‘You know what you have to do,’ he said. He rotated his hips, achingly slowly, then withdrew a fraction so that my clit was left to throb untended.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s a blogger whose blog has disappeared. I want to find out what’s happened to her, OK?’
He grinned roguishly and kissed the tip of my nose.
‘There, you see. Not so difficult, was it? Now you’re going to show me everything you’ve got on this blogger…’
I clenched my fists and beat them on the duvet, my teeth gritted with frustration.
‘…but don’t worry. You’re going to get what you’ve been begging for first. Painkillers?’
‘In the drawer…top drawer…there’s a bottle of water on the side.’
He got the necessaries and gave them to me to take. He’d also managed to find a pack of condoms, and he shed his boots and trousers while I downed a brace of Nurofen, getting himself rubbered up in double-quick time.
‘Right,’ he said, once I’d put down the water bottle. ‘What’s the best position for getting fucked with a sprained ankle, Foxy? Any ideas?’
I scooted back and put a pillow under the offending joint.
‘This is probably the easiest,’ I said, eating him up with my eyes. Long legs, long arms, long…everything.
He put one knee on the edge of the mattress, striking a manly pose with his chest out and shoulders back.
‘Are you ready for it?’ he said, thrusting his hips forward.
‘I think so.’
He placed himself on his knees between my thighs and fixed his lips to my ear.
‘I bet you are,’ he whispered. One finger descended on the lace strip that covered my pussy and began to stroke it, from bottom to top, slowly. His fingernail tickled my fattening clit. The material was soaked already. Surely it couldn’t take much more.
I knew I couldn’t. I threw back my head and whimpered.
Harder, please.
But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to give orders. I wanted him to be in charge.
The next thing I felt, through my delirious haze, was something soft and wet, lapping at the sodden fabric. He pushed his tongue into every crevice, getting the lace barrier wetter and wetter, taking it all into his mouth in a bunch then releasing it to tease me some more. I was beginning to hate these knickers. But I was pretty sure he didn’t feel the same way.
‘All right,’ he said at last, hoarse but determined. ‘Tell me if it hurts, OK?’
I caught a breath and stared at him. But he meant my ankle.
He didn’t even take the knickers off to fuck me.
He pushed the gusset aside and slid his cock inside, fast and smooth, and exactly the way I needed it. My unsprained ankle found its way to his shoulder and I lay in a slightly twisted position, my bottom half off the bed, giving him the best angle of penetration I possibly could.
He used that angle to the fullest, thrusting hard, using his fingers to work at my nipples or my clit whenever he wanted to see my face change. He watched me all the way through, so intently that I shut my eyes in the end. I gave myself up to the feeling of helpless ravishment. I was his to take, and he took me.
I don’t know if my ankle hurt or not. I only knew that furtive, needy creep towards climax, letting him build it inside me, helping him stoke my fire with little movements and silent hints. He read me perfectly. He knew what turned me on.
I’d been wrong about him.
When I was so close there was no chance of turning back, I opened my eyes for a peek at him. His sweat-sheened determination helped me over the edge. His utter focus on what he was doing to me would stay with me, helping me through the dark and lonely nights to come.
I fell helplessly into his ownership. That was how it felt, to come with him inside me. Like being owned and known in a way I could never take back.
‘That’s it, that’s it,’ he whispered with a ferocity matched by his thrusts. ‘Got you now.’
Then he came too, his face at once so wild and so vulnerable that it pierced my heart.
He stayed inside me for a while and we just held on to each other, waiting for our bodies to stop falling and our heads to clear.
‘Mm,’ he said, his eyes dazed and half-closed, as he pulled out and flopped beside me. ‘That hit the spot.’ He kissed my ear. ‘How’s your ankle?’
‘Ankle? Oh, yeah.’ I was suddenly aware again of the pain, though it was muted now, and seemed far away.
He was amused. ‘You’d forgotten about it?’
‘I think I had. They should prescribe you on the National Health.’
