Chapter Thirteen
Pausing, she rested her forehead against the thick door, her hand on the lever as she tried to calm her fluttering heart.
What the hell was happening to her? Why did the thought of submitting to him, lying over his lap and allowing him to do as he pleased with her have her body trembling with need?
Hell, she was almost dizzy with it. Sex was fun, had always been fun, as long as she had a decent lover.
It wasn’t supposed to be this all-consuming fire, burning her from the inside out, searing her soul.
It’s him, she realized. Marcus was responsible for this shift in perception. Oh, she could say no to him, but in the end he would make her want it. Once he got near her, got his hands on her, he could brush aside her objections as easily as he brushed away an annoying insect.
Physically, he was much stronger than she, he could take anything he wanted from her, but he didn’t need to use that strength.
All he had to do was give her a taste of the pleasure and she was toast. She wasn’t a teenager in the throes of her first love affair, eager to please; she was a grown woman in control of her own body and its responses.
Squaring her shoulders she opened the door, determined to tell him that some things were just off limits.
There was no way he was going to make her crave things she wasn’t interested in.
Suddenly she heard the grandfather clock in the great room strike the half hour, its deep tone reverberating through her in warning.
“Shit,” she mumbled as she fled down the hall to the stairway. Susan flew down the stairs at top speed, cursing herself for her weakness. She got to the door at the same moment Marcus opened it to come looking for her and ran smack into his arms.
“You’re late,” he observed, taking in her flushed face and panting breaths.
Her hair swirled around her like flames against her pale skin and silky robe.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, gathering up her hair and bringing a shining handful to his face.
“You smell like sugar cookies,” he murmured, pulling her closer and smiling.
“So are you running to something or away from something? Is there a spider I need to remove?” he teased.
Susan stiffened. “The only spider around here is you,” she spat, wiggling out of his arms.
“How so?” Marcus laughed and let her go, leaning against his desk as she scurried to the other side of the room and took up a position behind the sofa.
“Don’t act so innocent, Marcus. You know what you’re doing to me. This isn’t exactly what I signed on for,” she huffed, taking the items out of her pocket and dropping them on the sofa.
“What did you sign on for? I never misrepresented myself as far as I know. From the very beginning I told you that my desires were slightly twisted. Do you feel I have deceived you?”
“No, it’s not that; you were basically honest,” she answered, twisting the sash of her robe as she avoided meeting his eyes.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I guess you’re just more than I expected. I thought there would be a little spanking, a lot of sex and an incredible amount of money.”
“And how is that different than what you received?” he asked, confused.
“It just is,” she shot back. “I didn’t figure on liking everything you did to me,” she growled, her eyes flashing
“I see,” he said as he turned his head away and smiled. “What would you like me to do?” he asked, facing her again. “Do you want me to stop spanking you?”
“Would you?” she asked curiously.
“No. How about the sex? Do you want me to stop making love to you, or maybe just resort to missionary style in the dark a couple of nights a week?”
“Good grief, no,” she shuddered, remembering all the times she’d dumped men for exactly that reason.
“Well Red, if you want me to consider your argument, you’re going to have to be a little more specific,” he informed her.
“I don’t know how to put it,” she snapped, pacing behind the large leather sofa. “I feel out of control, needy, on edge or excited all the time. It’s very frustrating for someone like me.”
“Go on,” he instructed calmly.
“I don’t feel like myself anymore, Marcus. You’ve changed me somehow, woven a web around me that I can’t seem to break out of. I can’t believe the things I think about during the day, waiting for you to come out of your office.”
“Sue, fantasizing about sex is perfectly normal.”
“No Marcus, this is way beyond fantasizing. I get wet the moment you walk into a room. All you have to do is look at me and my body weeps with need. Sometimes I even imagine myself doing things I know you will spank me for. I’m telling you it’s just bizarre,” she moaned.
“And now this,” she pointed at the toys.
“Red, I would never force you,” he insisted quietly.
“That’s the point, Marcus,” she cried. “You wouldn’t have to. You have a way of making me want things I would never have imagined letting anyone do to me. This is not who I am,” she insisted heatedly. “I am not a submissive woman!”
