Chapter 26
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I need to touch her. It’s the only thing that I want.
My hands against her supple skin, my face buried in her perfect, wet pussy. Making her whine and bruise and cry out for me .
This is such a mistake; I’m only setting myself up for failure, but lost in this moment, I can’t bring myself to care. Her ass is red and sore and on display, and I never want this moment to stop.
“You should see how wet you are for me,” I taunt from my post behind her. “Only a whore gets this wet for a man she doesn’t belong to. Are you a whore, Nia?”
“Yes,” she whines, her body writhing against the bench in a way that sets my teeth on edge.
I lift my flogger and swing it hard against the skin where her ass meets her thighs, forcing her to cry out and her body to lurch as fresh streaks of angry crimson find their way to the surface to contrast with the ivory of her skin.
There is nothing like seeing a fresh mark left on the skin of someone who devours every ounce of pain that I give them. I didn’t think she’d be able to handle a few strikes, but now…
The things I would do if I could really get my hands on her.
The things she would let me do.
“Yes, who?” I demand.
“Yes, Sir .” Her voice breaks with a moan as she speaks, and it sends me reeling.
“That’s much better,” I purr. “That was your only warning.”
I exchange the flogger in my hand for a small, dual-ended vibrator. Clicking on the power brings to life a small silicone ‘tongue’ at one end which flicks wildly, accompanied by a gentle vibration. Bringing the toy to her skin, I let it lick and tease from the bend of her knee up to the curve of her ass, following through with the other leg.
“You’ll be a good little whore for me so I can let you come, won’t you?” I ask her.
“Yes, Sir.” Her voice is barely audible, but the quake in her body tells me everything that I need to know.
I tease her, bringing the toy just close enough to make her tense, then moving it away again. This game goes on for probably two minutes too long, but I love to watch her struggle.
When I finally bring it to her clit, she shudders and gasps, and I watch her hands ball into fists so tightly that her fingernails bite into her palms.
My cock twitches as Nia lets out a low moan and her hips roll against the edge of the bench, and it’s all that I can do to not fill her up and fuck her until her makeup runs down her face and her legs are unstable.
I almost let myself drift off into the fantasy of it; what she would taste like and how deep her pussy would swallow me, but I’m pulled away and back to the real world by another desperate moan that she nearly chokes on.
With a twirl of the toy over my fingers, I quickly swap to the opposite end of it, meeting her clit with suction now, and her body quakes.
“Oh, my god,” she whines. “ Brody! ”
Fuck, my name sounds good rolling off of her tongue.
She almost seems startled when her orgasm starts, gasping and trembling through the entire thing as if she’s having some sort of epiphany. Her head whips to the side as her eyes seek me out, her mouth gaping while she rides the wave of it all the way through.
Perching myself in front of her when she’s finished, I angle my head to the side. “Have you never had an orgasm before?”
“I thought I had,” she pants. “But that was…”
“Color.”
“Green,” she nods, and I stand to bring my lap eye level to her.
Pulling open my belt and zipper, my hand slides into my boxer briefs to stroke the length of my cock with a groan.
I haven’t felt need like this in years. My entire body is aching to be inside of her.
“I want you think about this cock while you come,” I tell her with my hand on my shaft, “and I want you to remember that you’ll never have it. You don’t deserve it.”
As I move to take my place behind her once again, I stop at her lower back and spit, aiming for one of the perfectly-symmetrical dimples above her hips.
Bringing the toy back to life, I slip its ‘tongue’ between her lips, teasing her from her entrance to her clit and back again until she’s writhing against the bench. Desperate whines slip out of her mouth and trickle straight down my spine like fire.
My body is too close to hers, drawn toward her like a magnet that I’m powerless to refuse the pull of. Nia lets out a moan as I draw lazy circles around her clit with the toy, filling the room with the sound of clinking metal as her body struggles against its restraints.
“Yell— ow .” It’s quiet, and she has trouble getting it out, but it’s there.
“Okay,” I say as I quickly shut off the vibrator and move toward the front of the bench to crouch down in front of her. “Do you need to get off of the bench, or just a minute to breathe?”
“Cramp,” she groans with a shake of her head, and her foot twists behind her in its restraint. “My calf is on fire.”
“How much water have you had to drink today?” I ask her with an arch of my brow.
“The normal amount?” She questions as I work to unbind her wrists.
“Not enough, then,” I grumble, moving to now free her ankles.
As I finish removing her restraints, she makes a move to stretch her cramped leg, and I settle behind her, pulling her leg outward and resting her shin against my knee. My thumbs carefully trace from her ankle to work upward through her calf to massage the sore muscle.
“Br— Sir…you’re touching me.”
“Your lesson is over,” I tell her. “You’re in pain and you’re dehydrated. It’s just Brody, now.”
I’m not sure if I’m trying to convince her that this isn’t breaking one of our rules, or if I’m trying to convince myself . The only thing I know in this moment is that I can’t walk away from her. I can’t deny her aftercare because I went overboard.
This wasn’t a lesson, and I know it. This was a scene; and I think she knows it, too.
“So if we’re not having a lesson, it’s okay for you to touch me and to look at my bare ass,” she teases.
“I am not looking at your ass.”
Liar .
I work my thumbs and the heels of my palms against her aching muscle longer than I need to, past the point of feeling her body relax, and she doesn’t stop me.
She doesn’t question me when I tell her to get dressed and to sit on the bed, and she doesn’t think twice when I bring her two bottles of water and tell her that she is to drink both of them before we leave the room.
She’s obeying me.
I can feel her eyes on me as I wipe down the bench, and I feel those eyes burning into my skin while I roll down the sleeves of my shirt. I try to ignore it, but it’s incredibly difficult to do.
