2
The one kiss that inevitably bound them together.
The spray of the shower hitting tile carried through Eve’s open bedroom door and throughout the tiny apartment. Rummaging through her refrigerator, Jake ran a hand through his fucked-to-shit hair and over his beard. Did the woman not eat? Christ. They needed food after that reconnection.
He pulled out a drawer and found a block of Jarlsburg Swiss cheese—and grapes. Grapes, cheese, and melon. What the fuck? They were ordering in. He pulled out his phone to look for local restaurants that delivered.
The shower squeaked off and he glanced up at her bedroom doorway then around the small apartment. Labeled boxes were lined up perfectly along one wall, five deep in five columns. Her OCD was still in full effect. There wasn’t a lot of furniture to move, just a desk, a sofa and that bitchin’ lounge hassock—most useful piece of furniture in the place.
Had she secured a place to live? Knowing Eve, she had, but in LA? She hated LA. Not like they’d had a lot of time for catch up over the past two hours. He’d overheard in the hallway that she’d gotten in at a partnership, but other than that, he had no intel. No idea where she was going once she hit LAX.
Dinner first.
Jake intended to Google restaurants in the area that delivered when the soft steps of Eve’s bare feet padded across the main room. She looked...at peace. Comfortable. She’d put on an old pair of sweatpants with UCSD down the left leg and a tight Vee neck T-shirt that barely hit the low riding waist of her pants. Running a comb through her wet hair, she had the faintest hint of a smile on her rosy face. She looked up and her eyes met his.
Her shoulders dropped, but she smiled wider when she saw him by the refrigerator.
“I know. I know. There’s nothing in the fridge and you’re starving, right? Remember I’m leaving, so don’t get all huffy and puffy because the fridge isn’t stocked. We’ll call this restaurant I always go to down the street, okay? They deliver.”
The woman was gonna kill him. “Baby, if you weren’t leaving, how stocked would this fridge be?” He opened the door and waved a hand inside. “I see all the Eve basics—cheese, grapes, melon and diet ginger ale. Please tell me you’ve been eating more than this. Where’s the goddamn meat? Protein—damn, honey.”
She rolled her eyes and took a seat on the stool across the counter from him.
“Jake. You don’t get to lecture me. I eat. You know I eat. I just eat a little differently than I did before. About a month after I got here, I started working out religiously. Sexual frustration—remember? I needed an outlet. A focus other than work.” She glared at him before chuckling. “I do protein shakes, and eat pretty clean, but I do eat. So stop worrying. I’m good.”
Was she serious? Protein shakes? Yeah...not happening.
“Where’s the closest store? I’m cooking and you’re eating every fucking thing I put in front of you. Trust me.” He shoved his arms through his flannel and buttoned his pants, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. “You’re gonna need the fuel.”
She jumped off the stool and nearly knocked him over as she hugged him. “No stores, Jake. Just order something, okay? I don’t want you to leave.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders. The hint of anxiety in her tone was the first clear sign since he’d been here that she hadn’t fully let go of past insecurities. She always got edgy after sex, silently dreading the moment he would leave. There was no need for that fear anymore. He’d never willingly leave her again.
“Eve. I’m not leaving. I’m going to the store, love.”
Her eyes locked to his and she wrapped her arms around his waist with her head on his chest.
“Please. Just order in.”
What could he say when she was in front of him all warm, wet and pouty?
“They better have meat, dammit. None of this sprout and seaweed shit.” He handed her his phone and she smiled up at him. “Call ‘em. I’m gonna jump in the shower.” Kissing her forehead, he squeezed her to him before walking to the bathroom. “Hey, get me—”
“Yeah, yeah. A cheeseburger, fries and an orange soda. Got it. Now go away.” She waved him off. “Hey. Here’s your phone. It’s locked. I’ll get mine.” She met him at her bedroom door and reached out with his phone.
“Zero, one, one, six,” he said, nodding down at the phone.
Eve cocked her head and raised her shoulders.
“The code, baby. My lock code.”
Her eyes widened and she glanced back down at it. “January sixteenth. The first day we spoke on the phone? Three years ago?”
“Yep.”
“Not very stealthy of you, Mr. Spec Ops.”
“No need to be. The work phone has a different security protocol.”
“Ah, of course it does.” She tilted her head to the side and shoved the phone into his pants pocket, her breasts rubbing against his chest. “I don’t need your phone. Thank you though.”
With a pivot, she turned to her small table by the door and grabbed her own phone.
“Eve. I have nothing to hide. You can use my phone.”
Keying in her lock code, she glanced up at him, ear to her phone.
“Privacy is privacy, Jake. I don’t need your lock code. You asked me to trust you. I’m doing that. If I felt the need to go through your phone, you wouldn’t be standing there. In fact, if I ever get the urge to go through your phone, we’re done—I won’t live that way. Get in the shower, babe. Now I’m starving.” She leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Hello? Hey, Chris. Yeah, it’s me again...”
Jake leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and studied the changes in her. The woman he was staring at now was the same woman he’d always known, but there were definitely changes. Positive changes. She wasn’t censoring every word out of her mouth. No signs of tension in her muscles as she moved around the apartment with a subtle, but sexy, swagger, like she was finally comfortable in her own skin, a trait she’d unbelievably lacked before. New York had been good for her. Almost like she’d grown into herself. She stood by the window, looking down at the street while she talked to some dude named Chris, who obviously knew her well, because she had to explain the cheeseburger and fries order.
He wanted her to trust him though, and deep down he knew she still didn’t. That hint of insecurity confirmed what he’d suspected. She clearly trusted him as a man, as a lover, but he wanted her to trust him with all of her. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed she’d gotten off the phone until she was standing in front of him.
“What’s wrong?” She ran a hand up his chest to rest on his shoulder.
“I need you to trust me, Eve.”
“Jake…” She sighed. “I do.”
“Not fully.”
She pressed her lips to his and pulled back, framing his face. “Get in the shower.”
“Okay, baby.” Kissing her forehead, he turned, walked into the bathroom and ran the water. What the hell did he expect? It’d been two hours. Like she was supposed to forget the past two decades of hits, misses and heartbreaks? Of course, she’d need some time to see he was serious. He groaned and yanked off his wife-beater and pants, got under the water and let the hot jets pound his back. Patience, especially when it came to her, wasn’t one of his better attributes.
