Chapter 33
NOVA
Wes knelt beside the couch. “I have no problem getting on my knees to worship you either, Nova.”
He ended my suffering in the next breath, turning my head toward him as he plunged two fingers back inside my wet, aching pussy.
“Don’t look away. Let me see your beautiful face when you come, baby,” he instructed.
My legs shook, all my muscles tensing and bracing for an inevitable explosion, an orgasm unlike any I’d had before. All of me was lost, as if I’d been forcibly stripped of all my shame, my baggage, my insecurities.
“Good girl. Good fucking girl.” Wes moved back to my clit, no longer teasing, instead operating with fine precision. “You followed directions so well for me tonight. And all week, with your thoughtful answers and questions. My perfect teacher’s pet.”
Warmth flooded my stomach, satisfied. Under the light of Wes’s praise, I was chosen. My soul was saved.
“Come for me, Nova. You’ve earned it.”
Wes pulled down the top of my dress, exposing my breasts.
His lips closed around a nipple, the sensation pushing me over the edge.
I came hard against his fingers, crying out, overwhelmed with pleasure.
The peak lasted an impressively long time, leaving me boneless and thoughtless by the time I came back down.
Wes slowly released my breast and dragged his fingers away from my clit.
Staring into Wes’s eyes, I was stunned for three long beats.
And then, something horrible happened.
I started crying.
No, no, no. I had to stop, but I couldn’t. It was an automatic response from somewhere deep inside me.
Wes moved immediately, readjusting my dress and scooping me back into his arms as he sat with me on the couch. “Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed. “Talk to me, baby.”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped, balling his soft shirt in my first. “Fuck, this is humiliating.”
“It’s not, Nova. I want all of you.”
Those words seemed impossible. Too good to be true.
“I’m so used to feeling shame after I come,” I admitted.
“It’s kind of my whole thing. I reach a breaking point where I act on my kinky desires, and for a brief period of time, I’m free from all guilt.
But right after I climax, I crash, and I remember where I came from.
The men from my hometown who don’t care about safe words or consent or negotiation.
It’s not the same, I know it’s not the same, but I feel so fucking guilty. ”
“That makes complete sense to me,” Wes said gently. “Is that what you’re feeling now? Shame?”
I shook my head, surprised. “No. It’s different this time, and maybe that’s why I’m crying.
Because I’m realizing how long I’ve lived hating this huge part of myself.
How long I’ve lived not truly living. I used to think by repressing my kinks, I was winning an invisible battle against abusers and misogynists.
But I think—” I took a deep breath, wiping my eyes.
“I think that was a form of self-harm. And I don’t want to hurt myself anymore. ”
Wes kissed my forehead. “I have a couple friends with religious trauma. If you’re up for it, I can connect you. You’re not alone in this, and you’re in good company. I’m honored you felt safe enough to let go with me.”
I remembered the two people who’d said something similar after my sermon. We were everywhere. Shame had hidden this truth from me.
“I do feel safe with you. I’m s—”
Wes stopped me with a gentle but commanding look. I immediately closed my mouth. He was right. It wasn’t my fault. No one was asking me to atone. I was the only one forcing myself to comply with a set of rules and ideas that no longer made sense to me.
“I still have Doritos, if that would help,” Wes said.
My tears dried, leaving me feeling strangely light and free. I managed a small smile. “Do Doritos qualify as aftercare?”
Wes scoffed. “Baby, Doritos are a pillar of aftercare.”
“That cannot be true.”
“I have ice cream too. Chocolate.” He watched my face and grinned. “The way your eyes grew brighter with every word I spoke was incredible.”
“You really do pay attention, don’t you?” I murmured.
He kissed my temple. “Paying attention is seventy percent of good domming.”
He carried me to the kitchen and placed me on his enviable marble counter.
“What’s the other thirty?” I asked.
Wes retrieved a magical pint of chocolate ice cream with fudge and brownie swirl. He laughed when he caught the delighted look on my face.
“Storytelling,” he said. “If you want to practice good kink, you have to know how to tell a story.”
He handed me the pint and a spoon and positioned himself between my legs.
“Say more,” I said, gleefully plunging the spoon into the decadent chocolate. “Please,” I added.
Wes’s smile widened as he watched me. “Every good scene is about pacing. The buildup. The tension. The breaking point followed by the cooldown. Bad tops don’t get this.
They’ll start at full speed and end at full speed, which is deeply psychologically unsatisfying.
