Damn me for wanting him so much. Damn my body for letting it show.
“I’m not coming back,” I said in a defiant whisper. I was panting as if there were no air in the room.
“I’ll drag you.”
“You want me that much?”
He closed a powerful wet hand around my throat. Water streamed between his fingers and gushed over my breasts. “I want you more.”
I was wet, but I would not come. Arousal was one thing. Coming was another. It was surrender of the most obvious and humiliating kind.
Goddamnit.
I was forgetting to hate him. I had already forgotten to fight. He held my hipbones in both hands and forced moan after moan out of my throat. I clutched the wall as he pulled me back onto his cock, breaking me down further with every thick, rigid thrust.
“You belong to me,” he whispered. “Say it.”
I shook my head.
“Say it!” he shouted.
“I won’t. It isn’t true.”
He spun me around, shocking a gasp from me as he backed me against the tile. Grabbing my wrists, he pressed them to the wall and leaned close. “Goddamnit, Sophie, I wanted to save you. If that was wrong, then I’m fucking proud of it.” His dark, fevered eyes penetrated me more deeply than his cock ever could.
“I don’t need saving,” I said, grateful for the water that obscured my tears. “I only need…” I stopped just in time. One word more and I was lost.
He shook me hard by the wrists. “You need what? Tell me the truth, damnit.”
The truth. There was nothing more dangerous. It would be so easy to tell him. But I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t that brave.
“You,” I blurted. “I need you.”
He froze. I quivered under his grip. All I could hear was rushing water and my lightning-quick heartbeat.
“Me,” he said flatly.
Lower lip in my teeth, I gave him the faintest nod. Slowly, his hands relaxed on my wrists and he dropped his head. “Fuck,” he murmured.
“What’s wrong?”
He raised his eyes and they seared into me. “Nothing,” he whispered. “Everything.”
My mouth opened and dissolved under his as he kissed me. He knew I wanted him, and now I had no defense. Not that I ever had. He’d come to claim me, and I’d let myself be claimed.
Pushing off his shoes, he stepped out of his pants before sweeping me up in his arms. Dripping water in a trail, he brought me to the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed like a ragdoll.
“Now that we’ve established who you belong to,” he said, mounting me and confining me under him. “I’m going to fill you with my come.”
His cock was a thick sword straining against my belly. I pushed against his chest with my palms, knowing it was useless. “I never said I belonged to you.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said, tossing my protest aside with a smirk. “Look at you.”
Yes, look at me. Soaking wet, no makeup, no sleep, no pride. I’d never felt so vulnerable, or so unguarded. I wanted to close my eyes and scream to be left alone, but I couldn’t.
I was frantic for him. He’d shown me for what pleasure was and now I had to have it, damn what came next.
When he entered me with a fast and forceful thrust, I couldn’t control my thoughts or the sounds I made. I moaned, I gasped, I cried. But I didn’t stop fighting.
He turned me over so he could fuck me and stroke my clit at the same time. I struggled, but he only clamped my wrists in his hand and growled at me not to fight. “I’m not asking you,” he rasped. “I’m telling you.”
I bucked against him, but he only slid in deeper. He fingers only stroked faster. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus. Don’t come. Don’t surrender. Don’t give him the deed to your soul.
But the choice wasn’t mine. I shuddered as my body gave up everything, leaving nothing behind but pure pleasure. Hot sparks flared across my skin as I tremored against him. My pussy gushed and tightened, clenching against his cock and betraying my weakness for him.
I’d never felt anything so good, or wished so desperately that it hadn’t happened.
“Marc,” I cried, as tears of ecstasy and regret flowed.
Everything I’d always believed about myself was gone. This was who I was now. A captive who loved her confinement, who worshipped the invisible chains that bound her. “Please,” I begged in a ragged whisper, as he lowered his face to my mine.
“Please keep fucking you?” he murmured soothingly. “Or please stop?”
“Both,” I moaned weakly.
He chuckled, his cock stiffening into steel. “You like it when I force you to come,” he said against my ear. “You see how powerless you really are.”
“I’m not powerless,” I whispered, my orgasm still cresting through me.
“You are, you just don’t know it yet,” he said, his voice dripping with danger. “But that’s okay. I’ll enjoy fucking the fight out of you.”
I screamed with almost unbearable pleasure as he filled my sensitized pussy to the hilt.
“See? I’m doing it already.” His tone was amused, as if I were almost too easy to conquer.
“You’re not playing fair.”
“I’m not playing, period.” The danger in his voice was back, and this time it was even darker. As if to show how serious he was, he thrust into me repeatedly, one stroke after the other until his muscles felt like a tightly-bound drum against my back.
At that moment, I couldn’t resist a moment of triumph. I was having an effect on him. A very clear, very strong effect.
He’d come back for me because he couldn’t control himself. That meant the control was mine.
His fingers burned into my wrists as he gripped me harder. I danced my hips back against his, tempting him. Moving, moaning, urging him deeper, I silently dared him to hold back. I dared him to be stronger than I was.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said, clipping his words sharply.
I circled my hips and let him feel how soaked I was. “What am I doing?”
