Out of Control (15 page)

“Yes,” he replied, and she swore he not only understood all she’d packed into that word, all the tentative and terrifying notions and emotions behind it, but he was echoing them. “Yes indeed.”

Then he picked up the little leather paddle. “This is a tawse,” he said in a voice that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a classroom, explaining some new concept to a bunch of freshmen. He showed her the instrument, turning it over and around as he spoke. “It has two slappers and a light but stiff core. This style is sometimes called a viper because of the V-shaped slappers. It stings in a different way than a flat cut.”

“Worse?” She swallowed nervously.

She felt him shrug, though she couldn’t see it in her current position. “Just different. Sharper than a flat slapper, with sting as well as thud. Some people love it. Others hate it.” Sprawled across Drake’s lap, she couldn’t see his face, but she bet he smiled, slow and sexy, when he added, “So we’ll have to experiment with both sometime. Compare and contrast.” As he talked, he’d been stroking her sensitized ass with his free hand. On
compare
and
contrast
, he dug his strong fingers into the tender flesh, making her first wince and then sigh as discomfort transmuted to desire.

Then he smacked her ass with the tawse.

The blow was only lightly painful, a mix of sting and thud that felt delicious on her already sensitive flesh, but the loud popping sound made her jump. She giggled as she did, knowing the reaction was all out of proportion to the level of sensation.

“Funny, is it? It’s not supposed to be funny.” He struck again, harder this time.

It still sounded startlingly loud, and she still jumped, even though she knew to expect it, knew the explosion was one leather strip popping against the other and had little to do with how it felt. This definitely hurt more than the first strike. It stung. It seared.

And it faded immediately to a wonderful throb that echoed in her clit. She sighed and wriggled her butt. Her tongue didn’t seem up to forming words, but her actions seemed to get the point across: she wanted more of the tawse.

And he gave it to her. Gave it to her until she wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or cry, or maybe both. The black-and-blue leather striking again and again on her ass and the tender flesh of her upper thighs hurt. She might end up with bruises. But at the same time, she felt wonderful. Floaty. Hot and moist, a swirling combination of crimson and azure. On the edge of danger, because, after all, she was being beaten by someone she scarcely knew, but at the same time, as safe as she’d ever felt in her life. Strong and fragile and brightly colored as one of her own glass sculptures.

The orgasm hit as a surprise. Not a tidal wave. You could see those coming if you were paying attention. More like an earthquake, rumbling up from somewhere deep inside her, somewhere dark yet vivid, leaving her shaken at the most fundamental level. She cried out something as the waves broke inside her, and she dimly realized it was Drake’s name.

Drake’s hand locked in her hair, drawing her head up sharply. “Thought I told you not to come,” he snarled, “before I permitted you to do so.”

Ironically, she clenched, almost pushed over the edge again by the fierceness in his voice.

“Good thing I enjoyed watching you. Don’t let it happen again, though, or I’m walking away for a while and leaving your hands tied behind your back.” One hand was still tangled in her hair, but he used the other to guide her half upright. Then he fell back onto the bed, taking her with him, drawing her into a deep kiss. She arched against him, suddenly desperate for the erection that tented his shorts. If her hands had been free, she’d have undressed him, but as it was, all she could do was move against him and surrender to the power of the kiss.

Drake worked his way down her body, suckling first one nipple, then the other, pushing her toward the brink again. She tried to review the minerals she’d need to color the glass for her next round of projects, tried to distract herself from the sweet pull and tug of Drake’s mouth and the nip of his teeth on her breast, the strength of his fingers as they rolled the other nipple, the sensation building between her legs, from the swirling colors behind her eyes.

She succeeded then, but when he shifted his attention to her clit and slipped two fingers into her pussy, she knew it was hopeless. And he
would
stop, she knew it, would walk away if she came without permission.

So she did something she thought she’d never do. She begged, “Please, may I come? Please let me come…” The embarrassment of asking made her even hotter, or maybe it was the delight of knowing she was doing what he wanted.

