by Tessa Bailey
Porter took a breath before he betrayed his feelings to the man on the other end. “I appreciate the phone call, Mr. Briggs. If you feel inclined to arrange guidance for Ms. De Luca, I can’t stop you. But it will be from another woman.” His jaw was beginning to ache. “I’m sure you can appreciate how I’d feel if another man spoke to her about what takes place in my bedroom.” Murderous.
“I can.” Jonah’s voice was firm. “And having met Ms. De Luca, I know she’s smart enough to make her own decisions, so I’m approving the temporary membership as of today.”
His office buzzer went off. The sound was all it took to make his cock grow heavy in his pants, just the knowledge that she was close. He pressed the button on the underside of his desk to allow her inside, already debating the idea of giving her a key. “If that’s all, Mr. Briggs?”
“That was all.”
Porter hung up just as Francesca walked into the office. He maintained a calm expression, but his body vibrated with pent up energy. His decision to stop holding back had nudged a sleeping beast. A hungry one. Francesca was the target and he saw the moment she realized it.
She stopped just inside the door and paused in the act of removing her backpack. Her tongue skated over her lips as she contemplated him. “Hey?”
Goddammit, he should hate that informal greeting. Instead it made him wonder how he’d made it almost a full day without hearing her speak. Yet another reason he needed her around more. On his terms. Another reason he needed to press, to push. Testing boundaries was what he did. She’d come to him and he’d been coddling her. It ended now. If he was too much for her, best to get it out of the way now. Otherwise he’d spend his last weeks in New York wanting more.
Don’t do this, the unwelcome voice warned from the back of his head.
He ignored it. Instead, he removed her list of limits from his top desk drawer and studied it, as if he didn’t have the damn thing memorized. Across the room, Francesca remained very still, so still he could practically hear her heartbeat.
“Don’t bother taking off your sweatshirt.” He picked up the list, folded it, and slipped it into his pants pocket. “We’re going on a field trip.”
Chapter Eleven
Porter’s hand rode the small of Frankie’s back as they exited the elevator onto Serve’s second floor. Dark, thumping music ghosted over her senses, trying to calm her, but no dice. The dark space was somehow twice as intimidating as the last time. She didn’t want to be there, didn’t know what was coming. Porter’s tight-lipped demeanor only jumbled her nerves more.
Downstairs, the bar had been mostly empty compared to the last time she’d been at Serve, so she’d expected the same thin crowd upstairs. She’d been completely wrong. To their right, a communal lounge area was dotted with couples, threesomes…six-somes. A topless woman danced for a man as another female serviced him from her knees. These were sights she’d been unprepared for—which shocked her to some degree because she’d never witnessed such acts being performed live—but they interested her nonetheless. Porter allowed her to pause and watch, although he seemed almost bored with the proceedings, his focus remaining on her alone.
The woman who’d been dancing swayed closer to her one-man audience, crying out when his face became obscured between her thighs. Frankie’s pulse had only just begun to pound, liquid heat stealing through her body, when Porter led her away. They entered a hallway lined with red fixtures, bathing it in a sensual glow. The music didn’t get softer as they walked. No, it only grew louder. Or was that her own heartbeat? Part of her wanted this—the adventure of it, the illicitness of being in this dark place with the man who dominated her thoughts, ruled her body.
But something felt off. Wrong. Before departing the office, Porter had left the room to make a quick phone call and hadn’t spoken to her since. He held himself rigid, tense, which wasn’t unusual, but it reminded her of the first time she’d seen him. When they hadn’t met and he’d merely been an embodiment of sexuality laying out his tools. Tools he carried now. This wasn’t the man who’d given her a gift or kissed her with such incredible fervor.
Porter stopped at the very end of the hallway and led her into a dark room. When he flipped the light switch, it barely illuminated the space, just enough to make out several pieces of furniture.
