Mutual Release

by Liz Crowe

  “I… um… I’ve never met anyone like you, Evan. And while on one level I will grant you that something about you makes me calm in ways I don’t understand, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t ask me that question again.” She looked straight at him then and the message in her eyes was one of desperation tinged with something he only understood a few hours later. “What happened to me is in the past. I don’t dwell on it or worry about it or chat about it with guys who… who… just told me they have to tie me up and spank me to get off.”

  He stayed still, aware that the cab driver was sitting quietly, letting the meter run at the curb. Her grip tightened and sent a clear signal up his spine. This night was going to be about what Julie had to prove. He squared his shoulders. That was fine. She could act out, act up, prove shit all she wanted. He knew what he wanted and was determined to have it.

  He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d figured that out – whether it was sitting in the river with her, or in his bar while she told him part of the story about her fake marriage, or when he’d come within seconds of fucking her silly in her office before dragging her out on this trip. But he had, and looking back he would actually see this moment, sitting with her in the cab as her fury and frustration and fear pulsed between them like a living creature, as the moment he knew he wanted her and would do everything in his power to make it work. No matter how long it took.

  Finally, he grazed the hand still gripping his leg, just a light touch of his fingertips. She released him and started to climb out, but he grabbed her arm, loving the perfect smoothness of her skin and the heat she radiated. “Fair enough,” he said, keeping his voice low. “But I don’t spank you to get off, Julie.” He tugged her back, expecting resistance and getting none. She leaned right into him, turned her face and tempting lips to his. “Open your eyes,” he demanded, getting pissed off at himself for slipping. “One day, when you’re ready and able to handle it, I will show you it’s about you… all of it. From start to finish. I just will be the one calling all the shots, and you,” he squeezed her arm for emphasis, not too tight, but enough to let her know he was serious, “you will reap the benefits. But,” he let go of her and caught her when she collapsed back into him, briefly, before hurling herself up and out of the cab so fast he was impressed, “I decide when you’re ready.”

  She yanked money out of her purse and handed it to the cab driver, leaving Evan to follow her again. But he didn’t care. The view was great from his angle, and he was determined to enjoy her little show. He was willing to bet it would be a real doozy.

  Things started well enough. He handed some barely-dressed waif of a woman a hundred dollar bill, and she guided them to a semi-private table and plunked down a bottle of bourbon and two glasses at his request. The place was so loud he could hardly hear himself think. The flashing lights and array of human perfection displayed on the dance floor combined to give him an instant headache. Clubs like this were not his scene, but Julie looked enthralled, taking it all in, sipping the bourbon.

  After staring out into the mob for a few minutes, she stood and grabbed his hand. “C’mon, Country Club, show me what ya got.”

  He knocked back the remaining liquor in his glass and joined her and the rest of Manhattan, it seemed, for about an hour, dancing, grinding, and generally getting so worked up watching Julie’s body move to the overtly sexual dance music that when she turned around and put her arms around his neck while she rubbed her ass against his crotch, he gave in to it.

  The flashing lights only gave him half-shots of the people around him. He saw arms, legs, faces, lips, hands, and everybody doing the same thing he and Julie were – dry-humping or in some form of even more obvious sexual maneuvers.

  The whole scene was too surreal. The alcohol he had churning through his system and his general overwrought state made him go way outside himself. He leaned into her sweaty neck, licked it, tasted her salt. She kept grinding back, wiggling her hips and ass. He reached around and cupped a full breast, and she arched back more, giving him all the access he wanted. The heavy curve felt perfect in his hand, and her nipple peaked when he ran his thumb over the fabric.

  “You are enough to make every man in here mad with lust,” he said into her ear, pleased when her skin pebbled. He let his hand slide down further, find the hem of the thin dress. The music shifted gears, going from wild and heart-thumping to sensual and sinuous.

