“Did he hurt you?”
My lids sink closed, and the air leaves my lungs as I roll my lips between my teeth. Did he hurt me? I define pain by how Hunter made me relate to it. He’s a fucking yardstick branded into my brain. If I made a documentary about my time with Hunter, I’d call it Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Whip. And the crop. The cane. Clamps.
The first time Hunter ordered me to crawl to him, the command sent a thrill of pleasure through me and I struggled to keep my breathing measured. When I’d settled on hands and knees, I crept toward him and felt an ache, a need deep in my core. I’d done it before, for Rey, but knowing the man on the other end wasn’t just my teacher, my mentor, but someone for whom my submission was a turn-on, raised that simple act to the sublime.
By the time I’d reached him, I was more aroused than I’d ever been. That’s how it had been with everything. Every depraved act, every filthy word—I learned to crave, beg for, love it all. Hurt and love are so closely entwined in my head. What’s the difference, really? But now’s not the time to hold a seminar on the philosophy of love. A simple answer for a simple question: Did Hunter hurt me?
“Physically? No more than you do.”
That’s a bald-faced lie. Hunter beat the shit out of me on a regular basis and in ways Crispin wouldn’t dream of, but I know what he’s asking and this isn’t a lie. Not really. I’ve answered the spirit of his question, if not the letter. Hunter followed the rules. He abided by every last word of our contract. He played safely, he respected my safewords, and he lavished me with aftercare. He was a model Dominant up until the very end. I have no physical scars from anything he did to me, as promised. As for the rest…
“Okay,” Crispin says, squeezing my hand. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
I drag my eyes to his. I’m not expecting to get off without more of an interrogation, but his expression is earnest, if pained and discouraged. He’s going to let this go. I regard him warily, waiting for him to change his mind because it’s so blatantly obvious there’s more to the story, but he squeezes my hand once again before he lets go and leans back in his chair.
“Are you finished with breakfast? I’ve got plans for you today. You’re going to need your strength, so eat up.”
The food on my plate holds no attraction for me anymore, though I’d been packing it away like a linebacker five minutes ago. “I’m finished.”
“Good.” There’s a devious glint in his eye, and more of the tension leaks from my body. I know that look. I love that look. It’s preceded some very good things in the past. He stands, takes up his plate and mine, and starts over to the kitchen. “I’ll clean up in here. You go get ready. I’ll see you in the studio in twenty minutes.”
The anxiety is dissipating, and I gather up the scraps of my uncertainty. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. He’s not thrilled, but he’s going to let me have my way.
“Go on, then,” he urges from where he’s piling dishes in the sink.
“Yes, sir.” I latch on to the familiarity of the words dropping from my lips, and it centers me, locates my body and my mind in space. I know the rules for this game. This is a part I know how to play flawlessly.
Chapter Seventeen
‡
It takes me longer than I’d like to admit to realize what he’s up to.
He’s not touching me.
I’d been a bit smug when my standard bathing had been shorter than normal. I’d thought it was because he was so eager to start. I can’t touch emotional intimacy with a ten-foot pole, but sex is my bargaining chip. My finely honed submission is what makes me worth putting up with. I thought he’d put me through my paces to reassure himself that, even if India is off-limits, Kit is open like an all-night diner, but now I’m not so sure.
He ordered me to the center of the room and wrapped cuffs around my wrists, my ankles, my thighs, above my elbows. Surrounded by the familiar trappings of bondage, out of the wreckage of this morning’s emotional turmoil, I had started to salvage excitement and arousal. But instead of clipping together the cuffs, forcing me into some lovely contortion that would allow him to torture me, he’d arranged me like a paper doll: feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart, fingers splayed, palms facing forward and not touching my thighs.
“Whatever happens, you’re not to move. Understood?”
