Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  He’d end it. It wasn’t necessary for him to say it aloud. She needed to curb her ambitions, remember this wasn’t a race, and what she wanted wasn’t dependant on how quickly it was achieved.

  “Stop sulking, and come here and kiss me.”

  “I’m not sulking.” She was feeling stupid. “And do you even really want me to?”

  “Allegra, I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t. I’m not Xane, or Ash, or even Paul. I don’t do random hook-ups. I’m here because there’s something between us I’m willing to explore. I get that you’re a step on from that, but that doesn’t mean we won’t end up in the same place eventually. Now, come on. Vest and panties.” He patted the mattress. “Let’s enjoy this moment together, and stop thinking about where it might lead.”

  When she hesitated, Spook held out his hand to her. “I really want to hold you. Are you going to deny me that? I thought you wanted me.”

  She did, and she was only hurting herself by not accepting the affection freely offered.

  He had told her it would take him time to open up to this…them, but as usual, she was in a rush, desperate to push ahead, stride forward and show the world what she’d accomplished. But Spook was a person, not a mountain. The goal wasn’t to come first, or to plant a flag. She wasn’t winning a contract. Relationships were about longevity, not how fast you could hit the sack.

  When Alle climbed onto the bed, Spook pulled her on top of him and kissed her in a slow, intimate way. She expected him to roll her onto her side after a moment and to settle her against his shoulder so that he could hold her and stretch her resilience out to breaking point again. Every moment with him seemed to consist of that same forwards and backwards dance. However, that wasn’t how it played out at all.

  Where she anticipated angst, he was instead playful and relaxed, fingers tweaking her clothing and then dancing away. His lips brushed her skin, tongue flicking against sensitive zones in a way that left her buzzing, and fighting back in the same tantalizing fashion. Holding him like this felt so easy, devoid of the usual undercurrent of tension. Perhaps that was the point he was making. They needed to learn how to be together in a relaxed way. Certainly, it was a joy to hold him, kiss him, touch him all over, without constantly anticipating him having a panic attack.

  Only when she nipped the delicate bit of skin beneath his navel did the mood shift.

  “Ouch. Bad girl. What are you, a vampire?” He flipped her onto her stomach across his lap and gave her a light smack across the backside. Nothing really meaningful. It wasn’t painful, or even particularly firm. Nevertheless, a squeak of pleasure left her mouth and her heart rate instantly trebled. She kicked playfully. “Again.”

  But, Spook froze, hand against the back of her knickers where he’d just struck like he could lift the imprint of his hand back off her skin.

  “I deserve—” she began.

  “Sh..sh-shhh!” he quietened her, palm still frozen.

  “I did consort—”

  “Sh!”

  “Spook?”

  “Quiet now.” He rubbed a two fingered circle over her cheek, then peeled down her underwear so that they sat stretched across the very top of her thighs. Prone across him, Alle could feel the tightening of his muscles in his abs and the thickening of his arousal. His mouth was open, his breathing shallow.

  Unable to help herself, Alle arched her back, so that her rear was pushed up towards him.

  A soft groan split the air. Over her shoulder, she watched Spook’s clever fingers weave a dance into the air above her skin, like he was playing with her aura, or reading it though some mystical means she wasn’t privy to. He was wearing rings, and even though he wasn’t touching her, the sensation of the metal, skin-warmed and smooth, she felt as keenly as his caresses.

  Breathless, Alle waited. Would he crack? Would he do this? It would bring them both pleasure, he knew that, so that couldn’t be the thing holding him back. Fifty heartbeats later, his palm settled against her skin, bringing with it the promise of heat and wakening tingles in the secret places of her body.

  What war was he was waging in his head? Asking, she feared, would break the spell. She hardly dared breathe, let alone speak, or even risk looking back over her shoulder at him. Instead, she kept her focus fixed on the herringbone pattern of the duvet cover. Her nerves were taut, stretched almost to breaking point when his palm finally connected with her flesh. The anticipation had been drawn out for so long, that the thwack caught her by surprise, jolting a fiery exclamation from her.

