The Rider List: An Erotic Romance (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

Audrey

Adam is not even inside me yet, but already I feel like I haven’t known sex until this moment. The way he practically worships my body, giving attention to nearly every inch of me, raising my anticipation.

He takes his time. He concentrates on my pleasure as much as his. What a difference from what I’m used to.

There was no way I was going to say no to this. As much as it surprised me, as much as my mind was telling me to be hesitant, the fact that he talked to me about it convinced me it would be okay. He was making sure I was comfortable, physically and mentally, for this.

I watch him roll the condom down his impressive length. There it is again, the second time I’ve seen him touching himself. That’s a new thing for me, too. He’s so open, so confident, so free, it makes me respond the same way.

He leans over me again, one hand planted on the mattress next to my raised arm, the other still holding himself.

He lowers his face to mine and kisses me. His lips and tongue are soft but I keep feeling a little bit of his teeth, adding a little roughness to his kisses. And then his tongue sweeps through my mouth.

Adam is holding himself against me, rubbing the tip against my clit. If he keeps this up for more than ten seconds, I’m going to come and I don’t want to yet.

He raises up a little. “I want to see your face when I’m inside you for the first time.”

“Please, just do it.” I’m surprised at myself. Not by what I said, but by the obvious begging tone in the words.

He grins. He likes the begging.

“You’re so wet for me, I could do this all night.”

I close my eyes. I’m losing the ability to think straight. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. Every nerve ending in my body is reacting to this moment. My hips start to move along with his cock rubbing me. I open my eyes again and he’s looking down at me.

He slides the head of his cock into me. Just a little, then more, then back out again. It’s been over a year since I’ve had sex, and there’s a little sharp pain that quickly subsides.

Our eyes are locked on each other’s. His lips are slightly parted at first, then he presses them together and his whole face turns to stone. His jaw muscles tense on each side of his face.

With each stroke, he pushes a little more into me. Adam’s hand slides under me and he cups my ass, pulling me closer against his body.

“You’re so tight, Audrey. You’re fucking perfect.”

He starts rocking his hips into a rhythm, pulling me more forcefully against him. I can feel the panties constricting my wrists a little more with each of Adam’s thrusts. There’s a slight pain there, but it’s not bad. It’s just making me aware of the position I’m in.

I’m so exposed. So vulnerable to him. He has complete control over my movements. Total power over my pleasure.

Adam pulls his hand from behind me, propping himself up with both arms now. He’s moving his hips back and forth but at the same time it feels like he’s moving them in an upward direction.

He’s hitting every spot I need him to. And I think it’s obvious by my wide open mouth and my little involuntary gasps.

“You keep making that face and those noises, I’m going to come faster than I want to.”

I manage a breathy: “No,” and bite my lip, trying to stop from making the noises he’s talking about.

“Do you ever touch yourself when you’re fucking?”

I nod vigorously.

“But you can’t now, all tied up.”

He rises so he’s sitting between my legs. I feel his thumb or finger on my clit. I look at him and he’s looking down, watching himself making little circles with his finger.

The sensation feels like it’s connected to every fiber of my body, and with each of his movements, it’s pulling on me, making me squirm and jerk on the bed, making my panties tighter around my wrists.

“That’s it. Come for me, Audrey. Come all over my cock.”

There’s no resisting it any longer. I don’t want to. My body is making movements I’m not controlling—my hips thrusting against him, my stomach muscles winding up into knots, my ankles locking behind his back and pulling him forcefully into me.

Crying out his name, I start to come. I can’t open my eyes. They’re squeezed shut and I know I’m making a wincing face that probably could be mistaken for pain, but it’s all pleasure—pure ecstasy as I’ve never felt before, never even imagined possible.

I’m still in the throes of my orgasm as I feel Adam fucking me harder, driving into me. His breathing becomes heavy and he lets out a quick, sharp “Fuck” as I feel him pulsing inside me. My muscles are clenched, making me even tighter, and it’s like I’m massaging him closer and closer…

My eyes open just in time to see him throw his head back. His mouth is closed. His jaw is all hard lines. The cords in his neck are exposed. He’s sliding back and forth inside me slower now, as his heads drops to my chest and he takes one of my nipples into his mouth.

Seconds later, he pulls out, removes the condom, ties off the end and tosses it in the direction of the trash can.

Adam reaches for my wrists and unties the panties, slipping them off my hands and dropping them.

He lies beside me, wrapping one arm over me. I turn to face him and he pulls me in. We’re both warm, both catching our breath. Both staring at each other.

“You okay?” His voice is a whisper.

I nod.

“I mean your wrists. Let me see them.” He reaches for them and inspects. “Doesn’t hurt?”

“No.”

We lay there for a few minutes as he uses both hands to rub my wrists. They really don’t hurt, but there’s an odd feeling on my skin as the blood flow returns to normal. His hands are strong and somewhat rough, but he’s massaging my wrists softly.

I touch his tattoo. It says “11/6/12” and has a music note next to it. “What’s this?”

“It’s the day I wrote the best song I’ve ever written.”

I sit up a little. “Wait, so you don’t just play music, you write it?”

He nods.

I lay back down. “Now you
have
to play something for me.”

“I will.”

I want to tell him what I’m thinking. The word “amazing” is so overused, it doesn’t work here. Same with “incredible.” I think for a few seconds and just say exactly what’s on my mind. “That was the most intense thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

He grins, like he wants to say something, like he knows something I don’t. He kisses me and rolls onto his back, pulling me close to him. I lay my head on his chest, looking at his face.

