by Jane Henry
She’d had sex with guys. But she’d never made love to a real man.
He thrust into her, and she moaned, her bottom still stinging and warm, as his hot, powerful body moved in and out, filling her, and it felt so perfect being as close to him as possible. Every thrust of his hips shot spasms of ecstasy through her body, until she finally climaxed so hard, he held her hips down as she came. He was mere seconds behind her, his groans oddly pleasing to her, knowing that she did that to him.
His head fell to her chest, and they panted together. She trailed one hand along his dampened back, then trailed back to his hair, twirling a finger and lifting her mouth to his massive shoulder. She kissed him tenderly.
“How’d I do?” he said in a teasing whisper, his lips grazing the top of her breast with a kiss.
“Oh, not bad,” she lied, as they both well knew that was fucking amazing. “Not too bad for a trial run. But you know, they say practice makes perfect.”
He chuckled and landed a quick swat to her thigh. She giggled, wondering exactly what the hell had just happened.
* * *
They lay in the darkness. He’d padded out to the kitchen and retrieved the grapes she’d left in the strainer, snagged a container of sliced cheddar, and a box of pretzels. Tony covered her in a sheet, and they nibbled on the snacks, as he talked to her about growing up with Dom and Matteo, their mother who fed them as if they’d been starving waifs in a third world country, and the first time Matteo had revealed to Tony that he and Dom were into the BDSM scene.
“What’d you think?” Tessa asked, swirling a finger through the curly hair on Tony’s chest as she watched him talk, the sound of his voice soothing and melodic. He plucked a grape from the vine and lifted it to her lips. She opened her mouth, sucked in the grape, and he swallowed. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he plucked another grape and fed it to her.
“I thought he was crazy,” Tony said with a chuckle. “And I had no idea where our mama had gone wrong. She raised us to be gentlemen, and to treat women like ladies. It seemed so wrong to me.”
She nodded. “I get it,” she whispered, noting his use of the past tense. “You don’t think it’s wrong anymore?”
He shook his head with a chuckle. “How could I? Somehow, my entire social circle is comprised of these strong, intelligent, happy people who are into this shit.” She smiled. He was right. Matteo and Hillary, Heidi and Dom, their pastry chef John and his boyfriend Paul, and Tessa herself. “So I’ve accepted for a while that this was all normal and natural, just not my thing.”
Was it still not his thing? She was afraid to ask, but it was something she needed to know. They’d just had amazing sex, and now they were hanging out like the friends they were, talking about their family, and nibbling on snacks, and when the sheet dipped down over her shoulder, he tucked it back over her.
“Not because I don’t like the view,” he said, with a groan. “Just don’t want you to get cold.” He was so good.
Still, could she be with Tony, as her lover? The submissive side of her wasn’t something she could just turn off and tune out. Tessa Damon was not someone who hid who she was, or who caved to fear. No. Swallowing, she pushed herself up and sat on the bed, cross-legged, draping the sheet around her. She lifted her chin and inhaled deeply, as he shoved a handful of pretzels in his mouth.
“So,” she said. “You say you don’t think it’s wrong anymore. Do you think… this is something you could get used to?”
His eyes widened as he swallowed. “Spanking you?”
She nodded, biting her lip, not even realizing she was holding her breath.
He grinned. “Girl, that was just about the hottest thing I’ve ever done.”
She could’ve clapped her hands in glee.
“Reeeally?”
“Hell yeah. God, that was scorching hot. The way you lit up that way… seeing you squirm over my lap… yeah.” He cleared this throat, and sobered. “I could see the appeal.”
She smacked his arm.
“Pervert.”
He chuckled. “At your service.”
She reached a hand out for a grape, and he shook his head, placing it on the tip of her tongue himself. She smiled, chewing the grape.
“Thank you,” she whispered, suddenly overcome with emotion. “I… told you that stuff about me, and you didn’t push me away. You said it was okay anyway. You know things about me and you didn’t run away.”
