It’s rare that I take such a dislike to someone, but c’est la vie, I guess.
Shrugging off the thought, I stride across the pasture and over toward the homestead. There’s no cart outside so I know Nate’s not back yet and the minute I cross the threshold, I head to my office.
On the first floor, there are ten different rooms. From sitting areas for various occasions to the kitchen and offices. It’s a big house, and for the moment, Nate and I have it to ourselves, because Sam has yet to return to the homestead. I figure he must have camped out in the dormitories in a further effort to avoid me.
I’m appreciative of his efforts. I quite enjoy this stress-free, calm existence. It’s a novel change.
A smile on my face, I pass the dining area where I spent many an uncomfortable evening eating my supper with my parents, and head down to my office. In there, surrounded by more taxidermy than I’m comfortable with, I sit at my desk and check my email. There’s nothing important, just the usual messages. As I sit there, my inbox dings with an incoming message.
Marina,
Just seen all the missed messages on my mobile. I’m okay. I swear. Just having some issues at the moment. One of them being…well, I’m pregnant. I know it isn’t like me to just take off, but I never wanted kids and now I have one, well, I don’t think I could have an abortion.
Mona’s been in touch. She’s okay. Not pregnant. But she’s with Zane, the guy she picked up at the bar, and his husband. Incredible, right? Our innocent friend has been corrupted. I blame you. ; ). She seems happy though, so I guess that’s all that counts. I wanted to tell you so you could freak out without her on the other end of the phone to hear it.
She’s fine. She sounds…well, she sounds happy. It’s horrible, really, but I’ve only just realized how bland her life was. That’s all changed now.
I’m not using my mobile, so the only way to get in touch is by email. I’m fine. I promise. Truly. I just need some time for me.
Let Mona call you, it shouldn’t be long, she’s bursting to talk to you.
Speak later, sweetie,
Eddie X
Mona. In a threesome?
A huge grin makes my jaw ache as I reread the paragraph. Hell, it’s good to know the pair of them are alive. I’m pissed off that they’ve stayed out of touch; God, Eddie isn’t the only one who worries.
With a relieved breath, I sink back into my seat and click open a new tab on the browser and run a search for Zane Matthews’ husband. After a few clicks and minor investigating, Jake Harris’ name pops up in a news article, and with it, a picture. Whistling under my breath, because Mona has landed herself two hotties, I grin again and then, jump, when Nate’s voice breaks my concentration.
“That’s what I like to see.”
Startled, I ask, “What?”
“You. With a huge grin on your face. What’s going on?”
“Eddie finally got in touch and she says everything’s well, but, she’s pregnant, so I guess it isn’t.”
“That’s an odd thing to say,” he murmurs with a raised brow.
“Nah, Eddie doesn’t like kids. She’s crap with them. Weird, because her sister was eight when their parents died. But she just…well, yeah, babies and her don’t mix.”
“Is she going to get an abortion?”
My lips twitch at the sound of his disapproval. “It’s her body, her choice, Nate.”
He hums under his breath. “It isn’t a decision to be made lightly.”
“If you knew Eddie, you’d know no decision is made lightly. Even if it involves choosing rye over pumpernickel for her sandwich.” I snort at the idea of Eddie making a facile judgment without weighing every pro and con ’til kingdom come. “I didn’t realize you were against abortions.”
My comment has his brows lifting. He does that a lot with me. Scowling, frowning, brows-cocking. I keep him on his toes. Never a dull moment with me. Hiding another grin at the thought, I watch him as he walks further into the office—looking too hot for my own good in all his blond deliciousness—and perches his ass on the edge of my desk.
“I’m not against them; I’m just not for them, either. They shouldn’t be abused, that’s all.”
“Well, don’t worry, Eddie won’t. Neither will Mona. She isn’t pregnant. But she is…” I point to the screen and show him the picture of Zane Matthews and Jake Harris together in a shot. “…with the pair of them.”
He stares at the picture a second, then grins. “You have some strange friends.”
