He had to turn away and pour himself coffee that he didn’t need so he could brush away the tears his laughter had brought out. He’d heard of laughing until you cried but he’d never believed it before. Now he knew it was real, and he didn’t much care for the feeling, a weird mix of emotions he couldn’t harness.
But he did like the feeling of looking at Jen’s happy face.
“So, turnip,” he said, as calmly as possible—which started Jen chuckling and got him going again. “Remember that word,” he went on, forcing his voice to calm. “I want you to feel comfortable using it. It sounds like your experience is limited and I’m likely to push you—in ways you’ll enjoy, I hope. But I don’t want to push you to places you really don’t want to go, or aren’t ready to go yet, even if you might decide you are down the road.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m curious about a lot of things,” she said, her voice softer and smaller than her usual tone. She was answering a question he hadn’t asked yet. Which, if he was following some kind of strict protocol, would be a problem or rather a “problem”, something that wouldn’t actually bother him but would be an excuse for further training—an exciting notion. But since they were talking casually, as equals, he had to admit it was a relief that Jen was initiating one of the touchier parts of the conversation herself. “I obviously like spanking. I’d love to try more along those lines—pain and pleasure. Bondage, both the simple kind and the complicated, artistic stuff—shibi-something.”
“Shibari. Something I’m fond of, in fact.” One of the reasons, besides a training space, that the big, high-ceilinged front room was bare. He’d never had an opportunity to test the hooks and pulleys he’d concealed in the ceiling, though, except suspending himself from them to make sure they were strong enough—and knotting ropes over the hooks and then pulling himself up them hardly counted as fun. More like a workout.
“Shibari,” she repeated, rolling the word off her tongue, savoring it. “But I’d have to pick out the colors of rope, or it’ll make me crazy.”
“Thanks. Now I know how to punish you if you deserve it: clashing rope.”
She giggled. “Oops. Walked right into that, didn’t I? I’ll just have to make sure not to deserve it.”
Another wave of joy burst over him. She might not have a lot of actual experience, but she seemed to get it. “Oh, but you will sometimes. I like rules. I like rules far more than you do, I bet. We’ll talk more about that later—I don’t want you to be late for work—but if we’re going to be involved, I’ll come up with some rules for you to follow. And sooner or later, you’ll break them.”
Jen shook her head, but she was still smiling. “I try to avoid situations with a lot of rules or expectations. I don’t like letting people down, but I’ll get working on something and forget what I’m supposed to be doing. I try to be responsible and organized, but sometimes art can’t wait.” She shrugged as if to say not my fault.
Drake couldn’t say anything too bad about that, since he’d been known to get involved in his work and forget everything but the flow of his thoughts and the shape of the numbers. “I hear you. I’m not thinking about serious rules at this point. Playful little rules, and the consequences of forgetting them would be equally playful—fun for both of us. Serious, full-time rules are for serious full-time D/s relationships, and while we seem to be moving pretty fast, we’re not jumping right into that.”
“D/s?” Her face screwed up in puzzlement for a second, then relaxed. “Oh, right, dominant/submissive, and M/s would be master/slave, like Avi and her boy. Yeah, I’m all about the impulsive adventures, but I’m not ready to commit to a lifestyle yet, or to you. Not in that way,” she added quickly, “though committing to exploring with you and seeing where it leads sounds good.”
“Even if we’re not exactly committing, I’d want us not to see anyone else, focus on each other while we figure things out.” He wasn’t sure where that came from. He hadn’t been monogamous for a long time. But he hadn’t been in a relationship with anyone for a long time, either. If he was going to do it, he wanted to give it a real shot, which meant not playing with his various friends in New York and Boston—and Jen not fooling around with anyone she might have been seeing casually.
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until Jen said, “Makes sense. I’m cool with whatever people do as long as they all agree on it, but I tend to be a one-guy-at-a-time type of woman.” She grinned. “Doing poly right sounds like a full-time job, and I have enough jobs. Relationships should be fun.”
