“Hi, Avery.”
“Jesus, Chris. Don’t you ever look at your phone?”
Oh, if you only knew. “It’s been a tough day, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, we need to start talking about the Fourth of July. The fashion show isn’t going to plan itself.”
Shit, she forgot she’d promised to help backstage at the club’s annual fundraiser. “No, of course. What are you modeling this year?”
“I’m done with that. I’m picking the models and showing them how it’s done.”
Christiana couldn’t believe Avery would give up the spotlight. But maybe Christiana wasn’t the only one who’d been evolving.
“So, it’s time we went out, girl,” Avery said. “You don’t work Tuesdays, and we can plan then.”
A spear dipped in toxic shame and guilt pierced her heart. “Of course.”
“Good. Chase’s brother is the bouncer at Ireland’s Four Provinces. We’re so going to check out the rugby players.”
“What if we get caught?” What if they recognize me?
“We won’t. Chase has it all set up.”
Of course, Christiana ended up agreeing. Avery had a way of making Christiana do things—not unlike a man named Jonathan Brond. She’d spent three years wearing Avery’s clothes, going to Avery’s country club, and trailing after her from event to event. Never once did she want to do any of it. She’d just wanted a friend.
After hanging up, she returned to Googling to distract her from guilty thoughts. She felt awful, lying to her friend, not being around for her father, and missing out on work too much.
She erased “sexual dominance” and put in Jonathan’s name. His picture smiled from her phone screen, white teeth set in impossibly smooth, tanned skin. Green eyes reached inside her, even from a dated photograph.
Wait, something wasn’t right.
The web revealed hundreds of articles and pictures on Jonathan. Her father’s voice rang in her head. “Look beyond what you see, Chrissy. What isn’t there?”
Recreation. It was mostly related to work. Jonathan Brond did a good job of keeping his private life, very private. Nothing about golfing and fishing trips, common public pursuits of other members of Congress. No picture of his boat. His house in Charlottesville was nowhere to be found. Surely someone would have mentioned his private residence. Yet thirty-six pages deep into Google, not even a single mention existed. The weight of the NDA she’d signed pressed down on her chest.
17
Christiana answered the door before Jonathan had a chance to ring the bell. Her father had hit the road last night, but she didn’t want to chance even a neighbor might hear.
Jonathan held a too-small umbrella though she recognized it as a Hermes pattern similar to Avery’s collection. Though his loose blue linen shirt clung wetly to his torso in the downpour, he still looked like a magazine model.
“Jesus, Christiana, you look like hell.”
“Well, good morning to you, too.”
“Do you have a pillow you can bring? You need to nap in the car.”
She had already swiped concealer over her dark circles and drunk two cups of coffee. Friday evening shifts were late nights, but the tips made it worth the five hours of sleep.
As soon as they were settled into his car, the wisdom of the pillow hit. She bunched up the pillow in the doorframe and drifted off. Windshield wipers squeaked across the glass, and Jonathan’s fingers tucked some hair behind her ear.
The door gave way under her head, and she startled. They’d arrived. She barely managed her seatbelt before Jonathan lifted her from the front seat as if she weighed no more than a dried leaf. She let herself snuggle deeply into his chest all the way into the house. With each step forward, his strength awakened her insides even though she stayed relaxed in his arms.
He carried her straight to his bedroom. While still standing, he moved her back into a wall and swung her so she wrapped her legs around his waist. His tongue twisted deep inside her mouth, as he raked his hands up under her t-shirt and cupped the side of her breasts, mashed against his hard pecs. Christiana pushed into his massaging hands and groaned into his kiss, tugging fruitlessly on the buttons of his shirt.
Jonathan pulled his mouth from her buzzing lips and drew her legs down until she stood. He stepped backward. His eyes blazed a trail down the length of her body. He ripped his shirt over his head, buttons popping and skittering across the floor.
Christiana pulled her t-shirt from her body and kicked off her jeans and panties in seconds. It still felt like it took too long. She had craved this moment, and now, rested from her car nap, she couldn’t wait another minute. Christiana’s need to feel him between her legs decimated any leftover inhibitions she may have harbored.
He pressed her whole body deep into the bed with his own, his erection hot marble digging into her pelvic bone. His hands dug into her plump butt cheeks, and his mouth devoured her moans. His rough, possessive treatment held no hesitation.
When he released his kiss, his eyes suffused her in heat. “Stay down. Lie back.” He crawled down her body. His fingers gently breached her folds and before she had time to consider what he saw, his mouth greedily kissed her slick opening. Startled by the attack, she started to jerk her knees away, but his strong arms held her legs open.
His tongue lashed her center, drawing small circles, then larger, assaulting her sensitive nub. Unable to lie still, her thighs clamped his head, and she cried out at the intensity of his mouth tormenting her clit.
Jonathan grabbed both her wrists and held them down by her side. She fisted the silky fabric, arching from the sensation. Too much. More.
She exploded.
