GLASS: A Standalone Novel

by Arianne Richmonde

  I grabbed the lined handcuffs from my suitcase—the ones I’d ordered, along with the other toys I’d bought for our “rehearsals” for the film.

  “Spread your arms as well, so you’re like a starfish.”

  Janie obliged, her eyes still closed. Then I looked at the bed and laughed. The headboard was a soft, upholstered thing with button tufts. There were no posts to latch the cuffs to. I threw the cuffs back in the case.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, just me standing here naked with my great big erection. The male body isn’t very graceful, I must say.”

  Her eyes sprang open and she sat up. She bit her lip lasciviously and raked her gaze to my navel and below. “Grace, maybe not, but Daniel, you’ve got the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen in my life. Forget the surprise, we’ll do it another time. Come right here, right now, what are you waiting for?”

  She looked exquisitely beautiful. I never got enough of that little heart-shaped face, framed by her mane of dark hair. Her pert round breasts—the perfect handful, her rosy nipples peaked and alert. Smooth silky skin, pale as a lily. I felt instantly bad for having wanted to play dirty games when she looked so innocent and fresh-faced. This moment should be about making love, not about wild sex games. I took in a deep breath and exhaled. Fuck, I was an asshole sometimes. I needed to get a grip on my libido and calm the fuck down. But I was truly addicted to her. I stood there, mentally counting to ten, to stop myself from ravishing her like a hungry Viking. I remembered the airplane trip when she had burst out crying. Janie fancied herself as a tough, modern woman, but at heart she was as fragile as glass. And I didn’t want to chip her, let alone break her. She’d been ill, and in the hospital, on top of it all. I made up my mind, right there, that I’d go easy even though she aroused the carnal monster in me.

  “What’s wrong? Janie looked alarmed, her doe eyes wide. She glanced anxiously at her ring as if I were about to change my mind about our marriage and yank it off her finger. As if.

  “I’m not good enough for you, Janie, that’s all. I don’t deserve you.”

  “Stop procrastinating already and come here. I don’t know about you, but I want to . . . well, you know exactly what I want, Mr. Glass.”

  21

  Janie.

  MR. GLASS. HMM, I’d be Mrs. Glass soon. A thrilled shiver shimmied up my spine at the thought of it. Janie Jessica Glass. Nice. Although I guessed I’d keep Janie Cole for acting as I’d already made a name for myself. Or maybe Janie Cole-Glass. I’d mull that one over.

  I observed Daniel as he stood before me, nude, in all his glory. My God, the man was handsome. Like a Greek god, but even better because Greek gods weren’t half as well endowed—at least going by the statues at the Met.

  But, by the expression in his eyes, I could tell that he was fearful about hurting me. I lay on the bed, waiting for him like an Italian mobster’s wife whose husband is so much more worldly. I truly felt like a virgin. His cock was so huge and hard, and every step he took closer to the bed had my heart beating in an excited fear. Yes, fear. There was something dark about Daniel Glass. A flick of the eye, a twitch of the jaw. I never knew where his mood was going, or coming from, and it frightened me. I held him too much in awe, perhaps, so I had often tried to compensate by being sassy and cocky, nonchalant, as if I weren’t head over heels for him. Sex with Daniel was amazing, but it was the closeness I craved, the desire to make him need me and nobody else. It was a mental thing, not just physical. Orgasms like the ones he gave me didn’t just come from his clever tongue or the way he fucked me so perfectly, knowing when to slow down and when to pound my ass off, when to be gentle or when to be rough. It was more to do with the way that he was so committed and intense, so in the moment. With me. Just me. There for me, one hundred percent. As if he revered me, worshipped my body.

  I knew this kind of love and connection was one in a million.

  I was one lucky girl.

  So lucky I was terrified it would all go away.

  He lay beside me on the bed, so we were face to face, chest to chest, and he stared into my eyes with a gaze of such longing, such profundity, as if to say, You and I are for life, please don’t ever let me down.

  “I won’t ever let you down.” I whispered it like a secret. My mouth on his mouth.

  “I know.”

  “I love you,” I said seriously.

  “I know.”

