“Doing okay? Not about to panic?” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Not going to panic.” I didn’t think. There was nothing we’d done yet that would warrant nerves.
He kissed my lips lightly. I was totally naked, and he still had on all of his clothes. “Put your palms together. Like this.”
Jud demonstrated what he wanted me to do, which was to extend my hands and turn my palms together, all of it out in front of me.
Taking the tie, he wrapped it around my wrist, so far looking like a standard knot. He ran it around my wrists once more, then twice, then a third time. He held up his hands, and I watched as he judged the size of the loop using his fingers. Three of his fingers pressed together fit inside the loop. “I want you to be able to pull out this time. Only this time. If you panic. Better if you tell me and let me fix it. The tie traveled up my arm, each loop moving closer to my elbow.
Eventually he stopped and began looping the tie the opposite way, looping the silk bondage rope toward me, making what he’d already done look almost like handcuffs. That was when it got complicated. He twisted the tie over the top, tying it in interesting knots that I’d never seen before. Then he tugged on the whole thing, tightening it.
I could feel the pressure on my wrists. Even with the silk, there was the slightest bite to it, and if I wanted to, if I really wanted to, I could even yank myself free of them. He’d said he was going to leave it like that, and he had, despite the elaborate maneuvering.
“You like doing this.”
Judson winked at me without looking at my eyes. “I do, actually. It’s a whole process I enjoy creating. I like the… set up.”
I wondered if he’d let me touch him if he was hard. From where I was on the bed, I couldn’t really tell; he leaned forward too far. Once again, using three fingers, he pushed his hands into the arrangement, as though to check it was loose enough. It must have been, which I could have already told him, but this was clearly a process.
He nodded again. “You’re all set. Want to take a couple of deep breaths?”
“No, I want you to kiss me.”
His smile was gorgeous. Judson did just as I asked. “I promise you are going to love this.”
“I already do.”
He pointed toward the headboard. “Move that way.”
I did as he instructed. He watched me for a moment before he took off his shirt. My mouth fell open. I would never have imagined Judson was as buff as he turned out to be. Maybe it was because he hid all of the time behind professional looking clothing that didn’t show it.
I wanted to reach out to touch him but there was the whole having my hands tied and his not liking that issue. I kept my hands to themselves. As he got closer, I noticed something I should have seen right off the bat. Judson had one of his nipples pierced. That was more shocking than the muscles.
“You’re pierced?”
He shrugged. “I can’t decide if that was a mistake. I go back and forth. Do you like it?”
My mouth went dry. “Not a mistake.”
He undid his pants, showing me that he was, in fact, tenting his pants quite nicely. Like everywhere else, Judson had a huge cock. He still wore his boxers and didn’t take them off. Instead, he took my foot in his hand and rubbed the center of it.
“Put your hands on the headboard and keep them there. You don’t move them unless I tell you to.” He raised his eyebrow. “Okay?”
I nodded. “Fine.” I did just as he asked. The bars on the headboard were going to be helpful. It was hard to hold onto things with my hands tied.
“Good.” He kept rubbing. “We keep a huge amount of stress in our feet. It’s not something we talk about all that much in Western medicine but they know it in Eastern medicine. There are all kinds of things we can do by pressing on the foot.”
I tried to breathe. I hadn’t known I had a foot thing but between yesterday and today, I really, really did.
I swallowed. “Like what?”
“Well, squeezing one particular spot is said to induce labor.”
I shook my head. “Not a problem.”
“I know that.” He winked. Okay, I decided I loved when Judson winked. It was officially one of the best things in the world. “The big toe is supposed to be connected to the brain.” He pressed it. “Back here is your hip.” He pressed there. “I don’t want to do an anatomy lesson. Just tell you that you are sexy everywhere from those dark, unforgettable eyes to your tiniest toe.”
I sucked in a breath. “Judson.”
“I only speak the truth. How did you do this to me? How did you turn me into a mush like this?”
