Chapter Twelve
Flynn went to his closet, returning to the bed with a short length of rope in each hand. He knelt at Laurel’s feet, staring until her eyes left the ropes to meet his.
“You trust me?”
She gave it a second’s serious thought, already knowing the answer. “Yes. I do.”
“You want this?”
She nodded.
“Sit up.”
She did. She let Flynn bind her ankles, tie her wrists behind her back—real this time, no way out. He linked her arms with enough slack that when she lay back down her fists rested at her sides, the rope between them pulled taut beneath her ass. She tested the bindings and felt a scary thrill from the sensation, true physical helplessness. The bite of the rope as she tugged was taunting, as cruel as the heat in Flynn’s eyes. His knees were spread wide between her own, hands kneading her thighs. One left to move to his cock, stroking until he was stiff and ready. His gaze roamed from her pussy to her belly to her breasts, up her throat, stopping at her lips. His body followed, strong legs straddling her chest and pinned arms. He angled his cock to her mouth and brushed it across her lips.
“Taste me.”
She laved him, savoring his excitement. He held himself there and she teased his slit, sucked his swollen head until she earned a moan.
“Fuck, that’s so hot. You want more?”
She answered with suction, wrapping her lips tight around him.
“I’m gonna fuck your mouth,” he whispered. “If I do something you can’t handle, use your teeth. You know, gentle—but you let me know.”
She freed her mouth enough to say, “I will.”
He leaned over, braced one arm at the top of the mattress, guided his cock with the other hand. He adjusted his knees until he got the distance right.
She took what he gave her, four thick inches, sucking as his hips slid him out, then back in, setting the pace. She wanted her hands free to touch his body but accepted the frustration, made it part of the thrill. Flynn wrapped a fist around his base, either to keep from thrusting too deep or give himself pleasure, perhaps both.
“That’s so good. Keep taking me. Moan for me.”
She obeyed, offering a deep, thrumming noise as he fucked her mouth. He worked himself deeper a half an inch at a time and Laurel kept the suction hard, finding it eased the gagging. Flynn’s hand moved to his balls. He squeezed and rubbed, making Laurel ache to touch him. She reveled in the warm weight of his thighs against her arms, the presence and energy of him.
“Yeah. Yeah. Take my cock. Suck me.” He put his hand to her face, her temple, her hair. His thrusts came slow, deeper, deeper still until his head bumped the back of her throat, triggering a protest. He pulled out and rested back on his haunches.
“I like seein’ you tied up, sweetheart.”
Heat bloomed in her chest at those words. “Good. Do you want me to pretend I don’t want it?”
“Not tonight. Right now I just want that look. Helpless and hungry.”
He leaned over to grab a condom off the shelf. She watched him roll it down his cock, her body tightening as she studied all that hard muscle, hers by some filthy miracle.
“God, you look amazing,” she whispered.
“You like my body?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I like when you take care of me,” he said. “And I love fucking you more than you can possibly know. You make my cock feel so fucking big when you look at me like that.” He turned her by the hip, coaxed her legs to the side, bent, shoulders still mostly on the mattress. He planted his knees wide behind her ass, a hot palm on her hip as the other hand stroked his erection.
“Fuck me, Flynn.”
“When I’m ready.”
“Please. Now.” She licked her lips, so eager to feel him drive inside and ease the hunger.
He teased his tip up and down the crack of her ass. The hand on her hip slid between her thighs, big fingers finding her wet, getting slick before they rubbed her clit, pinching the hard nub, giving her that mix of pleasure and pain he was so good at.
“I want your cock, Flynn.”
“Be patient.” Wet fingers toyed with her folds, taunted with shallow exploration.
“Fuck patient. Give me your cock.”
“Fine.” Threat, not surrender.
She watched his face, stern and calm as he smeared her wetness between her thighs then all up and down his shaft. “Fine,” he said again, barely audible.
Laurel gasped at the heat of him. Each thick inch pushed between her thighs, drove hard into her pussy until he had no more to give. He held there a full minute, letting her feel him throb and twitch, making her wait.
“C’mon, Flynn, please.”
“Turn onto your side.”
She shifted her shoulders, facing the wall. His dick slid out, all the way out, then rammed back in to the hilt.
