The Matchup

by Alice Ward

  “Okay, Lucas. I’ll trust you on this one.”

  The warmth spreading through my chest at her words surprised me.

  The next surprise was when I led her to the bedroom and opened the door — there were candles everywhere, permeating an exotic aroma and giving off a sublime mood. The room was well staged for tonight’s challenge. The dresser had been covered with red satin cloth on top of which were displayed tonight’s choices of toys.

  With several choices in restraints, I decided the best way to approach this with Ava was to have her pick the ones she wanted to use. Some were leather, some were satin, others were downright scary with spikes and chains.

  She burst into laughter when she saw those, picking up the most menacing one and swinging it back and forth, adopting a pose and a deep southern drawl that brought to mind a deep south serial killer on the loose.

  “Ain’t gonna hurt ya, Ava,” she hissed, “Jiss truss me.”

  “Okay, obviously we aren’t going to be using that one.” I laughed as I grabbed the horrid thing out of her hand.

  My uncle sure had a nasty sense of humor. I was sure the restraints were too much hardware for Mason and Isabella as well, so I was happy about the freak vibe they gave off. Though, I probably would’ve gone for them in a different context, with a different woman.

  Ava, not surprisingly, chose the pink satin restraints. They’d do the trick, so I was happy she was still on board with this.

  “Ah you picked the pretty princess ones,” I teased as I kissed her sweetly on the forehead and gently began to undress her.

  “Well, they didn’t have any with sparkles, so these will have to do.” She offered a nervous smile.

  “Now, for the fun part. Turn around.” I pivoted her at the waist until she faced the dresser and opened a drawer to an assortment of blindfolds.

  I took out a matching pink blindfold and showed it to her.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Tonight will be much more pleasurable for you and less stressful if you put this on.” My heart pounded as I waited for her response. I’d do anything at this point to get her on that bed. I was already hot and hard with need.

  She took in a slow breath. “Remember, you promised,” she warned as she closed her eyes.

  “I remember,” I whispered in her ear as I placed the blindfold carefully over her eyes. She stood straight and lifted her chin as if she were ready to brave the scariest jump off the highest mountain.

  I then led her to the bed, lifted her and placed her in the middle as I took her arms and clicked the soft pink handcuff over her wrist. She breathed in sharply through her nose as I attached it to the bedpost above her head. She pulled for a moment, testing the strength of the restraint as I did the same for her other arm. Finding them quite unyielding, her breathing picked up for a moment, but she inhaled deeply, working hard to level out her breathing.

  I placed my hand on her sternum to let her know I was there as I mounted the bed and knelt beside her. I began by kissing my way down her body as I feathered my fingers across her stomach and lower, tickled over her tuft of hair and danced them lightly past her sweet pussy, which was already glistening with wetness.

  I loved that she was so responsive. As I placed random kisses all over her body, she twisted and let out small gasps. I hadn’t even finished tying her up. I smoothed my hands down her legs, then pushed them wider so I could restrain them.

  With a click, one cuff was on her ankle. She let out a tiny squeak, and her other foot flexed wildly so I had to catch it.

  “Ava,” I said sternly, trying to solicit her compliance.

  “Lucas,” she returned in the same manner.

  “This is going to be fun.” I attempted to hide the frustration in my voice, but she caught on.

  “It is already.” The tinkling sound of her laughter made me smile as she flailed her foot, forcing me to grab it and hold her leg down.

  She bit her lip, and her chest heaved up and down as she tried to gain ground mentally. She was doing it though, and I was proud of her. I got off the bed and turned out the light so there was only candlelight.

  “This begins your first journey into restraints. BDSM, lesson one.” I chose a feather boa and took it to her, gently snaking it over her bare skin.

  She writhed and arched, her nipples changing to hard buds that jutted into the air, tempting me.

