by Ella James
He steps into a bathroom with sunflower wallpaper, a pale stone floor, a podium-style sink, and an enormous, raised garden tub.
He sets me beside the tub, turns on the water, and looks me briefly in the eye before he kneels in front of me and strips my panties off. They’re torn from earlier, barely hanging on my hips. He stands up to unfasten my bra, and the instant his hands brush my back, I know I’m lost to him again. His fingertips trail fire.
My breasts bounce free, drawing his eyes. I’m surprised when he doesn’t touch them—just lets his gaze linger, then wraps his hands around my waist and sets me in the bath. The water is hot, so hot it burns a little as my skin adjusts to it.
“Sit down,” he orders, and I obey without a thought. He leans over the tub’s side, puts his fingers on my temples, and lowers my head back, under the faucet. His fingers are hard, not gentle. Is he frustrated? Just annoyed? I was pretty stupid, I guess, but did saving me really put him out so terribly?
With every stroke of his hands through my tangled hair, he seems tenser. I’m extra aware of my body, prone before him. Aware of his chest. How dark his skin is. How deep the ridges of muscle around his pecs and abs; his huge biceps.
He’s washing my hair. Taking his time. And yet I still feel his…intensity.
“You don’t need to do this,” I murmur, even as he rubs his fingertips pleasantly against my scalp.
“Your assessment of my needs or yours isn’t very valuable right now.” He doesn’t return the look I give him, but opens a bottle of shampoo and pools a pink, half-dollar-sized circle in his palm. With his left hand still supporting my head, he tells me, “Shut your eyes.”
I shut my eyes and consciously decide to let my worries go. I almost died. He saved me. I’m still here, and this feels good. I’m tired of second-guessing everything.
I allow myself relish the feeling of his hands soaping my hair. I can feel him breathing. Feel his arms flex as his fingers work. Every few seconds, he touches my face: a brush of his forearm on my cheek, the base of his palm on my temple. I struggle not to shiver.
Then he tilts my head into the stream of water from the faucet. He smooths his hands back through my hair, working the soap out with firm, massaging motions. Oh, God.
Is it insane that I almost drowned, and now I’m daydreaming about having him between my legs?
His fingers continue their ministrations, massaging as he directs my head left and right, forward and back. He’s still tense. Or angry or frustrated. Whichever, I feel sure it’s because of me. After one final, shiver-inducing sweep through my hair, he lets me go.
I expect him to say something—maybe about how he was very busy doing important island-related things, and the time he spent saving me could have been spent nursing a wounded seagull to health.
Instead, when I open my eyes, I find him climbing over the side of the tub. He’s still shirtless, wearing just wet slacks. His chest is so much wider than his hips; it looks enormous in the dim light of the bathroom. My gaze roves his abs, following his happy trail down past the waist of his slacks, to the bulge I knew I’d find. Knowing what he really looks like underneath his clothes makes me feel…hungry.
This is insane. Until this point, I told myself sex with him was just a…I don’t know. A fluke. A Red-gone-crazy, beautiful-asshole-taking-advantage, ridiculous, fantastical fluke.
I don’t even know him. We have nothing in common except this chemistry.
Why do we ignite each other this way?
All I know is he’s crouching down over me, sinking down into the water with his slacks on, and I’m wondering why he didn’t take them off.
Water laps around his chest. I think if I live to be older than Gertrude, I will never forget the way he looks right now. That stunning face, those black eyes, and that sweet-Jesus-amazing chest.
His face is tight, almost pained as he raises his hands to each side of my face. At first I think he’s going to kiss me, but his mouth doesn’t soften. He doesn’t tilt his head closer. He sets his fingers on the sides of my forehead and drags his thumbs along my temples.
“Lean against me, Red.”
His glorious fingers rub my forehead in some magic way that erases weeks and weeks of tension as my shoulders sag. I’m propped against him, giddy on the inside, so relaxed I’m losing track of time.
My mouth twitches. “If you’re trying to earn my support…with the island…this is a good way to start.”
