Chapter 14
14
That same evening, I’m returning from my weekly visit with my family, bubbling with joy.
So happy it’s a real possibility that I could jump right out of my skin.
I do my best to contain it as I grin at the palace guards when they let me inside. They all know and like me now. One of them asks if I got some good news. Since I can’t tell them the truth, I explain I had a good visit with my family.
Trying even harder to rein in my mood, I walk upstairs to our room and let myself in. Unsurprisingly, Gabriel is still up and still seated at his desk, his head tilted down toward the sheaf of papers he’s reading through and his right hand holding a pen poised over a page in his notebook.
He slants me a quick smile as I walk in. He’s jotting a note to himself as he asks, “How’s your family doing?”
“Great. They’re doing great.”
As far as I can hear, my voice is natural and composed, sounding no different than it does when I’ve returned from my visit any other Saturday evening.
But Gabriel lowers his pen, his eyes following me as I head for my window seat so I can sit down and untie my street shoes. “Is something going on?” he asks at last.
I blink at him innocently. “What do you mean?”
A frown deepens on his face. “What’s going on, Jess?”
Shit. The man is far too smart and observant. It’s highly inconvenient for keeping a secret. “Nothing is going on. Why are you asking me that?”
“I’m asking because you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not ly?—”
“You’re pretending nothing has happened when it’s blatantly obvious that something has.” He’s speaking softly—he almost never raises his voice and has never once done so in anger—but his tone is stern. Slightly disapproving. “You think I can’t read you? You think I don’t know you by now?”
Of course he does. He knows me as well as I know him—and I know him more intimately than anyone else in my life. Including my own family.
I’ve never been a very good actor, and I simply can’t hide my moods from Gabriel.
“I’m sorry.” I edge my feet into the soft slippers I wear in the room and then lean back against my cushions with a long exhale. “I didn’t want to hide anything from you. But I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
His expression changes. “Why can’t you talk about it to me?”
“I want to,” I admit. “As soon as I heard the news, I wanted to tell you. But my family said we need to keep quiet about it.”
He’s pushed his chair out from his desk and turned it toward me. He leans forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “You know perfectly well I’ll keep your secrets like my own. If something is going on with you—good or bad—then I need to know.”
He means it. It’s so clear to me that he’s fully accepted responsibility for me, so much so that it offends him when I hold anything back. A wave of affection washes over me, filling me with warmth and security that starts in my heart and spreads out through the rest of my body.
I have to clear a small lump in my throat before I answer. “My dad got a new job.”
He sits up straight with a small twitch. “He did?”
“Yes. It’s an even better job than the one you got for him. It’s an amazing job. It’s in the Outer Cities. In Saint Louis.”
“They’re moving?” He sounds surprised but not disapproving.
“Yes. I wasn’t happy at first, but it’s… It’s all amazing. It’s a really good job. The same kind of clerical work that he’s doing now but at a higher level. But they have a whole different currency system there. You know, of course, since you lived there, but I didn’t know anything about it. His pay will be much better, and housing comes as part of the job. So most of their income won’t have to go to rent. My grandpa won’t even have to work! He can just do his gardening and work around the house like he wants. I really can’t believe how good it will be for them there. I used to think the Capital was the best place to be, but I’m really questioning that now. They’re all so excited. The man who will be his boss met him on a work visit and was so impressed that he offered the job. But you know how it is to try to relocate out of the Central Cities. It seemed smartest to keep things quiet until they’re on their way and safely across the border so no one tries to stop them.”
Gabriel has been listening to my rambling with his characteristic focus. “But what about you? You won’t be able to visit them anymore.”
“Not every week. But it’s only a four-hour ride in a good vehicle. I won’t be able to send them my salary since they’ll be across the border, so I’ll have all those credits to use. I can hire a car to take me there and back on my day off. It will be expensive, but I should have enough credits most months.”
