The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood Book 3)

by Nikki Sloane

  I understood the need for condoms, but I disliked them. The smell, the taste, the way putting them on could interrupt the flow of sex. Plus, I disliked the miniscule layer between my partner and me, separating us from each other.

  “I’m okay going without them if you are,” I said.

  He was pleased, which meant I was pleased too.

  While I undressed, he set up the lights and gray backdrop in the far corner of the room, and then carried the chair over. I left on my bra and underwear, which was a simple set of black lace I’d put on with hopes I’d be able to sell him on my modeling plan. I also wore my high heeled black sandals, where the straps flowed from the front of my ankle strap down over my toes, leaving the sides of my feet totally bare.

  He had to go upstairs to retrieve the blindfold, and while he was gone, I wandered around, examining the different pieces in greater detail. His work was so beautiful. I couldn’t wait to experience it during play. Whatever we didn’t get to today, I was confident I’d get to it eventually with E.

  My mind drifted to him. What was he doing right now? It felt wrong to think about him, but I was so damn curious. The floor overhead creaked and footsteps came down the stairs. When Clay came into view, it reminded me the best-looking piece of art in his house was the one currently walking toward me with a blindfold in hand.

  I slipped it on, keeping it pushed up on my forehead so I could watch as he went to the bottom drawer of a cabinet and pulled out leather cuffs. They looked identical to the ones E had used. Were they the same brand? I didn’t know anything about BDSM supplies. Maybe there was only one company, or perhaps all the styles were similar.

  We started our photoshoot with Clay’s chair, and I don’t think either of us were prepared for how sexy this would be.

  Like my session with E, I was restrained at the wrists and ankles, but now I also had the blindfold pulled down over my eyes. It prevented me from knowing what Clay was doing, and it allowed my imagination to run wild.

  Goosebumps lifted on my arms and my breath went short.

  I was trapped here, waiting, and completely at his mercy.

  We hadn’t played together, not physically, since the day he’d used his sharp ruler on me, and desire moved thickly through my veins. Oh, how I craved his hands on my body.

  Instead, he took his pictures.

  I heard his feet as he moved around, adjusting to different angles, and listened as his breathing seemed to hurry along. Was this turning him on as much as me? Was the anticipation killing him?

  He teased me too as he adjusted my positions. He unclipped my hands at the base of the chair and latched them up by my head, then skated a finger down between my breasts. It glided down over the hollow of my belly button and lower still. I moaned and shivered as his fingers brushed over the crotch of my panties.

  “So wet for me.” His voice was hushed, and the heat of his mouth ghosted over my lips, but when I tried to kiss him, he retreated. “Not yet. I’ll make you earn it.”

  We didn’t do every piece he had. Some, like the padded folding table, were self-explanatory. The queening chair didn’t take long to photograph. I posed on the low, U-shape seat that allowed my partner to lie in comfort beneath me while I was perched over their face.

  Clay’s voice was all-knowing. “What are you smiling about?”

  “I’m thinking about how this could be the other way around.” My ankle cuffs were currently hooked onto the sides of the chair, but . . . “It would also work if the sub was beneath and their hands were attached.”

  “Yes. I could put you like that and if you’re not rimming me to my satisfaction, I could correct you with a riding crop against your tits.”

  I jolted at the visual. It sliced down through me and poured lava inside. “Holy fuck.”

  “What?” His tone was patronizing and sexy. “Do you like the sound of that?”

  I was wound so tight I was going to explode, so I said it the same way I’d murmur a yes. “Maybe.”

  “Interesting.” Even with the blindfold on, I could picture him making a mental note.

  He saved the St. Andrew’s cross for last, because of course he did. He knew I wanted it, so he had to drag it out.

  There’d been a longing ache in my body, and once he had me splayed out on the cross—the cold, padded vinyl pressed against my belly—relief swept through and uncorded my muscles. There was just something about the position I hungered for. It whispered of darkness, of something old and basic and carnal.

  “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to use any of these pictures,” he said.

  I went on alert. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Do you have any idea how fucking hot you are? No one’s going to look at anything else but you. I know I can’t.”

  I grinned. He made me weak, and I was glad for the restraints on my wrists that were pinned up. I couldn’t collapse even if I wanted to.

  His words were so distracting, I wasn’t ready when the feathery tails of something played over my back. I flinched. It hadn’t hurt; it had just startled me. The sensation was pleasant.

  Clay’s mouth was abruptly right by my ear. “This is a flogger.”

  The heat of his body vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and his next strike was more intense. Not painful, but attention-getting.

  As he had E do with the spankings, Clay warmed me up. All the wispy tails of the flogger stroked and whipped against my skin, and since I was still blindfolded, I focused in on it. He built in speed and force, moving around so he didn’t hit the same place twice.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you would.”

  Immediately, there was a loud whoosh as the leather cut through the air, and this time, he wasn’t playing around. I sucked in a sharp breath as thirty tiny whips hit me. I didn’t get time to recover because he did it again. Pain bloomed across my skin, and beneath my blindfold, my eyes fluttered shut.

  It hurt in such a good way.

