by Moore, Jewel
“It’s been raining cats and dogs all week!” She shivered as he snapped the pair of handcuffs over her left wrist and attached it to the cast-iron bed frame—not because the fur-lined metal was cold, but in anticipation of the torture he’d planned for her. “I hate getting my feet wet.”
“You should have come out, even if you had to wear Wellington Boots.” He attached her handcuffed right foot to the footboard and sat back on his hunches. “Each day I looked forward to the footage you promised me.”
“I didn’t promise you anything!” Spread eagle on her front across the large custom-made bed, Chantelle could just about turn her head from side to side.
“Didn’t you beg me not to sleep with anyone else while I was in Jamaica?” He bit her heel playfully. “And didn’t I say I would if you came here every day at lunch time and sent me a video clip of you playing with yourself as a reminder of what I had waiting for me in the UK?”
“Yes.” She squirmed as he ran his tongue over the arch of her foot. Oh dear God, not her ticklish feet! “Dominic, don’t!”
“And why didn’t you?”
“I thought you were joking!”
She had known that he wasn’t joking, but she’d baulked at the thought of someone else accidentally seeing an image of her private parts. She cringed as she remembered how emotional she’d become when they had made love just before he left for Jamaica. Remembering his impromptu trip to Bahamas to break off things with his woman there, she suddenly felt panicked that he had one in Jamaica, too. She’d clung to him on the eve of his trip to Jamaica, supported by the wall behind her and his strong arms under her knees, as he had thrust rhythmically into her and begged him not to give anyone in Jamaica her ‘sugar’ while he was over there. He hadn’t responded until they were lying in bed together several minutes later. And then rather than allay her fears that he would sleep with someone else while out there, he’d made a conditional promise which she had agreed to, in desperation.
“You know I never joke about anything.”
“Does that mean you slept with…?” she couldn’t finish the question past the lump that had formed in her throat. She raised her head and held her breath as she waited for his answer.
“No I didn’t.” He held her foot steady and sucked several of her toes into his mouth.
“Dominic, please…please!”
“I’m going to find every erogenous zone on your body and tease you until you die of pleasure,” he threatened.
Minutes later she screamed out as if he were indeed murdering her as he tilted her behind upwards and feasted on her nub of her clitoris like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. When she came, he continued on regardless, not stopping until she flooded his tongue with another flow of her nectar.
She felt boneless as he unsnapped the handcuffs and turned her over.
“And now, my precious, I’m going to fuck you until you’re too sore to walk.” He placed her legs on his shoulders and positioned himself against her. “I was bursting when I got here today. I don’t appreciate having to masturbate when I have a woman who can satisfy my needs. The next time I tell you to come to me, you will do so without question.”
“I’m not your little play— ” The breath rushed out of her at the first hard slam of hips as he penetrated her to the hilt. “Fuck…oh fuck!”
“You’re not what?” he asked, daring her to defy him.
“Your damned plaything!” she replied, but circled her hips and met his strong, hard, fast thrusts.
“You’re not?” He stopped moving and smiled roguishly as he pressed her legs forward until her knees were either side of her head. Then he placed his hands on her legs and started to move again. There was no room to maneuver she soon realized and no escape from his full, deep penetration.
“You brute!” She dug her short nails into his shoulder blades as he started to pound into her.
He laughed and added a sideways movement to his back and forth motion without breaking his rhythm. “But you love me.”
“You know I do.”
Her hands left his shoulders of their own accord and rifled through the curls at the back of his head. She pulled his head down and he kissed her gently—a startling contrast to the hard battering of his hips.
***
“Preston was out of order today.” Chantelle heard the remnants of fury in Dominic’s voice and understood the control he had exercised in the meeting. He hadn’t brought the topic up as he had taken her fast and furiously twice more before slowing to a more moderate pace as his immediate lust was satisfied. Now he lay sprawled naked on green silk sheets like a lazy lion in the Serengeti sun while she hurriedly dressed, hoping to get home in time to read Charmine her favorite bedtime story. Cerise would do it if she was late, but their little sister complain that no one did the voice as well as Chantelle.
“It’s okay.” Chantelle didn’t want to discuss the matter with Dominic. She had to think long and hard about the ramification of continuing to work for the company when every future project, bonus or promotion she was awarded would raise the eyebrows or the suspicions of other members of the management team. She was confident that she had been appointed to the position purely on her performance at the interview, but her youth and lack of experience would add credence to the suspicion Preston had now fuelled.
“If anyone was going to get to work with me on the project it would have been Mark, but he’s just been diagnosed with lung cancer…please keep it to yourself for now. He will need to take several months off to deal with it.”
“Poor Mark!”
“They’ve caught it early, so he has a good chance of survival. I don’t want him taking on a new project right now. The treatment won’t be easy…my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer eighteen months ago and is now in full remission.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your dad.”
