Out of Control (24 page)

She figured she was probably sleeping less than ever, since she was skipping her afternoon naps to spend time with Drake, but postcoital dozes between the studio and the bakery, while short, were sound and refreshing.

They’d talked a bit more about rules, but so far Drake had set only a short list in stone: no coming without permission when she was with Drake (he had no problem with masturbation); call if she was going to be later than usual or miss out on plans; lock the door when she left the house; wear her bike helmet; be respectful in public; and, of course, pay her taxes on time. She’d set up a color-coded chart with checklists to help her keep track of things, but the current rules seemed pretty easy to remember. All common sense except the orgasm-control one, and that was perversely erotic, which made it pretty much unforgettable.

To her surprise, she’d found herself agreeing to things she never thought she’d do.

Not just in bed. She wasn’t especially surprised when she found herself game to try crazy new sex games.

But out of bed. Things like letting her hair revert to its natural color. Wearing heels sometimes at home. She had a pair she’d carted around for years because they were aesthetically pleasing, but she never actually wore the elegant black pumps until Drake told her to. Cleaning in nothing but an apron, though that had lasted for about five minutes before Drake tackled her. Uncluttering surfaces in her apartment.

It was weird. But good. Definitely good. Even though he was the one making rules and demands, Drake was always open to
suggestions
. Especially sexy ones, or fun ones, like a nighttime picnic down by the lake.

It had been a good few weeks. But my God, she was tired.

Jen had just finished another simple vase, this one a delightful tangerine color that she was quite proud of, when the studio began to spin. She clutched the workbench, focused on the stream of light coming in a high window, and tried to remember the last time she’d eaten.

Lunch? Breakfast? No… She’d missed both of those. She’d stopped at the house after her bakery shift, desperately in need of a shower after the wrong kind of hot night. While she was there, having yet another coffee, she checked her e-mail and found a couple of eBay orders. Of course they were for items she had at the studio, not at the house. She’d pedaled like crazy back to the studio to get the orders packed up and out, completely forgetting to make lunch or grab any snacks. After her trip to FedEx, she’d gone straight to work, wanting to replace the pieces she’d just sold to keep her inventory ready for the craft show next weekend.

And then she’d gotten into the groove. When was the last time she’d eaten, anyway? She’d eaten some of yesterday’s cookies at the bakery, and the inevitable coffee, but it had been too hot there for her to have much desire to eat, and yes, she
had
forgotten to eat once she got home, distracted by the orders to ship. Then the day got away from her and now it was late, and she was somewhere past hungry to the point of being dizzy without having any appetite. And her head ached as if someone had taken one of the metal glassblowing pipes to it.

Too late to bother with a real dinner. She had no spare cash to go out, and even if she did, it was already late enough that she didn’t want to call and say she’d be later yet. And when she got home, she had a feeling things would get really steamy, really fast—as they seemed to do whenever she and Drake were in the same place—and food would have to wait until they were done. Maybe it wasn’t sensible, but she had no intention of getting home too late to have sex before she headed to the bakery.

Jen stretched as far as her pack and tore through it. The closest thing she had to food was one carrot stick left over from the day before. It was dried out and limp. She wasn’t sure it would get Rafi’s food-service-professional seal of safety, but she champed it down too fast to care about the texture or possible contamination. Then she staggered to Ryoko’s area and rummaged a bit—luckily, the other woman was remarkably organized for an artist, and Jen had a good idea where to look. Victory! Ryoko had an emergency stash of granola bars. Jen grabbed one and tore open the wrapper. After the few bites hit her system, she had the presence of mind to leave her last dollar of change and an apologetic note in the candy’s place. A few mugs of water, the first vaguely coffee-flavored, and Jen felt almost human again. At least the room was standing still, which was a good sign. Rooms weren’t supposed to spin, especially not rooms with a glass furnace and a lot of breakables in them. And the Tylenol she’d taken might not have had time to work yet, but just knowing she’d taken it took the edge off her headache.

