San Francisco: The Complete Trilogy Page 22

  “It’s such a waste of money.”

  “Isn’t the purpose of money to buy what you want?”

  She stared at him, working the inside of her cheek with her teeth for a moment. “We are very different people.”

  He stiffened. “You’re making an assumption.”

  “No, I formed a working theory based on the evidence at hand.”

  He blinked in surprise.

  “Don’t argue with a scientist,” she advised.

  “I thought you were an engineer?”

  “Engineering is a science. The most practical science. Well, maybe medicine is more practical.”

  He relaxed. “Do you enjoy it? Being an engineer?”

  “Sometimes. It’s hard.”

  “The work is difficult?”

  “The work is great. It’s the other stuff that can be hard.”

  “Other stuff?”

  “I’m the only woman in my department. Engineering is sort of a boys’ club. That can be difficult. It’s not so bad now, but at the beginning, the first couple of years, it was like every day I had to prove myself.”

  “Exhausting.”

  She nodded, glad he understood. She wasn’t sure he would. She doubted anyone had ever made him prove himself.

  “What about you?” she asked. “You know everything about me.”

  “I thought you knew everything about me. You did say you Googled me.”

  “Tell me something I didn’t find on Google.”

  He hummed, then said, “If you know about my mother, then you know my father died when I was young.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry—that must have been hard.”

  “It might have been, but I was raised by my au pair, not my parents.”

  “Not even your mom?”

  “No. Sorena, my au pair, was my parent, in every meaningful sense of the word. That’s something you couldn’t find on Google. The name of my real parent.”

  “So, do you spend holidays and stuff with her? With Sorena?”

  “Holidays?”

  “Christmas, Easter… oh. Those are Christian holidays. I shouldn’t assume.”

  “I’m not religious, though at boarding school in England, we celebrated both. When I visit my mother’s family, we observe the Muslim holidays.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

  Christiana tried to imagine her mother’s reaction if she acted that nonchalant about a religious holiday. She could practically feel the chancla smacking her just from the thought.

  They continued to chat as they crossed the bay, returning to San Francisco. After twenty minutes in traffic they pulled up outside a small Victorian. She peered out the window. “This is a hotel?”

  “As close as I could manage on short notice. The place I normally stay was booked. This is an executive lease property.”

  “We’re in Pacific Heights,” she all but stammered.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Did you know that if Pacific Heights had its own zip code, it would be the most expensive place to live in the country?”

  “I was not aware of that.” James got out of the car and came around to her door, opening it and holding out his hand. For a moment she experienced déjà vu. Dino had done the same thing. Christiana put her hand in James’s. His hand was cool and smooth. She gripped his fingers, stepping out onto the sidewalk. The driver took her cheap duffle and handed it to James.

  They were standing on the sidewalk in front of the lovely house, painted a pale blue, that sat on the corner of two quiet streets. Like any good Bay Area resident, Christiana knew a fair amount about architecture. This house, which was large enough that it was probably classified as a mansion per the standards of the time it was built, was a standalone building, and unique because of that. It had both Queen Anne and Beaux Arts features, and the paint looked new, each detail carefully highlighted by the trim colors of white, gray, and a medium blue.

  “What’s an executive lease property?” she asked

  “Someplace for business executives to stay when they don’t want to stay in a hotel.”

  “I guess that makes sense if you travel a lot and get tired of hotel beds.”

  “And for people who cook, having access to a kitchen is important.” He gestured for her to precede him up the steps to the sapphire front door.

  Christiana started up. “Do you cook?”

  “No, that’s not one of my skills. Do you?”

  “Nothing fancy. At least not on a daily basis.”

  The only thing marring the pristine antique look of the door was a keypad lock. James took his phone from his pocket, checked something and then tapped in a long code. The door clicked. He pressed the lever, then pushed it open.

  “I’ve stayed here before.” James followed her in, closing the door behind him. “On an occasion when I needed a place to host a business dinner and wanted more privacy than a restaurant or hotel offered. It’s a nice facility, and there’s cleaning and room service handled by the Hotel Drisco down the street.”

  Christiana stopped listening to him. She was busy gawking at the interior. The foyer had lovely high ceilings, and directly across from the door was a beautiful wood staircase that gleamed in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. To the right was a small circular room with curved glass windows that looked out onto the quiet intersection. The deep built-in seating that ringed the room, just under the windows, made her want to curl up with a book and stay all day.

  She’d get the book from the small wood-paneled library on the opposite side of the foyer. Hallways flanked the stairs, leading farther back into the house. She trailed her fingers over the carved pineapple post on the stair rail. It felt glossy and cool under her fingers.

  “Christiana?”

  “This is beautiful. Wonderful. I wish I had my camera.”

  “Ah, then you are the artist.”

  That made her turn. “Artist?”

  “Who took those pictures hanging on the wall in your flat. Apartment,” he corrected himself.

