Page 89 of Minha Dona

Helena let herself into the pool house quietly and found Caitlin still asleep, exactly as she’d left her. She stood in the bedroom doorway watching her breathe and thought about tonight… Juliana’s hands, Caitlin’s eyes, the lioness choosing to kneel.

The fear was there, naturally, but the excitement was far, far greater.

Chapter 33

It started at breakfast.

Helena was pouring coffee at the kitchen counter in the main house when Juliana appeared next to her, reaching past her for a glass just as she had dozens of times over the years when she’d come on their family weekends away. Her arm brushed Helena’s chest in a way that nobody else could see and Juliana leaned in, her lips close to Helena’s ear.

“Wear your hair up tonight, Leoa.”

That name made Helena shiver in anticipation. Nobody else at the breakfast table would know, nobody could know. Leoa. Lioness. The name that Juliana had given her in the alley that time when she’d claimed what she’d wanted and Helena had given her everything, anything, that moment that Helena had known that she could never be Juliana’s dominant, only her submissive. She thought back to the last time Juliana had called her that, just before Miami… Helena’s wrists tied, lying on her front, Juliana’s hand on her rear while her other teased and toyed with her. Minha Leoa. Even on your front, helpless, mine, you look like you could eat me alive.

Hearing it now, at ten o’clock in the morning, over breakfast, with Mariana three yards away arguing with Thiago about how long to cook the toast for… it was a statement. It was starting now.

“Hair up,” Helena repeated quietly.

“I want to see your neck.” Juliana poured herself some juice and walked away without looking back.

Helena stood at the counter, her heart racing, and thought: she’s not playing at this. She’s not warming up or testing the water. She knows exactly what she’s doing and she’s been thinking about it since our dawn conversation on the beach.

She glanced over to see Caitlin watching her over the rim of her coffee mug with an amused expression, before she looked away when Camila asked her a question. Good, they must have spoken, she’s fully in on this.

It was the first indication of something that would crystallise as the day went on… Helena had been thinking of this as a performance and a favour to Caitlin and to each other, complete surrender so that Caitlin could see. But Juliana wasn’t approaching it that way. She was approaching it as her dominant, the woman who’d earned the right to command Helena and who intended to exercise that right with the full authority that Helena had given her. It was a subtle distinction but it changed everything, because what Caitlin would see was going to be thrillingly authentic.

If circumstances were different, Helena thought, watching Juliana sit down at the breakfast table and laugh at something Mariana said, her wild curls bouncing, her expression completely normal to anyone who didn’t know what she’d just whispered to Helena, if I didn’t have Caitlin and if she wasn’t Mariana’s best friend, I would submit to her again and again, not as a teaching exercise or as practice, simply because she’s naturally dominant in a way that I could never have expected and could never resist.

She took a deep breath to centre herself and then joined the others, sliding into the seat next to Caitlin and trying to focus on the conversation.

***

The morning at the beach was normal… or what passed for normal when one of the six mildly hungover people on the sand was quietly, deviously and magnificently dismantling Helena’s composure through a campaign of micro-commands delivered by text.

The first arrived fifteen minutes after they’d got there, while Helena was lying on her towel reading something from Caitlin’s book that she wanted to show her.

Go down to the water, and when you go walk past me and let your hand brush my shoulder. Nothing obvious, just a touch.

Helena did it ten minutes later.

“Will you come in the water?” she asked Caitlin. Caitlin smiled and stood, and when Helena knew that she was looking her way she carefully trailed her fingertips along Juliana’s shoulder, quickly and gently. Caitlin cocked her head to one side with a quizzical look but said nothing, simply taking her hand as they walked down to the surf together.

When they were out of earshot and up to their shoulders, Caitlin asked, “I assume it’s started?” She looked equal parts amused and excited at the thought.

Helena nodded. “Yes. I wanted you to see.”

“She spoke to me before breakfast. I don’t think she’s going to hold back.”

“Are you ok with that?”

Caitlin grinned. “Very. You?”

“I am.” Helena took a deep breath. “I’m nervous what else she might want me to do.”

“Don’t be. You’re magnificent. Trust me, everything she has in mind will be great.”

“Are you going to tell me any of them?”

“Not a chance.”