by Chloe Cox
“I’ll come down,” Adra said.
And then, not for the first time, she took a moment. She’d dressed herself well, in a simple, beautifully cut black dress and a white shawl, for the same reason she’d stopped in front of the doors downstairs. She wanted her dignity back. As soon as she’d gotten off the phone with Ford, she’d felt embarrassed about the whole thing. She really had gone straight from the verge of a panic attack to being embarrassed about said panic attack in about a minute.
She hated that other people could make her feel like that.
She hated even more that, for the second time—for the third time?—Ford was coming to her rescue.
No, that wasn’t accurate. She didn’t hate it. She secretly loved it, loved that he didn’t demand to know anything other than how to fix it, loved that it was his first thought—but it scared her. So she’d dressed in what, for her, was battle armor. Pity she didn’t have time to properly do her makeup.
The elevator doors opened, and she held her head high, prepared to step out and face the whole thing all over again.
And then there was Ford. Holding the doors open, his big, muscular body dressed perfectly in that suit, his dirty blond hair tousled across his forehead, his worried blue eyes searching her face for anything, anything at all…
She couldn’t look away.
He stepped in, and she stepped back.
The doors closed.
Gently, he touched her face. “Are you ok?” he asked.
Why couldn’t she speak? She opened her mouth, she tried, she just…
“I don’t know,” she said finally. It was the truth. He always got the truth out of her, in the end.
Ford smoothed his thumb across her cheek and Adra turned into it, unable to help herself, her body just…it had a mind of it’s own, when it came to Ford. She could feel her shoulders begin to relax with just that touch.
He dipped down and kissed her lightly, gently, just once. And then he wrapped his arms around her.
And Adra gave in.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Ford said, as she cried softly into his chest. “Ever.”
Adra pulled herself together, and raised her head, trying not to think about what she must look like. She had just needed a good cry. That was all.
Nothing more.
“Well, I’m not going to let anything happen to this suit,” she said, trying to smooth the now wrinkled material. “Anything else, anyway.”
Ford smiled at her, kissed her once more on the nose so that she had to swat him away, and then picked up her suitcase.
“Having you on my suit will always be an improvement,” he said, winking. Adra opened her mouth in mock outrage, but couldn’t quite stifle a smile.
“That is one dirty mind, Ford Colson,” she said.
“You have no idea,” Ford said, pressing the button for the garage. He smiled brilliantly. “But I’ll tell you more in the car.”
Oh, of course. Adra hadn’t thought of it. Ford could drive her out in his car; they photographers would never know the difference. And of course she’d need to stay somewhere with actual security. Her building was generally not designed for the needs of the famous or even the temporarily infamous.
She sighed as practical thoughts invaded her brain all over again.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered.
“Right now, you’re going to step to the side of the elevator so that you aren’t visible from the garage,” Ford said, herding her into the corner. “You’re going to let the doors close and then you’re going to press the emergency stop button so the elevator doesn’t go anywhere. I’m going to get my car, and I’m going to drive up here, in case any of those vultures are hanging around. And then I’m going to get you into my car.”
Well. That was good enough for her.
And it worked. She didn’t know why she was surprised, and she definitely didn’t expect Ford to simply ignore the existence of a curb and pull his truck right up to the elevator—and it was his truck he’d brought instead of the Jag; somehow she loved that—but it all worked. And when he drove out of her garage, all she had to do was duck down.
“Are we clear?” she asked after a few minutes.
“It was a brilliant escape,” Ford said.
“You think very highly of yourself,” Adra said, smiling as she sat up straight.
Ford looked at her.
“Sir,” she added.
“Damn straight.”
Adra leaned her forehead against the cool glass, already feeling calmer inside. Still, like a glass lake. Like he’d quieted the storm, however briefly.
“So where are we going?” she asked.
“Where do you think?”
Adra looked out at Sunset Boulevard—they weren’t going to Volare or any of the hotels that knew how to handle celebrity circuses.
“Oh, Ford,” she said quietly.
“They’d find you in any hotel in Los Angeles, except possibly the Chateau Marmont, and Derrick and Ellen are staying there while their place is being renovated,” Ford said.
How did he know that? Was that at dinner? Adra hadn’t paid attention to anything but Ford and the aftershocks she’d occasionally had to hide.
“And Volare is a mess while they’re shooting,” Ford went on.
“Ford…”
“I have a guest room made up for you,” Ford said, looking at her so she’d catch that ‘guest room’ part. “And I have a play room you’ll be spending most of your time in anyway.”
In spite of the nervousness growing inside her, Adra laughed. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not,” Ford said.
That smile was positively carnal. He was completely serious.
“You don’t think this is… I mean, what about the rules?” Adra tried. “Our rules?”
“I’m not compromising on this, either, Adra,” he said, turning the truck into his gated drive. “That man could have forced his way into your apartment. He could have hurt you. He could have—” he stopped himself abruptly, his jaw tense, and shook his head.
