by Nina Pierce
They both stared as the lush foliage swallowed Ethan, leaving them alone in the thick silence.
“I think you should come in,” Claire said quietly.
He stepped around her stiff body, careful not to brush against her. Her tight expression and packed suitcase spoke of an ending he didn’t want to face. She stood just inside the door, her arms crossed tightly around her abdomen, which only pushed her breasts enticingly from her top. Her chin jutted forward, exposing her long sleek neck. She’d slipped on a pair of black shorts and his traitorous mind wondered what silky underthing she had caressing her pussy. She’d closed herself off and still he couldn’t stop himself from fantasizing about her. Wanting her. Craving her touch.
“Claire, I suppose you’d like me to apologize. But I’m not going to. It would be disingenuous because I’m not sorry.”
“Why me?”
Of all the things she could have asked, he hadn’t expected that. The pain lacing the words, yes, but not the question.
“Why me, Jon?” she asked again. “When you have women following you like lovesick teenagers, why would you do this to me? You think love hasn’t been a selfish enough bitch to withhold from me… You had to heap a little more pain in my life?”
“What?”
“If you wanted a friggin’ play toy, you should have just asked. There were enough lonely nights over the years I probably would have slept with you out of desperation. You really didn’t need to set up this elaborate trip to humiliate me.”
“Claire, stop it.” She startled at his quiet command. “I’m tired of you talking about yourself as if you’re someone’s sloppy seconds. You’re beautiful. Intelligent. Funny. And trust me when I say it’s all wrapped up quite nicely in a sexy little package that men drool over.” He started to pace. “But you haven’t seen that. You seem to think someone will love you only if you change for them. Conform to their idea of a perfect woman. I’ve stood by and watched your relationships combust and rip your heart to shreds. I’ve been there countless times to pick up the pieces. But did you see me? A man who wanted you just the way you are?” He stopped in front of her, begging her to really look at him. But she didn’t speak, confusion and hurt mapping her face.
“Let me answer that for you with an emphatic no! You saw a lonely kid who hung with your brother. Who helped mow your lawn and paint your garage.” His fingers plowed through his hair. “Jesus, Claire. I’m way past the pimply faced, gawky teenage years. I’ve even matured through the wild college frat parties. Look at me!” He slapped his palms to his chest. “I’m a man. A man who is so deeply in love with you I’m not sure where my heart stops and yours begins. I don’t want to have some weekend affair with you. I want to share my life with you. I want to wake up with you tangled in my sheets. I want to take you out to dinner and debate politics with you. And yes, yes, damn it all to hell, I want you bound to my bed, submitting to my flogger, begging for your Master’s cock. I won’t apologize for that either.”
“How did you know?” Her voice was a whispered breath after his loud tirade.
“That I loved you?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “How did you know I was…”
He watched her swallow the word, shutting out the truth. She hugged herself closer, biting her lips between her teeth. Squeezing her eyes tight, she pressed a single tear down her cheek, fighting an internal battle he prayed she wouldn’t win.
It took all his willpower not to save her from this moment. Not to step up and gather her in his arms and ease the ache of facing the truth. But Jon would not say it for her. He needed her to acknowledge what he’d known for a very long time. It was his only hope of convincing her this was all real.
She inhaled deeply and opened her eyes. The war between confusion and honesty was as apparent in their depths as the emerald hue glimmering with unshed tears. “How did you know I was submissive? That I crave something so perverted that only a whip and some handcuffs seem to be able to satisfy me?”
“Perverted?” He let out a caustic laugh. “Is it any more perverted than the fact that you prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate, but only if you can have rainbow sprinkles? Or that two glasses of wine give you the giggles but a third puts you to sleep?” He watched understanding push away the dark thoughts and spark in her eye. He took a measured step toward her, softening his voice. “Is it perverted that you listen to Bach while you lounge in a bubble bath after a long day or that your favorite movie isn’t a movie at all but a complete season of a television show from the fifties?” He reached out and cupped her cheek in his palm, hope blossoming when she snuggled into it.
