“Are you implying that I apply this magic touch to myself? Because I’ll have you know that when you’re not here, I spend the entire time gazing at your picture adoringly. Like a dutiful boyfriend.”
“Like a neutered boyfriend,” I joked, still digging my toes into his side. But that was all talk on my part. Justin had a very healthy sexual drive. Thankfully.
“Might not be a very smart idea to tease me just right now,” he said, and his voice was lower, huskier. It sent delicious shivers of excitement running up and down my body. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but his sexy tone made my body respond, anyway.
“Why’s that?” I breathed.
“Because unlike you,” he said, with a quick glance down at my painted pink toenails resting on his side, “I know how to tickle someone.”
“I know how to—” But the rest of that sentence turned into a yelp as he drew the back of his fingernail across my instep. His light touch made my entire body jolt. “No fair!”
“It couldn’t get more fair,” he said smugly as I tried to jerk my foot out of his torturous grasp. “You were trying to tickle me. Now I’m tickling you. It’s not my fault I’m better at it than you.”
And god, he was. His fingers danced across the sensitive underside of my foot sending shock waves up my leg. I wiggled and twisted in his grasp, but I couldn’t get free. And somehow, that turned me on. He was bigger and stronger than me, and he wasn’t letting go.
Justin turned in the seat, the long fingers of one hand folding my leg back, pressing my ankle toward my ass as he got to his knees and loomed over me. “I’m much better at this than you.” His free hand reached up toward my waist, and suddenly, the delicious chills were body-wide.
Then his hands were tickling me everywhere, and I shrieked at the onslaught of sensations. Writhing underneath him, I half-heartedly tried to get away. That was my role in this. But truthfully, it was intoxicating, knowing he could do this to me. Get me this worked up. Make me shriek and squirm. My pulse throbbed between my legs, and I hoped he’d tear off my clothes and take me. Not that I was planning on giving in easily—this was too much fun for that.
“Stop,” I said, just for form, but in reality, the hungry way he was looking at me, the commanding way he was controlling my body had me so wet and ready for him. I thrust my breasts against him even as I squirmed away from his devastating tickling up and down my sides.
He grinned, a sexy, evil, predatory grin at my exclamation and bent his head down to nip at my neck. I was moaning now, writhing underneath him, my breath coming out in panting little gasps.
Then one of his hands snaked behind me and pinched my ass. “Ouch!” But the small flash of pain was quickly buried in the pleasure. I wanted him so badly. I wanted him to take me so badly, all rough and wild like this. But that thought had barely formed when suddenly, he stopped.
Stopped tickling me, stopped touching me, stopped everything. Panting, I tried to catch my breath, a bit stunned by the sudden stillness. Justin retreated back to his side of the couch and I sat up, my muscles still tingling with the echo of his wicked touch.
“Sorry,” he said, looking at me with a strange expression I couldn’t quite identify.
I wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. That’d been fun. That’d been leading to sex, hadn’t it? I couldn’t understand why he’d backed off. “Sorry for what?”
But he didn’t say. “Do you want me to finish your foot rub?” He was polite. Distant. What happened to the smirk he’d worn a minute ago as he made me squirm under his relentless fingers? But that man was gone. He’d disappeared as Justin withdrew—physically and mentally.
And I was left with rapidly fading shivers across my sensitive skin and a boyfriend who suddenly seemed much farther away than just the other side of the couch.
* * *
After that, we watched some Netflix for a while, but for me, worry had crept back in when he pulled away. Still, about ten minutes after our tickling session had ended so abruptly, he’d tugged me to him and I’d nuzzled my head against his chest. I loved the feeling of his arm around me.
When an episode of the show we were currently binge-watching ended, I looked up at him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” he said, looking amused that I was asking permission. That was good. Maybe that meant his bad mood from earlier was over. Unless my question brought it back. “I just… sometimes worry about if this is what you want.”
“If what is what I want?”
“This. Us. Me.”
He stared down at me. “Come on, babe, how can you ask that? I love you. You know that, or you should. I tell you every day.”
“Not that,” I said, and then rephrased. “I know you love me. And I love you, very much so. But I wonder if this kind of sex is enough for you. You know—vanilla sex.”
He shifted under me so he could see my face. “Where’d you hear that term?”
“Vanilla? From something I read.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Something you read because you wanted to or because you knew I used to be into BDSM?”
“A little of both,” I said truthfully.
“You don’t have to change anything for me. I like our sex life the way it is.”
“But why?” I wasn’t trying to sound whiny—I truly wanted to know. This wasn’t the first time I’d wondered about this, but since meeting his ex in the mall, I’d been completely preoccupied by this thought. “That’s what I don’t get. You used to be dominant in the bedroom. You must’ve enjoyed it or you wouldn’t have been like that for so long. And now you’re not. I don’t see how… how you can be okay with that.”
Justin looked toward the muted television, but I know he wasn’t seeing it. I recognized the look on his face—he was considering my question carefully. His brows were slightly pinched, and his gaze was pointed at the ceiling. I’d seen him look this way when he occasionally brought home difficult projects from his office. I was glad he hadn’t immediately jumped in with reassurances. If the kind of sex we had wasn’t what he wanted, I needed to know.
