One Life With Him

by CD Reiss

  clit. He barely pressed on it, just rotated around the slip of skin at the top. “You never told me that.”

  “I have to be strong for you. You chase me out of the house to work, and I think it’s because you don’t want me to see you weak. And, oh God, Jonathan, I’m going to come.”

  “No, you’re not.” He reduced the pressure and intensity until I could only feel the outer edge of his hand’s heat. “Pull your shirt up. Let me see your tits.”

  I yanked up my shirt and bra, and he leaned down and sucked on a nipple so hard and fast, it hurt like hell. I bucked under him.

  “I’m going to die before you,” he said, taking a last nip before putting his face to mine. “Way before you. You want to spend the time worrying? Or fucking?”

  Which? Was that the only choice: this dichotomy of soul-eating pain or soul-revealing pleasure? I waited too long to answer apparently, because he circled his fingertip over my clit again, barely touching it. I groaned. I wanted to say fucking, to tell him what he wanted to hear, but when he had me like this, I couldn’t tell one of the thousand untruths about my feelings. I couldn’t say what would make him happy for the sake of saving him from stress.

  “Which is it, goddess?”

  “I’m going to come.”

  He brought his finger down my folds, to where I was wettest, leaving my clit kissed by nothing but the damp air in my jeans as he brought the rest of me to life. His outer fingers touched the welts he’d left earlier, setting them on fire.

  “Which is it?” he asked.

  “Fuck me or let me come,” I whispered.

  He pulled his hand out of my pants. The loss was painful.

  “You are not stopping,” I groaned. “Don’t even—”

  He held my face, putting his nose to mine. “You only talk when your cunt lets you. From now on, I control when you talk. And today, you talk.”

  The car stopped in front of our house, and the gate clanged closed behind us.

  “You’re a son of a bitch.” My body arched toward him, making a lie of my words.

  “Before I was in the hospital, you could hold yourself together. Now you’re calling me a son of a bitch for doing what it’s my right to do.”

  I glared at him, hating him and loving him at the same time, pain and pleasure always hand-in-hand with my king.

  “Button up,” he said, pulling my shirt down.

  I closed the fly on my jeans, and he opened the door. The late afternoon sun blasted my face, turning Lil’s form into a rectangular silhouette.

  We didn’t speak as we walked to the house. A modest thing by Drazen standards, it had a private beach in the back and the whole of Malibu in front. It was an old house built at the crest of the modern era by an ambitious architect who was way ahead of his time. It didn’t have a porch, but a small overhang shaded the wide front door. He disabled the security system and put his hand on the knob but didn’t turn it. Lil drove away, the sound of the engine giving way to the evensong birds and the breath of the freeways below.

  I started to think about everything I could be doing. Over the past six months, my brain chemistry had changed so that when I was upset, my thoughts went to music and the business of making it. One ass fuck in the studio wouldn’t change that.

  “Come on. I have things to do,” I said, knowing that wouldn’t go over well. I reveled in my defiance. Fuck him with his new heart and old ways. If he wanted to talk, he could take me to dinner.

  He swung the door open but didn’t leave room for me to pass. I crossed my arms. He smirked. I felt the tightening of my cheeks as I almost smirked with him. What game was I playing? I wanted to get to work, and I wanted him to fuck me.

  No, I didn’t want him to fuck me. I wanted him to either rip me apart or let me make music mourning the loss of my wounds. If this defaulted to a vanilla middle ground because he thought he’d made his point, I would lose my shit.

  “Take your clothes off. All of them.”

  I rolled my eyes. Lightning quick, like a man who had done nothing but work on his reflexes for the past six months, he grabbed my hair and dragged me to my knees. My safe word was Invictus and I probably still had a tangerine option, but the insides of my thighs tingled when he leaned down and growled in my ear.

  “Unbutton your shirt.”

  I reached for my placket and carefully, without fumbling, undid the buttons one by one.

  “I’ll do what I have to to get you to talk to me. So first…” He yanked my hair, and I gasped. “Take it off. And the bra.”

