0000:00.00…it’s on.
Gus heard John at the door but kept her focus on the red zeros. When he entered the room, his scent found her first, but still, she stared. When he stood just off in her periphery, Gus almost faltered. As much as she wanted to drink in the sight of him with her thirsty eyes, she wanted to show him she could be enough to make him happy more. Enough to love.
When they had opened up about what they wanted, John was genuinely concerned with Augusta trying to be something for him at the expense of herself. She finally admitted, she had wanted to explore for a long time but never felt enough trust with anyone else to do so.
After their one night together, Gus felt she had found what she’d been searching for. It was that confession, above all others, which convinced John to let her try this tonight.
“God, you’re beautiful,” John breathed. “Look at me.”
It wasn’t his words but the way he said them that had her clenching with need. With one finger and a barely there touch, John lined her cheekbone. “Not that I am complaining, but I’ve told you I am dominant, not A Dominant. Same word,” now the back of that same finger explored the other cheek with a feather-light touch, “but not the same thing at all.”
John backed into the dressing chair and sat. Never breaking eye contact, he removed his shoes. He leaned back and untucked his shirt, still staring.
Gus’ eyes shifted to the table beside him, and his followed. When it registered what she was offering, she didn’t have to wait for an answer. John’s steps ate up the space between them, and his lips were devouring her, claiming her.
Owning her.
Gus wasn’t controlling any part of the kiss, not even her own tongue. John held her head where he wanted it, directed her mouth in its movements. Hell, he controlled her very breath by the position of his face. It was just a kiss, but he was in charge of her very soul.
This was the moment she understood and really comprehended all his earlier confessions and explanations. Gus thought in order to please a man like John, you had to be tied up and weak and at the mercy of someone who was addressed as “sir,” but that wasn’t it at all. She had read too many, apparently inaccurate, edgy BDSM books.
Her understanding was flawed and narrow. Gus feared she would have to do certain things she wasn’t sure she could be comfortable with, but that was the furthest thing from the truth. John had tried to express that to her, but she had tunnel vision.
“I understand,” she managed when he backed out of the kiss lightly. “I finally get it.” He didn’t want her to be anything but herself. Letting him take the lead in the bedroom and exploring my boundaries doesn’t mean I’m in a Dom/sub relationship.
“I’m relieved.” Forehead to forehead, she felt a connection flow through them. His relief was palpable. The hand at her neck escaped her notice until it became forceful. “However, just because I don’t demand you call me sir and be kneeling when I get home, I can’t say I would be devastated if you occasionally did it again.”
All contact was broken as he stepped back, all contact, that is, except the hand at her throat. “Can you blame me? Look at you, I think the Rolling Stones sang a song about you.” A whimper escaped her throat when his gaze caressed her body with an appetite only she could sate.
“Ummm, what a sweet sound.” John’s eyes drifted closed, and Gus’ followed as if tethered to his. She startled at the feel of his calloused finger at her clit. It felt amazing, but it didn’t linger. Instead, John pushed it forward…slowly, agonizingly slow…and once it was all the way in her hungry body, it just as slowly retreated. This time, they both whimpered. The hand at her throat tightened.
The speed of his finger didn’t change. Once it exited her body, it continued backwards, slowly, as if he were mapping her by touch. It teased her when it reached her other hole. Circle, pressure, caress. Then just the barest tip entered her on the next pressure. Before she had time to react, it was back to caress.
A ragged breath skittered across her face. When had he leaned forward? “I love that you are willing to explore and play, but I won’t be using any of the toys you so generously laid out in offering.” Her eyes skittered to the toys and lube on the table but returned to John. Always returning to John.
“Tonight, I want to take you with my senses, and only my senses. I want nothing between our bodies except a condom. When you come, I want to smell it, touch it, taste it, feel it, hear it. I want to know that my body made it happen. There will be plenty of time to test both our boundaries, but tonight, it’s about expression not exploration.”
When John finally released her neck, she swallowed a gulp of air. He hadn’t choked her, and it wasn’t anything painful, but her air flow had been restricted.
If that’s what he meant by breath play, yes please. When John had mentioned it, her mind conjured up pictures of rock stars hanging themselves on accident and people she thought who needed help. But that wasn’t it at all. It was invigorating and intensifying. It sounded insane, but she was more in tune with her body with his hand applying gentle pressure.
