Entering the living room, I turn the dial on the wall, that brings the lights to a soft glow, a chill clinging to the room. Nick’s footsteps grow closer, and I move deeper into the room, walking past the kitchen to my right and around the overstuffed chocolate brown couch and chairs, my destination the fireplace directly in front of them. Once I’m there, I flip the switch on to heat the room, and I can feel the moment Nick joins me, feel his energy, his dominance. It crackles and snaps, the way the gas fire does not, charging my skin, and suddenly, I am hyper aware of the tear in my dress that goes nearly to my belly button.
Inhaling, I turn to face him, and I don’t use his jacket to cover myself. I let it gape open, my lower body exposed. He’s leaning one broad shoulder on the wall just inside the archway that encases the hall, and directly in front of me. “I thought you weren’t running from me, Faith?”
“I told you. I’m not running from you, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Then why am I over here and you’re over there?”
“That’s your choice not mine.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” I say, shrugging out of his jacket, and tossing it on a brown stool in front of the fireplace, a fluffy cream colored rug, beneath it. Exposed now for Nick’s viewing, I straighten, a silent command from me to him, that he look at me, but he does exactly what I expect, what any true dominant would do, and that’s not what I’ve bid. His gaze is fixed unwaveringly on my face. His way of telling me that he is in control, that he looks and touches, at his own inclination, as will I. It’s simply his way, a part of who he is, and even a huge portion of what turns me on about him. But my mind flashes back to a time when another dominant was in my life. When I was naked and exposed, tied up. Submitted and it was pleasure, and then it wasn’t anymore. And that has nothing to do with Nick and everything to do with my choices and my own self-discovery. I am not a submissive but I want this man, who will want that of me and I do not understand it, or myself, right now.
Certain Nick is going to read my trepidation, if that is even what I’d call it, I need something to fill the room other than him and my hyped up crazy energy. Ruling out the television behind me above the fireplace, I decide on music, and quickly walk to the artsy, built in, entertainment center in the corner. Once I’m there, facing a portion of the dozen shelves, that gradually get shorter and smaller as they climb the wall, I can feel Nick move again. God. I can feel him just like he said he could me. Even when he’s not touching me, which is exactly why he is nothing like my past. Nothing made me feel this then. No one made me feel this.
I reach for the CD player and hit “power” and then “play” knowing that I have a CD inside that is downloaded, random music, that is about as eccentric as the taste he described in the car. Music fills the air, an Ed Sheeran song, and with another deep breath, I rotate, finding Nick sitting on the ottoman to one of the chairs, angled toward me. And while sitting might seem a submissive position, it’s not. It’s him watching me. It’s him on the throne of power, while I stand in front of him. Which is exactly why I sit down on another stool I keep by the shelf, meant to reach the books on the bottom row now behind me. And I do so with my knees primly pressed together, aware that while my lower belly, legs, and thigh highs are exposed I’ve denied him a view of what’s in between.
Our eyes lock and hold across the small space of several feet, separating us, a challenge in the air, that I’ve created by choice this time. Can he make me submit? But it’s not a real question. We both know he can. And I don’t have to fear that is all there will be between us, that he will think he can bend my will every moment he’s with me. There is only this moment, this night.
The song skips and just when I fear I’ll have to break this spell with Nick and change it, it changes on its own, to an old 90’s hit: Marcy Playground, Sex and Candy and that’s exactly the lyrics that fill the air: I smell sex and candy here. Who’s that lounging in my chair.
Nick arches a brow at the rather appropriate words and says, “Sex and candy?”
My hands press to the cushion on either side of me. “Sometimes, you just need sex and candy.”
“Indeed, you do,” he agrees, leaning forward, his forearms on his knees, his sleeves rolled up to expose several tattoos I cannot make out, and I don’t try. Not when his piercing gaze lingers on my face, and the song continues with: And then there she was, like double cherry pie, yeah there she was.
