Jake
“Hey,” I said as Haven opened the door.
“Hey, come in.” She lifted up on her toes to receive a kiss, and I bent and brushed my lips against hers. Before I could grab her and turn the kiss deeper, she pivoted and headed down the hall.
Her apartment was full of the sounds of the television but nothing else as I followed her into the kitchen. “Where’s Luke and Ash?”
“They left about half an hour ago. I’m just finishing clearing up. Do you want a drink?” She held up a glass she had taken out of the dishwasher.
I shook my head but took the glass, placing it in the cupboard behind me. It was only a few minutes past nine. They must have left to give Haven and me alone time and I was grateful. I’d been dreading meeting Millie and now all I wanted was Haven. I watched as she continued to unload the dishwasher. How did she make the mundane look so graceful?
“So, how was it?” she asked.
I was relieved she was the one to bring it up. I didn’t want to hide anything but I didn’t want to be the one always introducing the subject. “Weird. Transactional. I thought her sister would be there, but she wasn’t.” It was true. I hadn’t felt anything when I saw Millie again, not even a hint of affection. It was as if Haven had rendered my previous relationship history completely inconsequential. It might be different once there was some physical evidence of my child growing within her, but I’d had no emotional reaction to seeing her at all.
“Did you go to her place?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t there long. About thirty minutes, that’s all. I guess I was trying to be polite by going to see her face-to-face, but I’m not sure I needed to. We didn’t really have anything to say to each other.” I wanted to reassure her that there was no connection between Millie and me.
Haven chewed the inside of her cheek. I moved toward her and brushed her face with my thumb. She slid her hands around my waist as I pulled her toward me. “I want to tell you everything, but I don’t know what you want to know. I have nothing to hide.”
“Is she going to take the test?” she asked, her voice vibrating against my chest.
I liked that she was asking questions. Somehow it felt as though she was invested and that had to be a good sign. “She said she’ll talk to the doctor about it. She has her first ultrasound coming up, so she’s going to bring it up then.”
“Are you going?”
I kissed the top of her head. “No. She’s going with her sister. I offered. She said she didn’t want me there. She was pretty pissed I asked about the test.” Pissed was an understatement. Once she’d realized I wasn’t going to back down on getting confirmation of paternity, she’d been furious. I hadn’t bothered arguing about going with her to the ultrasound.
“Does she want to get back together?”
It was the question I’d been waiting for. Haven had asked before, and I’d brushed it off. But seeing Millie again made me think differently. My gut said that she wanted more from me than just to be her baby daddy. She liked my money and she was pregnant and alone. But she hadn’t done anything specific. “She offered to cook me dinner and she was quite tactile, but I don’t think so. She’s worried I think.” I wasn’t exactly lying; I just wasn’t telling her my suspicions.
“How tactile?” she asked.
“She didn’t grab my junk or anything, but she was a bit touchy.”
She grasped her cheek in her teeth again. “I want you to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I replied.
“Don’t say that. Not until you know what I’m asking.” She was serious and I wanted to be able to see inside her head. To know what was coming and predict how I was going to react.
“It doesn’t matter what it is,” I tried to reassure her.
“Well, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. If I said, ‘promise me you’ll stab yourself with a carving knife,’ are you going to do that?”
I smiled. “No, but you’re not going to ask me to stab myself with a carving knife.”
“I might. The night is young.” She squeezed her eyes half shut in a mock threat.
I grasped her face in my hands. “You’re getting kissed for that,” I said and I pressed my lips to hers softly. She didn’t resist and smoothed her hands up my back. “What do you want me to promise?” I whispered.
“If you want out—for whatever reason—I want you to tell me straight away. Don’t wait until Millie or someone else accidentally falls on your penis, or you hate me or something.”
I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling. “I promise. No one is having anything to do with my penis except, hopefully, you.”
“I mean it. I don’t want to be one of those women who are totally oblivious to what’s going on under their nose. I don’t want to be made a fool of.”
She sounded so sad as she spoke and my chest ached for her. By opening up to me, she’d given me so much power. The power to take advantage of her, to hurt her, and there was nothing I wanted less. She’d asked me to be careful with her heart and I don’t think I’d ever felt so much responsibility, so much . . . love.
“I promise,” I said. “You have my heart, too, you know. We need to keep each other safe.”
“I promise you, too.” She reached up and brushed her fingers over my cheekbones.
Her touch had its usual effect on me and my dick started to stir. She glanced at my crotch. “Sorry. It’s just been like a millennia since I saw you naked.”
“It’s been a week,” she said poking me in my abs, which did nothing to stave off the blood rushing to my cock as a result of my being wrapped round her like this.
“Yeah? It feels like longer.”
“For me, too,” she said as her hands swept over my ass and she looked up at me from under her eyebrows. “Sounds as though we need an early night.”
I groaned as her hands reached the crotch of my jeans. Holy fuck, it almost hurt I was so hard. I was going to have to make her come several times with my mouth so she didn’t notice when I erupted after being inside her for a second.
“Actually, I have something for you that I think you might like.” She grabbed me by the hand and led me toward her bedroom.
“I only need you.”
She reached for my shoulders and guided me to sit on her bed as she went to her dresser drawer and pulled out a brown paper bag. She twisted her mouth and a blush spread across her throat. I had to glance away; she looked so ready to be fucked.
“What is it?” I asked.
She handed me the bag and then covered her face with her hands. I was intrigued. Why was she embarrassed about buying me a gift?
