Page 9 of Regal Feather
He’d also mentioned the club he was a member of was a BDSM club, and I’d just laughed and said I’d love to see him wearing a collar because it was the only thing I could think of at the time to not make it weird or push him away while my brain was blown with the information.
“So, I have an online Dom, and it’s a new thing too, but we’re doing chastity, and that means he’ll ask me at random times of the day to do a check in.”
“A…check in.”
“Yeah.” He fidgeted some more. He hadn’t made it back to the bed yet, or changed out of that fucking skirt. It was distracting, and I hated myself for finding it so. “I basically have to take a picture of, you know, the cage, and send it to him. Fast.”
I swallowed. The dryness in my mouth had nothing to do with a need for water, although a glass wouldn’t be amiss. “What happens if you don’t?”
“Uh?”
The words felt like tiny razors passing down my throat. “If you don’t send a picture right away, or you don’t have it on.”
Was that too intimate to ask, too out there? TMI had never been a thing between the two of us, but it was becoming obvious that too many things had changed in the years I was gone. It made sense, of course.
“Oh.” Whatever he thought about me asking, it made him take a step closer. “It depends. He gives me tasks and makes me buy toys and things, and sometimes those are meant as punishments.”
“What would that look like?” I pushed through the knot in my throat.
I didn’t know what was taking over me—it went beyond our usual TMI policy—but I needed to know.
“I’m a good sub,” he scowled, “I don’t go around looking for punishments, asshole.”
I snorted. “So he’s never doled out one?”
Ever dragged his bottom lip between his teeth. “Uh, maybe once. Or twice.”
That made more sense. Ever confused people by looking shy and all well-behaved, but when he felt more confident, he could be a bit bratty, too. Not the kind that made it into porn and the erotica audiobooks I secretly listened to. But when he felt really, really, comfortable, he rambled more than he’d ever acknowledge, and he didn’t always think how deep he was digging a hole for himself until it was too late.
I grinned at him. I kind of wanted to move my tray away and pat my thigh, but was being on my lap something we’d go back to doing when he had a…Dom, online or not? I didn’t know.
“What did he do, Ever?”
The question wasn’t born out of jealousy. I just needed him to keep talking. I needed to make sense of the picture in front of me, of the best friend who looked almost like a completely different person.
I needed to prove that this all hadn’t been a mistake.
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Tell me.”
Did my tone go more authoritative? Maybe. I didn’t take it back.
Ever swallowed. He took another step. This room was stupidly large, and two steps didn’t mean he was within reach, but I waited him out. Crowding him was a big no.
“He made me do lines, and, uh, read them out loud.”
That was it?
I raised an eyebrow.
There had to be more, right? Writing lines—or reading them out loud—wouldn’t have him this squeamish. Right?
“What did the lines say?”
“Santos.” Ever breathed my name in a way I’d almost forgotten. A way that had me moving the tray away and going against my word of not crowding him. “Please.”
“Please, what?” His hair was softer than I remembered as I tucked a stray strand behind his ear. “We tell each other everything, don’t we?”
