by CD Reiss
I spread my knees, on tiptoes to the floor, fighting for balance. My elbows were still tied behind my back, and when it looked like I’d fall, he pulled me upright.
“Reach back,” he said. “Spread those gorgeous cheeks apart.”
I did, fighting the constraints of my knotted shirt, cursing the stinging skin on my ass as much as I blessed it.
“Now, come down, all the way. All the way. That’s it. Bury me in you.” He reached around and slipped his middle finger in my cunt, gathering wetness, and dragging it to my clit. “You’re not coming until I say. And you’re going to hold back by concentrating on one thing, and one thing only.”
“What, sir?” I groaned, the pleasure in my clit pushing against the pain behind it.
“Pleasing me. So. Fuck. And fuck hard. Go.”
I moved up his length, and back down, his shaft sliding against my anus, friction hot against the dry muscle.
“Faster.”
His cock beat my insides, shredded me, while his fingers took my hole three at a time and the heel of his hand kept a constant pressure on my clit.
“Come on, goddess. I’m not pleased.”
I grabbed my cheeks wider, slammed down on him harder, knees aching, arms on fire, ass beyond pain. Yet the pleasure between my legs grew, pressing against the agony and winning.
“That’s good,” he growled. “Very good.”
“Thank you.” I gasped, relieved, relaxed now because he was content. I heard his breaths getting shorter. I was close, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to have what he wanted. I wanted him to be satisfied. I beat down on his cock, mindless of what I was doing to myself.
“I’m going to come,” he said.
“Thank you,” I squeaked, more tears streaming.
“Come with me.”
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
He grunted, but it was more than a grunt, and in the second before I lost myself in pleasure I noted how vocal he was. More than ever. He released, truly, fully, losing control, pulling my hair until I thought he’d tear it out. I was washed away in it, the pleasure of his hand on my clit, the torture in my ass as my orgasm clenched it around his cock in an undulating rhythm. I came forever, lost in it, in him, his satisfaction, in the pain. I was gone, my identity washed away in complete submission to his pleasure and his will; without ambition or desire of my own, simply enslaved, caged, collared. Nothing. No one. Not a feeling of dissatisfaction in my belly, only humility and a feeling of complete, overwhelming gratitude.
“Goddess?” he whispered when I stopped twitching.
I tried to answer, but I was blubbering. I took a few breaths to calm down. “Yes, sir?”
“Are you okay?”
“Thank you.”
He untied me. I put my aching arms on my knees and he pushed me gently forward, his dick slipping out of my ass. I sucked in a breath.
He pulled me into his lap and kissed the tears running down my cheeks. I held him and wept fully. The emotional release poured out of me as he rubbed my back and kissed my face and neck. My awareness of the world around me, my body, the chair, the room, the building, the time of day, was brought about by the softness of his lips and the way he whispered my name, goddess, goddess, goddess.
“I haven’t been what you need,” he said softly.
“You couldn’t be. I understand.”
“That’s over now.”
“Thank you.”
He put his hands on my cheeks and brushed my lashes with his thumbs. I let my eyes flutter closed.
“You can’t leave me until I destroy you.”
“If you destroy me, I’ll never leave.”
“Regularly.” He took out a monogrammed hankie and held it up. “Blow.”
I blew my nose. He pinched and wiped for me, as if I were a child.
He kissed my lips, taking them against his, owning them with tenderness and confidence. I let his tongue into my mouth, its soothing warmth, exploring me as if for the first time. The tenderness with which he kissed me was in such contrast to the beating I’d just received, that I broke down in tears again. He held me and rocked me in the soundproof studio for what seemed like hours, saying sweet things in my ear. I felt so good, so calm, so loved.
“You’d better cancel dinner,” he said. “You’re going to need some serious after care.”
“You think the guys would notice if I ate standing up?”
“Come home, and I’ll feed you in bed.”
“Yes, Jonathan. Yes to everything.”
“And you shall have everything.”
chapter 2.
MONICA
Sometimes, I felt like I wasn’t in love with a man. Sometimes, when things were tense, or we fought, or we made love, or I was away too long or in the house too many weeks, sometimes when we disagreed, or even when he kissed me on the back patio, I stopped seeing him as a man. I stopped seeing him as even human. I felt as though I’d married a time bomb.
Which, if I gave it a moment’s more thought on the plane to some dipshit town or on the way to a meeting, he was more human in that ticking time bombness than if he’d been a normal man with a normal heart. More human in his mortality, his vulnerability, his lack of control.
And at the same time as shit got better, it got worse.
“What’s wrong?” Jonathan asked in the back of the Bentley. He’d just fucked my ass raw in the studio, just hurt me badly, and I’d begged him for every stroke. I’d never felt closer to him than in those minutes of pain. But on the way back, after a short bathroom break where I’d wiped away my tears, I remembered why the last six months had been so hard.
“Nothing.”
He stroked my arm with his fingertips. Perfect pressure for the gathering of electricity, as always. “Nothing?”
I shook my head, more at myself than at his disbelief. Nothing, my ass. Something. Everything.
“That was a lot of exertion, back there.”
