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Rolling over, I flung my arm out and captured the warm body next to me. I smiled as Alexandra squirmed in my arms. She buried her face in my chest and shook her head. After our first round last night, we rested and then went for a second one. I swore it was even better. Then, after a shower, we returned to my bed and fell asleep.

“No, I don’t want to get up. I want to stay in bed and sleep and…”

“And what?” I teased.

“Oh, you know, do a crossword, watch television, or maybe re-grout something. The exciting stuff,” she said.

“That shit there sounds like something my bratty sister would say. Are you telling me you can’t think of anything else you’d rather do if we stayed here that you’d find enjoyable?”

“Actually, I can. We can do laundry, too.”

She giggled as she tried to wiggle away from me. I refused to let her go, and I attacked her neck with my beard. She squealed.

“Carver, no, I’ll go to work with beard burn marks!”

“And you’ll deserve them. Let you explain that to the innocent people you work with, and how you got those. Tell them you seduced a poor, unsuspecting man last night.”

She gasped and shoved me back. She found a way to sit up.

“I did no such thing!”

“They’ll believe it after they see those whisker burns, and I tell them it was the only way I got away, but not until after you seduced me,” I teased.

Suddenly, she rolled, and I was on my back, with her straddling me. “Carver Anderson, you better not dare go telling anyone that. Or is that part of your submissive act? That’s the game you like to play and have your Domme be the big bad villain, and you the poor, innocent virgin who doesn’t know what pleasures await him between a woman’s legs or in her mouth. Or if he’s so inclined and fortunate, in her ass.”

She’d gone from pretend outrage to teasing to vamp. Hearing her say those made me think of her commanding me and allowing me in all three of her holes. Just having her on top of me, rubbing, caused my cock to perk up, but those words had it hardening swiftly.

“If that’s the role you want me to play, I’ll gladly do it. If you were my Domme, I would follow your commands.”

She shuddered. “Carver, don’t say things like that. You’re making me crazy, and I have a need. You’re making it worse,”

she groaned.

“What need is that?”

I asked. She shook her head but didn’t answer me.

“Alexandra, tell me. Surely, you know you can. And after last night, I think I proved how much I want to please you.”

She sighed and nodded. “Yes, you did. Not to make it weird, but I’ve never felt such pleasure or intense sexual release from sex before. It took me exploring kink to discover that it gave me more satisfaction. And it makes me want to see what it would be like if you submitted to me, Carver. Trust is a big part of it on both sides. If we can’t establish that, it won’t work.”

“You said you have a need. What is it?”

“I want to go to Lustz. I need to play. It’s been too long, and I’m getting edgy. That last time with Reef was left unfinished, and I got nothing from it. And I don’t mean we didn’t have sex. He and I never did.”

“So, do you want to try you and me in a D/s relationship? Or are you saying you want that from someone else there, and sex only with me? Because I’ll be honest, I’ve done that in the past, and it was fine. In your case, I can’t see myself being able to. To play with someone else would feel wrong. And to know you were playing with someone would be worse.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve done it that way, but I don’t believe I could, and I wouldn’t like you playing with someone else this time. God, this isn’t supposed to be like this.”

“What isn’t? You know, it sounds like we have a lot to talk about. I think we need to talk and do it in depth. And if you’re that in need, it has to be today. I have a light day at the office. I can have the few things I planned to do rearranged. Can you get someone to cover for you? Or dare I say call off and let them figure it out?”

She nibbled on her bottom lip as she thought about it. She was very conscientious about her job. I was, too, but this felt like something we had to do sooner rather than later, even if later was tonight.

“I could call Shannon. She’s always looking for extra shifts. I could see if she would cover mine, and then let my boss know. As long as we find our replacement, he doesn’t care,”

she finally answered.

“Is it too early to call her?”

I asked. Glancing at the clock, I saw it was six-thirty. I’d slept in well past my usual weekday time.

“No, if it gets her more days, she won’t care. I hate to leave this comfortable position, but I can’t talk to her coherently with you pressing up against me,”

she said with a wink. I playfully bumped my groin against hers, earning me a stern look.

Alexandra made me pay when she slowly slid herself across my inflating cock. She snickered as she went to get her cell phone on her side of the bed. I rolled to get mine off my stand. She walked out of the room, so I placed my call to Odelia. As I knew she would be, she was up and answered on the second ring.

“Good morning, Carver. What’s the emergency? You never call. Are you alright?”

“Hang on, Odelia, and give me a chance to get a word out. Yes, I’m good. Thank you. Nothing is wrong, but I do need to take the day off. My schedule was light for once. Can you rearrange those items on today’s schedule to next week?”

“Sure, I can do that. Do you want me to let Macon know?”

