A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology

by Editors: Katherine Merchant, Sonya Bond, Michelle Puffer

  He swallowed. “Okay.”

  “Call me if you need anything. Advice, or…anything.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  * * *

  Amy eventually stopped watching the door and reaching for the telephone. She showered so she could pretend she wasn’t crying, but she couldn’t trick herself…and she couldn’t fool Mac anymore, either. Now he knew, too, that she wasn’t the same woman he married.

  He wouldn’t have betrayed her by marching her out in the middle of the street and calling her on her ability to love him. She’d committed a grievous wrong by doing that to him. Needles of water dashed over her skin, punishing her for such vast stupidity.

  The bathroom door opened, interrupting her self-pity. The shower curtain swayed close and sucked against her soapy skin.

  “Do you still love me?” he asked.

  Yes caught in her throat. She struggled to force the word to her lips. Why was it so hard? What if she said yes and he didn’t love her anymore? Then what defense would she have? Silent moments slipped through her fingers like soapy water, escaping and swirling down the drain. The bathroom door closed, and for a single, terrifying moment, she thought he’d given up and gone away.

  “You have to answer me, even if the answer hurts.” He paused and asked, “Do you? Yes or no.”

  She pulled the curtain back a few inches. Mac’s reflection in the steamed up mirror was only a blur, devoid of facial features or texture or color. His hand came out of nowhere, folding over hers. The simple touch shook “Yes” past the block in her throat. She said it again to be sure.

  “Yes. I still love you.”

  Mac blew out a breath that she could hear even over the patter of water on the shower tiles, and his relief gave her anxiety permission to pull back. The tight knot in her stomach eased.

  “Your hand is cold as ice,” she said. “There’s still hot water. Do you want the rest of it?”

  He pulled the curtain back, removing her plastic wall of defense. Cold air rushed over her wet body. She shrank against the wall, covering her chest.

  Mac was a mess. Rain had plastered his hair into a dark, dripping cap. She could see through his shirt, which was so cold his nipples pressed hard against the transparent fabric. He had two buttons free, but he stopped on the third, and narrowed his eyes.

  “Don’t ever hide yourself from me again.”

  Amy reluctantly uncrossed her arms. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, or, for that matter, her body’s responses. He had never stripped her of every single hiding place before now.

  “What are you thinking?” she ventured. He peeled the sodden shirt from his shoulders and dropped it in the sink. His pants followed, and he climbed into the tub, pulling the curtain into place.

  “That there’s no way I can be gentle with you right now.”

  His erection reached her first, hot and heavy as it nuzzled the cleft between her thighs. He ducked his head, burying his face against her throat and biting. At the same time, he grasped her bottom and lifted her. The grout between the tiles, jagged in places, scraped her shoulders as he slid her up the wall. Amy automatically wrapped her arms around his neck and spread her legs.

  Her eyes closed against the deluge of hot water raining over them, and she rocked her head back against the wall. Gentle or brutal didn’t matter; she exulted in the physical contact, the solid assurance that he still wanted her. She hiked her legs up high around his waist and dug her heels against the small of his back, ensuring that he couldn’t rescind his claim.

  He pumped hard and fast half a dozen times and growled, “Mine” in her ear as he came. After, with the water pounding cold over their heads, he whispered, “I love you.”

  A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology

  Chapter Six

  Once wasn’t enough. His manhood stirred again, rising against her thigh; even the chill that had set into her skin didn’t diminish his desire. He kissed the side of her neck, her cheek and turned off the water. He ignored the urge to take her a second time. The shell-shocked look in her eyes worried him, even as her fragility turned him on.

  “Come dry off.” He dragged a towel off the rack hanging over the laundry hamper and rubbed it over her shoulders.

  Amy squeezed her eyes shut and drew a corner of the towel up to dry her face and ears. He started to scrub at her hair and hesitated. “How long until the dye fades?”

  “Not long. A week. It’s temporary.”

  “Good. Don’t do it again.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I won’t.”

  He dried her hair and drew her from the tub, carefully blotting the water from her legs and feet.

  “Can I have my robe?”

  “Do you want it because you’re cold or because you’re naked?”

  She frowned, relieving his worry that she was retreating from him. A frown was a sign of emotion, something besides meek surrender.

  “I’m cold because I’m naked,” she said.

  Mac dried himself with the damp towel. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Then I don’t understand the question.”

  “Do you want to be warm, or do you want to be covered up so I can’t see you?”

  She bit her lip, which was answer enough for him. Mac dropped his towel on the floor, pulled her purple bathrobe off its hook, took her hand, and led her into the kitchen.

  “Throw it away,” he instructed, pushing the bundle of cloth into her hands. “Turn up the heat if you get cold, but you will not wear clothes when we are alone in our home.”

  Her breath quickened, and her chest flushed pink. She shook as she obeyed him and discarded the robe.

  “You hide from me too much.” He caressed the curve of her back, stroking from her nape to her hips as she bent over the trashcan. “I don’t want to play hide and seek. I want to reach out and find you where you’re supposed to be.”