“And there she was,” he says, his blue eyes burning with that dark lust we share. “Like double cherry pie,” he adds, followed by the command of, “Open your legs, Faith.”
My breath hitches, and I don’t know what happens. I want to do it. I plan to do it, but nerves erupt in me like I’m some inexperienced school girl. I’m not a school girl, nor am I suppressed or reserved sexually. I didn’t get raped. I don’t fear or dislike sex. And yet I haven’t had it in a very long time. And my heart is racing again, or maybe it never stopped, my mouth is dry. So very dry. Somehow, I’m standing without consciously making that decision and I’m darting toward the connecting kitchen. I enter the archway, open the stainless-steel fridge and grab a bottle of water, open it and I start guzzling.
Nick is suddenly in front of me, reaching for the bottle and taking a drink, his hand on my hip, leg aligned with mine. “Water?” he asks, looking at the bottle. “I thought you were going for liquid courage but I didn’t think it would be water.”
“I don’t like to dull my mind with booze,” I say. “My mouth gets dry when I get nervous, but this was really not smart because nothing like a girl needing to pee to ruin the mood and I—”
He kisses me, and the lick of his tongue is cold from the water, and fresh, and I have no idea why, but it calms me. Him touching me, not watching me, calms me but the kiss is too short, and his question too fast. When he pulls back to look at me, he takes the water, setting it in the refrigerator. “Why are you nervous?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Hard limit,” he says. “That phrase comes with experience.” He rotates us slightly and kicks the door shut. “You’ve been a part of a world that doesn’t match your nerves.”
He’s right. It does. “It’s been a long time.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
“Since you were in that world or since-?”
“Nothing for two years.”
“It’s just like riding a bike,” his voice lowers, “only you’ll be riding me.” He rotates me and presses me against the island, his body lifting from mine, hands pressed on the dark wood of the counter behind me. “Were you someone’s submissive?”
“No. I’m not a submissive.”
“But you were with someone who wanted you to be.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“But you’re dominant.”
“I don’t take submissives and you have to sense that or you wouldn’t be with me.”
“You think I could sense that?”
“I think we’re remarkably in tune with each other to be virtual strangers. Which is why we’re both here right now. I like control. You like making me have to earn it. But as we’ve established, I like a challenge. And you, Faith, are that and so much more. Which means I’m okay with earning control, and you get the control you want, because you decide when I get mine.”
And there it is. The many reasons I want this man. His power. His control. The challenge I enjoy delivering and he enjoys conquering. But there is more there, too. There is the reason, a few moments ago, that nerves controlled me instead of our game, and him. And it had nothing to do with who tried to control me in the past, at least, not sexually. He sees too much. He knows too much when he should know nothing. It’s illogical, but he’s right. I did know him without knowing him and he knows me without knowing me. And that makes him, and this, dangerous. But now that I know what is happening, and why I should run, I have less desire to do so than ever.
I want
him. And as if his mind is in the same place, he says, “I want you, Faith,” and then reaches down and rips my dress all the way open. I gasp, shocked, aroused, more aroused. His hands end up at my knees where the final tear allows my dress to fall open, away from my body, but they do not stay there. They glide from my knees, my thighs, and over my hips to the front clasp of my bra that he manages to unhook. It falls away like my dress, replaced by his hands. “I want you, Faith,” he repeats. His thumbs stroke my nipples, his cheek pressing to mine, “Like I don’t remember ever wanting in my life.”
I might reject these words, but there is this raw, and almost tormented quality to his voice, that tells me he doesn’t want to feel this whatever it is that is happening, any more than I do. It tells me that he has a past as do I. It echoes with every spiraling emotion inside me, right now, and deep inside every night that I cannot sleep. He pulls back, his eyes meeting mine, and while his expression is impassive, there are shadows in his eyes he doesn’t hide, that he lets me see, and I think…I think this is to let me know, that I am not alone. But I am alone, and the fact that I’ve had this thought is confusing, and yet, somehow I’m not with this man, not this one night, that we dare be whoever it is we are together.
