“Fine.” He sighed. “In that case, ‘I’m serious’ or ‘I mean it’ will suffice to get my attention should there be a miscommunication.”
“Sounds fine to me,” I said. “That’s a lot easier to remember than ‘popsicle’ for sure.” I laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, blushing.
“So, you know all about safe words?” He smiled at me now. “You’re kinky. Maybe your theories about me are just projection.”
“Ha!” I laughed. “No, at most it’s just a ‘takes one to know one’ situation.”
“That’s an admission.”
“Okay.” I smirked. “I’ll cop to being…adventurous. I’ve seen the seedier side of sex. Honestly you can’t be in my profession and not be exposed to a myriad of kinks and predilections.”
“Such as?”
“Oh you know, bondage and discipline—that sort of thing,” I said, keeping my tone casual. The truth was I was totally full of it, trying to make myself sound far more experienced than I was. All I knew about BDSM came from bad erotica and several hair-raising conversations I’d had with a dancer named Bella Donna who had worked at Clouds for about five months over a year ago. I was faking my way through this whole conversation and I wasn’t sure exactly what my motive was. But I did know it was exciting the hell out of me.
“Whips and chains. That sort of thing?”
“Maybe.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get the props. If I want to restrain you, I’ll do so with my hands.” He tilted his head to the side, thinking. “Or maybe a well-placed length of rope. That would leave one’s hands free, to explore.”
I gaped at him, a dull ache spreading between my thighs.
“And I can definitely see the appeal of a good spanking. I love how you look when your cheeks blush; I think I’d find your backside just as lovely under the same conditions.”
“Oh my God!”
“But anything I do with you, or to you, I’d prefer it to evolve naturally. I can’t see the need for scripts and set pieces.”
“So no red-room of pain at your house, then?”
“What?” he said, clearly puzzled.
“Nothing, just a book I read a while ago.”
“And it had a red-room of pain in it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s just a power trip,” he said, shaking his head. He laughed, the sound was cynical.
“Some people think that’s what all sex is,” I said, echoing something Bella had said to me once. “Everywhere. Everyone. Whether they want to admit it or not, everybody is just power tripping everybody else.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said, thinking of what I do for a living. “Yeah, sometimes it feels that way.”
“Does it feel that way with me?”
“No,” I said, sighing. “Shit, I fucked this up again. Me and my stupid mouth.”
“Stop it. You haven’t fucked up anything. What’s happening is we’re having a serious, albeit unexpected conversation. But we’re having it because it needs to be had.”
“It does?” I said. I wasn’t so sure that it did. I didn’t even know why I’d brought the topic up, really, other than I just wanted to stop talking about miscarriages and exes.
“Obviously. Because this wouldn’t be coming up, if it wasn’t on your mind.”
“Or maybe I’m just stupid,” I said, toeing some sand with my shoe. What was wrong with me? I was arguing points I didn’t really even believe, just for the hell of it. Just to what? Get a rise out of him? How fucked up is that?
“If you call yourself stupid one more time I’ll turn you over my knee and spank you.”
“See!” I said, pointing at him with a grin. “Power trip!”
“No, that’s not this,” he said, smiling softly. He gestured between us. “That’s not what we have. We share the power and we toss it back and forth. We have since day one. I was just too stupid to see that at first.”
“Don’t call yourself stupid.” I grinned at him. “Or I’ll have to give you a spanking.”
“Careful now,” he said, glancing at me sidelong, his expression fierce.
“Power trip.” I mouthed the words at him slowly, and grinned.
“See,” he laughed and ran a hand through his hair, “that’s us. That’s what we do. You tease me, and push my buttons, and I respond, putty in your hands.”
“As if!” I said. “That makes it sound like I get what I want. And I most definitely don’t get what I want.”
“No?” he said, arching an eyebrow. Shoving his hands back into his pockets, he walked towards me again and I picked up my backwards amble down the beach.
“No, you tease me right back, tiger. You get me all worked up and then you torture me, make me wait for it.”
