by Vivian Lux
"I don't mind that in the slightest."
"But I'll die," I protested. "I'll be the first confirmed case of death by orgasm. You'll have to explain it to my mom."
He chuckled and dragged his prickly beard against my skin. "There, does that help?"
I gazed at him. "You'd think so. But no. Getting your beard involved will only make me cum harder."
He laughed again and reached above us. "This is gonna smart a little," he warned. Then he undid the knots at my wrists.
"Ooooh," I breathed. My shoulders ached like I had spent the day at the gym. Then I regarded him quizzically. "How do you know so much about the after effects of bondage?"
He didn't answer. "Here, sit up," he instructed instead. I did so, and he slid behind me so that I could lie back on him. I melted against his bare skin as he worked the knot out of my shoulder.
"You didn't answer my question," I murmured sleepily.
"I think you might know the answer to that," he replied, diplomatically.
I turned my head to look up at his face. "Why didn't you tell me you were into bondage?"
"I told you now."
"But... before."
He took a heavy breath. "Bondage requires trust, Liv."
I pouted. "You didn't trust me?"
"No, sweetheart. You didn't trust me."
I closed my eyes against the profound and deep feeling of regret that rushed in. "I trust you, Brad," I said, my voice breaking.
"I know you do," he soothed, sliding us down so that we were on our sides, him holding me tight from behind. I had never felt so much like the little spoon than I did at that moment. He kissed my neck, then nibbled on my earlobe. "And I am so fucking glad that you finally do."
Chapter 20
Brad
Our flight had been rescheduled for two that afternoon. Which meant that I needed to leave Olivia's at ten in order to grab my bags and get to the bus in time.
At 9:45 I was between her legs again.
"Just one more kiss goodbye," I promised her, lapping greedily.
"Are you going to tie me up again?"
"Are you going to start getting all grabby?" I wondered.
She boldly stared me down with a challenge in her eye. Sleep had made her spunky again. "Yes."
"Then no. I want you to grab me. Hold my head and tell me exactly where to lick you, Liv."
"Jesus," she cried, grabbing my hair. I let her go buck wild on my face, fucking herself with my tongue until she came, her thigh muscles quivering around my face.
It was incredible. And after her beautiful surrender last night, she absolutely deserved to use me this way.
The rope had marked her like I knew it would. Her skin was olive, but the marks were a deep purple. I loved them and I hoped they'd still be there when I got back.
But if they weren't, I would be sure to put some new ones in their place.
"You should fuck me again," she panted. Her skin was covered in a fine sheen that I could taste. She tasted like everything I could ever want.
"Aren't you sore yet, you greedy woman?"
She lifted her chin at me. "I'm sore as fucking hell and I'll probably be walking like a cowboy all day today. I don't give a shit. Put your cock inside of me."
I grinned. Her filthy mouth was back again. "Is that how you ask nicely?"
She bit her lip as I pressed my thumb against her clit. "Brad, I have 206 bones in my body," she whined, grabbing for my cock. "I want 207."
"I have to leave," I told her, even as I was pressing my tip to her entrance.
"One more time," she whispered, her eyelids fluttering. Then she said the fucking magic word. "Please."
Fuck, I was so gone for this girl.
"I'm going to fuck you one more time," I murmured. I thrust as slowly and gently as I could, mindful of how raw she must be, but it took everything I had to hold back when I felt her clutch my back the way she did. "And then I'm going to go on the road and do my job real quick and professional like, so I can come back home and fuck you again."
"And again," she echoed.
"That's right." My breath was coming faster now, and the heat was building in my center. "And again and again after that. So be ready. Getting fucked by me is now your full-time job. None of this part time shit, right? This is real for me Liv, and - Christ you feel so good - and it's real for you too. Right Liv? Tell me this is real."
"It's real," she gasped, drawing out the last syllable into a slow scream. I broke as she did, following her over the edge while I clutched her tight.
