Fever

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “Coming,” he told her.

  “Ask permission.” She gripped his hair, forcing him to make eye contact.

  “Please.” Chase gulped huge breaths. He shoved his hands up her blouse and tugged hard on her breasts.

  “Oh yeah,” Colleen moaned. “I was wondering if you forgot about them.”

  Chase’s hips thrust upward, but he didn’t have the leverage. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead.

  “Me first,” she said.

  Yanking up her shirt, Chase pulled her into him. His teeth grazed her nipple and she gasped. Her hips thrummed against him faster. He moaned his appreciation. “Please.”

  Colleen threw her head back and put her hands on the ceiling of the car. She watched Chase’s eyes darken. He was so close. Her pussy clamped down hard on him.

  “Baby,” he groaned. “I can’t stop.”

  She did it again as hard as she could.

  “Fuck,” Chase shouted. “Stop or I’ll come.”

  “Not the words I want to hear.”

  “You’re killing me,” he ground out. “So damned sexy. Mouth made for sin. Those gorgeous breasts bouncing in my face.” He maneuvered his hand between them. “And this?” He found her clit.

  “Chase,” she shrieked, unable to stop the fierce flood of desire from peaking at his rough caress. She squeezed him again.

  “God.” His head slammed back against the headrest. He worked his fingers fast, as he flooded his release inside her.

  Colleen waited for the pang of disappointment, but even though he hadn’t received permission to come yet, she was nearing her own orgasm. Chase looked at her with hooded eyes. He fingered her slowly now, letting her own bouncing rub his fingers against her. Chase went back to her breasts.

  “I love…” He sucked a nipple hard into his mouth, swirling his tongue over the sensitive peak, while he managed to press on her clit.

  Colleen’s breath left her as shock pushed her into a blinding crash of jangled nerve endings.

  “…these.”

  Now, the disappointment came as the ebbing tide of her orgasm slowly drifted away. Self-anger came next at being such an idiot. What had she thought he was going to say?

  I love you.

  He hadn’t said that when they were together. He almost had. Once. But then he’d gotten a call from his buddies and the moment had been lost. Or maybe he had been going to say he loved her tits, as he’d done just now. Who knew? Colleen climbed off him and settled herself into the passenger’s seat. Chase pulled the seat back to the normal position and tucked himself in.

  “Make sure you buy something for me to spank you with,” she said, staring out the window while she composed her features. Colleen was proud her tone sounded even and firm.

  “What for?” He trailed his finger up her arm.

  “You didn’t follow instructions.”

  “That’s bullshit,” he said. “That’s entrapment.”

  Colleen felt a gurgle of amusement come up as she turned to face him. She could tell he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be outraged. “This isn’t a court of law,” she said. “It’s my way or the highway, remember?”

  “You cheated,” Chase argued. “There’s not a man alive who wouldn’t go off like the Fourth of July with you on his dick. I’ll whack your ass.”

  Colleen opened the car door and walked out into the night. It was cold not wearing any underwear, but she had to treat Chase the way she’d treat any other submissive. No way in hell would she let them speak to her that way. Then again, they weren’t in the dungeon. But she was his Mistress when they were having sex. That was the deal. Why was it so hard to keep things straight with Chase? Probably because it was all this old emotion—emotion that Colleen was beginning to realize wasn’t as far in the past as she thought it was. She wasn’t really angry. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Colleen just knew she couldn’t be in that car right now. Not when his admission of loving her was limited to her chest. Not when he thought he could switch from submissive to a half-assed dominant. Shivering, she rubbed her shoulders as she walked toward the road.

  She heard the car door slam as Chase came after her.

  Here comes the grenade.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  And boom, the explosion.

  Colleen didn’t say anything. This was the cost of his disobedience. If he thought he could argue with his Domme, he had to be taught there were consequences. She usually thought the silent treatment was passive-aggressive, but in this case it worked. He caught up to her easily.

  “Get your ass back in the car,” he ordered.

  Like that’s going to work.

  Chase just didn’t get it. He was in big trouble. Trying to dominate the situation wasn’t in his best interest. She kept on walking.

  “What are you going to do? Hitchhike? I got news for you, baby. I’ll be reading about you in the papers tomorrow if you keep walking.”

  Colleen stopped and whirled around. “Are you threatening to call TMZ on me?”

  “The fuck?” Chase asked. “I mean you’re going to be a fucking statistic. There are bad men out there who would think it was Christmas, their birthday, and national blow job day all rolled up in one if they found you walking along a dark, deserted road.”

  “I can take care of myself.” She wasn’t going to hitchhike. She was going to call Istvahn to pick her up as soon as she found a place to stay that was safe enough to wait around in.

  “Why are you throwing a tantrum?” he yelled.

  “You’re the one shouting like a maniac and throwing your arms around,” she said calmly. “I decided to leave.”

  “Why? Because I’m not willing to play your little sex games?”

  That hurt.

  “You were willing enough when I was fucking you,” she said with fake sweetness. Colleen wished she had something she could throw at his head.

  “Why are we fighting?” he asked.

  “I’m not fighting.”

  “If I go get a paddle, will you get back in the fucking car?”