“Yes, you mentioned that already. Delayed gratification. What else?”
“You get off on watching me dance naked for other men. That’s pretty kinky.”
“Oh God. I did confess that, didn’t I? I wonder what damaged part of my psyche is responsible for that anomaly?”
“Not damaged. Jeez, just, ya know, interesting.”
“Oh I don’t know. It strikes me that your sex therapist mother would have a field day with your observation about restraint.” He held his arm aloft and pushed back the cuff of his coat sleeve, exposing his tattooed wrist.
“Right, good point. Like you were powerless so now you get off on being powerful, etcetera.”
“Something like that. I can’t say it’s wrong, either. The thought of holding you down while I fuck you senseless is incredibly appealing to me.”
“Yeah, you and me both, buddy,” I said, smiling weakly, hot wet heat burning low in my belly. “So is this fixed now? Is the awkward fixed?”
“Getting there,” he said.
“You’re right,” I said. “When I think about it. We’ve been tossing the power back and forth from the start. I mean, I chased you pretty hard didn’t I?”
“You did.” He nodded. “But I wouldn’t have been caught if I didn’t want to be.”
“Oh okay.” I scoffed. “Sure. I owned you from the word go.”
“A second ago you were arguing the opposite. Which is it?”
“No, you were arguing the opposite, not me.”
“No, I was arguing…wait. I don’t even know anymore.” He ran a hand through his hair, stopped walking, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What did you think of me when we first met? What was your analysis then? I want to know.”
I stopped walking and mimicked his pose. “Truth?”
“Always.”
“My very first impression… I thought you were this buttoned up, kind of shy, stuffy hot guy. I thought you’d fall down at my feet the minute I wanted you to.”
“Hmmm.”
“Yeah, obviously it didn’t happen that way. And to be honest, I’ve had a few bad moments when I’ve thought about how aggressively I was pursuing you. I mean, you told me to stop.”
“I did,” he said, nodding.
“And I didn’t stop,” I said, a wave of discomfort settling over me when I recalled my behavior.
“No. You pushed, that’s true. But when I pushed back, you stopped. Or you tried. But you didn’t get the chance, because after I asked you to stop, I—”
“Showed up at my club.”
“Yes.” He laughed. “And that, is when everything changed. After that night—”
“It was game on,” I said, laughing.
“Most definitely.” He smiled.
I grinned at him. My heart felt a mile wide, as open and turbulent as the sea beyond the shoreline. He enthralled me; his words, his eyes, the lazy stretch of his fingers as they drummed at his biceps, those dimples at the corners of his smile. I blinked and took a deep breath, steadying myself, lust and longing flowing together into some jumble of emotions that was unfamiliar territory to me.
“What did you think of me
?” I asked. “First impression. Truth.”
“Ah.” He smiled and glanced at the water, his eyes lingering. “What did I tell myself I thought of you? Or what did I really think?”
That’s an interesting answer, I thought. “Both.”
He sighed and squinted at the ocean, the sea air tousling his hair as he spoke. “I told myself you were silly. One of those students who daydreams about affairs with a teacher. That thinks the idea is glamorous and exciting. I told myself that you were simple and unsophisticated and that nothing good would come of any of this.”
“Ouch.”
“But my honest impression was that you were exquisite. In every way. Your words charmed just as surely as your form. And every time we spoke, I grew more and more annoyed.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because you are enchanting,” he said. Walking to me, he reached out, his fingers brushing a windswept strand of hair from my face. “It’s as if the gods made you just for me, to tempt me. And I was determined to resist, because I was sure it would all end in tragedy. Which if there are gods involved, is generally how things end.” He laughed.
“No gods here,” I said, glancing around dramatically. “Far as I can see.”
“It was when you remarked on Kipling that I knew,” he said, musing. “I knew at that moment that you were nothing like what I’d assumed. And I knew I was not going to succeed in resisting you. I knew I didn’t want to.”
