Damaged Goods

by Dane, Cynthia

  “Oh, is this when you ask me to call you papi? ‘Cause I always thought that was kinda weird.” Sylvia once had a Puerto Rican client who got mad if she didn’t call him that. As a girl who used to call her own father Papa, that befouled so many lines. “Uh oh. Look at you. That ticks some kind of box for you, eh?”

  “What? You don’t have to call me anything you don’t want to call me. Besides, you greatly overestimate how into something like that I am. While also not getting what that means.”

  Sylvia scrunched her nose. “I know what it means. It means Daddy.”

  “Literally, yes. But you don’t call a man papi because you want to think of him as your daddy figure. Like I wouldn’t call a woman mami because I think she’s my mom. You’ve got the relationships all wrong.”

  “Sorry, I’m not Latina.”

  “Obviously.”

  Sylvia smacked her palm against his chest, giggling right into his ear as she clung to this happier moment. “So what does it mean, ol’ kinky one?”

  “If I call my girlfriend or wife mami, it means that I see her as the woman I make a family with. We’re so closely bonded that we’re going to have babies, and have lots of sex to make those babies.”

  “Kinda weird.” Sylvia had never thought of it that way. “So if I called you papi, it’s kind of like saying I want you to be the one to fuck me until I’m knocked up.”

  “I… you took that to another place.”

  “Am I wrong though?”

  “A little?”

  “You’re no fun, Mr. Kinky.” Sylvia perked up. “Whoops. Sorry. Señor Kinky. See? I’ll get the hang of it before meeting the other half of your family.”

  Joseph rolled his eyes. “What makes you think I’m so kinky, anyway? Come on. Compared to the other men you’ve been with?”

  Wow, he’s going to outright reference them? Joseph was a rare man, indeed. Not even Sebastian liked being reminded of how many men Sylvia had been with. “I saw you with Stella. I know you two were kinking it up. Although I’m guessing that was your first BDSM relationship.”

  Her boyfriend slightly stiffened. “She was the one who was really into it. Which worked out for our undercover work. But, yes, she got me acquainted with that. Might shock you to hear that she was not the first, though. Angelica and I dabbled in it off and on over the years.”

  “What! No way.” Everything Sylvia heard about the great former love of Joseph’s life painted a picture of a well-to-do Susie Homemaker who would be scandalized to even think of a pair of stirrups, let alone bringing them to her boyfriend to try. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. After our last… well, you know.” Joseph briefly looked away, clearing his throat. “She retreated into books for a few months. Started with magical realism, then went hard-fantasy, then pulled it back into women’s fiction and then romance… ah, you can see where this is going.”

  “I for one am shocked that a red-blooded woman would get kinky ideas from the hardcore books she reads.” Sylvia was never one for romance novels, but she had known plenty of girls in her line of work who gobbled up one, two a day when they had the time to spare. When 50 Shades hit the world a few years ago, Sylvia couldn’t go to a single sex forum online without seeing hundreds of women discussing the finer points of the novel and the ensuing trajectory their reading habits took. “Was that a shock for you?”

  “No.” Another silly grin. Every time Joseph smiled, Sylvia wanted to hug him tighter. “I reaped the benefits, though. Stella took it a little too much in one extreme for me. Made me pull back and reassess my relationship to that sort of lifestyle.”

  “Ah. Lifestyle. There’s the issue.” Sylvia was a pro at sousing that shit out. So many men got into BDSM thinking it was their domination dreams come true. Some turned into wild assholes in the process. How many men contacted her solely to act out their BDSM fantasies? Sylvia, who had once embraced the submissive role in the bedroom, had become more disenchanted with it over the years. Maxwell was the final straw. Sebastian? He made her resent it more.

  She played with Joseph’s tie. You look like the kind of guy who would walk into my quarters at the courtesan house and tie me up, Mr. Montoya. Her fingers were suddenly slippery.

  “I’m not into it that much.” Joseph cleared his throat. “What’s wrong with wanting a normal relationship with some kinky nights here and there? Psychologically, it takes a lot out of a guy.”

