Eighteen #2
His footsteps are silent. I know he’s there even though I can’t hear him, watching him in the reflection of the window. He steps up behind me with a hint of sandalwood and bergamot.
His proximity makes the hairs on my neck prickle. Anticipation knots my stomach and sends heat through me, pooling between my legs. My chest tightens, breaths stuttering and speeding. I keep my gaze on the window, unwilling and unable to turn around.
“I thought I told you to remove that robe and get onto the bed.”
His breath is warm against my skin as he watches me watching him in our reflection.
I can’t resist the shiver that runs through me.
Bit by bit, my whole body is coming alive, every nerve ending straining toward him, waiting for whatever he’s going to do.
Every passing moment heats my body, tightens my nipples, making every inch of my skin prickle until I’m trembling with a need I don’t want.
His hands slide around my waist. I’m so wound up, I flinch. His chuckle is a hot gust against my neck. He unties the knot of my belt and opens my robe, taking his time. In the window, his eyes remain on mine even as my nakedness is revealed.
The urge to stop him surges through me. But what’s the point?
It’s inevitable. There’s nothing I can do to fight him.
He’s bigger, stronger, faster. Worse, he’s slowly but surely chipping away at my defenses.
Even now, after he sent me a severed finger, broke into my apartment and ordered me around, part of me is drawn to him. I can’t deny it.
But a louder part of me refuses to give in. “I don’t want this.” There. That leaves no doubt.
He pauses in the window’s reflection, studying me for a moment, then pulls my robe from my shoulders, baring me, and places a kiss on my skin. It’s strangely gentle.
“I said—”
“I heard.” He cuts me off, but his voice is soft. “You want me to take control, so you can deny you had any part in it.”
“That’s not true.” It comes out tense and breathy, my voice catching.
I hope it’s not true.
“I think it is.”
I barely have a second to register my robe sliding off me, pooling on the floor at my feet, then his hand closes on the back of my neck. He holds me, his grip tight enough that it almost hurts. Helplessness and vulnerability war with my arousal, and a whimper slips out that I can’t control.
“It’s fine, we’ll do it your way,” he murmurs.
What’s that supposed to mean? What’s my way?
But there’s no chance to consider it before he drags me around, pushing me toward the bed. I gasp with the force of it. He keeps me held as he whisks the duvet off, letting it crumple to the floor, then pushes me forward. The edge of the bed catches my legs, and it’s either cooperate or fall.
I scramble onto the bed, his hand still driving me. It fits around my neck like I’m nothing but a cat held by its scruff. His little stray.
The tub of Ben & Jerry’s catches my eye.
Along with a spoon, it’s sitting innocuously on the nightstand, unopened, and covered in ice crystals from the freezer.
No coaster beneath it, that bastard. Right now, I should be worrying about more important things, but it irritates me. It’s going to leave a ring on the wood.
Van Wyk pushes me down onto the mattress, until I’m lying flat against it.
I sense him go still.
“Where are my cuffs? I left them here.”
Oh yeah.
“Did you?”
“You know I did. Two pairs, if I’m not mistaken.” His voice is soft again, and I bite at my lip. “Where are they?”
“I… uh… took them off the headboard.”
“I can see that.” His hand tightens on my neck, pressing me into the bed. “Where are they?”
“In the…” My voice drops to a whisper. “…trash.”
“Right.” A pause. “Maybe you should go and get them out.” It’s more of a threat than a suggestion.
“I… kind of… cut them up.” This isn’t the best time to admit that, pinned naked face down, vulnerable and unable to even move. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken scissors to them, but at the time it was so damn satisfying.
“You did, did you?” His words are lazily amused.
“I figured you’d have more,” I say sullenly. “You had two pairs, after all.”
“My apologies for not purchasing three,” he says with a hint of sarcasm. Then he leans over me until his mouth is by my ear. “If you don’t wish to be bound by leather and velvet, you can be bound by my will. Hold the headboard with both hands.”
I’m complying before I even realize it. The bars are cold in my grip. Why did I do that so readily?
Because he’s fucking magnetic, and my will to resist is slipping away.
“If you move them,” he murmurs, “you’ll be punished more. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whisper. So I am to be punished then. That was inevitable too.
I did try to shoot him, after all.
