The Assignment

by Jade A. Waters

  Question?

  He wanted me to think right now? My body shook, every pore dripping with sensation.

  Dean started to move, long strokes out and firm thrusts back in. “Do you want more people one day?”

  An image of the man at the bar came over me, and then of others touching me while Dean put me on display and fucked me. He sank his finger farther into my ass. My face burned. He twined the fingers of his free hand in my hair and wrenched back my head, and I jerked against my restraints.

  “Do you?”

  My words had frozen in my throat.

  “Any pleasure is yours, my love. You’re safe with me.” His words came in shallow pants as he crept in millimeters at a time. I writhed to get him deeper. Everything rattled within me, and I groaned through clenched teeth.

  “I want it all, Dean. Anything with you. I want you!”

  “Good girl.”

  Something broke in me when Dean plowed forward—a dam snapping under the weight of a torrential, lusty need. I grasped at the straps and buried my face in the sheets, no longer shocked at my want, at my surrender. Dean’s mouth clamped down on my back and he pounded into me, his balls smacking against me, filling the room with the loud claps of skin on skin. He was riding me, owning me, making me know I was his, and I loved it. The pleasure I’d never let myself have tumbled through me, coursing through my veins, running free. I howled into the mattress and shuddered with his force, my brain whirling in a tumultuous spin of mind-shattering ecstasy when I came harder than ever before.

  “Yes!”

  Dean pushed through my convulsions, grunting with one last, rough thrust. He exploded inside and collapsed over my back, breathless. He ran tender kisses across my shoulders as I craned my head.

  “Oh my God,” I muttered.

  A blaze of uncontrolled spasms tapped my entire being, and Dean withdrew his cock. He unhooked the cuffs. I stayed frozen in place, consumed by the tsunami that had crested within me and the throb in my sex that hadn’t subsided.

  Dean took my wrists and cradled me on the floor, his lips warm on my forehead. “You’re exquisite, Maya,” he said, rocking me gently. He ran his fingers along my hair, soothing and sweet. “You’re absolutely divine.”

  * * *

  “Breakfast?”

  I stirred, Dean’s voice luring me from slumber as his touch smoothed over my shoulder. “You made breakfast?” I murmured, my eyes closed and the pillow soft on my cheek.

  Dean turned down the comforter and curved his hand on the underside of my breast. He found my nipple, then kneaded it in his fingertips and coaxed me onto my back.

  I threw my arm over my face. “What time is it?”

  “Early. Come eat.”

  The mattress shifted beneath me when he crawled off the bed, and I opened my eyes.

  “But stay naked.”

  “Nice,” I mumbled.

  He left the room, and I sat upright, my body sore. Still, I felt...alive. I rubbed my eyes before heading into the bathroom. There I found Dean’s toothbrush, debating for half a second and using it anyway. A fear of sharing toothbrushes once people got intimate had always struck me as odd.

  I padded into the dining room, the scent of bacon and coffee filling the space. Dean moved about the stove with two plates ready and a spatula in hand. He’d donned a pair of athletic sweats but left his torso bare, and the muscles in his back flexed as he served the meal onto the plates.

  When he turned around, I couldn’t prevent the grin that spread over my face. His hair was a mess, but besides that, he looked amazing, his rugged, masculine form making me crave him all over again.

  “Sit,” he said, breaking me from the thought. He carried a plate and a mug out to one of the placemats and pulled out my chair for me.

  “Naked on your dining room chair. I like it,” I said.

  “I intend to get you naked everywhere.”

  I laughed, admiring the spread of bacon, eggs and toast while he brought cream and sugar to the table, which he followed with his own plate and mug. He sat beside me and smiled.

  “The surf is beautiful in the morning. Eat up. You have to see it.”

  Dean’s eyes remained bright through our talk about silly things, like coffee and breakfast and whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first. After we carried our plates to the sink, he walked to the couch. He had a folded-up afghan on the back, which he threw around my shoulders before advancing to the patio.

  “Come on,” he beckoned. “I dare you.”

  “Another assignment? Sitting naked on the patio in the cold?” He didn’t answer, opening the back door and taking my hand once I reached him. “That’s easy.”

  I curled the blanket around me, and Dean directed me into a recliner, the sun’s slow ascent behind us casting a beautiful glow over the ocean. Both the lighthouse and the homes peppering the coastline were hit with the warming rays, adding to the serenity of the waves.

  “It’s gorgeous, but are you going to sit?”

  Dean crawled behind me on the chair. His legs enclosed mine and he pulled me back against him. The motion caught the blanket and exposed the tops of my thighs. “Are you cold?”

  I swayed my head, relaxed on his chest with the lazy tumble of the waves below. The rich coffee lingered on my tongue, but I could almost taste the salt wafting over from the crash of the water against the shore. “I can’t get over this view. No wonder you love sailing.”

  “I loved the ocean long before I sailed,” he said, squeezing me tighter. “But the first time on the water was something else. It was misty like this, and the bay was a little choppy. I figured out my sea legs, fast. We went for hours, looking at the coastline, the stretch of water ahead. It was this big, beautiful field of blue.” He paused. “I didn’t want to come back. Those days, I wanted to live on the water.”