“Promise you’ll call me if you’re not coming home.” His fingers continued to pump as he talked.

She nodded frantically. She’d have promised far more outrageous things to get his permission to come.

“This is a rule, Jen. Call if you’re not coming home. Obey it.”

Maybe it was being this close to orgasm that made it not seem weird—it was weird, right? But she gasped out, “Yes. I’ll obey,” and meant it with every cell of her overwrought body.

“Then come, Jen. Come for me.” He licked at her clit, and she burst into brightly colored shards.

While she was still fragmented and floating, Drake slipped away long enough to undress and find a condom. He rolled her onto her side, then entered her from behind. She’d barely noticed him undressing, distracted by the force of her orgasm. She was sorry she’d missed what must have been a good show, and sorrier that she couldn’t watch his muscles strain as he fucked her, observe the expressions of lust on his face, watch him struggle for control, see his storm-gray eyes soften as his own release took him. But the way he moved in her, it didn’t really matter that she couldn’t see. Helpless, her hands bound, she was at his mercy, moving as he moved her, wincing and then smiling every time his hips slammed into her tender ass. Aroused as she already was, it didn’t take long before she found herself on edge again.

“I’m going to… I need to… Please….” She couldn’t complete a sentence, but Drake knew what she meant.

“With me, Jen. Just a minute.” He thrust into her a few more times, almost brutally. “Come with me!”

And she did.

Drake slipped out of her. He untied her arms, brought them in front of her and retied them with her wrists crossed in front of her. The bonds were loose this time, but he extended a rope to one of the D-rings on the headboard, tethering her while allowing her to move around a bit. The rope’s sweet embrace and Drake’s focus kept Jen floating, her pussy still twitching with aftershock. Her brain slowed to the point her exhaustion could finally catch up with her.

Slowed enough that Drake slipped out of the bed before she registered he was on the move. “Sleep,” Drake whispered, pulling the sheet over her. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?” she murmured, fighting the weariness, wishing she could pull him back down to the bed.

“Downstairs to my study. It’s still early. I have things to do.”

“So do I. At least more unpacking.” She struggled to sit up, which was hard between her bound arms, the lassitude brought on by good sex and utter exhaustion.
 

Drake gently pressed her back down. “What could you possibly do now that you couldn’t do tomorrow, and do better since you’d be more awake?”
 

Jen thought for a few bleary seconds and couldn’t answer the question. “Trick question,” she finally responded.

“Yell if you need to pee. Otherwise, I’ll untie you when I come back. I’ll be nearby. Even you can’t do too much tied to the bed with your hands bound, other than sleep.”

“And fuck. And get spanked.”

He grinned suddenly, his severe face looking much younger. “Yes, all that too. But now it’s time to sleep. I’ll be back soon.” He kissed her forehead, not giving her a chance to try to seduce him into staying, and turned out the light as he left the room.

She listened to his footsteps on the stairs, but she was asleep before he reached the first floor.

A short time later, she woke to find Drake, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, standing over the bed. “Join me? Please?” she said, wishing she could pat the side of the bed, but at the same time, enjoying the immobility.

“I brought you something.”

“Oh, I bet you did.” She glanced in the general direction of the cock that bulged against the shabby khaki. He stepped away, smiling flirtatiously as he did. He unzipped, not slowly and teasingly, but as if the shorts confined him and he had to get them off before they burst away. He let them fall to the floor casually, without a bit of ceremony, and stepped out of them as if nothing much had happened.

Then he paused and let Jen look her fill. She wouldn’t say he was posing, exactly, but when a man built like Drake got naked and invited you to take a good look, he didn’t need to strike some sexy-model pose. He was erotic art embodied, standing in front of her, painted by soft twilight through the window, just out of easy reach and in that strange moment, no more touchable than a statue in a museum. Looking was enough.

The moment stretched sweetly. Jen sighed.

