Which is idiotic. When our marriage ended, I told Pressly I wished her happiness and I did. I do. I let her go because I didn’t believe I could make her happy, but I never thought I’d have to see the product of someone else giving her what she needs.
My fingers dig into the softness of her forearms as I steer her to a different position and mutter, “Hand to elbow. Stay.”
Because she can’t see me as I cross the room to the bag, I take a chance and look back at her and almost trip over my own feet. She’s too gorgeous. And the way the thong she picked out accentuates the roundness of her ass cheeks… Dammit, Lewis, get your shit together.
Even though I find what I’m looking for immediately, I rummage through the bag, hoping she hears the sounds of leather sliding against itself, the tinkling sound of delicate chain being rustled, the squeak of rubber. Is she imagining what I’m doing? What I have in store for her?
She hasn’t moved an inch by the time I drop back into the chair, and it pleases me. “I was thinking about what we talked about earlier, and it just so happens you’re in luck.”
I’ve wound the chain around my finger, so when I hold out my hand and open my fist, the clamps drop right in front of her face. “But I thought we’d switch it up a little. I don’t think you’ve earned my cock yet, have you, sweetheart?”
Her pretty mouth draws into a pout, and I wait for her to protest but she doesn’t. “No, Slade.”
“I still want to use your mouth, though, and your sweet little kitten tongue. So here’s how it’s going to go: I’m going to clamp your tits and they’ll only come off when I’m satisfied with the job you’ve done.” I prop my shoes on the ottoman and her eyes widen. “Surely you’ve heard of spit-polished.”
Her mouth drops open, and I can’t tell if it’s in horror or horniness. They seem so closely linked for her. I want to assure her they’re brand-new—a few dozen steps in a freshly vacuumed hotel room, nothing more. I want to see her tongue caress the leather, but I don’t need for her to have the grit of dirt in her mouth. I don’t want a tiny stray pebble to crack a tooth. I know most of the people in Rey’s world would laugh at me, call me a pansy-ass service top, but I don’t fucking care. I make the rules here and this is what I want.
If she safewords, I’ll tell her and she can decide, but if she doesn’t say the word, I don’t want to mess with the illusion. Turns out I don’t have to.
“Yes, Slade.”
I place my feet to either side of the ottoman and lean forward, placing the chain-linked clamps on the leather so I can toy with her nipples some more before I apply them. When she’s panting and desperate from the torment, I put on one clamp and then the other, getting hard at her strangled gasps.
“Too tight?” I tug gently on the chain, and her eyelids sink shut on a breathy moan.
“No, Slade.”
“Then get to work.”
Laying my feet sole-down in front of her, she blinks at me. I tug on the chain I’ve still got wrapped around my hand. “Go on, then.”
She wraps her lips between her teeth but then kneels up, leans forward, tilts her head, opens her mouth and…licks. For how excited it makes me, you’d think she was tonguing my dick instead of my shoes. And it gets better as she keeps doing it, swirling her tongue over the leather, around the laces. I pull at the tether between her nipples every so often and murmur encouragement as she laves my goddamn shoes. Fucking hell.
She works and works, her enthusiasm growing as she covers every inch. The feeling that she’s licking my cock instead of my feet hasn’t gone away. It’s like a surrogate blowjob. So much that I start to worry how long I’m going to last when I finally have her suck me off.
“Stop.” She looks up expectantly. Though I don’t think that could’ve made me hotter, being told that isn’t going to do anything for her. “You’re a poor excuse for a bootblack, and I’m sick of watching you fuck this up. It’s not that difficult, but apparently we’re going to need to practice. It’s a good thing you’re pretty. Get in my lap.”
Her lips purse as she stands, hands still clasping her elbows behind her back, and the sheer elegance of her movements kills me. She doesn’t let go even as she straddles my thighs, the chain linking her nipples swinging gently across her abdomen.
I fist a hand in her hair and drag her closer, crooking a finger through the chain. “These are going to come off despite your utter incompetence.”
The gentle tug makes her whimper, but I want more from her so I pull and she squeaks. I brush the backs of my knuckles against the side of her breast and savor how she strains closer and shivers. Then I remove the clamp and she sucks a breath through her teeth.
I’ve been told this is quite painful, the blood rushing back into an already sensitive place. I’d refused Rey’s offer to try it, and now I’m a little ashamed of myself. I can’t take the pain, but she’ll do it for me? Submissives are the most exquisite creatures.
I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her flush against me before bending her backward over my thighs so I can lick and suck at the tortured nub. Can she feel the hardness of my dick between her thighs? She must be able to because a split-second later, she rocks against it, and in my shock, I bite.
“Slade!”
I hush her as I gently tongue her flesh, and when she’s writhing on top of me, I remove the other clamp, dipping my head again to take her nipple in my mouth. I draw hard, and she grinds against me. “You horny little slut.”
She arches her back and I take more of her breast in my mouth, wanting to be filled with the taste of her. She tastes as good as she smells, as good as she looks, and that is too damn good. Rey can take his control and shove it at the moment because I don’t have the patience to have her take me in her mouth. I want to fuck her, and I’m not sure we’ll get there if she sucks me.
