by Abby Brooks
“So needy,” he says and steps back, his hand on the belt I never managed to undo. “I like you this way. Bare to me. Eyes begging me to take you. To take you and have my dirty way with you and make you mine.”
I flush, recognizing my exact desire in his words. “You’re driving me crazy,” I say with a smile.
“How crazy?” he asks, as he pulls his belt from his pants.
I eye it as it dangles from his hand, a surge of fear and uncertainty mixing with my lust and sending me spiraling off in a direction unknown to me. “How crazy do you want me to be?” I ask, the desire to know what’s in his head quickly becoming a need.
“As crazy as I want.”
He smiles. Takes my wrists in his hands and slowly wraps the belt around them until they’re bound in front of me. I stare down at the black leather while Max pulls a condom out of his pocket and then steps out of his pants and briefs. His cock springs free, large and straining towards me. My own need and desire reflected on his body.
He clears a space on the counter and spins me around. “I thought I was going to be able to take my time with you, but you’ve got me too far gone.” I hear the tear of the condom and can’t help but turn my head to watch him slide it on. There’s something so intimate about seeing his hands on his dick like that.
He steps close. Hands on my hips, bending me over the counter, legs spread, arms bound and reaching out over my head. He presses himself into me, sliding in, letting me take him slowly. Letting me get used to the way he fills me. Stretching me to my limits. He groans as he pushes his hips to mine, fully sheathed.
He moves, building speed, and I am a raw nerve, nothing but sensation and all I know is Max.
Max inside me.
Max’s hands on my hips, my back.
The sound of his skin slapping against mine.
He grabs my waist and I arch my back, letting him in even more. I cry out as my orgasm overtakes me, appearing from nowhere and spiraling through my body, clenching my hands into fists, nails digging into the leather around my wrists. My knees buckle and I sag into the counter while Max chases his own climax, moving faster and with more force. He comes with a growl, pushing into me and rolling his hips while I quiver around him.
Still inside me, he leans forward and kisses that spot between my shoulder blades. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I meant to go slow…”
“Don’t you dare apologize. That was everything.”
Max sits up and pulls out of me before helping me to stand since my weak muscles and bound wrists made it more than a little awkward for me to move.
“No, sweet girl. That was rushed and all about me. You’re just too much for me.”
“If that was rushed, then … I don’t know …” I search for words, still not quite able to form coherent thoughts.
Max pulls off the condom and I show him the trash can hiding under the sink. He washes his hands while I go clean up in the bathroom, clothes in hand, my legs complaining about the stairs the whole way, limp and spent.
18
The timer on the meatballs beeps while Chelsea is upstairs getting cleaned up. I pull open a few drawers, looking for a potholder. Of course, I find a neat pile of them in a drawer right beside the stove. The perfect place. In perfect condition. Perfectly stacked. It’s hard for me to imagine the wild-eyed woman—wrists bound and panting with need—as the same woman who could be capable of this near obsessive and almost totally sterile level of organization.
I don’t know if I’ll ever forget the look in her eyes when I told her she was enough for me. This flood of feeling that neither of us were prepared for. And her body, holy shit her body. So fucking beautiful. I certainly wasn’t prepared for her to react to my touch like that, like my fingers were lightning, creating earthquakes inside her.
I pull the meatballs out of the oven as Chelsea comes around the corner, looking luscious with her just been fucked hair. “Thanks,” she says, struggling to meet my eyes.
“Of course.” I pull her to me and lift her chin until she sees me. I can’t stand the thought of her pulling away, hiding from whatever it was that just happened between us, not after seeing her so open to me. “I would have searched for some plates, but I didn’t want to get too nosy.”
Chelsea laughs, crinkling her nose a little in that way that means she’s nervous. “We got a little distracted and I never got the noodles or the sauce ready.” Her eyes are trained on mine.
“Well, what are you waiting for, woman?” I ask, pressing a kiss into her forehead. “Make me some dinner.”
She laughs lightly—although I still hear a hint of tension behind it all—and flits about the kitchen in an exercise in efficiency and concision. She pours wine for us as I set the table, amazed at how comfortable I feel in her home. I sit at her table and watch her work with her hummingbird-like energy. Before tonight, I would have envied her drive, her need to stay in motion, but after seeing that look in her eyes, after watching her come totally undone before me, I’m not so sure her need for perfection comes from a healthy place.
She serves me, putting my plate down in front of me almost ceremoniously, and then perches on the edge of her chair, waiting for me to take the first bite. I had already decided that no matter how the dinner actually tasted, I was going to go on like it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Which, to be honest, surprises me, because I am not one for falsehoods and pretense. I like to call it like I see it and keep things honest and real. But something tells me she needs to please me, needs to be good, needs to feel like she’s succeeded, and something inside me has risen up to answer that call. Something in this perfect woman is dreadfully broken and I want to put her back together again.
The good news is that I don’t have to fake a damn thing. The meatballs are delicious. I moan and my eyes roll closed. “Shit, woman. Smart. Sexy. Beautiful. And you can cook? How perfect can you be?”