  “You know that’s not the correct response,” he admonished.

  “Thank you,” she bleated.

  Spook chuckled, voice thick and warm. “Ett.”

  What did that mean?

  Confused, she wasn’t ready when his hand landed again, harder than the first.

  He’d taken off his rings.

  “Två.”

  They were counting. “Tre.” She remembered as he turned her limbs to jelly.

  “Good girl. Fyra.”

  Too soon. Too soon. A moment was necessary to catch her breath. The heat was spreading out from the inferno where he’d landed one slap right on top of the previous one. Tendrils licked deep into her core. They touched her clit, entwined around her nipples, and clasped her hips like two broad hands.

  All at once she was wet, probably visibly so. He’d know. He could see. Touch me, she silently begged. Make me come. Run your finger along the split of my pussy, and then wind circles around my clit.

  “Fem.”

  Five. The next one was impossible to forget.

  “Sex.”

  What she wanted from him badly. Her need was almost as excruciating as the white heat coursing through her veins. But he wouldn’t. He only tormented her with the possibility. Practically on cue, Spook brushed his thumb over the whorl of her anus. The touch was so brief it might almost have been imagined if he hadn’t then touched her again, this time with his thumb slicked with saliva. Too easily, he slipped that digit inside of her.

  “Ohhh!” The mewl spilled automatically as he lighted up a thousand nerve-endings.

  “Is this how you want me to take you?”

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Anyway you please. Anyway at all.” Why was it so difficult to breathe while he was doing that? Did she really want him to fuck her there? She was untried. A virgin in that regard. Her sex throbbed, reminding her of the emptiness that existed there too, waiting to be filled.

  “That’s dreadfully dirty, Ms Hutton. I think you’re too tight to take more than my thumb without considerable effort.”

  “To ensure it didn’t hurt.”

  “To ensure it was only good hurt.” He withdrew his thumb, and slapped her again. The noise of the impact rumbling in the quiet of the room like the drum of localized thunder. “Sju. We’re expanding our knowledge here.”

  “Ǻtta,” she said, pre-empting his next strike. Did he really think she hadn’t learned how to count to ten in Swedish after the first time he’d done this?

  Spook burst out laughing. He bent over her cackling in delight, and pressed a kiss to her burning hot skin. “Oh, Alle. You really are a delight, and so, so, very eager. Don’t think I don’t want you. I do. I’m literally dripping with excitement at the sheer possibility. I could take you any way I like, couldn’t I, and you wouldn’t murmur a single protest. You’re so desperate for it your need’s almost tangible.”

  “I’m not going to deny that I want you,” she huffed. “Even if I know you won’t let yourself have me, no matter how prettily I plead.”

  “No matter how irritably either.”

  Her spanking continued all the way up to thirty. By which time, she was a blubbering mess.

  Spook wrapped her in a throw and cuddled her. Then found some Aloe Vera and rubbed it into the sore stretches of her skin. That seemed to make the sting penetrate deeper rather than dissipate it. She groaned, and he stilled.

  Alle turned her head. There were tears in his eyes too. “I shouldn�
�t have done this.”

  “Yes you should.”

  “No. Your brother’s right. There are women in my past who regret ever having met me. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Hurt people I loved.”

  “I wanted this, Spook. Also, we’ve all done hurtful things at one time or another. It’s easy to lash out when emotions are high.”

  Silence was his reply.

  Cautiously. Carefully, Alle eased herself onto her knees. The sting in her bottom was uncomfortable now, the thrill of it buried beneath layers of concern. “Spook, just tell me. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

  “Can you? I can’t.”

  She reached out and cupped his face, said, looking into his eyes. “Truly, I don’t care what happened in the past. We don’t have to live there. The present is what matters. You and me.”

  He accepted her kiss, but his eyes were still a battlefield of past pain, and the way he kept glancing at her made her think that he was gauging her response. Assessing her, before he risked saying more.

