Crowne Rules

by Reiss, CD

  And yet, on a May 12th call with a lawyer from her husband’s firm, she wasn’t afraid of William Hawkins at all.

  I listened a dozen times and didn’t detect an ounce of fear in her voice.

  I took off the headphones and heard Amanda washing the dishes. It had been a mistake, all of it—letting her get comfortable here and letting myself get comfortable with her. I had to send her to bed thinking about how soon she could leave in the morning, not wondering if I wasn’t such bad guy after all.

  I had to push harder but not so hard I broke her.

  * * *

  “Elbows on the counter,” I said in the bathroom, the electric toothbrush in hand.

  Her face went from acceptance to protest, and my uplifted heart went to relieved until she bent over and presented me with the impossible temptation of her ass.

  Push harder.

  I pulled up her nightgown and slid her underwear down. I couldn’t punish her again. She was bruised and swollen and perfect from earlier. When I ran my thumb over the reddened skin, she gasped.

  We hadn’t seen each other all day, but I’d been with her every second.

  This kind of thinking wasn’t going to help anything.

  I warmed her up by smacking one cheek, then the other, a couple of times, and her gasps sounded so close to moans that I couldn’t help myself—I stroked her reddening skin gently to remind her just how good a tender touch could feel.

  Her head dropped between her hands. I could smell her body opening up. I was taking liberties, and the cresting waves of my own desire only inflamed hers.

  “Look up,” I said. “Eyes on me in the mirror.”

  When she picked up her head, one curl fell over her cheek. That would make her crazy, and if she tried, I wouldn’t let her brush it away.

  “You’re not supposed to enjoy this,” I reminded her.

  “Then stop being so good at it.”

  “You have no idea how good at this I am.” With a nudge of my foot, I pushed her legs open wider. The heat between us could have powered a city.

  “Show me, then… sir.”

  I leaned over her to speak quietly, grabbing a handful of sore ass. “Don’t try to be saucy.” I watched in the mirror as the defiance in her green eyes melted away. “If I wanted to…” I filled my voice and body with every ounce of dominance I had, squeezing out hesitation and doubt. “If I really wanted to, I could have you writhing on my cock, begging me to put it wherever I wanted as long as it was inside you. Crying for a taste. You’d suck my fingers until you choked on them, and you’d beg for more because no one can give it to you like I can.”

  The self-control I’d cultivated since I was sixteen abandoned me, and I acted on pure, uncut instinct, pushing her back down as I stood straight. I yanked off the head of toothbrush and turned it on, feeling the tremor of its eager little buzz.

  For that moment, I forgot all about the tapes and the surprises on them.

  I forgot about all the decisions I’d made based on what I thought I knew.

  I forgot that I was supposed to push Amanda into leaving.

  The LED screen on the toothbrush flashed: 2:00.

  I had two minutes to keep forgetting.

  Running the handle along her spine to the top of her crack, I pushed her legs open even farther so I could run the shaft of the toothbrush over her ass and inside her thighs.

  “That document,” I said, moving the brush from one thigh to the other without touching between, “was a disaster. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Eyes closed, mouth open, she whimpered, making soft, helpless little noises.

  “Look at me.” When she opened her eyes, I let the vibrating rod hang just below her sex, close enough to feel it but too far to satisfy. “What’s your excuse?”

  “I don’t have… have—” She lowered her body, but she was too slow, and I moved it away. I knew women, and I knew their orgasms. They’d meet a man halfway.

  “You don’t have an excuse,” I said.

  “No.” Her eyes scrunched with the need to close so she could focus on the pleasure, but she kept them on me.

  “Good girl.”

  I touched the vibrating handle against her clit. She reached back blindly to tug my body closer to hers. I immobilized her hip against the counter by pushing the pillar of my erection into her ass cheek, letting her melt into my steadiness as I circled her nub and accelerating my own pleasure with little jerks, giving her just enough to keep her right on the edge and myself enough to want more.

