by Sadie Jacks
“You consented to everything? From start to finish?” Mas asked in his hoarse whisper. His eyes were dark, his mouth edged down at the corners.
I nodded. “Yes. He even told me what would be happening when he got to my thighs because he had to reposition them. Everything was above board. I just wasn’t ready for the sensation overload.”
Tali snorted. “I could have told you that.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “The nightmare?”
I shrugged. “Pretty normal. He had one of the younger ones. I was pleading with him.” I didn’t want to bring it back to mind fully, so I left it at that brief explanation.
Tali nodded, her face and gaze thoughtful. “So, assuming his intentions were pure, how do you feel?” She pointed with her chin towards my legs.
I pumped them up and down on the bed. “Really freaking good actually.” I looked up and over at Rafe. “I probably needed the sleep. But you ever give me something else that I haven’t agreed to, and I’ll cut you out of my life so fast, your head will spin.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry, Willow. I should have told you, let you make your own decisions.”
“Damn right, you should’ve.” I nodded emphatically.
“Can I look at your legs?” he asked before crossing the threshold of my room.
I nodded. “Have you ever heard of lymphatic massage?” I was watching his face as he came closer. No recognition showed on his features.
He shook his head. “Emergency medicine doesn’t really care about interstitial swelling. Or swelling of any kind outside of your brain.” He ran his fingers lightly over the skin of my ankles. “I can actually feel the edges of your bones now.” He looked up, his dark eyes wide. “That’s amazing.”
I nodded. I wanted to share how Ryker learned about the massage technique, but I couldn’t without sharing personal information. I kept my mouth shut. “I feel like I have more…” I tipped my head to the side as I searched for the right word, “space? If that makes any sense.” I pumped my knees up and down on the bed again.
While they were still a little stiff and sore, they truly did feel better. I might have to convince Ryker to teach Tali or someone else how to give me a lymphatic massage. I wasn’t sure I could handle another one from the man himself.
Rafe slid his palms up to the actual injury site on my right leg. “They’re warm, but not in a bad way.”
I nodded again. “Yeah. They feel all glowy on the inside.” I shrugged. I didn’t know how else to explain it.
He nodded. “I’m going to press, see if I can feel the damaged tissue.” He looked up at me. “Is that okay?”
I smiled. “Sure. Thank you for asking.”
He gave me a crooked smile. His fingertips pushed into the flesh of my thigh. First my right, then my left. “I can still feel some of the excess fluid in here.” He walked his fingers up and down my leg. “But you’re right, there is a massive difference from about here,” he put his fingers a few inches above my knees, “down. Your lower legs should probably even lose the discoloration sooner.”
I smiled. “I’m all for not looking like I got run over by a truck.”
He got up from the bed. “Have you had any water tonight?”
I nodded. “Ryker made me dinner.”
Dom snarled from the doorway. “For fucks sake, Will. Was it a fucking date?” He stormed from the door, bowl still in his hands. After a few seconds, the sound of the glass hitting the granite countertop shot through the loft.
I winced. Felt my shoulders bunch up around my ears. Damn it.
Tali patted my foot. “You don’t owe him anything, Chase. He hasn’t asked for exclusivity or even to go on a date with you. He can go be pissy if he wants. But that’s on him. Not you.”
Turo snorted. “That’s all on him. He wants to man up and ask you out, he can. Until that time, you’re a free agent.”
Mas moved into the room, knelt by the side of my bed next to his youngest brother. “I can go rough him up for you. Tell him to stop wearing his ass as a hat.”
I laughed. Shook my head. “I just hate that I’ve hurt his feelings.” I knew how Dom felt about me. I would have to be blind, deaf, mute, and living in a medically induced coma again to not understand his feelings for me. Hell, I’d even pictured myself marrying him at some point.
But it wasn’t now. I truly didn’t want any man in my life right now. Being single was more than enough for me. Being single and having the Amatuccis as my family. I couldn’t lose that. If my being friends with Ryker upset the balance I had with the Amatuccis, I might have to cut Ryker loose.
