Chapter 36
NIA
I like this house.
The dark leather furniture pieces are comfortable and classic, and the soft frieze rug beneath the coffee table helps to create an inviting space, all of which is tied together with the smell of pine and amber offered by a wooden diffuser resting at the top of the fireplace.
Brody’s arm tightens around me, my head resting in the bend of his elbow. We were supposed to start The Notebook more than an hour ago, but we’ve been curled up on his couch talking, instead.
My fingers run across his skin, tracing over the image of a flower that I don’t recognize. It’s beautiful, all the same, even in grey and white.
“It’s weird that you’ve already met my parents,” I joke. “I don’t even know your parents’ names.”
“Molly and Jefferson. My relationship with them is…” He sighs. “Complicated.”
“Complicated, as in…?”
“Complicated, as in I think I love my mother, but I’m not sure about that most of the time; and I’m almost certain that my father and I hate each other,” he tells me. “My mother believes that she does the right thing and that she’s a good person, but I don’t necessarily agree with that.”
“Isla told me she’d go to jail if she met them,” I say, and his body vibrates beneath mine with a soft laugh. “Why?”
“They can be extreme; they’ve hurt my siblings. Not physically—” He hesitates, his grip tightening on me a nearly-immeasurable amount. There’s a ‘but’ there, or something more he wants to say, but he won’t offer it to me. Shifting the subject from his siblings as if he’s a magician using sleight of hand, he says, “She hates them because of how they handled my remission.”
I rotate in his arms, draping a leg over his thigh as my arm hooks around his back. Pressing my cheek to his chest, I breathe in deeply, letting the smell of him fill my senses. He’s created such a safe space for me within himself; I want to be the same thing for him.
“They’d made it abundantly clear that how treatment effected me would determine the future that I was allowed to work toward – family man or career man,” he tells me, his hand stroking through my hair.
“Instead of going to the nice family dinner that I’d expected, we went to a urologist’s office,” he says with a one-sided shrug, “and an hour after learning what a sperm count was, I was shoved into the confessional at our church to wipe clean the mortal sin I’d committed there.”
Pushing my body off of his, I stare at him in horror with my mouth hanging open.
Plenty of friends dislike their friends’ parents for one reason or another. In high school, I hated my best friend’s parents because they didn’t let her come to my house for movies and a sleepover the one time that I asked.
I thought they were horrible for it.
When Katie gets older, I’m sure that a handful of her friends won’t like me, because I will ground her if she gets caught drinking underage or if she gets a traffic ticket. I’d assumed that Isla’s dislike of Brody’s parents fell under the same umbrella, at least in some way.
‘A lot of them, he didn’t realize were bad until he was an adult.’
“I can’t even fathom bringing home your child and your first priority being whether or not they can have children,” I tell him. “My only priority when I brought Katie home from the NICU was making sure that she was healthy. You know that wasn’t normal, right?”
“Of course I do,” he says with a shrug.
“God, and I wanted to bond with them,” I say, my lip curling in disgust.
Brody lets out a deep belly laugh, bringing a hand to his mouth as his head tilts backward in his amusement. “That might be the last thing that I want, sweet girl,” he tells me. “I’d like to keep you away from them entirely, to be truthful.”
“I’d still like to meet them, even if I don’t like them,” I say, earning an arch of his brow. “Your brothers, too.”
“You would get along well with Tripp’s wife,” he chuckles.
With one hand on my ass, the other reaches for the TV remote, clicking on the power. As Brody scrolls through his apps to find one that will stream our movie, I settle back into place, now on top of him. I slide my hands beneath his t-shirt and slip them between his back and the couch, letting the weight of his body comfort me.
I expect him to be tuned out or to even make fun of the movie while it plays, but he’s attentive to it. It’s as if, because the movie is something that I love, it makes it important to him, too.
He rubs his fingers against my back as it plays, and when the same scenes that always make me cry do, in fact, make me cry, he brushes my hair away from my face and wipes my tears.
Punishments and pleasure.
Pain, peacefulness, and protection.
He is all of these things wrapped into one well-guarded safe.
I think that safe is opening for me; and as crazy as it feels, I think I’m tumbling headfirst into it.