Even the talk they’d had, before they’d ended up naked, as intense as it had been, hadn’t been awkward. It had been like when they’d first reconnected—straightforward and honest. Being with Eve was easy, as if they’d never been without the other. She brought him a sense of home. One of the things he’d missed, not the most, but a close second. They could talk for hours or just lay holding each other without a word and it was comfortable. A rare thing to actually share silence with another person and be content. They had that. She had an easy nature and let her guard down with him as long as he was open with her. When he shut her out, she disappeared on him. A protective mechanism, he understood this because of their past, but that’s what he couldn’t have.
Yeah, once she’d been convinced he was serious and genuinely there for her, for them, she’d opened up to him in a way she never had before. It wasn’t just her self-confidence in general, it had been confidence in what she wanted and needed as a woman, her sexuality. She’d owned that tonight, where she never had before, denying what he knew in his gut she needed, but had never trusted him with.
She’d asked him to show her everything she’d never experienced sexually and while he was all over that, he recognized how good they were together physically, Eve didn’t. She hadn’t had enough experience to know the pull of a strong sexual bond. Their chemistry was something even he, in all his experience, hadn’t had before. Maybe it was because they got along as friends so well. Maybe it was because there were no more secrets between them, or that they’d known each other so long. But beyond this unique thing they shared, something didn’t sit right about her absolute surrender tonight, and now that he could actually think beyond his cock it bothered him. Was it just their sexual chemistry driving her? He wanted more than that. He wanted all of her and that began with her trusting him with more than her body. He knew it would take time for her to trust him. She needed actions now, not more words.
And when in the good fuck had he turned into a chick?
Fuck me.
He cranked the water off. Dinner must have come already, because the smell of burgers and fries had him tugging on shorts and a T-shirt in record time as his stomach grumbled.
Walking out of the bedroom, he ran his hands through his wet hair.
“Shit, that was fast.” He took a seat next to hers at the counter.
She laughed at him. “Fast? You’ve been in there for a half hour. I’m surprised the hot water lasted. It usually goes out pretty quick. How lucky are you that I saved the clothes you gave me?”
“Seriously. I thought you might have burned them.”
“I considered that, but then I remembered I’m not in high school and they do make awesome pajamas.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You are lucky. Eat, babe.” She pushed a cup of lemonade in front of him. “No orange. I went with your other go-to.”
“Chicken salad? That’s it?” He complained looking at her container. “That’s all you’re eating?”
“Yes, Jake. Chicken salad, but I got us dessert.” She winked at him.
“Is it maple?”
“Better. Chocolate.” She giggled and sat down beside him to eat. “I missed this. I missed eating with you.”
“Me too, baby. We’ll catch up.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the top. She had the softest skin he’d ever felt, like plush velvet against his lips.
“Okay.” She grinned, but didn’t look at him.
Jesus, the cheeseburger was like a fuckin’ steak. He was famished. When he glanced over at Eve, she was pushing a piece of chicken around on her plate.
“Talk to me, love.”
Her shoulders rose and fell as she continued staring at the salad.
“Where do we go from here?” She turned to him. “How does this work?”
Jake pulled her stool closer to his and turned it so she faced him.
“Eve, do you trust me?”
Waving a hand at the hassock, she smiled up at him.
“Obviously.”
“No.” He put both hands on her knees. “I know you trust me that way, do you trust that I’m here to start a life with you?”
Her shoulders dropped the slightest bit and she glanced down at the floor for a second.
“Yes, but it’s only been two hours, Jake. I need more time and I’m—frightened. I’m scared once we get home and you go back to San Diego...” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I get you’re scared and I know we’ve gotta log some time here, but I meant what I said earlier. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.” He looped her wet hair behind both ears.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t wanted this? If I hadn’t wanted to try. That was a possibility. You had to know that coming here.”
He nodded and framed her face. “I did, but that doesn’t change how I feel or what I want. I’d have dealt with it.”
“Okay.” She sighed and turned her head back to the counter.
“Eve.” He exhaled deep, unbuckled his watch and laid it on the counter. “Time for show and tell, baby.” He moved his stool away from the counter.
She turned her stool around to him, her eyebrows pursed together. “What do you mean?”
“You asked me earlier if I lost my mind in that tattoo shop... Do you remember the hotel room, when I had you kiss a piece of paper? I had you do it a few times.”
She chuckled. “Yes, you even made me reapply the lipstick and do it until you had it the exact way you wanted it.”
“What you said was right. At the end of twenty-four hours, I’d planned to let you go. Let you get on with your life here in New York. We both knew I couldn’t leave and you deserved more than an absent man. I wanted you to be happy. I knew the risk of losing you to someone else. That said, if that had happened, a part of you—what we’ve shared together—would always be mine. No matter who else came into our lives, if we were fated to be apart, we’d still be tied to each other.” Jake rested both hands on her knees.
Eve raised her hands and framed his face. “I felt the same way. If I had to move on with my life, which eventually I hope I would have been able to do, I know in every part of what makes me…me, I’d never love another man as I do you. Ever.”
Jake flipped his wrist over and laid the top of his hand on her thigh. “I had this inked a week after you left the hotel two years ago.”
* * *
Eve stared down at the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. Adrenaline exploded, barreling through her body with the force of an avalanche plummeting down the side of a mountain. A pressure close to pain, thumped against her temples. When it became too intense, it fractured. She fractured. The breakdown happened quick, as quick as whatever measure of time lies between seconds, and streams of tears flowed down her face to land atop his wrist, right in the center of a permanent replica of her lips.
The tattoo was the exact color of the lipstick she’d worn two years ago. She still had the tube. Hadn’t worn the color since that night—put into the Jake-box along with everything else that reminded her of him. She’d boxed it all up, but couldn’t manage to part with any of it. Three black scripted words she didn’t know framed the kiss—για πάντα συνδεδεμένο, written in Greek. They mirrored the heavy black tattoo on his opposite inner forearm—μολών λαβέ, “come and get it.”
