His Custody

by Tamsen Parker

  A few fluttery blinks and a sigh. “You do?”

  Hopeful but not quite believing was a start, and he’d convince her. With steady and earnest words, repeated as many times as she needed to hear them. “Yes.”

  “And you still . . . Will you still kiss me?”

  “I want to kiss you more than ever. But you’ve got to promise me something.”

  “Anything.”

  Oh, that word was a dangerous offer to make to a man like him, but he wouldn’t take advantage of it even if there were a hundred images of doing whatever he liked to her running through his mind. Dial it back, Andersson. If you’re going to be a pervert, be an ethical one at least. “That if I ever do anything you don’t want me to do, you’ll tell me to stop.”

  “But what if . . .”

  “What if what?”

  “What if you like it?”

  “If you don’t, I’m not going to like it anymore. And I’ll feel bad I made you do something you didn’t want to. So you’ll tell me, yes?”

  That wasn’t precisely true. He’d love to push her boundaries, coax her into something she wasn’t sure about, see her give in, submit to him, but at the core of it, he wanted her to know no was always an option, no matter what. He’d tell her early and often.

  “Yes.”

  ***

  Jasper kissed her again and she couldn’t breathe. In all the hours, all the days she’d spent with Gavin, never had she felt like this. He’d been sweet to her, made her feel good, but never had she lit up inside from his caresses. She’d told him once what she’d just told Jasper—she wanted to be forced because she couldn’t think of a better way to say it, couldn’t find better words to tell him. The look he’d given her had made her queasy, and she’d passed it off quickly lest he think too hard or too long about it and decide he couldn’t be with a freak like her.

  She knew she wasn’t like the other girls. They all loved to play damsel in distress, wanted to be rescued, but for them, it was the moment of release that was most appealing. For her . . . She liked being distressed. She wanted the prince to scale her tower, leave her in her bonds, have his way with her and when he was finished, then, only then, would he let her go, cradle and cuddle her and promise to keep her safe. She’d only ever be at his mercy again.

  Safe meant being kept. Being guided, told what to do, having responsibility removed. Gavin wouldn’t have understood, didn’t understand. He didn’t want to control her, make her do things. He wanted to please her too desperately. And even if he could’ve stomached doing the things she thought she wanted, and she didn’t think he would’ve been able to, it wouldn’t have been the same, because he wouldn’t have liked it. Wouldn’t have wanted it, and that sense of play-acting would’ve ruined the whole thing.

  But Jasper, with his hard kisses and his hand wrapped around her throat, he said he understood. Maybe he did. He kissed her like he did.

  She caught her hands curling up into fists again, wanting to clutch him tight, but wanting to be good for him more. Isn’t that what he’d said? Be a good girl for me? God, she wanted to. Yes, she’d challenge and test him during the day, but in this all she wanted to do was give in. Fall, and trust when she did, he’d catch her. She spread her fingers, the backs of them pressing into the sheets.

  His hand slipped down her neck to her collarbone and a finger traced along the neckline of her camisole. He hooked a finger over the lace and tugged. She nodded, nodded, yes, yes.

  Drawing the stretchy fabric down her chest, he nestled it under her breast. In the air, her nipple gathered and hardened. He brushed an open palm over it and she bit her lip, making a pelvis-deep moan. Concentration etched on his stony face, he cupped her breast and squeezed. Lightly, kneading, then harder and then hard. “Oh!”

  But she didn’t say stop and he didn’t. His fingers dug into her and she finally understood why her friends liked under-the-shirt action. But she didn’t think they did this. At least, it had never sounded like they did this.

  Her breast became sensitive and sore under his handling and when she was about to tell him to stop, he palmed her breast and took her nipple between his thumb and finger and squeezed. Pulled and twisted and pulled again. It was like she was a game of operation, but every time he touched the walls, the buzz electrified her and she wasn’t sorry. She hadn’t lost. This was winning, for sure. A whole new skeleton inside her sent pulses to her pelvis. She was thrashing under his touch, her eyes closed. Everything felt tied up tight, tight, about to burst.

