Page 69 of Possessive Ink

Her mouth opens and then snaps shut, like she can’t believe what I just said.

“Now, because I’ve clearly blown your mind, I’m going to take control and worship you for a while until I get up and make us some lunch.”

Hours later, her mind is still blown, but she’s so exhausted from the orgasms I’ve given her that her eyes are struggling to stay open. I’ve just fed her a late lunch of cubes of cheese, fruit, charcuterie meats, and hunks of bread dunked in oil.

“Sleep, baby. We have time before I need to start prepping dinner,” I tell her, smoothing the hair from her face.

“Okay,” she says, her eyes already closed.

For a while, I watch her sleep. As I slip from the bed, I pull up Gaelle’s contact in my cell and hit dial.

“Atticus.” The rough Boston accent of the barely five-foot Domme fills my ears.

“Gaelle, long time no speak. How are you and Holly?”

“We’re perfect. She’s pregnant, nearly seven months now.”

“A baby,” I gasp, surprised but happy for them. “That’s amazing. Congratulations.”

“Thank you. It’s been a change for us, but we’ve never been happier.”

Gaelle is a strict Domme I met at a kink event years ago when I was trying to understand my dominant side, and Holly is her bratty sub who loves nothing more than driving Gaelle absolutely insane. They’re the perfect example of a lifestyle couple who switch between a power exchange dynamic and being a regular married couple with jobs and apparently now a baby on the way.

“Not that it’s not nice to hear from you, but did you call just to catch up, or with a purpose?” she asks, as direct and to the point as always.

“Do you remember that ring you designed to match the collar you made for me?”

“Of course I do. It’s a travesty that you never let me make it for you.”

“I want you to make it,” I tell her simply.

“You found someone? In New York? Did you start going to a club again?”

“Felix and I just moved back home to Montana. Our sister set down some roots, and she missed us, so we’re all here in a small town about an hour from where we grew up.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I don’t even know of any clubs in Montana, but then I’ve never been, so that’s not a surprise,” she says, then laughs, her addictive gravelly chuckle vibrating through my cell’s speaker.

“We didn’t meet at a club. She’s not in the lifestyle. She literally bumped into me in the grocery store, and I knew she was mine the moment I saw her.”

“So if you’re not using the collar, why do you want the matching ring?” Gaelle asks slowly.

“She’s wearing the collar.”

“Wait, so she’s not in the lifestyle, but you’ve collared her?”

“Yes.”

“Did you explain what it means?”

I fall silent, and because Gaelle notices everything, she calls me on it. “Wait, you collared a girl without telling her the significance of it? Is she even a sub?”

“You make it sound like I’m taking advantage of her,” I growl angrily.

“Are you?”

“Of course I’m not. I told her what I like. I told her what I need, and then I asked her to kneel, and she did it like she was a trained sub. You know what the single club subs can be like. They say yes to everything, even when they don’t mean it, and then once you’re settled, they suddenly admit that what you’re offering isn’t anything close to what they actually want. Lemon is naturally submissive without even realizing it.”

“Okay, but—” Gaelle starts.