by Adira August
She took a sip and almost moaned at the wonderful flavor. She slid her hand over the warm wood countertop and noticed it was beautiful, burled. Maple? And then she looked up and out through the windows at the view and suddenly the money was real to her. It’s more than warm hand towels and great toilet paper, she thought.
“What is it?” He asked. “You look … are you not feeling well? Is it the wine?” He picked up her glass and sniffed and swirled and tasted.
“It’s fine. The wine. This is a beautiful countertop.”
“Reclaimed wood. Guy up in Minnesota goes around the country saving wood from barns and and old houses. He made this for me.” He set the glass back in front of her.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said firmly.
Avia drank more of the very nice and probably scarily expensive wine. Light and dry and fruity.
“I’m sorry. Seriously. It suddenly hit me. The money. I - it’s hard to explain. Four billion dollars isn’t a real thing. It’s words on the Forbes list.”
She gestured across the room. “But this. You own a place I can’t afford to spend a night in. The paintings any museum would kill to own, sitting here, night after night with no one to see them. This amazing wine I’d just as soon not know the price of. These things are real and relatable and, it makes me feel …”
“What?” He asked quietly.
“Alien. Insignificant.” She said. “And I know it’s my problem and I know I have to get over it, but right now ... right now I’m ... I can’t imagine what you would want with me. And I have pretty decent self-esteem. I just … I don’t make sense in this picture except as what we both agreed on, pretty much. But it seemed like an equal exchange, then. And now it just seems like … ”
“I don’t understand, what did we agree on?” He asked, his voice still soft. Controlled.
“To be each other’s convenience fuck. It’s not even friends with benefits, is it? Just horny acquaintances.” She stopped then and held up a hand. “Again, I apologize. But you asked. Demanded, technically. Sometimes the shit that runs through someone’s mind isn’t very pleasant. Or reasonable.”
She slid off the leather-covered counter chair but had nowhere to go. She stood clutching herself as if she were cold, looking about the unfamiliar surroundings, lost in the luxury. Tears gathered.
“I don’t want to feel like this. All the way up in the elevator, I was so looking forward to what you said in the car. I thought it just would be a room. A nice room. A suite, maybe but -”
“You asked me if I owned the hotel.”
“It was a joke,” she whispered, her throat tight with unshed tears and stress. “But then you avoided the question with a history lesson.”
She twisted her body to look at him without moving. She wasn’t feeling very steady on her feet. But he wasn’t there. He was at her other side, her blind side. His energy and his arms enfolded her. He scooped her up as if she were weightless and carried her to the wide windows. Sliding open a glass door, he stepped out into the cooling evening air.
“Look,” he said. The late afternoon sun lit an enormous bank of clouds over the Front Range from underneath, the valleys in deep shadow, the peaks bright and clean-edged against a brilliant blue sky tinged with vermilion that faded to orange and gold. “Look at the light. The chiaroscuro.”
Avia looked. She laid her head on his shoulder and drank in this sky she loved, every day. Towering with lethal supercells or perfectly clear and blue or scudded by mackerel clouds, she loved the Colorado sky. And he watched with her, as if he loved it just as much.
“Those are beautiful paintings inside,” he finally said. “That’s why I kept them. But you’re right. You see, even when I’m here, I don’t sit and look at them. When I’m here, I’m right here.” He indicated the the space around them. “And I’m looking at that.” He nodded at Mount Evans in the distance.
He set her down and took her hand so she was standing beside him, both watching the sun lower. “You’re here, Avia, because anyone else would either still be inside looking at the paintings and wondering how much they’re worth, or not have noticed them, at all.”
He shrugged at a sudden thought. “Probably why I’ve never brought anyone else here.”
What? She almost cricked her neck she turned to him so quickly. He smiled down at her reaction, and she longed for him to kiss her. And he knew it. And he wanted to. And she knew it. But it was far too big a step. They both knew.
This moment of shared desire and mutual understanding was about them, not about what surrounded them. And it was at that moment, that his money became irrelevant to her. She felt the tension drain from her neck and shoulders.
Well, shit, I’m never going to get fed or fucked at this rate, she thought, deciding to get over herself.
“C’mon,” she said re-entering the penthouse.“I need to drink more of that obscenely expensive wine. And you promised me food.”
He followed her inside. “It’s a hundred dollars a bottle. Even you can afford that.”
“It’s a hundred dollars a bottle because you import it yourself in tankerloads, I’ll bet.” He didn’t contradict her.
She reached the island and snatched up her glass, slugging down the rest of her wine and reaching for the bottle, hoping to lighten the mood for them both.
“You chugged my Château d’Esclans!” He said, outraged, and narrowed his eyes at her. “You are so getting spanked!”
“I thought I was getting fed, first.” She looked curiously at the dishes he’d placed on the table, lifting a lid. “Soup?” She asked.
He went around the counter and began dishing soup into her bowl. “It’s tofu vegetable and it’s very good.” He sprinkled fresh chopped cilantro over the surface and then served them both. “I thought we’d have something light. I don’t want all the blood pooling in your abdomen instead of your pelvis.”