Maybe later, but I don’t know how long she’s going to stay. All night? Please tell me all night. Not just because I want to have my way with her a hundred more times, but because I miss having Press sleep next to me. The warm, soft weight of her. Pressly used to roll away from me in the night, but when I’d seek her out in our bed, wrap my arms around her again, she’d kiss the top of my wrist before sighing and falling back to sleep. That was one of the things I missed the most when we’d started drifting apart. I couldn’t bring myself to reach for her.
But I’ve got her in my hands now, and I intend to keep her that way for the next few hours at least. If I want to concentrate, though, give her what she needs, I need to clear my head, and the best way to do that is to get off.
I lean back from her, and I love the way her eyes flutter dreamily open when I’m not mouthing her anymore. Like she was having a good dream and she doesn’t want it to be over.
She looks dazed as I grab her shoulders and heft her up. “I want you on my cock. And don’t you dare come.”
The chair is wide enough that I can turn her around and settle her with her knees on either side of my thighs. I have a very nice view of her ass with that trashy little thong between her cheeks while I unzip my pants and pull out my dick, rolling down a condom I stashed in my pocket. Pushing aside the scrap of fabric between her slick heat and my own aching, desperate flesh, I order her to kneel back. Her spine bows as she sinks on to me, and she sighs, her hands gripping the arms of the chair.
She feels the same, exactly the same, and I groan because even though sex with India was hot, I’d felt like I was driving someone else’s really nice car. Not now. I grip Pressly’s hips and dictate her rhythm, knowing she can’t get off unless there’s some contact with her clit.
“Ride me, sweetheart. Come on. Work that soaking wet cunt of yours up and down on my dick. What would your daddy say, huh? About his perfect little debutante getting fucked stupid by a backwoods hick from West Virginia and loving every second of it? Does that make you feel dirty, Press? Like a filthy, cock-hungry slut?”
I can’t see her face, but I hear her cry out and feel her pulse around my cock
buried inside her. The pressure, the squeezing—it’s too much pleasure and entirely unexpected. I can’t hold back. I was hoping to make this last, but nope. No fucking way can I hold out against this sensual assault. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I pull her down hard onto me and grind out the last pulses of my orgasm, wishing strangely that my release were coating her interior walls instead of spurting uselessly into latex.
It’s that caveman part of me, wanting to mark her, wanting to claim her. Mine.
Holy shit had I been wrong about her not being able to come without me touching her clit. Apparently she only needed that when we were having vanilla sex. Add in some talk that’s so dirty it’s bordering on illegal in six states and orgasm ho. Even better, she wasn’t supposed to.
She’s slumped forward, her head hanging between her heaving shoulders. I lean down to brush my lips against her spine, murmuring between kisses. “You naughty, naughty little thing. You weren’t supposed to come but you did. Know what that means?”
Her whispered “punishment” wrings a last pulse of orgasm from me.
“That’s right. Because that’s what happens to debased little cum-sluts who don’t follow orders.”
There’s a whimper and a corresponding tightening around me, and I can’t handle it anymore. I help her climb off me and tell her to go clean up, but to leave the door to the bathroom open as she does. I don’t miss the extra flush that darkens her cheeks before she turns and walks away.
Chapter Sixteen
‡
The blackout shades in this room are exceptional. Barely a flicker of light makes it through and it makes this whole insomnia thing more unnerving. It’s quiet, dark, cool. My appetite for sex has been sated for the first time in months. And another beast has been tamed because I’ve said all the indecent words I ever thought—and then some—out loud to a beautiful woman who liked it. And said woman is curled up next to me, her even breath falling sweetly on my chest, ruffling the hair.
I should be dead to the world, but instead I’m lying awake, staring at the ceiling, my stupid, worthless brain thinking too much. Even thoughts of work can’t distract me from the running commentary in my head.
What the fuck is wrong with you, you vile monster? What the hell kind of man gets his kicks from telling the most perfect woman on earth that she’s filthy and disgusting?
I don’t want to wake Pressly, but if I keep lying here, I’m going to start to fidget and that’ll wake her for sure. So I ease out from under her, replacing my chest with a down pillow she nuzzles into sleepily before making a little kitten noise and settling back to sleep.
Grabbing my phone from the bedside table, I head to the bathroom, closing the door and shoving a towel underneath so the light won’t escape.
I flit through the messages cluttering my phone—so much crap that can be dealt with tomorrow since I don’t have the brain cells left to handle them tonight—and still I’m not tired. I even answer a few of the easy ones, not caring so much about the time stamp. Not like I’ve never sent emails at three a.m. on a Saturday before.
It’s too much, those voices. They won’t be quiet. I need another one to replace them, and there’s only one voice that’ll do. It only occurs to me when the phone’s already ringing that I have no idea where the fuck Rey is and it’s very possible I’m calling him at some irrational hour. But when he answers, it sounds like business as usual.
“Slade. What can I do for you?”
“Sorry I called, I can—”
“It’s fine. What’s going on?”
“I’m with Pressly.”
“And?”
“And I—” It sounds stupid. Almost as ridiculous as it feels to be sitting on the uncomfortable floor of a hotel bathroom while I’ve got a gorgeous woman sleeping in my bed.
