“I’ll have to thank her later,” John said. “Just lie down on the ground slowly and put your arms to either side. You can sort it out at the station because I’m at work. Good luck not getting shot.”
Jim must have sensed he was about to hang up. “Wait! You can’t do me like that, bro! I just need to crash for a few days until I get a place with my girlfriend.”
“Stay at Mom and Dad’s, then. There is no fucking way I’m letting you into my apartment after what you did last time.” John had once seen a documentary about amazing animal recoveries in which a dog therapist successfully toilet-trained a brain-damaged terrier—the therapist’s slow, crisp voice had been very impressive. He tried using the same tone now on his brother. “Put the phone. In your pocket. And get down. On the ground.”
“Fuck you, you fucking—oh shit! Sorry, Officer!” The line went dead.
John kept walking robotically back to work, even though what he really wanted was to go to the library and commiserate with Robin. Not that she had any truly nightmarish relatives herself, but at least she knew what a pain in the ass Jim was.
An hour later, he was back at work sorting through headsets for the language lab when his mother called.
“We got problem. Your brother in jail.”
John prided himself on self-control, or else he would have pounded his fists against the wall. He settled for rubbing his forehead and groaning softly.
“Why you no go get him?” his mother shouted. “Not like you doctor or lawyer. You got time.”
He tried a variant of the same voice he’d used on Jim. “Do you remember that flyer about codependency I gave you? And Dad and I had that long talk with you and we went over all the bullet points?”
She let out a mild curse in Mandarin and hung up.
People never really changed. It was a sobering lesson, and one he definitely needed to remember when it came to Robin. She wasn’t going to change him, and he wasn’t going to change her. Only...lift her up a little. Help her figure out a way to move forward on her own path.
The thought made him smile.
* * *
“Saylor University Library Special Collections,” Robin chimed.
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Harsh breathing. Either a pervert or really good news.
“This is Al.”
Correction. Good or bad news. Although if he was bothering to call, she was assuming good. Unless he was the type to have really polite phone etiquette.
“Al! Hello!” she said, trying to sound optimistic but not desperate or smug.
“I looked you guys up online. You’re not big, but you’re serious. I don’t want to have these images go commercial as soon as I croak. I want my aunt’s legacy to be respected. Tell me now, once and for all, that that’s your intention.”
It was all she could do to keep herself from jumping into the air and screaming with joy. “That is absolutely my intention.” She had to keep going, though; honesty demanded it. “But I’m going to strongly recommend you consult independently with a copyright lawyer and your estate planner.”
“Makes sense. I’m gonna show you the stuff at the safe-deposit box. Bring John if he’d like to come—I bet he will, eh eh.”
Seemed like a good idea, the John thing. After all, he’d been the one to get her foot in the metaphorical door with Al in the first place.
They set up a time tomorrow. When Robin put down the phone, she pumped both fists in the air and whooped. Julio wasn’t around to celebrate with—he’d been laying low for the last week out of embarrassment, even though she’d been very understanding about his backing out.
She called John before she could even think about whether it was a good idea. As the phone rang, though, she had plenty of time to second-guess herself. Would this still be okay? Would they be able to talk like normal? They’d intended to stay friends through this thing, but then the best laid plans...
“Hello?”
John sounded irritated. Big-time irritated. The kind of irritated that only came from one source.
“What did Jim do now?” she asked in a singsong voice.
“Fuck, I don’t even know the full extent of the damage. The situation is evolving. Devolving, whatever.”
All of Robin’s misgivings about meeting up with him went out the window. “Lunch? A pitcher of beer at the shack? I’m buying.”
“Sure. I might have to leave on short notice if the cops call me though.”
That didn’t sound too promising.
She grabbed her tote bag and left the office. God, Jim. He was funny in a guilt-inducing train-wreck kind of way. His drug-addled antics were a lot more amusing to outsiders than they must have been growing up in the Sun family. She tried to be extra understanding, since her own relatives were a pretty sane and trustworthy bunch. She even let her sister read her blog.
It was late in the day, so the lunch crowd had thinned, making it easy to spot John slumping in a booth to the back. He brightened when he saw her though. A subtle shift of his shoulders and a cock of his head and the way his body took up space suddenly changed from passive to active, so that he was—what was the word...oh. Dominating it.
No, she thought, reaching up and touching the base of her throat—she hoped inconspicuously—to remind herself that she wasn’t wearing her pearls. This was their off time. They were just friends now. It wouldn’t do to think of John in those terms, not if she ever wanted to go back to what they had. And she couldn’t afford not to.
Boundaries, she recited to herself, and went to take her seat.
John poured her a pint of beer and slid it across the table. She raised an eyebrow. “Got started without me?” she asked.
“Yes, yes I did. If you had the morning I just had, you’d probably be into your fifth margarita right now, so cut the judgy-judgy.”
Harsh, but true. Robin wasn’t equipped to deal with the family drama John faced on an almost-daily basis.
“Are we still on for tonight?” she asked. “If you need to reschedule, tomorrow isn’t good for me, but Friday—” She stopped and put a hand over her mouth, overcome by the strangeness of bringing the night into the day, surrounded by blithely unaware college students. Then she forced her hand onto the table because the gesture seemed juvenile, and that wasn’t her.
