Chapter 7
Cal had smiled down at her. “What about me? Tonight wasn’t about me, it was about you, sweetie.”
“But that’s not really fair, is it? Doesn’t that leave you... wanting?”
He couldn’t have been more surprised when she reached out to cover his zipper, which was no longer a rumpled line over his junk but rather a taut curve that was barely able to hold back the totality of what was behind it.
His smile faltered and he had to use all of his willpower not to let his eyes roll back into his head. Her innocently sexy little hand cupping him was damned near all she wrote for him.
Cal got a grip – barely – and cleared his throat. “I was, uh, going to take care of that situation myself, later.”
He watched her intently, and she seemed to ponder something. Then she looked up at him, and from the safety of his arms, with her lower body still pulsating with the needs he had both created and fulfilled within her, she asked, “Wouldn’t that be a bit of a waste, not to mention at the least a lonely pursuit?”
He swallowed hard, not daring to think she was suggesting what he would have given most of his fortune for her to actually be suggesting. “And by that you mean?” He wanted her to spell it out. He didn’t want any misunderstandings between them because he’d eagerly assumed she meant what he wanted her to mean.
Ellie’s lips met his and he was instantly drowning in her innocent sexuality. “Well, I’ve been thinking. Except for your annoying tendency to want to spend all your money on me,” he snorted at that, grinning like an idiot, “you haven’t really put a foot wrong with me. I really like you a lot as a person, and I’m tremendously attracted to you.” Those pearly whites were at her lower lip again as she stared at the neckline of his shirt, then glanced up at him with a timidity that he hadn’t much associated with her. “Would you consider being my first?”
He looked a little wary, and it made Ellie’s heart sink. “Your first what?”
She hit him on the shoulder, only managing to hurt her own hand. “What do you mean, my first what!”
He had to chuckle at just how insulted she was. She was cute when she was affronted. “Well, what do you mean by ‘first’, exactly? There are a lot of things that could qualify.”
Her face was more serious than he’d ever seen it when she said, “Yeah, but there’s only really one big first for a woman.”
Cal’s smile evaporated as if it had never been. “Oh, you mean that one?”
“I do,” she said solemnly.
He tightened his arms around her. “You’re sure? I’m not making you feel rushed or pressured in any way?”
Ellie snorted, shaking her head vehemently. “Oh, no. Exactly the opposite. Not that I want to give you a swelled head, or anything—”
“Too late,” he interjected, glancing down at himself and then back up at her.
But she glared up at him. “You know what I mean. You’ve...” She struggled with how to put it in the best way, knowing his ego was going to inflate to horrendous levels. But she was going to speak the absolute truth, regardless, and put it as baldly as she could think of. “Well, quite frankly, I couldn’t have fantasized you better.” After a few seconds of further thought, she added, “I didn’t, haven’t fantasized anyone better for me than you’ve been. Like I said, you really haven’t put a foot wrong. You’re sympathetic and empathetic and understanding, and at the same time you can – when you want to – come off as autocratic and pushy.” Her arms looped around his head. “I like that in a man, sometimes. Or at least in one that I think isn’t just looking to get some. You’ve been amazingly patient – more so than any other man I’ve ever met. And you’ve been just right stern with me. And the orgasms – whew – another way I couldn’t have done it better myself, and I’m not just blowing sunshine up your ass, either. It’s true. If it wasn’t, you know me. I’d’ve already complained to you about it. Have you heard me complain once – except about you spending too much money on me?”
“Yeah, well, you got a lesson about that, didn’t you, Miss Ellie?”
“And, as horrible as it was, and as much as I don’t want to tell you, but that was perfect, too. It hurt, but I didn’t feel abused or mishandled or manhandled. You... you know how I want to be treated, and if all else fails, you treat me like you know I need to be treated. I don’t think I’m going to find that anywhere else out there.”
Cal wasn’t about to argue any further with her about it. He’d been just about as patient as he could be, and she was offering herself to him. He was a man, not a saint, and he wasn’t going to apologize for what he wanted, which was her beneath him.
And then he made it so.
But this wasn’t at all how he’d pictured it. He’d thought she would tell him she was willing and then he’d plan a grand night for them, roses, champagne, caviar, in a big expensive hotel suite and he’d lay her out on a big bed – both of them gloriously nude – and slip into her just as she began to contract with her first orgasm of the evening, so that the bliss would distract from the pain.
As it was, he reached down between them and freed himself, his cock springing forth practically right into her. He rocked his hips back, moving himself away from her, away from temptation until he’d captured a hand in each of his, lacing his fingers through hers and pressing the backs of her hands into the cushion beside her head. Only then did he allow himself to come to rest just outside her body.
Still somewhat unwilling to believe that he was going to do this, he asked her again. “You’re sure you want to do this? We can wait. I don’t want you to feel that you have to do this for whatever reason.”
Ellie shh’d him. “Stop. I don’t. It will be right with you.”