“Did you expect any different?” I tease. “And hey, she isn’t strange for wanting the pair of them. Each to their own…isn’t that what you’re teaching me? Your kink doesn’t have to my kink, and all that jazz?”
“Touché,” he nods. Nate turns away from the screen and studies me with a serious cast to his expression. The brevity of mere moments before has disappeared and in its place is somberness. It’s enough to make me nervous until he says, “Any child we may make together, Marina, I don’t want you to throw it away like its worthless.”
“I’m on birth control. It’s highly unlikely I’ll get pregnant.”
He shrugs. “Nothing’s infallible. I want you to promise me you’d never abort my baby.”
Now, I’m not the motherly sort. I’m like Eddie, only she’s worse. I’m used to kids from this place. There’s like a buddy system. Kids old enough to leave elementary school have to watch over the younger ones. Just because I have more experience, doesn’t mean to say it’s made me want a family of my own. Anything but.
So why do his words have butterflies making an appearance in my belly? Why does the idea of having Nate’s child turn my bones to mush?
I clear my throat to rid my voice of the sudden attack of emotion that clouded it and tell him, “Of course not. I’d never do anything like that.” Mostly because I’d make damn good and well I wouldn’t get pregnant by accident.
It’s his turn to swallow and he looks away from me as he says, “I’m glad.”
Touched, I reach for the hand he’s resting on his lap and curl my fingers about his. Standing, I tuck myself between his legs and let our torsos brush. Such a simple connection has me sighing with relief, and I hear his own whoosh of breath whistle past my ear.
I’m not normally sappy, but I have this strange feeling that Nate’s my soul mate.
Though I want to cringe at the dumb idea, I nevertheless believe it to be the truth. Not that I tell him that. He’d probably think I’m a moron, and I wouldn’t blame him truth be told.
He lifts his arms and I take the moment to rest against him and in his embrace. Saying I feel safe here is a peculiar way to phrase it, but I do. For a moment, we just prop each other up and then, he busses my cheek and whispers, “I have another present for you.”
Fuck. His last gifts were non-gifts in my opinion. The thought has my lips twitching. “Is it one I’ll like?”
Nate chuckles. “Yeah, you’ll like this one. Although, you can’t deny, you like the other presents too.”
Smirking at him, I shake my head. “Like isn’t the word I’d choose.”
“No. I guess not.” His amusement turns his hazel eyes green and I study them, maintaining eye contact as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a jewelry box.
“This looks promising,” I tease and accept the box from him. Before I open it, I reach up and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Nate.” Because he’s definitely Nate at the moment.
“You’re welcome, honey.”
Opening the velvet box, I laugh at the contents. “Seriously? You bought me nipple guards?”
“You’ll be able to go without a camisole now.”
His answer has laughter pealing out of me. “These must have a cost a fortune.” These are a pair of thick gold circles with smaller ones cut out of the middle and a ring, almost like a cuff, sits neatly inside.
“You’re worth it.” His eyes flash as he murmurs, “Take off your shirt.”
Grabbing the hem, I cross m
y arms and tug my work shirt and bra off in one go. Again, he isn’t Sir. It’s strange how I can tell the difference. It’s not just his manner, but his word choice. His last statement could have been classed as an order, but it wasn’t. It was a suggestion.
When my tits are bared to the room at large, I notice the door is wide open. Those damned butterflies make another appearance, but this time with nerves. Almost as though he senses my discomfort, he mutters, “Leave it. No one will come in.”
My cheeks flush and heat burns through me with both arousal and mortification. He’s right. There’s nobody likely to come in at this time of the evening. That doesn’t make the risk any less frightening. There could be an emergency or somebody might have a question for me…hell, I’ve been going around the commune telling people my office door is open day and night for them.
I didn’t mean fucking literally.
Nate brings me back to the moment by leaning forward and sucking one nipple whole into his mouth. A low cry escapes me in shock, of the pleasant kind, as he nibbles and bites. His mouth is gentle, and my nerves twitch in response. I don’t think, can’t think as he pulls and tugs at the tender nub. My hands come up to grip his head, the fingers sliding through the crisp, yet soft blond strands. A shudder works through me as he sucks hard and then, with a pop, releases the nipple from his mouth.
