Claimed Darker by Em Brown
Chapter 4
DARREN
Past
“Stop picking at your stitches,” I tell her during our flight back to San Francisco. We sit in leather seats in a suite similar to the one we traveled in with Amy and JD to Thailand.
“The stitches feel so weird,” she complains. “It’s hard to imagine they’ll actually disintegrate. What if they don’t?”
“They will. And if they don’t, you see a doctor and have them taken out.”
“Okay,” she says, still fingering her lip.
I grab her hand and lower it to her lap. “What did I say?”
“That a doctor will take them out if they don’t disintegrate.”
“Before that.”
“To stop picking at them.”
“What did I say would happen if you don’t leave your stitches alone?”
She appears to comb her memory, then shakes her head. “What?”
“I said your ass was going to pay for it.”
She blushes. “Oh, right.”
I reach over and unbuckle her seat belt. “Time to pay up.”
The color drains from her cheeks just as quickly. “What?”
“I’m going to pull you over my lap, flip up your dress, and give you a spanking.”
“A…what?”
“Spanking.”
“Now?”
“Of course now.”
“You’re not serious. The staff come by like every five minutes to check on us.”
She’s exaggerating, but the flight attendants do come by often.
“So?” I respond.
Bridget blinks several times. “So you wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me.”
Her lower lip drops because she believes me. “Don’t you have any sense of—of decorum?”
“Sense of what now?”
“At least close the door for privacy.”
“Wouldn’t be as much fun that way.”
“They’ll throw us off the plane!”
I raise a skeptical brow. “We’re over the Pacific Ocean right now. And why would they want to throw us off the plane?”
“Because they don’t want to see my ass over your lap!”
“You don’t know that. They might like the view.”
Her cheeks go back to red. “They’ll have us arrested for indecent exposure when we land at SFO.”
“Not likely. And even if they did, we’d be let off with a warning.”
She crosses her arms in front of her. “So this has happened to you before.”
“Get over here.”
“I didn’t agree to this!”
“You didn’t object when I laid out the consequences. In fact, you said, ‘Okay, okay. What’s the big deal?’”
She pauses because what I said must sound familiar. “I did?”
“You did.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
She purses her lips. “Who says you get to make the rules, anyway?”
“I do.”
She rolls her eyes. “You realize that makes you a despot?”
“Do I care?”
She has a what-have-I-gotten-myself-into look in her eyes.
I cup her chin and bring her face within inches of mine. “I suggest you do what I tell you before I decide to do more than give you a spanking.”
She frowns, then tries a different tactic. “We could do more than a spanking in the privacy of the bedroom.”
“I like the thought, but I already have plans for our room.” I release her and pat my lap. “Come on, now.”
“No,” she resists. “Decent people don’t—”
I pull her over my lap.
“Oh, sh—!” she cries out, then covers her own mouth.
I smack her rump through her dress. She strains against me, but I have one hand holding her down by the neck.
“Darren, please,” Bridget says.
I slip a hand beneath her dress to caress her ass and growl, “I’m thinking we initiate you a second time into the Mile High Club.”
“Seriously, let me up!”
I rub her between her thighs, which alarms her. She picks up her struggles. I spank her again.
“Okay, okay, I learned my lesson,” she protests.
“What lesson?”
“Not to pick at my stitches.”
I push her dress up and slap a buttock. Without the extra fabric, the spank makes a sharper sound.
“Oh, damn,” she mumbles. “Darren! I won’t pick at my stitches anymore!”
“I’ve spanked you three times. That’s barely anything,” I reply, even though I know it’s not her ass that she’s worried about. It’s the horror of being seen splayed across my lap that’s the true deterrent.
“But I promise to be better.”
I grope an ass cheek. “That’s like saying you’ll try harder. I’m not interested in more effort. I want results.”
She whimpers. “I can’t guarantee I won’t unconsciously pick at my lip.”
I wallop her harder. She muffles a cry.
“Darren…”
“I think someone’s coming,” I tease.
She tries to scramble off me. Feeling her body wriggle against mine, heat collects in my groin.
“Never mind,” I say. “It was no one.”
“Ugh!” Bridget sighs with exasperation and relief. “Look, how about a bigger, better punishment if you catch me picking my lip again?”
“Bigger and better in what way?”
“I don’t know. You’re the one into this kind of stuff.”
I rub my jaw in thought. There are so many possibilities. I picture Bridget at my club—the other part of my club, for hardcore players of BDSM—tied to the St. Andrew’s cross, writhing beneath a single-tail. Next, I see a beautiful, naked woman going down on her. I imagine the woman sinking her hand into Bridget’s cunt.
Needing to adjust myself, I let Bridget up. Plus, I can see a flight attendant approaching. Bridget scrambles back into her seat. Her cheeks are bright red.
“Can I get you anything?” the female flight attendant asks with a Singaporean accent. “More tea? Another drink?”
I turn to Bridget, who quickly shakes her head, clearly wanting the attendant to be on her way.
I could be a total asshole and draw out the attendant’s stay by asking for a menu, discussing the wine list, etc., but I reply with a simple request for a Yebisu beer.
After the attendant leaves, I turn to Bridget. “Let’s talk hard limits.”
“What?”
“Before your first night at my club—the BDSM part—we should establish if you have any hard limits.”
“So we’re done with the spanking?” she asks.
“For now.”
She releases a breath of relief. “What are hard limits?”
“Something you won’t do under any circumstances. Soft limits are for things you’d rather not do but aren’t completely off the table.”
“I’ve never tried BDSM. How am I supposed to know what my limits are?”
“Let me give you an example: golden showers. Hard, soft or good to go?”
She blinks several times. “Um…hard.”
“Furniture play.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where the Dominant uses his or her submissive as furniture. For example, a sub might be used as a table to place a plate of food on, or she might serve as a footstool for her Mistress to prop her fee on.”
“That’s considered fun?”
“For some people. If you don’t like it, you can make it a hard or soft limit.”
“I guess that might be a soft limit. It sounds weird, but not dangerous or disgusting.”
“There’s also pet play or age play.”
“Soft for those, too, I guess.”
“Swinging.”
“Hard. I don’t do polyamorous relationships. I probably should’ve mentioned that earlier.”
Her face darkens in thought. Maybe she realizes I may not think the same way that she does. Even though I’m not always monogamous, I assure her, “I haven’t been with anyone else. So menages, gangbangs, and harems are hard limits.”
“For sure.”
“What about electricity or public humiliation?”
“Hard and hard.”
“Fisting.”
“Pretty sure hard. I mean, I’ve heard some people actually like it, but I can’t imagine.”
“It’s not something you usually succeed at in one go.”
“Even so, I’m going to go with hard on that one. Anything else?”
“Needle play.”
“Hard! How are needles even sexy?”
There are other elements I could list, like branding, mind fucking or Total Power Exchange, but I don’t want to scare Bridget off. I’m sure those are hard limits for her.
“That’s a good list to start with,” I say. “So here’s your punishment if I catch you picking at your stitches again: something has to come off the list of hard limits.”