He fastened his teeth around a slice of my neck, pulled until it hurt, and let go. “Fooling yourself,” he said, slamming into me for emphasis. “Don’t mistake your surrender for power, Sophie.”
I tried to bite back a moan and failed. Damn him. He hardly knew me, but he knew me too well. “You said you wanted to fuck me too much.”
His voice was like a mantra, telling me everything I didn’t understand. “I want to fuck you because you don’t have power, not because you do. I know it’s confusing, but you’ll learn.”
You’ll learn. I shook my head against the sheets. Just a moment ago, I’d felt so strong. I’d thought I had him where I wanted him, but he had me instead. “Will I, Marc?” I asked.
At this quiet question, the movement of his hips slowed. I felt his body transform from an instrument of control to one of warm, soothing comfort. “You will,” he whispered. “I promise.”
His reassurance hit my brain like a tranquilizer. All of my limbs relaxed, and my breath emptied from my lungs. “How do you know?”
“Because I’ll teach you. That’s what a master does.”
He rolled onto his side, bringing me with him. His chest was hot against my shoulder blades. Wrapping me in the cocoon of his arms, he kissed the side of my face again and again, each kiss accompanied by a thrust both deep and tender.
He was calm, in total control. Which meant I didn’t have to be.
For now, there was no struggle. No fear. Just this.
“You gorgeous thing,” he murmured. “You make my cock so fucking hard, even when you fight me.”
“Especially,” I said.
“It isn’t how you fight,” he said, clutching my hair again. “It’s how beautiful you are when you give in.”
My neck arched as he forced my head back. His cheek was hot and stubbled against mine, his breath fast and heavy. “I have so much come to give you,” he said. He slammed his cock into me
, restarting a wave of pleasure that crashed over every pleasure point from my knees to my tongue.
“Yes, Marc,” I gasped. “I need your come.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he growled, his hips grinding into me. “Maybe you do have power.”
I was smiling when he exploded into me, when his fingers tore into my hair and spasms rocked his body. The crown of his cock gave me shot after shot of come, until he was spent and I was overflowing.
I rolled my hips, drawing out the last drops and making him inhale sharply with every clench of my muscles.
“What a goddess you are,” he said, squeezing me tightly with his strapping arms.
Even now, he could make me blush. “But I’m just a woman,” I whispered.
He shook his head once against my cheek. “Not a woman, Sophie. The woman.”
“What’s going to happen?” I whispered as we lay entwined afterward, the covers tossed aside.
“Have you told your editor you’ll take the assignment?” he asked.
“Not yet. I’ll text her in a few hours.”
“Then stay with me while you’re here and we’ll be together,” he said. “Whatever it means.”
I looked up at him through still-wet lashes. “That simple?”
He smiled. “Or that complicated. We’ll see.”
He stroked my face with the backs of his fingers, so gently my throat tightened with tears. I’d never met someone so maddeningly complicated. He wasn’t just one man. He was everything a man could be in one person.
“You didn’t want to come, did you?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted.
There was something almost boyishly pleased in his expression. “But you came for me, anyway. Do you know what that means?”
Slowly, I shook my head. I felt suspended in space as I waited for his answer.
He pulled me so close, I could see ebony flecks in his eyes, like hot ash after a fire. “Now that I own your orgasms,” he said. “I own you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After an hour of sleep Marc left for his office, giving me a lingering kiss on the forehead and disappearing before I was fully awake. It was much later when I sat up in bed with a start. Memories from last night tore through my head like a sudden storm. One moment was a nightmare, the next, an erotic fantasy in lurid color. My heart broke and soared as each image followed another in a chaos of pain and pleasure.
Marc had made me leave, then come back for me. He’d loved me, hurt me, and convinced me to stay against my better judgment. And all of it had happened in a few heartbreaking, pussy-drenching hours. I’d never known confusion like this.
But one thing was clear: I couldn’t trust myself.
I’d demanded answers from Marc, then those answers hadn’t mattered. I’d stood up for myself and resisted his seduction, then my resistance had dissolved to dust. Whatever I’d thought I was – strong and skeptical, with a spine of grief-tested steel – he had shaken to the core. The only thing I could count on was the desire that boiled over between us, the cosmic crash of his body against mine.
But for how long? I was dangerous to him, and he to me.
A chill of worry skittered down my back as I opened the drapes to a bright, windless day. Marc and I were together again, but neither of us was even pretending we’d last beyond my next assignment. We’d barely lasted until this morning.
Burying my frazzled emotions, I went to the kitchen, poured coffee from the pot Marc had made, and sat at the table to work. I had to remember why I was here: not to obsess over a man or make up for lost orgasms, but to write a good story.
After texting Katherine an emphatic yes to my next assignment, I turned on my laptop and brought up the draft I’d started on my way to Amsterdam. Drawing from my notes, I described the stormy drive to Marc’s mother’s house and Simon’s fabulously shabby chateau. The details were spooky and atmospheric, with just enough description of the family that they wouldn’t appear as question marks in a carefully-researched story. After a quick proofread, I sent a copy to my editor along with photographs of the library and prison. By then it was almost two o’clock, and I hadn’t even eaten yet.
