The hobby, p.1
The Hobby, page 1
THE HOBBY
CAROLYN FAULKNER
Published by Blushing Books
An Imprint of
ABCD Graphics and Design, Inc.
A Virginia Corporation
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Charlottesville, VA 22901
©2020
All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The trademark Blushing Books is pending in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
The Hobby
Carolyn Faulkner
EBook ISBN:
Print ISBN:
Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design
This book contains fantasy themes appropriate for mature readers only. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual sexual activity.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Carolyn Faulkner
Blushing Books
Blushing Books Newsletter
Chapter 1
She started at the knock on the door, although she had no real right to, since it was hardly unexpected.
Early bird that she was, she'd been sitting there for quite some time, in various tense and uncomfortable positions, moving from the easy chair to the pseudo-office chair to the couch, then back to the easy chair, and even occasionally, motivated by her own sheer nervousness to actually pace back and forth in front of the window. And anyone who looked at her would immediately know that pacing wasn't something she did very often.
Brielle Daley rose from her tentative perch on the window sill and headed to the door, wondering with every step what the hell it was that she thought she was doing.
Sooner than she wanted, she arrived there, in time to hear a slightly more insistent round of knocks.
Taking several steps away—although she couldn't have said why—she said, "I'm here. Just a sec."
Straightening her comfortable, sensible ensemble of a non-descript blouse and skirt—topped off with a pair of shoes that looked like they could have belonged to her nana—she smoothed imaginary wrinkles out of her outfit and again stood in front of the door. She felt as if she were a schoolgirl who had been sent to the principal for some kind of infraction.
But she wouldn't really know how that felt, since she had been a model student—a brown noser of the highest order, frankly; ever eager to please—and had never once been subject to any kind of discipline during any of her school years.
And if that scenario were true, she would be the one knocking on his door.
Standing there perseverating about things like that wasn't helping her any—if anything, it was making her feel even more nervous than she had before. So she forced herself to take a breath, look through the peephole, flick the little ball-catchy thingy above the handle, and open the door.
He was standing there in a suit that looked like it cost more than her condo, but then she knew that couldn't be the case. She didn't think gigolos made that kind of money—although she could be wrong.
And the briefcase he was holding had definitely seen better days.
Still, he'd managed—by simply appearing there, where she'd contracted for him to be—to make her feel like a dowdy old maid. Bri didn't know what she thought he'd wear to this weird meeting of theirs, but she guessed it wasn't a suit.
"Hello, Jennifer," he said smoothly. It was kind of jarring to hear that name in reference to herself, but she was more than smart enough not to use her real name in that kind of situation.
She'd always loved a British accent, having seen every possible period drama the BBC and its affiliates ever offered. She hadn't seen that noted on his profile, which was surprising. It certainly would have been a selling point for her and a lot of other women, too, she would imagine.
Normally, she found it infinitely soothing but, at the same time, incredibly sexy.
But that didn't translate to in-person, apparently.
The truth was that there was pretty much nothing that was going to calm her anxiety about what she was doing, except—perhaps—to stop doing it and send him packing.
But now that he was right there—close enough for her to smell his incredibly wonderful aftershave—she couldn't quite bring herself to say the words that would do that.
Instead, she stood there, her instantly Sahara dry mouth hanging open unbecomingly as she gaped at him. He was even more handsome than she'd thought from his picture, which merely ratcheted up her stress level from the "I might maybe survive this" to the "run for your life" level.
Without saying a word—because she didn't have the spit necessary to do so, and she'd rather not have him think that she was pre-verbal—Bri turned and headed into the room, which wasn't something she necessarily wanted to do, but if she didn't sit down quickly, she was going to faint.
She'd been pale when she'd opened the door, and she'd only grown paler—if that was even possible—in the few seconds since she'd let him in. Branson Keller followed her into the room, closing and locking the two available locks on the door before using his long legs to eat up the carpet between them, worried that he might need to catch her if she crumpled to the floor, and it looked like that was a real possibility.
She literally dropped into one of the occasional chairs, and he could see how hard she was shaking long before he got to her.
Tucking his briefcase next to the sofa, he dropped gracefully to one knee in front of her— but carefully not crowding her— asking in a calm, quiet tone, "Jenny, are you all right?"
"No!" she panted. "I don't think that I can do this!" she barely got out, drawing a ragged breath between each word.
"Let's not worry about that at the moment. I want to get you calmed down." He glanced around the room, noting that there was an honor bar, which he crossed to immediately. Upon perusing the offerings, he took a couple of the pony bottles of low priced— but somehow still outrageously expensive—whiskey. Grabbing the glass that had the pretty fluted paper cap on it, he poured the amber liquid into it and presented her with the glass.
