by Adira August
She ran into a huge connecting bedroom with another glass wall and access to the terrace.
He caught her at the giant four-poster, tossed her down and lay on top of her, holding her hands over her head. Their eyes met and heated. The kissing moment had arrived. They both wanted it; they could both see it.
He looked pained. “I can’t,” he whispered.
“Why?”
He shut his eyes. Shut her out. “Because if I start, I’ll never stop.” He opened his eyes, searching her face. “And we’ll never get there.”
Well, shit. He’s serious about this quest. “Oh. I get it. Thank you for explaining,” she said.
He looked back at the dressing area and the clothes. “And you’re really okay with this?”
“Ben, a department store with shopping service and that quality of clothing is going to be Saks or someplace and that’s at least … oh. my God. Ben, that's like a hundred thousand dollars worth of clothes and shoes and lingerie and jewelry and -”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. "That's all? Should've gotten a few more coats."
She just laughed. “It’s absurd. And sort of wonderful in a bizarro billionaire way. But as long as you’re making yourself happy, I’m fine. And I’m keeping anything I love and you are never getting this robe back.”
“Yeah?” He said, seeming very pleased with himself and her.
“Yeah. Now let me up, I have something I need to say to you so you can decide whether to send it all back, and me packing.”
“Okay,” he said, mystified, but knowing that would never happen.
She sat up straight-backed and cross legged, as did he. They faced each other and she took his hands in hers. His very big, beautiful, strong, warm hands with the elegant fingers. And then she took a deep breath.
“I’m done now.”
FREEFALL
He felt the blood drain from his head and swayed where he sat. His hands left hers to steady himself against the mattress. She didn’t mean - she couldn’t.
“Done with what?” He asked somberly.
“Companionship.” She said.
His stomach dropped. How could that be, after today, after … everything?
“Why?” he didn’t recognize his own voice. “Is it because of what happened in the dressing room?”
It took her a second to figure out he was referring to the creative discipline. “No, of course not. That was ... it was …” Her face heated but she couldn’t help smiling. Dammit. “Fine.” Oh, fuck, yeah, it was.
“Then I don’t understand,” he said, bewildered.
“Because it’s not enough.” She said.
“Enough for what?”
She stared at him a long moment before answering. “For me.”
She reached out and took one of his hands in hers and smoothed the curls back from his forehead.
“Listen to me,” she said. “We met Wednesday. At ten-thirty a.m. And by three o’clock, I couldn’t imagine ever being with another man. Now it’s Friday night and I’m half in love with you. Or all in love and just don’t want to admit it. I see what’s in your eyes and I know you have feelings for me. Our arrangement is not enough.”
“Well,” He stood up. “Please still stay the month, I really wasn’t planning to be here, anyway. Except for our Sessions. Or, if you’d rather, I’ll call Eustace to take you home. Just … I’ll send you the clothes, I haven’t any use for them.”
“I don’t have any desire to leave,” she said.
“Oh. Okay,” he said, confused. “I’m sorry to hear this. I really wanted to get to the end of the journey with you.”
“We still can,” she said. “I never said I wanted it to be easier. Or not do it. I said the way it was, wasn’t enough.
He paced, running both hands through his hair. “This that we’ve done, that you think you want, isn’t how it would be.”
“You aren’t paying attention,” she said, pointedly. “This that we’ve done, is what isn’t enough.”
He frowned and listened closely to her.
“I want to nuke popcorn and watch movies together. My sister’s coming to town soon, I’d like you to meet her. I’d like to make dinner with you and discuss what’s going on with the Madigan trial, and figure out what would make great women’s porn. I want to touch you without it being a statement of submissivehood, or lack thereof. I want more than just the Sessions, not to end them.”
“Avia.” His voice matched the sadness in his eyes. “You don’t know what I am, okay? I make myself a certain way for my Companions. For the journey.”
She stood, too, in front of him. “I said I see what’s in your eyes. I see your love for your family and your joy in your work and your obsessive drive to do things better than anyone, whatever you do.”
She put her hands on her hips and cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think I don’t also see you want to powerfuck me into the nearest wall? Finally, take what you want, the way you want, without giving a shit about the damned journey? You think I don’t see that you want to own me?”
His dick stirred at the thought. She thinks I’ll change for her?
”I told you. I’m a Dominant. That’s not going away.”
“And around you, I’m apparently submissive. At least in sex. I don’t want it to go away. But I don’t see why that means you can’t eat some damn popcorn on the sofa with me, too.”
He took a step back. “You can’t understand. You don’t have the experience.”
Avia opened her mouth to respond, but seemed to think better of it.
