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CHAPTER TWENTY: BLINDSIDE
She wanted him too. Despite everything. God help her, he interested her too.
She wanted to ask him to stop seeing the other women. Was on the verge of asking.
She bit her lip and met his gaze, so heavy and intense. “So you want to renegotiate terms?” She gave a nod. “What terms are we reconsidering?”
He leaned back, thoughtful. “I want to see where this goes. I think that there’s something here worth exploring.” He tilted his head a bit. “Without ignoring the fact that neither of us are without options.”
He could be such a lawyer. Carefully crafting each sentence and laying out terms, while leaving enough wiggle room and loopholes to get out of them later.
But she was a businesswoman and her business was words. While she appreciated a nice turn of phrase, she never let it distract her from the phrase’s heart. “So,” she said, trying for only mildly snide, “you want to be with me without having to stop seeing other people?” She wanted a straightforward answer.
“While allowing you the same freedom.” He lifted his shoulder in a conceding shrug.
Max thinned her lips, swiveling a bit in the chair while she mulled over that. “This freedom,” she said, “it would include what exactly?”
“Whatever we agree it does.” He made it sound so simple. “Do you want to discuss what it does include first or what it doesn’t?”
They discussed several terms—yes on basic BDSM play like spankings and rope play with each other and with others, no on needing to obtain permission from each other before engaging in that kind of play with others, yes on basic petting like fingering and hand-jobs with each other and with others, but some kind of notice beforehand or after-the-fact should be given.
“And sex?” she asked, tired of ignoring the obvious. “In the more traditional context. Oral. Vaginal. Anal.”
He nodded, as if he’d been waiting for her to bring it up. He sat on the corner of his desk, his body turned to face her. “Before I met you, I was having sex with five other people on a regular basis. Beyond them, I’ve slept with another six in the past six months.”
“Protection?” She was aiming for a nonchalance that she didn’t quite feel. Max didn’t like to judge—found it rather prudish, in this day and age—but eleven different people in six months was higher than she would have estimated. Idly, she wondered how he found the time.
“I use condoms regularly with all of them,” he said.
“Testing?”
“I get tested every six months,” he said. “My last results, about four months ago, were clean.” Then he asked, “And you? Did you and John and Nick use protection?”
“You mean your little file doesn’t say?” Her shock mocking.
He simply leveled her with a questioning, expectant look.
“Yes,” she said. “Always.” She didn’t believe in leaving things like pregnancy and STIs to chance.
He nodded in agreement. “Good. That’s sex between us. What about with others?”
Max shook her head. It was the question they’d both been avoiding, but knew they had to ask. Max’s lips thinned. “My gut reaction is to say that you can sleep with whomever you want but, if you’re sleeping with someone else, I will not be sleeping with you.”
“Your gut reaction?” he asked, zeroing in on the weak spot.
A part of her—the saner, cooler-headed part of her—told her, screamed at her, to run. But the part of her that had enjoyed herself tonight felt like an entire world had opened to her right now. It wanted nothing more than to immerse itself in that world. That part of her paused.
“If I said that I was uncomfortable with it,” she wondered, “what would happen?”
He frowned. “I’m not a flexible man,” he said. “I don’t do well with too many limits or restrictions.” He shrugged as if there was nothing he could do about it. “But, for something worth working for, worth putting in the effort for, I can.”
Was she worth it?
She wanted to ask.
Didn’t she?
She thought she ought to ask.
Maybe.
“I could do it for you, Max,” he told her, making her breath stop for a moment. “I could put in the work for you.”
Max bit her lip, trying to temper the joy she felt at that. “So play with others, but no sex?” she asked cautiously, just to clarify.
“I can work with that,” he agreed.
She let out a relieved breath. “But we would still play with each other?” She wasn’t sure exactly how the rules went in this world.
His icy eyes heated when he gazed at her body. “I’d like to.”
“How,” she asked, her voice pitched deliberately low, “would you like to?”