Exertion wasn’t just a word, but a keyword. Code for unreasonable fear. Secret speak for death. Terror in a few breaths of syllables and the tongue rubbing on the back of the teeth.
“You’ve been told a hundred times—”
“I know, please.” I dismissed him. “I know.”
He grabbed a fistful of hair on the back of my neck and turned me to face him, and my scalp became a center of pleasure. “You’re shutting down.”
I couldn’t deny him the truth. Not after he’d torn me open. For those minutes in the studio, when he commanded me, I forgot to worry about him, and he was again my master and king. And when he pulled my hair I wanted to be ripped apart again, just for the release from thinking about him dying.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just—”
“Open your legs.”
I was pissed he’d ask at a time like this, and relieved. I spread my legs across the leather seat. Not enough for him, apparently, because he pulled my head back and yanked my knees farther apart. I gasped when a bullet of arousal shot through me.
He pressed four fingers between my legs, where the panels of my jeans met.
“I am not going to die fucking you.” He scratched the fabric, and I felt the tease through the layers.
Was this the time to answer honestly? Shouldn’t we talk over dinner, or in bed? Or across a desk surrounded by pens and blotters and serious things?
“You might. You could.”
“I won’t.” He pushed against my crotch and I pushed back at him as if I had no control over my body.
“You might,” I gasped when he undid my jeans. “And you deny it and it’s a lie you tell yourself. And I’m tired of walking around and pretending it’s not a problem, because it is. It’s a big problem. It’s all I think about.”
He slid his hand past my waistband until the tip of his middle finger reached my clit. He barely pressed on it, just rotated around the slip of skin at the top.
“You never told me that.”
“I have to be strong for you. Because you chase me
out of the house to work, and I think it’s because you don’t want me to see you weak. And, oh God, Jonathan, I’m going to come.”
“No, you’re not.” He reduced pressure and intensity, until I could only feel the outer edge of his hand’s heat. “Pull your shirt up. Let me see your tits.”
I yanked up the shirt and bra, and he leaned down and sucked on a nipple so hard and fast it hurt like hell. I bucked under him.
“I’m going to die before you,” he said, taking a last nip before putting his face to mine. “Way before you. You want to spend the time worrying? Or fucking?”
Which? Was that the only choice? This dichotomy of soul eating pain or soul revealing pleasure. I waited too long to answer, apparently, because he circled his fingertip over my clit again, barely touching it. I groaned. I wanted to say fucking, to tell him what he wanted to hear, but when he had me like this, I couldn’t tell one of the thousand untruths about my feelings. I couldn’t say what would make him happy for the sake of saving him from stress.
“Which is it, goddess?”
“I’m going to come.”
He brought his finger down my folds, to where I was wettest, leaving my clit kissed by nothing but the damp air in my jeans, bringing the rest of me to life. His outer fingers touched the welts he’d left earlier, setting them on fire.
“Which is it?” he asked.
“Fuck me or let me come,” I whispered. He pulled his hand out of my pants. The loss was painful. “You are not stopping,” I groaned. “Don’t even…”
He took my face in his hands, putting his nose to mine. “You only talk when your cunt lets you. From now on, I control when you talk. And today, you talk.”
The car stopped in front of our house and the gate clanged closed behind us.
“You’re a son of a bitch.” My body arched toward him, making a lie of my words.
“Before I was in the hospital, you could hold yourself together. Now you’re calling me a son of a bitch for doing what it’s my right to do.”
I glared at him, hating him and loving him at the same time, pain and pleasure always hand in hand with my king.
“Button up,” he said, pulling my shirt down. I closed the fly on my jeans and he opened the door. The late afternoon sun blasted my face, turning Lil’s form into a rectangular silhouette.
We didn’t speak as we walked to the house. A modest thing by Drazen standards, it sat in the side of Beechwood Canyon, a handful of right angles and glass jammed into the side of a mountain overlooking Los Angeles.
It didn’t have a porch, but a small overhang shading the wide front door. He disabled the security system and put his hand on the knob, but didn’t turn it.
Lil drove away, the sound of the engine giving way to the evensong birds and the breath of the freeways below.
I started to think about everything I could be doing. My brain chemistry had changed in the past six months, and when upset, the new rhythm of my thoughts went to music and the business of making it. One ass fuck in the studio wasn’t going to change that.
“Come on. I have things to do,” I said, knowing it wasn’t going to go over well. I reveled in my defiance. Fuck him with his new heart and old ways. If he wanted to talk he could take me to dinner.
He swung the door open, but didn’t leave room for me to pass.
I crossed my arms. He smirked. I felt the tightening of my cheeks as I almost smirked with him. What game was I playing? I wanted to get to work, and I wanted him to fuck me.
No, I didn’t want him to fuck me. I wanted him to either rip me apart or let me make music mourning the loss of my wounds. If this defaulted to a vanilla middle ground because he thought he’d made his point, I was going to lose my shit.
“Take your clothes off. All of them.”
I rolled my eyes. Lightning quick, like a man who had done nothing but work on his reflexes for the past six months, he grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me to my knees. My safe word was Invictus and I probably still had a tangerine option. But the insides of my thighs tingled when he leaned down and growled in my ear.
