Turn Up the Heat

by Serena Bell

  Kincaid, by knowing her, by wanting her, was redeeming her, rescuing her.

  Fallon had stopped. Stared at her in consternation. You like it, he’d accused.

  She’d still had hope at that point that he was going to get an erection, that he was going to finish what he’d started. Even though all evidence pointed contrary (in this case, down).

  I’ve never seen you like this, Fallon had said. I’ve never seen you this into it. Hurt in his voice, which had distracted her from her own hurt. She’d jumped to salve his.

  She told Kincaid what Fallon had said. She imitated the tone of his voice, as if her desire had been a betrayal.

  “You’re so into it. It’s fucking hot,” Kincaid said definitively, and she felt like the Grinch when his heart grows three sizes.

  She wanted to hug him, or to throw herself into his arms, to rub her face against his face or his chest, but she didn’t.

  “We tried to go back to normal,” she said.

  Kincaid stroked her hair, and God, it felt good. “Bet that didn’t work too well,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I think he needed to find a way to make me the one who was broken. He started saying stuff. About how—he’d looked it up online, and women who liked to be tied up, or treated roughly, or who liked pain, some huge percentage of them had been abused as children. And did I think I’d been abused? He finally—” In some ways, this was the ultimate humiliation, because he’d managed to erode her own certainty, and that had never happened to Lily before. “He convinced me I needed therapy.”

  Kincaid whistled. “And you went?”

  “He found someone for me to see, someone who specialized in uncovering repressed memories.”

  “You didn’t have any.”

  She liked the way he said it, as though he knew. “No.”

  “So you dumped the asshole and got the hell out of there.”

  Her frustration with herself, her mortification at how things had turned out, flared up. “That’s what I should have done. But that’s not what happened. For better or for worse, I loved him. Until the rope and the duct tape, I hadn’t even questioned things. We lived together, he was my mentor, I worked for him. My life had gradually been subsumed by his, and I didn’t think twice about it, because he was a good guy and I loved him. And I was pretty sure I could be who he wanted me to be.”

  “Give up the rough stuff completely?” It didn’t feel like condemnation, not in Kincaid’s scratched-up voice. Just—curiosity.

  “I mean, it wasn’t my ideal, but I had this whole life built around loving him, and so I committed myself to doing whatever had to be done. I saw the therapist, amped up my enthusiasm for whatever we were doing in bed so he wouldn’t have to stop and check to make sure it was really really really okay with me? I wasn’t fantasizing about being dominated?”

  Kincaid grinned. “Please tell me you were.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, and watched his eyes get dark. Hot. “Honestly, we weren’t having that much sex, and when we did, it was—uninspired, let’s say. But I still couldn’t—I guess I still kind of blamed myself, like if I weren’t kinky, this wouldn’t be happening to this otherwise perfect relationship—”

  Kincaid made a deep sound of disapproval, which made her laugh.

  “At some point, though, I realized it was time to stop blaming myself. It was a problem in the relationship, it was his problem to solve as much as mine, and if I had to go to therapy every week—that’s a lot of therapy when you’re also trying to get a restaurant off the ground—he should go too. We should do couples therapy. It had been about six months, at this point, from the experiment. But before I could tell him about this revelation of mine, I caught him with someone else.”

  “That asshole!”

  She smiled grimly, because there was anger in every line of Kincaid’s face and body, and even though it couldn’t undo the way she’d felt, Kincaid’s fury at Fallon felt like vindication.

  “They were in the supply closet at work. I have to think he wanted me to catch them. And it turned out he’d been sleeping with her for the last two months. While I was in therapy, trying to fix myself for him. Which was obviously a gigantic mistake. Gigantic.”

  She hit a wall, then, and for a brief moment she thought she might cry. The energy of the story had propelled her this far, but now she was in the worst territory. She was deep in the true shame, the true humiliation, which had never, after all, been about the fact that Fallon didn’t love Submissive Lily. The true humiliation was that Lily had been so willing—eager, practically—to give up that side of herself. And for what? For an apartment, for a job. For something she’d been naive enough to think of as love, when love—she now understood—could only mean loving who a person really was.

  Kincaid very slowly unfurled one fist, then the other. “I can’t believe—”

  “Believe it,” Lily said shortly. “He told me it would be too awkward for us to continue working together. I could stay in the apartment, he said—but I’d have to get another roommate because he was moving out in a week.”

  Kincaid growled his opinion of that.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Generous, right?”

  He touched his knuckle to her cheek, and there was nothing like judgment in the gesture or in his expression.

  “I couldn’t go back to the apartment and face Fallon. There was no way I could work for him, and I didn’t have enough money saved for anything else. I got in my car and drove. I didn’t even call my sister until I was in Wyoming. Afterwards, I regretted leaving—I maybe could have found a friend I could stay with—but that night, I just had to get as far away from Fallon as I could.” She sighed. “As far away from myself, more like.”

  “And despite all that, you want to go back to Chicago? What about Portland or San Francisco?”