*****
I was late as fuck when I finally broke free of the spell of Olivia and got my ass in a cab. Coach Randall was going to tear me a new one if I made the team miss the flight to Denver. Usually, this prospect would fill me with anxious dread.
But so long as I could call up the image of Olivia tied up and cumming underneath me, I didn't think I could ever mind anything again.
I sat in the back of the cab, my head in the clouds. Even the waft of something ripe that puffed up from the seat when my head hit it couldn't dampen the magic of what had just happened.
She wanted me.
It felt like a triumph, a victory far sweeter than any I had achieved on the rink. It felt like, if I could make this happen, if I could make us into a thing, then I could do fucking anything.
Maybe even captain this team.
The more I considered it, the more it just seemed like a no-brainer. Ian was right. Aside from him, I was the most senior guy on the team. I had a reputation for staying in the shadows, but that was probably a good thing. With no badass reputation to maintain, I could walk onto the rink with no pre-conceived notions clouding the refs' judgment. They would have no reason to make a point by ruling against me, a problem we had often enough with Ian wearing the 'C."
I could do it. In fact, I could probably do it even better.
The cabbie swung by my apartment, and I tipped him a twenty to stay put while I ran upstairs.
The first thing I heard as I put my key in the lock was the blaring boom of my sound system. It sounded like a war zone even before I opened the door. When I actually pushed it open, the noise that assaulted my eardrums sounded like I was actually on the battlefield myself.
"Marc!" I shouted. But my brother couldn't hear me over the din. He was parked on the couch, and his eyes were glassy. He was unshaved, and looking pretty rank in his dirty-ass tighty-whiteys.
I'm not a neatnik by any stretch of the imagination, but the sight of his unshowered ass sprawled all over my nice couch made me livid.
I stalked across the room and hit the main power button, shutting the whole damn thing off in one go.
"Whoa!" For a second, Marc looked like he was going to hit me.
Then he blinked a bunch of times. "Oh, hey Brad. Didn't hear you come in."
"Yeah, no fucking shit. You wouldn't have heard if Armageddon was going on outside. What the fuck, Marc? I've got neighbors."
"Really?" He looked like he hadn't even considered this idea. "Oh. Sorry man."
I leaned in and sniffed. "Wait. Have you been drinking? It's ten thirty in the morning!"
His tone turned petulant. "Well, what the hell else am I supposed to do with my time?" he whined, sitting up and stretching, then scratching his side. "I've got a meeting with my parole officer tomorrow. And other than that, it's just a big, wide-open blank space." He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Already some of that muscle tone he'd honed in the prison yard was atrophying, replaced with a layer of softness no doubt a result of all the pizza he'd been charging to my card. "I've got no job and no prospect of ever getting a job." he exhaled, running his hand over his naked scalp. "My friends are fucktards and my brother is too fucking busy with god knows what to even hang out and catch up." He lifted his can and leaned back again. "So I'm drinking. Seemed a sensible option at the moment."
I stared at him livid, ready to light into him. But there just wasn't time. The cab was waiting. I had
to settle for a deep, irritated sigh, "Marc. Get up. Take a shower, get off my couch and do something. Go for a walk or whatever." The way his face fell made my heart fall with it. "Goddammit, come here." I clutched him in a quick, tight hug. "Don't do this, Marc. You're too smart to let yourself atrophy like this."
Marc made a rueful noise. "If I were smart, I would have never gotten caught in the first place.
He had me there. "You're smart about a bunch of things. You're just not a very smart criminal." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Maybe that's a good thing?"
He smiled a wan, watery smile. "You gonna be gone long?"
"Not long," I said, as encouragingly as I could. "And when I get back, we'll go out. Just.... take a shower between now and then, okay?"
Chapter 21
Olivia
Maybe I was the most transparently obvious person in the world. Or maybe Candace just knew me really well. Probably it was some combination of both.