“Nah, I’ll do it. And by the way, have I told you lately how wonderful you are?”

“It’s been a few days, so you should probably tell me in case I get pissy and try to leave,”

she joked.

“If you try that, I’ll chain you to the office.”

“Don’t get all kinky with me. You know I’m boring. Alright, I’ll take care of it. If you need anything else, let me know.”

“I will, and thank you. See you Monday.”

“See you Monday,”

she said before hanging up.

Macon’s call was much shorter, but he was no less helpful, and after he knew I was alright, he was calm.

He was less stressed because his load was close to being permanently reduced, or at least until we grew more.

I offered Phoebe the position on the Monday after her interview.

I rushed the background, and her references came back stellar.

Lucky for us, she was in between jobs due to moving, so she could start the following Monday, which meant today would be the end of her first week in the office.

Macon assured me everything would be fine, and if they had any issues they couldn’t take care of, they’d let me know.

When I got off both calls, Alexandra was back and crawling into bed.

“Well, is it a go?” I asked.

“It’s a go. Shannon is happy, and my boss is good. What about your work?”

“They’re all set. I think before we have a deep discussion, we should get up and have breakfast, and then we can sit and talk and go over everything.”

“Excellent idea,” she said.

***

Alexandra and I sat on the couch, angled so we could see each other. Our knees touched. Breakfast was over, and it was time to have a heart-to-heart. I got the ball rolling. “Do you want to start or me?”

“Why don’t you go first, and then I will,” she said.

“Alright, I can do that. I think I should start with something that explains more about who I am and why I’m a switch. You heard the discussion the night I told Cady that our parents were coming to town and expected to see us.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard that. I thought she was going to burst an aneurysm. The way you two talked, you’d be happy never to see them again.”

“That’s partially true. It’s mostly our father. When it comes to Mom, she’s nothing like him, but we do get fed up with her staying with him and letting him do what he does. Anyway, he’s always been loud, domineering, verbally abusive, and abrasive. Growing up, he was always yelling and giving Mom hell. He accused her of getting pregnant on purpose so she would have an easy life and could live off his money.

“The truth is, his father had the money due to a business. Dad is one of three sons. They all worked for my grandfather, and the old man had strict ideas about family. You worked in the family company. Your wife and kids always had to reflect a positive image of the family. You’re married for life. There would be no such thing as divorce. If my grandfather hadn’t been Father’s boss, he would’ve been fired before I was born. However, since my grandfather was, my father essentially had a cushy job making very good money, but didn’t work hard for it. He was lazy and entitled.

“Mom got pregnant with me. It wasn’t on purpose. A condom broke, and she wasn’t on birth control. Dad knew he had to marry her. There would be no bastards in the Anderson family tree, or he’d be disinherited. However, he blamed it all on Mom, never letting her forget it and making her life hell. Five years after I was born, along came Cady. Again, an accident, no doubt.

“When we were old enough to care for ourselves, Mom went to work. She’s brilliant, even if Father acts like she isn’t, and she has consistently progressed up the ladder at work. We begged her to leave him when Cady turned eighteen, but she didn’t. I’m telling you this because every day growing up, I saw how I didn’t want to be as a man. While I’m a dominant person in my work life and life in general, as I got older, I knew a vital piece was missing and that I needed something.

“I started reading and talking, and one thing led to another, and I found myself learning more about the kink lifestyle and eventually about a variety of different fetishes and kinks. When I tried submission, after being a Dom first, I felt something settle in me. It’s not something I want twenty-four hours a day. And there are times when I want to be the Dom and others when I have to be the sub. It releases stress, and I don’t have to worry about anything. Someone else can take the wheel for a while. All I have to do is follow commands. It’s a way to make sure I never become like him.”

I paused. She’d sat there listening intently and not interrupting. “So, that’s a quick overview of me and one main thing I believe influenced me. Just as how we were raised influenced Cady to be a brat. She’s never felt secure. Hoss can give her that and still let her be her bratty self in the right circumstances. If she isn’t, then she knows she’ll face punishment. He’s given her security and structure we never had. Now it’s your turn. What started your journey to be a Domme?”

“I didn’t have the home situation you did. My parents were hardly in the picture at all. My dad’s mom took me away from them when I was three. They were shit parents and neglectful. Over the years, they’d try to pop in and say they wanted to see me or that I should come back to live with them. She’d run them off with a shotgun. It finally stopped when I was sixteen. Being raised by her, and she was older, we didn’t have much money. I didn’t go places and party like the other kids. This made me more mature, and I worked to care for us early. When she got sick, I was her caregiver until she died. So, I knew early on that I wanted to be a nurse.

