Epilogue Adair
EPILOGUE: ADAIR
Six months later
M y eyes drift to the clock on the wall for the third time. Lucille’s reputation as the best wedding photographer in the area is undisputed,but I’ve been waiting in this entryway for fifteen minutes already. My phone buzzes with a message from her, apologizing for making me wait and promising she’ll be back to her studio by half-past.
Oh well. At least I’ve got my tablet with me andenough work to keep me busy until then. I settle in gingerly, moving my bruised ass carefully on the wooden bench. Jack’s belt is still no joke. I pull up my sketchbook app and take a sip of the iced mocha Paul gave me on the house when I swung by Bean-Go on my way here.
I had been afraid he’d be annoyed when I came into his office over the winter and told him I needed to cut back my hours to just one or two days a week once the spring semester started. To my surprise, he stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. “Good for you, Addy,” he said. “I appreciate the great work you did designing our loyalty program cards, but nothing would make me happier than to see you turn your talents into a career.”
Eventually, even that one day a week became too much to juggle with my classes once requests for my art started rolling in from other independent authors. I did finally set up a couple of social media profiles and a bare-bones website so Jack would stop bugging me about it, but most of my commissions these days come through word-of-mouth. I sometimes worry what’s going to happen if the work dries up, but Jack usually rolls his eyes and calls me a dumb bunny before giving me a kiss on the forehead and telling me not to worry, that we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.
I frown down at the half-done sketch in my lap. Olivia is still my biggest client. She keeps me on my toes, though; she’s starting up a second pen name for sci-fi shifter romance, and the time-travel plot that runs through the series she’s developing now means I have to master drawing both rocket ships and pterodactyl shifters. That’s one hell of a challenge, but I’m confident I’ll be able to deliver.
I tap the video gallery on my phone with a little smirk, thinking how ironic it is that I actually have to give Jack some credit for this. I was frustrated nearly to the point of tears a few weeks ago, telling him how damn impossible it was to get these pterodactyls to look right. Usually, I can pull up videos of bears or swans or dolphins or whatever and watch how the animals move — but fucking pterodactyls? When I groaned this to Jack, though, he laughed at me as he sauntered over to the sofa where I was sprawled out, ostensibly working but mostly just whining. He pulled my hair out of its ponytail so he could tousle it the way he used to before it got long enough to pull back and made a brilliant suggestion.
“Why don’t you just come to the nature center and take pictures of the prehistoric exhibit?”
I smacked my forehead with a groan for not thinking of it myself. They’d added a display of locally-discovered fossils and small models of the dinosaurs about five years ago and I’d kind of forgotten it was there. I felt stupid because I was literally there just a few months ago when I got arm-twisted into chaperoning a class picnic Rosa had at the beginning of the school year. It was a bit of a rigamarole getting the school to approve me since I wasn’t technically her uncle yet , but they eventually agreed.
I went on a gray, rainy day when I figured it wasn’t likely to be crowded. When I was done recording the models from all angles, Jack strolled up to me with a wicked smile and a lustful gleam in his eye. He pulled me into his office, then through the door on the back wall that leads to the utility corridor. Our footsteps echoed in the damp, concrete-lined passageway until Jack stopped me in front of the metal work table next to his locker. He made me drop my pants and briefs, teasing me for the way my cock snapped to attention when he removed his belt before bending me, bare-assed, over that cold table.
I couldn’t hold back a whine as I waited in horny anticipation. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, though, when I heard the clang of metal. At Jack’s barked command, I spread my ass cheeks for him, gasping when he abruptly shoved an ice-cold —although, thankfully, lubed-up —metal plug up my ass. My hole clenched as the sudden chill inside of me made me shiver, as did the wicked chuckle Jack let out right before ordering me to count.
By the end, I was sobbing out each number as every strike of his belt left another burning stripe across my ass. When Jack was satisfied, he grabbed my ponytail and forced me onto my knees, his breath quickening as he pulled his hard cock out of his uniform pants. Gripping my hair in one hand tightly enough to make me whimper, he gagged me on his cock until tears were streaming from my eyes, drool was running down my chin… and precum was dripping from the head of my dick, flinging droplets onto the concrete floor as Jack roughly fucked my mouth.
He only lasted a few minutes before pulling out so he could blow his load all over my face, hissing a string of curses as he did. My eyes were streaming tears from the sting of his come in them, but I could practically hear him grinning when he commanded me to lick his cock clean.
He hauled me to my feet a minute later, my legs shaking, my plugged ass on fire and my face dripping tears, drool and jizz. My hands were unsteady as I pulled my underwear and pants up over my desperately aching cock. When we got back to his office, Jack told me to wait while he checked to make sure the coast was clear, shutting the door behind him as he slipped out.
He let out a low rumble of laughter as he came back in, looking over the mess he’d made of me. Since we were the only ones there, he made me walk out just like that, along with instructions not to wipe off my face until I got back home. I groaned when he added, almost as an afterthought, an order to keep the plug inside of me but not to touch my dick —and to have a draft of those pterodactyls ready to show him by the time he got home.
I yelped when he smacked my tender ass one final time on my way out the door. But once I got home, the instant after I scrubbed my face clean, I grabbed my tablet and started sketching. I didn’t even stop to think about it until I had a rough outline on the screen: It wasn’t the prospect of getting off that motivated me —not entirely, at least. I wanted to make Jack proud of me.
T hat hot memory makes me squirm in my chair. I hope Lucille doesn’t show up until my dick has a chance to settle down. My phone buzzes again and I’m afraid it might be her, saying she’s walking in now or something. I sigh with relief when I see it’s just a text from Sarah, asking how the meeting with the photographer went. I send her back a grumpy-face emoji and tell her I’m still waiting.
Sarah and I have been talking and texting about wedding plans basically nonstop. I appreciate her enthusiasm, because Jack said in so many words he doesn’t give a shit what I do or pick out as long as it’s not stupid expensive. I don’t bust his balls about that because I know he’d be perfectly happy going down to the courthouse, but agreed to do the whole traditional thing with cake and flowers and toasts that will probably make me cry, just because I told him I wanted it.
Actually, he did have one request. I glance down at the tattoo on my left ring finger and smile, just like I do every time I look at it. Jack let —no, he asked —me to design them, which made me feel really good. He let me pick what I wanted his to look like. So he’s got a solid black band on the outside of his hand. On the palm side, there’s just the outline of a band that frames, in script, Bunny .
In exchange, he told me what he wanted mine to say inside the band outline. On the back of my hand, in script, is Jack’s . Because I belong to him. And on the inside: Slut . Jack told me he’d be happy with either that or Bunny . I made him wait until we were at the tattoo parlor before I showed him which one I’d chosen to be marked on my skin permanently.
F ive minutes later, Lucille comes in. Once we get settled in her studio, I tell her what we’re planning to do and ask what she thinks. I kind of —OK, really — have my heart set on my idea. So when she taps her pen to her lips and knits her brows together, my stomach drops.
“So, I’m not sure that’s going to be feasible,” she says in that tone of voice that says she’s breaking bad news.
“I do love the idea of you exchanging your vows on the trail that overlooks the lake. I know the spot; I’ve been hiking there with my wife and our dogs and I think it’s beautiful. The thing is, I don’t think they’ll let you go up there to do the actual ceremony. The rangers up there can be pretty strict.”
I exhale a giant sigh of relief. “Oh yeah, don’t worry about that. It’s OK,” I tell her with a grin. “I know a guy.”
THE END