He lifts me, sitting me on the counter, his hands on my knees that are now pressed together, my dress hanging from my body.
“Now open for me,” he orders softly, but he doesn’t press them open himself. He waits for me to open them, giving me the control and taking it at the same time. The look on his face, the warmth in his touch on my legs, promising me salacious wonderful rewards, and a deep throb radiates in my sex. I open my legs, and my dress hangs from my body. His hands settle on my shoulders, branding my skin, under the silk and lace of both the dress and my bra. His gaze lowering, sliding over my breast, a heavy caress that is not a caress at all, but my nipples pucker, my sex clenches.
Slowly, he inches the material down, over my back and when it falls to the counter behind me, I slip my hands away from it. “I loved this dress,” I say.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” he says.
“No,” I say immediately, my hands going to his hands where they rest on my thighs. “No. I do not want you to buy me a dress. I don’t want your money, and don’t make this about that.”
“Make this what?”
“I don’t need anything from you but an orgasm. Or two or three, if you’re up to it.”
The blue of his eyes burn, hot coals and simmering heat. “A challenge we can both accept.”
“But I still think you need to pay for my dress.”
His eyes narrow. “You said—”
“That I don’t want money but I want an even playing field.” I reach in the drawer beside me, and grab a knife, removing it.
I don’t even get it beyond the counter, before Nick grabs my hand, pulling it and the blade, between us, his jaw steel, his voice tight. “What are you doing. Faith?”
MY FINGERS WRAP FAITH’S SLENDER wrist, that knife between us, but as I look at her, I think that if she intends malice, she’s far better an actress than any opponent I’ve ever faced. I see no intention in her face, nor do I sense any in her energy, see any in her eyes. But this moment damn sure reminds me that I’m not here because this woman rocks my world like no other, despite the fact that she does. I’m here because my father and her mother are dead. Because she is the only logical place murder leads, even if it now feels illogical to me.
“Trust issues much, Nick?” she challenges. “Who was she? Because clearly she fucked with your head.”
“You’re the one who plays with knives, sweetheart.”
“I don’t play with knives,” she says. “You inspired me.”
“Forgive me if I’m not flattered.”
“Do you have any particular fondness for that shirt?”
“Actually, I do. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Good. I felt the same about my dress. You owe me my revenge.”
“Revenge is not a word a man wants to hear from a woman with a knife in her hand.”
“Trust me and let go of me. I know that’s hard for a dominant like yourself, but fear isn’t a good shade for you, Tiger. And if it makes you feel any better, if I was going to kill you, I’d get that orgasm you’ve denied me not once, but twice, first.”
“The name is Nick,” I say, my gaze sweeping over the knife that just happens to be right in front of her beautiful breasts, before I refocus on her face and add, “unless you attempt to stab me. Then you meet Tiger.” And I think I’m losing my fucking mind, because I’ve decided that letting her have the knife is a good character test. I release her and press my hands on the island on either side of her.
“Now what?” I challenge, the current in the air electric, the push and pull of control between us damn near explosive.
Her eyes narrow, mischief in their depths, but again, I find no malice. More seduction, and playful sexiness that I rarely partake in. I like sex. I like fucking. I don’t like games that I don’t dictate and my games are not playful. But this woman, she is not like the others, she does not affect me like anyone before her, and the jury is out on whether that is good or bad.
She grabs my shirt and pulls it from my pants, and then takes the knife to the last button. It pops and flies into the air, hitting the ground with a magnified sound. Her gaze lifts to mine, and she says, “Still scared?”
“Don’t poke the tiger, sweetheart. You won’t like the results.”
