Leather and Lace

by Landish, Lauren

  My words hang between us, and I wait for Liam to react.

  I expect him to get angry, to at least get annoyed.

  After all, we have been building anticipation for this event for an entire week, a build-up I’ve been actively participating in, only to kill his hopes within the first thirty seconds. I mean, of course, he expected it to happen tonight. I’ve led him to believe that for most of the week, even as my emotions went back and forth. Hell, I came here tonight thinking it was The Night myself.

  But he just stares at me for a long moment before throwing back his head and chuckling. “Are you serious?” he asks in that deep, sexy growl.

  I nod, facing him with as much strength as my five-foot-four-and-three-quarters-inches can muster. “I’m not giving you my virginity. Not today, maybe not ever. I just don’t know . . .” my voice trails off.

  There’s a flash of frustration, but he studies me with sparkling amusement in his eyes. I’m reminded of the way he examined the room at the photoshoot when we first met, as if he’s above everything that’s happening around him. “You’re nervous. That’s understandable, doll. But I’m not pressuring you here. If you want to, I’m damn sure ready to fuck you all weekend long. If not, we can sit and” —he looks around the room— “watch tv or something.”

  Though I know he doesn’t actually want to watch television with me while I’m barely half-dressed, the thought that he actually would is comforting on some level. It makes me feel like I’m calling the shots, or at least a fraction of them. “I’m not nervous, Liam. I’m fucking terrified. I thought I could do this, that I was ready. But standing here in your fucking mansion, after being driven over by your house manager who’s probably dropped off all your women for a weekend of fun, it just hit me how crazy this is. How stupid I’m being. The first time is a one-time thing and I want it to be special.”

  “I get that, Arianna. Don’t you think I want—”

  But my nerves are gaining momentum, letting my mouth run away with truths I’d probably be better served to not share. “A lowly college intern and the bigshot CEO? I mean, that’s a joke. I’d be the joke. Again.” The thought drops the wind out of my sails, and I collapse to the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. “This whole . . . whatever this is between us . . . is centered around you wanting one thing from me. It’s a game, and I admit I’ve willingly played. But what happens when the game is over and you’ve gotten your cherry prize? You can have any woman you want. What good is someone like me to you afterward?” I shake my head, a little sad. “I made a promise that I’d save myself for the man that I’d be with forever.”

  Fuck. This is not what I meant to happen. Not at all. I really thought this was going to be sexy, fun, and that I’d leave on Sunday night okay with this whole thing. I try to think back to the things Daisy and I talked about, but I feel weak so I revert to my comfort zone of saying no, even as my body begs me to say yes.

  Liam seems to be in shock at my outburst, like he’s approaching a wild animal who might attack at any given moment, but he still carefully sits down beside me on the couch. “Arianna, at what point did I make you feel like this was a game? Have I chased you? Absolutely. And I think we’ve both enjoyed the back and forth of that.” He eyes me, daring me to disagree, but I can’t because it’s the truth and he knows it. “But it’s not a game to me either. I’m certainly no monk, and far from a virgin, but I can damn sure tell you that I am more interested, more invested in you than I have ever been in some one-off that Randolph drove home the morning after. Women usually just want me for one thing.”

  My eyes flick to his, jealousy flashing hot and acrid through me until he continues. “Not that. My money. But not you. You actually like me for some fucking reason, but you don’t want me because I have money and a position of power. Look, Arianna . . . I don’t know what happens tonight, or tomorrow, or next month, for that matter. What I do know is that I want you, and I want to see where this goes. But I won’t force you into something you’re unsure about. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to me.”

  He leans back, and in the depths of his blue eyes, I can see that I’ve hurt him. I didn’t mean to. I spoke what was in my heart, all the fears and doubts I’m feeling right now tangled up with pain from the past. I don’t want to be that girl again, the one people looked at with an ugly sneer and called mean names.

  But I never considered that Liam might have some damage too, that the golden boy big shot might not trust people lightly, might question people’s motives, might feel like people think he’s unworthy. Like I just did.

