by M. S. Parker
He had an answer for everything, and that should have made me suspicious, but it didn’t. While odd, his version of events better fit with the character of the man I’d gotten to know.
“What did you mean when you said I was ‘otherwise occupied?’”
I flushed as I answered, “Giselle said you were in the bathroom, um, cleaning up.”
For a moment, he looked puzzled, and then realization dawned. “You think Giselle and I...” He shook his head. “No. Never.”
“She was naked. What was I supposed to think?” I shifted my weight, unable to look him in the eye. “I mean, you and I–”
I felt him move rather than saw it, my entire body sent buzzing with awareness as he closed the distance between us. He gripped my chin, turning my face back to him. Without my shoes on, I was so much shorter than him that I had to bend my head far back so I could see his face.
“I don’t sleep with my models.” A smile curved one side of his mouth. “At least I hadn’t until you came along.”
His face was more open than I’d ever seen it, and I read the truth of his statement there.
“Maybe it would’ve been better if you’d stuck with that policy,” I said. “A lot less trouble.”
He brushed a couple curls back from my face. “I don’t mind a wee bit of trouble.”
His attempt at an Irish accent made me laugh, easing the negative tension between us. His fingers lingered on my cheek, the gleam in his eyes shifting to a simmer. A coil of heat inside my belly warmed me all the way through.
I pushed myself up on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck so I could pull him down to me. As soon as he realized what I was doing, he met me halfway, his mouth crashing against mine with bruising force. I didn’t wait for him to take the lead. Instead, I parted my lips and traced the seam of his mouth with my tongue. He growled as his mouth opened, tongue twisting with mine.
He gripped my ass and lifted me, tugging at my skirt to give me the freedom to wrap my legs around his waist. I’d spent so much of my childhood and adolescence wishing I was taller, but with Alix, like this, I was the perfect size.
I let out a squeak as he spun us around until my back was against the door. His mouth moved down my jaw and throat, biting and sucking hard enough to make me wonder if he was leaving marks. Or if I even gave a damn.
“I don’t know if I can be gentle.” The rough words ghosted over my skin.
I gripped his hair and pulled his head back so that his eyes met mine. “Then don’t.”
“Sine...”
“I can take it,” I said. “I want to take it.”
He hesitated a moment longer, giving me the chance to back out. When I didn’t, he claimed my mouth again, his hands working between us so that in only a few quick movements, he was thrusting into me, filling me completely in one motion.
I cried out, but he swallowed that noise, and every other sound I made after it. I couldn’t quiet myself as he drove into me over and over, not waiting for me to adjust or assure him that I was ready. It was rough and aggressive, a blind, primal need, and it matched my own.
I needed him like this. Needed to feel him stretching me to the point of pain while knowing I had the power to stop him with a single word. Because I didn’t doubt for a moment that he would stop.
He tore away the darkness that had been hanging over me since I’d seen Giselle this morning. All of her innuendos and smirks vanished as he filled me, physically and mentally and emotionally and every other way he could. It was all him and me and the world exploding in an intense pleasure that brought tears to my eyes.
I still didn’t know if we had a future between us, but in this here and now, he was mine, and I could accept that.
Twenty
Alix
I’d come here to convince Sine to work for me again. That had been it. But just like every other time I’d had good intentions when it came to her, they went out the window as soon as she was in front of me.
I always thought my art had helped me understand addiction because it was something that could come over me and block out everything else. I could lose myself in it for hours and never notice. Photography was the only thing that had ever done that for me.
Then I met her.
She was my true addiction. The thing I couldn’t stay away from. The only thing I’d ever needed as much as I needed my art. And it wasn’t until Jean had called me that I’d allowed myself to acknowledge how important Sine was. She’d given me back an appreciation for beauty, for life, even enhanced it.
I turned around so that my back shielded her from the main spray, then tipped her chin up so I could see her face. I pushed back the wet curls that were plastered to her head, cupped her face. My thumbs brushed over her cheekbones, touched the corners of her mouth. Her lips were still swollen from my kisses, and I could already see faint impressions on her hips where I’d held her. She’d have bruises tomorrow. From me.
“What’s happening in that mind of yours?” Her fingertips lightly traced my jaw.
I shook my head.
“You’re frowning, Alix. What’s wrong?”
I dropped my hands. “I didn’t mean to be so rough.”
She smiled as she reached out and took my hands, linked our fingers together. “Do I look like I didn’t enjoy myself?”
I felt a little tendril of relief and hope trying to worm its way into the knot of tension inside me. “I just...it’s...”
“Alix.” She raised one of my hands and kissed the back of it. “I wasn’t faking it, you know. I haven’t had to do that with you.”
I gave her a questioning look as a stab of jealousy went through me. “But you have with others?”
She released my hands and reached for a bottle of shampoo. “Do you really want to talk about past lovers?”
I scowled at her word choice. “No.”
The scent of peppermint filled the shower as she squirted some of the shampoo into my hand. “Then wash my hair.”