“When I went to nursing school, and since I spent my time working and studying, I was still not the party girl. I graduated at twenty-two and was working my first nursing job when I met a man. He was older, charming, and very sophisticated—or so I thought. His name was Germain. He was a pharmaceutical rep who came into the office all the time. He would flirt and kept asking me out. When I said no repeatedly, he started to send flowers. Eventually, he wore me down, and I went out with him.

“I was stupid, Carver, and na?ve. I’d never been with a man. He made me think he was incredible, and he loved me. I had stars in my eyes, and when he eventually pressed for sex, I slept with him. I thought we were in love. To this day, I don’t know why he asked me to marry him. But I did it and then spent nearly seven years working to build the life we wanted together. I like nice things, but I’m willing to work for them, and I’m not out to be someone I’m not. On the other hand, Germain likes to act big and live beyond his means. He could only feel big if he was in control.

“Sure, he had no issue if I worked because it allowed him to spend more. We would fight about being in debt. He’d go off and buy things without telling me. I’d work more and more shifts to pay the debt off. I wanted us to save to buy a house. He was out buying a fancy car we didn’t need and expensive clothes. Our apartment wasn’t good enough. We had to find one bigger and nicer in a more expensive area.

“And I wanted something else, but he didn’t. I wanted to have children. I was glad we didn’t because of how he spent money and the situation he put us in over and over. But no matter what I did, I had no say or control, yet I kept trying to care for him. But the way I wanted to do it wasn’t what he wanted.”

She stopped.

“So he was the cause of your need for control, like my father influenced me.”

“Yes, along with my parents. However, I had no idea what I needed, only that I wasn’t fulfilled in my marriage, and we grew further apart due to it. The final straw came when I realized that while I was working two full-time jobs just to stay ahead and pay off our creditors, he was spending the money he told me he wasn’t making at his job on a girlfriend. He made more than he reported to me, but still not enough to satisfy him. I came home from a travel nursing assignment early. I didn’t tell him, and I caught them in our bed. I don’t know what made me do it, but I snapped a picture of them in bed together and then walked out. It was the best thing I ever did. I waited two days and ignored his calls while I got myself together, and then I went to see a divorce lawyer. That picture saved me in the end.”

“How?”

“Well, he was working a different job by then, and the company he was with had a morality clause for its people. And adultery was a huge no-no and grounds for immediate dismissal. He liked the job, and they paid him more than he was worth. If I sued him for a divorce on the grounds of adultery, he would lose his career and the nice pension he was working toward. When I told the lawyer that and the rest of our financial situation, he came up with a great compromise.

“I would say nothing of adultery or present that photo as evidence and expose Germain to his bosses if he granted me the divorce without contesting it, and all the debt that he’d racked up, which was ninety percent of it, would be his to pay off. I would finish paying for my car, and I was still paying for the last bit of my college. He tried to say no, but his lawyer told him he didn’t have a leg to stand on. I walked away a free woman.”

“As for how I got into the lifestyle and found what I needed, I got into reading spicier books, and when the things I read about intrigued me, I researched. It was before I divorced him. I knew he’d never go for any of it, so I never mentioned it. After we were no longer together, I checked out a club like Lustz. I was granted membership and discovered a mentor. Cain was the one who showed me who I was and why I needed what I did. He’s the one who gave me the name Venus.”

Hearing her say his name and speak so warmly of this Cain made me feel jealous. Did she still have feelings for him?

“He lives in Pensacola?”

“Yeah, he does. He was up a few months ago for a visit. I took him to Lustz. He was very impressed.”

“If you had him and still are close, why leave Florida? Or why didn’t he come with you?”

“We are close, but he had no reason to leave. He’s happy and has everything he wants there. I got tired of constantly having Germain popping up. We might’ve gotten divorced, but he would come to me thinking I should take care of things for him. He now wants the stuff I did when we were married that he didn’t appreciate. I knew I had to leave if I was ever to have complete freedom from him. My ex-husband will never leave Florida.”

“Why wasn’t there a reason for Cain to come with you?” I pushed.

“He has a D/s relationship that is also a true relationship outside of that. His girlfriend loves Florida.”

“But she was alright with him coming up to see you and for him to play at the club with you?”

Her mouth dropped open, and then she shook her head frantically. “Oh God, no! Carver, Cain came to see me as a friend. At the club, I showed him around, and we watched some things, but we didn’t scene together, and we didn’t have sex. I don’t deny that when we first met, we did. But after I began to need to dominate, he said I was ready to be with someone else. It wasn’t like that with us. I was the one to introduce him to his girlfriend. She was a nurse I worked with.”

As what she said sank in, my ire receded. “Sorry, I let myself get wound up when I shouldn’t have. Let’s talk about what you need and want as a Dom, and I’ll tell you the same for me as a sub who’s a switch.”