I winced. After the huge discussion about being a good friend, I was going to be the worst kind of friend.
“You can be friends with both of them, Chase,” Tali said softly. “This is the twenty-first century. No one can dictate your friendships but you.”
I nodded. Put it aside for Future Willow to deal with. She was going to have fun with that one.
“Back to my question though, have you had any water since dinner?” Rafe asked, drawing my attention back to him.
I shook my head. “No, we went from nightmare to discussion to massage. No water in any of that.”
He pushed to his feet. “I’ll get you a glass to get you started. If you want to keep those results, I would assume you’re going to need to drink it by the gallon tomorrow.” He walked off, mumbling under his breath.
Turo came in, pressed his lips to my forehead. “Night, Will. Happy sleep.”
“You’re going?” I asked. I’d barely gotten to see him, to talk to him.
He nodded. “It’s almost midnight, sorellina. I’ve got meetings tomorrow.”
I grabbed his hand. “Then, night, Turo. Happy sleep to you as well.”
He squeezed my fingers and walked out. He spoke to Rafe as they crossed paths. Rafe nodded and kept walking. “Here. I brought you two plain ibuprofen.” He held out his hand. Two small, round brown pills sat in his palm.
“I should have known they were different. These look nothing like the ones from earlier today.” I took them with a big gulp of water. “If it’s really that late, I think all of us need to get to bed.”
Tali shooed her brothers out.
All but Dom came to my bedside and said goodnight. I can’t say I wasn’t a little hurt by Dom’s actions. Because I was. His siblings were right. He’d never asked me to date him or anything else. We had an unspoken kind of thing. A sort of visceral chemistry and understanding.
At least Ryker had stated his intentions clearly. He wanted me under him. Or over him. I thought about Ryker. Knowing how bossy he was, it would probably be me under him.
With Dom, even though he was as bossy as Ryker, he’d never said anything. At least not explicitly. Could I have talked to Dom about it? Sure. But what if it was all in my head? That the connection between us was just a figment of my imagination? I could damage our relationship in so many different ways. And that was what I couldn’t handle. Ruining what we did have on the off chance that something else could possibly begin or bloom.
I wrestled with the idea of talking to Dom about all of this. I could talk myself into either option, for very good reasons. But the end result was that I did nothing.
Tali finally came to bed and kissed my forehead. “Night, Chase. Happy sleep.”
I repeated the same to her.
Please, goddess, let me have a happy sleep.
Chapter 26 – Ryker
I slammed the car door behind me as I slid into the driver’s seat. Curling my fingers around the wheel, I gripped it so hard my knuckles turned white as a cramp spasmed through my palm. What the fuck had I been thinking?
I wanted to hit something. Kick it. Beat it to a bloody pulp. If my own ass had been within reach, I would have laid me out. I’d been so close to getting her under me. Had it not been for my big stupid mouth, the next time I met up with Willow, I could have closed the deal.
But no, Dom came in. All but pissed on her to claim his territory and I�
��d snapped. She’d been calling my name, moaning under my hands. She was fucking mine!
I stabbed the button to turn the car on. Waited for the systems check before gunning it. I headed out of the parking garage. Turned so fast, my tires squealed.
Fury blinded me as I shot down the street. When I almost took out a nice couple too wrapped up in each other to notice the silent bullet of my Tesla firing down the street, I slowed down. I flipped them off, but I slowed down.
“Incoming call,” the car announced.
I looked at the dash quickly to see who it was. Synra. Even the thought of touching her right now had my belly slipping sideways. She wasn’t the one I wanted in my dungeon. In my bed.
Fuck. No. Willow was not going to be in my bed. Ever. No woman was. She would stay in the dungeon and use that bed if she needed to rest up after I finished with her.
I hit the button to connect the call. “Yes?” I answered.
She was silent for a moment. “Mr. Penn, you seem stressed. Is there anything I can do to help you with that?”
