Every time the fear or the now ambiguous memories of Frank intruded, she forced her mind toward Neil and the night to come.
As a result, she’d been wet before he’d touched her. As soon as Neil embraced her, the tension in her neck eased and the butterflies in her stomach flittered off to plague someone else. The soft, secure bite of the green rope on her skin let her relax further, leaving her open and vulnerable in a good way.
Only she’d still been thinking about dangerous vulnerability—Frank’s marriage-ending inability to let down his guard except where the cat was concerned, and his ultimate vulnerability. He’d done everything he knew how to keep himself and her safe, even cutting them off from each other, yet he wound up dead at the hands of Iranian intelligence agents and she was hiding from who knew all. Even when Neil played with her asshole, she kept slipping from going crazy with need to going crazy with doubt and anxiety. That, more than lust, was why she’d begged him to fuck her right then. Surely with a cock in your ass you couldn’t think about much of anything other than the moment. At least she hoped that, hoped enough to beg incoherently.
It wasn’t until Neil began to flog her that she could let those obsessive thoughts go. Sure, she’d need to address them sometime, probably sometime soon, but the persistent stinging thud of deer suede on her ass drove them away and she lost herself in the rhythm, the peculiar pleasure.
She lost track of the room and the boundaries of her body. No thoughts, just reactions. No need for thought. Just a flogger and rope and a deep bliss born of the moment. She was connected to Neil, hyperaware of his every movement, even his breathing. Yet at the same time, she wasn’t thinking about Neil in the usual way, wondering what he’d do next or picturing his body, his intense gaze, his cock poised to enter her ass when the moment was right. Everything blurred and softened.
The orgasm took her by surprise, a series of soft, hot waves that buffeted her but didn’t pull her out of her boneless bliss.
The cool slick of lube on her ass brought her back to herself abruptly. Oh, it was good. She was still all floaty and aroused, and that little hole, so hungry before, regained its appetite. Neil touched and explored and like before, she found herself begging. Needing. Needing the oblivion of pleasure, or at least the violent distraction of the erotically unfamiliar and unfamiliarly erotic.
One finger. It felt dark and crisp somehow and very good and she panted and pushed back, trying to take in more.
Two fingers and a memory box opened, two things spilling out.
A college-era lover filling her ass with a butt plug before fucking her, both laughing at their awkward daring at the same time they’d been fiercely turned on.
And Frank admitting, “Anal sex doesn’t do it for me. As taboos to violate go, it’s nothing these days, and it’s a lot of mess and fuss. But if you’re really into it, I’m game.” She’d said oh no, it’s not a big deal, because it really wasn’t and she hadn’t wanted to make him uncomfortable. They’d loved each other once but they’d filed all their edges off, her to keep him content, him to keep her safe.
Mess and fuss. He’d hated mess and fuss. And yet the end of his life had created nothing but…
No…must not let those thoughts back in. Suzanne pushed back. Two fingers felt good…yessss…filling and just edging on discomfort but not getting there. She could hover here until her body relaxed more, accepting the fingers completely, but if she focused on that edge between pleasure and pain, her other thoughts fled. So her brain prompted her to beg, “Another, please,” before her body was quite that eager.
Neil added more lube and the third finger slid in gracefully, just enough edginess to keep her focused on him, on her own body, not on the snarls of her mind. Full, so full, and her body was relaxing. When she begged this time, it wasn’t even in recognizable words because her body was with the program.
And Neil answered her incoherent pleas by rubbing the head of his sheathed, lubed cock against her sex—she hadn’t realized just how wet she was until his cock moved away and she could feel the trail of moisture it pulled away—and then tapping it against her anus. “Are you ready, girl?” He pushed, not enough to open her again, but enough to let her know that while his cock wasn’t as thick as his three fingers, it would be a very different sensation. A more intense one.
One that would thoroughly pull her from herself. Pull her into his orbit, pull her deep and far from the real world.
She managed to spit out “Yes”, not sure it actually sounded like an English word.
Then he was entering her.
He was on his knees, his hands on her hips, and it was controlled and primal at the same time, driving her farther from her mind and deeper into her body, into the place where her body and his connected so fiercely. Inch by inch—no, millimeter by millimeter—he filled her until there was nothing but that strong yet fragile place inside her and his cock moving inside it.
At last he was fully inside her, his hips pressed against her tender butt, his fingers cupping her hip bones and tugging at the network of ropes so they moved against her pussy lips. One hand slipped forward to reach her clit.
Then he began to pump, a slow primal beat. It was steady, steady, but picking up speed gradually and it edged on discomfort but also skirted perfect bliss, approached unity with something bigger than the two of them, bigger than national security issues, bigger than the universe.
The ropes held her. She’d almost lost track of them, but now, every bit of her skin sensitized, she was aware how they held her, an extension of Neil’s body, Neil’s will. And his cock in her, his hands on her, woke up places she’d allowed to sleep for more than a decade.
She was alive. Oh yes, she was alive in ways she’d almost forgotten.
