by Vivian Wood
He glanced up at her. “Olive oil is good for you,” he said.
“How come?”
“Good fats,” he said. She hated that word. “Antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties. It’s supposed to help with preventing strokes, heart disease—”
“You make it sound like I’m eighty years old.”
He shrugged. “If you waited until you’re eighty to start taking care of your body, you probably wouldn’t be in a very good position.” Sean started to chop up a head of cauliflower.
“Maybe you’re right.” She picked at one of the pieces of cauliflower and chewed on the white blandness mindlessly.
“You might want something on that,” Sean said. He smiled at her kindly. “Here, I’ll show you.”
11
Sean
He woke up late, aware from the way the sun poured through the butcher paper that it was close to midday. Sean groaned and checked his phone. Almost eleven.
He hadn’t heard Harper at all. Normally, he was woken up by her blending of smoothies in the morning for her pre-gym protein. Sean pulled himself out of bed and adjusted his morning erection. Already, dreams of the previous night escaped him, but he knew they had all been of Harper. They always were.
“Hey,” he said as he opened his bedroom door. She was curled up on the couch. A book rested on her knees.
“Hi,” she said. For once, the smile that spread across her face was easy and natural. It was the first time since they’d moved in together.
“You haven’t eaten?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not in the mood for a smoothie,” she said.
“How about brunch?”
“Okay,” she said.
He made his way to the kitchen. Yesterday, when she asked him to cook for her, it had been a sign. That was his way back to her. Sean pulled out a half-dozen eggs from the fridge and a packet of English muffins. He cracked the shells and started to whisk egg yolks with lemon juice in a stainless steel bowl for hollandaise sauce.
He heated a saucepan with a thin layer of water. As he drizzled in butter and watched the sauce thicken and double in size, he sensed Harper behind him. Afraid to say anything, worried that it might scare her away, he reached for the salt and cayenne.
“Are you making eggs benedict?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know people actually made that.”
He laughed as he started to brown bacon in a skillet. “Did you think they just appeared?”
“I don’t know!” she said. He handed her two English muffins to toast. “I thought they were really hard to make. Like, only chefs made them.”
“They’re not hard,” he said. He broke another egg into the water and reduced the heat to a simmer.
“How do you know when they’re done?” she asked. Harper peered into the pan.
“Practice,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“About three and a half minutes,” he said. “Watch for the egg white to set but the yolk should still be soft.” He removed one of the eggs with a slotted spoon and let it drain over a paper towel. As he carefully assembled the benedict and spooned the poached egg on top of the bacon, he seasoned both plates with salt and pepper. Finally, with the hollandaise poured over them and a garnish of chopped parsley, he handed Harper her plate.
She looked at it like it was a science experiment. Sean could see numbers and calculations flying across her face. “Just try it,” he said gently. “It’s good for you.”
He ushered her toward a seat at the kitchen island and kept an eye on her while he put more bacon into the pan and pulled out the pancake mix. “You’re making more?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“You haven’t had breakfast or lunch, have you?”
She didn’t answer, but when he pushed the freshly cooked bacon onto her plate, she made a face and started blotting at the strips. “How many calories are in bacon?” she asked.
“Does it really matter? Just enjoy it.”
She gave him a look like a surly teenager. He watched her as she nibbled on everything, going at the egg whites with more gusto than anything else. When the first batch of pancakes were done, he forked two onto her plate, but Harper shook her head vehemently. “No more,” she said.
He sighed and looked at her plate. For her, she’d eaten a decent amount, though it still wasn’t nearly enough to count as sustenance.
“You interested in working out together again?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” he said. “It’s Sunday. I thought maybe we could lounge on the couch and watch a movie first. We can decide if we want to work out later.”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly.
“Hey. How about you choose the movie?”
“Really?” she asked, brightening.
“Go on, I’ll clean up.”
Harper rushed to the living room while he rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. By the time he made it to the living room, she had Mean Girls cued up on Netflix.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“You said I could choose.” She pulled a face that dared him to disagree.
They sat on opposite ends of the couch like armies readying for battle. Eventually, Harper propped her feet up on the couch, taking up two-thirds of it. “You want a foot rub?” Sean asked.
She looked startled, but bit her lip and nodded.
He started at her perfectly dainty feet, cold to the touch. Sean warmed them, surprised at the softness—especially with all the working out and those insanely high heels she wore. When he worked his way to her bare calves, she didn’t react. The rolled-up boxers she wore as pajama bottoms had hiked up so high that his hands had miles of flesh to explore.
Sean reached her thigh and she squirmed. When he raised his eyes to hers, there was a hunger in there he hadn’t seen in weeks. She lunged at him. Her lips met his as her arms snaked around his neck.
Without thinking, he kissed her back. Harper’s hand twisted around the front of his t-shirt and she pulled him closer. That kind of desire, that dominance, was new in her. Any other time, he’d despise it, but something about it being her made him harden instantly.