  “That’s good to acknowledge. It means you take it seriously.”

  “Does it?”

  Sylvia ran her finger across his lips. “Yes.”

  “I take you seriously, Sylv.”

  She bit back a girlish grin. “That’s good to acknowledge, too.”

  Joseph snapped her wrist into his hand, drawing her palm, her curling fingers down his cheek. The gleam in his dark eyes almost snapped Sylvia in two. “I wouldn’t mind living some of that with you from time to time.”

  Well, this is unexpected. From “I’m scared about tomorrow” to “Let’s forget all our worries by kinking some shit up!” Sylvia didn’t know whether to laugh at their situation or to kiss the words away from his lips. I know one thing is for sure: I’m not kissing him goodnight without getting him inside of me first.

  “I thought you said you weren’t all that kinky…” Sylvia swallowed, her tongue unwilling to spit out what she desperately wanted to say. “Sir.”

  She was on her back before she had the chance to parse what she had said – and what a breakthrough that was for her. My least favorite word this past year. Uttered the moment her boyfriend suggested he may be up for some kinky play.

  Joseph straddled her hips, his weight pinning her to his bed while his hands pinned hers above her head. “Sometimes I’m inspired, but only if you are too.”

  Sylvia’s body tingled with lust. Not vanilla lust, either. God, I haven’t felt this excited by the prospect of play since those early days with Maxwell. “I’m so inspired that I even remember my old safe word. Go on, baby. Do your worst.” She laughed. “As long as it feels like your best, that is.” With any luck, Sylvia would be shaken from her funk… and maybe have her faith in such relationships restored.

  She’d wait for the evidence to come, however.

  Chapter 30

  Joseph

  He couldn’t explain what had happened inside of him. He sure as hell couldn’t explain what had happened between them, either.

  Perhaps it was the natural course of things. Joseph had a history with taking on a more dominating role in the bedroom. Sometimes a man had to quash any second-guessing and take a woman without fear. Sylvia couldn’t believe that he used to get kinky with someone like Angelica? Then she truly didn’t know Joseph’s ex-girlfriend. She may have been a quiet woman, but she knew how to ask for what she wanted. Apparently, her favorite form of escapist family outside of fantastic books was asking her boyfriend to take complete control in the bedroom.

  Then, ah, Stella. She was wild and wanted to try everything. She convinced Joseph to adopt the same attitude as well. How else could he briefly get into swinging even though Stella had turned into more than his work partner? There was never love between us, but there was a lot of burning attraction. Stella used to beg for spankings, dirty talk, and nipple clamps from Joseph like she would ask for a hazelnut latte from the local barista.

  The only reason Joseph had stepped back from that kind of sex was partly because he broke up with Stella, and partly because he feared it was clouding his mind for the worst.

  Sylvia had made it clear that her submitting in the bedroom was reserved for paying customers. She had moved on from engaging in it on a personal level. Now this? Joseph felt like he was dreaming. For weeks he had been fantasizing about Sylvia. Sometimes those fantasies were quite simple: on her back, riding him like a cowgirl, on her knees while he pulled her hair and slammed into her from behind… then sometimes they were quite complicated. How else could a man describe nipple clamps and a paddle other than wonderfully complic
ated?

  The only reason Sylvia had left that kind of sex behind was because of two, maybe more men who were selfish, entitled assholes. I’m not like that. I know I’m not. Joseph understood that these kinds of encounters went both ways. It wasn’t about him lording over a woman, taking pleasure from her, and then leaving her when he was finished. It was about her pleasure too. If Sylvia wasn’t into it, then there was no point. And Joseph would rather have Sylvia in every vanilla way possible than not have her at all. He could live without kink. He wasn’t sure he could live without Sylvia right now.

  “Tell me one more time,” Joseph said. “Tell me that you want this. Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

  Sylvia shuddered, every undulation of her body passing through Joseph’s as well. Even if she said no, if she changed her mind, it wouldn’t stop his cock from stirring in his trousers. Here we fucking go. There was a huge difference between getting hard because sex, and getting hard because kink was happening. When Joseph was entering the headspace of a Dom? His cock almost took on a personality of its own. It wanted to tease, to tickle, to torment a woman with pleasure. Joseph’s job was to reap every benefit sown within his beloved. Because I can’t do this with a woman I don’t have feelings for.

