The Reward

by Jade A. Waters

  Curious, I followed him upstairs. I figured he’d spent the time I’d been at dinner unpacking things as promised, but when he led us toward the spare room, I didn’t suppress a chuckle.

  “Did you spend all that time I was gone setting up something dirty?”

  “Not all.” Dean spun to take both my hands, backing us through the doorway and into the center of the room before drawing me against his chest for a full-body embrace. “But I didn’t think you’d object to what I did do.”

  He kissed me and I closed my eyes. I surrendered to the feel of his tongue and the strong rake of his palms down my back. It amazed me how this man could wow me with both sweet and sexy, the promise of something naughty dancing in his eyes when he caught my bottom lip in his teeth. Dean gave it a tug, and his hands curved down over my ass to grip me tight.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Wait.” He backed away, and my body drooped, but my blood started to churn harder in my veins. Dean opened the top drawer of the antique dresser he’d shown me the week before, and I kicked off my flip-flops as fast as I could. I didn’t think I’d need them. Dean pointed at the wall a few feet away from us and across from the window, the same one he’d backed me against the last time we were in here. I peered over. “Do you see?” he asked.

  At first, I didn’t see anything. But I lifted my head and spotted two large eyelet screws extending from the wall up toward the corners. I turned back to Dean to find him holding a blindfold in his hands.

  “This could be interesting,” I said. Aloof as I played it, my heart had kicked into a merciless pound and I cinched my knees together. Dean came over, his face serious before he circled me. I marveled at how fucking sexy he was—appraising me in his pajama pants, for God’s sake—and once he came back to press his chest against mine and lifted the blindfold over my eyes, I huffed out an excited breath.

  “You know I hate not seeing your eyes,” he began, the husky murmur a tantalizing force when the satin of the blindfold met my face and he pulled the long ties behind my head to form a knot. “But I figure, with me going away for so long, we need a big send-off. Something sexy and dramatic.” His fingertips traced faint lines down my back that coaxed my nipples into stiff peaks, and then he cupped my ass again. “Something intense. I want it to be a sensation you savor while I’m gone, a memory you’ll keep playing back in that beautiful head of yours.”

  My pussy clenched with Dean’s grasp of my shoulders to spin me in a slow circle. With his chest to my back and my view blocked, I hated not being able to see yet loved how hard it made me concentrate on his words and the shivers tripping along the surface of my skin. Dean brushed my hair aside to kiss the nape of my neck, then grabbed the hem of my shirt to whisk it up and off me, careful not to disrupt the blindfold he’d secured over my eyes.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  That question. Our question.

  “Excited,” I whispered.

  “Good.” Dean’s mouth covered my earlobe before he slid his palms up my belly and over my breasts, caressing me through my bra. I arched to rub my ass against him more, because I wanted to feel his arousal, too. The fabric of his pajama bottoms wasn’t leaving much to the imagination with him as hard as he was.

  “Oh, Dean,” I growled.

  “Yes, Maya?”

  “I...” I tried to find the right words while he started to nudge me forward with the width of his body. He pinched my nipple in two fingers, and with his other hand, he drew the strap of my bra off my shoulder to kiss the spot it’d covered. “I love how you play with me.”

  “That’s superb, because I love playing with you.” He bit my neck and we took one more step before he stopped me. The presence of the wall felt close by, and I lifted my hands to confirm it was directly in front of me. Dean said, “Tonight, I really want to play with you. Hard.”

  He rocked up his hips, the move forceful enough to push me flush to the wall. I gasped, my pulse clattering. Dean unsnapped my bra fast, and after he pulled it off and tossed it aside, he trailed his mouth in hot kisses over my shoulders and down my sides before stripping away my jeans and panties.

  Naked for him, I quivered. He took my earlobe in his teeth again, the sensation making me cock my head with a wisp of a sigh. In the press of his body along my back there was such a contrast between his hot, muscular form and the soft cotton of his T-shirt compared to the cold, unyielding wall before me. Smashed between them, every nerve in my body ached for more, for touch. I moaned at the slip of Dean’s tongue in my ear to taunt me, and once I turned my head, he guided my arms out to the sides. I stayed in place when he backed away, leaving my palms, cheek and chest pressed to the wall. The lack of his contact felt abrupt and cold.

