Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Daphne
" I 'm not sure I've tried anything in the name of love." Jackson rests his back against the lounge chair. He spreads his legs enough to make space for me then he pulls me between his thighs.
I sink into his body, my back against his chest, my head in the crook of his neck. Like this, I'm at his mercy. He can strip me or touch me or move me exactly as he wants.
And that's what I want.
Less talk.
More touching.
A release from the thoughts circling through my head. I feel better, I do. But I'll feel a million times better with him inside me.
We're still playing this game of who breaks first.
I'm willing to lose. More than willing.
But first, I want to play. Because this is the best way out of my head and into the moment.
Maybe he's right. Maybe we need rules to release freely. Maybe that's why people who practice BDSM or polyamory are more satisfied with their sex lives. Because they're the ones who stop to outline their expectations. Who actually ask themselves what do I want, how do I want it, when do I want it?
So many people never ask or answer. They assume they—and everyone else—want the things they've seen in movies or read in books.
But that isn't reality. Reality is messy. That's what makes it beautiful.
This is a game.
I know the rules.
I can release my expectations of anything else.
We tease each other until one of us gives in.
"I've done a lot in the name of commitment and fairness," he says. "But never in the name of love." He brings one hand to the waist of my denim skirt. He runs his fingers over the rough fabric.
It feels good. Good enough, I'm almost willing to sacrifice victory. But like Grandpa says, "Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades."
Now that's an unsexy thought. My grandparents. It's what I need to win. But I'm not committed enough to victory for that.
I'd rather think all my sexy thoughts and lose.
"Is it really that different?" I take his other hand and bring it to the hem of my crop top. I'm not playing defense here. I'm on offense. "If you're committed to someone, you want the best for them, you want things fair for them. Is that so different than love?"
"Maybe not." He brings both hands to my top. Slowly, he rolls the fabric over my chest. "Maybe, at the end of the day, enough commitment and care add up to love. Maybe I'm waiting for some feeling that doesn't exist. Some passion I've only heard in love songs." He rolls the shirt another inch up my chest. Another. "It's possible my expectations are too high."
I groan as he rolls the fabric to my collarbones, revealing my breasts.
He stays there for a moment, not touching me, just leaving me on display to anyone who can see.
I don't think anyone can see. They'd need a telescope. Or at least great distance vision and a tendency to stare out of a dark bedroom.
The possibility still makes my sex clench.
"But I don't think so," he says. "Women always saw it. I was lacking something they found with other men."
It's hard to imagine him lacking anything. "What was that?"
"If I'm honest with myself—" Finally, he cups my breasts with his palms. He does it gently. So I barely feel it. Then, just firm enough, I know he has me.
"We're talking about something?" My eyes flutter closed as he runs his thumb over my nipple.
"I'm not playing fair, I know." He teases me with his thumb again and again. He speaks with that same calm, even tone, as if he's kneading dough to make pizza, not toying with my nipples. "I never promised to play fair."
Right. And I'm on offense here. Not defense. But I want to hear this first.
I want—
Fuck, that feels good.
My eyes flutter closed as he draws another circle around my nipple.
He teases me slowly. With perfect strokes.
For a moment, I surrender to the bliss of it. I let warmth spread up to my shoulders and down to my stomach, then to my pelvis, and down my arms and legs, all the way to my fingers and toes.
My entire body hums with desire.
It's intoxicating. And stabilizing somehow, too. I know how to live in this feeling. How to savor it.
I find enough wit to reply. "If you're honest with yourself? What happened with your relationships then?" This isn't the right conversation for this game, but I don't care. I want to know his heart as much as I want his body.
Even though his hard cock is pressed against my ass, he keeps that same calm, even tone. He doesn't give away a shred of desire in his voice. "I never let myself be vulnerable with anyone. Not romantically. I tried to show up and do all the things a boyfriend did. I thought the feelings would come. But they didn't. Deep down, I picked women I wouldn't fall for. I told myself they made sense on paper, and they did, but it was more than that. There was always a wall between us. A wall I wanted to keep there." He brings his lips to my neck. "But I don't want that with you. And that terrifies me."
