Besides, his looks were just packaging anyway. He was also, gasp, sensitive.
Not crying at commercials, bitching over the break in his pants sensitive, but sensitive in that he listened. Nori was as generous with praise as he was critical of flaws. Margot had seen his employees bloom like flowers in the sun under his compliments. As bossy as he could be, he knew when to push and when not to. It was a skill that came in quite useful when they were fucking.
She’d never spent so much time on her back. Or her side, or her knees as she rode Nori like a thoroughbred pony or blew him like a hard, fleshy balloon. The other day she’d spent at least five minutes eyeballing the back of her head, convinced her hair was getting thin from constant wear against the sheets. It turned out to be the lighting, thank God.
There was no two, three, or even four times a week with him. He wanted it every single day. Sometimes twice a day. It was a miracle she hadn’t had complications her poor pussy was so overworked. But her girl loved him. She got wet on cue for Nori – cue being he was anywhere within touching distance – and she stayed that way.
For the first time in Margot’s life an orgasm wasn’t her ultimate goal with a man. It was a goal – she wasn’t a fucking idiot – but the way his body moved, the look on his face when he touched her, by turns smug, curious or completely undone, she loved it all.
The sounds he made when it was feeling really good made the eventual orgasm a disappointment in a way. She never wanted it to be over. Nori wasn’t afraid to let himself go. The way he thrashed, gripped, stared at her with that soft mouth gaping, she shivered just thinking about it.
And he was a talker, in English, French, sometimes both. He spun tales with his mouth like a web, and like a hypnotized fly she didn’t mind one bit being caught. But as completely mind blowing as it was, it wasn’t just the sex that kept him in her thoughts. His body atop hers, slick with sweat, thrusting inside her until she came apart like wet Kleenex, undeniable though it was, that wasn’t what had her staring off into space when she should have been working.
The orgasms had their place, as did his undeniable beauty – he inspired her just sitting there on her couch tapping away on his laptop – but it was his laugh, his intellect and conversation, his clear and honest desire for her that really revved her up. It was just him.
The way he’d talk on his cell while he was working. Perhaps talking to the Paris branch of Ineffable, speaking softly in seductive French. The first time he did it she asked was he talking to a woman. He just laughed and said yes, he was – about a missing shipment of inventory.
It was the way he’d bring her a drink if she coughed. The culprit might be a joint dangling from her lips, but he still cared about her comfort and health. He’d croon that she was a bad girl in French, then pluck it away and take a hit before he stubbed it out and walked out of the room with the ashtray.
He was teaching her his language. Sometimes, when she’d repeat words back to him, his blue eyes would gleam, that full, mobile mouth turned up so happily, she wanted to inhale him.
Sometimes things seemed so good between them she got scared and she’d have to retreat. She’d go into her office/studio, and after a while he’d follow. He’d come and stand behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, his chin on top of her head.
Had anyone else done it she’d have blasted their ass, kicked them out of the room, maybe even out of her house for interfering with her work. Not Nori. When he followed she instantly felt better, even though he was the reason she left the room in the first place. When he whispered that he missed her, and was there anything he could carry into the other room for her – he wanted her with him, and there was no place in the studio for him to sit with his laptop – she’d say, no. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
And he’d give her a minute. Maybe 10, 15 at the outside before he appeared again, looking sad as he leaned against the doorjamb, waiting. She marveled at his behavior, shades of which she’d experienced before with other men and which had driven her to drink. Now she found it, soothing.
Sometimes she’d try to tell somebody how she felt. She’d open and close her mouth so many times Tommy would roll her eyes, and ask, “Are you sure you’re a woman? I never met a bitch had as hard a time as you talking.”
But as much as she wanted to gush and brag and ask questions to make sure she wasn’t actually going crazy in love, she couldn’t bring herself to share. She wanted everything that was him to remain hers alone, and they already drew way too much attention. Tommy’s punk ass might put the shit on the internet anyway, with pictures, advertising her feelings neatly packaged to coincide with a fresh delivery of merch at Ineffable or at Saks, her newest gig.
She had a trunk show there to celebrate them carrying her line, one of those evening shopping parties with cocktails and free make up demos and what not. She’d helped customers decide which of her pieces looked best on them and been amazed not only when the entire inventory of product sold out in less than three hours, but at how many people asked where Nori was.
She hadn’t really noticed how many people were following her Instagram feed, but according to Tommy they were the romance of the century. Women swooned over the pictures she snapped of him sleeping, working, eating, staring at her, messing with her jewelry in progress when he thought she wasn’t looking.
And he took snaps of her too. Sleeping, working, in the shower covered only by steam and a bit of frosted glass – he was beyond pissed when Tommy lifted that one from her phone and posted it – cooking, getting dressed, everything. He liked the camera on her phone better than his – which was how Tommy was able to get a lot of pictures – and he’d text himself the photos and then put them on his computer.
“One more naked photo,” Margot told her friend, “And your black ass is toast.”
“Tell him to get his own account,” Tommy kept saying, and when he didn’t she changed the bio on Margot’s to read ‘M n N,’ though she was nice enough to leave Margot’s web address intact, Nori pointed out.