His hand froze over the bag of pretzels, and his brows furrowed. He sat up across from her, shifting on the bed so he was sitting up straighter. “Tessa.” She nodded, her heart pounding. Where was he going with this? Why had he grown so serious, all of a sudden?
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve told people about yourself, and people have turned away from you?”
She lowered her eyes to her hands and nodded. “Most of them,” she whispered.
“Sonofabitch,” he mumbled. “What a goddamned stupid thing to do.”
She shrugged. “No one wants to get in bed with a fucked up chick, Tony.”
To her surprise, his eyes darkened and he pursed his lips. “Tessa, you know I’m not into the ‘spanking as punishment’ thing,” he said. “But talking about yourself that way just might make me change my mind.”
Her heart thumped in her chest and she closed her eyes. He had no idea how he was touching on every single nerve in her body. The way his voice dropped low, and he mentioned spanking her, but most of all, the way he cared about her.
“Okay,” she whispered. One curt nod indicated he’d made his point, so she changed the subject.
“So yeah. My mother’s an abusive alcoholic and Nora still lives there, but she’s never home anymore.”
Tony nodded, but his eyes were cloudy. “She hit you?”
Tessa nodded and bit her lip. He swore under his breath, as she continued. “When I was in high school, I got into self-harming. It was scary, and dangerous, and somehow, gave me control when I felt everything in my life was spiraling out on me.” Inhaling, she continued. “I would take a knife or razor, and cut myself until I bled. Somehow the adrenaline surge from it was addictive.”
He nodded.
“I don’t do that anymore,” she whispered.
“How long?”
“It’s been a few years.”
“Are you still tempted?”
Her voice dropped. “All the time. There were two things that helped me escape the life I hated,” she said. “Cutting myself, and sex. I don’t cut myself anymore. I haven’t in years. And submitting to a spanking at The Club helped for a time, but I haven’t done that in a while now either.”
He nodded. “I get it.” He reached a hand out and tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Look how far you’ve come.”
How far had she come?
He continued. “You’ve got a career now. You’ve got a job you’re damn good at, friends who love you.” He paused. “And a really sexy boss, who’s your boyfriend.”
Boyfriend. She liked the sound of that but needed to tease him first.
She giggled and punched his shoulder. “Sexy boss, huh?”
“Hey!” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “Is it okay for you to punch the guy who spanked you? Doesn’t that earn you, like, more spanks or something?”
She giggled harder, and punched his other shoulder. “Depends on what the rules are.”
“Now you’re really asking for it,” he said, leaning over and pushing her over on the bed, pinning her wrists by her side. “Do that again, and you’re gonna get it.”
She squirmed as he tickled her. “Hey,” she said. “Seriously, dude! Will you spank me again?”
“Oh, you can count on it,” he said. “Whether or not that’s sooner than later is entirely up to you.”
She squealed.
But even as she felt him hold her, and she felt impossibly aroused again, she couldn’t help but wonder.
What would go wrong next? Good things did not happen
to Tessa Damon.
She didn’t deserve a guy like Tony.
When would he realize he was making a horrible mistake?
Chapter Six
Tony entered his apartment building, shutting the door behind him. He leaned back against it, contemplating the stairs in front of him with a heavy sigh. Nearly home. The neighbors were having a party, if the pounding bass and loud laughter were any indication, but he was not remotely tempted to socialize. Just one flight up and he could flop into his bed, preferably with his gorgeous girlfriend in a glorious repeat of last Saturday night, and forget this whole damn day.
“Hey, Mama, remind me again why I thought running a restaurant would be a good idea?” he whispered toward the ceiling. But his mama was, as usual, silent on these matters. And if she’d been looking down on the day he’d had today, he didn’t blame her, because there wasn’t much to say. Some days, the weight of responsibility was a fucking stone around his neck.
