by Jenna Elliot
I feel exposed to him, intimate with him, because he brought me to my knees. Only he has seen me so vulnerable. While he was spanking me, I hated it, and loved it. It hurt, yet it was pure pleasure.
Exactly what he promised. Pleasure and pain fused together.
That’s all he promised. Even though I’ve seen glimpses of light shining through the darkness. Even though I respond in ways I shouldn’t, ways that suck me into his world.
He only promised sex.
So what happens when he moves on to his next pet? Does he leave me broken, because I insanely want more than he ever promises? Sex is his game. I’ve known that from the start.
I try to drown out the rational voices in my head, the way he does. Use sex to silence the mingling of fear and desire I shouldn’t be feeling for him.
I need him inside me, need him pounding me with his wolf ferocity. My kisses grow hungrier. I tug on his hands to cup my breasts. I arch into his touch until he plucks at my nipples and drives me wild. Fire surges through my veins and swells in my crotch. Tears pool behind my eyelids. I am overwhelmed by emotion, by pleasure, by need.
I want to make this feeling last.
Enough to be his pet?
Enough to risk getting caught up in this dangerous game? Am I stupid enough to believe I’ll only try crack once to see if I like the high . . . ?
Ethan is just as addictive. Just as dangerous.
Wrapping my arms around his neck to give me leverage, I lift my hips to meet each thrust until he’s slamming into me. I don’t care if I break his neck. I only care that he fills me up and drives away the thoughts in my head.
I don’t want to think. Pure instinct tells me I can’t lose myself. Not to him. Not to a man who thinks what we do together is a game.
He kneads my breasts. His balls slap against my ass with each thrust, stinging, the pain pushing me higher, to heights I’ve never scaled. I should never have let him spank me. Now all I think about is what else he might do to me. What else he’ll demand of me. What else I might like.
All while keeping himself closed off, his past a secret.
The only way to protect myself is to end us. Because every moment I spend with him pounding into me, playing with my body and my emotions, only draws me deeper into his labyrinth. If I go too far, I’ll never find my way out. I’ll never escape this need.
But there’s only one way to end us. Only one rule to break, but then it’ll be over. Truly over.
Can I live without him?
Our tongues tangle, and I sob against his mouth and grab at his shoulders, clinging to him as I push him away, urging him on. Hating him and caring too much.
He feels my urgency. He suddenly spears his fingers into my hair and forces my head back until his mouth drags down my throat, nipping, kissing, biting, as he arches above me, drawing out almost to the hilt only to plunge back inside with such force each thrust rips a cry from my lips.
If I could speak, I would beg him not to stop. One minute I don’t care if I’m trapped forever. The next I know if I keep giving in, I’ll try darker things to please him.
So he’ll be satisfied with me.
So he’ll keep doing the things that make me feel exactly the way I do right now.
That scares me to death.
Because he won’t stay. That’s against his rules.
I’ve already lost myself. Given up control of my body. Given up my will. I want to be everything for him. Protector, lover, pet. I want to know about his childhood, his teenage years, his time in the military. I want to know about her. About what causes his nightmares. Pretty much everything about him.
And suppose he never opens up? That he’s already told me all he can? Because for me, it’s not enough. I need more.
Do I give up or fight back?
The only thing I know is that whatever I do will be permanent.
Permanently lost.
Or permanently over.
My heart squeezes so hard it hurts. Why didn’t I wait for a tow truck? Why didn’t I call the insurance company to fix my car? Why didn’t I just deal with my father? At least I know what to expect from him.
Not so with this man fucking me. Ethan drives into me as if the sheer power of our colliding bodies can eject whatever demons lurk inside him. He’s mastered my responses, and he can do to me whatever he wants.
He knows it. He uses it. His mouth drifts down to my breast, and for one breathtaking moment, he pauses above my swollen nipple. He gives me a moment’s respite, a chance to suck in a gulp of air. But even the air I breathe tastes of him. I’m dizzy, conflicted, on the breaking point of need.
Do I stay or go? Who wins?
Me or my need?
His mouth latches on to my breast and takes me in with one hard pull. My body galvanizes with the pleasure-pain, and I scream. A ragged sound that comes from a place inside me I didn’t know existed, a person I didn’t know I could become.
Then he pulls back again, almost all the way out, his hard body arching before he drives back again so deeply, he thrusts the air from my lungs. His balls slap my bottom. More pain. His mouth sucks at my nipple. More pleasure.
I’m sobbing wildly now. Gasping for air. If I break his rule, I’ll never feel this way again.
The next time he sinks in, he releases my hair, my breast. He gathers me against him, and his big body blocks out the rest of the world. And then he kisses the tears from my cheeks. He slides his fingers between us and caresses my bare mons while he fills me, again and again.
How can I possibly resist? How can I walk away? I’ll lose myself if I stay. I’ll break if I go.
Break now or break later?
My only choices.
His every plunging stroke, every gentle caress, is torment, forcing me to make a choice that’s no choice at all.
His name tumbles from my lips, a broken, ravaged sound, and he growls against my mouth in a feral reply. He knows exactly what he does to me, demands my submission. I imprint every memory on my flesh, my brain, so I never forget the feel of his skin beneath my hands, mine to caress at will, to greedily urge him on. I kiss him ravenously, hungry and insatiably.