“But that will still only leave you a few hours to see them each month.” He’s very concerned. His forehead is creased, and his lips are turned downward. “Driving there and back will take most of your day.”
“I know. I’ll miss them of course. But it’s such a better situation for them that I’m still happy about it. I can visit once a month, and they’ll be so much more comfortable and secure. I honestly didn’t think anything could be better than life in the Capital, but I was totally wrong about that. It’s going to be way better for them in Saint Louis. I want that for them.”
His frown relaxes. “All right. Then I’m happy for them too. And of course I won’t mention it to anyone. What about Carrie? Doesn’t she want to become a palace partner like you?”
My face twists slightly. “She did. I mean, that was absolutely the best future for her here. But—I had no idea about this either—she can go to school in Saint Louis. They have higher levels there, and they’re open to anyone under eighteen. So she can go to school for almost five years if she wants. She’s so excited about that.”
Gabriel nods slowly. “That would be a good thing for her. She’ll have any number of options opened up for her if she stays in school that long. She can have a much more secure future there than staying in the Capital.”
“That’s what I think too. And my parents. It’s really like a miracle for them. And it never would have happened if you hadn’t gotten my dad that job. We’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”
He shrugs off my earnest gratitude. “It’s my job to take care of you, so I did. But tell me this. If you’d had the choice between going to school like your sister or becoming a partner the way you did, which would you have wanted?”
The question startles me so much I freeze. But I know the answer immediately. It’s lodged hard in my heart. My lips part slightly, but I can’t get any words out.
Gabriel’s blue eyes are searching. Knowing. “Tell me the truth, Jess. No matter what it is.”
I make a weird little sound in my throat and drop my eyes. Fiddle with the cameo locket I wear every single day. “If I’d ended up as anyone else’s partner, I think I would rather have gone to school—if that had been any sort of possibility for me. But… but…” My cheeks burn. I can’t lift my eyes.
“Tell me.”
“I’d rather be your partner than anything else in the world.”
It’s such a nakedly honest statement that I’m trembling all over. I still can’t look up at him. I have absolutely no idea how he’ll respond to what I just said.
“Jess.”
“Yes.”
“Look at me.”
I wrench my eyes open and meet his. He’s gazing at me with a quiet intensity I don’t understand.
“Thank you,” he finally says.
I work my bottom lip with my teeth, fighting the urge to squirm. “It’s true.”
“I believe you.”
We stare at each other for another minute until my shakiness finally subsides and I can smile at him again.
He smiles back. “So when is your family moving?”
“In two days. It’s happening fast, but it’s better that way. He’s not important enough for anyone with authority to really care about, but you never know how things might go. If they delay too long, it’s possible someone could hear about it and try to interfere. We don’t want that to happen.”
“No. It makes sense to move quickly. But I don’t like you having so little time with your family. I’m going to talk to some people. I think we could justify you saving up your weekly time off since you won’t have your family to visit every week and using it to add an extra day when you visit them. That way you could spend two days with them a month instead of one and actually have a real visit.”
I’m so shocked my mouth falls open. “Wh-what?”
“You heard me. Why do you look so surprised?”
“But I don’t… I don’t deserve that kind of… that kind of… gift.”
“Of course you deserve it. And it’s not a gift. They’re not going to allow it unless you give up your four hours off on the other Saturdays, but that will be all right, won’t it?”
“Yes, it will be all right.” I’m almost in tears—too many good things are happening all at once. “Are you sure you can do without me for two days?”
He gives a short huff of laughter. “I’m not going to love it, but I’ll make do.”
“No. You’re more important. I’m not going to leave you?—”
“Stop, Jess.” His expression and his tone have both changed. Gotten stern again. “I promise I will be fine. You need to see your family. This is happening, so stop arguing and accept it.”
I gulp. Drop my eyes as I control my ragged breathing. “Thank you,” I’m finally able to say. I quickly swipe a stray tear away.