“Don’t I know it,” he laughed.
“Marcus, this is not funny. It’s shaken the very core of who I thought I was and it’s scary as hell,” she said, her fists clenched at her sides.
“Come here, baby,” he softly ordered, holding out his arms.
“I’m not a baby,” she insisted as she stomped over to him.
“I know you’re not, Sweetheart,” he replied, gathering her into his arms. He could feel her heart beating wildly against his chest and he ran his hand down her silky hair.
“Red, you don’t have to be a submissive woman to enjoy submitting to your man sexually,” he said gently as he tucked her head under his chin. “And there is nothing wrong with anything we do in the bedroom, or any room for that matter, as long as we both enjoy it.”
“I don’t enjoy it when you spank me,” she said, her fingers gripping his shirt.
“Apparently, sometimes you do,” he contradicted, smiling into her hair.
“Well I don’t want to,” she shot back.
“I’m sure you don’t,” he conceded. “Do you think it was easy for me when I realized that some of my darkest desires were frowned upon by society? For years I tried to push them away, ignore them and for a while I succeeded, but I was very unhappy and frustrated. Eventually it would have destroyed any relationship I had with a woman. Finally I had to face the fact that I was somehow genetically different. Things were far more complicated for me, but at least I was no longer hiding behind a facade. I promised myself that someday I would find a woman who not only understood my needs, but hopefully could share them.”
“That’s another thing that bothers me,” she whispered. “What am I going to do with all these feelings when this is over? I would be terrified if I had to explain to another man that I wanted him to…”
“What do you mean, when this is over?” he demanded, sick at the thought of any other man even touching her, let alone exploring her beautiful body so intimately.
“Well,” she said hesitantly, pulling back to look at him and shivering at his blank expression.
“When our contract expires we’ll be going our separate ways,” she continued.
“I thought that when it was over...oh, what are you doing?” she gasped as he took her hand and pulled her towards the sofa.
She was over his knees before she knew what happened and he was raising her robe to expose her bare cheeks.
“I’m spanking you for even considering such a thing,” he stated crisply. His hand connected with enough force that Sue immediately regretted her words. “Do you think for one minute that I would let you go?” he demanded as his hand fell in rapid succession.
“Ow, ow, ow!” she squealed as she tried unsuccessfully to wiggle free.
“Oh no, Red, you’re not getting away from me,” he said, pulling her tightly against him.
“I guess I didn’t realize that my feelings for you were not clear and I intend to remedy that right now.
I’m not letting you go honey,” he said, resuming the spanking with gusto.
“There will never be another man doing this to you or for you. You’re in my blood now,” he informed her as he turned her bottom from pale pink to rose.
“Ow, you can’t just ‘keep’ me like I’m a toy or something,” she shot back between cries and moans. “Stop, it hurts,” she shouted.
“Good, I hope it does. Do you think it hurts me to know that even after everything we’ve shared it’s still about the contract and money?”
“That’s because you’ve never been poor,” she spat over her shoulder. “Money is everything when you’ve had nothing. It just doesn’t mean anything to you because you have plenty of it.”
“You’re right, money means less than nothing to me, you mercenary little twit,” he agreed, picking up his pace, “at least not without someone to share it with. Does love count for anything with you?”
“Love? Who said anything about love?” she howled, as he moved to her sit spots. “This is sex.”
Marcus’s hand froze in midair, his face a mask of shocked torment as Susan’s feet drummed against the cushions.
Her struggles were useless, but they did give him the time he needed to conceal his pain at her words.
He was her paycheck, her ticket out of poverty and nothing more, he realized.
The connection he felt was apparently one-sided.
Sexual satisfaction was what motivated all her sighs and whispered endearments when they made love and not any genuine affection for him.
It was sobering and crushing. The pretty nails that she sank into the sofa in her attempts to extricate herself from his grasp might as well be clawing at his soul.
The red polish was the blood she drew from his wounds.
Suddenly he was furiously angry and cold as ice.
“I see,” he said softly. “Apparently I’ve been laboring under a misconception. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”