  She struggled with figuring out how to hold herself, straightening and folding her arms across her chest only to realize what she’d done and drop her arms to her sides. She laced her fingers together over her mound and aborted that in the next motion. Distress pulled at her mouth.

  “You can always hide behind me if you really need to hide,” he reminded her, trying to make the words gentle, to hide the pain of knowing she needed a reminder. “Just no more hiding from me.”

  “Will you hold me?” Her voice was so small he ached.

  “If you come to me.”

  She moved, leaning into him chest to thigh. He tried to adjust himself so he didn’t jab her with his persistent erection and hugged her close. Her soap drew him into its clean, floral bouquet. He cradled the back of her head, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

  “Now what?” The question kissed his skin. He shivered.

  “Now we figure out what’s gone wrong and work on making it better.”

  “What if it takes too long?”

  “I promised you forever.” He squeezed her briefly, then turned her around and nudged her toward the bedroom. “Do you want the heat up?”

  Amy paused at the thermostat on the wall between the kitchen and the bedroom, and shook her head. She eased back half a step until the head of his cock rubbed her hip and looked back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes smoldered. “I’m not cold anymore.”

  Indecision caught and held him fast. He wanted her, but he didn’t want their relationship to turn from sexless to sex-based. Besides, the direct approach wasn’t in character for his wife. She didn’t initiate. She gave little signs, hugged and cuddled, but she didn’t turn around and rub up against his dick and say “do me,” even in a subtle fashion. Unless he read her wrong, though, that’s exactly what she had just done. The change in her was too fast, too abrupt. A single instance of taking charge couldn’t have spurred that kind of a transformation.

  Uncertainty cooled his arousal, and his energy faded along with his erection. He’d been awake too long, between his shift and Amy’s session. The finge
rnail of sky visible between the kitchen curtains attested to the passage of time. It wasn’t storm-dark anymore. True dark had taken over.

  He took too long to respond. Amy ducked her head and half-turned toward their bedroom, ringing her hands. Shit. He didn’t want to make a poor judgment call and lose her again. If he were honest with himself, he didn’t know how to proceed anyway.

  Amy’s stomach rumbled.

  “I’m too tired, and you’re hungry,” he said by way of rejecting her offer. “Call in something for delivery and come lay down with me.”

  She missed a beat responding, probably because she hadn’t expected to be turned down. He hugged her and cupped her breast possessively. “Do you have any jobs scheduled tomorrow?”

  “Nothing yet. It’s my day to be on call at the agency.”

  “Cancel your day. You’re mine tomorrow, and I don’t feel like sharing.”

  “Are you going to work tonight?”

  “Night off.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize.” Her shoulders hunched, a certain sign of shame.

  “We haven’t paid attention for a long time.”

  She jerked a nod, blinking rapidly. Tears.

  “Don’t cry.” He kissed her ear and let her go. “I feel like Mexican.”

  “Tacos and margaritas?”

  “If they deliver this far.”

  He left her to take care of dinner and her phone calls and switched directions to the laundry room. All his clothes were in baskets near the dryer, these days, a symbolic material separation. He gathered an armload of underwear and t-shirts and took them back to the bedroom, determined to reclaim his half of the bureau.

  Amy’s voice murmured in the other room. He was tempted to boot the computer and do a quick Internet search for advice on handling a submissive woman outside the context of fetish sex, but good sense told him to put it off until a less emotionally-charged time. Instinct would have to do. In the meantime, he wasn’t entirely ignorant. He at least had his parents as examples in how not to behave.

  As an attempt to keep his libido in check, he pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. When she padded into the room, damp pink hair curling around her ears and pale little nipples hard, he was glad he’d had the forethought to cover himself. Horniness was giving his good sense a run for its money.

  “Forty-five minutes.” She worried her lip. “I hope shrimp is alright. I didn’t know what you had yesterday. Did you have seafood?”

  “No. Shrimp is fine.”

  “Can I ask a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you want to have sex again?”

  “Because I don’t know what to do for you.”

  A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology

  Chapter Seven

  Mac turned his face up to her. Vulnerable. She never thought of him as vulnerable. He was tall and broad, strong and masculine. He was a protector, never one who needed protection. Viewing him this way, though, seated on the edge of the bed, blue and white pajama pants barely covering the physical manifestation of his need—this way, she was inspired to protect him.

  I’m his only natural predator. He could defend himself from everything but her. She never realized how much power she held over him, not until that thought dropped down heavy on her mind.

  “I’ve been hurting you.”

  Puzzlement creased his brow. He slid his hands around the backs of her thighs and pulled her between his knees. “You agreed to save this talk for tomorrow. I promise it’s no hurt we can’t heal.”

  He kissed her stomach, nipped at the fragile skin above her navel. Amy shivered, and goosebumps spread out in waves from his kiss. Her breasts firmed, her toes curled. She wanted to work through their emotional baggage, but more, she wanted him to take her a second time, to slam into her body over and over again, once more promising that he wouldn’t leave. That he’d take her as she was.

  “Mac,” she whispered, fingering the hair waving at the nape of his neck.

  He tilted his head back, met her eyes with a question.

  “We have half an hour,” she said. “More.”