  “Oh, God,” she groaned.

  “What do you want, Amanda?”

  Was she too close to correct her name?

  “I want to come. Please.”

  “What have you done to deserve that?” I felt how close she was, and I knew exactly what it would take to get her there.

  “Please.”

  The LED said I had eleven seconds, and if I let them lapse without letting her come, she’d be so enraged she’d leave.

  Good. That was the point.

  I wanted her to go home.

  Or I could release my cock and bury it inside her. Make her hate me for pulling her hair, taking her ass, calling her a whore. Anything but this torture.

  My belt was halfway undone before I even realized I’d made the decision to take her, and I only woke out of my hormonal stupor after the beep—when the toothbrush motor stopped.

  She whispered a soft, strained, heartfelt, “Fuck,” because she’d accepted the terms I’d laid out even when I couldn’t.

  I put the brush back on the counter.

  “Hand me a page without mistakes,” I said, only realizing how breathless I was when I tried to speak. “And I’ll finish you until you scream.”

  I left before I did something I wasn’t supposed to, exiting to my room and closing the door.

  My cock ached for release. There was no way Amanda could withstand what I could. A girl like Amanda Bettencourt didn’t understand anything less than instant gratification.

  All I had to do was sleep it off, but everything Amanda’s punishment had helped me forget came roaring back.

  Tomorrow, Amanda would leave in frustration, and I’d be alone with those tapes and their unexpected revelations. I’d know the secrets Veronica had kept from her husband and the ones she’d kept from me before everything went sideways.

  Pacing the room, I tried not to blame Veronica for everything. We had been doomed by our disparity in age, but I couldn’t help but think that if I’d been older, I wouldn’t have been so trusting and she’d be alive today.

  Needing to get outside, I went to the back patio door and froze, again forgetting any problem I thought I’d had before I found Amanda Bettencourt in my bathtub.

  Obviously, she thought I was a dog she could train.

  She was wrong.

  Chapter 15

  MANDY

  If he thought that was the end of it, I was about to prove him very, very wrong. I’d had plenty of orgasms in my life before I met Dante Crowne. I’d had more than my share before a man even touched me.

  I flicked the lights on and opened the curtains to let Dante to see every inch of me so he’d know exactly what he’d done and exactly what he was missing. His drapes were still closed, but in the slit of light between them, I saw his shadow moving as he entered the room. He was there but not paying attention.

  Well, I’d have to rectify that… or not. It didn’t matter. My orgasm would be for me. His awareness of it was irrelevant.

  I dragged the chair I’d been sitting in all day to the window with me. I propped up one foot and hitched up my nightgown to slide a hand between my legs, where I ached for pressure and friction. It felt so good that for a moment, I stopped thinking about Dante altogether. I just wanted relief.

  But part of me wanted to put on a show and to demonstrate some measure of the control he clearly worshipped. So, I forced myself to be gentle, grazing my fingers over my clit and then downward, giving myself a whisper of
pressure against my slit before dragging them back up. I remembered how he’d stroked me with the toothbrush, firm and commanding, and did it again.

  “Come on, you asshole,” I said to the place his silhouette had been. “Watch me do what you can’t.”

  Dante’s shadow moved across the room once, then twice, like he was pacing, or maybe just ignoring me, getting his things together before going to bed.

  I leaned forward, bracing my hand on the window so I could slide two fingers fully inside myself with a gasp of relief. If he wouldn’t fuck me, I could fuck myself.

  His shadow moved again, this time coming to stand at the slit between his curtains, blocking out the light from behind him.

  Now that I knew I had his attention, I wanted him to watch me come before he joined in so we could replay the other night.

  I was going to come, then close the curtains before he finished.

  I sped up the motion of my hand, giving myself exactly what I wanted—the firm pressure of my palm against my clit and my fingers inside, coaxing my orgasm out with a demanding rhythm. It gathered in my belly, tightening my nipples and pushing my hips forward.

