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  Collar Me in Paris

  Sidney Bristol

  What begins as Clay’s first family vacation with his new wife quickly dives into disaster. He may be the submissive in their relationship, but he’s no shy violet. Bianca has taught him the quickest way to turn her on is a challenge, so he’s throwing down the gauntlet.

  Bianca butts heads with not just her brothers, but also her husband when the family torturing begins. But the joke is on him. She’s ready to put him through the most erotic misery of all. She’ll show him who’s Dominant in their relationship until he’s screaming for more.

  Their relaxing Paris vacation turns into a mad dash through the ancient streets, a competition of wills and a new exploration of what it takes to make their relationship work. From bondage, discipline and very public orgasms to navigating the Métro, family feuds and overcoming the language barrier, they’re going to redefine the word fun.

  A Romantica® BDSM femdomme erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Collar Me in Paris

  Sidney Bristol

  Dedication

  Team Awesome, you guys make me a better writer. Suzan, Lea, Jessica, Carolyn, Sophia, Linda and Rebekah, you’re the best a girl could ask for.

  Big thanks go to Dr. Charley Ferrer and to all those who helped me tap into my inner Dominant. This was a wild ride.

  Chapter One

  Clay stared his brother-in-law in the eye. “Sure, we’ll do the race this year.” The words no sooner left his lips than he wanted to snatch them back.

  The good-natured jibes and chuckling around the dinner table stopped as if someone had pressed pause on a laugh track. All eyes bored down on him until sweat dampened the back of his neck.

  “Clay,” his wife and Mistress hissed.

  He could feel Bianca’s gaze more than the others’. It seared him, but at this point he had to brazen through it, though he avoided looking at her. He rarely went against her wishes. But this time he had. He glanced around the table at her family—Mr. and Mrs. Shoeder and his three sets of brother-in-laws with their wives.

  He cleared his throat. “It’ll be fun, right?”

  Michael, the oldest of the siblings, broke the stunned silence first. He whooped and slung an arm around his stoic wife’s shoulders. “About damn time.”

  “But if you guys race, do we have to split up the packs?” Kevin, the youngest brother, leaned toward his mother, who assured him the packs were fine.

  The rest seemed to take Kevin’s whining as some sort of signal to continue eating. There was no shortage of shifting in chairs and subtle glances across the table. Shit, what had he stepped into? He knew Bianca had abstained from the family vacation tradition since Kevin had married, thus relieving her of the duty.

  Until now.

  “I need to make some adjustments then,” her father said from his place at the head of the table. He’d already pulled out a notebook and was in the process of scribbling God only knew what.

  Kevin ripped off a piece of his roll and threw it at Bianca. It hit her in the cheek and bounced off onto her plate. “Short stack, it’s about time you played with the big boys.”

  That was bound to get a reaction. His wife was a firecracker.

  And yet she said nothing. She flicked crumbs from her face and moved the bread from her plate.

  “It’s okay if you lose this year. It’s practice for next year, when you’ll still lose.” Michael shoveled in more pasta and elbowed his wife Jennifer, who continued to scowl at him. Did the woman ever smile?

  “Don’t listen to them, I’m glad you’ll do it this year,” Jason interjected.

  “Yeah, it’ll be fun,” Amy chimed in and smiled at Bianca.

  Michael jabbed his fork at Jason and Amy. “You want them to play so you don’t come in last.”

  Why wasn’t Bianca saying anything?

  He’d never seen her this quiet, this reticent. He studied Bianca out of the corner of his eye. Her back was straight, her expression utterly blank as she continued to eat dainty bites of pasta. Her expression mirrored the one she wore when dealing with difficult clients. Utterly serene so her customers would never know how much she wanted to whip their asses.

  The pestering from her two brothers continued and still Bianca said nothing. This vacation was the first time besides their wedding that Clay had the opportunity to get to know his in-laws. As a whole, they were rowdy and loud, with a wide streak of competition coloring everything they did. Even the plane ride from Atlanta to Paris had been a contest to see who could wheedle the most free stuff from the flight attendants or get the prime aisle seat.

  “Excuse me, I’m exhausted. I’ll see everyone in the morning.” Bianca’s voice went unheard in the noisy room. Her brothers and their wives were already talking over each other about all of the things they would do while in Paris after the race.

  Clay shoved his chair back and grabbed Bianca’s. She stood gracefully and tossed him a glare over her shoulder. It promised pain and punishment, and not the kind he enjoyed.

  She was his wife and Mistress. She meant the world to him, and her disappointment devastated him. She retreated through the living room and down the hall toward the bedroom suites. He had a bad feeling about this.

  “Good night, everyone,” he said in her wake. Amy waved, but otherwise their exit went unnoticed.

  Nerves shot off warnings to his extremities as he headed for their suite. Instead of staying at a hotel, Bianca’s family had rented a luxurious apartment with enough private rooms for all five couples. He was quite frankly afraid of touching anything. Staying here was like living in an antiques store or a museum. He wasn’t accustomed to such a lavish lifestyle, but he knew a thing or two about living under the same roof as bullies. Her brothers took being competitive to a whole new level, and someone needed to stand up to them. It bothered him to see his wife silently taking all the verbal abuse.

