by Kitty Thomas
Wavy, jet black hair fell over the best cheekbones she’d ever seen up close and in person on a man. The definition of his chest was visible through a white t-shirt. He had strong, well-defined arms, and large, yet elegant hands, like those of a concert pianist. She could see how those hands could be equally at home playing flesh draped over a massage table.
Her eyes traveled slowly back to his face. It was expectant. Waiting for something. Oh, yeah. An answer to his question.
“Yes,” she managed to stammer.
“Very good. My name is Anton. I’ll be taking care of you today.”
The way he said it seemed like both a sinful promise and a sinister threat, causing Vivian’s heart to start doing erratic things in her chest. He moved closer, and she tensed.
“Relax, my dear. Dr. Smith was correct. You are quite a closed-budded flower. We will open you.” He made it sound so sexual and wrong. A warmth fluttered in her center and spread outward.
Her voice came out breathy, “You spoke to Dr. Smith?”
“Just a few moments ago. While you were getting ready for me.”
She turned her head away so she could stop looking at him with helpless longing. She’d experienced testosterone overload today. Too many men near her in situations that were far too sexual for her comfort.
“You are Vivian, yes?” he said as he selected a body oil from a cart near the table. He was the king of the rhetorical question.
“Yes.”
The slick oil made a sound as it coated his hands. He pulled back the towel to reveal her bare back. “Lovely,” he murmured.
Vivian wasn’t sure if he was admiring her skin, or if he was referring to her name. Before she could decide which, and whether or not it was appropriate, his hands were on her body, and she forgot how to think in full sentences. The strong, gentle kneading along her back caused her to, inch by inch, loosen and open to him and the pleasurable sensations he was delivering to her.
He was silent as he worked out the tension around her shoulders, and then her upper back and neck. Her arms and hands came next. Everything slowly began to unclench, starting with the muscle group he was rubbing and spreading outward as she let herself relax. Her body felt loose, liquid, suspended in a tranquil bubble of calming sensations.
Anton worked on her like this for about fifteen minutes, and then his hands began to slide lower, pushing aside the terrycloth until the towel was bunched around her thighs.
“Really, Vivian. Underwear? I’m disappointed.”
She reached behind her frantically for the towel to cover herself. Now there was no question he’d crossed the boundary. Wasn’t a massage therapist supposed to protect their client’s modesty and comfort?
He gripped her wrist hard, not so hard to damage her, but hard enough to make her gasp in surprise at the rough contact and the menace behind it.
“Are you going to be a good girl and put your hands back where you had them?”
The threat sent an inappropriate flip of excitement through her stomach.
She couldn’t twist to maneuver fully without exposing her breasts. Though she had the creeping feeling he would be seeing them soon enough anyway. A tear worked its way down her cheek as she tried to process the sudden shift of events. “Let me go. I’ll scream.”
“Do it. No one will hear you. The room is sound-proofed, and Janette went home after she announced your arrival. We’re the only ones here.”
The muscles in his arms were suddenly more than eye candy. They were evidence that he was the one with the power here, and he would have whatever he wanted from her.
“Anton, please . . . ” She had the irrational belief that if she spoke his name, she’d reach something human, something that would stop him before this went too far.
“Lie back and relax. Fighting me is futile. You will lose, and I will be angry.”
The options scrolled through her mind. She could call his bluff and scream, but somehow she knew he was telling her the truth about the uselessness of that choice. She could fight him, and lose, and end up with injuries. He could lose control and kill her. If he was willing to do this much, he was an unknown quantity. One she didn’t want to stir up and test.
A few moments before, she’d found his appearance and touch heavenly. Would it be horrific to let him keep going? To just surrender to it? Could she say she’d come out the winner if she submitted rather than fought? Would it feel like less of a violation? Which would be worse? Would she hate herself later if she didn’t fight hard enough, even though she could see how he’d closed off her hopes of escaping him?
She felt the palm of his hand press against her back until she was lying on her stomach again. He went back to the expert, innocent kneading of before and the fight ebbed out of her.
“Are you going to hurt me?” She hated how her voice sounded.
“Not unless you force me to.”
A tear pricked at the corner of her eye. “Are you going to rape me?”
“No. I’m just going to touch you. I’m going to make you come for me, Vivian. I’m going to make you purr my name.”
She shuddered as his words sent an involuntary spark of arousal between her legs. This was so wrong. She couldn’t let this happen. She had to fight him. At least make the effort. But his hands were still rubbing her back, and she felt her body betraying her brain. Felt it as she succumbed to his talented touch.
“Please . . . Don’t do this to me.”
“That’s enough talk, Vivian. I want you to lie there and close your eyes and feel. Dr. Smith tells me you can’t achieve orgasm with your husband. I am going to fix you.”
An intense shame washed through her at the way he spoke. As if molesting her on a massage table was helping her. What he was doing was disgusting. It was wrong. A voice in the back of her head chided her. Wouldn’t you have let him do this without a fuss if you were single? Would the question of consent have even been broached?
“You’re thinking too much,” Anton said.