She walked-not-waddled in that Monday morning and at first she seemed like she was going to follow the same pattern we'd fallen into since our fight in the ladies room. We weren't not talking to each other, but it was just very, very surface stuff. The weather, the baby, questions about work shit. Small talk with a friend like Candace was a really odd thing to endure.
This morning, though, her blandly polite smile slid right off her face when she saw me, and her big eyes widened. "Oh, my god, what?"
I couldn't keep the stupid grin off my face.
"Tell me what happened," Candace demanded, plopping her purse down and then dropping dramatically into her chair.
And just like that, we were besties again.
I licked my lips, still smiling like a damned fool. "If I tell you that you were right, will you promise not to be insufferable?"
"Absolutely not."
"Well, fine then. I'm a grown-up..."
"You are?"
"Shut it. I can eat my humble pie."
"And it's perfect baking weather too. Do you prefer apple or pumpkin?"
I stopped, smiled again and then leaned back in my chair, suddenly shy. Fuck, I was never shy. This whole boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic was fucking with my head.
Candace glared at me. "Are you going to make me start guessing?"
I took a deep breath and looked at her, keeping my gaze as steady as I could as I said, "Brad."
The offices of Cupid’s Arrow were pretty well soundproofed. Carpet to mask footsteps, acoustic tile to drown out the hum of servers - but I swear the sound that Candace made defied all acoustical engineering and pretty much echoed through the whole place.
"Shhh!" scolded the nerd-herd that worked the next row over.
Candace clapped her hand over her mouth, but she was still squealing. "For real?" she finally managed to say. "Like, you're actually together?"
I still felt shy, dammit. What was this? "For real," I managed to say. Then I straightened up and resolved to stop acting like a high school virgin. "Yeah. Olivia Bryant is someone's girlfriend now," I declared, louder than I probably needed to be. "It's weird and wrong, but it happened."
"Brad is your boyfriend?"
"Would you like to tell me that you told me so?"
Her eyes shone. "No. Yes. Aw, Liv, I'm so happy for you guys," she came over to my desk and threw her arms around me. "And yes," she whispered. "I did tell you so."
"I'll listen to you next time."
"Well, that's a complete lie, but thank you for the sentiment." She pulled back and pressed her hand to her belly. "Baby Carter is so excited too."
I grinned. "Thanks, kid."
She plopped herself back in her chair. "So, tell me what happened?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Does it involve public sex?"
"How'd you guess?"
"I've known you a while." Then she caught sight of my wrist and narrowed her eyes. "Do I want to know what those bruises are from?"
I ran my finger over the marks, feeling oddly possessive of them. "When I decided to finally be tied down, I figured I should be as literal as possible."
Candace wrinkled her nose. "Okay, I'm not going to think too hard about what you just said."
I licked my lips and felt some of the shyness fall away. Grossing Candace out with candid descriptions of my sex life was much more familiar territory. "I'll just tell you this, then. Ropes can be used for leverage. Think about it."
"Oh dear god." She rolled her eyes.
"That's what she said. Or rather, I said."
"I didn't know you were into that? Or," she paused and looked deeply disturbed, "that Brad was."
"I'm sorry to have alarmed you. And in your delicate condition and all."
"Pfft," she waved her hand. "How do you think I got in this condition in the first place?"
"That's my girl." I hadn't realized just how wrong everything had been when we weren't speaking. Having Brad... and having Candace to talk with about Brad... hot damn. Happiness swelled up in my chest, and I felt like I could burst into song and start swanning about like a Disney princess. Birds would come perch on my arms to sing to me... though the fact that I lived in Chicago meant those birds would most likely be mangy pigeons.
Candace swiveled her desk chair to her computer. "I'm really happy for you guys. So happy that I'm going to ignore what you just told me and pretend you two did something normal to seal the deal, like, I don't know, he brought you flowers and you went out to dinner."