First Rao, one of the line cooks, called in sick with a stomach virus. And then Nicole, one of the waitresses, had gone home with the same thing, followed by Patrick the busboy, Shane the bartender, and Marisol, one of the kitchen staff. Unfortunately, the Saturday night crowd hadn’t gotten the memo that half his staff was out sick, and they’d shown up in droves, one rush after another, keeping him hopping from mid-afternoon until they’d ushered the last stragglers out half an hour ago.
He hadn’t even done the prep work for the next day’s Sunday brunch, which went against every single thing he’d been taught in culinary school and had learned over the past few years running his restaurant, but fuck it. He was done.
He pushed himself off the door and up the stairs, imagining Tess waiting for him. Maybe she’d be snuggled up on the couch, the way she’d been when he came home the other night, so he could stretch out behind her and pretend to watch some stupid romantic movie while he really watched her watch the movie, instead. Or maybe she’d already be in his bed, which had been their bed for the past week, and he could wake her up slowly, his mouth finding that spot on her neck that made her go crazy and his hands roaming up and under one of those sexy nighties that seemed specially designed to make him hard as iron…
Down, boy. Maybe you should spend some time being her dominant, rather than just sexing her up every time you’re in the same room.
He rubbed the back of his neck wearily as he trudged down the hall. The past few days had been insanely busy, between hosting private functions, preparing quarterly taxes, getting Nora trained as a waitress, and, in the off-time, helping Matteo renovate his bathroom. And all the while, this stupid voice in the back of his head told him he should be doing more for Tess, but honest to God, he didn’t know what. Things between them—the smirks and smiles and smoldering looks, the joy of coming home to her at night, the fucking combustible heat of them in bed together—was beyond his wildest dreams. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t enough.
Shouldn’t he be making more official rules or spanking her on the regular? Shouldn’t he be investing in floggers or chains or some shit? Shouldn’t he know what the fuck he was doing? How long until she got bored with him? How long until he wasn’t enough? How long until she left him for a real dom? The stupid voice just wouldn’t shut up. And thinking about it made him more tired than ever, but something had to be done.
So maybe he’d wake her and they’d talk, and then they’d move on to the other stuff.
He opened his apartment door… and stopped short.
Damn it. He’d forgotten Nora would be here tonight.
His brown leather sofa was festooned with clothing in various shades of sparkly pink and black. The pounding bass wasn’t coming from his neighbor’s apartment, but from the cheesy dance music playing on his own speakers. And the source of the laughter that could be heard all the way downstairs wasn’t a party full of people, but one tiny blonde dynamo, currently curled up on the floor and shrieking with mirth, her attention centered on the makeshift “stage” of his sturdy wood coffee table.
And he couldn’t blame her.
“Baby, I don’t need dollar bills to have fun toniiiight…” Tess sang… screeched, yelled… into a plastic hairbrush. Her spectacular ass, hugged by the tiniest scrap of black shorts he’d ever seen, shimmied to the beat of the music, and her long auburn ponytail swayed back and forth.
Jesus.
Some unknown emotion welled up in his stomach, pushing away his shitty mood and lifting the weight from his shoulders. Before he could identify it, Nora had jumped up from the floor in her pink patterned pajamas and bare feet, and joined Tess on the table for the chorus, throwing her wild blonde hair around in a way that would’ve made any 90s headbanger jealous.
“I love cheap thrills!” the girls screamed into the single hairbrush.
Tess tossed the brush onto the sofa and grabbed both of Nora’s hands, swaying them back and forth together in some kind of push-pull dance, giggling madly. Tony leaned against the doorframe to watch the show.
It was the kind of shit his mother used to do with Dom and Matt and him when they were little… with better music, of course, since his mom had been a Stones fan. It was innocent and joyful and it made his chest tight for a whole bunch of reasons he didn’t want to think about, but one thing he knew for sure—he wanted this beauty, this goodness in his life. And he’d do whatever he had to do to make sure she started to see herself the way he saw her.
