Contract Taken (Contracted Book 1)

by Aya DeAniege

  Suddenly suspicious, I stared back at him and didn't take the popcorn.

  The whole thing seemed a bit over the top, given what I knew about people. I knew that there was always a catch when someone was overly nice.

  Cuddling and coddling and going out of the way to give someone something nice didn't fit with the image of the community that I was building inside my mind. To me, the two things were conflicting, and that just made me even more suspicious.

  “It's a type of extended aftercare," Nathaniel said. "Apparently, the first play session can leave one especially raw. Or once in a while a Sir might do something that—How did she describe it?—'lances a boil on your soul.' That can leave a sub appearing fragile. Either way, I'm to do extended aftercare. At least until Sunday when we go to the meeting. They'll be able to tell, even if you can't admit it to yourself."

  “And if that's not the case?” I asked.

  “If it was too much, we'll try to find you a more suitable position. You do seem to enjoy the life, and that has very little to do with the dresses and food and the estate you're living in. So we'd find you someplace that you could enjoy. Which may not be as a sub, it may be as a little or an occasional dabbler. There are lots of different types of subs, and each of them have their own Doms.

  “You could be trained to my pleasure, but that would require breaking your spirit, and I don't want to do that to you. That would make you a slave. I don't think you'd enjoy being a slave. You deserve better than that."

  “You can't make a person something they aren't.”

  “You can, just under certain circumstances. Mr. Wrightworth, for example, was able to take a straight man and make that man beg him for sex. It wasn't just during submission either. The man still bitches about it constantly because it's an itch now.”

  I gaped at Nathaniel, not quite processing what he said. It took me a moment to align my image of Mr. Wrightworth and what Nathaniel had just said the man had done. Sure, he had said that he was in the community and seemed to be interested in beatings and the like.

  But seducing a straight man for the sake of being able to claim he had done it? That seemed a bit far.

  “Yeah, imagine you suddenly craving a woman,” Nathaniel said, then his head went just slightly to the side. “Might not be the best comparison, now that I think about it.”

  “I was just touching them,” I protested.

  “That was clearly playing," Nathaniel said. "Not that I'm complaining or making a comment. I'm just trying to come up with a way to bring in a woman for you to explore with, without seeming like I'm trying to force a threesome. Threesomes are nice. Though the last one wasn't exactly the balance of gender, I would have preferred."

  “Did Mr. Wrightworth invite you to play with his not-quite-gay sub?” I asked with a small laugh.

  “Something like that,” Nathaniel said, reaching for the remote.

  “What, you're not going to elaborate?” I asked.

  “Oh, hell no," Nathaniel responded. "I don't want to scare you off threesomes before I get to have the nice version. Let's just say, sometimes we explore new things. Sometimes those new things aren't for us. But we're encouraged to give them a try unless they're causing us actual harm because a lot of time the reaction to something new that we enjoy is an awkward sort of disgust. We don't know what to make of the new sensation, so we assume it's bad."

  “So you went through with a threesome you wanted no part in?”

  “I did, and I ... fully participated.”

  I laughed at how he hesitated. Nathaniel smiled just slightly with the remote in his hand.

  “I'm glad you find it funny. They didn't afterward."

  “Oh, you didn't cry, did you?”

  “No,” Nathaniel said too quickly. “Like I'd cry in front of Mr. Wrightworth? He'd never let me hear the end of it.”

  “He'd probably love that,” I said. “Not because he wants to see you in that situation as a friend.”

  “I know what you meant, and I know that he would," Nathaniel murmured. "That's how we started off. He's let me forget that because we were children at the time, and because my father beat him twice as hard. Likes gay men less than he likes those who are in the community, as it turns out."

  “What about lesbians and bisexuals?” I asked.

  “As long as they're women, it's okay.”

  “That's weird.”

  “It's an odd double standard that Mr. Wrightworth will not put up with in the community. It's not against the law, for starters. Secondly, men shouldn't be upset with other men liking men because that leaves fewer men for those men to compete with. Any man caught making rude comments is promptly seduced, fucked, and left on the side of the road weeping."

  Again I stared at Nathaniel. The man looked at me, green eyes taking on that icy quality as if he dared me to ask the question that was dancing through my mind.

  Had he been dragged into a threesome because he had made a homophobic comment?

  I didn't ask, I was smarter than that, thankfully. As I struggled with whether I should ask that question or not, I shrugged off the blanket, draping it over the back of the couch once more. Suddenly I was too warm to sit under the blanket any longer.

  Instead, I said, "I could see him doing that. I could see them falling for that."

  “Not for me?” Nathaniel asked.

  “No, you're not pretty enough to seduce another man into bed.”

  “That's so mean of you to say, I spend hours on my hair, you know.”

  “I figured as much.”

  Nathaniel had been joking. I responded with all the seriousness of a poor person who had no idea what they were talking about. The man was quiet for a moment as he considered me.

  “I figured tonight we could watch a classic romantic comedy and then see how the night goes,” Nathaniel said after a moment of silence.

