Tasting Candy

by Candy Quinn

  His hand trailed from her head down to her shoulder, squeezing it.

  “It would be good for you.” His voice was commanding, with a bit of a hardness to it that belied his gentle gaze. “And there is nothing wrong with wanting it.”

  Her body stiffened a bit and she stared at him in shock, as though he’d just read her mind. Her mouth parted and he saw that soft, pink tongue within. Oh, how he longed to suckle that, to bite it, to make her body and mind contort as pleasure and pain mingled and danced.

  “Tonight you may rest up, but tomorrow, after class, I want you to come right home to me. I’ll be waiting, Aubrey.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The words were out of her, instinctually. As if they’d been beaten into her as the correct response when given an order, and it sent an illicit thrill through him. She was a natural. He’d known it from the moment he first saw her.

  He smiled, kissing her forehead once more, hand lingering on her soft, feminine flesh a moment. “Good girl.”

  Lying in bed that night, knowing she was just down the hall, was sweet torture for him. He only made it worse by denying himself his own pleasure, but still he stroked himself, picturing her form tussling up the sheets he’d carefully picked out for her.

  When he’d first shown her the room that was to be hers, she looked like she might faint. His house was beautiful, he knew. He was useless when he came to decorating, so he’d hired a professional and had everything redone.

  The only thing he’d really specified was that the rooms all had to feel a bit different, to have their own personality. His room was warm, antique. The home was already old, and it had a fireplace opposite the foot of his bed which he’d had refurbished, and all of his furniture was a dark cherry wood against the burgundy walls. Gold accents dotted the room, brightening it slightly and making it seem quite ostentatious.

  But her room, the guest room, was cozy and inviting. Bright blues and crisp whites made it seem like something out of a dream, a relaxing getaway. With the mirrored closet at the side of the bed, though, and the four-post canopy, it was designed with purpose.

  His room was punishment, hers was pleasure.

  She’d sunk into the soft mattress and cooed her subdued, disbelieving delight. As if making too loud of a noise would frighten this fantasy away.

  He thought of her as she was at that first moment, as that astonishment washed over her that this is how she could live. That this could be hers, if only for a while.

  In her eyes he saw her thinking of the way she’d toss and turn trying to get used to the new quiet, the lack of barking dogs and yelling neighbours. Of the way she’d think of him, of what he’d seen. Of how vulnerable she’d allowed herself to be after only a couple of drinks and a little bit of persuasion.

  Of how much she wanted what he could do to her.

  He let out a soft sigh as his cock brushed against the silken sheets, caressing his body and easing his tense muscles. How could he do it? He'd gone over this a thousand times before, hadn't he? His mind was cluttered with thoughts of her in the bed, so soft. So inviting. So needy.

  He thought about stealing into her room, touching his hand to her slender thigh, feeling out her form as she tried to drift to sleep. She’d tense, but then, finding it was him, relax. Welcome it. Welcome the lack of choices, no longer having to decide what was right and wrong.

  He would tell her, and she’d never need to worry.

  Ryan moaned again at the thought, and his body tightened momentarily. She was so beautiful, and his cock throbbed in his hand.

  But he forced his hand from his thick member, willing himself to go to sleep. He wouldn’t let himself cum, not yet. He had to practice control over himself if he had any hope of dominating her.

  “How did you sleep?” she’d asked him that morning, and they both knew. They had matching blurriness in their eyes, a twin slowness to their motions. Neither had slept well.

  “I’ll sleep better tonight,” he replied, and his lip twitched into a smirk. “You will too.”

  Her eyes widened and she bit her lower lip into her mouth, but her next gesture was the one he'd longed for. It was so simple, such a gentle motion, but the way she nodded said it all.

  By the time she arrived home, he felt calm. Certain.

  When he saw the tears in her eyes, though, his heart missed a beat. She looked so soft and sweet, and he wanted to coddle her, to make all her hurt disappear at the same time that he wished he’d been the one to cause it.