“It might hurt – in fact, it probably will hurt, considering my size and girth and your lack of both, and how tight you are.” His breath hissed in through his teeth as those words filled his mind. “Although, I’ll be as gentle as I can.” He hoped he wasn’t lying to her. His intention was to treat her as carefully and tenderly as he could, but his body might have other priorities. It would be a test of his will, one way or the other.
She nodded, smiling softly, as if she had all the faith in the world in him. “I know you will.”
He was deeply flattered, but he wished he could share her confidence.
Taking a deep breath, he flexed his hips forward and immediately encountered resistance, but he continued to press against it. Ellie’s face had rapidly turned from one of serene acceptance to one that showed not a small amount of distress.
For all his slow going, he was beginning to think that it wasn’t the way to go, that it was merely prolonging the discomfort. So he adjusted himself again, out of her, hearing her sign in relief, and released her hands so that he could brace himself on his arms.
“Put your hands on my biceps, baby.” He didn’t tell her what he was going to do, not wanting her to tense up in anticipation. And as soon as she had obeyed him, he drove himself into her, ignoring her startled cry, ignoring the way she clutched at him spasmodically, and seating himself deep within her.
When he looked down at her, one tear had escaped her eye and he kissed it away, whispering, “I’m sorry, Ellie.”
She surprised him by opening her eyes and smiling up at him. “Don’t be. You feel wonderful inside me.”
He knew that part of what she was saying was just to make him feel better because he could feel her contractions as her body tried to come to grips with the pole-like length it was impaled on, and she winced with each one.
And then he began to move, and from the first time he withdrew entirely then carefully pressed himself back into her, she wiggled beneath him and caught his eye. “Harder.”
Cal’s eyebrow went up. “You’re sure?”
“Yes, please. If you hurt me, I’ll tell you.” And he lost it entirely when her voice went all high pitched and plaintive, “Please, Cal – harder?”
She would have sworn that she heard him growl
as he plunged back into her, and suddenly he collapsed down on top of her, capturing her hands again and putting them into the same helpless position as they had been before while his hips pistoned against her.
He tried to listen for any signs that she was in pain, but his body was too intent on its own pleasure – and besides, all he could hear from her were moans of increasing intensity and length, until she began to writhe beneath him, finding her own strength and rocking her hips up to meet his downward strokes, and making them both groan loudly.
At the end, he could tell she was close and he did his best to hold off as she chanted, “Oh my God!” under her breath. Just when he was on the verge of losing it, she went stiff beneath him, her hips thrusting up to meet his; her body spasming around him as well as the somewhat surprised look on her face sending him reeling over the edge, fucking her even harder those last few times as he spurted deep within her, groaning loudly next to her ear.
The both of them panted heavily in each other’s arms, and Cal had to admit that he truly enjoyed the way she stroked her hand up and down his back.
“I should get off,” he said, trying to lever up and away from her.
Her grin was mischievous. “I thought you just did.”
As he got up, her phone rang, the sound harsh and almost unreal, somehow after the bliss they’d experienced together, and he busied himself hunting down her clothes, then heading to the bathroom to clean up. He – as always – did his best not to eavesdrop, but, as had happened before, when she was signing off the call, she called him by his name.
Carter.
The first time that had happened, he had called and had a talk with his brother, who was four years younger than he was. They had been very close while they were growing up, but long about the time Carter went off to college and Cal was home trying to gently assume the reins of the business from their elderly and failing father, they somehow lost track of each other. He wasn’t interested in assigning blame – as far as he was concerned they were both at fault; neither bothered to take the time to keep their connection up.
But it seemed now that every time he tried to reach out to Carter, the young man was, at best, evasive and vague, never seeming to have the time or the interest in seeing him.
And now he had to admit to himself that he saw his brother was a rival for the woman he had – seconds ago – claimed as his, who was not supposed to be seeing anyone else.
This was, however, a delicate situation. Despite her reassurances, it was hard for him to believe that she and Carter were just friends. His younger brother was suave and smooth and had been a chick magnet all his life; he’d always had many more female friends than male, all through school and, Cal assumed, college.
But this... he didn’t think he was going to handle this very well at all, and it worried him because, having acknowledged that, he knew he could very well be putting his relationship with Elise in jeopardy. She was allowed to have friends – as far as he knew, though, his brother was the only male friend she had. He prided himself on not being that kind of a guy, who cloistered a girl and forced her to jettison her friends and family in order to spend all of her time with him.
And yet that was pretty much what he could feel himself drifting towards doing in regards to his brother and the woman who had just become his lover.
“Good night, Carter. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need me. Love you.”
Love you? She’d not even said that to him, and yet she was saying it to him? Cal was truly surprised by the ferocity of the wave of jealousy that washed over him. If he’d been near a wall, he’d’ve probably punched his fist clean through it.
