Degrees of Control

by Eve Dangerfield

  You wanted to be charmed, Charlotte, that’s why you’re here.

  Still, some part of her ached being just another brick in James Hunter’s wall. It had been hard enough to walk through the hotel lobby at midday, knowing what every single person must have thought.

  Yes, snotty receptionist, this rich, stupidly handsome man is my lover and yes he will inevitably walk away without a second glance. You think I don’t know that, judgmental bellhop? Because I do.

  James opened the champagne. “Can I convince you to take a break from sobriety and have a glass? It’s French.”

  Charlie shook her head. “You can convince me to do a lot of things, James, but not that.”

  This whole thing smacked of ritual. Same room, same champagne, different girl. Unaware of her inner turmoil, James downed a glass of champagne in one swallow and put down the glass with a hard clink. He looked at her, his mouth a hard, firm line and unzipped his suit pants. The sight of his straining cock encased in fancy cotton briefs made her mouth go dry.

  “Take off your dress.”

  Charlie pulled the cotton over her head, exposing her sky-blue panties and half-shell bra. James advanced on her, his gaze menacing. “Get on the bed, sweetheart. Spread those legs as far apart as they go.”

  Charlie closed her eyes. If she obeyed, he would pin her down, taunt her overly stimulated flesh and make her beg. Domination was what she sought from James but today she knew she couldn’t handle it. She was already so vulnerable. “I want something different.”

  James looked taken aback for a few seconds but adjusted easily, leaning down to kiss her neck. “And what do you want?” He gently bit her sensitive flesh. “You want my mouth on you again, Blue-Eyes?”

  She shook her head. “I want to be in control this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me tie you up.”

  James’ eyes narrowed but he didn’t refuse. “Why?”

  Because I need to know what it’s like to own you, even if it’s just for an afternoon. “Something I’m curious about. You said you liked experimenting with me. This is what I want.”

  James smirked. “Well, God forbid I don’t give you what you want, Charlotte.” He let her urge him back onto the bed and straddle his hips. “What are you gonna shackle me with?”

  Charlie darted away and returned with his black silk tie.

  “What if you ruin it?”

  Charlie smirked. “Aw, James, are you scared? I swear I’ll be gentle.”

  It was a cheap shot, prodding his masculinity, but James fell for it, hook, line and sinker. “You don’t need to be gentle, Blue-Eyes. I just doubt you can do it at all.”

  Charlie laughed, throwing petrol on the fire. “C’mon, baby.” She imitated his southern drawl. “Just try it once, I swear you’ll like it.”

  “Why do I feel like you’re trying to get me to suck your dick behind the bleachers?”

  “Repressed memories?”

  James scowled. “Fine, we’ll do this, but when we’re done I’m gonna show you what you really like, Blue-Eyes, and we both know that means doing whatever I say.” He kissed her hard, letting his teeth sink into her lips. “You’ll see.” He reached for the wrought iron headboard, hauling his long frame up the bed. Charlie seated herself on his chest and wound the tie around his wrists and into the frame, pulling the ends together she tied them in a double fisherman’s knot.

  James’s eyes tracked her progress. “Nice rope work,”

  “I was in Girl Guides.”

  “Really? Did you wear a—”

  Charlie leaned forward and bit his lip. James snarled and there was a clanging sound as he jerked his bound hands.

  “That’s enough talk from you, Mr. Hunter.” She wound her way down his body, trailing her hands down his chest. She kept waiting for James to seize her hair or spank her ass but he couldn’t. It was delicious having this arrogant, oversized man at her mercy. She ran a thumb over his lower lip and he scowled.

  “The night we met you had the same mean look on your face.” She reached behind herself to remove her bra.

  James’ expression grew strained. “Oh yeah? Was that the night you were trolling for dick, Blue-Eyes?”

  Charlie ran a hand down the front of his clinging underwear. “Look at you. You’re all tied up, you’re making jokes. It’s like you’ve become me.”

  James glared at her. “If I was you, Charlotte, I’d be coming right now, instead of being bored.” His blasé attitude was somewhat undermined by the small wet stain seeping through his briefs.

  Charlie pulled his underwear halfway down his impossibly hard thighs. “We’ll see how boring I am, Mr. Hunter.” For a moment she examined him, stroking lightly over his blood-swollen cock, and when his dick pulsed in her hands, she bent forward to trace every last pulsing vein with her tongue. Slowly.

  “I know what you want, girl, and it’s not happening.”

  “What’s not happening?”

  “I ain’t gonna beg. You can tease me as much as you want, I’m gonna lie here, silent as the grave.”

  Charlie slid her damp, barely-there briefs down her legs and brought the material to his lips. “You like panties, right, James?”

  James’ mouth hardened into a mean line. He shook his head.

  “Oh come on, baby, just open your mouth and it’ll all be over soon.” His eyes glittered stubbornly and Charlie tipped a thumb toward the door. “Or I could just go? I have a lot of laundry to do…”

  James snarled and the material disappeared between his full lips. A bolt of arousal zapped between Charlotte’s legs. There was something so dirty about all that pale blue lace framed by his stubbled jaw.

