The train stops at five stations before he stands up to wait at the sliding doors. She tenses, watching him. At the next stop, he gets out with several other passengers. She steps out too, making sure that her smaller body is always shielded by several other people as they take the common walkway out.
She exits the station. He is suddenly nowhere to be seen. She almost panics, and then catches sight of his well-shaped head at a news kiosk. She tries to blend in with a lamp post. He selects a stick of gum, pays for it, and then walks out again. Her heart is beating fast as she resumes her stalking.
He saunters a few blocks down. He has a languid way of walking that is very sexy, but he’s totally unconscious when he does it. If he had been conscious about it, he wouldn’t look half as good. He enters a restaurant called ‘Orso’. It is the type of restaurant that requires a reservation in advance, but is avant-garde enough not to require a suit and tie. He says something to the grreter at the door. She looks through her reservation book, and then nods and smiles enticingly at him. And no wonder, Abby thinks jealously. He’s a hotbed of hotness with his height and stellar good looks.
Abby doesn’t enter the restaurant. That would be pushing it. She watches him instead through the large glass windows which are framed from the inside by decorative gold curtains held back by tassels. Inside, Orso is well-lighted, in contrast to the darkness outside, and so she has no fear that he would see her spying on him.
He approaches a table with two women. One of them is dark-haired and definitely older than him. Her friend is a blonde goddess who makes her think of Nordic ice queens. The dark-haired woman gets up and he greets her with a hug. He nods at the blonde. Abby can’t see his face from her vantage, but his shoulders tense up as the blonde gets up and gives him a perfunctory hug.
Interesting.
What can she deduce from this?
Part of her feels guilty that she is so curious about what he does that she has resorted to trailing him like a wife intent on catching her cheating husband. And the other part of her – the one that can peer into her own heart with crystal clarity – tells her that she has fallen for his good looks and kindness.
A sadness creeps within her.
She remembers what happened the last time she fell for a handsome boy.
Devon seats himself at the table with the women. He takes off his jacket, revealing his perfectly toned arms. A waiter approaches him with a menu, and he peruses it. Another waiter comes over to pour some red wine into his glass.
Abby watches on. Devon is very handsome as he chats amicably to the women. She can’t help but notice that he gravitates more to the dark-haired one while keeping some reserve towards the blonde. The dark-haired one laughs, seemingly amused by what he has to say. The blonde maintains her ice cool façade.
After a while, the dark-haired woman puts her hand on Devon’s bare arm. She strokes his forearm in a proprietary manner, making it clear to anyone who cares to view them that they have been intimate before. Then the blonde puts her hand on his thigh under the table and begins stroking him through his jeans as well. She goes so far as to venture near his crotch. Abby has a vantage on that view, and it makes her blood churn to see him being treated like a sex object.
She turns away from the window, her stomach feeling hollow. She can’t help how she feels about Devon.
She recognizes the emotion now.
It is sheer desire.
QUAD
Devon is slightly apprehensive as he follows Claire and Rachel back to Rachel’s apartment in Soho.
He would rather have gone back to Claire’s place. In Rachel’s apartment, the room of pain with its torture instruments beckons like a shadowy pall cast upon the evening. Claire isn’t into the BDSM scene, but he can never tell what Rachel has persuaded her to do. The room itself may not be utilized tonight, but it will hover like an ephemeral threat – a pinprick in his heightened consciousness.
The deal was simple. A thousand dollars for the night. It would be a threesome. He has never done three-ways before, but it sounded relatively straightforward. After all, he had enough stamina to get it up several times a night. And he certainly has the stamina to hold his erection and fuck two women in a row, one after the other.
As soon as the doors close on them inside the elevator car, Claire clasps his face in a strong grip and kisses him. She is far shorter than he is, and so she has to tilt his head down for the kiss with her fingers spreading across the back of his neck. Her fervor takes him aback. He cannot recall a time when she has been this predatory. She usually wants him to be the aggressor, to be the one who takes charge in the initiation of carnal pleasures.