“No need to feel sorry for the old codger.” Dominic’s smile softened his words. “He’s a workaholic, but he’s enjoying the chance to spend some time with Mum, taking her on cruises to all the places he’d promised to when they were first married. And he still calls me over to the house whenever he’s in the UK to grill me about the company and the decisions I’m making. He can’t wait to take over the reins again next month.”
“What will you do when he returns?” Chantelle tried to keep her voice light, but a tremor still escaped. Dominic would then be free to return to the Caribbean and his decadent lifestyle.
“I don’t want him working too hard, so I’m going to stay here until next April to keep an eye on him.” They probably wouldn’t still be seeing each other, but Chantelle’s heart ached at the thought of him in another country. “I’ll celebrate my thirtieth birthday here in the UK and—”
“You’re not thirty yet?” she asked in mock surprise. “I thought you were mid- to late forties!”
“You’re looking for a spanking,” he threatened. “I will ‘mid- to late forties’ your sweet round ass if you don’t behave!”
“I’ll behave,” she promised quickly, knowing that he would probably carry out the threat if she provoked him any further. “And after your birthday you go back to your little island in the Caribbean?”
“You’ve been Googling me.” He chuckled.
“So you do own an island, then?”
“Yes,” he got off the bed, took her wrists in his hands and then wrapped his arms around her, holding her prisoner. “I want to take you there soon.”
“Well, since I may not be working for the company much longer,” she responded, unconsciously revealing the thought that had been foremost in her mind since that morning’s fateful meeting. “I may just have the free time.”
He freed his right hand and tilted her face up to his. “You’re not leaving the company!”
“Dominic, how can I stay after today? I would have loved the chance to work on the Thamesview Project, but now everyone will think that I’m sleeping with you and—”
“You are sleeping with
me,” he reminded her, a smile playing around his lips.
“Dominic, be serious!”
“I don’t see what the problem is. It’s my father’s company and he has given his approval.”
“I really don’t want to leave, but—”
“Stop talking about leaving. You’re not going anywhere!” His grasp tightened around her wrist. For a moment she feared he would snap it.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.” The blood rushed back to her fingers as he immediately released her. He massaged it apologetically and then placed a kiss on her inner wrist. “I won’t let you leave because of an old fool who doesn’t know better than to keep his opinions to himself.”
“Dominic, it’s too late for that. They’ll all be thinking the same thing now.”
“The more reason to stop hiding our relationship.” Dominic hadn’t like the subterfuge in the first place. “This ducking and diving is getting old now. If you weren’t a virgin before we made love, I would suspect that you were seeing another man.”
“Of course I’m not seeing another man!”
“Then what is the problem?” he asked, clearly exasperated. “The last time I looked in the mirror, I had one head, two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Have I grown a third eye or an extra nose or mouth since?”
“Nothing’s wrong with your face and you know it!”
“Then what is it?”
“I just never…,” she began. This wasn’t going to be easy. She knew that he would take it the wrong way. “I just never thought I’d date someone like you.”
“Like me how?” He quirked an eyebrow and waited for her to elaborate.
“Look, I’ve always thought black women who dated white men were a little wannabe.”
“Wannabe?” he queried, his voice dangerously soft.
At another time, Chantelle would have laughed at his pronunciation of the Americanism with his proper British accent. This wasn’t a time for laughter.
“You know…wannabe white.”
“Do you want to be white?”
“No!” she denied hotly.
“Then why would any other black woman?”
“There are some, believe me!” Her friend Gail, for instance, who had never dated a black man and had always openly declared that she wanted her children to be light skinned and soft haired—not dark and nappy headed like their mother. She was still married to the man whom she’d confessed had called her the N-word while they were arguing on two separate occasions. She referred to her two young children’s race as white not mixed-race, although the children’s mixed legacy was plainly obvious. Chantelle already worried about them fitting into society as they grew older. Nothing she said could convince Gail that she needed to teach her children something of their black heritage.
“You’re not one of them, so what’s the problem?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Chantelle floundered for an explanation that wouldn’t offend him. “Most black women who date white men seem to have a certain look. I don’t know if they achieve it before or after they start the relationship, but it’s not my style.”
“What look is that?”
“Skinny, have weaves down to their asses and often talk like they’re trying to be…” Chantelle let her voice trail off. While it something she’d observed more and more in London, she didn’t know if it was true for black women who dated white men in the rest of the UK, or worldwide. She knew that she wasn’t making perfect sense to Dominic. There were several points she wanted to make, but every one would make her sound like she hated white people, when all she wanted to convey to him that she was proud of being black.
“Have I asked you to change anything about yourself?”
“No,” she was forced to admit. But that would no doubt change if she agreed to be seen with him publicly. After all, which young, billionaire playboy didn’t want a slim, sexily- or scantily-dressed woman on his arm?
“I would naturally want to buy you things and ensure that you have an appropriate wardrobe for the functions we have to attend.”
“A wardrobe you would no doubt choose yourself?” she asked and waited for his affirmative reply to drive home her point.