For her part, when she hung up, Ellie could feel the tension in the room. Despite the fact that they had spoken about his brother on more than one occasion, and she had reassured him that he was just a very good friend and no kind of romantic rival for her attentions in the least, he still seemed to distance himself from her whenever he found out they’d had contact of any kind – phone calls, dinners, etc. He wasn’t like that with anyone else. In fact, he’d told her that that was not the kind of D/s relationship he wanted to have, that he understood that she needed to have friends of her own and he supported that. Although, of course, he reserved the right to monopolize her time or tell her she was not to go out if he didn’t want her to on a particular day.
He’d never tried to interfere with her social life in any other way, but of course he had become the center of it almost from the moment they’d met. But she’d had girls’ nights out and gone into the city to plays and even gone overnight to camp out and get tickets to see a band she and her friends all liked. The only concern he’d registered about any of that was her personal security while sleeping on a sidewalk in the city, and but she’d assuaged his concerns by saying that they were hardly going to be alone, and that they had both rape whistles and pepper spray with them, and that they weren’t afraid to use either of them.
She knew he was still quite concerned about her – and he’d texted her frequently, even throughout the night while she was gone. But he hadn’t forbidden her to go, and he most certainly wasn’t going to go with them to see this group, since his musical tastes leaned much more towards oldies, somehow, than hers did.
Ellie had a premonition, though, that this thing with Carter was going to get ugly, and she hated being put into the position of possibly having to choose between a good friend she’d known for a while and the man she’d been waiting for all her life.
“Carter again?” he ventured after a long, uncomfortable pause.
Ellie busied herself as much as she could getting dressed, trying not to look at him, not really wanting to give him an opportunity to broach the subject, but then he went right ahead and did it himself. “Yes.”
She obviously didn’t want to talk about it, but dammit, he couldn’t just look the other way. He simply couldn’t. “He seems to need... a lot of your attention.”
It was a leading question, only she wouldn’t let him lead her anywhere in regards to it, and he didn’t like how tense and stiff she got whenever they discussed him, as if she was hiding something from him.
“He’s unhappy and he needs a shoulder.”
“And it has to be yours?”
When she hazarded a look at him she could see how dark his face was, and that muscle was jumping in his jaw again, as it always did when they discussed his brother. “Look, what Carter tells me is in confidence, between us, between friends. But I don’t know how many times – how many ways – to try to tell you that you have nothing to worry about in regards to your brother. He is not after me romantically, okay?”
Cal reached out and tugged on the front of her shirt, dragging her against him and into his arms. “And if I asked you to stop seeing him?”
He didn’t like the hurt look his question caused to settle onto her delicate features – not at all, and she took a step away from him before he could stop her. “Is that really how you want to play this?”
Cal ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “No, it’s definitely not, but what am I supposed to think when every time we’re together, he calls you?”
“Does it make you feel better to know that he calls me at least once a day, every day, and has since weeks after I met him – I might add, years ago? Him, I’ve known for more than three or four years. You, I’ve known for a little over four months.”
His voice, when he spoke, was frightfully low. “And would that be your answer?”
Ellie had a horrible flash of insight, wondering if she was going to lose her virginity and the boyfriend who had taken it in one night, depending on what she said to him at this very moment. “I’m not going to answer your question because it’s an improper one. If Carter was my lover, you’d know, now, wouldn’t you? I wouldn’t have been putting you through all of this losing my virginity crap – he’d’ve already taken it.”
It was his turn to color, making his usually tan skin look ruddy. “I suppose...” He w
as extremely reluctant to yield the point to her, regardless of the fact that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one had had her before him.
“Your brother and I are close, but not in that way, Cal. Please. And don’t harass him about it, either.”
His jaw tightened again. “Did he tell you I’d done that?”
“He said you’d interrogated him and warned him away from me, which is a pretty caveman approach. I expected... well... I thought you’d at least hesitate to accuse your brother and your girlfriend of—”
The next thing she knew, his hand had snaked out to grab her wrist and tug her, off balance, against him, and she felt the first frisson of true fear she’d gotten from him. Suddenly, she was all too acutely aware of the differences in their sizes, especially as his mouth crashed down on hers, one hand wrapped in her hair, the other laying bold claim to one breast, his fingers less than gently pinching the tip.
“I would accuse the pope himself if he was constantly calling you. I don’t give a fuck that he’s my brother. I don’t share what’s mine.”
Ellie pushed her hands against that solid brick wall of his chest, holding eye contact with him the entire time. “Being close to a male friend is no threat to what’s yours, Cal, and if you think it is, then perhaps I’ve chosen the wrong man.”
With that she broke free of his grip – knowing full well that it was only because he’d allowed her to – gathered up her purse and headed for the door.
Cal’s hair was getting a workout this evening with his hand running roughly through it every five minutes. “You can’t leave; we came here in my car.”
She did leave his presence, though – she just waited for him outside, as if she could no longer stand to be in the same room with him.
Cal wondered if he hadn’t just blown it with her, and he realized that it was something he truly couldn’t countenance.
The ride home was glacial, with him unhappy at the compulsion he felt to look at her every five minutes the entire ride, looking for some sign that she didn’t hate him, and Ellie resolutely staring out the window, willing herself not to cry.
To Love a Man Page 8