Chapter 24
24
M ACKENZIE
Let’s make something clear. I hate giving up control.
A therapist might say it’s about my survival instinct, which has been refined in challenging situations over the years.
I can’t afford not to have control over a situation.
It makes me go crazy.
Panic floods me, my brain goes haywire, and my thoughts turn into chaos.
It’s bad.
But something happened last night.
As intimidated as I was, having my body under his felt like the epitome of empowerment.
On the one hand, I freaked out.
On the other hand, I felt freed and relieved.
You’d think it was only about him fucking me.
Well, it wasn’t.
Things happened to us last night––to me, at least––and I wish I could feel them again.
“This time, we’ll make it better,” he says.
He must’ve liked it, too.
He must’ve noticed how I tensed up and fought and relished his weight on me at the same time.
How my legs shook when he spread them and entered me repeatedly.
He rounds the bed before entering an adjacent room and returning with a pair of shackles.
He shows them to me, and my eyes go to them as the back of my head hits the pillow.
They dangle from his hand before he unlocks them and slowly slides them around my wrists.
“You have no power over me…” he says quietly. “Except one. You come for me as many times as you want.”
He pins the shackles to the bed and moves away from me while I roll to my side to see him.
“Turn the other way,” he says, his hand latched onto the edge of his towel.
I roll to my other side and peer through the open curtains.
Thick fog hangs over the windows.
He slides next to me, and his naked body touches me shortly after. Goosebumps spread across my skin.
One confident hand brushes my hair to the side, clearing the way for his lips.
He moves even closer, his skin igniting small fires across mine, and presses his lips to the back of my neck.
A shudder moves through me at meteoric speed, and my nipples turn to stone.
His hand travels to my boobs, and then his thumb circles a nipple. He pinches it and sinks his teeth into my shoulder, awakening pulsing pleasure in my core.
Growing hard against my lower back, he splays his fingers over my chest and kneads my breasts with patience and determination.
A pause ensues as I tilt my hips, and he grabs the root of his erection and pushes the chiseled head against my center.
I love this moment so much.
I loved it last night, too.
Because there is nothing that I can do about it.
This is when all fears die, and I submit to him.
Trusting someone is a rare occurrence for me.
Instinctively, I don’t trust anyone, and even if I do, I add a healthy dose of skepticism to it.
It’s better that way.
I don’t get easily let down.
But here is more than that.
More than trusting him.
It’s living dangerously while being safe, and I enjoy every second of it.
He moves his fingers down, drawing a line from my chest to my sex.
He pushes his forefinger between my folds and crushes my clit before massaging it, the hard tip of his erection stretching me.
A third of his hard length is in while he’s nuzzling my shoulder, licking my earlobe, and teasing the nerve endings in my skin.
He moves his free arm and grabs my shackled wrists, his chest lining my back, his hardness moving harshly between my walls.
Layers upon layers of growing tension swirl through me, and my hips rock on their own accord.
My back curving.
My chest tightening.
He slides in all the way, filling me up and making me panic while holding me tight against him.
The ropes of tension coil around my body, squeezing me harder while he rocks his hips.
Who knew I’d like this so much?
Rebellion zips through me, making me fight my shackles while moving in perfect synch with him.
It takes him a meager effort to block my efforts and end my fight, quickly showing me I don’t stand a chance.
He plunges into me, breathing fire over my shoulder, while I slide away, going up and up and up.
The first time, I come quickly, breathing unevenly and moaning quietly.
The second time, he pulls me under him, opens my legs, and enters me again.I’m a bit dazed and drunk, my lips tilted into a weird smile.
His chest presses into my back while he rolls his hips, his hard shaft thrusting into my body.
By now, I’m a wet mess, still throbbing, not ready for another high, while he, on the other hand, is glaringly aroused, his pleasure spiking.
My inner thighs must be red from the friction as I feel the sting in my skin.
He doesn’t stop until a peak of pleasure is about to rise in both of us.
My body hurts, but it’s all worth it.
When we begin our journey, he pushes his hand under me. The second he touches my clit, it takes only a few skillful strokes, and my neck tenses up and my lips part, calling his name.
It blows my mind.
The third time, I’m on all fours, my head bowed down, my elbows on the pillows, my restraints on.
He grabs my hips hard and enters me again with great ease as I’m like a fountain, trickling wetness, before pounding into me like there’s no tomorrow.
This feels like raw punishment.
And torturous bliss.
Every time he rams into me, my body jolts.
And what am I against his force?
A flower against a dark storm.
A butterfly facing the harshest wind.
A cloud chased away.
I don’t come the third time around, but he does, blasting his load, having no mercy for my frame.
His fingers rip into me once he pulls out and strokes himself with his free hand until the last drop of tension drains from his body.
A few moments later, he crashes next to me, allows me to close my legs, and pushes his hand between them.
All that tension that had nowhere to escape moments ago finds its way out. A soft throbbing morphs into a hard, demanding pulse when I call his name again, telling him how close I am to coming.
His hand burns with heat against my flesh, and two fingers slide into me before I’m done with a big smile on my face.
MACKENZIE
The second day of Christmas
He pulls the car to a stop two blocks from where I live.
The park is nearby, but this isn’t that kind of ride.
The last two days have been the best two days of my life.
