by Dakota Gray
I know where this line of questioning ends. My heart beat kicks. “I can take it. A lot.”
“We're going to my house,” his words are measured, and I couldn't be more grateful he's not going to make me relive any more of my story. “I'm going to tie you to my bed. You'll hate me for loving it, but you'll ask for more. We should decide on a safeword for you.”
There was nothing else he could have said and yet the words still hit like a Mack truck. Warmth and dizziness rush through me. I grip my cup just to have something to hold onto, to focus on.
I try to tell myself we've been playing this game just without the trappings. Why should the thought of him tying me up be any different? But it makes all the difference. I can tell him no but the word refuses to form on my lips. My mind is screaming yes, this is the war. It's begun. Let's win. Better, let's lose on purpose.
We should decide on a safeword for you.
I force my limbs to relax and to process what's happening. I'm here with The Nathan Ellis because shit has gone sideways. What we are, what we can never be has everything to do with why I shouldn't even be here with him.
The truth is though at some point my need for revenge has waned. Was it when he kissed me? Was it when he made me forget, the first time, why I should hate him? I can't say. I should be freaking the fuck out. There's just a soft, cushion of calm like a blanket wrapping around me. There's a world of anticipation twisting my stomach and making my heart beat out a song.
There's only one thing I can do to assuage the guilt that hits me in waves, because no matter how much I try to push the truth from my mind, it's always there.
He hurt Loraine and I'm fucking him.
That's not the question, Robyn. Ask yourself the important questions. The ones you’d ask if it was just you and him.
Do I believe he'll ignore my boundaries? Will he, too, betray my sense of safety in the bedroom?
No.
I still need my pound of flesh before I let him drag me to the edge. I have to take something from him he'll never get back. It's the last payback I'll exact from him.
We should decide on a safeword for you.
That's the only easy thing to decide. So easy.
“Sugar.”
His gaze goes cold and flat at the single word. I've taken his armor and made it mine. Seems fitting with what we're about to do.
“I won't use humiliation.” His voice doesn't leak out any emotion. “I will respect your safeword. Do you understand?”
I remember this power. I'm in control of what plays out next. There is no question of it. He won't do anything I don't want him to, that I didn't ask for.
Maybe it's because I never knew when to back down or I'm getting heady from the exhilaration. I don't know. Either way, my mouth opens and I murmur, “I want to know if I like to have my nipples spanked. I understand.”
He leans back in the chair. His scar is pale, harsh against his tanned skin. Lust. Hate. Both are clear on his face.
Does he hate me because I make him need this fucked up exchange?
Does he hate me because despite the fact he thinks I want revenge, he can't walk away?
Welcome to the fucking club, Nate.
“Do you have any other questions?” he asks again, still his tone is emotionless. He's fighting to keep it that way. He's probably waiting to unleash it.
I'm wet at the thought. My punishment is going to be my reward. It makes me twisted, I know, but I can't wait. “Did you bring your car?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ROBYN
Nate pushes me inside his door and rips the straps off my dress, his mouth working over mine in a hard, slow mating. Fear drips into me like a drug. This guy can make me say Sugar.
A tingle starts at my head and settles into my stomach. I want the promise of mayhem and pain as he lifts me off my feet, his hands gripping my ass. He carries me to his bed and locks his hips into mine to bury me in his mattress.
He's not being gentle while tearing off the rest of my clothes. He's angry.
I'd have to be brain dead to not know Nate remains in control in every relationship he has. His mouth gives him an upper hand. His honesty does the rest. Honesty disarms mistrust.
He has that, and like his mouth, he uses it like a weapon.
But I've pushed back when he loomed and growled, told him no, spurred him to lose a little of himself every time he has faced me. He's going to make me pay for that. The way his hands grab and tug, soft at first, and then relentless, is just the start. Dear god though. No part of me feels touch-starved anymore. I'm a glutton now.
