Mr. North

by Callie Hart

  “If I’d severed all ties with her, I never would have met you, would I? Our paths would never have crossed. And you are the most important thing in my world, Elizabeth Dreymon. You are the sun and the moon in my sky. When I look out over this city, I don’t see a thousand streets all intersecting anymore, millions and millions of people all going about their daily lives. I see a maze, and in it somewhere…you. You’re on my mind twenty-four hours a day. I’m constantly wondering where you are. Who you’re with. What you’re doing. If you’re happy. Sad. Safe. I’m constantly waiting until we can be together. I never thought I’d get to be this happy again. I never thought for one goddamn second I’d find a woman as remarkable and special as you. I love you.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but…you’re Raphael North, aren’t you?” a female voice asks. Both Raphael and I have been so caught up in each other that we haven’t noticed the woman approaching us. She’s tall and waspy, with a pinched look to her face. In other words, she looks mean. I recognize the fierce hunger in her eyes, and I already know she’s a member of the press. If nothing else, her ugly pant suit gives her away. Raphael must see who and what she is immediately too, but he doesn’t snap at her. He smiles benevolently.

  “I am,” he says. “Right now, I’m very proud to be him, too.”

  The woman smiles, but the gesture doesn’t reach her eyes. She takes a step forward, reaching into her pocket, pulling out a notepad and pen. “I’m Tracey Wick, from the Enquirer. I was wondering if you might have anything to say about the recent sex tape scandal that took place with…” Her eyes skitter toward me. “With Ms. Dreymon here?”

  “Actually I don’t have anything to say about that,” Raphael says mildly. “But if you’d like to give me your card, perhaps I might provide you with a statement at a later date. Right now, I’m enjoying spending some time with my fiancée.”

  Tracey from the Enquirer’s eyes almost bug out of her head. The promise of an exclusive statement is obviously way more than she was expecting. My eyes are bugging out of my head for entirely different reasons.

  The reporter quickly rifles through her purse, then whips out a business card, almost flinging it at Raphael. “Thank you so much,” she says, excitement tingeing her voice. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you soon, Mr. North.”

  He says nothing. Just smiles as she walks away. He reclines back against the bench and twists his head again, returning to his pervious pose. “What?” he says, laughing softly under his breath.

  “Your fiancée ?” There’s no way I can keep my tone even. “That’s news to me.”

  Raph grins broadly. His laughter is no longer under his breath, but loud and infectious. “Oh. Yes. Well,” he says softly, “I have been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  Epilogue

  M y hands are bound behind my back. A clock is marking the passing seconds somewhere—a soft, subtle barely-there tick, tick, tick that catches and snags at my attention. Strange that there would be an analogue clock in this apartment, so full of expensive, cutting edge technology. It seems out of place. It occurs to me that Raphael probably put it here, in this room, on purpose. Everything he says and does has a specific purpose, after all. Why should it be surprising that the objects he’s chosen to decorate this very private, very personal room be any different? He wants me to know how long he’s kept me here, waiting for him. He wants my heart to stumble every time I hear the second hand move forward around that clock’s face. He wants my anticipation levels to build and build, until I can barely contain myself anymore. He’s too damn smart for his own good.

  I can’t feel my fingers anymore. I flex my hands against my restraints, trying to encourage blood flow, but it doesn’t help. Pins and needles spiral up my arms, making them throb painfully. A cool breeze rushes through the room, skating across my bare skin—my neck, my shoulders, across my bare breasts. My nipples peak, tightening, and my breath catches in my throat. The door has just opened and closed. Someone has entered the room. It can only be him, of course—the man who blindfolded me and stripped me of my clothes earlier. Raphael North hovers inside the small, darkened room somewhere, silent and assessing. I was feeling relatively confident up until the moment I felt the air pressure in the room shift. Now I don’t know what I’m feeling. Anxious? Intimidated? Excited? Turned on? There are too many thoughts colliding in my mind to be able to pick one emotion and stick with it. I am vulnerable, naked, and on display for him to enjoy, and there’s nothing I can do about it. A few weeks ago, if I’d been told I would be strapped into a chair, naked, bound and blindfolded, my legs spread wide open, cuffed to stirrups at my ankles, I would have freaked out. The events of the past would have crippled me with fear. I came here today of my own free will, though. I voluntarily climbed into this chair and allowed my legs to be pushed apart as wide as they would go. I allowed it, and…I enjoyed it.