  “Are you going to come, Keyne?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you are. I think you’re going to come from me playing with your one, perfect tit. You are. I want you to come for me, sweetheart. Come on.”

  She shook her head from side to side, not knowing why. She wouldn’t refuse him and it felt so good and she was so close and, and . . .

  A last hard twist while he yanked her nipple away from her body and she was done for. She cried out and shuddered, her orgasm rocking her from head to toe. When she gathered up the bits of herself that had been blown all over, Jasper was curled close around her, his hand rubbing a soothing rhythm into her arm, his cool, dark voice crooning things into her ear. “That was beautiful. You’re beautiful. I love how you came apart, how you called my name.”

  She whispered it then.

  “Yeah, sweetheart?”

  “I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know it could be like that.”

  He smiled at her. “You don’t know a lot of things. I’m going to teach you. And I’m going to start here.”

  He mirrored his earlier motion on the other side of her camisole, exposing her other breast. It was creamy white, unsullied and aching to be touched, not like the one he’d manhandled moments ago. That one was pink, the nipple a dusky red and sore. “I don’t think I can . . .”

  “You can. You will.”

  He lowered his head to her nipple and tongued her. When that got no reaction, he took it in his mouth and sucked, hard. The part of her breast that wasn’t in his mouth, he gathered the flesh between his fingers, rough. She was squirming again, like she’d never gone off, like she hadn’t come for months, years. She never had, not like this.

  Jasper sucked at her, rough rhythmic pulls and when he started to use his teeth, biting her, she lost her mind. In her dreams and fantasies, she’d been handled roughly, but she’d never been able to conjure something like this. He released the abused nub from his teeth, suckled her again, harder still and alternated the motions, his hand still clamped around the rest of her breast.

  After a few minutes, her hips were rising off the bed, thrusting into the air while she pressed her head into the pillow, and she knew she was wet between her legs. She wanted to shove her fist in her mouth because the sound that was going to come out of her was going to be embarrassing. But when she came, she forgot to care. Her whole world stopped as the sensation rippled through her. God. Dear god. No wonder people liked orgasms so much.

  Jasper was holding her, tight up against him and she nuzzled closer, tucking her head under his chin.

  “You can put your hands down, sweetheart. But you were such a good girl for keeping them where I told you.”

  Pleasure from his praise flooded her, making her feel like she was glowing, made of decadence and light. She rolled into him and fisted her hands into his shirt, her exposed breasts pushing into the soft fabric. The feel of it against her skin was mild in reality, but it shocked her, like she’d shed a layer of skin and was raw. She was breathing hard and her eyelids fluttered, she couldn’t get control of her small muscles. Jasper hushed her, petted her, pulled her close and murmured, “You’re okay. You’re all right, Keyne. Can you feel my breathing? Breathe with me. Behave and breathe with me.”

  It was hard feeling anything but overwhelmed, but when she tried she could find the steady beat of his heart,
the even ups and downs of his chest against hers. Behave and breathe with me. It took her a few tries, but then she had her inhales and exhales pegged to his and it felt good. Once she pinned her breath to Jasper’s, she could let go. Like metronomes placed together, they’d fall into synch.

  Chapter Eighteen

  June

  He hadn’t dreamed she could be like that. In all the times he’d jerked off while trying not to think about her and failing, he’d never even gotten close to how brilliant she was in real life. In the willing and perfect flesh. Keyne. Jesus.

  Curled into him, her breathing evened out, the rise and falls of her ribcage matching his. The easy way she took instructions, trusting him, obeying him, was delicious. Some women he’d played with had been brats; he didn’t play with them for long.

  He’d put up with teasing, a small amount of insolence, but he was happier when they did as he asked, believing he knew best, he would take care of them. But even the most compliant ones had nothing on Keyne. And watching her come, it was almost better than coming himself. Almost.