She wasn't looking at him, but at the floor instead.
"Jenny. Take a sip of this." There was a mild hint of dominance in that order.
Her auburn head came up then went right back down again. "Oh, I don't drink."
"Because of your religion?"
"No."
"Because you're allergic?"
"No."
"Why, then?"
"Because I don't like the taste," she barely got out.
Branson grimaced. He didn't like how she was breathing and knew he needed to get her to calm down. This was the quickest method he knew.
"Then I'm not asking," he said, using a much stricter tone.
Her head snapped up as if he'd given her an electric shock, eyes locking with his.
More gently, he encouraged, "Take the glass and a healthy swallow please."
Bri found the small courtesy at the end of that order surprisingly sexy, although she wasn't sure why. He was looking at her expectantly, and for the first time in her life, she knew that there was someone in front of her who wasn't going to allow her to get away with disobeying him.
That thought was both arousing and alarming, in what were pretty equal levels, at that point.
Bri had learned early that being a good student who was able to express herself well, along with being polite and mature, allowed her to have been considered a pseudo-adult for most of her life—long before she should have, really. As an only child, she'd spent most of her time around adults, anyway, and her parents treated her more as a contemporary than their child most of the time. And as long as she showed them what they wanted to see from her, she could get away with almost anything. And if they caught on to anything, she had an almost foolproof method to handle that, too, by, essentially, admitting to her wrongdoing and throwing herself on the mercy of the court.
Luckily, she didn't really have any habits for which she could end up in real trouble. Bri rebelled a bit in high school, but smoking and staying out late was the entirety of it, since she couldn't stand the taste of alcohol then, either. She did end up skipping a lot of school in order to stay home and masturbate—once she'd discovered that wonderful ability— but she was more than capable of mimicking her mother's voice to call the attendance office as her, and she made sure to make up the work she needed to before it became a problem.
Because she was so well-behaved, her parents weren't really looking for her to do anything bad—and were just as happy not to have to—and she easily got away with the small things she wanted to do without them ever knowing she'd done them.
But the man in front of her wasn't her parent, and she knew that he wouldn't be inclined to let her get away with the things she'd been getting away with all her life. In general, she knew how to get around pretty much anyone in authority—her parents, teachers, and even bosses—by extrapolating what she'd done with her parents when she was caught out after curfew.
If she did do something wrong and it got noticed, she made a rule early on not to wait to be caught, but to walk into her dad's study—or her boss's office—and confess completely and as sincerely as she could—and appare
ntly, that was pretty darned sincerely. She had obviously missed her calling and should have gone into acting. Doing so almost always eliminated any kind of negative repercussions that might have resulted in conjunction with her behavior.
Her parents were a little less impressed with her doing that, but then, she'd been doing it with them much longer. Bosses, however, were always nearly thunderstruck that she'd do that. And although she was enough of a detail-oriented person who was highly self-motivated to do well, so that kind of situation didn't crop up very often, her willingness to "own up" to whatever mistake she'd made was often mentioned in annual reviews, and she directly attributed several promotions and even more raises to doing that early on in her career.
It wasn't as if she was a coldly calculating person, though. She was pleasant and fun to work with, but also unafraid to take the lead and to do whatever was necessary to ensure that a project was done well, or a client was very happy with her willingness to go above and beyond to make sure that was true.
And she had more than enough friends, who had all come to count on her for a lot of belly laughs, as well as her willingness to be a caretaker to them when they needed it—and even when they didn't think they needed it. Bri was also known to be generous to a fault when someone was in need, even to the point of putting herself in a bind, although that happened less nowadays since her salary had risen commensurate with her abilities.
Bri could be scrupulously honest, too, especially with herself and her friends—perhaps even a bit too much with either of them. She was very hard on herself about a lot of things unnecessarily, and as she'd matured, although she'd continued to unhesitatingly admit when she'd screwed up, it was much less calculated than it had been when she was younger and much more heartfelt.
Guilt was a wonderful motivator.
The incredibly gorgeous man who was still on one knee before her wouldn't be susceptible to her trying to cajole, impress, or otherwise connive in any way that would change how he would decide to deal with her if she disobeyed him.
That was one of the reasons why she'd chosen him originally and stuck with him while they chatted online about possibly meeting. She barely knew him, but she knew that about him without the slightest doubt.
It was exactly what she needed—but was terrified of experiencing at the same time.
