CHAPTER 17
Sampson
The next three weeks fly by. I’ve never been so happy in my entire life, which is saying something, since I’ve usually been happy.
Each day feels like a gift. When I arrive home after my shifts, some of which stretch into the next day because there’s a slew of forest fires being set, there’s a skip in my step.
Normally, I spend most nights in the MFD dorms, little cubicles where we can shut our eyes before the next emergency.
But with Nina and Mr. Mittens to get home to, I don’t want to miss a minute.
Today, I stopped by the flower shop on the way home, so when I plunge through the door with my bouquet of pink roses, I’m whistling.
Nina hates whistling, so I’m expecting her to throw her hands on her hips as she scowls and berates me…
all the better to let me kiss her into submission and good humor.
Instead, I stop short. The cellophane-wrapped bouquet tumbles from my fingers to the floor, just adjacent to where Nina rests upon her knees.
She’s just at the edge of the Persian rug, dressed in a white lace camisole set through which I can see the bud of her pink nipples and the slightest edge of her matching lower lips.
My breath hitches in my lungs. Yes, she still looks like an angel to me. Slap on a pair of feathered wings, and I’d be the one falling to my knees. But there’s deviltry in her eyes—and that’s going to send me to my knees even faster.
“Jelly Bean, what are you wearing? What are you doing?”
She gazes up at me from beneath her fringe of blond hair, blue eyes glittering like pure sapphires with the reflection of the overhead lights. Licking her lips before biting the bottom one, she says, “You like?”
A growl works its way up my throat. I’m sweaty and covered in soot from a day spent putting out a warehouse fire. I didn’t take time to shower at the MFD because I wanted to buy her flowers, and I was anxious to get home, but right now I’m regretting being employed at all.
“I like.” I manage to close and lock the door behind me without turning my gaze away from her.
“But you didn’t answer the question, Jelly Bean.
What’s this about?” An uneasy edge tamps down on the wave of lust rocketing through me.
I’m fairly certain that I’ve been satisfying Nina’s needs.
I’m normally attentive to the women I fuck.
With her, I’m laser-focused. But is the outfit and posture a sign that she requires more?
Briefly, her head hangs before she raises it again. “I thought, um, that we could visit your Red Room?”
Understanding falls through me like a brick. This is her way of telling me she’s ready. I should have guessed it right away, because she’s certainly dressed for the occasion, but sometimes I’m dense.
I cross to her in two steps, landing too close, so she’s forced to look up my body. If she wants to play at submission, she’s come to a master. I’ve had lots of practice with domination, and it’s the little things, the subtle actions, that inspire the results we both want.
Sure enough, her gaze latches onto my dick that’s painfully tenting my jeans. Her throat bobs as she swallows. Behind her half-closed lids, her eyes dart up to my face, testing my reactions.
“We talked about this, Jelly Bean. Are you sure you’re ready?”
I keep the room locked, not because I’m afraid of what she’ll see, but because I don’t want her to feel like she has to provide the type of sex that usually goes on there.
“I know. But I want to see it.”
“See it or experience it? Is this curiosity or desire?” I ask, bending to take her chin in my fingers and drag it upward so her lovely throat stretches, open and vulnerable.
“Both.” Her voice is only a whisper. There’s a tremble of apprehension in it. And arousal. I can scent her need on the air.
I run my thumb over her lower lip before I slip it inside onto her tongue. Like a good girl, she sucks on it, sending shooting sparks down to my dick. “Such a good girl.”
A flush of pink sweeps over her face, but her eyes glisten.
I take a single step back before I gesture down the hallway, meaning she should lead me. If she wants in, it’s going to be her choice all the way.
“Really?” she asks, scrambling to her feet.
“So long as you’re okay with my taking you hard, sweaty, and dirty once we cross that threshold, then yes. Really.”
“I thought you might… um, well, object?”
I shake my head. “To treating you like a plaything? To bending you to my will? To testing your limits?”
It’s true that I’ve been respectful with her, even in our most heated encounters, but there’s something about a Red Room that changes the essential dynamics between lovers.
The space is about sex, pleasure, and sometimes pain: dirty, hot, demented fucking, every kink welcome, vanilla need not apply.
