by Lilia Moon
I let my hands keep gently massaging. She might not need it, but I do. “So, how were the toys?”
Remembered anger lights in her eyes, along with sparking humor. “That was mean.”
I know what she’s driving at. “Your job is to name your edges. Unless it’s a hard limit, my job is to decide how we play with them. Then you get to say yes or no, but that’s all.”
She breathes out slowly, really listening. “This isn’t vanilla sex. Even when it looks the same.”
Not even close. “How does that feel?”
Her lips turn up in a wry grin. “You ask that question more than any guy I know.”
She knows all the wrong guys. “BDSM 101, and that’s not an answer, Em.”
“I was mad.” She’s got my hands on her hips, my hard cock rubbing against her pussy, a butt still slippery with lube, and she’s doing her level best to answer my question as honestly as she can. “I felt like you hadn’t heard me, or you weren’t taking me seriously.”
We’ve hit the stuff that can be really hard for beginners to swallow. “It’s my job to decide what you need. That can be different from what you say you want.”
She makes a face at me. “Am I allowed to be annoyed that you were right?”
“Worded very carefully, my sweet sub.” I let my fingers wander into her ass crack from behind. “And yes, today I’ll allow that.”
She splutters, a little indignant.
I slide a finger into her lubed opening again. She’s relaxing for me and I bet she doesn’t even realize it. “It doesn’t have to be a choice between hands and toys. It can be both, but I did hear loud and clear that you prefer hands, and that you need that anchoring.” I’m moving my finger lazily in and out, and she’s rocking on my cock in time to my rhythm.
She bites her lower lip. “Fingers are better.”
I can’t help myself. “I have some other body parts that can fill those places too.”
I can tell from her reaction that anal sex isn’t something she’s ever done. And I can also tell that if I spread her open right now and push my cock into her, she’ll probably enjoy the hell out of it.
I slide my finger out of her really slowly, giving her lots of time to register the withdrawal. And then I ignore her frustrated whimper and reach for a towel.
Food. Sleep.
Before I kill us both.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Emily
The blue numbers on the clock say two a.m. I should be sleeping.
I was sleeping. A hot bath, more of Damon’s excellent skill with pasta making, and then I crawled into his bed and his arms before the sun set and pretty much passed out.
I’m still there. He’s holding me pressed up against his side, our legs tangled together like lovers, my head on his shoulder. He’s not my Dom in this moment, not the man who handed me a sheaf of papers and offered me a chance to relearn who I am.
He’s just a guy, and a very tired one—he hasn’t budged an inch all night.
He carried us both through this and I know it. Whatever he might be getting out of this, it can’t possibly be what he’s given me, and the generosity of that has me lying awake in the middle of the night contemplating things that are going to make this complicated really fast.
I want to keep him.
I can hear his worries, the ones in his eyes that he hasn’t whispered a word of, and the Emily Madigan of a week ago would share them. I live a pretty simple and very private life, and I like it that way. Damon Black’s life is an open book, or at least a closed one that a whole lot of people probably want to read.
There’s no easy way to bring those two together, and that I want to do it with a man I met less than a week ago is reason number two I’m not snoring quietly into his shoulder.
I don’t know Damon at all—and yet I do.
I know he watches me like the world depends on it. I know he’s sure of himself bordering on arrogant and that he’s quick to admit when he’s wrong. He laughs at himself easily and overflows with tenderness and loves to cuddle and knows exactly how to fit my body to his even when he’s asleep. I know he’s wild, fierce, passionate, demanding, and generous in ways I’ve just begun to see.
I want to see more.
I want a chance to get to know all of Damon Black and I want him to get to know more of me.
I can feel his breath, whiffling down on the top of my head. He’s sound asleep and I should be too. We’re not done yet. In the morning he’s finally going to let me out of this cage where he’s put me so that I can learn about myself, and I want to share that release with him in every way possible.
He’s given this to me.
When we wake up, it’s my turn to give back.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Damon
I don’t want it to be morning—and yet I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.
Emily is spooned into me, my arms wrapped around her and my hard cock cozied in between her ass cheeks like it’s found home and never plans to leave.
I look over at the clock on my bedside table. Eight a.m. That makes twenty-two hours, and be damned if I’m going to make either of us wait two more to take this thing between us where it most definitely needs to go.
Somewhere in the night it’s become very clear to me that I’m along for this ride as much as she is. I brought her here to teach her a few things, to watch her writhe under my hands and beg to come and free the passion I saw leaning against my dungeon wall.
I never imagined she would fit against me like she’s meant to be there. I never imagined waking up as interested in kissing the back of her neck as I am in plunging into her wet, aroused, aching parts and hearing her scream my name.
I don’t know what any of that means, because I try to imagine Emily standing beside me at a Fettered social night in her yellow sundress, or letting Ari find her some leather to wear, and either way, my mind can’t wrap around it.
