by Whitley Cox
Meegan unwrapped her gift to reveal a big firetruck. When she spun it around to show Landon and Gemma, the first thing that popped into my head was: He’s going to choke to death. Not only did it say in big bold yellow lettering “For ages six and up,” but it had like twenty small, dime- or quarter-size removable pieces that any child under the age of two wouldn’t think twice about popping into their piehole. Well, if my rage didn’t get in the way and cause me to toss the gift in the trash before we even got home, that thing was going up into the back of Landon’s closet until he hit kindergarten.
Meegan caught me eyeing the gift. “What?” Her voice reminded me of a petulant high school girl.
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I wasn’t going to engage. I just wanted her to leave. Leave me and my children alone to have our lunch in peace.
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I want a picture with me and the kids. It’s selfie time, guys.” He drew her phone out of her purse and held her hand out to Gemma.
Gemma shook her head and tried to tunnel deeper into my arms. “I don’t want to, Daddy,” she said quietly against my chest.
I rubbed her back again. “It’s okay, sweetie. You don’t have to.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Sam, it’s just a bloody picture.”
“And my children have a say as to whether they want their photo taken. And Gemma says no. Respect her consent, Meegan.”
She rolled her gray eyes for the millionth time. “Whatever. Pass me over Landon, he’ll take a picture with his mama. Unlike little Miss Rude Pants over there.” She made a disapproving and antagonizing face at Gemma, which only caused Gem to break out into more sobs, this time much louder than before. People were starting to notice the commotion at our table, and in between trying to console my weeping child and fend off the blonde intruder, I also gave those who were watching apologetic smiles. Who says men can’t multitask?
“Pass him over,” she said again, holding out her arms.
“He’s not a bottle of freaking ketchup. No. I think it’s time you left. Gemma is upset, you’ve called both the children names, and you weren’t invited. If you’d like to see them again, arrange it through the lawyers. We’re done here.” I stood up with Gemma in my arms just as Kandycce the waitress came careening around the corner. My elbow knocked her tray of food and sent everything, and I mean everything crashing to the ground. My mouth, Kandycce’s mouth and Meegan’s mouth all dropped open. Landon, who had finally realized he couldn’t eat the spoon in his palm, started to wail like the fire truck he wasn’t allowed to touch while Gemma trembled and sobbed in my arms.
I adjusted Gem in my arms, then pointed at the front door. “Go. Now.”
Defiance burned bright in Meegan’s eyes. I watched her toy with the idea of staying. But as she looked around the scene, food and dishes all over the floor, a frazzled server frantically cleaning it all up on her hands and knees, and both children bawling, she realized she wanted no part of the chaos. She reached for her coat, squinted at me, then Gemma before stepping over our lunch shrapnel and leaving.
I crouched down across from Kandycce on the floor, Gemma still in my arms. “I’m really sorry. I’ll still pay for her meal, and doubles of mine and the kids.”
Kandycce lifted her head and blew her pink bangs out of her eyes. “Dude, after that shit show, your meal is on the house. Don’t sweat it.”
Shaking my head at the clusterfuck that had become my life, I rejoined the now and studied my face in the bathroom mirror. As much as I wanted, needed to see Harper tonight, I was dead on my feet. Big bags hung under my eyes, and wrinkles I hadn’t noticed before marred my forehead and the corners of my eyes. Here I thought we’d all put the debacle of last year behind us. We were all moving on, Meegan included. The kids were good—happy and healthy. I was good. I was finally giving love another shot, and then Meegan had to show up and fuck everything to shit. I grabbed a towel from the shelf and went to drying all my toys. I headed back out into the bedroom, glancing at my clock as I spread out the toys on top of the dresser for easy access. Harper had seven minutes.
I shed my shirt and took off my socks. Then, just to be considerate, I ducked back into the bathroom and gave my johnson a quick wash. I kept my jeans on and was just zipping them back up when I heard a car engine in the driveway. A quick glance at the clock said she had three more minutes. I peeled back the curtains and glanced out at her parked SUV sitting in the driveway. I could see Harper inside. The glow from her phone illuminated her face.