Relationships should be fun. What a concept. He had a lot more he felt like he should ask her, a lot more that they should cover. But they’d have time. Start slowly, with things that she’d already said she’d be into trying, build from there, keep talking.
“One last question…”
“I’m on the pill and I got tested for everything and then some a few months ago—and haven’t done anything that might change my clean bill of health since then. But I’m all for condoms as a precaution.”
“Same with me.” He paused. They’d reached the exciting but awkward point of moving from discussion to action. It was easier when you just forged ahead and damn the consequences! Not a smart idea, but definitely easier.
Jen had been looking intently into his eyes, but now she glanced at the clock on the microwave to his left. “Now that we’ve talked, I’d love to get naked and see what comes up, but I need to allow time to get cleaned up again and head to work. It’s a twenty-minute bike ride.” One hand fiddled with the hem of her shirt as she said it, as if she wanted to peel the shirt off, strip naked and be taken on the kitchen table.
Which would be a great idea if Drake knew the rickety table, a leftover from his great-aunt’s day, could handle it. The counter definitely could. But the toys and rope were in the bedroom, and he had ideas. More ideas than he had time to pursue now. Possibly more than he had time to pursue in a lifetime. But he should be able to follow through on one or two of them. “I’ll give you a ride,” he said. “The bike can go on the roof rack.” He didn’t like the idea of her riding in the dark, especially on a weekend when tipsy students might be behind the wheel, but he wasn’t in a position to make rules about that yet. Especially since she didn’t have a car and he couldn’t promise he’d always be available to drive her or pick her up in the morning.
He stood. “So what are you waiting for? Upstairs, now.” He meant to sound stern and commanding, and there was a bit of that edge to his voice—but he knew he was undercutting it by grinning like a blessed fool.
To make up for the grin—and because he couldn’t imagine circumstances under which he wouldn’t want to—he smacked Jen’s butt as she passed by. She yelped, “Hey!” and turned to glare at him.
Or at least she tried to glare. He could see the struggle on her face as she tried to look miffed. But the glare didn’t last for more than half a second. Her eyes were too soft, her body language too eager, to pull off indignation convincingly.
Instead, her attempt at a glare turned into a dreamy smile. She pivoted in place, leaned over, bracing herself on the counter, and looked back over her shoulder at him as if to say, Well, what are you waiting for?
“Tempting. Very tempting. But the toys are upstairs. Not to mention the condoms.” Which he’d recently restocked, knowing Jen was moving in. He hadn’t planned on needing them so soon, but plans and Jen didn’t fit in the same sentence.
Unable to resist the temptation, though, he spanked her once more, enjoying how her ass felt under his hand—firm and soft at the same time. The cotton painter pants were loose but worn enough that they were soft and drapey and transmitted the heat of her skin. Then he made a shooing motion with his hand. She sighed and rolled her hips, and he almost lost his resolve on the spot. It would be easy to wriggle those baggy pants off her, pop off her shirt, ease her out of her panties and bra and finish what he’d started playfully now, and more seriously this morning. The morning had obviously simmere
d in the back of their minds and their libidos all day. He’d bet she was already slick and hot, and that she’d grip at his cock… A hard, quick, brutal, necessary fuck to tide them over.
The only thing that kept them both dressed was knowing the condoms were upstairs.
And the rope. He wouldn’t have time for any complicated shibari, especially not with them both as needy and greedy as they were at the moment. He couldn’t speak for Jen, but he might spontaneously combust if he took too much time, and he’d always prided himself on his patience. But bondage seemed to intrigue her, and Lord knew it intrigued him. What would be the best…
He looked at her loose shirt. Yeah, that.
He’d been smiling before, but the mental image made his grin broader, his cock harder. “Come on,” he said. “I have plans for you.”
Chapter Nine
Jen’s legs shook as she climbed the stairs, rubbery and uneasy as if she’d spent three days on a boat. Her pulse pounded a tattoo that echoed in her clit. Her pelvis was weighted with blood and need, and her head swam with vague erotic images in shades of red and purple. Drake’s hand burned against the small of her back, where he’d slipped it under her shirt. That bit of skin-on-skin contact was ramping up her arousal to almost unbearable levels, and the climb to the bedroom took decades. Slow, molten, throbbing decades.