He keeps me pinned while he trails his freed hand down my back. “Lift your tight bottom for me, Little Stray.”
I do not appreciate the demeaning tone, or being addressed like I’m a slab of meat.
Don’t give in.
I grit my teeth, turning my head away from him, refusing to move.
He chuckles softly, the sound silky and far too patient. “Still pushing?”
Fuck you is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it instead. Then gasp as his palm smacks into my ass, my body jerking.
“I’m going to spank you until you lift your bottom,” he tells me, “then when you do, I’ll start the punishment.”
“That’s not fair!” My protest slips out, and I’m rolling my eyes at myself even as he lets out another chuckle. Of course it’s not damn fair, it was never intended to be. All I’ve managed to do is amuse him.
“We can pretend you don’t want to play, but you can’t hide how wet you already are.” His palm spreads one cheek, opening me to his gaze. I squirm as much as his grip on my neck will allow, unable to help it. No doubt that only gives him more of a show.
“It’s a physical response,” I mutter. “Doesn’t mean anything.” I think. I hope.
“And an emotional one,” he replies. “That means something.”
Damn him. Is that true? I don’t even know.
Yet he must be right. My whole body is alive to him, there’s no denying it—even though I’ve been trying. How am I supposed to resist him with his hand around my neck and his words in my ear making me melt?
His fingers dip between my legs, and a whimper gets trapped in my throat. His touch brushes lightly over my labia, and it teases so good I’m not even sure why I’m trying to fight him. Would it be so bad to give in? It’s not like I have any pride left. He’s stripped me bare, in every sense.
“You know,” he murmurs, “I may have said it before, but you do have the most fantastic ass.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I mutter through clenched teeth. “Just a physical characteristic.”
“Petulance doesn’t become you, Little Stray.”
“I wasn’t being—”
“It’s not just your ass.” He gives it another spank, driving the breath from me, the sound cracking through my bedroom and the heat radiating through my flesh. “Your breasts are divine. Your eyes flash fire. Your perfect pussy calls to me.”
I scowl against the mattress. Patronizing asshole. “You’re really listing all my best attributes now.”
He gives that sadistic chuckle. “No, I’m admiring your body. Your mind and your spirit I enjoyed from the first moment we met.”
“My spirit?” I echo in disbelief. “When you—” He spanks me again, cutting off my words, and I grit my teeth as the pain spreads over my buttock. I have to breathe several times before I can continue. “…When you tried so hard to crush it?”
“I did no such thing,” he replies. “When have I ever taken more from you than you could handle?”
His palm strokes over my ass with a gentle touch, and it’s damn distracting. I want to concentrate on his words, and he’s not making it easy. My hips lift of their own accord, chasing that soothing caress. I press them back down into the mattress, hoping he didn’t notice.
“Are you saying everything you’ve done was…”
His fingers dip between my legs again, and all my thoughts dissolve at his touch.
“…controlled?” he finishes for me.
“Bullshit,” I say, clenching my eyes shut in an attempt to resist pressing back against his hand. Damn this man, he’s so aggravatingly distracting. “How can you claim to know me so well? Especially on our first encounter?”
“The one where you walked uninvited into a gala, then strolled up to a man and blackmailed him?”
“…yeah.” But what did that tell him about me?
“Then called him impotent?”
Shit.
“I don’t quite recall—”
“And addressed the same slur to a man you’d never seen before, caught in proximity?”
“He put his hands on me!” I protest. “And you did nothing!”
“I wanted to see how you’d react. You didn’t disappoint.” He runs his fingers up along my bottom, delving between the crack of my ass. I hiss in a breath, twitching. It’s so difficult to focus while he’s touching me like this. “You say I don’t know you that well, but your reaction told me enough.”
“To take me onto the terrace and bend me over a table?”
That damn chuckle comes again, then he leans over me, mouth beside my ear. “You enjoyed it.”
“The hell I did!”
“You came so hard around my cock.”
I clench my jaw until it aches.
“I enjoyed it,” he goads.
“I’m so fucking glad,” I hiss.
“And here we are again,” he murmurs, then spanks my ass several times in succession. I gasp through the sting, gripping the bars of my headboard to ground me.
“Once more, consent isn’t even an afterthought,” I say when I can catch my breath.