by Donya Lynne
Before I’m ready for the ride to be over, the two-seater skids to a stop. My body rocks forward, pulling against my restraints. I can’t stop laughing. My hair flops over my face, and my feet sway with the momentum, but all I can do is laugh.
“Oh my God, that was awesome!” I yell up at the sky as the seat begins its slow crawl back up the line. Then I look at Max. “Let’s go again.” My face just might split in half I’m smiling so widely.
He laughs at me. “Told you you’d enjoy it.”
“Again! Again!” I kick my legs. I’m like a delirious six-year-old juiced up on a pound of sugar.
“Maybe tomorrow.” He takes my hand and reaches around with the other to caress my cheek and turn my face toward his.
A siren wails in the distance.
I’m breathing hard, drowning in adrenaline and euphoria, my body tingling all over. The moment my eyes meet his, it’s like a channel opens, refocusing all my energy in a new direction. A more physical one, edged with desire and urgency. My exhilaration finds a new outlet. In Max.
Like two runners bursting from the starting line of the one hundred-yard dash, our lips crash together in a blaze of passion.
Flames erupt in my inner thighs, licking higher. Heat explodes between my legs, and I’m instantly wet.
His tongue strokes mine, making me moan as I pull him to me. He tastes of Vietnamese spices, beer, and desire.
The flashing neon lights fade. The distant siren goes mute.
All there is, is Max. And Me. Us. Moving through space. Weightless and spiraling into the center of a furious, lusty whirlwind.
The seat comes to a jarring stop back on the platform, and I’m jolted from Max’s embrace.
The attendant smiles knowingly as he unfastens my harness. No doubt, he’s thinking Max and I have less than five minutes before we’re fucking like crazed sex addicts.
And he would be right. Who knew riding the VooDoo Zipline would be an aphrodisiac? Then again, lust and fear aren’t so unrelated. Both cause an increased heart rate, heavier breathing, and a sharp disconnect between brain and body. The brain tells you to stop, but the body can’t help but keep going.
As Max leads me away from the platform with hurried steps, the burn in my body only grows hotter.
I don’t have to ask where we’re going. I already know. I can tell by his sure footfalls, the way he tugs on his tie to loosen it then unbuttons his collar, the determined set of his jaw. Max is a man on a mission. One that will have me enthusiastically on my back the moment we enter his room.
The air around us is full and tight, like a hot air balloon rising higher and higher, flames filling it with heated air to keep it afloat. We stand in the elevator bay, silent but for our heavy breathing. Both of us know that a single word from either of us could destroy the tension coiling around our bodies, drawing us closer together both physically and psychically, making it harder with each passing second to keep my hands to myself.
The elevator opens, and we step inside, followed by another couple and four women jabbering and giggling nonstop about the all-male review they’re going to tonight.
Max hits the number for his floor then pushes me toward the back wall, facing me, his expression hard as stone. But I feel the energy pouring off him. I’m sure everyone else in the elevator can, too.
Out of my periphery, I see the woman behind Max turn and eye us in the subtle, curious manner of someone who can sense sex in the air and knows exactly where it’s coming from.
My gaze flicks to hers long enough for her to look away, and then my eyes are on Max’s again. The tips of his fingers find my inner thigh and slide upward.
I stop breathing, sure if I continue I’ll moan.
The corners of his mouth tip skyward as I widen my stance, silently beseeching him to go farther. His fingers tantalize my skin at the top of my thigh. I might spontaneously combust, I’m so fucking turned on.
I’ve had sex in front of other people before. Mostly men, but a few women, too. Just once about six months ago. I wanted to hate it. I wanted to find it disgusting. Especially after how I came to that moment. I wanted to think that it was reprehensible to have all those people watching me while I was being fucked. I was cuffed to a Saint Andrew’s Cross at the time, facing the wall, in the basement of an exclusive sex club in DC, fulfilling the specially negotiated terms of my contract. A contract that now promises me an out while keeping me locked into servitude.
The contract I came to hate, but the sexual liberation I experienced in that basement is something I’ll cherish forever.
At first, it was strange to have my naked body on display, especially since I’d detested taking my clothes off in front of strangers. Yes, I’ve stripped. And yes, I hated it. But something about being presented to a crowd, on display for them as part of an act where I wasn’t the one in control of taking off my clothes, was different. Instead of shame, I felt liberation. My ass was bared to a room of strangers while my escort flogged and spanked me, and it turned me on. My bottom jiggled with each strike, and I begged for more. I felt the sting of pain all the way to my bones, and I got hotter. I experienced an awakening of pleasure and soul only another submissive could understand.
The fantasy of being watched having sex had always turned me on, but I never knew I was a submissive until that moment. It’s the one thing I’ll miss once my contract is voided.
But I don’t want to think about that right now, because to think about it is to remember why I’m here. To remember the betrayal and lies that remain between Max and me.
I refuse to let my deceit ruin this moment. I will have this one night of reckless abandon with him. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I’ve never taken anything just for myself, and I will have this.
