by Lilly Black
“That’s true,” I admit with a bashful smile, and I realize my body knew the difference.
“And I love going down on you, Evan,” he adds. “I love the way you taste, the way you scream when you come…” He trails off, biting at my neck, and before long, I’m screaming again.
I see Cain off to work, and about ten minutes later, Nicole comes home still wearing her work uniform from last night. It didn’t cross my mind once that she could have been here listening to Cain and I despite the fact that last night’s rain should have caused Prometheus to close early. Now that I see her, rather than bursting at the seams to tell her about last night - and this morning - I’m suddenly seething as I remember how I felt when I found out that she told Cain my secret.
So much for the afterglow!
“What made you think it was okay for you to tell Cain?” I demand.
“Oh, God,” she complains, but as she rolls her eyes, I stare her down until she accepts that I will not be letting this go. “Someone needed to.”
“It was not your decision!”
“You know what, Evan? Hate me if you want, but I am sick of watching you push everyone away!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nicole.”
“I know better than anyone. I’ve watched you sabotage yourself for six years, but I was not going to let you fuck things up with Cain because you’re scared!”
“I am, but it’s not what you think. You don’t know everything!” I shout.
“Then what is it this time?” She attacks, growing more aggressive with each word. “Is it because he’s rich? Is he too good looking? Too perfect? What is it, Evan, huh? What are you so fucking afraid of?”
“I’m falling in love with him!” The words fly out, and I freeze, taking in a loud gulp of air and covering my mouth with my hand as if I could suck them back up and trap them inside. A bittersweet smile marks Nicole’s face, and she comes toward me, putting her arms around me as I begin to cry. I can’t believe I said that out loud, and now it’s only a matter of time before fate punishes me for having the audacity to think that I might actually deserve love.
As Nicole holds me like a mother, I have to fight against the urge to pull away. To her, this is natural. Her family was always hugging each other, but my mother was cold. The affection I received in her house came from an unwelcome source, and though I yearn for the contact, even now Nicole’s hugs are uncomfortable for me because having someone hold me without a sexual motive seems foreign.
“I won’t be pushing him away anymore,” I finally say, sniffling and embarrassed for letting this weakness show.
“Are you officially dating now?” she asks, and though part of me wants to gush and tell her how amazing Cain is in bed, I decide to keep the secret all mine for a little longer.
“Something like that,” I say. “So where have you been all night?”
“The bar got rained out, so Syndi and I went out drinking. I crashed at her place,” she says. “In fact, I’ve been in these clothes almost 24 hours. I really need a shower. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, and she gets up to leave the room.
“Hey Ev,” she calls back as she stands in the doorway, “I just want you to know I’ve never told anyone before, and I’ll never do it again. I promise.”
September 4
When I got home from work at 3:00 this morning, I sat at the computer and started my BDSM research in earnest before going to be. I learned three things: I still very much like the idea of wielding the power, I do seem to have an inclination toward the opposite in spite of myself, and there are some things on the internet that you simply cannot unsee.
It also kept me up too late, considering how little time I had to sleep before being due back at work for the early shift today, but when I see Cain step out of the elevator at 8:00 pm looking incredible as usual as he makes his way through the gauntlet of women trying to draw his attention, I don’t feel tired at all.
“Hey,” he says when he reaches me where I sit at the bar having already changed into a new dress Lucy delivered to me earlier.
“Hey.”
“You look beautiful.”
“So do you,” I say, gazing up into his eyes from the barstool as he towers above me. They look green tonight, and I breathe in his divine scent as he asks if I’d like to finish my drink before we leave. Absolutely not! I’m ready to get the eyes of these predatory women off us and go wherever he’s taking me to talk about whips and chains and other things I had never expected to find myself discussing.
He’s taking me to Aria’s at the Cove, a long established, high-end restaurant in downtown La Jolla where it’s damn near impossible to get a reservation.
