by Lilia Moon
She grins. “I know the words for prickly in every language.”
I listen to her laughing all the way down the driveway.
It’s a sound that already owns me.
Chapter Forty-One
India
I’m ready for him this time. I want to be pissed off again. None of this slow wooing with niceness and thoughtfulness and his ability to roll with whatever the world throws at him.
If I don’t have several hundred miles to protect me, then I need something else, and thorns have always been my best defense. I raise my eyebrows as he strolls in my front door ten minutes after I do. He either got lost or took a detour, and judging from the grocery bag in his hand, detour wins. “I already have bread and you’re late.”
He sets down the bag just inside the door and toes off his boots, eyes on me. Not saying a word.
Oh, shit. I have officially riled my Dom. Which should probably make me think at least twice about my next course of action, but it doesn’t. I need to be the one riled up, and I know one sure way to get there. I raise my hands to the waistband of my jeans and push them down, which would be a more effective striptease if I wasn’t wearing a big flannel shirt, but erotic isn’t the tone I’m trying to set.
I drop the leggings, turn around on the step I’m standing on, and flap the tails of my flannel shirt. “One ass for your pleasure, Sir.”
There’s dead silence behind me. Which is when I realize just how bad an idea it was to turn away from him. I can’t see his reaction, and that’s always been one of my tricky zones. I swallow, hard. There’s no way to walk this back that doesn’t have me looking like a shuffling idiot with pants around her ankles.
Hands brush over the skin I’ve just uncovered, followed by his lips, warm against my uncovered skin. “You, India Jennings, have a gorgeous ass. I’ll be very happy to have my way with it.”
There’s no hint of anger in his voice, just calm sincerity. I make a face he can’t see. He absorbs my thorns, somehow. He doesn’t dull them—he just sends them back into the primordial ooze, accepted, but not needed.
Which is a terrifying thought.
A hand reaches for mine. Not cautiously, even though I ripped away from him at Judy’s place. “Let’s take this to your living room.”
My naked ass rarely hangs out in there. I grimace down at my pants, which are cheerfully pooled at my ankles. I definitely didn’t think this through.
Rafe makes a sound that might be a chuckle, thoroughly strangled. “You might want to step out of those. Concussions are a hard limit for me.”
I’m pretty sure helmet kink isn’t a thing. I manage to work my toes into the hem of my jeans, and then I gingerly try to work my foot out without losing either the freaking egg or my thick wool sock, which isn’t all that easy to do on a stairwell when my Dom is making it very clear that holding his hand isn’t a choice.
I sigh as I nearly take a header into the bannister, and then I give up and use him for balance as I finally manage to work my first foot free. I switch sides, but my jeans make a serious effort to keep this sock. I lean down to free it, which does evil things to the weights on my nipples. He picked just the right length of chain to swing merrily every time I lean over.
I stand up again, legs finally bare, pants kicked off the stairs so they don’t accidentally kill somebody later, feet still in socks thick enough to deal with what October does to the temperature of my floors.
Rafe looks down and grins.
Naked toes were never part of the deal. “My feet are special snowflakes. They get cold easily.”
He reaches forward and runs a finger down the opening of my flannel shirt. My buttons don’t even pretend to resist. They happily disengage as he travels down, baring skin that doesn’t live anywhere near my ass. “Let me know if anything else gets cold.”
That might be a nice guy making a nice offer—or it might be a Dom with evil plans. Whatever. I refused to be goaded. “I’ll be fine.”
He nods, but not before I see the flash of humor in his eyes. Then he lets go of my hand. “I expect you in the living room ten seconds after I get there.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Rafe
I keep my body language calm, because I’m pretty sure India can still see the back of me, but my eyes are flying around her living room, looking for anything that resembles the furniture I’m about to need.
There’s a big ottoman that would work just fine, but impede her nipple chains. A fat recliner that would be comfortable for her, but awkward as fuck for me. I’m just about to toss all the pillows off her couch when I spy the window seat. It’s flat and nicely padded, and other than the potential for accidental exhibitionism, perfect for what I have in mind. I get myself positioned just as my sub comes into view. She’s stealth as hell in those socks, but it isn’t her feet I’m looking at, or even the delectable skin peeking through her oversized shirt. My eyes are glued to her face, because what I have in mind this time is a lot more than getting a couple of toys in place.
She returns my gaze, giving nothing away.
I nod down at the cherry-red window seat. “On your hands and knees.”
She gives the window a wry look, but she walks over easily enough. Which is a relief. She didn’t put other people watching on her limits list, but she might have reasonably expected us to keep our kink in the bedroom. Her house is fairly private, but in my experience, a naked ass tends to be a magnet for any voyeurs in the vicinity.
She moves slowly. Fluidly. A dancer trying to keep pussy rocks and nipple chains from getting overly excited.
I grin where she can’t see. She’s going to be thoroughly losing that battle in another minute or two. I bend down and tap her leg. “Knees okay?”
“Yes.”
She might have thorns, but she doesn’t wield them when I check a couple more points of her basic comfort. Or when I draw her flannel shirt up off her ass and settle it on her lower back. She knows what’s coming. I set my hand just over her kidneys and pause. Taking in what she wants to tell me and what she doesn’t.