“How can I not?”
Her words were punctuated by his hand moving over her ass in a whispering caress. The towel slid to the floor. His fingers hooked underneath the edges of her panties as he slid them down.
She lay there bare and exposed, both too frightened and aroused by now to put up a meaningful fight.
His hands rubbed her ass in much the same way as they had her back. A soothing touch that nearly had a moan escaping her throat before she caught herself. Then his finger strayed into the cleft between her cheeks. She tensed and drew in a sharp breath.
He chuckled. “Not today, my flower. Another day. Roll onto your back.”
“Just let me go.” A moment of pregnant silence stretched between them as he ignored her request and waited for compliance. Finally, she did as he asked, and crossed her arms over her chest.
He stood back and surveyed her. “Don’t cover yourself. I want to look at you.”
She couldn’t make herself obey him. It was ridiculous since her pussy was already on display. Why should she be so modest about her breasts? Her nipples had formed hard, achingly aroused points, and she could feel the moisture gathering at the apex between her thighs. What was wrong with her that this was turning her on?
Anton tugged her arms away from her body. “Look at me.”
Her gaze slid self-consciously up to his. The look he gave her was so heated, she was afraid she’d combust under the power of it.
“Are you going to be a good girl for me?”
“Please . . . ” she whimpered.
“The time for begging is over, Vivian. Are you going to be a good girl?”
She knew what he wanted, her verbal surrender to this violation. This violation that was at least as arousing as it was upsetting to her. She bit her lip as he held her gaze, waiting, his patience clearly capable of outlasting her defiance.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes drifted to the other end of the room, unable to look at him in her defeat.
Then his
hands were on her breasts, stroking over the hardened peaks until he dragged another whimper from her. Vivian’s legs fell open, her body unconsciously searching for something she knew he’d give her. Whether she wanted it or not.
“Don’t move.” He went to the sink to wash the fragrant oil from his hands and dried them on a monogrammed spa towel. She started to bring her legs back together but stopped when she saw the displeased look he gave her.
Oh, god. Why did that look fill her with so much shame? He held her gaze while he squirted lube onto his fingers.
3
A tear trickled down her cheek, and Anton was immediately beside her to wipe it away. “Shhhh, Vivian. Do you not find me attractive?”
“Yes, but . . . ”
“Do you not enjoy the way I’ve made you feel so far?”
She looked away from him. Her body strained to have the completion he could give her. The completion she hadn’t felt with Michael for too long. But like this? With a stranger, under duress?
“Give in.” His lubed fingers stroked the swollen and moist folds of her sex, eliciting a moan. Her hips bucked of their own accord to meet those long, expert fingers as they teased her opening.
“Please . . . ” It was a breathy sigh.
“Please what?”
She knew she should say ‘please stop, please don’t’, but suddenly the only thing she wanted was for Anton to fuck her with those gorgeous, elegant fingers. To hell with all the bullshit and protests spinning inside her brain.
He stopped touching her, and she looked up to find him watching, waiting for her to say it. A blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks.
“Please, Anton. Make me come.”
A feral grin lit his face, and his fingers went back to work. Massaging, teasing, then finally plunging inside. As he penetrated her, his thumb caressed her swollen clit. Vivian’s breath came faster as her body lurched and spiraled out of control. He finger-fucked her harder as she convulsed around him.
Anton retreated to the sink while she sat up and tried to cover her nakedness. She couldn’t believe she’d let him . . . Well, let wasn’t the right word. Was it?
“You may get dressed now.”
She scurried behind the oriental screen flushed with embarrassment, both at what she’d just submitted to and the casual way he dismissed her now.
“You may require these.” His hand, the hand whose digits had just been inside her, draped a pair of red lace panties over the panel.
She grabbed them and dressed quickly, trying not to think too hard about what had just happened. When she came around the screen he was leaning against the massage table.
Vivian smoothed her skirt down for the millionth time that day. “Are you going to let me go?”
“For now.”
What did he mean for now? As if he had any power to bring her back here. I’ll never let him do this again. The thought felt like a lie in her mind. Already her pussy ached from the absence of his fingers. Already she wanted to buck her hips at him in a vulgar invitation for more. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“You will make an appointment to see me every Tuesday and Thursday at three thirty. Do you understand?”
Her startled eyes rose to his. “I most certainly will not.”
“That is your choice, of course. But if you don’t, I will be sending your husband a carefully-edited version of this.” He clicked a button, and the flat screen television switched from the spa information to a recording of her begging Anton to let her come.
She looked quickly around the room, searching for the hidden camera that had captured everything.
“Turn it off,” she said, unable to stand watching her own desperation on replay.
“So then, I’ll see you Tuesday?”
“Yes.” If he edited the video, she’d never be able to make Michael understand what had happened and why it didn’t look like rape on the screen.
Vivian walked three blocks before hailing a cab, not wanting to get in the back seat of someone’s car while she could still feel the wetness between her thighs.
Michael’s voice carried from the kitchen when she got home. “How was the therapist appointment?”