———
He grinned. She didn’t know what a question like that did to a man like him. The possibilities were endless. What wouldn’t he like to do to her?
But he’d go slow.
She may be eager to try out this world—to see what it had to offer. But she was still new to it. She needed to be eased in.
Besides, he’d left his toy bag at Donovan’s. Looking at his desk, he mused a bit. He could work with what he had. It was all about the presentation.
His grin widened. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
She would have to ask.
“Because the deprivation of one sense heightens the others.” He began to untie his tie. “Now,” he repeated, more forcefully this time, “close your eyes.”
She shot him an uncertain look, but did as he asked, sitting still while he tied the silk over her eyes. The vibrant blue was shocking against her smooth, pale skin and her incredible hair. He let his fingers trail down her hairline, letting the springy stray strands tickle his hand.
His palm moved to cup her cheek, reveling in the soft silk of her skin. She wasn’t a delicate woman. Even with this simple touch, he could feel her strength. It was exciting, knowing that he held that verve, that spirit, in his hand. That, for him, for this moment, it bowed and lay still.
“So,” she said, a nervous laugh touching her voice, “now what?”
He loved how eager she was. It was so much more than her titillated tone. Her skin was flushed, a pretty pink blooming beneath all that sweet, Chantilly cream. Her legs, like her lips, were parted in silent invitation.
He swore he could smell her arousal, hot and fragrant. He could almost feel it wet and flowing over his fingers. Could almost taste it, salty and wild as the sea.
Her thighs twitched, moved to close. Uh-uh. He held her knee in place. “Stay still.”
She froze under his touch, her breath catching, and her muscles tensed. So responsive. She was already there, deep in head space.
He reached behind her, toying with the tied ends of her dress’s halter top. “Now, you were being so uncooperative with Rand tonight,” he murmured. “Throwing such a fit over your dress.”
He saw her start, surprised that he’d seen.
“Causing such a scene.” He tsked. “You couldn’t see, I know, but you distracted so many people.” He pulled one of the bow’s ends, causing it to slip. “But you won’t cause one now, will you?”
She inhaled sharply when he tugged hard, causing the top of her dress to fall, her plump, full breasts bouncing as she gasped. Her nipples were puckered and red. Ripe.
He reached out and grabbed a pencil off of his desktop. Turning it around, he tested the soft, pliant end of the eraser against his fingertip. Perfect. “No,” he said as he touched the cushioned end to one plump, pillowed mound, slowly tracing its contours, “you’ll stay and sit very still.”
She took a deep breath while he trailed the eraser up and over, around and across the sweet span of her breasts. He traced her nipples, taking his time to very carefully outline her darkened aureoles. He teased her, swirling intricate designs as she arched her back and moaned.
He flicked her nipple, the metal striking the reddened bud.
Her hips twitched and she squeaked behind lips bitten shut but, beyond that, she didn’t move. Excellent. He smiled, in the mood to test her.
He flipped the pencil, touching the pointed tip against his forefinger. It was sharp. Could cut if jabbed hard. He smiled wide as he lightly lay that sharp tip against the sensitive swell.
She stiffened, her mouth frozen open as he slipped the tip along the slope of her under-breast, watching the pencil’s sharp lead draw long, red welts along her skin.
Her whole body tightened, her hands gripped the armrests and her feet pressed into the floor. He dragged it up to trace her aureole and she jerked, curling in on herself and covering her breasts.
“I told you not to move.” He grabbed one knee, yanking it back into place, and settled himself between her thighs. “Max,” he said again when she tried to push him away one-handedly. “It’s all right, Max. Calm down; everything is okay.”
“I can’t,” she said, her voice ragged and pitched high. Panicked. She was overwhelmed and he could see it. Could hear it as she panted, hardly able to control her heaving gasps. “I can’t.”
He let her arm go, not fighting it as both arms circled over her exposed breasts and her whole body curled in on itself. Protectively. As if shielding herself.