  A bone-deep shiver races through me, penetrating me down to my core. My throat is dry, my tongue like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth. Since I can’t see anything, my nerves have heightened every other sense I possess, making the slight smell of citrus and the ocean overwhelming. My body is on fire, my nerve endings hyper-stimulated and sending waves of heat dancing across my bare skin. Every part of me feels so good. Impossibly good. I’ve never felt like this in my entire freaking life. I am not in control of this situation. Not even close to in control. I’ve handed over the reins to Raphael, and he took them gladly, smiling in the most savage way imaginable as he lowered the length of silken black material down over my eyes. Now, I’m trying to guess where he is in the room, so I can prepare myself for what’s to come.

  There is nothing I can do to prepare, though. I already know that. I could have spent years and years mentally steeling myself for this moment, and still I wouldn’t be ready. This man is heaven and hell wrapped in a Versace suit. He’s fire and ice. He’s pure alpha, and I am his plaything. There’s no denying it. There’s no running from it.

  I jump when something makes contact with my shoulder—a feather light touch that makes me instantly break out in goose bumps. I suck in a deep breath, biting down on my tongue. He didn’t tell me not to talk, but speaking at this moment somehow feels like I’m breaking some sort of covenant between us. Raphael moves silently, stealthy as a cat. I’ve thought it every time I’ve laid eyes on him; he moves with the predatory grace of a panther, quick and deadly. With my vision now denied to me, I’m left imagining the subtle slope of his shoulders as he stalks around me. The way his shirt pulls taut as the muscles in his back shift and flex. My mind easily conjures up the expression on his face, though. I know the amused, sharp edged lust he wears in those brilliant green eyes of his. I memorized the gentle uplift at the right hand corner of his mouth that signals he is pleased a long time ago. The lone dimple in his right cheek, deep and pronounced, would make another man look cute, and yet it makes Raphael North seem seductive. It only appears when he’s smirking extraordinarily hard, after all, and that usually only happens when he’s thinking about all the bad things he wants to do to me.

  “Elizabeth .” My name is a whisper. A rustling of raw silk. I shiver at the sound of it on Raphael’s lips. My back arches a little, my body already primed for his touch. Desperate for it. My head swims as he makes contact between my shoulder blades, trailing something soft and delicate up the back of my neck. “You’re a little red in the face, Ms. Dreymon. You appear to be having a little trouble breathing.”

  I part my lips, trying to find my voice, but suddenly there’s a hand around my throat, tilting my head back. The movement surprises me, has me gasping out loud. Raphael’s rough stubble grazes my jaw, and I can’t stop the moan that slips past my lips. He knows. He knows all too well how much I enjoy the feel of his six o’clock shadow on my skin. He knows it turns me on so much that it makes me dizzy. So much that it makes me forget my own name. His breath is hot against my skin as he whispers into my ear, his fingertips gently pressing into my windpipe. “You�
�re magnificent,” he tells me. “Your body is a fucking work of art. I can see all of you like this. The curve of your breasts. The swell of your ass. The perfect porcelain of your skin. The sweet, wet, slick pink between your legs. Do you like being on display for me, my little butterfly?”

  I can’t speak. I can only nod, my breath coming out in short, sharp pants. His scent fills my head—the most masculine, sexual smell imaginable. Even when we’re not fucking, all I need is to smell him and I’m ready to rip my own damn clothes off. My body recognizes his as its perfect match. His pheromones are a biological key that instantly have me opening to him in every way possible.

  “I’m going to use you, Beth,” he whispers. “I’m going to have my fill of you. I’m going to take you every way I see fit. You’re mine when you’re in this chair. Nod if you understand.”