As I worked the shampoo into a lather, I massaged her scalp, closing my eyes when she moaned. After our quick fuck against the door, she’d asked me to join her in the shower, but we hadn’t really talked. And we needed to. I now knew why she’d quit, but that wasn’t enough.
She had to come back.
I didn’t know exactly where this thing between us was going, but I knew I wasn’t ready to let her go.
“I meant what I said before,” I said softly. “You’re the only woman I want modeling for this series.”
“Alix,” she began, turning toward me.
“Hear me out,” I said. “I want you to model for me, and I want you to come back to work for me as my assistant.”
She opened her mouth, and I put my finger over her lips. Her tongue flicked out against the pad of my finger, and I groaned.
“Let me get this out, Sine. I need to say it.”
She nodded as I rinsed her hair, taking care to keep the soap out of her eyes. Only when the water ran clear did I continue.
“If you don’t think you can work as my assistant because of this,” I gestured between us, “I understand. And I accept if you don’t want to model for me anymore. But I still want you.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t, do you.” I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You still don’t see what you’re worth.” I took her hands in mine. “You’re my muse.”
She shook her head and tried to laugh it off. “Alix–”
“Before you walked into my studio that day, I’d been struggling. I’d lost my vision, lost sight of what had made me love photography in the first place.” I struggled to find the words. “But then I saw you, and I remembered.”
“You’re giving me too much credit,” she protested.
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I would have tried to do a bondage series with another model and people would have bought the photos.” I gave her a partial smile. “But they wouldn’t have been a part of me. Not t
he way these are. You wouldn’t want to deprive an artist of their muse, now would you?”
The look of exasperation on her face must have been something her brothers had all seen at one time or another. But then she smiled, and I dared to hope.
“Does that mean I can tell Jean that she doesn’t need to look for another assistant?” I asked, my stomach in knots as I awaited her answer.
“I suppose not.” She filled her hand with shampoo. “Now, if you want me to return the favor, I’m either going to need to grow, or...”
I didn’t even hesitate to lower myself onto my knees. This wasn’t about a show of submission or dominance. This was an act of intimacy between two people that I’d never allowed myself to feel before. I’d always given so much of myself over to my art, that I never felt like I had any left over to give to someone else. But with her, it was different, as if whatever I gave to her came back to me.
So, I knelt in front of her and closed my eyes as she washed my hair. When we were finished, I’d take her to bed. Feast on her until her body was ripe and ready for me. And then I would make her scream my name.
Again.
Twenty-One
Sine
“Stop fidgeting.”
It was the third time Alix had reminded me to stay still, but I couldn’t help myself. I respected his work and didn’t want to ruin it, but something in me was feeling a bit mischievous today.
After our shower discussion two days ago, the two of us had spent several delightful hours together, making the sort of relaxed small talk I’d never imagined Alix and I could have. We laughed and chatted and had sex and ate the last of the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream I’d bought on my way home from work. Then he’d gone home, and I’d been absurdly hopeful as I’d gone to bed. Yesterday had been all work, but it hadn’t been weird. We’d actually gotten a lot done, both in the morning when I was doing the usual paperwork, and in the afternoon, we’d worked on the photograph series. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what we’d done, or if I was just starting to grow into the role I played when I was in front of the cameras, but the session had gone amazingly well.
A part of me had been a bit disappointed when we’d gone our separate ways at the end of the day, with nothing more than an exchange of heated gazes. Which meant I was humming with sexual tension by the time we were ready to start photographing today.
Alix telling me what he had in store for me had only made matters worse.
Because I wasn’t wearing anything. Technically, anyway. The photographs wouldn’t be nudes, but what covered my body wasn’t clothes either.
They were scarves. The same silk scarves he used to bind me were now artistically draped over various body parts to keep things tasteful. What they hadn’t done was keep me from getting impossibly turned on when Alix needed to adjust things, which he’d done.
A lot.
“Have you changed your mind about posing nude for me?” he asked as he walked around to stand in front of me. “Because if you keep moving like that, the pictures I take will expose some...naughty bits.”
I’d been on my knees for the past few minutes while he tried to decide what the best options were for the deep green bits of fabric he was using. This was the basic submissive position, he explained, and those words had twisted the part of me that responded to the world he’d shown me.
“Is that what you want of me?” I asked, shifting again so that the scarves he had covering one of my breasts slipped. “Sir?”
His eyes narrowed, and he reached down to wrap his fingers in my hair. The grip was slightly painful, but it just made a fresh rush of arousal go through me.
“Are you teasing me?” His voice was low, dangerous.
I licked my lips. “Perhaps,” I admitted.
Without a word, he turned and walked a few steps away, set his camera down on the table, then turned back to me. I swallowed hard as he pulled his shirt over his head. He was sculpted perfection, every inch of his torso carved into the sort of definition that made me want to trace each muscle with my tongue.
