SEVEN Richter Scale
DOMINIC
If Sadie becomes any tenser I’m afraid she’ll snap like a worn rubber band. Once upon a time, I used to be as no-holds-barred as the next guy when competing, especially at sports back in high school. But the rearrangement of my priorities has taught me that those kinds of wins and losses are trivial. Fleeting. Also, games and competitions are intended to be enjoyed.
Even if I don’t think Sadie’s enjoying a fucking thing.
She’s trembling all over, and not the kind of trembling that comes from catching a chill. No, this is a lot more ominous. Like the shaking of the ground right before a seven-point nine earthquake registers on the Richter Scale. I’m realizing that if this keeps up, she’s gonna blow.
And I don’t mean her sucking me off.
“I’m thirsty. Are you thirsty?” I ask.
I can’t afford for this woman to detonate like some ticking timebomb. I need her to decide that she’s having a good time because I’m doing my damnedest to give her one. I need for her to enjoy herself with me. But what I’ve been trying isn’t working.
So much for convincing her that I’m the one she should keep.
I remember the soda machine I passed on the way in, and stride over to it, ready to do anything to turn things around. Reaching for my wallet, I produce a couple of crisp singles and slide the cash into the slot, only to find it blocked.
“We rigged it,” she grunts as she tears her most recent round of darts—each of which are along the outer ring and beyond—from the target as if they’ve insulted her personal code of honor. “No cash needed.”
“Got it.” I deliberately avoid eye contact as I scan to see what’s in stock. “Preference?”
“Orange Crush.”
Don’t hear that one every day.
Grabbing myself a cola, I offer the bottle of orange soda to Sadie, monitoring her out of the corner of my eye. The only reason I went with the game room idea in the first place was I thought it’d be foolproof.
Talk about not calling it.
I’m debating whether I should start over with an activity that’s different or stick with air hockey. Is she so on edge about this because the outcomes aren’t what she thought they’d be or because she’s not big on games in general?
Right before I suggest a venue change, she crosses over to the air hockey table. She sets her bottle down without opening it and seizes one of the paddles. Guess she wants to attack this one next.
I know there’s a third option that would typically be my go-to, but my steps are so much more uncertain with her. I could plant a kiss on Sadie, make out with her until she’s basically in a needy frenzy, then throw her a nice unhurried lay. In my experience, orgasms do wonders for women who are stressed.
But just like the first time I went out with her, figuring out how she might react in advance is difficult. I could still probably persuade her if I initiated, but when you’re the hired help, initiating can be frowned on. It’s too bad since if she let me rest her back across that pool table to lick her clit until she comes, I could have her blissed out of her mind.
My tongue speaks a lot louder than my actual words tend to.
Yet, she’s in charge. And it’s too early to tell if veering into sex would be a mistake.
So, I join her at air hockey, hearing the gentle whirring of the air jets creating less resistance along the surface. While I suspect that her range of movement may be holding her back—I’m not one hundred percent on that—this game requires reflexes and speed more than precision.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Ready.”
For the first time, I consciously consider throwing the whole thing. If winning is what’s so important to her, I can make sure that’s what goes down. I’m not a huge fan of being all dishonest like that, but if it’ll make her less unhappy, I’m willing to try it.
I’m studying the table, the disk, and her posture as I figure out how to do this without being too conspicuous when she grabs the disk and lurches forward.
And just like that, she’s earned her a point.
Based on her reactions up to now, I expect her to cheer or display some sort of celebration, but she doesn’t. If anything, she looks even fiercer.
How this woman didn’t wind up playing professional sports is lost on me.
I shoot the disk to her side when she bullets it back and earns her second goal. Then, before I can even absorb her slamming it toward me again, she’s shot and scored a third time.
“My game is ass today,” I mutter, because I didn’t throw a thing.
Sadie is downright savage with the next few moves, her right arm a curl almost as taut as her left as she plays on. If her burns were limiting her before, they’re not now. Soon we’re at five to one, her favor. When the timer goes off, it’s six to one.
Her unscarred cheek is almost as red as her other one and perspiration has beaded along her hairline, but the gleam in her eyes in one of triumph. Victory.
I don’t know why that matters to me as much as it does but watching her succeed gives me the urge to hug her. Not an embrace that’s just a prelude to bumping uglies, either, but a genuine expression of delight for her.
So, I do.
“What the hell?” she splutters, her tone incredulous, and the stiffness of her frame informs me that I’ve crossed a line.
“Sorry. I’m just so proud of you.”
“Proud?”
There’s danger in that voice. Danger and defiance.
“Uh, yeah. You won.”
“I know I won,” she barks out. “Why? Did you let me?”
I take a pace backward. “No. Definitely not.” No way in hell am I ever admitting how close I came to making that exact decision, though. It hadn’t been necessary, but still.
She’s glowering at me—there’s no other way of putting it—her eyes slicing into me like I’m nothing. Like I’m navel lint. Or maybe like she’d like to incinerate me from existence using nothing more than her glare.
I’m not entirely sure that she won’t, either.
“You won,” I insist. “Fair and square.”
She holds that ferocious intensity on me for several long seconds, and fear that I’m done for fills me. Not that this woman would actually lash out and harm me, but that she’ll toss me out on my ass.
You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
Yet that’s not what happens. Instead, she addresses me while stalking toward the door of the room, her gait noticeably uneven, not that I’m dumb enough to mention it.
“You should know something about me, Dom. I’ll not stand for being patronized.”
“I’d never do that,” I tell her. “I promise.”
She exits with me on her heels, and once we arrive at a seating area next to some super tall windows, she points.