“Mmmm,” she murmurs as her tongue shoots into his mouth. She explores his own flexing tongue and the corrugated landscape of his molars.
Rachel’s hands roam over his abdomen and buttocks. Even as Claire locks passionate lips with him, Rachel cups her palm over his cock and balls, snugly ensconced in his tight jeans. Blood begins to fill his penis and scrotal sac, raising his shaft so that his cock head tents against the crotch of his jeans.
“Wait,” he says against Claire’s mouth, “someone might come in.”
Any time now, he expects the elevator to go ‘ping’ at another floor and a nice couple with their little kid to enter.
Claire pays him no heed.
Rachel pulls his head from Claire’s embrace and kisses him wetly on the mouth. He can feel their hands on every part of his body – groping, squeezing, lifting, pinching. His nipples tingle from their purposeful tweaking.
The elevator doors open with a hiss. He braces himself for the shocked gasps of the decent family which is supposed to materialize, but the passageway outside is empty. They have arrived at Rachel's floor.
Laughing at his relief, Claire pulls him by the hand out of the cab.
“You’re such a prude by nature, Devon,” she says.
“I am not.” He flushes.
“He’s only a prude in public,” Rachel remarks.
In front of Rachel’s door, they start to kiss again while Rachel searches for her keys in her purse. The door opens, and all three of them fall inside.
Rachel slams the door behind them.
Devon almost loses his balance as the two women attack his clothes in a rush of need. They rip off his leather jacket in haste so that his arms are almost caught in the sleeves. Off comes his wife beater. Rachel immediately reaches for the fly of his jeans and unzips him with dexterity. He wears nothing underneath, and his cock springs to impressive tumescence.
He is quite alarmed at how sexually charged they are tonight. Perhaps it is the wine. Perhaps it is the thought of a threesome – the three of them together, naked and rolling in one bed.
They lead him, naked, to Rachel’s bedroom. It is usually a place where he gets to fuck Rachel only after his punishment for the night has been meted out. There, for consolation, he gets to prove his worth as an alpha male – something he is not allowed in the pain room – and get his much awaited release on her bed. He is usually not allowed to achieve climax in the pain room or she would have doled out even more severe punishment on his raw and vulnerable flesh.
Rachel pushes him roughly on the bed. He falls onto the mattress with a bounce.
Her bedroom is done in an extremely modern design, with clean angular lines. The bed is raised on a dais, almost as though it were an offering upon an altar. The alcove upon which the headboard nestles against is lighted with hidden lamps, much like her collected treasures outside. The entire effect is that of a tasteful hotel suite.
“Stay,” she commands him as though he were a dog.
He has nowhere to go anyway. He watches them through curious eyes as they undress swiftly, baring their breasts and flat midriffs. They both obviously tone themselves at the gym. He can’t help comparing their bodies – Claire’s petite, small-breasted beauty to Rachel’s thin, ultra-tall Nordic build. He has no preference for a certain body type. He can fuck either one of them easily.
; Rachel stretches all four of his limbs out on her bed. She pulls his arms above his head. Before he can protest, she ties his right wrist swiftly to the bedpost with a yellow silk scarf that she plucks from her bedside table drawer, and Claire does the same to his left wrist.
“I thought we were going vanilla tonight,” he says, his pulse beating hard. Well, as vanilla as a three-way can get.
“I’m giving Claire a taste of dominance.” Rachel secures her knot with a flourish. Her bonds are very tight. Claire is a lot more solicitous with her binding, and so he is more stretched out in his right arm than he is on his left.
The imbalance jars him. His right hand feels trapped of all circulation. Rachel has always been overzealous in her bondage, as if she’s afraid he would get away. He tries to flex and unflex his numb fingers.
Claire smiles sweetly, showing her white, well-polished teeth.
“I thought this wasn’t your kind of thing,” he says to her.