  “Those aren’t art. They’re just my… weird hobby.”

  “I would argue that they are art.”

  Her face felt hot, and she turned away from him, wandering into the circular room. She looked out the windows. Because the house was on the corner, and due to Pacific Heights’s elevation, there were nearly panoramic views of the Marina District, and even a glimpse of the Golden Gate.

  She felt rather than heard James come up behind her.

  His hands settled on her shoulders, gathering the edges of her sweater in his fingers until he held bunched fistfuls of knit fabric. He pulled it down and off, leaving her standing there in her thin-strapped sundress. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The only thing she had on under the dress was the same small black thong she’d worn earlier.

  “It’s time to talk,” he whispered into her hair.

  “Talk?”

  He slid one strap off her shoulder. “About your training.”

  “O-okay.”

  He slid the other strap off. The dress clung to her breasts and she tried not to breathe.

  James walked his fingers along the top of her shoulder, then down the front of her chest to the edge of the dress. He flicked his fingers and the fabric gave up its tenuous hold, sliding off her breasts and pooling on the floor.

  Christiana slapped her palms over her breasts. “I’m standing near a window! Someone will see.”

  “First lesson. You have to trust me.”

  “But there could be kids walking by or something and—”

  “Either you trust me or there’s no point in this.”

  “That’s not fair, for you to just ask me to trust you without discussion.” Christiana turned to face him—which conveniently meant her back was to the window.

  James looked hard and stern, and she shivered. Strangely, she also felt calmer.

  “The windows are treated,” he said. “No one can see in, though at night, depending on the lighting, I believe shadows are visible
.”

  “Oh.”

  “Normally, I would not stop to explain, because so often it’s a stalling tactic, or a way to fight my control.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Dino had said he made slaves stand by the window as punishment.

  “I know, which is why I explained.” James put one hand in his pocket. “I want you to lower your hands.”

  Christiana hesitated only a moment before dropping her hands to her sides.

  James didn’t look at or ogle her breasts—he kept his attention on her face. “How do you feel?”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s not enough. Honesty.”

  She paused, needing to sort through her own feelings before she could say more. “I feel… calm, a little excited, a little sad.”

  “Why sad?”

  Because you’re going to train me to be a submissive and then leave. Because I think I fell in love with you.

  “I’m not quite sure.” It was a lie, but she wasn’t willing to give him a true answer to that question. She was already enough the fool in this little play—the ignorant interloper, the amateur peasant—that she wouldn’t add lovesick idiot to her list of descriptors.

  “Why calm?”

  Again, she took a moment to think before answering. “Because I trust you. Because I want”—you—“to be here.”

  “And that isn’t how you felt with the dinosaur man?”

  “Dinosaur man? Oh, Dino. No, it wasn’t.”

  James reached up, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She’d quickly redone her bun, but hadn’t had time to do anything more with her hair.

  “Did you wear it up for me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied softly.

  “Good.” James reached around for her bun and pulled out the pins. Her hair tumbled free. He slid his fingers into it, shaking out the locks, and then stepped back. “Christiana?”

  “Yes?”

  “Kneel.”

  Chapter 5

  Christiana sank to her knees, taking the “kneeling up” position. She’d found and studied a chart showing different submission positions and even read a blog about how the goal should be to move gracefully into each position. She’d done a bit of this with James, at the start of that second night, kneeling and waiting. One comment on a blog post she read said it was essential to be able to rise from a kneeling position using only thigh muscles, in case your hands were bound behind your back. She’d practiced her postures while alone in her apartment, feeling stupid all the while.

  She bowed her head, arms hanging at her sides but her wrists twisted so her palms faced forward.

  James didn’t say anything, but he lifted a lock of her hair, letting it run between his fingers.

  Christiana kept her gaze on the floor as long as she could, but as the silence stretched, she couldn’t stand it anymore, and looked up, though she kept her chin down. The position meant she could only see as far as his waist. He had one hand in his pocket, in a posture she now recognized as uniquely James. He was wearing a belt—glossy black leather with a rectangular metal plate instead of the more traditional buckle.

  She imagined him sliding that belt out of the loops of his pants and…

  The fantasy she was building sputtered and died when the idea of anything, let alone a belt, touching her abused ass had reality overriding fantasy. She dropped her gaze to the glossy hardwood floor.

  “I must admit I find myself conflicted as to how to proceed,” he murmured.

  “Why, Sir?”

  “Sir?”

  “Oh, should I not have called you that?”

  “Why did you?”

  “Because we’re… Please just tell me if I did something wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong; I just want to understand if you decided to use ‘Sir’, or if it was more instinctive.”

  “More instinctive, I think, Sir.”

  “Perhaps the best way to go about it would be to act as if you were a novice.”

  “I’m not a total novice,” she said. “I spent three nights with this Dom at a fancy party in San Francisco…”

  “Ha ha,” he murmured, and she could hear the smile in his voice. His fingers feathered against her cheek. “I haven’t trained many novices,” he said. “Actually, I haven’t trained any, but I know the general idea behind it.”

