by Alex Elliott
Backing out of the parking space, he looks into the rearview mirror, then at me before putting the car into gear. “I’m an owner. I can tear up that agreement tonight, if that’s what you want.”
“This is moving so fast,” I reply, unsure what I want. “I don’t understand what’s changed in the last twenty-four hours.”
Instead of a rapid-fire response, he stares across the console at me. I can almost feel what he’s going to say. I don’t know if I hear the words before he says them or afterward.
“You trust me,” he whispers and his words resonate.
He’s not questioning me. This time, it’s an affirmation. This is my call and he’s giving me a choice. I can deny him. Tell him no way. Hold him to our modified agreement.
Yet he’s right. I do trust him and want him away from the House. But I can’t deny that what I’m getting from his club isn’t just about sex. It’s about me and a deep-seated need I have that he’s fulfilling in a way that’s borderline insane. And it’s working...I believe.
I exhale a serrated breath, glancing down at my hand that he’s captured. Haltingly, I say, “I still need what you’re providing at your club.”
“We don’t have to stop. I relish what we do at the House. But I’m greedy and possessive and I need more of you. All to myself. Tonight, I intend to show you it’s not one dimensional where we’re concerned. Wouldn’t you concur?” His smoky green eyes darken.
I don’t have to mull over my answer. “I do.”
His eyes widen incrementally and he tightens his hold on my hand. “What would you say if we met at the hotel...the one where you were picked up at?”
“It’s private,” I add. “But won’t be if we’re spotted.”
“Those bonehead reporters can’t access it. And we can spend hours if not days there. Just you and me and no one else. Explore who we are together beyond our prescribed roles. Do you understand?”
Key words: private, you, me, and prescribed roles. “You’re telling me something. Exactly what I don’t get.” With my free hand, I graze my fingers along his arm. “And because I trust you, maybe I don’t need to know.”
He laughs. “So you’re fine with us adding more nights? More naked time?” His expression morphs from cocky to curious to serious. “Starting tonight?”
He doesn’t have a clue that I want so many, many nights. I stare at him as my skin tingles from excitement. “Just so happens, I am free this evening.”
“Not anymore.” He takes my fingers, curling them over the gear shifter, then rubs his palm over my hand and double-clutches, accelerating and expertly weaving through traffic. When he pulls up to the hotel, he proceeds into the underground private parking.
“Garage hop much? How many parking garages do you have access to?” There’s a row of security parking stickers on the side of his windshield, and an answer to why he doesn’t always flash his parking card or take a parking ticket.
“Too many.” He presses his lips together, his focus is forward, until he swings into a private bay, parking his car.
“Twice I’ve been here and didn’t ask.” I jerk a thumb toward the window. “About the suite upstairs?”
He sighs dramatically. “What exactly do you want to know?”
I wince. Am I being small minded to ask? “I assume we’re going to the same room. But we’re not the same. I kinda like that aspect of us.”
“So many variations and not one borders on routine. The room is owned by my club,” he replies, cupping my chin. “I’m not going to lie to you by pretending that this is the first time I’ve reserved the room. But what’s worth stating is you’re the first woman I’ve brought here with the intention of making love. The room is used as a staging point, and the other owners have used it in the same way I used it with you.”
“The champagne and roses...were nice.”
“Again. A first. Let’s go.”
* * *
INSIDE THE hotel suite, I’m not nervous as I’d been that first time. Still the ‘we’ factor times the fact that we’re at a threshold of a new experience, unsure of what to expect has rivulets of excitement racing under my skin, and leaves me lightheaded.
Ben comes up behind me, kisses my neck as he pulls me flush to his body. “Baby,” he murmurers into my ear.
He fastens his fingers to mine, tugging me to a set of double-doors that he opens. A bedroom waits on the other side. Contemporary décor. Dove grey walls, artwork galore, stone floors and a wide terrace. All frame the king-size bed with a padded leather headboard that takes center stage in the room.