I rub my palm over exposed skin. I have tools in my bag, but this is far less about impact play and far more about what I expect it to set off. And I like using my hands. I raise my arm, wait for her next exhale, and let my palm land sharply on her ass cheek. Her breath huffs out, a sub with enough experience to know how to work with the impact.
I watch the nipple chain I can see as I land a second swat. It’s not moving yet, not with a spanking this light. I keep my warm-up easy, enjoying the feel of her, the small, almost inaudible sounds she makes as my hand lands, the fleeting hints of pink on her skin and the tingling in my palm. Her cues stay steady. I know most of what happened in that room with Randy, and I’m not clear why restraints trigger her and impact play doesn’t, but she wasn’t telling lies about that. Her body is relaxed. Easy. Used to this, wanting it, even.
I step up the weight with no warning. Harder on the ass cheek closest to me, and I don’t need to see her nipple chains to know what they do. Her sharp, annoyed hiss tells me plenty. I grin and swat the other side. No point having a cranky, lopsided sub.
Except she’s not cranky. The hiss hasn’t gone away, but there’s desire in it now. Need. Her back arches and I land two more handprints, lower this time. Applying the laws of physics to the chains and to the rock she’s forgotten about.
A gurgle joins the hiss, one that hates my guts and has her hips squirming, all at the same time. Except squirming just makes the jade egg roll around on her g-spot from a different angle, something she clearly figures out as she freezes, cursing a blue streak in a whisper she probably thinks I can’t hear.
I grin and keep up my drumbeat on her ass. Faster now, in time with the swinging of the chains.
She fights it, rocking herself in counterpoint to my hand, trying to settle the mad swinging. I shake my head and swat her pussy, which is wet enough I can hear it.
Her outraged squeak bleeds to a low moan that trav
els all the way down her spine.
Chapter Forty-Three
India
I’ve never been fucked by a rock before. I have no idea why that’s the only thought in my head, because there are a bunch more I should be having.
The one about him managing to restrain me with a couple of nipple chains and the laws of gravity.
The one about blowing up my entire vanilla life in full view of any neighbor who might decide to walk by.
The one where all my resistance has crumbled to dust, but none of the reasons for resisting in the first place have gone away.
I can’t form any of those thoughts, and I can’t do it because he’s intentionally working my ass and my pussy and my nipples to chase all thoughts like that far from this scene. One very determined, skilled Dom telling me it’s time to stop topping my life from the bottom and just fucking give in.
My entire body rocks with the force he applies with his hand. I’m not sure anymore whether that makes it better or worse. It’s not the spanking—that’s still hanging out somewhere in the lightweight leagues. It’s everything else. The trapeze artists on my nipples who feel like they’ve gained a hundred pounds. The shiny red rock inside me that feels compellingly like a rock-hard cock, one with really good aim.
I’ve had five orgasms in a single day exactly never, and he’s not even torturing my clit to get me there. He’s stoking my fires with sheer, inexorable persistence.
The barrier pops inside me, the one that says this isn’t possible, that my body doesn’t have the DNA it needs to go there.
Blazing heat charges through the opening. I pant, desperate for oxygen to feed the flames his hand keeps fanning. My mouth is dry, in stark contrast to the slick heat beginning to run down my legs.
The spiral builds, wild and tight inside me, almost ready to lift off.
And then he fucking stops.
I wail, my tantrum loud and imminent.
He chuckles. “You come when I want you to come, Bright Eyes.”
His words thunder in my brain. “What?”
He leans down, his breath hot by my ear. “Your orgasms are mine. Maybe you get to come now, or maybe I keep this up for another hour and never quite let you get there.”
My ass would never survive another hour of this, but that’s not what has me frozen in shock. He’s threatening to edge me. No one does that, ever. They do it with subs who come fifteen times just from sneezing, not with those of us who lock our second and third ones up behind hours of effort.
His hand raps hard on my pussy.
I groan, my pussy reaching, blindly seeking for him to do that again. One more and maybe I go over.
His hand lands a good six inches away from where I want it to be. “Not until I say you can.”
Freaking psychic. I growl as I reassemble myself in the position he wants.
Two hard swats to my pussy and the damn rock goes fucking nuts inside me, grinding into nerves that are already sparking with need.
My head slams down on my arms, which nearly knocks my nipple weights into my chin, but I don’t care anymore. I need to come as badly as I’ve ever needed to come in my life, and despite it being an impossible fifth orgasm in one day, the man who could actually make it happen has decided to withhold.
Which makes him the most fucking arrogant man in the universe—or the most devious.
I wail as he spanks my ass again, not because of the blow, but because the message he’s been hammering on my backside finally sinks in.
He’s got this. Any way it goes.
Which is when I dissolve.
Chapter Forty-Four
Rafe
I set two glasses of milk down on the table. The sauce won’t be ready for another couple of hours, but India’s eyes are clearing, and I need to check in before a possible rescue squad arrives at our door. “So, your neighbor with the killer lungs and the red cape?”