When his hands went to the top of his jeans, my eyes followed. A flip of a button. The slow lowering of a zipper.
“I think we need to have a little demonstration,” he said as he stopped in front of me again. “A reminder of who’s in charge.”
I liked the sound of that.
He reached down and plucked one of the scarves off, baring my right breast. The nipple was already tight from a combination of arousal and chill, but it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver as he flicked the tip hard enough to sting.
“Keep your hands at your sides,” he said as he folded back his jeans, pushing them low enough to free his cock. He wrapped his hand around the shaft, stroking it with short, almost rough, strokes. “I’ve been half-hard all fucking day, thinking about what you’d look like with these scarves on. Taking these pictures and trying not to think about how fuckable you are, is driving me crazy.”
It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one who’d been distracted.
“Open.”
I parted my lips, hands clenching as he slid his cock between them. He rocked his hips as I closed my mouth around him, savoring the feel of his soft skin against my tongue. When he ran his fingers through my hair, I closed my eyes, focused everything on my non-visual senses. The weight of him, the taste. The things that made him...mine.
“You need to understand something, Sine.” His voice was surprisingly even considering the tension I could feel in his fingers as they pressed against my scalp. “No one – no one – gets to see this part of you but me. When I reveal this series, I want every man and woman to covet you, want to be you or want to be with you, want to see those pieces of you that I’ve kept for myself.”
As he tightened his grip on my hair, I opened my eyes and looked up at him to find him watching me. He eased forward, filling my mouth with as much of him as I could take. I fought the instinct to gag, dug my nails into my thighs to prevent myself from reaching for him. I trusted him not to go too far. He’d never hurt me, not intentionally.
“I mean it, Sine.” He held me in place, his gaze burning into me. “This part of you is mine.”
Just as my eyes teared up, he backed off, releasing my hair and letting me have a moment to gasp and cough. I knew he was watching me to make sure I was okay, and I was.
I was more than okay, actually. I was wet and throbbing and desperate...and trying to not read too much into what he’d said.
“Hands and knees.” His voice was tight, telling me he wasn’t as calm as he was trying to appear.
I did as he said, letting the scarves fall to the floor. He moved around behind me, and for a moment, I thought I would feel him slide right into me. But he didn’t. I heard him moving around for a minute or so, and then he was kneeling behind me, fingers brushing against my hip.
“Last week, do you recall a certain wager between you and I regarding your ability to refrain from coming?”
I froze as the bet came rushing back to me. Particularly the part about what would happen if I lost. Because I had lost.
Which meant that I wasn’t exactly surprised to feel Alix’s finger dip inside my pussy, then move up to that other entrance.
I hissed as the tip of his finger penetrated my ass, but I didn’t ask him to stop. I never thought about doing this before the moment Alix had challenged me, but if it was with him, I was willing to try anything.
“Fuck,” I groaned as his finger pushed forward, its way slicked by what I assumed was lube, or something similar.
“Relax.” The command was impossibly gentle and firm at the same time. “Spread your legs a bit more.”
My knees slid farther apart as his finger moved in and out, getting me used to the burning sensation that came with this sort of penetration. As I felt the second finger join the first, I tensed up, then shuddered as his other hand reached underneath me, fingers finding my clit. He moved them in slow circles, slowly building my arousal aga
in, mingling the two sensations until I pushed back against his twisting fingers.
“Are you close?”
I nodded.
“Are you going to come with my fingers in your ass?”
I nodded once, then stopped before I did it again. “Only if you say I can.”
He chuckled, and I shuddered. I loved that sound.
“Good answer.”
I whimpered as he pressed his lips against the base of my spine. “May I come?”
“Only if you’re ready.” After a beat, he added, “When you start coming, I’m going to replace my fingers with my cock.”
I was so close, I could feel my muscles quivering in anticipation, feel the pressure building until I knew I was right at the edge.
“I’m ready,” I breathed. “Please, Alix.”
“Come for me then.”
I let the pleasure flow over my skin, through my mind. As I reached the peak, he was there, pushing inside me, steadily filling me one inch at a time, until I couldn’t distinguish between the pleasure and the pain, between where I ended and he began. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I curled my fingers against the floor, gasping for breath, my arms shaking.
He didn’t stop until he was completely inside me, and then his hands were moving over my ribs, cupping my breasts, pinching my nipples, moving down between my legs, manipulating all the different parts of me until another orgasm ripped through me. Only then did he begin to move again, driving into me at a steady pace, even as he pulled me up until my back was against his chest, one arm around my waist with his fingers between my legs, the other arm across my breasts, his hand resting on my throat.
“You haunt me, Sine McNiven.” His breath was hot on my cheek as he spoke. “I can’t get you out of my head. I see you everywhere.” He nipped at the side of my neck. “And I want you to see me. Feel me. Always.”
“I do,” I managed to say as I spiraled toward another climax. “I do.”
When I shattered this time, he was right there with me. And he was all I saw, all I felt.