  I was waiting for him to repeat the same words, but he just continued with his quiet perusal of my eyes, my face.

  “Do you love me too?” I sounded so childish.

  “Love . . . love doesn’t even begin to encompass the way I feel about you, Janie. What we have is love and far beyond love.”

  I could feel his huge erection poised at the base of my entrance. His words send a shot of liquid heat to my core and a bolt of desire to my clit. My brain connected so intrinsically to my organs—knowing he felt that way made me so confident, so extraordinary. And above all, sexy. I wriggled into the perfect position, my hands on his shoulders to anchor myself into target position. His cock flexed and I whimpered. I could sense the soft head enter me just a touch.

  “Oh God,” I cried out.

  “You’re so fucking wet.”

  “Wet for fucking,” I joked, instantly regretting what had popped out of my mouth, wishing I hadn’t turned this spiritual moment into a crass pun.

  I laid my hand on his heart. It was thumping so hard in his chest I momentarily panicked. Doctors’ orders: Keep Daniel calm, don’t let him get emotionally excited.

  He started prodding me with his erection, in and out, just a millimeter, his eyes hooded with lust. He was groaning and, by the way he was grimacing, he was obviously forcing himself not to ravage me.

  “This is no good, Janie, you’ll have to get on top and control the pace. I don’t trust myself. Use me. Use me to get yourself off.” In one swift movement he had me on top, straddling him. I took his cock in my hand and guided it inside me, groaning with pleasure as I did so.

  He murmured, “Fuck, baby, you have no idea how amazing you feel.”

  He was still only quarter inside me, his thick shaft pushing against every nerve in my soaked walls.

  “I’m just going to ride the tip of you,” I said, “because you’re bigger than I remember and it almost hurts.” I rested my lips on his and, as I started moving slowly up and down, all the pain vanished, his erection deep inside, but my clit rubbing up and down his stomach, giving me untold pleasure in two places. Daniel had shown me what a vaginal orgasm was like and it had blown my mind—but both erogenous zones being pleasured at once was the epitome of how good sex could be.

  His tongue lashed out at mine, plunging inside my mouth, almost brutally, as if it were taking the place of his cock. He raised his hips but was careful not to slam into me—he didn’t need to—I’d taken over. Before long I had most of him inside me, filling me up like an overblown Christmas stocking, as I raised my body up and then slammed back down on him, impaling myself on his beautiful, orgasmic-giving tool.

  “Janie.” His lusty eyes told me all I needed to know—he was loving it.

  I carried on with my rhythm, each stroke massaging all the sweet spots for both of us, my nipples keen as bullets. Daniel grabbed a pillow and shoved it roughly behind his head so he was closer. He pulled me down on him by the shoulders and his mouth and tongue lashed at my breasts. I offered him one nipple and he sucked greedily, sending electric currents to my clit and deep within me. All these erogenous nerve endings connected to each other by the brain.

  I cried out.

  “That’s right, baby, use me, use my dick and make yourself come all around it.”

  I was screaming now, it felt so incredible and I could hardly believe I’d encompassed the whole of him. I pumped hard as Daniel nibbled my nipple, all the sensations swirling inside me. I could feel the build-up swell and about to burst. I was in anther zone now, concentrating hard on my impending orgasm
which, before I knew it, had ripped through me in a tidal wave splitting me in two, and then piecing me back together, just as fast, into one exploding, pumping mass of nerves.

  I didn’t even need to alert him I was coming. He knew it by my body, my inner muscles clenching him, tightening around his expanding bulk, hard and ardent inside me. He was roaring, shoving his hips roughly at me to meet my thrusts as he growled out his climax like a wild beast, semen shooting right to my womb. His thickness inside me, pulsing to the rhythm of his heart—that heart which had professed its love earlier—had me coming again. My clit rubbed up against his hard stomach and sent tingling waves through every cell in my happy body.

  This was the best sex I’d ever had.

  And before the overwhelming pleasure had even run its course, I wanted more.

  He did too. He rolled me over on my back and fucked me ruthlessly, holding my ankle in one hand as he hooked it around the back of his neck.

