Chapter 11
Gavin has no pictures. It’s strange that I never noticed that. I was in the office when Lola called me for her after school check in. First thing I did before accepting the call was scan for anything personal that would give away that I’m not in Reno. But it wasn’t necessary.
In the past, when I cleaned, my routine was efficient. I wasn’t there to snoop through Gavin’s life. Actually, I tried my best not to. My purpose was singular: get the house spotless.
It didn’t matter what a photograph was of, all that mattered was that the glass and frame were free of smudges. I didn’t pay attention to what knickknacks were on the shelves, just that they were dust free.
But after I hung up with Lola, I walked around with a new purpose. To learn something about the boss.
If someone were to ask me for information on him based solely on what I find, my answer would be short.
“He’s alone,” I whisper, staring at one actual picture that hangs in the hallway that leads to the master guest room. It’s of a three-story bright red brick house, the type you’d see in historic towns. On the bottom is shows the title as The Red House, and it’s signed by Lewis Bell.
I wonder if that was the inspiration for the name of his casino, or if it’s mere coincidence.
Other than that enigma, I find nothing else that seems personal, something that tells me more than what I already know. I even resorted to searching cabinets and drawers.
When I was hired, I did some internet stalking. Of course I did, he’s insanely sexy and I was curious. All I got were facts. His full name is Gavin Thomas Alexander. Born May ninth, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Parents both deceased, as is his only brother.
That’s still all I have.
Why is that? How does someone who has lived here several five years not have some sort of evidence of a family, a girlfriend, anything?
Because he doesn’t have one. There is no other explanation.
I’m not sure why, but it makes me so sad. Maybe it’s that I know what it’s like. It’s not a loneliness that comes simply from living by yourself. It’s the kind that surrounds you in a complete void of anyone that matters. Anyone you matter to.
Now, I have Lola. I have Miri and her son, Josh. It’s a small family, tiny by comparison to so many others, yet there is evidence in every part of my life.
My house is full of accumulated stuff, Lola’s drawings and crafts I can’t bear to part with. My car has Lola’s books and at least one of her dirty socks. My phone is loaded with photograph after photograph of her and Miri and Josh and me smiling with them because they make me happy.
I have all of that, but once lived without photos or knickknacks. It’s a distant memory, but it’s still there, just like everything else.
Just like Gavin…
I’m still thinking about this a couple of hours later as I fold laundry in the living room with the television on the Food Network. I don’t usually watch shows while at work, but circumstances have changed. Now it’s not only his clothes in the pile, but mine as well.
I stare at his folded white T-shirts and my pajamas side by side. This is probably the first time anyone else’s things have been washed with his.
Is that what it’s like to be a billionaire? Does it come with the territory? A choice, wealth or family?
Or is this something uniquely Gavin?
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot movement. I spin toward it to find Gavin leaning with his shoulder against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, eyes intense as always.
“Shit!” I hold my hand to my chest. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Sneak in and watch me.”
“Maybe you’re just always distracted, completely unaware of your surroundings.”
He has me there. “You’re home early again. It’s not like you.”
His gaze travels over me, lingering and knowing. “I thought of something.”
“What?”
From his coat pocket, he produces four thin ropes, each about a foot long. “Come.”
I track him with my eyes as he moves to the kitchen. My already racing heart drums even faster as I watch him grab one of the barstools and spin it around.
“Come here, Andie.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
I go to him, hesitantly.
“Straddle it.” He motions to the stool. When I don’t immediately move, he adds in a gravelly voice, “I’m not going to hurt you, Andie. But I want you to do this.”
The heat in his eyes and the bulge in his pants tell me how aroused he is by the very thought of me doing obeying. Straddling it so he can tie me up. It’s another one of his sexual fantasies he wants me to fulfill.
It takes me a few moments to comply. I stare at it, imagining what he has in mind for me with this barstool and those ropes. When I do, I’m shaking.
He’s not going to murder you. Too many people now know you’re here.
But I’m not sure how he’s going to fuck me either. I’m fully dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt. And in the position I’m getting into, with my chest against the backrest and my core pressed into the seat, it doesn’t seem possible.
“Like this?” I ask him, nervous.
“Just one more thing.” He steps behind me, grabs my hips and tugs me back so that my ass is slightly off the seat. “Like this.”
Now, he moves to the front and takes both my wrists, tying them together with the first rope. When I wince as it digs into my skin, he makes it tighter.
After that, he crouches and affixes my right ankle to the foot rest, then the left, just as tight, so that when I shift even a little, it causes a stinging friction. I suppose that’s the point, to keep me completely still.
He circles me like a predator would it’s captured pray. Or perhaps, a hunter and his trapped catch. That’s when I notice it, the gleaming blade in his hand. Shiny like a mirror, I see myself reflected in it, all tied up and vulnerable.
Where the hell did he even have that?!
Hardly able to breathe and scared shitless now, I say, “You said you weren’t going to hurt me.”
“I’m not.”
But I don’t believe him, and I don’t believe I was stupid enough to do this.