Everything is backward in this moment; the right thing feels wrong, and the wrong thing feels right, and it sends my head spinning.
I pride myself on being a logical man. I pride myself on having answers. I pride myself on the ethical codes to which I hold myself.
That man isn’t in this room.
I don’t think that man exists when Nia Cavanaugh is near.
This man is hungry, desperate… torn .
This man is selfish.
“Why is it that hurting me turns you on the way it does, but when I got a leg cramp, you shut everything down?” Nia asks from her perch on the mattress.
“You liked it when I was hurting you,” I tell her plainly. “You didn’t derive any pleasure from getting a cramp.”
I feel more than see her eyes as they trail over my body. Seeking the ache that is almost impossible for me to ignore. The ache that she brought to life. That begs for her touch.
“So if you’re a sadist,” she says, keeping her voice quiet as if she’ll offend me, “what does that make me?”
“Well,” I muse, leaning on the bench that her naked body was just pressed against, “what did you like about this lesson? Or, rather, what didn’t you like?”
She blows a long breath through pursed lips, pulling a knee up to her chest while she thinks.
“This sounds horrible,” she finally says, “but I really liked the way you spoke to me. Calling me a whore one second and telling me how well I was doing the next. I really enjoyed the…” She brings her voice down to an almost-inaudible whisper. “Flogging.”
I lower my own voice to match hers, chuckling as I tell her, “You don’t have to say it so quietly. No one here is going to judge you for it.”
“It’s horrible,” she argues.
My brow ticks up, the corner of my mouth joining it. “Is it horrible? Or is it freeing?”
“Thank you again,” Nia tells me as we sit parked on her driveway.
My knuckles roll against the gearshift as my other hand tightens around the steering wheel. “You’re welcome. Do you remember what I said about sub drop?”
“Yes,” She answers with a nod. “I’ll call you. Brody, I—”
She swallows some of the distance between us, her arm resting on the center console and her face just inches from my own. What I should do is tell her goodnight and get away from her as quickly as possible. What I want to do is to go inside, draw her a bath and put a set of soft sheets on her bed, fresh from the dryer.
I also want to kiss her; maybe more than I’ve wanted to kiss anyone in a very long time.
“Where does the line sit between us, now?” She asks.
Bringing my hand from the gear shift to scratch at my jaw, I tell her, “I don’t know anymore. That’s—”
“Okay with me,” she says. “It puts us on a level playing field. Now we both have things to figure out.” As she pushes open her door, she steps out, bending down to tell me, “That was the most educational lesson yet. I’m really looking forward to the next one.”
So am I.
I pull off my glasses as she walks toward her front door, resting them on my dashboard as I lean against the headrest behind me. When I pull them back onto my face, I reach for my phone and send a quick text message to Isla, asking her to meet me at my house when she’s finished at The Haven.
“My darling, I’m here!”
“In the office, dear!” I shout back to Isla with a laugh.
The sound of fumbling at the landing of the stairs tells me that she’s kicking off her shoes before she trudges up to my office, using her hip to push open the door. When she approaches my desk, she drops a six-pack of cola in front of me, taking the seat across from me with a bottle of Irish Whiskey in her hand.
Nodding toward the cola while she uses her teeth to pull the cap from her bottle, she says, “The last time you actually asked me to come over, it was to tell me about ‘the bad night.’ ”
My chair swivels back and forth, over and over again until I finally lean forward, reaching for one of the cans in front of me, and I crack it open.
“See,” she says, taking a swig from her bottle, “I knew it was bad.”
“I’ve gotten myself into trouble,” I tell her. “I had a scene with Nia tonight.”
She stares at me, unblinking as she takes another drink of her whiskey. “Oh, is this the part where I pretend to be shocked?”
“She’s a client,” I remind her, “and she’s still married.”
“Is she?” Setting her bottle on top of my desk, she reaches for a can of cola. “Because when she stopped in looking for you , she called herself a single parent.”
When the hell did she go to the club by herself?
I take off my glasses as she drinks some of her soda, following with a generous pour of the whiskey into the can.
“When was that?”
“After you brought her ice cream and watched her kid all night,” she tells me. I don’t need to be able to see her to know that she’s wearing an infuriatingly smug expression on her face. “For as smart as you are, you sure are stupid. I want a list of legitimate reasons you can’t pursue her.”
“I’m her attorney,” I tell her. “I could lose my job. She has a kid.”
“You won’t be her attorney forever,” she counters. “You have enough money to open your own firm, and you apparently like her kid. Try again.”
“Alright,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest as I lean back in my chair. “I’m the guy who gets cancer.” Something hits me in the chest with a light thunk and I reach for my glasses, putting them back on to see a ball point pen now sitting in my lap. “Mature.”
“That’s not a fair excuse. Is that why you and April split?” At the warning arch of my brow, she says, “I’m not saying ‘collar her and ask her to be your one and only love for the rest of your life,’ I’m saying let yourself have a little bit of fun for once. You’ve punished yourself long enough.”
I know that in a lot of ways, she’s right; I’ve spent three years beating myself up over one bad night. I’ve spent them beating myself up for everything that followed that night.
I know that I could easily find a new job if I lost my place at Arison.
What I couldn’t do, though, is risk Nia being hurt further because I want to be selfish with her. She told me herself that she’s in pieces, and I see it every time that she’s in my office – the only time that I don’t see it is when we’re at The Haven. There, she seems…whole.
Pushing things further on an already teetering boundary might cause her to free fall into a place that I, again, would be responsible for.
I can’t sleep with her. I can’t act on whatever it is that I’m feeling for her, but Lord help me, I can’t seem to walk away from this either.