  He didn’t know a lot about how families operated, but he didn’t care for the negative comments about Bianca.

  He stopped outside the door, knowing his wife was on the other side. Three years ago he would never have imagined he’d be married. The most he’d hoped for from his leather-clad angel had been the privilege of spending weekends with her. Theirs was not the kind of relationship easily shared with unsuspecting family members. Their engagement and quick marriage had come as a surprise to her family, but they accepted him on her word.

  He placed his hand against the canary-yellow door, pangs of guilt shooting through him. He wanted her brothers and parents to respect her, as he did. Wasn’t that what family was about? Maybe he didn’t know about the first thing about family. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of experience with this concept.

  He grasped the antique brass handle and pushed, breathing a sigh of relief when the door wasn’t locked. Not that his wife was the petty locking-her-husband-out-of-the-room kind, but sometimes he wondered if what they had was too much of a good thing. What would he ever do if B woke up and realized she could have so much better than him?

  A pile of Bianca’s shoes and pantyhose sat by the door. He could hear her rummaging through her bag in the bathroom, taking her frustration out on her toiletries and muttering to herself. He pushed the lock into place as he closed the door. The last thing he wanted right now was for her siblings to interrupt them.

  Maybe volunteering them for the race had been the wrong thing to say but he was a man with a healthy sense of competition, and he hadn’t liked how dismissive Bianca’s brothers were toward her.

  He toed off his shoes and sank to his knees, hands splayed palms down on his thighs and gaze trained on the carpet. He was beyond ready for sleep. After the flight through the night, they’d arrived early in the morning Paris time, and had spen
t the day getting settled in and shopping at Carrefour, the French version of Walmart. He listened to Bianca’s movements, the rustle of fabric as she changed, the scrub of her toothbrush and the soft thuds of her feet on the carpet. His hamstrings quivered and cramped the longer he knelt without moving.

  Bianca rarely made him wait.

  He dug his fingers into his thighs and his heart fell. He’d really screwed this up.

  Clay sensed the moment Bianca stepped across the threshold from the bathroom into the bedroom. It was an innate knowledge of her, a sensitivity to her presence, her energy. They could be in a crowded room and he’d know exactly where she was because they were connected.

  Bianca padded across the room. Her pink-painted toes and shapely calves came into view. Red lines marred where her pumps had cut into her feet. He’d make it up to her and maybe convince her the race wasn’t such a bad idea. It could be fun. And he could show her brothers B wasn’t the pushover they seemed to think she was.

  She pressed her thigh against his shoulder and leaned over him. Except there was no jingle of his collar. Instead the room plunged into darkness. Her warmth receded, leaving him in the subservient position. For several long moments he waited. Surely this wasn’t how their first day in Paris would end.

  The moments ticked by. The blankets and sheets rustled and the old bed frame squeaked as she settled in for the night.

  He licked his lips and lifted his chin. Light from the windows illuminated either side of the four-poster bed. Bianca was a lump on the left side of the bed, her back toward him.

  Clay didn’t know how to handle this. Was this a D/s problem? Or a marital relations problem? As his Mistress, Bianca had the right to allow and deny him whatever she liked. As her husband, he had the right to speak his mind. Where did one end and the other begin? He continued to study the folds of fabric draped over her body and pondered the dilemma. The two roles had never before clashed. They’d gone through six months of counseling before deciding to tie the knot in addition to his official collaring ceremony, and yet they’d never defined how to deal with situations where the roles changed.

  They’d had fights. Every couple did. But she’d never been petty before. He took pride in their ability to communicate instead of argue. Disagreements happened in the best of circumstances, but their dynamic worked. She took the lead in their relationship. He adored her and loved that she allowed him the privilege of taking care of her. For the first time he tasted disappointment, and it was bitter. His Mistress was supposed to be in charge.

  The clock mounted on the wall behind him ticked away the minutes. He shifted his weight, still feeling the post-flight cramps.

  Typically when Clay came home, he would kneel and wait for Bianca to exchange the plain, gold necklace she’d given him for a collar. It was a private part of their relationship that daily symbolized their commitment to each other. His collar sat on the bookshelf next to the door, waiting for her to put it on him.

  But Bianca was still in bed and hadn’t batted an eyelash at him. This petty behavior on her end was unprecedented.

  What did he do?

  Did he get into bed without her express permission? They were married for fuck’s sake, and he wasn’t her slave. If she was going to be a brat he didn’t know if he wanted to lie next to her. Maybe he should just sleep on the floor.

  Bianca sighed loudly and flung the blankets back. He didn’t hide that he watched her rise from the bed and stalk around to stand in front of him. In the shadows, he couldn’t read her expression to gauge her ire, but he knew her face. Pointed chin, the little widow’s peak she covered with bangs. Her dark hair was straight to her shoulders, without a hint of curl. Her green eyes were bright, intelligent and invited secrets. But they wouldn’t invite them now.

