These Damn Suspicions (Denial #2.5) Read online

  I closed my eyes, losing myself in his truth. Callum squeezed my neck just a little tighter, then let go. “You got that, little miss?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I whispered.

  “You trust that I’m telling you the truth?” His expression was intense, serious. Worried. “’Cause I thought we were more solid than this.”

  I scowled. “You’re telling me that if you saw pictures of me letting some other guy cup my face that way, you’d be totally calm and reasonable about it? Put yourself in my shoes!”

  Callum winced, then nodded. “I get your point.”

  “Good.” I put a hand to his chest and shoved, knocking him onto his back. “Jerk.”

  Before he could respond, I slid over and kissed him. He pulled me on top of him, wrapping his arms and legs around me so there was absolutely no possibility of me getting away. Then he bit my lower lip lightly before possessing my mouth again.

  “We need to talk about me being the guy you’d sleep with in a heartbeat,” he said when we came up for air. “As I recall, it was way longer than a heartbeat before we fucked. I would have taken you right there that first day on the movie set if you’d let me, but you shoved me away for a week.”

  “It was a theoretical heartbeat.” I squirmed in his arms, which only made him hold on tighter, as I’d hoped.

  He smiled. “Tomorrow night after work, I’m gonna take you somewhere. I have a surprise for you.”

  Intrigued, I pressed him for details, but he remained silent and amused until I gave up guessing and told him, “Fine. I’ll just look forward to tomorrow and be surprised.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I guess I should get your punishment out of the way tonight so you can enjoy tomorrow, then.”

  I stilled, wary. “A real punishment?”

  I’d only been truly punished once before in our relationship, and that hadn’t involved pain. Since my past had been traumatic, I suspected Callum was more lenient with me than he would have been with a different submissive, but I tried not to think about that. I was never sure if I was thankful for it, or uncomfortable with the idea.

  Callum sat up, bringing me with him, and looked into my face. “You fucked up, little miss. You could have called me or sent a text when you saw that article. You should have.”

  “But—”

  “I agree the article looks bad. But you assumed the worst about me without giving me a chance to explain. I won’t have you letting your imagination get away with you where our relationship is concerned.”

  I sighed. He was right, sort of. “I was willing to hear your side of the story.”

  “If you’d curled up in our bed to wait for me, I might have let you off easier.” Callum’s tone didn’t change in the wake of my protests. He was quiet, stern but not angry.

  I looked around at the guest room and accepted his criticism. No matter how quickly I’d changed my mind once I’d heard his version of events, I’d still been angry enough with him that I hadn’t wanted to wait in our room. I’d let my insecurities get the better of me.

  “How will you punish me, Sir?”

  Callum kissed my forehead. “Safewords are still an option, but only if you’re about to panic.”

  I nodded my understanding, the slight queasiness of anxiety coalescing in my stomach.

  “Stand up.”

  I got to my feet with reluctance.

  “Go downstairs into the kitchen, sit at the table and wait for me.”

  I went immediately, wanting to get this over with—whatever he had planned. As I descended the stairs, my brain treated me to a flashback of one of the many things that had happened in a very different kitchen, years ago. I slammed down on the memory. Callum isn’t him. He knows my limits. He doesn’t have a cage or a hook. Calm the fuck down.

  Still, I hesitated in the kitchen doorway. I didn’t usually have a problem with entering this room, but knowing it would be the location of a punishment made me freeze. All of my worst experiences with my abuser had taken place in a kitchen. Can’t…

  Callum’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I swallowed hard. “Yellow, Sir.”

  He reached me and enfolded me in his arms, no irritation or judgement in his demeanour. “What do you need, little miss?”

  “The kitchen is…a problem.”

  Callum took a moment to register the words, then groaned. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  He scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the living room, where he brought me back into his lap on the couch. We sat quietly together while I focused on his heartbeat and breathing to calm myself. I could tell he was mentally berating himself, though.

  “It’s okay, Callum.” I used his real name to make sure he knew I wasn’t just deferring to him as a submissive, but also forgiving him as my vanilla self.

  He sighed and held me tighter. “I promise not to make that mistake twice. New rule: no punishments in the kitchen.”

  “Thank you.” I kissed his hand, calmer now he knew the problem. “And I’m sor—”

  He kissed the apology softly from my lips. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  After a moment of looking me over, assessing my mental state, he asked, “Are you ready to continue?”

  I nodded and slipped down from his lap onto the floor.

  He stood up, squeezed my shoulder on the way past me. “Wait there.”

  I linked my fingers behind my back and waited, wondering what my punishment would entail. Last time it had been intense sexual stimulation followed by being forbidden to come for the rest of the day. This seemed to be something different.

  When Callum returned, he was holding a small plate. He sat down, but kept it held up high enough that I couldn’t tell what was on it whilst kneeling. I had a bad feeling about this…

  “You’re going to hate this, but it’s a punishment, so you’re meant to.” Was there a twinkle in his eye? I didn’t like that at all.

  He lowered the plate onto his knees, and I covered my face with my hands. “Oh, God, Sir! Are you serious?”

