by Ava Sinclair
He stands.
“Max?” I call.
He turns back, and I almost tell him what I did today. I almost ask him about the woman. But I stop. He’s made love to me. He’s put me to bed. He’s right. I need to focus on what I have.
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
“I’ll be right here,” he says.
Chapter Nine
Max wants to talk about what precipitated my raid on the liquor cabinet, so I issue a partial confession. I tell him about running into Becky at the post office, about how diminished she made me feel. He asks me about Becky, and I tell him about how we roomed together, how I often made things difficult with my emotional problems, even as she worked to put herself through school.
His initial reply doesn’t make me feel any better.
“You have to look at it from her point of view,” he says. “She’s worked hard all her life, has done everything right. And she runs into someone she had to kick out only to find that person the very image she’s striving for? How would it make you feel?”
“I wouldn’t be a bitch about it,” I say.
He grows quiet. “Are you sure?” he asks.
It seems like an odd question, but I know what he’s doing. Rather than agreeing with me, he’s making me think, to see how my behavior might affect someone else.
“I’d like to think I wouldn’t, anyway,” comes my revised answer.
“That didn’t make what she did right, Jill,” he continues. “But it does make it understandable. I don’t think the worst part for you was her cruelty. The worst part was how it played on your fears.” He pauses. “Tell me. How does it make you feel, knowing that I’m paying for everything now, from your personal debts to the clothes on your back to the food you eat?”
I’m struck by how well he knows me. As comfortable as I am with him, this complete dependence does make me feel uneasy.
“It scares me,” I say. “You could throw me out at any time.”
“I could,” he says.
“I’d end up worse off than I was.”
“You would.” He sighs and sits back. It’s been a week since he came home to find me drinking. Since then, he’s seamlessly moved me from the dependent child role to one as his adult lover several times. I can always tell by his demeanor toward me which one he expects. Today, he’s giving me fatherly counsel in a small café nestled between two tony shops on the third floor of Ingram Tower. It’s our first public meal together, and it feels odd to have such an intense conversation here, but Max has a way of making me feel safe anywhere now.
“Jill, I can promise you that I won’t just cut you loose. As long as you’re with me, young lady, I’m going to spend my time making you feel happy and secure and loved. And I promise you that, should we go our separate ways, you’ll do so as a stronger woman capable of standing on your own two feet.”
“I understand.” I try to blink back the tears. “You may eventually decide you don’t want me.”
He leans forward. “Jill,” he says. “That’s not what I’m saying.” He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. He regards me for a moment. “Has it occurred to me that eventually you may not want me?”
“That’s ridiculous,” I assert. “Why would I want to leave?”
“You don’t know me that well, Jill,” he says. “I’m not always easy to live with.”
I don’t believe him, or I don’t want to. I think of the beautiful blonde. Did she leave him? I feel like this is a good time to pry a little deeper into the mystery of Max Iver.
“Have you ever had another relationship?” I ask. “Like ours, I mean?”
“My past relationships have no bearing on us,” he says, and his tone is reminiscent of his comment about controlling what he gives to the media. I want to press him, to learn more about him, about us. We’ve had sex several times now; he’s rough, almost desperate in his lovemaking, and leaves me breathless. Afterwards he’s tender in a way that makes me feel nurtured and protected. But he doesn’t say he loves me, although I feel myself falling hard for him, or for what I know of him.
“How’s your French going?” he asks, changing the subject.
Très bien, merci, I reply.
Quand vos cours seront terminés, nous irons à Paris pour célébrer, he says, and I’m impressed but confused.
“I’m not far enough along to understand what you just said,” I laugh.
“I was telling you that when you finish your lessons, we’ll celebrate in Paris,” he replies.
“You’ve been to Paris?” I brighten at the revelation. “When?”
But he doesn’t answer. The uncomfortable look on his face returns, and he stands.