  “I don't think I've ever seen a romantic comedy,” I said.

  It took me a moment to realize that he had said 'see how the night goes.' Once my mind caught up to me, I did a double take.

  Even in the slums, that phrase meant that the night could end in sex.

  Nathaniel watched me quietly.

  His eyes flowed over the pink poodle skirt—it had an actual poodle embroidered on it—and up the black bodice. They hesitated just a moment as my chest heaved slightly because I sucked in a breath as I thought of the possibilities.

  For rich folk, that wording might have meant something else entirely. There were a few phrases that one side of the debt line had that meant something else entirely to the other side.

  “Yes, I meant we might have vanilla sex.”

  I looked at the popcorn bowl, to the television screen, then back to Nathaniel. All those items seemed to be standing in the way of my pleasure. I wondered if we could just forgo everything and go straight to the sex.

  For the first time in days, I felt a desire winding through me.

  “I see that I have your attention,” Nathaniel said quietly, edging just that little bit closer. “It goes movie and popcorn, then sex. No sex during the movie. Making out is allowed. Groping is allowed. But no oral, hand jobs, or full on sex. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Nathaniel leaned close to me, his warm breath on my ear as he whispered, “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said with a tremble.

  “Good,” his fingers grazed over my chin, up my jaw. “Was that a good, or a bad tremble?”

  “Good,” I moaned as his fingers trailed down my neck.

  Nathaniel smiled and remarked, yet again, “Good.”

  I didn't understand what it was with him and that word. I had supposed that he felt the need to fill the space with some affirmative, but couldn't understand why it was always the same word. Always the same tone and inflection as well, as if he were amused by my response.

  He pulled away suddenly and picked up the remote. With the press of a button, the movie began.

  I had never watched su
ch a movie before. I found myself mainly puzzled by the plot.

  The characters were, at least, attractive, but they were also stupid and unable to do anything rational. They met and then he was hit on the head, and somehow they fell in love. I ignored the fact that the man survived the blow to the head because I figured that was simply how pre-collapse movies worked.

  But who falls for someone like that, that fast?

  I cast Nathaniel a sidelong glance and caught him looking back at me.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly, turning back the screen.

  There was no way I was going to admit that I had just been silently complaining about a situation being unbelievable when I was practically in that exact situation. Although Nathaniel was a great deal more attractive than the male lead and we spent more time together in a day than those characters did throughout the entire movie.

  Not to mention the fact that he didn't feel anything like that for me.

  Sexual attraction maybe, but not a soul-mates sort of love. Lust was not the same thing as love. It was a fleeting emotion that could be abated with one sexual romp.

  He drew my face back to him.

  “A woman saying nothing is like a woman saying fine,” Nathaniel murmured.

  “I was just thinking about how ridiculous this movie's plot is,” I said.

  “Well, it's a comedy. So him getting hit in the head would have killed him if it weren't for the comedic nature of the movie. Or one could argue that everything after that point is a coma dream."

  “No, I mean, people don't just fall in love, soul mates love, when they've spent like four hours together over the course of three days,” I protested.

  “And then?” Nathaniel asked.

  “And then I realized that we've only been together a little while,” I said, my voice becoming strangled as I tried not to say something stupid that made it sound like I had feelings for him.

  That was ridiculous. He was technically my employer. At no point had either of us said that feeling something was all right. Emotions hadn't been included in the contract that the pair of us had signed.

  “And?” Nathaniel said, pushing closer to me.

  We were pressed tight together. His warmth relaxed me, even though I didn't want to relax right then.

  “And perhaps I found myself realizing that I have feelings,” I said as I played with my skirt just under the poodle embroidery.

  “Feelings,” Nathaniel murmured.

  I sighed and looked away for a moment before I turned my face towards Nathaniel. The man had an eyebrow arched, watching me as I made a face.

  “I know you don't want to hear that. That's not why I'm here. Apparently, it's a natural part of two people being close to one another or—something—I'm not a rock, my emotions don't just shut down."

  “You have ... feelings for me?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What sort of feelings?” he murmured.

  I opened my mouth to say something, then promptly closed it.

  “No you don't have feelings for me, you don't need to drag it out of me and embarrass me because of a completely natural, emotional response. It's not like I'm going to do something stupid and throw myself at you when you look at someone else.”

  “Everyone has feelings for other people. I'm asking you what sort of feelings you have for me.”

  It was stupid to say love. Love was for married people and parents. It wasn't for cripples who could only find a job by trying to kill themselves, then being sold off like cattle. I certainly didn't tell people that I loved them.

  Because people don't love me.

  “Darling,” Nathaniel whispered. “Why won't you say it?”

  “I'm afraid,” I said.

  “You never need to be afraid to tell me anything,” Nathaniel said, his fingers trailing through my hair. “What do you feel for me?”

  “It,”—I took a long breath—“It might be love.”

  Nathaniel smiled and leaned his face in. “I might feelings you too.”

  I laughed. Nathaniel looked very serious as I laughed. He almost seemed to pout, but then he smiled and pulled me over onto his lap.