  His cock was concrete hard, aching with want, need. He needed to be inside her. Needed it now. She’d loosened her grasp on his chest, her small hands spread over his collarbones, fingers stroking absently. He kissed the top of her head, inhaled the sweet smell of her hair and reached for her chin, curling blunt fingers under the point and tipping her face up to look him in the eye.

  “You enjoyed that.”

  She rolled her lips between her teeth and her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink. “Yes.”

  “I’m glad. I did, too. You like your sex rough, little girl?”

  Her lashes fluttered and she looked away. He shook her chin gently and she blinked her mossy eyes back to him. “Apparently.”

  Her tone wasn’t of incredulous disbelief though. Maybe she hadn’t done that before, but she wasn’t completely surprised. “Don’t do that. You tell me the truth. Always. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” A small smile graced her face, one that was just for him. The sweet, vulnerable side he’d been privileged to see. She wanted to tell him, and he’d do his damnedest to make sure he was worthy of the hearing.

  “So tell me, did you know?”

  “Sort of. I didn’t know for sure, but I thought . . . I thought maybe.” It was more than that given the self-conscious flush creeping down to her chest, but he’d let her have the tiny fib. It wasn’t hurting anyone.

  “When did you know?”

  Her small mouth compressed into a thoughtful bud and she looked away from him but he didn’t mind. He liked watching her think, sift through her memories to a time when she didn’t want to be held down, toyed with, forced. She frowned, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows and then looked at him shyly. “Always? Is that possible? Not like sex, obviously, but I always liked getting caught.”

  Memories flooded his head: Keyne playing tag, hide-and-seek, capture the flag, cops and robbers. It was true. He’d thought at the time it was because she liked to let Gavin win. Keyne had been taller, faster, stronger than Gavin for much of their childhood, but somehow Gavin usually came out on top. As they got older, he thought maybe she wanted to coddle his ego, make him feel manly. But all those times she’d let Gavin run her down, lead her to “jail,” they took on a new flavor.

  “You’re a lighter.” He breathed the word and her chin wrinkled, the center of her mouth pushing up. “It’s not bad, Keyne. Nothing bad, I promise. It means you knew. That you’ve always known this is what you wanted. Do you know anything about kink? BDSM?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Is that what that was?”

  If it was humanly possible, his dick got harder. Every fantasy he’d ever had, come to life in the form of this redheaded girl. He wondered then if Gavin had lived, if he, Jasper, and Keyne would have ended up together anyway. Would Gavin have been able to make her happy? He knew his brother pretty well considering how far apart in age they were, and he’d never smelled a whiff of kink on him. Then again, he hadn’t suspected Keyne either but it all made so much sense now.

  Not everyone who was into kink had come to it as an adult like he had. Some of them had always known; bondage, dominance, fetishes coloring their fantasy lives since they could remember. Didn’t make anyone better or more authentic or any of that nonsense, but there was a certain mystique to it. Plus, in the situation he currently found himself in, it made him feel more like he was fulfilling a wish Keyne had always had than imposing his own desires. And being able to provide for her, offer up on a platter something she’d always wanted? As much as he’d never thought to use the word in reference to himself, it made him outright giddy. Lightheaded with possibilities. But he’d rein it in, be, at least in this one way, responsible, and not let his exhilaration get in the way of answering her questions.

  “Yeah. A taste.”

  “There’s more?”

  Okay, it was possible for his dick to get harder. The way her eyes got wider and her voice eager and breathy, it made whatever blood was left circulating in his body make a beeline for his cock. He swallowed hard so he wouldn’t pin her to the bed and fuck her raw. “Yeah, there’s more. A lot more.”

  “Will you show me?”