  His fingers flexed, squeezing her thighs. She ran her fingernails around the curve of his ear, and it was his turn to shudder. “Amy-”

  “Please.”

  “I don’t have toys.”

  “I don’t need them.”

  “I can’t hit you. I can’t hurt you.”

  “It isn’t about kinky sex.”

  He smoothed his hands up to cup her bottom, kneading and tickling the crease between her cheeks. Amy closed her eyes and bent over him, hiding her face in his hair.

  “Please,” she repeated. “It’s been so long. I need you again. You don’t have to be gentle. Or perfect. Just deep inside.”

  He groaned. His shoulders tensed beneath her hands, and he jerked her abdomen against his chest, twisting and dropping her onto the bed before she had a chance to yelp in surprise. She grabbed his head and drew his mouth down to hers as he pulled her knees up and pushed them apart. He adjusted the fly of his pajamas, a quick movement before his tongue and cock rammed into her.

  Mac’s mouth barely muffled the animal groan that clawed free of her throat, driven out by his invasion. Each thrust hit her harder, lifting her hips off the bed. His sac swung against her wetness, slapping noisily. She tried to hook her hands beneath her knees, to pull them higher and wider and let him in even deeper, but he snatched her wrists and stretched her arms up along the length of the mattress. Pinned, she was helpless to do anything but lock her legs around his waist and hold on.

  She stole breath when she could, but Mac didn’t want to let her mouth go long enough for breathing. His short, late-night beard stung her chin and irritated her lips. Her breasts bounced against him. The still-damp hair furring his chest abraded her nipples. She couldn’t even swallow.

  Mac didn’t burn out fast. Their shower interlude had prepared him for something longer, given him stamina that drove him inside over and over again. He fumbled to hold her wrists with one hand and grabbed her left ankle, pushed her knee against her chest and angled her ass off the bed. The muscles of her inner thighs burned, protesting the unnatural position. She tried to reposition herself, but Mac didn’t give an inch of wiggle room.

  Soon, the angle forced the ridged cap of his manhood back and forth across her g-spot. She gasped at the shock, eyes flying wide, and found him watching her face. He smiled against her lips and drew his hips back, holding the wide head of his cock just against her entrance.

  “Want it there again?” he asked, thrusting shallowly, drawing back again. Her hole clenched, muscles contracting of their own accord, trying, and failing, to hold his length.

  “Yes.” She tightened her stomach until the muscles ached, arching up to impale herself. Mac held back.

  “Yes, what?” Shallow, stretching, he drove in and retreated.

  “You’re teasing me.” She craned her neck, trying to see his length between her legs. The dark hair at the base of his cock shone, sticky and wet from her arousal. It made her mouth water. “Mac, please!”

  “Please what?” He used her ankle to maneuver her body, lowering the angle of her hips so he sank deep without connecting with her g-spot. The scrape of coarse hair over her clit made her whimper. She bit her lip, panting and trying to hide that her control was diminishing. She would have closed her eyes, if his weren’t so intently locked on hers, ordering them to remain open without a single word spoken.

  Praying she didn’t stumble over the three little syllables. “Please fuck me,” she whispered.

  Mac didn’t respond. His fingers flexed around her ankle, and the pulse at the base of his throat jumped as he swallowed.

  She tried again, barely breathing the word, “Sir?”

  He groaned and sank into her, the weight of his chest and shoulders pressing her down into the blankets. Amy bit his shoulder, “Oh God” long and drawn out against his skin.

  “Not fucking,” Ma
c panted, levering himself impossibly deeper. “Loving. That’s the word you use.

  “Amy, say it.” He buried his face in her hair, drawing short little gasping breaths.

  She couldn’t. She hadn’t earned his loving and couldn’t bring herself to ask for it. If she asked, he would give it unconditionally. Instead, she moaned and rocked her hips, squeezed his cock with her body, and raked her fingernails down his back. Mac exhaled. His shoulders shook. She prayed he wouldn’t realize she’d faked it.

  A Rose of Any Color: MaleDom: A BDSM Anthology

  Chapter Eight

  Dinner arrived before his heart rate slowed, and before he could puzzle through the nagging sensation that something was wrong. He reluctantly pushed off the bed, pausing to suck the sweaty skin between her breasts, and grabbed a towel to sling around his hips. Amy reached for a blanket. He didn’t have time to stop her because the doorbell rang a second time.

  “Meet me in the kitchen,” he said on his way to the door.

  Amy obeyed. He carried a bag of tacos and box of margarita into the kitchen to find her waiting, naked thighs tucked primly beneath the table and arms folded atop it, shielding her breasts from view without actively covering them.

  “Still hungry?”

  “Yes.” She unpacked the bag, discarding wax paper wrappings, and arranging taco shells and fillings on the table. She didn’t look at him.

  Mac stood behind her, watching her pry the plastic cover from a dish of sour cream. She sat on edge, back straight as a post. He ran his hand between her shoulder blades, relishing the texture of her skin, the silkiness of the tiny, short little blond hairs that he could feel but not see. Her pulse stepped up a beat, fluttering against the heel of his palm where it rested beneath her left shoulder.