“Did something happen?”
I appreciate his cautiously curious tone that’s bordering on What the fuck did you do? It makes me feel better to know he’s been at Pressly’s side while she’s been exploring all of this. That she wasn’t alone; that she’s been safe and cared for.
“No. She’s fine. Asleep. Satisfied, I think.”
“But you’re not feeling so great?”
“I was because it was amazing. But now…”
“Sounds like you might have a case of top drop on your hands. Feeling guilty for the things you said? Queasy because of what you made her do? Uncomfortable because you shouldn’t want those things?”
Since I feel like I could vomit into the toilet beside me… “Yeah.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Tell her?” I echo. Why would I tell her?
“Yeah. You know, talk to your partner? Communicate? Have I taught you nothing?” His mellow teasing is half-soothing, half-galling. I bite back the string of profanity that’s gathering in my throat because I can’t have him hang up on me.
“I don’t want her to see me like this. It’s all about confidence, right?”
“You’re allowed to have feelings, Slade. And she’s been doing this longer than you have. It’s easy for her now, but it hasn’t always been. She’ll understand, and she’s not going to think any less of you for it. Maybe more.”
I mash my forehead into my palm because the idea of talking, revealing weakness and doubt, makes my stomach heave. And then my heart is leaping out of my chest because there’s a knock on the door, followed by a soft, questioning, “Slade?”
Rey couldn’t possibly have heard her because I barely did, but his next instructions follow as if he had.
“Go be a man. Talk to your girl.”
My girl. Zelda had called Press that at the Black House, and it had made a wave of possessive pride wash through me. Damn straight she’s mine. My girl. Mine. I don’t like the uncertainty in her voice and I can do something about it. Sometimes being strong means revealing your weaknesses, right?
“Yeah. Thanks,” I tell Rey and hang up so I can peel myself off the floor, my knees cracking in a way that reminds me I’m not getting any younger. Forty-four to Pressly’s thirty-five. Why would she even want an artifact like me? I could understand when she was in college and there was a certain romantic thrill to having a vaguely illicit affair with a guy who was a real grown-up. But now that we’re both full-on adults, I’d think she’d want someone who was closer to her own age, someone to grow old with instead of watch grow old. Because I need something else to be insecure about.
That worry melts away when I open the door and find her standing there, wrapped in a throw that’s too small to cover all of her. I catch glimpses of breast, belly, and expanses of leg before I grip her above the elbow and steer her away from the bathroom.
“Back to bed with you. I should spank you for getting up. You should be asleep.”
She wiggles her butt as she crawls back into bed, and it makes me want to take her over my lap right then.
“I woke up, and you weren’t here. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” My answer’s a bit gruff and I regret how she bites her lip and looks away.
“Okay.”
I climb in beside her and gather her to my side, an arm wrapped around her upper back to urge her to lie against me, have her hand rest on my ribs, her fingers tracing the bones as they rise and fall with my breath.
“I mean, I’m not sick. I was…” My jaw tightens. My brain might know Rey is right, but my body isn’t so sure. It is so not on board with this whole rolling-over-and-showing-my-underbelly thing. “Did you like what we did tonight?”
“Which part?”
Fuck. That means there was something she didn’t enjoy. Maybe she didn’t like any of it. I’ve started formulating profuse apologies and figuring out how to tell Rey that I fucked up and the whole thing spirals out of control. I’m about to turn myself in to the Metro police as a sex offender when she giggles. “Not like it matters. I liked everything.”
“You did.” It comes out less a question than a statement, but she answers me anyway.
>
“I did. You’re good at this.”
“So you don’t think I’m a horrible person?”
“No. I think you’re a person who made me come half a dozen times in the course of one night and who seems to know how to press my hot buttons. That’s not horrible at all.”
“So I didn’t make you feel badly?”
She sighs and props herself on her elbows so she can look me in the face. She’s lying so that if she leaned up a tiny bit farther, I’d be able to see her nipples. My mouth starts to water.
“Hey. Eyes up here, mister.”
I mutter an apology because it’s not the sex I have a problem with. It’s all the other stuff, and I think she might have some secret that’ll make me feel better about this. Make it possible to sleep instead of being haunted by worry and remorse.
“Humiliation is a tricky kink. Because if you’re doing it right, you are making me feel embarrassed and ashamed. So did you make me feel badly? Yes. But in a way that got me ridiculously hot. And I like how much you get off on it too.”
She chews on her lip. I want to tell her to stop, scold her for her bad habit, but then I’d probably want to fuck her all over again. Focus, Lewis. Talking, communication. Earn your fucking merit badge.
“Before…” This is code for When I was your wife. “…I always felt like you were holding something back from me. Something you didn’t trust me with. I could tell you wanted something, but you didn’t trust me enough to ask for it and it made me feel inadequate, like I wasn’t good enough for you. Like you thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought I’d actually managed to marry for love when all I’d been expecting to marry for was duty. When you started to pull away, it was like my worst fear—that my connections and influence were all you’d wanted and you just tolerated the rest.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off with a shake of her head.
True North (Compass series Book 4) Page 16