“God, yes—”
A mean tug on the rope binding her wrists stole her breath. It pulled her arms back, tweaked her top shoulder and sent a little burst of pain like static shock straight down to her fingertips.
“Don’t rush me,” he warned.
“I need more.”
Another tug, slow this time, stopping when Laurel gasped at the strain.
“You know how I feel about impatience.”
She held her tongue, relieved when he let the rope go. His hands grasped her hip and waist, kept her still as he started to fuck.
He kept his composure a few moments before a harsh, hissing breath told Laurel the pleasure was undermining all that cold control.
“God, I fucking love your cunt.”
She squeezed herself tighter around him, earning a fierce grunt, then a hard slap on the ass.
“Keep it tight like that,” he ordered.
Laurel obeyed, making her pussy a fist, intensifying the pleasure for both of them. He spanked her again.
“Flynn.”
“That’s right. Say my name. Tell me who’s fucking that tight cunt.”
“Flynn.” Each time she said it, his palm came down with another slap. By the tenth strike the sting turned savage, teetering on the threshold between pleasure and true pain. She winced, held his name back, unsure if she could expect another slap for disobeying.
Instead she felt a tug at the bindings. She steeled herself for the punishment, but after a few seconds’ fumbling her wrists were free, the rope gone. Flynn’s cock left her and she flexed her fingers, circulation returning as he moved to untie her ankles. She turned onto her back and he knelt between her thighs, spreading them wide, cock driving home.
“Touch me,” he said.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.” He was frantic, all that cool self-possession gone, his face buried against her shoulder. “Just want your hands on me.”
She slid one to his ass, fisted his hair in the other. She tugged until he brought his head back and she kissed him, rough, ending with a little bite on his lower lip.
“I wanna get fucked,” he moaned.
“Yeah?”
He flipped them over, lay back while Laurel found her balance, straddling his hips. She fanned her fingers over his ribs, knowing he could handle her weight as she took charge of the sex.
“God, yeah. Use me, sweetheart.”
They fell nearly silent, lost in each other’s bodies. A slideshow of emotions flashed across his face—need, pleasure, desperation, then warm and unmistakable fondness. He smiled up at Laurel, looking drunk.
“What?”
“You mean what you said? About looking for jobs?”
“Yeah.”
He made a greedy noise and grinned, hands guiding her hips for a handful of thrusts.
“And maybe after another month or two and a fresh pair of blood tests,” she added, “you might get that other wish of yours.” She clenched her pussy tight and gave his cock slow, long pulls, imagining how he’d feel, releasing inside her, bare.
He grabbed her waist and moaned, pushing deep.
She watched his eyes close, his face turn helpless. And she wanted him. Wanted to be here to patch him up, to call him on his bullshit and get called out in return, to explore the darker depths of her mind and body with this patient, real, occasionally obnoxious man.
“I love when you look this defenseless,” she murmured.
His voice was shallow and scratchy. “Not many women ever manage to get me on my back.”
“You better keep me around then.”
“Why d’you think I was so keen to tie you down?” The words hitched with his uneven breaths. “Fuck, Laurel.”
The sound of her name—those two choked syllables rising from his throat as he gave her all the power… It felt like a filthy, sacred proclamation. She stared at his strained face. Fall in love with me.
“Laurel.”
Fall in love with me.
“You keep—looking at me like that—and I swear—I’ll let you wear the pants—any night you want.”
She froze in mid-stroke, holding him still, locked deep inside her body. She grinned down at his sweaty face. “Beg me.”
“Laurel.”
“Beg me and I’ll make you come so hard you’ll lose your fucking mind.”
He sounded as though he already had. “Please. Fuck me, please.”
She eased her pussy off his cock then claimed his hard length again, rough.
“God, fuck. Please, Laurel.”
“Fall in love with me.” Horror slapped her in the face as the words tumbled from her subconscious into the air between them.
“I will,” he grunted, still panting, still lost in the fucking.
“I didn’t mean that.”
He laughed. “Fine. But you keep treating me the way you have been, and I will. Whether you like it or not.” He groaned. “But I won’t say it in the middle of getting my brains fucked out, so relax.”
