Chapter 35
Rafe
‘How come you’re so good at role play, anyway?’ Belle asks. ‘Did you secretly go to drama school?’
She’s lying in my bed with me, our limbs entangled and a sanitary-pad-shaped frozen gel pack in her panties.
I got a couple on a few days ago, just to be prepared for when she allowed me inside her body.
I suspected she might need some ice to help the swelling.
I’ve forced a couple of Nurofen down her, too.
I grin at her, at this gorgeous honey-blonde who’s entrusted me with her most vulnerable moments and now fits perfectly in my arms. ‘Says the woman who’s equally convincing playing a nun and a whore.’
Her mouth twists in amusement. ‘Yeah, but I haven’t had to lead the scenes. I usually just lie there and let you ravage me, which isn’t exactly hard work.’
‘I don’t know,’ I drawl. ‘You were hot as fuck tonight.’ My mind serves me up an image of Belle so gratifying that I know it’ll be at the top of my spank bank for a long time.
Kneeling in front of me, sucking me off in just a choker and a pair of fuck-me heels.
I mean, how is a bloke supposed to withstand that?
And she was just as intoxicating standing there naked, desperate for the touch of the vibrator, and when she let me bend her over and rub my face all over her pussy in front of the entire fucking club…
Jesus. I’m getting hard again, and I have no intention of making her do anything about it. She was a champ tonight, and now she gets to rest. I trail my fingers down the impossibly soft, thin skin of her back.
A thought occurs to me.
‘It’s kind of like that conversation we had in the shower after the priest scene.
I was talking dirty to you, trying to talk you off the ledge, but I meant what I said.
You want to be my whore and my madonna. You want me to treat you like both of them.
It seems to me that’s because you are both.
You feel as comfortable taking on the role of a hooker as of a postulant.
You make both feel as empowering as fuck. ’
She stares at me like this concept is brand new for her, too.
‘Seriously?’
I shrug. ‘Feels that way. Which role did you prefer?’
She bites her lip, considering. ‘I loved them both. But you’re right; the dynamic was the same in both scenarios. I just adore having you boss me around and do what you want with me.’
I open my mouth to reply.
‘In bed, I mean,’ she says hastily. ‘Only ever in bed.’
I smile. Like I’d ever presume to try to tell her what to do outside of the bedroom. She’s made it pretty clear that will never happen.
‘Which do you prefer?’ she asks.
‘What you said. As long as I’m getting to corrupt you, I’ll take you any way I can have you. Nun, whore, secretary… they’re all great for me.’
‘Secretary?’ she muses.
‘Bloody hell, yeah.’
‘I can see that. But you didn’t answer my question. Why are you so good at role play? And how?’
I blow out a breath. It’s difficult to make sense of the melange of needs that drive my love of acting out a good scene with enthusiastic co-conspirators.
‘Probably the same as you,’ I say. ‘It adds something. It adds to the forbidden aspect, and that makes it hotter. It’s excellent escapism. And—’ I stop myself before I can shoot myself in the foot.
Her eyes narrow. ‘And what?’
Here goes. ‘It creates a boundary around what I’m doing.’
‘A boundary like during the priest thing, you mean?’ she asks. ‘To ring fence it? Kind of like, what happens in the room stays in the room?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so. It removes it from real life. If I’m someone else, and the other people in the room are also playing someone else, then it shouldn’t have any real-life repercussions. It keeps things clean.’
‘And by repercussions you mean relationships, yes?’
Fuck, this woman is insightful. ‘Yeah, sweetheart. I mean relationships.’ I flash her a small grin, but I want her to know I’m deadly serious about what I say next.
‘I’m not interested in any of the women from the club pursuing me outside of those walls.
That’s precisely why I tend to confine my sex life to Alchemy.
’ My hand moves right to that curve at the small of her back.
‘And then a young, innocent bombshell crosses my path and asks me to help her with her sexual awakening, and I’m more beguiled and addicted than I’ve ever been in my life, and suddenly all I can think about is a relationship. ’
She stares at me, those tiger eyes so huge and limpid and stunned that I can’t bear it. I roll her onto her back and range over her.
‘What do you say to that?’ I whisper. I run the back of my hand over the flat of her stomach, my knuckles brushing over velvety skin. I have the oddest, most sudden urge to know how this part of her body would feel beneath my hand as it swelled with new life. Life I had put there.
Holy fucking shit.
I am losing. The. Plot.