  “My friends are in Chicago, and my whole professional network…And it’s a pride thing now, too. I won’t give Fallon the satisfaction of getting to keep Chicago in the breakup.”

  “Makes sense.”

  They lay still and quiet for a moment, Kincaid stroking her hair. She felt so peaceful with him. Like she’d laid Fallon, finally, to rest.

  “Lil.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  She smiled.

  He rolled over so his nose was in her hair, his mouth against her ear. Murmured: “Or—at least nothing I can’t fix.”

  —

  He found a hank of brand-new rope in the cottage’s toolshed. He came back into the bedroom, triumphant, and held it up for her to see.

  There was a glint of fear in her eyes now, genuine fear, and it should have put him off, but instead it urged him, like a prod. It was the juxtaposition of those two things—the fear and her trust, her willingness to make herself vulnerable to him as she lay there trembling and waiting. He was hard already, unwinding the rope, which was about as thick as her pinkie finger and a bright, stark white. It was glossy, smooth to the touch, and he brought it to her mouth. Her lips closed over it, her tongue came out to stroke it, and then, knowing, he gave her a length to bite, and she did, and arched her back at the sensation, a short grunt of satisfaction breaking from her.

  “If you say ‘uncle’—”

  She nodded briskly, to cut him off. He understood. The less time spent framing it, the less time spent putting rules and boundaries around it, the better it was.

  He looped coils around her wrists, but just as he was about to bind them to the bed’s thick oak headboard, he had an idea.

  “Turn over,” he said.

  She looked at him in surprise.

  “On your stomach.”

  She obeyed.

  He tethered her wrists, then did the same with her ankles. He left her a little room to move, just about enough that she could brace herself with her knees if she wanted to. She looked amazing, splayed out on his bed. She was long, pale, shell pink, with sweeping curves. His eyes traced the deep tuck a
t her waist and the sexy swell of her ass tipped up toward him.

  “I’m just going to look for a while,” he said.

  “God,” she said with feeling. “You’re a tease.”

  He hadn’t gagged her. He wanted her mouth. He wanted to hear her yell his name. He wanted her to talk dirty to him.

  “Tip that ass up a little further,” he said. “Show me.”

  She did, showing him the deep pink, glistening swollen flesh between her legs, the tuft of dark curls. He’d been right. She could just about get to her knees, but she couldn’t quite get either knees or elbows all the way under her.

  The story she’d told him about her ex-boyfriend had made him want to kill a man, for only the second time in his life. Something about the way she’d told it, the light in her eyes, the shine on her face, had made him feel her elation when her ex had bound her. The way he felt it now, as if he were the one in restraints, shifting impatiently against rope.

  And he’d felt the shame, too, sharper than but so much like how he’d always held himself back from being rough.

  Right now what he wanted to do, suddenly, was to mark the clear, fair skin of her backside. A bite mark. A handprint. Just to see what it would look like. What it would feel like, the give of flesh. What sound she would make, a yelp of pain or groan of pleasure—or both.

  Instead he reached out with just one finger and touched her pussy. The slick wetness there, the impossible heat and softness. He touched her lightly, just playing. Stirring. Little touches that spread her lube over her lips, down to her swollen clit. She shifted her hips restlessly, trying to buck back against him. Trying to get some purchase, to fuck his fingers or rub against his hand. But he kept it light, so light sometimes he was barely touching, just enough to hear the sound of slickness.

  She dropped her haunches to the bed and rolled her hips against the mattress. He watched for a moment, her struggle to get leverage, to get something to rub against.

  “How’s that working for you?”

  “Not so well,” she admitted.

  “If you do that again, I’m going to tie you tighter so you can’t. Lift up.”

  She did, and he gave her one finger again. One finger, a wiggle against her clit. That same finger, the tip in her pussy. Back and forth. If she bucked, if she dropped, if she moaned, he stopped.

  “Caid,” she begged.

  “What do you want?”

  “More.”

  “What, exactly?”

  “More fingers,” she said.

  Now two fingers, circling her clit. The same fingers, sliding easily into her clutching heat. Curling down to find her G-spot. She cried out, and he stopped.

  He climbed on the bed behind her and got a solid fist around his dick, which was hard as a rail. His balls had climbed up so high he could feel them in his gut, tight and urgent. He could spill all over her pale curves with a few seconds’ work.

  “What are you doing?” She twisted around to see, and groaned. “Jesus, Caid, I fucking hate you.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, showing her the fat head emerging from his fist, showing her the pre-cum slicked over the dark skin. He crawled around and brought it close enough so she could touch it with the tip of her tongue, but no closer. Then he crawled out of her reach again, and she twisted hard against her restraints, watching his dick swell under his touch.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t make yourself come.” She was begging, her voice tight and needy.

  “Why not?”

  But she wouldn’t say it. Even now, even after what they’d done and what she’d told him, she was shy.

  “I’m going to make myself come. All over you. Unless you tell me what you want. But you have to say it.”

  She whimpered.

  “You can do it, baby.”