When he walks around to the back, I begin to tug at the ropes in earnest. When I feel the blade slide between my skin and my jeans, I scream, “Don’t do this!”
“Shh. Easy, Andie. Don’t move or you’ll get cut.”
I stop, my heart in my throat. The coolness of the knife leaves my skin a split second before I hear the tearing of fabric. Suddenly, the knife is gone and it’s his hands pulling the back of my jeans apart, tearing them at the seam all the way to my crotch. He’s exposed me fully, my butt cheeks splayed open from the position I’m in, my entrance accessible. With the flat part of the blade, he pats my cunt, and I inhale sharply.
It shouldn’t be a turn-on, having my clit touched like this, but my body responds as if it’s foreplay. Tiny little slaps that get stickier the hotter I get. The wetter.
The knife is gone, clattering to the floor.
I’m panting like I just ran a mile, still processing that he didn’t kill me. I laugh from the near-death experience I didn’t just have. But when I look over my shoulder at him and see his attention so focused on my naked bottom, his pupils dilated, the laughter lodges in my throat.
Slowly, he lifts his gaze to meet mine. Taking hold my ponytail, he forces my head to the side, exposing my neck. He leans in and bites me there as he presses himself against my ass.
He nips and kisses the soft skin as he brings his palm down my ribs and lower, until he reaches the top of my crack.
“Do you want to know why I’ve been leaving work early so much? It’s because I can’t stop thinking about this.” He moves his hand over my anus and cups my mound. “Knowing this is here, waiting for me, has me hard as a fucking rock. Do you think it’s appropriate for me to meet with anyone when my cock is straining in my pants, Miss Burrows?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“No.” Unlike the roughness of his bites, his caresses on my slit are gentle. Reverently petting the labia. “You’re so soft.”
A moan escapes me, something of a whimper actually, when he stops. I gasp in surprise when he crouches behind me, bringing his mouth to my exposed parts.
“What are you doing?” I try to turn to him, but the ropes binding me dig brutally into my wrists, and all I can do is helplessly… feel.
“What I’ve been dying to do all day.”
He licks me first, from clit to anus and back. Then he falls into a rhythm, alternating between drawing circles with his tongue on my nub and lapping up the juices from my entrance. He brings me to the brink of coming, but stops just before I explode, making me cry out in frustration.
All the while, his thumb pulsates against my tight hole, increasing in pressure with every push, until I feel him easily slip in.
I’m not someone who has ever even considered anal sex. But there’s something about the way he’s touching me, stimulating both my pussy and asshole, that makes this incredibly erotic. I’m so aroused and wet and desperate to come, I cry out, “Please!”
“Not yet,” he says against my cheek before slapping it so hard it leaves a stinging heat that has me panting.
He stands but doesn’t stop touching me, torturing me. His fingers are everywhere it seems like, all at once. Yet it’s not enough, so I squirm in an effort to get more contact, more friction.
I hear his zipper, then feel the silken hardness of him replace his hand and it sends a delicious ache through my core.
“Yes,” I sigh. Yes, yes. This is what I want. What I need.
His shaft slides between my folds, gathering wetness. The blunt head pushes against my cunt, and I lift my ass in invitation. Now. Do it now. Push it inside me. I need it.
Gavin seems to enjoy tormenting me, because he only gives me the tip. It’s not until I’m close to begging, my wrists and ankles raw from the contestant pull at my restraints, that he gives me what I want.
He rams into me in one powerful thrust at the same time that he easily slides his fingers back into my tight hole. I gasp at the fullness of it, how he stretches me, fills me to capacity. There’s a dull sort of pain as he pulls out and punches forward again, his pelvis slapping against my ass, his fingers mimicking the motion. But the pain only increases the pleasure and desire for release.
In and out, fast and slow. I’m on the verge, barely hanging on to sanity. Then it hits me, this all-consuming cataclysm of an orgasm that I’m sure will leave nothing but a bumbling mess and I don’t care. I want it anyway. And he must sense it because he intensifies his thrusts until he’s swelling inside me.
“Fuck!” Even after he stops, his cock pulses, and I imagine he’s still spurting.
The very idea has me screwing my eyes shut as I roll once again into another orgasm, this one sharp and quick, but just as good as the first.
His hand on the back of my neck, he holds me steady as he pulls out of me. Wetness, lots of it, spills from my slit and drips onto the floor.
“You are so perfect, Miss Burrows,” he croons.
I drop my cheek onto the back of the chair and wait for my racing heart to slow. He adjusts his pants, then crouches nearby and picks up the knife.
This time, when he comes to me I’m unafraid. He slips the sharp blade between my wrists and cuts the rope. I remain in place after he does the same to my feet.
Gavin leans against the countertop and watches me with hooded eyes and a smirk. “Are you staying like that for your benefit, or mine?”
“How does it benefit you?”
He grins. “I like the way you look. If you stay that way, I’ll fuck you again the second I recover.”
My pussy clenches. God, his cum is actively pouring from me and I’m okay with him putting some more inside.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll stay like this.”
His grin widens. “You really are a fantasy, Andie.”