  Ryan opened the door for her and then locked it behind her, not presuming to take her in his arms. He had to hold back, to resist the pretty little tears on the young woman’s face.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice dark and gritty and edged with need. She couldn’t have changed her mind. Not after how willingly she’d bent to him. That fickle fawn, uncertain of how good he would make her feel.

  Instead of answering, she thrust out her hand, her phone revealing a text message.

  At 1:09 pm her father had sent her a message asking when she was coming home.

  At 3:48 pm, he’d told her never to come home again if she wasn’t going to answer him.

  And five minutes ago, the final text. ‘Don’t you dare come crying to me & your mother when you get your stupid ass knocked up & on drugs. You are dead to us.’

  Harsh, especially considering she still had him listed as ‘Daddy’ in her directory.

  Ryan brought her into his arms, letting the phone drop to the desk beside them.

  Aubrey’s slender form pressed into his, and that delicate body quaked with the sobs that shook her. She seemed to lose all vestiges of her maturity, resorting to seeking comfort in his arms like a bawling child.

  Her slender little fingers curled and sunk into his back as she loosed her tears into his shirt, her dirty blonde hair masking what little of her face wasn’t pressed to his chest. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, just sobbed and cried so helplessly, like a child lost from her parents.

  Though she very much was in some ways.

  His broad, strong hand stroked through her blonde hair, her tresses entangled between his fingers and making his heart and his loins swell from such new, titillating sensations. Her slender body pressed to his, her scent filling his nostrils.

  He let her cry until at last no more would come out of her sobs, and then he let her slump from his now-wet, blue shirt.

  “Aubrey, it will be okay. Trust me.”

  Her pale face was highlighted by red puffy eyelids as she looked up at him, seeming to have little more moisture within her dainty form to give up to her distress. Tears still stained her cheeks, rolling down to the top of her upper lip.

  “I couldn’t respond,” she choked out, all that crying only seeming to accentuate her beauty, making her look more vulnerable, more needy of him. More pained. Just as he wanted her. “I was in class. And… I just needed a break from them… that’s why… why I came here,” she said, looking away, fighting off another sob as another tear threatened to roll past her lips, her fingers digging into his shirt deeper. “And I didn’t tell them where I was,” another sob cut her off, “because I was afraid they’d come for me.”

  His thumb caught her tear, tracing over the bow of her mouth. He looked at her so seriously, so intently, and he knew how he could cure her. How she could work past all this pain and angst and find that inner peace.

  He just didn’t know if she was ready.

  But staring down at her puffy face, her trembling lips and quivering body, he knew he had to do something. And there was only one way he knew of that always made the pain more manageable.

  “I can make this go away,” he said, his voice husky despite how calm and even it was.

  Her long lashes curved upwards, so thick and dark, threaded together by some remnants of her glistening tears. She glanced aside, then back at him, her puffy eyes framing those bright emerald gems at the center.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice broken by the sorrow th
at still lingered beneath despite her confusion.

  She quivered before him, shaking like an inexperienced dancer on unsteady legs, her slender limbs buckling so that her knees banged together just above her stockings.

  He stroked her still, caring and considerate. Perhaps that was why she regarded him with both caution and desire, because he reminded her of what she’d always longed for at home but was never able to receive. Comfort. Compassion.

  He looked down upon her, his body strong and firm against her slender and shaky one. “Sometimes, feelings get a little overwhelming. Ever heard the expression 'bringing a hammer to your thumb to distract you from a missing limb?'”

  His hands held her shoulders, supporting her frame. “I can help do something similar. Bring your pain into focus, into a manageable level, and you can deal with it one little piece at a time.”

  Aubrey’s beautiful green eyes nervously strayed from his, but they flitted back again and again as she stood before him, unable to even stand upright and steady without his support. She looked so utterly lost, and he could read the conflict on her face as she bit down on her lower lip, letting her white teeth sink into that pale pink flesh.

