The Cartographer (The Compass series Book 6)

by Tamsen Parker

  “Was I right?” I prod.

  His cheek swells against my temple with his smile, and it makes me smile back, happiness and not a small amount of relief coursing through me. “About me liking this? Yeah, you were right.”

  “Want some more?”

  “Yeah. A lot more.”

  I nip his earlobe and grind my hardness into his ass, making my approval so blatant he won’t be able to ignore it.

  “Then I’ll give it to you.”

  After nuzzling into his neck more, a few bites interspersed with licks and kisses, I hold him extra hard and then let go, dragging the flogger over his chest and around his back as I go. Then it’s time to hit him again, and oh does that feel good. The falls thwacking against his rippling muscles, against the ink and memories carved into his skin. I’ll make you new ones.

  I work him up again, starting softer than I left off, but I don’t give him as much of a lead up this time. He asked for a lot more, and I’m going to give it to him. The sound of the tails landing on his back and his muted gasps, combined with the smell of the leather and the light sweat he’s working up, are intoxicating. Along with the exquisitely indecent portrait of his nude body, it all adds up to make an all-consuming and exhilarating cocktail.

  This is what I love: the give and take, the attention to detail paying off in spades of reaction. I want to provoke him, make him give up more to me. More soft cries, more clenching of his hands around the chains holding him fast, more of him needing me for both comfort and pain. I want to be his whole world.

  This flogger’s served me well, but it can only do so much. It’s not built for the level of pain I want to inflict, so I drape it over his shoulder to give him something to focus on while I grab the next weapon in my arsenal off the bed. As I draw the first one over his skin, I reach back with the other, preparing to strike. The first flogger hits the floor at the same time as the oiled-leather falls strike his skin, resulting in a startled yelp.

  Yeah, that’s going to hurt more. I listen closely for his safewords, but he doesn’t say a word. If anything, he’s straining toward me, asking for more. So I hit him again and again, the thicker falls making a satisfying, dull thwack against him, and when I strike him over and over, he starts to let out a muffled grunt with every blow. That’s not good enough. My Hart’s a tough nut to crack, but that will make it all the more satisfying when his shell shatters.

  With the next strike, a purposefully vicious lash, he cries out, and the sound is music to my ears—makes stars shoot through the darkening sky of my brain. Everything is going midnight black except for him. His reactions beckon me and become the only light in my world.

  It’s at times like these that I feel superhuman. My senses are all on high alert, and any change draws my attention. It feels as though I can absorb more, my gaze skating over his body and latching onto every detail. His posture, his breathing, how the cuffs are putting pressure on his wrists. All of it. After a few minutes of driving the cries from his lungs, I press into him again and relish the heat radiating from him, the way he drops his head to rest on my shoulder, the comfort he’s seeking from me.

  “Tell me how you’re feeling—” I bite back the boy I want to say. We haven’t discussed that, and I don’t want to startle him out of the space he’s in. Plus, that word is racially charged, and I need to be careful, sensitive. I want that from him, though—not that the word itself matters quite so much, but what it means. I want to possess him in another way, label him as mine. Cherish him and hold him dear.

  He huffs a laugh, which I’m not expecting. Seconds ago, he was a shade away from yelling. Now he’s laughing, and the sound makes more stars fly around my skull, lighting up the night of my mind. “Alive. I feel alive.”

  There’s hardly a better compliment. The hoarse wonder in his voice confirms it, and I want to record the words, play them over and over. Have them etched on a plaque I’ll hang in my office. These are the things I treasure, that make my life worth living when I sometimes wonder why I’m still here.

  I want to beat him more, but I don’t want to make him sorry tomorrow. It’s his first time, and I want it to be a good one because goddamn do I want to do this to him again. And again and again for that matter…

  “Good. Have you had enough?”

  “No,” he says, his laugh making the word more of a croak. “Never enough.”

  “That’s not something you should tell a sadist.” My admonishment earns me another rasping laugh, but I hope he remembers it. Some people will take his word, but not me. “You can have a little more, and then I’ve got something else for you.”