By the time they reached Drake’s room—which couldn’t have been more than a minute after leaving the kitchen, because, roomy as the house was, it wasn’t Downton Abbey—Jen was sure she was going to die if she didn’t have Drake’s cock soon.
The bedroom was large, and like most of the house, white-walled and sparsely decorated, almost painfully neat. A blue-and-green-plaid comforter was pulled up to meet pillows in navy pillowcases. The bed was actually a futon on a low black platform with storage drawers underneath.
Or a couple of storage drawers and a few faux drawer pulls that might work as tie-down points, she surmised, her mind seizing on visual details to counter a sudden wave of nervousness. She had seen a riding crop over the mirror when she’d caught a glimpse into the room the day she’d viewed her apartment. But she hadn’t seen the skeins of rope, some colored, some plain hemp, on the back of the door. And she certainly hadn’t seen what she glimpsed when Drake opened one of those drawers: paddles and another crop and floggers and some shiny bits of metal she couldn’t identify at a glance.
What he pulled out of the drawer, though, she could identify easily. A blindfold made of black leather and padded with shearling.
My God, was she trembling? The blindfold made her crazy in several senses of the word. Made her wild with curiosity, because what did he not want her to see? Frightened her—she dreaded missing some random image that might spark art. Intrigued her, and aroused her, pushing her even closer to the edge of a precipice. She felt like she might come at any second. “But I want to see you!” she blurted.
“You will. Just not the whole time.”
Then he began to strip.
Jen had seen and felt enough of Drake’s body that she wasn’t surprised by what she saw. Delighted, yes but not surprised. Still, she couldn’t help staring, drinking in his beauty before he covered her eyes. Shirtless, his broad chest had well-defined muscles, which she’d expected from how good his legs and arms were, how strong he felt when he held her, but the furring of light brown hair was a pleasant bonus. She liked chest hair, liked how it looked and the texture of it against her skin, liked the masculine contrast with her relative hairlessness. She looked forward to feeling its crisp softness under her hands, or better yet, moving against her erect nipples. And she liked the wildness of the thick chest hair in contrast to Drake’s neatly trimmed beard and mustache, his short-cropped hair. He had a tattoo on his left shoulder, a short formula, she thought, numbers and Greek letters, curiously beautiful.
His cut abs looked good enough to eat, and she hoped for a chance to nibble them later. Again, not a real surprise, though she hadn’t imagined quite this level of excellence. A Greek god, not an overbuilt hulk of a fitness model, but the well-defined, useful muscles of an actual classical Greek statue. Not a kouros, a pretty young man just past boyhood, nor an aging-warrior Zeus, but an Apollo, sexy and strong and smart. She couldn’t resist letting out, “Whoa, I thought you had a desk job.”
“I do martial arts,” he said modestly.
“I guess so.” She was going to ask more questions. She was genuinely curious about what form he did and how long he’d been doing it.
And then he unzipped his jeans, and all thought fled, or at least all thought that wasn’t directly related to sex and the body of the man in front of her. Her breath hitched in anticipation. Maybe Drake was deliberately drawing out this part, teasing her, or maybe time actually slowed.
His cock was nothing like a Greek statue’s, and thank goodness for that. The marble statues carved for temples and other public places were never erect. You only saw that on private art, things like pottery and wall frescoes where naughty satyrs pursued and sometimes caught graceful nymphs or those boyish kouros. Drake was definitely erect. Thick and hard and rising from a tangle of curling hair a slightly darker, redder shade than his head and chest.
Jen would normally say something cute and coy like, Is that for me? but it seemed inappropriate. Drake was living art, and silent visual appreciation was more fitting. Otherwise it was like making wisecracks in front of Michelangelo’s David. Though David, a beautiful statue of a beautiful boy in pure, cold marble, couldn’t hold a candle to Drake, a handsome man in his prime, in all the colors of life.