How can I give up the way he makes me feel?
I try to prolong each and every second of the ultimate moment that only he can reduce me to, a moment when my entire being hinges on him. Only him. And he proves to me in his incontrovertible way that I am his.
Only this moment.
It’s the only answer I have right now. When the rest of my world is in chaos, I know that I am utterly alive, utterly content when I call him sir.
No matter how good it feels to submit to him. No matter how much I want him—the man who ravishes and devours me and the tranquil man who sees only beauty, I know what’s good for me. I know what I have to do to preserve me.
So I end my dilemma, and cum.
Without permission.
24
Mia
ETHAN NEVER addresses my disobedience. He simply packs for the wedding and drives me to the shop. He’s all business now.
And I’m barely holding it together. Even if it is over, I want to demand he acknowledge we had something special.
At the shop, Ethan shows me the phones, the intercom. “That should be everything you’ll need.”
Not everything, but I don’t tell him that.
He’s courteous, thorough with his instructions, and matter of fact. He discusses the day’s schedule, lunch breaks, as if he never buried his face in my hair and slept with his arms wrapped around me. As if he never touched me in ways that make me lose all sense of myself.
“Answering the phone is your first priority.” He’s only the boss now. Nothing more. My throat tightens on my misery. This was my choice. I own it. But I didn’t know I would feel this horrible, this weak, as if I want to crawl into a hole and lick my wounds.
“Take messages.” He’s all business.
“Track down parts.” No warm looks, no suggestive glances.
&nb
sp; “Put the bills in the box.” No touching.
He’s treating me like he would any new employee. Not as if I was ever anyone special to him. But I was special to him. Wasn’t I?
No matter how much I tell myself I’ve done the right thing by breaking things off, I’m not prepared for how impossible it is just to act normal.
He doesn’t have any problem. Molten eyes that could gaze at me as hot as lava are now so distant. Like what we shared never even happened. Or worse, that it happens all the time.
One pet of many.
Just the thought makes me ache. The pain as intense as the pleasure we shared.
My choice.
I need to be strong. Independent. I need to hold on. Just a few minutes more until he leaves for the airport. Then I won’t have to fight my urge to run my hands through his hair. I won’t have to breathe in his scent. I won’t have to ignore every cell in me from screaming at me to do something. Say it was all a foolish, foolish mistake, and beg him for another chance.
Anything. To hold back the blackness.
“Dirty and Dirtier,”—yes, he really calls them by those names to their faces—“will open up the shop for you and lock it down at night.”
“Don’t give out my cell,” he says. He looks at me with a stranger’s eyes, as if expecting a reply.
“Got it.” I force out the words through the sob climbing up my throat.
“And don’t try to call, text, or email. There are no connections on the island.”
Thank God. No temptation. If I can’t contact him, then he can’t contact me. Not that he looks like he cares. I only manage a nod. If I open my mouth, I might break down. I won’t give him the satisfaction. Not when he so obviously doesn’t give a fuck.
“The absolute most important thing for you to remember is that under no circumstances do you give an estimate or a promise about when I’ll finish a job.”
More rules. I shouldn’t care. So why does it hurt to know that he doesn’t trust me anymore? I knew his sex rule. I broke it. I only know I need to pull it together.
“It’s only two days, Ethan. I can handle it.” There, I almost sound normal.
“Goodbye, Mia.” He turns and walks away. No hug, no kiss. Hell, not even a handshake. He doesn’t look back.
The door closes behind him with a finality that jolts me.
I can’t breathe. I choke on pain as I fight to come to terms with my actions. That’s it. Ethan and I are through. And somehow, I have to deal.
Find a way to go on.
So, I spend my day focusing on answering the phone, and trying not to see him everywhere. Impossible. He’s everywhere. His smell is on the work shirts that hang in his office. His name is on trophies and plaques wherever I look. His brilliant work is in every photo, on every computer, on every unfinished fender and quarter panel and gas tank inhabiting every bay.
We’re everywhere, too.
In his office, where he made me pull off my shirt and play with my breasts, so he could torture me with nipple clamps. In the paint stall where he yanked down my jeans and smacked my bottom until I was a begging mass of conflicting impulses.
Even in the bay where my Jeep sits is filled with the memory of our first night together, when a dangerous stranger hiked my skirt and rode me to orgasm on the side of the road.
I roll up the pain and squash it down. Just to manageable proportions. One minute at a time.
Thank God he’s not here. Thank God my Jeep is almost done. The fender is going through a sanding, clear coat and buffing. Dirty said it’ll be good to go by quitting time.
I may be devastated, but I’m still proud of myself for ending things with Ethan. Focused. Survival mode helps me regroup. The adrenaline rush that has been every moment since meeting him is over. We’re done. Sure, he’ll return, but not to me. That hurts some more. But I’ll move on to my new life. Whatever that will be.
I’ll find another guy one day, too—one whose second home isn’t a sex club. Someone sexy like Ethan. Someone who doesn’t take pleasure in painting my naked skin. Someone who isn’t into spanking my ass. Someone who won’t ask me to give in to my dark and wild side.