I smile a little, and when I cut my eyes up so I can see a sliver of his face through my hair and his arms, I’m surprised to find he looks grave. I tense a little, but his fingers keep on soothing. It’s as if he’s telling me two different things. His fingers say, It’s okay—relax, but the rest of him says, Something wicked this way comes.
Abruptly, he moves his hands off my head and neck and sits back on his knees. I’m so relaxed it takes me a second to lift my head. When I do, I find him looking at me pointedly. He’s calm but coiled.
“I want to know,” he says slowly, “what possessed you to get in the ocean.” His eyebrows narrow. “Are you a swimmer?”
I bite my lip, feeling like an errant child. “I used to swim. In college”
His eyebrows pull together, as if maybe I’ve given the wrong answer. “And then you were a writer.”
I sit up a little straighter. Pull my dripping hair over my shoulder and start to wring it out. “I still am,” I tell him quietly. “Not like Gertrude—but I guess you know that. You know all about me, don’t you?”
His face is still a solemn mask. “I know some.”
It’s a testament to how insane I’ve gone that a part of me likes this. He must have gone to a lot of trouble to put the money into my bank account. How on earth did he even get the number? I’m not quite sure I want to know. I shift into a different position, leaning against the side of the tub, and look back up at him. I wait a moment for him to say more, and when he doesn’t, I squeeze my hair out, feeling inexplicably nervous.
“I still don’t understand why you gave me the money.”
He blinks. “You needed it, didn’t you?”
“You know I did. That’s why you took it away. To control my decision about the island.” I thought he was an asshole before, but now I think there’s a little more to it than that. “You’re a control freak, aren’t you?”
I watch his face carefully for some validation, but he gives none. He straightens his spine, so I can see all of his pecs and the top of his smooth abs over the surface of the tub. He asks his next question slowly, his mouth moving before the words come out. “Did you think you would make it back to the island?”
“What?”
“When you were swimming.”
“That seems like a random question.”
His eyebrows arch. “Did you think you would make it back?”
I exhale slowly. “No. I didn’t.” I rub my forehead. I thought I would drown. “What does that have to do with you being a control freak?”
He leans forward slightly. “What was that feeling like?” He sounds so serious. It almost scares me.
“The feeling of almost drowning?” I think about the question honestly. “It was freeing.”
“Why?”
“Are you a psychologist?” He has that vibe: that intense, mind-fucker vibe about him. The one that makes it so I’m not ever sure what to expect from him, or how I feel toward him.
“I’m not a psychologist. But I’d like to know.”
I pull in a deep breath. The air feels steamy from the bath. I look down at the water, stained dark by his slacks-clad lower body. Then I look into his eyes. “I don’t know why it was freeing. I guess because I thought my worries would be over. I could just stop trying.”
How pathetic. I must be a weaker person than I thought if all it takes to do me in is losing my boyfriend and my job. I wrap my arm around my breasts, feeling exposed.
Race moves slightly closer. The water ripples around him. He looks right into my eyes and a
sks, “You’re tired, aren’t you, Red?”
I’m surprised to feel my eyes sting with tears. I guess I really am exhausted. I should never have gone swimming in the open ocean like that. “I’m really tired,” I murmur. And stupid.
And ashamed.
I start to get up, to get out of the tub. I want to go to sleep right now. Just find a bed and collapse.
I’m rising up on my knees when Race’s hand closes around my wrist. “Stay there, Red. I’ll get a towel.”
I nod. I think I need to get away from him. Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving. He can have this island. I’ll take his ten thousand dollars down to Florida, where I can be alone.
Pain twists in my chest, and I realize for the first time that it’s what I feel that I deserve. This aloneless that I’ve had for so long. First Dad, then Mom, and now my fabled grandmother. Everyone snatched away. Maybe that’s why I’m so intoxicated by this man. Because I’ve finally realized I have no one else.
