Chapter 16 – Everly

I want him so badly it almost physically hurts.

The meal last night was something else. The way he forced me to control myself, the way he fed me. It was like foreplay.

Well, the way that I imagine foreplay.

I’ve never technically had sex. I mean, I’ve had boyfriends, but nothing so serious that I wanted to let it get that far. I have my career, after all, and sex and relationships aren’t exactly on my agenda.

Except when I met Trevor. Things changed then. And I had a lucky escape getting out of that one when I did, because if I’d let him take my virginity, it would have been just one more thing that he hurt me with.

So it’s been just me and my fingers for a long time now.

But with James, it’s different. I want him to tell me what to do. I want him to fuck me senseless. And it’s the first time in my life that word has had so much meaning.

He’s shirtless in the front of the boat, muscles tanned under the full sun, chest hair sparkling like ripples on water. Checking my equipment another time for me, making sure I’ll be safe. My pussy is so drenched, I think when I dive the water level will rise.

I pull the zipper up on the back of my wetsuit, then head over in his direction, raising a hand to wave as I get close.

“All looks good, ma’am.”

I laugh at the formality. “Why, thank you, sir.”

A spark of something passes over his face with my words, but it’s gone in an instant, and I’m left wondering what it was.

A female hammerhead goes by beneath me, followed by an enormous, beautiful male. They’re not chasing food, which means they must be chasing each other. Please, let this be the moment. I see the male nip at the female’s tail, and my heart does a little flip inside my chest. This is it; this is what I’ve been waiting to see. The male must be nearly six meters long, another consistently huge predator, and the female might even be a record-breaker. I snap a few shots with my underwater camera and wait for them to seal the deal.

Around them, there are a number of other males and a few smaller females, possibly juveniles. I’ve seen some of them tentatively courting, but shark mating is a dangerous business, and it usually takes a brave male to stake his claim.

To bring his mate under control.

I shiver as an image of James pops back into my head, then tense as I realize my data is about to be complete. These two are so large and so clearly a breeding pair that Trenton will have one hell of a fight on their hands. David vs. Goliath, sure, but I’ve got to try. For the sharks, I have to give it my best shot.

A shadow falls over me, and at first, I ignore it, but the darkness doesn’t go away. Reluctantly, I turn, looking up slightly, and jump back when I see it.

Six and a half? Seven? I think it must be seven and a half meters!

The hammerhead is enormous and very obviously female. She glides gracefully over the diving cage. This is unprecedented. Hammerheads don’t reach those sorts of sizes. Six meters, sure, but more than that is impossible. The shark is so large that its belly brushes the rocks as it swims between my cage and The Signet.

I snap off a couple of photos, hoping that the boat in the background will confirm her size when I submit my report. This is fantastic. To be able to prove that the breeding ground is within the proposed exclusion zone would give Trenton Investments a headache trying to pass the planning committee. But to add that these sharks are of a truly unique genus previously unknown to science is the nail in the coffin for their plans. The entire scientific community will be on my side.

Grinning, I return my attention to the breeding pair and watch them getting busy in the water beneath me. This is truly amazing. I’m totally enthralled.

Crack.

The cage shakes violently, and I gasp inside my diving mask, then turn to see the enormous shark brushing alongside me. She’s just curious, I tell myself. Don’t panic. It’s not like before.

But with a swish of her tail, the hammerhead turns in the water to swim directly toward me. I brace myself for the impact, but I’ve never known anything like it. The cage swings up and away from her, and I’m left struggling to stay out of the way of her snout.

I can feel the panic rising inside me as I think back to that day when I was nineteen, out in South Africa, my lecturer still hung over from the night before. There were two of us in the cage that day, both young students. We should have been being so closely supervised that nothing like that could happen.

Please, God, let the cage hold.

Looking up, I watch the chain that attaches me to the boat. It’s holding. It’s safe. But for how long? It didn’t hold before. It could break again. I can feel my breathing rate increasing as I watch the shark turn and head back for another try at me. My face is hot. If the cage breaks loose, then I’ll be surrounded. The Signet isn’t equipped to drive the sharks away. I’ll be locked in a cage falling to the bottom of the sea, with no way of saving myself.

Shit. This can’t be happening.

The hammerhead charges into the side of the cage yet again, and then I feel myself starting to ascend. Slowly, still swinging in the water, the cage rises up and breaks the surface, and I’m looking into the face of my savior. James works the winch, bringing me aboard The Signet and lowering me gently onto the deck.

All I recall now, since the moment I broke through the water, is James.

His face.

His voice.

Centering me.

Calming me.

Pulling me to safety. Freeing me from my cage. Freeing me from my wetsuit. Saving me once again.

Now I’m gasping for air, but it’s not from fear. Not the kind of fear that comes from the near-death experience I just had, anyway. If there’s fear inside me now, then it’s a different beast altogether.

It’s him. James. He is standing at the edge of the chart table, his eyes narrow as he tangles a hand into my wet hair.

“No fucking more. I’m not losing you, and it’s time you learned what this means. Us. What we mean.”