She beams and takes a bite, blushing as she chews. We talk as we eat. I ask her about her family and she goes on about how wonderful they are. She tells me about her sisters—love shining in her eyes.
“Our childhoods couldn’t be more different,” I say and take a bite of meatball.
She shakes her head, suddenly self-aware. “I can only imagine. I’m sorry for going on and on.”
“No need to be sorry. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to hear it.”
“Was it hard? Growing up in the foster system?”
“I think growing up is just hard. Period.” I shrug, not sure I’m ready to show her the stark contrast between her memories and mine.
“That’s true.” Chelsea smiles and I know that she’s giving me the out, searching her head for a safer topic. I surprise myself and keep talking.
“From what I gather,” I say, stabbing the last meatball on my plate. “You were raised. For better or for worse, your parents instilled a sense of belonging and this burning desire to succeed in you. Me? I raised myself. Forged who I am despite the people and influences working against me.”
She nods, conceding the point, guilt casting a shadow across her face. “I can’t even begin to imagine.”
“But,” I say, leaning forward to catch her eye. “I’m not so sure it was a bad thing. I’m quite comfortable in who I am. All the things I am, I chose to be, you know? I don’t doubt my wants and needs because I understand where they come from.”
“I never thought about it like that. I’ve often wondered who I’d be if I wasn’t busy trying to live my life the way my parents taught me. Trying to live up to who they want me to be.”
“You’d still be you. Good and sweet and wonderful. And maybe a little more okay with being a lowly physical therapist.” I make sure she catches the sarcasm in my voice and sees how much I respect her job.
Chelsea picks at the food left on her plate, a flurry of thoughts parading across her face. “How did your parents die?” she finally asks.
I sit back in my chair and clear my throat, dropping my eyes from hers
for the first time since we sat down. It’s the one thing, the one thing in my past I haven’t made peace with. The one part of myself I don’t want to share. Don’t want her pity or her judgement.
“It’s okay,” she says, shaking her head, an apology in her eyes. “I was out of line.”
I think of her in the kitchen, bared to me in more than just the physical sense. She showed me her soul tonight and here I am, hiding mine from her in return. That’s not fair or right or just.
“They were murdered.” The words taste like ash.
Her lips part. Shock. Pain. Regret. They dance on her face in the silence. “Oh wow…” At least she didn’t say she was sorry. So many people go for that. Empty words to fill the space, designed to make themselves feel better.
“My dad was involved in a crime ring in New York. All kinds of illegal stuff. Guess he got started with them when he was a teenager and then just never got out. He didn’t climb very far up the ranks. I don’t think he was an ambitious man. But he got in deep enough, I guess.” I want to watch her face as I talk, but I’m mostly speaking to my plate. “According to my grandma, my mom was okay with it in the beginning. Liked the danger, I guess. And the easy money was probably nice, too. But after I was born, she wanted him to get out. And it didn’t take long until he wanted to get out. Building a better life for his family stopped meaning providing all the material things and started meaning providing the stuff that matters. Safety. Protection. The ability to sleep at night. That kind of stuff.”
I glance at her and she’s rapt. Her eyes trained on mine. No judgement. No pity. Nothing. It’s not at all what I expected and everything I should have expected because when hasn’t she been exactly what I needed?
“He thought he got out,” I say. “But I guess the mob had other ideas. They broke into our house and killed my mom while my dad watched and I hid under the table in the kitchen. She fell to the floor in front of me, her blood sneaking out towards my hands while my dad screamed. The sound…” I shake my head. “It haunts me.”
Chelsea reaches across the table and touches my hand. Silent support.
“The guy came for me next, digging under the table for me.” A memory, harsh and ugly. My hands smearing in my mother’s blood as I tried to push away from the snarling man who would kill me. I won’t share that with Chelsea. It’s mine to bear. “My dad shot him. The guy didn’t die right away, turned and killed my dad and then died, half under the table with me.”
I finish the story and regret everything. That was my story. Mine and no other. I’ve never shared it with someone who wasn’t my grandma or a therapist and I don’t know what caused me to share it today, but I wish I could scoop it back up and hide it away. Take it all back and return to flirting and laughing with Chelsea.
“How old were you? Six?”
I nod.
“That’s a lot to carry.” Her voice is soft, her focus trained on me. In this moment, I am all that she sees and I refuse to buckle under the scrutiny.
“It was. It is. I think things would have turned out a whole hell of a lot differently if it hadn’t been for my grandma. She was determined to raise me up strong enough to carry it all.”
“Was she your mom’s mom or your dad’s mom?”
“My dad’s. And she was hell-bent on making me better than him. In showing me how to find my own true north and keep my moral compass pointed that way. I had four good years with her until she passed. And those four years were the foundation that kept me sane while I was bounced around the system.”
And there it all is. Well, the majority of it anyway. Out there in the open for Chelsea to study and digest. I thought it would be uncomfortable, having everything out in the open like this, but it almost feels good to share it. And good that of all the people in the world I could share it with, I chose her.
“Sorry,” I say, swiping up my wine with a flourish and taking a quick sip. “Not exactly second date material.”