I’d said, “Yes, sir,” half an hour ago, and it’s only now I understand his game. He’s not fucking touching me. He drags silk over my skin again, and I shudder at the feather-light touch. Then comes the many-stranded suppleness of a deer-hide flogger, the cushiony softness of fur, the smooth wood of a well-loved paddle.
He plies me with all of it, but the pleasure I’ve earned from being praised for following instructions and looking so pretty as I do evaporates, replaced by an uncharacteristic flare of irritation. He’s manipulating me and not in a way I care for.
“Close your eyes.”
When I do, he ties the silky fabric around my head. Not the most effective blindfold—I can still distinguish between shadow and light—but it serves a purpose. I don’t know what he’s doing until he tugs something around my waist, then settles it down to where thigh meets torso. An audible click and a final adjustment clue me in: he’s clipped an elastic band around my hips. My realization is followed by the shock of his fingers on me, finally, parting my labia and settling something over my clit.
I don’t have time to enjoy his touch because, as quickly as it came, it’s gone and in its place—
A sudden buzzing on my clit makes my stomach muscles contract, my fists clench, and I suck a breath through my teeth.
“Bad girl,” he scolds, punctuated by the stinging thwack of what feels like a tawse on my ass. Fuck. The buzzing stops, and I relax, able to control my reaction better when it starts up again. “That’s better, pet.”
He toys with me for a while. Starting, stopping, chastising when I’m not prepared for the next spate of sensation and can’t sufficiently mask my reactions—a curl of my fingers, a buck of my hips, a squeak or a sharp intake of breath. Crispin has no way of knowing because, of course, I haven’t told him, but deep down I associate vibes with punishment.
Forcing orgasm after orgasm from me was Hunter’s favorite form of castigation when I’d come without permission. It was impersonal and mechanical, and I hated it. Is that what I was begging him for last night in my dreams? To stop? God knows it made me a quivering mess of pleading in reality. I dreaded it so much it took me months after things had ended with Hunter to be able to masturbate without experiencing a slash of panic when I’d come. When I just couldn’t deal with the anxiety but needed the release, I’d call Rey and he’d give me the green light—sometimes teasing me first because he’s annoying like that.
It’s been long enough that I can take it in the spirit it’s meant if it’s brief and playful, but since the specter of Hunter is in my head and I already feel like I’m being reprimanded, I’m having trouble controlling myself. I dredge up all the coping mechanisms I have—a not inconsiderable list—and try to take it. I think I could if he’d just touch me, if he didn’t seem so detached.
I like many, many things about Crispin, but one of the things I like best is his warmth. Not physically, though I like that, too. But underneath whatever he’s doing to me, there’s care, desire, a general benevolence that I’ve become accustomed to. No, far worse than that. Addicted to.
This act—which my body is responding to even as my mind revolts—he could be performing on anyone. He’s ramped up the intensity on the vibe, and despite my best efforts, my abdomen contracts whenever he turns it on. My knees weaken and my fingertips graze my thighs whenever he stops, meaning I get a slap of the tawse on the way up and the way down. My ass and the backs of my thighs are heated and throbbing, but that’s not why my eyes are watering behind the silk binding.
I need him to stop.
I could tap out, say the word. I’ve said it with him before wh
en a sudden cramp in my leg left me hissing in pain—and not the good kind. He’d released me quickly, eased the spasming muscle. When it was gone and he’d looked me over, we’d started again. Crispin’s not the kind of jackass who gives you a hard time when you actually use your safeword, nor is he one of those bastards who thinks safewords are for chumps. I could say it. I should say it. He’d want me to say it.
Red.
But I can’t because when he’d inevitably ask me what went wrong, what would I tell him? You know that whole intimacy thing you’ve been offering on tap like you’ve got kegs of it to spare? I’ve actually been sneaking sips of it when you weren’t paying attention, and it’s really fucking good. If I were someone else, I’d demand a case. As things stand, I’m too chickenshit to even order a glass.