“I have to run, Jill. I’ll be working at home if you need me. Enjoy your lessons.” He gives me a wink as he turns to go back to work alone in the penthouse. I’ll be out today, meeting with the tutor, Jean Bernard, and then shopping for the meal I’ve asked if I could cook in the gourmet kitchen—the one he admits that as a single businessman, he’s hardly ever used.
While Max seems gratified by the gains I’m making by following the rules he’s put in place, I want to do more than please him with sex and self-improvement. And while he doesn’t mind ordering out every night, cooking for the two of us will make me feel as if I’m contributing.
I’m tempted to skip my French lesson to spend my day marketing, but I make myself go and endure Bernard’s dry style and penchant for tangential segues into stories of his days as a teacher in France. He’s an older man, and half my lessons are spent listening to him relive his glory days. Lately, he’s been recounting more of his experiences in French, though, and I find that it’s helping me get a conversational grasp of the language, which may be his intent. Usually I have patience for this tactic, but I’m eager to be off today as he begins to tell me how he would make his English students translate passages from obscure books, how they hated it. I’m glancing at my watch, hoping he’ll take the hint, when he says something that gets my attention.
“Your friend Max, he was the only one of my students who didn’t complain…”
“Mr. Iver?” I ask. “You were his teacher?”
“Oui, cheri,” he replies. “Even then he was so serious, but he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.” He chuckles. “Who knew that garcon maigre would grow to become a powerful athlete and successful businessman. It just proves that we should not judge.”
My heart is beating faster. Max clams up when I ask him anything about himself, and for the last few weeks I’ve been unwittingly meeting with a man who’s known him for years. I’d assumed they were just acquaintances, since Max hasn’t mentioned him.
“How long did you teach him?” I ask.
“Only during his twelfth and thirteenth year when his father sent him away.” He shakes his head. “Such a solitaire child, he was. Troubled. But the important thing is that he overcame the obstacles in his life. My only regret is that he didn’t choose soccer instead of American football, but when he came back to America after his mother died, he hit a growth spurt…”
“Why was he sent?” I ask, and my tutor suddenly looks uncomfortable.
“You don’t know?” He moves to pick up the books from the day’s lesson. “Je suis désolé. I assumed since he is paying for your lessons you knew him well.”
“No,” I say.
“Then I have said too much. Max has always been secretive. We were reunited after I arrived to teach here long after he graduated.” He pauses. “You will not tell him I spoke of this, s’il vous plait?”
“No,” I promise. “I won’t.”
I can hardly break my promise to poor Monsieur Bernard, who has unwittingly handled me another piece of the incomplete puzzle I’m realizing comprises Max Iver’s back story. Solitaire is the French word for lonely. My tutor used the word ‘troubled,’ too. I recall Max throwing the glass against the wall. It seemed such an inconsistent action for a man who prides himself on control, who demands it of
me. What demons lurk behind his cool façade?
The market, at least, helps me take my mind off the questions that I can’t stop asking myself. Earlier in the week I had Googled gourmet recipes, but then decided that there probably wasn’t a fancy dish Max Iver hadn’t tried. Comfort food was what I’d been taught to cook, so comfort food it would be. This time, though, I’d be able to afford quality ingredients my mother could only have dreamed of.
I quickly realize that cookware makes an incredible difference in how food turns out. The chicken fries to perfection in the copper pan. The organic potatoes are whipped light and fluffy with the hand blender. Twin ovens are employed to roast tender vegetables and bake a chocolate cake. By the time I’m finished, the sterile penthouse smells like a home.
“What magic has my little girl worked?” Max comes in, smiling, and I’m startled. He’s wearing glasses, which I didn’t even know he needed. Another small revelation, but the feel of his arms around me as he gives me a hug is starting to feel familiar.
“It’s not fancy,” I say apologetically. “This is what my mother used to call comfort food.” And I can’t help but use the moment as a gentle segue into the personal. “Did you ever eat like this at home when you were little?”
