The light creeping through the window slowly softened, gently shooing the darkness away. The room was done in muted greens and grays, a masculine feel that still managed to be homey and comforting.
The bed stood proud against the far wall, framed by nightstands in a warm wood that matched the trim and dresser. And just to the side, tucked in near the corner, was a tangle of blankets and pillows laid atop a thick, fleece-lined cushion.
James heard Pup's growls emanating from that cocoon of bedding before he heard the buzz of the alarm clock she was growling at. It was six in the morning, and Pup, for all of her attributes, was not a morning pet.
He silenced the alarm and glanced over at her bed just in time to see her bury herself in her blankets until only the tip of her nose was sticking out. James had to smile at that, watching his pup in her little nest. He'd put her there himself last night after she'd fallen asleep in his arms.
James had raised an eyebrow at that rule when she'd first told him. He could kiss her, touch her, fuck her, punish her - but he couldn't sleep beside her. That privilege was reserved for Holt alone. It had stung a little at first, but she was always going to be Holt's before she was his, and James knew it.
So, to make it sting less, he had turned it into a rule. Now Pup wasn't allowed on any of the furniture in his house without permission, and she slept on a dog bed, comfortably stuffed and lined with fleece, piled with all of the fluff she could ask for.
And wouldn't he love to join her, he thought to himself as he plodded toward the shower. If her period had showed up on time, he would have. He had taken Friday off in anticipation of staying home with Pup, thinking her cycle was due Thursday. Its early arrival was inconvenient, since he had to work today. There were too many client meetings, too many projects, to justify taking off.
Pup was blinking herself awake by the time he was finished showering and dressing. James knelt down to kiss her forehead.
"Good morning, puppy," he murmured. "How's my girl? How'd you do with the plug?"
Pup blushed, which was always a delightful sight, and whined a little.
"Did it come out?"
She nodded, shame-faced. James kissed her head again to ease her fears.
"It's okay, pup. I told you that might happen. Turn around, ass in the air."
He made her hold the position while he retrieved the bottle of lube from beneath the bathroom sink. Walking back to her bed, with her rounded cheeks held high, made him hard, and he couldn't stop himself from running a hand over her skin as she knelt. He dug through the blankets until he found the plug and gently pressed it back inside of Pup's ass. She shivered as it slid home.
"Good girl," James praised. "Heel."
She followed him downstairs, taking just a minute to negotiate the stairs on all fours. He set to work cooking breakfast, and chuckled when Pup perked up considerably as he poured coffee into her bowl on the floor.
James liked the simplicity of their morning routine, the quiet ritual of it. He made scrambled eggs and bacon, and filled Pup's bowl with a portion of the former. She ate her breakfast from her mat and he ate his at the table, a copy of the
Times
beside his plate so he could scan the sports and politics section. When she was finished, she wandered over to his chair and sat at his feet, looking up with doleful eyes until he relented and fed her a piece of bacon. She politely took it from his fingers with her mouth, being careful not to catch his skin in her teeth.
It was quiet, domestic, and relaxing. For as much as he enjoyed using her body, James sometimes wondered if he actually loved the simple moments like this more. Especially when she nuzzled his thigh to express her contentment and happiness, like she was doing now.
It hurt to pull away from her, to stand up and clean the breakfast dishes and prepare to leave. Pup padded after him to the front door, where she watched him put on his shoes and slip his wallet, keys, and phone into his pocket.
James knelt beside her to stroke her hair and face in farewell.
"I'm going to call you today, Pup," he warned. "Make sure you have your cell phone with you at all times. It's in the box of toys Holt sent over with you. I put it in your room upstairs."
She yipped in acknowledgement, and licked his hand just to see him grin.
"One more thing. Stay here," he ordered. Pup cocked her head and watched him jog up the stairs. He returned a moment later with another plug and lube in hand.
"Ass up," he directed. His cock grew harder as he watched his puppy get into position, her breasts pressed to the hardwood and her bottom high. Gently, so gently, he eased the slim plug from her tight hole. She shivered as it left her.
"Relax," he reminded her as he began to work the new plug inside. This one was slightly larger than the first, though still thin enough that Pup would have to concentrate to keep it inside of her today while he was away. James liked the thought, and caught himself smiling at a mental image of her pressing the plug inside of her, seating it deeper in her ass, a pained expression on her face making way for a bit of pleasure as it stimulated her ...
He stopped that line of thought immediately. He was going to be late otherwise.
"Be good," he said. "Keep the phone nearby. I'll be home around six."
He smiled as she barked her goodbye.
Pup watched from the window as James' car pulled into the street. She didn't think he would call right away, but even so, she clambered up the stairs and found her room so she could pull out her phone.