She didn’t reply, just kept her body moving as her mind overheated. As always, he could read her. Her fears stacked up like bricks between them but he took the wheel. He flipped them over, gave her the reassurance of the bed against her back and his weight on her body, the relief of not being in charge.
“Come for me, sweetheart.” He braced his weight on one arm so he could slip his other hand between them and tease her clit. “Come for me.”
“Make it rough.”
He did, and when she came apart it was from his strength, his smell, his heat, the shock of that extraordinary body laboring above her. He chased her release with his own, racing home in a greedy rush, his moans filling her ears.
“Fuck,” was all he said, and as Laurel couldn’t sum it up any better, she concurred.
“Fuck indeed.”
For a long time they lay side by side, fingers twined, breaths steadily slowing, skin cooling. Then he sat up, letting go of her hand. “Get dressed.”
His tone didn’t worry her. She wasn’t getting the boot. She left the bed and found her panties, tugged them up her legs. Her wrists were rubbed pink, same as her ankles, and though she didn’t relish explaining it to Anne, she knew she’d miss that color when it faded.
Flynn was also dressing, and they pulled their shirts on in unison.
She looked to him expectantly.
“Shoes,” he said.
“Okay. Any clues, here?”
“Nope. Use the can and grab yourself a beer.”
She did as she was told, emerging to find him waiting near the exit, keys in hand and a fleece throw slung over his arm.
“Late night picnic?” she asked.
“Not exactly. Hold this,” he said, handing her the blanket.
“What, then?”
“Patience, sub shop girl.”
She rolled her eyes but followed him out into the hall. He headed for the elevator only to surprise her, passing it and hauling open the door to the stairwell. He surprised her further when he led her up the steps, not down.
“O-kay.”
Up one flight to the sixth floor, and up one more, into darkness. He paused to fiddle with his key ring, switching on a tiny flashlight. Its bright LED beam bounced up the last of the steps, to where the stairs ended at a landing before a metal door. An open padlock was hooked through a latch above the handle. Flynn slid it free, tucked it into his back pocket.
The door swung open with a soft whine and Laurel found herself staring out across the old factory’s vast roof. Flynn helped her navigate a steep step down, their shoes alighting on gritty tarpaper.
“This is quite a liability,” she said, looking around.
“It’s supposed to be kept locked,” Flynn said, “but the maintenance guy smokes like a chimney up here. It’d only slow him down. C’mon.”
He led her to the far edge, the side facing northwest—downtown. He took the blanket from her and lay it on the ground, and waved an arm to invite her to sit.
She did and he sat beside her, hip to hip. Laurel held her bottle and gazed out across the city lights, and neither of them spoke for a long time.
It was one of those sultry summer evenings when the temp probably wouldn’t drop below the eighties, but it felt good. The breeze caressed her bare arms like a lover’s sweet nothings—warm and wistful, raising goosebumps. South Boston bustled six stories below, peppering the night with the far-off honk of a car, the rattle of a bus, the whir of a hundred air conditioners.
After a sip of her beer, Laurel asked, “Why are we up here?”
“To find out how we do.”
“How we do…?”
“How we do, outside of that bed. How we are with each other. Who we are with each other.”
“All right. And who are you, just now?”
“Just a guy. On a roof. What about you?”
“Just a woman. Kinda giddy. Kinda…I dunno. I feel funny.”
“Like?”
“High? Weird, but in a nice way. Tiny and exposed and…naked. Up here.”
“Left your sweater downstairs, huh?”
She nodded, tipped the bottle to her lips again. “I think I like it.”
“You freaked yourself out, didn’t you, saying what you did, in bed? When you told me to fall in love with you?”
Her cheeks burned. “It just slipped out.”
“I’ve said way more messed up shit to you when we’re fucking.”
“Yeah, but that’s different. That’s role-playing.”
“You think you were gonna scare me off?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“Don’t be. Only thing that scares me is airplanes.”
“I can’t help it. My worries shout louder than my common sense.”
He nodded. “That’s fair.”