Wet, gleaming with his saliva, I watch as he grabs one of the shields from the jewelry box and with a simple twist of his fingers, adjusts the interior cuff. He hovers it over the puckered nipple and then, pinches down. The sudden jolt of pain combined with the cold metal against seemingly scorched skin has my head flying back as though my neck is made of spaghetti. Arousal bubbles and boils low in my belly and it only doubles as he torments my other nipple, dragging his teeth down the nub, rubbing them against it and then, shielding it with the gold ornamentation.
The pinch of pain makes me cry out again, and has every part of my body juddering with sharp blasts of need.
By the time the cold gold adorns my breasts, I’m desperate for release, and I know, know that my jeans are soaked from my arousal.
I should be embarrassed, but I’m way too far gone for that. When he studies my tits, a satisfied look on his face at the jewelry, I grab him by the waist and get to work on his belt. He lets me, something that’s a shock in itself, but I don’t waste a moment on wondering why. I don’t want him to change his mind. God forbid.
My frantic hands make a mess of undressing him, but I manage to pull his belt free from the loops and then, get to work on his fly. The instant his cock, complete with beads of pre-cum, pops out between the zipper’s teeth, I’m borderline desperate. I’ve never taken drugs, but I imagine this is how a junkie feels. Craving, willing to kill to get his next fix.
By the time I get to work on my own fly, the sound of my sobbing breaths echo around the room. He doesn’t make a move to help me, just watches me with heavy-lidded eyes filled with promises he’ll keep. I tear at my crotch, unfastening the stiff buttons that make up the fastener to my jeans. One pings off at the force I’m using to undress myself and thank God, the others soon follow. I drag them down and pull them off over my boots. The instant I’m naked, Nate grabs me by the hips and spins us around so that I’m on the edge of the desk and he’s in front of me.
His hands arch upwards to curl about my ankles as he pulls them up to rest against his chest. The move has my thighs almost closing shut and when his cock brushes against my sopping pussy, a high-pitched moan bursts out of me as he drags the thick rod along the sensitive flesh of my cunt.
He presses my upper torso down against the desk, allowing me to writhe and wriggle beneath his gaze. As it is, I don’t even feel the keyboard digging into my spine and that sure as hell isn’t the reason why I curl upward, my back arching as he pushes himself into me.
The thick tip of his shaft is blunt against the relatively small entrance of my pussy. Mewls of agonized pleasure whisper from my mouth as he works his way deep inside me, filling me to over-capacity. When he’s in me, all the way, I grunt as he starts to fuck me. Slamming his hips against me, shaking the desk beneath me, making my tits jiggle and the new nipple guards jostle in reaction. Until now, I hadn’t felt much more than the original pinch when he put them on me. But now, they’re there and my nipples are tingling, burning in a similar way as the pins, but without the fucking agony.
His thrusts are true, deep, fucking right into the heart of me as he impales me on his cock. Every thick, swollen inch. Shuddering at the thought, my hands grip the edge of the desk as the driving strokes of his hips jerk me on the tabletop. It shouldn’t have been sexy, it shouldn’t have been a huge turn on, but it was. This isn’t Sir, but it’s the Nate I know of old. A man who takes me to the edge, whether I want it or not, blasts me with something I’m only just coming to recognize as his dominating spirit.
His hips suddenly slow, his thrusts gentle in their pace, and he takes the time to ensure that every part of my cunt is caressed by the thickness of his shaft. The slow attention to the clinging walls of my pussy has my hips jerking up, lifting my feet higher than his head and making a pen and the stapler stick into my back.
It’s sick; but that pain, the stabbing jab of the stapler and the pen combined with those horrifyingly slow thrusts, does it for me.
My cunt clamps down on Nate’s cock as though it were one of the vices in the wood shop, intent on squeezing every single blast of cum from him.
As ecstasy pummels me like a high-speed train hurtling into the night, the thought of his sperm binding itself to one of my ova pops into my head.