“Oh we are still on, believe me. No way I’m letting Jim ruin this. Anyway, I need to let some aggression out.” He paused. “No, wait. That sounded kind of scary.”
“You’re just joking. Or at least you’d better be.”
He grinned. “I am. And I plan on being stone-cold sober by then, and turning off my phone. Speaking of aggression—” he tapped two fingers against his chin, “—I was actually thinking of a no-contact night. But with orgasms.”
He made that awkward word sound marvelously smooth and sleek.
Her knee bumped against the table, almost spilling their beers. She repressed the impulse to look around wildly to see if anyone had overheard. One, the gesture would draw attention to her and their conversation, and two, if she was going to have this conversation in public, she was going to damn well own it.
“That’s a relief,” she said, in the spirit of owning it. “I still agree with the no-sexual-contact rule, but the no-orgasms thing may be a dealbreaker. I just can’t live that way.”
“Well, that saves money on chastity devices. Those things can get...” He let out a low whistle and shook his head. “I do have another piece of jewelry for you. This one, you’ll have to keep.”
She raised both eyebrows at him. Wait—was he upset she hadn’t taken the pearls? No, she was reading way too much into it. No way John was that sentimental about anything.
Through the rest of their lunch, she turned over the issue in the back of her mind. It was only when they’d paid up and said their goodbyes that the easier-to-decipher implication finally hit her, and she sat up ramrod-straight, every muscle in her body tightening.
This one, you’ll have to keep.
She’d have to check the contract, but she was pretty sure piercings were out. That left...oh God.
Own it.
She unclenched her legs and remembered to breathe.
Chapter Seven
“Not yet, not yet!” Robin cried out when she breezed through the door, raising both hands to her throat to block the string of pearls John was holding up for her.
His face must have fallen as he withdrew them, because she reached out to cup his cheek in apology.
“No, nothing like that. We’re still on. But I forgot to tell you something earlier. Well, actually I forgot to tell you everything earlier, you kind of distr—why’s there a board on your window?”
“Jim tried to get in. And do you remember that orchid I had for two years? He ripped through it looking for a key, and it’s on life support right now.” He sighed, although he really didn’t give a damn about the orchid now that Robin was here.
“Oh no...” Robin murmured. “Where is he now? He’s not here, is he?” When John dangled the pearls in front of her face, she laughed. “No, I suppose he isn’t.”
“I would have told you about it, but I guess I got distracted too. It doesn’t matter anyway. So tell me your news.”
She startled, but gathered her composure quickly. “Well, you remember Al?”
“Al Steelhammer, you mean?” He could guess the good news, but didn’t want to spoil her reveal.
“Yes, him. He called me today. He wants me to come look at his collection!” She lurched, as if she was about to hug him in joy, but then her eyes fell on the pearls clutched in his palm and she shrank back again, shy. Her body was so expressive. He had plans to bring that quality out more, very soon. “Oh, and he wants you to come along. I—I’d like that too. If you want.”
“To look over his never-before-seen Irina Mareau collection? Are you kidding me? Is that even a question? Yes!” This time it was his turn to step forward for a hug and then draw back at the last second. The in-between effect threw him off balance, like a sound wave too low for human hearing that still vibrated in his bones. He knew what it was, but he didn’t like compensating for it.
Robin seemed to sense his discomfort, because she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, lifted her chin and said softly, “I’d like to put on that necklace now.”
Yes, yes.
Her huge, patient eyes invited him in, as if she were a hypnotist’s subject in a silent movie, speaking all in subtle flickers and trembling. He stepped forward, the pearls drooping between his fingers, and pressed them to the front of her throat as he reached around the back of her neck and fastened them at her nape. They fell, dormant but not inert, to rest on her collarbone.
“You look like her,” he said. “Not physically, but just the way you hold yourself. Your aura—if you’ll forgive me getting a little new age on you—is old-fashioned. Coquettish. Like her.” He traced the necklace with the edge of his finger, wondering if the pearls felt cold against her throat.
“Thank you.”
He raised his finger from the necklace to her lips, almost touching but not quite, and made a ssh sound. Her eyes narrowed at the assumption. Then widened again with acceptance. Satisfaction stirred inside him, deep and tidal. He didn’t need to touch her to have her, not like this.
“Go into my bedroom. There are some things in there on the bed for you to put on. Get undressed, put them on and then put whatever lingerie you’re wearing now back on over them. I’ll wait out here.”
She nodded. God, he wished he could go with her, undress her slowly, bend her over the bed and run his hands up and down her sides and back to calm and comfort her before he finally reached between her legs...
The door to the bedroom closed. Robin was gone and he was alone.
* * *
Robin folded her dress and laid it on the dresser, then arranged her panties and bra on top. The contact high she’d gotten from John’s hands around her neck had floated her this far.
Now she was stark naked. In his bedroom. The realization hit suddenly and made her shiver. She hugged herself, and that only made it worse, because her fingers were so cold. She ran them up her sides in a vain attempt to warm them.
