by E. L. James
He frowns, bemused.
“Now you’re asking permission?”
“Er … no.”
“Anastasia, you know where the bathroom is. Today, at this point in our strange arrangement, you don’t need my permission to use it.” He cannot hide his irritation. He shrugs out of his shirt, and I scoot into the bathroom.
I stare at myself in the over-large mirror, shocked that I still look the same. After all that I’ve done today, it’s still the same ordinary girl gaping back at me. What did you expect—that you’d grow horns and a little pointy tail? my subconscious snaps at me. And what the hell are you doing? Touching is his hard limit. Too soon, you idiot. He needs to walk before he can run. My subconscious is furious, Medusa-like in her anger, hair flying, her hands clenched around her face like in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. I ignore her, but she won’t climb back into her box. You are making him mad—think about all that’s he’s said, all he’s conceded. I scowl at my reflection. I need to be able to show him affection—then perhaps he can reciprocate.
I shake my head, resigned, and grasp Christian’s toothbrush. My subconscious is right, of course. I’m rushing him. He’s not ready and neither am I. We are balanced on the delicate seesaw that is our strange arrangement—at different ends, vacillating, and it tips and sways between us. We both need to edge closer to the middle. I just hope neither of us falls off in our attempt to do so. This is all so quick. Maybe I need some distance. Georgia seems more appealing than ever. As I begin brushing my teeth, he knocks.
“Come in,” I splutter through a mouthful of toothpaste.
Christian stands in the doorway, his PJs hanging off his hips in that way that makes every little cell in my body stand up and take notice. He’s bare-chested, and I drink him in like I’m crazed with thirst and he’s clear, cool mountain spring water. He gazes at me impassively, then smirks and comes to stand beside me. Our eyes lock in the mirror, gray to blue. I finish with his toothbrush, rinse it off, and hand it to him, my look never leaving his. Wordlessly, he takes the toothbrush from me and puts it in his mouth. I smirk back at him, and his eyes are suddenly dancing with humor.
“Do feel free to borrow my toothbrush.” His tone is gently mocking.
“Thank you, Sir,” I smile sweetly, and I leave, heading back to bed.
A few minutes later he joins me.
“You know this is not how I saw tonight panning out,” he mutters petulantly.
“Imagine if I said to you that you couldn’t touch me.”
He clambers onto the bed and sits cross-legged.
“Anastasia, I’ve told you. Fifty shades. I had a rough start in life—you don’t want that shit in your head. Why would you?”
“Because I want to know you better.”
“You know me well enough.”
“How can you say that?” I struggle up onto my knees, facing him.
He rolls his eyes at me, frustrated.
“You’re rolling your eyes. Last time I did that, I ended up over your knee.”
“Oh, I’d like to put you there again.”
Inspiration hits me.
“Tell me and you can.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re bargaining with me?” His voice resonates with astonished disbelief.
I nod. Yes … this is the way.
“Negotiating.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Anastasia.”
“Okay. Tell me, and I’ll roll my eyes at you.”
He laughs, and I get a rare glimpse of carefree Christian. I’ve not seen him for a while. He sobers.
“Always so keen and eager for information.” He gazes at me speculatively. After a moment, he gracefully climbs off the bed. “Don’t go away,” he says and exits the room.
Trepidation lances through me, and I hug myself. What’s he doing? Does he have some evil plan? Crap. Suppose he returns with a cane, or some weird kinky implement? Holy shit, what will I do then? When he does return, he’s holding something small in his hands. I can’t see what it is, and I’m burning with curiosity.
“When’s your first interview tomorrow?” he asks softly.
“Two.”
A slow, wicked grin spreads across his face.
“Good.” And before my eyes, he subtly changes. He’s harder, intractable … hot. This is Dominant Christian.
“Get off the bed. Stand over here.” He points to beside the bed, and I scramble up and off in double time. He stares intently down at me, his eyes glittering with promise. “Trust me?” he asks.