It still feels strange to be in Brody’s home. It feels even stranger to be walking around with a bowl of cookie dough ice cream in my hand while he shows me the upstairs portion of the building. It’s just as cozy up here as it is downstairs, the hallway decorated very minimally with a few religious relics and photos of his family – again, seemingly missing his parents.
His home office looks nearly identical to his office at Arison, if not slightly more cozy. We don’t spend much time inside, and I could be led to believe that was due to his not wanting to be reminded of his work, and to me not wanting to be reminded of the months I spent inside the room not too dissimilar from this one.
My jaw nearly hits the floor when we step into his private library. The walls are covered nearly floor to ceiling in shelving that houses books, most of which are leather-bound classics, though he has quite a few paperbacks and hardcovers of books that look to be more recently released.
A comfortable leather chair sits tucked into a corner, accompanied by a small table which houses a lamp and a stack of coasters. Of all of the rooms that I’ve seen so far, this one seems to be the most important to him.
He must have dedicated weeks to putting this room together, and I’d be willing to bet that he did it all on his own.
I set my almost-empty bowl of ice cream onto the small table as I make my way through the room, letting my eyes scan over each of the shelves.
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bront?…even some Darwin and Poe. He’s an incredibly well-read man.
Trailing my fingers along one of the leather spines of his many, many books, I pull it from the shelf and flip it open to skim through the pages.
“Are these people having sex? ” I ask him with my mouth gaping.
Moving to stand behind me, his body pressing against my back as he skims the page, he says, “Yes, they are.”
“‘The delicate treasure trove between her legs swallowed him like—’ Brody, this is like porn on paper!” I laugh.
“It’s classic literature,” he tells me firmly. “You happen to be holding a novel with a romantic subplot.”
“Do you get turned on when you read this?” I ask him.
“Read another passage,” he orders. “Does it turn you on?”
I do as instructed, reading silently to myself as the main character slides himself inside of the woman on the page with him, describing in delicate, flowery detail the way that he makes love to her, and my stomach flips.
“Nia,” Brody says, his hand trailing across the front of my stomach as his lips meet the side of my neck. “You were asked a question.”
“Yes, Sir,” I breathe, “it does.”
“I’m going to get some things,” he tells me. “When I return, I want you in position and I want you stripped.”
As soon as he steps out of the room, I carefully drop the book onto the table next to my ice cream and hurry to tear myself out of my clothes. I fold them and place them on the seat of the chair before moving in front of the door to settle onto my knees with my palms resting on my thighs.
Minutes feel like hours while I wait for him, nearly squirming in place at the thought of what he has planned.
A light streams in from the hallway as he pushes open the door, his hands now full of items. He’s so tall, so imposing from down here.
I feel like a bug, and I want him to step on me.
Squish me.
Make me beg him for mercy.
Seeming to ignore my existence, he steps over my legs to move toward the leather chair, rotating it so that its back is to me.
“Eyes on me,” he orders. When I turn my head to face him, he stands with his arms crossed over his chest, looking down at me with a heat that I can feel burning across the entirety of my body. One hand raises, beckoning me forward with two fingers. “Crawl to me. Show me what a desperate whore you are.”
I comply, dipping my head low as my palms meet the carpet. I crawl slowly on my hands and knees, making a show of exaggerated movements in my hips, because I know what it’s doing to him. He was already hard when he walked back into the room; this must be driving him crazy.
It certainly is for me.
As I finally reach his feet, I stop, letting my knees touch his toes.
Crouching in front of me, he grips my jaw firmly and drags my face toward the back of the chair. “Bend over the chair for me.”
Letting my eyes wander, I spare them a glance at his lap and to the impressive length straining for freedom behind the zipper of his slacks. Moving to his face, I’m met with dark eyes filled with a hunger that only I can fix for him.
I stand slowly and brace myself against the back of the chair. The book that we’d been looking at is placed into my hands, the page now turned to the start of a different chapter.
“You’re going to show me how well you can multitask,” he tells me. I can feel liquid being poured at the peak of my ass, sliding down the center of it as he kicks my feet apart. “Do you think you’ll be able to read aloud for me while I fill you up and fuck you? I hope you can, sweet girl, because if you come before you finish that chapter, I’ll be forced to cane you.”
“I can, Sir,” I tell him with a trembling voice.