I ball his hair in my hand. I tear at his clothes. I stroke his cock while tonguing his mouth. He lets me be wild and wanton and unrepentant. He always does though. I think he loves it when I turn into this woman who moans and writhes and claws at him.
But I'm in bed with Dom Nate. He's done letting me play after a few minutes. He pins my hands above my head, his knees resting on each inner thigh. He takes another second to press my hands into the mattress.
Nate doesn't have to say keep them there. We know this language. He pulls back, looming again. His dark stare sets my skin on fire as he waits to see if I know what he's just told me without a word.
I can hear my breathing in the quiet. Fuck, I can hear the slight squeak in the mattress when he poses my legs the way he wants them.
Can he pick up on the way my heart is thumping? The way my blood rushes as I watch him pull further away, until he's no longer on the bed. My stare can't help but follow him as he drifts to a drawer next to the bed.
A corner of his mouth pulls up when the bastard looks at me. A light dances in his eyes. He's done this enough he can probably imagine what I'm thinking—the fear, the anticipation that seems to both stretch and tighten my skin. He probably knows exactly what he's going to do to me. Probably had an idea in his mind the first time he touched me.
No, the first time I turned him away and proved not even his skills could subdue me.
Who can't hear my heart beat at this point?
My fingers twitch with each beat. My pussy is slick—from slit to entrance. And I know, can almost feel the way he'll press his finger, his mouth, anything into me. A soft sucking sound will ring out in the quiet. My need for this moment, this promise of pleasurable pain will be undeniable.
My eyes feel so wide as I watch him pull out leather cuffs—two pairs. Jesus. He has ones made specifically for hands and feet. New and unused from the looks of them.
He bought them just for me.
I am so out of my element. I don't think he knows it, but I do. 'Cause, god. Being able to render a woman blind with his mouth wasn't enough. He had to have toys, too. He refuses to be mediocre in anything.
He moves slowly but with intent back to the bed. We don't say a word to each other as he tugs the leather cuffs tight around my wrists. I breathe him in when he leans in close enough to test how much space is between me and the leather. He does the same thing for my ankles.
When I'm all trussed up to his liking, he straddles my hips. He rolls his shoulders like a predator who only has to focus to get his meal. For now he's happy to play with his prey—bat his paws at me and laugh. The restraints are too tight for me to press my thighs together, but I love it. There's nothing more beautiful than a man who knows he can unmake your world, sits in that power and wields it thoughtfully.
“Once again...” There's a growl in the words that makes me shiver. “...any questions?”
I want to swallow him whole and watch his eyes darken with ecstasy. “No,” I whisper, but I know he can hear me.
His lids are so low if I didn't feel his breath prickle over my skin I'd think he was half asleep. “Then let's begin.”
He wastes no time to cup my left breast. His chest puffs up with his next inhalation then his hand meets skin. The sting of his palm hardens both of my nipples instantly. I flush down to my toes.
The next hit is harder. And the next. He switches breasts. I want to
die at the slap, the sting and the way my pussy clenches with each hit. How can I do anything but bask in the way every nerve ending sings with each connection of his palm against my skin?
“Like it,” is all I can breathe. I don't want him to ever stop.
He does though, but it's to use his mouth on me. This is why Nate is fucking dangerous. His teeth, his tongue rasp along my flesh, and then he gives me pain again as though he can read what my body needs like it’s written in some secret spot he found.
He goes through the cycle of pain and pleasure using his mouth, his palm, his teeth, and his fingernails when I don’t moan enough. His cock is a heavy, thick weight each time his pelvis presses into me.
The most beautiful thing? Nate’s flushed face, and the curses he thinks I can't hear after I start whimpering. So I'm not surprised when he pulls back to release his zipper. The wet spot on his boxers is the second most beautiful thing. No, the third, after he pulls out his cock for my waiting mouth. The skin is stretched tight, a deep red, wet and hot. I close my eyes and take him in.
