Protege(79)

He was silent as she relived the moment in her mind. Looking into Jude’s eyes, she explained, “You probably think it’s crazy for me to love a murderer, especially the one who killed my mother. Maybe I am. But they’re all separate in my mind and I can’t mingle them. He is and will always be my dad. His punishment, it’s between him and the courts and his Maker. I don’t want the responsibility of such a thing.”

“Spoken like a true submissive.”

She grinned. “I don’t. That sort of authority terrifies me.”

Leaning close, he kissed her forehead. “And what will you do if your Dom loses his way, peach?”

His words spoke of so much more than a simple question should. Her breath caught as she looked into his eyes, seeing how much emphasis he already placed on her response.

“I think I’d get lost with him, but if he was truly my Dom, we’d find each other in the dark and somehow make our way home.”

He kissed her, soft and gentle, rolling her to her back. His body fit over hers, a welcome weight she was already addicted to. He fit himself inside her, slowly bringing her to a state of fulfillment, emotionally and physically.

“Home,” he whispered, his hands gently holding her face as he kissed her again.

He made love to her with tender ease. Perhaps it wasn’t love, but it felt as if it were. With no barriers between them and the way his eyes held her as much as his arms, she was surrounded by him, his essence, his strength, and the heat of his touch reached deep inside her, blanketing her heart.

In that moment, he was not her Dom. He was simply Jude. He was vulnerable and human, and she wanted to protect him as much as he desired to protect her. Same as the need rested inside her to serve, he harbored a need to protect.

How adrift he must have felt, losing his wife. It broke her heart to imagine him, so powerful and controlled, feeling so inadequate. But what human being, man or woman, Dom or sub, didn’t know that emotion? She didn’t believe there was a person on this earth who hadn’t experienced the hollowing fear of not being enough and the actuality that sometimes they simply weren’t.

Because she was a teacher, it was her duty to educate students, not just French or reading, writing, and arithmetic, but actual life skills. She, like every teacher, was charged with the responsibility of teaching children right from wrong, kindness and understanding.

Whenever a teacher discovered a bully, there was an internal dilemma, two sides of the coin. Those who can’t show love usually need it the most and have the hardest time accepting it. Their broken hearts and battered minds don’t accept that they could be deserving of such gifts—without force—and they can’t trust the sincerity of what they’ve never truly known.

Meeting Jude was the first time she felt grounded in a long time. She wasn’t sure why or how he’d made the storm inside her settle. She only knew that he had, and the thought of letting him go and losing her ground again terrified her beyond measure. She couldn’t go back to that lost place. She just couldn’t.

Clarity came the longer she thought about it. So long as she gave him the submission he needed to exercise his dominance, he would not lose himself in the moroseness of life. They could hold each other still and thereby set each other free.

***

Over the following days so much became clear. It wasn’t that the stories she’d read online were wrong, it was that Jude was right. Right for her. He wasn’t the typical Dom, not the sort she’d read about or saw in videos. He was gentle and required very little to take command of her and elicit a response.

She reacted to his tenderness with pure eloquence. Once they really began to explore one another on a personal level, forgetting the paperwork and lists that needed to be checked, they became poetry in motion, so fluid, gliding beside one another, catching each other’s glances and raising each other up, it was too much to convey in a report.

There were moments that he was straightforward, specifically instructing her on something as simple as how to place her hands when she presented herself to him. Now, when she kneeled for him, she did so with confidence, knowing his clear instructions were reliable. He’d told her exactly how he liked her best, and she did it.

His guidance was given without harsh criticism, and he always praised her when she achieved whatever it was he asked. His praise was the air she breathed, the heat warming her lungs and guiding her heart.

He was her anchor and so long as he led her in a way she could follow, she was secure, trusting he would not reject her if she didn’t get something right the first time.

The more he explained, the more curious she became. She wanted to know the rationale behind every desire he had. Sometimes he was cheeky, teasing her about simply enjoying the sight of her body a certain way, but other times there was a very direct explanation regarding safety, which she hadn’t considered.

Today he was addressing the need for etiquette. Collette, being a southern girl, was fairly certain she had this down pat, but then Jude explained a whole bunch of stuff she hadn’t learned growing up. She understood that each Dom held his or her own version of etiquette. And her Dom was a bit of a nitpick.

“Lift your chin.”

Rising on her knees with her thighs spread apart, she elongated her neck.

“Beautiful.” His hand brushed over her shoulder. “If I were at the office all day, I would notify you when I was on my way home. You would then prepare yourself and wait. I don’t mind if you rest, but when my key slips into that lock, it’s proper to rise and greet me in this presenting pose. Nothing could please me more than coming home to such a stunning sight.”