  She tugged his briefs down his thighs, keeping his legs locked together. His cock was red with blood and pre-come was dripping from the head. Charlie licked it away, but he only leaked more. James’ breath was heavy, his broad chest rising and falling.

  “As I was saying, the night we met, you had this look on your face. It said ‘don’t even think about fucking with me’.” She circled him with her finger, spreading his wet pre-come across the head of his cock. “I can’t tell you how much I like fucking with you, James.”

  Charlie brought her hand to her mouth and sucked all four fingers, dragging the earthy flavor of his arousal against her taste buds. She dragged her slick fingers through her own folds, inspecting her wetness. James gave a muffled cry and the headboard rattled once more. When she was convinced he was sufficiently furious, Charlie pulled a condom from her bag and rolled it down his cock. “You know, you really are hung,” she said matter-of-factly, stroking his latex-covered shaft. “Long and thick with this upward curve, like you were designed to hit my G-spot.”

  James raised his eyebrows.

  “You know, if I had the tools I’d put a mold around your dick, make myself a replica. Use it whenever I liked.”

  He looked worried, as though maybe that was her plan all along.

  “But since I don’t have the tools, I guess I’ll just have to use you instead.” She wrapped her legs around his hips and braced his cock at her entrance. Sensing an end to his torment James bucked and she rose out of his reach. “Are you going to do what I want?”

  James scowled up at her, his gaze so furious she laughed. The panties in his mouth were damp with saliva and why that aroused her so much she didn’t know. She sunk down on him and he moaned like a wounded animal. With a muffled groan he thrust against her, rutting, and Charlie gripped his jaw. “Stop moving.”

  With an insolent smile James tilted his hips, pressing against her G-spot. Charlie bit back a moan as all her nerve endings sparkled with sensation. How could she have gone days without feeling this? With every ounce of self-control she possessed, she drew him out of her clinging, needy cunt. James snarled, and she lay between his legs and placed both her hands on his thighs. They were as beautiful as the rest of him, thick muscle covered in fine golden hair. She brought her lips to the head of his cock.
/>   “I can make you come like this. It would be so easy.”

  A growling escaped James’ panty-filled mouth.

  “Is that what you want, James? To walk out of here one load lighter?”

  He stared at her, hazel eyes full of resentment. Charlie continued as though he’d answered. “I think you want to fuck, I think you want to come deep inside my pussy. So are you going to admit you’ve been dying the way I’ve been dying? Or will I just peel off this condom and suck you?”

  James shook his head so violently his body quaked.

  “Then lie back and let me get what I want.”

  He nodded, closing his eyes as though resigning himself to his fate. Charlie crawled up him again, and this time he was passive. She mounted him slowly, letting him feel every single centimeter of her pussy as she slid down.

  “Feel good?” she purred in his ear. James’ answering moan came from deep within his chest.

  Good. I might be poor and short and fucking you in this hotel-suite graveyard of hook-ups past, but I can own you now.

  She used his body until her nipples ached and the delicate skin around her throat burned, riding him in a way that was more swaying than fucking, her strokes far too shallow for him to come. James thrashed and moaned and undoubtedly cursed her through her panties, but his hips lay still against the mattress. He did what she asked him to do. Desperate to hear his distress, Charlie bent forward and plucked the material from his mouth. James gasped like a drowning man brought to surface.

  “Goddamn it, Charlotte, fuck me,” he snarled.

  “Hmm, no.”

  He jerked against his bonds, as though trying to throw her off. “I’m gonna come, my balls are so fucking tight I can’t think.”

  “Well, you have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “You are evil.” He groaned, pressing his head back into the pillows.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Charlie sank down on him, drawing his cock all the way inside her, and James’ face contorted as though he was in pain. His brow was furrowed, his white teeth bared. She loved him like this; feral and taut, hers to control. Then his expression changed, became softer, more desperate.

  “Baby, I’m gonna go off. Come up here and sit on my face.”

  “Beg.”

  “Please. Please, honey, I need to make you come. Put that pussy down on my face…I’ll stay tied up, I just have get you off. Please.”

  Charlie hesitated. “I’ll taste like lube from the condom…”

  “I don’t give a fuck. I’ll do anything, Charlotte, just…please?”

  She couldn’t battle her submissive urges any longer, she scrambled up the bed and positioned her legs on either side of his head.

  “Fuck yeah,” James panted. He arched his neck and eagerly drew his tongue through her cunt. The noise he made, like a starving man tasting chocolate, turned her skin white-hot.

  “That’s it, girl, don’t move a fucking muscle.”

  Charlie clung to the headboard. As good as she had felt before, being under his control again felt incredible. He was bound, but she was the one who was helpless, listening to his slick tongue. Like a demon he waited until she was right on the brink and then sucked her swollen clit right into his mouth. Her orgasm burst on his tongue, hot and rippling and thick.

  “James!”

  She threw her head back so far her body was an arch, rutting her hips against his talented mouth. He sucked her harder, urging every last vibration out of her climax. When she finally pulled away, there was no trace of arrogance on James face, no cocky sense of achievement.

  “Get on me. Get on my cock now.”