  I wish I could see his face, but the way he stiffens against me will have to do. For now.

  So one more time, I retreat and then lay into him again, driving him higher and higher, making his shouts louder and louder until I hear it.

  “Yellow. Fuck all, yellow.”

  His head is pressed against the wall, and I’m victorious. I’ve taken him higher than he’s ever been, and now I’m going to ease him back down. I do by grabbing a kinder flogger, one that’s still going to make him feel something but shouldn’t hurt. It should remind him of what he’s been through, of what he’s accomplished. I hope he’s proud. He ought to be. I am.

  With consistent and measured strokes, I pull him back from the precipice he was about to fall over, and I study the way his head rolls against his arm, the way he seeks out the support of the wall because the high is over and he’s starting to feel the exhaustion, the exertion. When I’ve softened and spaced the blows sufficiently, I drop the flogger for the final time and lean against his back, stroking his arms up to his wrists. I warn him before unbuckling them, bracing him against the wall in case he sags. I’m stronger than I look, but I’m under no illusion I’d actually be able to carry Allie to bed, though I’d like to. He’ll need to get there partially under his own power.

  He leans against me, his hands still on the wall, but letting his head roll to the side. His breath is warm against the side of my neck, and every particle of me is tuned into him. While he stands, I stroke him from his hips to his hands, lacing my fingers with his and prying them off the wall, folding them across his chest and holding on tight.

  Sometimes bottoms find it quite alarming to be unrestrained after having counted on the support and limits of chains, leather, or rope. Totally got a black eye when I first started out because one of my first partners wasn’t prepared and started to flail around like mad. Lesson learned. Hart doesn’t seem freaked out, though, more…cuddly. It’s freaking adorable, and something I’d very much like to indulge him in. So I unwrap one of his arms to sling around my neck and hold him about the waist.

  He staggers when I turn him away from the wall, but not in a way that makes me think he’ll actually fall over. I guide him nonetheless, slow and steady, over to the bed where he collapses in a heap. His eyes are closed, and he’s got a dreamy smile on his face I kind of want to lick. First things first. I help him sit up a bit more and pour a glass of water I usher into his hand. His limbs are so limp I think he might spill it, but he doesn’t. How much he’s affected, though, by this simple and relatively mild scene, affects me too.

  I’m used to caring for my clients, having affection and concern for my lovers, but this is…different somehow. I’m not sure if I like it, but while I figure it out, I have to care for Allie because he’s like a bronze statue melted down, all boneless and god, yes, hot.

  I’ve been trying to ignore it because I’m supposed to be tending to him—the amount of time I spend lecturing my clients about aftercare is truly astounding, and I won’t be a hypocrite about that—but it’s getting harder and harder to pretend I don’t see his thick, hard cock jutting out. It’s so flushed it’s almost purple, and I have to wonder if it hurts or if it just feels like need.

  He’s so gorgeous, sprawled over the pillows. All carved musculature and sparse hair, and those goddamn delicious hipcuts that make me want to bite him until I draw blo
od. I need a distraction before I fuck him raw, and the best distraction there is is looking after him.

  The glass of water I’ve given him is empty now, and he’s staring at me over it. He doesn’t break eye contact as he shifts his shoulder against the pillows.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Would it be weird for me to say I don’t know?”

  I shake my head. “No. Nothing you feel is weird. I’ve seen it all. You can feel it, though, right?”

  “That you whaled on me for like three hours? Yeah.”

  It was more like one, but I won’t correct him. Time is one of the things that melts away when someone’s in subspace, and I don’t want to shock him out of it, disrupt his altered reality. He can keep soaking in it, that blissed-out high.

  “More water?”

  “Yeah.”

  After he’s swallowed down the glass I poured for him, he looks slightly more awake, more alive and more…avid. As though he wants something badly and that something is me. The feeling is mutual, and I let the desire I’ve been holding back flood me, taking the empty glass and dropping it to the carpeted floor where it lands with a dull thunk. That’s what accompanies our lunging toward one another, our mouths meeting so we can taste each other.