She dropped her purse on the kitchen island. “The doctor made me uncomfortable.”
Michael looked up from his financial papers, concern in his eyes. “Really? Why did she . . . ”
“He.”
“Excuse me?”
“The doctor was male.”
“Oh.”
“Didn’t you know the doctor was a man?”
Michael shrugged. “It never occurred to me. A friend at the club gave me the card. The doctor’s name was Lindsay, and the cards were lavender. Kind of girlie. I just assumed.” He laid the papers on the table, his eyes narrowing. “Did he come on to you?”
Vivian looked away as she felt her flesh heating again. “No. I just wasn’t comfortable.” She wasn’t about to tell him about Dome and Anton.
“We’ll find you another doctor,” he said as if everything were settled.
Vivian crossed her arms over her chest. “No we won’t. I did your thing. I tried it. I’m not going to therapy because you want sex. Get a mistress like a normal man, and leave me the fuck alone.”
He arched a brow, his expression darkening. “I don’t want a mistress. I want you.”
“Well, you can’t have me. I’m not your sex toy that you can just take off the shelf whenever it suits you.”
His chair scraped out, and he advanced on her. “Do not try my patience, Vivi.”
She stared him down, unwilling to let him win again. “Don’t bully me, Michael.”
He looked for a moment as if he would do something rash. Backhand her, maybe. Or perhaps lift her skirt and bend her over the kitchen island to take what he wanted. Like Anton had. She held her breath, half-hoping he would.
“I’m going to the gym,” he said, instead.
When Michael had gone, Vivian went to take a bath in the downstairs tub. She lathered and scrubbed her skin raw, trying to erase what she’d done. No, what Anton had done. She was the victim, here.
But even as she thought it, she wasn’t sure she believed it. Was she reframing this so she didn’t have to feel guilty for what might be classed an affair of sorts? No, he’d planned to do what he’d done with or without her consent. He’d shown her how her avenues of escape had been shut down. Her consent didn’t matter.
Was she trying to scrub his violation off, or her own internal submission to the way he’d played her nerve endings like a well-tuned instrument? She absently turned on the jets and found herself sliding down, twisting her body until the pulsing water vibrated against her clit.
Gripping the side of the tub, she pressed herself harder against the stream. Her mind drifted to Anton’s hands inside the most private parts of her, fanning the flame of a desire she couldn’t remember feeling before. Her breathing sped faster as she came, then sagged against the tub, waiting for the pounding in her chest to slow.
She jumped when she heard the front door and fumbled to turn off the jets, trying to get her breathing to appear normal, trying not to look like a woman who’d had her second great orgasm of the day.
The bathroom door burst open, and she threw a towel over herself. Michael looked annoyed by the display of modesty but didn’t comment.
“Have you seen my cell phone? I thought I had it with me.”
“Why do you need your phone for the gym?”
He rolled his eyes and shut the door behind him. A few minutes later, the front door slammed again, the car started, and she was alone.
As she climbed out of the tub, her legs trembled from the adrenaline surge of almost getting caught.
When Michael returned, his mood had shifted. Vivian had the momentary fear he’d taken her up on her casual challenge to take a lover, that maybe he already had one.
He kissed her cheek. “Get dressed. The little black number with the slit up the side. I’m taking you to
that Japanese steakhouse you like.”
Vivian took a physical step back. Things had been strained between them for months, and now he was acting like he had at the start of their relationship.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Can’t I take my wife out? You’re right. You aren’t my slave. I bring in very healthy money, and we don’t get to spend a lot of time together doing couple things like we used to.”
She was sure her face still held the wary expression. Who was this and what had he done with grumpy, sexually-frustrated Michael? Was it a ploy for sex? She wouldn’t do therapy, so maybe he could seduce her by dating her?
Even if that was his aim, she wasn’t sure why she should be angry about it. It just felt so mercenary and plotted-out. She’d seen glimpses of her husband in his business dealings. He was a manipulative shark, always knowing exactly how to play on the right emotion to lead his opponent down the path he wanted them on.
The trait had seemed sexy at first, but over the years her trust in him had diminished as she saw just how well he played the game of good cop/bad cop. Could she trust anything from him? Any declaration of love? Any gentle caress? The dinner-date-your-wife scheme was a tactic on the same level of what he played in business dealings.
She plastered the good wife smile on her face and decided to go along with it. Fighting him wouldn’t do any good. If he was willing to be pleasant, for however long it lasted, she would accept the reprieve. And she did like the Japanese steakhouse.
An hour later she was dressed as he’d asked, with her hair in a dramatic upsweep. Her manicure was still fresh from the day before, and the striking red of her nails added an extra touch of sophistication. Michael stepped out from his walk-in closet, dressed sharply in Armani, his cologne wafting to Vivian’s nose.
The man knew how to wear just the right amount. On the first inhalation, one wasn’t sure if it was cologne, a special soap, or if he just naturally emitted such a pleasant aroma. Unlike many, he didn’t take a bath it in. He used the smallest amount and let it blend with his natural, male scent.