Sean pulled off her tank top and yanked down her shorts. She wore no bra, no underwear, nothing. If he’d known the only thing that stood between him and her ethereal body were a few wisps of cotton, it would have been impossible to make it through brunch without bending her over the island and fucking her senseless.
He stood up and cradled her into his arms. Her mouth consumed his and she tugged at his shirt uselessly as he carried her to his bedroom. “No,” he said as he tossed her onto the mattress. Her breasts bounced and her nipples hardened when she hit the black duvet.
Sean leaned over her and pinned her hands above her head with one hand. “You don’t want to know what will happen if you move your hands. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
He was hard as a rock, but the desire to taste her, consume her, overpowered everything else. Sean worked his way from her hungry mouth to the salt of her collarbone. He took one nipple between his lips and sucked while she writhed and moaned.
As he flicked his tongue across her abdomen, he caught a scent of her desire. Harper’s legs were spread wide, eager, her clit already swollen with want.
He dipped his tongue into her wet folds and heard her cry out. Still, she kept her hands above her head in an invisible bind. For an hour, he teased her clit. She tried to grip his head with her thighs, to fuck his face while following his rules, but each time he’d firmly push open her thighs.
Sean refused to indulge in any pleasure for himself. You have a lot to make up for, he told himself as he slid the tip of his tongue inside her. Harper’s taste, the sweet muskiness, was addictive. She was so wet he couldn’t imagine it would keep up, but even after an hour the flow of her juices never stopped. With every orgasm, she gushed more and he ardently la
pped her up.
“Please,” she begged after another orgasm. He felt the tremors throughout her body, how her limbs had become heavy and languid. Sean didn’t want to, but he acquiesced. It’s the only way to show you I care.
He pulled himself up beside her and gently lowered her hands. She continued to shake as she rode the afterglow of her orgasms. With one arm resting heavily across his chest and a leg wrapped around his, he felt the warm stickiness of her center spread over his thigh. “I want you,” she said. Her eyes were heavy but her voice was thick with desire. “I need you, all of you,” she whispered into his ear. “I just missed you so much …”
With a growl, he rolled on top of her. Harper’s legs immediately wrapped around his torso and her heels pulled him against her. He slammed into her and it felt like home.
Harper’s eyes were screwed shut as her nails dug into his back. “Yes,” she called out. “Fuck me, thank you. Thank you—”
He buried his head into her neck and breathed in the sugary scent of her. He wasn’t going to last long, not this time. “I love you,” he breathed into her hair as he released himself into her. She gasped and pulled him deeper inside her, thirsty for every last drop of him.
12
Harper
He’d taken her body beyond the limits she thought they knew. Harper lost track of how long they’d been in his bed. The cover had long been pushed onto the floor. Sean had taken the length of the black silk flat sheet to create a complicated bind.
“Hojojutsu,” he’d said as he cinched the material behind her back.
“What?”
“Don’t question me,” he said sharply. “It’s the name of the bind.”
The cool silkiness of the sheets were softer than what he’d used before, the rough ropes and police-grade handcuffs. But the intricacy of it, the long ropes of material, made her even more aware of how vulnerable she was.
“Well?” Sean asked. He’d secured the last knot and stood beside the bed. He reached for the full-length mirror next to the bedside table and angled it toward her.
When she saw her reflection, she almost gasped aloud. The contrast of her milky skin against the oil blackness of the sheets, the ties, was almost unnerving. He’d slipped the material around the smallest part of her waist and it framed her breasts. He leaned over and spread her knees wider apart. On her lower half, the black sheet outlined her mound like crotchless underwear. “Do you see how fucking hot you look?” he asked, his voice low against her ear.
She shivered.
“Answer,” he commanded.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“And it’s all mine,” he said. “Say it.”
“It’s all yours.”
“You’re all mine.”
“I’m all yours,” she repeated.
He straightened up before her and went to the closet. When he returned with a basketball, she raised her brows at him. “Sit on this,” he instructed. She struggled with her arms bound behind her back, but arched herself up so he could situate the nubby orange ball between her legs.
“Now,” he said as he opened the laptop. “Remember this?” He opened a folder and plugged the desktop speakers into the laptop. She heard her own cries of pleasure before anything showed up on the screen. It was deafening, her calls filled the room.
A video of them in the penthouse of the hotel weeks ago appeared on the screen. She blushed and looked away as the Harper on screen greedily dropped to her knees, her hands bound behind her back in handcuffs, and took his cock into her mouth.
“Don’t look away,” he said brusquely. “You’re to watch.”
He moved behind her on the bed. She could sense his heat behind her, but he didn’t touch her.
“You’re going to keep watching,” he instructed slowly, “and I’m not going to touch you. Not until you’ve covered that entire ball with your juices. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. On the screen, she watched the Sean of weeks ago stand her up and bend her over the couch. She’d quickly spread her legs and presented her ass to him. However, at the time, she hadn’t seen the way he’d gingerly trailed his fingertips along her curves, or the way he’d drunk in her body with so much desire. As the Sean on screen gripped her hips and entered her, he closed his eyes with an expression of so much ecstasy it was almost impossible to keep watching.