“I thought I’d take Rachel’s offer of a tour.”
He flickers his eyes anxiously over to Rachel. “I didn’t sign up for any pain tonight.”
“There will be no pain,” she promises him. She lights an unaccustomed kiss on his forehead.
Still, he is unnerved. He swallows and struggles with his wrist bonds as the women secure his ankles to the bedposts at the foot of the bed. His muscular thighs are now wide apart. His betraying cock is ramrod straight and standing at a right angle to the plane of his flat abdomen.
“If you’re both going to beat me,” he warns, “I’m going to have to charge a thousand more.”
“So charge away, because I’m not going to whip you,” Rachel says.
He admits defeat and lies there without moving, letting them finish up with the bonds on his ankles too. Once again, the imbalance is apparent. Rachel is strident and decisive with what she is doing, and Claire is a hesitant but ultimately willing student.
“Are we allowed to play with him now?” Claire asks, looking to her more experienced friend for instruction.
Somewhere out there, a doorbell chimes a musical jingle. Rachel gets up in a catlike gesture. She is all overpowering Scandinavian princess tonight.
“Yes, you can play with him.”
She walks out of the bedroom, still naked, her white buttocks rolling enticingly. Claire turns back to the fearful Devon, who still hasn’t lost his hardness despite his misgivings.
“She can be mean,” he pleads with her.
“Don’t worry,” she soothes, pulling at his shaft and stroking it to the tip. “I won’t let her hurt you.”
Too late for that, he thinks.
Claire’s face is full of unexpected tenderness as she gazes down at him while continuing to stroke him.
“I’ve grown very fond of you. Did you know that, Devon?”
He doesn’t know what to answer to that. Her hand strays to his hair and she tousles it carelessly, as though he is a little boy. Her eyes wear an inexplicable sadness.
Rachel comes back, still naked, with a man. Devon’s entire body goes cagey with apprehension. He pulls at his bonds, but they hold taut.
The man is patrician-looking, with silver hair and a sleek nose that curves slightly to the left. But he is far from old. He has a youngish face which may be the result of either natural youthfulness or Botox. He wears an elegant charcoal grey suit and tie. He takes in Devon’s spread-eagled body and the large penis that stands so erect and true, and he smiles a predatory smile that sends shivers down Devon’s back.
“You said this was a three-way,” Devon accuses, staring at Rachel.
“A thousand more,” she offers. “Take it, Devon. It’s a good deal.”
The man takes out his wallet and extracts a wad of bills from it. He tosses the money onto the dresser. Rachel begins to tug at his well-tailored jacket. The man’s burning eyes never leaves Devon’s ripe body.
Devon’s fists bunch and he cringes in embarrassment from the collective stares in the room. The temperature suddenly has gotten a lot higher.
Two thousand dollars, he tells himself.
Is that the price of his soul?
INNOCENCE
Devon is unusually quiet over the next few days, but Abby puts it down to the three-way he was probably involved in. She checks his body surreptitiously for marks of abuse, but there are none, and so she heaves a sigh of relief and plays the role of the cavalier roommate. Devon has not suspected that she followed him, and she does not let it slip.
She does not have to pose for him for the time being. He is still working at the painting. Her painting, she thinks proudly.
“Is it finished yet?”
“Yes,” he says.
He looks thinner somewhat. Sadder. As if something had happened on the night of the three-way that touched someplace deep inside of him in a bad way. She wishes she can ask him more about it, but it wouldn’t do to let him know she was spying on him.
“Can I see it?”
He nods. She sits up eagerly, unable to believe her ears.
“You mean you really, really finished? You’re not shittin’ me?”
“Come take a look for yourself.” He steps back with a flourish of his paintbrush.
She almost trips as she stumbles out of her chair. It is like being promised a thousand dollar reward at the end of a particularly tough exam, and being told that she made the grade. She crosses the room to his easel, where the canvas he has painstakingly worked at for so many days resides.