It was dark by the time she headed home, but that didn’t usually bother her. Her bike and helmet were well lit, and she’d worked out a quiet route between the studio and Drake’s house on the outskirts of Collegetown. Her house, whatever. But tonight the dark seemed thick, her jangled nerves registering every irregularity in the pavement as a tire-destroyer, every shadow as a mugger, every vehicle as driven by a tipsy texter. By the time she arrived at the big Victorian, she was shaking and expecting someone to jump out from the backyard shadows and snatch her.

She opened the back door, locking it behind her and staggered up the stairs.

Halfway up, it dawned on her that the back door had been open.

Oh shit. Maybe Drake hadn’t had a chance to check. Or maybe he hadn’t bothered. She’d been so careful about locking, even before he set it as a regular rule, that maybe he trusted her.

Which apparently he shouldn’t have today, but it would be nice if he had.

Her apartment was reassuringly dim when she walked in the door.

Then a muscular arm closed across her throat from behind. “Don’t move,” a dark voice whispered.

Chapter Nineteen

Jen screamed and flailed. A strong hand captured one wrist, forcing it behind her. A hard, naked male body pressed against her, trapping that hand even though he released his grip on it, trapping
her.
Panic surged over her, and she struggled wildly but ineffectively against that strong body.

As she did, her captor nuzzled her ear in a leisurely manner, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do during a home invasion. His erect cock jutted against her ass, but for the moment, all he was doing was nuzzling.

She knew it was Drake, knew by the voice, by the smell, by the tickle of his beard against her ear. Hell, knew it because nuzzling ears and kissing hair didn’t seem like standard burglar/rapist behavior, but could definitely be lover-playing-kinky-games behavior.

But she couldn’t help screaming.

Or trying to. When she opened her mouth, he shoved a piece of fabric into it. Clean, fairly soft, lumpy… A knotted flour-sack dishtowel, she thought. Even while part of her brain visualized the off-white towel that hung on the handle of Drake’s oven, her body fought, panic-stricken, kicking and flailing and squirming and trying to spit out the gag.

Some traitorous part of her liked the gag, though, liked the heightened sense of helplessness and danger it provided.

Unless this really was an attacker, not Drake, in which case she really
was
helpless and in danger and she’d better fight back more effectively. She doubted she could actually hurt Drake, given the amount of time he spent honing his martial arts, but if this was some coincidentally bearded thug who liked toying with his victims, she might be able to startle the guy into loosening his grip long enough to bolt. Or maybe smash that piece of Sean’s over his head. It had been a gift, but she figured Sean would rather have his sculpture broken than her.

She reached behind her, hoping to scratch at her attacker’s face, but he evaded. Grabbing that wrist, he forced her arm back to her side. As he did that, she tried to donkey-kick his knee, knowing she wasn’t flexible enough to reach his groin in the position she was trapped—and not wanting to junk Drake in any case. He moved, shifting his weight gracefully like the martial artist she hoped to God he was and throwing her off-balance in the process so she slumped against him. “I said don’t move.” The growl sounded like Drake, sounded menacingly sexy rather than truly menacing, and he’d released her hand once he got it away from his face, but the arm around her throat tightened. Not dangerously—she could still breathe without difficulty—but enough to make a point of her assailant’s strength.

She clawed at it with her free hand, but she might as well have been attacking a steel band for all the good it did or all the reaction she got out of Drake.

It was Drake, right? It
felt
like Drake. She could make out only tiny bits of his shape—just the line of his arm, really—but it looked like his. The height was correct. The naked body felt familiar against her. The voice sounded right. They’d hinted about doing a scene like this, and she’d been dumb enough to leave the door open. And he wasn’t trying to hurt her, just immobilize her.

Then she felt something against her cheek—something hard, metallic and cold. Jen froze, unable to move even if she dared. Unable to breathe. This couldn’t be Drake! He had a knife! He ran the flat side of the blade over her skin. Face. Throat—he eased up on his grip, moving his arm down across her upper chest to allow it.