And yet here she was, alone in a hotel room, with him looking at her like that—just like she'd thought a Dom would, holding her eyes, staring up at her with a set—but not angry— look on his face as he waited the scant second that ticked by until she took the glass from him and downed the entire two fingers worth in one gulp.
That, of course, set her to coughing practically to the point of retching, and before she knew it, he was pressing a bottle of water into her hand. "Take a few small swallows. I don't fancy ending up at the ER tonight."
Without thinking, Bri did exactly as he suggested, and the coughing subsided.
"Feeling a bit better?" he asked, turning just enough to put the empty glass on the end table but leaving the water with her.
Bri was feeling well enough to note that he continued to remain on his knees in front of her, despite the fact that that was supposedly where she would be, in most D/s fantasies.
"Yes, thank you," she croaked. The choking had left her voice hoarse. "Oh, lovely. Now I sound like James Earl Jones."
He threw his head back and laughed heartily at that, and she found herself mesmerized by both the sound and the sight of it. He laughed as if he had never once in this lifetime ever worried about what anyone else thought of him—with a full-throated joy and abandon that Bri despaired of ever feeling, at least in regards to the situation in which she currently found herself.
"Well, you don't look like him, so we're good," he said with a grin.
"You wouldn't do James Earl Jones?"
"No, men aren't my deal. I had enough opportunities for that when I was in public school. Not that there's anything wrong with it."
Bri smiled at what she assumed was his unintentional Seinfeld reference. "I know. I just love his voice. He wouldn't even have to touch me to get me off—he could just talk to me from across the room." She actually shivered, and he knew that she hadn't even realized she'd done it.
But he certainly had.
"I'm very," she pronounced the word very carefully, "aural." Bri immediately went to explain, "That means— "
"I know what it means, Jenny," he informed her smoothly.
She colored prettily. "Of course, you do. You probably have a much better education than I do, being British."
"Is that a matter of concern to you?" he asked, moving to sit on the couch, opposite her.
"Well, it's going to make me sound like a prig, but yes. I like smart people. That was one of the things that I really liked about your profile on the site—no grammatical or spelling errors. I mean, there's a spellchecker built into the site, for fuck's sake—use it!"
He gave her a small smile. "Well, I'm glad you saw something that caught your eye about me."
"That, and you're intimidatingly gorgeous."
"Intimidatingly?" he repeated, with a question in his voice.
"Oh, yes. I mean, when I responded to your ad, I did it on a complete whim. I really never expected to hear back from you."
Dom frowned. "Why not?"
She could feel that her face was bright red. "C'mon. You're gorgeous and I'm… not. You must have zillions of women on that app who are willing to pay big bucks to be with you." It had amazed her just how affordable his hourly rate was, too. That was another reason why she had chosen him, not that she was going to tell him that. "Do you mind if I ask how many clients you've had—or have?"
"Several." His answer was maddeningly vague. Several just now? Several over the time he'd been in that particular profession, if that was what it should be called? Bri really wanted to get him talking about what he did for a living, but she could sense that he didn't want to, so she let it go.
"Is Dom your real name?"
"No. It's what I am, and I think it's easier for people to remember, just because of that." His eyes narrowed on her, and she tensed, surprised to find that she had relaxed almost completely until then. "And Jennifer had better not be your real name, either."
"No, it's not. I've done everything the Innerwebs says I should do to make sure I'm safe." The fact that—before they'd met—he'd been very insistent that she do all of those things in regards to her own safety had made her feel that much better about seeing him.
Her phone began to chime a reminder for her to text a friend—well, more of an acquaintance, because none of her friends had any idea that she was there. "Speaking of which," she said, sending a quick text that she was fine.
"Very good."
It was impossible for her not to feel a certain sense of accomplishment at that bit of praise. She was still that same people pleaser she'd always been, at heart, although nowadays, since she'd moved into management, she had to do less of that.
"Are you feeling better? More relaxed?"
"Yes, I am."
"Next time, don't try to drink it all at once."
"You said a healthy swallow!" She leaned forward to argue automatically, then shrank back, as if she expected him to grab her and begin whaling on her when she'd done that.
Bran really didn't like the slightly terrified look she was wearing, although he completely understood it, and he also understood that pointing it out to her would only make her just that much more uncomfortable. So, instead, he leaned back on the couch, perched an ankle on his knee and said, purely experimentally—because he knew exactly what she was going to say—"Do you want to come sit on the couch with me?"
He immediately began to wave his hand in front of himself when he literally watched her tense back up again. "I retract that. I know you don't want to. Don't worry about it. In fact, I know you won't be able to do this, but you don't have to worry about anything—that's one of the best things about being a sub. You really don't have to worry about anything. That's what I'm for."
