“So the only one who hasn’t forgiven you for having a little too much to drink and doing the smart thing by calling for a ride…is you.”
“But—”
“Would it have been better for you to get behind the wheel and try to get home? What if you’d hit another car head-on and killed a family on the way to a Christmas party? You did the responsible thing by calling home.”
“But if I hadn’t gotten drunk…”
She tightened her fingers in his hair and gave him a firm tug so he lifted his head and reluctantly met her gaze. “If Mama hadn’t slept with that loser musician, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’m sure at times she wished she hadn’t done it, but she loved me, and she did the best she could for me. You’re human. I’m human. We have moments of weakness where we do things that aren’t necessarily responsible, but it’s not your fault your mom jerked the wheel too hard and spun out, is it? That was the direct cause of the accident. Not anything you specifically did. Why not hate the person in front of your car that spun out first? If they hadn’t been stupid and going too fast on ice, then the accident wouldn’t have happened either.”
“They died too,” he replied softly. His eyes were red and puffy, but with his hair all tousled and that wide-eyed soft look on his face of a sub who’d had his world rocked for the first time, he made a gorgeously irresistible picture. He bit his lip and looked away, and she couldn’t help but flood her panties. “You didn’t keep your promise.”
“What?” Startled, she took a moment to work her way back through the scene, and then she gave him a slow smile. “I said you were going to come or give your safeword, didn’t I? How about I owe you one. I think it’s more important that you get aftercare and work yourself back into a safe and stable mindset.”
“What’s aftercare?”
“This.” She rubbed his shoulder, keeping her voice light. Because it would be no hardship whatsoever to flip him over on his back and see how interested his cock might be in her promise. “Cuddling. Comfort. Do you want to put some clothes back on?”
“Do you mind me like this?”
“Absolutely not.”
He rose up, pulling out of her arms. “If it’s all right, I’d like to lie with you for a while. It’s been a long time since I had anyone hold me.”
“Of course.” It took them a moment to get the pillows repositioned and the blankets pulled back, but soon she had his head pillowed on her chest, her arm wrapped around his shoulder, his arm around her waist. His hair smelled so good, fresh and salty like the sea. Inch by inch, she felt him relax against her.
Sleepily, he lifted his head. “It’d be better if you weren’t dressed either.”
She laughed and raked her nails down his spine, making him shiver. “Maybe another time.”
“I’ll probably fall asleep.” He frowned at her like it was her fault. “I haven’t slept so much in years as I have the last two days.”
“You need to rest. That’s a good thing.”
He harrumphed and dropped his head back against her breast. “I’m too busy to sleep.”
But in moments, his breathing evened out and he was gone.
She kept stroking him lightly, smelling his hair, playing the scene back through her mind. Gordon had been right. She’d been right. A little hard punishment had been able to break through the walls he’d built up over the years and the tumult had finally spilled free. He wasn’t healed completely by any means, but it was an encouraging start. He’d trusted her to help him.
Which only made her feel worse. I’m here because of a lie. How can I ever convince him that I’m not a complete fraud?
Chapter Eighteen
Waking up to a hot, hungry kiss was no hardship. Until she realized who kissed her.
Kelsey tore her mouth aside. Harvey leaned over her, his hair wild and mussed, his eyes dark and sultry. “I’m ready for more aftercare.”
He leaned back down toward her, so she grabbed a handful of his hair to keep him back. “No. That’s not the way this works.”
He growled beneath his breath. “You promised a release. I’ve been dying since you gave me that fantasy. Dying to see if you’re real. I want you, Kelsey. Mistress. Whatever you want me to call you, I’ll do it.”
Her throat ached. He pulled harder against her grip, desperate to get to her mouth. She covered his lips with her other hand. “Listen to me. A scene doesn’t involve sex unless we agreed on it beforehand. I promised I wouldn’t touch you sexually.”
“The scene is over.” He rubbed his mouth against her fingers, letting the words become a caress. “This is something new.”
Her heart insisted he was right. Somewhere in the last few days, the lines between client and…this…had blurred. She never slept with clients. But she wanted Harvey. She wanted to be the first Mistress to take him to bed. The first to give him the ultimate submissive release.
Hot temptation pulsed through her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been with a man she could actually touch, rather than just an online client. It’d be so easy to shift him closer, arch her back, and take the hard cock she could feel against her thigh inside her. After she had him remove her pajama pants and lick her to a quick, hard climax. His eyes blazed and he pulled harder against her grip on his hair, fighting to kiss her again.
I have to tell him the truth.
“Harvey,” she warned, making her voice as hard as steel. “I’m not Gordon’s niece.”
His eyes flared and he stared at her for several long breaths. Then he shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“But—”
“Is this a lie?” He rubbed against her thigh, making her suck in a deep breath. “Was the paddle a lie?”
“No,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “That was real. Painfully real.”
“Then I don’t care about why you’re here. You can tell me tomorrow. You’re the only thing I’ve been able to think about for days.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Absolutely.”