  I nod again, a small movement that has Raphael purring into my ear. “Your breasts are fucking incredible. Your nipples are so tight, butterfly. Are they sensitive right now? Do you want them in my mouth? Do you want me licking at them with my tongue?”

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  His hand tightens a little further around my throat. “You’re going to have to be patient, little one. You’re going to have to wait until I decide you deserve it.”

  This is torture. Pure torture. The sweetest, headiest, most sensual torture I’ve ever endured. I’m not even sure I can endure it. A wave of expectancy relays around my body as I imagine what it will feel like to have him licking and sucking at my breasts. How long am I going to have to wait? What kind of monster will he have turned me into by the time he actually gives me what I need?

  I’m the worst kind of addict when it comes to this man. I don’t want his mouth on me. His hands on my skin. His hard cock inside me. I fucking need it more than words can say. Raphael releases his hold on my neck, and I know that he’s stepped away from the chair. I can feel the lack of his presence like an ice-cold brand, burning inside me. There’s a sound: material rasping against material. My heart begins to hammer in my chest. What does he have? What the hell is he going to do?

  “Since you’re in no position to disobey me,” he says. “How about we play a little game instead? Would you like that?”

  “What kind of game?” I sound like I’ve just been running, my breath catching with every word. There’s a long pause. Raphael moves around me. I can feel him so close, and then moving away, over and over again. It’s all I can do not to pull against my restraints.

  Eventually, Raphael says, “The kind of game that will have you screaming my name. The kind where I touch you with my hands, or my tongue, or my cock, and I almost make you come. And then…I stop. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “How long do you stop for?”

  “Until I see fit. Maybe I’ll make you wait hours. Maybe I won’t allow you to come at all.” His voice is laced with amusement. He’s loving this already, I can tell. This chair that he had made especially for me was also for him, too. I am prone, at his mercy, every private, secret part of me exposed, on show for his pleasure. His eyes are probing me, studying me, on my breasts, my pussy, my ass… I can practically feel the pressure of his gaze as he circles me like a shark circling its prey. “If I do decide to let you come, I’m going to have the pleasure of watching it happen, up close and personal,” he says, as if reading my mind. “Where do you want to come, little one? All over my fingers, my tongue, or all over my dick?”

  This is a trick question. Whichever answer I give, Raphael will undoubtedly make sure it doesn’t happen, just to tease me further. Lucky for me, I don’t care where I come, so long as my body is in contact with his. He needs an answer, though. If I don’t give him one, there will be consequences. “Your fingers,” I gasp, reflexively rocking my hips. “I want to come all over your fingers.”

  “Hmm. And where…” Raphael trails something across the top of my right thigh, making me squirm. “…do I get to come?” he finishes. “Would you like it in your mouth? All over your tits?” I shiver at the image that develops in my head: Raphael, holding his dick, his hand rhythmically pumping up and down his solid flesh, the end of his cock slick and wet, the tendons in his arms and his neck straining, corded beneath his flesh. “Or perhaps in your pussy? Or…your ass?”

  My hips jerk forward again, and Raphael laughs softly under his breath. “You need me pretty bad, don’t you, little one?”

  “Yes, I need you. Please, Raphael. Please .”

  “Since you asked so nicely…” Raphael’s fingers trail lazily across my back, over my shoulder, around and over my collarbone. He pauses there for a second, and my entire body begins to vibrate with desire. He’s teasing me. Testing me. This is a test I am determined to pass. I don’t react, don’t beg, even though in my mind I’m screaming for him to take me. Raphael grunts—a pleased sound—and his fingers trail down, over the rise and fall of my breasts, skirting carefully around my nipple, then down, down, over the flat of my stomach, until his fingers are resting just above my pussy.

  “Do you think I should reward you for being so good?” he says softly. He leans down, so that his mouth is almost touching my skin, hovering over the shell of my ear; his close proximity is enough to make my pulse race away from me, out of control.

  “Yes. God, please, yes.”