“What color rope would you like?” He waved his hand over one subset of the rainbow array, so she deduced the thinner ropes would work best for what he had in mind. She picked a deep crimson. It would clash with her hair but match the patterns of lust in her head.
“Good choice. Now put your hands on your head.” The rope was doubled, with a wrapping of black string to mark the middle. Meticulous, she thought. Then she stopped thinking as he began to wrap the rope around her rib cage, below her breasts. “Watch in the mirror when you can,” Drake said, his voice deep and rich.
The rope transformed her as Drake wrapped it above and below her breasts, hitching them together with a kind of rope corset. Her breasts looked fuller, pushed together and enhanced by the rope, but it was more than that. She stood taller. She wasn’t sucking her gut in, wasn’t self-conscious under her new lover’s eyes. The soft curve of her belly looked as perfect as the curve of a ripe apple or the lines of the Venus de Milo. She noticed the muscles of her thighs, firm from all the biking and walking in Ithaca’s hills, as if she saw them through someone else’s eyes. The rope, and Drake’s hand guiding the rope, guiding her, made her dreamy, compliant, but at the same time aware of every inch of her own sensitized skin, every inch of Drake’s body.
“Look at yourself,” Drake said—no, ordered—spinning her around to look in the mirror. He clasped one arm across her upper chest, another at her hips, holding her against his full length. His cock toyed between her legs in this position, sliding teasingly over her slick pussy. Jen wanted to grind against him, wanted to defy common sense and engulf him now, despite the lack of a condom. Here, in front of the mirror, where she could see the play of his muscles and appreciate the lines of her own body as if they were someone else’s, someone who wore rope like jewelry, someone who looked small and pale next to this big, lean man, like a toy but at the same time not weak. But that wasn’t to be. Drake said, “Look your fill now,” and turned her around to look at him. “Look and touch.”
On the outside, she simply smiled and nodded, but inside she was singing, Yes! Yes! like a stoned opera singer. She’d waited so long to touch Drake Matthews. Waited forever, it seemed, even though she’d known him such a short time. Drake’s skin was hot, as if he burned inside, and that heat and his hard cock belied the distance in his gray eyes. It was their color, she decided. He couldn’t help looking cool and far-off with eyes of that shade, but the
intensity in them, the grip of his big hands—one on her hip, the other grasping the knot of rope at her back—was anything but remote. When she brushed her hands over his nipples, he gasped as if he held back a louder sound. She lingered there, watching his control waver, reveling in it until he hissed, “Enough!”
She explored down from there in wonderful retaliation. The ridges of his abs looked like sculpture, but they were flesh. Suede skin over improbably toned muscle, sure, but flesh nonetheless. They yielded under her fingers. They’d be warm and slightly salty if she licked, but when she tried to duck down, Drake tugged up on the rope harness, keeping her in place. Her hands could move, though, and they did, down to that glorious cock. One hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently, enjoying their heft and the way they changed as she touched them. The other circled his cock. She stroked up the length firmly, passed over the smooth head.
All the while she looked, not down at Drake’s cock, tempting as it was, but up at his face. At the way that mask of remoteness and control cracked. His eyes were closed now, and without their gray, acute gaze, he looked…different. Not softer but less distant. The chiseled planes of his face didn’t do soft and his muscles, if anything, seemed more defined as he struggled to maintain his composure. He was losing. His face was darker, flushed with arousal. His head was thrown back. The muscles in his neck stood out.
Then he shook himself. “Enough,” he barked. He almost sounded angry, but the way he touched her as he guided her to lie on the futon bed didn’t feel annoyed.
He kissed her and slipped the blindfold on while she was still savoring his lips.
Jen fought down a flash of panic at the darkness, lost without the anchor of vision. A sliver of light peeked under the bottom of the blindfold, though, despite the fleece. It didn’t let her see anything, but still it reassured her, let her go on breathing normally.
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