His touch on her skin was more electric; his kiss was more decadent. It was just more, she had no other way to describe it. It simply made everything more. John started to undress. Gus pulled her knees out from under her and stretched. Once circulation returned to her lower legs, she propped her feet on the foot board and leaned back, catching her weight on her hands to watch the show.
Purposefully letting her knees fall slightly to the side, she gave him a view of just where she needed him most. She watched with laser focus as he slowly uncovered his salt and pepper furred chest; her eyes tracked the thickening and narrowing of it as it arrowed into his now open pants.
Pushing them past his hips, he finally looked up…and stilled. The groan was music to her ears. As much as she enjoyed the sound he made when he looked at her, open for his viewing, she was not enjoying his impression of a statue. She wanted to see him.
She wanted to do him, and that wouldn’t be happening if he didn’t get those pants off. “Earth to John.”
“What,” he said, sounding dumbfounded. Okay, it was a little enjoyable, just not as enjoyable as getting to the main event. It had been too long; and she was tired of waiting.
“Chop, chop.” Then she said something that not only shocked him, but stunned the heck out of her too, “It ain’t going to lick itself.” John finished undressing in a flash.
He caught a condom off the table on his way toward her. His movements were fluid and predatory. He tossed the condom on the bed and shoved her knees further apart before dropping his head between. His inhale was appreciative and exaggerated.
Only his breath touched her there when he exhaled. The sounds he made were that of a man savoring something delicious. Gus squirmed in an attempt to get his mouth on her, but he hovered just out of reach of her questing body.
She couldn’t take anymore. After dropping her back to the bed to free her hands, she grabbed him by the silver hair she loved so much. But he was not to be directed. “What is your neck made of, steel? Please, if you don’t touch me now, I might die.”
Only his eyes moved. “Oh, I’m going to touch you, just not like this.” A quick flick of his tongue left no doubt to his meaning. “But,” he inhaled again, then straightened his back, “first, I am going to touch you with my dick.”
When John wiped his lower lip with his thumb and groaned, Gus quivered. Reaching for the foil packet on the bed, John continued, “Oh, I am definitely going to indulge in that delectable treat before I allow you to rest tonight, but I love being inside your body so, dessert can wait.”
It didn’t escape her notice that he had used the L-word, twice now, but both times were things about her, not her. She would just have to be content with feeling it from him and not hearing it. And she was most certainly feeling it now.
“Now,” he tossed the condom onto her belly, “put it on.”
John stood there regally waiting for her to do as he commanded.
After the package was open, she reached for him, staring at the most delectable cock she’d ever laid eyes on. She just wanted to lick it like a popsicle.
John halted her hand with a firm grip. “With your mouth.”
Augusta kneeling on the edge of the bed was a sight that would burn into his memories. Seeing her there brought all kind of dirty ideas to his mind. So many deliciously dirty things.
Knowing she was comfortable doing them meant the world to him. He spoke the truth when he told her he didn't need to dominate her in the traditional sense to be fulfilled, he just enjoyed being in charge, but he wouldn’t turn it down on occasion, either.
Augusta never ceased to surprise him. She was warm and sweet and innocent, but she was also courageous and just the right amount of raunchy. It was enough. Enough so he felt the right amount of control.
Enough so he didn’t feel trapped.
Enough to finally buy a velvet box.
Just, enough.
John even imagined giving Augusta the reins and letting her direct him. That was a thought that spoke volumes. He had never really entertained the possibility, but Augusta somehow gave him what he needed before he even knew he needed it.
All thought fled when Augusta’s warm mouth wrapped around him. Every single stroke of her tongue as she tried to roll the condom all the way up damn near pushed him over the edge. He was walking a fine line, and when she added a finger to assist in her task, John shoved her to the bed. He finished rolling on the condom and was seated to the hilt inside his own personal Eden before he even remembered moving.
Both were shocked by his action, his impatience. His groan was loud, primal. Even with the overwhelming pleasure clouding his reasoning, Augusta meant more than his own needs. The “ahhh” he forced from her by his thoughtless invasion gave him pause.
Was it pain-laced or just surprise?
“Did I hurt you?” If he had caused her pain, he couldn’t bear it. He attempted to push back and exit her body, but he was halted when her nails dug into his ass. That bordered on pain.
“Don’t you dare.” John tossed her a questioning look. She answered by bringing her body up to his and pulling him down at the same time, grinding against him once their bodies met.