My smile had to look smug, but I couldn't help myself. "We're going to do that when he gets back," I clapped my hands together, "like a fucking couple would. I have a boyfriend, Candy! And it's... Brad!"
My best friend made a little squeaky noise of glee.
"And I really, really fucking like him," I sighed, and leaned back. "Isn't it just...weird?"
Candace smiled softly. "No, Liv. It isn't weird at all."
Chapter 22
Brad
When the bill came, Olivia mindlessly reached out for it, then looked shocked when I smacked her hand away.
"I'm paying," I informed her.
"Why? Because you're my boyfriend?"
"Damn straight."
"Whatever. If I take this new job with Kyle, I'll be making more money than you and then I'm paying for you." Her eyes gleamed. "You can repay me in sexual favors."
"Wait," I set down the pen. "Back up. What do you mean, if you take the job? I thought it was a done deal. Have you still not made up your mind?" This kind of wishy-washy dithering was completely out of character for Olivia.
She shifted in her chair. "I mean... I think so. I'm almost positive I'm going to take it. It's just..." she tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Something doesn't feel right. I'm not really...excited. I'm scared. It seems so risky to join a start-up."
"Well, sure it's risky," I reflected. "It's something new. You can be scared of trying something new. If it's not a little scary, then it's not a risk."
She scowled at me. "Why do I get the feeling that you're surreptitiously lecturing me?"
I spread my hands. "That word is way too big for me, Liv. Dumb it down for your jock, here."
"Shut it, Scott. You know what I mean."
"Well, maybe I do. But maybe risk aversion is a pattern of yours, hmm? You faced your fear and became my girlfriend..." I sing-songed the word mockingly. She stuck her tongue out at me and lobbed a leftover dinner roll at my head. I caught it before it smacked me in the forehead, and continued, "so maybe you're getting ready to risk some more? 'Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.' That's what T.S. Eliot said, anyway."
She blinked. "Listen to you, quoting T.S. Eliot at me."
"I saw it on a poster in my dentist's office."
She laughed. "Oh thank god. You're too cute to be so philosophical."
"But I do have a beard," I pointed out. "So people take me seriously when I say shit like that."
"True. Your beard is probably smarter than you are. Strok
e it for me and say something smart."
"E equals MC squared," I said, stroking my beard. I loved making her laugh.
The waiter came and took the bill, leaving us with nothing keeping us in the restaurant anymore. And as eager as I was to head back to her place and blow her mind, there was still something I needed to make sure of.
"You're going to do it, right Liv? You're going to take this new job?"
"You're a tenacious one, aren't you?"
"I'll check the dictionary and let you know."
She sighed and looked at some spot over my left shoulder, chewing on the inside of her mouth. I waited, watching the gears spin in her head. Watching her think like this, with all of the thoughts and emotions playing across her face, was such a marvel to me. I didn't think would ever get sick of seeing her with the walls down. She had no idea how special it was that she let me see her so open and vulnerable.
And I knew better than to ruin it by calling attention to it.
"Okay," she started nodding, more and more vigorously with each word. "Okay, yeah, okay," her eyes widened and she gave me a shocked smile. "What's one more risk, right? If I can be someone's girlfriend, then fuck it, I can do anything!" She clapped her hands together, then pressed her fingertips to her lips. "Holy shit, I'm leaving Cupid’s Arrow. I'm leaving Candace!"
"And Candace is going to be super proud of you." I leaned forward and squeezed her hand, then lifted her fingers to my lips. "You and Candace will be fine. You guys love each other. You don't have to be in each other's faces every day for that to work."
She shot me an odd look and something heavy passed in the air between us. I squeezed her hand one more time, and then quietly stood up and offered her my arm.
She was silent all the way out into the car. I couldn't watch her face, but I could tell she was thinking very seriously about something.
"I think I'm, doing pretty okay," she finally blurted.
"Um, what?"
"With this!" She crossed her arms over her chest. "A little credit would be nice."