And one giant, darkened window to her left. It was so large that it nearly encompassed the entire wall. Her reflection was a mere shadow with no features, no movement. It stared back at her, unrecognizable. The observation sent alarm shooting upwards from her toes, making her fingertips tingle. This didn’t feel right. Why were they in a room with a window? Hadn’t she put a question mark beside voyeurism on the limit sheet? Yes, she had. She’d put it there because she didn’t know anything about it, or what it would feel like. When Porter’s much taller figure loomed behind her reflection, she spun around, startled. He stared down at her, nothing but lust behind his eyes. Oh god. If she received no reassurance from him, where would she get it?
“Porter?”
“I’m only going to remind you once how to address me.”
His voice cracked across her cheek like a slap. However, that traitorous little pulse below her belt liked the way he spoke to her, wanted that dark, demanding voice in her ear, above her, behind her. Wanted to be punished by it. It was almost enough to eclipse her trepidation, but not quite.
Frankie took a step closer, frowning when he evaded her. For a brief flash, he looked almost nervous about being touched. “Why is there a window, my lord?”
His jaw ticked. “So people can watch us, Francesca.”
Her heart stuttered, wilting a little in her ribcage. Wasn’t this something they should talk about beforehand? She might have agreed, might have even been excited by it, had he just held her, walked her through it. He seemed almost determined to make it impersonal. Scary for her.
It was working.
I want to leave. She started to tell him, but was interrupted when her phone rang. Barely giving her time to process the sound, Porter removed her backpack in one swift movement, rooted through the front pocket, and drew out her phone. Without so much as a glance at the screen, he held the display up for her to see. Caroline Preston. Why was Jonah’s fiancé calling her?
“Answer it, Francesca. Answer it and let her tell you why I’m bad for you.”
Like a lock clicking open, everything made sense. There was a reason this scared her. That was the whole point. If he knew why Caroline was calling, he’d known to expect it. What had happened before she’d come over this morning? “I don’t want to answer. I only want to talk to you.”
That seemed to nick his armor, but he recovered so fast maybe she’d only been hoping for a reaction. “I’m done talking for now.”
As she stared up at him, willing his hard surface to crack, the phone stopped ringing. The silence that followed was a different shape than when they’d entered. It sizzled and spun, running around them in circles, making her dizzy, drawing her toward the damage she sensed inside him. If she could just tear through the wall he’d built, she could make this okay for herself. She could overcome her reservations and live in this moment. Trust. That’s what this was all about, right?
Hoping, praying that Porter would meet her halfway, Frankie took the cell phone from his hand and tossed it onto an armless leather chair, all without breaking eye contact. She took a step back and drew her shirt over her head, glad she’d forgone a bra. It was worth it just to hear his audible swallow. For the first time, she allowed herself to become aware of the faceless strangers behind the window, let their gazes warm her bare back. If she still felt some discomfort, she pushed it aside and removed her jeans, kicking them across the room. Exposing herself.
A boldness invaded her veins like a hallucinogen, tickling her throat, making her limbs feel light. Intuition she didn’t understand told her he wanted to inflict. Wanted to torture. He didn’t want her to welcome his treatment. Not completely. How could she when she had no idea wh
at to expect? Her apprehension of the unknown kept her cemented to the floor as he advanced. His footsteps fell like boulders, according to her ears. When he stopped inches away from her partially naked body and let his gaze track slowly down her front, goose bumps broke out on every inch of her skin.
“How easily you put on display what’s mine.”
Trust him. Tell the truth. “Not easily. I just want to please you.”
His eyes closed briefly, his breath faltering. I have him. He’s back. Frankie’s relief was short-lived, though. When his eyelids came up again, they revealed how wrong she’d been. Somehow he’d managed to close himself off further, harden until he’d become unbreakable. Two halves of her soul warred inside her chest. One half begged her to run, to leave. The other told her to stay and ease his torment, repair him. To be the one who could do that for him.
On impulse she lifted the hem of his shirt, noting the way his stomach muscles shifted, hollowed, rose. She placed a kiss on his chest, glorying in the exhale of air that bathed the top of her head. They would get there. They would get there together.
Her phone rang again.
