She shook her head again, baffled.
“Two.”
“Two?”
“Two,” he confirmed. “And one of them was Natasha, who really doesn’t count because she pretty much told me what to buy her the one Christmas we were together. Sent me an email with a link. Not just a picture as a hint or something, an actual link to the store’s shopping cart. Sucked all the fun out of it. I mean, making a list is one thing, but—”
“Who was the other one?” Lindy interrupted softly.
Richard smiled down at her, brushing a thumb over her lower lip. “My mom.”
Lindy considered that for a moment, trying to ignore the delicious teasing of Richard’s fingers against her lips, then her cheek, then trailing down her neck.
“I owe you an apology,” she said after a moment.
“For dating Mr. Red House? Accepted. I’ve moved on. Consider it forgotten.”
Lindy laughed. “No, doofus. For seducing you under false pretenses. I sort of lied by omission.” Her smile faded and she had to force herself to say the last part, the embarrassing confession. “I always liked you. In that way, I mean. I’ve had a crush on you since college. I wouldn’t have ever told you, but I didn’t ever see you as only a friend. I lied about that so you wouldn’t be worried about my getting all clingy and expecting something from you afterward.”
“You didn’t lie, exactly. You were willing to walk away afterward, and you did. What you did wasn’t so bad.”
“I’m glad you think so. I guess.”
“What I did was, though.”
“I just didn’t want to— What?”
Richard sighed, sitting back on his heels and lacing his fingers behind his head. He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds then squeezed his eyes closed. “When you asked me to have sex with you, I should have said no. Because of what you said about guys thinking they didn’t want to be the first in case you thought it was something it wasn’t. I didn’t realize at the time, but I think that was exactly what I wanted you to feel like. That it meant something.”
She was having a little trouble following him. “Richard, are you trying to say you agreed to have sex with me so I would think I was in love with you?”
He shrugged, still not opening his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe. Or at least I assumed that would happen, pretty much. I’m not trying to defend it.”
“I sort of wish you would. It might help me understand what the hell you were thinking.”
“I’m not sure I understand it myself.” He looked down at her finally, dropping his arms to his sides, looking miserable but hopelessly adorable. “I didn’t go into it meaning to manipulate you. But afterward I just couldn’t take the idea of anybody else doing that with you. I still can’t. I know you said it was just a hymen. But, you know—rose petals, Lind. It was like that. Freakin’ rose petals. I can’t help it.”
Lindy stared at him, flabbergasted. “Who the hell are you?”
Richard stared back, not smiling. “The guy who wants to beat the shit out of any other guy who tries to get near his woman’s rose petals.”
“Richard,” Lindy said, trying vainly to keep from laughing out loud at the sheer absurdity of the conversation. “I think you’ve pretty much taken care of the rose petal issue.”
He let his weight settle a little lower, brushing her pelvis with the seam of his jeans. “Not unless you felt like it meant something.”
Lindy arched her back, automatically trying to get closer. Something in his expression gave her the sudden insight that she held a great deal of power in the situation. Being tied down didn’t change that. “Tell me what you wanted it to mean.”
“Everything,” he said without missing a beat.
Lindy’s heart, however, missed at least one.
“Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?”
“You said you wanted me as a friend. You never said you’d had a crush on me since college. I guess I won’t ask why you didn’t tell me that.”
“Everybody else knew,” she pointed out.
“But how would I know? You never did the stuff other girls did. You never threw yourself at me. You never called me. You never flashed your boobs at me at a drunken frat party and asked me to do body shots off you.”
“Girls did that?”
He shrugged. “I never had to work very hard.”
“I guess not. Wow. Even if I had been one of those pretty girls, I wouldn’t have done that.”
“What are you talking about?” He shook his head, sighing. “Stupid self-esteem issues. You were one of those pretty girls. You still are. You’re one of those beautiful girls. You’re the girl who’s breaking my heart because you slept with me but it didn’t mean anything to you.” His smile took the weight from the words, and Lindy was able to smile back.
