Chapter Eighteen
Cole
Lori is still standing in front of the window of our bedroom, the New York City lights speckling the night sky behind her. I’m still in the chair where I sat down, leaving her in front of me and with good reason. I need to be in control and not for me tonight, but for her. I’ve let my past make her feel she has to revert back to the days before she met me when the world was on her shoulders and there was no one to hold it up but her. I made her revert back to a place I never wanted her to be again. To a place where she didn’t know I was there, holding it up for her. And so, we go back in time the way she has, and I remind her that from the day she met me she instinctively trusted me. She let me spank her. She let me be that person and place where she could just let go.
I remove my jacket and toss it aside, but Lori still hasn’t moved. “Undress,” I order again, as I had when I first sat down.
“You want me to undress?” Lori asks, a tentativeness to her words that isn’t normally there, not with me. As if she senses what’s in the air, as if she feels exposed and vulnerable when I’m the man who loves her, who would die for her.
“Yes,” I say. “I want you to undress.”
“You undress, too,” she orders softly, but she doesn’t move. She makes no attempt to undress when she’s done it for me before, on the night we met, in fact.
“Not tonight,” I say. “Not yet. I want to watch you.”
“Why?”
“Because I do and because I want you to want me to.”
She studies me for several long beats and then kicks off her shoes. Her jacket comes next. She tosses it on the chair on top of mine. “My blouse. You had to zip it this morning for me. I need you to unzip it now.” We both know she can get it off herself and we both know that she’s obviously trying to pull me back into the same space with her when I’ve set us apart for a reason. She expects me to stand up, to help her, but I don’t.
“Come here,” I order.
Obviously assuming she’s won back control, she does as I say, but I don’t touch her and I don’t stand up. “Turn around.”
She turns but still, I do not stand. “On your knees.”
She rotates to face me. “On my knees?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” I say, my hands going to her hips, offering her reassurance. “On your knees so I can get to the zipper.”
“But you—”
“Stop asking questions. Do what I say and do it because you trust me.”
Her eyes soften, an earnest look in their depths. “I do trust you, Cole.”
“I know you do, but I think you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t,” she says, her hands settling on mine. “Not even for a moment.”
“Then turn back around and go down on your knees.”
This time she doesn’t hesitate. She turns and goes down on her knees in front of me. I reach out and brush her hair to one side and when I could unzip her blouse, I instead close my hands on her shoulders and press my lips to her neck. I want her to feel vulnerable, but I also want her to remember that this is me, this is us, and that means she can just let go. Just be with me.
She inhales with the touch of my lips, and lowers her chin, absorbing the touch, giving herself to the moment, and this pleases me. This tells me that wall is not wide or high, and just knowing this has me hot and hard, ready to pull her to me and make love to her, but that won’t force her to pull that wall down. She’s guarded herself with it for far too long. I reach up and drag the zipper of her blouse down to the middle of her back. Two of my fingers follow, gently gliding up and down her bare back. Goosebumps lift everywhere I touch, this reaction telling me she’s one hundred percent right here with me, exactly where I want and need her.
The room is silent, complete utter silence, except for our breathing, and I let that encase us, let it consume us, let it tell us that there is only us here now. I slip my hands under her blouse and caress the silk off her shoulders. A soft sound escapes her lips and the barely there sound echoing through the room, heats my blood. I unhook her bra, and then she drags it all up and over her head, and when she would stand up, my hands settle on her shoulders, holding her in place. “Don’t move until I tell you to move. Understand?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I understand.”
I drag my hands down her shoulders, settling them for a moment at her slender waist before I’m traveling over her ribcage and cupping her breasts. She can’t lean into me, not with her feet against the chair and that forces her to arch into my hands. I squeeze her roughly, my fingers closing over her nipples with no gentleness in my touch. She moans and covers my hands with hers, trying to turn, but I don’t let her. That’s not where this is going. I lean forward, widening my legs to press my cheek to hers, my hands settling back on her shoulders. “Stand up. Take off everything but don’t turn around. Go down on your hands and knees.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Repeat it. What are you going to do?”
“Turn around and undress you.”
“Not tonight, sweetheart. Tonight, you’re going to remind us both how much you trust me.”
“Cole,” she breathes out. “You know I trust you.”
“Show me. Tell me what you’re going to do and then do it. Now. Tell me now, Lori.”
She pants out several breaths. “Stand up. Take off everything but don’t turn around.”
“And then what?”
“Go down on my hands and knees.”
“Yes. Now do it and if you turn and face me, it ends. I’ll go take a shower and we stop.”
“Why would you do that?” she demands, obviously believing me, as she should. This isn’t a night that I spank her for punishment.
“Tonight is all or nothing,” I say. “We’re all or nothing, Lori, and this is what we need tonight.”
“You mean it’s what you need?”
“No,” I assure her. “It’s what we need. It’s what you think you don’t need. Trust me.”
“I do,” she whispers again and she moves, standing up and stepping toward the window. She stands there for a minute, no doubt, reminding herself of the vow she’s just issued. She trusts me. No doubt convincing herself this is about me. She is doing it for me because Lori does almost everything for someone else, not herself, but this is very much about her.
She reaches for the zipper of her skirt, and slowly eases it down, sliding the material over her hips, and allowing it to pool at her feet. She kicks it away and reaches for the silk of her barely-there thong and holy fuck I want to go to her, to tear it away or just pull it down, but I do not. I watch her pull it down her hips until she is stepping out of it.
She’s left in thigh highs and when she reaches for one of them, I say, “Leave them and you know what comes next.”
“I turn around and undress you,” she says, her voice raspy with a mix of nerves and arousal that pleases me. She’s not thinking about anything but here, now, us.
“Another day,” I say. “Another night. Knees, Lori.”
She eases to her knees and when she would go down on her hands as well, I stop her. “Not yet. Stay just like that. Understand?”
“Yes, Cole, I understand.”
I pull off my tie, remove my shirt and shoes but leave on my pants, which ensures I have an extra layer of control. I then grab the tie again and walk to stand above Lori, between her and the windows. She looks up at me, her beautiful eyes laced with anticipation. I kneel in front of her, my gaze raking over her naked body, her high breasts, and pebbled nipples. “Lace your fingers together.”
She glances at the tie and then me, letting me see her understanding of what’s about to happen and her agreement. She laces her fingers together in front of her. “I’m going to tie you up,” I say, despite her silent agreement. “Any objection?”
“No,” she says softly. “No objection.”
I wrap the silk of the tie around her wrists and bind her. When I’m done, my hands settle on my knees. “Don’t move. Don’t turn.” I search her face for agreement before I stand and walk into the closet and remove another tie from a drawer. I then kneel in front of a drawer, where I’ve placed a box filled with things I’ve wanted to share with Lori but have not. Not yet.
I return to the living room, set the box on the chair and then kneel behind her. For several seconds I just stay there, not touching her, my breath warm on her neck, until she gasps out, “Cole,” and my name is a plea. To touch her. To fuck her. To end the blind torture, and yet it’s just begun. I slip the second tie around her eyes and knot it into place. I lean into her then, press my cheek to her cheek and whisper, “Now I can do anything I want to you and you can’t stop me.”