Santa, Sir

Indecent Proposal

My breath hitched. My "secret desire for control to be taken from me"? The words were a slap, a revelation. How could he possibly know? Or was he simply projecting? The dream from the night before, Ronan's dominant presence, his explicit control – it was too vivid, too resonant.

"I'm not sure I follow," I said, trying to sound aloof, trying to sound as if my heart wasn't hammering against my ribs.

"I believe you do." His eyes held mine, unwavering. "I have a proposal for you, Katie. A contract, if you will. One that offers a unique kind of liberation through submission."

My mind flashed back to Chad. His control wasn't liberation. It was a cage. He had woven a web of dependency, isolating me, chipping away at my self-worth until I believed I was nothing without him. He'd made me doubt my own judgment, my own sanity.

"Submission?" The word felt foreign, repulsive, coated in the bitter taste of old wounds. "I've had enough of that, thank you. I don't think you understand what that word means to me."

His gaze sharpened, a flicker of something intense, almost protective, in his dark eyes. "I understand more than you think. I know about Chad."

My entire body stiffened. The name was a venomous whisper, a ghost I thought I'd buried. My stomach twisted. "How do you know about Chad?"

"I know what he did. What he took from you." His voice was low, resonant, filled with a controlled anger that wasn't directed at me. "He abused you, Katie. He broke you down, isolated you, bled you dry. He used manipulation, guilt, and emotional blackmail to control you. He made you afraid. That is not a submission. That is enslavement."

My jaw clenched. Every word was a spear, striking true, piercing the defenses I'd built around those painful memories. My shame, my rage, my vulnerability – he laid them bare. "And you think you can offer me something different? Another man telling me what to do? What makes you any different from him?" The question was sharp, laced with venom.

He didn't flinch. His gaze remained steady, unwavering. "Because Chad sought to diminish you. To extinguish your spirit. I seek to challenge you. To awaken something dormant. I seek your voluntary surrender, not your forced capitulation."

"Voluntary surrender? What even is that?" My voice was barely a whisper now, raw with a sudden, unexpected honesty. The facade was crumbling.

"It's trust, Katie." His voice was a soothing balm, yet it held the unshakeable certainty of a rock. "It's consent. It's a negotiation. It's knowing the boundaries and pushing them, together. It's a dynamic built on respect and explicit rules, designed for mutual satisfaction, not for one person's gain at the expense of another's soul."

He reached across the table, his large hand resting on the back of my hand, not touching, just hovering, a silent offer of contact. The warmth radiating from his skin was palpable, a stark contrast to the cold fear that had gripped me.

"Chad's control was insidious, invisible. Mine would be explicit. Clear. Every boundary, every expectation, every limit would be discussed, understood, and agreed upon beforehand." He moved his hand, his thumb brushing lightly against my knuckles, a feather-light touch that sent shivers through me. "You would always have a safeword. Always have the right to revoke consent. Always have the power to stop."

I stared at his hand, then up at his face. The cafe noise faded into a distant hum. This was not Chad. Chad never offered an escape clause. Chad never offered a safe word. His rules were unspoken, ever-shifting, designed to keep me perpetually off-balance.

"You're talking about… b**m," I finally said, the letters feeling unfamiliar on my tongue. The term felt clinical, academic, far removed from the tangled mess of my past.

"I am," he confirmed, his voice calm, steady. "Dominance and submission, to be precise. But not the abuse you've experienced. That was perversion. This is… an art form. A practice. A journey of self-discovery, where one person willingly cedes control, and the other willingly accepts the responsibility of wielding that control with integrity and care."

He retracted his hand, allowing me space to breathe, to process. "I see your potential for it, Katie. Your core. The way you respond to structure. The way your mind grapples with defiance, yet a part of you yearns for the simple clarity of command. The way you react to my presence, my words."

My cheeks burned. Was he talking about the dream? Had he sensed it? Or was he just that perceptive?

"You want me to… sign a contract to be your submissive?" I asked, disbelief warring with a strange, undeniable curiosity. The raw honesty in his eyes, the stark difference between his explanation and the suffocating memory of Chad, was compelling.

"Not just my submissive," he corrected softly. "Your submissive. The person you become within that dynamic. It's not about me owning you. It's about you discovering a part of yourself you didn't know existed, under my careful guidance." He leaned back again, giving me the full weight of his gaze. "It's about shedding the layers of superficiality and expectation, and finding profound release in the surrender of choice. In the relinquishing of the burden of constant decisions."

The burden of constant decisions. That resonated deeply. The endless struggle to prove myself, to survive, to rebuild, had left me weary. The thought of letting go, even for a moment, was terrifying. And yet… alluring.

"What would that even look like?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "A contract. What would it say?"

"It would outline the parameters of our dynamic," he explained, his voice measured, precise. "The frequency of our interactions. The type of activities we engage in. The limits we agree upon. Your duties. My responsibilities. Your safeword. Your aftercare. Everything is spelled out. Nothing is left to ambiguity."

Chad thrived on ambiguity. His rules were implicit, ever-changing, designed to keep me guessing, to keep me dependent. Ronan was proposing the opposite: a world of clear, defined boundaries, within which lay a carefully constructed space for exploration.