“How did I know?” he asked.
She nodded, her eyes pleading with him to make her understand what he saw.
“Remember when you and Dominic moved back to your parents’ house the summer Ryan and I graduated from college?” he continued, his hands now buried in her hair, massaging her neck. “You were doing anything to keep your mind off your broken relationship, including repairs you should have left to someone not afraid of heights.” His voice had a hard edge, but the memory brought the fear he’d felt that day to the surface. “I stopped by just as you decided to step out on the porch roof from a second story window.”
A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips. “I thought I could clean the upstairs windows the way my father had done when we were kids. I had no idea how high I was until I was out there white-knuckling the window sash.” She looked at him. Truly seeing him, understanding dawning. “You stood below and talked to me. Calmed me down. You controlled me rather than my fear controlling the situation.”
“More like demanded you stop putting yourself in danger.” He smiled and brushed his thumbs along her jaw line. “My heart was in my throat worrying that you’d slip off that roof. I wanted to throttle you when you were safely back in the bedroom. It took all my control not to put you over my knee right then and there and punish you.”
She laughed again, a rolling happy sound that wrapped around his heart. “Maybe you should have done that rather than volunteering to wash the windows yourself. Might have saved me a whole lot of heartache.”
His gaze raked her face and gauged her consent. But it was Claire who rose up to meet his lips. Her arms that snaked around his neck to pull him closer and invite him to deepen their kiss. She smelled of citrus shampoo and tasted like heaven. He melted into her, letting his body prove to her that he spoke only the truth.
They meshed and fitted themselves together, hands gliding over skin, moans of desperation coming hot and hard and just as frantic as their exploding need. Their hungry mouths devoured each other. Teeth scraped flesh, tongues tasted and soothed. Clothes fell to the floor.
The years between them melted away until the only thing separating Claire from Jon was her misguided sense of propriety. The man had loved her unconditionally for years and had waited patiently for her to open her eyes—and her heart.
And now that he was here, without any secrets between them, Claire wasn’t sure she’d ever get enough of him. She wasn’t sure how she’d been blind to this—to him—and everything he wanted to give her. How many years had she wasted refusing to see what had been right in front of her all the time?
She broke from the kiss, words coming out in strangled pants of breath. “Jon, wait.” She walked over to the bureau where Ethan had laid the collar and armband. She held them in her palm, the weight of them nothing in her hand, but the symbol of them as binding as any wedding band. Gifts. He was right. What she had to offer Jon was a gift he would never abuse or take for granted.
She held them out to him. “Master, would you do me the honor of putting these on me?”
“Being submissive isn’t a disease, Claire. It’s not something to cure any more than your great sense of humor and infectious laugh. It’s a wondrous gift you offer and something accepted by the right man who will respect and cherish it.” He took them from her, motioning with the other to floor in front of him. “Accept who you are. Who we are
together. Kneel.”
The command tightened her nipples and clenched her tummy. That voice. How many times over the years had she heard the warmth and hunger wrapped in the authority of his tone before and forced her body to ignore it? Well, no more. Claire cast her eyes down, but not before she saw the happiness lighting his face, sparking in his lust-filled eyes. No man had ever made her feel so worshipped.
She dropped to her knees before her Master, the scent of soap and sweat and musk tickling her nose. His erection jutted rigidly in front of her and it took all her effort not to reach for him, but he hadn’t commanded it. Instead, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and dropped her gaze.
With her hands clasped behind her back, she relaxed as he clicked the band in place around her biceps, inclining her head as he reverently put the collar around her throat, gently stroking the nape of her neck. She could give him everything and he would never walk away from her or ask too much of her. Claire understood that now. All she wanted was what he wanted. She was under his spell. Her needs surrendered into his capable hands.
“Master, anything. I want to give you anything and everything that gives you pleasure tonight.”
His hand cradled her chin, tipping her face up to meet his gaze. “All I’ve ever wanted from you, Claire, was your heart.”