  “Put your hands behind your back,” he commanded.

  Swallowing a curse, I resumed my position as a good little submissive, but kept my eyes closed.

  “Open them.”

  I stared in distaste at the plate. Two dried figs, each one cut into four pieces. Eight mouthfuls of nastiness. “Sirrrrr…”

  “Little Miss Badass…” His voice held a warning. I didn’t dare look up at him in case he was trying not to smile; I didn’t trust myself not to yell at him if he was finding this funny.

  I kept quiet, trying not to imagine the way the figs would taste. They were my very least favourite food, and I’d somehow let this slip to Callum at some point in our relationship. I hadn’t even known there were figs in the house, let alone that I’d be required to eat them if I needed punishment.

  Callum took hold of the first section of dried fig. “Open your mouth.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the plate, but made myself do as he’d said.

  My Dom placed the horrible, dehydrated ‘treat’ on my tongue. “Chew and swallow.”

  I closed my mouth and rolled the sweet, gummy thing in my mouth, manoeuvring it to the back of my tongue. It wouldn’t really start tasting like shit until I chewed it. If I could just swallow it without chewing…

  It felt huge, but I managed to gulp it down without chewing it. Success! Maybe this would be bearable.

  Callum cleared his throat. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that, little miss.”

  Busted. I gave him a pleading look, and damn it, the bastard was finding this way too amusing. My puppy dog eyes weren’t going to change a damn thing.

  “Open.” He picked up a second piece of fig.

  “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”

  “After you’ve eaten a whole fig. Now open your mouth.”

  I suppressed a groan and parted my lips obediently.

  He placed the food on my tongue. “Chew.”

  By withholding th
e order to swallow, he’d doubled the torment. I shifted the fig to one side of my mouth and tentatively bit down. The overly sweet flavour curled my tongue. I could deal with the gumminess of the dried fruit, but then…

  Crunch.

  The disgusted sound that came from my throat was completely involuntary. The grittiness of the seeds combined with the gummy sweetness was so off-putting that I cringed.

  “How many times do I have to chew, Sir?” I mumbled around the mouthful of ick.

  “At least three times per piece before you swallow.”

  I chomped down exaggeratedly twice more before swallowing the sticky, seed-laden mouthful as fast as I could. “Ugh.”

  “Well done. Six more to go.” Callum held out piece number three.

  “Can I please get some water, Sir?”

  “After two more pieces.” He pressed the third mouthful against my lips in a clear order to get on with it.

  I focused on my task after that, to get it over with as fast as possible. Open, chew, chew, chew, swallow. Ugh! Open, chew, chew, chew, swallow…

  I could have asked for water again, but then I’d have to wait with the horrible figgy taste in my mouth. I took each piece silently, one after the other, hoping he wasn’t going to pull out his phone and take a picture of my disgusted face at any point. At one point I almost gagged, but fought it back, though it would have been sort of rewarding to throw up the nastiness right into Callum’s lap.

  After the last crunchy, cloying mouthful went down my throat, Callum got up. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  I made sure I didn’t have any fig stuck in my teeth to haunt me later, still inwardly cringing at the aftertaste of my last mouthful. As soon as Callum held out the glass to me I gulped down the entire contents, washing away the final bits of fig.

  “Atta girl. Come here.”

  I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to snuggle, but returned to Callum’s lap anyway.

  “I promise to give you the benefit of the doubt next time the tabloids say you’re cheating, Sir.” My tongue was still so disgusted by the figs that my words were a little slurred.

  “You’re forgiven, little miss. And you can speak freely now.”

  “You know that real sexual figging doesn’t involve actual figs in people’s mouths, right?”

  Callum stared at me for a moment as though the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Then we both dissolved into laughter.

  “You want to try the alternative next time?” he asked finally.

  The thought of having root ginger up my ass didn’t sound great to me, but I decided to keep that thought to myself. “As a punishment? How do you know I wouldn’t like it, Sir?”

  He gave my ass a quick, light spank. “You might regret saying that one of these days.”

  Damn. Looked like that had backfired. “Can I put everything involving food on my hard limits list now?”

  “No. Because I know they’re not hard limits, Little Miss Badass.” He tugged on a lock of my hair. “Now are you done being a brat for the night? I’m hungry and I’m guessing you’d rather have the taste of pizza in your mouth than fig.”

  “One more question, Sir.” I batted my eyelashes at him. “When do we get to the make-up sex?”

  Callum nipped my earlobe lightly. “We’ll get to that.”

  * * * *

  The following evening…

  I blinked through the car windshield at a suburban house that looked totally normal. “Where are we?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Callum popped open his door and got out of the car. “Come on.”

  A little bewildered, I followed him up the drive and onto the front porch. For some reason, Callum had a key to this place. “Is this place yours?”

  “Nope. Elena’s parents own it.”

  I digested that for a moment. It might explain why Callum had brought Elena into his trailer that day I’d met her…

  “I’m just using it for my purposes today.” Callum took my hand. “Come on.”