I wait for him to speak.

After a moment, he says, “Can you stay for dinner or did we take up all of your time?”

I sit up quickly. “Oh shit.”

. . . . .

A few minutes later, I leave his house and walk down the street where I parked my car after leaving work. I couldn’t leave it at the office or park it at his house, for obvious reasons, so I chose a visitor lot that charged three dollars.

I would have liked to stay and had dinner with Adam, but I need to get home to Sophie.

Just as I sit in my car, I suddenly realize I don’t have my phone. I’m about to go back to Adam’s, one foot out the door and on the asphalt, when it occurs to me that I didn’t bring it with me to Adam’s. After work, I had plugged it in to charge and in the excitement of going to his place I just forgot about it. Shit. It’s in the office.

Jeanine will be there, but she’ll have no idea where I’ve been. I’ll just tell her I got home and realized it.

I walk into the office and immediately I hear, “I thought you left for the day.”

“I did.” I see my phone on the desk near the back of the room. I walk over, grab it, and hold it up. “Forgot this.”

Jeanine is sitting at the reception table organizing brochures. I want to get out of here quickly, so I walk with purpose toward the door, turning on my phone.

“Your sister called.”

I stop suddenly and turn around. “When?”

“The first time was about an hour ago, and then again about ten minutes ago.”

Looking at my phone, I’m surprised by how much time has passed since I left the office for Adam’s bungalow. I can’t believe it’s after eight o’clock.

I see missed calls and texts from Sophie. I quickly text her that I’m on my way home and she responds immediately:
Can you get McDonald’s?

I respond:
Sure
, even though it’s not something we normally do and Mom wouldn’t be happy about it. But I owe Sophie.

Jeanine grabs a stack of brochures and holds them upright, then taps them on the table.

I feel cornered. Like she knows something, or thinks she knows something.

“What did you tell her?” I ask, looking down at my phone when Sophie texts back with her order.

Jeanine shrugs and stands. “Just that you left about two hours ago and I didn’t know where you were.”

I wonder if that’s true, that she doesn’t know where I’ve been. But if she knows, how is that possible?

Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

What I do know is that I’m feeling guilty.

I’ve made my family the center of my universe by choice. My mom never once used guilt or anything like it to get me to help with Sophie. But here I am now, with my little sister at home alone, wondering where I am, and without even having had dinner yet.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, and leave the office.

It takes me twenty minutes to get the food and get home. The summer sun hasn’t set yet, but it has gone down enough to make the streetlights come on. I sit in the car for a moment and look at the house. I try to let go of some of the guilt, but it doesn’t work.

I get inside and find Sophie watching something on TV. She quickly changes the channel when I walk in. She turns and looks at me.

I see disappointment in her eyes. She gets up and grabs the bag, saying, “I’m starving.”

. . . . .

Later that night, after Sophie has gone to bed, I’m in my bedroom looking for something to watch on Netflix but finding nothing of interest. It’s frustrating. I need a distraction, I need to unwind before going to sleep.

The guilt over leaving Sophie hanging for a while has dissipated. I may have let her down earlier this evening, but overall I’m a good older sister, living up to the promises I’ve made. With the recent contact from Wyatt, I may find myself defending that view once again, but I know I’m right.

Seeking diversion, I pull up my photos and artwork on my laptop. Since I’ve promised Adam that I’ll share them with him, I decide to make a folder of all of my favorites, so we don’t have to wade through all the stuff I don’t want to share.

I go through the photos first, choosing about one out of every five. I come across my favorite recent one. I took my camera with me to work a few weeks ago and after my shift I went to my favorite spot to watch the sunset.

It’s on the back-beach—the Intracoastal Waterway. That part of the island faces west. This spot is at the end of a dock that juts out over the marsh and ends where the waterway starts. There’s often pelicans back there, resting on the pylons. The sunset makes for an incredible backdrop when they’re perched up on those posts.

It’s a private dock on the property of a house that hasn’t been occupied for almost two years. That’s how long I’ve been going there, and the For Sale sign is always out front.

Every time I go to the dock, I dread seeing the sign gone and finding out that someone has bought the house. That will be the end of my days as a temporary squatter on their land.

I scroll through photos I shot in downtown Charleston. It’s not a major city, but it’s busy enough, especially during tourist season.

The historical buildings, churches, even a French Quarter all make me think of this city as a mini New Orleans. I’ve taken shots of most of the old churches and their graveyards, the huge houses on the waterfront, old Civil War era cannons, cobblestone streets, and row houses with their second-floor wrought-iron verandas dripping with vines and Spanish moss.

After choosing all the photos I want, I go to the designs folder that contains my mock-ups of advertisements. Some are for real companies, others are for companies I made up, names and slogans included. I choose some to show Adam and put them in the new folder.

I like to think of myself as a modest person, but when I look at my work I think I’m pretty damn good. All the practice, and the fact that I love it, has helped hone my craft.

Going through my work makes me keenly aware of the fact that it’s been two weeks since I last sent out my resume and samples. I check my email. No responses from any of the companies I sent the packages to.

Lying in bed, I touch my wrists. I think I can still feel where Adam wrapped and twisted my panties around them earlier.

Or is that a phantom feeling? Something I want to feel so badly that I can will the physical sensation into existence? Is it really about the wrists and the panties, or is it more about Adam?