I nod. He holds out his hand, and in his palm are two shiny silver balls linked with a thick black thread.
“These are new,” he says emphatically.
I look questioningly up at him.
“I am going to put these inside you, and then I’m going to spank you, not for punishment, but for your pleasure and mine.” He pauses, gauging my wide-eyed reaction.
Inside me! I gasp, and all the muscles deep in my belly clench. My inner goddess is doing the dance of the seven veils.
“Then we’ll fuck, and if you’re still awake, I’ll impart some information about my formative years. Agreed?”
He’s asking my permission! Breathlessly, I nod. I’m incapable of speech.
“Good girl. Open your mouth.”
Mouth?
“Wider.”
Very gently, he puts the balls in my mouth.
“They need lubrication. Suck,” he orders, his voice soft.
The balls are cold, smooth, surprisingly heavy, and metallic tasting. My dry mouth pools with saliva as my tongue explores the unfamiliar objects. Christian’s gaze does not leave mine. Holy hell, this is turning me on. I squirm.
“Keep still, Anastasia,” he warns.
“Stop.” He tugs them from my mouth. Moving toward the bed, he throws the duvet aside and sits down on the edge.
“Come here.”
I stand in front of him.
“Now turn around, bend down, and grab your ankles.”
I blink at him, and his expression darkens.
“Don’t hesitate,” he admonishes me softly, an undercurrent in his voice, and he pops the balls in his mouth.
Fuck, this is sexier than the toothbrush. I follow his orders immediately. Jeez, can I touch my ankles? I find I can, with ease. The T-shirt slides up my back, exposing my behind. Thank heavens I have retained my panties, but I suspect I won’t for long.
He places his hand reverently on my backside and very softly caresses it with his whole hand. With my eyes open, I can see his legs through mine, nothing else. I close my eyes tightly as he gently moves my panties to the side and slowly runs his finger up and down my sex. My body braces itself in a heady mix of wild anticipation and arousal. He slides one finger inside me, and he circles it deliciously slowly. Oh, it feels good. I moan.
His breathing halts and I hear him gasp as he repeats the motion. He withdraws his finger and very slowly inserts the objects, one slow, delicious ball at a time. Oh my. They’re body temperature, warmed by our collective mouths. It’s a curious feeling. Once they’re inside me, I can’t really feel them—but then again I know they’re there.
He straightens my panties and leans forward, and his lips softly kiss my behind.
“Stand up,” he orders, and shakily I get to my feet.
Oh! Now I can feel them … sort of. He grasps my hips to steady me while I reestablish my equilibrium.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice stern.
“Yes.”
“Turn around.” I turn and face him.
The balls pull downward and involuntarily I clench around them. The feeling startles me but not in a bad way.
“How does that feel?” he asks.
“Strange.”
“Strange good or strange bad?”
“Strange good,” I confess, blushing.
“Good.” There’s a trace of humor lurking in his eyes.
“I want a glass of water
. Go and fetch one for me please.”
Oh.
“And when you come back, I shall put you across my knee. Think about that, Anastasia.”
Water? He wants water—now—why?
As I leave the bedroom, it becomes abundantly clear why he wants me to walk around—as I do, the balls weigh down inside me, massaging me internally. It’s such a weird feeling and not entirely unpleasant. In fact, my breathing accelerates as I stretch up for a glass from the kitchen cabinet, and I gasp. Oh my … I may have to keep these. They make me needy, needy for sex.
He’s watching me carefully when I return.
“Thank you,” he says as he takes the glass from me.
Slowly, he takes a sip, then places the glass on his bedside table. There’s a foil packet, ready and waiting, like me. And I know he’s doing this to build the anticipation. My heart has picked up a beat. He turns his bright gray gaze to mine.
“Come. Stand beside me. Like last time.”
I sidle up to him, my blood thrumming through my body, and this time … I’m excited. Aroused.
“Ask me,” he says softly.
I frown. Ask him what?
“Ask me,” his voice is slightly harder.