  “Come back.”

  “I will. But I have to look at you right now. You’re always gorgeous—but waiting, naked, knowing you can’t see what comes next... It’s so sexy, Maya. Fuck.” He clapped his fingertips against my ass cheek in a sudden burst, and I jumped. “Spread your legs.”

  I did. My folds had been swollen from the second he’d led me into this room, and the ache was much more obvious with the part of my thighs. My arousal had been fueled by the sweet conversation downstairs almost as much as what this man could do to me.

  I heard the sound of another drawer opening, then the jangle of what I guessed were our leather cuffs. There came the sound of something small being set atop the dresser, and next the flick of the strands in the air, which made me bite my lip. I knew that sound—the distinct snap of him testing the suede leather flogger midair. When I heard clanking, like chain, I dug the balls of my feet into the floor.

  “I can’t wait to feel you, Maya.”

  The ferocious beat of my heart rumbled downward, shaking my legs, but I kept myself tight to that wall. I wanted Dean, his touch, everything he could give me—everything he would give me. Impatiently, I waited to the sound of clothes coming off his body, the whisper of fabric so quiet I almost couldn’t hear it. When he pressed himself tight to me once more, his naked torso and solid cock between my ass cheeks confirmed my suspicion. I moaned.

  “To think I can play with you like this, all the time, anytime...” Dean’s lips grazed the back of my head.

  I struggled to comprehend what he was doing behind me as he pulled away, and I balled my fingers into a fist at the feel of a leather cuff circling my wrist. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  “That’s the goal.”

  I listened to the clank of the buckle before Dean guided my hand off the wall, then came the sound of what I determined to be metal chain shifting around not too far from my side. Dean grabbed my wrist and connected me to something, and I tried to figure out what it was with a tug. Based on the angle of my arm and the grind of metal on metal, my arm must be dangling from one of the screws he’d fastened to the wall.

  I pinched my lips tight, turned on by his craftsmanship and clever arrangement of the space. Behind the blindfold I could do nothing but listen to him shuffle around and feel him link my other arm in the same way as the first. Posed like this, I felt on offer, stripped and bound for him, pining for what touch or action might come next. Dean skimmed his fingers over my ass, but when he left me cold again, I whimpered.

  “Oh my God, touch me, please!”

  “Not yet. I’ve got something else to do first.” I smashed my cheek harder to the wall, arousal building at the apex of my thighs in a wet silkiness I wanted him to stroke, but I focused on the sounds he made far behind me. I heard fingers scraping to grab something off the surface of a piece of furniture, and then he said, “I need photos for my trip.”

  I gulped. “Naughty!”

  “Yes, yes you are.” Dean hadn’t bothered to turn off the sound of what I gathered was his cell phone, and the click of the camera when he snapped several photos made it impossible not to tremble in place,
the chains jingling just so. My pulse tumbled like a landslide in my ears, and my clit felt swollen with ache. This was too much, and he hadn’t even touched me yet. As if hearing the whine I was about to make aloud, Dean crouched below me. He snapped a photo of my cunt before leaning up to bite one of my ass cheeks, and I gasped at a shock of fingers slipping along my pussy lips, jolting electricity through my pelvis.

  “Oh, God!”

  “How you get wetter never stops thrilling me. You love being bound and toyed with, don’t you?” He eased the tips of two fingers inside, and I moaned before hearing the snap of his camera again. “That’s going to be one to jack off to while I’m gone, for sure.”

  “You tease!”

  “Oh...to think I haven’t even started, love.”

  He pulled abruptly away and I wheezed. In the next moment, I felt Dean’s fingertips clap on my ass. It was a soft slap meant as a warm-up, and he did it again before striking a little harder. When his hand made contact a few more times, building in intensity, I rocked my hips.