The bursts of the vibe are getting shorter and shorter as I get closer and closer to coming, and when the latest burst is over, I say, “Sir, please.”
My voice comes out raw, too ugly to be called a whimper, and there’s a beat before he answers me.
“Go on. You’ve been a good girl. You can come.”
My fingernails dig into my palms as he flicks the vibrator on again. Though my body is more than willing—eager doesn’t even cover it—I don’t want to come this way. It’s suddenly very important to me that I not. He could force me. Most of the time, I like it when he pushes me over an edge, urging me into something I wouldn’t dare ask for, but this…I’ll resist.
“I—”
My hands clench and open convulsively, and then it stops. I climb back onto the ledge I’ve been dangling over and catch my breath.
“What, pet?”
“I…”
“Tell me what you want.”
I can’t quite parse the tone of his disembodied voice. Do I detect a hint of mocking? Or is that a trace of pleading? Whatever it’s laced with, it’s an order, and Kit’s required to reply. “I want you to touch me. Please, sir.”
The weight of his hands on my hips forces a moan. “That’s what you wanted?”
“Yes, sir.”
He steers me forward, and I check the urge to put my hands out in front of me. In a few steps, the fronts of my thighs are flush with the back of the couch and his erection presses against my sore ass through the worn denim of his jeans. “I’d suggest you hold on for this.”
The absence of his touch makes need claw at my insides again, but the sound of clothes hitting the floor eases the panic. He spreads me wide open and eases inside before threading his arms alongside my ribs, gripping the fronts of my shoulders tightly. Instead of bracing myself against the leather as he meant, I reach back and weave my hands through his hair, arching my back as he starts to move inside me.
He nips my arm, perhaps as an admonishment, but I tighten my hold instead of letting go and take his answering grunt as approval. The increasingly hard thrusts also smack of endorsement. The vibe is still in place, and when one of his hands leaves my shoulder, I’m not surprised when it clicks on one more time. I let myself unravel as he says, “That’s right, mili. Give it up for me.”
That word again. But my curiosity is smothered by the incredibly intense orgasm wreaking havoc with my body. I didn’t care for the means, but the end…oh god, the end. All the agitation has been crushed under the force of my climax, and a delight I don’t want to think too hard about billows through me as he clutches me tighter.
He mutters endearments and expletives into my shoulder, and I knead my fingertips into his scalp, cradling his skull as he’s cradled mine so many times.
“Mine,” he says, and my heart skips a beat. I lick that droplet off the tap dripping with affection, savor it on my tongue before I swallow it down to pool with the rest, hoping he won’t notice.
*
Crispin and I come to a détente for the rest of the weekend. He’s still on edge about his father and annoyed with me for being closed, inaccessible, and I’m stressed by my nocturnal confession, but we don’t have a lot of time to waste. We spend most of Saturday in the studio where he wears me out. Repeatedly. On Sunday after lunch, he calls it early and brings me down to the cove. We cuddle up in the hammock, reading the same book—me on my Kindle, him in paperback. We’re almost in the same place, although Crispin reads more slowly than I do.
It entertains me when I read a passage or a line I think he’ll find funny and then wait for a snort or a gale of laughter minutes later. It’s another secret game of intimacy I get to play. No one has to know how much I love…this. Yes, I love this.
Chapter Eighteen
‡
“I think Brad Lennox has a crush on you.”
“No.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“He has a funny way of showing it.”
We’re in Crispin’s Jeep, bumping over the rough roads near his house. We’ve been talking shop since he picked me up at the airport, trying to relocate normal after the odd way things ended the last two times and figure out where exactly all this leaves us. Or maybe that’s just me.
I’ve been explaining to him some of the mess in LA—as best I can without giving a four-hour lecture series on public housing administration at any rate—and he asks intelligent and sophisticated questions. Crispin is not just a pretty face or, as he’s said before, a smartass who draws stick figures. His understanding of government bureaucracy is impressive, but his knowledge of—and possible caveman-esque jealousy over—the man whose bylines grace every last article about LAHA in the Times is what’s stirring something in my belly.