“Thanks,” Margot quipped, rolling her eyes.
“You know, that little snarl of yours is the closest we’ve come to one of those infamous Margot temper tantrums in forever. I thought I was getting this fireball artist with a hot, changeable attitude. But you’re a pussy cat.”
“Hmmmph. Keep talkin’ shit and I’ma claw your ass.”
He just laughed, and pulled her close.
Usually he initiated contact, but sometimes she’d be sitting next to him on the couch and she’d pull his hand away from his laptop and wrap it around her breast or her throat.
Or, he’d be gabbing away into his phone while pacing around her living room, and as soon as he came close, her hands filled with his sleek butt cheeks or caressed his strong thighs until he said a short goodbye and crushed her into the couch.
She didn’t want to interfere with his work, but sometimes her body wouldn’t allow her to let him pass unmolested. She had to reach for his hand, the nape of his neck. Her fingers were programmed to run themselves through his thick black hair at least once every few hours, her nails lured to his skin like bait to a hook.
Of course he liked it. His smile and the sparkle in his eyes told her that. And he was almost always willing to stop what he was doing and oblige her, whether she wanted to make love, steal a kiss or just sniff his neck. He stopped her once in an elevator. He told her later he thought the guy in there with them would have enjoyed the show too much.
“Dude, we’re boring,” she told him one night.
They’d declined yet another party in favor of their usual, working in the living room, followed by dinner, a little TV and sex.
“Speak for yourself,” he told her in French.
“Speak English.”
“Speak French,” he answered, again in his language.
She knew he wanted more. She could see it in his eyes sometimes, and she dreamed of saying I love you. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t gi
ve a shit about saying it first. That wasn’t what this was about. She and Nori were beyond that. She couldn’t make her mouth form the words at all. So she let him know how she felt with her body. There at least she was succeeding. Their lovemaking remained explosive, frequent and fulfilling.
“I’ve grown used to you,” he whispered one night as she lay in his arms drifting toward sleep.
“Good,” she whispered back. “There’s more comin’.”
“I welcome every part, Margot.”
Since she couldn’t quite picture the future, she focused on enjoying him in the present. She cooked elaborate meals and abandoned her seat at the table to sit on his lap, feeding him from her hand like the baby he once told her he wanted to be. He waited patiently for each bite, his hands wrapped around her waist or thighs, eyes lazily drifting to her lips or breasts before moving back to her face.
He was always uber relaxed afterwards. Those were the nights when neither said much. By mutual consent they focused on more tactile sensations. Those were also the nights the sex was out of control. We’re talking tears of pleasure, bed torn up, covers on the floor, hand prints on her ass the next day out of control.
She’d never been into pain with sex – not since old bitch ass George introduced her to the concept involuntarily – but Nori made it sooo good. She ended up sore and smiling when he lifted her off his lap and rubbed her hot, smarting butt down with lotion. His little punishments became a semi-regular thing.
Once after his hand fed dinner of Cornish hen and mashed sweet potatoes with a strawberry rhubarb tart for dessert, he sat back, chuckling as he patted his flat belly and kissing her lingeringly when she rose to clear the table. Then he pointed out she’d forgotten to clear away the cloth napkins.
She hadn’t really, she just hadn’t got to them yet. But it was always some trivial thing, solemnly delivered in his deep voice as though it was the end of the world and not a half-assed excuse to turn her over his knee.
Nori was always very urbane right before he punished her. His personal brand of macho was suave, considered, precise. It was what made him the perfect CEO for Ineffable. Not his brilliant business mind or his fabulous skill at negotiating the finer points of a contract, it was his knack for finding beauty and understanding what felt good that consistently filled the company coffers.
He liked male things like sports and beer, but he was also perfectly content to examine the offerings in Top Shop in preparation for a dinner party. He’d pick her outfit, then stand by her side smug as she gathered compliments all night, forced to tell everyone he had picked out her clothes.
Other nights it was like there was a devil riding him. His alpha came out guns blazing and stomped his normal elegance into oblivion. He’d yank her skirt down her legs, and her shirt over her head. He’d unhook her bra and toss it aside in a brash, careless way that screamed, fuck all this shit. I want see skin, and nothing butt – pun intended. She rarely wore panties when he was around, and he showed his approval more than once by taking a firm bite out of her ass.
When the alpha swallowed urbane Nori he could be rough with her. But he never hurt her. If he even thought he’d hurt her accidentally, his manner changed immediately. Became soft and sorrowful until she drove the heat back up between them. Then he forgot whatever little twinge or wince might have given him pause.
It really didn’t matter whether he was gentle or not. Having made love to her constantly for weeks, Nori knew her body almost as well as she did, knew intimately the scent and texture of her skin, the weight of her limbs, her breasts. He’d tested her flesh at length, pinching, slapping, shaking.
His seduction was never strictly physical. All the while he touched her, he whispered. Did she like what he was doing to her? She did, didn’t she? He could tell. Did she want him to fuck her? He thought so. He certainly wanted to, and he would, he told her, in a resolute, “that’s that” voice. He would fuck her, he said, because he liked giving her what she wanted. It was what he wanted too, no?