“You’ve even set the table.” He dodges my question once more. I don’t try again. Instead I put the platter of chicken on the table before bringing over the potatoes, vegetables, and biscuits. I’ve cooked enough for six people, but on the huge table, the meal looks disappointingly sparse. Max’s penthouse seems designed to diminish everything by scale. I wonder if this reflects the man himself. I wonder what other secrets he’s keeping. Or maybe there are no secrets. Perhaps he’s just as he says he is—a private man controlling how close those around him get, even me.
He praises the food, and jokingly chides me for ruining his proper eating habits when he goes back for seconds of the chicken and thirds of the vegetables. He asks me about my day, and I tell him that my session with Monsieur Bernard went well, neglecting, of course, to divulge the tutor’s inadvertent slip.
I ask Max how his day went, and he tells me it would bore me.
“I’d like knowing about your day,” I say. “I’d like knowing about you.”
I study his face as I make the statement. His jaw tenses slightly.
“I want you to concentrate on yourself,” he says. “It’s why you’re here, remember?”
Is it? Why am I here?
“You aren’t eating very much,” he says.
“Cooking kills my appetite.”
“That disappoints me,” comes the reply. “Because I was really looking forward to seeing you enjoy dessert.”
“Oh, I’ll have room for cake,” I laugh.
“I have a different dessert in mind for you.” He stands and takes my hand, raising me from the chair. Then I see his wolfish grin, and all the niggling doubts that have plagued me disappear. He leads me to the living room.
“You should know that even though you weren’t here today, I couldn’t stop thinking of you, Jill.”
“Really?” I ask, flattered.
“Yes, indeed. And when I walked into the kitchen to see you standing there in your cute little blue dress and apron… call me a chauvinist if you wish, but that domestic image whetted more than one of my appetites.”
I flush and look down, realizing I’m still wearing the frilly apron I picked up at the market. When I start to remove it, he stops me. “No, leave it. You look adorable, like a little girl playing house. The perfect combination of innocence and allure.” He trails a finger down my cheek. “Kneel.”
I keep my eyes on his as I drop to my knees. I know what’s about to happen and I’m welling with nervous excitement as he unfastens his belt and unbuttons his trousers. My gaze follows the trajectory of his zipper as it slides down. His cock is already pushing against the confines of his dark-colored briefs. He reaches in and frees it, and it comes to life just inches in my face, stiffening to fully erect within seconds, then bobbing inches from my mouth as if teasing me to taste it.
I wait for permission, staring up at him, adoring the man who remains a mystery to me for reasons I can’t fathom. He’s staring down at me, his expression unreadable. He raises a finger to my mouth, tracing the curve of my bottom lip.
“When I took you home that night, and I tucked you into bed, do you know what you did, Jill?”
I shake my head.
“You curled up in your drunken oblivion, whimpered, and put your thumb in your mouth.”
I flush deeply. A handful of times in my adult years, I’ve awakened from a deep sleep to find my thumb in my mouth, a holdover habit from my childhood.
“That was the moment of greatest temptation,” Max says. “I couldn’t help but think how grand it would be if it were my cock nestled between those sweet lips, how your warm, wet mouth would feel cradling my head, how easy it would be to do it, without you knowing… You were so vulnerable, and it would have been so easy. But that’s not me. Even amid desire, there was a stronger drive to protect.”
“And now?” I ask.
“You’re mine now,” he says, pushing his finger into my mouth. “I don’t have to wonder any more how my cock will feel sliding past your lips, because you’re going to show me, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. I’m longing to please him, longing to discover his flavor, to feel the power of pleasuring him in this intimate way.
Max palms the base of his cock.
“Please,” I say, and he wordlessly guides his cock toward my open mouth. It’s the first time I’ve been able to really look at it. The head is beautifully flared, with a prominent coronal ridge. The straight pike of his veiny shaft juts from a thatch of dark curls. A clear drop of fluid had emerged from the slit at the end of his glans, and I lean forward, lapping it away and savoring the slippery saltiness. I know what he wants.
