I frown. “This feels so formal.” Some of the sexual excitement has drained from me, even though there’s still a faint throb in my core. What he proposes sounds so different than anything I’ve ever imagined. I’m overcome by a powerful sense of curiosity and tentative excitement, but it also scares me. It sounds like he could hurt me if he took advantage of my trust, just like Ronnie hurts my mom.
He stands motionless, looming like an angry god while he waits for my response. Trust… The word keeps repeating in my thoughts. A relationship completely built on trust? I want to agree to it. I’m drawn to the idea, even as I know there’s no way I could completely trust someone else. My life has been a long, never-ending line of betrayals. Trust only leads to pain, and I’m not here for more pain. I’m here for the money, and I’m here for the chance to experience something I’ve been missing my entire life. If I have to tell him what he wants to hear to get that, I’m not proud of it, but I’ll do it. I just have to hope that trust comes with time, because I can’t stand the thought of watching Logan walk away. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“I trust you,” I say.
The smile that slowly spreads his lips is not kind. It’s full of promise and darkness, and I’m ashamed by how much that thrills me.
“Get on the bed. Lie on your back,” he says. His voice is hard. Emotionless.
I step toward the bed a little hesitantly.
“Stop.”
I freeze.
“Take off your clothes and your bra, but leave your panties on.”
I swallow, closing my eyes to gather the courage to do this. It’s not hard though. My body has never felt like this. I can practically feel every nerve tingling with the expectation of his touch. My core feels like a void and the only thing that will bring me satisfaction right now is to have his thick cock plunged inside me.
I do as he says, stripping my clothes off quickly at first and then realizing he probably expected me to undress sexily. I force myself to slow, unhooking my bra as seductively as I can while I peek over my shoulder to see if he’s watching. I catch his eyes and the way they are roaming my body, taking me in. And I catch the outline of his cock against his expensive slacks. I let my bra fall to the floor and step out of the dress pooled at my feet, climbing on the bed.
“Shoes,” he says.
I kick them off and wait, sprawled out and completely exposed as he approaches. I’m self-conscious of the wet spot on my panties, but when he runs a hand down the length of my body, seeming to cherish every last inch of my skin, lingering on my wet panties, I know I don’t need to be self-conscious. I feel like a prize, laid out like something precious and valuable. It’s the way he looks at me and touches me. It’s impossible not to feel special when his attention is focused on me.
“I will give you the orgasm you want, but I have to punish you first. You made me come find you. I expect you to find me. Do you understand?”
I nod my head, eager for him to do whatever he’s going to, as long as it ends with him inside me.
He moves to the rack of toys, running a hand along them and watching me as he does, likely judging my reactions to see which tool I would prefer him to use. I flinch a little when he moves past a three-tailed whip. I only have a hazy idea of what I really want sexually, but I get the impression Logan has an even better idea than I do about what would bring me the most pleasure.
He reaches the leather paddle and I bite my lip, remembering when he punished me last week. I still remember how I held on to the slight tenderness in my ass the following day and loved it every time because it was a reminder of what transpired between us.
He unhooks the paddle, never taking his eyes from me as he approaches. Without even looking, he rips a strip of silk free that was tied to the bedpost.
“On your stomach, now,” he commands.
I obey without question this time. The power of his voice and the intensity in his eyes alone allow for no resistance.
He sets the paddle down long enough to tie my hands to a hidden eye hook attached to the bed frame behind me. He grabs another piece of silk and ties my ankles to the posts at the foot of the bed until I’m held tightly in place, arms above my head and legs spread.
Trust.
It occurs to me how much trust I’m placing in this man I barely know. I’m completely at his mercy, and I’ve never been more sexually alive than I am in this exact moment. Goosebumps rise across my body, as if in preparation for the blow to come.
“This is for making me come find you,” he says.
Whack!
I jolt against the silk holding me to the bed. Hot pain spreads in my ass, but he’s there a second later, calloused hand rubbing the spot, mingling pleasure with pain in a way that ha my pussy clenching around nothing. I don’t want to disappoint him, but I also find myself hoping for more reasons to be punished by him.
“This is for forgetting to call me sir.”
Whack!
I squeeze my eyes against the pain, relishing in it. The momentary burst of agony dulls thoughts of my lying father and my desperate mother. It makes it all seem distant and less real.
More of his soothing touch follows, intensifying the burn but erasing the sting.
“This is for fantasizing about other men. You only get wet for me, Kitten. You only cum for me. You’re mine.”
Whack!
I cry out, the line between pleasure and pain blurring, but I don’t care. The pain is washing over me like a drug and I can’t get enough. Some distant part of me recognizes the dirtiness of the moment, but I ignore it. I won’t let anything come between me and this experience. I’ve waited so long for this, not even understanding what I was waiting for. I brush aside all of my worry and let Logan’s dominance carry me away.
“You did good, Kitten. Very good.”
His praise makes my heart pound and my breath come short. I turn to look at him and there’s tenderness in him now. He takes off the mask and looks at me with more compassion than I would have thought possible from those hard eyes. “Are you on birth control?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, gripping my fingers tight around the silk bindings, knowing what’s coming.