Brody’s belt clinks against itself as it opens, and the fabric of his clothing rustles as he sheds every layer, tossing them to the side and into my peripheral.
I only have a moment to prepare myself as something icy meets the slick liquid now pooled at the tight ring behind me, and I let out a gasp.
“Sir, that’s cold.”
“Yes, it is,” he tells me. “I like to keep my steel chilled.” Pressure meets pain as the chilled toy is pushed slowly inside of me, forcing me to whine against it. “Read,” he orders.
As I start on the first line of the book, Brody’s hands take hold of my hips, pulling them toward him as he fills me with every inch of his cock. He’s so warm in contrast to the cold metal plug filling me up from the back, and as he pushes inside of me, I’m almost unsure that I can take them both.
I moan loudly, stumbling over my words as his hips begin to rock.
His pace is slow and deep while I struggle through the lead-up scenes, and his thrusts intensify as I reach a scene similar the one we were reading before, as if he’s read this book hundreds of times before and has it memorized.
“‘Alistair’s only thought was of Paulina,’” I read, “‘The swell of her breasts, the way that her corset hugged her body. His t— turgid length begged for her. It called out for her. His mind was aflood with the sensation of her—‘” I pause, shuddering as Brody thrusts deep inside of me.
“Keep reading,” he demands.
“‘The sensation of her body quivering around h— his , and her warm th—’ oh god , ‘her warm thighs—’” My words are broken as I cry out, my body tensing against the electricity shooting through my spine. “Sir, you’re making me—”
In an instant, Brody’s hand is tangled in my hair, pulling my head backward toward him. “Three pages in, and you’re already coming?” He grits, but the strain in his voice tells me that he’s enjoying this just as much as I am. “Fucking pathetic.”
Rearing back, he spits onto my face, throwing my head forward as he releases me. I try to stem the flow of my orgasm, but the more that I resist it, the more it claws away at me.
An impact hits the side of my thigh, almost as nothing at first – and then it’s everything all at once.
It stings so sharply that it feels as if my skin has been cut. I whine against the pain, even as it joins into the pleasure that Brody is filling me with.
The same impact hits my other thigh and I throw my head backward as it sends a tsunami of euphoria crashing over me. My hips bounce against Brody’s as I lose my hold on the book in my hands, every word that I’ve read suddenly washed clean from my mind.
“Punish me again, Sir,” I beg, my voice tight and strangled. “Please, I disappointed you.”
A dark, low laugh comes out of him as his hand wraps around my throat, tilting my head back to meet his gaze. “You think that a couple of love taps were punishment?”
He withdraws from me, taking a step backward just moments before a soft swish fills the air. Fire erupts along my thigh as his cane makes contact, smacking and stinging its way to the other side before it meets my ass.
I let out a moan as my knees buckle, my head dropping forward as the cane lights fires across my skin. From behind me, Brody’s breathing grows ragged and as he tosses the thin strip of wood to the floor, the only sound in the room is that of the two of us breathing.
Braving a glance over my shoulder, I stare at him; the heaving of his broad chest and his hair having fallen out of place.
I think this may be when he feels the most free. He certainly seems it.
He closes the distance between us, gripping tightly to the back of my head as his nose presses against the shell of my ear. “I think my sweet whore likes being caned, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, Sir,” I nod, “I love it.”
“You’re such a good girl,” he tells me with a kiss to my temple. “Always so eager.”
“I love to please you, Sir,” I pant.
Pivoting my own body to face him, I take his face in my hands and press my lips to his as he hoists my thighs into his arms, wrapping them around his waist as he pushes back inside of me.
I’m not sure if it’s Brody supporting me or if it’s the chair, but I’m practically floating. I’m on a high, and as his tongue sweeps against mine, I don’t think that I’ll ever come down from it. My body belongs to him.
So do my mind and…
My fingers thread through his beard as I deepen our kiss, riding the wave of him chasing each of us closer and closer to orgasm. As our bodies tense together, hauling the both of us headfirst over the edge, I can feel it.
Falling.
Crashing through the floor.
An unstoppable wave.
While I soak up every ounce of delicate, loving aftercare that he gives me, I let that wave swallow me, washing me out into an unfamiliar sea of welcome unknowns; because for the first time, those unknowns aren’t potential dangers.
They’re hope.