“I spent a lot of time on the internet last night,” I say as he pulls the Jaguar out of the parking lot, impatient to find out if he is into any of the shit that made my flesh crawl because if he is, we can wrap this up neat and tidy and be done with it.
“And?” he asks.
“And I have some important questions, but I’m a little afraid you’ll pretend to agree with me for now, thinking you can talk me into other things in the future…you know, like how you are cleverly trying to bypass the formality of me actually agreeing to be your girlfriend.” Cain laughs, but as we stop at a red light, he turns toward me with a serious look on his face.
“Evan, all joking aside, this sort of arrangement can never work if there are lies between us,” he says, then his expression softens. “And I should have told you to be cautious when looking up BDSM on the internet. The term is broad, and as much as I want you, even I have deal breakers.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like cuckolding, erotic asphyxiation, anything involving, shall we say, bodily fluids not commonly associated with sex, and I cannot tolerate any public display of this private part of my life.”
“I don’t know what you mean by cock holding, but otherwise, we’re totally on the same page.”
“We’ll worry about cock holding later,” Cain says with a laugh. “So tell me your hard limits.”
“Hard limits?”
“Definite deal breakers. Soft limits are maybes, but we don’t have to carve anything in stone but the hard limits, especially since this is entirely hypothetical, my dear friend.” I giggle, and as Cain drives down the winding streets of La Jolla, I gather the courage to share my list of hard limits.
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I’m not saying this is everything, but I was put off by things like…medical instruments…people being treated like horses and dogs….people dressed up like babies…” I squirm in my seat, embarrassed to have him know I’ve looked at these things, but Cain just smiles.
“I have absolutely no interest in any of those things.” I breathe a sigh of relief, but as he pulls up to the valet stand at Aria’s, the reasons I have been resisting dating him collide with my reservations about BDSM. My insecurities surface, and the last thing I need right now is to have those feelings exacerbated by the looks as I walk through this expensive restaurant on his arm.
What’s he doing with you anyway? My baggage asks. You’re not worthy of a man like him, and he knows it. He doesn’t want to date you. He just wants to hide you away, tie you up, and use you as a sex slave. And as the Maître d’ walks us past all of the high profile tables to a completely private dining room, it only serves to reinforce that paranoia. The anxiety builds in my chest, tightening and burning, and I escape just as the tears start trickling down my face.
In the sitting area of the ladies’ room, I stand at the mirror farthest from the door, pretending to touch up my makeup as I unsuccessfully try to contain the tears. Dabbing them away with a tissue, I get the sudden feeling I’m being watched. Slowly, I look up, my eyes flying open wide when I notice Cain’s face reflected above mine, looking into my eyes through the mirror, and I have no clue how long he’s been there.
“You can’t be in here,” I protest with an unwelcome smile. It’s so like him
to have no compunction about walking into the ladies’ room.
“If they want me gone, they can drag me out,” he says, his expression set and serious. “Why are you crying, Evan? What did I do?” He honestly has no idea…but why would he? This reaction to him wanting privacy for us is probably entirely unique to me and my stupid, fucking issues.
“It’s nothing,” I say.
“It isn’t nothing,” he insists as he wipes the last tear from the corner of my right eye with his finger, “and I’m not leaving this room until you tell me what it is.”
“Cain, I don’t know. It’s just…”
“If you say we’re from different worlds again, I swear to God, I’ll yank your panties down and turn you over my knee right here in the ladies’ room, and I don’t give a fuck who sees me do it.” Cain quietly breathes his threat into my ear, but his tone is stern and precise, giving me chills.
Why am I so turned on by something I am passionately opposed to?
“It’s not that,” I whisper.
“Then tell me what it is.”
“It’s the whole…” I catch his eyes in the mirror and mouth the next word “…BDSM thing.”
“Your body says otherwise,” Cain says as he runs the back of his hand down the gooseflesh on my arm, and I know I can’t lie to him when even my skin is betraying me. It’s time to suck it up and be honest.