“That’s—” She smoothed a finger around the plum-red mirror image of her kiss, down to the pronounced V of her top lip. “Those are my lips. It’s my—it’s my kiss,” she whispered, before glancing up at him. “What’s the Greek around it mean?”
Jake reached for her, drawing her off her stool and helping her up to straddle his lap until their faces were a breath apart.
“Forever bound. It means forever bound, baby.”
Eve pulled away and grabbed his wrist, maneuvering his hand between them, while Jake steadied them both on his stool. Her wet eyes frantically searched his and her lips parted slightly.
“Why? Why would you permanently put this on your body? Knowing there was a chance I could have said no?”
Jake gripped her chin to hold her still and gently nipped at her bottom lip, before slipping his tongue inside. When she began to respond, he broke the kiss.
“I only have the initials of females permanently mine on my body—Maddie and Kelsie are my daughters, my blood.”
He nodded to his wrist, now resting between them.
“This, I had done knowing it would either be a tribute or a memorial. May not be my right, but it’s my claim. A part of you, of this rare, fucked up and beautiful thing that’s lived between us since we were too young to name—that would always belong to me. If you threw me out right now that wouldn’t change. You’d still be bound to me until they burn my ass and spread me out over the Pacific.”
Eve went mute, her tongue grew heavy, her throat became so dry it hurt to swallow against the sandpaper-like lining. Coming to New York was a grand gesture on Jake’s part, but tattooing her lips with those words? It was a pledge. A permanent pledge that he valued her, what they shared, honoring the longevity of it.
She hadn’t been just a moment to him.
It wasn’t her name, but it was a part of her, forever on his body. His commitment to her, to the intense love between them, and he did it whether or not she decided to be his? It was better than her name, because it gave her a choice to acknowledge the claim he had on her and the love he was offering her.
Moments. Important moments in life were funny things. In this moment, that unstable rumbly quake ready to hit whenever she was with Jake, the fear of him leaving and having their short time together be the last time she saw him, the fear of giving into him in a way she craved but denied out of sheer self-preservation, died. It just…died. She felt—clean. Cleansed.
And something else roared awake.
In place of the ever-present insecurity she’d experienced with him almost from day one, was a heat, a deep seated need, a drive to let the woman who only made short appearances with him out. Loose. Free.
Wrapping her legs around his waist tighter, she hiked herself up higher in his lap. Tilting her head, she kept her eyes on his as she licked along his full lower lip. When he smiled, she took it between her lips, the whiskers of his beard tickling her cheek. As he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, she looped her hands around the nape of his neck and leaned back, rubbing her core against his hardening erection.
He grabbed her hips, driving her down against him, and pulled her to him by the front of her shirt.
Eve broke the kiss, unwrapped her arms from around his neck and brushed her lips over his ear.
“Come with me.” Untangling herself from his lap against his growled protest, she stepped down and backed away from him, reaching out her hand. Nodding toward her outstretched palm, she met his eyes. “Please, Jake.”
When he put his hand in hers, she led him into her bedroom and shut the door behind them. Turning to him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and just held him as he rested his cheek on top of her head.
“Will you sit?” she asked, pulling away and pointing to the end of her bed.
His eyebrows pushed together. “You okay, honey?”
“Better than okay. Please.”
She sauntered away, waved a hand for him to sit, walked around the room lighting candles and untying the braided silk ties from the curtains, letting them fall shut. She threw the ties on the chair beside the bed and made her way back to him. Finally calm, she knelt on the floor between his open legs, rested her hands on his thighs, and looked up at him. A small tick jumped in his left cheek as he gazed down at her. Reaching up, she smoothed it out with the pad of her thumb.
“What’s wrong?”
He chuckled and tugged on a strand of her damp hair.
“That’s usually my line.”
“Now it’s mine. Why the muscle twitch? That only happens when you’re upset or lost in thought and it’s usually not a good sign.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Observant, baby. Here’s my concern. You’ve only been with two men beside me, Eve. Two men who didn’t know shit about a woman, how they work. I do. I’m not bragging. It’s a fact. I don’t want you confusing what I bring out in you as a woman with what’s between us.”
Eve bit back a smile. He wasn’t bragging. It was without question a fact, and he had reached deep inside her and awakened a part of her she’d never believed she would be able to explore, nurture. But for him to think she didn’t know the difference between the two, in a way belittled her feelings. She squeezed his thighs.
“Here’s why what you just said is inaccurate, although I understand the impetus behind it.”
“Eve. I didn’t—”
“Hold on, Jake. There’s something about me I’m not sure you’re aware of, which sort of shocks me, being as experienced as you are, but then again, your, ah, area of expertise lies in the physical. It’s different for me.”
Using his thighs, she pushed herself up to stand in front of him and rested her hands on his shoulders.
“A psychologist might call me crazy, might say I don’t know what I’m talking about, but from the second I met you, the second, Jake, I knew I...belonged to you. I also knew that was most likely not a reality, since I was thirteen and you were seventeen. For me, when I first saw you, it was like someone switched on the brightest light in a room destined to be forever dark.”
Jake sighed and gripped her hips. “You were a baby, honey.”
“No. Don’t do that please. Don’t demean what I felt, because it’s that feeling, the impact you had on me when I was that young, that is the sole reason you’re sitting here now. I eventually married, yes, because you were already married with kids. What was I going to do? Wait for a man I’d never have? My ex-fiancé, my ex-husband were merely substitutes, distractions, as unfair as that was to them. These were men I slept with Jake, and even with that intimate of a connection, it wasn’t a quiver to what I felt the first time I just saw you.”
She framed her hands around his cheeks. “So for you to assume that I can’t differentiate between the physical bond I have with you and my love for you, is almost an insult. I know the difference. I always have. I’ve loved you a lot longer than I’ve had a physical relationship with you. I don’t give a shit what anyone says, even if that someone is you. I knew it at thirteen. Over the past two years, I’ve had time to analyze and come to terms regarding what I want—need as a woman.”
Jake raised one hand to cup her cheek and she leaned into his touch, cherishing the warmth.
“What’s that?”
It was like all the air sucked out of the room, her throat closed up and Eve fought for the deep breath that stretched her lungs to capacity. This was it. Once it was out, it would be out. Couldn’t take it back.