But as he ran it over her arm, she realized it didn’t feel like a knife. It wasn’t the right shape and had a funny bump at the end.

Her panic eased. She forced herself to look down. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim room by now, so, even though colors were grayed out, shapes were clear.

The “blade” was the safety shears Drake kept handy during bondage scenes. Not exactly something a thug would use as a weapon.

Jen let out the breath she’d been holding, laughing into the gag from pure relief as she did. She was dizzy from holding her breath for too long, dizzy from fear, and dizzy with relief on top of it.

Dizzy with lust too, now that she was sure she was safe.

She sagged against him, and his strong arms caught her, supporting her as she pulled herself back together. One continued to hold her. The other reached up and pulled out the gag, tossing it aside without ceremony.

“Drake,” she gasped, not surprised to realize her voice was shaky. “Thank God. I thought it was you, but…”

To her horror, she started to cry. Jen never cried. Life was too busy to waste time on tears, and too rich and good for her to feel the need. “I’m sorry,” she muttered through her sobs. Drake was so controlled, so strong, he couldn’t possibly understand why she was crying. Especially when she wasn’t sure herself, except that all the emotions rushing through her were too much, and too confusing, to express any other way. He’d either think she was a wuss or he’d worry he’d pushed her too hard, and neither was precisely true.

To her relief, though, he did seem to understand. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s catharsis. Let it all out. Come here.” She turned around in his arms, and he pressed her against his broad, bare chest. Stroking her hair, he let her cry until his chest was damp and she was cried out. She felt curiously weightless, as if the tears had helped her release a burden she hadn’t known she carried. The light behind her eyes was a serene blue, the color of the lake on a clear summer day, but at the same time, she felt brittle, like she might shatter at the slightest provocation and she wasn’t sure if it would be in ecstasy or something darker.

“You scared me,” she finally admitted, lips moving against his tear-slicked skin.

“I meant to. You broke a rule. I could have had you write lines or something, but I wanted to impress on you why this rule was important. You were brave, though. You fought hard.”

“Not very effectively.”

He squeezed her even tighter. “Self-defense skills can be taught, and my dojo has a class starting in a few weeks. I expect you to take it. But it takes courage to use them. That’s harder to teach, but you have it already.”

Jen swelled with pride at that. Time enough later to talk about him “expecting” her to take a self-defense class. She agreed it was a good idea, but she had neither time nor money and wouldn’t until the craft show was over. She barely had time to be here now with Drake.

She felt the urge to sob again, for no reason she could determine. Stifling it, she sniffled wetly and wiped her eyes with her hand. “Your chest is all snotty now. I’m sorry.”

“Worth it. Hang on a second. Close your eyes.” Drake moved away from her. She heard a small click, and through closed lids, she saw the lamp come on. Drake returned with the gag, which, as she’d suspected, was a flour-sack dish towel. “Use this.”

She wiped off his chest and her own face with the cloth—he wasn’t actually snotty, just tear-slicked—and blew her nose until she could breathe. “How are you feeling?” Drake asked, all solicitousness, in contrast to his earlier thug persona.

“Shaken and stirred like a martini. I was terrified, but most of the time I was pretty sure it was you, so I was turned on too. I kept flipping back and forth.”

Drake smacked her ass, making her jump. “Did you leave the door open on purpose? Is that how you knew it was me? I knew we’d talked about maybe doing a takedown scene weeks ago, but this wasn’t a good way to ask for it. Not safe.” Then he smiled. “Although it was hot for me, knowing it was something to which you’d consented but would still be a complete surprise.”

“Accident, I swear. I came home to take a shower and grab food after the bakery, but it turned out I got some eBay orders, and in my rush to get them to FedEx in time for the morning truck, I forgot to lock up. I knew it was you from your smell and how you felt against me.” She looked away, then back at him. “I’ve thought about leaving the door unlocked. I thought it might be fun to have you pretend to attack me. But then you made it an order, not just a request, so I wouldn’t have done it on purpose. Not that dumb.”