“This because Erik left?”
She shook her head. “He’s back, sort of. We’re talking, but I can’t stop thinking about you… and kissing you again. You always knew how to kiss.”
I leaned back. Was she really going there? Was she really going to offer me my married life back with a little kink thrown in? Did she honestly think I’d take her back? I should have kicked her out right then, but something else was in play. Some other motivation I had to tease out.
“And you’re saying you want to try it my way?”
“I want to.” She looked me with those big sapphire disks, wheaten lashes blinking. She was so beautiful. Angelic, even. “We’d need to set some boundaries beforehand.”
Boundaries. The whole act was about tightly controlled boundaries, and she presented them as if they’d be concessions by me toward her. It was bullshit. The whole conversation. Her whole sudden pursuit of me. She was hiding something, and if she stayed tightly wrapped up, prim and proper, she’d never reveal it.
“No,” I said. “My way. Right now. Then you tell me if you can take it.”
She bit her lip. I didn’t know what to hope for, but the longer she waited, the clearer my plan became.
“Okay,” she said softly.
I didn’t move. Not a blink or a hair. “That’s ‘okay, sir.’”
“Doesn’t that seem a little silly?”
“You want to do this or not?”
“Yes, sir.” A nervous smile played on her lips. Part of me would have loved to wipe it off with my dick. The rest of me didn’t want to touch her.
“Stand up.”
She stood, leaning on one foot and jutting her hip out, hands on her waist. All attitude. It would take some poor soul ages to train the woman.
“Unbutton your shirt.”
She stuck her tongue in her cheek and swung her narrow hips, unbuttoning as though she was in a strip show.
“Stop trying to look saucy. This is a functional matter and not for your pleasure.”
Oh, the look on her face. I don’t think I could have forgotten it. When she told every mutual friend we had that I wanted to beat her and take away her right to say no, when she told them I had rape fantasies and that I hated women, she’d had no idea. The damage I could have done—but wouldn’t have—wasn’t to her body.
She unbuttoned her shirt completely and started to take it off.
“Stop.”
I could have told her how I wanted her to stand, how I wanted her to look, where her hands belonged, but it would have been a waste of my time. I got behind her and untied the bandana on her neck.
“This is what it is,” I whispered in her ear. “This is the kind of sex you’re agreeing to.”
As I slipped off the bandana, I considered binding her at the elbows like I’d done with Monica the night she got her voice back. But Monica could handle it. Even though I told Jessica I was going to show her what she was agreeing to, in all its pain and messiness, I had no intention of doing so. It would probably damage her psyche forever. Then she’d call the cops. Mostly, I really didn’t want to put my dick anywhere near her. I did, however, want to figure out what she wanted.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
She turned her head when she “obeyed.” Jesus Christ. Two commands and she’d exasperated the hell out of me. I never would have felt an ounce of control with her.
“Face forward, Jess.”
I didn’t tie her at the elbows. The wrists would have to do. I moved around to face her. Her open shirt showed off her white cotton bra and flat stomach. Her shoulders drooped. I couldn’t have tied her hands more comfortably, yet she looked awkward. “How does that feel?”
“Okay so far,” she said. “A little weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Jon, seriously? What’s not weird? I’m standing here with my shirt open and my hands tied behind my back.”
“Is your cunt wet?”
“Do you have to be vulgar?”
I stood close enough for her to feel me whisper. “Yes. It’s about communication. It’s about saying what you want and don’t want, clearly, and sometimes with a filthy mouth. So let me get you on board with what you just agreed to.” I kicked her legs open. I righted her when she almost fell, but the annoyance on her face made me want to drop her. “The answer to my question is, ‘No, sir. I’m not wet. This sucks.’ I’ll tell you I don’t care how much this sucks for you. Then I’ll prove it.
“I’ll undo your jeans. I’ll pull them down to the middle of your thighs so it’s hard to walk. You’ll be uncomfortable, and that will please me. Then I’ll get behind you, and I’ll grab a handful of your hair at the back of your head and bend you over that table. I’ll take off my belt, loop it once, and slap it across those sweet white cheeks until you’re pink as a rose and your face is covered with tears. I’ll stop when I can stick two fingers in your cunt and feel how sopping wet you are. Then I’ll f**k you until you beg me to let you come, which I may or may not let you do. That going to work for you?”
The color had drained from her face.
“Didn’t think so,” I said, stepping away.
“Do it,” she whispered.
“Jess, really.”
“Do it! Start with the hair. Or the pants. Whatever.”
“No.”
“Do it!” she said.
“Stop, Jess.”
“Are you a f**king man? Or do you just beg and cry for what you can’t have? Is that how you get off?”
I threw her over the table. She fell onto it, bending at the waist with a grunt, ass out and arms bound by her own scarf. God, how many times I wanted to hear her grunt, to cut through the thick layers of refinement and find a woman past careful words. The woman I met so many years ago, before she’d built her walls.
I stuck my knee between her thighs and yanked the hair at the base of her neck. Her mouth hung open, and her chest heaved. She wasn’t aroused, that I could tell, and I didn’t care.
“Choose a safeword, Jessica.”
“Do we need—?“
“Question me again and I’m f**king your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit.”
I almost heard her teeth grinding. “Declan,” she said.
“Interesting choice.. Avoid it all and tell me what you really want, coming here. I’ll stop for either the safeword or that, but nothing else until I’m satisfied.”