“Are you ashamed of me?” I ask.
“No!” he hisses adamantly. “How could you even think that?”
“Because even in public you take me to private places - a private dining room, a booth with a door, a private opera box - and now you want to make a…sex slave of me?” I’m whispering so low that on some words I’m barely speaking at all because the quieter I say it, the less likely it is to take root and make me start crying again.
“I take you to these places,” Cain says, bracing my shoulders with his hands, “because I want you all to myself. I don’t want other men looking at you. I’m possessive, Evan. It’s who I am. Possessive but never jealous until last Monday night. When Steel had his eyes all over you, I saw red. I didn’t just want to hit him. I wanted to knock his teeth down his fucking throat. And then at Envy, there were all of those men surrounding you…”
“I’m sorry,” I say, laughing.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Cain says. “Or embarrassed.” I am embarrassed and would typically deal with it by hiding in the ladies’ room, but now I don’t even have that refuge from Cain.
“Baby, I could never be ashamed of you,” he says, directing me in the mirror with his own eyes. “You’re beautiful, and I’ve never wanted anyone or anything in my entire life like I want you. You’re perfect, Evan, and I never want to hear you say otherwise again.” As I struggle to make myself believe him, I suddenly feel his erection against my ass. I squirm a little, making sure he knows I’m aware of it, and even as it feeds my insecurities, that slight movement against his hard cock shoots through me like a thunderbolt.
“Come back to the dining room with me, Evan…please.” I relent, and when I turn to face him, I realize we’ve been standing here as if we’re the only two people in the world for far too long. We are not alone.
I grab Cain’s hand to lead him out, walking slightly in front of him to keep other women from ogling his cock as we return to our private dining room. Our waiter is already there opening the bottle of wine Cain ordered in my absence. Cain asks him to give us a moment before we order, and the second the door is closed, he wants to talk about what made me cry.
“It’s not your fault, and you shouldn’t have to deal with this drama. It wasn’t fair of me,” I say, hoping to make that the end of it, but Cain shakes his head.
“Evan, in California alone, there are hundreds of bars, social groups, and websites where I could find experienced submissives who know what to expect and won’t get emotional over it. I’ve been to places like that all over the world, but what I’ve learned is that I don’t want some other man’s well-trained drone. I want a strong, willful woman who has never served any Master before me,” he says, and as I cringe at the word master, he just smiles and continues. “What you’re feeling is completely natural, and you are under no pressure from me to even discuss it further until you feel ready. I can be very patient.”
“I doubt that,” I say, making a joke of it. Cain laughs.
“Try me, but tabling this discussion does not preclude me from locking that door and doing you right here on the table,” he says, his voice warm and hypnotic. “Bondage doesn’t define me, Evan. It’s purely sexual, and outside of the dungeon, dating me can be perfectly normal.”
“Cain Ballantyne, nothing about you is perfectly normal,” I say, “but I’m not sure I could even handle it part time.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re just friends,” he reminds me.
“Friends with benefits,” I say quietly, wishing he would do me right here on the table. When the waiter returns, Cain meets him at the door, whispers something, passes him a tip, and sets the lock.
“Come here,” he says, his eyes dark and lustful.
Yes, Master, I think, toying with the possibilities inside my head.
Standing against the wall by the door, Cain takes my face in his hands and kisses me gently, but gentle isn’t what I want. I attack his mouth, pushing his hands away so I can undress him. I pull his jacket off by the sleeves, letting it fall to the ground, then I move his hands to the buttons of his shirt while I unzip his pants, pulling them down to release his cock.
I flip the light switch, leaving us in candlelight as he pins me against the wall, his knee between my legs, holding me while he unbuckles the leather belt of my dress, pulling it out of the loops so fast I feel it burn through the thin fabric, but the pain only excites me. He starts to unbutton the top of my dress, but he loses patience, pulling the rest of the bodice open so roughly he rips it where it meets the skirt as the buttons pop off and disappear. I don’t even care.
