by Ashlee Price
Chalk it up to immaturity. I’d grown up a lot over that first winter in Chesterton, and especially after having Justin. I’d learned a lot about being responsible and not just hoping things would work out. You couldn’t pay the grocery bill with hopes and dreams.
I’d also thought a good deal about my relationship with Riker and whether it had been right to keep Justin a secret from him. I’d had my reasons at the time, but luckily, I had worked most of that out. All that remained was to uncover whatever secrets he was keeping. I made a major decision that day. I was going to allow Riker back into my life, if he would have us.
I told Abby that morning that I was going to Riker’s house. She knew the entire story and had even spotted Riker once at one of my decorating jobs when she’d ridden along.
“My God, you must be crazy. He’s such a hunk,” she’d gushed.
“You know it’s not that simple, Abby.”
“I know, but all the same, how can you stand it?”
So then we were having tea and nibbling on some fresh cinnamon rolls she’d baked for breakfast.
“I’ve decided to tell him.”
“I knew you would. I knew you weren’t far away. Don’t feel bad about it. You did the best you could at the time with what you had. I know you have questions, but they’ll resolve themselves. Everything will be fine. Don’t you worry about the baby. You go over there and stay as long as you need to. If I don’t see you until tomorrow, I’ll know why. There’s no reason I should be worried, is there?”
“No, no nothing like that. He may look like a big brute, but he’s pretty easy-going, and at one time he had some rather intense feelings for me. I hope I can still find those behind that gruff exterior. At least Melanie’s out of his life.”
“Well, from what you told me and what I’ve heard, she never really was in his life, at least as far as he was concerned. Okay, kiddo, go shower and put on your best perfume. I don’t want to see you back here until tomorrow, got it?”
I took my time dressing after my shower. I put on some sexy underwear I’d been saving from before I got pregnant. Somehow, I needed it to give me the confidence to follow through with this. For all I knew he would throw me out on my ass, and it wasn’t as though I didn’t deserve it. I took extra time with my hair and with my makeup, trying to look good without looking as though I were going to the prom. When I was finally ready, I gave the baby an extra-long hug before I went out the door. Abby stood in the window holding Justin and waved goodbye.
I headed toward Riker’s house, not even knowing if he would be home. I had no idea if he still had the boys living with him or not. I pulled up to the curb, took a deep breath, checked my makeup in the mirror and got out of the car. I walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later the door opened and there he was.
“Surprise,” I said weakly, feeling as though I was going to be sick from nerves. If he told me to go away, there was nothing I could do about it. I would have thrown away the only man I loved.
“Lacy. I wasn’t expecting you.” He was every bit as handsome as he’d been the last time I’d seen him. He’d been working out; I could tell by the bulges in his shirt. He made me wet just to look at him.
“Is this a bad time?”
“Well, that depends. It’s been a long time, that’s for sure. As for whether it’s a good time, I guess that depends on why you’re here. I hope you haven’t come to chew me out again. I don’t think that’s something I can take from you after all this time.”
“No, nothing like that, I promise. As a matter of fact, I’ve come to apologize.”
“In that case, come on in and let’s sit down.”
“Are the boys home?” I asked as I walked into the living room.
He took my coat and hung it on a hook by the door. “You look great. Have you been working out?”
I knew that was a polite way of noticing that I’d lost weight. I wasn’t ready to explain why, so I just sort of shrugged.
“As for the boys,” he said, “the other two are gone. They turned eighteen and the judge overturned their sentences and they went back to the city to make lives for themselves. As for Jonas, he’s over at his girlfriend’s house. I would be surprised if they don’t shack up together before too long. He’s doing great, by the way.”
“I’m glad. I knew that he had potential, and having you on his side kept him from getting into trouble. You did a good job with them, Riker.”
