Gift of Submission Read Online Free Page A

alternative lifestyles. I’m not walking into this blind. But allowing him to give me a bath is weird. I would feel like a child, only the way he moves the sponge on my skin is the most sensual thing I’ve ever felt. There isn’t an inch he doesn’t cleanse. Yet he takes it no further, ordering me up after he’s finished, toweling me off before rubbing lotion soothingly into my skin.
    Instead of putting the chain back on me when he finishes, he clasps what I know to be a collar around my neck. It is thick, stretching my neck to the limit. There is an O-ring on the front, where he attaches a leash.
    “I told you I wouldn’t be a pet,” I grind out between my teeth. I was very clear on what I would and would not accept. However, I find I’m not at all as upset about the collar and leash as I should be.
    “And you are not, nor are you a slave,” Ash answers calmly. “You will, however, be trained.”
    I keep quiet after that, allowing him to guide me back to the room I spent the night in. It should be harder to just go along with whatever he has planned. But then, I decided a long time ago to place my trust in Ash; like the first time he let himself into my apartment. That was a major breach of privacy, but when I saw him, all frantic because I was sick, I was glad he had a key. Glad he’d come to check on me. I even loved it a little that he came to check on me.
    So I follow his lead, straight to the St. Andrew’s Cross.
    “If at any time you want to stop, just say Rudolph, and it all ends.” Ash turns me to face him, those silver orbs boring into me.
    Rudolph? Really? I can’t help it—that is funny, it being the Christmas season and all. Before I knew it, giggles bubble from my mouth. I clamp my hand over them, but it’s too late. Ash’s dead-eye stare dries the laughter quickly, though. After the last echo of sound leaves the air, he begins to wrap the leash around his fist, over and over, pulling me toward him until we are almost touching.
    “If whatever I’m doing gets to be too much, you will say what?” God, that tone! His voice is quiet, yet it has more impact than if he’d yelled. The deep pitch coupled with the crisp accent causes me to shudder.
    “Rudolph,” I reply in little more than a whisper. There is just something about the way he speaks that makes me want to obey.
    “Good girl.”
    My pussy spasms at those two little words. Yep, I’m definitely one of those submissive women I studied so much about. I’ve known that, of course—I just didn’t want to admit it. Now I’m stripped of all the trappings we all hide behind; there is no one here but me and him, and I con’t have anything, not even clothes, to hide behind. All this time, Ash has been grooming me, and I soaked up those lessons like a sponge. All I have to do is take that final step.
    I don’t complain when he faces me toward the cross. I won’t be able to see what’s going on behind me. I’m guessing it’s in part to gauge my trust. In order to soothe my fractured nerves, I take deep, cleansing breaths as he fastens my wrist to nylon cuffs. He won’t hurt me, not seriously. Still, it is so hard not to be nervous as he does the same to my ankles. His touch is quick, proficient, but impersonal. I know it’s just my imagination, but the binds feel like extensions of him, like it is his hands holding me captive. Crazy, I know.
    Once I’m secure, his touch is gone. I take comfort in the cuffs, tugging on them a little to feel the rough fabric against my skin. My mind is running in so many different directions all at once. What is he going to do? Which of the things I saw hanging on hooks will he use? Will he use— SMACK!!!
    “Shit!” Fire. His bare palm smacking against the dead center of my ass cheek brings me to my toes. Heat pools in the epicenter of the pain, quickly melting under the skin, spreading all over my body. God, I think I might be liquefying on the inside.
    Instead of another smack, Ash starts to