  “Mmm…” I can feel his eyes on me again, searing into my skin, devouring me, and the muscles in my legs tense—an automatic, in-built reaction. The old me wants to hide herself. To protect her vulnerability. To close her legs against the intense scrutiny of this remarkable man. Raphael tuts. He runs his hand up the inside of my thigh, his fingers so close to touching my pussy, and then he stops. “If only you could see what I see right now,” he muses. “You’d realize how beautiful you are. You wouldn’t be trying to hide yourself from me. You’d be opening up wider, proud of your own beauty. You are so wet right now, Beth. Your body is like ripe fruit, juicy, and sweet, ready to be eaten. And, oh, how I’d like to fucking eat it right now.”

  Raphael turns me on like no one else. I’ve never felt so filled with need before. And even though my legs are spread wide, I know he’s telling the truth. I’m so excited by him that my body has kicked into overdrive, working at two hundred percent, ready and willing to accept any attention he might lavish upon me. I inhale deeply, and the sweet smell of sex and desire fills my nose. It’s shocking to realize that I can smell my own body’s reaction to Raphael. He’s spoken of it many times before. With anyone else, this would feel shameful. Embarrassing. Humiliating. I know how much he likes it, though, so it brings me nothing but pleasure now.

  Raphael finally gives me what I need. He dips his fingers lower, lightly teasing them over my clit, and my whole body bucks in answer to his soft touch. “Good girl,” he says quietly. “Good girl. You’re such a good girl. You’re making me very happy right now.”

  I’m not doing anything per se, besides allowing him to look at and touch wherever he desires. I know how his mind works, though. I am a spectacle. A view to be enjoyed. He called me his little butterfly just now, and in a way I really am. I feel like an exotic creature, pinned into place and kept behind glass for him to hang on a wall and enjoy whenever he feels like it. He loves to observe his treasures at his leisure, and I am basically giving him free rein to do that right now. “Good,” I pant. “I want to make you happy. I want to be a good girl for you.”

  “If you really want to be a good girl for me, Beth, you can do something for me. You can open your mouth for me and tip your head back. All the way back.”

  I don’t even give it a second thought. I am so eager to please him that I think he could ask anything of me right now and I would do it. I hear the sound of more material being removed or adjusted, I can’t tell which, and then there is a loop around my neck, and Raphael is tightening it. “Don’t worry, little one. Don’t worry. I have you. You’re safe here. Do you trust me?”

  Until recently, I might not have said yes to that question. Everything ha
s changed now, though. I don’t even think I’m the same human being anymore. I’m barely even human at all. I’ve transformed into this primal creature that thinks in terms of food for energy, for fuel, to keep me from passing out in the bedroom. Sleep, so I can rest and recuperate, so that I can be ready for the next time Raph wants me. I trust him implicitly, no matter what.

  “Yes,” I tell him. “I trust you, I swear.”

  “Good.” The loop around my neck is pulled tight, and a flash of panic explodes in my head. It’s a natural response; anyone in their right mind would freak out to feel a length of material fastening around their throats. The panic dies almost immediately, though. He won’t hurt me. He’ll never hurt me. I believe that to my very core.

  Raphael’s mouth is on mine, then, his lips crushing up against mine, firm and insistent. His kiss is a claim, a brand, filled with fire and need. His tongue sweeps inside my mouth, probing and exploring, tasting me, and I open myself to him, relishing the feel of his breath on my face. There’s a connection between us when he kisses me like this. Powerful. We’re two halves of a complex, confusing puzzle, snapping into place. Pieces that, when held up to the light and studied, appear as if they’d never fit together. But we do.

  My hands close into fists behind my back, digging my fingernails into my palms. I can feel the breaking point of my skin, and I know that if I press just a little harder, I’ll be bleeding.

  Raphael bites at my bottom lip, tugging at my mouth. He pulls back when I gasp, laughing under his breath again. “You belong to me,” he pants. “You’re my possession. If I tell you to open your mouth, you do it. If I tell you to suck, you do it. If I tell you to lick, you do it. If I tell you to open your legs for me, you do it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I…I under…stand.”

  “So open your mouth for me, Beth. Do it now. I’m gonna push myself to the back of your throat.”