A whimper escaped her lips because somehow she knew that ring signaled loss. Her loss of him. Whatever headway she’d made. She felt his fist wrap her hair until the strands pulled at her scalp. Then he used that grip to turn her, walking her across the room. No longer did the window make her feel stirrings of excitement. No, the gazes burned now. Branded her unprotected skin, her body. She searched through the mayhem of her thoughts, trying to remember the safe word. Beetlejuice. Okay. She had that card to play. Please don’t let me need it.
As he marched her across the room, she saw the piece of furniture—a leather A-frame bench, one you might see at the gym, except this one had shackles, metal ones, glinting in the dim light at the base, cluing her in as to how it was used. She would be bent over, face down and bound, with the bench lifting her backside.
It was positioned right in front of the window.
Now that they were closer, she could make out her reflection, the image everyone could see—her breasts, the tiny triangle of material at the juncture of her thighs. Then she could no longer see the material because Porter’s hand hid it, palming her core from behind, molding her with his rough touch. The warring inside her grew even more muddled and confusing. She needed him there with her. It didn’t feel as if they were on display. It was only her. She felt alone.
“Please,” she whispered, not entirely sure if she was asking him to stop or keep going. Her nipples ached, her panties grew wetter, her inner pulse beating in time with his massage. Did that mean she should keep going? Eyes on me. So many eyes.
“They got a look at you when we walked in, Francesca. So fresh and wide-eyed. Dressed like you took a wrong turn on the way to campus.” He knuckled aside her panties and slid a long, smooth finger inside her, the unexpectedness making her knees tremble. “You can’t see it, but they’re all fighting their way into the room right now. Getting a front row seat to torture themselves, watching something they’ll never have, the poor bastards.” He added a second finger, pushed deep until she went up on her toes. “They’ll appease themselves with other women, all the while wondering if you were as tight as you looked. If your knees got those marks from spending so much time positioned to service me. If you’d agree to call them daddy.”
A moan got away from her, but it was cut off when he urged her forward, onto the bench. One of his hands maintained its grip on her hair, the other assisting her in climbing up. Her knees sunk into the taut, leather padding, her belly meeting the softer partition. Porter guided her down by the hair until her upper half angled downward, bottom raised in the air. He shackled her hands one by one, his movements precise and methodical.
“Let’s show them what they’re missing, shall we?”
Porter tore her panties off, clenching them in his fist a moment—as if they offended him—before tossing the ripped material to the floor.
…
He finally had Francesca exactly where he wanted her.
Beautiful, so fucking beautiful, with her ripe backside in the air, no way of escaping what he had in store. Just the right amount of shyness over having her breasts, her bare pussy on display. He ran a firm hand over her ass and felt some of the tension leave her.
Yet it did nothing to ease the tension inside himself. The intruding feeling prodded his gut like a hot sword, wrapped around his neck like a serpent. He’d rushed into this. Rushed her. Even with women he never planned on seeing again, there was always a conversation, a mutual agreement. This was inexcusable and part of him was angry, livid, that she hadn’t stopped him yet. Oh, but there was also potent desire to take it all the way. The bravery she’d displayed in removing her clothes, facing the window with her chin raised. God, he wanted that girl at his mercy, if only to harness the positivity, the certainty, he lacked and demand she share it with him.
So why were his instincts imploring him to end what he’d started? His hands shook with the need to unbind her hands, drag her off the bench, and rock her in his lap, to ask her to kiss his chest again. To tell her she never had to do something she wasn’t ready for. Goddammit, his head was too fucked for this right now. She didn’t deserve to be subjected to the product of his chaotic mind. He’d let the phone call earlier get to him, and even if she hadn’t realized it yet, he’d overstepped because of that. Severely. And yet, even knowing how wrong it was to put her in this vulnerable position, he still longed to climb behind her and fuck her until neither of them could think straight. But God, he did. She was so gorgeous and trusting. Trust he didn’t deserve.