He wants me to take it all in my mouth. But he’s being patient as I study and explore him, my fingers finally tracing soft skin plumbed with engorged veins. He’s rock hard and ready.
I take the base of his cock in one hand, closing my lips over the soft skin of his head as my other cradles his pear-shaped sac. He smells clean and masculine, a combination of some soap with woody top notes and his own subtle musk. Between my legs, my pussy is starting to cream as I relax my throat and lower my head until his head presses against the back of my throat. I roll his plum-shaped balls in my hand as I move my mouth up and down, up and down. Max is such an aggressive lover that each time we fuck I feel vanquished, claimed. But here, on my knees, I’m finally able to prove that the woman he allowed to emerge in intimacy knows her stuff.
“God, Jill…” He’s leaned back, catching the side of the sofa for support as I increase the pressure on his cock and the speed of my movements. “Baby…” he hisses, and I feel his heavy balls grow tight through the skin of his scrotum. His hand is in my hair, holding my head in place, and I know what he wants. And I’m ready.
I’ve been reluctant to swallow with other men, but with Max, it’s different. I do so eagerly, greedily, unwilling to waste a drop or a moment of the experience. The hand fisting my hair relaxes after the last spasm is wrung from his body. His balls are pliant in my hand, his cock softening as it relaxes. It slips from my mouth, and I sit back on my heels, looking up at him. He kneels, putting his hands under my elbows, and gently lifts me to standing.
“I think,” he says, “that you were born to be a submissive.”
“I didn’t feel submissive,” I say. “I felt… powerful.”
He chuckles. “There’s power in submission,” he says. “You’ll learn.” He kisses me gently. “I can’t wait to teach you. I can’t let Monsieur Bernard have all the fun.”
“This is a far cry from French,” I say.
“Je veux entrainer ton bas.”
“What?” I ask, laughing.
He takes my hand. “I think it’s time I train your bottom.”
He tur
ns and picks up a box from the sofa table. I’ve not seen it before. It’s heavy wood, and he opens it to reveal a blue velvet interior in which are nestled five objects made of heavy glass. They look like inverted triangles with rounded edges, and are graduated in size from small and narrow to quite thick. Each triangle has a narrow neck on the wide end, and a circular top.
“Do you know what they are?” he asks.
I nod. “Butt plugs,” I say. I’ve seen them in magazines. And on the Internet.
“I prefer the term trainers,” he says. “They aren’t intended as stoppers, but to slowly stretch your bottom.” He removes the smallest one. “You’re taking the first one tonight, Jill. When you’ve graduated to the largest one, you’ll be ready for my cock.”
The first time we were together, he said he’d do this, said he’d fuck me in the ass. It’s the one thing I’ve not done, and given the size of him, I’m nervous. I grow quiet.
“I’m not sure I can,” I say.
“Jill, you’re capable of doing anything you put your mind to, including pleasing me in every possible way.” He leads me to the sofa, and pushes me over it. I feel his hands lift my skirt, feel my panties glide down to just above my knees.
“Spread your legs,” he says, and I do to the extent my restricting panties will allow. It’s enough. His hand moves between my thighs, his finger teasing my clit, reviving the neediness and making me wetter. I feel something cool enter my pussy. It’s the trainer. He moves it in and out. It’s thicker than his finger, but I want more. I want him.
“Please,” I say, and he knows what I want, because he tells me not yet, not until I take the trainer. He moves the tip of the lubricated object up to my bottom hole. I feel it press against the tight ring of muscles, feel a slight sting as the pressure becomes a breach and the slick glass plug slides in. It feels bigger than it looks, and my bottom draws it in, the flange stopping it from going beyond the neck. I’m aware of the pressure in my bottom as I feel him touch my clit again. This time his finger is cool, and I look back in question as I realize he’s put some sort of cream on my sensitive bud. Within seconds, my clit feels hot, tingly. I begin to moan. He grazes it with his finger and I scream.