“Max,” he said gently, leaning forward to stroke her face. She flinched but didn’t move—didn’t cower away. A part of him melted as, after a moment, she relaxed into his touch, curving to press herself into his palm like a kitten. “Max,” he continued, “do you need to stop?”
He could see her indecision, and leaned forward to gently touch where her teeth dug into her tender lips. “Just say the word and we’ll stop.”
She shook her head, a different worry taking her. “Don’t stop.” She was clear and hurried, shaking her head again and again. “Just...”
“Just?” He continued stroking her face in soft sweeps of his thumb.
“I can’t stay still,” she admitted quietly, sounding almost ashamed. “It’s too much.” With her eyes closed—with no idea of what he was doing or with what—it would feel so much worse, he knew, turning a sharpened pencil into a flaying knife in her mind. “I just can’t.”
He remembered the way she’d stared in fascination while Cora strung up Marie at Donovan’s. Max would like being tied up, he thought. She wouldn’t feel helpless or limited by it. She would understand that the restraints didn’t restrain. Not really.
Like the blindfold, by denying one option, others opened. By tying her down, he was freeing her to have any reaction she liked. Without inhibition. Without shame. Without apology.
“Shh,” he cooed at her, “it’s all right.” He soothed his hands over her arms, bringing them back from her chest to the armrests before cupping her chin. “Stay.”
The phone cords looked long enough, and they only took a second to unhook from the receiver and the wall.
He smiled and tested their strength. They’d work.
“Sir?” Her head turned this way and that, trying to place him in the room.
“I’m here.” He came back to her, knelt between her still-opened thighs, and stroked them, his excitement growing with every thought. Another swift movement and he was level with her ear. “I’m going to tie you up.” He whispered, his tongue finding the delicate line of her ear, creating a shiver that ran electric through her body. “Tell me you want me to.”
She moistened her lips and turned to him, so their mouths were breaths away from each other, her blindfolded eyes meeting his. “I want you to,” she said clearly. “I want to be tied up.”
He wasn’t much of a rope guy. Wasn’t an expert or an enthusiast like Cora. Never learned much beyond the basics. But this wasn’t about the beauty of the rope and knots. This was about holding her still. Holding her down and in place. This was bondage at its basest core.
He wound the phone cord, twisted and coiled, around her elbow and the chair, pulling it two-fingers taut and inescapable. He circled it down her forearm before securing her wrist to the chair and tucking the end in. “Pull,” he said, wanting to test—wanting her to test—the ties.
She did, jerking and yanking, tugging and tensing her arm. It was loose enough to give her some freedom of movement, but she couldn’t get free. A worried frown crossed her face for a moment, wrinkling her brow and pulling at her lips. He could see her breath hitch and her pulse tick hard and fast in her throat.
“It’s okay.” He touched her bound arm, letting his fingers touch the soft silk of her skin, now broken up by the hard and unforgiving wire. It was addictive, such an attractive contradiction, beneath his hungry touch. “Just sit back,” he told her. “Just feel.”
She took a deep but shaky breath. “Just sit back,” she repeated softly, more to herself than to him. “Just feel.”
That’s it. He let her breathe, watching her body slowly relax, watching each of her muscles slowly give. Good.
He grabbed the other cord, straight and sure, and bound her other arm.
God! He could feel heat pouring from between her thighs, hitting him like fire against his stomach. He let his hands cup her knees, pushing them as far apart as they could go, crushed against the armrests. Her spine straightened and she swallowed hard. Her muscles tensed while his palms slid up her thighs, clenching as more and more of her was revealed with her dress gathering at his wrists.
He squeezed the tops of her thighs, making her hips hitch, and scooped her dress out from underneath her, baring that hot, wet center to his gaze. His mouth watered. She was so ready. So wanting.
He leaned in to lay a hard kiss right above her clit. She moaned and tried to shift her hips to guide his mouth where she needed him.
Chuckling, he moved away, making her writhe and groan in disappointment.
Not yet, Max.
He wasn’t done playing yet.
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