He smiled, running his hand over my fishnetted curves again.
‘You too,’ he said. ‘Take three times daily after meals.’
‘I think I could handle that,’ I said.
He sat up and put his hand around my ankle.
‘It needs bandaging,’ he said. ‘Have you got anything?’
‘Not bandages per se,’ I said. ‘A dressing-gown cord is as close as it gets.’
‘That’d do.’
The robe was hanging on the door. He took the satin belt from its loops and wrapped it slowly and carefully around the swollen area, down to my heel.
I shut my eyes and imagined he was tying me up for real, about to hobble me or bind me to the bedpost. He would keep me spreadeagled here, ready for sex whenever he felt the urge.
‘Is that all right?’ he asked. ‘Too tight?’
‘A little tighter would be fine,’ I said.
I opened my eyes to watch him pull it taut and let out a shuddering breath, excited again, despite my post-coital limpness.
‘Did that hurt?’ he asked, all concern.
‘No,’ I said unevenly. ‘’Sfine.’
One side of his mouth twitched up, but his brow was furrowed, as if trying to solve me like a riddle.
‘Good,’ he said.
I knew I was blushing. I felt I’d given something away.
‘Right, well, I’m going to get you a bag of frozen peas or something, to put against it, and then you’re going to turn on your computer and tell me all about this blogger of yours.’
Oh, bugger! He was supposed to have forgotten about that. The mind-blowing sex had failed to blow enough of his mind.
He helped me up from the bed, supported me over to my desk and sat me in the chair. My knickers felt cold and slimy and the fuzzy upholstery of the cushion prickled my sensitive skin. My hold-ups were clinging damply to my legs and I didn’t dare turn my head far enough to catch my reflection in the dressing-table mirror.
He dealt with the condom and wrapped himself in my beltless robe, then disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
What was I going to do? Could I make something up? But what? Couldn’t I just say it was a news blog or a fashion blog or a…
He came back in with a bag of Bird’s Eye’s finest and rubbed them against my ankle.
‘Christ!’ I yelped, kicking away as fast as I could. ‘It’s freezing!’
‘You seem surprised,’ he said, laughing at me.
‘I’m not – it’s just…wouldn’t a bit of coldish water do?’
He rolled his eyes and left the room again, giving me a bit more time to play with.
A fashion blog? But then it would seem weird to be so concerned about its disappearance. And if I spun some yarn about a news blogger disappearing, he’d jump all over it and want to investigate.
Would it be so difficult to tell him the truth?
He returned half a minute later with a basin of cool water. I put my foot in it and he pulled up my dressing-table stool and sat on it, hands on his knees, leaning towards me with clear and eager expectation.
‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘You promised me something.’
‘It’s nothing really,’ I said, fidgeting with the keyboard.
He shook his head sternly.
‘I don’t think so, missy,’ he said. ‘Spill, or there’ll be trouble.’
Trouble, eh?
Despite my nerves, a spark ignited between my tired legs.
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ he said. ‘You’re not too grown-up to go across my knee, young lady.’
Oh, my God! Did he actually just say that?
All I could do was stare foolishly at him, my jaw apparently frozen.
‘You think I’m joking?’ he said, his voice now low and seductive. ‘Come on, Foxy. Out with it.’
He was joking. He must have been.
I held my breath for the time it took to log on, a torrent of possible things to say rushing through my mind, all of them inappropriate and embarrassing.
‘So there was this blogger,’ I said, much too fast, my words pouring out with the long-held breath. ‘She seemed to be getting into some kind of weird stuff. And she was about to go on this maybe quite risky, uh, journey, and then she never updated and her blog has been taken down.’
‘And you think something’s happened to her?’
I nodded.
He put a hand on mine.
‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said, so gently I wanted to cry. ‘You’re shaking. You’re really that worried about her?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ I said, running a fishnetted forearm across my eyes. ‘Dunno. It’s probably nothing. Anyway.’ I made a dive for the off switch, but Tom was having none of it.