“Not personally. I would get you the best personal stylist available.”
“And yet, you won’t be trying to change my style?”
“Chantelle, it’s more about you feeling comfortable when we go out together. On a given night out I run into members of the aristocracy, government ministers, actors, actresses, singers, you name it. I want you to feel comfortable rubbing shoulders with them and you can’t do that if you don’t feel at your best.”
“All the more reason for us to keep what we have between us private.”
Dominic had really no idea the amount of money that was needed to equip her for life in the media spotlight. She was slowly building her wardrobe for the office and it was taking all her spare cash.
“I have certain social obligations that I’ve committed to. I don’t intend to attend them alone.”
“Are you saying that you’ll take another woman if I don’t go?”
“It’s your choice,” he said silkily.
Bastard!
“It won’t be a problem for you to be seen with me—you won’t even be the only billionaire or millionaire with a black woman on his arm. Naomi, Kelly…we seem to be the latest accessory,” she said, bitterness coating her voice. Few people would think that Dominic’s and hers was a serious relationship. She would be seen merely as the woman, or worst ‘one’ of the women, he was currently sleeping with.
“You think I’m trying to follow some kind of trend?” he asked, his voice dangerously cold.
“I’m saying that it’s easy for you to parade me on your arm for a couple of months and then dump me when—”
“So now you’re accusing me of just wanting to use you until the next woman comes along?”
“Dominic, I know that you would never marry someone like me and that’s fine.” It wasn’t, but if she didn’t keep her expectations low and realistic, she would be hurt too deeply to recover when he finally grew tired of her.
“Thank you for knowing my intentions better than I do myself!”
“We both know that your wife is likely to be some busty, blue-eyed blonde whose daddy is also rolling in dough.”
“I’m surprised you’re even here with me, if that’s what you think!”
Suddenly all the fight went out of Chantelle. She was happy with their current arrangement. She didn’t want to get a taste of the glitzy celebrity lifestyle and then be dissatisfied with her humbler means once he’d moved on. It would be doubly mortifying if other people witnessed her tumble from top to bottom.
“Dominic, don’t let’s fight,” she pleaded, snuggling her head onto his shoulder. “You’ve done a lot for me and I’m grateful.”
“I haven’t done anything you have to be grateful for. The money I gave you at the club was part of a business transaction—you danced for me; I paid you. You were interviewed for a job at the company advertised—you’re the best of the candidates; they hired you.”
“You know you did more than that. The house in Jamaica—”
“You wouldn’t have needed my help if your uncle wasn’t such a bastard,” he reminded her. “And Derek made it all happen, not me.”
What else could she say? He clearly didn’t want her gratitude. How she could make him understand that she wasn’t expecting marriage, that she would accept whatever time he had to give her, as long as it was exclusive time—she won’t share him with another woman. If he dropped her tomorrow she would be devastated, but she prayed she would be able to move on, taking precious memories of their time together with her. Trying to hold on to a man like Dominic would be like trying to keep hold of an eel.
“I think you need to meet my mother.”
“What?” Hadn’t he heard a word she’d said about keeping things just between the two of them?
“It’s time yo
u knew a little more about me.”
“I don’t need your mother to tell me how wonderful you are. I know that already!”
“I’ll call her and arrange for the two of you to meet for lunch.”
“Dominic I don’t want to meet your mother! We’re not even dating.”
“Aren’t we?”
“We’re having sex.” He gave her a stony-eyed glare and she hastily amended, “Great sex, though.”
“You can tell that to my mother. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to hear it.”
“Are you seriously ordering me to meet your mother?”
“She helped my father get the company off its feet in the beginning, so she’s as much a part of it as he is. I’m giving you an instruction,” he informed her coolly.
“Fine.” She pulled away from him and hurriedly exited the flat.
This is why you never sleep with your damn boss!
The conversation really hadn’t gone as she’d planned. It was hard to explain what she felt without sounding prejudiced. She’d never wanted to be anything but black. Her Jamaican roots were strong. She didn’t want to change who she was just to date a person of another race. She liked her kinky hair, she liked her big hips, her chunky thighs and full behind. She loved Jamaican food and music. She loved talking Patois, or listening to other people talk it among themselves, on mobile phones while walking past her, or at a bus stop, or on a bus. She loved the fleeting reminders of her parents’ birthplace, which she still remembered vividly from her visits there.
Though, she was ashamed to admit it, but she almost always did a double take when she saw the fairly rare sight of a black woman with a white man. She always wondered what was in it for him, or for her. If the guy was much older she always thought he had to be loaded; if he was young or good looking, she wondered if he needed a visa to stay in the UK, or if the woman had money. Her first thought was never that they simply loved each other.
The seven year difference in their ages was ideal—she needed someone just a bit older to put her in her place from time to time. She would walk all over a younger man. But anyone seeing her and Dominic together would assume that she was after his money. She cringed at the thought, but acknowledged that she deserved the payback for herself thinking the same thing of other black women in a similar position.