  “The last relationship I had went very, very badly wrong.”

  His expression grew gaunt, strain showing around his eyes in the form of a thin web of lines. Between his brows the skin concertinaed. “She used to beg me to spank her and then fuck her, too.”

  His expression froze. The rest of his body too, except for the nervous twitch of his tongue across his teeth.

  “There’d be marks afterwards. Sometimes marks that would last for days.”

  The room was too quiet. Even the hum of the air con seemingly temporarily lulled by his admission. He paused, like he was waiting for her to react. To object. To brand him an abusive bastard. But, she knew it hadn’t been like that.

  “Somebody saw them and didn’t understand,” she said, sensing the outcome.

  His expression didn’t change, but there was a whisper of relief in his sighed response, “Yes.”

  Her poor love. “What happened, Spook?” She enfolded his hand into hers.

  He seemed surprised by the contact. Still, he shook his head. Eyes brimful of shadows.

  “Surely it was none of their business.”

  He blinked, releasing a lone tear that trekked down the side of his nose. “Tell that to her family.” He licked the salt droplet from his lips. “Everything went to hell, Alle. Everything. Can’t you see that I don’t want to replay that mess? Reliving any moment of it…” He shook his head. “Mistakes…So many stupid mistakes. They almost killed me.”

  Unconsciously, she turned his arm over, and traced the silvered scar that ran the length of his forearm.

  “Oh, Spook.” All she could offer him was comfort. Willingly enough he accepted her embrace, but his muscles remained tensed, and his spine unbending.

  There was more to this story, so much more, she sensed, than simple wrath and family objections. But he wouldn’t tell her it, not all at once. The details would have to be pried from him over time. One detail at a time.

  Minutes sailed past, until they finally broke apart. Alle gingerly settled herself on a pillow, her bottom still sore, but not so much that the burn would last more than an hour. Spook paced. She watched him, and how his body moved. Whenever he stilled, before making a turn, his toes would curl against the carpet. Eventually, he climbed back onto the bed and rested his head in her lap.

  “What did you use to make marks that lasted so long? Just your hands?”

  He reached up to her, brow crumpled, and blue eyes like chips of midnight.

  Alle kissed his knuckles.

  Slowly, his expression eased.

  “She had an old-fashioned yard stick that she loved.”

  Like a cane. “Oh, God!” How old had he been? Young, terrifyingly young. And the implement. Such a stretch of wood would have been unforgiving.

  “I’d scratch her too. Sometimes leave bite marks. Her preference was always the cane though, or the tail end of a leather belt.” He began to fidget with the strap of the watch around his wrist, eventually undoing it so that it fell onto the duvet. “She had daddy issues. He was a teacher of some sort. Old-fashioned notions of discipline excited her.”

  “Did they excite you?”

  Shimmery light caught in the blond tresses of his hair as he raised his gaze towards her. Alle curled her fingers into his hair, and stroked the pure silken strands. They fell like water between her fingers providing a distraction to focus on so that she didn’t gape over his words or make him feel like he couldn’t speak. She kept eye contact to a minimum.

  “I hated it.” He was frowning hard. “At least at first. I told myself I believed in equality and women’s rights, and treating others as you wished to be treated yourself, but then she’d plead. Beg. Wrap me up in knots. The stories she’d spin… The misdemeanours she’d invent. I was her fix. I didn’t much care for the stories. Nor for being her personal disciplinarian. It’s not precisely control that turns me on.”

  “What does?”

  “Not giving in.” He laughed. “Giving in on my terms. I liked the marks though, particularly the kaleidoscope of colours they’d fade through. For me, the buzz comes from the hiss of pain, the catching of breath. Torment. That’s why bondage is fun. It’s wound up in anticipation.”

  “Rope? Leather cuffs? Silk scarves?”

  “Xane likes tape.”

  “We’re not talking about Xane.”

  He grinned, and nodded. “Handcuffs. The sort that require a key, and don’t come off without one.”