  He gets up, walking to the window, his back to me. “Why did you come here tonight?”

  I swallow at the words because in my heart, I know why I came, what I planned to happen. “Because I thought . . .” I start, trying to formulate my words. This isn’t how I expected this to go at all, but I get up to walk over to him, forcing myself to look him in the eye. “You have this aura about you that makes me want to please you, but I feel so powerful at the same time. I don’t know how you do that, make me feel weak in the knees but strong in spirit all at once.”

  The room falls silent as Liam takes in everything I’ve said, and I wait for him to tell me to get out.

  But he doesn’t. Instead, he clears his throat and leans closer. “I do. I know how I do that to you. The same way you do it to me. By giving power, by getting power. It’s not an exchange, one-sided and singular. It’s a cycle, symbiotic and never-ending. Perhaps I could give you a lesson?” The question is quiet, dark with meaning, and heavy with intention.

  I can feel that the air in the room is changing, no longer fizzy with my anxiety but foggy with the repressed desire of our time together, as if the pseudo-argument we just had evaporated, though only part of my fears have been allayed. So maybe he’s not after me for a wham-bam-get-out-ma’am fuck, but that doesn’t solve the problem of what people will think.

  But I still ask, “What kind of lesson?” Liam gestures toward the couch. I take his hand and let him lead me over, but we don’t sit.

  “Let me show you,” he says, wicked promise in his voice. I bite my lip, and he spins me in place, pressing my back to his front. I expect him to be rock-hard. I’m barely half-dressed in lingerie, after all. But I find that he’s soft, still thick and large but just as affected by the last few minutes as I am. The uncertainty of what we’re doing together has physically manifested. He presses on my upper back. “Lean over, Arianna.”

  Unsure of why but doing it anyway, my mind races at the dirty position. Yes, part of my brain is rejoicing, yelling at me to spread my legs and invite him in the way I desperately want him to be. But the other part questions . . . Why am I doing this? Why does he have this power over me?

  His hands trace down my back, light fingertips sweeping the silky skin until he reaches the dimples in my back, right above the thong panties I chose to tempt him. But then he moves his hands away, and I feel the loss of contact on a cellular level. I look back over my shoulder, watching as he reaches for his belt. He unbuckles it, slipping it free and then folding it in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” Instead of the challenge I meant to offer, my voice comes out with a pleading tone, like I’m begging for whatever he has in mind.

  He skims the leather end of the belt along the flesh of my ass, feeling like a lover’s caress but with a mental twist that makes me pant a bit.

  “You want to be where I’m at one day, right? Sitting at the head of your own company as the boss?” he asks, quiet and solemn.

  I nod, though I’m not sure what that has to do with what he’s doing to me right now. “I do.”

  “Well, let me give you a physical lesson of what it will be like on the way there.” He looks me dead in the eye, giving me a chance to say no, daring me to say it. But I stay quiet. “I need your answer, doll. Yes or no.”

  I get it, at least a hint of what he’s teaching me, already. He’s the one with the belt, in charge, by all appearances. Bu
t I’m the one who grants permission, the one with the true power. He won’t do this unless I allow it. My voice is strong and sure, my nerves now inexplicably silent. “Yes.”

  The first sting of his leather belt on my ass makes me cry out, my fingers digging hard into the back of the sofa. “That’s the first sacrifice,” he says, “when you have to give up that weekend with your friends to work.”

  He continues, never hitting me too hard and moving around on my pinkening flesh, walking that line between pain and pleasure as the heat quickly gathers between my legs. With each lash, he names another sacrifice.

  Smack. “For the lonely night off because your friends have their own lives now that don’t include you.”

  Smack. “For the first time you have to crush the dreams and life of a perfectly fine person, simply because they’re in your way.”

  Smack. “For the moment you realize your “friends” are just your friends because of your money.”

