by M. S. Parker
Then he fell to his knees, face crumpling.
I followed him down, holding him for the first time in what felt like eons. Our bodies still fit together perfectly, like we were carved out of the same block of stone. He pulled me against his chest and rested his head on top of mine.
“Jinx,” he whispered. He said it again, like he was invoking some ancient, powerful god. But it was all just for me.
“Drew.”
“Things are so messed up. I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going. You’re the only thing keeping me going now. You’re it.”
As much as I hated seeing him like this, I couldn’t deny how much it warmed me to know that there was still a spot in his heart for me. That we belonged with each other just as much as I’d hoped, long ago. There was no denying it now, no questioning.
“Things will get better,” I murmured against his shirt, which was now wet from my tears. “We’re together. That’s all that matters.”
His arms tightened around me, and his lips found the side of my head. He pressed a firm kiss into my hair and inhaled deeply.
“I love you too, you know.”
The words were a balm to my aching, bandaged heart. I felt my body relax against him. I went completely limp, but he held me strong. He would always hold me. We would hold each other.
When I looked up at him, it didn’t matter that we were somewhat awkwardly positioned on the floor, or that the hard tile was digging into my knees, or that there were mascara stained tears running down my face.
For a second, we were back on the beach, having a beer and talking about our lives, the whole summer and an entire world ahead of us. I knew he felt it too because he leaned down and kissed me, warm and gentle. It felt like that first summer breeze. So familiar, so sweet, yet so unlike the way I last remembered it. I had missed Drew’s kiss, certainly, but I’d forgotten how much of it there was to miss. The feelings he stirred and the precise way it felt had somehow faded in my memory, and kissing him again was like rediscovering the sensation of the sun on my skin, the smell of coconut suntan lotion and the long, sandy walk down to the water’s edge.
I was lost in it. I was found in it. And I didn’t bother trying to commit each detail to memory because I knew that there was no earthly reason that could compel me to live without it again.
Drew broke the kiss first. He stared down at me and smiled, sending my heart fluttering at a million miles a minute. I hadn’t seen him smile since he first woke up from his coma. I hadn’t seen him smile like that since before we broke up.
“I am so fucking glad to have you here.” He rested his forehead against mine. “I feel like I’ve completely lost control of my life.”
A spark in the back of my brain. When I’d called Maddox about a place to stay, he’d also given me an idea for a way that I could help Drew. Or at least, one that I thought would help him.
“I think I have an idea that will help you get the control back.”
39
Drew
“I think I have an idea that will help you get the control back,” she said, eyes bright and full in a way they hadn’t been for a long time, except in my dreams.
“What’s that?”
I’d passed the past week in almost complete silence, so the words seemed to take a little longer to form than they normally would.
She tugged on my hand and pulled me to my feet, taking me over to the couch. I didn’t know why we hadn’t moved there sooner, considering the floor was hardly the most comfortable place to have a meltdown. When we sat, she nestled into my lap. I hugged her close.
“My first lover was a bit older than me,” she began.
The look I gave her must have told her how I felt about hearing about the man who’d gotten to have her first.
She held up a finger to tell me to wait. “And he...opened my eyes, as it were, to some different kinds of pleasure.”
I still had no idea what this had to do with getting control back in my life, and I still didn’t love hearing Jinx talk about her ex, but the last thing I was going to do was interrupt the woman who’d just told me she loved me.
She continued, “He introduced me to the world of BDSM.”
Okay, definitely not where I’d thought she was going.
“When I was with him, I heard about a certain kind of BDSM therapy, and I researched it a little after we parted ways. It’s unconventional, I know, but I think we could use it to help you feel in control again.”
There was so much wrong with what she’d just said that I wasn’t entirely sure where to start now that she was clearly waiting for a response. She was studying my face carefully, so I tried not to let the frown show.
“Who was this former lover of yours?” I asked.
She squeezed my hand. “It doesn’t matter. I just thought that maybe that sort of thing could work.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I cradled the side of her face. “Not like that.”
She smiled at me, turned her head, and kissed my palm. “Trust me, babe, when it’s done right, it’s not like that at all.”
“You...liked it?”
She brushed her lips across mine, telling me that she heard the vulnerability in the question.
“I did, but I’d like it more with you.” She brushed back some of my hair. “Are you willing to try it?”
“I’m not sure.”
Her face softened. “You can trust me, remember? I love you and want the best for you, and I really think this will help.” She grinned. “Besides, why would you turn down the chance to spank my naked ass?”
Fuck.
The sunset burned the distant skyline orange and sent long spears of sunlight through the living room’s long windows, but I didn’t really notice much of it. Jinx was waiting for me in the other room.
I took another sip of my drink. Just cranberry cocktail for now. Doc said I couldn’t be drinking for a while yet, if at all. Giving up beer would undoubtedly be the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as I was concerned, so I wasn’t making any promises. Especially not while I was trying to wrap my head around what was about to happen.
My fingers tightened on the glass. Was I ready for this?