“It meant something,” she conceded. “I don’t know about everything. Maybe if you showed me again, now that I know what I’m supposed to be looking for?”
She scarcely got the words out before Richard swooped down to kiss her, framing her face with his hands, stealing her breath. When he finally released her, he rested his forehead against hers until he had collected himself enough to speak again.
“While I can still walk straight, I’m going across the hall for a whole bunch of condoms. Unless you have some here?” He didn’t sound too hopeful of that, and he barely waited for her response before moving away from the bed, leaving her there. All tied up and no place to go.
Lindy felt a wave of giddiness, a whole-body giggle. They were doing things backward again—the bondage first and then the kissing and groping, followed by confessions of secret crushes and hidden agendas. When would they get it all in the right order?
She could hear Richard’s footsteps—he’d started running like a madman once he was out of her line of sight—marking a beat from his bedroom back to hers, with two pauses to close and lock each door. He stopped short just out of sight, then pretended nonchalance as he sauntered around the corner and over to Lindy’s bed. He took his time undressing, with frequent pauses to torture her to higher and higher states of sweet frustration.
His touch was different now. Harder, more certain. He wasn’t holding back as much. Lindy watched him with new interest, wondering just how far he might go.
“Now to take the edge off,” Richard said matter-of-factly, once the rest of his clothes were on the floor. He leaned over and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to Lindy’s cunt, and she arched as far as she could to get closer. “Not so fast,” he warned her. “Patience.”
Then he repositioned himself over her, angling his hips until Lindy opened her mouth to take in his cock. It was strange in this position, different and uncomfortable at first. But then she felt a renewed surge of lust at the feel of him stretching her lips, at the musky maleness of him, and the knowledge that he was about to reciprocate.
“Fuck, that’s good,” Richard moaned as she swirled her tongue around his girth, feeling for the sensitive ridge just below the head. Then his mouth was on her clit, hot and wet, and Lindy hummed because her mouth was too full to moan. She was so close it almost hurt, and the slide of his heated skin against her lips just made her more eager, anticipating how it would feel when he was finally moving the same way inside her cunt. When she sucked deeper, his rewarding groan against her clit was a blissful agony.
Once or twice he flexed his hips harder, testing her willingness, looking for her limits. The idea of learning to swallow his cock to its hilt made her throb and writhe under his talented tongue and long, long fingers, even as she brought him to the breaking point. She swallowed his come, greedily licking for more, and only then shattered into oblivion as he finally allowed her to climax.
He turned with a groan and slid himself up until he was resting over Lindy’s chest, allowing her just enough room to breathe. Richard kissed her sweetly, licking her clean.
“If I untie you so I can take your dress off,” he said between swipes of his tongue, “will you be a good gir
l? Or will you try to run away before I can persuade you to stay?”
“Are we calling this persuasion now?”
“As long as you stick around for it, we can call it anything you want.”
Chapter Ten
The emergency shears weren’t needed. The knots came free so easily, in fact, that it was almost as if Lindy hadn’t been pulling on them very hard at all. She just made a noncommittal noise when Richard pointed this out, and then stretched in a way she obviously knew would distract him pretty thoroughly from the issue.
Richard removed Lindy’s dress with exaggerated care, draping it neatly over the back of the chair next to her bed. Then her bra, taking time to admire the delicate black lace. It was—had been—part of a matching set.
“No sudden moves,” he warned her, and she thought he was only about seventy-percent joking.
“You’re a complete nutcase, you know that, right?”
“I prefer the term ‘whack job’,” he shot back. “Roll over.”
She gave him a look that clearly suggested he should commit a sex act with himself and didn’t move a muscle. It surprised her how quickly he reacted, and she barely managed to conceal her grin when he flipped her over, pinning her shoulders to the bed as he sat on her thighs. Once he seemed sure she wouldn’t move, he ran his hands down to her butt, outlining her curves. Lulling her, but not so well that she couldn’t anticipate what he had planned.