  I restrained myself and took a long look at her. This beautiful, charming, and complicated woman. At my mercy… to do with what I wanted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ava

  As soon as he put the blindfold on me, I was near panic. I tried to stay strong, even as he restrained my hands and feet. I wouldn’t freak out. I had to trust him, like he had trusted me last night.

  When he finished clipping my ankles to the bedposts, I wiggled them to see exactly how much mobility I had. It wasn’t much. My heart raced.

  Take it easy, Ava, you can do anything for a little while.

  I calmed my nerves by breathing in and out as his kisses pierced my skin with soft lightning bolts. Adding to his gentle kisses was the tickling wisp of a feather boa drifting across my body. While ticklish and foreign, the feather boa tantalized me more than anything I’d ever felt — so soft, yet so dangerous as I couldn’t see what was coming next.

  He paused for a moment, and there was nothing, no sound, no sensations. It was if he’d left the room. My pulse spiked, anticipating what would be next.

  After what felt like an eternity, another soft implement grazed across my body. This time it was a long string of silky material. He danced it along my neck, swirled it around my nipples, which were already aching and hard, before trailing it down to the apex of my sex. After it lightly brushed over my nearly bare mound, he slid it up to my face, over my lips and across the soft skin of the underside of my arm. It was almost unbearable it tickled so much, but at the same time erotic. I shivered and involuntarily tried to break free. But I was bound well, and all that did was brush the wetness his torture was causing onto my upper thighs.

  His strokes were almost too light to feel, which made me crave texture and skin… and to my surprise, hard, penetrating sex. The softer his torture became, the more I craved roughness and force. These strange cravings were too foreign for me to comprehend.

  He fanned the silky wand across my stomach to my arms, down my legs, and over my center, barely brushing my clitoris as it repeated its path.

  As he continued to torture me with silk, he dipped his finger into my sex then quickly removed it, my hips trying to follow. When he smeared my own wetness on my nipples, my eyes flew wide behind the blindfold. While he said nothing, the absence of words spoke volumes as he rubbed my own ambrosia on to my aching breasts.

  I was close to begging him to use more force, to undress and press himself down over me. Soon the satin ribbon stopped its torturous journey, and again, he paused without words, making me wonder what was coming next.

  His fingernails scratched along my abdomen, creating little pricks and tingles, igniting sparks all over my body. I hated to be tickled, and this was the truest form of torture. I giggled and thrashed, begging him to stop between gasping breaths.

  He stopped, but just for a short interval. Long enough for me to calm down and catch my breath, which was a blessing and a curse. Because as soon as I regained composure, his fingers scratched across my sides, making me buckle and contort. Then my inner thighs, down to my knees, back up around my pelvis and onward toward my breasts and across my nipples, ignoring the part that wanted him most.

  Again, he took his touch away.

  Then his mouth was on mine, and his tongue stroked inside, kissing me urgently as my body made sense of what was happening. Everything he’d used had been soft and torturous, but there were tiny spikes of pain from some other unknown instrument on the insides of my knees. My brain was divided, not knowing whether to focus on his ardent mouth and invasive tongue or the pinpricks of pain rolling up and down m
y inner thighs.

  I moaned into his mouth.

  “You’re doing fine,” he broke away from our kiss to tell me, then continued to kiss down the nape of my neck as the needles of pain intensified.

  “Ahhhh.” I had no words because my brain was short-circuiting. I wanted to tell him to stop, and yet I didn’t. My deepest core was flooding with need, and while the pricks were uncomfortable, they were also making me more ravenous, taking my excitement higher.

  When the rolling spiked thing crossed my nipples, I cried out in shock. I was ready to tell him to stop, but his soft, wet mouth replaced the hard metal teeth and enveloped my nipple in warmth. His mouth sucked in first one nipple then the other, replacing the pain with pleasure.

  The spiking thing started to roll again as my eyes watered under the blindfold. It made its way down my sternum, across my navel and — oh my god, no, not there.

  “No!” I gasped, wanting to grab Lucas’s hands, but unable to move with the restraints.

