Chapter 25
Selena
Ilike to control all the variables in my life, because that’s where security lies. Skiing excepted, I relish security. I’m at my most content, most creative, when I feel safe. When things are up in the air and it feels as though the very ground beneath my feet is shaky, I don’t fare so well.
Case in point: Xavier’s little stunt on Boxing Day. He didn’t just pull the rug out from beneath me; he pulled the ground out. I don’t want to feel like that again for a very long time.
But it turns out that sexy uncertainty is a whole other ball game.
It’s like being on a rollercoaster—you know you’re safe to enjoy the perceived danger.
I know Ben won’t harm me… but I also know that’s a lethal twinkle in his eye as he pushes the single strap of my dress off my shoulder so it falls to the floor in a pool of black silk crepe.
‘You say stop’—he reaches around to unclasp my strapless bra—‘I stop.’
I nod, my nipples furling more tightly as soon as his gaze latches on to them.
He sinks slowly to his knees in front of me and hooks his thumbs into my black lace thong, sliding it down my legs until it’s around my ankles.
I take the hands he offers me and carefully step out of it—and my dress—so I’m naked except for my sheer black hold-ups and black stilettos.
It’s too early in the year to go bare-legged.
Ben cuffs my ankle with one hand before sliding it up the inside of my leg, stopping at mid-thigh.
The heat of his skin against mine has me widening my stance, and he grins up at me.
It’s a cold, assessing grin that sends shivers down my spine.
He may be on his knees before me, but there’s no doubt who holds the power here.
He gets to his feet. ‘So tempted to get you on your hands and knees for me, princess,’ he drawls, ‘but I want to watch that face of yours as I put you through your paces. So on your back it is. Shoes off first.’
I step out of my shoes, and the instant height difference underscores the power dynamic.
‘Fuck, yes,’ he says, staring down at me. ‘On the bed, sweetheart. Jesus, I feel like a kid in a sweet shop.’
‘How many women have you been with in these rooms?’ I ask him, turning to walk around the bed. No way am I confident enough to stick my bottom in the air and crawl away from him. I sit on the side of the bed and pull my legs up.
‘Enough to know a few tricks,’ he says, approaching. ‘And a few treats—that cupboard is a gold mine. I promise you, you’re in for a treat. Lie down.’
I do as he asks, tugging one of the large throw pillows beneath my head, the satin sheets cool against my back and slippery against my stockinged feet.
He comes around to the head of the bed and unspools a couple of lengths of white silk from the drawer in the bedside table.
I crane my neck to watch him thread one through the big brass hoop affixed to one side of the black leather headboard.
‘Do you remember Eddie’s birthday party at the Mandarin a couple of years back?
’ he asks, taking hold of my nearest wrist so he can draw it above my head and wrap the sash around it.
‘Yes,’ I say hesitantly, unclear if this memory has a point or whether he’s giving me some kind of professional patter to distract me from the fact that he’s tying me up.
His cousin had a big black-tie thirtieth bash—I went along with Xavier, and Ben was there, too, looking unbearably gorgeous and flirting with everyone with a vagina.
‘You were in a white dress that evening.’ He makes a knot and tugs it tight. ‘Backless. No bra. Your tits drove me wild all night.’
I stare up at him, too shocked to remember to panic at the brutal efficiency with which he’s restraining me. I’ve never been tied up before.
‘It was Ralph Lauren,’ I tell him. Purple label. Winter white wool crepe. A great dress. And Ben remembers? He remembers my breasts?
‘Good old Ralph.’ He makes his way around the bed with the second sash.
‘Anyway, a few of us came here afterwards. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
I found a woman upstairs who looked a bit like you from behind—her hair was a similar colour to yours—took her into one of these rooms, flipped her over, and fucked the living daylights out of her.
I imagined I was letting you have it the entire time. ’
My entire body breaks out in goosebumps as he threads his sash through the other hoop, my wrist hanging limply in his when he picks it up.
If the only success factor in a marriage was the sex, Benedict and I would be absolutely smashing it.
Not just that, but we’ve both admitted several times now to having been attracted to each other in the past.
This, though, is an entirely different kettle of fish. He’s telling me he found someone to fuck so he could imagine it was me. That’s staggering beyond belief—and holy hell, is it erotic.
Is it messed up that I’m hopelessly, disgustingly jealous of a nameless woman because she got to reap the benefits of Benedict working all that frustration out?
I screw my face up. ‘It should have been me,’ is what comes out.
He tugs his knot closed with unnecessary force.
‘Damn right it should have been you, sweetheart. Why do you think I’ve trussed you up like this?
I’ve finally got you right where I want you, and I’m not taking any chances.
’ He bends and brushes his lips over mine.
I arch into his touch, but as soon as I do, he straightens up and runs his eyes appraisingly over my body. ‘Excellent.’
I wonder what he sees. How I look. My arms are secured to the top two corners of the bed—this husband of mine is quite the Boy Scout.
I’m naked, stretched out for him and fully on display, my knees up a little so I can keep my feet on the bed, regardless of the fact that they keep slipping over the sheets.
‘You asked for the Benedict de Vere Alchemy experience,’ he continues, sauntering around to the end of the bed. I dip my chin so I can watch him. ‘I hope you’re in a patient mood, sweetheart, because I could enjoy you all night.’