He dropped my foot and leaned over my leg. What was he going to do? Kiss my foot? I liked the massage, but I didn’t know if I wanted his mouth on it. I should have known he wasn’t going to do that. He kissed the top of my ankle, tonguing the skin there.
I shuddered. He moved slowly, licking as he moved up my leg. I thought he might stop near my pussy, but he bypassed it, continuing on to my stomach.
“The first night that I saw you…” He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “When Derrick carried you into the hunting lodge.” It took me a second to follow him, but then I remembered that was what he called the house in Vermont. “All I could think was that I wanted you. I wanted to take you from him. I wanted to tell him never to touch you again. I hate sharing you. I’ll do it. I’m last to this race. But I want you to know that in my soul, you are mine. And I’ll make Ben hurt in ways he can’t imagine for ever hurting you. This body is mine.”
There was a lot to unravel there. I wasn’t going to right now. He wanted me. He’d wanted me since he saw me. Yes, I could get behind all of that. The rest of it… later.
Jud kissed me so tenderly tears filled my eyes. They spilled onto my cheeks. If he felt them, he didn’t comment. My breasts ached, and I arched against him, wondering if that was okay. He didn’t seem to mind, taking one of my nipples in his hand and pinching it. I cried out. Yes, I loved that.
“I love the sounds you make.”
Judson took my other nipple in his mouth. He scraped his teeth hard over the pebbled flesh. I sighed. Judson didn’t hold back. He’d read my signals right. I liked it hard on my breasts. He clearly took cues the right way. Eventually, he pulled away then kissed a path along my body again. This time he stopped at my pussy. He tongued my clit, finding it instantly, and swirling his tongue right over. My hips buckled. Wow, he did that well.
I might have said that aloud because he laughed for a second before he did it again. Now, there was nothing funny. There was only heat.
I wanted to grab his head, to touch his back. But since I could only hold on I had to close my eyes. It was too much otherwise. He’d said he was going to worship my body, and he really was. I couldn’t remember ever being so completely about me before. There was nothing to distract me from just feeling.
When I came, it was on his tongue, a sigh shuddering through me as I had one of the sweetest orgasms ever. It was easy, there was no hurry to it and Judson got up on his knees, kissing the top of mine.
He reached over to the bedside table and pulled out a condom. I hadn’t known they were in there, but I was glad he did. “Everly, look at me.”
I forced my gaze to his. “Jud?”
“You okay?”
I nodded. “I didn’t know it would feel like that, to be so exposed, just because my wrists are tied.”
He didn’t say anything, and I wondered if I should have said nothing at all. Judson slipped his boxers off. As I watched with my mouth open, he sheathed himself. A drop of precum caught my attention as it dropped down his erect cock before the condom covered him.
“Let go of the headboard.”
I did as he said even as I wondered where I was going to hold on now. He took my still bound hands and wrapped them around his neck. I could feel the softness of his hair there. What was he doing? He didn’t want to be touch, and I had no way of avoiding that with where he’d put my hands.
> “Judson?” He didn’t answer my unarticulated question. Maybe he didn’t know what I wanted or maybe he just didn’t want to.
He slipped his cock inside of me with a gentle slide. How could he be such a contrast of hard and soft? Maybe we all were. Maybe Judson was just somehow more so.
At first, he moved slowly. I lifted my hips to meet his thrusts. He held my gaze. I wouldn’t look away, not ever, if he didn’t want me to.
“What do you do to me, Everly?” He asked again. I had no answer for that. I couldn’t fathom what he did to me, either.
Soon we rushed at each other, our bodies rubbing, causing friction everywhere. I cried out, not caring how loud I was, not knowing if this would ever stop. We might do this forever, never finding completion, never quite reaching it. Why should I want to when I could be with Judson? Oh, my thoughts were muddled. They didn’t make sense.
Then I couldn’t think. I squeezed my hands tighter together, not wanting to accidently dig my fingers into him. I could think that far.