“Parts of my life left me in an abyss of darkness. I fought through that. It took time, but I got there. A part of that was fighting against knowing there was more to a relationship than what I had experienced—even before things went...bad with my ex-husband.” She put her palm between her breasts and rubbed her chest. “I had more to give.”
She met his eyes. “I just couldn’t give it to the two men I’d been involved with before you, because I knew in every part of me they weren’t right for me—they didn’t see me. I knew there was something else I needed to feel whole, though I wasn’t sure what that was. After you came back, I realized there’s a part of me that craved something...more intense. I also believed I’d never trust anyone with that part of me. You, I trust.”
Jake dropped both hands to her waist now and tugged her between his legs, so her hips were against his chest.
“You know you can trust me. I don’t scare easily, Eve. Say what you need to say.”
“Do you remember the times we were together before the hotel? You’d push me sexually and I’d fight you on the majority of it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he scoffed. “With crystal fucking clarity.”
She nodded and linked her hands around the nape of his neck. “It wasn’t a case of not wanting to go there with you. Not giving into you was my only defense when you left, and at the time, we both knew you always had to leave. I knew what I could handle and what I couldn’t. That said, even the few times I did explore different things with you, those moments were the most alive I’d ever felt. The temptation to give all control over to you, to let you push boundaries that have always fascinated me was consuming. It’s why I emotionally unraveled towards the end. I’d become an unstable paradox—what I needed with you and what I couldn’t have.”
Something dark flashed behind Jake’s eyes. It was there maybe a second before the stoic mask slipped back into place and he nodded once.
“What do you want, baby? What do you need from me, from us? Say it out loud.”
Eve met his steely eyes and willed every muscle in her body to settle.
“I need you in control. I...I crave it. I’ve realized I’m very much a sexually submissive person. The thing is, it only works for me if it’s you I’m handing that control over to.”
His eyes narrowed and his grip tightened on her hips.
“One question.”
“Okay.”
“You said need. Where’s the need coming from?”
Eve shook her head and moved to step away from him, but he yanked her back between his legs. When she put her hands against his chest, he wrapped his around her wrists.
“You can stay where you are.” There was no give to his tone and it left no room for argument. He placed her hands back on his shoulders. “Talk to me from here.”
Blood surged through her so fast she had to squeeze his shoulders to stay calm.
“With that question—are you suggesting, without suggesting, my need to submit to you that way is something other than simply the fact that I’ve realized submission works for me? Don’t be one of them, Jake, thinking my handing control over to you in here is linked to the dark part of my past. That has nothing to do with it. This is my choice.”
“Whoa. Hold up. I’m not suggesting shit. You got help, Eve.” He anchored her hair behind her ear. “I trust that, so as far as I’m concerned it’s done. It’s dead—healed. Not an issue between us.” He ran his thumb down her cheek and across her bottom lip as his eyes softened. “Do you think you telling me you’re sexually submissive comes as a shock? Honey, you confirmed that the first second I kissed you, and I knew a long time before that. I read people pretty fucking well, particularly you. And to be clear, I accept. I’ve got no problem with taking control in here. I prefer it, and I’m honored you trust me enough to own it. So don’t assume I’m judging you or anyone else based on what you need or want sexually.”
The tension in her shoulders loosened.
“Okay—I just wanted that clear.”
“All clear. Now, answer the question.”
“I want to be a whole person. It’s a need to own what I want and be okay with it. How can I expect to help others if I won’t own what need I myself? I can’t. I got so low at that one moment in my life because I didn’t know who I was. I’ve forgiven myself for allowing another person to dictate how I live my life, for being what others expect me to be. I’m not weak and I know who I am now. I know what I want. I have the person I want it with, claiming he wants me too.” She raised her arms and let them fall by her sides. “So, that’s it.”
Jake slowly stood up in front of her and wrapped his hands around her shoulders. “That’s all I needed to hear.” Dropping his hands, he slipped the hair band off her wrist. “Turn around.”
Eve narrowed her eyes at him and he nodded behind her.
“Go on. Turn.” He waited until she slowly turned away from him. He swept her hair behind her and began braiding it in one long, damp plait down her back.
“You braid?” She chuckled at the absurd image of her badass Jake, braiding her hair.
“I have two daughters, baby. I wasn’t given a choice. On one of my weekends, the girls decided I needed to learn to braid. Why? I don’t fuckin’ know. They braid their own damn hair, but they decided I needed to know too. Maddie was the model, Kels sat on the arm of the couch and directed. I had to do it about eight fucking times before it met her standards. So now I’m a master.” His laugh rumbled through his chest and vibrated down her back.
When he was finished, he spun her around and sat back down on the bed, nodding to the floor between his legs again as he lifted a hand to help her down. The second his warm hand closed around hers, leading without insisting, asserting without demanding, her lower body liquefied and her heartbeat pulsed between her thighs. It was in the pressure he exerted, the control he accepted with a touch, and how he knew what she needed without asking.
Once she settled, he lifted her up so her arms rested over his thighs and he wrapped his hand around her braid with a long sigh. He pulled her head back until she stared up into brown eyes so dark and intense they appeared black.
“This is what you want?”
While he posed it as a question, she was very aware they both knew it wasn’t.
“Yes.” Never before had a word been so...freeing.
He smoothed her bangs to one side of her forehead.
“So we’re clear. You’re giving me free rein to take you to places you’re uncomfortable with. You only got a PG version of what I want from you before, Eve. The things I want you to experience, that I want to show you, run deep and will be dark for you at times.”
“I know, but I trust you.”
Using her hair, he pulled her face to his and kissed her lips softly before leaning back and letting go of her hair.
“Still, give me a word.” He raised an eyebrow at her.
She cocked her head up at him. “Like a safe word?”
“Yep.”
“Okay...” She sat back on her heels for a second. A word that would shut everything down, signal it was too much. A word that would mean something to both of them but not be misconstrued... “Showboat.”
Jake jerked back and stared at her. “Where we met? That’s your safe word?”
She shrugged. “We’re trying at a life together. It’s not going to always be easy. Trial and error, push and pull, right? We’d have never met if it wasn’t for that place. So, what better word?”