“Damn,” I said quietly. “If I knew name dropping Kipling was such a great pickup line, I would’ve started using it years ago.”
He beamed, threw his head back and laughed heartily. “See, that right there, Jane. That’s you. You’re spectacular. How could I resist you?”
“At the laundromat—”
“Ah yes,” he said. Stepping closer to me, he cradled my face in his hands. “I believe I exhibited some of those kinky qualities then. Didn’t I?”
“Just a bit.”
“After that encounter, I think I’ll forever have a terrible fondness for laundromats.”
“Me too,” I said, my pulse quickening at the memory, I turned and took a few steps away from him. “Yeah, you made all kinds of promises that night,” I said, looking back at him. “But then you backed off. You changed your mind. Why?”
Why are you even asking this? I thought. This was in the past; we’d gotten together despite all the confusion. What did this matter now? But it did somehow. I needed to know.
“The truth,” he said, more statement than question. But I answered him anyway.
“Always.”
“The truth is,” he said, his gaze scanning over the ocean’s horizon as if he’d find some answers there, “I was scared. I’d almost lost control with you that night. It shocked me how much I wanted you.”
He turned back, his eyes searching mine. I was stunned by his expression, realizing that it mattered to him, too. He needed to explain just as much as I needed to hear it.
“I haven’t wanted anything or anyone like that in a very long time. Maybe ever.”
I bit my lip, wanting to respond, but unsure of what to say. I hoped he could see my response in my eyes.
“We both felt it. Didn’t we?” he said, and his gaze was to the sea again. “If we’re honest, we both felt something from the very beginning. And it scared us. Both of us.”
I swallowed hard. “What do you mean?” I asked, and I felt the lie lurking behind the question. I knew exactly what he meant.
He crossed to me in two long strides, his leather clad knuckles brushing my cheek. “This,” he said. “This right here. What’s between us is so strong I can almost see it in the air, like lightning.” His hand slipped over my jaw and cupped the back of my neck. “It’s been there from the very beginning. We both knew it. And we both denied it. Didn’t we?”
“Yes,” I whispered. Every nerve in my body had been called to attention at his touch. The sensation was overwhelming. I trembled under his hands, and took a step back, an involuntary reaction to alleviate the overload of feelings that were flooding my system.
“We both lied to ourselves, and fought it,” he said, stepping into me, crowding me, “even as we hungered for each other, even as we kept falling together, time and time again, we fought it. We told ourselves it was just physical, that it was just sex.”
“Yes,” I said, and took another step back. I wanted to run into him, to climb into his arms and cling to him, but his words were shaking me, rattling the precariously repaired pieces of my heart. I wanted to gather the pieces and give them over to him, a gift. But I couldn’t. The last time I’d given my heart away, it was returned to me, broken. It had taken me years to put myself back together. How could I risk that again?
“It’s always been this.” His hand raked into my hair and massaged my scalp, fingers gently tangling in the tendrils. “From the beginning, our bodies recognized it, and our hearts did too, even as our minds fought it.”
My eyes fluttered closed at his words. He was looking at me too intently, his gaze too brilliant for me to hold.
“And still we’re fighting it.” His hand tilted my head back. I opened my eyes and he pinned me with his gaze.
My lips parted. I wanted to answer him. But, no sound would come from me. I was paralyzed.
“We are,” he said, and his expression shifted as if a connection was being made. “You are. That’s what all that was about. Back there. Wasn’t it? We were getting too close. You said it yourself. Things were getting heavy.”
“No, I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Jane. Don’t. You’re scared,” he said, and his other hand rose to cup my cheek, his thumb caressing my skin. “Oh, darling. I won’t hurt you. You don’t need to be scared.”
“I-I can’t help it,” I stuttered. Closing my eyes, I shook my head in his hands. “I can’t—”
“It’s my fault,” he muttered as if chastising himself. “I pushed, sharing things I should have known would upset you.”