  The sharpness of adrenaline overwhelms how human and vaguely sweet he usually tastes, but the smell of him is merely amplified, intensified. It surrounds me as I let my hands roam wherever they’d like. All over him—all of his pleasure, all of his sounds, all his frustration and wants—because he’s all mine.

  He makes an unsatisfied noise I swallow, and then he’s pawing at my clothes, uncouth and forceful, as if he’ll rip them if he doesn’t get his way soon. I help him, our hands running into each other in the scramble to drop this barrier of cotton and summer-weight wool.

  He barks a laugh as he unzips my pants and slips his hand inside. “Do you never wear underwear?”

  I lean back slightly and shrug, throwing him my best arrogant grin. “Why should I? It’s more expedient this way.”

  He laughs again and grips my dick in his hot hand, squeezing slightly. “I wasn’t complaining. It just seems really…conceited.”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh, and because he’s startled me and I didn’t have time to prepare, it comes out as more of a donkey bray and I’m glad I didn’t have anything in my mouth. “If you’ve got a problem with conceit, you’re in bed with the wrong guy.”

  “Not a problem,” he says, shaking his head, “seems like you might’ve earned it.”

  I hope so. I’m sick of talking, though, so I reach over and turn the knob on the lamps until it’s nearly dark and then I let him strip the rest of my clothes away. When I’m naked, I sit astride him and let our cocks slide against each other. While I’d like to jerk off fast and hard, see my come splattered all over his torso, and if I was lucky, a drop at the corner of his mouth, sliding down his chin, I won’t. He’s earned a good, slow, painstaking fuck.

  The drawer doesn’t protest as I slide it open and grab the bottle of lube. Nor does Hart as he watches me pour a good measure into my hand. It’s not cold, so I reach between us, gathering our hard lengths into one hand while I lean up against the headboard with the other. Rocking up against him is pure bliss, our cocks sliding against each other in this incredibly filthy way that makes me want more wetness, more tangling of body parts. I kiss him again, and he kisses me back, wrapping a hand opposite mine to keep us tight and slippery.

  I have to bite his lower lip, hold it while we thrust into our joined hands, and when he starts to go too fast, I break away and tut at him.

  “Ah. I decide when we come. Not you. Do you understand me?”

  He gets this rebellious look in his eyes, but it’s quickly cowed by a raise of my eyebrow.

  “If you’re good and follow my lead, I swear you’re going to come so hard you’ll see stars. If you’re disobedient, though, you get nothing. Not only tonight, but not on the way home and who knows how long after that.”

  “What the fuck makes you think I’m going to let you control when I get off?”

  I stare at him, our gazes locked. I can play this game all night long, Hart. Don’t even try, because you’ll lose.

  We face off for a good few minutes, the air thick with pent-up passion, carnal frustration, and the animal scent of sex and bodies.

  “Won’t you?”

  That’s when he blinks, his swollen lips parting and a gulp of air inflating his lungs. I can see the war taking place inside his head: What kind of man am I? What kind of person will this make me? What will handing myself over to this brash-as-fuck asshole mean?

  I try to beam my answer into the innermost reaches of his brain: It makes you strong and beautiful, and you’ll give yourself to me because in return I’ll show you pleasure and feeling like you’ve never known before. Give in to me.

  When he licks his lips, I know I have him, and though the words should be an afterthought, they almost make me come on their own: “Yes, sir.”

  So we go back to it, the stroking and the rubbing and touches too greedy to be called fondling, our kisses interspersed with bites and licks of sweat and the sounds of gratification put off. Finally, when I don’t think I can take it anymore, I thrust harder, pumping with my hand and the strength of Hart’s over it until I can feel the release building from my toes to my chest. When it reaches my heart, I hold it back only long enough to say, “Now, Hart. Come for me now.”