He gripped her forearms as she convulsed, squirming and bucking. Comets of firework rockets ran the length of her body as she panted. As the flash inside subsided, her breathing slowed in time with his mouth, which stilled to soft kisses on her shuddering seam.
Jonathan climbed up to cage her underneath him. His thighs spread her wide. When his cock speared her, hard and fast, she bit a cry into his shoulder.
He pulled back and lifted her hips, so they rested on his quads. After grasping her legs, he pulled her back and forth over his cock.
“Oh, Christ, fuck.” He scooped her up by her butt until she sat on his lap. “Hang on to me.”
Christiana ground her pelvis against every downward stroke. The tip of his cock banged her inner most nerves, and pleasure-pain burst throughout her body. Puffs of air escaped her lungs with each spear forward. More.
“Jonathan.”
His sweaty, rough chin scratched her face. “You are so wet and tight.”
Another orgasm ripped through her, and still he didn’t stop reaming her insides. Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? An eternity? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. Jonathan lay between her legs. My legs.
Jonathan stood at his office window watching a starling flit from branch to branch. He’d let Christiana catch another hour of sleep. He could afford to wait a bit longer because he now knew the approach he’d take to solidify Christiana’s sexual submission.
On the drive down, Christiana had huddled in his front seat, clutching her pink pillow more like an infant cherub than the woman-girl now set free. How quickly she morphed into a feminine temptress when they arrived, her eyes smoldering with uninhibited want and devotion. She responded with gusto to his inability to hold back.
She was ready for the shorter, sharper introduction to his dominance. Some women required a more sensual persuasion to join his brand of sexual fulfillment. Christiana was not that woman. She relished being taken. She’d surrendered her body fully underneath him, even after her discipline earlier in the week.
The whooshing of the fax machine spitting out page after page of endless legal documents masked her entrance to the room.
“The rain stopped.” She crossed the room and engulfed his torso in a hug. A waylaid strand of blond hair, still wet from the shower, trailed over one cheek. She looked
so fuckable. But, then, when had she not?
“You look good in my shirt.”
“It smells like you.” Her rumpled hair and sleepy eyes radiated an innocence that nearly overwhelmed his resolve. Almost. She pulled back, little creases between her eyes deepening. Something dark plagued her thoughts.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Christiana.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Christiana.” He hoped she caught his warning tone. He wouldn’t tolerate a repeat of her radio silence earlier in the week.
She dipped her head. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, that’s all.”
He sat in his chair and pulled her into his lap. “Go ahead. You can ask me anything.”
“Did you ever bring Mrs. DeCord here?”
Ah, The Oak. Where she worked. Jonathan tamped down the flicker of suspicion that Yvette herself may have breached their confidentiality. Not possible, he admonished. Yvette had as much to lose from their liaisons as he did.
He ran a fingertip along the shell of her ear. “How do you know Mrs. DeCord?”
“She rents The Oak’s suite upstairs sometimes. And, I, ah . . . deliver room service sometimes. I didn’t really see anything. I thought I heard—”
“What?”
“You.” She lowered her gaze.
“You might have.” Jonathan learned long ago that honesty could derail the most heinous gossip, if handled properly. “Did you know what was happening?”
“No. But will you show me what you did with her?”
Jesus. So unexpected. “I never talk about my other submissives.”
“More than one? How many have you had?”
“Mrs. DeCord and I are no longer involved in that way. Remember, I said we’d be exclusive.”
“You also said I could ask you anything.”
“Generalities only. No personal details about others. But, to answer you—about a dozen.”
Her jaw went slack.
“I do like that you’re jealous, however,” he said.
She crossed her arms. “I am not jealous. I’m curious.”
“About?”
“What you did together. I mean, if it was more . . . .” Her inquisitive look went straight to his loins. God, he loved that look of craving coupled with the will to please.
“Nothing more than what we’re going to do together. If you trust me,” he said.
“You keep saying that. I do.”
“Hmmm. Well, trust is new territory for you.” The understatement of the century.
Her eyes flashed. “I. trust. you.”
“Okay, little firebrand. I’m going to hold you to that.” He set her on her feet and stood himself. “Now you must be starving.”
“Sorry I slept so late.” She followed him out of his office.
“You needed it.”
She required more than sleep. Her life as caretaker to an alcoholic father and ego-booster to a diva offered little room for expectations that her needs might come first. He vowed she’d experience that first from him, even temporarily.
Christiana took a large bite of her sandwich, the avocado squeezing from either side of the bread. Apple-smoked, crispy bacon. Cilantro-marinated shrimp. And the mayonnaise was handmade with just the right hint of tart lemon. Yum. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.
“I think you like the sandwich,” he teased.
“Mmm.” She licked avocado that had escaped.
“You look better—rested.”
She laughed. “I’ve snoozed more here than I did all week.”
“We’ll need to change that.”
She wasn’t sure whether he meant sleeping more at home or sleeping less with him. Everything that came out of his mouth sounded suggestive.
“You like sex,” he said.
