Under His Touch

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Very practical.”

  “That’s me.” She bent down and kissed him. “See you soon.”

  He watched her go, her brisk walk down the path jaunty, ponytail bouncing. Then he stayed where he was, looked at the water, and thought about endings.

  * * *

  At least she hadn’t told him she was falling in love. Of course, she’d implied as much, hinted at the danger and all but declared her intentions. Alec, in his inimitable fashion, had heard only what he wanted to. Or, at least, only directly acknowledged that much. It wasn’t always easy to tell if she’d gotten through to him, he covered his thoughts so well behind that cool reserve.

  If only she could have been a fly on the wall when he offered Tessa an open marriage.

  She knew something of how that dynamic worked from watching the long, slow demise of her parents’ marriage. People were funny that way, determined to use the emotional hooks they’d sunk deep to keep the other captive, hating the other person but unwilling to set them free. Her parents had played it out in a nonsexual way—so far as she knew—but Alec’s story had fit that same pattern. It wasn’t fair to hate Tessa for it, this woman she’d never met. Screw fair, though. She hated Tessa on principle, for putting that misery on Alec’s face.

  Thinking of him, she pulled out her phone and sent him the jester face, just to see what he’d do. She also sent Kiki a row of dancing girls. Enough said. Kiki sent back a sleeping face, so she left her alone. Alec hadn’t replied, so she tucked the phone away.

  She’d made it six blocks from the park before her phone whistled. He’d sent a heart with a bow around it. How could she not fall for this guy? He’d probably spent all that time searching through the umpteen emojis, picking the right one. Her phone whistled again and she puzzled over the image of the shirt and tie he’d sent until, laughing, she realized it was suit porn.

  A man passing her on the sidewalk gave her a flirtatious smile, which she returned. Yes, she was happy. Her body ached in places, in salacious ways, and she savored the delicious secret of the extraordinary sex she’d had, that only she and Alec knew about. Now it would be her turn to blow Alec’s mind, and she knew exactly how to do it. Giving him a taste of things to come—besides him—she sent him a lollipop emoji. Let him wonder about that one.

  Yeah, guy on the street—eat your heart out.

  She ended up spending more than she’d imagined, between Dylan’s Candy Bar and the sex and costume shops—along with the impulsive stop at the bookstore. But then, Alec had handed her a substantial amount of cash. Without blinking, which meant he didn’t see it as all that much. She wouldn’t worry about it then. If he didn’t give it much thought, she wouldn’t either. She’d catch up to him eventually, as she had no intention of ever being someone’s penniless slave.

  Serious heebie-jeebies there. Interesting, too, that she and he seemed to be of the same mind on that. On many things, actually. Circle back around to the perilously sweet, falling sensation. She’d never been in love, but the certainty filled her. The way she quickened at his least glance, the brush of his hand. Erotic compatibility, yes, but far more. She liked teasing him over breakfast and walking in the park.

  It had hit her hard, during his story, when she knew she had to ask if he wanted an out on the kink. She would have agreed in an instant, to be with him. Blew Kiki’s whole theory that she’d crushed hard on the dom vibe. That might have been the doorway, but he was the home inside it. She’d stepped over the threshold and found herself wrapped in his heart. The mirror of how it had gone with Tessa. Alec had started as the role, the abstract for her.

  Now he was everything. Her first love.

  She’d bide her time until she’d wooed him into feeling something of the same. In the meantime, she’d use his lust for her without mercy.

  If he wants out, though, I’ll let him go.

  She sailed up to the doors, carrying her many bags, and gave Sean a sunny smile. He did not like her—or was, more likely, offended by her—so she asked him how his Saturday was going, just to torture him into having to talk to her. She had to knock on Alec’s door. Dammit, hopefully he’d come back home. If he hadn’t, she’d camp out on his doorstep rather than have the stinking doorman think she’d been kicked out.

  Alec opened the door with a smile and a suspicious eye for her packages. “I suppose I should give you a set of keys.”