“I’ll buy you another,” he vows, kissing my neck.
“It’s yours to destroy,” I say, and before it can slide past my hips, he grabs it and rips it all the way to the hem. Then he steps back to look me over, head to toe in my black, lacy bra, panties, and garter belt with sheer, nude stockings.
“You look fucking incredible,” he says, each syllable dripping with the drive behind the words. “Keep the shoes on.”
Cain lifts my leg, wrapping it around his hip, and pulling the crotch of my panties over to the side, he thrusts into me, fucking me hard against the wall. I wrap myself around him, squirming until I find just the right angle, and as his cock, hard as stone, drives me to madness, I pull his head back by the hair and bite his neck, preparing to muffle the screams I already hear inside my head.
“Come for me, Evan,” he whispers, and his command is law, demanding my complete and immediate obedience. With no will of my own, I explode, my praises all but silenced as my mouth vibrates against his neck. Grasping my hips, he pulls me down hard and holds me there, grinding his cock into me, like a fiery sword - hard as metal and hot as the blood in his veins. I didn’t know sex could be like this, and I feel like I could cry, devastated by Cain’s intensity and raw power. My mind completely defiled, he keeps me there, his lips by my ear, tracing it with his tongue as his breath on my neck sends a shudder down my spine, and when the orgasm finally subsides, he carries me to the table.
As he lays me down gently before him, he sits, and when he starts to take off my garters to remove my panties, he’s pleased to find that I’ve clasped the garter to the stockings beneath them - a trick the sales lady mentioned while shopping - so the panties could be removed without having to undo the clips.
“Mmmm…nice,” he says, and he grabs my panties, not at the top or sides but right in the middle between my legs and yanks them down to the top of my stockings, stopping before he disturbs the garters. He pushes my legs in the air, his grip on my panties holding them in place, and then I feel
his tongue on my clit, warm and velvety, teasing me, worshipping me, gradually growing in speed and pressure until as he coaxes pleasures out of me that I never knew were possible.
He takes my panties off and leans in, spreading my legs so far apart they ache, and as I clench my muscles, holding back because it’s almost too intense, I catch a glimpse of his beautiful face pressed hard against me and forget where we are as I feel the orgasm takes hold of me.
“Oh God, Cain!” I moan loudly, my legs trembling with the impending chaos, and he reaches up with one hand and shoves my panties in my mouth just before I erupt, tumultuously thrusting myself into his face, riding out of the waves as he holds me against him with his hands on my ass.
When I begin to squirm away, I start to take the panties out of my mouth because I want to suck Cain’s cock right now, but he stops me, pulling me off the table and bending me over it. Then he’s inside me again, thick and perfect, and already feeling so close after what he just did to me, he quickly drives me to the brink of insanity. I scream, my cries muffled by the panties in my mouth, my whole body crushed beneath the weight of a savage orgasm that leaves me shaking and overwrought, and even when it’s over, I can still feel it, settled between my legs, a heavy, drugged sensation radiating outward, taking me over. But I won’t allow myself to relax and bask in the afterglow or allow Cain to keep fucking me because now I am of a single mind. I want his cock in my mouth.
I push back against him with my ass, forcing him out of me, then I turn around and straddle him as he sits in the booth, feeling his hungry cock beneath me as I kiss him, pushing the panties from my mouth into his with my tongue. I’m in charge now, and he surrenders to me as I shove him against his seat with my hands on his shoulders. I slide into the floor, kneeling before him and sucking his beautiful, marble cock, desperate to make him feel like I feel in this moment, and as he watches me, my black panties peeking out of his lips, I give him the full attention of my mouth, tongue, and hands until I hear my name, cried in ecstasy, unmistakable even muted by that black, lacy gag.