  “Right. So no safety nets.”

  Another nod. “I guess not.”

  “Did you cuff her, this ex of yours?”

  He breathed deeply through his nose. “Regularly. Often just to stop her touching me. Always if we were doing anal.”

  She stroked his face, following the line of stubble peeping through the skin of his jaw and chin, and above his upper lip.

  “We did a fuck of a lot that was stupid, Alle. I did a lot that was stupid.”

  “We all do when we’re young.”

  Was this the girl that Marshall had meant when he’d said there were women in Spook’s past who regretted their involvement with him? How could he even know about it? In any case, it sounded very much like she’d instigated most of it.

  “One time she asked me to break her wrist.”

  Alle stilled, her hand poised above his head. The cascade of his hair, already fallen. Oh God! Her racing heart leapt up into her throat. That was a whole different level to a bit of slap and tickle. “Did you?” she croaked.

  Spook curled up into a sitting position, his hands over his face, hiding himself. His back was to her.

  He had. Oh my God, he had.

  “Spook?” On her knees, Alle hugged him from behind. “Did you?”

  Very slowly, he shook his head. Relief rushed through her tensed limbs.

  “I dislocated her little finger,” he said. Thus putting an instant cap on her relief. “She was on cloud fucking nine afterwards.”

  Alle gulped. “Dislocated.”

  Spook grimaced. “I told you I was a bad man.”

  Bad, would have been if he’d done it without being begged to oblige.

  “How did it make you feel?” On her knees Alle circled around him, so that she could see his expression.

  Spook tilted his head. “Mortified. Leastways a few hours later I was, after it all sank in. After the hospital visit and bullshit story that everyone swallowed about how she’d fallen while we were out in woods. In the moments right afterwards though, I felt like fucking God.”

  His visage was a mask of defiance as she looked at him. Like he was deliberately presenting her his worst side. Saying look at my savagery, but behind that, right down deep in the centres of his luminous eyes was a bruised and battered soul. A man left wretched by a moment in time that he couldn’t undo.

  “Spook, you know I’m never going to ask you to do that. I don’t like pain pain. Only warm fuzzy pain.”

  “Thank God.”

  He finally blin
ked.

  Alle squeezed him more tightly. “I don’t think you’re a monster for having done it, or for how it made you feel. I’m well-read if not precisely experienced. Spook, there are Doms out there who’ve described exactly that kind of euphoria. You’re not the only man who’s ever got off on hurting someone. The important point was that it was consensual.”

  “It was stupid and dangerous.”

  “And how old were you. Seventeen. Eighteen?”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “You’re not a boy anymore. Don’t turn away. Look at me. Spook, I’m not going to ask you to break any bones. I might want to know what it’s like being hit by a flogger or a cane at some point, and I accept that with my fair skin, that’ll probably result in marks. No one else needs to see them. Whatever we do with one another in bed or out of it is nobody else’s business. Nobody’s. Am I clear?”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Spook, am I clear?”

  “I hear you. Yes.”

  “That’s not quite the same thing.”

  “It’s nobody else’s fucking business,” he parroted, still not sounding remotely convinced.

  Alle pulled him back down into the mattress and curled around him, so they were like two snuggling apostrophes. “Thank you for telling me.” She kissed the warm skin on the back of his neck. “I understand a little better now why you’re so cautious.”

  “I feel like I’m on the edge of a high cliff. It’s tempting to believe the Hollywood hype that if we jump we’ll surface and swim to the shore. The beach will be perfect, our pasts outrun. Whereas the reality of such a leap isn’t usually so rosy in its outcome.

  “So let’s not jump off any cliffs. We can climb down carefully roped together.”

  He smiled and gave her a tighter squeeze. “Says the infamously patient woman.”

  “I can be. And I will try.”

  “Right.”

  “I will.”

  He grinned again. “Okay.”

  She lay with her head against his shoulder for a while. “Can I ask you something seriously tangential?”