  “Sweet, hot pussy,” he thundered. “This is what I live for, you are what I live for. Your body, your being, your soul. I’ll never be able to get enough of you, my angel.”

  I wanted to respond with words, but for some reason I couldn’t.

  He lingered his lips on my ear. “Janie, my healer, my life.” I felt him come again.

  We lay there, sated, our bodies pressed together with a gleam of sweat, our hearts pounding out the same drum tune. I didn’t want this moment to end and hoped I could store it forever in my memory. When I was ninety, would I recall this bliss?

  22

  Janie.

  WE DECIDED—OR at least Daniel did—that we would honeymoon and marry all in one go. Daniel didn’t want to invite anyone at all to our wedding, greedy to have me all to himself, but I drew the line at not having my family there to celebrate. Will and Dad had been my everything since Mom died, so Daniel relented. He sent one of his company’s private jets to collect them, and I, forever the wanna-be conservationist, thought it a horrible waste and a veritable black carbon footprint to have a plane fly halfway across the world mostly empty, so I called my old therapist who had helped me a lot after Mom died. We’d become close since our sessions had ended, freed from professional restraints to become friends outside hours. So Daisy and her little girl Amy hopped on board as well. And now that numbers were increasing, Daniel invited an old cricket friend of his called Jesse, a British man who was some CEO of something important.

  Destination? Bora Bora.

  I hadn’t spoken to Daisy for a while, and when I relayed to her all my latest news about The Dark Edge of Love, it turned out that she is Pearl Chevalier’s best friend! So the next thing I knew, Pearl and Alexandre were also coming along to our wedding, their kids and nanny in tow. Then Star felt left out (“you said it was just family and now I see the whole world is muzzling in.”), so she and Jake and their children also made plans to come.

  “Now we have to entertain them all,” grumbled Daniel, an eye half open as the morning sunlight streamed into our thatched-roofed bungalow, which sat on stilts on the South Pacific Ocean in this tiny chain of French Polynesian islands. Bora Bora is fringed by a barrier reef of coral, which makes it unique. The air smelled of salt and frangipani and jasmine. A wreath of threaded flowers lay at the bottom of the bed.

  “That it will never come again . . . is what makes life so sweet?” I said.

  “You and your Emily Dickinson,” Daniel replied sleepily. He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. Our legs were still tangled together, testament to more lovemaking, all through the night. He seemed more insatiable than ever, and I wondered if I could keep up. I was bruised inside and knew I’d been walking around in my bikini a tad self-consciously, remembering the bulk of what had been between my legs—the force of it, the power. The more sex we had, the more Daniel craved. I’d need to take a sabbatical.

  His finger touched my clit, incidentally, imperceptibly, tapping me there so lightly my sore and ravaged center could hardly feel it. “I don’t have any more orgasms to give you, Daniel.”

  He laughed, a light, sleepy laugh, full of irony. “Oh yes you do.”

  He continued playing with me, stroking me, teasing, one hand languidly pinching my nipple, and the other tracing his finger around my core but not on it. Before I knew it, I was willing him to play with that part of me, but he carried on circling me there, avoiding my hard nub, avoiding the part of me that inexplicably begged for another round. My brain was telling me I’d had enough, that my body couldn’t take anymore, that we had guests to think of, a wedding to plan. Okay, the hotel was organizing everything, the flowers, the food et cetera, but still, I had to make choices, needed to decide . . .

  “Please,” I heard myself groan.

  “You see. You want it just as much, baby.” But he persisted with his tease.

  “I’m sore.”

  “Good. You can spend the day thinking of me with every step you take.”

  “You’ll be watching me,” I joked, quoting a certain song with the same stalkerish lyrics.

  “Oh, can’t you see, you belong to me,” he whispered in smart reply. His tantalizing touch was so light, I wasn’t used to the neglect on certain areas of my body. “I’m going to make you come this way, Janie. Without touching any of your vital organs.”

  I laughed. “I think that’s impossible.”

  “We’ll see.”

  His hand trailed up along my belly, lightly tracing the curves of my breasts. My clit tingled and thrummed as Daniel circled each nipple slowly. He pushed me onto my back, tore the sheet away from my body, and I lay expectantly, soothed by the sound of the gentle ocean breeze, the scent of wafting flowers coming and going intermittently, all the more sensual because of my closed eyes.