Every whisper was like a promise against her flesh. His words were like strokes. They teased, conjured, poured gas on a fire that already burned hotter than any pleasure she’d ever known.
“I know you like it when I tease you like this,” he crooned in her ear. “It makes the anticipation build so nicely, no? But first, my girl,” he promised with a long, slide of a kiss along her ear. “I’m going to do my absolute best to drive you crazy.”
Nori was clever. For all her silence and mystery, he understood her. Margot was an artist. Not just in talent, but in temperament, and that had nothing to do with temper, but with her heightened sensitivity to stimuli. An artist takes in everything around them and spits out something beautiful. She did that when she made jewelry. He could do that with her body.
He knew how to play perfect, private games where no one kept score, no one ever lost, and the winners wore Cheshire cat grins at the end of a match. He knew what pushed her buttons, and he ruthlessly used that knowledge for her pleasure.
If she was having a particularly good time cooking and catering to him, laughing as he sat back like a pasha with his favorite concubine and let her get on with it, he knew that night he could push her in bed. Maybe even weave a little story around the sex to add additional spice.
“You’ve made my dinner, fed me, watered me, but your kisses have been far and few in between,” he once said, mid-spanking, disapproval and sex coloring his deep voice like a lipstick red flag. “That’s not right. Is it?”
Squirming restlessly over his lap, Margot shook her head. Panting behind a fast beating heart and an increasingly heated body that reveled in its submissive position, her skin was so sensitive no matter where he stroked or kissed, she felt every touch between her legs.
She gasped when he hit her ass hard.
“Answer me.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“Hmmm?”
“No, it’s not right, what?”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s, not right that, I,” shit. She’d lost her train of thought.
Nori laughed softly, and she cried out when he delivered three more hard hits to her ass and the backs of her thighs. He watched, happy to make her squirm and shudder with need as he caressed her battered bottom and moved gentle fingers between her legs to play in the wetness he produced.
“No, it’s not right that you’ve been so skimpy with your affection.” He gently pushed a long finger in and out until she pushed back, mimicking his movements and wetting his hand even more.
Abruptly he removed his finger, his heart rate accelerating in triumph when she groaned her disappointment.
“Now, now. You didn’t think I would reward you for mistreating me, did you? How will you learn what I like if I don’t punish you when you do something I don’t like?”
Margot took too long to answer and earned herself three more hard slaps. Her butt was pulsing and warm, but it wasn’t hurting, just incredibly sensitive and aware. Fancifully she thought if she looked in a mirror right then she might see her flesh glowing red. The idea of wearing his mark on her body made her clit throb with such intense longing, she instinctively closed her legs, trying to ease herself with some much needed pressure.
“No,” Nori ordered, yanking her thighs apart. “You will not touch yourself. You will not use your body to satisfy that hungry little pussy. That’s my privilege, and I only grant privileges when they have been earned.”
He spanked her seven more times, until she was mindless from the heat and the sound and the sensations that spread through her body like ripples. Helplessly she yanked on her bound hands, wanting to get free, crawl onto his lap, get the hard cock she felt beneath her inside her where she needed it.
“Please, Nori,” she whispered, in the sweet, breathy tone she’d discovered worked nicely to soften him in her favor.
But that night he just laughed, and she groaned. That laugh was full of humor and a hint of devil, letting her know he wasn’
t done tormenting her yet. She sighed blissfully. Nori could be so delightfully bad when he put his mind to it.
Chapter eleven
Lado called again to complain that he never saw him anymore.
“You don’t call. You only go to the gym these days at some ungodly hour. I send over papers, they magically appear signed, but you? It’s like you’ve fallen into a big black hole.”
“Or a little brown one,” Nori teased.
Lado laughed. “Filthy bugger. Are you ready to admit you’re in love yet, old boy?”
Nori scoffed. “I don’t need labels with Margot. She’s the only woman I’ve ever met who talks less than I do.”
“Really,” Lado said, impressed.
“She doesn’t nag. We sit side by side most nights and work, and she never tells me that I work too much.”
“Do tell. Are you sure she’s not a man?”
Nori burst out laughing. “Asshole.”
“Well, you’ve got to admit, it is strange. The very idea of a woman who doesn’t like to talk sort of makes me nervous. Makes you question all that’s true and right and obvious in the world. Whatever next? Will the sky cease to be blue, water cease to be wet?”
Nori laughed. “I know how you feel. It is unusual. But she’s so focused, Lado. This partnership is set to be the most profitable artist collaboration Ineffable has had to date,” he said proudly. “And I’m not her only commitment. She has several new contracts and gets private commissions all the time.”
“Lucky boy,” Lado praised. “Sounds like you picked a winner in more ways than one.”
Nori hummed his agreement. “Have you ever –?” He paused, for the first time in their friendship hesitating to share.
They’d always been brutally frank about everything from women to money to sex. But how could he share that, for the first time in his life, some mornings he woke up completely entwined with a woman, so happy and peaceful, it was a wrench to leave her? Surely a man couldn’t say those things, not even to a best friend.
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