don't get a hard-on here. Baseball baseball baseball. Okay.

She was looking at him expectantly, and he realized he never answered her question.

"Am I acting like this is weird?" he asked, turning it back on her.

"You've told me numerous times that you're not the dating type, basically that we'll never be together again, and tonight you asked me on a date. Was it just because I coerced you into it, or did something change your mind?"

"I don't get coerced into doing things I don't want to do," he said, watching her eyes carefully for a reaction.

She smiled tentatively. "But I think you'd have a panic attack if I told you that these pancakes mean we're dating, am I right?"

Yes. No. Fuck.

"I don't have panic attacks," he said. "But I've missed you. And I've been thinking that I should probably change my policy on dating if a nice girl came along."

"Am I a nice girl?" Her lips hovered over a piece of pancake on her fork, as if she were waiting for him to respond before she'd take a bite.

"That's what I'm having a hard time figuring out," he admitted. "You're compassionate, obviously, or you wouldn't have been concerned about the other actresses' well-being. And you're a nurse, which is a good, respectable job-"

"Are you saying the women you work with at the website are somehow less respectable than me? Because that is such a double standard. What about you? You work there too."

"Maybe it is a double standard. But I'm not excluding myself. I have no illusions that what I do is something to write home about."

Grace put her fork down. She seemed upset and he had no idea why, since he'd been complimenting her. Where had he gone wrong?

"You need to respect all women," she said, "not just the women you deem worthy of your respect because they seem like "nice girls". I'm sure the actresses you work with are all nice girls, and you shouldn't blow them off as unworthy of dating just because of their job. It's your job too, after all." She stared into her coffee cup, gripping the handle until her knuckles turned white.

Ahh. So that's where she was going with this.

"You misunderstood me," he said quietly. "I most certainly do respect women who know what they want sexually, who aren't shy about their sexuality and their bodies, and who make an honest living, even if it's on a BDSM porn site. And I treat them with respect when we do scenes together."

"But they're not good enough to bring home to mom, is that it?" she asked. "And I'm...what's the word you used? Vanilla? You broke up with me because you think I'm so vanilla, I know you did. But now it makes me safe and okay to date, is that right?"

"You didn't seem so vanilla when you were over my knee, coming all over yourself while I spanked the hell out of you."

Her perfectly-shaped mouth dropped open and she gasped, quickly turning her head from side to side as if to see if anyone had overheard him, since he hadn't exactly kept his voice down. No one was looking at them.

A pretty pink blush crept up her cheeks. "I don't know what I am, Ian. I really don't. If you'd asked me three years ago to bend over I'd have probably not been into it. It wasn't until I saw...those videos...that I realized how hot it could be. I've never done that sort of thing before."

"And I've never done this sort of thing before," he admitted, gesturing at the two of them sitting, eating a meal together. On a date with a woman he cared for who also knew his true predilections in bed.

"Then I guess we're both on new territory," she whispered.

"So maybe I should learn how to play the boyfriend again for you, and you could learn how to be my after-hours sex-slave for me."

"No, you've got it backward, Ian," she said, smiling. "If you're going to learn how to play the boyfriend, as you put it-it wouldn't be for my sake. It would be for your own."

He laughed. She was right. He needed to get over his fear of dating, especially now that he'd reconnected with the one girl he'd never forgiven himself for leaving. Grace wasn't afraid to tell him what he needed to be told, even if it upset him. It was an unusual trait for a submissive, which was probably why he wasn't used to it.