ComingUnbound
Page 10
I turned around, fighting the dizziness that made the room spin. The pain in my body had lost the edge of arousal, and what I felt now was akin to the dull throb of an old bruise all over. Humiliation wrapped me in a cloak of despair. I couldn’t meet either man’s eyes.
I put one foot in front of the other, pleased with my progress when I made it all the way to the door unaided.
“Ginny?” Cole called out.
I ignored him and stepped out of the basement. Gripping the balustrade, I hoisted myself up the stairs to the main floor, then up again to the second-floor landing. The glow of moonlight spilling through the windows lit my way, and I didn’t bother with a hallway light. I went straight for the master bedroom, closed the door and locked it.
Then I collapsed against it and slid down until my sore ass hit the carpet. I winced, covered my face with my hands and cried like I’d never cried before.
Chapter Ten
I must have known what I was all along.
Pain slut, Erik had dubbed me. Ben had just called me whore.
Oh yes, I knew. But I’d spent my entire adult life running from the truth, pretending those urges inside me didn’t exist. I did everything a good girl should, everything a decent wife was expected to do, and where had that gotten me?
Suspended from a BDSM contraption, whipped and forced to orgasm in the most blatant, debased way—that’s where.
“Ginny?” Cole tried the handle but the door didn’t budge. He swore. “Ginny, open up.”
I leaned my head against the door at my back. The tears had stopped for now. Not because I didn’t feel like crying anymore, but because I didn’t think there was another drop of moisture left in me. All that coming and sobbing I’d done in the past few hours had left me drained, shriveled up on the inside.
“Ginny, come on, let me in.”
Was it fair to keep my husband from his own bedroom? No. But it hadn’t been fair for him to bring Erik into our house, either. It hadn’t been fair that he’d known what I needed, despite the fact I had tried so desperately to deny it, even to myself.
Why do you assume this is all about you?
Cole’s words rang in my head, and I sighed. Of course I assumed this was all about me. After all, I was the one who’d been strung up and tormented to the edge of oblivion. While Cole…
I frowned.
Cole had looked so different with a whip in his hand. He’d been intent on what he was doing to me, but it was more than that. He seemed at ease with the whip, comfortable coaxing all those sensations out of me.
I swallowed hard as I grappled with the truth.
He’d enjoyed it.
“Ginny, open the damn door or I’m going to break it down.”
I brought two fingers to my lips, still struggling with that realization. Cole hadn’t called me a whore or a slut or any of those things. He’d given me what I needed, and he’d done so lovingly, almost reverently.
Like he understood what I was—and didn’t mind.
“All right. I’m coming in.”
I leapt to my feet, heart hammering in my chest, and unlocked the door. I yanked it open a fraction of a second before Cole tried to propel himself through it, and he stumbled over the threshold before steadying himself with a hand against the doorframe.
“Ginny.” He’d turned on a light in the hall and it spilled over his face, highlighting the grim downturn of his mouth and the furrow of his brow. He reached out to touch me but seemed to think better of it, dropping his hand instead. “You okay?”
I tilted my head to the side and watched him. I didn’t know how to answer that.
He took my silence as a no. His face fell, and what had a moment ago been mild concern turned into pure misery.
“God, baby, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“But you did. And I did. We were in this together from the very beginning. You can’t take all the blame. I won’t let you.”
He moved toward me but made no attempt to touch me. “I remember the story you told in the counselor’s office. The one about the woman tied to the tree.”
I gulped past the lump in my throat, crossed my arms over my bare breasts and sank deeper into the shadows of our bedroom.
I’d just turned sixteen, and my parents had sent me to camp for the summer. I couldn’t sleep, so I snuck out of the cabin where I shared a room with three other girls, and I went for a walk. The camp was in Lake Forest, nestled at the base of a wooded area where we’d have easy access to walking trails. I’d walked those trails hundreds of times that summer, before that night. Afterward, I’d never think of the woods the same way again.
“I’ve never forgotten the way you told that story. You were so nervous.” Cole’s voice was gentle. He didn’t come up behind me, didn’t try to crowd me, didn’t push. I was absurdly grateful for that. “But when I asked you about it at home, you refused to talk about it.”
I cringed, recalling the way I’d brushed off his questions. Thinking about that night in the woods summoned too many memories. And it brought Ben back, too. I thought if I could forget about what I’d seen in the forest, I could also stop thinking about Ben.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Tell me now. Tell me again, like you want me to know. Like it matters.” He sighed. “Because it matters, Ginny. Whether you want to admit it or not.”
I sank my teeth into my lower lip and squeezed my eyes shut. I’d been so embarrassed the first time I’d let this tale spill from my lips. I’d glossed over the details then, raced through telling that part of the story to get to the end. To get to Ben. In my mind, Ben’s outrage was the important element for our counseling session, not my voyeuristic tendencies.
I remember wringing my hands in my lap as I spoke, sinking my nails into my palms, forcing my foot to stop tapping on the floor. And then as soon as I finished, I instantly regretted saying anything at all. So I chose to pretend I’d kept my mouth shut and went on with my life imagining Cole didn’t know.