“Showboat it is,” he agreed and lifted her up to stand before him. “Hard limits?”
Eve cocked a hip and couldn’t fight the frown forming. “You speak this language pretty well.”
An evil smirk slashed across his perfect mouth. “This shocks you?”
“Yeah. I guess not...okay. Um, anything that would cause real pain? It’s not pain that stimulates me.”
“Is that so?” A small grin spread across his full lips, like he knew something she didn’t. “How hard is that limit?”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean? You said hard limits, that’s pretty damn hard.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
Jake yanked her to him, closing the space between them. He slid his hand under her shirt and over her breast, kneading the swell until she moaned. An arm around her back plastered her to him. He rubbed her nipple with his thumb and covered the other with his mouth through her shirt. Switching up, he rolled one nipple between his thumb and index finger. He sucked the opposite peak into his mouth at the same time he pinched her so hard, she jolted back. When his teeth closed around the other one, she immediately shoved her hands through his hair, intending to push him away, but when he smoothed the pain away with a flat tongue and soft caress on the other side, she got caught somewhere between pleasure and pain.
Before she could process her reaction, he tugged her sweats down just below her ass and pushed one hand between her legs. He slid his middle finger between her lower lips and rubbed over her surprisingly wet entrance, proving his point before gliding it inside her.
Pulling her head down to him, his hot mouth played at her ear.
“You like a little more pain than most, love. You always have. So when I ask you how hard is that limit, I want you to at least consider trying things you haven’t tried. If you don’t like it, no more, but I want you open to different experiences.”
He kept stroking her while he spoke, sliding a finger in and out of her slowly, pulling out occasionally to run it up around her clit.
Her eyelids fell halfway closed.
“Okay,” she moaned, before clearing her throat and focusing back on him.
He smirked at her reaction, which only made her hotter.
“So, hard limits. Try again. What’s definitely a no-go?” He stopped touching her, but kept his hand where it was, tapping her chin with his other hand. “I need you coherent for this conversation, baby.” He chuckled. “No-gos?”
Speech, that’s right—an important thing. Hard limits...
“Anal sex. Hard limit.”
Jake nodded, but kept studying her face.
“Anal play?”
The shower she’d taken with him two years ago flashed through her head. He’d pushed her there in that shower...and she hadn’t hated it. When she’d gotten beyond the idea of what he was actually doing to that part of her body and remembered how it felt...she might be able to handle it. Might? No, she was okay if she were being honest.
“Okay.”
He slid his finger from her entrance and teased it along her perineum, that tiny space between her ass and her opening.
“Yes or no.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Mmm,” Jake moaned. “That’s enough for now,” he said as he continued to tease her. “You ready, love?”
This was it. They were finally starting their life together. A life she’d always wanted with the one man she’d loved in some way the vast majority of her life. There would be no more hiding, no more denying what she wanted, who she was or fearing he’d leave. She’d bared herself to him and he’d accepted every part of her—the good, the bad, the dark and the light. She’d never been more ready for anything in her thirty-eight years.
“I’ve been ready since the day you kissed me, Jake.”
* * *
“Take your clothes off, baby.”
Jake used an iron tone, an octave or so lower than his normal speaking voice that would be unfamiliar to her. He’d always been careful with Eve, as he would be with a frightened animal, afraid she’d bolt from him, but no more. Pride coursed through him as he looked at her, owning what she needed, what she wanted. Finally.
Her eyes snapped to his, making his cock hard—submission was so much a part of what made her who she was. The sweetest gift he’d ever been given.
“Slowly,” he clarified, enjoying the apprehension in her blue eyes and the way her nipples tightened under her thin shirt.
Reaching for the hem of her tee, she pulled the bottom up and over her breasts. When her head popped out the top of the shirt, he grabbed her thigh, giving it an affirming squeeze, keeping her present. He didn’t want her getting lost in her head—yet. Only when he forced her there. She had a tendency to get lost in him when they were together. This was about her giving herself to him without being overwhelmed by him. With no more restrictions, he could take his time with her, enjoy her, her reactions to him, her responses—everything that made her his.
“All of it.”
He glanced at her sweats and then back to her, reasserting his demand. Leaning back on his hands, he let his eyes run her body, taking in the slight indention of her hip bones as she slid the sweats over her ass, down her thighs and calves, to pool on the floor. As she rose, he swallowed a chuckle at her trembling stomach muscles, loving how she struggled to get past her vulnerability for him.
A smirk spread across his face while he reclined to watch her.
“You’ve never done that before. I like watching you undress for me.” He stood, took her hand and traded places with her, sitting her down on the bed. Time to push.
“Remember the night at the restaurant before the hotel?”
“What about it?” Her eyes dropped to her feet.
With a finger under her chin, Jake lifted her head up until their eyes met.
“Eyes on me, love.”
While she claimed looking at him made it harder for her, the tension seeping out of her taut muscles and the slight hunch in her shoulders towards him communicated otherwise. Eve had grown so used to denying what she wanted, it had become an inherent reaction. Now that she trusted him enough to own the truth, he’d have to recondition her to indulge the hungry darker side he’d only caught glimpses of before.
“I asked what interested you about your field of study. Why you went into sexual psychology, marginalized areas of sexuality. I wanted to know what about the relationship between a Dominant and a submissive interested you. You said the psychology behind a power exchange. The idea of trusting someone enough to know they’d push your limits without going too far—keeping them safe, caring for them, willingly giving up that power.”
He stepped back until he reached her closed bedroom door and the flannel robe hanging on a hook in back of it. He unhurriedly pulled the long, soft flannel tie from the loops of the robe, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. He noted the tension had returned to her shoulders before walking back in front of her.
“The other thing you mentioned...” Gripping the tie in the middle, he fed it through his hands until he reached the ends. “Is that restraint fascinated you above everything else, but you’d never trust anyone but me that much.” His eyes fell to the tie and then returned to hers.
He watched her throat work as she swallowed hard and tried to quell the trembling that spread from her hands to her entire body.
“I remember,” she breathed.
Jake bent down so he was at eye level with her.
“That hasn’t changed. Has it.” He asserted instead of posing it as a question, since he already knew the answer.
She cleared her throat. “No. It hasn’t.”
