by Anna del Mar
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah.” Noah curled his finger in me. “Your little cunt really wants to be my pet. It really wants to be fondled. Like this.”
I cried out. All the blood in my body rushed to my sex and mustered around his finger.
“It’s okay to say that you like it.” He smiled against my mouth. “It’s okay to admit that the collar and the leash excite you. I’m going to kiss you. Do you remember what to do?”
I tilted up my face and parted my lips just the way he’d taught me, shivering with anticipation.
His lips landed on my mouth. His hand cradled the back of my head. I forced my jaw to relax and my lips to yield some more. He rewarded me with a mouthful of tongue that painted every inch of my mouth with his flavors. His teeth raked over my lips and bit down on my lower lip gently but also sternly. By the time he stopped kissing me, my lips were swollen, my chin was chafed from the rub of his stubble and my pussy was dripping wet.
“The things kissing you does to my body,” he murmured, breathing heavily. “I swear, I could bend you over this table and fuck you right here and now.”
I had zero objection to that plan.
“But I won’t,” he said, disappointing every molecule in my body. “We’ve got to take care of you. Let’s start with dinner, since I doubt you ate anything worthwhile all day.”
I didn’t crave dinner as much as I craved him, but I had to admit that I was hungry. He sat me on one of the dining room’s clear acrylic chairs and lit up the candles. The candles and the song of the surf coming through a crack in the French doors imbued the room with a romantic glow, even though it was very strange to be sitting there, having dinner while stark naked with my hands fastened behind my back.
Noah served a wicked seafood linguini. He fed me one forkful at a time and, because we were both hungry, we soon made a dent in the plate we shared. We had a wonderful sauvignon blanc, which I drank from his glass. We also had a surprisingly normal conversation, talking about our respective weeks until I had almost forgotten that I was cuffed, leashed and naked.
“So,” I said between bites and sips. “Did you talk to Dr. Dodd some more?”
He glanced at me. “Maybe.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
There was an awkward pause where he concentrated on twirling the pasta around the fork. Then he settled the fork down on the plate and sighed. “Look, if you want to know, just ask, okay? Better than tiptoeing around the issue.”
He was being prickly about it, but at least we could talk about it. “Did it help?”
He shrugged.
“Has it been very...hard?”
“What do you think?”
He picked up the fork and fed me a mouthful of linguini, to silence me perhaps, but I put my whole jaw into the chewing action and swallowed the mouthful with a gulp. “And?”
He more or less growled. “No milestones to report.” He paused, picked up the glass and downed half his wine. “What is it to you anyway?”
“Um... I...” Should I try it? It was way too early, I knew that, but my gut was telling me to put it out there anyway. “The foundation’s gala is coming up and...well...”
“What is it, Clara?”
God give me courage.
“Just spit it out,” Noah said.
“The thing is...” I hesitated, then started to babble and couldn’t stop. “Mother insists I should have an escort for the foundation’s gala. Since I broke up with my fiancé, I don’t have one of those. Matthew offered, but I—I don’t really want to go with him. Ed Durant offered too—he’s this über donor who thinks he owns the world—but I would never go with him, not even if he was the last man on earth. It’s sort of, kind of, an emergency. I thought that...maybe...if you felt up to it...if you wanted to...if you were willing to do me a favor...”
Shock widened his eyes. “You want me to go with you to the gala?”
Did I see joy in his eyes? “Um, yeah, why not?”
“Because...” The joy died in his stare. His mouth set into a grim line. His expression closed up. He gulped down the rest of his wine, curled his lips in a mocking leer and pointed out the window. “See that plastic chair over there?”
I craned my neck. “You mean the one by the overlook?”
“That one,” he said. “It marks how far I’ve managed to go out of the house. It’s part of Dr. Dodd’s therapy. Every day, I have to move the chair five feet away from the cottage. Then I have to sit on it and meditate, increasing my time outside by five minutes each day. Fifteen feet, fifteen minutes, that’s my progress this week.”