He nods, unbuttoning his shirt and stripping out of his jacket. His body is solid. That’s the only word for it. Hard lines and thick, smooth muscle covers every bit of him. If my hands weren’t bound, they would be all over him. He drops his slacks and his cock springs free, the tip glistening with pre-cum. Seeing how turned on he is makes me strangely proud, like I’ve done a good job for him. The feeling surprises me, because I’m doing this for myself. I’ve always been haunted by my failings in past relationships, and finding a way to overcome that means more to me than anything else.
Or at least I thought it did.
The head of his cock presses against my entrance. I suck in a breath, fighting the urge to press myself into him and force him into me. He eases in, slowly. I expected him to take me roughly. But the slow, almost tender way he enters me keeps my climax at bay, just barely. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He doesn’t want me to climax until he decides, and he’s not going to give me the hard pounding I need.
The orgasm threatening to explode within me makes everything I’ve ever felt before feel like the trickle of a small stream. My walls stretch as he eases himself deeper and deeper inside me.
“You’re so fucking wet for me. You wanted my big cock inside you, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“Sir,” he growls, slapping a hand across my ass and making me jump.
The show of dominance nearly pushes me over the edge, but he slows his pace as if he knows exactly how close I am and still wants to draw it out. “Yes,” I gasp. “I wanted your fat cock inside me ever since I first saw you.”
His pace increases. His strong hands grip my hips, steadying me as I try to push myself into him, forcing him deeper. He’s breathing faster, harder, panting with each thrust now.
“Cum for me, Kitten,” he says
through clenched teeth.
My core grips his cock as my body spasms with release. The orgasm rips through me like something feral, shredding my inhibitions. I moan loudly, gasping his name as he still ruts into me. He presses hard into me and groans, cock pulsing as thick ropes of cum fill me deep inside.
“Oh my God,” I say, letting my body relax for the first time since he touched me in the playroom. I feel like I was just hit by a bus. Every muscle is sore and spent. My clit throbs as the echoes of my orgasm fade and fall away.
He eases himself off me, grinning down. “You did so well, Kitten. You did so fucking well.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
He unties my hands and ankles, rubbing them tenderly, checking for marks--there are none. He methodically moves across my body, massaging some of the soreness from my muscles. I flinch as he rubs something cool onto my tender ass. The coolness quickly cuts through the sting from my spanking. He kisses me tenderly, then possessively and I love every second of it. I lay sprawled on the bed, almost lethargic as I watch him start to slip into his clothing. He treats me like no man ever has.
If someone had told me a month ago what I would be doing right now, I never would’ve believed them. And if a woman ever told me a man punished her the way Logan is punishing me, I would be appalled. I would think it was chauvinistic and degrading. Maybe it should be, and maybe it would be to other people, but the strangest part about all this is how private it feels. What Logan and I are building is entirely between us. It’s both extremely personal and impersonal at the same time, like there’s a wall between our real selves and this false reality we’ve begun to create. One where we can both be sexually free and explore our fantasies.
I feel a slight wave of unease when I realize I don’t know exactly what Logan expects. I know the rules of our sexual arrangement, but I don’t know what the rules are outside of that. I don’t even know if I want more than this. Couldn’t I just live a normal life by day and become this sexually uninhibited creature he’s making me into by night? Could it be that simple?
Maybe.
When I look at Logan and the possessive way he grins down at me, covetous of my beauty and jealously driven to protect his claim over me… I’m not so sure this is going to be anything remotely simple.
He picks up my underwear and moves to me, carefully sliding my panties back on. His thumb brushes over my swollen clit as he does and I suck in a sharp breath. Wow. I could already go another round, but I don’t know if my body would be able to handle it.
He finds my bra, putting it on for me and then sliding my dress back over my head and zipping it up. It’s incredibly intimate, and I love the two sides of him. He can be a dark, punishing dominant one minute and then a meticulous caretaker the next. It’s the perfect juxtaposition of hot and cold.
He kisses me tenderly on the neck and then the lips. “I have to go, Kitten. I’ll be in touch.”
He kisses me again and then leaves without so much as a look over his shoulder.
56
Logan
It has been three days since I had Emmaline at Club Crave. I sent the non-disclosure agreement over to her address the following morning, and she sent it back today. Signed. Every time I close my eyes I see her and her perfect curves. I’ve wanted nothing more than to call her and have her again, but I’ve had too much work to do. My international partners are trying to quietly maneuver to take control of my company. It shouldn’t be possible because the company is no longer publicly traded, but they are using thuggish techniques and targeting my investors directly.
I can’t catch a fucking break lately. First my investors threaten to pull out because of my character issues, now this. But I’m not losing sleep over it. It’s just work. That’s the business, and I’ve done my own share of cutthroat practices to get where I am as quickly as I did. They are fucking with the wrong man, and it’s only a matter of time and work to make them realize that.
“How long will that take?” I ask. I’m sitting in a conference room with my top executives from every branch of my company.
Jason taps his pen against the legal pad in front of him, mentally calculating something. He’s a fit guy in his forties, and I’ve always appreciated his attitude. He works hard and doesn’t give me bullshit excuses. That’s all I really need.