Willow flashed through my mind again. Her fingers digging into my thigh. Her hair splayed out on the pillow as I ran my hands over her legs.
“Yes. Be at the apartment in twenty.”
Her breath went choppy over the line. “Yes, Mr. Penn.”
“And Synra, you don’t want to be late.” I hit the disconnect button and gunned the engine a little faster.
I was home in moments, the drive home a blur as I set up a scene in my head. Synra’s hard limits list was tiny. I needed more of a challenge. Maybe we could work with that.
Leaning against the wall of the elevator, I fine tuned the approach I was going to take. I needed to overwhelm her. Take what I wanted. I was in control, damn it.
The elevator slid to a smooth stop and the doors opened. I strode to my bedroom, stripped down to my boxer briefs. Sliding on a pair of suit pants, I kept my feet and torso bare. I stormed down the hall to the secondary stairs and went down to the dungeon.
There were no bars on the windows. No dank or exposed cement or cinder block walls. The dungeon was actually quite opulent. A sensory explosion of textures, sights, smells, and sounds.
My mouth ticked up at the corner. And most definitely tastes.
I could hear Synra in the connected bathroom. So I took some time and got the scene set up. She knew not to come out here until I knocked on the bathroom door.
The lights were automatically set to a lower level than most normal living spaces, but I lowered them a touch more. I was feeling a might predatory tonight. I needed to chase. To hunt. To attack. To claim.
Moving the various pieces of furniture around the room, I created a sort of obstacle course. Synra would have the entire room to choose from. And I would have the entire room to hunt.
After about twenty minutes, I was satisfied with the layout. Nothing was on the floor that would cause her to trip, but there were enough places to catch her.
I knocked on the door. “Come.” I stepped back. Waited for her.
She came out, her head angled towards the floor, her gaze at my feet. “Thank you, Mr. Penn.” She was already naked. Her nipples stiff and peaked. Her lips were plump as if she’d been biting at them.
I put a finger under her chin, lifted her face. “We’re going to play a new game.”
Her blue eyes fired immediately.
“I’m going to give you thirty seconds to hide in here. If I find you within a minute, you don’t get to come tonight.”
Her lips twitched up for the shortest moment.
“At all.”
Her eyes widened. She nodded. “And if you don’t find me within a minute?”
“You can come out of your hiding spot and try to get back to the wetroom. Where I’ll give you an orgasm to make you faint. But if I catch you, then no orgasm and we begin again.” I studied her eyes, her body.
Synra was a completely open book, each page had been written on by me. I pushed a pair of sage green eyes full of secrets out of my mind. Tonight was all about Synra. And me.
“Do you agree?” I asked her.
She nodded, her cheeks already flushed.
I went into the bathroom, set the timer on my watch. Walking through the bathroom, I entered the connected wetroom. It wasn’t a room I used very often, but Synra loved it. Loved the things I did to her while we were in it. I made sure to turn the towel warmer on. I didn’t foresee her winning our little hunting party tonight, but in the event that she did, I needed her to have her comforts.
A soft beep, beep, beep told me the game was afoot. A fierce smile pulled at my mouth. I opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the dungeon. “Ready or not, here I come.”
I stalked around the room. Her scent was everywhere. I checked under the bed. Behind the curtains. The settee was too low to the ground even for a thin woman like Synra. But I checked anyway.
All clear.
I stalked to the closet where the emergency first aid kit and cleaning supplies were kept. Not in there either.
I spun back around, surveyed my domain. I couldn’t find her at all. Apparently my hunting skills were rusty.
Willow’s face filled my mind’s eye. I grimaced, pushed it aside. I knew immediately tonight wasn’t going to work the way I wanted it to. Synra was easy prey, even if I couldn’t find her right away. No challenge remained.
My watch beeped. Thank fuck. I could fuck her and send her on her way.
Synra fell from the ceiling like a cat. Clever girl, using the latticework I'd installed on the ceiling for suspension play. With a quick grin, she bolted for the door to the bathroom.