“That’s great, Noah,” I said. “You’ve only been at it for a bit and—”
“It’s hell,” he snapped. “I hate it. At the rate I’m going, it’ll take me a hundred years to get to the mainland. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
His stare burned through me, incinerating my hopes to ashes, making me want to crawl under the table and hide.
“So, no,” he said acidly, “I can’t go with you to your precious gala, couldn’t go, even if I wanted to, which by the way, I don’t, on account of your mother—who I’m liable to strangle on sight—and all the pretense gathered in one room.”
I wish I would’ve kept my mouth shut. My heart ached. It wasn’t just the rejection and the anger. It was the pain oozing from him. I’d jumped ahead too fast. I’d been stupid. I’d played it all wrong. I tried not to take it personally. I knew Noah suffered from a serious disorder, but I couldn’t help the way I felt. Noah hated everything I was, everything I stood for. My lips quivered. My eyes burned. Talk about crash and burn.
“Hey.” Noah lifted up my chin with a nudge of his fingers. “Chin up, girl, you’re slumping in the chair. I don’t like it when you slump.”
“Noah?” I blinked away the pesky tears. “Do you want me to go now?”
He ran his hands over his face and groaned. “I’m such an asshole. I didn’t mean to unload all my crap on you. I’m sorry if I came across as a grouch. It’s just...frustrating.”
“Sure,” I said, but deep inside, I wasn’t so sure.
“I mean it,” he said. “This is not about you. I’m the one who’s fucked up.”
I dug my teeth in my lip. “I can leave if you need me to.”
“Please don’t leave.” He reached out and caressed my face. “I wish I could take you to the gala, to the movies, to Africa, to wherever you want to go. But I’m sorry. I just...can’t.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” The grief in his eyes squashed my heart. “I didn’t mean to push you beyond your comfort zone.”
“I can’t promise you much,” he said. “But even if it kills me, tomorrow I’ll go out there and move that chair another five feet. The question is, Clara: is that shitty promise enough to make you stay?”
In my heart, the answer was clear. “Yes.”
He kissed me. “Then stay and let me give you what you crave.”
Chapter Sixteen
Clara
The darkness in Noah’s eyes demanded a chance. The darkness in my soul needed no excuse to give it to him. The pact between us carried us through the moment’s bitterness and saved us from ourselves. The game was on again.
Back in command, Noah’s gaze slid down from my face to my breast. A crooked grin overtook his mouth, a naughty smile that cranked up the heat boiling in my veins and put me on notice. He reached over and appropriated my breast, reminding me that I was naked in his dining room, with my hands cuffed behind my back and at his mercy.
He seized my breast and gently pulled me forward and down. He swabbed it over the plate and rolled it in the clear sauce, as if my flesh were a chunk of fine white bread. And then he did the most startling thing of all. He leaned in and licked the sauce off m
y breast, slow, sinuous strokes of his tongue that sent deep, sensual pleasure pulses to my clit.
The lukewarm sauce dripped off my skin. The scent of onions and garlic in a buttery broth filled my lungs. I enjoyed his daring, turning dinnertime into something altogether different, transforming the function of eating into a sexual act right before my eyes. He stoked my erotic appetites with a satisfying meal in which I was part of the menu. My nipples puckered between his lips. By the time Noah was done, I squirmed in my chair and my sex had produced a new concoction. I was ready to be done with the need.
The bulge in his pants gave me hope that the long wait would be over soon. No such luck. Next on the program, we went upstairs, where he took off his shoes and folded up the hem of his pants before he led me into his huge shower.
The contrast between my nudity and his clothes struck me as unfair. He took off my collar and cuffs and pinned my hair at the top of my head. Then he directed me to stand in the middle of the stall with my legs braced apart and my hands clasped behind my back. He turned on the faucet and sprayed my body with the handheld nozzle. Warm water rained over me, tickled my skin and teased my nipples with concentrated bursts.
