Chapter Nineteen
Cole
With Lori in front of me, her hands bound, eyes blindfolded, I repeat my words. “I can do anything to you, and you can’t stop me.” I slide my hand up her belly and cup her breast, a rough touch that promises I plan to push her.
“But I can stop you.”
“How is that Lori?”
“I trust you. If I say no, you’ll stop.”
“Will I?” I challenge, tugging at her nipple.
“Yes,” she pants out. “You will.”
This is what I want from her: total trust. “Remember that.” I run my hands up and down her body and she leans into me, exposed and vulnerable but fearless. She is with me. I’m holding her. This is safe for her, but it’s not enough. Even bound, this is her safe zone and that doesn’t tear down walls. I shackle her waist. “Hands on your knees and don’t move.”
I release her and ease back on my heels. She arches forward, grabbing her knees, more out of the shock of me no longer touching her than anything, I am certain. “Relax,” I say, and it’s a soft command, the kind I know she needs right now. It’s not about being in control. It’s about letting her let go of her control.
She inhales deeply but eases down into a full kneel in front of me, and her spine is straight, her hands on her knees. A submissive position that is all the more powerful because I know this woman submits to no one but me. I decide against the box, but I open it, grab a bottle of heated gel, and slide it under the chair. It’s for later. It’s too much right now, for this night. She’s too guarded, we have too far to go, and knowing this kills me. I let her get here. I let us get here by allowing my past to control us.
Everything I might have done to her tonight shifts, changes, softens, but that doesn’t mean I won’t push her. I will tear down those damn walls. I will make her let herself feel what she’s buried inside over her attack. I know what burying things rather than facing them does. I did it and that’s why we’re here now.
I squat behind her, touching her nowhere, but my hands caress an outline of her body. She tilts her head back and arches into the nonexistent touch as if she feels it; that’s how connected I am to this woman and that’s what I need her to remember tonight. Nothing she can feel or express or need is outside of my understanding. I reach up and just barely run my fingers over her shoulder, goosebumps lifting on her skin. I follow the touch with a true caress across that same stretch of creamy white skin, and down her upper arm. I repeat the same action on the other side. The barely there touch of her shoulder, the full caress down her arm.
A heavy, quivering breath escapes her lips, telling me how on edge she is, and I stroke the silky strands of her brown hair away from her delicate, slender neck, my hand on her naked shoulder, my lips at her ear. “I own you tonight.” I brush my lips over her neck and then whisper in her ear. “And that means I’m going to push you and push you some more.” My lips trail down her neck to her shoulder, where my teeth scrape before my tongue soothes that bite.
She yelps and I lave the offended skin with my tongue. “I promise to make it hurt really good.”
“I don’t like being tied up,” she whispers.
I reach around her and pull her back against my chest, my hands cupping her breasts, fingers teasing her nipples. She moans and I lower my head to ask. “What don’t you like?”
“I want to touch you.”
“I want you to touch me, but not yet.” I lean around her and kiss her, her lips and tongue reaching for mine, the taste of her hungry and yet uncertain. Desperate and yet reserved. It’s the unknown that is consuming her right along with me.
I squeeze her breasts. “Lean forward on your hands and knees.” My hands fall away from her.
“Are you going to—”
“Spank you?”
“Yes,” she says.
“You might like that a little too much to make it a surprise.” I smack her backside. “On your hands and knees.”
She yelps with what is a surprise, arching against my touch, but she pants out a breath and does as I command, her palms flattening in front of her, her perfect backside lifted high in the air. Her hands and knees are on the soft thick brown rug that I’m damn glad I let the decorator talk me into buying. I stand up and undress, just the sight of her on her hands and knees, thickening my already hard cock. I wrap my hand around it, a momentary memory of her on her knees in the shower, her mouth on me, almost my undoing. I want to drive inside her, to fuck her, and start all over, but no. That’s isn’t what I’m going to do.
I settle on one knee beside her, pressing my hand between her shoulder blades, and leaning into my hand on her lower back and slender belly. “On your elbows.”