  “Watch how little I need you.” I groaned, keeping my gaze on the darkness below the slit of light.

  And then, in one fluid motion, he pulled the drapes all the way shut.

  My orgasm took a step back. I took my leg off the chair and cupped my hand between my legs, resting my head against the cool glass.

  My ass was sore, my cheeks were hot, I was dripping wet between my legs, and I couldn’t understand how someone who wanted me so badly, who seemed to understand my body better than I did, just kept refusing to give me what I needed.

  I wasn’t going to win this.

  He was too good at this mindfuck of a game.

  I realized the difference between who I was and who I wanted to be.

  Discount Mandy would stay.

  Couture Mandy had no time for this.

  Deciding whether or not to go home was moot. My only choice was between leaving immediately, before bed, or after a good night’s sleep—but I was definitely cutting my losses and going home before I ended up right back where I began: confused, brokenhearted, out of control.

  The next thing I knew, Dante burst into my room, turning me around and pushing me against the glass door. His eyes were dark with lust, and his cock was hard against me. My breath caught in my chest, and as I raised my arms to push him away, his lips landed on me, opening my mouth for his as his tongue probed me, owned me, demanded more of me than I knew how to give—and instead of pushing him away, my hands tightened on his shirt and pulled him closer.

  I was a teenager in his arms, wild and desperate. He tugged my head back so that he could keep kissing me as he cupped my breast, fingertips toying with the sensitive peaks of my nipples. Our hips pressed together, and I could feel him, that hard, pulsing length I’d seen but not touched, and all I could think was, That’s for me.

  Pinching open the button on his jeans, I reached inside and found his wet-tipped cock ready for my fist. It was huge and rigid, a column of stone wrapped in hot skin. I groaned when he reached around and under my nightgown to get his hand on my soaking lips, his fingers exactly the rough, blunt pressure I’d been aching for.

  “You’re so wet for me,” he rumbled.

  I couldn’t even find enough breath to agree—I had to keep kissing him, giving myself up to the sweep of his tongue in my mouth, and riding the flick of his fingers on my clit as he thrust his cock into my fist.

  “I’m going to come,” I gasped, and he stilled his hand in response.

  “There are rules,” he said with a smirk. “You didn’t give me a perfect page.”

  Was he going to make me type right then and there? How was I supposed to hit the right keys when my body only lived for the pleasure he controlled?

  “I know, but I want it.”

  He got harder in my hand, gazing at me, holding me up with a flick of his fingers. He opened his mouth to agree to give me whatever I wanted but said something else instead. “Beg for it.”

  He wanted my supplication. Humiliation. He wanted to turn me into a mess of nerves and flesh without a will for anything he couldn’t grant with a twitch of his fingers.

  “Please. I haven’t earned it, but please let me come. I’ll be perfect from now on.”

  “I like how you beg.” He pulled me close, pushing two fingers inside me and using a third to circle my clit. “Do it. Come into my hand.”

  I hadn’t done anything this messy and frantic and bone-melting in years. Maybe ever. We’d been playing chicken with each other all day; now we were crashing over the edge of a cliff together, flying with momentum, too desperate to care if we ended up in flames.

  He didn’t let up, but he didn’t try to keep me on a punishing edge.

  My orgasm was sudden and debilitating, ripping through me like a gunshot. Consciousness fell away. The warm honey of satisfaction pulsed through my veins.

  Dante stroked me through it, whispering, “Come on, just like that, come for me,” against the skin of my neck until every drop of my orgasm had been tasted, savored, and digested.

  His cock still throbbed in my hand, thick and hard, pulsing with need.

  Couture Mandy put her needs first, but she wasn’t a selfish fuck.

  I dropped to my knees. This time, when I kneeled at his feet, I wasn’t begging for a favor. I started to tug down his jeans, but he swatted my hands away and took out his dick, holding it like a weapon. With his free hand, he took a fistful of hair at the back of my head and made me look up at him past the foreground of the length of his cock. I reached for it, but he slapped me away.