“This doesn’t exactly feel like a second date.” Chelsea takes a drink of her own wine. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m glad to know you. To skip past all the parts where I have to guess at the things that made you the man in front of me and just get to the truth of it.”
“I do appreciate a general lack of bullshit and prefer to get right to the point.”
Chelsea laughs. “I may have noticed that about you.”
“Oh yeah? And what else have you noticed about me?”
“That you’re good and you’re strong and you see right through the bullshit other people put up. You see who they are underneath it all. You see me, I think. Maybe even better than I see myself.”
“Not yet,” I say. “But I’ll get there.” I stand and gather out plates. “If you’ll let me.”
19
Max and I settle into an exhilarating routine of being the sole focus of each other’s attention. Here I thought that I had the unique ability to obsess over something, to put all my attention on one thing in a way that puts other people to shame. Turns out it’s unique to the both of us.
He writes me these beautiful emails, long and detailed, discussing the most intimate parts of who he is and where he comes from. I learn about the good foster families and the bad. I learn about the things that used to scare him and the stuff that still does. I learn about the nightmares that overtake him, the memories that cloud his days and send him into his house, shades drawn, a deep frown etched into that handsome face.
In return, I pour my heart out to him as well, both in person and through text. I tell him the things the demon-bitch in my head says. Tell him how I feel I will never be enough to satisfy anyone. I show him the deepest, darkest parts of myself, the parts where I am nothing more than a scared little girl inside, trying my best to get it all right and failing miserably all the while.
He texts me first thing in the morning.
Good morning, my beautiful.
And I respond, each and every time.
Good morning, my knight in shining armor.
My phone is always with me. In my hand as much as possible because we are constantly in contact, even while we’re at work. And as soon as we’re home? I’m at his house or he’s at mine and we’re talking, laughing, learning more about each other. And the sex…
Holy shit.
The sex is amazing. He guides me and controls me, maybe sensing the fact that I’ve never done much more than lie on my back in a bed while some man grunts over top of me. I never considered myself inexperienced before. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of partners. But I’m learning that there’s a whole new world of experiences that Max is going to open up for me. Experiences that both scare the hell out of me and excite me at the same time. I’m at once unnerved by the bareness of it all and turned on by the fact that I’m sharing this kind of secret double life with Max. That he knows things about me and I know things about him that no one else knows.
This is intimacy and it builds fast between us.
Tonight he’s coming over with toys. Like, adult toys. And yes, I know I’m an adult, but no, I’ve never used them. Like, never ever. The day I admitted that to him, he looked at me with some strange mixture of shock and pity and disbelief so strong I felt ashamed. Of course, he saw that shame and pulled me into his lap, pulled out his phone that very moment and started browsing a section on Amazon that I’ve never been to before. He asked me what intrigued me, letting me look and read and explore, being patient as I worked through the heavy weight of embarrassment pushing down on me and begging me to be silent.
In the end, I asked him to choose, because for the most part, I felt like I’d be willing to try just about anything I saw. He smiled and hid the phone from me, clicking on way more items than I thought appropriate and purchasing them on the spot. When I asked what he picked, he told me it was a surprise and that we’d get to play as soon as they arrived.
I got a text this morning saying that the packages had arrived and I am not at all ashamed to admit that I have thought a
bout nothing else since then. The fear of the unknown mixing with the tantalizing secret, mixing with just the little taste of danger that some of the more illicit items aroused in me. I don’t know what we’re going to do tonight and the expectation is sublime.
After a very distracted day at work, I arrive home and shower before spending more time picking out my underwear than I do my actual outfit. Max is taking me to dinner, but I don’t know if I can eat. My belly is twisting in excitement. I’m perched on the couch when he knocks and practically sprint to the door, letting him in with a strong gust of mid-November air.
He’s got a bag with him. A big bag. And I can’t get my eyes off it.
“What did you bring?” I ask, reaching for it as he snatches away.
“Patience, sweet girl.”
“I used up all my patience today. I am officially out of patience.” I reach for the bag again. “What’s in there?”
Max moves the bag out of my grasp. “You are being very naughty, little girl.”
“Maybe I like being naughty.” I bite my lip, doing my best to look scrumptious and irresistible.
Max’s eyes go dark. “Naughty girls need punishments.”
Adrenaline mixes with lust and I am on fire. “Maybe I need you to punish me.”
Max advances on me. Wraps his fist in my hair and pulls back, exposing my neck, so I’m looking up at him as he peers down at me. “I am in charge of your needs. I will decide if, when, and how you need punished.” He presses a kiss to my lips and a surge of desire pools between my legs. “Do you understand?” he asks, his lips brushing mine.
I nod, blushing and smiling and so turned on I’m almost embarrassed. I love it when he takes control like this. Love it when he claims me.
He releases me and opens the bag, pulls out a box about the size of his hand. “I think—you naughty, needy girl—that you’re right. You need to be reminded who’s in control here.” He opens the box and pulls out a swatch of red lace, a small black oval, and what looks like a remote. “Put this on.”
