Outrageous

by Marie Force

  “First,” I tell her, “I’m going to administer your punishment. Twelve spanks—six for coming without permission and six for talking back to your Dom. And then I’m going to plug your ass to start getting it ready for my cock. Any questions?”

  She makes an inarticulate sound that’s a cross between a grunt and a groan.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. Any questions?”

  “No.” I can tell her teeth are still gritted.

  “Do you need your safe word?”

  “No.”

  “Excellent.” I bring my hand down on her left cheek swiftly, making her startle from the shock. I follow that up with four more in rapid succession, making sure to rub the rosy redness until she purrs from the pleasure. Eager to get on to the next portion of the program, I deliver the other seven spanks and then drag my fingers through the surplus of wetness between her legs, satisfied that my “punishment” resulted in her pleasure.

  I retrieve the plug and bottle of lubricant, applying a healthy dose of lube to the wide end of the plug and then squirting some on my fingers. “Ready for the plug?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, who?”

  “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  “That’s more like it.” I can honestly say I’ve never had more fun in any scene than I’m having with her. This is not her thing, but she’s doing it for me, and that makes my heart swell with emotions I’ve only experienced one other time in my life. I never got to hold or kiss or make love to Elena, who was eternally out of my reach, so I’ve already had more with Leah than I ever did with her.

  I feel more for Leah than I ever did for her.

  The realization stops me cold, shocking me to the core of my being. Elena has been the gold standard, the most important woman in my life for fifteen years. Even in her diminished state, she still shines brighter than the sun to me, and the thought that I would one day care more about someone else than I do about her has honestly never occurred to me. Truthfully, after the disaster with Elena, I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of caring the way I do about Leah.

  Leah glances back at me over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  The question snaps me out of my own head and back into the moment with her. “Are you allowed to question your Dom?”

  She rolls her eyes and puts her head back down.

  I can’t let her sassiness go unpunished, so I deliver two swift spanks, one to each cheek. “Don’t roll your eyes at your Dom.” I can feel her rolling her eyes again at that, and I smile, loving the sauciness, although I can never tell her that. She’s unmanageable as it is without giving her ammunition to use against me.

  I return my attention to the plug and my plans for her sweet ass, coating her opening with a liberal amount of lube.

  She sucks in a sharp deep breath as my fingers breach her entrance.

  I want this to be good for her, so I take the time I need to make sure she’s properly prepared to take the plug. After sliding my fingers in and out several times and watching her skin flush with the heat we generate together, I remove my fingers and replace them with the plug.

  She immediately tenses up.

  “Relax and push back. You can do this.” I tease her mercilessly, pushing the plug in a little before withdrawing it and then leaving it perched part of the way inside her when I reach for the lube that I’ll need to get my cock inside her when she’s plugged. I settle back on my knees to smooth the lube onto my dick.

  How to describe what happens next… With the plug halfway inside her, she sneezes hard. The plug comes shooting out of her ass and hits me square in the left eye, making me see stars.

  “Holy shit.” She looks back at me as I howl from the pain of being half-blinded by a butt plug. That has certainly never happened before. Leave it to Leah… “How do I get these cuffs off?”

  “There’s a release latch on the top.”

  She removes the cuffs, gets off the bed and comes around to where I’m seated on the edge of the bed and pulls at my hair, trying to get me to look up at her. When I do, she recoils. “Oh my God! Your eye!”

  I can feel it swelling shut, and when I open it, both eyes tear up so badly, I can’t see shit. Fuck!

  “I’ll get ice. Don’t move.”

  I hear her leave the room and wish I could see well enough to appreciate her running around naked in my house.

  She’s back a minute later with a damp paper towel full of ice that she presses gently against my eye. “Hold it there.”

  I do what I’m told while wondering how my submissive became the Dom in my own bedroom.

  “I’m so sorry. That sneeze came out of nowhere. I don’t know how this happened. I had no idea my butt could do that.”

  I can’t help but laugh, even as I wonder if I’ll ever see out of my left eye again.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s kinda funny.”

  “No, it isn’t. I told you I was going to suck at this.”

  “You don’t suck at it. Before you butt blinded me, I was thinking how much fun it was to play with you.”

  “Really? You were?”

  She sounds so sweet and vulnerable that I put my arm around her and pull her close enough to kiss her belly. “Yeah, I was.”

  “Let me see it.”

  I remove the ice.

  With her hand on my chin, she turns my face. My uninjured eye has started working again, thankfully, and I can see the concerned way in which she examines me.

  “I don’t think it hit your actual eye, just above and below it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Should we go to the ER?”

  “Absolutely not.” I’m trying to imagine explaining how this happened.

  “But what if your eye is damaged?”

  “It’s not.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Painfully, I force my eye open. “I can see you. I’m not blind. It’s fine.”

  “You’re gonna have one hell of a shiner for the wedding.”

  Fuck, I haven’t given a single thought to the wedding. “I’ll wear shades.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault that you have a super butt.”