No one can be my sub and keep themselves private—and the distance between Emily Madigan, wedding planner, and being out and proud as Damon Black’s sub… Yeah. I’m a realist, and nothing about that sounds remotely possible.
I’m also honest enough to know that pisses me off and makes me wish things could be different, and one of the things I promised myself when I opened Fettered was no regrets.
I look at the bedside-table clock again.
Whatever happens next, the only way Ill regret these twenty-four hours is if I spend the last two of them letting my head dick me around. I have a gorgeous, sleeping sub in my arms and it’s time to wake her up.
I reach a hand down between the rails on the headboard. My favorite lube is there, ready and waiting and warm. I squeeze out a handful and reach down slowly under the covers.
I want Emily to wake up, but I don’t want it to happen fast. I move back just enough to make space for my hand between us and slide it between her legs. She makes a soft sound, still asleep, and rolls toward me and spreads her legs.
Slowly, taking my sweet time and enjoying the feel of every ripe inch of her, I spread the lube around. Circles over her clit, shallow dips into her pussy, into her ass.
She’s moving against me now, but her breathing says she’s still mostly asleep. I slide a second finger into her ass. No signs she’s overly sore this morning. I grin and work my fingers around a little more. Stretching her. Spreading her.
Her eyes are opening now, hazed with arousal.
I lean over and suckle on her nipple. She sighs and wiggles, trying to move closer to my mouth and to my fingers in her ass at the same time.
I graze her nipple with my teeth. “Be still.” Dom voice.
She freezes, and then relaxes into me.
A beginner who can slide into her sub role before she’s fully awake isn’t a beginner anymore.
She’s hot and tight around my fingers and suddenly I’m done waiting. I tuck her hair out of the way and nuzzle into her neck. “You have your safewords.”
I pull my fingers out and let her see the condom package on its way to my cock. She’s already spreading her legs, trying to get where she thinks I want her to be. I growl, and she holds still.
Condom on, another squirt of lube, and I have my fingers back rimming her ass again. I can see her eyes unhaze a little as she figures out where I’m headed.
I lean over and suck on her nipple, but I’m not hurrying. I want her to choose. When my cock slides into her ass, I want her to know that she wants it there.
She gives a little sigh and wiggles her ass into my fingers. “Green. Please.”
I switch out my fingers for the head of my cock. Her eyes fly open. This is no cute purple anal bead.
I could walk her through this, tell her to push against the pressure, spend more time stretching her out with my fingers. Instead, I just let her see my eyes and the trust that lives there. She’s ready for this and she wants it and I’m going to give it to her.
That deep, breathy sigh again as she relaxes and pulls up her knees, spreading herself wide open.
I push the head of my cock in, past her resistance, and have to fight for my own control at the hot, tight squeeze. I move my thumb to her pussy, finding the nerve endings I know she likes.
She’s already breathing into the pressure, relaxing around me. Starting to rock her hips.
I let her lead now. I lie quietly, angled against her on my side and let her take me in. I drink in the panting cries as she slowly works her ass down on my cock, bringing herself nearly to the brink.
And then I lean into her ear again. “You don’t come until I say you can.”
Her cry of protest is gorgeous.
I pull out about halfway and thrust back in slowly. “Not until I tell you.”
She’s nearly lost in the intense sensation in her ass, but she drags her eyes to mine. “I don’t know if I can.”
I don’t know if I can either, but that’s the last thing she needs to hear. She’s slick and ready and wanting and the feel of her is more than I can stand. This isn’t the way I planned her first orgasm. This was just supposed to be warm-up, a little play to take her to her edges.
Instead, she’s dragging us both there as fast as she can go.
It’s time to trust my sub.
I set up a steady rhythm of thrusts in her ass that she can rely on, reach my fingers up to play with her nipples, and wait to see what she does.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Emily
I’m going to die happy. That’s all I can think, all I can feel. We’re wet and slick together and I’m impaled on him and the sounds of him sliding into me are drowning me in a sea of sensation that’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.
His fingers are working my nipples now, doing whatever magic connects them straight to my clit and to the building fire in my ass. I’ve imagined a thousand orgasms in the last fifteen years, with and without a lover in my bed.
I never imagined this.
His mouth is at my ear again. “Let me hear you, Emily. Let me see your eyes.”
I try to focus, but the world has become a blur. I let my sounds out, the desperate begging of a woman who has walked forty miles across a desert and thinks she smells water.
I’m so close, and I’m holding on by my fingernails. I’m not supposed to come until he says I can.
I can hear his breathing as he thrusts into me. I can feel the sharpness of his teeth scraping my nipples, making them scream. Making me scream. It isn’t subspace coming for me this time and I know it.
“Look at me, sweetheart.”
I manage to find his eyes. I want him to see the gift he’s about to give me.
He reaches one hand for the back of my neck, the other for my hip, and glues his gaze on mine. “Now, Em. Come for me now.”
He doesn’t move. I don’t need him to. Every thrust, every touch, every nerve ending he’s inflamed since the moment I stepped through his door and stripped off my old skin roars to do his bidding.