Holt and James had both insisted that she have her own space, a safe place, where she could retreat from them if she needed to. It was never to be used to avoid punishment, but if Pup needed time to be Hannah, she could go upstairs and into her room and shed her puppy mind completely.
Her room in James' house was a thing of beauty. It had started as his old exercise room, but after the first trial month that she had stayed with him, James had moved his treadmill and weight rack to the basement and told her to re-do the room to suit her needs.
Now the walls were a pretty slate blue above the thick cream carpet, and the baseboards and closet door were a warm shade of wood that just felt friendly to her. She'd installed a desk in the corner, perfect for her laptop. The headboard of the double bed and the desk were made of the same wood, and she'd covered the bed in a warm white quilt with splashes of blue and yellow.
And if it looked like a guest room, that was fine. No one had to know this was where James' submissive puppy retreated when she wanted down time. She had laughed uproariously when James told her how impressed his mother had been when she saw the new room, and praised him for seeing to the needs of visitors.
Her crate was in the corner by the closet. Hannah opened the toy box Holt had tucked inside and pulled out her cell phone and its charger. It was full of the usual nonsense notifications - did anyone really need to be notified any time Huffington Post sent out a tweet? - and she cleared those with a flick of her thumb.
She turned up the volume so she could hear it over the sound of the shower, but it remained silent while she cleaned up and dried off. She caught herself turning toward it as she brushed out her hair, or trying to keep it in the corner of her eye as she hung up her towel.
She didn't dress. She may have been Hannah inside of her room, but Hannah still had rules and one of them was that she was to be naked at all times, unless instructed otherwise.
Hannah was never certain if James meant to build anticipation like this, or if it was just a happy side effect of his orders. All morning she would be waiting for that phone to ring, and the thought of what he might say, what he might tell her to do in his absence, made her wet. The plug in her ass didn't help, either. Whenever she moved she could feel it within her, shifting just enough that she was always reaching back with two fingers to make sure it was seated properly. The act was a reminder of him, of his fingers on her skin when he stroked her this morning.
It wasn't bad, was all that she could say about it. Hannah wasn't sure how much she actually liked having the plug lodged inside of her, but it didn't hurt, beyond that initial stretch when James pushed through her clenching muscles before he reminded her to relax. This one was slightly larger than what he had used last night, but already that burning feeling it created had faded.
She wasn't so foolish to think that it would stop here.
James had said he would train her ass all of this week. She wasn't entirely sure what exactly that entailed, but common sense said it would end with his cock in her virgin passage. She wasn't sure how to feel about that either. Nervous, absolutely, even approaching scared if she thought about it for too long.
That the thought made her soaking wet was also something she was still puzzling through.
She tried to put it from her mind and focus on her work, even as she brought the cell phone over to the desk so it would be within easy reach when James did finally call.
Work was routine, if a little mundane. Hannah answered emails, updated her website, and assured one of her more finicky clients that yes, the flyers he had ordered would be ready on time, now please stop asking about it. She was proud of the business she'd built; Uprising LLC was a year old but already starting to get some name recognition, if not praise, in small business circles. She'd put in her time at an advertising firm, but the freedom that came with freelance graphic design and owning her own design business, the ability to set her own hours and take on projects that truly interested her, was too great an allure.
And there was something satisfying about taking the ideas from her head and committing them to paper - or pixel, as it were. Hannah's lips curved into a smile as she put the finishing touches on her latest logo design in Photoshop. Her client was the Howard half of the Ibsen and Howard Investment Firm, and he had ordered something elegant and formal to reflect the prestige of the partnership.
Not that it had that much prestige, or he would have gone to a bigger designer, but they were just starting out. Hannah had liked Mr. Howard and was very much on board with his ambition to support local business. The trickiest part of the whole project had been incorporating their initials without making the logo read HI!
One edge trimmed in black here, and shade the gold a little darker there, and -
And the phone rang.
Just the sound cutting through the still air was enough to give her a kick of adrenaline. Her heart beat faster when James' name flashed on the screen.
She was grinning as she accepted the call and held the phone to her ear.
"Hello, Hannah," James said, his voice warm and firm from the other end of the line.
"Hello, sir," she answered back, a little breathless with excitement.
"How is the plug feeling?"
"To be honest, sir, I barely even notice it anymore." And how strange was that, she mused, that something that seemed so large and significant only a few hours ago was now so familiar that she barely spared it a thought?
"We'll have to see what we can do about that," James said, his voice both ominous and thrilling. "Hannah, I have some orders for you. Are you ready to follow them?"
"I'm always ready, sir," she reminded him, fully aware he could hear the smile in her voice.