  Smack. “For when you don’t know if you’ll ever find love . . . because you’re unable to just be you and not your fucking money or job.”

  Smack. “For the day you realize you’ll always be alone, high in the penthouse dream of your own making, but alone nonetheless. Always alone, a meaningless footnote in an annual report with no one to share the truly important moments with or to miss you when you’re gone.”

  My pussy is drenched, throbbing, and I’m so turned on from the naughty spanks, but my heart is also being shredded as he teaches me about pain and sacrifice. I love it and hate it at the same time, and as he smacks me for the last time, my chest heaves, my heart breaking for him. It’s obvious this is what he’s had to endure to achieve the success he has. I’ve learned more about him in the last five minutes than I probably have anyone in my life, maybe myself included. It’s raw, real, and painfully honest vulnerability.

  There’s a long pause, and I hear his choppy breath. But then one more . . .

  Smack. “For never being able to trust people . . . not even the one you want to trust most.”

  He drops the belt and steps back, letting me stand up. My ass hurts while my pussy is soaked, and there are tears in my eyes as I stand up and look at him, seeing more than just the sexy CEO, but the real man. He’s panting at the exertion, not from the physical act of spanking but because of the work of sharing such deep truths, painfully ripping them from his heart and giving them to me.

  The cycle’s complete.

  Though he held the belt and I bear the physical marks of that, I hold his heart and he suffers the scars of splitting it wide open for me to learn from.

  Needing to comfort him, though I’m the one with the ass on fire, I reach to cup his face. “Liam . . . I’m sorry.”

  He flinches, shoving my hands away and pacing in front of me. “I don’t need your useless and false platitudes. You think there’s some perfect man, perfect moment, magic waiting to happen to give you this perfect life. It’s a fantasy, a falsehood little girls imagine. I thought you were smarter than that. Life, like business, is seeing what you want and having the guts to work for it, fight for it, claim it.”

  I can see that though he’s talking about my dream of staying a virgin for the right man, his words about letting go of a childhood fantasy are just as directed at himself. Maybe we both need to hear them.

  “You’ll get there eventually, walk away from this and find some poor bastard to put through all the pain and sacrifice it’ll take for you to reach your dream. And then you’ll give yourself to him, with all the expectations you have for that pressing on his shoulders. And he’ll falter. We all do at some point. And you’ll doubt once again. You told me once that the real thing is worth the price you have to pay.” He shakes his head, “Today, there’s no more perfect moment than now. This is real. But if you don’t want this, want me enough to live in the real world and pay the price, then you should go. I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

  His rant rivals my earlier one, both of us pouring out so much and exposing ourselves more than ever before. But his final words give me even more pause. “You’d still let me be your secretary, even after all this?” I say, shocked.

  He growls at me. “Of course. Though we’ll have to stay strictly platonic. My helping you isn’t contingent on your giving me your body. I made that clear from the beginning. I’m not a monster, Arianna. But I think we both know you’re at a crossroads, not just in deciding whether you want to fuck me, but if you have the balls for this job, this life at all. You’re inexperienced in more ways than one, but I can teach you things about business and pleasure you’ve never even dreamed about. But only if you say yes and mean it.”

  His eyes float down my nearly-nude body, not pressuring me but simply admiring. I get the feeling he’s memorizing me for after I leave, already certain of my answer.

  I think of all the things he has already taught me—yes, some sexual, but more so how he has taken me under his wing at the office, explaining why he chooses things, helping me see the bigger picture of his decisions and plans for Morgan. And I know he’s right.

  He’s shown me nothing but respect, challenged me to be better, and accepted my every truth with understanding, even when I flung them at him with every intention of having them slice him painfully.

  I collapse to the couch, the weight of the realization heavy on my heart. “You’re right, so fucking right. I have been holding on to the dream of a little girl, not one born of innocence and sweet dreams but one created in fear and humiliation. My doubts now are mostly about being scared you’re going to hurt me like the boys in school did. But you’re not them. And I’m not that girl anymore either. I want a life big enough that it scares me, challenges me, pushes me like you do. I need someone strong enough to call me on my shit when I break down but who will let me hold them when they break down too. Give and take, Liam.”