  I whimpered with pleasure and sagged in my cuffs as he settled in, finding a pace, and creating fire that spiderwebbed across my nerve endings. It made me contract after each blow and pulled gasps of breath from my lips.

  He’d talked about euphoria, and as the pain got stronger, the absence between his blows—the microsecond before the flogger struck me again—was heaven. I shuddered with bliss when he paused to unhook my bra and expose all of my back to his tool of pain and pleasure.

  And in these moments of quiet, I pictured E there too, standing in the shadows as he watched the scene unfold.

  There came a thud like the flogger had been dropped, followed by rustling, and then a zipper going down, tooth by tooth.

  “I’m so goddamn hard, I have to fuck you.”

  “Yes,” I cried.

  His warm, bare chest flattened against my back, which was scorching from the flogger, but I didn’t care. He was naked, and pushed his cock between my legs, rubbing himself against the crotch of my panties in teasing strokes. It made me tremble.

  One of his hands pressed on the small of my back, urging me to arch and jut my ass out back toward him so it’d be easier to bring us together. He hooked a finger in the side of my panties, lined himself up, and pushed in.

  My moan was guttural but muffled under his louder one. It felt like he’d made me wait years for this, so did he feel like he’d been waiting his whole life?

  He was thick and hard, and satisfaction grew as he continued to advance.

  I’d expected a rough fuck, and he didn’t disappoint. His hands were mean and intrusive, and nothing was off limits. I bowed and stretched and struggled, wanting more. Lust was a drug that I couldn’t get enough of when I was with him.

  I pictured us in my head as his violent thrusts racked my body, but the cross didn’t budge an inch. I imagined how his ass flexed and contracted as he drove into me. Sweat dampened the temples of my hair, and when he gra
bbed a handful at the back of my head and yanked me toward him, I groaned my approval.

  “I’m going to come inside this pussy,” he said between labored breaths, because fucking me this intensely was a full body workout. “But you have to come first, Lilith. Don’t make me wait.”

  “Oh, my God.” It didn’t take me long after that. The tendrils of ecstasy started pulling me up, and up, and . . .

  I could hear the smile in his voice. “Yeah?”

  I moaned, unable to speak, while the orgasm had me in its grasp. It was powerful and exhausting, and when it began to fade, I was utterly drained. I became a ragdoll tied to his beautiful art, nothing more than a vessel for him to fill with his pleasure.

  Fuck, I loved it.

  When he came, he sank his teeth into my shoulder, but his bite was painless. I was too focused on how it felt as he lost himself inside me. It was wonderful but ended too soon.

  “You’ve earned this,” he declared, just before he turned my head to him and sealed his mouth over mine.

  His kiss was hot and dominating. In its wake, some far off voice in my head began to whisper. It warned me if I wanted to keep Clay, it was better not to get too close.

  Don’t let him in.

  I worried it was already too late.

  FOURTEEN

  Two days after Clay returned to his jobsite, E met me at the house, followed me down the basement stairs, and proceeded to carry out the detailed plan Clay had crafted for him. I wore nothing but a pair of open-toed polka dot heels that had an ankle strap, and while E couldn’t say anything, I was fairly certain he liked them.

  Once I started wearing my shoes during our sessions, I began to think of them in a new way. My green crocodile pumps had been the riding crop. I’d worn my gray and red plaid heels the first time I’d felt the sweet agony of a cane. Each design became paired with a scene.

  I wanted to wear a new set each time, but at this rate, I’d have to go shoe shopping by the end of the month.

  What a terrible burden.

  I smirked.

  Clay noticed my shoes too because he loved details and didn’t miss much.

  Clay: Wear your red stilettos with the metal heel tonight.

  He meant my ruby suede shoes with a rose gold heel. Last time I’d worn them, E had placed a line of clothes pins on the insides of my thighs. Would I be seeing more of those this evening?

  The answer was yes.

  And my pattern continued that whenever my pain or my pleasure reached its highest point, the two men would blur and become one. It was my favorite part of the session, the moment where I felt . . .

  Complete.

  It was two more weeks and six pairs of shoes later when we hit our first snafu. Up until that point, everything had run smoothly—just as Clay had scripted—until the night I’d spent twenty minutes petting Noir while waiting for his phone call.

  Had something happened? He was never late. If we said eight o’clock, my phone always buzzed a few minutes before. I could tell he liked to talk to me prior to Mr. E’s arrival.

  Worry grew much larger when E didn’t show up. The doorbell never rang, and his hulking figure didn’t appear at the front door.

  Was it possible I’d gotten my days mixed up? I began to thumb out a text when finally a FaceTime call popped up on my screen.

  “Hey.” I did my best to sound light and casual. “I was starting to worry about you.”

  “Hi. I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.” Gone was Clay’s normal confidence. He looked flustered. “There’s been a change in plans.”

  He’d told me, more than once, how much he disliked that, and my stomach flipped over. “What’s going on?”

  “Mr. E had a work emergency.”

  “Oh. I hope everything’s okay.” It was a force of habit. “What does he do?”

  His expression locked down. “I’d prefer not to say.”