Looping the tie around her neck, he wrapped the ends around his fists, pulling her face to his until their lips barely touched.
“We’ll start easy.” He let go of one side of the sash, sliding it around the back of her neck. The soft material skimmed along her skin, leaving the hairs on her nape standing at attention. He loved how responsive she was to the smallest thing he did to her.
“Give me your hands.” He held his out.
When she just stared at him, his eyes narrowed. “Eve. Hands, honey.”
With a small nod, she put her trembling hands in his steady ones.
“I got you.”
He smoothed his thumbs over the pulse points in her wrists until the quivering calmed a little.
Her chest expanded as she filled her lungs with air and let it out slow, her soft breath warming the skin under his shirt. Eve was a creature of habit, so this would be new to her, hard for her, but the slight tremble in her body, the dilated pupils, the sexy way her lips slightly parted, he could also see the curiosity, the excitement.
Jake gave her a small nod of approval before taking each of her hands in his. He kissed the pulse points on each wrist before putting her hands together in front of him as if she were praying. Not giving her too much time to think, he worked quickly, folding the sash in half and wrapping it around her wrists twice.
Efficiently, he twisted the loose ends across each other, ran one end between where her wrists touched and the other between her hands above where the sash was wrapped. After lifting her hands up, so they were against her chest, he secured the loose ends in a square knot and stuck his finger under the sash. Placing her hands on her lap, he stood back up and tipped her chin up to him. He stepped away, admiring his work and the dark material against her pale skin.
“Beautiful.”
He smothered a smirk as Eve twisted her wrists left, right and tried to pry them apart. It was snug enough that she couldn’t move them, but not tight enough to cut off circulation. Still, she began to tremble.
“Breathe, baby.”
Crawling on the bed behind her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back to the headboard with him, so she was sitting between his legs. He rested his chin on her shoulder, brushing his lips over her earlobe.
“What are you feeling?”
“Um...”
“Don’t censor. Say it.” He bit down on her earlobe.
“Nervous,” she admitted softly. “I’m not going to be able to touch you like this.” She held up her hands in front of them.
He smiled against her collarbone at the tremor in her voice.
“You’re not. Tonight’s about you.”
With his hands on her waist, he slid her closer to him, lifting her elbows until her tied hands looped behind his head. The position cut off her range of flexibility, forcing her to arch her chest in order to stay comfortable. He dropped both hands under her breasts, skimming his fingers under the swells, just enough to make her nipples pebble more.
“Too much of a stretch?” he asked as he took her hardened buds between his fingers.
“No,” she muttered, squirming around until she was comfortable.
“I missed everything about you, baby,” he spoke evenly into her ear, occasionally biting down on her earlobe. “Everything. I missed how responsive you are to my touch.” He alternated between steady rubbing and intense pinching, using his words to fuel her hunger. “I missed how hard your nipples get for me.”
When she moaned long, he pinched her harder. Jumping at the sharp sting, he immediately soothed her, covering her entire breast with his hand, just holding her, applying pressure. Back and forth, he played with her until her chest rose and fell faster. Stretched the way she was, she was stuck until he moved her. She could move her legs, but whatever position she fidgeted into, none of them eased her tension.
Just where he needed her.
Taking her hot earlobe between his teeth, he bit down hard enough on the soft, puffy skin that she pushed back against him.
“Lift your legs over mine, baby.”
One by one, she gracefully lifted her calves over his. As soon as she was settled, he opened his legs, spreading her wider and earning him a sharp gasp.
“Shh, good girl.” He ran both hands down her ribcage to rest on each of her silky soft inner thighs.
“What I missed most...” With his chin still on her shoulder, he looked down her body, moving one hand to the top of her mound and two fingers down along her lower lips, pulling them back. “Is how wet you get when I touch you. You could tell me no all you want, but your pussy never lies.”
Her warm breath heated his ear as he gazed down her lithe body. Her swelling clit peeked out from behind its hood, pink and needy. Dipping his middle finger down to her entrance, he teased around her opening, coating his finger with her juices.
“Dripping, baby. I fucking love that,” he groaned to her as he lifted that finger back up to circle her tiny bud with slow wet circles, careful not to give her the direct contact he knew she needed.
“Open your eyes. Watch me touch you.” He kissed along her shoulder to the slope of her neck and bit down. “So gorgeous. From now on, when I want, you’ll watch what I do to you.”
* * *
One by one, Eve willed her eyes open and glanced down her quivering body. Her breasts lifted with each ragged breath she took in. The sight farther south was what stopped her mid inhale. Graphic and vulgar...and the most erotic sight she’d ever beheld. There was a dark sort of beauty to watching Jake’s tan hands teasing between her pale, wet thighs. From her stretched out position, she had an unobstructed view of her drenched folds. His fingers glistened in the candlelight, wet from her arousal, circling around her engorged vulva.
“Jake—please.” The need to come was almost cellular, pulsing like electrodes throughout her entire body.
“Mmm. I’ve always wanted you to watch. Watch how wet you get, watch how I touch you, how your body becomes mine.”
“Yes,” she groaned and pushed against his hand. Jesus, had she ever needed come this bad? “Only yours.”
“Fuck, baby.” His lips teased at her ear. “You’ve never been this wet. Bondage works for you, love.”
Moving his hands from her body, he carefully lifted her arms from over his head and placed them in front of her. He rubbed her shoulders and biceps for a while before moving out from behind her.
She bit back the scream throttling up her throat. Quivering, gave way to shaking as tears welled on the sides of her eyes, blurring his image as he straddled her legs and framed her face.
He crushed his lips to hers, thrusting his tongue deep and holding her still as he plundered her mouth. She moaned into his as he framed her face and lowered her down so her head lay on the pillow.
Strong hands guided her tied ones up above her head to one of the wrought iron bars on her headboard.
“Wrap your hands around the bar and keep them there. Don’t move. You hear me?”
“Yes—yes.” She stretched her body out under him, gripping that bar as if it were a lifeline.
“Good, baby.”
With a quick, hard kiss on the mouth, he moved down her body until he sat at her feet. Wrapping his hands around her calves, he lifted her legs and wedged both hands under her knees, splitting her legs wide, so wide that the sides of her knees touched the outside of her breasts. He bent and ran his tongue from the bottom of her opening up over the top of her clit, where he used just the tip to flick at the swollen bud with feather light licks.