I gave a half-hearted chase.
Chase.
Fuck.
I leaned forward, grabbed at her arm. Before I could grip it, she pulled away and dashed to the side.
She gave a crazy scream and darted forward again.
I made sure to give it a good show, but I let her slide into the wetroom mere seconds before I did. One orgasm coming up.
“Get on the table,” I said, my voice hard.
Her body trembled as she followed my orders without argument.
Willow would have fought the order. Told me to go jump off a cliff or walk into rush hour traffic.
Synra climbed up on the table, her ass up in the air. The thought of touching her body with mine turned my stomach. Tightened my chest.
There were ways around it. And she certainly wasn’t going to go home unsatisfied. She got situated on the stainless steel table, her legs already spread for the straps at the corners. Her cunt was dripping. I secured her ankles as if on autopilot.
My mouth turned down. Blindfold. That’s what I needed. I’d set up the scene, she’d played by the rules. She would get an orgasm that would temporarily blow her mind. And then she could be on her way.
Fuck. I should have just come home and gone to bed. Drank whisky to deal with the frustration. Gotten drunk enough to obliterate tonight from my working memory.
“Mr. Penn?” Synra asked softly.
I moved around to the watertight storage against the wall. Pulled out a blindfold. “You’ve earned this.” I turned back around. “Close your eyes.”
Obediently, her lashes fell.
I snarled silently. No fight. No push back. Nothing but smooth, unbroken obedience.
Securing the blindfold, I moved back to the storage. Pulled a couple toys from the depths. I was going for speed and efficiency. Hard, fast, and dirty. Just the way I liked it.
I checked each toy to make sure the batteries still worked and that there was no corrosion on the device itself. Each one passing muster, I set them on the table between Synra’s spread legs.
“You did a great job hiding, pet. You’ve earned this,” I said. I slid my fingers up in her pussy, a quick, gliding jab of intrusion.
Her body jerked as a moan slithered from her throat.
It was the wrong pitch. The wrong woman. It was all wrong.
I gritted my teeth
and pushed forward. Gathering some of her juice on my finger, I slid it up and spread it over her clit.
Her body rocked on the table. Her hips pushing up the slightest degree to increase the pressure.
I slapped an open hand to her thigh. She knew the rules. “Stop.”
All motion ceased.
With my thumb and index finger, I spread her pussy lips and exposed her clit. With my free hand, I grabbed the toy that made women into weeping sex fiends. The Satisfyer Pro had earned its reputation. One I didn’t enjoy fighting so I rarely used this toy.
But like I said: hard, fast, and dirty.
I settled the toy against her body and turned it on. Almost immediately her body tensed and went from aroused to orgasm in ten point four seconds. She screamed as her body quaked on the table.
I kept the toy against her, forced more orgasms on her. Eventually, it was her begging me to stop that put a smile on my face.
Mini quakes and tremors made her body dance after close to six orgasms in what felt like an hour, but it had probably only been close to a quarter of that. I unstrapped her ankles and pulled her into my arms. Carrying her back to the dungeon, I laid her on the queen size mattress in the corner that my subs used. I wrapped her up in her favorite weighted blanket, made sure to turn the heat up in the room, got her a bottle of water from the fridge, and left.
Never before had a sexual encounter left me so…bored and unsatisfied. I closed the door behind me and headed back upstairs. I didn’t mind sex being transactional. Hell, I preferred it that way. No messy emotions to get in the way of all of that pleasure.
But I’d felt more pleasure rubbing Willow’s legs than chasing Synra or attacking her body with orgasms. I was seriously fucking screwed if I couldn’t enjoy sex anymore.
I liked sex. I was good at it. Fuck, who was I kidding? I was great at it. I was never at a loss for sexual partners. Usually, I had women waiting to beat down my door if I had the odd evening when no one was scheduled.
Almost five days have passed since I was with Synra last. It was fucking unheard of. No wonder my brain was all muddled and foggy. I had a critical buildup of sperm clouding my thinking.