She dropped to her knees, grasped her elbows behind her back and looked up at his astounded face. “Teach me. Please, Sir.”
His eyes closed and he took a steadying breath before he opened them again, knowing she would see the storm of carnal hunger in his eyes.
“I’ll still discipline you,” he said, his voice low in his arousal.
She looked up at him from under her lashes and licked her lips slowly. Is she teasing me?
“Across your lap?” She whispered. “Or will you bend me over your desk while I struggle and squirm and beg you not to?”
How does she know? His jaw clenched, muscles bunching. She can’t possibly understand and still want me. His cock lengthened.
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” He asked, his strained voice barely a whisper.
“I don’t have to,” she answered. “You do.” Her eyes darkened and her lips parted.
Benedict Hart seized a few hundred dollars-worth of silk robe in his fist and twisted, lifting her up and into him, his mouth crashing into hers.
Grasping a fistful of golden hair in the other hand, tilting her head back until her sweet full lips parted, panting, wanting, wanting him. His lips opened hers, tongue penetrating her. She met him stroke for stroke, her breasts pressing into his chest. He sucked her tongue and she moaned and squirmed against him, her breath hitching deep in her throat …
… Avienne …
SATURDAY
With Avia’s hair clenched in his fists, Ben straightened, pushing himself away from her. From her tongue in his mouth. From her breasts pressed into his chest, her hard nipples begging for his touch. Her firm abdomen against his erection. Discipline, Benedict, he told himself.
“You stopped. … Why did you stop?” Avia gasped, panting, her forehead leaning against his. He was breathing harder than she was.
He held her away from him, but couldn’t stop staring at her full lips, open, wet, swollen from the onslaught of his own. He closed his eyes to the sight of her: willing, eager, aroused.
Memories of her on her knees between his legs in his SUV a few hours ago, those lips around his erection, assailed him.
“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured. She leaned forward, pressing her breasts against him, wrapping her arms around his thighs. She slid her cheek up his cock ...
His fingers tightened in her hair, this woman who’d just asked, begged, really, to become his submissive. H
e fought his hunger to force her to her knees ...
“Ben?” He didn’t need to see her, to hear the worry in her voice. But he didn’t have an answer for her. He also didn’t have one for himself.
He released her and turned away. Crossing to the glass wall, he swung open the door to the terrace. He stepped out into the crisp Denver night, gratefully inhaling great gulps of cool air, trying to make sense of his feelings for the woman inside.
Whatever else he’d accomplished, he’d never had a challenge as great as Avia Rivers. Avienne. Her name was like a peaceful mantra and a deeply sensual experience at the same time.
It was quiet, even here in the heart of the city on a Friday night. Must be after midnight now, he thought. Saturday, then. He heard the sound of traffic on 15th Street, a block away and five stories down. A woman laughed somewhere in the night. The latch of the door to Avia’s bedroom clicked open behind him.
Avia moved past him, to the railing. She leaned out into the night, the breeze ruffling her hair, like wind over the surface of a mountain lake.
“I need to run,” he told her.
“Now? Are you leaving me here?” She asked.
He turned to her, but didn’t touch her.
“No, I mean there’s a jogging track on top of the curtain wall. I can’t just switch gears with you like this. I have to go home. I have to run. It’s how I think. I can’t think around you.”
“Oh, good. I’m not the only one,” she said.
“You can stay here, you know that.” He told her.
“I will. For the trial. But I need to go home first, get the outsider influence notes from my original story. My work laptop. My car.” She wrapped her arms around herself against a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the light wind. “Do you know if I’ll see you again?”
“Avia,” he closed the short distance between them, but didn’t touch her. “You said before that you could see in my eyes that I care for you. Do you doubt that, now?”
“No. I know you do. But that doesn’t automatically mean you choose to be with me. It could automatically mean you choose to be without me.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a slow breath. “You have to give me a break, here. You’ve obviously been thinking about this, at least for a while. I need time to think about it, too. About what ‘something else’ would be like. What I’d want and not want.”
“How long has it been since you had a relationship with a woman that didn’t revolve around the journey to ecstatic orgasm?” She asked.
He shook his head. “Eight years.” He didn’t elaborate. It wasn’t time to tell her he’d never had the kind of relationship she wanted.
“I’m taking you home, now,” he said. “This was supposed to be a mini-Session. Now it’s the next day, so it’s over. I’ll pick you up Sunday for our final scheduled Session. You did say you wanted to still do them, right?”
“I also said it wasn’t enough,” she answered.