From behind her he leaned into her ear. “Look how badly you want me,” he whispered. On the screen, she called out his name over and over. He’d picked her up and set her on the couch where she opened her legs as wide as possible. Even on the small screen, and in that dark room, it was clear how wet she was.
Harper watched as the two of them on screen moved in an animalistic rhythm. Every time he drove into her on the screen, she felt it all over again.
“Good girl,” he said. She looked down and saw a series of wet trails lick down the basketball. “Watch this,” he said. “You’re about to squirt all over that twenty-thousand dollar couch.”
On the screen, she watched herself squeeze her eyes shut as she called out, “I’m coming! Oh, fuck, you’re making me come.”
“Come for me,” the Sean on screen demanded. “Right now.”
“Oh, fuck!” The stream of her come was evident even with the somewhat grainy footage. The on-screen Sean leaned back to watch. The approval on his face was unmistakable.
“That’s right,” Sean said behind her. “That’s a good girl.”
She realized she’d started to grind against the basketball, but she didn’t care. On the screen, Sean had reached down to work her clit as she orgasmed, and it forced a new stream of come from her.
“Almost there,” he said. She looked down and was shocked by the rivers of wetness that raced down the ball. It was nearly completely soaked.
On the screen, Sean bent down to lick up every last trace of her orgasm. She could nearly feel his tongue on her. “Are you going to come?” he asked. She’d started to bounce on the ball, and didn’t give a damn how desperate she looked. She wanted to be treated like an animal, like a bitch.
“Close,” she whispered. “I’m close.” The unfamiliar roughness of the ball between her legs excited her, but as the Sean on the screen buried his face between her legs and his voice in her ear urged her toward orgasm, it was almost too much to bear.
“Does my sweetheart need some help?” he asked.
“Yes,” she urged. “Yes, please.” A few more bounces and she’d come all over that ball.
“What’s your go word?” he asked.
“Gomorrah,” she panted. “Please help me.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her and gripped a length of the taut sheet in his hand. He began to circle her clit with his other hand, commanding an instant orgasm. Harper screamed out in unison with her image on the laptop, coming at the same time as her counterpart from another life.
“You did good,” Sean said. He gently pulled the ball from beneath her and held it up so she could see there wasn’t even a sliver of dry space. “Taste,” he said, and she dutifully licked its rough orange surface.
He set it aside but left the video playing. “Lie back,” he instructed.
Harper collapsed onto the bed while shakes from the orgasm still rocked through her. Sean leaned down and kissed one pert nipple, then the other, both pushed out and swollen from the tightness of the bind. “Tell me what you want,” he said.
“More,” she murmured. She couldn’t help the exhaustion in her voice. “I want more.”
“Greedy today,” he said with a smirk. “How are those ties?”
“Okay …”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, sir.”
“How about we loosen some of them a little?”
He withdrew a six-inch straight blade knife from the tableside drawer and her eyes widened.
“It’s alright,” he said. “You know your safe words.” He loomed over her and traced the tip of the knife around her breasts. Harper
stiffened when the pointed end started to outline her areola, but she didn’t say a word. “Speak,” he said.
“Gomorrah,” she said, albeit with reluctance. Still, as the shining cold blade raked across her nipples, there was a fresh gush of wetness between her legs. Sean sensed it and quickly cut away one of the binds.
She held as still as possible as he teased the knife to her other breast, confident in her safety. He wouldn’t hurt her, she was sure of it. Just the finest of lines, not even a scratch, lingered where the knife had been. Within a minute, it would disappear entirely.
On her other breast, he was more languid, teased more. There was a moment, just a moment, when she thought he’d press too hard. “Eden,” she gasped out. He looked surprised, but moved the knife away from her nipple and lightened the pressure. Sean cut off another part of the complex bind, this one near her oblique muscle.
As he moved the knife downward, she grew even more wet. The danger, the coldness of the blade, all of it had her more ready than she’d ever been. He flicked the blade through the small strip of pubic hair at her mound. “Be still,” he cautioned as she opened her legs wider.
He dragged the knife slowly from her groin up her thigh to the inside of her knee. She wanted to wiggle, to ask him to bring it back to her center, but she didn’t dare. “Gomorrah,” she moaned, and hoped he understood.
Slowly, at a painstaking pace, he moved the blade back to her wetness. As he expertly maneuvered the blade around her outer labia, his other hand pressed her thigh open. Harper felt her clit swell, painful, as he started to explore her inner folds. “You need to trust me,” he said, “and hold very, very still.”
She gasped as she felt the tip of the blade at her entrance.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Talk to me.”
“I think so. Yeah. Gomorrah,” she said.
She felt the blade slip half an inch into her and wanted desperately for him to rub her clit to counteract the fear. “How about now?” he asked.
“I don’t … my clit,” she said softly, embarrassed.