The Darker Side of Pleasure

by Eden Bradley

  Even after he slipped the phallus from her body she trembled and moaned, fell into his lap, tiny wisps of pleasure shivering deep inside her. His hands were all over her, stroking her everywhere.

  He whispered, “I loved to hear you scream. I loved to see you come so hard for me.”

  He kissed her skin, between her shoulder blades, blazing a trail of hot kisses down her spine. More tears that she couldn’t control. How could any man make her let go the way she just had with him? How could he make her feel these things?

  The crying turned into a long, deep sob. He turned her over, gathered her in his arms and held her. “It’s alright,” he told her, his voice quiet, a little ragged.

  And she felt that it was; that it was okay to cry in his arms, to let him hold her. To be weak in this way with him.

  He untied her wrists and let her cry herself out. He didn’t let go of her for a moment. When it was over she was limp all over, exhausted. She wiped at her face.

  “I don’t know what happened to me…”

  “People often have an emotional release with this kind of play.”

  “I wasn’t playing.”

  He paused for what seemed like a very long time. Then he said quietly, “No. Neither was I.”

  She looked up at him. His hazel eyes were burning. With what emotion she didn’t know, but that intensity of expression drew her in. She couldn’t look away. He swept her hair from her face, then moved his thumb down to trace the line of her jaw. The motion was so tender, so gentle, her throat seemed to close up completely. How could he be doing this? How could this man, this detached sexual sophisticate, be looking at her like this?

  How could he make her feel like her heart was about to come apart in her chest?

  He leaned in and brushed her lips with his. And before she had a chance to think about it her arms went around his neck, pulling him closer. He kissed her harder, as though he really meant it. She parted her lips, letting him in.

  He tasted just as she remembered, but sweeter, somehow. His tongue delved into her mouth, the kiss crushing, bruising her lips. She didn’t care. She needed this. Needed him.

  When the hell had that happened?

  She pulled back, turned her head away from him, into his chest.

  “Don’t, please.” She was panting so hard she could barely speak.

  “Maggie…”

  “I can’t, Damien. I can’t do this if it…if it means something.”

  “Fuck.” His breath was as ragged as her own. “Damn it, Maggie, it does mean something to me. I don’t know why. But it does.”

  “Oh, God, don’t tell me that. Don’t tell me what I want to hear.”

  “I’m only telling you the truth.”

  She was quiet while a flurry of emotions moved through her body like physical sensations: fear, longing. She shook her head and insisted, “I can’t do this.”

  He didn’t say a word, just held her tighter than ever, as though he knew she needed that. Needed to feel safe while her heart hammered away, while fear flooded her veins.

  He held on for a long time. Until, for the first time in her life, she did feel safe, felt as though she could give herself into someone else’s hands. His hands.

  But it was this very sense of safety that scared her to death. She knew better than to count on something that could be taken away from her on a whim.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HE COULD SEE HER FEAR. IN HER FACE, IN HER tightly strung muscles. He understood it. What he felt for this woman was the first thing that had frightened him in years.

  God, she was too much of everything. Her gorgeous, pale skin, her sweet mouth, her fine mind, even her need for control. It all got right under his skin. And to know she was feeling the same things he was feeling…that made it even harder, even better. Torture.

  He had decided a long time ago never again to become emotionally involved with a woman. Now that Maggie was breaking that wall down, he understood what he’d sacrificed in the name of protecting himself. It had seemed like a reasonable price to pay at the time. But finally, he had to stop and question the way he’d lived most of his adult life.

  How could she have caused all of this change in only two days?

  She was still trembling. He had to clear his mind, to care for her as was his responsibility.

  “What do you need? Something to drink?”

  She shook her head.

  He pulled a white, cashmere throw blanket from the arm of the sofa, and laid it over her naked and shivering body. “You’re cold.”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to get dressed, to go back to your hotel now?”

  “No!” This followed by a muffled sob that went right to his gut like a hammer blow.

  He pulled her closer. “Okay. Okay. You’ll stay here with me.

  With me.

  If only she could. But she would be with him tonight. And, if he was lucky enough, for the remaining days before she had to return to her life. That would have to suffice.

  Why did that idea make his whole chest squeeze as though a heavy weight had been placed there, crushing the breath out of him?

  He shook his head to clear it. Then, gathering her in his arms, he stood and carried her down the hallway, up the wide staircase to the second floor. Down another hall and into his bedroom, where he laid her on the soft, brown suede duvet on his bed. He could barely stand to leave her, but he had to get the wax off her.

  He went quickly to his bathroom, returned with two cloths: one warm and damp, the other dry, as well as a bottle of almond oil. She was exactly as he’d left her, lying still on his big bed, the throw blanket from the living room wrapped around her, her still-hard nipples making alluring peaks against the cashmere. He leaned over her and pulled the blanket back, trying not to focus on the luscious mounds of her bare breasts. So tempting, this woman.

  Gently, he peeled the hardening wax from her skin, then poured a few drops of the oil onto her. She was quiet as he smoothed it in, rubbed away the last remnants of the wax. She let out a soft sigh when he followed with the warm cloth, closed her eyes as he dried her.

