8. Adair
8
ADAIR
I ’m so lost in my own mind by the time my orgasm finally ebbs that I’m startled when I hear Jack laugh quietly, right next to my ear. I lose track of my limbs as he scoops me up and heads towards the front door.
I remember I’ve got jizz, tears and snot all over my face, so I try to turn my head away. To my surprise, Jack puts his hand on my hair and presses me against his shirt. I make a little noise of concern. He responds with a laugh, but the malicious edge it held before has evaporated.
“This shit’s all going straight into the laundry anyway. Don’t worry about it,” he says as he unlocks the door and carries me inside.
“I bet I know what it was,” he says a couple of seconds later, his deep voice low in my ear. I give my head a quick shake and he chuckles.
“You can use your words now, Bunny. I want you to. What were you thinking of?” Oh God. I’ve wanted to ask or say a million things over the course of the night, but not now. Not this .
“What got you to come hands-free like that just now? Hmm?” I bury my face in Jack’s neck as he carries me up the stairs.
He seems to find this funny. “Not going to tell me? What if I guess it?” His voice is gentler, cajoling. “If I guess right, will you tell me?” I stay quiet but a shiver runs through me. He laughs softly again. “Same thing that got you off last time. Am I right? Same as when you came all over my boots, huh?”
As in, when I unexpectedly blew my load onto his boots —which he then made me lick clean —after he made a mocking, joking threat about pissing in my mouth. I shake my head. He makes a little hmm sound without saying anything.
When Jack flicks on the bathroom light, I blink and squint in the glare. My eyes slowly adjust as he sets me right down on the floor of the shower. He takes off that prong collar first. My shoulders slump and I exhale a giant, audible sigh as he gets me the rest of the way undressed. He tosses everything from my boots to my briefs in a pile in the corner before stripping off his own clothes.
Once he’s naked, Jack steps into the shower with me and turns it on, angling the showerhead away from me until the water heats up. With a sigh, he plunks right down on the floor behind me and pulls my body against him, positioning me so the water doesn’t spray in my face. I’m irrationally happy when he grabs his bottle of body wash instead of mine. I inhale the scent with a little hum of satisfaction, but I flinch and whimper at the burn when the water reaches the belt marks on my ass.
“Shh,” he murmurs. “The sting will go away in a sec. You’ll be OK.”
Enveloped in a cloud of steam, I lean back against Jack’s torso. He washes the mess off my face first before rubbing a soapy washcloth over the rest of my body until all the grime has washed down the drain and my tense muscles start to relax.
“Let me see your hands.” I hold them up and Jack carefully cleans the dirt out from all the scrapes. “I’ll get antiseptic ointment on those before we go to bed.” I don’t trust my voice right now, but I nod.
Jack stands, pulling me more or less gently to my feet before reaching for a big towel and bundling me up in it. After grabbing a second towel for himself and wrapping it around his waist, he tips my chin up and studies my face.
“How’re you feeling?” There’s no trace of his earlier anger and derision in his face or his voice.
“Um, — it’s OK. I’m good.” It’s not far from the truth, actually. I’m warm and sleepy and, except for some stinging in my palms and the marks on my ass, mostly comfortable.
Which is why it makes no sense when my vision blurs and a lump forms in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I don’t —I’m not —” I draw in a deep breath and try to get ahold of myself. But when I exhale, I make a couple of jagged, hiccuping sounds before I proceed to completely fall the fuck apart.
I’m mortified and confused, sobbing my eyes out with no fucking clue why or how to stop it. Jack sighs, which makes me cry harder. I’m sure I’ve pissed him off by going to pieces even after he went out of his way to be nice to me.
I don’t want him pissed-off at me. I try to tell him that, but my words are all choppy. This is more embarrassing than getting a hard-on while I was on all fours, being led on a goddamn leash. I try to put my face in my hands but I’ve forgotten that they’re all scraped up. I pull in a hiss of pain when there’s a sob trying to go the other way and I end up choking on nothing but air.
Jack pulls me into him and gives me a couple of thumps on the back until I can breathe again.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp out.
He makes a shushing noise and picks me up, leaving the towels behind. I go limp in his arms as he carries me to bed. When he lays me down, I immediately curl up on my side and go back to bawling. He wraps an arm around me and I feel the heat of his hairy chest against my back.