“Tongue,” he rasps at me.
I give him a touch of teeth first. I live for the way he moans—a soft huff. Obeying is easy when I focus on that. It's effortless, every time he barks a word at me. Nate is—I can feel the way his thighs tense and shake with them pinning me to the bed.
He's on the very edge. How could I not want to see him fall over? If that means sucking him until only the sound filling his room is his breath coming out like a freight train and my mouth slurping up his precome, then that's what I'll do.
The only thing to help the fever blinding me is the salty tang of his come. It feels like forever before he gives me what I want. When he does he only spills into my throat. It's not enough. I'm hungry enough for him to be mindless and grunting.
Maybe my gaze is filled with that, or it's the smile I throw at him with the thought, but Nate glares at me. A charge seems to tinge the air.
“Nate?”
He closes his hand on my throat and bruises my mouth with his lips. He bites at me, too, and I can't do anything but moan. My hands are literally tied. Doesn't seem to matter as each mewl he pulls out of me makes the air crackle between us. I can only guess his frustration stems from the fact I haven't uttered Sugar yet. He needs to earn that word in my mouth.
This is Nate, though.
It starts with his deep laugh doing things to me that I can't describe. Then it's how his palms feel so wide when he pushes my breasts up to kiss my ribs. His teeth damn near cut skin as he nips at my belly button. His mouth is a goddamn sin as he leaves open kisses along my pelvic bone.
His end goal is between my legs. I pull against the straps, wanting to push him down faster. “Lick me, Nate.”
Everything inside me stills the second his thumb pushes back my clit. My toes curls at the heat of his breath along my lips. His tongue comes next, and I want to explode. Sex shouldn't feel like your world is going to end. It shouldn't feel like it's hanging in suspension either, but I'm waiting for the slow glide of mouth and tongue to end me. I hate the binds that keep me from cradling his head to pull him closer.
He keeps me on that plateau of frustration for an eternity before my orgasm slides in slow and thick and blinding. Nate doesn't let me rest. The next climax is hard and fast. I make ugly sounds I can't swallow.
The glow of being tied and his for the taking dies with the next. When he uses his fingers for the one after that I think I start to whimper and beg. I don't know if I make actual noises. My voice has grown hoarse from moaning. My whole body starts to contract every time he even breathes on my sex.
And he's doing more than just breathing.
And I'm fine—okay. There isn't an inch of me that isn't vibrating from how hard I'm shaking. My breath is one long hiccuping moan until I bite down on my lower lip to cage the noise. There's no question he's going to have to buy a new bed because my thighs, the crease of my ass is soaked with come. I've orgasmed so many times I've passed pleasure-pain, tears burn at my eye ducts, and they will fall if I climax one more time. Still, I could go on until his mouth gets tired.
Why isn't he?
Shit. I'm dealing with a fetishist. He won't ever get tired of eating me, and that just leaves me saying my safeword. I can't. I won't.
You don't want to see if he'll break his word.
Let go.
Let go.
He sounds lust drunk when he murmurs, “So fucking beautiful.” He sucks my clit and groans. “Keep soaking my sheets, just like that. I want to smell you on them when you've gone home.”
What the fuck is he doing?
“I want to untie you just so you can leave scratch marks on my back.”
Oh.
God.
If his voice was unbearable before, now it's just going to end me.
“I knew you'd taste this fucking good the moment I felt your cream on my fingertip.”
“I could live on your come alone.”
“If you were to look at me and smile right now...I could come.”
On and fucking on as he licks me from my ass to clit. He sucks me slow. Tongues me deep. All the while, saying the most obscene things I've ever heard a man say to me.
He's not telling me he loves me.
His words aren't pretty, but they're raw and real. They shred what's left of my resolve. I'm his sexual fantasy come to life. What gets him off is me. Me, wet and screaming until I'm hoarse. Me, unable to stop trembling.
My smile.