  I pushed out a breath that may have sounded frustrated, and when Clay’s expression filled with disappointment, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “You can’t expect me not to be curious about him.”

  I mean, I’d been fucking him for weeks, although Clay would have probably argued I’d been fucking him for weeks.

  His shoulders sagged as he rubbed the crease developing in the center of his forehead. “I know, Lilith, but this is new territory for me, too. He’s with you all the time, and while this arrangement works for now, it’s temporary.” His eyes sharpened, etching over my face. “I just want . . . some distance between you two. In case I haven’t been clear, I’d rather be the one with you.” His voice fell to a hush, as if hesitant to reveal it. “Sometimes I wish I could have you all to myself.”

  There was a pang of longing in my heart. It was nice to hear, but was he worried about losing me? I got that he figured the less I knew about E, the better, which would decrease the risk—however unlikely—that I’d fall for the other man. Clay wasn’t just protecting himself, either. He was trying to protect me from being hurt when the time came for E to exit the relationship.

  Except . . .

  That tiny voice whispered again it was already too late.

  I loved what we had—and I didn’t want it to be over.

  Clay and I had made a deal. No feelings, no attachments. Was I supposed to tell him that was happening now, when my feelings weren’t only for him?

  For the last week, I’d tried to convince myself I wasn’t interested in E beyond sexual attraction. The pull toward this mystery man was just my insatiable desire to know more about him, but I was kidding myself.

  When I thought about my future with Clay, I couldn’t picture us without E there too.

  Oh, I was in trouble.

  In my fear, I stayed silent, and I fought to rationalize it away. Clay shared me physically with E, but not emotionally. So, I spitefully kept my emotions from him.

  I slathered on a brave face and a sexy smile. “Well, you’ve got me all to yourself tonight, don’t you?”

  His mood lifted. “Yes.”

  As usual, he was sprawled out on his hotel bed, and when he drew in a heavy breath, the shift visibly went through him. There was the confident dominant I was familiar with.

  “That’s why I was late calling,” he continued. “I had to revise my plan for the evening.”

  “Yeah?” I perked up. While I was disappointed E wouldn’t be joining us, I wasn’t unhappy to have some one-on-one time with my partner.

  And it was a wildly different experience than anything we’d done before.

  While I wasn’t physically tied up during the session, there was still plenty of restraint placed on me. There were the rules Clay doled out in his exacting voice, plus the way I had to control myself. It was so much easier when there was rope or cuffs. Making myself stay still was hard. But making myself stop when I was close to orgasming?

  That was a real challenge.

  He decreed tonight I was to vocalize everything. He wanted me to be loud and communicative. Clay demanded I show him all my visual cues when I was right on the cusp of coming.

  So I did, over and over again.

  He studied me like a student eager to get a perfect test score, watching me as my fingers played with my clit, mentally cataloguing every moan and sigh I made.

  It was erotic performing for him, yet surprisingly intimate too.

  I’d gotten myself off at least twice, but he drew my final one out. My body pleaded for release, and when he finally allowed it, bliss rushed through me in a hot wave. I collapsed back on his couch, swallowing gulps of air, and stared up at the nothingness of his vaulted ceiling.

  A terrible realization dawned inside me.

  My orgasms had been satisfying . . . so why didn’t I feel satisfied?

  Since E and I weren’t allowed to talk to each other, I liked to think that we were able to communicate other ways. Body language, or breaths too soft for Clay to hear, or an exchange of looks.

 
Hi, I said, when E stepped through the front doorway. I missed you.

  I missed you too, I imagined his eyes saying back to me.

  Clay was oblivious to the conversation going on between us, too eager to get started. “Let’s head downstairs.”

  We’d done it enough times, preparing for the scene came naturally to all of us. I undressed while E set up his laptop. He connected with Clay, then took my phone from me and hung it up, setting it on the workbench beside his computer. He adjusted the angle of the camera until Clay said it was good, before both men set their sights on me and . . .

  Then the scene truly began.

  It’d been a long, especially hard day at the clinic this afternoon, and I was emotionally drained, but my exhaustion and everything else melted away when E approached. I gave a startled, then relieved sigh as he fisted my hair, jerked my head back, and sank his teeth into the side of my neck.

  It took no time to fall under the spell of their dominance.

  Not long after I was bound to Clay’s prototype chair, did I understand why Clay had been studying my cues in our previous session. E teased me mercilessly with the cordless wand vibrator, taking me right to the brink, only for Clay’s sharp order to ring out and bring me to a screeching halt.

  While the impending orgasm slipped away, E undid his jeans and pushed his hardened cock into my mouth. I wasn’t able to move my head much because tonight there was a collar locked around my throat, which was hooked into the chairback, but that didn’t slow E down one bit. He firmly held the sides of my head as he fucked my mouth, and his ruthless way was exactly how I imagined Clay would do it.

  I was left struggling to catch my breath, a trail of saliva hanging from my lips as he retreated and picked up the vibrator. As soon as it made contact with my clit, its buzz sent pleasure pulsating through my center. It dragged a grateful moan from deep in my chest and got my orgasm back on track.