  I shook both off until I was bare-breasted at the front door. How would he get my pants off? What did he intend?

  He let go of my hair. “Stand up.”

  I got on my feet. He stood in the doorway, framed by a house I’d agreed to with a shrug, his hands at his sides. One of his fingers twitched.

  I crossed my arms. “Are we going in or not?” I leaned on one hip, breasts out as if I didn’t give a shit one way or the other how naked I was. “I’m tired, and my ass hurts. Can we just—”

  “You’re really pushing it.”

  I tapped a single finger on my bicep, a tic of impatience. Even though his beautiful green eyes didn’t leave mine, I knew he saw it, and even if his mouth didn’t smile, I knew I was pleasing him. We needed this, and we needed it to go down exactly the way it was going to go down.

  He put a finger on my lower lip. “Open your mouth.”

  I didn’t.

  With his other hand, he cupped my jaw and exerted pressure, slowly opening my mouth. God, I wanted his cock in it. I wanted to taste the soft skin as it slid to the back of my throat. I relaxed my mouth, and he put his fingers in. First one, then four, pressing my tongue down.

  He pulled me to him, speaking softly and firmly into my face. “I don’t mind repeating myself. This is my mouth, and when I say open it, it opens.”

  I couldn’t speak, but my eyes agreed. I was putty in his hands.

  “Get your pants off while I explain my position.”

  I unbuttoned and unzipped while he held my jaw open. I couldn’t swallow, and drool formed over his fingers.

  “Do you remember the hospital? The week before the first surgery?”

  Remember? How could I forget? I got heart palpitations thinking about it. Any time I smelled alcohol or something beeped, my chest felt as if it had been encased in a clenched fist.

  “That week, we had rules,” he said. “Should I remind you?”

  I nodded as much as I could.

  “Get your pants down.” I wiggled to slide them down while he spoke. “The rules were: only the truth, even if it hurt. We would never protect each other from each other. And no judgment.”

  I got my pants down to my knees. I was twisted, fighting the tight jeans, the pressure of his fingers, and the memory of lying next to him in the never-dark Sequoia Hospital.

  He removed his hand, which was wet with spit that dripped down his arm to the elbow. “All the way off.”

  I leaned to get my shoes off. He held my elbow when I almost fell then resumed watching my clumsy and twisted operation until I was completely naked before him. He was perfectly calm, perfectly commanding. Only the huge bulge in his pants indicated how involved he was in what was happening.

  I stood with my hands at my sides. “I remember.”

  “I want that again.”

  “It’s hard when you’re telling me to get my clothes off.”

  “You know what, Monica, you don’t even know yourself. Look at you. I haven’t seen you this relaxed in months. The only time you let your worry go is when you give me control. And your worry is what keeps you from being honest.”

  I swallowed. Blinked. A torrent of wetness welled behind my eyes. “I don’t want to break the scene.”

  “Stay still. Stay naked. Speak your mind.”

  “I almost died with you a hundred times. That recovery room, they had you in this induced coma, and you looked dead. There were bags of blood. Bags hanging over you, a
nd you were all opened up. And, I’m sorry, I haven’t said this because you’re the one who went through it.” I swallowed a gallon of tears. “I don’t want to see you like that again. But I think about it all the time. I dream about it. I see it when I close my eyes. I want you to live, so I do what I think will make you happy, and I always get it wrong. Stay or go. I give you attention or none. It’s always wrong.”

  “What about your happiness?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Not as much as yours. It’s not life or death.”

  “It is, Monica. It is.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t convince me of that. We can do this hurtful honesty thing all day. You’re the priority, and I’m okay with that. Deal with it.”

  He nodded, looking down for a blink, then at me. He reached for my wrists. “These go behind your back.”

  I did as instructed.

  “Now get on your knees.”

  I bent them. With my hands behind my back, it was hard to balance.

  “Do you need some help?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  I thought he’d take me gently by the elbow, but he dragged me down. He was right. I was relaxed, totally submitting and trusting him, loving every bit of discomfort he dished out.

