Reclaim

by Beth Yarnall

  He goes back to caressing my body the way he did before only now his hands are a lot slicker. The slip and slide of his touch lulls me into a seductive trance. He could do just about anything to me right now and I’d let him. I don’t know how he’s doing it, luring me into giving over more of myself than I ever intended. But I don’t care. I’ve never felt like this. He’s like a drug and I’m a willing addict, holding my arm out to mainline more. That’s all I want—more.

  He rotates me, putting me under the showerhead. The water slushes over me. It’s hot, but not as hot as his gaze. It never leaves me. I don’t think I’ve ever been the center of anyone’s attention like this. That’s part of his temptation. I don’t know whether he’s doing it on purpose or not, but it works on me.

  We get out of the shower and towel off. He leads me to his bedroom. Expectation rises inside me. What is he going to do to me next? He directs me to get into bed and he climbs in beside me. His arms go around me and he pulls me in close. I wait for him to make a move, but he seems content to leave things the way they are. He’s hard so I know he’s ready. Why isn’t he doing anything? Maybe he’s waiting for me. He seems to like it when I initiate things.

  I’m just about to let my hands do some wandering when he says something that makes my whole body tense.

  “Will you spend the night with me?” When I don’t respond he angles back to look at me. “It’s a simple question, Lila.”

  I sit up and pull the sheet around me. It should be a simple question. I can see how he might expect that. At this point in the relationship most guys do.

  “I don’t do that.”

  “What? Spend the night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With anyone or just me?”

  “With anyone.”

  He shifts, sitting up against the pillows. “Can I ask why?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” I glance at the clock. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry. If we’re done here then I think I’ll go home.” I start to climb out of bed, but he grabs my wrist and stops me.

  “If we’re done here? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If we’re not going to have sex.”

  I can’t get a read on the look on his face. It’s a combination amused, confused, and angry and I don’t know what it means.

  “Wow. I knew you were going to be a tough nut to crack, but not this tough. So I’m what to you then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what are we doing here? Is it just fucking for you?”

  “Well, yeah. What else could it be?”

  “Exploring a possible relationship?”

  “Okay. I can see we’re done here. Thanks for everything, but I think it’s probably best if we go back to just being colleagues.” I try to tug my hand free. He tightens his grip.

  “We’re not done. I have a whole list of things I haven’t gotten to do to you yet and I intend on getting to every single one more than once before we’re through. If we’re ever through.”

  “What do you mean if we’re ever through?”

  “It’s a really long list.”

  “Wh-what’s on it?” I can’t hide my excitement.

  He flips me onto my back. In a second he’s on top of me. Hard, hot, and angry. “I’m not going to tell you. You’re going to have to stick around to find out.”

  “A hint.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t see any point to this.”

  “Do I have to tie you to my bed to get you to give us a try?” His smile is all teeth at my soft gasp. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  I shake my head. But there’s nothing I’d like more.

  He captures my wrists and pulls my arms over my head. “Don’t move,” he orders. “I mean it.”

  My heart’s beating so hard and fast I can’t do anything else but obey. He goes to his closet. I get a nice view of his backside. Gripping the iron headboard, I wait for him to come back. This is another thing I didn’t know I’d be into. I’m shocked that there’s no shame in that admission. I want to let him do things to me that no one else has ever done.

  He comes back to bed with a wad of neckties in his hands. I can’t stop staring at them. What is he going to do with them? What is he going to do to me? He takes my wrist and knots a tie around it, then attaches the other end to the headboard. He does the same with my other arm. I’m sweating and practically panting by the time he secures my legs to the footboard. He stands at the foot of the bed looking at me. A trickle of wetness leaks out between my legs. My breasts ache for him to touch. I like being at his mercy. I like not knowing what’s going to come next.

  “You’re going to spend the night,” he pronounces.

  I shake my head.

  He quickly tamps down the flash of disappointment that crosses his face. He clears his throat. “I’m going to convince you.”

  “You can try.”

  He studies me for a long moment, drawing out my anticipation. “What do you want me to do to you first?” he asks.

  “My breasts. Touch them. Suck them.”

  “What will you give me in return?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Whatever I want?”

  “Yes.” My voice is soft with expectation.

  He vaults over the foot rail, making me bounce when he hits the mattress. Crawling on his hands and knees, he comes over me. He lowers his head and takes my nipple in his mouth. I arch up, pulling on my bindings. He fills his hands with me and takes his time sucking and caressing my sensitive flesh. Straining toward him, I buck and writhe. I love what he’s doing but I need more.

  “Touch me between my legs,” I beg.

  He pulls his mouth off me and licks a path to my ear. “No.” His voice is soft but firm.

  “Please.”

  “You promised me whatever I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know why you don’t want to spend the night with me.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “Only because of the sex. Which we’re not going to get to if you don’t answer my question.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but only a moan comes out as he pulls my nipple deep into his mouth.