  “You’re a novice at training?” Christiana bit the inside corner of her mouth to hold back the smile, though she doubted he’d be able to see it.

  “Careful, my sweet, or you’ll earn a punishment.”

  “Can I ask a question about that, Sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t quite understand punishment. Sometimes it seems to be things the person really doesn’t like, but sometimes it’s a spanking, and a spanking isn’t really a punishment.”

  “Are you thinking about when I spanked you?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I’ve thought about having you over my lap more than I care to admit in the past month,” he murmured, then cleared his throat. “Punishment is an interesting prospect in BDSM, and how it’s used is different for everyone.”

  “How do you use it, Sir?”

  “I don’t,” he said simply.

  “But you spanked me.”

  “True, and that wasn’t punishment. That was impact play.”

  “Oh.” Christiana thought she understood. “What about the brush spanking?”

  “Did you enjoy that?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “And I intended you to. Again, impact play, though I called it punishment, as that’s part of the mental game.”

  “So, what do you do when you really need to punish someone?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You don’t punish them?”

  “No, if my partner is unable to handle being with me, I sever the connection.”

  “So, you punish them by leaving them.”

  “I wouldn’t consider it punishment.”

  “But you… withdraw your attention.” She’d read that phrase somewhere.

  “If a submissive does something that would need real punishment, we weren’t a good fit anyway.”

  Christiana wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On one hand it made sense, but on the other she now knew that if she messed up, seriously messed up, he would just leave. “What would be so bad that you would leave?” she asked.

  “Lying,” he replied quietly. “Not communicating with me.”

  She winced, then curled her hands into loose fists.

  “Maintain your position,” he commanded.

  Christiana suddenly felt cold and alone and stupid, kneeling there on the floor. What was she doing? On the surface this was no different than what she’d done when she went with Dino. Perhaps it was even stupider, because though she knew James, he had the kind of power and resources that made him inherently dangerous. He was like the scorpion in the fable. That same sense of wrongness that had gripped her when she was with Dino was creeping into her mind now.

  “Let’s start with some postures,” he murmured. “You didn’t enjoy high protocol style play before, but that was most likely because you didn’t know it.”

  She didn’t think that was why, but said, “I know the positions, the postures, Sir.”

  He grunted. “Then I want to see humble.” He sounded cold and far away.

  Christiana took a moment, searching her memory for exactly what that position was supposed to look like. She lowered her upper body to the floor, her arms stretched out in front of her, wrists crossed over one another. She rested her forehead on the floor between her arms. She was supposed to have her butt resting on her heels, but she kept her hips elevated just enough so her heels didn’t touch her abused flesh.

  “Uncross your wrists. Palms flat. Fingers spread.”

  She adjusted her position as he ordered, following each of his commands.

  His footsteps echoed as he walked around her, and she could feel the vibration
s in her forehead. “Spread your knees wider.”

  She made the final adjustments, and waited for him to say something, but instead she heard him walk away.

  He was gone long enough that her abused ass and thigh muscles started to ache from holding the position, her shoulders cramped, and she felt very, very stupid.

  Was this what submission was like—real submission? She tried to tell herself to relax, to find subspace, but her mental litany of this is stupid, this is stupid made that impossible.

  She didn’t want this, she realized. Not this—the cold, aloof commands, uncomfortable positions, and solitude. She wanted what she’d had with him at the club. She wanted that closeness and intimacy. She’d thought she would have that again if she was with James, but now she was with James, and it wasn’t the same.

  His footsteps returned, and she took a deep breath. She was just having a bad moment. It would pass, and she would stop feeling like this.

  “Table,” he commanded.

  Christiana hesitated, then pushed up so she was on all fours, her back flat and level. Her hair was hanging in her face, effectively blinding her. A cold glass settled on the small of her back. She shivered.

  “Hold still,” he barked.

  Christiana blinked and a tear slid down her face. No, no, no. This wasn’t what she wanted, wasn’t what she’d been craving with James. He made her feel alive and whole. At least he had. Now she felt invisible and inconsequential.

  James pulled a chair over, then sat. He reached out and took the drink off her back, sipping before setting it down again.

  More tears slid down her cheeks. This was all wrong. She’d made a mistake. Yet another mistake in her ongoing series of terrible mistakes.

  The next time he lifted the glass, she scrambled away, hands and knees thunking against the floor.

  “Christiana, resume your position.” He sounded stern.

  She grabbed her sweater off the floor and, still kneeling, pulled it on. She wrapped it closed over her naked body and swiped at her cheeks.

  “Christiana?” Now it was a question.

  “I made a mistake. I don’t… I don’t want this. I’m sorry. I thought it would be like…” She stumbled to her feet, no grace, no poise. She frantically brushed her hair back. Strands were sticking to her wet face.