My brain no longer functions well enough to stop me, anyway. It’s clouded with a million hormonal signals from my body, which has taken over with only one goal: To attain the greatest pleasure God ever created. And I’m only seconds from reaching my body’s objective. All Max has to do is touch me there, and I’ll come.
The elevator doors open, and the couple gets off. Then we’re moving once more, climbing through the floors until we slow and stop again. His hand creeps higher, disappearing under my skirt. I don’t even look at the four women as they shuffle through the doors, off to wherever they need to go to prepare for their night out.
The moment the doors close again, Max’s hand shoots up the last few inches and clamps down on my core.
I cry out. My knees tremble, threatening to topple me, but I throw my arms behind me to grip the bar that runs the length of the wall at hip-height.
“Dirty girl,” he mutters against my lips. “What a nice surprise this is.”
I groan and grind myself on his palm as he works the fabric of my panties to one side and glides his fingers through my slickness.
He’s overtaking me, looming like Adonis, encroaching as he probes and massages between my legs.
I’m on the verge of coming. Wanton and greedy, rolling my hips in urgent circles, so close. So damn close.
Just as I’m about to reach the point where climax is inevitable, the elevator slows to a stop. Max abruptly withdraws his hand, leaving me wanting. I protest, trying to tug his hand back between my legs so I can finish, but he’s already dragging me out of the elevator.
I stumble in my heels but manage to keep up as an invisible force plows through the hallway in front of us, clearing a path all the way to his door.
He slips the room key in the slot.
The electronic lock disengages.
In a blink, he pushes into his room, hauls me in after him, then bulldozes me toward the wall, lifting me off the floor, smashing my back against the gilded wallpaper with such force the frame of the portrait hanging a few feet away rattles.
As the door slams shut behind us, we’re a mad tangle of legs and arms, wrestling with our clothing, stripping off the layers even as our lips and tongues mesh in a sensual dance of give and take.
My frantic moans rise as the head of his cock pushes against me, and then he breaches me. We both gasp in unison as the connection is made, and then he’s thrusting. Rough, hard, fast. My bottom knocks against the wall like he’s using me to sledgehammer his way into the next room.
I’m delirious with pleasure, on the verge of shattering, when Max pulls me away from the wall, spins, and carries me to bed, still buried deep inside me.
“You like rough?”
We reach the bed, and I nod, whimpering. The sound comes out more like a plea. Like I’m begging.
“You like hard?”
“Yes.” The single syllable flies out of me in a rush of breath.
Something ignites in his eyes, and, with a growl, he lifts me off him. The emptiness feels all wrong. He belongs inside me.
Before I can protest, he tosses me onto the bed and forces me onto my stomach, propping himself on his knees between my legs.
“Then I’m going to give you rough.”
With a moan, I glance over my shoulder and watch him grab a condom from the nightstand. I hadn’t even cared he’d been inside me without one on, but I’m thankful he’s thinking for both of us. I was so beside myself with sexual hunger that safe sex wasn’t even on my radar.
I stretch my arms out in front of me on the duvet and arch my back, needing him back inside me. The orgasm he interrupted sits on the precipice. All it needs is one more violation, and it will consume me.
I hear the cellophane wrapper tear. I see it land on the bed beside me as if hastily discarded.
My ass is in the air, my body rocking forward and back as if it’s still slowly fucking him, legs open to accommodate his body.
His weight falls over me, his hands driving from my shoulders to my hands and back down to my hips as he lifts off me. His cock nudges against me, and I groan, writhing, working my hips to help him find his way.
Out of nowhere, his palm lands between my shoulders and presses down. Hard. My face is driven into the duvet, my breasts mashed beneath me. With his other hand, he grips my hip and shoves forward with his body, making my ass rise even higher. I pull my knees toward my torso to keep myself balanced.
“Keep your head down.” The command is gruff, and he pushes between my shoulders for emphasis before releasing me.
My palms lay flat against the duvet, but as he slicks the head of his cock up and down my slit, I fist the fabric, my whole body involuntarily contracting, making me suck in my breath.
“That’s it, baby, come for me.” He thrusts into me hard enough to briefly lift my knees off the mattress.
I cry out, dropping my forehead to the bed and slamming my eyes closed as he plunges into me. Our bodies slap madly against each other with the relentless cadence of two people overcome by a force beyond their control.
I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. I can’t even move. I am nothing but sensation, completely absorbed in the exultation of our physical connection as the vortex tightens inside me.
He barks out a curse and gasps as his tempo hiccups like a rock skipping across a pond. Then he widens his knees, pushing my thighs farther apart, and picks up the beat again.
He feels the pendulum swinging off course, too. Together, we’re tipping, sliding, tumbling out of control toward the edge of reason.
My body crests. In the split second between detonation and the rush of contractions throughout my body, a guttural shriek tears from my throat, and then I’m nothing but bliss.
Within seconds, Max joins me. His body crashes down over mine, flattening me against the bed. His cock pulses inside me in time with his abrupt nudges against my backside.
Our hands join, and for a while, we don’t speak. We don’t move. All we do is breathe. And savor.