  “The truth, Lila,” he says around my nipple, creating a shockwave that moves from where his mouth is straight to my pussy.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?” He licks around my areola and I close my eyes in ecstasy.

  “I-I just can’t.”

  “That’s not an answer,” he growls. “Are you married?” There’s real anger and jealousy in his tone. “Answer me.”

  “No. I’m not married.”

  “Living with someone? Engaged? What?”

  “None of those. I’m not with anyone.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Untie me.”

  “I’ll only untie you if you tell me you don’t want this.” He slides his fingers across my clit and I moan. “But if it’s so you don’t have to answer my question then I’m not going to untie you.”

  He strums my clit a few more times. The ties bite into my wrists as I twist and strain. The sting only enhances my pleasure.

  “Please, Nolan.”

  “I’ll make you come.” He easily finds my rhythm again. “I’ll make you come any way you want. But first you have to answer me. The real answer or else I’ll get you close over and over and stop before you come.”

  “Yes.” I nod in desperation. “Do that.”

  “Lila.” His voice is soft with disappointment. He stops touching me and looks down at me with a combination of pity and sadness. “Why?”

  “Because you wouldn’t understand,” I practically yell, pulling frantically on my restraints. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “What wouldn’t I understand?”

  “Untie me!”

  “No.”

  “Untie me.” I try to bite at the tie on my right wrist but I can’t quite rea
ch it.

  “Lila.”

  He’s trying to reason with me. There is no rhyme or reason to all of the things that are wrong with me. Tears threaten to leak from the corners of my eyes not because I’m physically hurt, but because he’s awoken the thing that I keep locked down tight.

  “Lila.” Leaning over me, he takes my head in his hands. “What is it?”

  “I can’t,” I gasp out. “I can’t. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Lila.” The way he keeps repeating my name cracks something inside me. “Lila.” He strokes the hair back from my face. “Lila. Lila. Lila.”

  A sob catches in my chest. It’s right there at the back of my throat, trying to shove its way out. “I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I can’t…I can’t…I can’t.”

  “I got you.”

  “I can’t sleep in a bed,” I inadvertently blurt out.

  He doesn’t say anything. He just keeps stroking my hair back from my face.

  “Not since that night he came in. He came in. He came in and he…he…put his hand over my mouth. He…he…he told me if I made a sound he’d kill me. He pulled at my clothes. He held me down. He had a knife. I let him do it. I lay there and let him. He said he’d kill me then my sister and my parents if I didn’t let him. So I let him. I let him…”

  15

  Nolan

  I can’t untie her fast enough. My hands are shaky and clumsy. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears. She doesn’t say anything about my bumbling, just watches me. I can feel her anger and resentment. It fills the room around us. I forced her to tell me something she didn’t want to tell me. My selfishness might have cost me the sexiest, most interesting woman I’ve ever met. I don’t know how to fix this or what to say to her. Any apology I could make would be weak and worthless.

  When I finally free her I expect her to bolt or to lash out at me, but she doesn’t move. Her arms and legs remain splayed as though she were still tied to the bed. I kneel next to her on the mattress, looking down at her. My mind is blank. No words come. I feel like I need to say something or do something, but I have no idea what. What does she want? What does she need from me? Does she even want or need me at all? Am I useless to her?

  “Lila.” Is all I can mange to get out as I lower myself next to her and hold her.

  She doesn’t move. I can’t tell what is going on inside her head.

  “I don’t care that you know I was raped,” she finally says. “It’s the other part… Why did you make me tell you that?”

  “I thought there might be someone else or you had a kid or something you were trying to hide from me that would keep us apart. I just wanted you next to me tonight. I’m sorry.”

  I can feel her nodding. “I get that. Do you get that I can’t?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Always.”

  “No. I don’t. I mean I do, but I don’t. Can you explain it to me?”

  “I just did.”

  “But where do you sleep?”

  “What does it matter?” She’s irritated with me.

  “I just does.”

  “I think it’s time for me to go.” She starts to roll away from me off the bed, but I catch her around the waist and bring her back against me. “Nolan, don’t.”

  “Forget I asked and stay a little longer. We can get some dinner.”

  “And have sex again?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  She looks back at me over her shoulder. “Stop being weird and treating me like I’m fragile. Two minutes ago you had me tied to your bed.”

  “I’m not.” Am I?

  “Prove it.”

  “How?”

  She shifts so that she’s on her back again, her arms and legs spread. “Tie me up again.”

  “You can give me the intimacy of your body, but not your mind?”

  “You are the strangest man I’ve ever met. Most guys would have me half tied up already.”

  She’s right, but I’m not going to let her shame me into carrying on with something I’m just not in the mood for right now. “Later. I’m hungry.”

  “I told you to be honest with me.”

  “I am.”

  “Fuck me, Nolan. Right now.”