“Ahhh, that wasn’t pain,” she panted as he started to move. John was still skeptical but was helpless to control his own body. “Not the bad kind, anyway.”
Another facet of Augusta was revealed. She was proving to be a very complicated lady, and he was loving every layer he peeled back.
John’s body took over, and he needed to bring her pleasure. He needed her to know how much he loved her, and yes, needed her.
And that didn’t send him into a panic as it used to.
Need was a dirty word to him. Needing someone meant you would be devastated when they were taken away. And in his experience, they were always taken away eventually.
He wasn’t laboring under the delusion that Augusta could never be taken away from him, he was just satisfied with whatever he could have with her in the interim. If she were to walk away from him tomorrow, she would go with his heart, but he would never regret letting himself feel what he was feeling—experiencing the miracle that is Augusta Rain Thorne.
“John, oh God…John,” she called his name in that way he had only just recently became acquainted with but already craved. She was on the cusp of flying. He could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes, and feel it with his cock.
Her body began to ripple around him as he pummeled with purpose. “Ah, fuuuck,” she screamed and convulsed with pleasure—pleasure he had given her. And, she said fuck. The combination of all those things was wrenching the bliss from his body while Augusta was coming down.
Then those words escaped her sweet lips. Words she had whispered to him under the influence. Words he had longed to trust but had not been repeated, so he kept his hope in check. “I love you.” Quiet. Said in the tone of pleasure and exhaustion.
A whispered proclamation that shouted inside his head, resonated inside his body, and echoed in his heart, thrusting him into orgasm with his next inward stroke. Suspended in that moment between pleasure and satiation, he held his body rigid. His voice was frozen, but the sensations were vivid.
The moment relaxed and a sharp, “I love you, too,” flew from his lips as he collapsed on top of her. Still inside her body, aftershocks firing, the undeniability of it all became clear.
John was hers, had always been hers. Even before he was aware of her existence, he was hers.
It was inevitable.
And she was his.
A gentle caress pulled him out of his own head. “Penny for your thoughts.” He could see the slight doubt in her eyes. She thought he was silent because he was regretting his declaration.
Taking her cheeks in his hands created enough space for her to see the truth when he spoke, “I was just thinking how I have always been yours. Utterly and completely. Inevitably yours. I was just too set in my ways to accept it. You’re my own personal paradise, a haven to be myself, and my past doesn’t haunt me there.”
Tears swam in her eyes, and she threw her arms around him. “Oh, John.”
He kissed her silent. “Don’t ‘oh, John’ me, unless I’m between those thighs. I love you, Augusta, and I want you to marry me. I promise to tell you often and show you even more, but that’s about as much mush as I’m capable of. I pray that’s enough for you.”
She silenced him with a finger. “Yes. Yes, to everything. You have always been enough for me, just the way you are. Besides, mush is overrated. And let’s face it, I have enough for the both of us.”
“Well, in that case.” John pinned her arms to the bed beside her ears. He dropped a quick kiss on her nose and levered himself up to stand on the floor. “On your knees, hands clasped in front.”
John turned away, tossed the condom in the trash, and retrieved his jacket from the chair. When his hands encountered the velvet square, he looked back at Augusta. She was as he asked, and he bit his lip at the sight. “Gussy Girl, are you looking at my ass?”
He removed the ring from the box and hid it in his mouth before stepping back into the position that snapped his control earlier. Gus nodded while clamping down on her bottom lip with her pearly whites. Eyes wide, eyebrows high. God, she’s a contradiction, all seduction and innocence. And all mine.
With the ring in his cheek, he spoke carefully, “Well then, if you’re a good girl and do as you’re told, then I’ll happily let you lick it.” He damn near swallowed the ring when her tongue darted out and whispered across the head of his cock then retreated as quickly as it had appeared.
“Hands.” Again, she was immediately compliant. He took her left hand in his, licked up the center of her palm, and sunk her index finger into his mouth. Her eyes sparked, and she whimpered prettily. The other fingers followed, each receiving the same treatment until her ring finger.
It sank in the same as the others, but it came out with his ring on it. Augusta was so caught up in the moment, she didn’t notice until he was sucking on her pinky. John smiled when she squealed and snatched her hand back to examine the promise he put there.
John caught her easily as she leapt of the bed and wrapped her entire body around him. “I love you so much. I don’t think I could be happier.”
“Really?” John asked while they tumbled back down to the bed. “Challenge accepted.”