  “Stop,” she says, laughing. “You’d better not tell everyone how you got that shiner.”

  “Why not?”

  “Seriously. You can’t tell anyone.”

  I smile slowly, going for maximum impact.

  “Emmett, I mean it.”

  “Are you telling me that the Leah who says whatever she thinks, regardless of whether it’s appropriate or not, doesn’t want me telling people she shot a butt plug at my eye—out of her ass—and nearly blinded me?”

  She glowers at me. “If you tell anyone that, you’ll never see my butt again.”

  “Somehow I doubt that. Your butt loves me, or were you just saying that to get me in bed?” I pretend to be hurt.

  “Quit fucking with me and promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

  “Not sure I can make that promise. It’s such a good story.”

  She starts to get up, but I stop her by pulling her in closer to me. I love that she fights back—and she fights dirty, twisting my nipple until I gasp and almost release her before redoubling my efforts to keep her right where she is.

  “Let me go!”

  I release her immediately, alarmed by the panic I hear in her voice.

  “Hey, I’m just playing with you.” I reach for her hand and link my fingers with hers. “Come back.”

  “Do you promise you won’t tell anyone? I work with those people. I don’t want them laughing at me.”

  Ah, damn. I realize her fear is related to the mean bitches from high school who tormented her. “I won’t tell them, Leah.”

  “You mean it?”

  “I promise.” I give a gentle tug that brings her onto my lap. I wrap my free arm around her. “Are we good now?”

  “Does it matter to you if we are?”

  Will I ev
er get used to the way she leaves nothing unsaid? She’s forcing me to confront feelings I’ve only recently realized I have. “Yeah, it matters.” I tip her chin up to receive my kiss. “You matter.”

  She curls her hand around my neck and opens her mouth to my tongue. For the longest time, all we do is kiss, with more passion and feeling than I’ve ever experienced. I knew she was going to be trouble. I had no idea just how much.

  Chapter 14

  Emmett kisses me like he means what he just said, that I matter, that it matters to him if we’re okay. Even though I’m mortified by the plug incident, I’m filled with elation and giddiness as we kiss for what feels like hours. Being with him this way is like a dream come true. In all the time I lusted after him, I never really thought I stood a serious chance with him. But now everything has changed for both of us, and he seems as into what’s happening between us as I am.

  Moving slowly, he arranges me under him on the bed, his stiff erection sliding through the dampness between my legs. When he nudges my clit, my whole body seizes from the sharp burst of pleasure. All he has to do is touch me to set me on fire, but when he tells me I matter, that we matter, I’m lost to him. I’ve never given any man the kind of power this one has over me, and I’m still afraid he’s going to crush me in the end.

  The sight of his swollen eye, which is turning a dark shade of purple, is mortifying. I can’t believe that happened, and I’m not entirely sure I believe him when he says he won’t tell anyone. It’s true that I’m usually an open book and hard to embarrass, but that… I’d die if the people I work with and consider my friends ever knew that happened.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  His lips hover just above mine. “Anything you want.”

  “Can we do that again sometime? What we were doing before the thing with your eye happened?”

  “After I get goggles and a hard hat,” he says with a teasing smile.

  “I told you it’s not funny.”

  “And I told you it really is.” He kisses me, softly, sweetly and with a tenderness that ruins me. I can handle sarcasm and harshness and domination from him, but the tenderness will surely break me.

  “Quantum.”

  As he pulls back from me, his brows knit with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just… I want to stop.”

  He moves to his side and props his head on his upturned hand, keeping his other hand on my belly. His hard cock stretches above his belly button. “Talk to me.”

  “Nothing to say.” I yawn. “I should head home. I need to figure out what I’m wearing to work tomorrow.”

  “Why are you running away?”

  “I’m not!”

  “Yes, you are. What happened here?”

  I can barely bring myself to look at his swollen eye. “You need to put more ice on that.”

  “You’re deflecting.”

  “Don’t use lawyer talk on me.”

  “Don’t run away from me.”

  “You don’t even like me. Why do you care if I leave?”

  “I believe I’ve given you ample evidence of how much I actually like you.”

  I need to get out of here while I still can, and yes, I realize it’s weird that I now feel the urgent need to flee when I’m finally where I’ve wanted to be for months. I don’t understand it, either, but the fact remains that I need out of here. Now. I sit on the edge of the bed and reach for my clothes, aware of him watching me as I get dressed.

  Standing, I run my fingers through my hair and step into my shoes. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say without looking at him.

  “Yep.”

  He sounds pissed—probably because he thought he was going to get laid—but I don’t stick around to determine whether that’s the case. I leave the bedroom, grab my purse and keys from the counter and am riding the elevator to the parking garage less than a minute later, filled with relief that makes no sense whatsoever to me. Emmett accused me of running, which is exactly what I’m doing.