  “Feelings you a great deal,” he said, hands roving up my back as I continued to laugh. “This is very serious. Feelings someone is just the most serious discussion one can have.”

  And then he kissed me.

  It was light, teasing almost, as he turned with me on his lap and pushed me against the couch. His slid between my legs, pushing my skirt up.

  “Cold,” I said, trying to push the skirt back down.

  Nathaniel reached to where I had been sitting on the other side of the couch and dragged up the blanket, draping it over his back. It was so long that it draped down the edge of the couch, and there was spare against the back of the couch as well. The thick fabric combined with Nathaniel's heat warmed me up almost instantly.

  His hands ran under the blankets, up my legs and back down again. Then up the inside of my legs and down.

  I shuddered under his fingertips.

  Not quite soft, like most rich people hands, but not calloused like a poor person's. As his hands moved up and down my body, Nathaniel continued to kiss me. I writhed against the hot body above me.

  The movie all but forgot, we entertained ourselves with other things. Never crossing those boundaries he laid out at the start of the movie, Nathaniel did come dangerously close. Every stroke of his fingers, every nip of his teeth, made me shudder. His every motion stoked the fire in my belly.

  “Oh, Nathaniel,” I moaned, more than once.

  I dragged my fingers over his shoulders, pressed as close to him as I could. I shuddered whenever Nathaniel moved his attention to my neck and shoulders.

  His hands ran down between my legs and slid over my underwear. The fingers just barely grazed me, sending all kinds of jitters across my body.

  Suddenly Nathaniel was pulling away.

  “We need to move this to the bedroom.”

  With a whimper, I tried to push up against him. His hands were suddenly around my waist, holding me down as he stood, shrugging off the blanket. The sudden cold made me tremble in a different way. It was the dash of reality that I needed to come back to myself a bit.

  I stood and straightened my skirts, then my dress, as Nathaniel picked up the blanket and put it on the back of the couch. With a glance, I saw that we had, somehow, made it to the end of the movie. The credits were rolling across some blooper reel.

  Having straightened the blanket out, Nathaniel wrapped an arm around my midsection. He led me out of the entertainment room and into the hallway.

  “I'd throw you over my shoulder and carry you, but women tend to like walking, except in play,” Nathaniel murmured, pulling me towards his rooms.

  Once we were in his rooms, he pushed me away from him, towards the centre of the room as he turned to lock the door. Leaning on the door, Nathaniel turned and looked at me, biting his bottom lip. His eyes flickered over his room.

  Nathaniel sighed, loudly. “Now comes the difficult question.”

  “What question?” I asked.

  “In front of the hearth, on the floor, in the bed, in the shower,” Nathaniel seemed to struggle for a moment. “There are so many places I could have you, and I plan to use them all. But which do we use first?”

  I worked my hands nervously together as I considered the room. Finally, I turned back to Nathaniel, feeling as awkward as I had the first time I had had sex.

  “I've never done it in a bed,” I said.

  “Never done it—” Nathaniel hesitated, then nodded. “Right, let's start there. Just please don't say 'done it' like that. It's sex at it's most basic. This, however, this is not sex. This is making love. I'm going to tease every shudder out of you. Caress you until you beg me to be tied and had, but I'm not going to do it. I will touch every part of you until every inch is covered in kisses and caresses.”

  As he sp
oke, he approached me slowly. At that final 'caress' he reached out and grazed his fingers down my arm. The reaction was a tremble that began at the point he had touched and spread ever so slowly through my body. In the wake of the tingle, there was a delightful warmth flooding my limbs.

  “When you can take it no more, when you are on that point of release? That is when I will slide into you,” he hesitated, eyes falling on my chest as it heaved up and down. The curling heat was already winding its way through my belly. “And I will thrust,” he hesitated as I moaned involuntarily, “only when you beg me to.”

  He closed the last few inches between us.

  “This time, you may come as you please," he whispered. "But I won't stop until we are both satisfied."

  And he did just that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I'm joking, of course, I'm not just going to leave that up in the air. Yes, at one point I had considered leaving out most of the vanilla acts between Nathaniel and I. In the end, rationale won out.

  While those times with Nathaniel were very intimate, very personal, they were also a reflection of the coin.

  Where as during play he could be cold and even appear malicious at times, during love making Nathaniel was gentle and kind. In both sides of the relationship, he was thorough.

  Nathaniel led me towards the bed. We stopped at the edge, and I looked up at him, meeting those cool green eyes of his. I fought back the instinct to fling myself at him.

  In the slums, that was how it was done. All the clothing was thrown off, and sex happened as quickly as possible to prevent others from walking in on it. That was what I knew about sex, but I wanted to know what he had planned for me. Everything would go at his pace because I wanted to experience it the way he had planned.

  So I made no move to touch him, simply waited for him to come to me.

  Nathaniel reached out and slid his hand over my shoulder. His fingers danced across my back, to my throat where the dress tied behind my neck. In the wake of those fingers, trails of cold followed. My skin tingled from the light graze of his fingertips. I tried not to bite my lip or tremble.