My focus is on the man by my side as he leads me to the bed, and begins to unbutton my blouse, pulling it loose from my skirt, and slipping the sleeves off my shoulders. He bites his lip, his eyes feasting on my boobs as he removes my bra. Groaning, he skims his fingers across my breasts as if in adoration. Bending, he kisses a warm path along the outer curve until I’m moaning, skimming my fingers up his hard body. His lips on my skin tingle, and I tangle my fingers in his hair, arching against his face. He sucks the tip of my breast into his mouth, tonguing my nipple into a tight peak.
“Bennett,” I whisper his name, aching from the way his stubble scratches against my tender skin.
“Xavia, I own you. All of you, baby.” His fingers travel over my waistband, stopping to unhook the clasp, then he lowers the zipper. “You know what I hunger to hear.”
Peeling the skirt off my body, he kneels and presses his mouth to my mound, nuzzling me as he draws off my panties with his teeth. I mew like a cat in heat, gyrating my hips in euphoric response.
“Please. Fuck, please!” I beg him.
When I’m undressed down to heels and hair clips, he lays me on the mattress, and spreads my legs apart. His eyes pin me in place. “Don’t move,” he commands, squeezing my knees hard. “Stay just like this.”
“Where are you going?” I ask him, curling my fingers over his thigh.
For an answer, he pinches my nipples between his fingers and kisses me quiet. Kisses me so savagely I bow, thrashing under him, fighting what I’m feeling. I’m wild, wild, wildly coming apart—so much, I plant my palms, pushing against the wall of sculpted muscle composing his pecs.
Ben growls and takes hold of my wrists, wrestling them upward, over my head. “Little sub, what do you need?”
Need? Surely, he must know.
“You. Only you,” I say and he drags his mouth roughly over mine, thrusting his tongue into my mouth deeper, faster. I whimper, hungry for more of this primal animalistic type of sex that we share, and buck my hips. “Fuck me without mercy!” I plead.
“You’re still fighting,” he rasps against my mouth, then skims his lips to my neck, his words hot puffs, caressing my skin. He sucks a point that has me tugging against his grasp. My nipples pebble into tiny sensitive points, aching for his ownership. “I want you to open to me. Freely...but until you’re ready, I’ll give you what you need.”
“Please,” I snarl as he lifts, flexing upward. At a point along his neck, I see his pulse thrum. I stare at his smooth tanned skin, longing to lean upward and then I do. I assert my ownership of him and suck a mark into his skin. Leave my brand on him.
We became fluid bodies, moving in sync. He kisses me, sucking on my tongue. This man turns me on, so fucking on as we press against each other on this bed. Like the hotel in Boston, but not. This time there is more. We are more. We’re connected.
I understand a little piece of why we go to the club. Why I need that risk to be uninhibited. At the House, in a wig and mask with him, I’m not a preconceived notion cast within the shadow of my family. I’m the opposite of safe, predictable, pathetic. With him I’m wild, hungering for all the adventure he supplies, and in this consuming erotic voyage, I’m set free. But am I willing to take the ultimate risk? Admit that what I want is right here—in a solitary bed with this man, and no audience.
I pull back at the thought. Oh God! I’m falling...really falling for him. A man who doesn’t
do pastels and pearls, wine and waste. Ever. His ideas involve paddles and pain, decadent sex and dark sin. I wriggle my hips against his but with my hands caught, held by his fingers, I gain no foothold. If anything, he traps me under him, forcing himself between my legs as he rides and bruises my pussy—my very naked and exposed pussy that he wants to own.
I want him to possess me. Completely. And in this room that can happen. The thought explodes in my head. Both brilliant illumination and scary as hell. The biggest risk in my life—this man—is giving me the ultimate secret doorway. One that has the power to set me free, or destroy me.
He coasts his fingers up my arms, humming my name as he glosses my mouth with wet kisses. “What do you want?”
That question is an ache and it’s cutting.
So simple and so complex.
You on top of me.
You tying me down.
Spanking me. Unwrapping me. Freeing me.
I want you feeling as on edge and as spiraling apart as I do.
I snake my arms around his neck, pulling us closer, and then I look up into his slate-colored eyes that darken and stare down at me. My heartbeat hammers within my chest that’s bare and pressed to his.
“I want to be free dammit! With you. Only with you.”
