“Forced?” She raised one delicate eyebrow and shifted temptingly against him.
“Well, you know, peer pressure. Audience expectation.” He tried to look innocent in the full knowledge that he’d likely fail. “Forced to fuck you blind.”
“I thought I was already wearing a blindfold.”
He threw his head back and laughed, feeling her shifting on top of his chest as his whole body shook with it. God, she was perfect.
“Aside from a few conflicting details, it’s really hot,” she added, giggling a little herself.
“Oh, I’m not done yet. Not nearly. There’s a lot more. But you’d better tell me yours, and then I’ll finish.” He dipped a finger between her legs, not roughly but not slowly either, and was rewarded with a full-body quiver and breathy sigh. Oh, she’d definitely thought his setup was hot. Hot enough to trade her own fantasy to make sure he gave her the rest?
But no. “That—that wasn’t the deal,” she gasped, and her dreamy smile at having his finger on her clit turned into a determined look. “No.”
He couldn’t help but grin at her audaciousness. “Now’s the time I’d call you an evil bitch if we weren’t both naked.”
“And if you weren’t hoping to get a piece of this?” she added, sweetly, as she stretched out on top of him. She ran a hand down her arched body from just beneath her high breasts to join his hand where it rested cupped between her legs. “If you want me to tell, you’ll have to make me.”
That’s my cue. The words flipped a switch buried deep in his mind, sending a dark, primal energy surging through him. He rolled over so that she was beneath him and pinned her wrists down, keeping just enough weight on her to overwhelm without crushing. He stayed frozen for a while, staring down at her, testing the qualities of her submission. So hard to keep his face impassive in the light of this privilege, granted to him after so many years, unexpected, like a miracle.
He was ready.
So was she. Her eyes had gone unfocused, gaze drifting, lips slightly parted. He briefly thought of drawing this out—having her put in the plug and perform for him—but they’d done that already, and the moment called for intense relief, now.
So he rolled her over and drew back until she was on her knees, wrists pinned behind her back. “I’ve never used my open hand on you,” he said. “Even though I wanted to so bad.” He half coughed, trying to bring the impassive tone back, the voice he needed to make this discipline and not just a silly game. “Because I thought it walked the line of the boundaries we’d set. I think we can put all that aside now.”
“Oh. Yes. Yes.” The side of her face pressed into the quilt, and her voice was hoarse and muffled and absolutely desperate. The cheeky girl who’d teased and challenged him...well, she didn’t vanish or disappear, but she flipped, giving John another side of herself.
“Always nice to hear you say that,” he said as he drew his right hand. “But I didn’t say you could speak.”
He hit across her right cheek, not too hard but very quickly. The palm of his hand came alive with sensation and gave him a full-body rush, mental as well as physical. I know her body. I know the kind of pain she likes, the sharp stinging pain, how it goes straight to her pussy and sends her to the sweetest place. I know her. I know her. I love her.
He struck her again, in the same spot, and reveled in her high wail of pain, how she shivered away from him and then immediately back again, arching her ass upward, presenting herself for his punishment. No. Begging for it.
Pink glowed across her right cheek. He went for her left. He remembered thinking of love—love could mean so many things. Pain and pleasure and compassion all braided together and tied them close, Robin and John, hearts and flowers and collars and mine.
He couldn’t think it through now. All he wanted was to get her crying and wet and shove his cock into her and fucking ride.
But this feeling wouldn’t go away.
He didn’t want it to go away.
* * *
I’ve never used my open hand on you.
She lost count of the times he made up for that. And even though part of her, ruled by animal fear, flinched away with every smack, her higher self was singing out in victory because it felt so strong and so right and John...John trusted her to take the pain. There was nothing timid or playful in his technique. He measured. He struck.
She felt it. God, she felt it. His hand. The air cupped in his palm. The heat on her skin. The reverberations of impact through her aching flesh. The slickness of her labia and inner thighs when she shifted and they slipped together. The emptiness at her core, desperate to be filled, and only John would do.
When he stopped to caress her, barely skimming his hands over the hurt he’d caused—that was what made her cry, finally.
She expected more pain. Would accept more pain. With willing joy.
But his touch became a grip, pulling her up into position, ass raised again from where she’d fallen limp to the bed. And then—then—became the one sensation she wanted most, the feeling of his sheathed cock head nudging up against her.
She might have sobbed please. She wasn’t sure.
Whether she had or not, John fucked into her in one slow, inexorable stroke. Silently. He filled her cunt the same way he’d struck her, merciless and exact. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t see what he was doing to her, how he was splitting her open, but God could she feel. There was a little pain at first, a tiny pain, and then it melted into searing pleasure, and then a different pain as he rested so deep inside her that the hard lines of his hip bones pressed against her sore, tender ass.
His hand clasped her shoulder, palm slapping across her sweat-damp skin, and held her firmly in place as he pounded her from behind. She needed this. She needed to be taken with no hesitation and no second thoughts. I’ll be your doll. Your toy. Serve you as long as you make me feel this way, like heaven made flesh, like dying, like coming alive.