“I’m… I get like that sometimes,” she admitted. “I get scared, when I start to care. Caring feels like standing on the ledge of this building, almost. Dangerous. Or precarious.” Dizzying, as well, with a hell of a view. “You should know going into whatever this is, I’m hardwired for depression. I keep busy and I hold it at bay most of the time, but my head can be my own worst enemy. Not always, but sometimes. It comes in waves.”
“You ever been suicidal?”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel despair, when I’m sad. Just…emptiness. I don’t make the best friend when I’m in that space, and I doubt I’d make a great girlfriend.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“I just want you to know, after what you went through with Robbie.”
“Thanks. But the way I look at it, not every day’s gonna be eighty degrees and sunny. That just ain’t possible. And I’m not gonna run at the first sign of storm clouds.”
If only it felt that simple when Laurel was going through a dark patch… Still, a charming little philosophy.
After a short silence she asked, “What do you feel, when you’re boxing?”
“Chemicals,” he said simply.
“Not emotions?”
“Not in the ring. They only mess you up. All I feel in there is adrenaline and bloodlust.”
“Sounds…pure.”
“It is. Fighting and sex. Only drugs I need.”
“Maybe I need to find that thing. That thing that shuts my brain up.” The role-playing had that power. She wanted to keep exploring that, but maybe there was another way to get there, something she could do on her own. Running or drawing or spin class or meditation. Something she could lose herself in, blessedly thoughtless.
Flynn moved, shuffling to sit behind her, splaying his legs out in a V and wrapping his arms around her waist. She felt the sweet rasp of his jaw at her temple, breathed in the now familiar scent of his skin.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “For this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Or actually,” he said, squeezing her tighter, “be as ridiculous as you want. I’ll keep buying you beer and driving your ass home.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Now might be a good time to try out that mouth guard.”
Another squeeze.
“You bring all your conquests up here?” she asked.
“Only the ones who cook me chicken pot pie.”
“Hm.”
“You staying the night?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Laurel sighed, dropping her head back against his shoulder to stare up into the darkness, finding it disappointingly deserted. A plane blinked its way across the sky, but light pollution muted whatever grand show the heavens might be putting on.
“Feels like there ought to be stars out, on a night like this.”
“There are,” he said, pointing toward Boston and its countless glittering lights. “Better than stars, even.”
Miles away, Fenway was a purple glow. The city seemed at once vast and tiny from here. The fact that the two of them had found each other in this big brick maze was really quite remarkable. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. This manmade galaxy was magic enough.
“Feel better?”
“I do, thanks. That stuff with my mom… It just hits me, sometimes.”
“Sure. Family’s a mind-fuck. Trust me, I know. Plus everything we’ve been doing, it takes a lot out of you. You’re stripping yourself bare, way, way down past your clothes.”
That was true, she supposed. She’d submitted to his appetites and his will, spread her body and mind and heart wide open and welcomed him inside. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if some old vulnerabilities slipped out. The price of admission, really.
“I’m supposed to tell you,” Flynn said, “there’s gonna be a party next Sunday on Castle Island, for Kayla’s birthday. Barbecue. Heather said you’re welcome as long as you bring a side.”
“You want me to come?”
“I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t. And like you said about your depression, probably best if you know what you’re getting yourself into from the get-go. Our family’s an acquired taste.”
“Nothing a couple beers can’t remedy, I’m sure. I’ll bring potato salad.” Plus a helping of cautious optimism, because this felt very much like girlfriend territory. A few more invites like this one and Laurel might find herself in the market for a second toothbrush.
For a long time they sat without speaking, the sounds and smells of the city washing over them. Laurel felt her worries grow lighter, lighter, until they were nothing more than dandelion fluff, slipping away, caught on the sultry breeze. The storm clouds roll in, the storm clouds roll out. And as her mind quieted, her body grew restless.
She turned her head, temple brushing his cheek. “Let’s go back down.”
“You cold?”
“No.” Far from it. “I want you to take me to bed.”
“Do you now?”
“Show me more of what you like.” Take me way down deep into the dark. Help me find some new piece of myself there.
He stood and helped her to her feet, and they gathered the blanket and bottle and crossed the roof hand in hand.
The things this man craved could be blacker than the sky above them, rough enough to bruise and sharp enough to sting.
And tonight they were hers to give. Hers alone.