Porter reached for the leather bag he’d brought, opened it carefully, and drew out his Egyptian flogger. He ran his palm over the abrasive, crop-like handle, shook out the leather strips, for once hating the whispering sound that usually filled his lungs with oxygen, pumped his veins full of power. It was there, the power, the desire, but it was tempered by the anger he directed at himself. If she wouldn’t put an end to this, he would have to.
He traced her spine with the leather strips, swallowing hard when her back arched almost unconsciously. Her head tipped to the side, revealing her swollen, open mouth that trembled as she sucked air past her lips. Long, dark hair brushed the floor. She was a goddess.
“You should have answered the phone, Francesca.”
He’d barely finished speaking the words when he snapped his wrist, whipping the leather strips against her bottom. Snap. She jerked against the bonds as satisfaction suffused him. Relief. Here is where I live. In this momentary liberation. He didn’t want it, though. Didn’t want to be relieved. The respite from tension hurt, but baptized him, renewed him, at the same time. The strike hadn’t been a hard one, but it left a haphazard red mark nonetheless. Her first time and it would be marred when she came to her senses.
Forcing himself to breathe, he trailed the leather down the backs of her thighs, struck each leg once, twice, before dragging the smooth strips up the sensitive inner flesh. “Such a smart girl. Or so I thought.” A crack of his wrist sent the leather flying against her ass with a smack. Porter felt that sound so deeply he gritted his teeth to prevent it from taking him over. “There are people who want to take you, take this, away from me. I’d love them to be on the other side of that glass right now. Watching me fuck you into a screaming fit. The only one who can take you away from me”—he brought the flogger down hard—“is you. So do it. Do it.”
Her heaving sob tore away what little sanity he had left. The smooth line of her back rose and fell too quickly. Upset. She was upset. Good, he wanted to shout. But the need to exult paled in comparison to the overriding urge to drop the flogger and cover her body with his own. No, he needed her to end this. Needed her to see to whom she’d allowed access to her body.
Porter walked to the windowed wall and flipped the light switch, illuminating the empty room. When her eyes lifted and narrowed, full of disbelief, he had to look away. Didn’t w
ant to witness her reaction. The hatred that would follow.
“Beetlejuice.” Her voice was dull. “Let me out.”
Even expecting her to use the safe word, it gutted him. The swiftness of his stomach dropping caused a moment’s hesitation. Fucked up. I fucked this up. How had it happened so fast? One minute he’d been waiting for her to walk into the office and now—
Francesca started to struggle against the bonds. Realizing he hadn’t moved to release her quickly enough, Porter shot forward to set her free. Too late, though. Too late. She’d managed to rip her left hand through the shackle, howling in obvious pain as red welled, raw and angry on her wrist. The sound ricocheted in Porter’s head like a fired bullet. Opening old wounds. Creating new ones.
“Francesca.” He dropped to his knees in front of her, staying her efforts to tear her right hand free as well. “Stop this, please. Stop.”
The fight went out of her body, her forehead falling forward to connect with the leather pad. Hands shaking, he loosened the shackle and reached for her, but she was gone. Out of his grasp and across the room before he took a breath. “Why would you do that?” She swiped a hand over her nose. “The one thing, the one thing, I’d never allow anyone to do is make me a fool.”
Jesus, that fact had been buried in his subconscious, hadn’t it? He’d known she’d react this way after the time he’d made her stand naked in front of his desk while he made a phone call. It was why he’d done this. He’d wanted to drive her away. Why? All he knew was that being close to her, fixing this mistake, was vital to his mental health. She looked so betrayed. He’d done that. Him. She buttoned her jeans, drawing his attention to her damaged wrist. His entire being rebelled at the sight. “You’re bleeding. Please let me look at it.”
“You want to look at it?” Her eyes shot fire as she marched toward him. Somehow he managed to keep his arms at his sides when his inner voice demanded he hold her. But he’d lost that right, so he could only watch as she lifted his shirt and rubbed her bloody wrist over the very spot she’d kissed just minutes before, coating him in red. Murdering him where he stood. “There. Look at it. Own that.”