  Every discussion he’d ever heard about minors and kink at the club hurtled around his brain like pinballs. He hadn’t paid much attention or participated because it wasn’t an issue. He’d never touch a minor, he wasn’t planning to have kids anytime soon if ever, and he hadn’t realized he was kinky until he was a grown man. So what the fuck did he know?

  But people had opinions on these matters, as kinky people so often did. Some were vociferously in the No Minors, Ever camp. They wouldn’t talk to minors about kink, direct them to resources, nothing. They’d tell them to go have sex, date, and after they’d gotten a handle on that, come back to kink. And in the other camp—a much smaller one—were people like Leisl and Alice.

  Leisl had found her way to kink on the young side, but it was the early days of the Internet, so there was only so much she could get her hands on. She’d tried going to munches, only to get turned away at the door because she wasn’t legal. Which he understood, because vanilla people tended to be squicked by kink and squicked could turn into a witch hunt. Led to police investigations, lost jobs, custody battles. No one wanted that, so people in the kink community tended to tread carefully.

  So who had she ended up with? Some creeper who wasn’t a real Dominant but instead a predator who took advantage of her because she hadn’t known any better. Leisl made a pretty compelling argument that maybe that wouldn’t have happened if the more responsible community members would’ve at least talked to her.

  And Alice . . . She’d thought for the longest time she didn’t like sex, even though she wanted it. Had been convinced there was something wrong with her because the fantasies in her head didn’t match up with what she saw on TV or read in magazines, or the things boys wanted to do with her. Until she found a certain book. Then the lightbulb went off, and she realized she wasn’t alone.

  Fuck if Keyne was going to end up with some asshole masquerading as a Dominant who would manipulate and abuse her, or think she was a freak because of the things she wanted. Not on his watch.

  He could tell her no, he couldn’t show her, but then introduce her to some people. Leisl would take Keyne under her wing, and she was eighteen now, so other people might be willing to mentor her. But the idea of letting anyone else touch her made a fire ignite in his brain and shoot out the top of his skull. No one would be as careful with her. No would care for her, no one would love her the way he did.

  Maybe he was digging himself a hole and maybe he would live to regret this, but he was all in now. He would give her anything she wanted, including this. As long as he could be sure this is what she wanted.

  “If you want me to. But you’ve got to know, Keyne, this isn’t the only way to h
ave sex.”

  “I know. I like it this way. I mean, I liked . . .” Her eyes went dark, like a cloud passing over the sun, and he felt the change. She was going to say she’d liked being with Gavin.

  “You can talk about him, you know. If you want. It’s stupid to pretend you weren’t together.” It would be awkward to hear about Keyne and Gavin’s sex life, but something he’d need to deal with. She didn’t have anything else to compare it to and he wanted her to talk to him.

  “It’s not that. I feel bad because Gavin . . . he loved me.”

  “He did.” Jasper was more certain of that than anything he’d ever been certain of in his life. He’d let her have that, soak in it, without having to chime in and add that he loved her, too. That wasn’t the point.

  “And he tried. It’s not that I didn’t like it, when we fooled around, but it never felt like that. He made me come,” she said defensively, and he laughed.

  “Good.”

  Keyne scowled before melting into a smile she buried in his chest. “But not like that.”

  “Bet I could do it again.”

  She’d been squirming, but went still at his words. A muffled “Again?” floated up to his ears.

  “Yeah, sweetheart. Again.”

  She rolled away from him, onto her back, her breasts still peeking out above her pulled down camisole. She hadn’t pulled it back up, covered herself. The blood in his cock surged anew. She was going to be the death of him.

  “How?” God, if he didn’t know any better and if she weren’t so fucking earnest, he’d think she was playing coy, teasing him.

  He sat up and shrugged. “Dunno. I can think of a lot of ways I could set you on fire, lighter. I could play with your tits again.”

  Her hands flew up to cover her breasts as his eyes raked over her and the corner of his mouth drew up in a self-satisfied smirk. He grabbed her wrists as she stammered, “P-please.”