But he did. And when he brought Erik into our home, he proved he could use that knowledge to reach me.
“Tell me,” Cole prompted. “Everything you can remember.”
I took a deep breath. I could do this. I owed him that much. “I heard noises down one of the trails, not far from camp. I know I shouldn’t have gone off on my own, but I was young and felt invincible. It was only when I realized that I was hearing a woman’s cries that I hesitated. By then I was too close to do anything but go forward. A bright light shone through the trees, and I followed it until I realized it was a flashlight tied to a high branch. It swung in the wind, scattering light across the forest floor.”
My breath hitched in my chest. I forced the words past my suddenly dry lips. “It also shone over the naked body of a woman tied facing a tree. A man stood behind her. He was fully dressed, and spanking her bare ass with a long branch stripped of leaves.”
“What did you do?”
I started as Cole’s voice broke into my thoughts, and cleared my throat. “I was going to run for help, but then she turned my way. She didn’t see me, but I saw her. And the look on her face…” I closed my eyes, drinking in the sight of the woman’s bliss. “She was euphoric. I’d never seen anyone look so happy. I didn’t understand it, but I knew she wasn’t in any danger.”
“So you stayed to watch.” It wasn’t a question.
I expected to feel ashamed, but I didn’t. I opened my eyes and sat on the edge of the bed. My throbbing ass reminded me of the woman in the woods, and my pussy clenched at the thought.
“I was so aroused by then I had no choice. I stayed for at least an hour, watched him as he finished with the branch and switched to using his hand. Then I watched him fuck her.”
Cole took a few steps toward me. “What happened after that?”
A shudder racked my body. “I had an orgasm. Right there, by myself, flattened against a tree, doing no more than watching. I didn’t even touch myself. I just…came.”
“Then I snuck back to camp, into my room, my bed, where I tried to sleep like nothing happened. I saw the woman again a few times that summer. She was one of the camp counselors. I don’t know who the man was. I could never meet her eyes though I desperately wanted to ask her what it had felt like to be treated that way.”
Cole sat on the edge of the bed, a few inches away from me. Close enough to touch, but he didn’t make a single move to do so. Maybe he figured I’d frighten easily in my current emotional state.
Maybe he was right.
My entire body hummed with the memory and my growing desire. The urge to touch myself became almost a compulsion, until I fisted my hands in my lap. I could smell my arousal and felt my cream seeping into the bed sheets.
“Ah, but that’s not the end of the story, is it?”
I shook my head. ”You know the rest.”
I glanced at my husband, found him looking at me. The harsh light from the hallway cast half his face in shadow, but I could clearly see the longing written all over his features. He wanted to hear me say it again. And for better or worse, I had to finish my story.
“I must have masturbated to that memory a thousand times over the next few years.” I spread my hands, willing him to understand. “My sexual awakening happened in that forest.”
“And then Ben came along.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re sure you want to hear this?”
Cole placed his hand on my knee, and I jumped. My gaze shot to his but he didn’t pull back. “No more running from the past, Ginny. Not for you, or for me.”
“Ben was my first. Sex was plain and uncomplicated, not very exciting. I didn’t have orgasms while I was with him, but I had plenty on my own so I never worried. My girlfriends said they rarely reached climax with a guy and I figured boring sex was normal.” My voice dropped to a mere whisper. “Then I made the mistake of asking him to spank me. Nothing crazy, I just wanted to feel the flat of his hand.”
A new set of memories assaulted me, these ones nowhere near as pleasant or arousing. “He was so angry I’d even dare suggest such a depraved thing. Called me a whore, a filthy little bitch who couldn’t be satisfied with a man’s cock.”
“Jesus.” Cole stood, ran a hand through his hair. “The guy was messed up. His issues had nothing to do with you.” He paced in front of me but his gaze never left mine. “You see that, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “All I saw…all I still see…is that my desires branded me a dirty whore. Despite the fact that I’d never slept with anyone before Ben. I didn’t want anyone other than Ben. I just wanted…needed…” I frowned. “He left me that night. Grabbed his clothes and walked out. Never returned any of my calls. I didn’t see him again.”
Cole dropped to his knees before me and gripped my hands in his. “That I didn’t know.” His lashes dropped to cover his eyes as he exhaled deeply. “No wonder you were so afraid to let me see what turned you on.”
Tears threatened to fall again but I pushed them back. “I didn’t want to be that girl. The one who asked for those filthy things. The one who turned men away with her gross fantasies.”
Cole released one of my hands and cupped my face instead, forcing me to look at him. “Listen to me. Your desires aren’t gross. They’re not depraved or filthy, and they don’t make you a whore. And I am never, ever going anywhere. You got that?”
The intensity in his voice startled me, forced me to pay attention. “I had sex with another man, Cole. And I liked it.” I sucked in a breath, remembering Erik and Cole pushing into me, stretching me open, claiming me. “If that doesn’t make me a whore—”
“Stop it.” He squeezed my hand in warning. “There are a million ways to have a happy, healthy relationship, and they don’t all conform to your asshole of an ex-boyfriend’s definition of what makes a good wife.”
My eyes widened as new understanding dawned. “I came while Erik fucked me.”