He’d never felt like this, so absolutely sure. This moment was pure perfection. He knew exactly what he wanted and she was lying beneath him.
Using that paddle, she’d broken him down to nothing, and when he’d woken up in her arms, he’d become a new man. This Harvey wouldn’t make the same mistakes. He wouldn’t keep every dark emotion crammed down inside him, rotting and festering while he slowly went mad. She’d shown him a new way, and he had the bruised ass to prove it.
“Who do you want?” she asked softly, stroking his scarred cheek with her fingers. “The Mistress? Or just Kelsey?”
“Aren’t they one and the same?”
Her eyes gleamed in the darkened room, but the Christmas lights cast soft, colored light across her face and arms. He could only imagine how beautiful she’d be spread out naked with the lights shining down on her. Her old fantasy, he realized. Only instead of lying beneath the Christmas tree, he’d give it to her in this bed.
“Most of the time, yes, they’re one and the same. Are you sure you’re up for that? Are you ready to admit you’re submissive?”
“For you, yes. I’ll call you Mistress and kiss your feet if that’s your will.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but the serious weight in her eyes made him reconsider. She might very well demand such a thing of him. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to test out your commitment to do my will, Harvey. You seem to be a very headstrong and arrogant man who won’t bend his head easily to anyone.”
Ignoring her grip in his hair, he bent down and pressed his lips back to hers, letting all his hunger pour from him like a molten river of need. She moaned against him and softened her grip on his hair. She ran her hands down over his shoulders, kneading his muscles. He dared to slide his tongue into her mouth, slanting his lips more fully over hers.
That’s whe
He threw his head back. “Ouch!”
“That’s better.” She laughed softly, still pinching his tender flesh. “I love your eagerness, but you’re taking too many liberties with this Mistress, cupcake. Get up and strip off your underwear. Show me what I get to play with tonight.”
Rubbing a hand over his aching nipples, he scowled but did as she asked. God help him if she decided his balls needed such fierce attention. What if she put him in that cage she’d mentioned in the library? He tried to imagine walking around in a metal cage, but failed. It’d give a whole new meaning to Jingle Balls.
For some crazy reason, that only made his cock swell even more. He hissed as he worked his briefs down over his erection and finally kicked them off.
“Turn around and let me see my handiwork.”
So far so good. These orders were nothing to complain about. She gave him a light slap on his buttocks, making him jump, but he bit his lip. Damned if he’d keep crying “ouch” like a baby every time she touched him.
“You’re already starting to bruise,” she purred, lightly scratching her nails over his skin. “Why don’t you lie down on your stomach and let me kiss some of that sting away?”
He’d seen enough from her to go warily back to the bed as she’d ordered. “You’re still dressed. Mistress.”
“So I am.” She straddled the back of his thighs and lightly trailed her fingertips down his spine and over his buttocks. Even the light touch made him shiver, the muscle twinging at the memory of the heavy thud of the paddle. The feather-light strokes slowly increased, until she kneaded his buttocks. He groaned against the mattress. It hurt, yes, but it also felt incredible, like a deep-tissue massage. She squeezed her way down the backs of his thighs, scooting back down on his calves. “You really need to put some weight on. You’re much too thin.”
“I know. Maxwell’s constantly stuffing me and it doesn’t help.”
Her breath whispered across one butt cheek and he tensed. He’d never actually had anyone want to kiss that particular part of his anatomy.
“We’ll get your sleep schedule fixed, and I think that will help calm your metabolism.” She pressed nibbling little kisses across the curve of his left buttock and up to the hollow at the base of his spine. She traced the hollows with her tongue, while still kneading the backs of his thighs. His abused muscles groaned, the ecstasy excruciatingly intense. “Do you have any sexual limits you can tell me about?”
Sexual limits? He blinked, trying to get his brain to work, but it was impossible with her tongue swirling back down his other cheek. “I don’t know.”
“So you don’t have that much sexual experience?”
His pride stung and he lifted his head enough to glare at her over his shoulder. “I’ve had plenty of experience, thank you very much.”
“Ah. So you’ve had your balls tied up in a leash? You’ve had a plug shoved up that tight little ass?”
His cheeks burned and she gave him a wicked smile that only made them blaze even more.
“Maybe you’ve had plenty of vanilla sex, but I’m asking about kink.” Her fingers glided up and down his crack, making him bury his face against the mattress. “Haven’t you ever experimented or been curious before me?”
“No,” he muttered against the bed. God. His whole body blazed, crisped in a bonfire that she stirred relentlessly higher.
She bit his butt cheek hard enough he let out a grunt. “Tell me the truth.”
“I haven’t had that much experience, okay?” he retorted, keeping his face buried against the sheets.
“The gorgeous billionaire hasn’t slept his way through countless women? The horror! What will people think?”
He drooped against the bed, relieved in a way that she knew the truth. “I was away at prep school until Yale, and any free minute I had from class, I was on the water. I dated because it was expected. It never… Let’s just say, no one ever really rocked my world and leave it at that, okay?”
