Chapter Two
Sloane
There used to be a time when my boyfriend wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as me. There are still nights when he’s particularly restless and I’ll wake to find him gone, but this morning I know he’s still with me. I know because the heavy weight of his arm is over me and I feel like I’m being pinned to the mattress.
I don’t even attempt to move. It’s not as though I feel trapped. Rather, I feel safe, so why would I want to escape? I close my eyes and allow myself to drift, listening to the muffled sounds of snow sliding off the roof mixed in with Zeth’s even, steady breathing.
This is what heaven feels like. By the time dawn breaks properly, I can sense that he’s waking up. He doesn’t shift or tighten his grip around me. The rhythm of his breathing remains the same. I’m just suddenly aware that he is there, his consciousness present alongside mine, whereas before it wasn’t.
After a long time, he rolls his head across his pillow so he can lay a kiss on my shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Dr. Romera,” he tells me, his voice husky from sleep.
“Merry Christmas to you, too.” I wriggle backward, butt first, nestling into the curve of his body, and he lets out a sleep-filled groan.
“You keep doing that and you’ll be having problems walking for the rest of the holidays.”
“I have a few days off.” I bite my lip, trying to hide the smile from my voice. “Walking’s overrated anyway.”
“Is that so?” He leans down and kisses me on my shoulder again, but this time he teases his teeth across my skin, biting me lightly. His arm snakes around my waist, taking hold of me. “Michael’s coming over this morning. I’m gonna call and tell him not to bother.”
“Don’t you dare. It’s Christmas day and he stayed back in Seattle to help you with the gym. We’re his family here. He’s spending Christmas day with us.”
Zeth grumbles inarticulate things into my neck. I think some of it might have something to do with Rebel being an asshole and not looking after his family. As Zeth’s hot breath skims over my skin, his hands are skimming other parts of my body. Quick, sure fingers travel down my stomach, over my hip, where he lightly teases them over my thigh and up in between my legs.
“Spread them for me,” he growls, deep and low into my ear. I have no problem hearing him this time. I open my legs at his first request, not needing to be told more than once. Zeth makes a pleased sound of approval at the back of his throat. His hands continue on their journey around my body, this time taking a detour in between my thighs, upward, so his fingertips graze against the fine material of my panties. “Are you ready for your Christmas present, Sloane?”
As if he needs to ask. My breathing’s already quickened, my pulse rate speeding away from me. I nod quickly, wrapping my hand around his forearm, willing him to just do it—to touch the hypersensitive point between my legs, where it feels like every single nerve ending in my body originates. “Depends what you’ve got for me,” I say. “And if you’re planning on making me beg for it.”
Zeth is fully awake now. I can tell by the way his muscles have tensed, his body hardening against mine. All of it. I can feel the rigid pressure of his hard-on pressing up against my ass. “You’ll never have to beg me for what I’m about to give you, angry girl. Misbehave badly enough and you can have it whenever you want it. Wait here.”
He springs out of bed, throwing the covers aside so that a blast of cold air hits my back. It’s chilly outside of our little cocoon of blankets, and I immediate miss his hot skin on me. He pads barefoot across the room, the muscles in his back shifting beautifully as he walks. His naked ass—he refuses to sleep in clothes, even though it’s the dead of winter—is the very definition of perfection. He laughs a wicked laugh as he pulls…as he pulls out his black duffel bag from the bottom of the wardrobe. My heart starts knocking against my ribcage like it’s trying to get out.
“What are you doing?” I ask warily.
When he turns around, Zeth is working his fist up and down his hard-on, grinning darkly. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
I don’t bother answering him. I push myself up in the bed, half considering leaping out of bed and making a break for it. I get like this—a thrill of adrenalin zips through my body every time I see that damn bag sitting there in the bottom of our wardrobe. I’m always either stopping myself from opening it up or stopping myself from running away.
“Have you been a good girl this year, Sloane?” Zeth rumbles, stalking his way toward the bed. Toward me. “Or have you been…bad?”
I cover my mouth with my fingers, holding my breath. “What’s the right answer here? I get the feeling there isn’t one.”
A moderately sinister smile spreads across my boyfriend’s face. He’s reached the bed now. He’s lowering the bag down onto the foot of it, moving with calculated caution as he takes hold of the handle and slowly begins to unzip…
“It doesn’t really matter,” he says. “You’re getting the same treatment either way. Close your eyes.”
We play this game of chicken, where I pretend I’m braver than he thinks I am, and I do everything he asks me to first time. Today it’s much harder to comply, though. I’m a little perturbed by whatever he might be pulling out of that duffel this morning.
“Sloane?” Zeth tips his head to one side, lifting an eyebrow. I close my eyes, my pulse throbbing in every part of my body as the bed dips and he climbs up onto it. “Open your mouth, angry girl,” he whispers.
I do it. I can taste the saltiness of him as he teases the very tip of his cock over my lips. Over the tip of my tongue. This…this is something I can handle quite happily. I duck my head forward, ready to take all of him into my mouth, but Zeth grabs a handful of my hair and jerks me back.
“Ah ah ah. You haven’t earned that yet.”
“Fucking—” I bite back the urge to call him something bad.
Zeth stoops down over me, pulling at my lower lip with his teeth. “Such a dirty mouth.”
There are a million comments I could come back with here, but I know him. He’s in a playful mood and I don’t want to rile him. I gasp, flinching against the delicious pain of his teeth pulling at my flesh, his hand pulling at my hair.