“You’re welcome. And I wish you wouldn’t always act so surprised when I do something for you. You told me from the beginning that it was my job to take care of you. You’ve always done your job. Why are you constantly so surprised I do mine?”
I’ve gotten my emotions under control enough now to speak more naturally. “This is above and beyond what’s expected from you.”
He gives another one of those dry, breathy laughs. “Well, I’ve always been an overachiever.”
I giggle. I want to hug him, but it wouldn’t be appropriate and he’d never allow it, so I hug myself instead.
“I am happy for your family. And I’m happy it’s made you happy. Tomorrow I’ll check on getting you an extra day off every month. I think they’ll go for it if you give up your weekly hours.”
“I’m fine to give those up since I won’t have anyone to visit anyway.”
“Good.”
I expect him to turn his chair and get back to work after that, but he keeps looking at me. I can usually read his expressions now, but sometimes he’s still a mystery to me. I have no idea what he’s thinking as he gazes at me like that.
Finally I ask, “Do you want to take a break now since you missed yours this afternoon?” He was really consumed with working earlier today, and I left to see my family before he thought to take a break.
“It’s late. You’re not tired?”
“No. I’m not tired at all. I’m wired.”
His mouth twitches. “All right then.” He makes the summoning gesture with his hand.
Joy and excitement are still bubbling just below the surface in me. It feels like I’m so full of them that they might actually spill out. I rub his shoulders for a few minutes, trying to dig deep into the knots and tension I find. Then I push into the nape of his neck with my knuckles until he groans and drops his head forward.
I pull the tie out of his hair so I can comb my fingers through it, pressing my fingertips along the ridges of his skull.
“Fuck, that feels so good,” he murmurs. “Why does that feel so good?”
“Your head is too full of brains,” I tell him. “It has trouble holding them all, so it gets all stressed and strained and needs the break too.”
He chokes on a laugh, then keeps laughing softly as I continue the head massage.
He didn’t give me a time limit this evening, so I don’t rush it. I keep working on his neck and head until he finally rasps, “That’s enough, Jess. Come around and get on your knees.”
My heart jumps, and my pussy clenches. I walk around in front of him and let him pull me down onto my knees on the small rug. Then I fit myself between his legs. He’s hard in his pants—I can see it as I reach over to undo the buttons. It’s late in the day, so the natural scent of him is stronger than usual.
I breathe him in as I pull out his cock. I love the smell of him. How real and carnal it is. How deeply familiar. How unquestionably safe.
A clench of ownership tightens below my belly as I lift his erection to my preferred angle and then slide my mouth down around him.
“Yes,” he murmurs thickly, pulling the pins out of my hair to let it fall down my back. “That’s my Jess. That’s my girl. Take me all the way in.”
I mumble a pleased, wordless response as I reposition my tongue and then hollow out my cheeks for the first time in a long, firm suck.
“Yes,” he exhales with a long hiss. “Yes. You know what I need.”
His hands on my head feel more urgent than normal for this early in the session. After all, he came hard and long only this morning. But his body is tense, and the way he’s holding my head feels greedy. Almost desperate.
I intensify my sucking.
He groans in response. I draw in fast breaths through my nose and make hungry sounds around his cock as I bob my head.
“Let me in deeper, baby,” he rasps. When I soften my throat muscles to take him in farther, he grunts and jerks his hips. “That’s right. Just like that. I need more of you. I need… I need…”
His hips are rocking now. I arch my back and use my hands to help him scoot farther forward in the chair so he can get more range of motion.
I know what he wants. He wants to fuck. I’ve felt the need in him before but never as fully as I do today. He wants to be on top. He wants to thrust. To fuck me. Hard. Primal.
I want him like that too. My pussy clenches around nothing with every jerky thrust he makes into my mouth. We adjust our positions enough for him to better fuck my mouth, but it still doesn’t feel like exactly what he needs.
I want to give it to him.
I want it so much the need aches in my heart and my pussy.