“No.” I shook my head again. “You don’t know anything. And that’s just it. You’re wonderful and you’ve been so open with me, and I want to…I want to do the same—”
“But you can’t,” he said.
“Not yet,” I whispered, and opened my eyes to find his, filled with understanding and sympathy. I wanted so much to tell him, to tell him everything. “I can’t,” I said, and felt my eyes fill with tears.
“So you steered us towards something familiar, something safe. Sex.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I didn’t know I was doing that until just now.”
It was true. All of it. He was absolutely right. I’d been freaked out and overstimulated emotionally and I’d completely sabotaged our afternoon by picking some kind of weird confrontation. And I’d managed to defile the moment we were having, to boot. I’d made it all about the physical, all about the sex, because that was easier than having to deal with hearts.
“It’s alright,” he said, gathering me into his arms, his hands running over my back, trying to soothe me. “Let me help you. What can I do? Tell me. Anything.”
“Kiss me,” I said, my lips trembling. I hated myself in that moment, hated myself for doing it again, taking the coward’s way out. I should’ve taken him inside, sat by the fire and had a lengthy heart to heart. I should have told him right then, all about Brian, all about….everything. But I didn’t.
He stilled, and then slowly, his hands ghosted up my arms to cup my face. He kissed me softly, his lips warm and pacifying, full of sympathy and patience. I didn’t want his sympathy. I didn’t need his patience.
“No.” I pulled away. “Thomas, I need you.”
His eyes searched mine, questioning. I stared back, silently pleading with him, hoping that somehow he might understand what I needed from him without me having to utter another word.
Fuck me, I thought. This is too much right now. I don’t want to feel anything but your hands on me, your cock inside me. I can’t talk to you right
now, can’t tell you how I feel. I can’t listen to you anymore, can’t listen to the sound of my heart pounding louder than the waves against the shore. Just fuck me, Thomas. Don’t give me your understanding or your sweetness, just fuck me until I can’t think anymore. Make this all go away for a while.
“Okay,” he said, as if reading my mind.
His mouth crashed into mine, his tongue forcing between my lips before I had a chance to acquiesce. He plunged inside, dominating, stilling my movements, until he was fucking my mouth and I was letting him, helpless in his grip. I moaned into his mouth when I felt his cock, hard and insistent against my hip, and a wave of lust rushed through me. I felt faint, stars pricking at the edge of my vision. I pushed at his chest. Breaking the kiss, I gulped for air, and stumbled backwards, needing just a moment to clear my head, just a moment to get myself together so I could see straight, feel straight. I turned and ran smack into a huge outcrop of waist high boulders, then tripped and fell forward over the nearest one, ass up, feet dangling, chest planted into a cold wet pillow of snow. He was on me in an instant, his hands pulling the puffy coat from my body, his arm crossing over my chest to pull my body back against his as he scrambled out of his coat. He gripped my jaw firmly, angling my face to his. He kissed me again, his tongue lashing over my lips and past them to pillage my mouth furiously. His other hand snaked under my sweater and found the edge of my bra, pushing it up, all of it up, until my breasts sprang free, my nipples knotting painfully in the cold sea air.
“Jane,” he rasped. His hand paused, hovering over my breasts. “Tell me. Should I keep going—”
“Don’t you dare…” I croaked, realizing what he meant to do. My eyes flicked to the hard rock in front of us, its snow covered surface, the cold raw aura of our surroundings. My inner muscles clenched at the thought, my panties flooding with anticipation. He’d heard my silent plea. He knew exactly what I needed, and he meant to give it to me. “Don’t you dare stop,” I said. “And I’m fucking serious.”
He growled at my words, and pressed me forward, bending me over the rock, forcing my naked breasts into the cold crisp snow. His hands gripped my hips, found the front of my jeans, and pulled them open, yanking the denim down and pinning my knees together. I felt leather grazing up my naked thighs, the warm exploration of his hands a stark contrast to the blast of cold air that met my skin.
Storms and Dreams (Becoming Jane Book 3) Page 6
