“Do you like this mattress?”
“Yeah. It’s comfortable, good mid-range between too soft and too hard, and it’s a king-size.”
“How about I do the preliminary footwork and you can sign off on the new one before I buy it?”
I kissed her. “See how easy that was, baby?”
“How easy what was?”
“To give Sir the final decision.”
She smiled, looking sneaky. “Can I pick out the new sheets and bedframe?”
“You can pick out whatever you want. I suspect I’ll be scandalizing poor Hello Kitty sheets, but that’s totally your guilt to bear, baby.”
Chapter Fourteen
Six Months Later
Jack
I hadn’t officially proposed to Emmy yet. One of my orders to her was that when—or if—she was ready for me to, she would tell me.
That didn’t matter because I wasn’t going anywhere and, in our time together, Lilah had confided to me that Emmy was a completely different person now, in every good way imaginable.
We’d slowly developed routines, which built Emmy’s confidence in me. Sometimes it was difficult for us to arrange time alone for kinky activities at home depending on my work schedule or Lilah’s, because neither I nor Emmy wanted her to walk in on us doing shibari in the living room.
And Lilah was in agreement that she didn’t want that, either.
We’d visited Rawhide Ranch eight times since Emmy’s first visit. Lilah went with us on the last two visits, which were for classes where we drove over and back the same day.
While Lilah hadn’t asked me many questions, I know she and Emmy talked about it quite a bit.
Emmy and I even started scening in the Dungeon during our overnight visits to the Ranch, and my rope skills wereimproving. She was eager for me to reach a comfortable level of training to start doing “real” suspension with her, as she called it. All I fully suspended right now were kettle bells because like hell did I want to drop and injure Em. The farthest I’d “suspended” her was barely lifting her off the ground after tying her in a utilitarian chest and hip harness.
Ironically, I was pretty good with non-kinky rope work because I was trained in climbing and rappelling for rescue situations.
I think that frustrated her even more, because I’d put my foot down and told her that unless she was in an actual climbing harness I wouldn’t fly her in the air yet.
She’s adorable as hell when she pouts, too.
Today, Emmy was at work when Lilah returned home. I wasn’t expecting her because I thought she was supposed to work until late that evening.
Meaning she caught me in the middle of scrubbing the bathrooms, which amused the hell out of her for some reason. I’d already finished hers and the guest bath and was working on ours.
Yes, Sirs do chores if they want to.
I mean, not that Iwantto do chores, but I’m not a fucking asshole. The three of us share chores and swap them around.
Lilah leaned against the doorframe, smiling, her thumbs hooked in the armholes of her vest.
“Glad she’s got you trained, Smokey.”
That’s her latest in an endless string of well-intentioned nicknames she has for me. I didn’t mind because she reminded me of my little sister in some ways. I understood and accepted that Lilah’s way of coping with life and whatever she’d survived was to act crunchy and only trust those who didn’t give up on her and who loved her in spite of it.
“Yeah, well, I’ll never ask someone to do something I’m not willing to do myself. What’s up?”
Her smile faded as she stepped into the room. She withdrew a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and handed it to me.