“It’s yours. Not just here, not just for the weekend. But completely and totally yours. I don’t know how I’ve managed to ignore it for so long. Let me show you what you mean to me. Use me for your pleasure. Let me submit to your will. Your commands.”
His thumb caressed her lips. “My cock aches for your mouth.”
Jon’s fingers threaded in her hair as she hungrily leaned forward to kiss the pre-cum from his penis. Her teeth rasped the swollen crown before her tongue snaked out, tracing a vein along its length. Her hands traveled up the strong muscles of his thighs to toy with his furry sac.
He moaned her name through gritted teeth as she sucked first one testicle and then the other into her mouth, swirling her hot tongue around the sensitive flesh, his erection tapping on her cheek with each thrust and pull. She laid her tongue flat along the underside of his cock, laving from root to tip. With another swirl of her tongue around the crown, she sucked his erection deep into her mouth, one hand squeezing his balls, the other spreading the wet heat of her mouth up and down his shaft. The salty musk of his pre-cum exploded on her tongue, his moans of bliss shooting heat and need through her blood, making her pussy weep.
She looked up at him, his face pinched in ecstasy, his hooded eyes staring at her with lust and love.
His fingers tightened in her hair, pulling the roots, the pain steepling her nipples. He urged her to take him deeper, and Claire complied by opening her throat and swallowing his cock. Her nose brushed the soft halo of hair at its base before she pulled back, her cheeks hollowing with the suction. Jon canted his hips, driving the velvet steel of his erection deep in her mouth once again. Her tongue flicked and swirled, her fingers stroked and squeezed as his pumping became more frantic.
He threw his head back, a primal oath of rapture ripping from his throat as hot jets of cum shot into her mouth. Like a thirsty woman she drank down every drop, sucking and pulling until his cock softened.
“Jesus, Claire.” It was all he got out before he pulled her to her feet and swung her into his arms. She clung to him as one great pull stripped the bed of everything but the sheets. He laid her down, making quick work of the bindings attached to the bed. Before she caught her breath, he had her hands bound together to the headboard above her and her legs spread wide, her cunt open and wet for him.
He inhaled deeply. “Claire, I will never get enough of you.” He ran his hand possessively down her torso, stopping only to pinch her engorged nipple and slide his hand over her mons and through the thin line of pubic hair. “The smell. The feel…” He pushed his fingers deep in her pussy before bringing them to his mouth and sucking off the glistening juices. “The taste.” He smiled as he reached for the drawer in the nightstand. “I have so many things I want to share with you—to do to you.”
She squirmed under the heated scrutiny of his gaze. Her nipples tensed and her womb clenched in anticipation, moisture leaking from her pussy.
Pulling a brass object and a tube of lubrication from the drawer, Jon smiled wickedly. “I intend to fill you completely. I want you to crave nothing but me and what I can give you. Know that I will give you everything.”
“Yes, Master.”
He leaned over and toyed with her pussy, his fingers flitting in and out of her heated opening. Jon slid his thumb along her folds to her ass and she canted her hips to give him better access to the rosebud bundle of nerves.
“You like that?”
“Yes, Master. Every part of me is yours.”
He pushed a thick finger in her back entrance then added a second. Gooseflesh rose on her thighs and belly as the electric jolts of pleasure shot over her nerves. He played with her, finger-fucked her ass, stretching the tight ring of muscle. He stopped only long enough to squirt a generous amount of lubrication on the brass knob.
“It’s a plug for your ass,” he said as he pressed the blunt end of it against her back entrance.
The cool wet of the lubrication thrilled and excited. The gentle vibration tingled along the sensitive nerves of her anus. Claire canted her hips, wanting what he offered. He’d readied her body and she was anxious to experience the bliss she had no doubt awaited her.
He laughed. “Patience, Claire. We have all the time in the world.”