  A little nervously, I followed him inside. The house looked like a rental property—nondescript décor and sparse furnishings, as far as I could tell from looking through open doorways. Callum didn’t stop, towing me towards the back of the house.

  “Why am I getting a weird ‘surprise birthday party’ feeling about this?” I asked, censoring myself before I could call him ‘Sir’. If there were other people here, I didn’t want to give them any cause to ask awkward questions.

  “Nope. I promise, there’s no one but us here.”

  The door to the back room of the house, adjacent to the kitchen, was closed. I glanced from it to Callum and back. “Are we going in there?”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  I took a breath, pushed open the door…and stepped into a totally normal room, though this one had more furnishings than the others.

  As Callum shut the door behind us, I turned and waited for him to explain what we were doing here.

  He leaned against the door instead of coming into the room, his eyes on me. “There’s a gift somewhere here in this room for you, little miss. When I start the countdown on my phone app, you’ll have three minutes to find it.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending for a moment. Then it slowly began to dawn on me. “You didn’t, Sir…”

  He grinned, and I knew I was right. He’d remembered a conversation we’d had over a year ago, when I was still living in New York, and he’d decided to make my dream come true.

  “My favourite project so far was a kids’ TV show based on one they made in England in the early nineties. The set guys built a cross-section of an entire house—four floors, from basement to attic. The challenge for the two teams of kids was to find one hidden object in each room, so they’d basically have to trash everything to find what they were looking for. Pull cushions off couches, bedding off beds, items out of drawers, off shelves…the whole thing. It was like decorating an entire house, only with a totally different theme for each room. And most of the drawers and cupboards were filled with these multi-coloured polystyrene packing chips.”

  “And these kids just got to trash the rooms without putting everything back afterwards? Sounds like something I’d have loved when I was a kid.”

  “Me too, and not just if I were a kid. First thing I’d do if I ever got to be megastar famous is buy a place, fill it with cheapo furniture and items, then completely wreck the interior. Then I’d hire a clean-up crew to get it all cleared up before I redecorated it the way I wanted it.”

  I eyed the cabinets and couch cushions with a new appreciation. It all looked neat and tidy at the moment, but I was looking forward to trashing this room!

  “Are you ready?”

  I nodded, looking around me. If I were a gift from Callum, where would I be?

  “Your three minutes starts…now!”

  I yanked open the nearest cabinet door and squeaked happily as rainbow-coloured polystyrene packing chips fell onto the floor. “Oh my God, this is just like I pictured!”

  I had to scoop more polystyrene out of the cabinet to check whether the gift was there. It wasn’t, but I’d made a huge mess of the floor, which was exactly the point of doing this. I turned to a drawer and pulled it open, tossing handfuls of coloured paper ribbons aside to check the interior.

  By the time I pulled the throw cushions off the couch, I was well and truly in the mood to make a mess, children’s game-show style. The cushions ended up in a pile on the floor, followed by the bigger ones that formed the seats and back padding. No gift. Damn.

  I continued on, pulling books out of bookshelves to check behind them and realising in the process that they weren’t even real books—just props. Callum had pulled some strings in a props department recently…

  No gift was hiding behind them, though.

  “One minute left,” Callum warned, amusement in his voice.

  “Really? Damn it!” I spun, looking for somewhere new to search. “What happens if I don’t find it in time?”r />
  “Then you have to wait until I find another way to give it to you. Might be a while…” He watched me open the small ottoman that served as a footstool and rifle through the junk inside.

  Whatever this gift was, it was important enough to Callum to put this much effort into the presentation of it. I wanted to find it now.

  “Thirty seconds,” he added.

  “Fuck! Give me a clue, Sir?” I checked behind the curtains, then noticed a fake-looking potted palm in the corner.

  Callum was silent, and I didn’t want to waste precious time looking at him. Taking hold of the fake plant’s trunk-like stem, I pulled it up out of the pot and found another layer of polystyrene chips under its false soil and roots. I dropped my handful of plant and dug into the packing materials, and my fingers brushed something flat and velvety.

  “Ten…nine…” Callum began to count down.

  “I have it; I have it!” I held up whatever the thing was triumphantly, looking to him to stop the timer. “This is it, right?”

  He laughed and pocketed his phone. “Congratulations, little miss. Wanna see what you’ve won?”

  A little out of breath, I examined the blue velvet box in my hands. It was much bigger than a ring box, so a proposal wasn’t imminent. I wasn’t even sure how I’d feel about that.

  Callum came to stand by my side in the sea of packing chips. “Open it,” he urged.

  Slowly, I flipped the catch and pulled up the hinged lid of the box. Shining metal caught the light, and for a moment all I could do was stare, my mind going blank.

  “It’s a collar,” I breathed, looking up at Callum for confirmation. “Is it—?”

  “What do you think, little miss?” He watched me intently. “Wanna be my officially collared submissive?”

  I stared back down at the silver band. It was at once sturdy and elegant, functional and beautiful. The O ring at the front made it impossible to mistake it for anything but what it was—a collar of ownership.

  There was a small padlock at the catch. Somehow I doubted it was just for decoration. Questions whirled in my mind, but first I needed to give Callum an answer.