We all think we want the climax. We want the sex, the crown achievement, the ending.
But that’s an illusion; what we all really want is the liminal space before we get what we want.
We want the yearning. We want the ride to the top.
And we want to be taken care of once we finally tip over, so we know the ending isn’t final, and more is to come. ”
The gooey, fudgy chocolate overwhelmed my tastebuds as Wes spoke. All I could do was stare at him in awe.
“That was beautiful,” I said. “You’re like a kinky Socrates.” I marveled at the parallels between kink and storytelling in a way I’d never considered before.
Wes shrugged like he had when I’d asked him why Lola said he was a saint. It would seem I was not the only one who struggled with compliments.
“I need to take a trip to California this week,” he said. “I shouldn’t be gone for longer than ten days. There are important meetings happening for a company I invested in, and I need to be there for them.”
Oh, I had it bad. Because ten days sounded like ten years all of a sudden.
“What’s the company?” I asked, putting on my very chill, cool, and unbothered girl mask. I took another bite of ice cream.
“A tech privacy startup,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, you mentioned this during the chest harness.”
I’d answered bright green to rope and other restraints. Wes might’ve been remembering this too, as his eyes became suddenly hooded, his grip on my thighs tightening.
“While I’m gone, I…” He hesitated. “I’d really prefer if you didn’t indulge Archer and Jayne’s pursuance. I don’t like the idea of you facing their world alone while I’m across the country. I know you don’t owe me this, but—”
“I won’t,” I said easily. “I need to lock in with writing anyway. And I don’t want you to worry.”
Wes relaxed. “Thank you, Nova.”
The first week passed without a hitch. I let Jayne and Archer’s agent friend sit in my inbox, not ready to make a decision on that front yet. Besides, she couldn’t do anything for me until I’d finished this first draft anyway, which wouldn’t be until October at a minimum.
Financially, things were not looking great for me.
I’d hit a wall with my social media marketing, and I wasn’t earning enough to justify taking another gamble on paid advertising.
I was getting so sick of posting the same ten hooks over and over again in different formats, rarely ever making it out of the triple digits of views.
Meanwhile, my current readers were asking when the next book was coming out, and I wasn’t ready to tell them what I was writing was neither sweet nor cozy.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of all was that I knew what I was doing.
I knew what worked and what didn’t work.
I’d studied the patterns, the best-seller charts, reader expectations, and winning authors’ strategies.
It was painful to admit, but I had a feeling if I applied my knowledge to the book I was currently writing, marketing would go a lot differently for me.
The best tactics in the world couldn’t push the wrong books.
Which was not to say my genre itself was wrong. There were success stories in every genre. But it was wrong for me. My heart wasn’t in it anymore. Something had changed.
“The water is boiling, babe,” Hudson said, lifting his brows.
I had been leaning over the kitchen counter, staring into space as my mind ran through my current list of problems and how I might solve them.
I snapped out of it. “Thank you,” I said, quickly turning to drop the spaghetti noodles into the violently bubbling pot.
“Spaghetti again?” Hudson asked slowly. “I bought beef yesterday. Please use it. I can’t stand to watch you eat noodles and tomato sauce for dinner.”
I sighed. “Okay, that sounds really nice. Only if you’ll eat it with me.”
“Gladly. But I’m making the sauce. We need red pepper flakes, fresh garlic, mushrooms…”
I turned back to him with a grin. “Wow. We’re eating like kings!”
He rolled his eyes, unable to curb his smile. “Take a seat. I’m handling things from here.”
Hudson’s lack of faith in me was insulting, but being able to sit rather than perform yet another task after a day full of tasks made up for it.
“When do we get to assess Mr. Hottie in the flesh?” Hudson asked.
My phone buzzed.
Maisy
Girl. The Hunt is in like, 6 weeks. We need to figure out our outfits. It’s more intimate since it’s a weekend at the cabin upstate, but I’m sure you’ll get an invite. Umm, idk about Wes tho…
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. I turned my ringer off and placed my phone face-down.
“His stupid trip to stupid California got extended. By four entire days.” I crossed my arms. “So next week, or maybe next year, if things keep going how they’re going,” I said with a deep sigh.
“Oh, the dramaaa.” Hudson snorted. “Well, you’ve certainly been eating like a wife in the Depression Era waiting for her husband to return home from World War II.”
“World War II and the Great Depression were happening at the same time? That’s really tough. Maybe my life isn’t so bad.”