She crawled up his body and lay flat on top of him, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. “Is it because of what that girl’s mom did to you in the limo?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I had healthy urges and the desire. I just didn’t desire a specific woman the way I always wanted.” Until you.
He didn’t say it out loud. He’d only known her a few days. She wouldn’t believe him. He almost didn’t believe it himself. But he couldn’t argue that after almost three years, he’d only started to live again once she’d walked into his home and thrown open the curtains. Let a little light in.
“The all-consuming desire that makes you almost mad,” she whispered against his ear. “Desire as necessary as breathing. Food. Water.”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Exactly. I wanted to need someone so much that I wouldn’t be able to live without them. But then my parents died, and I realized how awful and painful that kind of love really is.”
“It’s not all terrible though. You had many wonderful years with them, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But it…hurts.”
“I know.” She gripped his earlobe in her teeth, squeezing gently. “As I will hurt you, if you let me.”
At her words, he automatically tensed, and his buttocks throbbed, reminding him exactly how she’d hurt him earlier. “You like the pain.”
“Yes,” she said simply, not trying to sugarcoat it or deny it. “Nothing turns me on more than a whimper or cry of pain from my lover.”
Her words weren’t shouted or growled, but they carried menace just the same. Making love with her would involve pain. His pain. “The paddling you gave me was foreplay for you, then.”
“Yes. I’m not all pain and domination though.” She licked his ear, her breath hot. “For every hurt I give you, I’ll give you at least as much pleasure.”
“And what do I get to give you?”
She laughed softly. “Anything I order you to give.”
Stretched out on top of him, Kelsey tried not to let her desire influence him either way. She didn’t rub her rock-hard nipples against his back, or ride his thigh, even though her pussy ached with need. He had to decide if the pain was worth the pleasure, because the paddling she’d given him was only the beginning. To be safe, she even rolled off him to the side, letting him have his own space to think without her rushing him.
“I assume the safeword still applies? Even in sex?”
“Always. Unless we’ve agreed beforehand that we’re going to have vanilla sex.”
“You can do that?”
She snorted. “Of course. Though I’d much rather incite all my desires and needs, as well as yours. Sometimes it’s nice to cuddle and make love without any power exchange. It’s not completely satisfying to me, but regular sex does have its place.”
He rolled over to face her, his handsome face solemn. “The sex I’ve had was just that. Regular. Vanilla. Maybe that’s why I never felt like I got what I needed.”
She kept her face smooth, but she couldn’t help her husky voice. “A lot of people find BDSM because they’re never completely satisfied but they don’t know why.”
“I think…” He flashed a smile but didn’t reach for her. “I’ve had way too much talking and not enough fucking.”
Sitting up, she tugged her tank shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor. “Me too. And, by the way, I love a really good dirty talker. Don’t be afraid to speak up and tell me all the horrible things you’re dying for me to do to you.”
“I want you to make me come so hard I pass out.”
She slid off the bed and pushed her pajama pants down, snagging her panties at the same time. Pausing, she let him gaze at her body. Men needed the visual stimulation and she had plenty of it to stimulate him with. She’d learned a long time ago that her full breasts and hips were her real moneymakers. When she wore costumes that catered to her curves, her popularity on the cam sites skyrocketed. Harvey looked like he’d swallowed his own tongue.
“I’ll give you what you want, but that’s not what this scene is about.” She waited until he managed to drag his gaze up to hers. “Your only desire should be to give me whatever I ask, without question or hesitation. If I tell you to slow down, you do it, even though your balls feel like they’re going to burst. Do you understand?”
His eyes went wide and his lips trembled. In that moment, she knew she had him. He’d surrendered. He’d reached the point where he couldn’t lie to himself any longer.
“Yes, Mistress.”
Chapter Nineteen
So this is what I’ve been missing my entire life.
Staring at her, waiting on her next order, his entire will focused on her. He’d never felt like this, so wholly certain and calm. That was it, he realized with awe. The peace she’d given him with the paddle still pooled inside him. The constant clamor in his head was gone. All he had to do was wait for her to tell him what to do next.
It was incredible. He would have expected to feel enslaved, made less, somehow. Instead, he’d never felt freer.
“This is where it gets real,” she whispered, her voice reverent. “Right here, right now, you’re not my client. You’re my submissive. You remember the difference, right?”
He nodded, remembering her demonstration in the library. For a client, she performed his fantasy. For her submissive…
This is all about her.
“Then I want you up here licking my pussy until I come on your face.”
He moved toward her before she finished the sentence. Hovering over the tidy strip of hair she’d trimmed to frame her sex, he looked up at her face. She threaded her fingers in his hair, a tender gesture that could turn to force in a heartbeat, and widened her stance to give him better access. She hadn’t told him he could use his hands, so he decided to follow her orders to the letter. He fisted the sheets, determined not to touch her until she gave him permission.
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