  “Spread your knees apart.”

  I did, too slowly for him. He kicked them wide.

  “Do you remember your safe word?” he asked, unbuckling his belt.

  “Yes.” A tingling rush went down my spine with the promise of his dominance and the way it made me forget how fragile he really was.

  His cock was out in the next second. “Open. Your. Mouth.”

  I parted my lips enough to breathe, and before I could open my throat or prepare, he put his cock between them and pushed my head into him. I choked on the mass of his dick, but the scent of his soap, the taste of his skin, the shape and thrust of him brought a wave of pleasure and a strong desire to please him.

  “Take it, goddess. Take it all. Not one inch should be left.”

  He pushed forward again, fucking my face mercilessly. He pulled out, letting me breathe and making eye contact with me. Checking on me. I was safe. I gasped, chest heaving, and opened my mouth again.

  “I want you to think about something. While I take your mouth, I want you to think about how its purpose is my pleasure. To fuck.” He stuck his dick down my throat, all of it in one stroke, and pulled it out as violently as he’d put it in. “To talk.” He jammed it in again before I could utter a word. “Whatever I say.”

  He began in earnest, treating my throat the way he’d treated my ass an hour before—as a receptacle for his soap-scented cock. He moved my head by my hair, pulling out to let me breathe but no longer than necessary. My hands were behind me, so I couldn’t wipe the drool off my chin or move my hair from my face.

  “I’m going to come down your throat.” He was so strong, so solid, so commanding with a wisp of hair over his forehead, his monster cock dripping with my spit, hanging in the foreground of my vision. “You’re going to swallow every fucking drop. Do you understand?”

  I opened my mouth as wide as I could, looking up at him through my hair. I wanted to tell him to fuck me anywhere he wanted. To make it hurt. Make it uncomfortable. I wanted to forget everything in our way. The hurt, the stress, the worry. I wanted to break the cycle again, and be nothing more than under him.

  But he didn’t give me a chance to beg for it. He cupped my jaw in his other hand and stuck his wet cock in my waiting mouth to fuck my throat. He could live forever. He could pound my face like this in an eternal grind, never sick, never dying, never at risk. No. This dominant beast was built to fuck and to hurt and to live.

  He pulled out long enough to let me breathe then shoved it back in, coming with a bark, his balls pulsing against my lower lip. His hair-pulling violence turned to stroking and caressing as he filled my throat, slipping out for a breath, and sliding in again.

  “Goddess,” he whispered. “Mine mine mine…”

  My arms and knees ached. My throat was sore. Thank god I didn’t have to sing the next day. Not that he’d care. Not this Jonathan, my Jonathan, with his come coating my throat as I swallowed, looking up at him. He smiled at me, and when he picked me up and carried me though the door, I forgot to worry about him at all.

  Chapter 56

  JONATHAN

  I could see this would take some time. It had taken me months to figure out we even had a problem; it wouldn’t take me that much less to solve.

  The flip side of the loyalty I loved was her stubbornness. She’d fully engaged in her submission when we started out because it was new and exciting. She’d discovered things she didn’t know about herself, and she’d watched me discover my own boundaries as well as hers. Then I got sick, and her world flipped. She had become distrustful, and to her, the stakes were life and death.

  All that made me want to fuck her harder, to drive submission back into her. While my dick was out, she was obedient and subservient, perfect as usual. In the doorway of our house, her mouth open, her chin slick with spit, waiting for me to come down her throat, she was a goddess. But once it was over, she would close her mouth and not talk about what was bothering her. She was going to simmer and worry and seethe, holding it all inside in an effort to protect me.

  It was cute. Sweet, even. In a way, her protectiveness made me love her more than I’d thought I could love anyone. She was a mother lion, even with her hands behind her back and her mascara running down her cheeks.