“Have a seat.” Noah tapped on the wide black marble bench. “Show me your assets.”
I flinched when my butt made contact with the hard, cold surface. Wet and naked, I suffered from a sudden modesty attack. Of course it was irrational. I’d spent the last hour naked with Noah at his dining room table. And before that, I’d spent a lot of time naked on camera with him, not to mention last weekend, when he’d pretty much seen everything there was to see. Even so, I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t make me ask again,” Noah warned, clutching the nozzle and looking down on me. “Assets, please, on deck, right now. Make it count. Dazzle me with your compliance.”
Dazzle him? Oh, yeah, I was eager to dazzle.
I scooted to the end of the marble slab, leaned back and, bracing on my elbows, lifted up my knees and parted my legs. His gaze flowed over me. His tongue swiped over his lips, a gesture that made me clench all over. Eyes shifting between me and the faucet, he fiddled with the nozzle’s controls until the water came out in a thick, single stream.
“Now, that’s a good view of your sweet, gorgeous cunt, now that you’ve gone hairless,” he said. “Show me more of your clit. Come on.”
I balanced myself on one elbow and, setting aside any inklings of modesty that might linger behind, I parted my labia and unveiled my clit for him.
“Beautiful.” He aimed the nozzle at me and, with care, landed the jet between my legs.
The warm torrent cascaded directly onto my clit and gushed down my sex in an exquisite barrage. The hard pressure concentrated at the top of my sex and delivered a constant stimulation to my clit. It pulsed as hard as my carotid artery. My pussy tingled all over. I dug my teeth into my lower lip and closed my eyes. The sensation was amazing. He kept the flow on my clit, where it stayed until my breaths came in short gasps, my belly heaved and my legs began to shake.
“So she likes the waterworks.” Noah flashed a greedy smile. “Your little clam loves a good shower.”
I didn’t just like the waterworks. I was going to come, right here, right now. In fact, I could already feel a wild orgasm gathering at the back of my sex.
I pleaded. “Noah, I—”
“No.”
“But I—”
“Not yet,” he said. “Did you forget who’s in charge here? Get on your knees.”
I willed my body to pull back from the edge, stumbled from the bench and knelt on the ground. I winced. The stones in the shower floor dug in my knees. Noah grabbed a towel, folded it into a tube and wedged it under my knees. He hooked the nozzle on the wall bar and swiveled the adjustable nozzle until it sprinkled a steady flow of warm water over my back.
“You need to learn to follow directions,” he said, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants. “A moment ago, you almost came without my permission. I’m afraid that’s a big no-no.”
His cock uncoiled out of his boxers. My eyes widened. I’d forgotten how impressive he could be close-up. He planted himself in front of me, cupped my chin, thumbed my lower lip and led his cock to my mouth. And I, who’d been ravenous for him all week, opened up and, without so much as a protest, allowed him to fuck me in the mouth.
Perhaps I should’ve felt objectified by the pragmatic way in which he made use of me. Kneeling on the shower floor, wet, naked and compliant, I was a tool to his body and my mouth an accessory to his cock. God knew, there were a lot of conversations on my blog, the Internet and elsewhere about sex, objectification and submission.
But truth be told, despite the fact that I knelt at his feet, needy and denied, I didn’t feel like an object. On the contrary, I felt good with his cock crammed in my mouth. Thrill coursed through my veins and need moistened my sex. I felt useful, needed, indispensable. I felt relevant.
I braced my hands on his thighs, cushioned his cock on my tongue and suckled the better part of his length. He fisted his hand in my hair and, guiding me, added swivel to my head and depth to my gulps. I worked my lips, tongue and palate over him, enjoying the way the tip of my tongue tripped over his slit, the textured surface of his cock as it brushed against my lips and the way that his beam hardened as it rushed in and out of my mouth.
Within moments, he raised his face to the sky and, uttering barely a sound, came in my mouth. His release rippled through his body and thickened the veins in his neck. His warm seed pooled in the back of my tongue and slid down my throat as he took his pleasure.