She was dimly aware of sights and sounds. Something higher than a growl and lower than a scream came out of her throat every few thrusts, when he buried himself balls-deep. And over those noises his words, disconnected and harsh—Beautiful. Robin. Fuck. Yes. Robin. Amazing. You. You.
She never wanted this to end.
It had to, of course, but the ending was good too. John slowed, and reached around her thigh to touch her where they joined. He worked her with his fingers until she came, tight and bucking and saying his name over and over like a spell that would make the pleasure last longer, take it higher, and maybe it did.
He rocked into her gently, following the waves of her orgasm, and took her to a different, slower rhythm. When he turned her around—all while staying inside her somehow, but he was strong and used his hands well—she was ready to look him in the eyes. Eager for it.
And so was he, because he grinned down on her and kissed her again, panting into her mouth and tracing her teeth with his tongue. “Guess I forgot to make you tell me,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “You win.”
“John,” was all she could say, because she wanted to laugh along with him but didn’t have the breath. So she put all of her happiness into that one syllable.
“I don’t want—” he said, and broke off with a gasp, his gorgeous full lips twisted in subtle pain. She tried to console him with her body, moving against him and tightening her channel around him and mouthing at the smooth, hard plane of his chest.
They spent what could have been hours joined and lost in each other, John taking her across every surface and angle of her bed.
The sadness came over him again when he spent himself at last, and she felt him softening inside her and slipping away as he held her all the closer.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, because somehow she knew instinctively what he needed to hear. Maybe because his insecurities were her own too. “We’re still us.”
I don’t want to let you go.
And what she was feeling now, if that was what he really felt for
her...oh God. Everything changed. Everything.
Chapter Ten
Week Four
Commenter orangepeel, I owe you five bucks.
Oh, context. So, for those of you who don’t have the time or inclination to follow my comment-section closely, back when I posted the terms of my contract with J, commenter “orangepeel” from New York left a slightly smug comment stating that he bet me five bucks we wouldn’t be able to hold out on the no-sex clause.
Well, guess who’s eating humble pie, and guess who’s getting a five-dollar gift certificate to the online sex shop of their choice?
Yeah, that’s right. I’ll admit it. J and I had sex.
AND IT WAS A-MA-ZING.
There was some doubt in my mind as to whether it was so good because of my long dry spell. So in the name of science, we tried it again the next night.
And it was still amazing.
I’m not sure what this means for our friendship. For our relationship. For his...other relationships. We keep trying to have serious conversations about renegotiating boundaries and laying down ground rules and whatever else and it just ends with me with my ankles around my ears. Or my legs around his waist. Or bent over in the shower. Or giddy-up cowgirling. Well, I’m sure you get the picture. (And if you don’t get the picture, I suppose there’s always those photos I still owe you all.)
So anyway, orangepeel, contact me with your email and I’ll send you that gift certificate.
Until next time!
Love,
The Picky Submissive
In the rare event that John was up early Saturday morning, he watched cartoons. And then he went back to sleep. He liked to do outdoors stuff on the weekends, sure, but only when the sun was hanging in the sky at a civilized angle, not stabbing bright yellow slivers into his eyes with sadistic solar glee.
But when Robin had asked him if he’d like to meet her on Venice Beach after her early morning yoga group finished, he’d agreed without the slightest hesitation.
He slipped on a pair of drugstore sunglasses when he hit the boardwalk and tried to stick to the shadows, away from the ocean side of the street. The beach was waking up around him. Sometimes, in the case of the homeless, literally. A pair of crusty kids with dreadlocks and lip piercings stirred from their cardboard bed under a palm tree. A woman in a designer tracksuit walking a wiener dog gave them a wide berth.
Robin’s group wasn’t hard to spot. Their silhouettes stood out against the drifts of white sand, frozen as if throwing spears toward the sky. A cluster of gorgeous women and men, athletic, powerful, perfectly framed by the beach and boardwalk. His heartbeat quickened.
At the far left of the group stood Robin, the subtle curves of her slight body highlighted by the tight lilac fabric of her tank top and pants. Watching her body shift from position to position was mesmerizing. It wasn’t sexual appreciation so much as aesthetic, he realized once he’d drawn closer, and even then, the pose wasn’t compositionally unique or striking. But it was her. It was the many times he’d seen her move with similar fierce focus, aware of the world but somehow set apart from it.
Or maybe it was sexual. Her ass looked pretty sweet in those pants.
God, he was confused. The group was lowering to their mats for their final stretches and that weird pretend-you’re-dead pose. Should he kiss Robin hello when she was finished? In front of them? One of the other women worked at the Saylor library though. He should probably still kiss Robin. Maybe the presence of a coworker was all the more reason to kiss Robin. He wanted to kiss Robin.
He sat down on a low concrete wall and scuffed patterns in the sand with his boots as he waited. The salt smell of the ocean helped to clear his thoughts and center him in the moment. He’d let it happen. If she seemed open to it, if she fell into his arms... But what if she wasn’t so drastic about it? Wouldn’t a peck on the lips or even the cheek be more natural for a greeting like this? How did a girl signal that? And if he didn’t kiss her? What then? Pat her on the shoulder?