  “Open up those legs more, sexy.” He kissed my neck, his fingers teasing my slit until I arched and writhed on his fingers, needing much more. But I slid my heels out as commanded, which forced me to stick my ass out if I was going to keep my chest to the wall. My nipples had become raw, sensitive tips against the surface. Dean rewarded my motions with one single dip of his fingers inside. “Good girl.”

  “Fuck,” I mewled. I yanked against the chains, my nerves prickling in anticipation and my skin blaring with fiery heat. Dean took a firmer, harder whack of my ass and backed away again, and then I heard the sound of the flogger swishing in the air before he whisked the suede-leather strands across my ass in the gentlest of strokes. He came closer to the shaky sound of my breath and let the handle rest between my cheeks. After he trapped it between us, he clawed his free hand up my stomach and spoke gruffly in my ear.

  “I’m going to make you wait longer. Flog that sweet ass of yours, paint your skin with those sexy red stripes we both love. I’ll take more pictures to cherish...and only then will you feel me.”

  “Dean.”

  “Is it driving you crazy, not being able to see?”

  “Yes!”

  He shoved his fingers farther up between the wall and my breast, pinching my nipple so hard that I jerked back against him. I rattled the chains, and Dean took a soft bite of my shoulder. Fuck, I was revved. I was hot. I needed him in me, but all I could think was how easy it was for him to play this game with me from here forward, any goddamn time he wanted.

  Fuck, yes.

  “Stay still if you’d like a reward, Maya.” Dean backed away, and I focused on his sounds, the feel of the air against my naked back and the leather on my wrists. He was loving this, his breath fast and loud. He took a light swat with the flogger in one direction, then sent it back the other way to warm me up while I tried to remain frozen despite my entire body insisting on writhing about. When the strike of the flogger came, the sound of the suede tassels spiked the heat in my core as much as the feel of them lapping at my skin.

  “Yes!”

  Dean struck again, then once more. Each strike grew in pressure, centering for the most part on one side of my ass. I stayed motionless as best I could, drowning in the wash of pleasure and twinges of pain that spread through every inch of my body in a delicious, harmonious dance. After a few rounds, Dean paused to shove his fingers straight into my cunt, and I dropped my head back with a loud groan. But the second I clenched around the drive of his fingers, he backed away to strike again. And again. I quaked in my blindness, the sound, the feeling, sharp and intense, cranking my arousal in a blinding arc through my heart. Dean’s raspy breath broke for an occasional grunt, and after he took a hard strike followed by three others that stung clear up my spine, I jerked back my shoulders. The chain clanked against the wall to amplify the promise of ecstasy inside me, a pressure so great I moaned and saw specks of light even with the blindfold over my eyes.

  “You’re sexy, and so good...” Dean cracked the flogger over my ass in a sharp, last swipe, and I yelped.

  “Fuck, yes!”

  He dropped the flogger and shoved his firm body against me, his lips trailing over my shoulder and neck while his fingers soothed my ass cheek with a tender caress. His touch tempered the blister of tenderness across my skin, but a second later his greedy fingers slipped between my thighs. He fucked me eagerly with them, my orgasm creeping closer and my sighs converting to desperate pleas when he pulled back.

  “Need a picture,” he said.

  “Dean! Please!” I stood there trembling, aching for more yet aroused by the snaps he took, and the slide of his hand in a possessive grab of my chapped ass. He shot more pictures, and the intense brink I teetered on was too deep, forcing me to squirm against the cup of his hand. “Need you, please.”

  Dean snickered and left me to put away the phone, but then he thrilled me with the grab of my hips, steering my pelvis back from the wall until I was bent as far as I could be with the tension of the chains tugging on my arms. He circled his arms around my waist and used the fingers of both hands to stroke my opening and clit. Wild cries poured from my throat, and I couldn’t resist the thrust of my hips to take his fingers deeper. The spasms cascaded in and I howled, my body alight, the world a black sky of sparkling stars behind the blindfold.