  His eyes bore into mine, and I say the words I thought I was going to say when I first got here. It’s been a more twisted road than I thought it’d be, but I think we’re better off for the messiness. “Yes. I want to give you my body, if you’ll take it.”

  Chapter 11

  Liam

  Her words make my heart pound, and I’m hanging on to my control by a thread. “Are you sure, Arianna? I want you to be absolutely certain. It is a big deal for us both, but I get that it’s something different for you. No doubts, no second thoughts.” My eyes search hers, not willing to proceed unless she’s clear-headed and positive this is what she wants. I don’t think I could stand it if she regretted this later.

  But she looks at me proudly, no question clouding her eyes. “I’m sure. I want you. Us. This.”

  I cross the room to her in three strides, pulling her from the couch to gather her into my arms. Inside me, a war rages. There’s a beast that wants to pound her, fuck her ruthlessly until she is covered in my scent and cum. But there’s a softer side too, one that wants to lay her down and worship her tenderly, show her what it means to be claimed by me.

  But good thing for me, both sides agree that I need her now. Covering her mouth in a kiss, we make commitments neither of us foresaw with our tongues. We’ve been teasing and building to something heated, but along the way, we’ve developed something greater than the sum of the little touches.

  As her hands tighten in my belt loops, pulling me to her, I realize that she is just as blindsided as I am by how deep things have gotten and how quickly this has all happened. But she’s with me one hundred percent now, and I’m damn sure with her.

  She pulls back, her eyes dropping, and for a moment, I think she’s having a flash of shyness. But then she peeks through her lashes at me. “Can I suck you again?”

  “Is that what you want? Or what you think I want?” I ask, the answer important.

  She smirks, the beautiful feistiness blooming in her eyes. “What I want.”

  I run my thumb along her bottom lip, weighing the truth of her words, and I find that she’s being honest. “On your knees, doll,”
I command, reaching for the button that holds my slacks closed. As she lowers in front of me, I see my leather belt where it dropped to the table and lean down to grab it.

  She watches me with interest. I drape it around the back of her neck, not looped, but merely resting against her skin as I hold the ends out wide.

  She reaches out, taking over as she slides my zipper down and tugs my boxers down my thighs, her eyes widening as my cock emerges, the veins along my shaft already pulsing with each beat of my heart. She licks her lips in anticipation and I grow impossibly harder.

  “Open up. I won’t go too hard . . . yet.”

  Using the barest pressure on the belt, I urge her forward, and she responds, leaning in to meet the head of my cock with a butterfly kiss that sends a shiver down my spine before her lips melt around my cock, drawing me in slowly. It’s amazing, her tongue finding all the right places as she teases and explores my cock, inhaling it deeply.

  “That’s it, doll . . . fuck, your mouth feels good,” I compliment her, groaning as she hums around my shaft in reply. “I’m going to go deeper. Hold still.”

  Using the belt’s pressure to keep her in place, I feed her my cock, sliding all the way to the back of her throat before pulling back and starting to fuck her gorgeous face, thrusting in and out slowly. Arianna reaches up, fondling my balls as I moan, watching her eyes close in pleasure as her tongue starts to dance on my shaft.

  She obeys, her whimpers of pleasure adding to what I’m feeling through my cock as I pump in and out of her eager mouth, faster and faster. She lets go of my balls and reaches around, grabbing my ass and swallowing all I’ve got deep in her throat, making me throw my head back in pure ecstasy. Between her hands pulling me and me using the belt to pull her, I’m as deep inside her throat as I think I can be. It’s exquisite, and then she swallows, the muscles working my tip. “Fuck, Ari . . . that’s perfect.”

  She pulls off, smacking her lips as she does. “Think you can come twice for me? Once in my mouth and once in my pussy?”