The truck came to a stop in front of the house, and Ford turned his full gaze on Adra.
“I’ll go somewhere else if you want, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go, but you will damn well be somewhere safe, even if I have to hire people to watch over you. Understood?” he said.
Adra blinked. “I’m not kicking you out of your own house,” she said.
Ford nodded. He didn’t say anything else until he’d come around to Adra’s side to open the door and help her down. And then when he did say something, it was…well, it was something.
“Well, then,” he said, carefully setting her down on the drive. “Welcome home.”
Twelve
It wasn’t just what he said to her. It was that he’d already prepared a place for her. It was the way he held her hand as she picked her way through the gravel of his drive to the broad slate squares of the walk to his front door. It was the way he carried her bag, without a second thought, without a chance that he’d give it up even if she fought him for it. It was the way his hand on the small of her back made her feel completely safe.
Which, ironically, meant danger. Adra knew she was about to freak out.
Ford held open the door for her.
She liked walking through it way too much.
“You don’t have to take care of me, you know,” she said, stepping over the threshold.
She hadn’t been in this house in so long. She had missed it. She’d missed this ridiculous masculine decorating scheme, all these dark stones and dark polished woods and high-end electronics. She’d missed the scent: the wood-burning fireplace, and Ford himself.
“There aren’t very many things I have to do,” Ford said. “Some things I just want to do.”
Adra stopped, the final click of her heels echoing softly in the high-ceilinged foyer, and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath.
“I don’t want you to take ca
re of me,” she said.
That echoed, too.
She hated that she’d needed to say that. She hated how defensive it sounded, how ridiculous, how scared and uncertain. She was a grown woman; she didn’t have anything to prove to anyone.
No. She shouldn’t have anything to prove to anyone. But that didn’t necessarily make it so.
She opened her eyes, and found Ford watching her. Studying her. His eyes searching, his expression intense, his whole body primed, alert—just like her own.
Damn.
She felt exposed. Naked. Far more naked than she’d ever actually been before, if that was possible.
Oh God, what if she was in way over her head?
She felt the panic begin to brim, and it felt like a breath taken underwater. And then Ford was there.
Her Dom was there.
“I am going to take care of you,” he said. “Right now.”
He kissed her back against the wall, put his hand between her legs, and squeezed until Adra moaned helpless into his mouth. By the time he pulled away she was weak-kneed and feverish, her mouth searching mindlessly for his, her hands gripping at his shoulders.
Jesus, this man…
As her eyes started to focus, she latched on to the heat building in her core with what could only be called gratitude, and looked up at him.
“I’m not done with you,” he said.
Adra swallowed. She didn’t know if she was done freaking out, either. She didn’t know if she could…
“Go into the living room, strip naked, and wait for me on all fours,” Ford commanded.
Her breath hitched.
“Now,” he said.
His voice snapped her back into herself, and away from all that over-thinking, overwhelmed panic. She thought about what he’d said, where he’d touched her, and how wet she was. How she felt the pressure pulsing inside her, how it was drowning out everything else, even the panic, distilling her down to this one, pure thing that she could handle.
Jesus fuck, this man…
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
And she practically ran to the living room, her heels echoing off the polished floors until she crossed another threshold, and nearly tripped in the soft, deep carpet of Ford’s comfortable living room.
Shoes were the first to go.
He hadn’t turned on any of the lights yet, and so Adra undressed in the dark. The dress slipped right off of her; bra and thong followed. She hadn’t worn stockings or garters, though she’d thought about it. She was glad now that she hadn’t. She went from dressed to the nines to dressed for one thing in particular in about three point two seconds.
One thing left to do. She shivered slightly in the dark.
Then she walked to the middle of the room, in front of the huge, dark fireplace, slowly lowered herself to her hands and knees, and felt her mind begin to empty.
The thing about waiting was that at first the world would shrink down to a size just big enough to hold the thing she waited for. And then, as the seconds—minutes? Eons? Who could tell?—ticked by, slowly the world kept shrinking, until the thing she waited for, the man she waited for, was too big for it. There wasn’t room in Adra’s head for anything else but Ford. For when he would arrive. When he would touch her. What he would do.
She waited, and the only passage of time were her rapid, shallow breaths, and the wetness she could feel spreading between her legs.
Adra listened. She listened so, so hard.
But the thing about carpet over a stone floor is that you can’t hear a damn thing.
She didn’t know he was behind her until he was inside her.
Her breath came out in a long, soft cry as he slid into her, his hands holding her steady at the hips while her arms buckled beneath her. He felt big, bigger than she remembered, stretching her to where she almost thought she couldn’t take it anymore. Her eyes flew open while he paused briefly and her body adjusted. And then she leaned her head against her forearms, now flat on the floor, and pushed up against him, wanting more, so much more, as much as she could take.
Ford slapped her ass and drove into her again.
And again.
And again.