From somewhere in his pocket, his phone buzzes. He tugs it out with clear annoyance on his face. “What?” I’m not sure what is said on the other end of the line, but it causes Gavin to shut his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Duty calls?”
Glancing at me, he says remorsefully, “Unfortunately.”
“Should I stay like this, or is it going to be a while?”
“It will be a while.”
“Okay,” I sigh regretfully and get off the stool. Twisting, I get a good look at my pants and grimace. “I should shower.”
I make to leave, but he snatches my arm. “Hang on.” He peers down at the raw skin caused by the ropes. “Shit.”
“It’s okay. I’ll?—”
“It’s not fucking okay.” He tugs me to the bathroom and lifts me onto the counter.
I shiver when my bare ass hits the cold marble, but he doesn’t notice because he’s rummaging through the cabinet drawers.
“What are you searching for?” I look in there too, wondering.
“A first aid kit.”
“Next drawer.” I point to the right. He gives me an odd look. “I organize them, remember?”
And you have nothing private in there to hide anyway. Hell, I’ve never even seen a condom.
Which makes me wonder…
“Gavin?”
“Mmm?” He returns to my side with a white box that has a large red cross on it. Opening it, he begins to pull out the things he wants to use.
“Have you…” I pause, questioning the stupidity of asking a personal question. But, suddenly, I have to know. Something. Anything. “Have you ever brought a woman here? It’s just, I have never seen…” I trail off when he flicks a sharp blue gaze my way. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
Gently, more so than I believed he could be, he cleans the raw areas on my wrists and ankles. After that, he slathers a hefty amount of ointment and wraps them with gauze.
When he finishes securing the last bandage, he keeps hold of my hand, his stare downcast. “I would never hurt you, Andie. You know that, right?”
“It was my fault. I was tugging at the ropes.”
“I don’t mean that. When you saw the knife, I saw your fear. You thought I was going to hurt you. I’d first slit my own throat than to ever cut you. Do you understand?” Now he does lift his eyes to me, and while there’s no regret in them, I don’t think he feels bad about scaring me, there is an insistent truth that demands I believe him.
“Okay,” I say, surprised by him.
“I’m short on time. Do you mind if I shower first? As much as I’d love to leave your scent on my dick all day, my underwear sticking to my balls is uncomfortable as fuck.”
I let out a laugh and he smiles, truly and without mischief or wickedness. A pretty smile that crinkles the sides of his eyes.
Biting my lip, I clear my throat. “Yeah. Actually, I’ll just use the guest bath to rinse off since I got these on now.” I show him my bandages. “Don’t want to get them wet.”
We each go our separate ways. In the guest room, I do what I desperately try not to call a whore bath. Once upon a time, long ago, it’s exactly what I’d have called it without a second thought. Now, it’s a stark reminder that in a way I am whoring myself to get out of a bad situation. The same as I did all those years ago. I’m back where I fucking started.
My mood soured by those thoughts, I quickly wipe down and snatch my torn pants from the floor.
By the time Gavin appears back in the kitchen, freshly showered and changed into a dark gray suit, I’m back in the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asks, hovering over me.
“Sewing my jeans back together,” I reply a bit snappish.
“Where did you get needle and thread.”
“You have some. It’s what I use to sew your buttons back on.”
“You do that? I thought?—”
“It wouldn’t make sense to send your pants out for a missing button, Mr. Alexander.”
He stares at me forever as I push the needle through the thick jean material. “Why are you sewing them? Just toss them out.”
I give him a sarcastic laugh. “Because, sir, most of us can’t afford to just throw our clothes out. This was my favorite pair. And one of only three I brought.”
“Why did you only bring three?” The way he’s asking me, so patiently and with actual interest, annoys me.
“Because it’s all I have.” I hear the whine in my voice and it irks me. With a sigh, I drop the pants onto my lap and look at him. “I’m sorry.”
He tilts his head as he studies me. Then, he reaches out and touches me between my brows, smoothing the spot with his fingertip until I relax.
“I won’t apologize for tearing your pants, Andie. I liked it too much to regret. It felt too good.”
Heat instantly fills my belly. “Why do you have to say things like that?”
“Because they’re true.”
Against my will, my smile returns. Damn it, I wanted to hold on to that bitterness a bit longer. “Was it really your fantasy to tie me up like that?”
“It’s all been my fantasy. The stool, the club, your ponytail.” He reaches up and tugs at my messy hair. “You can’t repair them. Give me your pants.”
I nod because he’s right, and hand them to him.
He looks down at the two halves barely held together by a thread and smiles as if he’s remembering the sound of them tearing.
Then he walks around the counter, slides out the garbage can cabinet, and tosses them in. “I’ll see you later.” With that, he leaves.
Three hours later, I’m sitting in the middle of the living room surrounded by boxes filled with every color, every brand of jeans I could never afford. Fifty of them all in my size!
But instead of rushing to try every single one on, all I can do is stare at the handwritten note that arrived with them.
Don’t get too attached. I really liked tearing your jeans off you. And I plan to do it at least fifty more times.