"Y-yes, Sir," I whispered tentatively.

And the torture began in earnest as he continued to worry and pluck at my clit while, occasionally, and I never knew when, a crisp, hard swat forced me towards him as I did my best to avoid it, although there was really no hope for it - there was nowhere to go. The contrasting uncomfortable sensations set me back a few pegs each time, but he quickly and easily made them up, leaning down to suckle at my nipple while never easing up the rhythm of those fingers as they claimed my most sensitive spot, flowing over them lightly sometimes, more forcefully others, but not sticking to any pattern for very long.

I have no idea how long it went on - I lost track of everything - lost myself in what he was doing to me, in the mind blowing contrast of pain and pleasure that he was so expertly - and effortlessly - subjecting me to.

"O - O - Sir, Sir, please!" I begged finally, driven beyond any embarrassment I might have felt at doing so.

"Yes, my darling?" he breathed against the underside of my breast.

"Please - please!" I don't think I'd ever been so desperate for an orgasm in my life as I was then.

Oakley straightened back up and I barely had the presence of mind to fix my eyes on his when he did, as I was expected to, but somehow I remembered.

"Don't be afraid to ask me - respectfully, of course - for what you want, baby, and perhaps I will allow it," he teased.

My heart sank at the idea - and my clit throbbed in double time - as I was frankly stunned to realize that he might well have brought me all this way just to deny me what I didn't think I could live another second without.

I let all pretense and preconceptions about how I felt I should act with Oakley dissolve away from me as I gazed up at him. I wasn't Paul's wife. I wasn't how ever many distressing years older than he was. I wasn't worried about seeming like a foolish old lecherous woman for having become involved with a much younger man.

I was simply a woman - his woman - and he was my dom, the man I would allow to make intimate decisions for me and set parameters that I would be bound to obey. And just the mere fact that he would even begin to act in a manner that got me to think about him that way meant that I owed him a certain level of respect.

So it was with a surprisingly clear conscience that I asked him - no, I begged him - in all seriousness, "Please, Sir, please? May I cum? Please?"

I think he grew several inches in front of my eyes, as if he had come to the realization of just how deep he had been able to take me, which was absolutely amazing on such relatively short, intimate acquaintance, and considering the depth and breadth of my previous relationship.

For a long moment he said nothing, as if he was savoring the moment, his expression unreadable, but very mature - not triumphant or even really proud, but instead reflecting the appropriate gravity of the situation.

And when it softened, only a bit, he leaned down to kiss me, his palm settling over my butt and squeezing rhythmically as his fingers continued to work their magic between my legs. He kept his forehead pressed to mine, breathing softly, "Yes, you may."

I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, but it proved to be premature. He wasn't finished.

As he watched me avidly, my eyes fixed to his, taking in every single thing about even my most minute reactions to him as I climbed higher and higher at his behest, until the rising pitch of my cries alerted him to the fact that I was seconds away from the crest of that tsunami.

And then he murmured, "But don't get used to it."

I couldn't help it. I was too far along to be indignant, to rail against the imposition of his will. Instead, what he'd said sent me over the brink he'd had me at for an inordinate, inhumane amount of time, and I screamed. He held me tight throughout, not letting me flail or buck or writhe much as he refused to stop molesting me, bringing me to peak after incredible, exhausting, mind numbing peak. I don't think I stopped contracting the entire time, and the strength of the spasms didn't begin to fade until I was about to open my mouth to beg him to stop.

But he did so without my having to ask - he was a very good student when he wanted to be, and he was rapidly becoming an expert at reading me and my responses. He brought me down gently, within the safe confines of his arms, cuddling me close, rubbing his hand lazily up and down my back and kissing the top of my head, pressing me against the entire length of him, our legs intimately intertwined, making me feel infinitely safe to take my time recovering and not feel as if he was impatiently waiting for me to return to normal. I got the distinct feeling that he was enjoying my slow descent as much as I was.

When my metaphorical feet were pretty much back on solid ground, and he'd sweetly asked if I was all right and I'd reassured him to his satisfaction that I had been thorough devastated by what he'd done to me, but that I was fine, he cupped my cheek. "I'm going to go out for a run. I want you to go back to sleep."

I opened my mouth to argue - which was pretty much an automatic response.

But his hand on my butt cheek - just there, not even squeezing or anything - had me closing it with a loud click.

"Smart girl. You still have a lot of sleep to make up for." He kissed me on the cheek and got up, completely unconcerned at his own nudity. I lay in bed, watching him surreptitiously - my breath caught in my throat at his startling male beauty - sneaking peeks at him when I knew he wasn't looking. When he was ready to go, he stood at the end of the bed, squeezing my big toe where it poked up from beneath the sheet and warning sternly, "I expect you to be asleep when I get home - not up cooking breakfast or cleaning the house or anything else, but sleeping."

I "grrrrred" at him because I felt I ought to, but, in truth, I was very nearly asleep anyway.

And I was still so when he got back. By the time I awoke, naturally, he had breakfast ready and was keeping it warm in the oven. I had thrown a robe over myself and wandered - stumbled, really - still rubbing the sleep from my eyes - out into the kitchen. He saw me from where he was reading on his iPad in the den and rose immediately to come hug me, lifting me against him to kiss me deeply. "Good afternoon, sleepyhead."