We had good food and amazing sex, and we even walked outside his property on a beautiful, snaking road lined with old trees decked out in snow.
Somehow, we established a routine in only two days—it’s hard to believe—and we loved it.
It was like our honeymoon. A two-day honeymoon.
Yet today, I knew our adventure would come to an end.
He checked his phone more often, and I saw the verdict in his eyes.
It was time to end it.
After having sex for the third time this afternoon, his hand rested on me a little longer, almost nostalgic that our time together had come to an end.
I felt the same.
I hadn’t talked about my leaving or whether we’d see each other again. And now that we’re still in the car, not rushing to get out or saying goodbye, I suspect that we are headed to a swift ending.
For the most part, we’ve talked about safe topics these past two days—things that he likes or dislikes and things that I abhor.
We didn’t talk about the future, the past, or what would happen next.
He turns the ignition off and glances outside before speaking.
“I can’t be seen at your place,” he says evenly before shifting his eyes to me.
I look at him, waiting.
“It has nothing to do with that woman’s accusation. I haven’t stolen anything from her,” he says before pausing as if hesitating, but nothing else follows his words.
I stay quiet.
“You have to believe me,” he says.
“I do.”
I don’t know what to believe.
But I do think he doesn’t fool me.
He places his hand on my thigh.
“They won’t come knocking on your door anymore. If they do, they’ll deal with my men. I’m saying this so you don’t feel like a sitting target. You’re protected. They shouldn’t have bothered you to begin with,” he says, and I feel a shred of pain in my chest.
“All right?” he says, his eyes hovering over my face and dipping to my lips.
This would be the moment when I asked him whether we’d see each other again. And this would also be the moment when he’d say he doesn’t know.
I’m so sure about his answer that I don’t even want to put myself through the pain of that dialogue.
It doesn’t even matter whether we’ll see each other again.
Obviously, we can’t.
He doesn’t want to be seen with me, which makes sense.
It does.
The way he narrows his eyes with a longing stare and moves his hand up and down my thigh makes me want to climb out of the car, go home, and look for a new place to live.
If he can’t come to my place, and I can’t obviously live at his house, what else is there to do?
He leans toward me, and him kissing me right now feels like running a sharp blade through my heart.
It hurts in the beginning, and then it feels like death.
And sheer abandonment.
Surrendering to him without regret, I enjoy the kiss with all my being.
And so it goes.
What do I have to lose if I tell him the truth?
My arms wrap around his neck when I breathe into him.
“I’ll miss you,” I say, our lips almost touching each other.
My heart beats, panicked in my chest, while I await his answer.
“I’ll miss you too.”
And that’s it.
My heart shatters like glass thrown at a wall.
I’ve come to learn that some things in life are just not possible, so I remain stoic, holding my tears back.
I can let them run free later when I enter my place.
He studies my face for a few long moments and places another kiss on my unresponsive lips.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say in a strangled voice. “I’ll walk from here. Thank you for the ride,” I say, filled with icicles.
I squeeze his hand slightly before tearing my eyes away from him, pushing the car door open, and rising out of my seat like my rear is on fire.
I can’t look back as much as I can’t ignore the memory of his hand falling off my thigh as I climbed out.
My resolve dissolves when I turn my back to him, and my cheeks get wet.
So many emotions have been suppressed these past few days. So many things have happened.
Of all the things I could’ve done, why did I have to fall for a man like him? A villain he is, isn’t he?
Despite everything he’s done for me.
Despite all the memories we’ve created.
Despite his promise to make it up to me and gentlemanly erase the memory of the other men.
He treated me so nicely that no one could stand a chance.
The noise of his car pulling away never travels to my ears for as long as I should normally be able to hear it.
I imagine him sitting in the driver’s seat and watching me walk away. A gray silhouette, barely visible in the colorful twilight.
I imagine him being pensive and thoughtful, maybe having second thoughts about letting me go.
Or even pinched by regret that we had to do this––have some good time only to wake up to the bitter taste of estrangement.
But how estranged can we be if we had laid naked in bed, next to each other, almost bearing our souls bare?
He might not have said a lot about his family’s history, but he has said enough. And I might not have had much to say, but he knew exactly where I was.
We didn’t have to talk at length about these things because we had so much in common. I knew his pain as much as he knew mine.
We had experienced similar things, maybe on a different scale. Perhaps that’s why he felt so familiar to me, and I felt so attracted to him.
Who knows?
My steps leave marks of desperation on the thin layer of snow, moving quickly away from him.
The car is still there—it must be. I didn’t hear it move––andno other cars are outside.
The silence is more than telling.
Another thought sidles up to me.
What if he does none of that and simply checks his phone?
Or is he on the phone with someone else talking about regular stuff?
Like, I don’t know.
His car? His business?
The time his housekeeper needs to come back and tidy up his place?
For the most part, we didn’t make a mess. But even so… I can only imagine she is due to return.
Despite everything going through my mind, I don’t stop to glance over my shoulder.
It doesn’t matter what he does.
Or whether I’m right or wrong.
Or whether I’m projecting or not.
My heart is bleeding all over my chest as I walk to the entrance of my building, move up the stairs to my apartment, walk through the door, and make a beeline for the bathroom, where I shed my clothes and let all my emotions out in the form of warm tears of longing.