What? How was your water? What does he want?
“Ask me, Anastasia. I won’t say it again.” And there’s such a threat implicit in his words, and it dawns on me. He wants me to ask him to spank me.
Holy shit. He’s looking at me expectantly, his eyes growing colder. Shit.
“Spank me, please … Sir,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes momentarily, savoring my words. Reaching up, he grasps my left hand and he tugs me over his knees. I fall instantly, and he steadies me as I land in his lap. My heart is in my mouth as his hand gently strokes my behind. I’m angled across his lap again so that my torso rests on the bed beside him. This time he doesn’t throw his leg over mine but smoothes my hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear. Once he’s done, he clasps my hair at the nape to hold me in place. He tugs gently and my head shifts back.
“I want to see your face while I spank you, Anastasia,” he murmurs, all the while softly rubbing my backside.
His hand moves down between the cheeks of my behind, and he pushes against my sex, and the full feeling is … I moan. Oh, the sensation is exquisite.
“This is for pleasure, Anastasia, mine and yours,” he whispers.
He lifts his hand and brings it down in a resounding slap against the junction of my thighs, my behind, and my sex. The balls are forced forward inside me, and I’m lost in a quagmire of sensation. The stinging across my behind, the fullness of the balls inside me, and the fact that he’s holding me down. I screw my face up as my faculties attempt to absorb all these foreign feelings. I note somewhere in my brain that he’s not smacked me as hard as last time. He caresses my backside again, trailing his palm across my skin and over my underwear.
Why’s he not removed my panties? Then his palm disappears, and he brings it down again. I groan as the sensation spreads. He starts a pattern: left to right and then down. The down ones are the best. Everything moving forward, inside me … and in between each smack he caresses me, kneads me—so I am massaged inside and out. It’s such a stimulating, erotic feeling, and for some reason, because this is on my terms, I don’t mind the pain. It’s not painful as such—well, it is, but not unbearable. It’s somehow manageable and, yes, pleasurable … even. I groan. Yes, I can do this.
He pauses as he slowly peels my panties down my legs. I writhe on his legs, not because I want to escape the blows, but I want more … release, something. His touch against my sensitized skin is all sensuous tingle. It’s overwhelming, and he starts again. A few soft slaps, then building up, left to right and down. Oh, the downs. I groan.
“Good girl, Anastasia,” he groans, and his breathing is ragged.
He spanks me twice more, and then he pulls at the small threads attached to the balls and jerks them out of me suddenly. I almost climax—the feeling is out of this world. Moving swiftly, he gently turns me over. I hear rather than see the rip of the foil packet, and then he’s lying beside me. He seizes my hands, hoists them over my head, and eases himself onto me, into me, sliding slowly, filling me where the silver globes have been. I groan loudly.
“Oh, baby,” he whispers as he moves back, forward, a slow sensual tempo, savoring me, feeling me.
It is the most gentle he has ever been, and it takes no time at all for me to fall over the edge, spiraling into a delicious, violent, exhausting orgasm. As I clench around him, it ignites his release, and he slides into me, stilling, gasping out my name in desperate wonder.
“Ana!”
He’s silent and panting on top of me, his hands still entwined in mine above my head. Finally, he leans back and stares down at me.
“I enjoyed that,” he whispers, and then kisses me sweetly.
He doesn’t linger for more sweet kisses but rises, covers me with the duvet, and disappears into the bathroom. On his return, he’s carrying a bottle of white lotion. He sits beside me on the bed.
“Roll over,” he orders, and begrudgingly I move onto my front.
Honestly, all this fuss. I feel very sleepy.
“Your ass is a glorious color,” he says approvingly, and he tenderly massages the cooling lotion into my pink behind.
“Spill the beans, Grey.” I yawn.
“Miss Steele, you know how to ruin a moment.”
“We had a deal.”
“How do you feel?”
“Shortchanged.”
He sighs, slides in beside me, and pulls me into his arms. Careful not to touch my stinging behind, we are spooning again. He kisses me very softly beside my ear.