That's why he hasn't cried Uncle. There is no edge for him, only mine. He'll drown in me if I let him. There's something powerful in that. Something so freeing.
I define his limits. I control his boundaries. I fucking forgot that is what it was like. That makes me want to fall off the edge just so he can catch me. I don't have to be strong, guarded or numb. I can break because he's breaking too.
I can shatter.
“Sugar.”
He pulls his mouth back and drinks me in with his gaze. He moves. My heart, my mind feels sluggish, but I tense waiting for his next reaction. I can't read the emotion in his eyes. I almost say my safeword again to make sure he heard me—that he won't ignore it.
He puts more space between our skin. I swallow down a relieved whimper. Nate's not ignoring my safeguard. I'm safe with him. How crazy is that thought, but there's the truth of it in the quiet as he continues to hold my stare.
He also doesn't strut or rubs my face in the fact he made me say my word. He's giving me a moment to come back down. A second later it feels like the weight of gravity drops on me and I try not to cry.
He cuts his stare away and starts with the strap on my foot. His fingertips brush my skin. I jerk away, hissing at the sensations pounding into me again like an avalanche.
Nate closes his fist as though he’s touched fire. He gives me another moment to settle my breathing before he tries again. No parts of us touch as Nate releases me. I'm thankful of the reprieve. I’m resentful to be without his touch again. I need to recover before I can have it again, so once I'm free, I curl into myself to give myself some time to pull my atoms back together.
I press my face into his pillow, surrounded by his smell. I can feel him, too. He hasn't moved away from me. I cup my mound and almost send myself into another orgasm.
The bed dips. “Can I touch you, Robyn?” The words brush against my skin. It's a tender caress.
What does it mean that I miss being skin to skin with him? Nothing good I'm sure, but he spread my atoms to every corner of the universe. It's only fair that he helps pull me back together. I nod and brace myself. I still gasp when his chest meets my back. I almost sob when his arm curls around me. It's intimate and grounding—exactly what I needed.
Except I'm being vulnerable with Nathan Ellis. I let go with him. And that's not the problem.
I let go of Loraine for just a moment too.
I didn't feel the pain of her loss, and it's been part of my DNA for nine months. I didn't know
that it was possible. That ever-present pinch of grief proves she was here. And I let her slip from my heart.
I know. I wished for it. I craved just one moment without the pain. I didn’t know how much it would hurt to have her gone even for a second.
Desperation grips my gut. “She had cervical cancer before she met you. Did you know that?”
He balls a fist against my stomach. “Is that why she was a NICU nurse?”
He remembers. She doesn't just exist in my memory. “Yes,” I breathe. I don't care how or why he remembers her. I only care that she's living between us in this moment. I need this too. For only a second. “They had to take everything.”
Nate pulls me into him closer. His jeans are rough against my skin. “Fuck.”
I shouldn't have said it, and I know worse will pour out if we continue to lay there in this horrible quiet. I'll say everything I've swallowed if he keeps holding me like he knows I'm about to break apart and his arms are the only thing that can keep me together. We're supposed to fuck each other. Sometimes he will push me to the edge of an abyss and jump in after me.
We're not this comfort surrounding me, making it feel okay to speak her name in the silence between us. He can't be. I won't let him.
I roll into him and bring my mouth to his. He'll follow my lead. His cock has been poking me in the back this whole time.
He'll reach for his release instead of me.
Nate closes his hands around my back and holds me hard. My breasts, my arms are trapped against his chest. I kiss him like it's my only salvation. It will be, the moment we go back to just trying to fuck each other senseless.
But even kissing him feels intimate now. He can taste the truth of me.
“Condom?” I ask, still grasping for us to be nothing else but two bodies.
He traces the seam of my mouth and then bites out, “Jeans pocket.”
He allows me enough freedom to dig into his pocket, tear open the foil packet and then finally sheath his cock.
Our eyes meet. Questions, lust and worst of all, worry fills his gaze. “Rob—”