"Afternoon," I yawned and he chuckled.

"Hungry?"

My head nodded before I even thought about it, and I realized I was a bit hungry, for the first time in a very long time.

"Good." He set me down gently, reluctantly, and went to the oven and brought out scrambled eggs, bacon and muffins. "I remembered that this was your favorite breakfast, right?"

I was amazed that he had paid that much attention to me, even then. "Yes, it is, but where'd you get muffins?" I knew I didn't have any on hand, nor any mix for them.

"I jogged to Kendy's."

It was a tiny convenience store that was easily six or seven miles from here - one way.

"Oakley, you shouldn't have! That's terribly far for you to run, and the road is much too busy -"

He put one heaping plate out in front of the end chair at the snack bar and I wondered why there weren't two, but before I could ask that I found myself in his arms again, my toes dangling nearly a foot from the floor. "Not the Momma," he said firmly and we both remembered that expression from the short lived sit-com we'd all watched together and I chuckled, and he smiled, then became more serious. "I mean it, doll. I'm your dom, not your son. Let's not confuse the two."

I toyed with the collar of his t-shirt, biting my lip. "That's not going to stop me from worrying about you, though. In fact, I'll probably worry more with you as my . . . " I'd thought it, but I hadn't really said it out loud until now.

"Say it," he whispered gruffly, squeezing me tighter when I stared resolutely at his chest. "Give me those pretty eyes of yours. What am I to you?"

My eyes darted to his, and to my horror they began to fill with tears. But I knew in my heart that he more than deserved to hear it from me. So I blinked them back as best I could and said it anyway, ignoring my painfully clenched heart, wishing it hadn't come out choked instead of the fervent declaration it should have been for him. "M-my dom."

His eyes flared at my words. "You bet your very sweet ass I am. I've wanted you for so long, lovely. And now that I have you, I'll never let you go." His lips tenderly kissed away the tears that had escaped despite my best efforts and the kiss he gave me was salty and piquant with conflicting emotions he was astute enough not to bring up - and he was also gentleman enough not to mention the fact that I had stood there - in this very room not long ago at all and told him he would never be my dom.

Instead of putting me down and guiding me over to the snack bar, he walked us both there, refusing to relinquish his hold on me, settling me onto his lap instead, which, because of the condition he'd left my bottom in required a bit of adjusting to find a position I could tolerate, and then he proceeded to feed me by hand, from his plate.

"You haven't eaten yet?" I asked, dutifully accepting a bit of perfectly cooked bacon.

"No, I wanted to wait for you."

He fed me until I thought I was going to burst and I finally refused the bite of muffin - blueberry, my favorite - he offered.

His face clouded over and he didn't look happy, but I was adamant.

"If I eat another bite I'm going to throw up all over you."

His eyes narrowed at me suspiciously. "Well, all right," he relented ungraciously. "But I'm going to keep careful track of you from now on and make sure you're eating well." His finger tapped the tip of my nose. "Your days of skipping meals are over, understood?"

I rolled my eyes, but answered, "Yes, Sir."

When we were done, he set me down, cleaned up the few dishes then returned to stand in front of me with a frown. "Are you cold?" he asked.

Confused by the question, I responded, "No," then wished I hadn't when my robe was immediately whisked off my body.

He looked much happier at the sight of me standing there before him in the buff. "Naked. Much better. No more clothes in the house when I'm here, at least. I'd have you out of them in seconds, anyway, so no sense even putting them on, unless you're sick or cold."

He would have taken me back to bed, but I had things that needed doing, and he had outdoor chores awaiting him, too, and I pointed both of those things out to him, somewhat in self defense. I wasn't at all sure I would be able to live though another lovemaking session so soon. And my butt hadn't had any time to recover at all, either.

"Oh, all right," he grumbled, heading reluctantly out the door to confront the yard work.

I considered putting my robe back on, but then decided it wasn't worth another spanking if I got caught. So I did naked housework, which was a first for me. I ran the dishwasher, put in a load of whites, and ran upstairs with some new pillows I'd bought a while ago as spares that were to be stored in the bureaus in the guest rooms, going into Oakley's room - his old room, I corrected, feeling how that tickled my brain to even think that - and that was when I noticed it.

I'd given him all of the linens necessary to make his bed last night when we'd parted and he'd gone upstairs with them.

But there they were, in the same neat stack, sitting on the end of his unmade bed.

He'd never even attempted to make it, the little shit. He'd come back downstairs wearing those low slung pajama pants never intending to go back up there, I'd bet my life.

I wasn't sure exactly how I felt about that, considering how things had gone between us, but it put me out of sorts for the rest of the afternoon, making me ignore the wash and the dishwasher full of clean dishes in favor of stewing over the reality of what I'd actually done last night - and all morning - so that, when he found me in the den, I was in Paul's chair, curled in on myself, wearing the unmistakable signs that I'd spent the past hours sobbing.

Without a word, he scooped me up into his strong arms, settling me onto his lap and just holding me as I wept - inconsolably at times - my face pressed against his neck as he simply held and rocked me through the storm, as if it was something he'd wisely anticipated instead of something he was angry or worried about.