  “Do you want me to stop?” His voice was that of a concerned partner. “Yellow or red.”

  “Don’t hurt me.” My heart slammed hard against my ribs.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Trust me.” His fingers gently smoothed my hair back from my face, tucking it behind my ears. I hadn’t noticed, but my hair was damp with sweat.

  I bit my lip as his spiked instrument continued its journey to where I feared it was headed. But before it got there, Lucas’s warm, wet tongue found my center. He lapped me. Once. Twice. Then his torture device rolled over the folds of my sex, and I made a useless effort to close my legs as it pricked my skin. But then Lucas’s tongue was there again, soothing, as he rolled it over my inner thighs, then back up to where his tongue had been, over the tender flesh of my sex.

  I screamed as the device created a strange, fearful craving in me I’d never experienced before. I was throbbing and tingling and anxious as his mouth once again replaced the spikes. His wet tongue met the folds of my labia, still dodging the dripping wet center that was begging for him. I couldn’t take much more as his fingers joined his tongue and I thrust my pelvis toward his mouth, frustrated by my restraints.

  “Please, Lucas,” I cried out.

  “Please what?” His fingers continued their torture, dipping around my pussy and near my clit, but not touching.

  “Please touch me.” I couldn’t believe I was begging him, but my mind and body were whirling in a blur of want.

  “Like this?” One finger touched the middle of my inner thigh.

  I whimpered. “No, touch my pussy, touch me. Lucas.” His name left my lips and ended in a desperate whine that was completely unlike me.

  “Oh, here.” He stroked his finger down my center, dipping momentarily into me and retreated.

  I moaned, exasperated, as my hips did an instinctual grind into the empty air.

  “Do you want me to fuck you?” His voice was low, almost a growl.

  I wanted him to make love to me. To make me feel adored. But I was starting to get the idea that Lucas didn’t know how to do that.

  “No, I want you to make love to me,” I clarified, gasping as his swirling fingers attacked my sensitive skin again.

  “How?” His fingers were still torturing me.

  Suddenly, I didn’t care how I had him. I just needed him inside me. “Please. Now, I need you now.”

  There was the hiss of a foil wrapper tearing, then the bed shifted and dipped, and his massive cock was at my entrance. His breath hitched, and he paused for a long second before he eased his way into me. He was so hard and thick, it took a minute of him pushing himself deeper and deeper to get fully seated. Once he was, I felt filled with him.

  Without warning, he retreated and slammed his cock back in. “Like this?” he growled, pulling out and thrusting back in again. He was barely touching me, raised up over me as he thrust in again, rough and hard.

  “Yes!” This was what I needed, it was so intense and I was so wound up, I was going to have a blasting orgasm. The knot of it balled so tightly in my middle, I cried out with his next invasion and the most powerful orgasm I’d had to date coursed through me. I screamed with it, my hips thrusting upward as my world splintered and fragmented.

  When I’d regained some of my senses, I couldn’t handle being tied anymore. “Can you untie me?” I needed to be free to show him what I really needed.

  Without words, he undid my legs, then my arms. Once I was released, I ripped off my blindfold and leaned into his arms, wanting to know he was there.

  “Lucas,” I said quietly in his ear, “please don’t tie me up like that again.”

  “You liked it more than you want to admit, sweetheart.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.

  “Then I’m sure you’ll like it too.” My voice was low and raspy from screaming, and I laughed when I saw his incredulous expression. “I’m kidding. But I do want to show you what I need from you. Do you want to know?” It was as much of a test for Lucas as the exercise of tying me up had been for me.

  His eyes were dark silver with passion as he looked at me long and hard. I could see by his expression he was weighing his thoughts. How does an alpha male contend with a spirited girl? How much does he give and still remain the one in charge? “Show me.”