He nodded, but his eyes clouded. “You did.”
“What I mean is…I actually came when you entered my ass. I didn’t come because of Erik, but because I felt that wonderful flash of pain.” My pulse picked up speed. I’d assumed I’d had one of those magical, elusive orgasms because I’d loved being with another man, but that hadn’t been it at all.
And on that piercing table, my release shot through me at the bite of the needle. I didn’t come because another man touched me.
It wasn’t that I needed someone different than Cole to bring me to the edge and send me hurling over it. I just needed a little help to get there, in a way I’d been denying myself for a very long time.
I gave my husband a shaky smile through a film of tears. “You’re really okay with this? With me?”
He slid a hand along my thigh. “Are you okay with me? I liked dominating you. Controlling your orgasms.” Something flashed in his eyes, dark and dangerous. “I want to do more of that. A lot more.”
My heart pounded in response. I parted my legs, let my knees fall open to give him a good look at my soaking pussy. “Start now.”
* * * * *
It was the same, but different. Familiar, yet better. Cole was still sweet, tender, caring, but there was an edge to him now, a hunger and intense passion I hadn’t seen from him before tonight.
I thought I was the only one keeping secrets, trying to be someone I wasn’t. I’d never have guessed my husband had kept parts of himself hidden from me too. I hadn’t wanted to see the horror in his eyes or watch his feelings for me change if I admitted my dark desires, so I’d banished them to a part of myself that I thought would stay locked forever.
Had he feared the same? Did he think he would scare me if he showed me what he really wanted? How well did we really know the people we let into our lives, our hearts, our bodies, anyway?
I pondered these things over the span of a few seconds while Cole nestled between my outspread legs. He’d pushed me down onto the bed and crawled to me so his head was even with my pussy. He was naked now, and his stiff cock brushed my leg.
A groan spilled from my throat. Despite having come numerous times tonight, I hadn’t been fucked. I desperately wanted a cock in my pussy. My husband’s cock. There truly was no substitute for that.
I grinned. Ben would have been proud.
Cole’s mouth closed over my cunt, wet and warm and demanding. He’d tongued me like this before, sometimes for hours, and I’d rarely felt more than a twinge of heat. But tonight, he knew just what I needed.
He slid his hands beneath my buttocks, lifting my ass off the mattress. I was still sore from the whipping and the spanking, and he took full advantage of that. His fingers dug into my flesh, squeezing and kneading, and I gasped, arching my back, pressing my pussy closer to his gorgeous lips. I rubbed myself against him and he twirled his tongue around my clit. The blend of sensations—pleasure and pain, bliss and agony—twirled inside me to form a miasma of sexual awareness that left me breathless.
Cole dipped his head and devoured my opening, spreading some of my cream along my slit with his tongue. He explored me from clit to anus and back again, licking and slurping while he ruthlessly massaged my aching ass.
I writhed on the bed as tension coiled in my muscles. Cole slid one hand away from my buttocks, and before I could figure out what he intended, he thrust three fingers roughly into my channel.
Then he lifted his head. “Come for me, honey. Come hard.”
I gasped and trembled as the climax that had been gathering in my core exploded outward. I rode the wave with a wail that echoed through the room and bounced off the walls.
Cole gave me no time to recover. He hooked an arm beneath each of my knees and lifted my legs so my feet slipped over his shoulders. Then he entered me in one swift move.
At this angle of penetration, the sensation was intense. I clutched his thighs and sank my fingers into his flesh. He gripped my waist and yanked me forward, so my tortured ass scraped against his lap.
“Yes, yes, yes.” I chanted the word as I bounced on my husband’s cock. “I love you!”
He gritted his teeth, gave it to me harder, faster. My head bounced on the pillow.
“I’ve always loved you,” he ground out. I could barely understand the words. They came out hoarse and guttural, in a primitive, possessive tone that thrilled me to the tips of my toes.
I looked into his eyes and knew with every last fiber of my being that he meant it. He’d loved me then, when he thought I was a frigid, inexperienced woman who couldn’t come if her life depended on it. And he loved me now, when he knew what I was and accepted me, my kinks, my quirks, my sexual needs, as though they were as normal as I’d always wanted to be.
The agonizing pleasure ripping through me brought me to the brink of another orgasm. I reached up and cupped his face, forced him to look at me as I met him thrust for thrust.
“May…I?”
He knew what I asked and he slammed into me harder still. My inner walls contracted, and panic flooded my thoughts when I realized I could come without his answer.
Without his permission.
“Honey,” was all he said, and I splintered apart. This time I took him over the edge with me. His cock jerked inside me and he stilled, growling under his breath as he filled me with his seed.
I held my husband tight as he collapsed beside me then nestled in the crook of his shoulder. He gathered me close, kissed the top of my head.
Then, after what felt like an eternity of comfortable silence, he asked, “Did you come?”
And I burst out laughing.
* * * * *
By the time I went downstairs, dawn was breaking over the horizon. The soft pink light flooded my hallway carpet with a cheery color that put a spring in my step. I was ravenous and sore all over, yet I felt lighter than I had in years. Happier too.