I’ve never met a man who makes me feel like this. Cherished. Breathless. Sublime. I like the duality that he could be so open and vulnerable with me, the way he was earlier today, then turn around and become a dominating force, in total control of my body.
I sigh and sink more deeply into the duvet as he draws our joined hands from where they’ve been extended under the decorative pillow placed at the head of the bed and hugs my torso between his bent arms.
My feelings are undeniable. I’m falling in love with him.
I know what you’re thinking? How could I love him when I’ve only known him a day? Or maybe you’re wondering how I can equate sex to love.
I don’t have a good answer. When it comes to love, who does? All I know is how I feel.
Besides, who says love has to occur only after a requisite amount of time? Who says love can’t occur in a relationship that started almost immediately with sex? That sex on the first date or one-night-stand sex can’t lead to love and forever?
I’m sure that’s true for a lot of people, but for people like Max and me, this is our normal. We’ve both lived life fast and hard. We’ve both learned from personal experience that life waits for no one. That tomorrow isn’t promised. Either live for the moment or risk losing everything.
And right now, I’m balanced between the two extremes, left to wonder how I’m going to follow my heart and be with him when I’m still bound by my contract and the job I’ve been sent here to do. All because I opened the wrong door at the wrong time and saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.
Max finally shifts to the side and lands on the bed beside me, on his back, grinning like he’s just found Utopia and is ready to spend eternity floating through it on a cloud.
I push up on my elbows and smile at him through the strands of hair hanging over my face.
“I love this just-fucked look of yours,” he says, reaching across his body to gently push back my hair.
“And I love this just-fucked feeling.” I kiss his palm and shimmy closer.
His gaze remains locked to mine for several seconds, and then he drops his hand to his stomach as he glances up at the ceiling. His grin widens. “I had no idea you liked rough sex.”
“If I didn’t, that performance would have changed my mind.” I shift my weight to one elbow and skim my fingers down his sweat-dampened chest. “Is that going to be a problem?”
One eyebrow lifts as his gaze flicks my direction again. “Did anything about what just happened feel like it’s going to be a problem?”
I let out a light, airy laugh that feels like shackles falling away and wings spreading skyward. “No, I suppose not.”
He chuckles then closes his eyes dreamily as he rakes both hands through his hair and groans. “Jesus, Nash! That was . . .”
“The best sex you’ve ever had?” I can’t resist teasing him.
He drops his hands as his eyes pop open and meet mine with an air of sincerity that makes my breath momentarily halt.
“It just might have been.”
We stare into each other’s eyes as unspoken revelations awaken between us. It’s as if we’re both realizing at the same time how monumental all this is. Yes, he proposed to me this morning, but I don’t think even then he felt what we both seem to be feeling now. This depth of understanding that we’re the same. That it wasn’t just circumstances that brought us together, but fate.
I drop my gaze to the pendant hanging from a silver chain around his neck. It’s rectangular and embossed with intricate swirls set around a cross in the middle.
“Where did you get this?” I lift it off his chest. It’s surprisingly light for how thick it is.
He glances down and lifts the pendant from my grasp. “My mom. She died when I was eight.”
I have to hide my surprise. His dossier said he was an orphan. I assumed this meant he’d been surrendered for adoption at birth, not that he’d been orphaned only after his birth mother died.
With a sad smile,
he rolls to the side of the bed then rises to his feet. “They say she died of some kind of heart defect.” He walks into the bathroom. “But she’d never had heart problems before my dad died.”
I sit up, hugging my knees to my chest with one arm while folding back the duvet and sheets with the other. “When did your dad die?” This is more surprising news. And sad.
The water turns on. “When I was six.”
I’m not sure what to think of this new information. I assumed Max had grown up in foster homes. Now I learn he had a family. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea.
The water turns off and he comes back into the room, shutting off the bathroom light. He’s holding a washcloth and a hand towel and extends both toward me when he reaches the bed.
I take them and tidy myself up.
He picks up the deck of cards from the nightstand and climbs back onto the bed, folding his legs under the sheet. “The doctors said it was a heart condition that killed my mom, but I have a different theory.” He pulls the cards from the box and tosses it back on the nightstand. “I think what really killed my mom was a broken heart.”
I finish cleaning myself, wrap the towel around the washcloth to keep the bed from getting wet, and then set both aside. “A broken heart?” I tug the duvet over my lap.
He keeps his head down but lifts his gaze to mine as he begins shuffling. “Yes. She and my dad were the perfect couple. Happy, you know?”
I don’t know, because my parents were never happy together. But I nod anyway, offering encouragement.
He begins flipping over cards in what appears to be random order but I soon realize it’s not. He shuffles then flips a card onto the bed between us. Shuffles and flips. Only the hearts, and in sequential order. The ace, the two, the three, then the four.
“They were really happy. My dad was a firefighter in New York, and my mom worked part-time as a tax accountant.” He drops the five of hearts with a shrug. “Except during tax season, of course. She worked at least sixty hours a week during tax season. Made enough money in three months to last the whole year.”