I pulled apart the edges of the paper, my eyes flicking from the bag to her and back. Her mouth was slightly parted, and she was staring at my hands instead of my face. I didn’t know what I was seeing at first, then realization trickled into my brain. It was coiled rope, not heavy, more like cord, white, smooth and about half an inch thick. I pulled it out of the bag, fingering the silky fibers twisting together like a never-ending helter-skelter. My pulse banged against my eardrums. She was giving herself to me. After everything I’d told her, she was still mine. My chest tightened with expectation, hope and something more.
Haven took a step toward me. “I didn’t know if it was the right—”
“It’s perfect.” I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. “I like that you like it.”
“I do. It’s as if I’m giving myself over to you.”
I filled my lungs, needing a beat. I didn’t want to rush. Whatever we were doing, exchanging, it needed to be savored.
“Undress,” I said. I tried to say it as if her gift hadn’t brought me to my knees. She wanted me in control and that’s what I would give her.
She hesitated as if it took longer than usual for the words to turn to meaning in her head. She pulled her dress over her head in one graceful movement, uncovering black lace underwear.
Watching her, knowing what was next, relaxed me.
She released the clasp of her bra, revealing her beautiful breasts. Her creamy, smooth, white skin might have been marble from the perfection of it. Even one of Rodin’s sculptures, but I knew how soft and warm it was. The memory of her heat buzzed over my fingertips.
“Put your hands down,” I said, moving her slightly so she was standing between my knees.
She complied quickly and I stood up, pulling the rope through my hands, the fibers bending under my fingers as I searched for the middle section.
“We’re going to try something new. I’m going to tie the rope around you so your arms are fixed by your sides. Do you understand?”
She nodded. Her eyes were wide.
“Are you frightened?”
“No. I want it,” she whispered.
Jesus. I needed to stay focused. I needed to give her what she wanted.
“You tell me if it hurts or if your hands start to tingle. Do you hear?”
She nodded.
“Haven, tell me you understand.” I grazed her peaked nipples with my knuckles.
“I understand.”
“You need to be comfortable. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I pressed the rope against the skin of her belly, trying to distract myself from the way her flesh yielded around the fibers. It was the perfect density to leave that delicious red mark without causing pain. Slowly, using both hands, I began to wrap the rope round her, working my way up and down her torso, wrapping her up, readying her for me. “How does it feel?” I asked as she watched me.
“Good,” she replied. Her eyes were slightly glazed and her mouth parted as she drifted under my control.
“How good?” I trailed my fingers down her stomach to her slit. I knew before I touched her what I would find. I could smell her arousal. It surrounded her like a cloud. “Slippery already?”
She groaned and her head fell back. I worked faster, coiling the rope around and down past her elbows, taking care that there was room between the rope and her skin. It was the perfect length. I secured the ends and took a step back to see what I’d created.
There she stood. Her amazing tits jutted out over the top of the rope and were framed on either side by her hair. You couldn’t see her flesh through the rope, but I could imagine it compressed, the blood pushed out of the way. When my eyes met hers, I could see desperation.
“Can you move your arms?” I asked.
“No.” She made a small attempt to struggle, but she was tightly bound. “Jake?”
“Yes, baby?”
“I need you to fuck me.”
I groaned at her request. I wasn’t sure I needed to touch her. She looked on the brink of climax where she stood, without any additional help from me. “I want you to bend over the bed. Turn your face to the side so I can still see you.”
She did as I asked and thrust her ass into the air as she dropped to the bed.
“Open your legs.”
I stripped off my clothes and fell to my knees behind her. Her wetness glistened, inviting me in, but I was going to make her wait until I tasted it. Just a little. I bent forward and licked the back of her knee. She buckled and I steadied her. Her body was so responsive, so perfectly attuned. I dragged my tongue up the back of her thigh in a heated trail; her skin was soft and tight. As I reached her ass, I bit down and thrust two fingers into her at the same time.
She lifted her head from the mattress. “Please,” she cried.
I soothed the just-bitten area with my tongue, then sucked and sucked. I wanted her marked. By me. By the ropes, my teeth, my cock. I wanted to own her.
My fingers found a rhythm and quickly became coated in her as I rubbed her clit with my other hand. Breathlessly, she began her climb toward her climax. “No. Jake. Please. God. Yes.”
Her words got quieter as she got closer, and I pulled away from her, needing to hold myself back if I wasn’t going to fall over the edge with her.
She whimpered. “More,” she cried. “Please, don’t stop.”
I pushed my fingers back inside her, unable not to give her what she wanted when she asked. “Don’t stop?”
“Don’t ever stop.”
“Oh, baby, you’re going to be begging for me to stop.”
I thrust my fingers and my tongue against her, and in seconds she was pulsing around my fingers, crying, “Yes, yes, yes.”
I replaced my fingers with my tongue, pushing into her, her muscles clenching around me, my hands prizing her open wider. I alternated between licking and sucking until she started to shake. I pushed deep, deeper, and then my thumb found her clit. When she came again, it was as if in surrender. There were no words, simply her private sounds of pleasure, reserved just for me. Panting, moaning, and juddering.
My cock was thick against my stomach. I had to be inside her. I stood and positioned her now weak legs.
“Can you last a little longer in this position, baby? I have to have you like this.”
“Yes, fuck me, Jake. Please.”
I groaned and after a single stroke to my cock, I pushed into her slowly but without stopping, so deep I was drowning in her.