Though I’d managed to put Marc out of my mind for a few minutes at a time while working, he was back and more distracting than ever. He didn’t just rule my orgasms, he could read my mind. He knew my weaknesses as if I’d written him a manual.
When my phone rang, I was so sure he’d sensed my thoughts that I answered without checking the number.
“Hi – Sophie?”
My heart shrank. “Julia.”
Her long sigh said more than she’d ever be able to. She was so sorry. Trevor had pressured her for information and she’d blurted it out. She would never intentionally hurt me. I expected to hear all this and more, but instead she said, “You have to see this from my point of view.”
I squinted and shook my head. “I do?”
“I’m being your friend. You’d have done the same thing in my position.”
Suddenly flushed and hot, I stood up. “Your position is that you’ve known Trevor longer than you’ve known me, and your loyalty lies with him.”
“What does this have to do with loyalty?” she asked. “You’re the sanest person I know, and out of nowhere you get involved in this crazy relationship with a stranger. Who is he? How did you meet him?”
Though there was nothing wrong with the truth, I hesitated anyway. “Um…through work. I’ve been interviewing his family for a story.”
“He’s French?”
“Partly. What does that have to do with it?”
“Nothing,” she said, “except you used to tell me everything and now I can’t get basic details from you. How old is he? What’s his name? How long are you going to be there?”
I scrambled to remember his age. He was thirty, wasn’t he? Or was it thirty-one? Had I even bothered to ask? “Since when do I have to report my every move to my friends?”
“Every move?” Julia said. “Are you serious right now? I’m just worried that something horrible is going to happen to you.”
I rolled my eyes. This from Julia, who’d slept with half a fraternity in college and was dating a nightclub owner with neck tattoos. “There’s more to life than the missionary position,” I said. “This stuff isn’t exactly new. People do it all the time.”
“With somebody they don’t know? When they’re thousands of miles from home, on the rebound and not thinking straight?”
I couldn’t tell if she was making too much sense or none at all. I searched for a way to explain myself without admitting what Marc was doing to me. Ropes and blindfolds and bondage were only words. They couldn’t describe the emotion between us, or our chemistry, or how valued I felt when Marc lived out his fantasies with me. Without my consent he was alone with his desires, frustrated and shut down.
“Relax, Julia. Your imagination is out of control.”
“What do you mean, my imagination?” she said, hitting a shrill note. “I’m making this up. It’s totally out of character for you. You’d never let Trevor treat you that way.”
My cheeks burned at the sound of his name. “So, this is about him, isn’t it? Do you even remember what he did to me or has that already slipped your mind?”
“He cheated on you when he was drunk and he’s very sorry. I know you hate him right now, but letting somebody abuse you isn’t the way to deal with it.”
Abuse you. Julia and Trevor knew exactly how to smear my feelings for Marc with a few horrible words. “This has nothing to do with Trevor, except that I’m glad I finally know what attraction feels like,” I said. “With him I had no idea.”
She snorted. “So it’s a coincidence that a month after you and Trevor break up, you go off the deep end with some guy. Really?”
“Yes, really. Let’s talk when I get back, okay? Until then, please don’t send anybody else to rescue me. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. I can manage a few more days.”
&
nbsp; It wasn’t until I’d hung up that I started shaking, doubts flooding my mind as I stood staring down at the street. Maybe Julia and Trevor were right, and I was in too deep to see it: after two weeks of knowing Marc, I was a self-deluded addict, spellbound by a charismatic abuser. If I were in danger, would I even know? Was his sexual prowess so great that I was helpless, stupid with desire and excited by his sick perversions?
I was aroused just thinking of him, and craved the safety I felt in his arms. With Marc I got to be free, casting off responsibility and living for the next moment of pleasure. Greater than the fear I felt when he spanked or collared me was the feeling of being wanted. Trevor had never wanted me. He’d never shown me who he was. Though I barely knew Marc, I’d already seen the magnetic darkness of his heart and soul. So much of our connection was mental, unspoken, made up of little things no one else would understand.
But was that enough to justify what I was letting him do to me? And why did I think I needed any justification at all?
*
As if he knew I needed a distraction from questions I couldn’t answer, Marc decided to take me out that night.
“I want to show you the neighborhood,” he said, unknotting his tie when he returned from work. “I love you in stockings and heels, but tonight wear something you can walk in.”
I put on jeans and ballet flats, and looped my arm through his as soon as we got outside. As if in silent agreement, neither of us mentioned last night. We stopped at art galleries and strolled through maze-like streets, this morning’s tension replaced by an easy rapport. Maybe it was only temporary, but I’d savor it for as long as it lasted.
When it got dark we ate at a tiny restaurant under dim lights, splitting a carafe of white wine and eating the house specialty, sautéed halibut with caper butter. After dinner, we passed a bearded man at an easel in a cobblestone square, offering caricatures for ten Euros. “Come on,” Marc said, pulling me toward the empty folding chair. “Do one of these for me.”
“Why?” I said.
“So I can see you from a different perspective.”
“A silly one, you mean.”
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 1) Page 17