  “Like… with that… stuff… you pictured me with?” she said, her voice soft and airy, so very weak. A struggle for her to get her words out in that moment.

  “That’s part of it.” His voice was so certain, but it wasn’t cold. He couldn’t be cold with her. It started out as a fantasy, a crush of having her. But she’d been in his home for nearly a month now, and in that time he’d seen into her soul. She was an open book, so obvious to his expert gaze, and she wasn’t soley a conquest any longer. She was Aubrey, and she needed him more than she knew.

  “But when we play with those things, for real, you will have the real power. The power to stop it.” He paused, letting those words hang in the air and sink into her for a moment as he looked at her, squeezing her shoulders in his hands. “It takes some trust, though.”

  She was so very delicate, like a porcelain doll in his strong arms. She sniffled, relinquished her hold on his shirt to wipe her sleeve over her cheek, moving away some of the drying tears.

  “You don’t trust me?” she asked, clearly misinterpreting what he’d meant in her naïveté. Perhaps already she’d come to trust him so much, to see him as a charitable and kind man, that her trust in him was a foregone conclusion? That instead she worried of herself coming off as a foolish girl not yet worthy of his trust.

  Oh, she was so sweet and tender, and he chuckled as he shook his head.

  “I trust you’ll be a very good girl, and an absolutely lovely subject.” One of his hands lifted from her shoulder, lightly running his thumb over her jawbone. It was strange how much fairer she was than he, as though she were still so innocent and clean.

  “If you trust me to take your pain away, I will,” he reassured her.

  This was all so unreal, he reflected, to touch her smooth, clear skin, to feel her delicate jawbones beneath a soft layer of flesh. She felt too good to be real, like a work of art crafted by countless artisans to portray the very best of her kind, to be exemplary of all the finest that femininity possessed. Or perhaps he was merely growing more smitten with her over time rather than losing the enchantment he held all these months.

  “Of course I trust you,” she sniffled, her eyes growing watery again, her lips pursing and trembling as she looked on the verge of more tears.

  “No more of that,” he chided gently, cupping her face in his hand. He took a deep breath in. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I want to help you.”

  Her cheek fit so neatly into the palm of his hand. That delicate jawbone touching to his flesh as she looked up at him, blinking away the watery tears that were forming in a flurry of eyelashes.

  “I… I don’t want to let myself hurt anymore,” she resolved, biting her lower lip, a rosy hue filling her cheeks as she belatedly realized what he'd said. “The most beautiful?” she repeated, so sweetly disbelieving.

  He nodded, slowly, before lowering his left hand to her right wrist, wrapping his fingers around it. It was a motion both firm and gentle, and he caught her pulse quickening through the fragile flesh. “Come with me,” he said, guiding her down the hall, past the framed pieces of art and into that warm, antique room of his.

  The fire was dimly lit, the light casting odd shadows around the room, and he went to the candles at the side of the bed. They boasted of scents that were masculine, like leather and tobacco and the outdoors, and he thought it suited the room nicely. He lit the trio with his back to her, letting her ease into the foreign room.

  Aubrey followed after him like a lost little girl taking the direction of an older man, her pleated skirts swaying as she swept into the room. All her pain and sadness was held at bay as she darted her big, emerald eyes about the chamber, soaking it all in so curiously. In all her time as his roommate, she’d never seen his room.

  The smell of the candles, of the fire, they all filled her dainty nostrils and she stayed close to him, clutching her hands together beneath her petite bust, anxiously wringing her hands together.

  “This is your room?’ she asked in her soft, weak little voice. “It’s so… so beautiful,” she remarked, a bit awed and intimidated by the vintage style that dominated the room. It all served to only make her feel like an even younger and more lost little girl, so out of her element. So out of her league in this lair of a rich, strong man.

  Her room was designed to comfort, his was designed to keep her on edge. To purposefully make her feel small and uncertain. He smiled over her shoulder at her, realizing it was doing its job. “It is. All real heartwood, too.” He placed the candles on the elegant nightstand and turned to face her.