  Colleen considered it, and if it wasn’t for the slight condescension in his voice she might have let that be the peace offering. But it was time she faced facts. The sex was amazing. Enough that she could overlook the lack of kink—for the time being. But in the long run she would become as resentful as he was now. “Chase, this isn’t going to work.”

  “No. You don’t get to say that every time it gets hard between us.”

  Her lips twitched. “It’s always hard between us. And if you get to throw my ‘little sex games’ at me every time your dick gets in a knot, it isn’t going to work out between us.”

  Chase sighed, looking up at the sky for assistance.

  “You’re not a sub.” Colleen shrugged. “We both know that. It was stupid to try.”

  “Why? Because I didn’t get permission to come so hard that my head is still pounding? Both of them?”

  “No,” she said. “Only a trained sex slave could have stopped from coming at that point.”

  “I knew it.” He pointed his finger at her. “You set me up.”

  “Yes. I wanted to see how you would react to failure. And how you would accept your punishment. Bravo.” She did a slow golf clap.

  Chase’s jaw dropped.

  “I found out all right.” She turned back around. She was pretty sure there was a twenty-four-hour Walmart down the road. Setting off, she regretted not wearing a sweater in addition to her underwear.

  “My dad used to send me out to get a stick so he could hit me with it.”

  Shit. Colleen hung her head, caught between sadness and anger. She paused, weighing her next words carefully. “Then why did you choose spanking for your punishment?”

  “I don’t know.” He ran his hand over his head. “You seemed to like it. And I’m a grown man. I should be over that. When I was all hot and bothered it didn’t seem like such a big deal.”

  She could just kill him. “I told you
not to do that. Not to pretend to want something because I want it.”

  “Give me a break.” Chase shrugged out of his sweatshirt and jammed it over her head when she started to shiver again.

  “Thank you.” It was warm and smelled like him. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  “I would crawl across glass to get you back. You can spank me if you want.”

  Damn it. This would be easier if he was a total asshat instead of a partial one. “Chase, I don’t want to spank you if it hurts you emotionally as well as physically. If you have a daddy issue about it, it’s not going to be good for either of us. I want sex between us to push the envelope, not make you feel like shit.”

  “I thought that’s what the hitting was all about. You get off on a big power trip.”

  Colleen counted to ten. The only thing saving him was that he wasn’t being an asshole right now. He was being honest. Again, it was his lack of experience with the lifestyle. She took a deep breath. He wanted a teacher? Then she would instruct him. “I do get off on a big power trip. But it’s not because I hurt someone when they’re down. Some subs like pain. Some subs like humiliation. Some don’t. Ignore the stereotypes and the caricatures. Everyone is an individual with different needs and desires. My job as a Domme is to find out what yours are and then push you to the limit of them. There are things I would do to and for another sub that I would never in a million years do with you.”

  “Why not?” he challenged.

  Why is it always competition with him?

  “Because you wouldn’t like them. And if you wouldn’t like it, neither would I.”

  “Are you saying Angie likes being beaten with a belt while giving head?”

  “How do you know Angie?” Colleen put her hands on her hips.

  “She introduced herself to me in the club last night. She sassed some guy who resembled Clark Kent with sleeve tattoos, and he hauled her over to a bald dude and forced her to her knees. I was going to stop it, but Anya told me not to bother. That it was a common enough occurrence.”

  Colleen nodded. “It sounds like Angie. And as long as the Dom she was sucking off wasn’t Clint or Max, Anya was right. That’s a typical day at Club Inferno. I’m pretty sure Angie was a deliberate pain in the ass until it got to that point, and then afterward everything was hunky-dory.”

  “It was like they beat her into submission.”

  “They did,” Colleen said. “And she loved it. It’s her kink. It’s how she gets her limb-shaking, earth-shattering orgasms.”

  “She can come without all that stuff.”

  “How would you know?” Colleen snarled.

  Chase held up his hands. “Whoa! Not by personal knowledge. Not that she didn’t try to get me to go into the closet with her and play hide the salami.”

  Colleen’s lips twitched. “Was Anya there when she was doing that?”

  “She was, but she was taking bets on something with your secretary. I think it was on the pony race.”

  “Hmmm,” Colleen said. She was pretty sure the money being exchanged was on whether Chase would tell Angie to pound sand or wind up pounding her on the sand.

  “She’s just obviously very sexual,” Chase said. “So why would she need all the theatrics?”

  “Why do you want sex when you can just jerk off? Why don’t you just watch porn instead?”

  “It’s more fun with two people.” Chase held up two fingers, then darted his tongue between them at her. He winked.

  She ignored the sexual innuendo. “Exactly. It’s more fun for Angie to play like this. I thought it would be more fun for you, but I’m beginning to see I was wrong.”

  “You don’t want me without the leather mask?” Chase folded his hands in front of him.

  “I do,” she said.

  His grin was so triumphant, she hated what she was going to say next. It was going to change everything. “But in the long run, I need the kink. Vanilla sex will only satisfy me for a short time. So I’m changing our exclusive relationship to an open one. You get to screw whomever you want, however you want. And so do I. We can be ‘normal.’ ” Colleen finger-quoted the last word.