There’s not typically a lot of room for devotion.
Though that won’t be true with her. That could never be true with her.
Nina bites her lower lip before she asks, “No virgin-whore thing where you’re going to look at me differently afterward?”
“Nope.”
She wants this. It’s evident in her outfit, posture, and questions. She’s considered this move carefully, as well as what it might mean for our relationship. And her nervousness is revealed in the way she shimmies from one foot to the other.
“Er, you’re not going to shower first?”
I’m sure I’ve got ash from head to toe. I usually do. “Nope.”
A shiver rolls over her. I’ve noticed that she likes to be squeaky clean before we fuck, and so I’ve been obliging her. Time to take her a little bit out of her comfort zone.
“Oh.” She bites her bottom lip again, nods, and when I gesture again, she starts down the hall, nearly tripping over her own feet.
We’re at the Red Room door in five of my steps and eleven of hers. I reach above the lintel for the key.
“Seriously? That’s where you kept the key all this time?”
“Been snooping for it?”
“Well, yeah. Of course.”
That’s my girl.
I unlock the door but keep my hand on the knob for a few seconds. “Remember, you don’t have to try everything you see in here. Or any of it. None of it is important to me. None of it means more to me than you do.”
She’s practically dancing, the way her feet move.
Fear and desire. It’s a heady combination. For that reason, I keep my hand on the knob a few seconds longer than she expects. Setting the tone. Setting the dynamics: I’m in charge.
But once I push open the door, I don’t hesitate to flick on the lights.
There are no overheads inside, just soft-watt bulbs in lamps spaced around the room.
Each one glows with a gentle spill of gold, adding a romantic appeal to the oxblood walls and crimson velvet bedcovers.
The floor is poured cement decorated with a softer shade of cream swirls.
If blood splatters, I want to see it. I’m not turned on by pain, but I’ve been with those who are. Above all else, I’m obliging. But also, I don’t want to create a biohazard.
Nina takes two steps inside and stops, her gaze roving over the wall displays comprised of whips, knives, paddles, and artistic but pornographic photos of people in various positions, before her eyes drop to the furniture.
She takes in the spanking bench, the swing, the collection of chains attached to both floor and ceiling, and the soft coverings at the ends.
A large piece of dark wood furniture from the 1800s holds narrow drawers.
She can’t see inside them, but I know that they hold clamps and piercings, plugs, and toys of every variety.
I’ve used them all. In the years since I discovered sex, I’ve moved fast and hard through the art of pleasure and pain, dominance and submission. And none of it compares with just being with Nina.
“What’s that?” She points towards the standing double triangle at the far end that I can reposition to the middle of the floor when in use.
“A Saint Andrew’s Cross. Your legs attach to each of the lower thrusts and your arms to the upper ones. The leather belt wraps around your neck. Effectively, it holds you in place for my pleasure. Or,” I add, “holds me in place for yours.”
“It um, seems human-sized.”
“It is. But I can extend it if I’m the one being restrained. It works well, except for ass play, in which case, it’s better to lock me onto the bed.”
She blushes as red as the room. She may write dark romance, she may think she knows what kinks are, but she doesn’t have a clue. That’s evident by the look of horror that crosses her expressive features.
I place my hands on her arms, and she jumps before settling.
I gently turn her toward the other corner.
“That’s the spanking bench you mentioned the day I rescued you from the tree.
To use it, I’d place your knees on those padded kneelers, and I’d buckle you in.
The kneelers can be positioned so you’re spread as wide as I want you.
Your belly goes over the bench. On the other side, I’d chain your hands so you’re fully stretched.
You’ll note that I could use a variety of implements while you’re in position, everything from those paddles and whips on the wall to more…
intense… tools. If I remove part of the leather seat, your nipples will similarly be available for my attentions from underneath. ”
She looks up at me. “You’re using the personal. ‘You,’ ‘your,’ ‘I.’”
“There’s nothing but personal in this room.
” But I’ve also started to use the words of the conditional, because there’s something about the way she’s tightened rather than loosened that speaks of unwillingness.
I brush her hair back over her shoulder.
A strand catches on her lip, driving my balls right into my throat.
“Your choice, but you did seem most interested in the spanking bench?”