Suzanne began to keen under her breath from a pleasure too intense and complicated to put into words, even one as straightforward and clear as yes. This was the kind of pleasure that was almost too much, that could crack you open and put you back together. Saying yes was accepting that shattering and she wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t ready for what might rush in when the walls came down.
She broke anyway, cracked into a thousand shining, sobbing shards.
And when she did, everything she’d used sex to hold at bay came rushing back in.
Chapter Nineteen
Oh shit. Suzanne had smiled through tears the first time they played. Neil had seen that kind of catharsis before, even from subs who weren’t dealing with nearly as much as she was.
But these were racking sobs. When he asked if she was okay, knowing he sounded like an idiot because she obviously wasn’t but you have to say something, she shook her head wildly, like she was saying yes and no at the same time, and pressed her face into the mattress.
He quickly peeled off the condom and tossed it toward the wastebasket, not even bothering to check if he’d made it, then grabbed his EMT safety shears off the bedside table. In all his years of kinky fuckery, he’d never had to use them, but he always kept them close by if he was playing with rope and this time he was grateful for his paranoia. That position had probably felt great as long as Suzanne was soaring along on the sexy, but if she was going to have a meltdown, she might as well be comfortable doing it.
She flinched from his touch now, but he couldn’t very well get her untied without touching her, so he worked as quickly and efficiently as he could and somehow fought off the urge to say something dumb like “it’s okay” because really, it wasn’t. Not right now, anyway. The woman had just found out her husband had been killed by fucking Iranian spies. Sure, she’d dealt with his death, been ready to move on, but that was when she thought he was a cheating asshole who’d died in an accident. This new information must have jarred all sorts of ugliness loose. They’d both known that. It was part of why they’d both wanted some intense play, to distract themselves. However, when emotions ran high, it could lead to some serious sub drop.
As he pulled the ropes away, she hissed and shuddered. “Rope burn?” he asked, trying to pitch his voice slow and deep. A calming voice, the voice he’d use talking to someone who’d just been mugged or crashed their car.
“Feels too good. Can’t take it.”
That made sense in context. She’d gone from soaring to crashing awfully fast and her body hadn’t caught up. He moved the ropes as gingerly as he’d peel off a Band-Aid. That seemed to work better.
When he finished getting the ropes away, removed the blindfold, she curled up in a ball, shook off his touch, and responded to his attempts to talk with “Go away.”
He backed off to the chair, but he wasn’t about to leave, not with her in this state.
During his time in the scene, he’d been around people who’d melted down for no apparent reason. Sometimes it happened during a scene, maybe even a scene that didn’t seem particular intense to the Dom but struck a chord with the sub. Those were times when you talked reassuringly, tried to figure out what was wrong, or if, in fact, nothing was “wrong” but all kinds of feelings were crashing around and the only way to make sense of them was to have a good cry. Hell, it wasn’t just subs. Sometimes Doms got triggered by something, dropped too hard when a scene was over, and things got weird for a while.
This time, Suzanne had so many reasons to melt down that it seemed foolish to ask, “What’s wrong?” because she could answer “everything” and no one would accuse her of being a drama queen.
Instead of asking questions, instead of trying to touch her when she was already overwhelmed, all Neil could do was just sit on his ass like an idiot instead of fixing the situation. Anything he could think of that might help might also make things worse.
And that sucked.
He clung to one thought. Suzanne was good at communicating. As soon as she could put things into words, she’d tell him what was going on. And then he could help her make it better. It was what he did. He couldn’t solve all her problems. Hell, he couldn’t solve all his own problems at any given moment, and his didn’t involve the Feds and missing plans for some piece of robotic or drone technology that was still so nebulous he could stare at the damn thing and not recognize it. But when you cared about someone, you took care of them, fixed things for them—be it their lawn mower or their case of the blues.
He cared about Suzanne, dammit, so he wanted to take control of the mess she was in and fix it for her.
Even if he didn’t have the slightest idea how.
So he’d sit there until she gave him some kind of clue what would help in the short run.
What had she done? It was one thing to have a crazy fling, even start dating again, eight months after her almost-ex husband ran himself off the road. That was just getting on with her life.
But to keep the fling going, let it get crazier and kinkier and, if she was being honest with herself, more emotionally intense, right after learning Frank had been murdered? That was just twisted.
He’d been using their anniversary as a password to protect his Batphone.
She’d found that out and had gone right ahead with being tied up, whipped and ass-fucked by her new boy toy.
Her brain, not her heart, was scolding her, and that made her feel even worse.
Her heart was just fine with her and Neil Callahan being mutual chew toys, maybe for a good long time. She had so much to learn about herself, and about kinky sex, and she liked the guy as well as lusting after him. Her heart didn’t see what the problem was. Didn’t see that fifteen years of marriage meant something, that Frank behaved as he did for a damn good reason and someone had killed him. That he deserved to be mourned, far more than she realized at the time of his death.
And she couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t keep her hands off Neil Callahan the day that Frank had, in a sense, died all over again.
Not that she’d actually had her hands on Neil for most of tonight, some wicked part of her subconscious reminded her; she’d been tied up. That same part of her subconscious thought that had been damn hot. Amazingly hot. Only now she wanted to run her hands over Neil’s skin, touch him as she hadn’t been able to…
God, she was terrible.