India’s staring at the milk, a bemused look on her face. “Bee?”
I run my fingers through her hair. She very clearly didn’t want to be held for aftercare, so I’m careful. Ready to back off again if she needs it.
She leans her head into my touch, a cat finally happy to be stroked.
I pull up a chair next to her. “Is she likely to be overly freaked out about seeing my hand landing on your ass as she walked by?” I got a grin and a wave, so I’m expecting not, but I’m acutely aware this isn’t my club, where the voyeurs are tame and well monitored.
Silence, and then a small snicker escapes. “No. But she might show up to ask for some pointers.”
I shake my head. This tiny enclave in the woods has some really interesting inhabitants. I drop that line of worry and pick up the next one. “How’s your ass?” She’s not squirming on the chair, but she’s still got that limp calm going on. Sore might arrive later.
“Fine.” She reaches forward and wraps her fingers around the glass. “You drink milk?”
I smile. “I do.” I take a big swallow of mine, letting the cold goodness remind me of everything that matters. “It was the first thing my mom did, that day when I got left outside her daycare. She took me inside and sat me down at this little green table and poured me a glass of milk.”
India stills.
“I don’t have any memories from before that. Nothing more than colors and shapes. But I remember the milk.” I hold up my glass. “So to me, it’s always tasted like hope and safety.”
She picks up her glass and knocks it gently against mine. Then she drains every last drop.
I tug her chair closer to mine. “So, your ass is fine. How’s the rest of you?”
She cuddles in, which warms something unexpected inside me. “I want to be annoyed.”
That sneaking honesty again. I kiss the top of her head and feed her a cracker topped with Brie cheese and some really sensational berry spread I found in her fridge.
She chews, almost meditatively, and chases it down with the last of my milk. “I’ve never been fucked by a rock before, and I feel naked without my barbells, and it’s so weird that you’re feeding me in my own kitchen.”
I reach into my pocket for her nipple jewelry, which I carefully removed while she was still incoherent. “I thought they might be over-sensitive after all that.”
She snorts. “Duh.”
I chuckle. Clearly I don’t get any bonus points for managing not to be an idiot.
She elbows me, but there’s no weight behind it. “When do I get to play with your piercing?”
My cock leaps to attention like an ever-hopeful puppy.
She snickers and gives him a pat, which does not help the symptoms of overly hopeful. I tug on the hair that happens to be running through my fingers. “Cut that out, or he’ll get his in the shower alone tonight.”
She makes a truly excellent pouty face as she snags the last cracker. “Mean Dom.”
I reach behind me for the second plate of snacks she hasn’t seen yet. “I’d be the Dom who made you come from a spanking, sweetheart.”
She leaps on the dolmades, which I can’t take credit for. I found them fully formed in a neatly labeled container in her fridge. “Proud of yourself, are you?”
I am, but not because of the orgasm. My Dom ego loves the ease I feel in her right now, the way she can throw kinky words around in reference to what we just did and doesn’t need to walk them back. “You went pretty deep.”
She snorts. “A really great orgasm will do that.”
I smile at the thorns. She’s finding her feet—and she’s still tucked into my side. Progress.
She side-eyes me, even as she yawns. “You almost didn't let me get there.”
I had my reasons. She’s smart enough to have figured out most of them. “How’s that sitting?”
She wiggles a little. “I told you, my ass is fine.”
It is. So is the rest of her. Slow and easy and restful and if I don’t miss my guess, about to drift off to sleep.
Her second yawn almost cracks her fac
e, and she softens yet a little more at my side.
I turn her into my chest and wrap both arms around her pliant form. Holding her as she trusts me to catch an entirely different kind of surrender.
Chapter Forty-Five
India
It’s dark, I’m horizontal, and when I squirm over to find my phone to figure out which year I’ve woken up in, I get a sharp reminder that my ass is more tender than it’s been in recent memory. Which sharply reminds me of a bunch of other things.
I lie still for a moment, staring up at the shadows on my ceiling. I remember glasses of milk and the kind of soft spots in my heart I totally try to avoid feeling for fuck buddies.
I probably can’t hide behind those two words any longer.
I sigh, because I’ve landed myself in a heap of shit, and take a deep breath in so I can wake up my brain enough to deal with it. That plan, however, gets instantly derailed by the insanely delectable smells I just inhaled. I sit up fast, which is harder than usual because most of my bones are still drugged by five-orgasm haze. It smells like an Italian restaurant is having an orgy in my kitchen.
I shuffle my ass gingerly to the edge of the bed. The nice man who put me here apparently left my socks and flannel shirt on, so that’s plenty dressed for dinner. I stab my fingers at my hair and decide he can deal with I-got-sexed-and-then-took-a-nap bedhead.
I make it halfway down the stairs, fairly impressed that he carried me up them without me noticing, when I hear his warm chuckle. “Hey, sleepyhead.”
I round the corner into the kitchen and blink at the hard chest I’ve nearly run into.
He wraps his arms around me, wooden spoon still in his hand. “Sleep well?”
I cuddle in, because I’m weak and because he smells like spaghetti sauce. “Yeah.”