She complies, and I drag my hand down her spine to rest on her backside while my lips press between her shoulder blades. “What are your limits, Lori?” I ask, my teeth scraping her shoulder again.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s find out.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks urgently.
“Make you forget everything but me.” I press my hand to her belly.
“Success,” she whispers. “I’m already—”
The fingers of one of my hands brush her nipples, while the other traces the line down the center of her beautiful bottom. She never finishes her sentence and that’s how I want her. Speechless, mindless. I squeeze one of her breasts and then the other, tweaking her nipples, only to abandon them and move behind her, flattening a palm on her lower back, my other hand sliding up and down the center of her backside, stopping just over her sex, the wet heat of her arousal radiating over my palm. I know what she likes, I know what she wants. I give her a slight smack there, not meant to cause any pain, just pleasure. This delivers her earthy, wanting gasp and I can hear her breathing now.
I grab the gel and pour it on my hands, pressing my palm to her sex, and sliding the liquid over her. She whispers my name and I slide a finger along her sex front and back, dragging all the wet heat up and down her entire body, lingering in that intimate part of her I have never dared. “Cole,” she whispers, panic in her voice. “Cole, I—”
“Easy, sweetheart. Only pleasure. I won’t hurt you.”
“I know. I just. I—”
My fingers press inside her sex. She pants and I sink them deep and spank her at the same time. She arches into the touch, and I do it again, pulling my fingers back and thrusting them inside her at the same moment I spank her. “Sink to the ground,” I order.
She does it almost on instinct and the minute she’s on the floor, I roll her to her side and then to her back, spreading her legs and sinking between them. I waste no time giving us both what we want. My mouth closes down on her clit, suckling, licking, stroking. She moans low and deep, sexy as hell. Her knees shackle my shoulders, telling me how on edge she is, how in need. I respond. I give her more, my fingers pressing along her sex, but this time when I enter her, I penetrate her front and back. She goes stiff but a few strokes of my tongue and she eases into the sensations. I’m gentle where I need to be gentle, placing all intensity on her sex with my fingers and my tongue and she quakes into a sudden, intense orgasm.
I bring her down, and when her legs stop trembling, I untie her hands, and slide up her body, tearing away the blindfold, my pulsing thick erection setting between her legs. My eyes meet hers and the heat and intimacy between us is scorching, the trust there is a new level of trust, and we need no words. I press inside her, watching her lashes lower as I stretch her, fill her. “This is where I want to be the rest of my life,” I tell her. “And this is how I want to taste.” Her lips part and I claim her mouth, kissing her, the taste of her on my tongue now on hers. It’s a slow kiss, a passionate kiss, and our bodies begin to sway and pump.
We make love until we snap and suddenly we’re fucking, me driving into her, her legs at my hips, while hers lift into every drive of my cock. The need for this woman is everything, consuming me, and when her sex clenches around me, I’m helpless in a way no one else can make me. I’m shuddering into release while her body quakes around me. I lose all time, and holy hell, it’s fucking beautiful; she’s beautiful, and when we melt into the sated, perfect moment after orgasm, I hold her. Just hold her. That is until I hear her sob. I pull back to look at her.
“It’s not you,” she whispers. “I promise you, it’s nothing you did. I don’t know why I’m crying.”
But I do. It’s like that first time I spanked her when she cried. The adrenaline rush, the fear of the unknown releases endorphins, and the high became a crash, a release of pent-up emotions. I roll us, and pull her to me, under my arm, ready to ride out the storm with her. This is what I wanted. For her to just let go, and when she let go, the walls fall, and she faces what’s on the other side.
She was attacked.
But as she sobs, deep gut-wrenching sobs, her entire body trembling, I think this is more. She’s finally crying over everything she has faced; losing her father, almost losing her mother, her struggles to survive. And so, I hold her even closer, and ride out the storm with her. The way a man should ride out every storm with his woman, his wife. Thankful she finally let me in, thankful she’s finally letting everything else out.