Free Little Tease by Amy Valenti

Matt. My heart sank, but I’d made this bed. It was time to go and lie in it. “Feel like some voyeurism?”
    “ Why, Josh! I thought you’d never ask!” She bounced upright and offered me her arm, and we headed into the dungeon’s spectators’ area together.
    Lena and her top for the night were nowhere to be seen, so we watched the scenes already being played out. Some of our friends were in there, and others were new faces, or familiar faces whose identities I’d never learned. There was a particularly skilful scene with poi floggers taking place in one corner, and I admired the Domme’s technique, temporarily forgetting my troubles.
    When the scene I was watching reached a lull, I scanned the play area again for signs of Lena. Finding none, I glanced around for Alex, but she’d slipped away at some point.
    Then an approaching figure caught my eye, as familiar to me as breathing and a hell of a lot sexier. Lena—and she was alone.
    Unsure what was going on, I waited for her to reach me and then raised an eyebrow. “Thought you’d be in there by now.”
    She pulled me away from the throng of voyeurs, into a quiet spot where we could talk unheard. Once we were there, she sat opposite me hesitantly, as if she was unsure of her own actions. “I’m not gonna play with Matt tonight.”
    A stronger sense of relief than I’d been expecting swept through my body, and I tried not to let it show on my face. “Leaving it for next time?”
    She shook her head. “He won’t be around. He’s only in town for a week.”
    I couldn’t deny I was glad. I didn’t tell her that, though; it wasn’t my place. “There a reason you’re telling me this, Lena?”
    “ Yes.”
    I kept quiet until she was ready to continue, and when her words came, they were worth the wait.
    “ Because after all these months of holding out on you… of enduring the speculation and the bets and the stares and the objectification… of needing to lay aside my dominance… of wanting to be taken in hand…” She shook her head with a one-shouldered shrug. “That isn’t something I’d throw away for the sake of one nostalgic scene with a friend. Because when I submit, I want it to be completely.”
    While I gazed at her, kept mute by a growing sense of anticipation, she got to her feet and stepped in closer to me.
    “ And I want it to be amazing.” The expression on her face took my breath away. It was intense and beautiful and serious and joyful all at once, and I ached to touch her, to kiss her, to collar her.
    She sank to her knees beside my chair, her gaze never wavering from mine. “And I want it to be you.”
    She laced her fingers together behind her back, sitting on her heels, still looking up at me. “And this isn’t because I’m proving something to Matt. Or to anyone else. The only one whose opinion I care about is yours.”
    I reached out to cup her face with my hand, and she turned her cheek into my palm, her eyes fluttering closed as if she was relishing the touch. It was only for a moment, and then she forced them open again, taking a deep breath and continuing, “I didn’t want to give myself to anyone else, even casually… because I love you.”
    I hadn’t been expecting her to say it, and the surge of emotion that swept through me in response was powerful and jubilant. Finally…
    Dropping her gaze from mine, she lowered her head, her voice strong and unwavering, despite her submissive posture. “Sir.”
    Everything I could have wanted in a woman was kneeling before me, honest and vulnerable and proud of her instincts and emotions. I responded in the way I’d wanted to for months, without thinking. There wasn’t anything left to think about.
     
    * * * *
     
    Lena
     
    My heart pounding and my breath shaking slightly, I waited for Josh’s reaction, alert for every sound and movement he might make. I’d bared my soul, and now it was his turn.
    Tugging on the chain necklace around my throat, he coaxed me into