“I appreciate that, coming from you. Of all people, you knew what was going on. I’ve decided not to take on any more boys. I can’t save them all, but I’ve saved a couple. So sit down and I’ll go in the kitchen and get us some wine. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
I nodded and watched him leave the room. I chose the end of the sofa where I’d always sat before. It smelled a little like a gym locker and old pizza, but I had to admit they had a bit of charm. Riker was back before I had much more time to think.
“There you go,” he said, holding out the glass to me. “I think you prefer red, if I remember.”
I nodded and crossed my legs. I was shaking inside, and when I crossed my knees, it seemed to hold them still a little better. Riker noticed.
“Why are you nervous?”
“I have something to tell you. But first, I want to apologize for the way I treated you. Over the past year, I think I’ve grown up more than I did in the previous six years. I’ll get to the reason why a little later, but let me say now that I allowed Melanie to influence me against you. I won’t go into all the things she told me you said, because I’m sure now that none of them were true. Your behavior never backed up anything she claimed, and I’m sorry for not trusting you more.”
“Whoa, that’s a pretty big apology. But you can’t have it all to yourself, you know. Melanie did her share of lying to me, too. I should’ve trusted you more.” He took a sip of his wine and set it down on the table, sat forward and clasped his hands as he looked at the floor. “I guess you may have heard about Las Vegas?”
I nodded. “You have to give her one thing, she’s very good at getting what she wants.”
“Liars generally are. But eventually, they end up alone and empty-handed. I think that’s her fate, if you ask me. Anyway, obviously there was a reason she could convince me that she was going to have a baby. In my defense, I’ll say that I was pretty goddamned drunk and she put herself in a pretty available situation, but Lacy, I didn’t push her away.”
“Riker, stop it. You don’t owe me an apology for that. As I recall, I’d already told you to leave me alone, and you had no reason to be faithful to me. I didn’t know you. I gave you up, fool that I was.”
“Well, let’s just say we both screwed up. I’m guessing there were a lot of misunderstandings and both of us chose to overlook the obvious. I’ll tell you here and now, Lacy, this last year has been an absolute hell for me. I’m not too proud to tell you that I’ve missed you. Oh my God, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I admitted in a quiet voice. “I was such a fool.”
“Come here,” he said simply, and I fell into his arms. He held me for a very long while, rocking me as you would a child who’d gone missing and had just been found. He kissed the top of my head and pressed me against his chest, one hand stroking the back of my neck. I heard his heartbeat, just like I remembered it from before. I could smell Riker, and it lit up a thousand memories in my brain. I was home again, and this time I wasn’t going to leave.
“God, but I’ve missed you,” he repeated and lifted my chin so he could kiss me. His lips enveloped mine, pressing hard and then pulling back to softly suck at my bottom lip as though savoring a delicious dessert. His tongue explored the inside of my mouth and I sucked it, mimicking the penetration I remembered from when his penis was inside of me. It began a rhythm that we both remembered, and suddenly we couldn’t get close enough to one another. I could’ve sworn I felt tears on his cheeks, but they may have been mixed in with my own.
>
“I want you. Lacy, I want you now.”
I nodded, and when he stood up and pulled me to my feet, I didn’t hesitate. He headed out of the living room, and I was puzzled. “Aren’t we going to your bedroom?”
He shook his head. “I have something to show you, something you should’ve seen a long time ago. If you had, you might not have left me.”
I wondered what that could possibly be. He had no idea about Justin, so how could he think…
The door! He was taking me to the door with the padlock. I was overjoyed. I should have trusted him. It was the biggest reason I’d kept everything to myself. I’d been scared of what lay behind that door, and insecure enough to feel slighted that he wouldn’t tell me.
I should have trusted Riker. He’d always said things to let me know he loved me. I was perfect to him; not because of my body, but because we were interlocking puzzle pieces in our business goals and our philosophies on right and wrong. We could talk about anything, anytime, and that’s what we wanted. I’d let myself suffer. I couldn’t claim to be the victim; I’d let it happen. Why hadn’t I just asked Riker what lay behind the locked door?