  “That’s not an option.” The smile wiped from his face. “I don’t want anyone else.”

  “It’s the only option aside from us breaking up after two days.”

  He shook his head. “It’s cold out here. You’re freezing. Would you please get in the car? I’ll drive you home, and we can finish this discussion where it’s warm.”

  Colleen nodded. The fight had gone out of both of them, and she couldn’t think of anything more depressing than hanging out in Walmart until Istvahn picked her up. “Take me back to Couture, though.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and opened the car door for her. “I fucked it up again, didn’t I?”

  She waited until he slid back into the driver’s seat and backed out of the parking lot. Colleen glanced wistfully at the sex shop’s windows. So much potential wasted.

  “I’m such an asshole,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Colleen said. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  His knuckles went white on the steering wheel.

  “This permission thing gets you off, huh?” he grated out.

  “The control does. It’s who I am.” She refused to argue with him anymore. It wouldn’t solve anything.

  “It didn’t used to be like this.” Chase stared straight ahead at the dark highway.

  “People change.” Colleen took off his sweatshirt and laid it across her lap. She turned on the heating vents full blast toward her. “Besides, there was always a wild dynamic to our lovemaking, even in Vegas.”

  “I want to make you happy,” he said. “I want us to be together.”

  “You just don’t want to be in the lifestyle where I dominate you sexually.”

  Chase shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. I kinda like it when you take initiative and boss me around.”

  “So what’s the problem, then?” she asked, gesturing beseechingly at him.

  “I’m just a dumb jock, baby. I’m not as complicated as you are.”

  “Oh, bullshit, Chase. You are the biggest complication in my life.”

  He cocked his head. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “If I was smart, I’d kick you out on your well-muscled ass. But I can’t. I want this, too. I’m just not sure we can do it long-term.”

  “Don’t give up on me yet,” he said, reaching over to hold her hand.

  “I’m trying to protect my heart.” The honesty almost shattered her into a million pieces, and she wanted to grab those words back before he could twist them and use that emotion to hurt her.

  He squeezed her hand and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. “What would have happened tonight if I had come back with a paddle and other things?”

  Glancing out the window at the lights from the passing cars go by, she shrugged. “Depends. What would you have bought?”

  “Handcuffs.”

  “What else?”

  “Flavored lube.”

  Colleen smiled. “And?”

  “Massage oil.”

  “Sounds like a good time. Anything else?”

  “A vibrator I could use on you. Like the husband did with his wife in the prison cell dungeon.”

  Colleen sighed. They were still holding hands. “We would have started off in the shower, soaping each other up. I would have ordered you to make me come and then fuck me against the bathroom wall.”

  He swallowed hard.

  “Then after we dried off, I would have ordered you to coat my body in the massage oil. It would have wrecked your sheets.”

  “Who gives a fuck?” he said hoarsely.

  “I’d have handcuffed you to the bed or to a chair and dragged my slicked-up body against yours until we were both coated. Then I’d use the flavored lube to lick off your hard cock and I’d suck on you until you were about to come. When you were about to explode, I’d spank you with the paddle. Ten
hard shots. You would count them out. I’d judge your pain and arousal level and go back to sucking on you in between the smacks, until the pain faded to pleasure.”

  “Jesus.” He let out a ragged breath.

  “Then I’d fuck myself with the vibrator while you watched. After I came, I’d uncuff you and we would have sex until the body oil was rubbed completely off or until we fell asleep.”

  It was quiet in the car for many exits. “I had no idea,” he said.

  “You didn’t trust me.” Colleen tried for a shrug, but it hurt too much.

  “I would have liked that.”

  “I know,” she said in a monotone.

  “Can I get a do-over?” He eyed her hopefully.

  “Not tonight. The mood has been shot.”

  Chase nodded. “Are you going to go down to Club Inferno after I drop you off?”

  “Probably.”

  His jaw tightened. “Are you going to pick up another sub to have sex with?”

  “Not tonight. I have some work to do.”

  Chase sighed.

  She inspected him out of the corner of her eye. It was obvious he didn’t want her to go to the dungeon alone. And it was equally obvious he didn’t like the thought that she was considering another lover. “I might observe, though. And if I find something or someone enticing…” She shrugged. “One thing could lead to another.”

  “I don’t want to share you,” he said quietly. It tore at her heart a little. Colleen wasn’t onboard with sharing him, either.

  “It’s going to happen sooner or later. If we go into this relationship knowing that it’s just a matter of time before we find someone else to fulfill all our needs, then we don’t have to risk hurt feelings. We could still be friends.”

  “I don’t want to be just your friend.” Chase took his eyes off the road to stare at her. “I love—”

  “My tits,” she cut him off. “Yeah, so you’ve said.”

  “I love you,” he said. “Do you think I would put up with this shit if I didn’t?”

  “You should have stopped at the first part.” Colleen’s heart was thudding loudly in her ears. Chase Fairwood loved her. All those thorns around her heart started shriveling up. She could see the truth on his face. “Sometimes love isn’t enough,” Colleen whispered in a small, hurt voice. “The shit will get to you after a while.”