"Is this part of the game?" I breath.
"Yes, but it's true."
"That's a dirty play." It overwhelms me, this desire to claim his heart the way I'm claiming his body. To share these other parts of myself and take these other parts of him.
"I told you." He scrapes his teeth over my neck. "I don't play fair."
Fuck. I need to touch him. And I want to surrender to this and feel every ounce of it forever.
He doesn't want a wall with me.
I don't want a wall with him.
We're both a mess. Ready to fall in love the second we know it won't work out.
Or maybe it's something deeper and truer. Maybe he's been the person for me all along.
"I don't play fair either." I shift my hips enough to do away with my panties. Then I settle back between his legs. So I can feel his cock against my ass.
I need that.
And I'll have it.
Soon.
Very fucking soon.
"Are you safe?" I ask.
"Huh?"
"When were you last tested?" This is bad etiquette. I know better. But I don't care. I want it too badly to care. "I got tested at my yearly last month. I haven't been with anyone else since. If you're safe, we don't need to use a condom. I'm on birth control."
"Fuck." His entire body tightens. "And I thought I played dirty." He draws circles over my nipples. "It's been a while. And I was only with my ex before that. But I should retest first. Just in case."
My body whines. It wants to feel all of him against all of me. But that's smart. That's why people don't have this conversation with their clothes off. Because we're not good at being smart.
But I don't care.
I don't want to be smart right now.
"Can you do it tomorrow?" I ask.
"Yes." He pulls my top over my head. "I didn't answer your question."
"I had a question?"
He scrapes his teeth over my neck again. Softly. Then, hard enough, I feel it. He answers my question as if he's not torturing me exquisitely. What has he done in the name of relationships? "It depends how you define strange. It's not unusual for a woman to tie a man up. But it was strange for me."
My breath catches.
"You like the thought of it?" he asks.
"The role reversal." I nod.
"I did too. Enough to do it every so often," he says. "It's important to play the other role. So you know how the other person feels."
"That's responsible." Which I love. Really. But I don't want to talk about responsibility right now. I want to be dirty. "What was actually strange?"
"I wore a furry costume once."
"No."
"Yes." His laugh cuts the sexual tension in the air.
It's enough that I gather my wits. I need to strategize. To figure out how I can drive him out of his mind.
"In college, I spent three months saying yes to everything. It was an exercise. I hated it, but it was good for me. It forced me out of my comfort zone."
"What else did you try?"
"I watched a woman with another man. And she wanted me with another woman."
"Would you do it again?" I ask.
"Not with you." He slips one hand under my skirt and cups my thigh. So, so close to where he needs to be but not quite there. "I like you too much to share."
"What if it got me off?"
"Does it?" he asks.
"No," I admit. "But what if it did?"
"Maybe." He strokes my thigh with his thumb. "It depends exactly what you want. How you want it. Where."
"If I want you to bring someone else in, someone you can use, to order me around with him."
"That sounds fucking hot." His hand moves higher. Higher. Higher. "But still, no. I couldn't share you."
The possessive tone to his voice makes my sex clench. I've never wanted that before. To be someone's.
But there's something about the way Jackson says it. Like he would share if he liked me a little less.
Like he can't imagine a world where he likes me less.
I'm losing this game.
And I'm losing interest in winning.
"What did you like the best?" I take one more shot at maintaining the upper hand. "Of the things you tried?"
"Role play," he says. "I started using it more. Doing scenes."
"We could do that."
"We will." He presses his lips to my neck. "But not today." He strokes my thigh with his thumb again and again.
I lean forward enough to undo the zipper of my skirt. Then I shift off the lounge chair onto my feet, and I do away with the skirt.
I'm standing naked in front of him. Like so many of my fantasies.
And he's there, stretched over the lounge chair, his erection threatening to tear a hole in his nylon swimsuit, still poised and confident.
He's going to win.
That's okay.
But I'm going down swinging.
I slide back onto the chair so I'm straddling him, and I bring my lips to his lips.
He kisses back hard and fast, his lips parting for my tongue, his tongue dancing with mine.