“The woman who brought me into this world was a crack whore, Anastasia. Go to sleep.”
Holy fuck … what does that mean?
“Was?”
“She’s dead.”
“How long?”
He sighs.
“She died when I was four. I don’t really remember her. Carrick has given me some details. I only remember certain things. Please go to sleep.”
“Good night, Christian.”
“Good night, Ana.”
And I slip into a dazed and exhausted sleep, dreaming of a four-year-old gray-eyed boy in a dark, scary, miserable place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
There is light everywhere. Bright, warm, piercing light, and I endeavor to keep it at bay for a few more precious minutes. I want to hide, just a few more minutes. But the glare is too strong, and I finally succumb to wakefulness. A glorious Seattle morning greets me—sunshine pouring through the full-height windows and flooding the room with too-bright light. Why didn’t we close the blinds last night? I am in Christian Grey’s vast bed minus one Christian Grey.
I lie back for a moment staring through the windows at the lofty vista of Seattle’s skyline. Life in the clouds sure feels unreal. A fantasy—a castle in the air, adrift from the ground, safe from the realities of life—far away from neglect, hunger, and crack-whore mothers. I shudder to think what he went through as a small child, and I understand why he lives here, isolated, surrounded by beautiful, precious works of art—so far removed from where he started … mission statement indeed. I frown because it still doesn’t explain why I can’t touch him.
Ironically, I feel the same up here in his lofty tower. I’m adrift from reality. I’m in this fantasy apartment, having fantasy sex with my fantasy boyfriend, when the grim reality is he wants a special arrangement, though he’s said he’ll try more. What does that actually mean? This is what I need to clarify between us to see if we are still at opposite ends on the seesaw or if we are inching closer together.
I clamber out of bed feeling stiff and, for want of a better expression, well used. Yes, that would be all the sex then. My subconscious purses her lips in disapproval. I roll my eyes at her, grateful that a certain twitchy-palmed control freak is not in the room, an
d resolve to ask him about the personal trainer. That’s if I sign. My inner goddess glares at me in desperation. Of course you’ll sign. I ignore them both, and after a quick trip to the bathroom, I go in search of Christian.
He’s not in the art gallery, but an elegant middle-aged woman is cleaning in the kitchen area. The sight of her stops me in my tracks. She has short blond hair and clear blue eyes; she wears a plain white tailored shirt and a navy-blue pencil skirt. She smiles broadly when she sees me.
“Good morning, Miss Steele. Would you like some breakfast?” Her tone is warm but businesslike, and I am stunned. Who is this attractive blonde in Christian’s kitchen? I’m only wearing Christian’s T-shirt. I feel self-conscious and embarrassed by my lack of clothing.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” My voice is quiet, unable to hide the anxiety in my voice.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry—I’m Mrs. Jones, Mr. Grey’s housekeeper.”
Oh.
“How do you do?” I manage.
“Would you like some breakfast, ma’am?”
Ma’am!
“Just some tea would be lovely, thank you. Do you know where Mr. Grey is?”
“In his study.”
“Thank you.”
I scuttle off toward the study, mortified. Why does Christian only have attractive blondes working for him? And a nasty thought comes involuntarily into my mind: Are they all ex-subs? I refuse to entertain that hideous idea. I poke my head shyly round the door. He’s on the phone, facing the window, in black pants and a white shirt. His hair is still wet from the shower, and I’m completely distracted from my negative thoughts.
“Unless that company’s P&L improves, I’m not interested, Ros. We’re not carrying deadweight … I don’t need any more lame excuses … Have Marco call me, it’s shit or bust time … Yes, tell Barney that the prototype looks good, though I’m not sure about the interface … No, it’s just missing something … I want to meet him this afternoon to discuss … In fact, him and his team, we can brainstorm.… Okay. Transfer me back to Andrea …” He waits, staring out the window, master of his universe, looking down at the little people below from this castle in the sky. “Andrea …”