The singularly unsexy thought is sexier than anything that has happened on the desk. It’s the final straw.
I see stars.
Chapter Nineteen
Have you ever felt the pressure to perform?
If I felt that pressure in any part of my life, it probably should have been in the bedroom. With the new demands Nate’s making on me, perhaps, I should be feeling a little overwhelmed. But the irony is, I’m not. If anything, I’m coping marvelously. A part of me is wondering how I’ve been so blind for so long… Yeah. That’s how well I’m taking to this lifestyle.
If there’s one part of my life, where I’m feeling completely bowled over and highly sensitive, it’s in the studio. For over a decade, I’ve repressed most of my artistic tendencies. In all those years, I’ve never picked up a ball of clay or had the urge to blow glass. My one concession has been to have a notepad and if the muse struck, I’d jot the design down. That happened infrequently, but often enough. And I don’t really consider it an expression of art. Drawing isn’t my medium.
But how I’ve gone from that, even if it was bare bones art, to nothing, absolutely jack shit, I really don’t know.
I could work from my old designs, if I’d thought to bring my notepads. Shame art hadn’t been on my mind when I’d been rushing to escape homicidal, psychotic, arsonist Russians with a grudge against me.
Hopefully that phase of my life is done and dusted and when things calm down and I can return to New York, without fear of any potential repercussions, then I’ll pack everything up and have it shipped over. I’ll also put the apartment on the market. Because this is where I want to be.
New York wasn’t home; Blue Ridge is.
My only concern is the distance separating Mona, Eddie, and myself. I hate that we’re going to fall out of touch. It’s on the cards. I’m not stupid, but it still hurts. They’re all I’ve had these last ten years.
Meeting them at evening school changed my life and theirs…for the better. When I landed in New York, Blue Ridge might as well have been Mars. I had all these smarts, a hell of a lot of knowledge, just nothing practical. I’d been useless for the real world, and I’d taken a course in administration in the hopes of getting a job as a PA. Eddie and Mona had had the same idea.
We’d all met in class and somehow hooked up, popping out for coffee. Soon after, Mona had met her dickhead ex, Dan, married
the scum-sucking asshole and quit class to take up cleaning to help pay the bills. Eddie and I had continued and managed to get jobs in the sector. We didn’t lose touch with Mona, even though she’d left soon after we’d first met, and afterward, we became the female version of the Three Musketeers.
A decade is a hell of a long time. A lifetime. Christ, there are kids on the ranch now that were still tucked away in their mom’s bellies, when I left. They’re on the verge of leaving elementary school now. When I look at the passage of time in that particular way, I could freak out. However, I’m more likely to freak at the idea of rarely seeing my two best buds.
In fact, the very idea makes me want to bawl.
Fuck, I’m turning into a real baby. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cried over the last ten years. Yeah, I’m not the emotional sort. But I spend seven weeks in Nate’s company and I can’t turn off the damned faucet.
With a grimace, I continue to shade in the caricature I’ve drawn of Uncle Sam. Resplendent in St Nick’s costume, on the back of a sleigh pulled by straining Thoroughbreds thanks to the size of his gut.
My muse has devolved. No longer can I create beautiful works of art, I’m reverting to a teenager. A mean one at that. Great.
These last few days, I’ve had a lot of time to think. Too much time. Thinking can be dangerous; especially where I’m concerned. The hours I’ve wasted in the studio, the unstimulating and fruitless, abyss-like moments, I’ve spent them pondering the future. And I’ve come to see the longer I’m here at Blue Ridge, the more I want to be here. Hence the decision to sell Papillon’s premises.
Yeah, okay, a part of that decision rests on the fact that Nate’s here. But mostly, and maybe it’s because I’m older, it’s because my roots are here. This place is in my blood. Denying it for so long has merely made me long for the connection once more. Even if I always buried it away and tried to hide from the ties I have to this land, they’re undeniable now. I’m here and even though I’m going to lose my sisters, I don’t want to uproot myself again.
Sinfully Mastered: Naughty Nookie Page 24