She sighed with theatrical passion. “Such a romantic!”
He doled out some Chinese dumplings to each of them and set a bowl of sesame sauce on the counter between their plates.
“Do you think of everything in terms of sex?” She asked.
“When I’m with you, yes,” he said. “It’s my area of expertise.” He slid a covered dish over and she found it held a mound of fluffy white rice. She spooned some into her soup.
“Am I allowed to ask about my spanking?”
“No,” he said. “There’s something else I want to discuss with you. I want to know what kind of porn you’d like to see.”
Avia blinked as she raised a spoon to her mouth. She looked around the room slowly as she chewed. “Do you have a collection?”
“No. I’m asking you, as a woman, a sexual creature. If you could design a video you’d find sexy, something to maybe watch with a partner, to set a mood, get aroused, what would you like to see?”
“Hud,” she said promptly.
“Three guys on a ranch shooting a herd of sick cattle to death?” He was obviously baffled.
“We’d never get to that part, because first we’d see Paul Newman on a bed giving Patricia Neal that sexy bad-boy grin and her all turned on and doing what she has to, to not turn around, because if she does she’s gonna end up underneath him.”
He looks lost, she thought. “Bound,” she said.
His spoon clattered into his bowl. “Killer lesbians?”
“A woman a hair’s breadth from orgasm being fingered by a lover keeping her on the edge.” Avia raised an eyebrow at him. “You should have figured that one out.”
“But you never see anything.” He protested.
“I see her,” Avia said. “In both movies, I see her. I see her arousal and I can share that. I know where it’s coming from. How it feels.
“I do not want to see how someone fingers her, because maybe that’s not how I like it. I want to imagine the perfect movements, for me. The right pressure and placement, for me.”
He pushed his plate aside, listening carefully.
“And if this spanking you keep promising lives up to its hype, I might like Secretary. I haven’t seen it, yet.”
“You have me all at sea, here, Avia.” He said. “Your insight and intellect. Your responsiveness and adventurousness. Invading my spaces. Topping from the bottom.”
She started. “I never did that.”
“On the ride down,” he said. “You reached out and touched me.”
“There’s nothing in the rules that says I can’t touch you.”
“There doesn’t have to be. Unless something is specified beforehand, a submissive never takes it upon herself to touch her Dom sexually,” he said.
“Then you should have mentioned it to me, specifically, as I am not well-versed in what submissives do or don’t do.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “And I could not be ‘topping from the bottom’ as I am not now, nor have I ever been, the bottom.” She said. “I’m not your sub. I’m your companion.”
“I told you I’m a Dominant. You agreed to obey me.”
“I agreed because you said it was the only way to get to our destination.” She said. “Not because I’m a submissive.”
He frowned and sat back, considering her. Silent and still. His expression cold. His countenance subtly shifting to the drawn planes and dark hollows of Domination. The atmosphere in the room charged with erotic tension.
Oh, fuck, she thought. What did I do, now?
He rose and walked slowly around the counter until he stood over her. “Enough conversation.” He lifted the front of her skirt and considered her. “Open,” he said.
She parted her legs. The tell-tale flush of humiliation crept up to her face, accompanied by the inevitable pulsing of her clit. She focused on keeping her legs still.
“Wider.” He said.
She grabbed the edge of the counter for balance and spread her legs, the tall, armless chair providing no stopping place. He continued to stare. When she had spread her legs as far as she could, she stopped. Her feet dangled. She began to pant slightly.
His gaze lifted to her breasts and then to her face.
“Your nipples are hard. Your pussy is wet. You love to submit.” His voice hoarse with his own arousal. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, Sir. But - “ Her mouth snapped shut at the glare he gave her. You don’t speak unless you are asked to.
He stepped into her, between her legs. Gathering both her wrists in one strong hand behind her back, he grabbed her hair with the other and tilted her face up. Her body bowed, thrusting her breasts out so her nipples just grazed his chest. She gasped.
“But?” He demanded, his voice dangerously soft. “But what?”
“I like the other, too,” she panted. “Like in the car.”
He forced her wrists down further, bending her back even more. Letting go of her hair, his hand disappeared between her legs. She felt nothing until one finger traced her slit lightly, up and down, through the yoke of her panties.
“Like in the car?” he whispered. “You think that was other? You goaded me into spanking you, into shoving your mouth back down and fucking it all the way into your throat, so you could come.” His finger stopped on her swollen clit. He drew his fingernail slowly over and around it, circling, just barely touching the hard nub through the wet fabric of her panties.
“Answer me, Avia, did you want to submit in the car?”
She was openly panting now, her clit burning. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, Sir.”
“You wanted me to take you. Control you. Spank you. Make you come.”
“Yes, Sir.” Her voice barely a whisper. That finger, that finger, oh please I can’t stand it …
“What does that make you?” He whispered as nuzzled her ear.
She struggled to move against him, but she had no purchase. He held her bowed body motionless against the back of the chair while he tortured her throbbing clit. The aching in her cunt deepened to an intractable, constant pain.
“What does that make you, Avia?” He repeated.
She struggled again. But her lower legs only jerked uselessly.