He pulled the key out from under his shirt, where it hung on a sturdy gold chain. He pulled the door open and flipped a switch, adding a dim glow to what I could now tell was a staircase leading upward. He motioned for me to go first, but I shook my head and hung back. For all my bravado, I was still a little frightened. I felt like the girls in the gothic romances who fell in love with the master of the estate, only to discover that his crazy ex-wife was locked away in the attic and he couldn’t divorce her because, oh my God, what would people think?
I sucked in my breath. Judas! I was behaving exactly like a character in a romance novel—and not even one set in this century, for God’s sake!
I had only lacked the trust. Could Riker forgive me when he found out about Justin?
“You’ll have to come up a few steps so I can shut the door,” he motioned. “Jonas might come in, and I don’t want him coming up here.”
I nodded and went up a couple of stairs. He reached behind me, pulled the door closed and tapped a slide bolt into place so the door couldn’t be opened from the hallway. My trepidation was only surpassed by my curiosity.
Riker led the way, speaking to me in a soft yet passion-hoarse tone as we climbed. “I’ve dreamed of bringing you up here, Lacy. I knew from the first you were the only one I wanted here, but you had to be ready. You had to understand me well enough, as well as yourself, to appreciate what I’m offering. You had to trust me.”
There it was again—trust. I hadn’t. The question was, did I now?
We topped the stairs and I gasped at what I saw. The entire floor was one room, with a red satin-covered bed on a dais in the center beneath a spotlight. The room was carpeted in a pattern with a black background and flames of red and gold woven in. It seemed all the bigger due to the mirrored ceiling that reflected all which lay beneath.
“My God, Riker! What is this? Are you in some kind of cult?”
He laughed aloud. “Do you see anyone else here?”
I shook my head.
“Of course you don’t. I built this for you and me alone. Just the two of us. No one will know it’s here, and no one will ever come up here besides you and me.”
“Did Melanie…?” I let the question go unfinished.
“No, of course not. She knows nothing about it. All she knows is to stay away from me and never let me see her again.”
I actually couldn’t have cared less about Melanie at that moment; I was that astounded by the room. I began to shake my head slowly. “Riker, I don’t know… I’ve never been in anything like this, and it’s really not me. This is scary.”
He shook his head. “No, don’t let it scare you. That’s not what it’s all about. Trust me. Do you trust me, Lacy?”
His question hung between us. It was the heaviest obstacle I’d ever had to overcome. I’d failed before, but I wouldn’t fail again. “I trust you,” I nodded. He contemplated my face for a moment, then took my hand and led me to a black, padded lounger standing at the foot of the bed.
“Take off your clothes and lay them beneath the chair,” he told me. “Here are the rules. You trust me, and you know that everything that’s about to happen is specifically for your pleasure. You will do exactly as I say, but if at any time you feel fear or pain, even in the slightest, and want to stop, just use the word ‘yellow.’ I’ll pause, and if you nod, I’ll continue. However, if it becomes too much, just use the word ‘red’ and everything stops immediately. Have you got that?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yellow, red, yes, I understand. But what are you going to do?”
“I told you, and I won’t repeat it again. You will do exactly as I say. Take off those clothes.”
I felt a moment’s cowardice, and at the same time, I felt on the precipice of a world of unknowns. I had a fairly good idea what this room was designed for, and now I understood why he kept it locked. In the same way that I had envisioned a play room in my upstairs, he had his own version, and it was off-limits to anyone he didn’t want to see it. That included the boys, included Melanie, and until I was ready to handle it, had included me. Everything in the room was immaculate and smelled of fresh vinyl and fabrics. I knew instinctively that nothing there had been used before. We were going to break it in—unless he broke me in first.
I disrobed and turned to look at him. He was naked. I’d seen him that way before, but I gaped at the changes in his body. He’d added a new tattoo over his heart. It read “Lacy.” I felt tears rise to my eyes but he shook his head.
“Don’t. Don’t cry. You cry and it’s over.”