“I don’t think so. The way to a man’s heart may be through his stomach, but the way to a woman’s heart is definitely through her brain.” His hand leaves the steering wheel to tousle my hair.
“Which would explain why you feed me decadent and delicious things whenever I visit,” I sniff, enjoying his fingers trailing through my loose curls. “Brad might do better to buy me a cookie.”
“He’s using his print platform to flirt with you. It’s very unprofessional.”
“Are you kidding me? He trashes LAHA.”
“But he never trashes you.” He points at me accusingly, his finger coming so close to my face I’m tempted to take it in my mouth.
“I wouldn’t call that a love note.”
“You’d set the guy on fire if he asked you out.”
True. Brad’s an intelligent guy, hardworking, not bad-looking, either, but he’s missing that certain je ne sais quoi. Oh, fuck that, I know quoi. Man doesn’t have a dominant bone in his body.
“Do you date?” Shit. I asked before thinking through how Crispin might take this. The consternation adorably crinkling his face tells me he’s equally perplexed as to the best way to answer. If he says yes, will jealousy strike hot in my stomach? If he says no, will the ramparts go up? Usually I’m better about not saying stupid stuff like this, but my stomach’s been all fluttery the whole way here.
Aside from steering clear of anyone with a whiff of abusiveness, I try not to think about why the men I’m with are available. It hasn’t been difficult until now. Mostly, I assume they’re fresh out of a break-up or not interested in long-term relationships at all, and the deal Rey offers them seems like an intriguing change of pace. Beyond that, I’ve never cared.
But Crispin… I can’t deny the thought has occurred to me. He’s not without his quirks and I suppose it’s possible he’s just never found the key to his lock, but I find that hard to believe. He doesn’t have any super-unusual kinks, and god knows the man is patience made flesh. Not to mention he’s good-looking, smart, and his cooking alone would be worth putting up with some peculiarities for. But asking is redolent of relationship talk, which is not a Pandora’s Box I care to open. Crispin would dive right in and frolic like some kind of deranged porpoise.
I’m about to rescind my catch-22 because I’m now quite certain I don’t want to know, but I’m interrupted by his answer.
“No.”
Instead of indignation—What are you waiting for, Crisp
in? For me to be a real girl? Good luck!—the impending envy is buried by those two little letters. With a thrill of satisfaction I haven’t felt for a long time, I say, “’Kay.”
Then I promptly steer our talk back to the vagaries of the Code of Federal Regulations on occupancy standards, hoping to slow the rapid beat of my heart.
*
When Crispin and I have finished lunch, I reach into my bag for the contracts. Before I hand them over, I take a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize.”
He blinks at me and hesitates. “For what?”
“For not going with you to the hospital.” For refusing you when you needed me.
He brushes it off with a “no big thing,” but I know it was. And I really am sorry. What makes it worse is that I’d do the same thing all over again and we both know it, so I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.
It’s been on my mind since Crispin dropped me off at the airport with barely a goodbye the time before last. Introspection’s not my strong suit, and if I’ve been stroking this thought for weeks, even after having done some penance during the visit in between, it might be a good idea for me to do something about it. And who am I kidding? Atonement through sex is easy for me. I want to give him more than that, even if I can’t hand over exactly what he wants.
Somehow Crispin’s respect for my boundaries about Hunter, though it bothered him, made me more inclined to share. Like a newly sovereign nation accepting an ambassador from their former rulers. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to have snipers stationed on every rooftop primed to shoot if the foray goes sour, but I’ll let him in.
“I can’t… I can’t be with you that way. But I wanted…” Jesus, India, fucking say it. “I wanted to give you something else.”
His expression is pure interest.
“You can ask me a question. Anything you want to know. I won’t say no.”
Personal Geography Page 16