  It takes a few more strokes, more vulgar rutting, and then we’re both coming, the thick viscous evidence of our climaxes spurting between us and making this completely lewd mess. It’s sexy as hell, this level of abandon, and I draw on it as my orgasm leaks out of my body. I’ll never admit it to him, but he’s not the only one with lights exploding in front of his eyes, stardust sprinkling through his vision. That was…exceptional.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‡

  “Hi, Mom.”

  It’s been a while since we’ve talked, longer than the two or three days we usually go, and I’m anxious to hear her voice.

  “Is everything all right? I was getting worried.”

  “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m sorry. I should’ve called. Busy, that’s all.”

  “With a nice boy, I hope?”

  I roll my eyes fondly. “Some.”

  We got back from Las Vegas yesterday, and when I dropped Allie at Kendra’s house, I wasn’t sure what to say. Or do. So I let him take the lead, and he led me to a charming-as-fuck grin and a slightly awkward, “Well, later.”

  I would’ve liked a promise more specific than that. I’ll call you. Are you free on Friday? When is the next time you can beat and/or fuck me? But no, nothing like that. I’ll just have to wait, which is irritating.

  “When do I get to meet him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, my.” Her voice is a study in salacious gossip, and I see my mistake immediately. My answer is almost exclusively “never.” Not that I’m embarrassed for my mom to meet my partners, but for the most part, they aren’t worth meeting. Not when I have precious little time with her. Some one-offs, some occasional playdates. No one with a possibility of becoming more than that. She meets my friends, adores them, but people I fuck? Not so much. Yes, I’m distracted, but I should know better. Now she’ll want details. “Tell me about him.”

  “His name’s Allie. I like him. I’m not sure how much he likes me.”

  She tsks at me. “Everyone likes you.”

  Almost everyone. “Yeah, well, he unsettles me.”

  “Oh. You can be a dick when you’re unsettled.” For an Upper East Side princess, my mother can have quite the potty mouth. Especially since her parents passed away. Maybe she finally feels more at liberty to be herself.

  Also, while most parents probably try not to swear in front of their children, my mom was young when she had me, and I grew up fast, so we ended up acting like peers a lot of the time. Now I almost feel like I parent her, but that’s
my relationship with everyone, so why not her?

  “Yeah, Mom, I know.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I tried to help him get a job.”

  “You asshole.”

  I snort because my mother being facetious is something I find unfailingly entertaining. “I know, right? I can understand why he was upset, though. I can’t seem to keep my foot out of my mouth when it comes to him.”

  “That might be okay, you know,” she offers, and I can picture her sitting on her favorite chaise, winding the curly telephone cord around her fingers while she lifts her small shoulders. She has cordless phones and a cell, but she won’t give up on this old-school rotary thing. To be fair, it is charming.

  “Yes, well, if he hasn’t ditched me for being completely insufferable by the next time you visit, you can meet him, okay?”

  “I was thinking of coming in two weeks. Does that work for you?”

  I pull up my calendar and it’s a disaster, but I’ll figure it out. “Of course. Send me your flights when you book them. Or do you want me to have Matthew take care of them?”

  “Would he? I’d love him forever. He’s still looking after you, right?”

  “Always.” And thank god for that. What I would do without Matthew, I don’t know. “I’ll have him take care of the arrangements. Hey, I’m sorry to chat and run, but I’ve got some planning to do for my next session. Call you later?”

  “Unless you’ve got a chance to spend time with your sexy new man. Then always spend time with the sexy man.”

  “I didn’t say he was sexy.”

  “Isn’t he?”

  “Goodbye, Mom.”

  “Love you.”

  I hang up the phone and send Matthew an email about making my mother’s flight arrangements.

  *

  The relief I feel at getting Allie’s text a few days after we return from Las Vegas is palpable. Which is odd. It was beyond the concern I feel about my clients after intense sessions, especially toward the beginning of our relationship. I do not sit by the phone, waiting for boys to call, but that’s what it felt like after I got his text.