  He slid his hand up her thigh, groaning inwardly, knowing he’d done worse than this in front of people, but somehow not wanting it this way. A possessive shaft of anger lit his brain on fire when he looked up from kissing and licking her neck and caught the eye of a tall, good-looking guy staring straight at them – no, at her, Julie, his woman. He stopped, turned her to face him, and laid the kind of kiss on her that made them both breathless and dizzy. She responded, keeping her body moving to the music, those glorious breasts mashed against his chest. She grabbed his ass, held on tight, then broke away, the flashing lights making her eyes glow, disappear, then glow again.

  The fury spreading through him took hold and he pulled her off the dance floor, plunked her back in the chair at their table, and poured them each another too-healthy drink. She clinked his glass and knocked the entire thing back in one gulp, then stood, took his glass, and did the same with it. He watched, knowing he’d made this particular bed and would have to wallow in it. Not a bit surprised when she leaned down, giving him a full view of both breasts, dark-tipped nipples and all, before kissing him, shoving her tongue into his mouth, then breaking away with a bite to his lower lip.

  “Nobody controls me, Evan Adams. The sooner you figure that out, the better off we’ll be.” She swayed to the gut-churning music, put her legs on either side of his and sat, slow and sexy, easing her very warm and very damp panty-covered sex over his familiar erection.

  Hell, he’d never sustained this much near-constant wood since his freshman year of high school. But he laid his head back, kept his hands and arms off her while she gave him a very tempting lap dance. After counting backwards from fifty, he lifted her chin and made her look at him.

  “I don’t want to control you, Julie. I don’t need to. I want you to trust me so I can be more to you than just… this.” He grabbed her hips and thrust upwards, miming the sexual act, once more making his eyes burn and his spine crackle with a need to fuck her. “I will control the parts of you that need it. And you’ll let me… someday.”

  He relaxed under her, ran his hands up her bare arms, brushed them across her breasts once more then put both of her hands to his lips. “Go on, dance some more. I need a little break.” He winced. Her smile went from confused to wicked in a split second before she jumped up, kissed him lightly, and made her way back to the teeming mass of humanity in the middle of the room.

  He tried to keep watch for her, the nearly apoplectic possessive Dom who had been tap-tapping against his brain for the last couple of months causing him to break out in a cold sweat. But it was too crowded. There were too many gorgeous blond women in little black dresses out there. When he realized it had been over an hour since he’d laid eyes on her, he stood, drank a glass of water, and made his way down from the tables to the floor.

  He shouldered his way through, let a fair number of sexy girls dance around him, grab his ass, as he looked for her. Thinking he’d found her, he came up behind a tall woman in a black dress with long blond hair, but it wasn’t her. Waving away that girl’s invitation to stay and dance, he kept moving, his heart thudding in his chest, worry gnawing at his brain.

  After three passes through the crowd from different directions, he started for the back hall where the restrooms were. Then he heard it – her distinct laugh, rough and loud and clear as a bell. He turned, his eyes finding her immediately. She sat at the bar, leaning on one elbow and batting her eyelashes at that tool of a boy who had been staring at them earlier. Fury blinded him as he made his way over, but it seemed as though the entire population of the teeming club chose t
hat moment to walk between them in a steady line of drunk and drunker people. He lost sight of her at one point and had to take a huge breath to quell the rising panic.

  Finally, he stood about three feet to her left and behind, watching, daring her to not notice him. She sat up straighter, flicked her hair back, and picked up the martini glass in front of her, tossing back whatever clear alcohol it contained. The tall, smarmy boy plucked out the olive from the bottom of it and put it to her lips. She leaned over and let him feed it to her, then let him run a finger down her face.

  Evan clenched his fists, counted to twenty, and in that time knew he had to handle this as an adult, not the raging monster about to explode from his chest. He got about a foot closer, heard her giggle, hiccup, and say, “Oh, don’t be silly. You don’t want to dance with me. You just wanna fu – ”

  He launched himself at her, took her arm, making her look at him in a way that told him she knew damn good and well he’d been standing there.