“Sit.”
I obey, automatically reliving the nights I spent with a client who had dominatrix tendencies. She didn’t go full leather and chains on me, but she did order me around and shove that fucking dildo up my ass. Not that I suspect that Sadie will be into that, but something I’ve learned the hard way is you never know.
Sometimes it’s the ones you’d never think would be psychos in the bedroom who totally are.
She approaches me, the oddest expression rippling along her features. It’s a screwy mix of anxiety and determination, I think. Then, she plants herself on my lap, straddling me, before biting my Adam’s apple so hard that I hiss and jerk back.
What the hell?
“Did that hurt?” Sadie asks, sounding far meeker than she has all day.
“A little,” I confess.
“Good, because that was gross. That level of aggressiveness isn’t me, anyway.”
Baffled, I’m about to ask her what the fuck is going on when she kisses me with gusto. I’m stunned but go with it since I can suck face like it’s an Olympic sport. Tugging her bottom lip into my mouth, I brush it with the tip of my tongue, tasting her.
When she combs her hand through my hair then lowers it to examine the texture of my beard, I let her, suffering from whiplash from the one-eighty she just made on me. She’s flipped from bold as brass to tentative and almost cautious.
Will I ever be able to predict what this woman will or won’t do?
I’m tender with her as I lace my fingers into those long light brown strands. They’re silky soft, and as I deepen the kiss, my tongue mingling with hers, she lifts herself up and drags her hips back down, pressing her pelvic bone right up against my fly.
The contact has my cock plumping into a semi. If this was one of my regulars, I’d lean into where this is going, but Sadie’s so much harder to read.
Speaking of harder...
I shift beneath her to conceal my growing erection, unsure if that’s really what she wants. This hot one minute and cold the next shit is throwing me off. Worse, this constant guessing what she’s after only to get it wrong is frustrating.
I have an objective I need to meet. And yeah, I’ll bend over backwards, forwards, and sideways to meet it, but there’s no point if she’s not gonna be receptive to what I’m delivering. If she’s just stringing me along, why am I even wasting my time over here in the buttfucking New Hampshire wilderness?
I bring my movements to a standstill, even as she continues to squirm all over me. She’s nipping—way less brutally this time—at my earlobe when I speak her name.
“Sadie?” I murmur, then increase my volume as her nips drop to the spot on the side of my neck where I’m ticklish. Clasping onto her upper arms, I seize her shoulders and hold her back. “Sadie?”
“What?” she huffs out, panting through kiss-swollen lips. My cock twitches at the sight.
“I’m here for you, for whatever you’d like, but this will be a lot better if you just tell me what you want from me. If it’s activities like that...” I point to the gaming room we just departed. “I’ll do those with you. If it’s making out right here in an open corridor like this, I’ll do that. I can even push you against that window and fuck you until your screams rattle the glass, if that’s how you see this date going. But this being in the dark all the time is getting to me.”
Once my speech is out I realize I may have doomed myself with this client. But the distance between here and Boston is like a rope cinching around my throat. Every day it strangles me more and more. If something goes sideways with Paisley when I’m not there, I don’t know how the hell I’ll keep myself together.
I probably won’t. And the thought of that, of something horrible happening with my sister, causes me to instantly lose wood.
Spec-fucking-tacular.
Sadie will most likely believe I’m too much of a basket case to keep around now. She might be right, too. I watch her as she swallows and removes herself from my lap, separating herself from me so that we’re no longer in contact.
Yep. I’m doomed.
“Listen to me, Dom. I’ve had lovers before.” She’s speaking more gently than I’ve ever heard from her, and the topic is so out of left field that I’m scrambling to keep up. “But not lately. Not since this.”
She points to her left hand lying limply at her side. “I long for closeness and companionship. For physical uh... completion, as well. Yet I refuse to be with someone who’ll judge me because of my scars. I’m more than just a victim, and I deserve to be treated as such.”
When her pause lingers between us, I bob my head. “Sure. Makes sense.”
“I’d like to be with you—each of you—intimately. But I won’t tolerate you or anyone else making me feel bad about it afterward. And if you’re disgusted at the thought, I need to know that right now.”
“Sadie, I’ve been a prostitute for years. How could I make you feel bad about anything when I get people off for a living?”
She blinks, then swallows again. Grasping my hand, she tugs on it until I stand. With her in the lead, I follow her up the stairs to a bedroom about twice the size of mine decorated in a more feminine style.
As we stroll in, Sadie releases my hand for long enough to press a button on the wall, causing a quiet whoosh to sound as the fireplace springs to life. I go stationary at the threshold, absorbing this new environment. The hearth is situated on the opposite side of a gigantic four-poster bed, one with a baby blue headboard and a matching throw.
Plush cream carpet suitable for a cold climate covers every inch of the flooring. And off to the side is a seating area with two cushy white chairs set around a small oval table. The seating area is positioned in front of another of those tall windows, ones that stretch all the way from the floor to the ceiling. It seems to be a theme here.
Paisley would love this place. Prior to getting sick, she used to say that baby blue was her signature color.
Yet as Sadie strolls over and shuts the door behind her, my sister instantly vanishes from my thoughts.
“How do you normally conduct something like this?” At my questioning glance, she clarifies. “The sex part, I mean.”
It strikes me that this woman, like me, is one who prefers knowing what she’s treading into ahead of time.
“I make sure my client is comfortable and pleased every step of the way.”
“How?”
“Most of the time, just by paying attention to her responses.”
“All right,” Sadie says, flaring her good hand over her hip. “I want a demonstration. Make lo—have sex with me.”