  “Hands behind your back.”

  I did it.

  “Open your mouth.”

  When I did, he laid his cock on the flat of my tongue and slid it back.

  “Now open your throat like my good little slut,” he said.

  The word should have grated against my pride. Instead, it rubbed against the sensitive skin of my resistance, breaking it down to its cause. I wanted to be here, controlled, degraded, a servant to desire.

  My eyes fluttered closed with concentration as the head of his cock nudged the back of my throat. He was longer and thicker than any man before him.

  “Take it all.” He let my hair go to caress my cheek as he pushed deep. “When I let you breathe, tell me you’re my whore.”

  When he pulled out, I gulped for breath.

  “Tell me.”

  He wanted me to say it—the thing I’d been denying to anyone who’d listen.

  What would happen if I just said it?

  “I’m a whore.” I didn’t sound convinced.

  “No,” he said definitively, caressing my head. “You’re my whore. When you’re at my feet, you’re mine. Say it.”

  Every word was a statement of fact, and I sighed as if exhaling doubt about the pure rightness of who I was at his feet and nowhere else. Just like the tabloids said I was, but different because being his whore meant freedom and chains and safety all at the same time, and it was okay.

  “I’m your whore,” I gasped with an admission that freed me to give him every inch of my throat, my body, and my will.

  “Beg for my cock.”

  This game was new to me, but he was good at it, and it was one I wanted to play.

  “Please give me your cock.” Too easy to repeat, I took it a step further. “Fuck my throat.”

  “Good girl.” The caress of my cheek tightened, and he forced my mouth open. “Good. Little. Slut.” He thrust with every word, and I opened my throat for him.

  The hand in my hair tightened, and he shoved his cock another inch down my throat, using my mouth at his pace, his way.

  My eyes watered, and he pulled out so I could breathe and waited until I opened my mouth for him to abuse again.

  “When I give you my come,” he said, with his belly pushing against my nose, “you swallow it.”

 
He didn’t wait for me to agree but thrust again and again until, in one last brutal push, he came down my throat, holding me tight against him, moaning through his orgasm with what sounded almost like surrender. His hands loosened in my hair but stayed there with something close to tenderness in the gesture.

  Did I feel used?

  No. I did not.

  I felt as if I’d used him.

  I looked up at his face and wiped my mouth with my wrist.

  He smirked and helped me up before tucking his dick back in his pants, and I was seized with an irrational fear that I was now exposed to him. I was vulnerable again. My budding agency and self-determination had withered before it bloomed.

  I liked him.

  His swagger and his dirty talk had only made it worse.

  The way he’d casually debased me had been a trick.

  I liked him, and I wasn’t supposed to.

  And now here he was, cupping my cheek, triumphant enough to offer tenderness to a willing target.

  That wasn’t how it was supposed to be this time.

  I’d used him, and now that he’d served his purpose, I didn’t need him anymore.

  “You can go,” I said.

  Dante just stood there, blinked, then dropped his hand away.

  I couldn’t have wounded him. He was too strong for that. But Couture Mandy needed new habits. Better ones. The point was to avoid getting hurt, not to hurt someone else. The point was to build armor, not sharpen my sword.

  The point was that what I wanted had to be my first priority, and after that experience, what I wanted was to sleep.

  “You were right.” I smiled. “I did need that. And now I need to sleep.”

  “Go on,” he said. “I’ll tuck you in.”

  No harm in that, right? “Sure.”

  He turned the covers back, and I crawled onto the bed, sliding between the cool sheets. He put them up to my chin and sat on the bed beside me.

  “Can you leave a light on?” I asked. “The one by the typewriter?”

  “Are you scared of the dark?”

  “No,” I said. “A little.”

  He glanced at the desk lamp and must have decided it wouldn’t drain too much of the solar power, because he turned back to me and nodded. “I will.”