  “What?” she said, swaying, but not to the music. “Go ’way. You aren’t the fucking boss of me.” She pulled her arm out of his grip and turned to the boy, nearly falling right into him. The boy seemed startled and nervous. Evan reached over and righted her but was jolted by the rage with a very real undercurrent of panic rolling off her.

  “Enough,” he said, turning her face to his. “You’re drunk. While that in and of itself does not bother me, I’m through watching you put on this show. You don’t have to prove anything, Julie.” He tightened his grip on her arm.

  “Fuck. You.” She tried to struggle, but he found a chair and sat her down, kneeling at her feet. “I hate you. You’re… a… oh, just leave me alone.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to hate me. But you are afraid, and that makes me sad.” He held her hands and kept his voice steady. After about two minutes she looked up as a tear slid down her face. He wiped it off, then helped her to her feet. “You aren’t a daredevil tonight, Julie. You’re just a woman trying to sort through what’s happening between us.”

  “There is nothing happening… oh, shit.” Her ankle turned and she stumbled, but he wouldn’t let her fall. “Would you just stop being all… whatever the fuck it is you call it – ‘dominant’.” She hooked her fingers around the word and rolled her eyes. But he felt the tremor in her when she used it.

  He smiled and leaned into her ear, kissed her jaw. “That is what I call it. And you like it, I can tell. Now, let’s get the fuck out of this meat market and get some water.”

  “Whatever,” she slurred, slumping into him. He guided her out, flagged a taxi, and shoved her floppy body into the back seat. The second the cab pulled into traffic, she sighed and had shifted so she had one leg hooked over his thigh and her hand on his crotch. “I am a daredevil. I think that’s why you wanna tie me up and…”

  “Shh,” he said, removing her hand and focusing on the back of the cab seat so he would not give in to the need to throw her down and plow into her, show her who was boss. He clenched his eyes shut. One of the things he truly hated about this personality quirk of his was the scary way it could take over; make him into a potential monster, a brutal uncaring man only looking to prove something. He put his hand over his eyes as visions of his sister loomed; her cracked lips and disappearing body evidence of how she had been used by a man who claimed to be no different than he.

  A wave of nauseating claustrophobia swept through him. He gulped, grabbed the door handle, fully prepared to jump out and get the hell away from this mess he was about to create with a woman who already claimed to hate him. While he realized she was fronting, he also knew at that moment he wanted to kiss her, make love to her, cradle her in his arms and fall asleep with nothing but their skin between them. But she required more. The dichotomy in his own head was making him dizzy.

  He glanced over at her. She was staring at him, her eyes watery and unfocused. She touched his lips, his cheek, his chest. “You’re… very… handsome.” Her voice was hoarse. “You scare me.” And that fact went straight to his heart.

  “You don’t ever have to be scared of me, Julie. I swear to you.”

  She blew out a puff of air and looked away. The cab screeched to a halt at the door of the Ritz. He held out a hand, but realized the combination of all the booze she’d had over the course of the day was about to hit her hard. He supported her weight as they walked through the double glass doors. She tugged him to a stop right outside the elevators. “Kiss me,” she said, her lips near his.

  Using every ounce of self-control he possessed, and some he didn’t, he pulled her arms from around his neck. “Julie, you need to drink about a gallon of water and then pass out.” He hit the elevator call button, still hanging onto her to keep her from sliding to the floor.

  The doors slid shut at the same moment Julie turned to him, her eyes clear. “I’m not as drunk as you think,” she insisted, curling her body into his in a way that came damn close to undoing him. “Evan,” she whispered, her lips making their inevitable way from his ear around to meet his. He had no control over himself anymore. Everything in him screamed at him to take her, finesse and bullshit domination be damned. She wanted it. He knew it. His jaw ached from the effort to not do that.

  The doors opened onto the suite. He took a breath and guided her out. “Julie, let’s just call it a night. We both need some space, and you need some serious hydration.”