His body goes rigid as he arches his perfect brow. “Kiss me with that smart, beautiful and dirty mouth of yours,” he orders, slowly taking hold of me, cupping my head between his fingers.
I press my mouth to his, licking across his lips, and sweep my piercing along his tongue. When I suck his lower lip between my teeth, I bite down, nipping him.
He lifts his head, wearing a cocky grin. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really,” I retort.
Laughing a little wickedly, he lowers his hand to my thigh, hiking my leg higher, splaying me wider until I’m spread to him. Instead of unzipping his fly or finger fucking me, he skims his thumb along the seam of my pussy, teasing me with infinite patience, while watching me. He presses his finger to my clit and my stomach muscles clench. I writhe from the erotic lust brewing low in my belly. I’m growing wetter, needier, borderline ravenous for him. “Don’t tease me!”
“Then don’t fight me.” He captures my wrists and yanks them above my head, pinning me to the mattress. “This is exactly what you need to stop all this bullshit you’re hiding behind!”
Wrestling against him, I try a sharp move, but he’s quick and stronger—lots stronger and I groan. “I don’t want to hide but I need you fucking me. Now!”
“If you can’t stop fighting of your own accord, then we’ll do this my way.”
“What do you mean?” I gasp.
Lifting upward, he lets go of my arms. I watch as he pads across the bedroom to the closet, removing a rather large figure-8 coil of rope. Similar to the soft rope he used the other time in the club, except this rope is a deep burgundy in color. “I want you to watch what I do and how I tie these knots. They’re easy if you practice. Think you’d like to tie me up one day?”
I stare at him, unable to answer. My eyes move from him to the rope, then travel a path back to the closet. “You don’t do women here, yet you know there’s rope. Around.”
“Like I said, my partners use this place, and I’m aware of the lessons taught. At the House, the focus is on sex. But here, it’s a place to fill in the blank spaces. Meet. Talk. Discuss. Instruct.”
“But we didn’t...do any of that,” I reply, astonished as he removes his tie and shirt, his shoes and socks.
Shirtless, he picks up the large coil of rope. “I was cautious...avoided bringing you here before. We would have ended up in bed.”
“And now. That’s okay.”
“Now, it’s what we need.”
At the side of the bed, he uncoils the rope that runs between his fingers like water as he watches me. “Karada,” he says softly. “Japanese for body. I’ll tie a breast harness. A form of beauty and bondage.”
“I have experience with rope,” I tell him.
“Maritime,” he replies. “As in boating?”
“Bingo. Not hard to imagine. Nantucket in the summer.”
He stiffens as he forms a loop of rope. The corded muscle along his arms works in tandem, resembling the rope within his hands. Lifting my torso off the bed, he wraps the rope around my ribcage, crossing it between by breasts. “The rope crisscrosses here. Wrap it around the shoulders, and return again...and again.” The soft rope slides over my skin in measured strokes. He’s careful and calm, taking his time, explaining each knot.
“Shinju,” he whispers. “Pearl. That’s what each of your tits is. A perfect pearl.” His fingers work deftly as he lifts my hands into a prayer position over my chest, interlacing my fingers, and shows me a loop. How to form it. “Next time, I’ll tie your wrists behind your back. Now, pay attention.”
He wraps my wrists in endless circles of rope, and like before, he gives me instructions. This time he shows me what hand signals to use if the rope binds too tight, cuts off my circulation, pinches my nerves using eye movements.
“Wait a minute. Why can’t I simply tell you—using my mouth?”
Over and over, he loops the rope around my upper arms, checks the tension, then he smirks at me, lifting his brow as though I’ve just answered my own question. “Why do you think? Sub of mine.”
“You’re going to gag me,” I say as the skin over my body constricts. Well, there’s no fear that I’ll scream my little secrets aloud.
When he’s done, he checks the tension of the ropes, grunting as he touches various knots and points on my body. He peels upward onto his knees, making the mattress dip, and digs his hand into his pocket, removing a red ball attached to straps.
“Problem?” he asks.
“None.” I notch up my chin, refusing to admit I’m a little shaken at this unexpected turn.
“Care for a drink...water...any last words?”
