Chapter Seventeen
It takes me longer than I’d like to admit to realize what he’s up to.
He’s not touching me.
I’d been a bit smug when my standard bathing had been shorter than normal. I’d thought it was because he was so eager to start. I can’t touch emotional intimacy with a ten-foot pole, but sex is my bargaining chip. My finely honed submission is what makes me worth putting up with. I thought he’d put me through my paces to reassure himself that, even if India is off-limits, Kit is open like an all-night diner, but now I’m not so sure.
He ordered me to the center of the room and wrapped cuffs around my wrists, my ankles, my thighs, above my elbows. Surrounded by the familiar trappings of bondage, out of the wreckage of this morning’s emotional turmoil, I had started to salvage excitement and arousal. But instead of clipping together the cuffs, forcing me into some lovely contortion that would allow him to torture me, he’d arranged me like a paper doll: feet slightly more than shoulder-width apart, fingers splayed, palms facing forward and not touching my thighs.
“Whatever happens, you’re not to move. Understood?”
I’d said, “Yes, sir,” half an hour ago, and it’s only now I understand his game. He’s not fucking touching me. He drags silk over my skin again, and I shudder at the feather-light touch. Then comes the many-stranded suppleness of a deer-hide flogger, the cushiony softness of fur, the smooth wood of a well-loved paddle.
He plies me with all of it, but the pleasure I’ve earned from being praised for following instructions and looking so pretty as I do evaporates, replaced by an uncharacteristic flare of irritation. He’s manipulating me and not in a way I care for.
“Close your eyes.”
When I do, he ties the silky fabric around my head. Not the most effective blindfold—I can still distinguish between shadow and light—but it serves a purpose. I don’t know what he’s doing until he tugs something around my waist, then settles it down to where thigh meets torso. An audible click and a final adjustment clue me in: he’s clipped an elastic band around my hips. My realization is followed by the shock of his fingers on me, finally, parting my labia and settling something over my clit.
I don’t have time to enjoy his touch because, as quickly as it came, it’s gone and in its place—
A sudden buzzing on my clit makes my stomach muscles contract, my fists clench, and I suck a breath through my teeth.
“Bad girl,” he scolds, punctuated by the stinging thwack of what feels like a tawse on my ass. Fuck. The buzzing stops, and I relax, able to control my reaction better when it starts up again. “That’s better, pet.”
He toys with me for a while. Starting, stopping, chastising when I’m not prepared for the next spate of sensation and can’t sufficiently mask my reactions—a curl of my fingers, a buck of my hips, a squeak or a sharp intake of breath. Crispin has no way of knowing because, of course, I haven’t told him, but deep down I associate vibes with punishment.
Forcing orgasm after orgasm from me was Hunter’s favorite form of castigation when I’d come without permission. It was impersonal and mechanical, and I hated it. Is that what I was begging him for last night in my dreams? To stop? God knows it made me a quivering mess of pleading in reality. I dreaded it so much it took me months after things had ended with Hunter to be able to masturbate without experiencing a slash of panic when I’d come. When I just couldn’t deal with the anxiety but needed the release, I’d call Rey and he’d give me the green light—sometimes teasing me first because he’s annoying like that.
It’s been long enough that I can take it in the spirit it’s meant if it’s brief and playful, but since the specter of Hunter is in my head and I already feel like I’m being reprimanded, I’m having trouble controlling myself. I dredge up all the coping mechanisms I have—a not inconsiderable list—and try to take it. I think I could if he’d just touch me, if he didn’t seem so detached.
I like many, many things about Crispin, but one of the things I like best is his warmth. Not physically, though I like that, too. But underneath whatever he’s doing to me, there’s care, desire, a general benevolence that I’ve become accustomed to. No, far worse than that. Addicted to.
This act—which my body is responding to even as my mind revolts—he could be performing on anyone. He’s ramped up the intensity on the vibe, and despite my best efforts, my abdomen contracts whenever he turns it on. My knees weaken and my fingertips graze my thighs whenever he stops, meaning I get a slap of the tawse on the way up and the way down. My ass and the backs of my thighs are heated and throbbing, but that’s not why my eyes are watering behind the silk binding.