I want him to fuck me for real, but he’s never asked for that. He’s only ever asked for my mouth, so unless he changes his mind, I can’t offer him anything else.
Responding to the urgency of his body, I do the best I can to take even more of him than usual. He moves my head back and forth as he makes a fast rutting motion, grunting loudly but so far gone he’s beyond words.
My eyes are watering when he finally lets out a sound of relief that’s almost a bellow—louder than I’ve ever heard him before—and jerks through a powerful release that lasts a long time. I swallow down each spurt, saliva and semen dribbling out of the corner of my mouth and moisture leaking out of my pussy.
He’s wheezing when he finally falls against the back of his chair, his hands still curved around my skull, holding my mouth over his cock. “Keep going,” he rasps, his body still making a slight rocking motion. “Don’t stop. Never stop.”
I’ve cleared my throat from his ejaculate, so I soften my mouth around him, still applying rhythmic suction in that way I know he loves afterward.
“Fuck, that wiped me out.” One of his hands slides down to hold the side of my neck, his thumb rubbing the line of my still-working jaw. “You okay, baby?”
“Mm-hmm.” I’m still sucking him eagerly as his cock slowly softens back to its normal size.
He eases my head back, so I have no choice but to let him slip out of my mouth. He tilts me up so I’m looking at him. “I wasn’t too rough with you, was I?”
“No! You’re never rough. And I like to give you what you need.”
“I know you do. Thank you. I don’t know how I got so lucky as to get you as a partner.” His eyes have gotten heavy. His body is reclined in a sated slump. It sounds almost like he’s talking to himself at the end rather than to me.
But the words fill me with another one of those tidal waves of pleasure and deep security. “I got lucky too,” I whisper as I tuck his penis back into his underwear and button his trousers.
I don’t know if he heard me or not. He’s almost asleep. He wasn’t lying when he said our session wiped him out.
I’m still throbbing with hot arousal and something stronger and needier in my heart, but not for the world would I ask or expect him to rouse himself when he’s feeling so good and so tired. I get up quietly and walk into the bathroom.
I’m hot and sweaty and antsy, so I take a hot shower, rubbing my clit to bring myself to a fast orgasm, which helps but doesn’t fully satisfy me.
I brush my hair and my teeth. Pull on my nightgown. My jaw and throat are sorer than normal, but they don’t trouble me too much. Not compared to what I was able to give Gabriel just now.
When I leave the bathroom, Gabriel is still sprawled out in his chair. I think for a moment that he’s actually fallen asleep there, but then I see him looking at me from under his heavy eyelids.
“You should go to bed,” I tell him with a smile.
“Not yet. Come here for a minute.”
My eyebrows pull together as I obediently move to stand in front of him.
He straightens up in his chair. Slips a hand under my gown so he can feel my pussy. He frowns. “You’re turned on.”
“It’s no big deal. I took care of myself in the show—” I squeak when he gives my clit a little poke.
He’s shaking his head but also smiling a little as he moves his chair closer to the desk, pulling me with him. “Turn around.”
Still confused but getting excited now, I do as he says, facing toward the desk and away from him.
“Hike up your gown and bend over.”
“Wh—”
“Do it.” He’s speaking with his normal, matter-of-fact confidence. Not mean or unkind. Just absolutely certain I’ll do as he says.
Of course I do it. I draw up the hem of my gown and hold it bunched around my waist as I bend over the desk.
He moves his chair closer.
My pussy is throbbing so intensely it aches. The air is cool on the skin of my bare bottom. When he doesn’t do anything, I turn to look over my shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“You left before I could make you come.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were falling asleep and didn’t want you to bother.”
“Maybe I want to bother. Don’t do it again.”
I swallow hard. “Okay.” I look again. He’s staring hotly at my half-naked body. “Are you going to spank me?”
Because I’m watching, I can see a flicker of surprise on his face. “I wasn’t. I was going to do you and thought you’d be too tired to stay standing the whole time. But I can be persuaded otherwise.” His tone changes as he asks softly, “Do you want me to spank you?”