All night sounds good. Patience does not. ‘Are you going to let me come?’ I ask plaintively.
That makes him laugh. ‘Let’s see, shall we?
Like I said, patience. I’ve had to wait for years, after all.
Fuuuck, Slinks, the things I want to do to you.
’ He leans forward and slowly peels one stocking off me, then the other.
Then he turns and ducks, pulling open the cupboard of doom, which has nerves fluttering in my belly.
But when he stands, it’s only a bottle of oil he’s holding.
With a knee up on the bed, he proceeds to drizzle it languidly over me.
It should feel good, but with my skin already sensitised and my body already primed, it feels more like torture.
A splash hits my left nipple before the oil spatters over my abdomen. Down my thighs, then back up. He’s Jackson Pollocking me from a height. When he’s satisfied, he puts the bottle down.
‘The trick,’ he says, kneeling up on the bed by my side, ‘is staying nice and still like a good little wife so I can have some fun with this gorgeous body of yours. After all’—he uses his palm to smear some oil across my breasts—‘the better you behave, the more I’ll reward you.
Like this.’ This is a sudden, savage twist of one nipple between his oiled-up fingers.
It’s so perfect I almost shoot off the bed.
I can’t stop the moan that escapes me as I stare pleadingly up at him.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘You’ll have to pace yourself better than that.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ I pant.
His smile is kind. ‘I think we both know you have no choice.’
If my husband is the maestro, then my body is his instrument of choice.
I lose track of time as he strides back and forth and around and around, fully clothed and sleeves rolled up as he makes my body sing for him.
The huge tent in his trousers is unmistakable, but he ignores it in favour of playing with me.
He strokes his fingertips down my arms, his palms up my inner thighs, massaging in the oil.
He sweeps his knuckles over my lower stomach, and everything south of my waist clenches with need.
He dips two fingers inside me for an excruciatingly short while before removing them and sucking them into his mouth.
‘Just as I thought,’ he declares after he withdraws them. ‘This greedy little cunt is fucking soaked.’
My cheeks heat at his coarse words as much as at the mortification of how true they are. He has me so close to the edge already.
‘Open your legs properly,’ he commands, ‘and I’ll reward you.
’ He kneels by the side of the bed as if saying his prayers, except that he dips his head to take my nipple in his mouth right as he slides his hand down over my stomach and finds my clit.
There’s the faintest sensation of his teeth around my nipple.
His tongue glides over it, featherlight, while his fingertips do the exact same thing to my clit, barely grazing it.
After the way he’s teased me, built me up, it’s nothing short of insupportable. I try to rut my pelvis into him, but he stops. Like, he stops everything.
‘Careful,’ he croons around my nipple. ‘Remember who’s in charge here.’
‘As if I could forget,’ I huff, and he chuckles to himself before resuming those infuriating little strokes with his tongue and his fingers.
‘Ben,’ I say, so far past caring that this is the most shameless and desperate and vulnerable I’ve ever been with another human being, ‘please. Please, honey. I need it.’
He encircles my nipple with one blissful roll of his tongue and then pops off. ‘Such a good girl,’ he says, looking down at me. His eyes are as black as the devil’s, and I’ve never seen anything more gorgeous. ‘I think you’ve earned a little reward.’
A quick stroll to the bottom of the bed has him squatting between my legs and bearing down on my knees so he’s holding me wide open for him. He can see everything, and I don’t even care.
‘You’re actually dripping for me,’ he says tenderly, his eyes fixated on my most intimate parts, laid bare for him. ‘I think if I wait a second—yep—’
I know what he’s waiting for, and I squeeze my eyes shut in embarrassment as my arousal drips, landing, presumably on the sheets.
‘Fucking hell,’ he says, sounding awed. ‘That is fucking unbelievable. I have to taste it.’
And just like that, my shameless state serves me, because the next thing I know, my diabolical husband licks me, bottom to top, his tongue flat and rough. I’ve had a privileged life, but this is the best thing I have ever, ever felt.
‘Oh my God,’ I say, my voice high with desperation. ‘Please, I—’
He pulls away. ‘Not so fast. I’ve been a lot more patient than you, haven’t I? I think I deserve a little quid pro quo before I give you what you want.’
I open my eyes to find him crawling up the bed until he’s straddling my chest, his knees either side of my arms. With a filthy grin, he unzips himself—with difficulty, I might add—and frees his cock.
My entire vaginal area is pulsing so hard I fear I might come into thin air, but I focus on the monster in front of me.
He grips it, which seems risky, given it looks as though it may explode at any moment, and brushes it over my lips, painting my mouth with his precum before he pushes his dick into my mouth.
There’s something so incredibly filthy about being like this—tied up and straddled, completely overpowered, Ben forcing himself down my throat—that I think I might die from the arousal of it.
I suck on his smooth, musky crown, unable to take my eyes off his face as he in turn watches me take him.
His expression is triumphant, and why not? He has me exactly where he wants me.
With slow, even thrusts, he fucks my mouth, watching to see how far he can take it. I’m struggling to take him, especially at this angle, but I never want this moment to end. Never. If I could stay tied up and stuffed full of my husband’s cock forever, I would.
He jokes that he’s always wanted to get beneath the surface of his very own ice queen.
But I know now that the jig is up. He knew what I really wanted—what I needed—before even I did, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to hide behind my mask again after this.
If I survive this evening, that is.