Page 42 of The Wedding

That voice.So calming. So powerful. Jamie could practically feel the desire emanating from her girlfriend.Give her to me.She had missed Etta on top of her, owning her, possessing her. That was what she wanted now more than anything else. “Kiss me, Etta.”

She did, her mouth shoving Jamie onto the bed while her hands touched whatever they pleased. Anything that had been asleep within Jamie those past several weeks suddenly woke up again.Holy shit, do I love her.Grunts of rising need reverberated through her as Etta kissed, grabbed, and filled Jamie’s mouth with everything she had. When Etta finally pulled off her, the flower was crushed against the bed.

“Look what you did,” Jamie reprimanded. “How very dare you.”

Etta stood, taking the crumpled flower petals and sprinkling them on her girlfriend. “How dare I, indeed. Wait here, Jamie. I’ll be rightback. For you.”

She waited until Etta left the bedside before chomping on her lip and kicking her legs out behind her.It’s about damn time.Etta wandered to her side of the room, tugging at her collar as she poured herself a drink at a small wet bar. She didn’t offer Jamie any, but she often didn’t. Jamie stole shots here and there when necessary, but for the most part, drinking a shot of hard liquor before sex was an Etta thing, not a Jamie thing.It’s damn hot, too.Especially the look she shot her through the corner of her eye as if to say,I’m coming for you.

Etta opened the top drawer of the bureau next to the bar. From it, she withdrew a few things Jamie couldn’t see, but she knew only good things came from that drawer. Just like the drawer next to her side of the bed, from which she withdrew her navy, sapphire-studded collar.

Jamie had only worn it a few times that year, all in the beginning, and never since the wedding over a month ago. Her relationship with her submissive’s collar was complicated, starting when she begrudgingly wore it to please Etta. Back then, Jamie was resisting so much – most of all her love for the scenes they created in the bedroom, and the love she harbored for a woman like Etta Coleman.I didn’t like the scenes much at first because I thought she was using me.Over their weeks together, however, she realized how much the woman loved her in turn. Their scenes weren’t just about Etta exerting dominance over her, or Jamie kowtowing to inflate a Domme’s ego. It was far from that. It was about them giving and taking. Sometimes, it went more one way than the other, but it always ended with them closer than they were before. Sometimes? It was the only way they could communicate how much they meant to one another, especially when Etta was as busy as she was, and Jamie was as closed off as she had been recently.

“Come here.”

Although her voice was low and soft, Jamie heard the need lining it.It’s been a long time for her, too.As composed as Etta appeared right now, insideshe was probably bursting at the thought of doing whatever she wanted to her girlfriend. “I’m here,” Jamie announced, once she had pulled herself to the other side of the bed and knelt before Etta. Their mutual gaze did not break as Etta looped the collar around Jamie’s throat and clasped it beneath her hair. “I’m here for you, ma’am.”

Etta didn’t tell her to be quiet. She usually did when the collar was on.She’s a woman of little words. Wants to use the movement of our bodies to communicate. Screw talking. Just screwing.Sometimes Jamie wanted more. Tonight? She had other plans – and needs.

“You’re always here for me.” That wasn’t an expectation Etta muttered, as she caressed Jamie’s hair. “Since day one you’ve never wavered from me, my flower, even when I’ve been less than…”

“I’m here because I love you, ma’am.” When the collar was on, Jamie couldn’t help but call her that. It was an expectation, yes, but it was also something she deeply came to appreciate. There was something powerful in giving herself over to a woman like Etta. Cool, calm, collected. Powerful, sharp, and intelligent. A woman couldn’t help but tear off her clothes and jump into Etta’s arms. Or, more likely, sink beneath her body and engage in a mixture of whimpering and calling out vulgar words. Plus, Etta worked harder than any other person Jamie ever met. She didn’t do anything halfway. She didn’t cut corners or get out of things she didn’t want to do. How else had she managed to build her business to its maximum potential in so few years? Sure, investors helped, but Etta had to prove herself to those investors when she was a relative nobody. Those same people often still didn’t take her seriously enough, because she was a self-taught woman – and taught by a little place called Yale, but that was beside the point once people found out the circumstances of her birth and childhood.

When Jamie thought about that, her heart filled with more admiration for the woman who swept her off her feet not so long ago.Will I always feel this way?She certainlyhoped so.

“And I love you.” Etta’s fingers curled in Jamie’s hair. “I’ve never been with a woman who continuously makes me feel like you do.”

Jamie did her best to remain upright and not slouched over in embarrassment. “You flatter me, as always.”

Both hands were in her hair now. Jamie pushed herself higher on her knees, struggling to meet Etta’s lowering mouth. “Will you always be here for me, Jamie?”

“I will.”

“Tonight and always?”

“Always.”

Etta kissed her, lightly, a far cry from what Jamie expected after the collar was wrapped around her throat. Hands spoke on Etta’s behalf, roaming down Jamie’s arms and clutching her as if she would run away.Never.Jamie had run before, but not from Etta. Even when she was her roughest, she still respected Jamie’s wishes and treated her as the human being so few others did.Even when we play at me being her object, I still feel the humanity in it.Before meeting Etta, Jamie never thought such a thing was possible.

“Will you always be here for me?” Jamie asked, meekly at first, because it was something she started to say without thinking. “I know you’re busy a lot, but…”

“Even when I’m busy, my heart is with you. It belongs to you and no other.”

Jamie grabbed her Domme’s forearms. The fine hairs there tickled her skin, but she pretended not to notice. “I want to feel like I am yours.”

“You are mine. I don’t need to see a collar on you to know that.”

“I don’t need to feel it to know it, either.”

“But you must agree that it sets a certain mood.”

“A mood we haven’t indulged in for too long now.”

“You are definitely right about that.”

“So…” Jamie batted her eyelashes. “Knowing that I am yours, ma’am…” Shehooked her thumbs beneath the straps of the lacy lingerie and lowered them. Etta’s eyes went straight to where Jamie wanted. “Knowing how stressed we’ve both been lately… why don’t we put that all to rest and have ourselves a purge?”

“I like the way you think.”