He wouldn’t have thought twice about physical contact a month ago.
We’re still us.
The group was rising and rolling up their mats. John stood too and walked over.
“John!” Robin said, dabbing at the side of her neck with a towel, and when he saw how her face lit up, the issue of whether or not to kiss her vanished from his mind. He strode up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in for a firm kiss on the mouth.
He was absolutely, totally, 100 percent awake after that, and in love with the bright morning. “Hey, sweetheart. Want to go for a walk?”
“I usually get a smoothie after yoga. But let’s do that after. You look great, by the way. You’re usually sort of, um, staggering when I see you this early.”
“Cute. Thanks. If you had any vices—um, ones I didn’t already share—I’d rub your nose in one of them now.”
“Vices. Ssh.” But the smile behind her warning forefinger was playful. She turned and called out “See you next week, guys. And see you on Monday, Laini. Bye!”
He took Robin’s mat under one arm and laced the fingers of his free hand in her own. They set off walking toward the shops of the boardwalk, the ocean sighing at their back and an uncomplicated happiness buoying him up. “So you have a smoothie after yoga. I’m going to remember that. Maybe I’ll bring you one next time.”
“Oh my God,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I can’t believe this. You and me... Next time. Holding hands, kissing?”
“Yeah, uh, hope that’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. It’s great. Maybe it’ll feel okay after we do it longer.” There was something hopeful in her voice, and a wariness too, that called to him to reassure her.
“We’re kind of in uncharted waters now, but we’ll figure it out. Me, I think of it as risks versus rewards. And being with you is definitely a reward worth taking a few risks for.” As soon as he said it, he winced. Just a few risks? He sounded like a cold-blooded bastard.
Robin scoffed. “Well, I mean, not that many risks. So we’re sleeping together. You’re not my boyfriend or anything, right?”
Holding her hand turned awkward just then.
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “You’re so many things to me, I’m not sure how to draw a circle around it all and give it a name.”
“So don’t.” She stopped up short, swung their hands, then let him go. “Look, I know you didn’t get into this looking for commitment. I know you’re not even a commitment kind of guy. You have other relationships. Other sex partners. Other obligations. I’m not going to ask you for anything more than you can give me. You don’t have to play boyfriend for me, okay?”
God, and he thought he sounded cold-blooded. Robin had it down to an art form. She was even smiling, still.
Time to gather his footing, regain his inexplicably wounded pride. “But you’ll play for me,” he said, and brushed the line of her jaw with the back of his hand. The balance between them shifted smoothly and rapidly, like a wave, as her eyes widened and her lips parted, lovely and yearning. The balance would go back again later, he knew, rocking them over and over.
“Yes. I will.”
“Damn right you will, if you don’t want Andy trying to fit into your pretty red heels.”
Ah, and there went her heartless little smile.
They walked the rest of the way side by side, without holding hands.
* * *
“Photograph Five: Negative in fine condition. Full-body shot of Irina Mareau. Backdrop is quilted headboard of light-colored satin draped with chains of highly reflective mother-of-pearl discs, indicating extensive care as to theme more indicative of high fashion styling than pornography of the era. Mareau is naked except for ropes of pearls tied tightly around her waist and mostly obscuring her genital region and the left breast. Mareau is smiling in a variant of her iconic expression known from her extant two photographs. The right breast has a large areola and the nipple appears to be erect.”
Robin’s boss coughed violently at that paragraph, and the appraiser paused his reading.
“I have terrible allergies this time of year,” Robin lied.
“Ah. Yes. Allergies,” her boss said weakly. Betty Chatham, Saylor University Library’s Director of External Affairs, had blue rinse in her hair, steel in her spine and would undoubtedly rather be collecting fin de siècle poet correspondences than porn. But she was still here in Robin’s office.
“Should I continue?” the appraiser asked, unembarrassed. He picked at a corner of his mouth and made a humming noise.
Robin had hired him before—he was a strange, secretive man whose appraisals were well worth the high rate he charged. She hoped that secretive streak of his would provide an extra layer of security, even though these people as a whole had a pretty strict code of honor already. No telling, no bragging, not anywhere that could lead a rival to come swooping in, especially.
“No, that will be quite enough,” Betty said. “Ms. Lessing provided me with a reference list as to the—ahem—academic value of the collection. Further details will not be required.” Robin could almost hear the refrain of theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die swelling in the background.
“So we can move forward with the budget analysis?” Robin asked.
Betty was already creaking upward from her chair and clutching at her purse, as if the library acquisitions budget came directly from her retirement account. “Yes, yes.” She might have said, goddamn Media Studies under her breath as she walked out the door, but maybe it was just another cough.
“Thanks so much,” she told the appraiser, who was also rising to leave. “I’ll have my assistant Janine send you the payment.”
“Tell her to hurry it up,” he said. “Last time I was waiting two months.”
The Dom Project Page 13