The pieces of Emily Madigan shatter and I go with them, absolutely sure I can do this. Absolutely certain he will catch me. I am a million molecules of fire and starfall because he believes I can be.
He stays perfectly still, deep and hard in my ass, and collects me as I come back to earth. I have no idea how long it takes—I only know that his hands hold me the entire time.
When I can keep at least some of my body parts straight again, I realize that I’m on my back and curled up in his arms, my legs slung over his, the glorious smell of us rising up and tickling my nose and making me stupidly happy.
My nose may be the only part of me that still works.
I am done.
I don’t think I will move ever again.
It’s not a bad fate.
Damon’s fingers slide into my sopping wet folds.
My eyes fly open and find his, and his grin is as big as the Pacific Ocean. “What, you thought I was going to stop at one?”
It’s going to take me a week to rebuild my DNA after one orgasm. “I can’t.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Bets?”
Some insane part of me nods. Daring him.
He growls, his fingers plunging into me, hard and fast and demanding. Pounding against some magic button inside me that has a train hurtling down a track before I even know it’s left the station.
He puts his other hand on my lower belly and presses. “Now, sweetheart.”
I’m exploding all over his hand before I even have time to tell myself to let go.
He doesn’t even pause. His hands and his mouth are all over me, pushing me, insisting that I ride this rollercoaster again.
I can’t even breathe anymore—and then I feel him moving over me. My eyes fly open. I need to see this. I need to see him.
He slides into me, slow and sweet and easy, and everything in me rises up to meet him. This isn’t my Dom anymore. This is Damon, vulnerable human being with questions in his eyes. I reach up and pull him into me, and know that it’s my turn now.
This time I set the rhythm, moving my hips under his. Rocking, keeping him deep. Letting him feel my breathing, my absolute need for him, the fire that is reaching out of the center of me to wrap around us both.
And when it’s time, I reach my mouth up to his ear. “I’m going to come for you now, Damon.”
I don’t come alone.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Damon
I look at the clock. Eleven a.m. Hour twenty-five.
The hour when I need to walk away from Emily and keep her clear of my world. She’s curled in my arms, and the knowledge that my sexy schoolteacher is an addicted cuddler is the straw that’s threatening to break me.
That or the annoying ringing in my ears.
I shake my head, fighting the disorientation. It’s my damn phone. The number that only Ari and Harlan have, whichever one of them is manning the emergency contact protocol.
I stroke the sleepy, gorgeous woman in my arms. “I’m so sorry, Emily. I have to get that.”
Her eyes are clearing even as I speak. “Of course.”
It takes me a minute to find my pants, and longer to get my fingers working well enough to extract my phone. I’m not pleased to see Ari on the display—she’s even less likely to disturb me than Harlan, so it must be bad.
I answer, and she fills me in with short, succinct sentences. I manage not to curse, but just barely.
When I set my phone down, I can feel despair landing along with the reality check. This is exactly why I need to walk away.
I look over at the woman on the bed, sitting up all beautiful and naked with worry in her eyes. “There’s a reporter at the club, alleging she has a story about underage members.” I don’t tell her it’s the third time in two years this crap has tried to slime my club. My family.
She’s shaking her head. “No way.”
I adore every damn inch of her. “Ari is our youngest member, and anyone under thirty goes through her and me to get in. She’s been part of t
he Seattle youth scene for almost ten years. Nobody sneaks past her.” Which I need to go make abundantly clear to the reporter with the errantly sniffing nose before the slime has a chance to spread.
I know I can shut this down. And I know it doesn’t matter. Not for me and my sexy wedding planner, anyhow. I breathe in and look at her as I head to my closet. “The thing is, Em, there are three or four stories a year like this that people try to break. I run a sex club. I’m a target, and so is Fettered.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think lies matter to me?”
That much I can give her. “No. But about half of what they think goes on in the club actually does, and it would offend a lot of the reading public out there.” I can see the hurt in her eyes, but I can’t stop. Not now. She matters—and she doesn’t understand. “It would probably bother a lot of people looking to get married, too. I’m not ashamed of my world, but it’s not going to play nicely with yours.”
I can see her firing up—and then I see her pulling back. Collecting herself. “You have a crisis to deal with. Go. We’ll talk later.”
That she gets it makes this that much harder.
But I don’t kid myself. It was never going to be easy.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Emily
He’s looking at me the whole time he’s getting dressed. I don’t move. I can’t. I don’t want him to see me shaking.
I’m a grown-up, and one who runs a business that has emergencies as reliably as Seattle has rain. I can handle this, even if it involves watching the man who just ransacked my soul standing in his closet and putting on his armor.
A pair of charcoal-gray pants, pulled up warrior-taut legs. Shirt snapping into place, the white of a fighter who doesn’t expect any of the blood to land on him—or who won’t care if it does. His eyes narrow as he selects the right tie, inserts steel cufflinks that shine like blades.