Thwack!
His hand slapped down on the meatiest part of her rear end, and Lindy yelped. She’d been expecting it, but she hadn’t expected it to be quite so hard.
“That was for calling me a nutcase.”
Thwack! Thwack!
She hissed and wriggled her hips, and as the sting on her ass turned to pure heat, she felt a blissful sensation creep through her. Better than relaxation, better than arousal. Something new.
“That was two,” Richard said, his voice sounding a little gruff. She could feel him hardening again already, pressing against her thigh, sticky and hot. “One for each week since the last time you slept with me.”
“Fair enough,” she murmured.
“Next is three, for the total number of times I plan to make love to you before I let you leave this bed again for any reason. That’s three at a minimum.”
Her brain registered the new terminology, the change from sex to lovemaking, even as her daze grew deeper and her arousal keener. He changed sides on the third stroke, pulling a gasp from her as the newly assaulted skin absorbed the pain. Richard scratched his nails very lightly over the marks he’d made, humming in clear approval.
“You have the most beautiful skin I have ever seen. And your ass drives me insane. Seeing my handprint on it is unreal.” He traced the mark’s outline then pinched the spot, humming again when she gave a soft cry. “What’s four, Lindy?”
She tried to think, although she felt like she lacked two functioning brain cells to rub together just then. “The number of knots you used to tie me to my own damn bed,” she grumbled at last.
“You liked that almost as much as I did,” he reminded her, stating it as a fact. “The tying-up thing is a definite keeper. But there were only three knots, the belt just got buckled around your ankle and the bedpost.” She felt him move around on the bed then settle back over her legs, and this time instead of his hand, she heard and felt the thuddy slap of leather in four even strokes, back and forth across the very tops of her thighs. Not as painful as his hand, she was startled to find. Lindy looked over her shoulder after the fourth blow. Richard was experimenting with his grip on the belt.
“This leather is too stiff. I think I’m going to have to make an actual flogger or something,” he said, then shrugged and tossed the accessory away, leaning over her again to nip at the back of her neck. “Or maybe I should get you to make it.”
“Make you a whip so you can use it on me? What kind of a masochist do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. A really, really hot one?”
She laughed out loud, the feeling of surreal giddiness taking over again. “Oh my god, Richard, this is terrible. I am a masochist. That was just never part of the plan. Christmas is coming up and I already have the leather, do you want a black one or a brown one?”
It took him aback just long enough to be really rewarding, and she turned her head in time to catch the look of utter delight and awe that transformed his face. “Black,” he said at last. “You are the best girlfriend ever.”
She buried her face in her folded arms again, not quite muffling her wordless squeal of joy. So she felt, rather than saw, Richard tugging on her hips to lift them up, spreading her knees wider with his own. Exploring her pussy with his fingers and twisting forward to press on the spot that had brought such a strong reaction earlier. Then his hands slid forward, messy and wet, curving under her ribs to cup her breasts, his weight oddly comforting against her hips and back. He swirled his fingers around her nipples, teasing until she whimpered with frustration. And then he plucked at the stiff peaks, squeezing and tweaking. Manhandling her.
It was glorious. Lindy pushed back against his cock, stiff against her rear, as Richard hovered over her. He responded by tucking the hot length between her legs, rubbing and teasing her cunt with it. He freed a hand to hold himself against her then gave up and delved into her again with two fingers, aiming ruthlessly for the tender pad of flesh that seemed to hold the secret to unraveling the last shreds of Lindy’s self-control.
He’d stowed a condom somewhere close enough that she didn’t feel him moving away to retrieve it. But Lindy still whined in complaint when his hand left her mere seconds before she hit the point of no return.
