Page 4 of Dark Rules

“I forgot and left it on my kitchen table.” She’d folded her hands in her lap and dropped her gaze.

“I’ll get it next time.” I brushed the forgotten document aside. “You signed it; that’s all that matters.”

“Of course, sir.” Which wasn’t exactly an admission, but she was here, so she must have signed the contract.

“Excuse me, sir, here is your meal. And yours, madam.” The waiter came in to deliver a grilled salmon steak for me, and grilled chicken for Stephanie.

We were silent as we ate. I noted her table manners seemed to be very European, especially the way she ate from the back of her fork, instead of scooping it the way most Americans did. It was a pretty display, but one I’d found unnecessary. It was much easier to scoop your food onto the fork, as intended, but let it go. It was something she’d obviously been taught to do, so who was I to judge.

“How is your dinner?” I’d asked after I’d wiped my mouth and put my silverware down.

“It’s really quite nice, sir, thank you.” She looked up, her lips slightly parted in a smile, and her eyes glittered with delight.

It wasn’t the food that delighted her, however. It was the fact that she’d called me sir; she’d even stressed the word when she’d said it. That was what made those beautiful eyes glitter.

It was slightly dark in here, and we were in a very dark corner, away from the central dining area, where everyone sat who wanted to be seen. I didn’t want to expose her too much and had asked for a private table. She sat across from me, in her chair, perfectly respectable and demure. I’d wanted to fuck her against the wall until she screamed out my name, and her mouth made dirty little sounds that would shock the patrons of such a place.

“You may call me Dylan, you know? It is my name.” I smiled as she went back to her food.

“I know.” She’d popped a cherry tomato in her mouth and chewed before finishing her thought. “I like to call you sir, though. It’s rather delicious.”

“It is.” My little sub could be a vixen when she wanted to be, and obviously she wanted to be now.

“Have you ever swam naked, Stephanie?” If I had to guess, I’d say she never had. But then again, she was full of surprises. Perhaps her family owned some house in the country, some palace with a lake that she’d escape to on hot summer nights.

She looked at me, surprised, and gave a brief smile, before she turned her head away as if admitting the truth embarrassed her.

“It’s on my bucket list, but I haven’t scratched it off yet.” Her eyes came back to mine, and the smile faded away. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I have a heated swimming pool at my place, and I can’t stop picturing you swimming in it. Nude and with that hair of yours fanned out behind you.”

“Ah,” she said with a slight tilt of acknowledgement. “I guess we’ll be swimming tonight then.”

“Yes, tell me more about this bucket list of yours.”

“It’s not much really. Little things I’d like to explore or do. I’d like to go to Iceland, just once. We don’t have a…,” I looked up, surprised that she’d stopped. What had caused that; what had she almost revealed. She wiped it all away with a gleaming smile and carried on. “It’s not somewhere I’ve ever had the chance to go to.”

“I see. It’s a lovely country, one I wouldn’t mind seeing again.” I’d gone as a teenager, to explore the glaciers and do some climbing. I hadn’t forgotten that almost slip though. She’d said ‘we’. Who was this we, her family perhaps?

“I’d also like to see the remains of Pompeii and explore the shipwrecks beneath the water in Greece.”

“Oh?” A history buff then, very good. “And what else? Anything naughtier on that list?’

“You’ve added a few things and ticked off a few.” She gave me that vixen’s smile all over again, and I wanted to get her home. Wipe that smile off of her face and replace it with an expression of pure ecstasy.

“Do you want anything else? Another glass of wine, perhaps?” I offered the delay smoothly, as if I wasn’t screaming internally that I just wanted to get her home.

“No, I think I’m finished with food for the night.” There was something different about her, something that wasn’t necessarily aloof, but was setting off alarm bells. It was almost as if she had taken this new contract on as a challenge, and where I’d had a perfectly submissive mistress within my grasp, I now had a seductress, bent on winning some kind of game.

Her eyes fell to the table, to the glass of wine between her fingers. No, perhaps aloof wasn’t right. Maybe she was using bravado, seduction, in an odd way, to keep me at arm’s length.

That was an odd thought, but it might be true. Had something happened in the few hours since I’d seen her last? I had to wonder, but she soon distracted me and asked if we could go now. She suggested she wanted to see my home, and I was more than willing to show it to her.

I’d paid for our meal and we headed out, Stephanie in the protective arm I kept around her to hide who she was, though it wasn’t so obvious that was what I’d done. I led her out to her car, and when she had buckled up and pulled out of her parking spot, I pulled out to allow her to follow me home.

The drive home gave me time to think and go over the evening so far. Something was on Stephanie’s mind, but she wasn’t talking about it. That was fine with me; I wasn’t after a relationship after all, just a good time for a couple of weeks. Or so I kept reminding myself. It didn’t take long to get back to my place, it was an apartment, but I had an indoor, heated pool in that space. Money could buy you almost anything you’d want, and I’d wanted a heated pool.

Swimming was one of the ways I’d kept fit, and I didn’t see a need to swim in cold water. Especially when you added Stephanie to that water. Although, with her in the pool, I might not have needed heated water to keep me warm.