I need him to stop.
I could tap out, say the word. I’ve said it with him before when a sudden cramp in my leg left me hissing in pain—and not the good kind. He’d released me quickly, eased the spasming muscle. When it was gone and he’d looked me over, we’d started again. Crispin’s not the kind of jackass who gives you a hard time when you actually use your safeword, nor is he one of those bastards who thinks safewords are for chumps. I could say it. I should say it. He’d want me to say it.
Red.
But I can’t because when he’d inevitably ask me what went wrong, what would I tell him? You know that whole intimacy thing you’ve been offering on tap like you’ve got kegs of it to spare? I’ve actually been sneaking sips of it when you weren’t paying attention, and it’s really fucking good. If I were someone else, I’d demand a case. As things stand, I’m too chickenshit to even order a glass.
The bursts of the vibe are getting shorter and shorter as I get closer and closer to coming, and when the latest burst is over, I say, “Sir, please.”
My voice comes out raw, too ugly to be called a whimper, and there’s a beat before he answers me.
“Go on. You’ve been a good girl. You can come.”
My fingernails dig into my palms as he flicks the vibrator on again. Though my body is more than willing—eager doesn’t even cover it—I don’t want to come this way. It’s suddenly very important to me that I not. He could force me. Most of the time, I like it when he pushes me over an edge, urging me into something I wouldn’t dare ask for, but this…I’ll resist.
“I—”
My hands clench and open convulsively, and then it stops. I climb back onto the ledge I’ve been dangling over and catch my breath.
“What, pet?”
“I…”
“Tell me what you want.”
I can’t quite parse the tone of his disembodied voice. Do I detect a hint of mocking? Or is that a trace of pleading? Whatever it’s laced with, it’s an order, and Kit’s required to reply. “I want you to touch me. Please, sir.”
The weight of his hands on my hips forces a moan. “That’s what you wanted?”
“Yes, sir.”
He steers me forward, and I check the urge to put my hands out in front of me. In a few steps, the fronts of my thighs are flush with the back of the couch and his erection presses against my sore ass through the worn denim of his jeans. “I’d suggest you hold on for this.”
The absence of his touch makes need claw at my insides again, but the sound of clothes hitting the floor eases the panic. He spreads me wide open and eases inside before threading his arms alongside my ribs, gripping the fronts of my shoulders tightly. Instead of bracing myself against the leather as he meant, I reach back and weave my hands through his hair, arching my back as he starts to move inside me.
He nips my arm, perhaps as an admonishment, but I tighten my hold instead of letting go and take his answering grunt as approval. The increasingly hard thrusts also smack of endorsement. The vibe is still in place, and when one of his hands leaves my shoulder, I’m not surprised when it clicks on one more time. I let myself unravel as he says, “That’s right, mili. Give it up for me.”
That word again. But my curiosity is smothered by the incredibly intense orgasm wreaking havoc with my body. I didn’t care for the means, but the end…oh god, the end. All the agitation has been crushed under the force of my climax, and a delight I don’t want to think too hard about billows through me as he clutches me tighter.
He mutters endearments and expletives into my shoulder, and I knead my fingertips into his scalp, cradling his skull as he’s cradled mine so many times.
“Mine,” he says, and my heart skips a beat. I lick that droplet off the tap dripping with affection, savor it on my tongue before I swallow it down to pool with the rest, hoping he won’t notice.
* * *
Crispin and I come to a détente for the rest of the weekend. He’s still on edge about his father and annoyed with me for being closed, inaccessible, and I’m stressed by my nocturnal confession, but we don’t have a lot of time to waste. We spend most of Saturday in the studio where he wears me out. Repeatedly. On Sunday after lunch, he calls it early and brings me down to the cove. We cuddle up in the hammock, reading the same book—me on my Kindle, him in paperback. We’re almost in the same place, although Crispin reads more slowly than I do.
It entertains me when I read a passage or a line I think he’ll find funny and then wait for a snort or a gale of laughter minutes later. It’s another secret game of intimacy I get to play. No one has to know how much I love…this. Yes, I love this.