Her nipples had hardened into stiff buds.
That knowledge, gained from exploring her own body, eased her discomfort amazingly. No, it wasn’t so cold anymore, not really.
She sighed, and turned, and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirrored closet door. Her nakedness made the pearls stand out, or maybe it was the other way around. I want John to see me like this. Slim hips cocked just so, hands caressing herself...
He was waiting for her to follow instructions. A different, less physical pleasure pulsed through her, remembering. She broke away from her reflection and walked to the bed.
There were two toys resting on a folded towel. One was small, silver and glittering. The other, soft red silicone shaped like the letter U. Both somewhat mysterious at first, their functions became clearer when she picked them up and felt their weight. The silver toy was, in fact, a highly polished stainless steel butt plug, finished with a multifaceted red gem. The silicone U was a vaginal vibrator with one tip for stimulating the clitoris. She cataloged them with a familiar and nonsexual delight and even guessed at their value: they were well made, but not rare. The gem was only a pretty crystal.
Did she think this was an appraisal? They were meant to go inside her. She gasped. Her hand twitched, and the toys fell from her palm back onto the towel.
And then she grabbed them again, because a need surged inside her to be filled and fucked, and she didn’t see any reason to fight it. Do it now. For yourself. For him.
There was a bottle of lube by the towel. John had thought of everything. All she had to do was follow orders. She put the vibrator back down, picked up the lube, dripped some on the blunted tip of the plug.
It was a small plug and she’d done some anal play before, so it wasn’t too intimidating but the fact that it had been him to choose it, to buy it, to lay out so neatly, to have done all that for her and it was just one step removed from fucking her himself? Now that was slightly intimidating.
As the crystal caught the light and glimmered, she remembered telling him, years ago, that she loved garnets.
She bent over onto the bed and spread her legs. It was hard to do this on her own, so damn hard, but it meant something. The face she had to be making into the quilt must be either pornographically obscene, or else incredibly awkward, the kind of grimace that could mean only one thing.
Or maybe they were one and the same.
She appreciated John giving her privacy to do this, to work through this subtle and juvenile humiliation.
And at the same time, she wished he was here, watching her, his look of desire helping her push through the shame. But then, maybe later...
It was the thought of his phantom presence by her side, together with the swelling urgency of her need, that finally broke her resistance. Oh, and it was so easy then, the cold, fierce thing sliding into her with the least pressure, the tight ring of her asshole drawing it in as she automatically clenched. This isn’t dirty. This is beautiful, she told herself. Or else it’s both. One and the same.
The base with its little crystal was right there—a constant, insistent reminder of what she’d just done to herself—but it wasn’t uncomfortable. She reached around her, gently fingering the cool crystal, tracing her fingertips along the edges of its facets, following some indiscernible pattern. She wondered how it must look. If he would photograph her in it. Probably. He could have chosen something functional, with more and better features, for the same price, but he’d picked something specifically ornamental.
The vibrator too. Smooth and luxurious and minimalist in its styling, it was an alluring object, and the same red as the gem now nestled half-hidden in her ass.
She rose on to her left elbow, stroked between her legs with her right hand...and knew she wouldn’t need any lubricant for th
e vibrator. No hesitancy. She sat up on the edge of the bed, knees spread, cradled it in her palm and slid it into place: one arm of the U curled inside her sex, and the other thrust up between her labia to cover her clit. The whole thing seemed to cup her supportively, like she imagined John’s hand would, if he reached between her legs from the front and nudged two fingers into her and just held her. Such a wonderful, possessive touch—had he purchased this toy specifically to mimic it?
She slid off the bed and walked to the dresser very slowly, palms on her hips, legs pressed tightly together. Every step was a chord combining multiple new sensations. The unyielding plug, shifting and rolling. The silicone clinging and cupping, enough pressure to tease but not even begin to satisfy.
With shaky hands, she pulled on her red satin panties, fastened her matching bra and slipped into her heels. She took one last look in the mirror to check her makeup: a touch of dark eye shadow and lip gloss, none of it smeared.
Stepping in the heels felt insanely wrong, like she was about to fall over any second to compensate for the delicious, invading pressure. She tried to reassure herself. It’s all right if I wobble. He’ll think it’s sexy. Which made her wonder what exactly John got out of this, especially after she was gone and he was alone with his memories, his photos...
Well then, she’d give him some good ones.
She opened the door and stepped out.
* * *
Seeing her was like a punch to the gut. Shy, but determined, and for the first time unsteady on her heels. She’d dressed as requested in deep bloodred lingerie, not lace this time, but soft, touchable-looking satin. And her shoes, too, red and glossy like candy apples. Oddly enough, it was her hands that excited him the most, how she held them out to either side as if she were walking a tightrope, fingers delicately spread apart. All the tension in her body seemed to be curling and trembling there.
“Y—” he started, then had to clear his throat. “You’re going to want to move over to that area where I laid out the carpet.”
His floors were hardwood throughout, but for today he’d put out a plush floor rug, and hidden underneath it a folded duvet, for cushioning.
The Dom Project Page 8