“I’ve always had dominant tendencies,” he said at last. “Ever since I was a teen, my fantasies leaned that way. When I got older, and found out it was a thing—and that many other people were into it, I figured why not do what I wanted. Be the way I wanted as long as it was with a woman who craved being submissive. So when I started dating, I mostly dated women who were submissive.”
“How’d you meet them?”
“Clubs, online... there are dating websites and apps for that kind of thing, too.”
I hadn’t thought about it before. I nodded, watching his face in profile, wondering what he would say next. Even though in some ways the stakes were higher than they had been all day—I hoped he was about to tell me if our relationship truly satisfied him—I felt relief we were finally addressing this head on. Especially after all the time I’d wondered about it both today and before.
“So, I dated subs for a while, and then I met Maddie and we moved in together. And it was fun, and I cared for her, but I wasn’t in love with her. Not the way I wanted to be in love with someone. I didn’t see myself building a future with her.”
“Why?” I asked, after a long moment.
“I… she just wasn’t the right girl for me. And sometimes I didn’t like the man I was when I was with her. If the sexual side of things hadn’t—” He stopped, seeming to sense he was treading into dangerous territory. “If we hadn’t shared the same kinks, I think I would’ve figured out a lot earlier that we weren’t right for each other.”
My face was inches from his, so I had to struggle to keep my composure, to keep my expression neutral. It was hard to hear that he’d had such sexual compatibility with another woman, but it was also a relief he’d never truly loved her. But he clearly wasn’t done with this issue, so I pushed my feelings to the back of my mind and waited, just waited, for what he’d say next.
“After Maddie, I realized that
I was going about it all wrong. I’d been seeking out women who were into BDSM and then hoping we’d be compatible in nonsexual ways, too. I finally figured out I needed to meet a woman I liked who was the right person for me outside of the bedroom.”
“And then hope she’d share your kinks in the bedroom, too?”
“No,” he said, and he tilted his head down and gave me a little kiss. “And then hope she liked me, too.”
I smiled, but it was brief. He’d answered why he was with me, but not how it was working out for him. We were right for each other outside of the bedroom—was I the only one who thought that we were good inside of it, too?
I took a deep breath and then asked him. “I still don’t see how this kind of sex can be enough for you if you like kinkier stuff.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t look at it like that, babe. That’s not how it works. There are lots of different ways to have sex. Different positions, different rooms of the house, different body parts,” he said, winking down at me. “It’s not like people only like one kind of sex. Think of food. Yeah, I love Mexican, but I also love Italian, Japanese, and Indian. If you took Mexican food away from me, it wouldn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the others a whole lot.”
His food metaphor didn’t make perfect sense, but he was staring at me with concern in his eyes, as if willing me to understand. So I tried. “In this analogy, am I Italian, Japanese, or Indian?”
He laughed. “You’re all three rolled up into one.”
“Sounds like a recipe for heartburn,” I said, but on the whole, I felt a little better, some of the stiff tension leaving my muscles as I sank against him. But there was one question I still desperately wanted to ask. “Justin?”
“Yeah?”
“If I was—am—the right woman for you outside of the bedroom, why didn’t you ever try to introduce me to the stuff you like? The BDSM stuff.”
He glanced away, focusing instead on a point off to my left. I gave him some time. At last, he said, “That’s not how it works. People in relationships can do things to make the other person feel good even if it’s not something they’re into. Like maybe someone doesn’t care much for oral sex, but they go down on their partner to make him—or her—feel good. But that’s not enough for something like BDSM. For a power exchange like that—it doesn’t work unless both people are genuinely into it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It just doesn’t. For one person to be dominant and the other submissive…they both have to crave those roles. And they both have to trust each other implicitly.” He caught sight of my expression and hurried on. “Yes, you and I trust each other. But for BDSM, it’s a different kind of trust. The submissive has to trust the dominant not to hurt her. To not get carried away. To know exactly how far to push her and when to back off. The dominant has to trust the submissive to be completely honest about what she wants, how far she’s willing to go, and what she doesn’t want. It’s not something you can try on for size. Or do to please the other person. Both parties have to be in to it. They have to be completely committed.”
I nestled my head against his chest again. Everything he’d said made sense, but still, I wondered what would’ve happened if he’d tried to introduce me to the kinkier things he liked. Was there no way to start small before engaging in a full-fledged power exchange or whatever he’d called it?
Justin kissed my head again, squeezing his arm around me.
“I promise you, babe, I have not spent the last year thinking ‘Damn, I really love Lily. She’s perfect for me if only she liked being tied up and spanked.’” He scooped me up in his arms and pulled me on top of him, straddling him. “Wanna know what I’ve been thinking instead?” he said, looking into my eyes.
I nodded.
“I’ve been thinking ‘Damn, I really love Lily. She’s perfect for me.’”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said, and he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a kiss.