“I would say that I’m not what most people think of when it comes to Doms. Yes, I agree there is a side to me that does get a thrill out of being in command. Payback, maybe for all the years I wasn’t when Germain wouldn’t listen to me. I had no genuine say in our lives. I wasn’t exactly like your mom, but I see a parallel.

“When Cain and I first started together, I honestly thought I was submissive, so that’s what I became with him. As time passed, he educated me more, allowing me to explore. We discovered that my dominant tendencies needed to be met. He was never a Dom who would allow me to top him from the bottom. So he introduced me to someone who would. That individual and I began to scene together, but Cain and I were still sexually involved whenever the mood struck. That all stopped as soon as I introduced him to his current girlfriend.

“As for the Dom who let me top him, I outgrew him and wanted to be the Domme to a submissive. That occurred about six months before I moved here.”

“And in the five months or more you’ve been at Lustz, have you not found someone you could do both with?”

“Nope. It was either one or the other, but not both. However, Carver, the moment I met you, I felt we had a connection. And seeing you wore a submissive bead thrilled me, even though I knew I couldn’t go there since you were Cady’s brother. I was so struck that I didn’t notice you wore a bead to indicate your switch tendency. It was why I didn’t want to stay with you. I was worried that I’d break and do something I shouldn’t, and it would ruin my friendship with your sister, Tajah, and the one I was beginning with you. But in the end, I couldn’t stop myself. Last night, when I told you I was headed to Lustz tonight, it was my effort not to crawl into your bed at night and beg you to have sex with me.”

I groaned. “And I’ve been battling this insane attraction for you just as long. I felt it when we met. I’ve been dreaming about you at night and fantasizing all the time. I knew it was dangerous to my self-control for you to stay here, but I couldn’t allow you to stay at your place or alone at Lustz. The fight I’ve waged with myself not to crawl into your bed and beg you to let me have you has been killing me. When you said what you did about Lustz last night, I thought I’d have to go there and kill whoever you went to. I was about to lose it at the thought,”

I confessed.

Our admissions had us gravitating closer to each other. Then our mouths met. It wasn’t more than a kiss to reaffirm what we were feeling. We still had too much to talk about to let it become more, so it was short. After unsealing our mouths, we eased apart but didn’t go too far.

“So, we know more about what made us who we are and shaped our needs. I know it takes time, communication, and trust-building. But would you be willing to give it a try with me? We’ll outline everything as far as our expectations, soft and hard limits, and what punishments there could be. You know, the whole contract process. As long as you can handle me, not always being the sub, that is. I need to be the top at times. And while I love to play, I don’t want that every time we have sex, it’s only done as part of play. They’re two separate things to me, and I need them both,”

I explained. I hoped I was making sense.

“After what happened between us last night and now this, I don’t think either of us can ignore this, Carver. I’m still leery of messing up and destroying friendships if we don’t have a good experience or something goes awry, and we have hard feelings after we part ways. But I do want to try and see where it might go. No one has tempted me to desire both in one person but you.”

“I’m right there with you, Alexandra.”

“What do you think your sister or Tajah will say to this?”

“It’s not any of their business. Your friendship doesn’t change just because you have a more personal connection to me. The only thing it might affect is your comfort level when talking about certain things if they involve me. I have the same thing with Hoss. He knows if he needs to speak about profoundly sexual things, that he does it with Mikhail or Reuben. Cady is my sister. I know she has sex, but I don’t want to know the nitty-gritty details. I see this the same.”

“I get that, but will they be mad? I don’t want them to think this changes our friendship or anything weird.”

“I can’t speak for them, but I don’t believe it will. We’re adults, and as such, our personal lives are ours. I knew Hoss well before she did, and she didn’t ask my permission to be with him. I was somewhat mean to her by mentioning how her past relationships failed, and that she should be careful about starting anything with him. I didn’t understand her then. It took Hoss finally opening my eyes and explaining why Cady is a brat to understand her. We’re growing closer because of it.”

“That’s good to hear. Okay, we should talk through the ins and outs. See if there is anything either of us doesn’t agree with. If so, we’ll see if those items are negotiable. If there are some that we won’t budge on by the end, we decide if they’re enough to ignore, revisit later, or there can be no contract. Can you live with that?”

she asked. I thought I heard a tiny bit of apprehension in her tone.

“I can live with that. Let’s get paper and pens. We need to jot them down, and then we can discuss them and go from there.”

“I’m ready,” she said.

I got up to find the items we needed. It would take time to iron this out. Even when a contract was agreed upon and signed, it was always renegotiable. People’s needs and wants changed over time, and as we got to know each other, we’d find things we wanted to add, remove, or tweak.