  Dean broke to guide his cock in me, and once he drew his chest off my torso, he started fucking me, hard, his hips snapping against my ass in loud claps. “Christ, you feel good!” he groaned.

  “Yes...yes!” The jerk of the chains, the force of his body...it sent my universe spiraling into a blossom of ecstasy throughout my chest and limbs. I dug my feet into the floor to balance while I fought the pin of my arms, but I shoved back on him, loving how roughly he plowed inside and the smack of his balls on my tenderness. The head of his cock banged deep, his nails sharp on my hips with how tight he grasped them while his pants morphed to grunts and I urged him on. “Yes, fuck me, Dean. Harder!”

  “Shit...” His motion grew fast, frenzied, pleasure ripping me apart as he drove into my depths and came inside. His lust filled me before he slammed his mouth to my back in a wet bite. “Fuck!” He jerked, both of us shaking, me struggling not to fall with his weight pitched over me. The strain on my shoulders forced me to tighten them in resistance, and Dean noticed, pulling himself up with a heavy gasp. But he stayed rooted in me, his fingers quick to trace mesmerizing patterns over the goose bumped flesh of my back.

  “Jesus,” I said, my voice raggedy and low.

  “How are you so good?” Slowly, Dean drew back. We both grunted when his cock fell out of me, and he tortured me further with a dash away. “One more photo. A close-up.”

  I felt him return in a crouch beneath me before the snap of the camera fired once more. I heard the phone clank against the floor and Dean drew me upright, tugging the blindfold off my head to kiss my cheek. My world hadn’t righted itself when he started to unbuckle my arms, and I muttered, “Am I going to get to see these photos?”

  “In time.”

  “You’re a tease.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I hovered in stillness while Dean finished freeing my second arm, then spun me to curl them both between us as he rubbed my forearms and guided me to the bed. For the next while, stretched over its surface, he massaged every limb and spread kisses over my skin. Eventually, calm, he brushed a hand along my cheek.

  “I’m going to miss you—but nothing makes me happier than knowing that when I get back, you’re here.”

  Chapter Nine

  After our sensational official breaking in of the “play room,” Dean and I woke exhausted for work Monday morning. Neither of us seemed to mind, though. Between our individual routines to get ready for work, we exchanged gentle caresses of each other’s arms or backs, and parted
with affectionate kisses before Dean left for his office and I later took off for mine. I coasted through the workday thanks to how wonderful this new stage felt between us, and when I left to head home for the last night before he’d leave for L.A., I decided that though I’d miss him like crazy, the time away would hopefully fly by fast and bring us back together ready for more.

  This was the thought in my head when my phone blared from within my purse in the passenger seat, about fifteen minutes from my new home.

  I fumbled for the phone, spotting Ryan’s number. I hoped he’d simmered down over the last couple of days. I’d driven with my earpiece in, as per usual, so I hit the answer button and said, “Hey! How’s it going? You staying at my place yet?”

  Ryan didn’t speak for a second. “I’m good. Nope. How are you?”

  I rolled my eyes. Ryan had been nomadic most of his adult life, and had his guitar career worked out to be more successful, I had no problem imagining him dwelling on a tour bus for lengthy stints of travel and not even caring if he missed a shower here and there—not as long as he got to play his music. But passing up a free place to stay was silly. “I’m good. Getting all settled, and on my way home from work. What’re you doing?”

  I heard the strum of his guitar. “Guess.”

  “Hmm. I simply don’t know.” After Ryan gave a low chuckle, I continued. “Chilling with the fellas?”

  “I’m at Rico’s.”

  “Hi, Rico.”

  “Maya says hi,” he said beyond the phone. I heard Rico’s hello back.

  “That’s cool. You do know I wasn’t kidding about staying at my house, right? You have a key. The place is yours. Rent is paid, and I’m not there.”

  “I know. I’ll get there, but Rico and I were jamming, so...”

  “You guys have another show this week?”

  “A couple. Openers, for the most part, but the pay is decent and I need cash.”