But I won’t go back to safe mediocrity, either. I sigh. I’ll find a man who lives somewhere between the two extremes. I have no other choice.
I’ve broken us. Ruined us. Whatever us there was.
Now I just have to live with my choice—live without Ethan.
So I file papers and answer phones and chat with the brothers to distract myself from the presence of the gloriously handsome, tattooed artist who owns this shop. I’m entitled to a pity party, and I plan to have one. Someday. But not until I’m safely out of reach of the man who can make me feel past all reasonable boundaries, who threatens my own self-preservation.
I remind myself that the withdrawal I’m feeling now would only have multiplied exponentially a few weeks from now. More kinky sex, and I would have become an addict, like him. How would I have felt then when he moved on to his next pet?
The ring of the phone startles me from my thoughts. Saves me. I answer. Someone selling advertising. I take a message.
As soon as I put down the phone, it rings again. This time, a customer asking when a paint job will be done. I put her on hold and ask Dirtier for an ETA, then relay the message.
Feeling capable and efficient, I feel comfy in this job. It’s not a mind-bender, but it does makes the day pass quickly as I run around the place, chasing down the brothers in whatever bay they happen to be working, back to the phone, into Ethan’s office, where everything is filed, then back to the phone again.
There’s a tranquil cadence to the day, something so soothing about the rhythmic sounds of the equipment. There’s productivity here that appeals to me, too. The satisfaction of watching a job completed. The appreciation of customers who seem pleasant or relieved or awed by the work being done here.
This is new to me. Such hands-on productivity lacks the cutthroat prowess that I grew up with, the daughter of two high-powered attorneys who were always surrounded by other high-powered attorneys. There’s an earthiness to Ethan’s shop that reminds me of Emme’s childhood home. Weird, maybe, but familiar all the same.
I wouldn’t mind another job like this when I get around to looking for another job, after I figure out where I’m going. I’m still debating whether I should leave or stay, but I’m leaning toward an extended trip to Europe. Not because I really want to struggle to make a living in a foreign country, but because I don’t want to be scared to take chances.
And I don’t know if I can stop obsessing about Ethan when we’re still together in the same place. He could ride by on his motorcycle at any time, with another woman wrapped around him.
I’ve already taken the first step, contacting a company that deals with liquidating estates. Regardless of what I decide, I need cash flow to get me started, and the only thing I have to sell free and clear is the contents of my apartment.
I mull the possibilities for my future as I sift through a messy stack of invoices in the to-be-filed bin. I open the file cabinet and figure out Ethan’s system fairly quickly. He’s very organized. Exactly what I expect from a control freak. Everything is dated, labeled, and in alphabetical order.
The next time the phone rings again, it’s almost lunch time. Wow. The hours just fly by in this place.
The female voice on the other end of the phone is urgent. “I have an emergency.”
An emergency paint job? “What can we do to help?”
“My husband doesn’t allow me to drive his car,” the woman says. “Regretfully, I gave into temptation, and I got into a fender bender. Not my fault.”
Bum luck. “You need the car painted?”
“Yes, and before he gets home from his business trip. He’s in Beijing.” The woman sounds positively desperate.
“When will he return?” I ask, jotting down the information on a notepad.
“Next week. Thursday.” She sighs. “Equally regret
table is that I can’t just run into any scratch and dent place. He has a custom paint job. I need someone really good to repair the damage. Hopefully, so he never suspects. I’ve been calling around all morning and everyone says your place is supposed to be the best on this coast.”
“We definitely are,” I assure her. “We’re renowned for our custom body work. Not just in Florida, either.” I have no clue whether or not I’m lying to this woman, but I do know that Ethan is one of a kind, which means his work must be, too.
“Oh, thank God.” I can hear the relief in her voice. “When may I bring it in?”
Ethan was clear about estimates and making promises about when jobs will be finished. But I feel terrible for this lady, so I’m not willing to douse her hope just yet. There must be something I can do to help. I can’t give her an answer. That much I do know, so I buy time by telling her I need more information about the job.
She is beyond willing to oblige. “It’s a Rolls Royce. I’ll pay overtime for someone to work through the weekend. Whatever it takes. Money isn’t a concern if I’m happy with the result.”
Whatever it takes, indeed. I’ll bet this kind of high-dollar customer doesn’t call every day. “Why don’t you e-mail me photos of the damage from several angles? Let’s start there.”
“Of course. I’ll have them to you immediately.”
I give her our e-mail address, take her name and number, then wait for the images to come in. As promised, the attachments show up in the company in-box ten minutes later. One look at the showpiece of a car with its crumpled fender, and I genuinely feel for this woman. I grew up with my father, a man who only said what he meant. The consequences were never pretty when anyone went against his wishes. Which is precisely why I’m sitting here answering Ethan’s phones.
The Rolls is a late model, the paint stunning. I have no doubt Ethan can do this, but have no clue how long it might take. I do, however, have access to his files.
Unfortunately, a search doesn’t turn up any Rolls Royce invoices, but really, a fender is a fender, right?