“Two weeks,” he says. “Three if India doesn’t play ball.”
“Fine. Make it happen,” I say.
I’m about to give the marketing team their assignment when my phone buzzes. I quickly check to see who’s texting and do a double take when I see it’s Patrick, my personal investigator. I tasked him with keeping an eye on Emmaline for me. Maybe it was crossing the line, but I can’t take any chances. She’s already too important to me, and getting involved with me could cause her unforeseen problems. I wasn’t about to take chances.
Patrick (4:52 P.M.): 5121 Appleblossom Cir, East End. You should see her. Domestic trouble.
I clutch the phone hard, looking around the table at the expectant faces. They all know how important the next few days are to the company and to their jobs. They expect me to fix it like I always do. I bark out a few quick orders, assigning jobs and initiatives to my top executives as fast as I can.
Less than two minutes later, I’m grabbing my coat and rushing from the building without further explanation.
Patrick knows not to bother me unless it’s something important. He wouldn’t have texted me, especially not during the work day, if it wasn’t a matter that needed my immediate attention.
I’m parked outside her place twenty minutes later. It’s a small house just outside the city in a neighborhood full of chain link fences and “beware of dog” signs. Seeing her living in a place like this turns my stomach. My Kitten deserves way better than this. Way fucking better. I don’t even need to offer her money though to know she wouldn’t take it.
The house is covered in cheap vinyl siding painted a sky blue color. It’s peeling at the corners and is molding toward the ground. Despite the general disrepair of the house, there’s a beautiful garden in the front yard that’s protected from weeds by stone pavers. Every plant seems to be flourishing, and a pair of gardening shears still lays out on the pavers beside a pair of dirt-covered gloves. Thinking of her bending over while she gardens makes me smirk. For some reason the idea of her liking to garden endears her to me even more.
There’s a brightly colored wind-catcher planted beside the path leading to her front door and it spins when a slight breeze rustles the oaks overhead. I take back my initial assessment of her place. I’m so used to being surrounded by wealth and excess that my default is to look at how a place can be improved. The pursuit of perfection could never create a place like this. The way dappled shade falls over the house and the way the bright garden adds a kind of charm to the small building could happen only organically, by accident.
I realize to an extent that she and I are different after all. We both attack our problems with the same energy and drive, but maybe we’re seeking different ends. I don’t know why, but that thought unsettles me. It makes me wonder if I know her as well as I thought. I shouldn’t be surprised I don’t. After all, I’ve been with her a total of four times now. A few minutes at my party, a few minutes at the club, a few minutes for dinner, and then one exceptional hour at the club last weekend. All totaled, I’ve probably spent two hours with Emmaline, and yet I’m surprised that I don’t have her completely figured out.
I blow out a humorless laugh.
I step up to the front door and knock. My heart is pounding in my chest. Domestic abuse? I never even thought she might not be single, but how surprised can I really be. After all, I met her at a BDSM club. It’s not exactly the kind of place a sexually deprived woman is likely to end up. If she has some deadbeat boyfriend slapping her around, he had better hope he’s gone when I step inside. I think back to the thick makeup on her face and the implications of what it could have been hiding has my blood boiling. Fucking bruises on m
y Kitten. Whoever is responsible is going to regret waking up. They will regret even being born. I clench my fists, feeling all the muscles in my body tighten.
The door opens and my wandering thoughts are silenced in an instant. My eyes go immediately to the bright red mark beneath her eye. I raise a hand to touch just below the mark, narrowing my eyes at her. My insides feel like ice. There’s a darker, older bruise beneath it, right where I saw the thick makeup at the club.
“Where is he? Who fucking put his hands on you?” I ask.
She hesitates, eyes wide and searching my face. “It’s complicated. I don’t want you to hurt him.”
I grip the doorframe so tight I can feel the wood threaten to buckle. As her dom, I should chastise her for refusing to answer me, but this isn’t the time for that. She’s hurting, both physically and emotionally. She doesn’t need a dom right now. She needs the lowlife who touched her out of this plane of fucking existence.
I shake my head. “Whoever did this to you is going to pay. You can tell me who it is, or I can find out.”
The distress on her face makes my chest hurt. I can see how much the thought of me hurting whoever did this is scaring her, but I can’t let this happen. I don’t care what she thinks about our relationship outside the club, she is mine, and I need to send a very clear message about what happens to people who touch what’s mine.
Her shoulders slump a little and she looks down. “My mom’s boyfriend. His name’s Ronnie. He’s been drinking more lately. I shouldn’t have even gone back after last week, but I went there today.”
I feel a guilty surge of relief to hear it wasn’t her boyfriend. Maybe she isn’t seeing anyone after all, but now isn’t the time to press the issue. I stay quiet while she explains how her mom has been trying to get money for a vacation out of her for weeks now. And how she tried to give them as much as she could afford last week, but it ended with Ronnie knocking her to the ground. Apparently, when she went back to try to talk her mom into leaving Ronnie this morning, he came home, overheard, and hit her.
The Bodyguard: A Navy SEAL Romance Page 39