Needy as I was, I understood the gist of his discipline. He’d gotten release, whereas I hadn’t. If I wanted some release, I had to give control to him and not just in appearances. Determined to gain my reward and secretly excited about it, I stayed on my knees, polishing off the last of his seed as he softened in my mouth.
He looked down and slowly released my hair. “Well done.” He pulled his cock out of my mouth, zipped up his pants and, bending over me, kissed me. “Thank you.”
The pleasure I spotted in his eyes made me squirm with satisfaction. I had pleased him and that in itself made me giddy with joy.
Note to blog: pleasing one’s partner is as satisfying as pleasing oneself.
“Stand up.” He helped me to my feet. “Brace your feet apart. Good. Hands over your head. Try to stay still.”
Noah washed me thoroughly, sponging my neck, scrubbing my back, polishing my breasts and traveling down my belly to rub my pussy. His intimate strokes made me sway on my feet. He knew just where to where to rub me with the sponge, where to polish me with slippery fingers. I tried to control my breathing, but every so often, a gasp escaped my lips.
“Such a hot-blooded little cunt,” he murmured as he soaped my inner folds. “Like a wild cat in heat you are, so ripe for a good fuck.”
Somebody, please turn on the cold water. Otherwise, I was going to self-combust in the shower. Personal hygiene had never felt so fantastic to me, so exciting and grueling at the same time.
It felt strange to delegate such an intimate ritual and yet, as Noah washed my body, something else happened. Beneath his diligent hands, the week’s worries washed away. I imagined my stress melting off, layers of filth running down my legs and swirling around my feet before disappearing down the drain. The traces of the outside world dissolved from my mind. By the time Noah turned off the water, I was beyond clean. I was purified.
Noah wrapped me in a big, fluffy towel and, carrying my things along, led me down the hallway. I was clean, fed and ready for what came next, which turned out to be...the guest room?
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I...um... I thought I’d sleep with you tonight.”
“Can’t wait.” He smiled and traced my face with his fingertips. “Soon, when you’re ready,
but not yet.”
Irritation prickled my spine. “How am I not ready?”
“We still have some things to work through.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll talk about those tomorrow.” He lifted the blankets and gestured for me to get in bed. “Trust me. Waiting makes it even better.”
“But... I’ve been waiting a long time, all week.” Not to mention all those years. “You didn’t want to wait much in our first go-around.”
“Neither did you, if I recall correctly.” He tucked me under the covers and flashed a smile fond with memories. “This time around, one of us has to have some self-discipline.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He tapped my nose playfully. “Your time is coming.”
“Right,” I mumbled crossly.
He went over to the dresser and laid out my things, collar, leash, cuffs. “Tomorrow, when you wake up, you’ll put these on. For your comfort, I’ll allow you to sleep without the cuffs, even though you aren’t allowed to use your hands. Remember: you’re not allowed to touch yourself. Your pleasure is mine. Understood?”
Was he really going to walk out the door and leave me alone in the wide, lonely bed?
“Good night, princess,” he said as he did exactly that. “Tomorrow we’ll tackle another day.”
Chapter Seventeen
Noah
The sun rose as I paced the deck. The cool October breeze snapped the American flag I’d just hoisted on my deck and crammed my lungs with the sea’s humid air. I missed the ocean, the harsh sting of the salt in my nostrils, the sun’s refraction piercing into the sea’s depths and the tides trying to bully my strokes. I missed the battle that pitted water against flesh and surf against muscle power. Would I ever be able to swim again in the wide-open ocean where I belonged?
“Here goes nothing,” I mumbled as I settled my foot on the lawn.
The first step was always the hardest. Not that the others were any easier, but that first leap of faith required punching through all of those irrational objections. I pushed myself forward. Five feet. Ten feet. Where was that damn plastic chair? Fifteen feet. The wind had tipped the chair on its side. I picked it up and clutched it to my chest. Five new feet. One, two, three, four, five...