  “If you want me to stop, at any time, you just say ‘Sunshine’, okay? ‘No’, ‘stop’, those won’t count, okay? I’ll just keep going until you say sunshine. Say it,” he ordered, his voice stern.

  That frail little princess stiffened at the authority in his voice, her waifish figure twitching and standing a little more erect as her gaze locked onto his. Those green eyes of hers betrayed not fear at the command, but something else. The total focus of attention. The eagerness to obey.

  “Sunshine,” she said quickly and breathily, her pale, slender fingers knitted together as she pressed them up beneath her chin, as if it was a prayer.

  “Good girl,” he said with a smile, fancying that he was doling out affection and compliments as easily as commands. “You can stop me whenever you need. Even if it’s just for a break.” He was still quite in control, but he didn’t hide the compassion or the concern in his voice.

  He found himself walking a fine line between offering what she needed and frightening her off. And he couldn’t do that, not when she was so near, trembling like a little leaf and so ripe with sensuality that was only starting to stir from its sleep.

  “I’m going to blindfold you now, Aubrey.”

  She had grown a little stiller as authority edged into him, but the thought of having her sight taken from her made her quiver harder still. “You’ll… you’ll be careful with me... right?” she asked, gnawing her lower lip, those white teeth sunk deep into her pink bottom lip as she fidgeted, one leg rising up so that her calf rubbed against the back of her knee.

  “Of course. If I’m not, you can stop me,” he reminded her, reaching for the bed stand drawer and opening it, withdrawing a black, silk blindfold. “It’s quite soft,” he chimed as he closed the distance between them. His heart was thudding so fast, and all he really wanted was to shove her down, to take her then and there, but he knew he couldn't. Not yet.

  He wouldn’t rush it with her. It would be sweet torture for them both, and the way she kept biting her lower lip made him all the more certain.

  He reached his hand up to her lower face, cupping her jaw and using his thumb to roll her lower lip free. It was so red from her worrying upon it, and he had to wrestle back the urge to suck it i
nto his mouth.

  “You better stop that.” His voice was husky, marred with arousal, but his eyes betrayed his humour as he rose the blindfold to her face.

  “Sorry,” she murmured in a meek, soft little voice, already sounding so sweetly obedient, as if she were meant for such a life. Meant to obey.

  When she gently pressed her soft, lightly pinkened cheek into his palm, it only stressed the point even more so. Her delicate scent of vanilla wafting off her beautiful young figure as he leaned in around her with his own strong aroma. Already she was marked by him, his own more masculine scented hair products mingled into her soft, luxurious hair.

  He couldn’t have chosen a better candidate than her. She was everything he could have dreamed of, so... malleable.

  He wrapped the blindfold around her face, tying it tightly at the back of her head. He smirked a little as it mussed up her thick tresses, but he smoothed them down gently, and just like that she was perfect once more.

  He took her hand and carefully led her to the bed, urging her to settle upon the slippery, silken sheets. “I want you to lie back in the middle of the bed, Aubrey.”

  She moved with such tentative little steps, her fingers curling about his much thicker ones for comfort as he guided her to the bed. She bent her legs, pushing her knees up onto the silk sheets, bunching her skirt up along her calves and the argyle socks she wore. She still had on her jacket from walking outside though, and had to shoulder it off to expose her bare arms and the white blouse beneath before laying back down.

  With her hair splayed across his pillow, eyes covered up and hands at her sides, she looked like a serene sleeping beauty. Those black mary janes pushed out to the side as she gnawed her lower lip once more, worrying the pink flesh.

  He didn’t mind that she was tracking in the outdoors into his sanctuary. He instead relished the little bits of imperfection, the small things he didn’t account for.

  Over and over he’d fantasized over this scenario, and to see her deviating from what he'd imagined in subtle little ways sent thrills like he’d never known through his body. It was her. The imperfections defined the moment, he realized as he moved away, and it would have seemed fake if she acted too perfectly.