“I…” I swallow over my sore throat, wondering why my head and my heart and my nipples and my pussy are all throbbing so intensely. “I don’t know. I’ve never… never been spanked before.”
Some parents do that as punishment, but mine never did. They almost never had to punish me in any way. I was always an obedient child who earnestly tried to make everyone happy.
Gabriel stands up. Rubs the cheeks of my bottom, one with each of his hands. Then he slides two fingers of his left hand into my pussy.
I make a whining sound because it feels so good.
He doesn’t pump them. Just holds them inside me. I whimper again and roll my hips slightly.
Then he slaps my butt lightly with his right hand.
The slice of pleasure the sharp sensation evokes surprises me so much I cry out loudly. My pussy clamps down eagerly around his fingers.
“You do want to be spanked,” Gabriel murmurs, curving his fingers slightly to rub against my inner walls.
I’m a lot wetter now than I was even a minute ago. I hear the wet sound when his fingers move. I stretch my arms out to grip the opposite edge of the desk, desperately needing something to hang on to.
“You should have told me you wanted this.” He gives my ass another swat.
I cry out again as the intensity of the slight pain mingled with pleasure once more takes me by surprise. “I didn’t… I didn’t… know.”
He spanks me again. Harder than before. And then again. And again. He keeps his fingers inside me but doesn’t move them, and at each spank I let out a helpless cry and clamp down around the penetration. On the eighth spank, I orgasm, coming in eager spasms around his fingers as my body shakes through the pleasure.
I can’t believe he just spanked me to orgasm. He wasn’t even moving his fingers.
He waits until my messy sobs of pleasure have shifted into soft whimpers and my writhing body has settled back onto the desk.
He rubs my sore butt gently. “Do you want any more?”
I might have been tempted to lie and tell him I’m fine now, but my pussy has a mind of its own. It clenches excitedly at his words, and since his fingers are still inside me, he knows the truth.
My hands tighten around the edge of the desk as he starts to spank me again. This time he pairs it with hard thrusts of his fingers, pushing into me with an embarrassing sound of wet suction. I come again, just as hard and loud as the first time, and then he finally stops spanking me.
He leans over, holding a fistful of my hair at the back of my neck as he keeps fucking me with his other hand.
I can’t keep quiet. I can’t hold back the sloppy sounds of pleasure and need that keep ripping out of my throat. He’s really going at it with his hand, pushing my whole body as he thrusts his fingers into my pussy. It feels like he’s fucking me for real, and I want it so much. My body keeps responding.
When he finally stops, pulling his hand out from between my legs and rubbing my tender bottom with it gently, I’m choking on sobs.
“Are you okay?” he asks, letting go of my hair and caressing my back.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
“I’ve never seen you lose control like this.”
“I… I know. I never have.”
“But it was good, right? I thought it was, but you’re crying so much now I need to make sure.”
He sounds so gentle I shake with more tears. “Yes. It’s good. I’m sorry I fell apart.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. Believe it or not, I like to make you feel good too.”
I sniff and swallow and lift my head to look at his face. He means it. He’s watching me soberly.
I give him a little smile. “Thank you.”
My expression evidently relieves whatever anxiety he was feeling. His face relaxes. He murmurs, “You have no idea what it does to me when you smile at me like that.”
My breath hitches. I have to fight back another whimper—this one from emotional pleasure. I want to ask him about what exactly it does to him, but he’s already straightening up, carefully helping me up to my feet.
My knees buckle immediately. It’s disconcerting. I’m sure I’d be able to regain my balance on my own, but Gabriel scoops me up in his arms and carries me cradled like that to my window seat.
He’s smiling as he lays me down and pulls a blanket up over me. “Get some sleep” is all he says.
“You too. Don’t try to start working again.”
“I won’t.” He gives his head a little shake. “There’s no way I can work after that. I’m going to go to bed too.”