My clock said she had two more minutes.
What was she waiting for?
And then it dawned on me. She wanted to be late.
No fucking way!
She wanted me to punish her.
My cock jumped eagerly against my jeans.
This woman was goddamn incredible.
One minute.
She didn’t move.
Sweat slicked my palms as the second hand sluggishly ticked around the clock on my nightstand. Holy fucking Christ, speed up. Were the batteries dying?
Thirty seconds.
Now my shaft was at full attention and threatening to either explode my load or punch its way through my pants.
Fifteen seconds.
She just sat there.
Five seconds.
Holy shit. I hadn’t even really thought about how I would punish her. I had all these other plans. Fulfill our fantasies, make her come harder than she’s ever come before. But shit, now I had to work punishment into the night as well.
Time was up.
She still just sat there.
Was she having second thoughts? No. She couldn’t. I needed her in here. I needed her inside. I needed to be inside her.
One minute late.
She was still looking at that motherfucking phone. Was my clock fast?
I snatched my phone off the dresser. No, it was 8:53. Same as my clock.
Another minute passed. She still didn’t move.
I was about to run downstairs and fling the door open to find out if everything was okay when I saw her move inside her SUV, and the door opened.
Calming my childish nerves, I ran my fingers through my hair and scrubbed my beard a few times. I needed to chill the fuck out.
She’d made me wait, so I could make her wait. I bounded down the stairs and hit the liquor cabinet. One shot wouldn’t make me drunk, but it’d take the edge off, even if for a few minutes.
With a shaking hand, I poured a quick ounce of whiskey and tossed it back. Then, steeling myself for the woman to come, the night to come, I put the bottle away, closed the cabinet and headed for the door.
She was on the front step with her phone out. She was getting ready to text me. I set my shoulders back, adopted the mask of the Dom and opened the door. “You’re late.”
Her head sprung up from where she’d been busy letting me know she was here. Her mouth dropped open and raindrops dripped from the hood of her jacket. Her face was flushed, and her gorgeous cocoa eyes shone with excitement. The woman was breathtaking.
“I, uh … ”
“Why are you late?
That sexy bottom lip was sucked inside her hot little mouth, and I fought back a groan. Doms don’t groan.
“You are aware I said I would punish you if you were late, right?”
Her eyes grew wide, and she nodded.
“Do you want to be punished, Harper?”
Her throat bobbed with a swallow. My cock ached inside my jeans.
“Answer me.”
“Y-yes.”
“Were you deliberately late so that you would be punished?”
She nodded again.
“Use your words.”
A delightful and amused little half-smirk tilted at the corner of her mouth, and I had to suppress my own smile. We both used that exact same line on our children multiple times a day. Dear God, even in Dom mode I was still a dad.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I think yo
u need this. I think I need this. I love you and I trust you.”
Her words hit me hard in the solar plexus, and I had to stop myself from crushing her lips with mine and hauling her upstairs over my shoulder.
“Come in,” I said smoothly, doing a mental fist pump when my voice didn’t crack.
She did as she was told, and I shut out the storm.
“May I take your coat?”
Her eyes never left me as I helped her out of her jacket. She stepped out of her rubber boots.
“Thank you.” Her voice was but a breath above a whisper.
“We’ll go upstairs to my room now,” I said, my hand falling to the small of her back. I could feel the heat of her skin even through the thin fabric of her cotton T-shirt. She was warm and smelled like ginger and her own incredible scent. She smelled like home.
We climbed the stairs slowly, her steps cautious but determined as her cute pink and white, polka-dot-socked feet took each step. When we reached the top, I applied a bit of pressure to her back and guided her left toward my room. The door was open, and the dresser laden with all the kinky shit I owned was the first thing she saw. She gasped, spinning around to face me.