And stops in her tracks.
“What?” he says, running a paint-speckled hand through his rich, chestnut hair nervously, “you don’t like it?”
She can’t stop staring.
“No . . . I like it fine.”
She loves it, in fact. He has accomplished something no photographer has ever managed. He has managed to make her look beautiful.
And not only beautiful, but ethereal. He has captured and composed and enhanced her pixie features, her shock of dark, short hair in all its glossiness and highlights, her wide dark eyes as she gazes into the face of her artist. Her expression in the painting is simultaneously fey and curious, like that of a doe wandering into human civilization. She doesn’t believe she has ever looked quite like that.
But even more remarkable is the much-touted backdrop. Instead of the apartment room they are in, he has painted in a whole kaleidoscope of jagged, multi-hued mountains and peaceful, rolling countryside with rivers twisting through it like fat snakes. It is a vista that could have formed ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
Even her attire has been transformed from the usual sweatshirts and jeans she wears while posing. He has painted her in an off-shoulder Greek nymph gown, or what she thinks nymphs would wear if they exist. The gown is lily white, and her shoulders are slim, supple and bare.
“I call it ‘Innocence’,” he says. He is still anxious about her opinion.
He needn’t be, she thinks. She has some eye for art, seeing that her grandfather was a collector, and Devon’s talent was evidently displayed in every oil brushstroke and nuance he has so painstakingly captured or imagined on the canvas.
“You are very, very talented,” she says, the awe coating her voice. She didn’t know how talented he was until now. She had always reckoned he was a fly-by-night artist, someone who wanted to do more than he was capable of. But now she knows.
“Thanks.” He blushes and turns his face away.
“No, I mean it, Devon. Your work should be displayed in a gallery. You are that good.”
“I didn’t even finish art school.”
“Why not?”
“I ran out of money, and I figured that whatever they were trying to teach me was cramping my style.”
“You seem to have plenty of money now.”
“New York is expensive.” His eyes flit away.
She pauses.
“You know, you’re better than you give yourself credit for, Devon. You don’t have to do whatever it is you’re doing to make money
.”
He turns back to her suspiciously. “What’re you saying?”
Careful, she warns herself. “What Billy said that day . . . about you being bank-rolled.” She assumes an innocent face.
“He’s just talking out of his ass. Pay no attention to him. And it’s none of anyone’s business anyway, what I do.” He gives her a significant look.
She swallows. He is right. It’s none of her business. She’s just his roommate, and only by his good graces.
“What are you going to do with the painting?” she asks, changing the subject.
“I’m going to put it aside and then start the other one. With you in it again, of course.” He smiles.
It’s nice that he is painting again, she thinks. And it’s even nicer that he is painting her.
“Are you going to make me look beautiful again?”
“You are beautiful,” he says in a serious tone. “You just don’t think you are. That’s why you don’t try to make yourself look nice. But you could, you know.”
“What? Make myself look more like a girly girl?”
If only he knew.
“Yes. When you get a proper job, I can take you shopping again. Dress you up in nicer clothes that don’t make you look like you have extra ten pounds padding. We can do your hair too in one of those nicer, more upgraded styles. You’ll look really pretty.”
She’s pleased despite herself.
He adds, “Have you given that waitressing job a thought?”
She has already decided she is not going to take it. Not with Billy on the alert.
“I’ll find something else.”
He mock scowls. “OK, but don’t ask me to do you any more favors.”
She lays her hand on his arm, aware that this is the exact gesture she has seen the dark-haired woman do to him. “It’s not like that, Devon. I’m really grateful for everything. I’ll go get a job today, I promise.”
Of course, he may be pushing her to get a job so that she can get a place of her own and be out of his hair.
He nods. “I’m not trying to rush you or anything, but I figured you might want to get on with your life.”
The Alpha's Touch Boxed Set (14 Book Bundle) Page 124