She was moaning, she was sure she was moaning, just driven to it by the feel of him thrusting inside her relentlessly, when he reached forward, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and brought her up to where he could grab her breast.
“Oh fuck,” she said.
“You know the rules,” Ford said, pounding into her again. “You don’t come unless I say so.”
This was different. This was anything but gentle.
This was perfect.
He held her down, toyed with her nipple, fucked her mercilessly, and all the while all she could think about was that she couldn’t come. Her whole body tightened around him, around the impending orgasm, the shape of the thing she could already feel building inside her, and she could only think: Oh God, don’t come, don’t come, don’t come…
Then she felt his hand leave her breast, only to snake downward, his fingers searching out her clit, and she almost screamed in denied agony. He thrust into her, hard, and she went mindlessly blank.
“Please,” she begged. She was babbling. “Please, please, please…”
“Come,” he ordered, and she exploded.
He stopped, kept himself motionlessly inside her while she came hard around him, the man apparently having an iron freaking will, something Adra could now appreciate more than ever. By the time the contractions subsided, Adra’s face was wet. Tears? Sweat?
Oh God, he was still inside her.
She shuddered, another aftershock tearing through her. She groaned, bit her lip, moved her hips.
Ford slapped her ass again.
“That one was just because I’m feeling nice,” Ford said. “Now I’m going to have some fun with you. Remember you don’t come until I tell you, or you’re going to feel it.”
And with that he slid out of her. He was only gone a second, maybe two, that might as well have been forever. Adra only noticed that she didn’t dare to move out of position until he came back and stroked the back of her thigh.
“Good girl,” he said.
And then he attached the nipple clamps.
Adra hissed, then felt herself start to float away as the sting faded into pleasure. This would keep her close to the edge for however long Ford deemed fit. This would…
The clamps were attached to a lead.
She knew because he pulled on it.
“Pay attention,” he said.
Adra whimpered. “Yes, sir,” she said.
“Which hand do you masturbate with?” he said.
“My left,” she said.
“Use it,” he said. “Touch yourself.”
Adra groaned even at the thought. The second she touched herself, knowing it was his order, knowing he was watching, knowing he would do whatever he wanted, it would be a constant battle not to fall over the forbidden edge. And still, she did it. She gingerly shifted her weight, moved her hand. Winced in anticipation.
And then she touched herself, and she started to shake.
“Adra,” he warned.
“I know,” she panted. “I know, I’m trying, I’m trying…”
“Try harder,” he said, and trailed the cool leather end of a riding crop up the inside of her leg.
She almost lost it.
Instead she moaned and turned her head to hide in the crook of her arm, closing her eyes, turning all her concentration on what she wasn’t allowed to do. Even though she knew what was coming.
The first strokes with the crop were light, feathery, like little stinging bites all over the backs of her thighs and her ass. Then sharper. Longer, not letting the crop dance off her skin quite as fast, letting it linger instead. Each one spiked sensation all over her body, each one struck nerves that seemed directly connected to her clit, each one threatened to send her over.
“Move your hand,” Ford ordered.
Adra did as she was told, and moaned.
He struck her with the crop and she cried out.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered, his voice hoarse.
And then he hit her again.
“Keep at it, Adra.”
And again.
And again, until she was actually dizzy, moaning aloud, incoherent. Begging. Definitely begging, though she didn’t know if she had real words anymore, just that pleading tone of voice, that desperation that not even the best actress could fake, that base, animal need, her fingers working, her other hand balled into a fist, her teeth clenched…
He flipped her over quickly, easily, like it was nothing at all, and settled her shaking legs on either side of him. She opened her bleary eyes, blinked up at him, gripped at the carpet with her hands.
He removed the nipple clamps and for a split second she felt the painful surge of blood returning and cried out—and then he replaced them with his fingers, pinching, rubbing, slowly letting up on the pressure. Letting her feel every, long second of it while he kept his eyes locked on her contorting face.
“Please,” she begged again, writhing under him. “Please.”
Ford positioned his cock at her entrance, the head nestled in her folds, and it was so close she wanted to cry—and he paused.
“Your orgasms belong to me now,” he said, and his voice was different, rougher, more raw.
“Yes,” she said.
“You are mine,” he said.
“Yes!”
“Now come as many times as you can,” he said.
With a growl, he plunged into her again, and Adra screamed. She came immediately. She came insanely. She wasn’t sure if she ever stopped, or if that low, buzzing hum was just the base note of the longest orgasm of her life, or if what would happen next was that she might actually die. She had no idea what was happening to her. And she didn’t care, as long as Ford kept doing it to her.
And he did, until sweat began to trickle down his forehead, until his own fingers dug into the carpet beneath her, until he dropped his head and kissed her roughly. Then he pinned her hands above her head and, with a feral growl, gripped her neck with his teeth and finished them both, fucking her with wild, senseless abandon until they both lay sweaty and limp on his living room floor.