But only that far.
Colors crossed in front of my eyes. I cried out his name and soon after he was doing the same. We squeezed against each other, and sweat coated my body.
I shook in his arms as he kissed me all over my face. I sort of floated, and I was happy to do so. We could stay just like this. I’d never, ever complain. Or at least I didn’t think so. I couldn’t fathom anything anyway and why should I want to?
“Everly,” he whispered in my ear, his voice a caress. “Everly. Everly.”
Chapter 15
Judson kissed my back gently, over and over. It was a few minutes before I realized he had focused on the scars, and he explored them as he kissed each one. How quickly I’d managed to play denial and forget they were there. Unless I had to get dressed, in which case I remembered.
When he pressed two fingers lightly to one of them, I looked over my shoulder at him. “Are you measuring them?”
“Maybe silently in my head. It’s like hell that you won’t let me fix this for you.”
I shook my head. “They’re mine like yours are yours.”
He sighed. “The sad truth here is that there are fewer opportunities for people to see my back than yours. Women’s clothing is more revealing.”
“Then I guess it’s up to me who I want to reveal them to.” I lifted an eyebrow.
Jud grinned at me. “Yes, absolutely. Come on. They’re getting downright giddy downstairs. It won’t be long until one of them bursts in here, and then I’ll have to kill them.”
“Funny.” I waited for him to laugh, and he didn’t. All right, that was another thing to stick into my mind and digest for a while. “I’m going to go clean up a little bit.”
He nodded. “Okay. See you down there.” He grabbed his suit jacket and my dress. “I’ll get these fixed up, too. You need to eat something.”
My stomach grumbled. “I promise you, I’m not averse to food.”
“Good.” He paused. “Everly, I feel like I should say something about this morning, but I don’t know what.”
I leaned in the doorway between the bedroom and the bathroom. “I think it can speak for itself. It was… yeah.”
He nodded. “It was.”
I returned to the bathroom. I’d washed my hair that morning, but I did want to rinse off again. It was almost a shame to wash the good sex off my body. I might have liked to smell Judson on me all day.
That was the thing about dating—was that what I was doing?—all these guys at the same time. I couldn’t really let any of them feel more important than the others. The truth was I liked them all the same. Oh, who was I kidding? I was half in love with all of them.
I cleaned up, but as I turned off the water a wave of dizziness hit me. Wow. I must have been starved. I bent over to let the sensation pass. Unfortunately, I was more than familiar with this feeling. I’d had it a lot with Ben.
A memory struck me, and I sank to the floor. Yes, I could recall exactly how I’d felt that day.
It must have been one of the first weeks with Ben because I’d still held out hope things might turn around, and I could still escape.
He’d made me get down on all fours and stare at the floor of his kitchen. Next to me, he’d walked around, making himself a meal. All I could see was the hair on his ankles that poked through his white socks and his gray slippers. They smelled, stunk. I wanted to gag but there was no food in my stomach, hadn’t been any for two days. I was really, really hoping he would feed me.
He hummed to himself. “I actually did you a favor, Everly. I mean, what kind of people would give you to me to begin with?”
My head hurt. Each time he told me that The Letters gave me to him made me want to shrivel up and die. That wasn’t strong. It wasn’t impressive. But it was what it was.
“You’re right. They must be nightmares. You could let me go and we could be done with all of this.” There, I’d said something reasonable. I hadn’t whimpered. I didn’t beg. For that, I could feel proud.
Whatever that was worth. He dropped a piece of cheese on the floor. He’d clearly taken a bite out of it. I didn’t care. I shoved the half-eaten cheese in my mouth, and I chewed like it was the best thing I’d ever eaten.
“They’re all psychotic and this is a psychotic talking. We know our own. You’re lucky they didn’t keep you longer. They can really fool you then. Trust me. I trained them. We see their strengths, their weaknesses and we help make them who they are that way.”