My skin is at once covered in goose bumps and on fire as he pulls me over and whips me facedown, bent at the waist.

He’s handling me like an object, his object, and a small part of me wants to shout him down and reclaim myself, but there is this undertone as well, this subtle force of such caring love that I cannot describe the dichotomy.

He presses my cheek down harder into the charts that cover the desk. Drops of seawater spread in dark patches where they fall from my bare skin and wet the paper in front of my wide eyes.

Already, my arousal is dripping down the insides of my legs. His gruff voice and hard hand elicit reactions in me I never dreamed.

“It’s time you felt my touch. Every fucking dream I’ve had since I laid eyes on you has been about us.”

He moves behind me, his hand still firm in my hair as I unconsciously shove my ass upward, half sure I know what’s coming next.

Half wanting it.

“That cunt is wet isn’t it, girl?”

He doesn’t give me a chance to answer. His hand comes down in a loud smack on my ass, making me gasp and grab on to the sides of the tabletop, my eyes squeezing shut as I process the stinging pain.

My body betrays me again, and I feel desire rage through me. It pulses between my legs in anticipation before the next strike hits. This time is harder than the first, on the opposite side, and a stillness takes my mind.

“Ah. God. Fuck,” I grunt as James delivers yet another blow. Then another, alternating sides, moving each precise strike a bit higher and lower than the last. Then layering them on top of one another until my ass is on fire and we are both grunting and moaning.

“Cry, sweet angel. That’s good. I like your tears.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until he said that, but now I’m fighting back a sob. The release of what he’s doing. The way he’s holding me down, taking and giving at the same time, sends a shudder into my very soul.

This man knows something about me. Things I didn’t know about myself. And I’m more free than I’ve been in longer than I can remember. My ass is throbbing, and my core is so tight; I’m on the edge, and he hasn’t even kissed or touched me besides the brutal spanking.

“Don’t fucking move,” he orders as his hand leaves my hair.

I freeze, not daring to disobey and wanting so badly to follow his every wish right now. To please him.

I hear the sound of clothing being removed, and when I hear his zipper, I nearly spasm in an orgasm, realizing what’s happening, anticipating what will come next. I want him. I want him so much there are no other thoughts penetrating my mind. I want him inside me. I want him to fill me. Every inch.

“Now.”

That is the last sound I hear before I’m jerking and coming as he spreads my burning ass cheeks in the death grip of his hands and plunges his tongue so far into my sopping opening it actually stretches me.

My orgasm comes with a shudder as he eats me from behind, the pain of his grip only adding to the pleasure, feeding my need as I hear the sounds of his mouth sucking and swallowing everything my body has to offer.

I can’t hold back the scream that comes next as he’s up and behind me. The tip of his cock grazes at my entrance, making me shake and close my eyes.

He teases me. Drawing the tip of his manhood up and down, again and again, until I’m pleading with him: “God, please, fuck me. Stop that, and please just put it inside me. I’m coming apart.”

“When. How. And for as long as I say. Not you, girl. If I want to fucking tease this pretty pussy all fucking night, I’ll do just that. You don’t call the shots. Get used to that.”

“Oh my God.” I whimper as he continues to rub his hard length through my folds until the tears stream from my eyes once again and I surrender to this torture with a sob.

The next moment, I see white. He slams himself into me in one angry stroke. He’s huge. So thick my body screams in pain as he stretches my opening, and I cry out.

When he enters me, James’s voice tops mine, letting loose a groan of such depth it shakes me to the marrow of my bones.

“Take it like that, girl. You’re my fucking girl. All of me is going inside you.”

He begins to move in and out as I struggle to steady my body over the table, desperate to take each movement as deep as I can.

He slaps me again as he thrusts, moving faster, then dropping to a slow stroke. Then, without warning, I’m reeling from another smack, lost again in a tumbling orgasm with his name on my lips.

I’m losing myself. Nothing else exists except the sensations and connection I feel with him right now. I’ve come so hard and so fast that my body is on a hair trigger, giving up each orgasm on the heels of the last until I can’t breathe and my legs are soaked, dripping nearly down to my calves with my release.

“That’s my girl. Give me all of that. I want it all. Then you’re going to know just what it means to be mine.”

Rough hands meet my wrists. They drag my hands behind me, pressing into the small of my back, elbows bent painfully as he holds them there with one hand, thrusting and grunting as he fills me over and over with his massive hard-on.

“One more. This one’s mine. Give it all to me. Don’t you dare stop. All of you. I want it all.”

The smacking of our wet skin and the sound of the next wave of my orgasm fill the cabin. James follows on a bellow of his own. Hot jets of cum spray inside me, so much it cascades down to mix with my own arousal.

“Goddamn. Everly...” My name sounds like a blessing as he grunts his release.

Spreading over me like a wave of warm honey. The pain and sweetness he delivers have me spinning.

He slams himself to my limits one last time as I gasp and then break into wordless pleas of pain and pleasure. I have no language left, only sounds, but I know we both understand.

James’s chest comes down to rest on my back. His teeth bury into the soft flesh at the back of my neck and sink into it, drawing flames of new pain outward as he binds us together in this moment.