I scrambled in my shirt pocket on the floor for a tissue and dabbed at my eyes. He’d been working out, either on the job or at the gym. His arms were half again as big as they’d been before, and his pecs were bulging and defined. His abs looked like the wave peaks in winter, frozen and impenetrable. His waist tapered downward to what commanded the bulk of my attention—his cock. It looked angry as it seemed to swat away the distance between us, calling my pussy with the time-honored allure that brought women and men together.
“It’s not yours!” Riker barked. “You have to earn it.”
His tone was almost angry, but not quite. No one had ever spoken to me like that before, but somehow, I didn’t find it offensive. I found it exciting. I felt a moist rush below and instinctively reached my hand down to sample it.
“Don’t! You don’t touch yourself unless I order it.” I snatched my hand back and felt disappointment. “You see the loops dangling from the headboard?” I nodded. “Put your wrists into them and don’t pull them out unless I tell you it’s okay.”
I looked over my shoulder at him as I knelt on the edge of the red satin bed and crawled toward the velvet loops. His body exuded a force over me that rendered me almost unable to think on my own. His will was stronger than mine.
“Do it! Do it now!” I leapt forward to do as he instructed. I slipped my hands through the loops, pulling them outward until my wrists rested in their velvet slings.
“Spread your knees.”
I scooted my knees apart and could feel his pressure on the mattress. I waited, and was surprised when his touch finally came in the form of something being wrapped about my neck. Was it a collar? “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Unless you’re going to use the safe words, don’t speak!” he shot at me, and then came the sensation of being whipped—not painful, much, but more of a blow to my sensibilities. “Agh!” I couldn’t help my reaction to the unexpected. What was yet to come?
I couldn’t have been more surprised. Riker climbed onto the bed and pushed my knees far, far apart, his head sliding beneath my open and exposed pussy, face up. I tried not to look at him; I was afraid of what I’d see in his eyes. I felt his fingers open the lips of my labia and he parted me, wide. There was a whirring sound, and then I felt something non-human
being pressed into me. He was using a vibrator!
I closed my eyes and let the sensation fill my consciousness, lifting my hips to reposition myself over it. As soon as I moved, it was withdrawn and cool air filled the formerly warm cavity. “No! Don’t stop, please,” I whispered, and the collar was jerked abruptly. “Agh!”
“You were told not to move!”
I nodded, not saying a word. His fingers tapped my labia lips, exploring, and once or twice I felt his tongue tap my clit. I felt myself gushing and heard the groan of approval as his tongue sampled my juice and he pulled his head back to savor it. Then I heard the whirr and felt myself being opened again. I waited… and waited… and waited…
Nothing. It didn’t enter me, but kept me in anticipation—a miserable, aching anticipation. “Please…” I whispered, and was rewarded with a collar yank. “Agh!” I felt helpless. I knew that if I pulled my hands back, I’d feel his ire around my neck. But I wanted to be touched. I needed to be touched. I’d not had orgasmic release in well over a year, and in that time, my sleeker body had become more flexible and prideful. I wanted to be a woman. I wanted to be Riker’s woman. I wanted to suck him and let feel him enter me to my depths. I craved it.
I heard the whirr again now and prepared myself. I wanted it so badly, but I wanted him even more.
“Look at me!” he commanded, and I felt him lift my wrists out of the loops and firmly push me over to my back. The collar remained, as a reminder. He rolled from the bed and stood next to it, his legs spread. The vibrator was in his hand and he locked his eyes onto mine, commanding me not to look away with only his expression. I felt compelled to obey, and watched as he lifted his massive cock in one palm and before my astounded, craving eyes, lowered the vibrator against his own balls. His eyes closed momentarily with the shock of the sensation and his head rolled to one side, resting on his shoulder. I knew his knees wanted to buckle, and I scooted my ass quickly to one side so he could lie down. I reached for the vibrator. I wanted to guide it over him and hear him groan. He slapped my hand away, and with a slow, constant pressure, ran it up and down his length.