She arched her back off the bed on a long moan, trying to get him to give her more.
“Don’t you come until I tell you to.”
“I can’t—can’t stop it,” she pleaded, the pressure in her clit turned to a sharp throb as her entire lower body contracted harder and harder.
“You can. You will.”
With every lick, every stroke over her ultrasensitive flesh, she undulated under his hold. The past times they were together, Jake drove her hard, forced her to keep up with the hungry pace he set, but this was different. He took his time, taking each of her swollen lips into his mouth, suckling them, caressing them with his tongue, his lips. Heat built and flooded her core, scalding that small part of her body where she needed him most.
Every so often, he’d lap at the top of her hood with the flat of his tongue, each time eliciting some inaudible, desperate sound from her. If her hands were free, she’d be digging them deep into her forehead to divert the increasing pressure from one part of her body to the other.
Shifting his hands, he alternated the soft flicks of his tongue with harder circles of his thumb. The smooth, wet glide of his tongue in contrast with the rougher stroke of his skin only made the thump, thump, thump in her clit worse.
“Jake—please.”
“Not till I say, Eve” he answered, never breaking contact. He spoke against her skin. The movement of his lips against her swollen pussy built until she teetered on the edge of orgasm. She bit her lip trying to hold her climax off through his unyielding torture.
One more stroke, just one more over the top of her and she wouldn’t be able to hold it off—even for him.
Moving his mouth off of her entirely, he placed one hand over her entire vulva and pressed hard.
“Easy....”
“Please. Please. Please—”
Movement became even more unbearable. Every covered inch of her pussy throbbed against his hand. She clasped the bar between her tied hands harder, using it as an anchor, trying to ease the mounting tension, but she was too far gone. Words became slurred groans and inaudible cries on her tongue.
His middle finger pushed against her cleft and he began rubbing slow pressured circles around the entire area with his palm. The arm slung over her abdomen held her down harder, stopping her from moving her hips against him.
He slipped his middle finger down the top of her hood to circle around her clit. He wedged his other hand under the cheeks of her ass and slowly pushed his thumb into her drenched pussy, coating it with her arousal.
Ragged breaths turned into a steady pant and her vision became hazy. As he slowly slid his thumb down farther, he rubbed lightly along her perineum, teasing between her entrance and that forbidden place.
“Jake. I—”
“Shh, relax for me, honey. Just relax.”
When she inhaled deep, he slid his saturated thumb around the rim of her ass. At the same time, he slipped two fingers deep inside her pussy and sucked her clit into his mouth. Thoughts of right, wrong, forbidden, acceptable, scrambled in her brain. The soft sucking and alternating flicks had her body lurching toward him as he kept up the continual slow circles around her tight rosette.
Nerves she’d never considered flamed to life and she grew more restless. When he began kissing her pussy as he would her mouth, Eve slammed her head back into the pillow, her body shaking.
“Come for me, Eve,” he ordered before sucking her clit hard.
The words combined with the sucking, the rubbing, kicked off a series of spasms, exploding up her core, over her chest, to her head and down her legs to her toes. She screamed his name and felt her body bathe him with a heavy flood of arousal.
Where Jake usually brought her down slow, worked her until she calmed, tonight he didn’t.
As soon as she came, he got to his knees, lifted her up and turned her away from him so her back was to his front.
“Watch through the mirrors, baby.” He maneuvered her body so they knelt in the center of her bed sideways with the mirrors of her closet doors in front of them.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted her hands. Wanted to touch him, hold him to her. The sexy chuckle in her ear brought tears to her eyes. She just...needed at this point.
“Relax, sweetheart. Not your call. Now bend over. Hands in front of you. Rest your forehead on your hands, ass in the air. If you need to see me, look up, baby. The mirror’s right in front of you, but I want your ass in the air.”
Holding her hips, he helped her down until her forearms were braced on the mattress, her head resting on top of her tied hands and her ass high in the air. The throbbing throughout her body kept her head from getting in the way, from not thinking about the vulnerable, exposed position he’d put her in.
Until he moved away from her and off the bed.
“Jake!” She cried and glanced around her arm at him.
“I’m right here, honey. Right here.”
The rustling of clothes behind her should have settled her down, but it only made her shake harder. The anticipation of feeling him against her, deep inside her, intensified the searing pain in her core, demanding to be filled. Never before had she hurt this bad. Never before had she needed him inside her as she did in this moment.
As the mattress dipped behind her, she spread her legs more, offering herself to him.
“Now isn’t that a beautiful sight.” He rubbed her ass cheeks, over and over. The calluses on his hands soothing and stimulating her skin at the same time. With two fingers, he pushed inside her needy body a few times, before pulling them out. “Mmm. That’s how I need you, baby, dripping wet.” Pulling his fingers out, he brought them to her rear entrance and rubbed them both around the tight puckered opening, coating her with her own lubrication and keeping the stimulation steady with his thumb.
When the smooth tip of his cock pushed through her swollen pussy lips, the head rubbing over her sensitive clit, she reached her hands out and pushed her face and chest into the mattress, moaning long and loud, trying not to push back into him.
“Don’t hold back, Eve. I want to hear what I do to you, how good you feel. Look up. Now.” To emphasize the demand, he slipped just the tip of his cock inside her entrance, just enough to set the nerves inside on fire.
She wept with need as her body clenched down on him, the contractions grew harder and faster with each pass of his thumb over the sensitive skin of her ass.
He wrapped one hand around her hip and pulled her back against him. “Push back into me, baby.”
Needing no further invitation, she leaned back, her breath catching as he thrust his heavy cock deep inside her. When the stretch became too much at the sudden invasion, he let go of her hip and brought that hand down hard on her left ass cheek. The pain of the stretch inside her mixed with the sharp sting of the slap and she jolted up on her forearms.
“Jake!”
Jake’s hand on her lower back slowly pushed her back into position.
“Easy, just feel. Does it hurt? Think before you answer me.”
Long and slow, he pulled out and slid back into her as he rubbed her sore cheek with one hand and continued that erotic circle around the rim of her ass with the other.