Or maybe not terrible, but certainly confused. There was nothing evil about consensual sex with a great guy and maybe she’d needed this night to cope at all with what she’d learned. But she couldn’t go on like this.
She’d been right. She did crave kink and sexual submission, more deeply than she’d imagined. But this wasn’t the time to explore that side of herself. It wasn’t right to use Neil, use her own sexuality, to avoid dealing with the fact that her assumptions about Frank had been wrong.
That she’d judged him and condemned their marriage without knowing the facts.
She flung herself from the bed, started fumbling for her clothes. She was sticky with sex-sweat, cum and lube, and right now it felt anything but erotic. Suddenly she couldn’t bear being naked another second, not even long enough to shower.
Neil stood as she did. She couldn’t help watching him move—it might be the last time, unless for some weird reason he was willing to try again in six months or a year when her head, heart and body could all agree.
Her blood stirred. God, he was beautiful.
Young, brave, beautiful and so very, very good at making her feel brave and beautiful herself, not to mention younger than she’d felt when she was Neil’s age. At Neil’s age, she’d been married to Frank for five years already, and while things were still good between them then, still warm and happy, they’d definitely become settled in their ways.
“Cold?” Neil asked, though he must have known she wasn’t on this warm evening.
She slipped her skirt back on and popped her shirt over her head, not bothering with the bra, before she answered. “I can’t stay here. I need…” I need to stay here with you her body and her heart insisted, but she knew that wasn’t right. Wasn’t reasonable or mature or fair to Frank’s memory or her own ability to make peace with the dead. Probably wasn’t fair to Neil either. He might be having fun being used, but she was still using him to cope with everything that was going on. “I need to be somewhere else for a while. Need space and time. Playing with you tonight wasn’t right.”
His mouth clenched into a tight line and darkness veiled his eyes. “Talk to me. Did I do something I shouldn’t have? Pressure you?”
She shook her head frantically. “No.” No, you did too much right. Made me want and feel too much at the worst time. “I thought I wanted…no, scratch that. I did want, did need to be with you, to push boundaries. To forget for a little while. But I can’t keep forgetting. Frank and I drifted apart because he was protecting me. I don’t know what this means yet, but I know it changes things between you and me.” She took a deep breath. Neil deserved to know what she was thinking. No, what she felt, burning in her like desire had so recently, dancing on skin left overly sensitive by rope and floggers and a fucking that felt more profound than it really could have been. “I was starting to make this…whatever it is between us more than it could ever become. You woke me up, Neil, and that’s a good thing. But it’s not the right time. I have things to figure out about my marriage before I should move forward. I thought I’d had all that in place, but now I don’t know.”
“I’m happy to be a playmate or fuck-buddy if that’s what you need right now.” He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were dark and cold like the winter ocean or the night sky, a blue so deep it shaded to black. “Or happy to hang back and let you sort things out in your head. But I don’t want you to leave, and that’s not just the cop in me talking.”
“Stop being so damn understanding.” The words blurted out before she could stop them. She didn’t need this maturity from him. Didn’t need to see again that flash of potential for something more than great sex.
If he was just a random g
ood-looking young dude, her cougar fling, she could walk away and sort things out without hurting either of them. But it wasn’t that simple. Neil was more than that, more mature and dominant and wise than anyone his age had a right to be.
Not to mention she wasn’t sure where to go and still be safe. She’d been trying not to think about that aspect of the problem.
“You’ve had some major shocks over the past few days.” He shrugged, held out his arms to the sides in a gesture that might mean “I got nothing” or “I need a hug”. Maybe, under the circumstances, both. “I probably count as one of them. Neither of us expected this when I stopped to check out your car. Okay, I thought you were even hotter than the car but I didn’t think anything would come of it except for some fantasy fodder.”
“Yeah, same here. I blame Janice.” Not that blame was the right word. If circumstances were different—if circumstances were what they’d seemed to be when she’d told Janice she wanted to meet a kinky new man—they’d be thanking Janice. Maybe if Neil was as patient as he seemed, they’d still end up thanking Janice. But right now, blame definitely came to mind. Thanks a lot, bestie, for setting me up with exactly the guy I wanted, but can’t handle yet.
Neil took a few steps forward, closed the distance between them. She didn’t know whether to sidestep, which her brain prompted her to do, or give in to her body and heart’s demands and melt against that broad chest, let those strong arms close around her.
In the end she did neither, just stood there, her bra dangling ridiculously from one hand because she didn’t want to leave it here. Neil was too close for comfort, close enough she smelled their combined musk and the sex-sweat on his skin but not actually touching. He looked as frozen as she felt, like he desperately wanted to touch her but knew it wasn’t a good idea—like he wanted to grasp the back of her neck, tangling a knot of hair in that big hand, pull her face up to meet his, kiss her until she shattered, until she stopped caring about the past or the uglier aspects of the future, the ones involving federal agents and spies and God only knew who else and slipped back into the moment.
Drive: Cougars, Cars and Kink, Book 1 Page 16