“Unbutton your shirt.”
I reached for my placket and carefully, without fumbling, undid the buttons one by one.
“I’ll do what I have to to get you to talk to me,” he said. “So first…” he yanked my hair and I gasped. “Take it off. And the bra.”
I shook both off until I was bare-breasted at the front door. How would he get my pants off? What did he intend?
He let go of my hair.
“Stand up.”
I got on my feet. He stood in the doorway, framed by a house I’d agreed to with a shrug, hands at his sides. One of his fingers twitched.
I crossed my arms. “Are we going in or not?” I asked, leaning on one hip, breasts out as if I didn’t give a shit one way or the other how naked I was. “I’m tired and my ass hurts, can we just—”
“You’re really pushing it.”
I tapped a single finger on my bicep, a tic of impatience. Even though his beautiful green eyes didn’t leave mine, I knew he saw it, and even if his mouth didn’t smile, I knew I was pleasing him. We needed this, and we needed it to go down exactly the way it was going to go down.
He put a finger on my lower lip. “Open your mouth.”
I didn’t.
With his other hand he cupped my jaw and exerted pressure, slowly opening my mouth. God, I wanted his cock in it. I wanted to taste the soft skin as it slid to the back of my throat. I relaxed my mouth, and he put his fingers in. First one, then four, pressing my tongue down. He pulled me to him, speaking softly and firmly into my face.
“I don’t mind repeating myself. This is my mouth, and when I say open it, it opens.”
I couldn’t speak, but my eyes agreed. I was putty in his hands.
“Get your pants off while I explain my position.”
I unbuttoned and unzipped while he held my jaw open. I couldn’t swallow, and drool formed over his fingers.
“Do you remember the hospital? The week before the first surgery?”
Remember? How could I forget? I got heart palpitations thinking about it. Any time I smelled alcohol or something beeped my chest felt as if it had been encased in a clenched fist.
“That week we had rules,” he said. “Should I remind you?”
I nodded as much as I could.
“Get your pants down.”
I wiggled, slid them down, while he spoke. “The rules were: only the truth, even if it hurt. We would never protect each other from each other. And no judgment.”
I got my pants down to my knees. I was twisted, fighting the tight jeans, the pressure of his fingers, and the memory of lying next to him in the neverdark of Sequoia Hospital.
He removed his hand, which was wet with spit, dripping down his arm to the elbow.
“All the way off.”
I leaned to get my shoes off. He held me by the elbow when I almost fell, then resumed watching the clumsy and twisted operation until I was completely naked before him. He was perfectly calm, perfectly commanding. Only the huge bulge in his pants betrayed how involved he was in what was happening.
I stood with my hands at my sides.
“I remember,” I said.
“I want that again.”
“It’s hard when you’re telling me to get my clothes off.”
“You know what, Monica, you don’t even know yourself. Look at you. I haven’t seen you this relaxed in months. The only time you let your worry go is when you give me control. And your worry is what keeps you from being honest.”
I swallowed. Blinked. A torrent of wetness welled behind my eyes, “I don’t want to break the scene.”
“Stay still. Stay naked. Speak your mind.”
“I almost died with you a hundred times. That recovery room, they had you in this induced coma and you looked dead. There were bags of blood. Bags, hanging over you and you were all opened up. And, I’m sorry, I haven’t said this because you’re the one w
ho went through it.” I swallowed a gallon of tears. “I don’t want to see you like that again. But I think about it all the time. I dream about it. I see it when I close my eyes. I want you to live, so I do what I think is going to make you happy and I always get it wrong. Stay or go. I give you attention or none. It’s always wrong.”
“What about your happiness?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not as much as yours. It’s not life or death.”
“It is, Monica. It is.”
I shook my head. “You can’t convince me of that. We can do this hurtful honesty thing all day. You’re the priority and I’m okay with that. Deal with it.”
He nodded, looking down for a blink, then up at me. He reached for my wrists.
“These go behind your back.”
I did as instructed.
“Now, get on your knees.”
I bent them. With my hands behind my back, it was hard to balance.
“Do you need some help?” he asked.
“Yes.”
I thought he’d take me gently by the elbow, but he grabbed the hair on top of my head and dragged me down. He was right. I was relaxed, totally submitting and trusting him, loving every bit of discomfort he dished out.
“Spread your knees apart.”
I did, too slowly for him. He kicked them wide.
“Do you remember your safeword?” He asked, unbuckling his belt.
“Yes.” A tingling rush went down my spine with the promise of his dominance and the way it made me forget how fragile he really was.
His cock was out in the next second. “Open your mouth.”
I parted my lips enough to breathe, and before I could open my throat or prepare, he put his cock between them and pushed my head into him. I choked on the mass of it, but the scent, the taste, the shape and thrust of him brought a wave of pleasure, and a strong desire to please him.
“Take it, Goddess. Take it all. Not one inch should be left.”
He pushed forward again, fucking my face mercilessly. He pulled out, letting me breathe, making eye contact from above. Checking on me. I gasped, chest heaving, and opened my mouth again.