  “No.” She walked ahead of him into the foyer, turned, and slipped the thin straps of her dress down and before he knew it she stood there dressed in nothing but…

  He looked away, rallied his inner grownup man, and picked the expensive scrap of silk off the floor. She touched his arm as he tried to walk past her and that one simple touch shredded his self-control. But he just looked at her hand, then at her face, somehow avoiding those incredible full breasts.

  “Hands off,” he growled, shouldering away from her. “You do not get to handle the merchandise.”

  But her hand slid up his arm, around to his face, then down. And the buttons of his shirt came undone, while he stood trying to catch his breath. She kept touching him but he stayed still, let her have her fun. “C’mon, Country Club,” she said, blowing alcohol fumes in his face, which did nothing to help the raw lust coursing down his spine. “I’m game. Go ahead…” She turned around, miming their dancing moves from earlier, grinding her thong-clad ass against his poor, miserable, needy cock. When he didn’t respond, she turned and pressed her entire body along his, and put her hands behind her back. “Tie me up, baby. Spank me. Whatever you want… Isn’t this how it goes?”

  Rage replaced every rational particle of him. He gripped her upper arms. “Julie, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure I do. I told you I was a daredevil.” She walked around behind him, put her arms around his neck, threading her fingers together in front of his face. “You stocked up my closet, so I’m guessing you have got a really great collection of naughty stuff in there – I mean, this is why I’m here, right?”

  Evan closed his eyes. He reached very deep to own the anger and shove the lust down underneath it.

  She kept moving, around to his other side, keeping her arms locked around him. “What’s the matter? Don’t think you can handle me?”

  That tore it. But he was not about to make it worse by going with anger, although he channeled it and kept his face calm. Without a single word to her he reached behind him, unlatched her fingers, and put her arms at her sides.

  Allowing himself one long sweeping look up and down her body, making sure she knew he was doing it, he smiled. “I can handle you, Julie. But I’m thinking maybe it’s not worth my time.”

  She stumbled, the booze finally catching up with her as adrenaline faded from her system. “Evan,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I just… I want… you are…”

  He caught her before she hit the floor. “You have no business acting like this with me,” he said as he carried her into the bedroom. His body se
nt him clear “fuck her” signals but he was used to that by now, and all his early training in controlling his own urges suddenly decided to prop him up, thank God, or he would have tossed her down and put his mark on her in a way she would never forget.

  But something about the way she snuggled into his arms and how all the tension left her in a giant whoosh of mental energy forced him to stop dead in his tracks. He kissed her forehead. “You do still want me,” she mumbled into his bare chest.

  “Maybe…,” he said, more to himself than to her as he tucked her under the covers. He smoothed her hair off her face and sat watching her a few more seconds. “But maybe I can’t want you, Julie. You aren’t the only one who’s afraid.”

  She opened her eyes, surprising him. Their bright blue pierced his gut. Her hand touched his face. “Are we that fucked up, Country Club? Really?”

  “Yeah, I think we may be. Sleep. I’ll catch up with you on the other side.” He kissed her cheek, her lips, then flipped off the light and walked out of the room.

  Chapter Four

  Julie sat straight up, gripping unfamiliar sheets and in the midst of the worst night terrors she’d ever experienced. The room had shrunk, stank of strong men’s cologne. She put her hand to her mouth before falling out of the bed and landing on the hard, cold floor. Her throat closed up as she stared, trying to focus on where she was and why in the hell she was about to…

  She crawled to the bathroom and gripped the toilet seat. Random memories from the night before assaulted her while the evening’s various alcohols forced her to empty her stomach.

  She sat on the wonderful cool tile floor and willed the room to stop spinning. Why had she been such a slutty bitch? Oh, right, Evan and his little reveal during dinner. The thought of the sushi made nausea overrule anything but the urgency to throw up for the next twenty-four hours. After another bout of dry heaves, she flopped onto the floor, tears streaming down her face. The tile felt so great against her cheek she decided to lie there a while, contemplate her no doubt impending death by brutal hangover.