I watch his body as he gets out of the tub. His slacks show me every delicious line of his body: his grabable ass and his very nice package. He trails water to a cabinet. It drips off his hands and down his slacks as he gets a soft, pink towel. He holds it open as he steps back, but I sit there for a minute, feeling ridiculously raw.
“Don’t be shy. Your body is beautiful.” I stand, and he folds the towel around me. He turns me so my back’s to his chest and rubs his hands all over me, warming me. His voice, when he speaks, is a rumble in my ear. “I have a proposition for you, Red.”
He turns me to face him.
His eyes glitter with the reflection of the water.
I can see his hardness through his pants.
“Stay here with me. Rest. You’ll want for nothing, and you won’t have to make any decisions.” He sinks slowly to his knees, pushes the towel aside, and finds my pussy with his tongue—giving me a long kiss before he pulls away. I can feel his breath against my thigh as he looks up at me. “You’ll be satisfied in every way you can imagine.”
He wraps both arms around my butt and ducks under my towel. He pushes his tongue between my lips, licking as my legs quiver. I’m panting in seconds, sliding to my butt on the floor with my legs spread and Race between my knees. He glides a finger inside me—moves it in a slow, slick glide; he kisses my nipple, pulls away, looks down at me.
“I want you to agree, Red. This could be incredibly fulfilling—for us both.”
I pull back, despite the way my body calls for his. I feel like I barely have control of myself, and I’m not sure how much I like that.
“I would be your sex slave.” The words sound so strange.
“No, Red. I would take care of you. Take care of all your needs. And you’d take care of mine.”
Chapter Five
Red
I stare at him dazedly. Run his words back through my mind.
“I would help you forget about your life. Your many debts. Your painful voids. I would make you whole while you were here with me.” He leans closer, crowding me. All I can see is him. All I can feel is his body in between my legs.
“Do you know what a submissive is, Red?”
I nod. “But I don’t know that I’m one of those.”
He pulls his pants off and peels his boxer-briefs down. His cock juts up. It’s beautiful. So thick and long. “You want to touch this, don’t you?”
I swallow. Am I so obvious?
“I know because I can read you. I can spot a sub, Red. A beautiful sub is more precious than gold to someone like me. I could give you everything. Things you might not even know you want. I can give you what you need. Right now, I think you need to feel me in your hand. So come here—touch me.”
He sinks down to the rug and widens his knees just slightly, so I have an unobstructed view of his magnificent cock and balls. His eyes follow me as I crab-crawl toward him. When I’m close enough to sink down in between his legs, I can’t resist. He’s right. I want to touch him. Badly. I want to make him feel the way he made me feel.
I reach slowly down toward him. I close my fingers around his velvet shaft and rub my palm over his head. He leans back on his arms, his eyes sharp, drinking me in, his cock growing longer, thicker, harder under my fingers. I can feel his eyes on me even as I look down so I can grip him more tightly, glide my hand up and down.
I surprise myself by leaning over and sucking the head of him into my mouth. I’m hoping to surprise him, too, but his hips don’t jerk. His legs don’t move. He doesn’t even seem to breathe despite how very hard he is. I suck him in a little deeper, ease him out, and look up at him. He’s got his head leaned back, baring his smooth, tanned throat. I want to bite it—so I do. I climb up his prone body to bite him near his collar bone. My other hand keeps a tight grip on his shaft.
I lean back down and trace my tongue around him, moving slowly from base to head. Now his legs tighten, and I love it. His cock hardens; it stiffens so much I’m not sure I can fit it down my throat.
“Take me, Red. I want you to take me in your mouth.”
I nod. I open wide and lower my mouth over his head, making it my goal to take in as much of him as I can handle. I don’t make it within three inches of his base, but when I have most of him, I gently cup his balls and stroke my other hand at the bottom of his shaft.
He groans, reaching out to tangle his fingers in my damp hair.
He puts his other hand on my shoulder and rocks further into my mouth.
“Take all of me,” he says as I pull him deeper.
