Chapter 37
NOVA
“Take off your dress,” Wes instructed.
I stood with my back to Wes’s bed, facing him. My shoulders relaxed at the command, and I gently lifted the fabric over my head, discarding it on the floor. Only my panties and thigh-high black socks remained.
Wes stood back, as if appraising a piece of fine art. “Perfect,” he praised. “However, I believe these socks were worn as a form of psychological warfare.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied, knowing full well every straight man responded in the exact same way to thigh high socks.
Wes chuckled darkly. “You are very brave to lie when you’re already being charged with war crimes.”
“Do I get a defense?” I asked.
Wes lifted his brows, eyes dancing with humor. “No.”
He pinched a nipple, and I gasped in pain. His hand covered my mouth, face moving close to mine. “No one can save you from me now.”
Currents of pleasure radiated from my abused nipple. My thighs shifted together.
Wes removed all touch, towering over me. “Get on your knees for me.” His lips curved. “Please.”
My head felt floaty, but my senses remained hyperalert. I lowered to my knees.
“I’m of the opinion that Doms would do well to mind their manners too, Nova,” Wes said as he opened the top drawer of his dark wooden dresser.
“Except around Archer and Jayne?”
He paused. “Manners are a sign of respect. And I do not respect them.”
This made me laugh, though I knew Wes was dead serious.
“But you, I have the utmost respect for,” he continued, returning to me with beige rope.
His features were genuine as he knelt with me, pushing my wrists together. I kept them together as he tied a quick double bind, making handcuffs out of the rope.
Wes stood, his cool, dominant mask sliding back into place. He wrapped the leftover rope around his hand and lifted it, pulling my wrists above my head like I was a puppet to control at will. My core pulsed. I stared up at Wes, more relaxed than I’d been in weeks.
He lowered my arms back down and dropped the lead, leaving my wrists bound in front of my body. “There’s that look in your eyes I’m so fucking obsessed with,” he said softly. “One day, I’m going to hypnotize you again—and it will not be with pure intentions.”
I let out a breath, the words combining with the sensation of being bound before him to produce an overpowering head high. “I feel like I’m on drugs.”
Wes grinned. “That’s subspace, baby. Enjoy it. I’ve got you.”
I believed him. I believed in Wes not just as a Dom, but as a person, a soul. I believed in his redemption and worthiness, even if he still wrestled with it.
Wes unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. All my attention snapped to the peak of his black boxer briefs.
“Tell me something you love about yourself.”
I waited for him to continue undressing, my gaze locked on the partial outline of a sizable bulge.
“Nova,” Wes snapped, breaking my trance instantly. “Eyes up here.” The humor in his irises softened his strict tone.
I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Tell me something you love about yourself.”
What the hell? Wes was holding his cock hostage to extract statements of self-love? What kind of sick game were we playing?
“I, um,” I said, off to a solid start. I inhaled, holding his amused gaze. “I love my sense of humor. It has made life far easier to cope with.”
“Good girl,” Wes praised. He took off his shirt. “Tell me another.”
My eyes widened, drinking up his form that would do well to be immortalized in marble. He was broad and toned without being too bulky. Gorgeous black ink decorated his upper chest that connected to the natural and celestial art on his arms and knuckles. Wes himself was a work of art.
“You’re beautiful,” I said, just as I had the day he first put me under his spell.
Wes bent down with a firm grip around my throat. “Baby, if you don’t follow directions, I will not be removing another article of clothing tonight.”
I locked in immediately. “I love my work ethic. I know I’m too hard on myself, but I love what I’ve built, and I love that I believe in my ability to attain things other people might be too scared to reach for.”
“I love that about you too, Nova,” Wes said, releasing his hold and straightening back up. He fully removed his belt and pants.
For the first time, Wes and I were equally undressed.
“One more. Make it count.”
I struggled, finding fault with any compliment that came to mind. It was hard to think of something about myself that didn’t need to be worked on, refined, tinkered with, softened.
Wes stroked my hair, waiting patiently.
“I love my body,” I said. “I know that’s not what our society wants to hear from a woman, but it’s true.
I spent my teenage years hating it, being taught to analyze and pick apart every flaw by my family and my culture, and I don’t feel that way anymore.
” I looked to Wes for approval, feeling suddenly self-conscious and vulnerable.
I hoped he didn’t think I was vain or conceited or—
He smiled, quieting my inner monologue. “This makes me very pleased to hear. The love for your body is incredibly mutual.”