  “Just relax and concentrate on the sound of the waves,” he murmured. “I brought something that will have you begging for more.”

  My eyes flew open. “What?”

  “Ssh, you mustn’t look, but you can guess when it’s over.”

  “When what’s over?” I asked nervously.

  “When you’ve come.”

  “You’re quite the expert, aren’t you?” I said, my voice laced with irony, although I knew that Daniel was an expert, but I didn’t want him to feel too cocky about it, “cock” being the operative word.

  He strode across the room and pulled something from his case. I was so used to seeing him with a massive erection, but I hoped this time he really wouldn’t use it on me—my poor body simply couldn’t take it.

  “Shut those pretty eyes of yours, Janie, and don’t peek.”

  “Don’t peak or don’t peek?” I joked.

  “You’ll peak alright, to the peak of the highest mountain.”

  I let my eyes fall shut and felt my heart speed up. I had no idea what he was planning but had to trust he wouldn’t hurt me. I was a bit of a wimp when it came to pain.

  “I’m just going to put this blindfold on you, baby. Just to make sure you don’t cheat.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “It’ll make the experience more sensual,” he assured me, in his late-night, gruff voice. A voice that sounded as if he’d binged on more cigarettes and whiskey than Don Draper, although, funnily enough, Daniel had never smoked in his life and rarely drank.

  The blindfold was weighty on my lids but it felt great. I smelled lavender, as well as the frangipani.

  “It’s stuffed with buckwheat or something to put weight on your eyes—and there’s lavender inside also. What do you see?”

  “Nothing. Pitch black.”

  “Good. Just concentrate on the sounds around you. The sound of my breath, the lull of the lapping waves. Think of this as meditation. Clear your mind from general chit-chatty mind-thoughts, judgment, desires or outcomes.”

  It was true. I had a thousand thoughts swirling in my head. Daniel and his huge cock. My needs, yet how sore I felt inside. Pearl and Alexandre—had their plane landed? Would my simple linen dress be good enough, maybe
I should have brought something fancier for my wedding gown. Could I act? What would happen when we got back to work? Was it a fluke that I got nominated for a Tony Award for Where The Wind Blows? WHAT IF THEY DISCOVERED I WAS A FRAUD?”

  “Relax, Janie,” Daniel mumbled in my ear. He stroked my hair, soothing away my over-active ramblings that did me no good at all. “Just empty your mind and think of nothing else than the waves. Just the soft lapping waves, right beneath our bungalow. The turquoise water, clear and clean. The fish swimming beneath us, resplendent, multicolored, and going about their lives with absolute ease.”

  I thought of sharks, suddenly, and wondered if they’d gobble up the unsuspecting fish, but Daniel had moved on . . .

  “The aroma of frangipani . . .” I didn’t hear the rest but felt and incredible sensation of something light whispering across my nipples. It circled my breasts, around and around. I could feel my nipples harden and my pussy moisten.

  “So beautiful,” I heard him say.

  I was trying to work out what it was that was teasing me. Something soft. A feather? No. Tassels? It stroked along the center of my torso, down, down, avoiding the cleft of my pussy just by a millimeter. I moaned and rocked my hips up, hoping to meet whatever was giving me this indescribable pleasure. It traveled along my thighs, down my calf to my toe, where it lingered on my foot, ticking the erogenous zone—that pressure point in the middle underside of my sole. My clit was thumping to the rhythm of the strokes, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any sexier, Daniel’s thumb and forefinger (yes, I knew them by heart) squeezed my left nipple. Pulling, releasing, pulling, releasing. My whole body was throbbing.

  I was lost in ecstasy. He tugged at it harder, meanwhile continuing with his “reflexology” treatment that had me squirming in my blindfold, still in total darkness as I was. He was right. I had lost all thoughts of everything, even the sounds around me. All I could do was feel. He hadn’t even touched me between my legs, not even lightly brushed past my clit, but I was groaning with carnal pleasure. He moved onto my other nipple and the unexpected change, of concentration on my part, caused tingles deep within my groin to explode.