“I’ll text you when I wake up,” I told him, walking the scant distance to my house.
I punched in my alarm code. I had splurged and purchased the best security system I could afford. It was important that my house feel like a safe place for me, so the peace of mind the system brought me was well worth the cost of it.
I unlocked the gated door, and the two locks on the actual door. I did the same routine on the other side, padding to the inside security panel and punching in my code.
I had thirty seconds to get the code in before an automatic alarm went off and the security dispatch station would give me a call, and put out a call to law enforcement. I had made the timer particularly short because it made me feel more secure.
I headed back into my bedroom, satisfied that the house was secure for my nap.
The last few days had been overwhelming. I barely got undressed before I was laying on my bed, and asleep in an instant.
I awoke in a near stupor, bleary eyes taking long moments to read my bedside clock. That couldn’t be right, I thought. It was showing 3:44 p.m. I had crashed just before 10 a.m, with the intention to sleep for two hours. Dammit. I’d forgotten to set an alarm.
I was digging my phone out almost immediately, texting Stephan.
Bianca: I’m so sorry. I overslept. Errands on monday?
He had responded by the time I was done in the bathroom.
Stephan: No worries. Monday sounds great. Got a hot date tonight?
Bianca: Seeing James. Not a date.
Stephan: Well, good luck, B. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll see you in the morning.
Bianca: Kk. We r leaving at 5:45am in my car, right?
Stephan: Yep
I set to work packing, and then re-packing my small flight bag for the DC turn in the morning.
A turn was when we flew somewhere, usually on the east coast for us, then turned around and came immediately back. It was the best way to work a lot of hours on our job, but it could easily be a fourteen hour or longer day if we had even a slight delay. This turn was a part of our set weekly schedule, but we often picked up extra turns on our days off to get overtime.
My mortgage was reasonable, and fit into my budget, but I was trying to replenish the savings I had depleted almost completely in order to put a down payment on my house, and then the extra costs of a few upgrades and repairs to the house.
It made me very nervous to live paycheck to paycheck, so I was quickly trying to rectify the situation. I would have three days total off for the week, and planned to pick up extra hours on at least one of them.
I hung the work clothes that I had uncharacteristically strewn all over the floor into a dry cleaning bag. I had many uniforms, but at least half of them needed a trip to the dry cleaner.
I gathered them up and put them in my car, planning to stop by on the way to James’s house. We got a small dry cleaning allowance from the company. They wanted us to look polished on the job, but it didn’t cover even half of the cost that I spent at the cleaners. Perhaps it was all of those extra hours I worked that wracked my dry cleaning bill up so high…
I showered and washed my hair. I shaved just about every part of my body, the actions giving me a feeling of anticipation that they never had before. I always shaved my legs. But I’d never done it for a man before. I felt odd, so unlike myself.
I rubbed oil and then lotion into my skin, and left my hair to air dry. I could do some painting outside while it was wet. Las Vegas in the late spring was like nature’s hair dryer.
I wore a baggy old teal-colored cotton sundress outside to paint. It was comfortable and I didn’t really care if it got some paint on it, so I often wore it and several other threadbare dresses when I painted.
My backyard was small, but it had high walls. This made it fairly private, so I could wear what I wanted. I hadn’t worn underwear. I often didn’t if I was just puttering around the house by myself, but today it felt different.
I moved my easel around, and felt the brush of my breasts against my threadbare dress in a completely new way. It was like James could do foreplay without even being present. I was priming myself for him with no effort on his part. It wasn’t fair for anyone to be that wickedly attractive. I kept picturing the way he had looked at me while he put that handkerchief to his face, brazenly inhaling it. I shivered at just the thought. I kept thinking about his spanking threats, as well. In fact, I thought of that the most.
Would he do that tonight? Would he spank me and then take my virginity? And tie me up? In what order? I squeezed my legs together just at the thought. The not knowing was a pull to me, even if it did frighten me.
If I was honest with myself, being frightened was a pull for me as well. I knew James could take me to some dark places, but I would find pleasure there, and I wanted that.
I had a board mounted with some watercolor paper that I had prepped before I left. I began to paint with an uncharacteristically short amount of prep. Usually I did a lot of sketching and planning, taking pictures and pinning them up. But today, I just painted. I knew exactly where to start.
I mixed some blue, a bright azure with a watery aquamarine and then added a touch of green. It didn’t take long to mix exactly what I wanted, a vivid turquoise blue that I shaped into a pair of eyes that I couldn’t get out of my head.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mr. Dominant
I got caught up painting, and so lost track of time. When I noticed the time, I cursed. I was actually running late, which I never did. Now it had happened twice in two days.
That can’t become a habit, I thought. It was hell on my nerves.