I relaxed.
Wes took off his briefs. His cock sprang free. My mouth watered, and my core pulsed.
“Are you…” I couldn’t peel my eyes away. “Pavlov-ing me into being kind to myself with the power of your cock?”
Wes gripped the back of my head and took a step forward. “Maybe.” He stroked himself slowly, inches from my mouth. “I’m glad you recognize what has power here.” He tilted my head back. “We worship what has power over us, don’t we, baby?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Open your pretty mouth and show me you understand.”
I opened. My tongue swept across the tip, tasting the salty beads of precum that had gathered there. Wes groaned, rocking his hips slowly as a shudder racked through him. I took him into my mouth, sucking.
“That’s it, Nova.”
He inched deeper, and my bound wrists strained against the rope, unused to the restriction. Wes held the reins, literally. He controlled the pace and the depth. My mind quieted, filled only with receptiveness for everything Wes gave me.
At first, he was gentle, letting me acclimate. I followed instructions like a votary who had taken vows of dedication to something bigger and higher than herself.
It was bliss.
Wes cursed, straining as his cock twitched in my mouth. I gagged as he pushed deeper, quickening his pace.
I’d soaked through my panties, every nerve ending alive and burning.
Wes knew the moment I needed a break, before I could even lift my bound wrists to push against him. He slowly eased out, his cock impossibly hard and slick with my saliva.
“My turn.”
Wes lifted me off the floor and threw me onto his bed.
I made a startled gasp at the sudden movement, the roughness with which he manhandled me.
He shoved my arms above my head and tied the extra rope to a decorative silver loop hanging low on the bed frame.
Or, at least, at first glance it appeared merely decorative, just like the other ornate hard points on the corners of the frame.
Wait a damn minute.
“Oh my God, is your bed designed for restraints?” I balked.
Wes kissed my forehead.
“You built it, didn’t you?” I suddenly remembered him saying he built furniture, among other things. “What other nefarious contraptions have you constructed?”
Wes hovered over me. His lips slowly curved. That damn Scorpio stellium reared its head, giving his gaze a dark, mysterious edge. “Don’t worry about it, baby.”
“I’m tied to your bed!” I wiggled my wrists, pulling at the rope. “This is exactly the appropriate time to worry.”
Wes pulled my panties down my legs—but he left my thigh high socks on, of course. “Not really. If you’re tied to my bed, it’s kind of too late for you, isn’t it?”
Delicious trepidation coursed through my blood. Wes watched my face, knowing intimately the inner workings of my desires after I’d dutifully completed his kinky homework assignments. He knew I wanted him to play with my fear, to fuck my mind as much as he fucked my body.
“Now be quiet. I need to focus on my meal.”
Wes kissed my neck, and I shut up immediately. He left a trail of kisses down my chest. His tongue teased a nipple, and I squirmed, my hips lifting in search of friction.
Wes pushed me back down. “Ah, ah, ah,” he scolded. He slipped a hand between my legs and grabbed my core possessively. “Bad girl. Behave.”
I stilled, even though it was torturous. He kissed my navel, easing toward where I needed him most. When his lips met my thigh, just inches from my throbbing clit, I let out a breathy, desperate moan.
Wes sucked the skin hard enough to leave a mark. I melted into the duvet.
He shoved my legs apart. His lips brushed my clit, ever so slightly. I held my breath, the flutter of pleasure painfully brief. He slipped a hand under my hips and lifted me.
And then, Wes’s control finally snapped. “Fuck, Nova,” he growled before devouring me.
He sucked my clit, creating a pulsing sensation so intense, I cried out and bucked.
Instead of easing up, this only encouraged him.
His tongue explored every inch of my pussy, like he couldn’t get enough.
He licked down my slit and entered me, eliciting another moan of desperation before he moved back up to bring my sensitive bud into his mouth.
He slipped two fingers inside me and angled upward with each stroke, continuing to work me with his tongue as I strained against the rope.
“May I come?” I managed to ask. This was the only thing Wes had revealed thus far that he wanted to control. I enthusiastically ceded this power, even if it was painful to hold myself back.
I wanted to obey Wes more than I wanted to come. Unsanctioned release was worthless to me.
Wes’s deep voice vibrated against me. “Because you remembered to ask, yes, Nova. Come on my tongue.”
Wes’s fingers filled me, steadily pumping as his mouth closed around my clit, tongue expertly driving me back up to the edge. I shook as I came undone, coming even more powerfully than I had the first time with Wes.