Jon continued to tease the puckered opening, pressing and rotating the plug until she thought she would come apart from the sheer pressure of it against the quivering nerves. When he pushed it all the way in, seating it comfortably in her ass, she groaned with the intensity of the euphoria rocketing out to her fingers and toes. She bucked and writhed against the assault that made her needy but wouldn’t quite satisfy.
His mouth covered one steepled nipple and he pulled it deep into his wet heat, biting and licking until she was wild with desire for him. She closed her eyes, losing herself in the banquet of sensations he offered her body. A warm palm cupped her other breast. His teeth scraped her shoulder then the cords in her neck.
She felt him shift and then Jon was on her, covering her with his body, snuggling her into his heat. The weight of him was both comfort and an aphrodisiac. Settling himself between her thighs, he pressed his cock, already hard and ready, against her swollen pussy, the vibration and the fullness of the plug had liquid desire leaking from her cunt.
Jon’s mouth came down hard on hers. No gentle probing, but a demanding meld that forced her to open for his intimate scrutiny. The familiar taste of him burst on her tongue as he swept his satin tongue around her mouth, exploring every nuance. Their teeth clicked against each other as each of them took and gave in equal measure. The silky heat of his tongue danced with hers, thrusting and retreating until she was breathless from his kiss.
He pulled from her mouth, his teeth grazing her chin, nipping at her neck as he trailed a frission of desire to her breasts. “All soft skin and need. All…mine.”
His words stole what little breath she had in her lungs. This is what she’d been looking for for so long. Devotion. Acceptance. Possession.
Her body bucked against the restraints as his teeth and tongue tortured her nipples, her insides clenching with every bite and pull. When he slipped a finger into her hot channel, she screamed out his name. The pad of his thumb circled and teased her swollen clitoris. When he pushed a second and third finger into her cunt, she pumped her hips as much as the bindings would allow, her muscles clenching around the greedy invasion. Her cries of bliss were drowned out by the sexy slurping sounds of his finger-fucking and Jon’s commands of encouragement.
He played her like a finely tuned instrument, stroking every erotic spot and drawing blissful notes of rapture from her body. Claire’s muscles tightened, her body reaching its crescendo. She
teetered on the edge, waiting for the Maestro to command the final melody. One word was all she needed to soar on the wings of ecstasy.
Already her body craved permission from her Master. Required his command to shatter in rapture.
As if he had read her mind, he spoke the words. “Wait for me, Claire.”
He pulled away from her. Her body quaking with need and loss. She forced her eyes open, watching him pull a foil packet from the nightstand, rip it open and sheath his heavy erection. Her tongue ran along her upper lip, her mouth watering for another taste of his cock.
Seeing her hunger, Jon dragged his fingers along her chin to her mouth, inviting her to taste. She greedily sucked them in, licking off the warm heat of her juices. Her desperate body clenched with desire.
“This is how wet I make you, Claire. Your Master. Your body wants me and I will use it for my pleasure.”
“Yes, anything. Everything. I’m yours.”
He smiled, a gesture that reached up to glint in his eyes. Oh, she would die a thousand deaths to see that smile over and over again. “Another time I would make you wait here, wet and wanting me. Naked and ready for my return.”
She whimpered at the thought.
“But tonight I need you to understand that I will never leave you.” He came down on top of her, his breath feathering over her mouth. “I will never ask more than you’re willing to give.” He pushed into her, filling and stretching her, and a sweet moan of pleasure vibrated in her chest.
The plug filled her ass, his cock, her pussy and his tender words—her heart.
Never had Claire felt so complete.
“Tonight, I need to be in you, stroking your pussy, hearing my name ripped from your throat as you come around my cock.” His hips rocked, a gently slide and push that had her arching her back. She fought against the restraints, frustrated she couldn’t dig her nails into his flesh. Aroused by her lack of control.
“Because sometimes a Master needs to give his slave what she craves. To fill her to overflowing so she knows she will never again want for anything.” He pulled out nearly all the way before thrusting back, hard and fast, burying himself to the hilt, and she nearly came undone at the incredible magnitude of the sensations tripping over her nerves and trembling through her muscles.