The breeding kink thing has always made me feel physically nauseous, and here I am fantasising about knocking up a twenty-two-year-old who, until a couple of hours ago, was technically a virgin and who has most definitely not agreed to be my girlfriend.
Yet.
Cal and Zach would have a field day with this.
‘Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?’ she asks shyly.
‘I am. Now we’ve done the deed, we should make it official, don’t you think?’
Something flashes across her face, more pain than pleasure.
‘What?’ I ask.
She slides a warm palm across my shoulder. ‘Rafe. You’ve been so lovely to me, but I’m not under any illusions. I mean, you own a sex club, for God’s sake!’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning I can’t expect you to give up your… lifestyle for me. You’ve been so attentive and amazing, but you’d get bored in five minutes if you went monogamous.’
I glare at her. She has it so wrong it’s almost funny.
Her bravado shrinks under my withering look. ‘Oh. I mean—did you mean we wouldn’t be exclusive? Like we’d be in a “relationship”, but we’d—you’d still carry on… playing at the club?’ She trails off.
‘Belle,’ I say. ‘With all due respect, shut the fuck up. There is one obstacle to you being my girlfriend, and that is not my being able to keep my dick under control at Alchemy.’ I pause. Meaningfully, I hope.
‘What is it, then?’ she asks, and I’m struck afresh by how innocent she is. How inexperienced. How fucking young.
‘The problem is that you’re twenty-two, and I’m the first guy you’ve really been intimate with. It’s clear, from what’s gone down at the club and the way you are with me, that you have the most incredible sexual opportunities ahead of you, and I don’t want to get in the way of any of that.’
‘I don’t want anyone else,’ she says. Her eyes are welling up, and there’s panic in her voice. ‘I just want you, but I know I wouldn’t be enough for you.’
‘Fuck, Belle.’ I lower my forehead to hers. Our lips graze. ‘Do you know what Callum said to me the other day when he warned me to give you some space and let you own this time of your life? He said she doesn’t need another daddy, and those words have haunted me all week.’
She erupts with shocked laughter. ‘He said what? God, he’s obnoxious.’
‘You’re not wrong, but I can’t help but feel he’s onto something.
Baby, I’m so much older than you, and you have your whole life ahead of you.
’ I stroke the stomach I’ve vowed not to think about.
‘What if you’ve gone for me because I’m the polar opposite of your dad, or because I’m older, and I can show you the ropes? ’
‘You’ve certainly shown me the ropes,’ she murmurs.
‘And there are many, many ropes still to show you,’ I say wolfishly. ‘But maybe you need some time out—maybe you need a nice guy your own age—’
‘Oh my God,’ she shouts. She puts a hand to my chest, signalling to me to get out of her space, and I do.
She sits up on one elbow and glares at me.
‘I cannot think of anything more… banal than dating another Harry. I’d die of boredom.
I’d never have an orgasm. I certainly would never get bent over the back of a sex club sofa, that’s for sure. I don’t want that.’
‘What do you want?’ I ask her softly, and she raises a hand to cup my stubbly jaw. I turn my mouth and kiss her palm.
‘I want you,’ she says, ‘but no matter how incredible our time together has been, I have never, ever allowed myself to hope I might end up with you.’
‘Jesus, sweetheart,’ I say hoarsely. I tug her down on top of me and kiss her hungrily, coaxing her sweet mouth open with my tongue.
She’s so delicious, so intoxicating, and so unaware of her allure it’s unbelievable.
Her hair trails over my face, and I squish it between my palms as I cover her jaw and her ears with them.
I want her to hear nothing in this moment but the sound of her own heartbeat.
No matter how much I want to keep going, I release her.
‘You have me,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not like I even have a choice in the matter.
I’m a fucking goner; I’ve told you that.
I want you, and only you. It sounds like we’re both doing a fine job of trying to talk the other one out of dating us, am I right? ’
Her face, which is flushed with emotion (and from my ardent kisses) lights up with a smile. ‘Yeah.’
‘But I want to be with you. And I think you’re saying you want to be with me.’
‘Actually, I was just using you for sex,’ she deadpans. I hook an arm around her and wrestle her back onto her back, sealing my mouth to her stomach and blowing a lengthy raspberry. Her skin vibrates satisfyingly and tickles my mouth like nothing else.
When she’s finished shrieking and slapping my arm, she pipes up again. ‘I have a question.’
‘Anything, sweetheart.’
‘Talk to me about the sharing.’
I glance up from where I’m shamelessly rubbing my nose over her skin.
‘Sharing?’