  And as if cued, as I carried her, I had a vision in four-dimension Technicolor, clear as reality and sharper than the truth: my heart blew through the scar in my chest, and I dropped her. The vision went whoosh when the heart flew out of me, thup when it landed on the floor, and clonk when I dropped her. I didn’t hear myself fall, because I was dead.

  This had to stop, but I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to shut it down. I shook myself free of the afterburn as I laid her on the bed. It faced the Pacific ocean, and the constant crash of the waves would make a nice backdrop over her screams of pleasure. She’d wanted to live on the beach, and I’d given her that, but I’d never given her myself. That was going to change. I couldn’t live like this.

  “I missed you,” she said, and I knew what she meant.

  “You barely knew me.” I rolled her onto her stomach. I wanted to tie her up, but I couldn’t. I had in the studio, but I’d kept thinking as I stroked her back, what if the heart rejects me and she’s tied down?

  She tucked her hands under her thighs. “How much do I need to know you to love you?”

  “Put your hands on the headboard,” I said, pulling her hair from her face.

  She stretched her arms and turned to face the big glass doors onto the patio. The beach on the other side was private, and that slice of sunset was ours alone. Her eyes were blasted light brown in the dying sun, and they followed me as I stepped back and looked at her.

  She was long and beautiful, with hair like a turbulent ocean. She was my songbird, my goddess, my slice of control in a world of chaos.

  Ten years with her was better than sixty with anyone less.

  I picked her legs up by the ankles and bent the knees, spreading them apart. Her cunt was wet, and her ass was welted pink. I looked back up at her face. Her eyes were closed tightly, wrinkles in the skin around her wet lashes, and I remembered how hard I’d hit her. Six months’ worth of frustration. I’d never hit her out of anger, only arousal, but maybe the two had gotten mixed up somewhere.

  “This hurts,” I said, hovering my hand over her ass.

  “Yes,” she said, eyes open into the sun again. “Thank you.”

  She wasn’t trained to thank me for spankings. No one had told her it was how a submissive was supposed to please their master. She simply thanked me because she’d gotten something from me she couldn’t give to herself. How could I not love her?

  “Wait here.” I kissed her cheek and went to the bathroom.

&nbs
p; I snapped open the medicine cabinet. I had a shaving salve and a lubricant. Abandoned hair things. Toothpaste. Band-Aids. Monica had a pale pink box of who-even-knew under the sink. The movers had taken everything and brought it from my house to this new house, and my wife and I had been too distracted and too vanilla to note where we kept the salves for her poor, welted ass. I’d been a sorry excuse of a dominant.

  I laughed at myself and put the lubricant back. That wouldn’t work.

  I snapped it open. Little half-used tubes of whatnot clacked around. Perfumey stuff that would burn. Zinc oxide would be fine for a small area, but her whole bottom needed attention. I clicked open a smaller box. Ah. Sunburn ointment and Neosporin. Perfect.

  I checked a little velvet bag with a drawstring. I didn’t know what I was hoping for, maybe the home-run of ass lotions or a magic unguent that would make her able to sit for more than five minutes without flinching. I just opened it and slid out a white plastic stick. A pregnancy test.

  The nerve to my heart had been cut during the transplant, so I couldn’t feel it stop and seize up. Couldn’t feel the squeeze in my chest. But I knew it was there.

  I turned the plastic wand. Not breathing. Not thinking about the fact that I’d been snooping into something that had been inside a bag, inside a box, inside a cabinet.

  Not pregnant.

  I wasn’t relieved. I wasn’t disappointed. I just realized how much I wanted a different result and how little control I had over it.

  I slapped everything back in its place and went into the bedroom. She was still there, facedown, hands touching the headboard, bathed in the sunset. It would be dark in a few minutes, so I turned on the little lamp by the bed.

  “I found these in your stuff,” I said, holding out the tubes.

  “I think the Neosporin’s expired.”

  I flipped the tube. “Next month.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. “Ass up.”

  She shifted, arching just enough to get her pelvis off the bed.

  “Goddess, when I say ass up, I mean ass up.” I put my hand under her and jacked her up until her ass was in the air.