  “And now?”

  “I like the view. The option. There are many lovely things on land,” Dean said. He kissed the top of my head. “I like this.”

  “Me, too.”

  Dean snaked his fingers through the folds of the blanket to cup my sex, tucking one finger in. “And I’m addicted to this,” he said, making gentle thrusts.

  My eyes fluttered shut, the pulse of his finger lazy yet sensual. “I get the feeling you would crawl inside me if you could.”

  Dean settled us further back in the chair and continued the slide of his finger within me. He picked up his pace, and I moaned. I loved the heat of his chest and his arm around my waist, and the tendrils of arousal spreading through my body.

  Dean whispered, “I would. I’d want to be inside you forever.”

  For the next hour we watched the sunrise, Dean drawing waves of pleasure from me in sync with those foaming along the shore.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Work was subdued compared to the extraordinary night I’d had at Dean’s house. Amid all my paperwork, appointments and meetings for our upcoming sponsorship events, my mind kept drifting to what we’d shared.

  Never in my life had I experienced the gravity of sensation I felt with Dean. So much of it was physical, but it translated into the most overpowering emotional and mental high. I replayed our night over and over. It had been divine from the moment I’d walked in the door. His eagerness on the couch had shocked me, as had his command for me to come on the bar patio, and the way he’d blindfolded me, running his cock along my tongue. I squirmed in my desk chair every time the thoughts crossed my mind, my cheeks suffused with heat. I’d been ready to let him push into me however he pleased well before he’d restrained me on the bed.

  When he’d tied me to my own bed, it hadn’t been the same; I’d been exposed and helpless, and subject to whatever he wanted. But cuffed, faced away and bent over like a rag doll, the requirement was that I submit. My r
ole was to accept, and while at first this scared me, I kept coming back to the same realization.

  I wanted it more than anything.

  Love had filled my life with boyfriends and lovers, one-night stands and crushes. I’d dated plenty. I’d enjoyed the romantic snuggle by the fire and the endless date nights to movies and dinner, and all the gentle lovemaking that could follow. Never had I been asked to surrender in such a physical manner, but by giving like this, I received pleasure too—and not just with the strokes of Dean’s tongue that sent me into mind-numbing orgasm. Each time we went further, I slipped deeper into a euphoric haze. My soul kept spinning outside my body, reeling in a level of ecstasy my physical being couldn’t contain.

  Dean seemed to understand this, too—after, he held me for as long as it took, whispering calming words in my ear and offering me soothing caresses. He must have rocked me for an hour after we came Saturday night, a mix of massaging my arms to ease the soreness after straining against my bindings, and cuddling most of the night. There, his grasp had been solid and warm around me, reassuring me that he wouldn’t let me go. That I’d earned this attention by giving so much over to him.

  I was addicted.

  Maddie hounded me all week for a coffee date, both because she knew I’d had a mysterious adventure with Dean I still hadn’t elaborated on in the office, and because she was going through some tension at home. She’d dropped comments here and there about it having something to do with her sister and a spontaneous upcoming visit, but between conflicting schedules and neither of us having time for a full lunch, coffee would have to do.

  Thursday morning, she skittered over to my desk and slapped her hands down on my filing cabinet. “Is it coffee time? I could use an ear.”

  I paused my typing. When I met her gaze, she wore a heavy frown. “Oh, Maddie! Of course. I have one more paragraph to write in this email, but after, I could go. Okay? I’ll meet you at the door.”

  “Okay!”

  I finished and sent the message, then gathered my purse. Maddie was clamoring to leave by the time I met her. She wrenched me out the door before I’d finished saying “Let’s go.”

  We had about twenty minutes and she didn’t hesitate. “So, Chelsea is coming to town next weekend... She’s got some job thing.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “Here?”

  “Yes! They’re hosting a business conference in their San Francisco office, and Henry is already freaking out. I don’t know why I said yes to her staying with us!”

  Maddie had told me a few things about her sister over the years; she was a raging narcissist who loved to throw judgment on everything Maddie did, and the two of them hadn’t been close since childhood. Chelsea had moved to L.A. a decade before for some big corporate gig, and from the way Maddie described her, the two of them couldn’t be less alike.

  “Why did you say yes? And why can’t she stay at a hotel? Shouldn’t her company put her up or something?”

  Maddie folded her arms as we walked. “I didn’t think of it. She caught me in the middle of this whole thing with Henry and I trying to have a real talk with Timothy about his bed-wetting. He was crying and all embarrassed, my poor little boy...” Her words poured out so fast I put a hand on her shoulder, and she took a deep breath. “It was just bad timing. I said yes without putting it all together.”

  “And Henry’s pissed.”

  “Yes. He despises her. Mostly because of how she is with me, but she’s rough on him, too. She’s awful.”

  I nodded. “She sounds intense. I’m not a fan of how she treats you, either.”