‘You’re worried,’ he said firmly. ‘So it isn’t nothing. And you can’t leave it there. You haven’t told me anything yet.’
‘I…it’s difficult,’ I muttered.
‘Why is it difficult? What’s the weird, risky stuff you were talking about? Is she an undercover journalist or something? Getting in deep with criminals? Terrorists? The government? MI5? Old TV personalities of the 1970s?’
I snorted despite my anxieties.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re miles off track. It’s nothing like that.’
My ears burned. They must have been bright red. I could always put it down to the vigorous activities we’d recently engaged in, but somehow I didn’t think he’d fall for it.
‘Oh!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Online dating. Meeting strange men off the internet? I’m right, aren’t I?’
I stared at my Ripper Street wallpaper. The lawmen of Whitechapel stared accusingly back out at me. They would have guessed it by now, I bet.
‘I’m right,’ said Tom, sitting back with a self-congratulatory grin. ‘Oh, Foxy. You haven’t resorted to Plenty of Fish, have you? You only had to call me.’
‘No,’ I said crossly. ‘Wrong again. It’s not online dating…not exactly, anyway.’
‘Wife swapping? Sex dungeons? A cam girl! Is it a cam girl?’
‘No, but you weren’t far off with one of those.’
‘Ooh. Come on. You might as well tell me or I’ll carry on making wilder and wilder guesses. You won’t shock me, I promise. You probably won’t even surprise me.’
He winked and I squirmed in my seat.
‘You think?’ I said.
He took hold of my hands and held them tight, looking seriously into my eyes.
‘I think,’ he said quietly. ‘So, here’s my theory. Would you say that you might perhaps be a little bit…kinky?’
I held myself still, not daring to breathe. The only things that might have moved were my pupils, which, I’m pretty sure, were dilated as fuck. If they were, they’d have matched his. He looked positively brimful of lascivious curiosity.
‘What makes you say that?’ I whispered.
‘I’m a journalist. I pick up on clues,’ he said. ‘The corset, the Victoriana, the subtle hints in the way you kiss…’
‘Really? It’s that obvious? It can’t be!’ I was horrified. I might just as well have been walking around town with a billboard marked SUBMISSIVE, if he was right.
His grave expression dissolved into something more puckish.
‘Nah, I’m kidding you. There’s, uh, a book in your bedside drawer, underneath the thesaurus. I spotted it when I was getting the painkillers.’
‘Oh.’ I smote my brow, cringing. How could I have forgotten? ‘Right.’
‘Right.’ His eyes danced with amusement. ‘And don’t tell me it was a present, or came free with a magazine, because you’ve admitted it now. Just tell me one thing. Are you top or bottom? Or do you switch?’
Interesting that he was so free with the terminology, but perhaps he’d just read one too many Fifty Shades articles.
‘I’m not a Miss Whiplash type,’ I said, unable to say the words ‘I’m a bottom’ to the most attractive man I’d ever got near.
‘No? You prefer a Mr Whiplash then? Sorry. I don’t mean to be flippant. Honestly, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Like I said, it hardly comes as a shock. More a…pleasant surprise.’
Pleasant? Was I dreaming? And he had said that thing about putting me over his knee. It had been bait! He’d been fishing for a confession, not just larking about.
‘Really? Why’s that?’
He cupped my cheek with one hand, stroking it, lowering his face to mine.
‘Why do you think?’
‘You…?’ The sentence remained unfinished. I could only ask the question with my eyes.
‘Let’s just say I enjoyed binding your ankle a little bit too much,’ he said. ‘I found myself looking for a bedpost to tie it to.’
I laughed nervously. ‘Perhaps I should invest in a four-poster then.’
‘Perhaps you should.’ He kissed me and the tearful feeling came back. Could this be real? I felt as if I were tottering on the brink of something potentially life-changing, for good or ill. There was danger inherent in letting him so far inside me, but also the potential for a new level of fulfilment.