The bedroom was lit only by candlelight. The buttery glow flickered as I entered the room, and I had to suppress a derisive snort. I’d never been one for the candles and flower petals crap. If that was what Jinx hoped to achieve with this experiment, I had a feeling she was about to be disappointed.
“Hello, Sir,” Jinx purred from the bed.
My gaze landed on her tight, beautiful body.
Fuck me.
She was completely naked, sprawled across the bed like a sumptuous feast. Her perfectly pink nipples were erect and ripe, and I longed to suck them into my mouth. My cock hardened, though not as quickly as it would have if I wasn’t so nervous. I felt more than a little trepidation about what was to come. Or what was supposed to come. I truly had no idea what I was doing.
My mouth went dry, both from arousal and nerves. It was an unpleasant combination.
“What am I supposed to do next?” I asked.
My face flamed with embarrassment at having to ask such a thing. Since when had I needed help in the bedroom? Especially with directions? It was humiliating. My erection flagged.
Jinx had gone over this with me yesterday, and again earlier today, but my mind seemed to go blank now that the time was here.
She sat up on the bed a little. “Whatever you want to do, Drew,” she said. “Tell me what you want. Tell me what you want me to do.”
I frowned. Okay, I could do this. I’d told chicks what I wanted them to do in bed dozens of times. But somehow, this was different, like I was being graded on my performance according to a metric that I didn’t quite understand.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Uh, undress me.”
Jinx sprang up from the bed and started working on the button of my jeans. She smiled coquettishly and pulled them down, then relieved me of my shirt. Even with h
er fingers moving over me, with the sight of those gorgeous tits, my cock was still only at half-mast. My spirits were hanging around there too.
By the time I was naked, the quiet of the room felt overwhelming. Normally by now, it would be filled with heavy breathing and moans, the slapping of skin against skin and whispered curses. Frustration coiled in my belly.
“Get on the bed,” I commanded.
She crawled toward the top of the bed, wiggling her ass provocatively as she went. Fuck, yes. My cock went from half-mast to full-sail like it had just caught a stiff breeze. She had an amazing ass.
Jinx had told me that she was game for this, and that she would use a safe word if she wasn’t enjoying it. She looked like she was enjoying it so far, but what if I screwed up?
What if this was what proved to Jinx that I wasn’t the man she wanted me to be?
What if...?
“I can’t do this,” I muttered.
That would have to be safe word enough.
40
Jinx
“I can’t do this.”
The words hung in the air. I was naked, bent over seductively with my ass in the air. I couldn’t pretend the words didn’t sting a little, and not in the nice way.
“What do you mean?” I turned, crawling back to him and trying to pretend that I didn’t want to cover myself up.
Drew squeezed his eyes shut as if needing a private moment with himself. He opened them again and took a deep breath.
“I can’t do this,” he repeated. “This whole BDSM thing. I’m not good at it. I feel foolish.”
Foolish wasn’t a word I’d ever thought I’d hear from the mouth of the great Drew Mikelson. It wasn’t a good sign.
“These things can take time to get used to,” I said, reaching for his hand.
I really thought this would work. How could he be giving up already? He allowed me to squeeze his fingers, but then I remembered what I’d learned only the day before. This wasn’t how Drew worked. I couldn’t gently guide him through the process, and I especially couldn’t do so when it was BDSM we were talking about. He needed to jump into this wholeheartedly, not be led along like a stray dog.
And I knew just the way to do it.
I dropped Drew’s hand and stood, squaring up with him. “Since when the fuck have you started giving up everything?” I asked. “It’s definitely not a turn-on, you know?”
His eyes hardened. “What?”
The question was low and dangerous. A tingle of pleasure ran up my spine.
“Don’t what me,” I snapped. “You’re giving up on this, just like you gave up on everything else in your life the second you came out of that coma.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. I wasn’t afraid. I knew he would never hurt me, not really.
“Jinx, if this is your way to goad me into smacking you around...”
“It’s not smacking me around,” I countered. “Get that through your head, or this won’t work. It isn’t abuse.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying–”
I leaned forward and shoved my hands into his chest. He barely stumbled back an inch, eyes never leaving mine. “Maybe I’m just trying to get you to do something. Anything. Instead of just sitting around feeling sorry–”
He crossed the distance between us in a single step and grabbed my upper arms. His eyes were dark, something almost dangerous lurking in their depths.
“Get on your fucking stomach,” he commanded.
There it was, the man who’d fucked me up against a wall because he just couldn’t wait.
I dutifully turned over, only to feel myself yanked to the edge of the bed. I was hanging off it, butt high and exposed. I turned to look at what Drew was doing, and he appeared to be rifling around in the little “tool kit” I’d purchased this morning. I hadn’t chosen anything that I wouldn’t like, so it was all on him now.
“Don’t turn around.”
I turned back, a smile ticking my cheeks. He was learning very quickly.