“Sam … I … ”
“Yes?” This was her chance to back out now. If she wanted just regular, run-of-the-mill sex, we could do that. But if she wanted it, I was going to test, I was going to punish, and I was going to fuck—hard.
Her eyes left mine for half a second, instead flicking to the dresser. Had she zeroed in on the nipple clamps, too?
“I—I think we might need more than an hour.”
Chapter 19
Harper
Holy crap on a cracker. Sam in full-on Dom mode was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Those jeans, those feet, those abs. Oh sweet baby Jesus, those abs. How does someone get their stomach to look like that? A thousand situps a day and a diet of nothing but chicken breasts and iceberg lettuce? That had to be it. They were hypnotic, and I was mesmerized by the way they bunched and contracted as he moved to shut the bedroom door. I heard the lock engage and let out the breath I’d been holding.
The atmosphere inside the house was heavy and electric. The man overwhelmed the space, projecting his dark mood. Yet even then, he was difficult to read. I knew he was angry. Worried. And by the way he’d ordered me over here threatening punishment—turned on, but there was something else there, lurking just beneath the surface.
My gaze left his abs and shifted back over to the top of the dresser. Handcuffs, shackles, nipple clamps, blindfolds, paddles, crops, whips, floggers, and what was that wheelie thing? Was that a strap? Fire ignited deep inside me, and flames danced along my arms and up my neck. I encircled my left wrist with the thumb and index finger of my right hand, making a cuff of sorts. Remembering the cuffs last night. Sam came toward me, bringing his incredible scent, masculine and spicy with the hint of mint and fresh linen. He circled behind me; I stilled, waiting, wondering where he was going to touch me first.
I didn’t have to wait long.
His breath was warm and smelled mildly of liquor as his lips landed on my collarbone. Had he been drinking?
I must have tensed, because his hands fell to my waist, and he whispered, “I had one shot right before you showed up. But I’m not drunk.”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
“I want to worship you, Harper. Make you come harder than you’ve ever come before. Help you find new, never before touched erogenous zones and please you until you’re begging me for sleep.”
“Okay.”
“But I also want to punish you.”
I knew he needed this. I knew he needed an outlet for the nightmare Meegan had put him through, and I was willing to be that outlet. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I wanted to be everything he needed. And tonight he needed to let go.
“Okay.”
His lips fell back to my collarbone before traveling around the back of my neck and down the other side. He spun me around, smoothly removed my shirt, lifting it up and over my head. My pants were next. I’d been in my hole-in-bum yoga pants when he called but changed into jeans to come over. He unsnapped, unzipped and let the denim fall to the floor.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze slowly raking me from head to toe. Those magnificent eyes of his turned the shade of magical moonlight, deep and blue and fierce.
I was lost in them. Lost in Sam, and he’d hardly even touched me. I would do anything for this man. He had my heart months ago, and now he had my body. I was his.
“Step out.”
I stepped out of my jeans and stood there for the rest of his inspection. He glanced at the bed.
“Sit.”
I sat.
He knelt down; his big, warm hands encircled my left ankle. He ran them up the length of my calf, massaging out aches and knots I didn’t even know I had. I closed my eyes. A low, pleasured groan slowly rumbled through me from the back of my throat. Methodically, he removed my socks. I thought he’d proceed on to the other leg, but he didn’t. Instead he massaged and caressed, kneaded and prodded my feet. I groaned again, this time louder and longer. He dug his thumbs into the balls and arches of my feet, rubbed the pads of each toe until my whole body relaxed and I slumped back supine on the bed. He moved onto the other ankle, delivering the same glorious treatment to the other calf and foot. I was mush. Complete and total mush.
A gentle nip to the pad of my big toe brought me out of my coma, and I opened my eyes just as his hands came up and drew down my panties. Knuckles grazed the tops of my thighs, and I inhaled from how such a simple touch could make my entire body turn to molten lava and erupt with need.