I suck my cheeks, and am rewarded when he groans. I swirl my tongue around his head and lick down his shaft, then take him all back into my mouth again. I stroke his balls, and he grits, “Fuck. Keep doing that.”
My hand tickles under his balls. He lays—more like falls—down on his back and props his arms behind his head. His chest looks huge. His hands form fists.
His eyes slit open. He looks slightly dazed. Relaxed, but still sharp. Focused on me.
“You want to see me lose control, Red?”
I nod.
“Slide a finger inside.”
“Inside…?” I look down at his taut balls, imagining what’s behind them as my eyes widen. A guy like Race—I’m surprised that he would go for that.
“Don’t be shy, Red. I can take it.”
I’m shaking a little as I push his heavy sac out of my hand’s path, but I do it. As I tickle the area between his dick and ass, he exhales slowly.
I find my mark. He grunts as I push my index finger into him and groans as I slide deeper. His cock stiffens and swells until he’s panting. I can’t deny I’m getting wet, too. “Slide it in and out, Red.” He sounds hoarse, unraveled.
I slide my finger in and out and am stunned to see wetness pearling on the head of him.
He groans, a rough, dry sound, and I bend down to lick the moisture off. His hands lock on my shoulders. “Red.” I slide my finger slightly out, then work it in. He sucks a breath in. “Jesus, Red.”
“Am I…doing it right?”
He nods, his eyes on me slightly unfocused. “Suck me again.”
I search his face for evidence that he’s being honest—that I’m really doing okay. I slide my hand underneath his tightening, and for the first time in my life, I can’t wait to suck cock.
I want to hear him moan.
I open as wide as I can and glide down almost to his base. If I concentrate, I can coordinate my movements: sucking my cheeks in to stimulate his head, tightening my lips around his shaft, gliding my tongue here and there. Rolling the top of my hand under his heavy sac and moving in and out of him with my finger.
His hands come down on my head. He pulls my hair. “Red. Fuck.”
I can tell he’s almost there because his ass lifts off the ground and he thrusts into my mouth. A few seconds later, he jerks forcefully away from me. My first thought is he was about to come, but in a heartbeat, he’s got me on my back. He’s spreading my thighs and parting my slick lips and pushing
into me.
I gasp as he fills me so deliciously.
“Fuck Red. Fuck.”
He lays his chest over mine, and his weight pins me to the floor. He pumps frenziedly, holding roughly to my hips, paying no heed to my reactions as he uses my body. I shut my eyes as little wails escape my lips because it feels so good.
He thrusts so hard I slide across the floor.
“Wrap your legs around me, Red.”
I obey. He thrusts once more, his eyes squeezed shut. Then they pop open. “Come for me, Red. Come.”
And I do. I come and come and come.
And when I’m done, it’s back into the bath. He gets in with me, settling me atop his lap. He faces me away from him and presses his mouth against my throat.
“Did you like what we just did?” he rumbles.
“I like it all.”
“How did you like doing what you did to me?”
I turn my head so I can look into his eyes. Why is he asking me these things? What does he want me to say? “I liked pleasuring you,” I confess—an almost whisper.
“You know what I liked the most?”
I shake my head.
“Even with your finger in my asshole—even when you have me totally prone—you look to me for instructions.”
Did I really? God, I guess I kind of did.
“And when I changed the course of things, when I fucked you, you liked it. Didn’t you? You liked giving up control.”
I bite my lip. I can’t believe I did. I’m usually on top of things. Organized, successful. Isn’t that who I’ve always been? But he’s right. He’s totally right. When I’m with him, all of that just seems to fade away. Along with my anxieties.
“Don’t look so troubled. I like control. I’m good at it.” He kisses my neck, tickling me with his short beard. Still, he’s surprisingly gentle. He wraps one arm around me and pulls me against his chest. He cups my breast and tweaks the nipple with his thumb and forefinger. Toying with me. Making me feel breathless again.
“Tell me that you’ll stay. Let me fuck you like this every day. One week. That’s all we need.”