A second later, he smacked a riding crop across my bare ass. I yelped at the sudden pain, but a firm hand on the small of my back kept me from bucking up. Okay, maybe a little bit of warm up would’ve been nice, but that wasn’t too bad.
“This is what you want, right?” he snarled, smacking me again. “You want me to take control. You want me to use you for my pleasure in the hopes that it will mend the crack running through me?”
He smacked me again, but this time, the heat inside me rose to meet the sting.
“Y-yes,” I said between panting breaths.
Smack!
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The words felt more natural than they ever had in the past. Damn, I’d forgotten how good this felt, giving over control. And I’d forgotten how good it felt when Drew let himself go.
“I should turn your ass completely red for what you’ve put me through.” His voice was thicker now, and I could hear the desire in it. Whether Drew liked it or not, this was working for him. The extent to which it was working was as yet undetermined.
“If that’s what you want, Sir,” I said, moaning as he brought the crop down again.
I’d missed being a submissive, and I hadn’t realized how much until this moment. Sure, I’d been nostalgic for it when I’d talked to Maddox, but it was nothing like this. This feeling of complete lack of control was what I’d been missing from my relationship with Drew. I wanted him to own me, body and soul. I wanted him to show me that he owned me. And though we weren’t totally on the same page right now, he did own me. I had a feeling he always would.
“Maybe I should fuck your ass.” His finger brushed against that part of me. “The guy you were with before, the one who took your cherry, did he take this too?”
I shook my head, then whimpered as Drew’s fingertip breached that tight ring of muscle. “No, Sir. He didn’t like anal sex or play.”
I heard the crop hit the floor and then his hand came down on my ass. “Not tonight, but soon, I’m going to fuck your ass. Do you want me to do that?”
I shuddered as he shoved two fingers into my pussy, then cried out when his other finger sunk into my ass, giving me a whole new sensation to deal with.
“Whatever you want, Sir.”
“What I want, sweetheart, is for you to honestly tell me if you want me to fuck your ass.”
“I do,” I admitted. I pushed back against his hands. “I want you to fuck my ass.”
“Not yet.”
Suddenly, his hands sunk into the flesh of my hips and pulled me back against him. He thrust inside of me so quickly and so forcefully that it took the breath from my lungs. I cursed, closing my eyes as my body fought to accommodate him.
“Do you want me to fuck you hard?”
I threw a look over my shoulder. “What do you want? Tell me, Sir, what do you want to do to me?”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair. “I want to fuck you so hard and fast that you’ll feel me between your legs for days, that you’ll never want another cock inside you. I want to fuck this pretty cunt of yours until you know that it’s mine. Your pussy, your tits, your body. Every piece of you is mine.”
I nodded, loving the little pinpricks of pain the movement sent through my scalp. “Yes, Sir. Please.”
He growled, twisting my hair even as he shoved my head down onto the bed. When he started to move a moment later, it was everything he’d promised. Hard. Fast. Possessive. There were no more words, no more commands, just passion in its purest form. He bit down on my shoulder and kissed up my neck, and all I could do was grip the sheets and blindly follow my approaching orgasm.
Our bodies slammed together, filling the space with the sounds of our passion. My ass was still smarting from his blows, and each thrust sent a sting of pain along my skin to match with the pain in my scalp. It combined with the pleasure from deep in my womb and made my whole body sing with delight. We’d gotten a little rough before, but this was new...an
d I definitely liked it.
He leaned over me, his sweat-slicked chest rubbing against my back. His hands slide up my ribcage, then around to cup my breasts even as he kept up a steady rhythm. I moaned and arched up as he began to tease my nipples. He growled and pressed me back down, pinching the sensitive little nubs. I was so close that I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto the bed for everything I was worth, giving myself completely over to everything he made me feel.
My orgasm hit me hard, and I cried out, white exploding behind my eyes. His fingers found my clit, working over it until I begged him to stop. To never stop. To follow me over the edge. And he did, calling out my nap as he pulsed inside me. His arms came around me, held me as he collapsed onto the bed, holding me tight against him as we slowly wound down from the fervent frenzy of moments before.
“That was a great start,” I said.
Drew muttered something under his breath but didn’t respond otherwise. He rolled off me and lay on his back on the blankets, staring up at the ceiling. I curled into his side tentatively, waiting for him to bat me away. He didn’t. But he didn’t take me back into his arms either.
It’d helped but hadn’t fixed things.
“I’m going back to my room now,” I said. It seemed like Drew needed some space. I was desperate to hear what he thought, and if he felt any better, but I couldn’t ask him just yet.
In time, everything would come into focus. In time, we would come back into ourselves.
41
Drew
I asked Jinx to turn off the light as she left. I didn’t particularly want to be alone in bed, but I wanted quiet in my mind so being alone was the only thing that made any sense. I rolled onto my side and listened to the breeze blowing through the leaves outside the window.
I didn’t feel better. I felt worse.
I knew that Jinx was trying everything she could to make me feel human again, but this BDSM thing...was it really such a good idea? It seemed like all it had achieved was making me feel less like a man instead of more.
