Chapter Nineteen #2
I groan, slide down in my chair, and brush my hand over my face. She giggles and moves her chair closer to mine so she can trail a finger down my chest. “Does that turn you on?” she murmurs. “The thought of me being in charge?”
“No.”
“Liar.” She continues down to my erection and strokes it through the fabric. “I think it does. I think it’ll be exciting for you to give up control for once. To make yourself vulnerable to someone else. To put your desire in my hands.”
“Are you trying to give me a coronary?”
She smiles, but continues, “You think control is strength. But letting someone see you emotionally naked… that’s brave.”
“You’re suggesting I stand unarmed in front of you. You don’t know what you’re asking. That’s not who I am.”
She continues to stroke my erection. “Are you sure about that?”
A long time ago, I tentatively suggested to Eleanor that we experiment.
She didn’t mind oral, but I proposed that maybe I could explore her body more with my fingers and tongue, and she could do the same to me.
I can still recall the look of distaste that passed across her face.
The way she said, somewhat icily, “Straight, decent men aren’t interested in that kind of thing, Spencer.
You’re not a horny teenager, you’re a grown man—exercise some self-control, for God’s sake.
” I remember the way it made me feel—an inch high, and like a pervert.
I never mentioned anything like it again, and our love life remained vanilla right until the end.
When other men have joked about their bedroom antics, I’ve just raised an eyebrow and said that I don’t share salacious tales about my wife, but the truth was that I didn’t have any stories to tell.
Now the thought of Marama introducing new and interesting things turns me on and terrifies me in equal measure. Does it make me a pervert that I’m excited by it? Make me weak to give her the power?
Her expression flickers, as if maybe she understands a little of what I’ve been through. She smiles, gets to her feet, and holds out a hand. “Come on, Spencer. Let me take you to heaven and back.”
I take her hand and let her pull me to my feet, then follow her into the living room, blowing out the candle on the way. She closes the sliding door behind us and locks it, then picks up her purse, and together we walk across the living room to the stairs on the opposite side.
I glance at the portrait as I pass it. You come to be seen, as I choose to see you . This woman has snuck into the dusty attic where I keep all my fears locked up, and she’s prying open the shutters and letting in the sunlight, exposing all the ghosts that lurk there.
My heart bangs on my ribs as I lead her up the stairs to the bedroom above. I don’t know if I can do this. If I can give myself wholly to her. Once she’s wheedled her way inside my heart, how will I ever get her out again?
I open the door to my bedroom and we go inside. It’s the master bedroom, and it has a magnificent view over the ocean in daylight. It’s dark now, and the sky and the sea are the color of an eggplant, rapidly darkening to black. The moon is a few days off full, casting everything in a silvery light.
The headboard rests against a false wall, chest-high, a few feet from the back wall, and the bed faces the view.
Marama puts her purse on the bedside table, then turns to me and moves me so my back is against the wall.
She glances to my left, her eyes lighting with surprise at the sight of one of her paintings next to us—one of my favorites, of a Māori goddess dancing naked in the moonlight, modeled on herself.
Her gaze comes back to me. She moves up close and lifts onto her tiptoes. Then she kisses me.
I let her, trying not to do what I’d normally do, and take charge. It’s her birthday, and if I’m going to do this, I want to do it properly. I want her to enjoy it, and to experience the feeling of being fully in control for once. She deserves it after everything she’s been through.
And, let’s face it, it’s hardly a chore for me.
She slides a hand to the back of my head as she kisses me, pressing up against me, and I rest my hands on her hips, not directing, but wanting to touch her.
When you’re young, you have no idea how difficult it can be in a relationship when your libidos don’t match, or you have different kinks or limits.
As a guy we’re conditioned to think sex is all physical, and that it’s our responsibility to ensure our partner enjoys themselves in bed.
I never realized that the biggest turn on is being desired and wanted.
And now Marama is taking that a step further and showing me that some women actually enjoy sex, and want to give pleasure too.
I thought I wouldn’t like it, but somehow it’s completely different to the experience Genevieve promised.
That felt spiteful and manipulative, the same way it must have felt for Marama with Connor—that the other person wants to control you, to punish you, almost. To make you small. This just feels… exciting.
Her fingers are sliding to the base of my tee, and they slip beneath it, then spread across my skin, her nails scraping over my ribs.
I murmur my approval, and she does it again, skating her fingers up to my nipples, which she circles with the pads of her forefingers.
When I shudder, she chuckles and nips my bottom lip with her teeth, then draws my tee up my body, over my head, and tosses it away.
Next, she takes off my track pants, and then my boxer-briefs, so I’m standing in front of her, naked.
“Get on the bed,” she whispers.
Heart hammering, I climb on and lay back.
She goes over to her purse and opens it. What’s she taking out? A couple of long silk scarves.
Holy shit.
She comes over to the bed, stands beside it, and unbuttons her jeans, then tugs them off and lets them drop. Next, she takes off her black top. I inhale—she’s wearing a gorgeous set of lingerie—a matching lacy bra and knickers. Leaving them on, she climbs onto the bed and moves up near my head.
Taking the silk scarf, she loops one end around my right wrist and ties it, just once.
She lifts my arms above my head, threads the scarf through the slat at the top, and ties the other end around my left wrist, again, just once.
I look up at the knots. One wriggle of my wrists or tug with my fingers and they’d easily come undone.
“It’s symbolic,” she tells me softly. “Do you trust me?”
I nod, because I think if I speak it’ll come out as a squeak.
“I want you to give me control,” she says. “And this shows me you’re willing. You can stop any time, see? But I’m hoping you won’t.”
It does make me feel better to know she’s not going to do a constrictor knot. I don’t want her to do unmentionable things to me while I’m restrained.
Do I? My cock appears to think otherwise.
“I’m sure you know the safe word colors,” she says. “Yellow means pause. Red means stop. Right?”
I nod. I’m aware of them, although I’ve never had to use them myself. “This should be the other way around,” I say hoarsely. “I should be pleasuring you on your birthday.”
“You are,” she says. “This is what I want.” I wait for her to say ‘To see the mighty Spencer Cavendish brought to his knees,’ or something else demeaning like that. But instead she murmurs, “I want you to share yourself with me. To open up to me. To trust me.”
I swallow hard. “I do.”
She climbs on the bed and crawls up to me. Then she lowers her head and touches her lips to mine. “Then relax, sweetheart. And just enjoy yourself.”