  Now that was something he had to face as well. Sylvia Rogers wasn’t merely his girlfriend who could be something more one day. She was a woman he had feelings for. Those pesky, sometimes awful emotions that always got in his way.

  He didn’t only want to fuck her. He wanted to make her feel so good that she would be true to him forever.

  Sylvia’s lips parted. Joseph thought she would speak, but her eyes closed instead. Hips rose to meet his. Warmth spread across her skin, so hot to the touch that Joseph almost burned to hold her. “Yeah, I want it,” she whispered. “I want you to do whatever the fuck you want to me. Show me that you and I can do this. Show me that I can…”

  Show me that I can trust you.

  No pressure. No mountains of pressure resting on Joseph’s shoulders. Nope. None at all.

  “Once I kiss you,” he warned, his lips almost upon hers. Ah, there went his leg, parting hers, his cock eager to break free and meet her between the thighs. Is she wet for me right now? Oh, damn, I hope so. “I won’t be able to stop. Not unless you tell me your safe word.” He promised to stay connected to reality for two reasons: for their safety, and to make sure she was enjoying herself. He couldn’t do either if he completely abandoned this mental world and let his cock take over. I’m the one in control. Not him, damnit.

  “Give me a warning word,” Sylvia said. “Not a full-stop safe word. Something to say if I want you to slow it down a bit.”

  “All right.” He diverted his mouth to her ear and imparted the first word that came to his mind. “Black.” Like her hair. Like her dress.

  “Hopefully I won’t have to use it.” Was that a nervous giggle? She sounded so divine.

  “I hope not. I’ll be good, I promise.”

  “Hopefully not too good.”

  “No.” Joseph cast his tie across her wrists. “Absolutely not.”

  ***

  Sylvia was beyond beautiful. She was an angel who needed no mortal coil, but chose to have one anyway. Probably so she could engage in erotic moments like these, with a mortal man who had done nothing to deserve such a holy encounter.

  His angel was half-stripped and tied up on his bed. It had been a while since Joseph put his more advanced knots to use, but they quickly came back to him the moment Sylvia put her wrists behind her back and kept her ankles locked together.

  Joseph began with tying her up, careful to use knots that they could both easily break if necessary. But they were also tight enough to keep Sylvia in her place. She was his. His. Meant to be used however he desired. A willing, lovely lady who moaned in his presence and sweated beneath his touches, both hard and soft. Sylvia had put all of her trust and desire into him. What Joseph did with that was meant to benefit them both.

  Once the knots were secure, he undressed her, unzipping her dress and pulling it down until it met her bound wrists. He left her like that for a while, to lie and think about what such a state did to her. For him? It was like unwrapping a man’s favorite Christmas present. Skin so soft that it burned him to touch. Hair as unruly as it was tamed. Sweat, slickness, arousal. The more he undressed her, the more she whimpered, and the closer they came to the point of no return.

  Joseph wasn’t going to use anything advanced on her tonight. He barely owned such implements since breaking up with Stella, thinking he was never going to do it again. I have got to change that. Sylvia deserved only the best. Her ass deserved to be spanked with paddles made of crystal. Her nipples deserved golden clamps that would make those pretty pink areolas stand out even more. Her thighs deserved bite marks. Her soaking wet nether lips? Well, they deserved his cock, of course.

  “What do you want, Sylv?” He could only speak in growls. Sylvia squirmed in her binds as he blindfolded her with his silk necktie. Navy blue and crimson red had never looked so damn good on a woman. “What do you strive to be right now?”

  Joseph unbuttoned his shirt while she responded. “I want to be yours. Wholly, unmistakably yours… sir.”

  “Call me that again.” Once his shirt was opened, Joseph rubbed against her, his chest eager to feel her bare thighs against it. He placed a kiss on her left breast as it struggled to break free from her bra. “Make me know that you freely give yourself. I don’t want you otherwise.”