“Bite me,” I retort, arching my brow.
“How you do try me. Open.” He presents the gag, holding it by one of the leather straps. I trace the tip of my tongue over the rounded surface of the ball without complying as the muscle along his jaw twitches. He reaches out, fisting my hair, slowly, carefully, and then he draws me to him. “Well?”
“Well?” I parrot back sarcastically.
“Still so proud,” he whispers what sounds like a warning. “Do you want me to assist you?”
God. I’m crazy to be pushing the envelope like this and finally my good sense kicks in and I shake my head. “No, sir.”
“Trust me. I own you. You’re mine. My property. Mine to possess,” he whispers, pinning me with his green gaze. “On this, you won’t fight me and win, X.”
Part of me wants to...but a bigger part of me senses, he’s opening a door to something bigger than my pride. Even though he’s so much larger, so much stronger than me and could easily tie my wrists and gag me, he doesn’t. He asks for my trust in a murmured demand that seeps through me like warmed honey into the cracks of my soul.
X. X. X reverberates along my nerves.
I nod. Barely.
He grunts in response as I oblige, opening my lips. His nostrils flare as he slips the gag into place. Running the pad of his thumb along my lower lip, his lips curl at the corners. He folds forward, bringing our mouths together, kissing my lips being held in place by the gag.
“So fucking hot,” he groans, then he lowers his mouth to my shoulder, and scraps his teeth along my skin, until he reaches an exquisite pressure point along my neck.
One he’s tempted and tortured me with, and now, he demonstrates how he’ll handle my smart-aleck comebacks. He nips me. Once. Protracted. And I roll my head, biting the rubber ball between my teeth as I jerk, then arch. Sweet Jesus, the things this man does with his mouth. His fingers cup my breasts as he thrums my nipples. His lips follow suit as he captures one of my aching peaks in his mouth, sucking and tonguing my nipple, then the other.
I’m so there. So very close to t
he point of begging if my mouth wasn’t gagged, but he stops. The man fucking stops his oral assault at the point that I’m teetering at the edge of sanity. Lifting off the bed, he wears a smirk that spreads across his gorgeous face as I sit here and heave, my nerve endings on fire. He gets right to the business of undressing. Removes his remaining clothes until he’s naked and his hard-on is a glorious testimony to how much control he’s exercising. Usually by this time, he’s root deep inside me. But not tonight.
Yet instead of returning to bed, he strides to the doorway as I watch his amazing posterior end that flexes with each of his steps. He leaves and I listen to the muted sounds, unable to discern what he’s doing until he returns with a bottle of champagne, and uncorks it. Coming to the side of the bed, he gazes at me. “Lay down.”
Okay. Him with a bottle of Cristal, whom am I to argue?
No sooner am I prone, than he kneels, the mattress gives way under his weight, and he pours a sliver of bubbles across my belly.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs.
I clench from the sensation of wet. Cold. The perfectly chilled champagne spreads a line of effervescence that sends sparks of electricity into my peaked and aching nipples. I interlock my fingers tighter, rather than bow my back off the bed. He watches my reaction, his dick twitches as I incrementally sway, desperate to move but not make a mess. He takes a sip from the mouth of the bottle, minus a glass, and looks devilishly over at me. What is he thinking?
With my legs spread apart, he brackets his fingers on either side my upper thighs. At the juncture where my legs connect to my body, he swipes his thumbs across my pussy lips. I force myself to remain still—hard when I want to pull on the confines of the rope he’s wrapped me in. He’s pinned me with a puddle of champagne on my belly and the softest touch of his fingers to my folds. Not threats. Not shackles. Only the promise of pleasure and I watch, craning my neck as he lowers his mouth to my slick flesh.
Oh fuck! The contact of his cool lips on my searing skin makes me whimper. Louder when he sucks on my clit, mouthing my peak for mind-blistering seconds before he torques his tongue into me. There’s nothing savage in how he sucks on me, spearing my opening—if anything he’s gentle, torturously soft, and I’m coming undone as I’m bound and gagged. His eyes move to mine. Our gazes lock as I’m tied, unable to touch him...tell him what he’s doing to me.