  “You’re a dear.” Maddie tapped her forehead with the base of her palm. “Ugh. I thought about calling her last night to tell her to stay elsewhere, but I felt bad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

  “Well...would that be all that much worse than her in your house?” I said it when we reached the coffee shop, then opened the door for her while she bobbed her head in agreement. “I mean, what if you told her it wouldn’t work because of what you’re going through with Timothy? He’s anxious, right? That’s part of what all the bed-wetting is about. Tell her you need her to stay elsewhere, but you can have her over for dinner and breakfast or something. That’s an easy compromise, don’t you think?”

  Maddie sighed. “Yeah. You make a good point.”

  “That’s the whole deal with you two. You’re okay as long as you keep a little distance, right?”

  “Yeah.” We moved toward the register, and Maddie lowered her voice once we lined up behind two other customers to order. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  “Family is tricky. Sometimes the obvious answer isn’t so obvious in the middle of it, you know? And you’ve got a lot going on with Timothy. I just happen to have the full picture,” I said, gesturing in a big circle. “And your sister is...special. You don’t need that.”

  “I should call her tonight. You’re right.” We got to the front of the line and placed our mocha orders before stepping aside to wait. “What about you?” she asked, the girl-gossip glow I’d come to love from her lighting up her face. “I could use a distraction, and I’ve seen you staring off into space while you’re flipping through your files. Don’t pretend there’s not something special going on. Share! Is it love?”

  I shook my head, though something emotional was happening with Dean and that surprised me. Plus, I still hadn’t given her the whole story yet.

  We were almost two months in, but how did one explain a desire to be tied up and submissive to a lover?

  “Okay. Is it kinky?”

  I must have turned beet red.

  “It’s kinky! I knew it. Now you’ve got to tell me! Sébastien and I were kinky all the time.”

  I gawked. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Nope. I didn’t know if you’d be into it.”

  “Wait. What?”

  The barista called our names, breaking our conversation, and Maddie’s furtive glance made it clear she wouldn’t elaborate until we left. As soon as we were out the door, we circled the block at a leisurely pace.

  I nudged her side. “Kinky details?”

  Maddie patted my shoulder, her eyes glittering with the knowing smile of someone with a colorful past. “It wasn’t often, but it was fun. A little handcuffing here and spanking there. Sometimes he gave me orders.” She rolled her eyes back. “Loved that. Hello, Mister I’ll Do Whatever You Want.”

  My jaw gaped but I tittered. Maddie’s energy always entertained me.

  “What is it with Dean?”

  Hushed, I said, “All of it.”

  Maddie squealed. “Oh, fantastic! It makes things interesting, I think. On occasion I can get Henry to cuff me or blindfold me, but it’s fairly impossible to time everything when you have a five-year-old.”

  I paused on the sidewalk, amused by the idea of Henry playing with handcuffs. He was so reserved—or at least, I’d thought he was.

  Maddie faced me, her mocha clutched in hand. “You’re okay with it all, yes?”

  “I am,” I said, delighted we could be this frank. “Sometimes I guess I’m overwhelmed by it. But it’s ingrained in him...and how he operates. Frequently.”

  “Hot!” Maddie gave my arm a squeeze. “Well, as long as you’re safe, and comfortable. You have to communicate for it to work. You have to communicate for any relationship to work, but you know that.”

  I took a sip of my mocha, marveling at Maddie’s insight and amused we were talking about kink on our morning break.

  “Dammit,” she said, checking her watch. “Five minutes. Back we go. We’ll have to go out and talk more.”

  We recommenced our walk and she whistled.

  “I tell you...wow. The things Sébastien and I used to d
o... You’re going to have fun.”

  “I’m so glad I can talk to you about this.”

  “Hello? Of course. God, you helped me with my Chelsea problem. And besides, every woman has to have a friend she can spill her guts to,” she said confidently. “I’m happy to be that, but crap, don’t tell Selby these things. I love that you two are friends, but from what you’ve told me about her, she’s more vanilla than a fucking cream puff.”

  I choked on my mocha.

  “It’s not bad, but it’s not you. Be you, Maya.”

  Seemed like logical advice to me.

  * * *

  When we got back to the office, I found a phone message slip left on my desk. It was in Tania’s handwriting, but there wasn’t much to it.

  Call Carrie Pents.

  I clutched the slip in my palm and took a seat. Carrie had missed her appointment last week, and though my calls had gone unanswered, she’d rescheduled for Monday by email. For the last couple of months, our appointments had been positive. She’d said in her email that things were fine, and I hoped there wasn’t cause for concern. There was no way to know if that was actually the case, which tugged at me as I dialed her number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Carrie. It’s Maya.”

  “Oh, hey,” she said. There was some noise in the background I couldn’t make out.

  “I got your message. How are you doing?”

  “Yeah...that. I’m fine.”

  The sound of a stern male voice came from the other end of the line. Carrie didn’t speak while he went on, but I couldn’t hear what he said.

  “Is that J?”

  She didn’t answer, and his voice continued. When he quieted, she said, “It’s just the school office. No biggie.” She’d directed the words away from the phone.

  Lies were never a good sign.

  “Carrie?”

  “Hey...it’s not the best time right now. I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you back?”

  I didn’t like the sound of her voice. Not with the way my gut turned. “Carrie. Do you need to come in? I have some time today and tomorrow.”