He laughed, breaking the kiss and rumpling my already rumpled hair with two long fingers.
‘You should look at yourself,’ he said. ‘What a picture. Is my eyeliner as smudged as yours?’
I smiled. ‘Pretty much.’
A beat of silence followed, into which too many questions swarmed, each eager to get to the front of the queue. He got his in first.
‘So…have you done much of this kind of thing then?’
I shook my head.
‘No,’ I admitted, screwing up my face apologetically. Perhaps he was after an experienced player and this would be goodbye. ‘Just never seemed to…come up…You know?’
His eyes shone like blue crystals.
‘But you always wanted to?’ he said.
‘Yes. Always. What about you?’
‘I’ve smacked a few arses in my time,’ he said. ‘But it’s never been serious. Just part of the rough sex fun. I’ve always been interested in taking things further, but never wanted to freak anybody out by showing them the extent of my perversions.’
I blanched a little at that. ‘The extent of my perversions.’ It sounded a bit sinister.
‘So, uh, what is their extent?’ I asked, trying to sound casual while my brain begged him not to mention knives or suffocation.
‘You look scared,’ he noted with a self-conscious chuckle. ‘Don’t worry. Your book takes it a little further than I’d go. I’m pretty much a chapters-one-to-five kind of guy.’
I covered my sigh of relief with a laugh.
‘Right. Chapter six is where it starts getting into the piercing party scene. You wouldn’t go that far?’
‘Well, probably not. Though I never say never.’
‘Pony play? Adult baby?’
He was laughing now. ‘Enough, enough, now. I’ve told you. Chapters one to five. Read it again if you’ve forgotten what they cover.’
But I didn’t need to. I remembered well enough, and the memory made me glow.
‘So. This blog then.’
The change of tone and subject was so abrupt I had to force my mind back to Mia Culpa and her disappearance. She had been all but forgotten in the excitement of shared deviance and all the delightful implications.
‘Oh. Yeah. Well, it’s a BDSM blog. And, li
ke I said, the blogger has disappeared and so has her blog.’
‘Show me.’
I typed in the URL and the mysterious ‘page not found’ message appeared on screen.
‘Not much to show,’ I said. ‘It was here, and then it wasn’t.’
Tom leant over me, peering at the screen as if he expected the generic deletion message to yield him some unique insight.
‘Not much to go on,’ he said.
‘No, but I saved all the posts,’ I told him.
‘Really? Well, come on, then. Let’s see them.’
I opened the folder and left it open without comment.
‘There’s a lot of them,’ he remarked. ‘What do you know about her? Off the top of your head.’
‘She is – or was – a student here. No idea which college or even if it is a college. Could have been the Open University for all I know.’
‘She lives here?’
‘Well, I think so. Some of the places she’s been to are highly recognisable from her descriptions. If you take a look, I think you’ll agree.’
‘What makes you think there’s something dodgy about it? Sex blogs get taken down all the time. People move on in their lives, or the web host deletes them because of complaints. All kinds of reasons.’
‘Her last post was about a trip she was making to some kind of training school for submissives. She was excited about it, and couldn’t wait to update us about what happened. Then she left and never came back. There’s just something…off about it. Why would she do that?’
‘You think something happened to her there?’
‘Perhaps. I don’t think Mia was the type who would just leave us hanging like that. She really enjoyed sharing all these new experiences with her readers. It was like…it was part of the thrill for her.’
‘A bit of an exhibitionist, maybe?’
‘Maybe. It was such a big part of her life. I can’t believe she’d willingly end it like this.’
‘And did she have a Dom?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do we know about him?’
‘Not much. Refers to him as “J” and says he works in some kind of respected profession.’
‘Not a journalist, then?’ said Tom, with a twinkle. ‘I guess…doctor, lawyer…oh! University lecturer?’
‘They hooked up through some kind of private chat group, I think.’
Fast and Loose Page 4