  When I don’t respond she gets off the bed. I don’t stop her this time. She’s messed with my head. I don’t know how to deal with her and what she told me. Maybe she’s right. We should just go back to being colleagues. As soon as that thought forms I’m off the bed and after her. I don’t want to go back to being coworkers. I can deal with the limits she’s put on our relationship or whatever it is we’re doing. If she just wants me for a fuck buddy I can do that.

  I catch up to her in my office where she’s stepping into her underwear.

  “Don’t,” I say, making her look up at me. “Turn around and put your hands on the desk.” My voice is rough and not my own. “Now.”

  She doesn’t hesitate. She drops her underwear and steps out of them as she turns around and does what I told her to do.

  “If this is all you want from me you’ve got it, but you’re going to get it my way. Understand?”

  She nods and looks over her shoulder at me. I shouldn’t want to do this. The sight of her bent over my desk, her breasts swaying, her ass presented to me, does something primal to me. I won’t say it’s resentment. It’s too complicated to call it that. My hand goes to my cock and I stroke it until it’s hard. Watching me, she lowers herself until her tits rest on the keyboard of my computer. Fuck that’s hot. How does she do this to me? She twists me up until I don’t know right from wrong, good from bad.

  I don’t think about how I shouldn’t be doing this, I shouldn’t be giving her what she wants the way she wants it. If I do, I’m never going to get my way with her. But right now I don’t care as I pull the strip of condoms from the pocket of my pants on the floor where I’d dropped them during our last round. The image of her reclined in my office chair, her legs spread open for me overlaps with her bent over my desk.

  I have to be inside her.

  I roll on a condom and stalk toward her. Somewhere in my brain I register my anger. She makes me so fucking mad. At the same time she makes me so fucking hot for her I can’t think of anything else, including how wrong all of this is.

  I shove a hand between her legs. She’s wet. Of course she is. This kind of fucked up thing is her catnip. I put a hand on her back and rub the tip of my dick through her slickness, then shove in deep. She jolts and moans like it’s the hottest damn thing in the world, this cold, emotionless fucking. I don’t think about her pleasure as I drive into her. It’s payback. She knows it and she welcomes it. She craves it. I shove hard into her, ruthlessly pushing her into the desk. Her cries become frantic as she gets close to orgasm.

  I can’t let her get there. That’s part of the twisted bullshit we’re wrapped up in.

  Changing the pace, I focus on her ass and how her pussy holds onto me as I move in and out of her. I grip her shoulder and hip. My thrusts become rougher less coordinated. I don’t care about her, I tell myself. Fuck her. I don’t need this. My life is complicated enough without her screwing with it. I come on a backwards movement like a goddamn teenager who can’t control his shit. Pulling out all the way, I roll the condom off and shoot my cum all over her. Some of it lands on the carpet and my hand.

  I don’t care. I make this my mantra as I walk out of the room. Turning in the doorway I catch her looking back at me. She smiles like she had the best time.

  “Get dressed,” I force myself to say. “And go home. I’m done with you.”

  Surprise flickers across her face for a moment, then she bends down and picks up my shirt from the floor and uses it to wipe the cum off of her. I ignore her satisfied smile and go down the hall to my bathroom. Behind the closed door, I listen to her movements until the front door closes behind her. She doesn’t slam it. There’s not enough emotion in her for that or for me. I pound my forehead against th
e door.

  I’m going to fuck her again. I know I will. She’s too much of a temptation to refuse. All she’ll have to do is ask and I’ll be whipping my dick out ready to stick it wherever she wants. I put all of my frustrations on her, but the truth is some of them should be on me. She’s right. Most guys would take what she’s offering and be glad. Hell, they’d be ecstatic about it. No strings attached sex. That’s a dude’s dream come true. I should want it too. I probably would with someone else.

  But she’s not like anyone else.

  As I clean myself up it occurs to me that I’m living a cliché. I want what I can’t have and don’t want what I can have. I wasn’t even thinking about a relationship with her until she totally shut down that possibility. That’s messed up. I’m messed up. She’s got me so twisted around I don’t know which way is up and which is sideways.

  I can’t say she’s not honest though. In fact, I wish she were a little less honest. It was me who pushed the point. I shouldn’t be mad at her for giving it to me straight. I’m upset with myself, I realize, and I took it out on her. I own her an apology. I shouldn’t have left things with her that way. I should’ve walked her to her car like a gentleman and made sure she was safe.

  I calculate how long it’s been since she left and the distance to her apartment. She’s probably home or about to get home. Getting dressed, I wait a few more minutes to be sure. I start to text her, then realize that’s the chicken shit way out and call her instead. Will she even answer when she sees it’s me calling?

  “Nolan.” I should’ve known she’s not the type of person to shrink away from anything difficult or awkward. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to be sure you got home safe.”

  “I did.”

  The apology I owe her sits unsaid in my mouth. I don’t know why. The words just won’t leave.

  “Are you going to do any more work tonight?” she asks and the moment is gone.

  “I was going to check out Billits’s background, see if anything changed in his life around the time of Carla’s trial. That strangers on a train theory you came up with.”