The Dom Project by Heloise Belleau, Solace Ames

best: strict, old-fashioned, trim and elegant and straight to the point.
    She nodded. He picked up a hint of eagerness in the motion. It’s not for you , he told himself. It’s for what’s she feeling . His almost painfully hard cock still throbbed, but he was wearing thick jeans tonight, so she wouldn’t notice.
    He had a feeling these jeans would become a mainstay of their sessions.
    He struck again. The same place. As a rule, the cane hurt twice: once coming, second going. That second hurt had her arching minutely toward him and letting out a delightful sharp little gasp.
    “Lower, now.” Again. No gasp this time; she was expecting it. Now there were two matching pink streaks across her ass. John eyed them critically. The one below wasn’t quite parallel; he couldn’t have that, not for what he had in mind later.
    Well, maybe strict geometry wasn’t in the cards for tonight. An informal, asymmetric composition was more his style. He struck again, faster and harder. The percussive snap of the blows held its own savage charm.
    He stopped, letting the sound fade, then stroked across the streaks as if the cane tip was a lover’s trailing finger. Pausing, he listened attentively to the music of her labored breathing, then struck again.
    And again, until the streaks melted each other, becoming a pink-crimson field of color. Marking her, but not marring her. Making her more beautiful.
    “Oh...” Robin said—a word, not a cry, so he waited for her to finish, but she didn’t.
    “Turn around.”
    When she finally did, bracing herself against the counter behind her for balance, and he saw her hair was mussed and her pupils were blown, lips parted and color high in her cheeks—he gripped the cane hard between his hands, trying to transfer all his energy into its quivering length so that he didn’t do something stupid like press himself against her, taking her like the lover she couldn’t be.
    God, he needed to take a picture of her right now. Not the marks on her thighs, but her face , so dazed and breathless. “Stay there. Right there.”
    He walked backward toward the kitchen’s entrance, afraid that if he took his eyes off her even a second, the moment would pass. But she didn’t shift, and her expression didn’t change. Her wide blinking eyes just followed him as he moved.
    He had a Nikon with a portrait lens in the living room. He should have brought it with him, but he hadn’t expected this. He’d planned to have her pose for him at the end of their session, pretty and perfect and well lit, but now he needed to capture this moment, in all its imperfection. He’d have to go without the flash on this one, shoot with a high ISO, embrace the graininess of the image the same way he embraced the way her mascara had flaked off under her eyes.
    He took up the camera and walked back toward her, shooting all the way.
    “What...what are you doing?” Her voice was soft and low and distant. He waited for her to safeword, to end the whole affair, but she didn’t.
    “This is for you.” He lowered the camera, holding it like an offering. She wasn’t in the space to accept it yet; she simply stood there and blinked, still holding up her skirt, her tantalizing plum-sized breasts rising and falling with every breath, bobbing right out of the goddamn lingerie he wanted more than anything else to pull off her.
    So he put the camera on the counter next to the gleaming candlesticks, took her hand and led her to the couch. She followed hesitantly but gracefully, her pulse beating strong beneath his fingertips. He guided her to sit down, wrapped a cotton throw around her shoulders, sat down beside her and held her loosely. Almost touching skin-to-skin. So close, so close it hurt, but he knew how to handle pain, didn’t he?
    “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”
    “I know. You’re just coming down now, right?” She was trembling softly. She probably didn’t even know.
    “Yes.” She kicked off her shoes and