He slid them over my ankles. Forgetting gentle, he palmed my thighs and spread me wide. Then his mouth was on me. Decadent warmth and velvety softness swept up through my folds as plump lips enclosed around my clit and fiercely sucked. My hips jerked off the bed, and I pushed into his mouth. That tongue, that diabolical tongue flicked and flicked and flicked until I was a convulsing mess on the bed.
Just a tongue.
Just a flick.
Just my clit.
And I was ready to implode. There were no fingers, no circles, nothing, and the man had me in an absolute frenzy. My head thrashed back and forth on the bed as the orgasm built like the crazy winter storm outside. And Sam just continued to flick. It was the most intense, insane kind of torture. I wanted more, more lips, more tongue, more fingers—anything. But at the same time, I didn’t. That flick was enough. That flick was perfect.
Ecstasy, jagged in its reality, lingered just out of my grasp. I was seconds from letting Sam push me over the cliff when he stopped the flicking, gave one, long, slow lick up between my folds, then stood up.
What the hell?
His grin was salacious and pure Dom.
“Would you like to come?” he asked.
I swallowed from my position on the bed. “Yes.”
“You’ll come when I say you can come. Stand up.”
I did as I was told, my legs trembling as I put weight on them, my entire body quivering with the orgasm that wasn’t.
“Take off your bra,” he ordered. He turned around to face the dresser laden with all the kinky shit. I did as I was told, letting my bra join my T-shirt and pants. He spun back around and held out the nipple clamps. “I believe it’s been a fantasy of both of ours to have you clamped, bound, flogged and fucked, is it not?”
My bottom lip nearly hit the floor.
His right eyebrow lifted slightly. “Is it not?”
“Uh … yeah. Th-though I think my fantasy was you going down on me.”
“Hmmm,” he hummed. “Yes, well. I’ll consider it.”
A shudder blitzed down my spine as he took a step forward. The clamps with their connecting chain dangled from his big right hand. He dropped to his knees in front of me and drew a pert and tender nipple into his mouth. Sucking hard, until it was achy, red and incredibly sensitive, Sam rolled my bud around in his mouth. I moaned fro
m the bliss, and heat flared in my abdomen. The pain from his sudden bite set the neurons inside my body alive. He removed his mouth, tugged the nipple out with his finger and thumb, then secured the clamp.
My breath caught audibly as a new, foreign ache cascaded out in warm waves from my pinched nipple.
“How does that feel?” he asked.
I licked my lips. “Green.”
His eyes darkened to an even more intense blue, and a vein stood out in his thick, sexy neck. Without saying anything, he went to work on the other nub, delivering the same wondrous torture until it too was hard, crimson and desperate for the clamp.
He stood up and stepped back. “God, you’re fucking beautiful.”
Desire fluttered through me with heated wings. “So are you.”
His smile was small as he stood there and studied me like a bug under a scope. “I’m going to give you a choice tonight, Harper. Would you like the blindfold?”
I shook my head. “No, thank you.”
“May I ask why?” His mouth dipped into a frown.
“I want to see you as you come. See your face, see your body.”
His frown flattened out and curved into a grin. “Fair enough. Next choice. Last choice. Come over here and tell me which instrument you would like to be punished with. This is our first real play time, and I don’t want to frighten you.”
I went to open my mouth but shut it.
“What?”
I shook my head.
He was on me in seconds. His hands encircled my elbows, his gaze avid and fierce. Even though I knew he would never hurt me, fear heated my veins to the point of pain.
“No secrets, Harper. Not ever. You got that?” He gave me a small shake. “Never be afraid to tell me what is on your mind or how you’re feeling.” His gaze softened, his own fear carved deep into his handsome face. “Please, tell me what you were about to say.”
Swallowing as my heart beat rapidly against my ribs, I spoke. “I was going to say, I trust you to choose for me. I liked the belt last night.”
He let out an exhale and released his grip on my elbows. His left hand came up, and he tugged on the chain connecting the two nipple clamps. I gasped. That wicked boyish grin was back. “Just come take a look.”