Chapter Four
THE WEEKEND PASSED quickly, as time always did when I was with Justin. I spent Saturday night at his place as well, but after I left on Sunday morning, I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. Finding myself with a little extra energy, I cleaned my kitchen and decided to bake—which was something I hadn’t done in a long while. I made cookies and lemon bars, but once they were done, I wasn’t very hungry.
Justin and I talked on the phone a few times, about normal things, but not about the stuff I really wanted to ask him about. I’d taken some time to think about the things he’d told me about him and Madison. To be honest, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Worrying about it.
On Monday, I arrived at work bearing cookies, lemon bars, and some apple muffins I’d made early that morning. For a while, I was the office hero, but the snarky secretary Sara, who was sometimes friendly but sometimes not, raised an eyebrow at the treats. “Trouble with your boyfriend?”
“What makes you say that?”
“About fifty thousand calories worth of sugar makes me say that.”
“He’s good. I’m good,” I said. But I wasn’t.
At lunchtime, I ate my sandwich hastily and then went out to my car to call Justin which we did most days when we couldn’t meet for lunch. Normally, at this time of the year, I rolled down the windows so I could feel the breeze, but I didn’t today. There were a couple of things I wanted to ask him.
“Like what?” he said, after we’d talked for a few minutes about work.
“Like about stuff… like BDSM stuff.”
He was silent for a moment. “What do you want to know?”
“How relationships like that work.”
“That’s hard to answer, babe. They’re all different. People can do whatever they like, be as tame or as extreme as they want as long as it’s consensual. As long as it’s what they both want.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you, Lily. How many times do I have to tell you that?” He sounded more than a little exasperated. Maybe he wasn’t used to having to convince someone of his affection. But I just couldn’t dismiss my fears. For one thing, I had logic on my side. In general, if people really enjoyed doing something, didn’t they try to keep doing it?
Shifting in my seat, I switched the phone to my other ear. Deep down, I recognized that it was partly insecurity that was making me act like this. But I just couldn’t reconcile how Justin could be happy with normal, vanilla sex now if he used to have this daring, exciting, risqué sex life.
On another level, I’d wondered a time or two if I was also truly interested in this BDSM stuff in my own right. I’d certainly read enough about it. And yes, those naughty stories had turned me on, especially on nights when I couldn’t stay with Justin. But now instead of reading about couples exploring their kinkier sides together, I was forced to think about Justin acting that way with another woman.
Even though the topic was like pulling off a bandage the slow, painful way, I couldn’t let it go. “I meant what did you used to want? What did you used to like doing?”
He sighed. “I really don’t think this is a good road to go down. I don’t think that couples—even ones as close as us—need to know everything about each other’s pasts.”
“I just mean in general. What do you like about that… lifestyle?”
“All right… it’s just, well, it’s exciting. It’s fun. It can make you feel very close to the other person. Can’t we leave it at that?”
“Please, Justin. I just—I keep thinking about this. Please give me one example of the kind of thing you enjoyed. One specific example. I want to understand.”
During the silence that followed, I thought he would refuse, but then he spoke. “I guess one thing I always really liked …” He stopped and cleared his throat. I knew him well enough to know it wasn’t a nervous gesture—I had the market on those. He was just being cautious. Trying not to hurt me.
“Most doms really like tying their sub up. It’
s an exercise in trust. The sub is making herself open to your touch, your gaze… she’s not hiding any part of herself from you. Not any part of her body, and if the dom and the sub are communicating honestly about what they both want, then she’s not hiding any part of her mind, either. But that occurs in all good relationships. You’re open with me every time you spend the night here, every time you share your body with me. Every time you kiss me and tell me you love me. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes,” I said. And it did, but it was not the answer I wanted to hear. I knew that I wasn’t always open with Justin. I tried to be, but he’d done so much more than me. He knew so much more. Sometimes I felt like I was still a scared little virgin compared to him, even after over a year of being together. Sometimes I just couldn’t help it.
But maybe it was time for me to go after what I wanted. Justin clearly wasn’t going to admit he missed some of the kinkier things he used to do. So maybe I could find a way to remind him.
* * *
It was official—I was out of my mind. But that evening, as I waited on Justin’s deep sofa, wearing a scarlet red teddy, my ankles and wrists secured together by large plastic zip ties, I was also out of my mind with excitement.
My pulse raced, and I squirmed against the plush fabric of his couch. It was intoxicating, knowing Justin would be arriving home from work at any minute. And wondering what he’d think. What he’d do.
I hoped he’d arrive soon. I’d only been trussed up like this for about ten minutes, but I couldn’t sit still. Part of that was because of my arousal, but part of it was just because the zip ties were tight. It had been easy to fasten the large one around my ankles. But my wrists had been more difficult. The plastic loop kept sliding around while I’d tried to catch the end in my mouth. When I’d finally done it, I’d pulled it a little too tight.
Belatedly, I wondered if I should have put a blindfold on. But no, I wanted to see the look on Justin’s face when he saw me here. And I wouldn’t have to wait any longer because I heard voices in the hallway.
Wild Rush: A Bad Boy Romance Page 2