As she did, her stomach growled, breaking the mood a bit. But only a bit because Drake said, “Now I’m going to do something I very rarely do.”

Chapter Twelve

Jen licked her lips in anticipation, trying to imagine what exotic, sensual delight Drake might be fetching from just outside the bedroom door, what a guy like him might “very rarely do” but want to do with her, now, while she was tied up.

Then, with a dramatic flourish, he produced a pizza box from The Nines in Collegetown. He must have had it delivered while she napped. A rich fragrance redolent of tomato and basil, toasty cheese and fresh crust wafted over to her, and she realized she was starving.

She laughed hysterically.

“I almost never eat in bed,” he said, setting the tempting box on a small folding table he must have set up while she was still asleep. “But tonight I’ll make an exception. I got half veggie and half cheese—I thought about sausage, but I wasn’t sure you ate meat.”

“I’ll eat your meat anytime.” She wiggled her eyebrows but surprised herself with the real heat in what was supposed to be a silly comeback. “I’m omnivorous, but veggie and cheese sounds great.
Food
sounds great.” She wiggled, not even attempting a seductive effect, and raised her bound hands as far as she could. “Could you get me out of this, please? Otherwise I’m going to dive on that pizza like a starving grizzly, and I promise you it won’t be pretty.”

“Not yet. Plain cheese or veggie?”

“Veggie. Come on, Drake, don’t tease me with pizza I can’t reach.” The rope, welcome and sexy earlier, became an instrument of torture. She probably could eat with her hands tied, but the box was just out of reach. She strained for it, hoping Drake had underestimated her agility. He had, by a hair, but she’d underestimated the speed he could move the pizza away. Damn martial arts. The ropes tugged against her as she reached the literal end of her tether.

“I’ll feed you. Just be patient.” He smiled a slow, sexy smile as he set the box down again.

“Not fair to taunt,” Jen growled. Underneath frustration, she discovered fluttering low in her belly that had nothing to do with incipient starvation. She wanted that pizza, but she had to admit she enjoyed knowing she was at the mercy of Drake’s whim and his ropes.

“Who’s taunting?” Drake opened the pizza box, sending more of the tantalizing smell to fill the bedroom. He selected a piece of pizza with what seemed to Jen to be inordinate care. Then, one hand supporting it from below so it didn’t sag and spill its load of toppings, he brought the slice to Jen’s lips.

Pizza wasn’t on high on the list of foods Jen considered sexy. Sushi or asparagus or chocolate-dipped strawberries or raw oysters, sure, but not pizza. But this was a slice of Italian-American sensory overload, topped with cheese, sauce, mushrooms, peppers, caramelized onions and eggplant.

It was blissful to be this hungry and eat this pizza, to have the flavors exploding in her mouth so she tasted red and green and the earthy beige of deep-dish crust. And absolutely decadent bliss to be tied up and naked in her lover’s bed and have her lover feed her this pizza of the gods. She savored each delectable bite as Drake fed her.

Melted mozzarella stretched from the pizza in Drake’s hand to her as she bit off a tasty morsel. Cheese dripped down her chin, and she and Drake both laughed as he swirled it back to her lips. She couldn’t suckle his finger the way she wanted to, not with her mouth full of pizza, but after she captured the cheese, he ran his finger over her lips, and it felt like a gooey, greasy, delicious promise.

The flavors exploded as she chewed: hot, herbaceous, slightly spicy tomato sauce, messy cheese, thick crust that was both chewy and crunchy, fruity olive oil, sweet red pepper, earthy mushroom. She’d never been as aware of each individual flavor in a bite of pizza and how they blended to a harmonious whole. The Nines made good pizza, but it had never been as good as it was now, with Drake feeding it to her, taking a bite of his own slice and sitting back to watch her chew, then feeding her again.

She couldn’t get over his expression as she ate. Like she was a work of art that appealed to him on some instinctive level that he was now trying to
get
, to study until it made sense intellectually as well as on a gut level. It freaked her out, but in a good way.