He moved even closer to her, pressing his thighs against the seat edge. He widened his stance, one leg and then the other, shoving her knees even further part, stopping what little movement she’d managed.
Standing over her now, looking directly down into her flushed, upturned face, her mouth open, wet and gasping, he said, “Ten.”
His finger never lost contact with her clit. His hand never lost control of her wrists. He never lost the maddeningly precise pressure and rhythm of his nail across the burning center of her suffering and desire. She knew he wouldn’t tire, wouldn’t stop.
“What does that make you?”
“Submissive.” She finally whispered and the entire length of her vulva seized helplessly, unable to come without his help. And permission.
“Do not move.” He withdrew his hands from her and straightened. She whimpered. He didn’t need to hear it to know how desperate she was to come.
“I told you once I’d give you what you want, the way you want, as long as you want. Not what you think you want, what you really want.”
He walked out. He fished his cell from his front pants pocket, a feat considering how much room his erection took up. He pulled up the app for the security cameras. Swiped to the kitchen. She hadn’t moved. Good, he thought. It’ll make my choice of implements much easier if she continues to obey.
Ben Hart wasn’t going to some room to relieve himself this time. He cut through the main room to the foyer and grabbed a black nylon duffle Eustace had delivered earlier in the day. He carried it back to her, keeping an eye on the screen. Her breathing seemed to be slowing. Her legs more relaxed.
He smiled. He wanted her to come down. To start over. But she was so incredibly responsive, it was hard to take anything slowly with her. He switched off the phone as he re-entered the room.
“Shake out your arms,” he said. He dropped the bag next to the island with a dull thud. She brought her arms out from behind her back and rubbed and shook them. “Grab the sides of the seat.”
She complied immediately. She’s learning. He moved to her side, at right angles to her and slid one hand over the back of her neck and around, his long fingers curled under her jaw. He tilted her head up and back to look at him.
“When do you come?” He asked.
“When you make me.”
And with no fanfare at all, he leaned over a little, slipped two fingers inside her panties, slid them up the slick center of her pussy to find her clit. He spread her slightly, massaged her once and pressed.
She cried out and came, very quick and very hard. Her body jerked against the chair. He held her head tight to his chest, his fingers pressed to her clit, until her orgasm completed.
He let her go and picked up the bag, taking it to the couch in front of the glass wall. He dropped the bag onto an oval pewter and glass coffee table he slid close to the front of the nine-foot long leather sofa. He said nothing to Avia and didn’t spare her a look.
He’d done her a disservice. Indulged her. Let his control slip. He liked her too much. But he would not allow it to continue. He unzipped the bag and finally glanced at Avia, still sitting in position, holding the edges of the seat. He gestured toward one end of the room, behind her.
“There’s a bathroom there. Use it. Wash yourself and dry yourself. Use cold water. Leave your skirt and shoes inside. Then join me here.” She slipped off the stool and went in search of the bathroom. He didn’t watch her, confident she’d do as she was told. At least for now, he thought ruefully.
Sitting in the center of the sofa, he located a release that lowered a three-foot section of the v back to make a flat “bed” on his left.
He turned to his right and removed the large, heavy seat cushion and tossed it out of the way. There was also a release for this end, but it caused the three foot section under the cushion to lower. The drop was set to be the perfect height for him to kneel on the padded surface
between the spread thighs of a woman bent over the center seat in front of him.
The “Livingroom Sweet” comprised both this couch and the recliner in the Keep. Twenty-thousand dollars from the catalogue. A steal when the purchaser provided the measurements they wanted the furniture customized to. And you could put it right in the parlor for Grandma to sit on.
He stood and considered how tall Avia was and went to a panel in the wall. He tapped the edge and it swung open revealing a storage closet. He removed two pillows. One a large half-moon shape and a large circular one. On second thought, he grabbed another circular pillow.
Setting them to his right on the floor, he brought out a bamboo paddle and a double-layered slapper and laid them on the table in front of him, considering which he would use on Avia’s sweet bottom.
Ben did love Avia’s ass. His out-sized hands were a genetic legacy from his mother and her father. Often, he had to be satisfied with either rubbing his palms over a woman’s bottom or using only his fingers.
But Avia had a full, proud, heart-shaped ass that swayed the full skirts she favored as she walked and filled his hands as he explored her. He loved that when he’d slid his fingers between her cheeks and spread them, it took effort. There was a definite process to exposing her for her to experience.
His cock twitched. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing her squirming and begging him not to spank her. Holding her down, ripping off her panties, knowing how she’d love it when he finally picked up the tawse …
Yes, she’d play that role for him. But no, not until she’d gone with him the whole way on their journey. He needed her to be with him at the end. He needed her to be with him at the end. And that realization was another revelation of how quickly he was becoming attached to the feisty woman with the dark golden hair.
He rubbed his face and opened his eyes and there she was, a few feet in front of him, all long elegant legs, holding the edges of her shirt down, backlit by the orange evening light. Her wide eyes fixed on the paddle.
“Pay attention,” he ordered. Her eyes moved to his face. “After I spank you I’m going to fuck you. Did you check if your IUD’s still in place?”