  She reached for the collar she’d placed on the bookshelves bracketing the door when they’d gone to dinner. The heavy buckles scraped the wood and jangled in her hands. She stepped to the side and light from the windows landed on her face. He met her glare head-on and she didn’t even correct him.

  She wrapped the collar around his neck and fastened the buckles, leaving it loose enough she could slip her fingers between the nylon and his neck to draw the gold chain up. Usually she would present the collar to him and he would kiss the closure, a symbol of how special their relationship was. But not tonight. She pulled the chain up and fumbled with the clasp, muttering under her breath until she was able to remove the necklace, then placed it where the collar had been.

  “Get into bed.”

  He stood but did not obey. Her underlying anger made him edgy. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Do you?” she snapped.

  He rocked back on his heels and stared down at his wife. Clearly he’d misinterpreted how angry she was. Judging by the way she crossed her arms and closed herself off from him, this was bad. “I don’t want you to be upset.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have told my family we would do this stupid race.”

  “I thought it would be fun.” What was the big deal?

  “That’s because you’ve never had to do one of these things. I just wanted to go on vacation and have fun. Now we’re going to spend the whole thing running around this damn city. I don’t want to talk about it. We’re doing it now. Whatever. Go to sleep.”

  She turned her back on him and returned to bed. He stared at her for a moment before slowly going to the other side of the mattress and slipping in beside her.

  She hadn’t punished him.

  He’d broken protocol, but so had she.

  Clay couldn’t remember the last time they’d gone to bed angry. This was not how he’d envisioned beginning their vacation.

  * * * * *

  Bianca jabbed the bobby pin into her hair and resolutely did not acknowledge her husband as the elevator slowly descended. She was cranky and taking it out on him. He didn’t deserve her piss-poor attitude, but she didn’t want to do the race. Before her brothers got hitched, she’d had to team up with one of them and every time she’d been blamed for losing the race. Her mandatory participation had been her parents’ misguided attempt to make their parenting equal across the four of them. She loved her mom and dad, but each and every race had been an exercise in misery for her.

  One year she’d gotten food poisoning and had to keep going. Another Michael had pushed her off a curb and she’d fallen and got a concussion. Still, there were some things that were harder for her to do. She wasn’t a six-foot glamazon to rival her brothers. Barely over five foot and a hundred pounds soaking wet, she knew her limitations. Had, in fact, heard them recited quite often growing up from everyone except her family. In that they’d tried to do one thing right. Her parents never believed that just because she was smaller and weaker that she should be held to anything but the same standards as her siblings.

  She’d seen the light at the end of the tunnel when Michael was the first to get married. She’d begun rooting for Kevin to marry his college sweetheart Heather, in part because she was that much closer to not having to play, and because Heather was a professional volleyball player. Her competitive streak matched the family’s, unlike Bianca, who had no desire to frustrate herself further by butting heads with her siblings. When Jason and Amy finally got married, she’d been so relieved there wasn’t room for her, she’d almost cried, though she’d never admit it.

  It was hard to reconcile her personal life with Clay, and her family. She’d never expected them to make it so long, much less to lose her heart to this man. As far as her parents knew, they’d been together maybe two years, not three. Explaining how they met, their relationship—was out of the question. Her family would never understand how the moment she’d laid eyes on him in a BDSM club she’d known he would change her life.

  She glanced at Clay’s broad shoulders. His chestnut hair was getting a little shaggy and she liked it. Liked to run her fingers through it and give it a tug now and then. His eyes were dark, inky pools, so brown they were almost bl
ack. A strong kind gaze, and his features matched. Square jaw, a slight cleft in his chin and a muscle in his cheek that jumped on the rare occasion he was angry.

  Even with his shirt and jacket on, she could trace the scars from memory. She would never know the origins of some of those scars. He couldn’t tell which were from BDSM scenes gone too far and which were from the rough life he’d lived in foster care and halfway houses before getting his feet under him.

  She hated every one of those marks, but mostly she hated the three lashes under his left shoulder blade. She’d stitched those up herself the night they met. She’d marched him out of the club and away from the fraud whom he’d called Mistress at the time. Their very first fight had been about going to a doctor or not. He’d won that round.

  They’d begun wrong, doing everything a sane person in the BDSM community would not. Was it time they paid the price? Was this a learning phase they needed to grow through? Despite being together for three years, they hadn’t been married long. Not even a year. Things were changing.

  The elevator dinged, signaling the ground floor. The doors slid open and eight pairs of eyes turned to them.

  “Nice of you to join us.” Heather was completely decked out in sneakers, sweatpants and a USA jacket. Probably all leftovers from some volleyball something or other. It was no secret she and her partner were aiming to try out for the Olympics next time around. In comparison to her, Bianca was in sad shape. Sure, she had comfortable shoes, but she’d packed for leisurely sightseeing, not breakneck racing.

  She so did not want to be here.

  “My fault,” Clay said.

  Her father’s gaze flicked from Clay to her, his irritation clear as day. “All right, let’s get started.”

  “We’ve packed bags with everything each team will need for the day,” her mother began to explain. Native Parisians leaving the apartment building gave them odd looks. Bianca didn’t blame them.