He thought back to her confession the other night and shook his head. She’d had a truly shitty childhood, and she’d been forced to make some tough decisions. But how the hell could she doubt for a minute that she was a good person?
When the music finally ended a few minutes later, Tess pumped her fist in the air in victory, and both girls bowed to an imaginary audience.
Then Tony clapped…
And both girls whirled around, screeching.
He’d thought the show was cute, but their outraged embarrassment was even cuter.
“Tony!” Tess yelled, jumping down from the table. “What time is it? I didn’t think you’d be home until…”
“Midnight?” he asked, amused. “It’s a little after that now.”
“Crap! Really?” she asked, frantically collecting the discarded black and pink clothing from the sofa and stuffing it in a cardboard box, while Nora walked over to turn off the stereo. “Nora was going to try out for the dance team, so I got out my old dance costumes and we put on some music so I could help her practice and I guess I lost track of…”
“Hey, chill,” Tony told her, walking over to where she stood by the table, looking adorably flustered. He grabbed her face in his hands and bent down to kiss her softly.
Mmm. Cherry lip gloss.
“You’re not mad?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his waist and peeking up at him hesitantly.
“Babe. Why would I be mad?” he asked, shaking his head.
“I figured you’d be tired, and I wanted to have everything cleaned up and settled down before you got here…”
“Yeah, I was tired. Am tired, I guess,” he amended, although the worst of his fatigue had somehow fled. “But this is your place, too. And I love to see you having fun.”
Her brown eyes softened and she bit her lip. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he told her, bending his head for another taste of cherry.
“Why, hello, Tony!” Nora said pointedly from behind them.
Tess broke the kiss, but didn’t move away.
“Why hello, Nora,” he told her, still looking at Tess.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Nora told him. “I can totally handle your half of the conversation, too. ‘Hey, Nora, my favoritest employee ever and all-around awesome person! It’s so nice to see you tonight!’ Why, thanks for having me, Tony! ‘Gee, anytime, Nora! I appreciate that you’re such a good influence on Tess, playing her all the cool new songs so she can practice her awesome moves.’ Why, you’re welcome, Tony! No problem at all.”
Te
ss, who had started giggling at “favoritest employee,” absolutely cracked up at “awesome moves.”
Tony kissed her laughing mouth one last time before winking at her and turning to her sister, who was standing with her hands on her hips, smiling at them.
“Snazzy jammies, Nor. Are those cartoon characters?”
Nora rolled her eyes and flopped down on the sofa with abandon. “I happen to enjoy Dora the Explorer,” she told him. “We both like adventure. She’s an underappreciated heroine in many ways.”
“I’ll take your word for it. If I’d known you had this much energy, I would’ve called you to come work tonight,” he told her. Then turning to Tess, he explained, “Rao, Nicki, Pat, Shane, and Mari all called in. Stomach bug.”
Tess’s eyes widened, and he watched her shift from soft, tentative, and laughing, to competent, clear-eyed, take-charge manager, as though a switch had flipped in her mind.
Shit, that was hot.
“Crap! You were short-staffed? And on a Saturday night? Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve gone in!” she admonished.
“Yep, I know you would, babe. But I wanted you to have the night off. And it’s a good thing I didn’t call. I forgot Nora the Explorer was coming over.”
“Hey!” Nora protested loudly from the couch. “Nora the Explorer? No way! That’s the worst name ever.”
“Dude, you practically wrapped that name in a bow and gave it to me as a present,” he told her, shaking his head with mock regret. “No take-backsies.”
He returned his attention to the woman in his arms and continued, “I forgot Nora would be here, but I wanted you to have some downtime. Things will only be getting crazier for the next few months, and you need to rest up.”
Tess shook her head in exasperation, but then rose on her tiptoes to give him a soft, searching kiss, a thank you. And he realized he’d do the whole awful night over and over again, just to have her look at him the way she was right now. Like he was fucking magical.