  She climbed down his bound body and drew him inside her tingling, tortured flesh. He was close, she could feel it. She clamped herself around him and the aftershocks from her first climax throbbed to life.

  “Use me, Charlotte.” James’ voice was harsh. “Ride my fucking dick.”

  She planted her feet into the mattress and worked herself faster, the pressure almost painful in its perfection. Her clit brushed against his pelvis and the scratchy hair on his pubic bone and she screamed. His cock swelled inside her and she felt herself clench in agony, their bodies warring for capacity.

  “That’s it,” James panted. “Come all over me. Come all over me, baby.”

  Charlie shuddered, suspended in time as she dragged her hands through her tangled hair. James’ biceps bulged as he twisted against his restraints, head pressed back into the pillow. Someone was screaming. It was her. She was screaming James’ name so loudly the fancy hotel lights were practically shaking. I’m sure they’re used to that here.

  They came together, a great big shuddering mess. When every drop of energy was wrung from her body Charlie fell away from James, collapsing somewhere near his feet.

  Simultaneous orgasms. Not just for the movies.

  James made a cheerful, exhausted sound, like a man who just put down his plough after a long day’s work. “Hey, baby? Not that I didn’t love being your fuck-slave, but my hands are turning blue…”

  “Ooh, sorry.” She pulled the makeshift bonds away from his reddened wrists, and James closed his eyes with a small contented sigh. He drew her close and they melted into the bed like the survivors of a shipwreck. Charlie watched as golden dust swirled through the afternoon air like confetti.

  “You just gonna smash through every barrier I have, Blue-Eyes?”

  Charlie wanted to ask him what he meant but her eyelids were growing heavy. His voice sounded like it was coming from a long, long way away.

  “You already give me what I like, then you give me that.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “No, it felt fucking amazing, it’s just terrifying.”

  She should say something. She should tell him there was nothing to be afraid of but she was much, much too tired and this bed was too comfortable. Was it memory foam? What was memory foam?

  When she woke the suite was dim, the afternoon long gone. James’s body was curled up on the other side of the bed, he was snoring gently and half muttering words.

  Cute. Blearily, she looked at the gold clock on the wall. Holy fuck. She had half an hour to get her ass down to the studio and run the seven o’clock class. Her little nap meant a cab she couldn’t afford and unprofessionally borrowing a spare pair of leggings from someone at the studio. She shook James’ shoulder.

  “I have to go.”

  He grunted in affirmation and worked his big body deeper into the bed. Charlie didn’t like leaving him while he was asleep, but she couldn’t call her boss and say she was banging a rich guy at a fancy hotel just because no one James worked with cared that he took a nooner. Must be nice.

  She felt creepy watching him doze but she couldn’t stop herself. With his eyes closed she was safe to examine the tiny pores on his nose, the slight creases around his eyes, the freckles dotting his shoulders. He looked younger than she’d ever seen him, as though sleep lifted a protective layer he wore constantly when awake. A week ago Hayley asked her what James was like outside of bed. The first word that came to her mind had been “tense.” Everything about him, from his sticky voice to his loose-hipped stride suggested he was laid back but he wasn’t. She knew it, the same way she knew a stormy sky meant rain.

  I’m late, I can’t just stand around all day contemplating James.

  She threw on her dress and dashed out of the room, ignoring the aching feeling in her gut.

  Chapter 12

  James drummed his fingers on the desk and stared out the window. It was a perfect summer morning, clear sky, light breeze, sunshine. A day that should be spent outside; riding or driving or drinking beer, not cooped up in an office pretending to look at graphs. His eyes flicked to the time. Nine forty-six in the morning.

  Shit.

  As Director of Operations, his job boiled down to three things; signing contracts, batting a bunch of meaningless concepts back and forth, and representing his father’s name. He spe
nt more time talking football than anything else. He’d never wanted to be a corporate whore. It was better pay than anything he could have gotten on his own but the work was mind-numbing. He’d come in at seven o’clock for a breakfast meeting and the only thing he could remember about it were the muffins. No wonder Charlotte was all he could think about. She was outdoors this morning, helping to run a summer yoga program down at the Lake of Isles. Undoubtedly wearing tight little exercise shorts, her long hair spilling down her shoulders as she got leered at by beefy personal trainers…

  James scowled and leaned back in his seat and imagined she was here with him instead, under the desk, her heels visible to anyone who walked in. He’d have her thick hair wound around his hand, yanked nice and hard, then he’d watch his cock disappear between those plush lips. He groaned and brought all four legs of his chair to the ground with a bang.

  It felt like a fluke, finding a girl who got turned on by anything if you did it in a mean way. He never got bored with sex but it was like fine dining; the more refined your palate was, the harder you were to impress. Charlotte had spent her life eating bread and water, every dirty thing he did made her eyes roll back in her head. Apparently the sheer joy she got from fucking was contagious. James’ mind wandered to how those gorgeous tits of hers would look imprisoned in a spandex crop top. If he was at the park he could watch her class and fend off any assholes who tried to make a pass. They could get lunch or something, then go back to his place and screw the whole day away. God, he wanted to be outside. He checked the time. Nine forty-eight.