  Finished, he set everything on the nightstand. He turned back to her, saw that she’d curled on her side, looking like a small and frightened child. Innocent, somehow. Lovely.

  He watched her for a moment, but it was pure torture not touching her, not being able to feel the heat of her body. He undressed except for his black boxers, climbed in beside her, pulled her close to him, and heard her quiet moan. She fit perfectly within the hollow of his chest. Even more so when she moved back into him.

  He didn’t mean for it to happen, but he went hard the moment her buttocks pressed into his lap. As tender as he felt toward her right now, the desire for her was simmering beneath the surface, ready to be awakened at any moment. Desire was easier to deal with. And more pressing, as his cock filled and throbbed.

  He smoothed a hand over her skin, loving every inch of her. Stroking the curves and valleys of her body, shoulder, waist, hip, he listened to the increasing cadence of her breath. And his cock grew, hardened even more.

  “Maggie…”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you. It’s not right for me to ask you now. Not after what you’ve just been through.” God, what was wrong with him? He’d never been tentative with a woman—or anyone—in his life.

  “Please, Damien…please. I need you now.” She surged back, her smooth flesh right up against him, every surface connecting. His cock gave a hard pulse.

  “Christ, what you do to me,” he muttered before pulling her over on her back so he could kiss her.

  He kissed her hard, forced her lips apart, found the wet heat of her tongue. She kissed him back, eagerly, wantonly, threw her arms around his neck.

  He filled his hands with the lovely mounds of her breasts, her nipples hard against his palms. He had to taste her.

  He lowered his head and looked at the beautifully rising flesh before him. Such perfect
breasts. The nipples were a dark pink against her pale skin. He bent and took one into his mouth.

  She groaned and buried her fingers in his hair. He flicked his tongue at the stiff peak, pushed her breasts together with his hands and suckled first one, then the other. She was panting, her ragged breath making him crazy with need. Making his cock throb until it almost hurt. He’d never wanted a woman like this in his life.

  When she reached down and slipped her hand into the opening of his boxers, wrapped her fingers around his cock, he had to fight not to go off like a rocket.

  Control.

  He wanted to make her come again before he did anything else, before he satisfied his own aching desires.

  He slid down her body, moved her legs apart, and breathed in the honeyed scent of her arousal. Just that scent made him impossibly harder. He bent and tasted her.

  Her hands tightened on his hair, then slid down over his cheeks. “Yes…”

  He feathered his lips across her mound, paused to blow gently on it, loving her tiny gasps. Then he dove in, licking and sucking, pushing his tongue inside her while she squirmed and panted beneath him.

  It was only moments before he felt the first pulse against his tongue. Then she was coming into his mouth, her hips bucking as she called out his name.

  She was still trembling with her orgasm when he lifted himself over her body and slipped out of his boxers. Torture, to have to pause even long enough to find a condom in the night table and sheath himself. He paused at the entrance to her lovely body for one aching, exquisite moment before he slid inside.

  She was so damn wet, her inner walls like heated velvet. He had to pause, to take a deep breath and command himself to calm down.

  Her long legs wrapped around his back, pulling him in deep. She licked and sucked at his neck, sending shivers racing over his skin. When he felt he had himself under control, he began to move. Long sliding motions, in and out of her tight little sheath. He could hardly stand it; fucking her and trying not to come like some teenager.

  But it wasn’t just fucking, and he damn well knew it.

  Later.

  Right now he just wanted to push into her, pull out, plunge again, simply to hear her gasps and moans of delight. He wanted to give this to her, to make her come again.

  He moved faster, every thrust bringing powerful waves of sensation, making his cock harder than it had ever been in his life. Making his balls and his stomach tighten up. He loved to hear her pant, loved when she raked her nails down his back, reveled in the pain. And loved it even more when he felt the first pulse of her climax deep inside her body.

  “Please, Damien. I need you. I need everything.”

  He pumped harder, faster, pounding into her in a white blur of pleasure. She cried out, her sex clenched around his cock, sending him over the edge with her. And as he came, pleasure stabbing into his cock, his entire body, he looked into her eyes. And what he saw there was more powerful than the orgasm crashing over him.

  He was coming so hard it hurt; it was better than anything he’d ever felt before. But beneath it all was her beautiful face, and his heart beating a million miles an hour.

  His climax left him shaking. She was quivering beneath him, her arms wrapped around his neck. He was still trying to catch his breath.

  What the hell had just happened? He had never had sex with a woman with whom he’d agreed not to. And sex itself had never meant anything to him beyond the momentary pleasure, not since Julia.

  Don’t think about her now.

  No, all he wanted to think about was Maggie. For the first time in almost twenty years, a woman was foremost in his mind, even before his responsibilities as a Dom. Christ, he didn’t care about any of that right now. All he cared about was the woman lying in his arms.

  After two days, how was this even possible?

  But it was the impossible, shattering truth. He was falling for her. And when he landed, he had a feeling it was going to hurt one of them like hell.