  “I want you inside me.”

  He stilled his hand, reached it out and stole some of her moisture, smoothed it over himself, and continued, but more slowly now. It would take him longer to come at that pace; he would give her time to figure this out. “That’s not good enough.”

  She started to drop her hips to the mattress again, but he caught her and made a clucking noise of disapproval. She whimpered again, her whole body shaking. She struggled against his arm, against the twine around her wrists and ankles, and he knew she’d be bruised there and didn’t hate himself for it. Not at all.

  “I want you to—I want you to fuck me.”

  That was good, almost too good, the way it got under the tight clench of his balls, but it wasn’t enough. “Ask me.”

  “Will you fuck me?”

  “Tell me,” he instructed.

  “Fuck me,” she whimpered.

  “Again.”

  “Fuck me.” Her whimpering and impatient rocking were almost continuous now. The impatience that flared so high and hot under her skin had a scent, and he bent to breathe it.

  Then he straightened, grabbed a condom from the drawer, and sheathed himself with it. Crawled up close behind her and knelt so his latex erection lay against her glittering, glossy wetness, and he rutted there for just a second, until she started to move eagerly against him and then he slapped her ass, hard— “Did I tell you you could move?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then hold the fuck still,” he said, and gave her the head of his cock.

  Even through the latex, she was so hot and so tight that he could barely maintain his control, and he must have made an involuntary noise, or maybe she felt the twitch that came from the root of his barely leashed lust, because she tried again to back up, and he slapped her again.

  Then he fucked her. He was as hard as he’d ever been in his life, and as big, and he gave it to her with one solid, certain thrust. Unapologetic, and he didn’t feel at all like apologizing when her whole body jiggled with the force of it, when a muffled ngh burst from her.

  “You like that?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer but did it again, withdrawing and thrusting, watching her flesh jiggle, everything wrong made right. He buried himself in her, buried his face in her hair, rubbed his stubbled jaw against her back, hard enough to burn her skin, and she moaned.

  The problem was, the better it worked for her, the better it worked for him. Her moans and whimpers, her impatient shifting, the heat rising from her skin, the rich, salty scent of her need—they filled and swelled him, made him impatient and hot, set him on hair trigger. And even though she was trying her damnedest to be obedient, not bucking, not thrusting herself back along his length, she was moving her hips almost unconsciously, feeling without thinking for a better angle, and every time she found one she liked—which she signaled with a little gasp that edged the hair trigger back one more notch—he liked it too. Too fucking much. When she tipped her ass up so his cock stroked her G-spot on every thrust, she did something to the angle of entry that squeezed him tight, that felt like a fist of muscle clenching him, and he was going to—

  He slapped her again, to startle her into easing up, but instead, she cried out and clamped down, and without warning she was coming all over him, contracting and releasing, milking him, crying his name, and so fucking much for that brilliant idea, he was coming too, jamming himself as hard and deep into her as he could, relentless and mindless.

  —

  What Kincaid had done to her had sent her far, far beyond herself, to a universe of deep, dark, edgeless pleasure. She had come in waves that had drowned her, and then shocks that had wrung her out, like a drenched washcloth. Between the two of them, they’d barely had the wherewithal to loosen her knots.

  Sense came back slowly, like waking from a dream.

  She lay beside him and thought, Now what?

  She was cold, and she wanted to reach for the covers, but that seemed bold—a declaration of her desire to stay—given what they had each said about their intentions. Not relationship material.

  But there was what they had said, and
there was what they had just done, and there was what she felt. Like crawling into him, burrowing herself under his skin. Clinging on.

  She wanted to ask, Did you like that? Do you want more?

  She wanted to ask, What was that, and what did it mean?

  Instead, she pulled away from it, from that out-of-place craving and the questions roiling in her head. She rolled over and stood up and began collecting her clothes and getting dressed. Her things were scattered, her panties damp when she found them.

  He watched as she tugged up her panties and shrugged into her bra, his eyes more a stormy-day gray than that icy blue, but still seeing straight through her. She felt awkward and exposed. She reached behind to clasp her bra, turning away to avoid his scrutiny. When she looked back at him, he wasn’t watching anymore. He was looking at the ceiling, and something in his face struck her as…lonely. It was the first time she’d ever had that impression of him, even when he’d sat in the diner with his book, alone.

  He got up, too, then, and pulled on his clothes.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he said. Not unkindly, but not like he wished she’d protest, either. Just a statement of fact. “Unless you want me to follow you home, make sure—?”

  “No,” she said, quickly. She didn’t want him to feel like he had to do anything out of obligation.

  They walked out to the cars, and she unlocked hers, but before she could open the door, he said, “Lily.”

  She didn’t want to look at him. Was she going to keep doing this, setting herself up, forever? Was it going to end each time with the two of them standing outside in the cold, with him saying that terrible, perfect, awkward thank you?

  But he didn’t say thank you. He said, “I’m not him.”

  For a moment she had to work to catch up. Then she figured it out. He meant Fallon. And she didn’t know what that meant.