“I’m not scared,” she promises, popping another button, then another, her free hand on my stomach, and if she wasn’t holding a knife, I’d move that hand to the damn throbbing in my cock. Instead, she just makes that throb worse, that hand following the path of the knife higher, and farther away from where I want it and her. I endure the torture of not touching her, and patiently at that, until she is finally at my tie, a little too close to my neck for comfort. I grab her wrist again, taking the knife this time, and tangling fingers in her hair. “Are you going to buy me a new shirt?”
“You can buy your own,” she says, her fingers tangling in the hair on my chest and not gently, that bite of pain, adrenaline in my veins, her determination to challenge me proving relentless. “And we both know you wouldn’t have it any other way,” she adds.
I toss the knife into the sink to my left, and before it’s even landed, I’m kissing her, drinking her in and this time, and unlike the kiss by the refrigerator, I don’t hold back and neither does she. Our tongues connect, stroke, battle…but it is one I will win. I will demand everything she has to give me. I want her free will. I want her as exposed as I vowed to make her, and it’s not to prove she’s a killer. It’s for me. For the man in me who not only wants to own this woman, I will. And when she tries to resist, when I sense her trying to withhold even a piece of herself, my hand covers one of her breasts. My fingers stroke her nipple with delicate, sensual touches that become rougher and rougher.
She pants into my mouth, and satisfied that wall she just tried to put up has fallen, I nip her lips, lapping at the offended area before I pull back, fingers still tangled in her hair. I yank at my tie and unbutton the last two buttons still intact, but I don’t move away. Not yet. I kiss her again, hard and fast, and while the resistance is gone, the taste of challenge remains on her lips, but it will soon be submission. She just doesn’t know it yet.
My hands go to her hips and I lift her off the counter and pull her to me, molding every soft perfect female part of her to my harder body, one hand cupping her sweet little ass. My lips linger just above hers, and damn it, there is this deep ache in me for this woman that is unfamiliar, unwelcomed. The lies I’ve told her are a fist in my chest that I reject. I have to know the truth and it’s not a truth someone just tells.
I squeeze her ass and then draw back and smack it, testing her, feeling out the depth of those nerves she showed me, her comfort level with where I might take her. Making a judgment on where I think she wants me to lead her. She d
oesn’t jolt with the impact. She doesn’t act shocked or angry. She leans into me, her body already submitting to me even if her mind has not, her hand covering my hand where it covers her breast. Her message is clear: She wants the kind of escape I’ve just offered. She wants me to push her to go to places that consume, to leave room for nothing else but the here and now. No fears. No nerves. No emotion, of which I hope like hell does not include guilt.
Whatever particular sins she wishes to escape—and to me emotions that control us are sins—she doesn’t just want someone to fuck. She wants that invisible something that she believes I can give her. After two years of trusting no one, she’s chosen to gamble on a man who’s here to expose more than her passion. If she is guilty of murder or blackmail, or both, I’m a master in every sense of the word. If she’s innocent, I’m a bastard in every sense of the word. I kiss her again, and this time there is anger on my tongue, accusation, my own lies, and maybe hers.
And when I pull back, my anger, my own torment over my actions, her trust, her possible sins and mine, have shifted the mood between us. Intensity that wasn’t there moments before pulses between us, a living thing, a band wrapping us, pulling us closer but in a dark, volatile way. Her hands grip my arms, fingers flexing into my skin. Our breathing is ragged, heavy. I scoop her up, aware of how naked she is but for her thigh highs and her high heels, aware she is mine to own now, and mine to destroy if I so please. And she doesn’t know it. There is something powerful and arousing about this idea that I’m pretty sure makes me a sick fuck, and I’m accusing her of being no better, she just doesn’t know it. But I reject the guilt that pierces a tiny part of my black, steel heart for her and her alone. I’ll make being owned feel so good for her.
I carry her to the living room, but I don’t take her to the couch. I take her to the rug in front of the fireplace and lower her to her feet in front of me. She reaches for me, and damn, as much as I crave those hands on my skin, I resist and catch her wrists.