I roll my hips against his. The nylon fabric doesn't offer the friction I want, but it's what I've got, so I rock against the fabric again and again.
We're so, so close to where we need to be.
But so, so far too.
I take his hands and bring them to my chest. He toys with me as he kisses me. Then he releases me and kisses a line down my neck, over my shoulder, down my chest.
To my nipple.
He teases me here the way he did with his hands. Slowly. Patiently. As if he's happy to toy with me all night.
No doubt, he is.
And I fucking love it.
But I need more.
"Fuck me," I groan.
"You know the rules, princess."
"Fuck the rules."
In response, he scrapes his teeth against me. It's enough, it just barely hurts, and that feels so fucking good.
My body aches for his. For more. For release.
I slip my hand between my legs without thinking. There's no patience in my touch. Only the intense need to come.
I touch myself exactly the way I need. The right spot. The speed. The pressure.
He toys with me the entire time.
The tension builds quickly. Everything inside me clenches and releases in a blinding wave of pleasure. The world is all pure, clean white. But it's not enough.
I need more.
I need him.
I shift enough to push his swimsuit aside, and I wrap my hand around his hard cock.
Relief floods my body. I need this. I need him.
He doesn't gloat over his victory. Just grabs a condom and rolls it on and helps me into position.
Slowly, I lower my body onto his.
I take him, one perfect inch at a time.
The relief I felt a moment ago is nothing compared to this. It's like I'm finally whole, finally free, finally where I need to be.
This is exactly where I need to be.
I soak in the sensation for a moment, then I pull back and take him again.
His hands go to my hips. He guides me up and over his cock again and again.
He stares up at me like I'm heaven-sent, then he brings his lips to my chest, and he toys with me.
We're a perfect circle of pleasure and teasing and release.
"Tell me when you're close." I breathe. "I want to come with you."
He groans a yes into my chest.
I move over him again and again.
His movements get a little faster. His fingers curl into my skin. He breaks enough to breathe, "soon," then he brings his mouth to my chest again.
I slip my hand between my legs.
I rub myself as I take him again and again.
Then he's there, groaning against my chest as he pulses inside me. The intensity of it pulls me over the edge.
Pleasure floods my body as I come. I pull him closer, deeper like my body is going to swallow his whole, then I release everything. It's so intense I'm afraid I'm going to push him out of my body.
But I don't.
We stay together for that perfect moment.
Our bodies and our bliss as one.
When I'm finished, I push myself to my feet. He takes care of the condom. And I do the other thing I came here to do and dive into the pool naked.
He follows me.
And we swim around the space until we're too in need of each other to do anything else.
We go to his room, and we have slow, perfect sex in his bed.
I fall asleep next to him.
And for the first time in a long time, I wake up where I'm supposed to be.
We have a perfect day together. A lazy breakfast. A long walk on the beach. A teasing swim session where we strip out of our nylon suits.
Sex on the couch.
Lunch.
Sex in the pool.
A movie.
Dinner.
Sex in his bed. And a long night talking about everything and nothing.
The next morning, he goes into work, and I spend my day preparing for the next phase of my life.
When he gets home, we make dinner together, take a long walk, fuck in his bed.
We fall into the flow of the week. I fall into this life I could have. If things were different. If everything was different.
Day after day, I fall into him, and he falls into me.
Every night, we try something new.
He locks me to the bed with those furry pink handcuffs.
We play another game of who can last longer in the living room, stripping out of clothes, slowing, until we're both at the edge of bliss. He wins, of course, but I can't say I feel like I lose when I ask him to fuck me.
We take a video of ourselves in his bed and replay it. And right there, as I watch him fuck me on screen, I'm overcome with the desire to fuck him right there on the couch.
The perfect mix of sex and affection.
Until we wake up the day of our meeting with his boss.
A party where we prove we're the perfect married couple. Because that's who Jackson is supposed to be. The stable lawyer with a wife and kids. The man who makes partner.
But the more time I spend with him, the more I wonder, is this who he actually wants to be?
Or just who he thought he was?