His beard brushes the shell of my ear. “You’ll be OK, Bunny. It’s going to be OK. Don’t —don’t say you’re sorry, alright?”
He’s got to be screwing with me. Oh God, he probably thinks I’m being dramatic on purpose. I pull in a long, ragged breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. This happens sometimes.”
“I don’t know why I’m broken,” I mumble, and then I hiccup a breath that turns into more crying.
“You’re not broken, Bunny. I promise.”
When he lets out a sigh, I cringe. “I’m sorry. I know you’re probably mad at me.”
“I’m not mad,” he says quietly, a moment before he plants a gentle, completely unexpected kiss on my temple. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Bunny. You’re not broken and I’m not upset at you. OK?”
“Really?” I ask in a small voice. “You’re not pissed-off?”
I’m surprised when he lets out a soft chuckle. “No. Not at all.”
“But I don’t know what happened…” I trail off and give up as I burst into more tears.
“Shh. Don’t talk now.” After a pause, Jack adds, “I’m not trying to tell you to shut up. We can talk about it later. It’s OK if you feel like crying now. Just let it out. You’ll feel better.”
Having reassurance —having fucking permission , and from Jack of all people — to melt down should make me feel better. It doesn’t — at least, not right away. I’m startled when Jack throws a heavy leg over mine. I feel his calf muscles tighten as he pulls me closer. With his arm still over me, his body is completely wrapped around me. He stays like that, holding me, not saying a word except for telling me to breathe a few times until the storm passes.
When I’m finally wrung out, I just lay there for a few minutes, listening to my breath while the echoes of my sobs ring in my ears. “Feel a little better?” Jack asks, his voice quiet.
My breathing is still shaky, but I nod. “Uh-huh. I don’t know why —what happened.”
I’m surprised when I feel his lips brush the side of my head again. “When you’re in a really intense scene, your body is flying on adrenaline and endorphins. And when that all drains out of your system just as fast as it flooded in, you can kind of crash.”
“Well, thank you for being nice about it.”
“I told you.” He squeezes me a little tighter. “I’ll always put you back together after I break you.” After a pause he adds, “I’m sorry. I should’ve talked to you about subdrop earlier, just so you’d know it might happen.”
“Does that make it better?”
“Yes and no, I guess.” Jack sounds thoughtful. “You might have the same physical response, but you can ride it out and not feel like you’re going crazy or losing your shit or whatever.”
I chew on my lip for a minute. “Sorry.” My voice is small. “I still feel stupid.”
“I told you. There’s nothing to be sorry for, and you’re not stupid. You’re human , Bunny.” He falls quiet for a minute. “You didn’t safeword tonight. Is there anything you want to tell me now?”
I shake my head. Jack kind of sighs. Even though I feel secure in his embrace, my heartbeat speeds up. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I’m not going to know what your limits are unless you tell me, Bunny. I’m not a mind reader and you can’t expect that out of me.”
“But I don’t!” I burst out.
“I know it can sometimes be hard to have that clarity in the middle of a scene. I’m asking you now because tonight was obviously pretty intense. Was there anything we did that you don’t ever want to do again?”
Having to admit this might be the most awkward and painful thing I’ve done all night. I squirm and bury my face in the pillow. “No.”
I think Jack might not have heard me until he takes a deep breath. “Are you telling me the truth? I don’t want you telling me what you think I want to hear,” he says. His voice is still quiet, but his tone becomes stern. “That other time, you didn’t safeword when you really should have. I don’t want you to do that anymore. Do you understand?”
I jerk my head into a quick nod, glad he can’t see the embarrassment blazing on my cheeks. “Bunny,” he says, warning implicit in his tone.
“I understand,” I mumble. “I promise I’ll safeword if we’re doing something I don’t think I can handle. Or don’t want to do.”
“Was there anything we did tonight that you want off the table from now on? If there was, I want you to tell me now.”
I shake my head. Is he getting a kick out of making me admit how much I like the degradation, how turned on I get by his brutality? “No,” I say in a small voice, hoping he won’t make me elaborate.
“OK,” he says after what feels like a long pause. “I’m going to trust you, then.”
I bury my face in the pillow so he doesn’t see my big, stupid smile as he rolls out of bed, saying something about getting aloe for the welts on my ass. I know he was just talking about this kink limit stuff, but Jack saying he trusts me at all is such a good feeling.