He stepped around me, pouring some water into a bowl on the floor like I was a dog. I guessed I was supposed to drink from that so that was what I did. It might have been the best water, ever.
“Derrick? He’s the most obvious, isn’t he? He wears his crazy out there for people to see. And yet with that pretty face that stayed that way even after countless beatings, all the public sees is the athlete with the gorgeous hair and the wry smile. It covers the crazy but it’s right there. The complete lack of… remorse for anything he’s ever done.”
I drank my water. If he wanted to rattle on, he was welcome to it. These guys turned me over to Ben, dragged me into this mess for the purpose of hurting me. Yes, they were all crazy.
“Kade? He was hard to pinpoint. Genius. Twitchy. I thought for a while maybe we should stick him in a basement somewhere and let him make us money. But then we realized, he’s a loner. An isolationist when it came down to it. As long as Kade sees his best interest at the end of a goal, he’ll do anything. He can fake happy, he can fake normal. He is none of those things.”
Well, the man had been living in an underground lair you had to pass through a mausoleum to enter. He was certainly unique.
“Trace? I don’t know if he can tell a lie from the truth anymore. Know what that is? That’s called being a sociopath. He can convince himself his lies are true. He can pass polygraph tests unfazed because he believes his own lies.”
I’d seen him manipulate James Robert. Of course, he’d been totally upfront about it. That hadn’t seemed like he lied and believed it. Or maybe he did. What did I know anyway?
“Warden? The man is the definition of a narcissist. If you can’t bring something for him, do something for him, you’re nothing to him. If the world ends, it will be because it did nothing for Warden White and he felt no need to keep it around.”
The water was done. Warden had been kind to me, up until he needed to be done with me and then he’d dumped me in a mall with no way to get anywhere.
“And Judson.” Ben kicked me in the ribs. I shivered. I hated pain. That was a stupid thought but it was true. Hated being constantly hurt. If he was going to starve me and beat me, couldn’t he just get done with it already? Why did we have to go through this in baby steps? “Judson is the most manipulative bastard you’ll ever meet. His family has been Alliance royalty forever. People just listen to him. They do what he says. You think he couldn’t have saved his sister with one word? You think he couldn’t now save you? You’re here, Everly Mar
rs, because Judson Smythe doesn’t care if you live or die.” He sighed. “I’m so proud of my boys. They’ll be what keeps the Alliance going. The world will bend to their will and not even know it’s doing so.”
A bang downstairs filtered into the bathroom and brought me back into the present. Nausea roiled through me and I was glad to be near the toilet. I puked up some bile and dry heaved for a minute or two.
I didn’t need Ben in my head but there he was. All of his words, his revelations, his opinions. He’d lied about The Letters’ involvement. So why should I listen to anything he said now? Why did he have to be such a constant infection I had to fight away all the time?
No, I wasn’t going to let this ruin me.
I fisted my hands and got on with it. Downstairs awaited. Ben couldn’t—wouldn’t—kick me again.
I dressed quickly.
Would there ever be a time when I wasn’t so covered in doubt that it didn’t bring me to my knees? And what was I going to do for the rest of my life? It couldn’t be me going from one mansion to another following these guys around with a constant hit on my head. There had to be something else.
I sighed. I wouldn’t get answers to my own queries if I never left the bedroom.
I went downstairs.
* * *
“Oh good. It’s the guest of honor.” Warden laughed, lifting a champagne glass filled with orange juice toward me. I suspected there was actual champagne mixed with that juice. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”
Judson laughed. “I think maybe we feed her before we assault her liver with more alcohol. And no, I don’t mean bacon. How about cottage cheese, eggs, and fruit?” Judson pushed a plate on the counter toward me. “Made this for you.”
“Look at Jud being all concerned.” Derrick laughed and then groaned. “I want some of that.” He pointed to the alcohol.
Jud rolled his eyes. “This would be the tenth time I’m saying this. No, not while you’re on pills. I’ll get you a different pain killer if that one is not working.”
Dark Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #2 Page 17