  “Really?” A huge concession for him, that maybe they weren’t only having a brief fling. Practically a declaration of affection, from him.

  “It only makes sense. And I’ve offered you keys to my flat, not to the city. It’s not that exciting.”

  She set the bags down, went up on tiptoe and hugged him, gratified when he kissed her in his long, slow lazy way, sending her always-simmering desire for him into slow boil.

  “It is that exciting,” she murmured against his mouth. “It means a great deal to me.” She stopped herself from saying anything more. “Now let me go. I have to get ready. You can wait for me in the living room.”

  He studied her face. Glanced at the bags again. “Should I be afraid?”

  “If I’m on target, you’ll love this. If not, we’ll stop. Those are the rules, right?”

  “She says, as if she’s ever used her safewords in a sexual scenario.”

  “I did, too.”

  “To save your pride, not for any other concern.”

  “But I would,” she insisted.

  “I shall believe it when I hear it,” he responded drily.

  “Well, then, this will be a good opportunity for you to demonstrate.”

  “Possibly.” But he sounded unconvinced. Dark Alec, seething just beneath the surface, not liking the loss of control. Good.

  She had the perfect lure for him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  He waited for her, wondering what the hell she had planned. Something diabolical, with her sharp, creative and perverse brain. He’d given thought to it, her question of what Tessa had done for him, to please him. And had slowly realized their relationship had never been about that, not in essence. Even with Tessa being determinedly submissive sexually, everything had been about keeping her happy.

  Not easy to do. He’d discovered over time that she hadn’t been a happy person in many ways. And, in the way of some fundamentally unhappy people, she’d looked for external solutions. At first it had been about money and the things. Fancier homes and more expensive clothes. Gifts from him had assumed enormous significance—and never quite lived up to expectations, making her birthday and holidays something he’d begun to quietly dread.

  She’d given up job after job, searching for the perfect one, then only quitting entirely would satisfy her. With all of the attendant expectations of what sexual slavery would give her. How a good dom would know how to take away her worries and concerns, so she’d be free to be happy.

  But, seeing it all through Amber’s clear-eyed gaze, it seemed so obvious. He thought he’d failed Tessa as a dominant—but he hadn’t been what she wanted on any level. Funny that it made him feel better to know that. As if it let him set down some load he’d been carrying.

  Being with Amber...it took him back to how it had been with Sasha, the playful fun. The games without the baggage.

  All the better to fret over what Amber had in mind. A whisper of her movement alerted him, so he stopped pacing and made himself sit. Then regretted the choice as the sight of her nearly sent his blood pressure through his head.

  Sweet bleeding Jesus.

  She slinked around the corner and posed—no other word for it—leaning against the doorframe and licking a colorful lolly. Yanking his chain and yanking it hard, indeed.

  She wore her hair in twin pigtails, high on either side of her head, curled into ringlets and with ribbons added. Her outfit was pure schoolgirl, from the w
hite blouse knotted kerchief-style at her waist to the pleated skirt, over-the-knee black stockings and—fuck him sideways—patent leather shoes.

  Face clean of makeup except for glittery pink lip gloss, she’d managed to look younger than usual. The picture of innocence, but for the sultry challenge in her eyes. He didn’t know whether to be fully ashamed at her insight into him, truly angry that she tried to play him this way—or terrified that she’d send him into an oblivion he couldn’t return from. Regardless, he did not intend to give her chain of any length to yank on this scenario.

  “Morpheus,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

  She dropped the lolly to her side and stood straight, if anything, exasperated. “Shouldn’t you have said Lolita then?”

  He nearly snapped at that, digging his fingers into the arms of the chair to anchor himself. But she had him there. He couldn’t insist on a veto without voicing the very word that emblemized everything he felt most guilty about.

  “Fine. But we’re not doing this. Not going there.”