Her complaint stopped abruptly, replaced by a series of short, sharp gasps as Richard entered her abruptly, gripping her hips hard enough to hurt. Lindy grabbed blindly for the bars of the headboard, holding on for leverage, trying in vain to anchor herself in the real world. But Richard’s relentless pace as he took her was all the world Lindy knew. Her heart beat to that pace, it seemed.
When he reached a hand beneath her, stroking her clit each time his cock stroked inside her, it was all over. Lindy came with a banshee wail, feeling the walls of her pussy clench even more tightly against the welcome intruder. Richard slammed into her one last time, shuddering and gasping, and Lindy felt the hot throb of his cock as he exploded.
When it was all over but the panting, Richard pulled out of her, briefly leaving Lindy cold and bereft. When he got up she let herself fall limply to one side, curling there and shivering occasionally with the last aftershocks of pleasure. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. After a few moments—she assumed he was dealing with the condom—Richard crawled back into bed, spooning up along her back and wrapping his arm around her waist to pull her closer. He twined a leg through hers, hooking his calf around one of her feet. Then he tucked the covers in firmly around them both, making sure that Lindy was wrapped snugly against his body.
“So you can’t escape my evil clutches this time,” he explained, squeezing her firmly and pressing a kiss to her shoulder.
Lindy had already decided she had no intention whatsoever of escaping. Richard’s clutches were far from evil, and she couldn’t think of a single place she would rather be.
* * * * *
It was a long night, and sleep was not a top priority for either one of them. They drowsed and scrounged for food and attacked one another gleefully, and then finally fell into a deeper, exhausted slumber around five in the morning. When Lindy woke up the sun was streaming into the loft, bringing the hot light of early afternoon. She was starving. When she moved, she moaned pitifully. She was sore in most places, stubble-burned in quite a few as well and sticky just about everywhere.
She was also happier than she could ever remember being in her life.
She let her senses adjust to the day slowly. The faint smells of coffee and bacon. Below that something lighter, sweeter. Somebody whistling, but she didn’t recognize the tune. Closer
at hand she heard the rustle of paper, the torn notebook page almost brushed to the floor as she sat up in bed and pulled the comforter aside. The note just said COME TO MY PLACE FOR BREAKFAST in a familiar architectural block print. Underlined three times.
Below the drawing was a rough sketch, a hasty dash of pencil strokes, of a sleeping profile mostly obscured by ringlets of hair. Then a little arrow pointing from that to a smiley face. Lindy stared at it for a long time, soaking in its meaning, its assumptions.
He had left his shirt on her bed. A chambray button-down, a little worn at the collar and cuffs. It smelled deliciously like Richard. Lindy pulled it on, pleased that the buttons didn’t gap over her bosom. She stood up and found that the shirt fell almost to mid-thigh. Figuring that was sufficient, she wandered into the restroom and then across the hall to the source of the coffee and bacon smells. And yes, pancakes too. Cold, but still appetizing because she was that hungry. The bacon was cold as well, but Lindy liked it that way anyway. The important thing was that the coffee was still hot.
Richard, wearing only his faded jeans, spared her a broad grin and then turned wordlessly back to his task. And she understood completely, wouldn’t have distracted him further for all the tea in China. Because he was standing on a stepladder in front of his canvas, using a charcoal pencil to rough out a design in one corner of the vast white expanse that was now about one quarter covered with a fine network of blue lines and darker charcoal marks. In his other hand he held his notebook, and Lindy could see he was referring to sketches there. She didn’t know if they were old ideas or new ones.
The coffee was perfect. Richard always made great coffee, and he always had fresh milk in his refrigerator. Lindy sipped with appreciation, sitting on a stool at the bar-height island that separated the kitchen from the rest of the loft. Watching him work. Wondering what he had in mind for that vast, empty space to his right, but trusting that his mind had enough creative energy to fill it once he started. He had just needed to start.
The pancakes were just fine cold, Lindy decided. And the bacon was outstanding.
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