  Tension I didn’t even know I held released in my chest and I sat up, while at the same time pulling him down to the mattress. I carefully crawled between his legs, removed the condom and kissed the tip of his cock. He let out a sigh and tensed. I drew my tongue over the head of his dick and swirled it down his engorged shaft. He was so hard, the veins in his cock protruded angrily. I engulfed him in my mouth, letting him go deeper each time I lowered around him. Letting him push closer and closer to my throat until I gagged. Then I pushed myself, holding back my gag reflex as he thrust into my mouth. I popped him out and sucked his balls, almost smiling when he released a long groan.

  Giving his engorged cock a few more sucks, I asked, “Do you want me to stop?” in the same manner he did before with me.

  “Dammit, woman, I want you to fuck me. I can’t take it.” He clenched his teeth as precum dribbled out of his dick and I lapped it up.

  “You don’t want any more of this?” He moaned as I took him into my mouth one more time before going to the dresser for a new condom. I slid it over him, rolling it down slowly as he watched. When it was on, I crawled on to him, my legs draped over either side of his as I rubbed my tender folds back and forth over his rock-hard cock, giving him a proper massage. I rocked farther forward, continuing my roll over his cock and let it slide between my ass crack.

  He bucked forward, the muscles in his chest rippling, his face a grimace. He was completely at my mercy. And I’d say he was enjoying it. When he bucked again, I placed his tip at the entrance of my wet center. And impaled myself on him. The combination of the overwhelmed sounds he was making and his cock now massaging my tender flesh made me cry out.

  At first, I rode him gently, making sure he hit my g-spot, sending streaks of electricity through my core. Then he growled and gripped my hips. He wanted more, and that thrilled me. I undulated my hips, going faster, but not too fast. It was about making love this time, and from the amazement in his eyes, he was enjoying it a lot more than he thought he would. This time was also about me, what I wanted, and teaching him how to pleasure a woman like me. That he could, and love it.

  Power surged through me. I was doing this, creating a need to move my hips faster, harder. I heard his breath hitch, and his fingers clenched, pinching the skin on my hips.

  “I’m going to come,” he moaned.

  God, so was I.

  He flicked my clit, then reached around and put the tip of that finger, wet with my own juices, into my puckered hole. I hit the moon as he buried himself deep within me and pulsed in tiny blasts as he rocked in and out.

  When we were finally still, and I rolled to the side, he let out a deep sigh and pulled me close again. We laid that way, naked and sweat
y, for a while, just letting ourselves float down, and the feelings sink in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Lucas

  Brushing my teeth in the steamy bathroom, I checked my face in the mirror to see if I looked any different. Nope. Looked the same. Then why did I feel so different? So… unchained?

  I hadn’t been happy last night when Ava suggested the tie me up tit for tat. At first, when I’d been successful at convincing her to let me tie her up, all I’d been able to think was… thank god. But then, she’d turned the table, which turned out to be a Lazy Susan that spun me into some kind of Silhouette Romance novel. And I felt all the feelings. Tender feelings.

  I picked up my razor and shook my head so I could see straight again. My mind had been full of fluffy, fuzziness since Ava climbed on top of me last night. I felt like I was walking on a fucking cloud, and it had to stop.

  Only I didn’t want it to stop.

  I knew from way back when I was a kid that I needed to distance myself from hope and dreams. Try not to like anything too much. Just like the anal play and the Tantric hand job, this had somehow made me let go of a piece of myself I wasn’t willing to part with, and yet, each experience brought me a new awareness of myself.

  Common sense told me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Ava was everything I could hope for in a woman. She was funny and smart and sexy and sweet. She ticked every box I could ever want in a companion… but one. A big one.

  Could I let that one thing go and be all in?

  If I was in, it had to be all the way. She was a singular woman — I’d never find another like her.

  If I was out, I’d be minus the risk, never have to experience the pain I’d seen in every single person I knew when the love in their life broke apart for one reason or another.

  I was happy to get into the shower and let the water wash away my confusion about what she’d done to me, how she took control and more importantly, how I’d handed it to her.