  She shrieked in surprise when he freed her breast and sucked her nipple. It instantly hardened in his mouth, filling the space between his lips and teeth. As his tongue lashed against it, Sylvia spoke as if the universe commanded her to. “I do! I want to belong to you, sir! Make me yours!”

  You already are. Did she know that? Did she know that Joseph already thought of her as his most precious person? I let her get away twice this year. The first time, he hardly understood what she meant to him. The second time? He had known. He had known, and he still turned his back on her. Never. Again.

  “How do I make you mine, Sylvia? How do I prove to you and the world that no man could want you more than I do?” He had already unzipped his trousers and grabbed his cock within. Pain jerked through him, that sordid, taunting pain that made a man eager to fuck anything that moved. I need to come. Now. He thought that, and yet he knew he could hold out… a long, long time. All he had to do was put his damn cock in its place. Once it understood it would get relief eventually, it would behave.

  “Fuck me,” Sylvia whined. Her hands twitched behind her back. “You’ve already got me how you want. Now do it.”

  Joseph grabbed her hip and pulled her ass toward his cock. Her black thong was already tangled around her bound feet. With one quick lick of his fingers he was able to spread her thighs far enough apart for his cock to find her. Thank God she’s wet. It relieved Joseph to know this aroused her. Hard nipples and words that begged him to finish the damn job weren’t always enough. Sometimes a guy needed to feel a woman’s wet arousal on the head of his cock.

  And sometimes a guy needed to see a pair of nether lips inviting him to take her between the thighs. From behind, no less. Sylvia was so ready for him even thighs clasped together could not stop her from inviting him in. That same white skin was already covered in her slickness.

  “Fuck!” she muttered, instinctively backing up against him as his cock briefly penetrated her. Every nerve on the tip of his cock lit up the moment they met Sylvia’s own sensitive nerves. “Yes, yes! Fuck me!”

  “Why?” One arm pushed beneath Sylvia’s shoulders while his other hand grabbed his cock, stopping it from completely taking his girlfriend. It would be enough to taunt her with only the head penetrating her, opening her up but failing to deliver. “Why do you want me to fuck you?” Precum covered his knuckles. Somehow, he was able to push the overwhelming desires out of his brain and focus on how good she looked and felt.

  “Because I need it!�
��

  “Need it? Need what, my pretty little thing?”

  “Oh, God, you bastard!” Was that really any way to be talking to him? Joseph would show her to mind her tongue by siccing his on her nipple again. Sylvia writhed uncontrollably beneath him, pulling her thighs away from his cock that was about to dive into her body. “I need your fucking cock!”

  She really had the mouth on her. I’ll punish it later.

  “I’m starting to think that you really don’t have that much practice submitting in the bedroom, Sylv. Because you misbehave like you want to be punished, and I know that can’t be right.” Stella had been the same way – always out to get punished, because that was what got her off. Not from obeying, which had been Angelica’s thing. It’s like every woman is different, but can still be slotted into certain categories. Which one did Sylvia fall into, he wondered?

  “Fuck you, Joseph.”

  “I think you mean fuck you, don’t you?”

  “Yes! Please!”

  Fine. He would give her a taste of what she wanted. Joseph latched his arm across her chest, holding her down against his bed as his cock sank three inches deep into her. Enough to make her cry out in splendid bliss – but not enough that he couldn’t still grab his stiff base.

  “Beg for it, Sylv.”

  She did. Every time he pulled out, she yelled to feel him inside of her again. Every time he penetrated her, she screamed for more. Sylvia was powerless to do anything for herself. Her limbs were bound. Her eyes were blinded. Her whole body was pinned to his, and the only way to convey what she wanted was by shouting into the ether. Too bad her words tended to turn into a garbled mess of sexual sounds whenever he was inside of her.

  And the more Joseph toyed with her, the more he wanted to have her.

  “Shut up, Sylv.” His hand lifted from her chest to her mouth, silencing all but the far corner so she could still say her safe words. Instead, she went along with him, sobbing in relief as he fucked her with the full length of his cock.