  “Alec.” She sighed with impatience. “You were the one who told me that no fantasy is too dark, no taboo that can’t be broken—between consenting adults. I’m not a minor. I’m not some innocent schoolgirl, but I know I represent that to you in certain ways. You wouldn’t be this affected if it didn’t have a big charge for you. I’m very happy to work that charge out. More than that, I’m dying to. It rocks my world, too.”

  Bloody hell.

  “No one here but you and me. No one to know but us.” She swayed closer, cocking her head and licking the lolly again. “You want this. Don’t try to deny it. Say I can go ahead.”

  His temples throbbed in time with the painful echo in his rock-hard cock. She had him there, wrapped around her delicate pinky. As she moved forward, the short skirt showed slices of bare thigh above the stockings. His brain melted, filled with a high whine, and he lost his tenuous grasp on right and wrong.

  “Show me your knickers then.” His demand came out hoarse.

  She suppressed her delighted smile and managed to look shocked. “Mr. Knight! I don’t think I should do that. I’m a good girl.”

  “Are you now?” He patted his knee, luring her in to be seduced and devoured. “Don’t good girls do what they’re told?”

  Acting hesitant, dragging her feet, she sidled closer. Fidgeted with the hem of her skirt. Gave the lolly a long, slow, completely salacious stroke of her tongue. His vision went black at the edges.

  “My daddy said I should be careful of strange men.”

  If he ever recovered from this—what had she called it? The “mind-fuck”—he’d pay her back in spades. A glint of that, probably dark Alec, must have shown through because Amber paled a little. It made him crave her that much more.

  “If you sit on my lap,” he coaxed her, “then we can get to know each other and I won’t be a stranger. Come here this instant or I’ll do more than look at your knickers.”

  She visibly trembled. Hesitated. Then gingerly perched on the very end of his knee. She smelled of the thick candy sweetness of the lolly and strawberry lip gloss, watching him with wide eyes only partly assumed for the role. Setting a hand on her stocking-clad thigh, he nudged her closer, then slid his fingers up under the flippy skirt. She put a hand on the hem, holding it down, keeping him from raising it.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Knight,” she whispered. “I feel funny. What happens if I let you see my panties?”

  He kept his hand under her skirt, stroking her soft skin, finding the edge of her knickers over her hip. Cotton. And was that a bit of lace? Knowing her, she’d picked out something such as rosebuds or unicorns. He burned with the need to see them. To rip them off.

  “Why don’t you give me a little kiss?” He pushed on her back, tilting her into him, using the hand on her hip to slide her even closer. “Just on the cheek. So we can be friends.”

  “I guess that’s okay.” She brushed her lips, sticky sweet, against his cheek. He put his hand on her neck and held her there, turning his head and taking her mouth. She squeaked, struggled a little and then gave in with a moan, opening her mouth to his tongue, all hot woman there. Sex and candy.

  He used her distraction to get his hand between her thighs, though she held them tight together. Totally soaked. If he’d had any doubt what the scenario did for her, he had none now. He turned his hand, wedging her thighs apart, and she squealed, still holding the hem down and squirming on his thigh. “Oh, Mr. Knight,” she gasped. “I really don’t think you should—”

  “You’re not being a good girl at all.” He stroked her through the sodden knickers, working the cotton up into her folds. “I think you need a spanking.”

  “No, please.” She looked genuinely stricken. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Yes, you can.” He took the lolly from her and set in on the end table. “Look what you’ve been doing with a strange man. Kissing him. Letting him touch your knickers. You should be spanked for being bad, yes?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, completely overwrought, hips moving in unconscious pleading.

  “Over my knee.”

  She resisted a little, whimpering, but let him arrange her over his lap, her bum high over his right knee, breasts pressed against his calf where she dangled to the floor. Gorgeous, with her skirt riding high above the tops of her stockings. Rapt, he lifted the skirt slowly, pulling it up to her waist. White cotton knickers with little pink hearts, trimmed in pink lace.

  Not innocent Gretchen, though, but his Mephistopheles. Tormenting him with tricks at every turn.