“No.”
The rubbing soothed the pain of the slap, the stretch built her body back up in seconds, and his thumb circling her back entrance brought about a fresh flood of arousal.
“Can you feel that? Can you feel how wet you are?”
Her only response was to push back into him harder. When he picked up the pace and buried himself to the hilt, Eve couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Jake—please!”
Reaching a hand around her hip, he rubbed the place where their bodies connected, gathering her arousal on his fingers before caging her clit between two fingers. When she gasped and buried her face in the mattress, her body quaking from the triple stimulation, Jake stopped moving.
“Honey, look at me. Look up.”
When she met his gaze in the mirror, he pulled his cock almost all the way out, leaving an empty feeling.
“I want you to push back into me. Take a deep breath, let it out and push back into me.” Releasing her clit, he kept his hand there, running small wet circles over the tight bud.
Keeping her eyes locked to his, she took a deep breath in and slowly pushed back into him. As the breath left her body, Jake surged into her hard and the thumb he’d been running around the outside of her ass breached her opening at the same time. Not a lot, but enough that the foreign sensation stopped her cold.
“Don’t stop. Keep coming back. Take this for me, baby. I know you can.” In and out, he penetrated her ass with the tip of his thumb.
Having never had anything inside that area of her body, the penetration felt foreign. It was uncomfortable and at complete odds with the extreme pleasure of his cock steadily sliding against the upper wall of her channel. The slow, hard thrusts of his dick and the steady circles on her clit short-circuited her brain. His thumb shallowly dipping in and out of her tight rosette not only awakened nerves she’d never known she had, but emotions buried deep flooded over her.
Groans turned to cries, cries turned to pleading. “Jake! I need—I need you...harder.”
“A little more, baby. Take a little more for me first and I’ll fuck you as hard as you need.”
Her body raged out of control and the only thing holding her to any sort of comprehensible present was his rhythmic triple stimulation, his confident strokes on all three places on her body. As his cock surged out, his thumb pushed in a little farther. The alternating penetration forced her to open her mouth wide to even breathe correctly.
He pressed his thumb a little deeper on her long exhale, his hand rested on the top of her ass cheek giving him complete control of how deep he went. When he pressed deeper still, his thumb met resistance and she unconsciously tightened against the intrusive presence. He slowed his strokes down, thrusting his thick cock slow and downward against her G-spot.
“Breathe, honey. Give it a second. A little farther and it’ll feel so much better.”
Wet fingers worked her clit harder, at last giving her the direct stimulation she needed. She groaned into the comforter as her muscles began to let up around his thumb. He stopped moving completely, his cock pulsing inside her, stretching her walls more as he circled her clit harder, faster. He’d gotten her so wet and so distracted, his thumb slipped past the tight forbidden barrier before she could register it. After a quick sting of pain, discomfort turned into a dark, vulgar need that consumed her. Harder. She needed him to move harder.
When her eyes met his in the mirror, a sexy smirk slid across his lips. “That’s it baby. Pain’s gone.”
“Yes,” she wept. “Yes.” He began working his cock again in slow, hard thrusts, as he rubbed her clit in tight small circles. His cock, his finger and his thumb, played her body like a well orchestrated symphony he was in complete control of.
Eve gripped the comforter between her tied hands so hard she began to lose circulation in her fingers.
“Jake! Oh God!”
She pushed back into him and held on for what felt like her last minutes on earth. Her mind checked out and she gave herself over to his care completely, confirming what she’d known since the second he touched her with an intent other than friendship. She belonged to him and him alone.
“Mine. You’ll always be mine, Eve. Your body. Your pussy. Your heart. This gorgeous ass. All mine.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks and into her open mouth. “Yes! Only you. Please!”
“Come, baby. Show me who you belong to.”
It was a claim. One she willingly accepted and cherished. Her blood raced in time with her breathing, her body raged like a volcano, and all three places where he touched her, penetrated her, owned her, exploded with a force that left her collapsed atop the mattress. Barely moving her head to the side, she gasped as her body strangled his.
“I love you, Jake. I love you so much.”
The second her torso dropped the bed, Jake gently pulled his thumb out. She gasped at the emptiness flooding her until he grabbed her hips with both hands and drove into her, right through her orgasm. Her legs became limp and spread farther, his balls slapped against her wet pussy as he buried himself inside her swollen channel, over and over as her body milked his and pulled him over the top with her. With a few final thrusts, his chest came down hard against her back, pushing them both into the mattress.
He lay there for a second before turning over and taking her with him. He brought her arms down on her chest and blindly unbound her hands. As soon as the tie was gone, he wrapped his hands around her wrists and gently rubbed the area where they’d been tied.
“Baby, sit up.” His hands dropped to her hips. “Turn. Slow!” He chuckled into her hair before pushing her shoulders up. “Turn around to me.”
Orienting herself, Eve pushed up the rest of the way and turned, slowly lifting one leg over his chest, so she straddled him and laid back down, her ear over his heart. He was still deep and semi-hard inside her, his body twitching with each clasp of hers around him. She wedged her arms under his head and he wrapped her up, kissing her forehead. Rolling her over so he was on top of her, he rested between her wet thighs.
He framed her face with his hands and kissed the tip of her nose. “You back with me?”
“Mmm…” Eve sighed. “I’m always with you.”
Firm lips slammed down on hers, his tongue thrusting inside as if to reestablish she was his. He pulled back, hands buried in her hair, their mouths less than an inch apart.
“Never forget who you belong to, Eve.”
Stretching like a contented cat under him, Eve lifted her heavy arms over his shoulders and wedged her face against his neck.
“You may need to spend a lot of time reminding me, seeing as how you waited so long and all.”
His beard tickled her earlobe. “Be careful what you wish for, love.”
Eve pulled back and looked up into his warm brown eyes. “I know exactly what I wished for Jake. I wished for it over two decades ago.”
His grip tightened in her hair. “Forever starts now, baby. However long that may be.”
Eve stared into the eyes of the one man she’d loved more than half of her life.
“Forever,” she promised, turning her head to run her lips directly across their mirror image permanently etched on his wrist. The one kiss that inevitably bound them together.
THE END