  Maggie was still dizzy with the aftermath of pleasure, pleasure so intense she wasn’t sure she would ever recover. And above and beyond that physical ecstasy was the deep and certain knowledge that what had just happened between them was more than sex.

  She’d had plenty of sex and didn’t regret any of it. But she’d never had sex like this. Like truly making love.

  Was she a fool to think that’s what it was? No: Despite the fact that the act itself had been so primal, she could see it in the way he touched her, looked at her. Had any man ever looked at her like that? Had she ever allowed it?

  The idea frankly scared the hell out of her. But she felt too good right now to take it apart, to figure out what it might mean for her. She pushed the thought away and looked up at him, losing herself in the pure, male beauty of him.

  He was holding himself up on one arm, exploring her face with his eyes, stroking her cheek, her jaw. He traced her lips with a fingertip and she kissed it, not really knowing why she needed to do such a thing.

  “Maggie, we need to talk.”

  “Now? Do we really have to?”

  “I went against the conventions of our agreement. I knew I was doing it, knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway.”

  “I wanted you to. I asked for it.”

  “Yes, but your judgment was compromised.”

  “Never enough to do something I didn’t really want to do. Please, don’t talk any more like this. It just…dirties it, somehow.”

  “Alright.”

  He bent and laid a soft kiss on her lips, and immediately, her body was on fire again. She pulled his head close, kissed him hard, until she felt the tension in him melt away. His cock hardened against her thigh, making her smile, letting her know that despite being the sexual submissive, she had just as much power over him as he did over her.

  “I want to do it again,” she told him. “But this time I want a little more. I want some pain while you’re inside me. Will you do that for me?”

  “You know, you’re getting a little bossy. But somehow I think I can learn to live with it.”

  He slid his hand down and found her cleft, his fingers sliding easily into the wet, wanting heat. He pushed inside.

  “You’re ready,” he said, his voice shaking and guttural.

  “Just do it. Please. I want it rough, merciless.”

  “Ah, you are too perfect.”

  He rolled her over onto her stomach, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her ass into the air. With the other hand he pushed her thighs apart. He slid right in with a groan, all the way to the hilt. He was so big, so hard, she felt as though she could barely take it. But she did, and it felt damn good.

  He started to pump into her right away. With each strong thrust of his hips he smacked her ass, a hard volley of slaps against her skin that she loved as much as his cock moving inside her.

  She arched back into him, into his cock impaling her as mercilessly as she had asked for, into his hard and wicked hand. Pain and an almost unendurable pleasure flooded her completely, until she was weak and helpless beneath him.

  But still she begged him, “Harder…please…”

  He slammed his hips into the soft curve of her ass, his cock pummeling her. The first waves of climax came crashing down around her, over her, drowning her like the vast ocean. Deep inside, where the pleasure radiated, multiplied, she felt him throb and pulse. They cried out together, fell in a tumble of sated and panting desire, and held each other all night.

  She woke to the rich, acrid aroma of coffee brewing. She knew immediately where she was, why she was there. And her body flooded with the heat of desire immediately just being in his bed, surrounded by his scent, by the heady fragrance of sex.

  She wanted him again. But she knew they’d have some things to figure out before she let it go any further. This was no mindless, emotionless fuck just for fun. Some things simply could not go unsaid.

  She sat up and looked for her clothes, then realized they were probably still in
the living room. She glanced around, taking in the room while she looked for a robe or maybe his discarded shirt. But the room was spotlessly organized, other than the rumpled white sheets on the king-sized bed. She ran her fingers over the smooth fabric. Probably Egyptian cotton. Nice.

  The rest of the room was just as elegant and expensive-looking. The furniture was all made of a very dark wood, simple, almost spare lines, with some unusual architectural details, like the curved front of the dressers and nightstands. The walls were painted a pale grayish blue. Everything had an air of cool calm, just like him. Interesting.

  There was not even a throw blanket to cover herself with among all this spare luxury. But what the hell, he’d already seen her naked and she was never one to be shy about her body. She got up and wandered downstairs to find him.

  His back was turned to her in the gray and white kitchen, one hand braced on the granite counter where a newspaper was spread out. He was wearing a pair of blue striped pajama bottoms slung low on his hips. His bare back was leanly muscled and tapered to a narrow waist, just the kind of physique she loved. Her sex pulsed in response and she found herself wanting to draw a finger over the ridges and planes of his body. Her tongue would be even better.

  He turned around, coffee cup in hand, and smiled when he saw her. God, he was even more beautifully put together from the front. She’d been too frenzied to really take him in visually before. His shoulders were broad, his chest smooth and muscular with just a nice sprinkling of dark hair. Another sharp clench of her sex when she followed the narrow line of hair leading down his abdomen, into the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

  His smile faded as he took in her naked figure. He tried to joke. “I should have you visit my kitchen every morning.” But his voice was graveled with lust.

  He set his cup down and moved toward her.

  She put one hand up. “Wait. We need to talk.”

  “You cannot show up in my kitchen perfectly naked and expect me to talk to you.” He advanced on her.