“You did. But Sunday was scheduled before you said that. That Session ends at five-thirty, p.m. Until then, things stay the same. Okay?”
She nodded. He hesitated. Then, “But you should know, starting next Session, Disciplinary Strokes count.”
She went pale in the ambient light from the penthouse.
“Breathe,” he said. “The infractions count, but the discipline itself isn’t applied until the start of the Session after, which we haven’t even scheduled yet. Infractions usually earn four strokes each, but we’ll start with two. Maybe one for minor stuff.”
“That’s why you’ve been counting strokes lately.” She said.
“Yes. So you’ll know what you do to earn them. It’s why I was so tough on you tonight. It would be very unfair to get to the next session without showing you that you really can control your responses. My job is to teach you. To push your limits. Not let you wander unprepared into disobedience.”
Avia searched his face and thought about how much she liked him. “Okay. You’re going to run?”
“I am,” he said. “C’mon.” He held out a hand to her. “There’s a twenty-four-hour Sonic on our way home.” She hesitated. “You aren’t turning down a chocolate malt with double malt, are you?”
She blinked in surprise and her chin literally dropped. He laughed at her astonished expression. “I asked J.J. before you interviewed me, in case you stayed for lunch.”
She grinned ruefully, at herself. “Well, we did just have a six-hour sexual marathon and I am starving,” she said. “Though I’d think the billionaire could do better than a malt.”
There’s my girl. He cocked one dark slash of eyebrow back at her. ”You think after a six-hour sexual marathon there is anything better than a malt?”
“Certainly,” she said. “A malt with a chili dog on the side.”
He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her and pressing the length of their bodies together.
“Don’t read anything into this, okay?” He said.
“Okay,” she agreed, a little breathless, the feel of his strong, solid body making her brain go fuzzy.
He took her head in both of his hands, fingers sliding through her waves, tilting her head back. He caught her gaze in his own. Warm instead of hot. Searching instead of commanding. He kissed her.
Her hands went to his wide chest, as he explored her, taking her bottom lip gently between his teeth. He slipped his tongue inside her welcoming mouth, but easily, without the frenzied lust of a few minutes ago. Her hand went to the side of his face and he leaned against it as their tongues explored and their lips pressed.
Whatever it was he didn’t think he could say was in this kiss. And then they were wrapped in each other's arms as if they could merge themselves into one if they held on tightly enough. The kiss heated along with their bodies and he pulled his hips away and stepped back from her, holding her by her upper arms. Eyes bright and searching.
“I don’t have a clue how this will work. But I do know, as long as you want to be with me, there’s no fucking way I’m going anywhere. Okay?”
“Okay,” Avia said, grinning.
He smiled back at her for a second and then rearranged his face into an unconvincingly stern mask. “Now go put on some of those bizzaro billionaire clothes. And hurry up, I’m starving.”
“Yes, Ben,” she said, and trotted obediently inside.
He was fairly certain the obedient part wouldn’t last for long.
Better and better …
~~~~~
FINAL MATTERS
Thanks so much for allowing me to introduce you to Avia and Ben. To say a few words about what you thought, review here.
Part 2, Desire for Bliss, is here.
"I got two dead bodies and both of them are connected to Avienne Rivers and Benedict Hart, and I want some goddamned answers!"
Avia and Ben’s sensual journey gets darker, their romantic union threatened by mysterious enemies, personal suspicions and sudden violence. Is their relationship worth fighting – or even dying – for?
An empowering, woman-positive ride, ramping up the heat, the action and the heartbreak, but leaving you (and Ben and Avia) Happy For Now. At least until Book 3 is out!
Part 3, Desire for Ecstasy is coming, but you can't click it, it's still stuck in my head.
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500 new titles every day. Srsly, that's about the number of books and stories Amazon releases. Finding something you want to read is like shoveling a ton of manure to find a pony charm for an ankle bracelet!
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I have some shorts in the works I'm publ
ishing under The RiverHart Chronicles series name: profiles and sexual antics of many peripheral characters from both RiverHart books.
The first one is out: A Thing for Feet.
Long before Preston Shore was a Zenman power lawyer in Desire for Bliss, he was a confused 18-year-old with a secret desire and a fear of exposure.
Then Ellie Janes asked him for a foot rub.
Ah, sweet mystery of life!
Finally, I'm asking for help. Indie authors don't have big publishing houses to promote them. So, if you liked Desire for Touch, tell people! Post on your social media. Spread the word! Be an influence! Feel the powerrrrrr!!!!
That's it for now. Thanks again and … have more sex! Doctor's orders.
addi-
http://www.adiraaugust.com addi's blog addi's Twitter