  She’d gone still, breathing hard, cunt hot against his leg even through his trousers. He fondled her bottom through the fabric and she moved under his hand, moaning a little, breath hitching with little hiccups.

  “Very pretty knickers. You see? You could have shown me when I asked and saved yourself a spanking. But now I have to take them down to do it properly.”

  She made a sobbing sound. “Please don’t, Mr. Knight. I’ll be naked.”

  “Yes, you will. Naked and helpless.”

  He held her still with a hand in the small of her back, letting her kick and squirm as he worked the knickers down her stockinged legs, leaving them to dangle around her ankles. She went limp when he slid his fingers into her slick heat, then lifted her hips beseechingly when he pushed a thumb just inside the tight clamp of her vulva, stroking her clit.

  “So naughty,” he murmured, and she made a sound of helpless longing. One that increased in volume and desperation when he took his hand away. The perfect white skin of her bottom showed a few scratches still, from the brick wall the night before, and the sight inflamed something in him. Giving in to the tide of it, he smacked her bum, the erotic sting burning through his hand and lasering into his completely fucked brain.

  * * *

  The first smack startled her. The pain settling in after the shock blasted through her. His hand came down again. The sensation of flesh on flesh was somehow more intimate, more emotional and mind-blowing than anything else he’d used on her. She tried to duck the blows that came down hard, fast and relentless, but he held her tightly in place.

  This on top of the scene, the game-playing that worked so deeply into him and swept her up in it, made her unravel in some profound way. She kicked and wept, begging him to stop. Though he paused now and then, to rub her heated flesh and taunt her for her tears, to delve into her swollen pussy to tease her, calling her naughty in that cool British tone, he’d go back to spanking her.

  The orgasm took her by surprise. Especially as she came while he was spanking her, not with his clever fingers inside her. It took her hard, clean, and made her cry out. He stopped, rubbing her bottom and making a tsking sound.

  “Oh, my dear Miss Dolors. Do you know what kind of girl comes during a spanking?”

  Sh
e couldn’t answer, gulping through tears, thoughts shattered.

  “Answer me.” His tone was curt.

  “A...a naughty one?”

  “Yes.” He helped her to sit up, bare bottom on the scratchy material of his pants, his hand going up her skirt again, long fingers gliding into her. “A very naughty, very sexy young woman. Open your blouse and show me your titties, love.”

  Blinking through tears, rocking herself on his relentlessly teasing hand, she obeyed, hands shaking as she untied the blouse and showed him she wore nothing beneath.

  “So lovely,” he breathed, then cupped her wet cheek and kissed her. “You’re going to show me how sorry you are, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Knight.” Something in his expression made her quake inside.

  He handed her the lollipop. “Show me how you lick it.”

  She did, aware of how she’d teased him with the image before, touching her tongue tentatively to it, aware for the first time of the consequences of baiting him too far.

  “Do it right,” he growled. “Like you do to a man’s cock. I know you know how.”

  Feeling a new desperation to please him, she did, dragging her tongue along the colorful candy, he watching her like the rapacious monster he claimed to be.

  “On your knees.” He pushed her down between his spread thighs, not giving her the opportunity to obey, and opened his pants. His beautiful cock thrust free and she bent over without being told, licking the crown the way she’d tongued the lollipop, holding his gaze. He’d gone rigid, apparently mesmerized, so she sank down, relaxing her throat and taking him all the way in.

  In the next moment he had her on the floor, hands rough on her, shoving up her skirt, lifting her hips as he pumped his fingers into her. He watched her, curling his fingers up inside her, thumb pressing her clit, other hand holding her ankle, holding her open as the next climax hit, wrenching in its intensity. “Again,” he demanded.

  As if helpless to disobey, her body followed suit, climbing higher and breaking on yet another peak. He pushed her knees wide apart, and stood over her, staring fixedly at her nakedness, one stocking fallen below her knee, her skirt tangled around her waist. He shucked off his pants and, whipping on the condom he got out of his pocket, knelt between her splayed thighs, brushing the skin with an expression of reverence.