  In all the time that I’ve nursed my unreasonable crush on him, it has never occurred to me what it might be like to have him return my feelings, to make this about more than just sex, to make me want things he’s not prepared to give. Tears fill my eyes, which infuriates me. I don’t cry over men. That’s not who I am, but it’s one of many things that’s different with him.

  I get into my car and sit there for a long moment, staring at the cement wall without seeing anything other than my own cowardice. Shaking off those troubling thoughts, I start the car and drive the short distance home, wishing it wasn’t so late so I could call Nat. When I get home, I send her a text to ask if she’s still up.

  A flat package is propped against my door that I pick up and tuck under my arm. I’m walking into my apartment when my phone rings. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself. What’s up?”

  “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Nope. We were still up. Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. Things got kind of weird tonight.”

  “How so?”

  “We were fooling around, and it got kind of… intense.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “God, no, nothing like that.” I drop onto the sofa and put my head back, closing my eyes. “I’m scared, Nat.”

  “Of him?”

  “No! Not like that… I just… It’s too much. I haven’t… Not like this.”

  “Oh my God, you’re in love with him.”

  “I don’t want to be. This wasn’t supposed to be about love. I just wanted to fuck him and have some fun. Wait… Are you laughing?”

  “No,” she says, sounding strangled. “Of course not.”

  “Yes, you are, you bitch. I can hear you.”

  “You have to admit that it is kind of funny.”

  “It’s not funny! It’s ridiculous.” And then I’m sobbing, which further undoes me because I don’t do this shit!

  “Leah, honey, come on. This is a good thing.”

  “No, I don’t think it is. It’s not what he wants.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Not in so many words, but the message is clear. He wants to fuck me, but that’s the extent of it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  I want to curl up into the fetal position and never come out. Is this what love feels like? Because I want to unsubscribe. “I forced myself on him, and what red-blooded guy is going to say no to a woman who’s willing to do whatever he wants in bed? That’s the only reason he let me hang out with him.”

  “You’re selling yourself awfully short. You’re a gorgeous, sexy, funny, amazing woman. Why wouldn’t he want more with you?”

  “He doesn’t do more. I don’t think he’s ever been in a serious relationship. What does that tell you?”

  “That he hasn’t found anyone who matters before now?”

  “He said he was in love once, but it didn’t work out.”

  “You want me to see if I can find out what the deal is with that?”

  I want to pounce on her offer, but I can’t invade his privacy that way. See? I do have my limits. “No but thank you for offering.” I wipe the dampness from my face with the sleeve of my blouse. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara. “I don’t remember you being this miserable when you were first with Flynn.”

  “We had our difficult moments. Everyone does.”

  “But you were both committed. This isn’t like that. Only one of us is all in, and that’s why I’m scared. I’m afraid he’s going to crush me. I had to get out of there just now. Every minute I spend with him, especially when we’re naked, only makes it worse.”

  “So you’ve decided to stop it now rather than let it go any further?”

  Until she says it that way, I hadn’t realized that’s exactly what I was doing. “I guess I have.” The thought of never again experiencing what I did with him makes me profoundly sad. “It’s for the best. He’s made it pretty clear that he thinks I’m way too young for him, and
I know he’s conflicted about the work situation. So yeah, it’s better this way.”

  “I’m sorry you’re upset. You want me to come over?”

  “Oh God, no.” Yes, I do, but I’d never ask her to come all the way to Santa Monica when she’s pregnant and in need of rest. Besides, Flynn would insist on coming with her, and I don’t want him knowing about this. “Don’t tell Flynn, okay?”

  “I won’t say anything. Don’t worry. You going to be all right?”

  “Sure,” I say with more bravado than I feel. “I got exactly what I wanted. It’s all good.” I don’t mention that I got way more than I bargained for because she already knows that. “I’ll get over it.” Eventually.

  “We have a fun weekend to look forward to anyway.”

  Yes, a fun weekend celebrating love and joy. I can’t wait to be miserable in the midst of all that happiness. “Definitely.” I’m dying to tell her I know about the club and ask if she’s been there, but I’m out of steam with this day. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Yes, you will, and I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks for talking me down.”

  “Any time. Try to get some sleep.”

  “I will. See you.” I end the call and put the phone on the coffee table as new tears slide down my cheeks. I hate this! Women who weep over men have always driven me crazy. I never understood why they got so emotional over one guy when there’re millions of others out there. Now I get it. Sometimes only one will do. I stare out at the lights of the Santa Monica Pier off in the distance as I relive every minute I’ve spent with Emmett, picking apart each detail looking for deeper meaning that isn’t there.

  I open the package, and I’m thrilled to find my Abbey Road album wrapped in bubble wrap, along with a note from the guy in New York apologizing for not returning it sooner. I want so badly to text Emmett and tell him the letter worked, but I can’t do that after the way I left him.

  My phone lights up with a text that makes my heart jolt from the possibility that it could be Emmett. But it’s not him. It’s Tom.