She looked up at him and swallowed the lump of sandwich.
“You like it a little rough too.” He took another bite.
“Um, I don’t know.”
“When I spanked you the other night, you were wet. Then when we got here . . . .” He wiped his hands on a napkin. “You responded immediately to my taking you.”
She sipped her milk, not sure how to respond. Ever since Jonathan pushed his cock inside her, she got the big deal. “I did what you asked. I just felt.”
“Pleasure, pain. It’s all sensation, no? There’s a fine line between the two.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” He swiveled her stool to face him and encircled both her wrists with his warm, large hands. “Tell me, Christiana, when you thought about being with a man, what did you imagine? Your ideal, your fantasy.” His eyes told her he really wanted an answer and that he would know if she lied.
An image of Jonathan making love to her forever, the smells of Covil Sereia—cedar trees and honeysuckle and leather wafting over her body—shocked her insides as much as her next thought. The exhilaration of his wild, sexual energy, holding her down and spearing her to the core had colored her fantasies the entire last week. Being worked over by his fire made her brave.
And then there was the strange sensation of his hands coming down hard on her ass when she worried him by not being available? She’d never had anyone worry about her like Jonathan.
“Like what we’ve been doing,” she said. At least that was part of it.
“You’ve liked what we’ve done so far?”
She nodded.
“When I told you that I have specific types of relationships, that I’m a sexual Dominant, it didn’t scare you.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. I didn’t really know what you meant.” She looked down at her hands, still held captive by Jonathan’s grip. “But then I looked it up. Online, I mean. That’s when I got more . . . concerned. You said I always have a say, right?”
She’d been trying to forget the images she finally Googled last night in the Cabinet Room on a break. People clad in black leather and latex, tubes jutting from their faces had set her heart racing. Then it got worse. Ball gags lodged in women’s mouths, their eyes open wide in frightened desire as men lorded over their backsides, doing things she’d never entertained.
“I should have been with you.” He released one wrist, raised her chin with his index finger, and then tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “What bothered you the most?”
“The women, in pictures. They looked, I don’t know.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes, and in pain.” Damn, her eyes misted. She didn’t understand why she liked it when Jonathan had held her down, but seeing someone else? She knew Jonathan wouldn’t really hurt her. She wouldn’t be here, if so. But she also knew he hadn’t told her everything.
No matter. She wanted more, not even knowing what more might entail. She’d dance on the edge of this addiction, this obsession named Jonathan Brond, until she bled.
He puffed out a burst of air, agitated. He shook his head slowly back and forth. “Damn Internet. Why didn’t you call me that night? You should always call me immediately whenever anything, and I mean anything, arises that causes you discomfort.”
The sides of Christiana’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. Jonathan’s chivalry was beyond anything she’d ever encountered. He cared. Not like the false niceties she’d received from the legislative aides, politicians and society ladies who oozed unctuous praises and commendations. Christiana was sure Jonathan rarely said anything he didn’t mean.
Jonathan captured her eyes. “What you didn’t see was the consent behind those activities. In our world, it’s an egregious act to do anything whatsoever to a person—anything at all—if they don’t want it, if they don’t permit it. That’s why I asked you from the beginning, at each step along the way, to tell me what you’re thinking.”
“So, you won’t—” she started.
“I won’t do anything you don’t give permission for, willingly and eagerly. You can stop me at any time. Remember that.” He captured both wrists.
; His words soothed her inner parts, the truth washing away any doubts. Yes, he had asked for her assent along the way. Repeatedly.
“Okay,” she said.
“I will only give you what you really need, Christiana.” Jonathan’s fingers played with her wrist line, and it was oddly comforting to have her hands held down in her lap.
“What I need?”
“Yes, my lovely. You have a lot of need. You’re overwhelmed with responsibility and starved for passion. This summer I’m devoting myself to showing you a different way.”
“I’d like different. I like . . . .”
“What?”
“What you do to me.”
When he released her wrists, an empty feeling crawled up her arms.
He stood. “Good. You’re ready for more education.”
18
Christiana perched herself on the edge of the bed. Jonathan stood in the open doorway, silhouetted by the dusky light streaming from the hall’s skylights. His imposing stance only added to the uncertainty. She straightened, her body on high alert. Something serious was about to happen.
Jonathan hit a switch near the door, and she gasped. Soft red lights shot up from unseen areas near the floorboards and down from recessed lights in the high ceiling. The room seemed to change shape, glowing a deep cerise with tall shadows cast up the walls by the bed’s richly carved posts. She hadn’t paid attention before to the profound incisions forming filigrees and vines along the columns. Now their dark shadows snaked up the posts in the menacing crimson light.
Jonathan stepped inside the room and wordlessly stripped off his blue t-shirt, baring his muscle-honed chest.
He glanced to the bed, his green eyes darker in the rosy glow. “Three years ago, when it looked like I was headed to Congress, I built this house. The builders were told it was for an elderly couple, one of whom was paralyzed from the waist down and, hence, required certain adaptations.”
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