He draws back a second later, and then I feel the cold, hard sting of steel against the skin of my wrists. Handcuffs. Zeth cuffs my hands over my head, making appreciative noises as the covers fall away from my body to reveal my naked breasts. The cold doesn’t seem to matter anymore. All that matters is what Zeth pulls out of that bag next.
He doesn’t make me wait long. The rest of the covers are ripped from the bed, and then it’s just me cuffed to the headboard, vulnerable and on show, while he positions himself over me. “You want this, angry girl?” he whispers, his breath hot and fast against my cheek.
I nod, my head swimming with the need to open my eyes. That’s part of the game, though. If I open them, I’ve disobeyed him. If I resist and keep them closed, I’ve done as I’m told.
These days, half the game is waiting to find out whether I’m going to be receiving pain or pleasure. I’ve given up pretending that I prefer the later. I’m always torn between the two, wanting the delirium of the pleasure washing over me, but also the furious sting of the pain lighting my body up and making me come alive. It’s almost as though I can’t have one without the other these days.
I nearly jump out of my skin when Zeth presses something cool and hard against the inside of my leg. “I need you on your front,” he tells me. “Be a good girl and get up onto your knees. Now.”
I spin over, my wrists twinging a little as the cuffs dig into my skin.
“Good. Now spread those legs for me. And bend over.”
Heat flushes up through me, half embarrassment, half anticipation. I have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed anymore. Zeth’s explored every single part of my body from every single angle possible, but exposing myself to him like this is always a little confronting. He hums as he places his hands on my ass and lowers himself, ducking down so he can run his tongue over the very center of me, licking my pussy.
“So. Fucking. Sweet,” he growls.
He loves going down on me, has done since our very first encounter. My body is shaking with the tense pleasure of his tongue working over me by the time he decides I’ve had enough. He straightens himself up and leans into me, resting his cock against my ass cheeks.
“Still got those eyes closed, angry girl?” he rumbles into my ear.
“Yes,” I pant.
“Good girl. Such a good girl.” He’s moving, then, sliding something chilled and solid up the inside of my leg again. It starts to vibrate as he pushes it against the entrance of my pussy. “Get ready,” he tells me. “This is gonna feel very…full.”
He slides whatever he has in his hand—a vibrator, must be—further, further, further inside me until the hilt of it is pressing up against my clit. The intensity of the vibrations increases, sending a shockwave of pleasure rippling over my skin.
“Oh…my…god.”
“We’re not finished yet,” Zeth says. I understand immediately after what he has planned. He thrusts his hips against my ass, the tip of his cock sliding down between my ass cheeks, and I draw in a sharp, nervous breath. I haven’t done this before. Not with something already inside me.
“Trust me?” Zeth asks, pushing a little harder.
I try to slow the thunder of my heart, utterly conflicted by the rolling beginnings of the orgasm building low inside me, and the prospect of how I will cope with what he’s about to do. “Yeah. Yes, I trust you.” I exhale, trying to prepare myself.
A deep breath is not enough, though. The burning heat of the pain that lances through me when Zeth pushes slowly into my ass is overwhelming. I grab onto the headboard, handcuffs digging deep into my skin, and I brace myself against the all-consuming sensation. He’s not even close to being all the way inside me when he stops, leaning around my body to work the vibrator inside my pussy, his other hand working my clit.
“Relax. Breathe, Sloane.” He kisses my shoulder, licking at my skin, growling as I tighten and tense around him. “You say when. You’re in control.”
I don’t feel very in control in my current position, tied to the bed and impaled on his cock, but I know he’s not lying to me. I may not feel in control, but I can make this stop at any moment. I can just say the word and it will be over. But…but I don’t want it to be over.
Because underneath the pain and the burning heat…it feels good.
“Slowly,” I whisper. “Just…go slow.”
So he does. Millimeter by millimeter, Zeth carefully begins to rock against me, easing himself inside. With each and every minute movement of his body against mine, my muscles lose their tension. It’s not long before I’m moving with him, tilting my hips back, testing out the boundaries of what I can take here.
“Fuck. You’re so fucking perfect,” Zeth groans. “This is killing me. I just wanna fuck you so hard. Bury my dick inside you ’til my balls are slapping that tight ass of yours.”
“Then…then do it.” I know I’m going to be living on a knife-edge, regretting and glorying in those words as soon as they’ve left my mouth, but I still say them.
Zeth lets out a carnal, inarticulate sound as he draws himself out of me and then thrusts back inside. He’s shaking, his body vibrating against me as he fucks me. I never thought it would be possible to come like this, but I can feel it building inside me even now. The small pulses of pleasure shooting through me because of the vibrator are intensified a hundredfold by the sound of Zeth’s own pleasure firing through him. It pushes me over the edge.
My arms and legs pull in as my orgasm rips through me like a bullet out of a gun. Zeth’s fingers dig into my ass, fingernails breaking the skin, as he climaxes at the same time. I can feel him pulsing inside me, filling me, claiming me as his.
Neither of us can breathe, speak, move when it’s over. Zeth presses his forehead into my back, fighting to fill his lungs, until I can’t bear him inside me anymore and I twist away. I slump down onto the bed, my hands still held up over my head, and Zeth works to free me.
“You think the neighbors heard?” he asks breathlessly.
“Buddy, if I had any neighbors, they’d have called the police on your ass a long time ago.” My body feels thoroughly stretched and sore in the best kind of way. I collapse on top of him, my head on his chest, my hand over his heart—it’s still galloping inside his ribcage.
“You’re gonna have a heart attack one of these days,” I muse.
Zeth laughs, stroking one hand up and down my sweat-slick back. “If I do, don’t resuscitate me, angry girl. That would be the best fucking way to die.”