But I couldn’t let them show. People would judge. My work associates and friends, and Goodluck…
“I think you should stay here tonight,” he said as we dried off after our shower. “In fact, you’d better stay in my room. You might need me, or I might want to fuck you again in the middle of the night.”
I couldn’t imagine more sex with Fort. At the same time, I couldn’t imagine not having more sex with Fort, night and day, 24/7. I was still somewhat dazed, so I agreed to sleep in his bed. I didn’t even put my clothes back on.
It didn’t seem right to have any barriers between us after what had just gone on.
Chapter Seventeen: Fort
Beautiful, exhausted Jewels. I snuck from under the covers after she fell asleep, and drifted around my house for a while, pacing off nervous energy. Was it a mistake to let her sleep over, in my bed, no less? I felt I didn’t have a choice. She’d bought in to my perversions so bravely, accepting all the shit I did to her. Not just accepting it, but letting herself like it. I loved watching her come.
But I also loved watching her cry.
She wasn’t like the women who frequented The Gallery, who drenched themselves in tears as they chased their own perverted fantasies. Juliet cried from real pain, and persisted through that pain to her pleasure on the other side, and I never would have known she had that ability if I hadn’t kept coming back to her. Maybe that was why I kept coming back, why things had progressed so quickly once I gave in to my urges. She was sleeping in my fucking bed. What the hell?
I went into the dungeon to put everything away and collect her clothes. Had I done too much to her too fast? I’d been careful. She’d complained that her ass hurt when she slid beneath my sheets, but I knew I hadn’t done any lasting damage to her body when I’d de-virginized her asshole.
I walked down the hall and spread her clothes out on my guest bed. Without thinking, I laid them on the side where I’d handcuffed her the night we met.
Don’t get melodramatic about this one, Forsyth. Don’t fall in love with her just because she’s good at taking pain, just because she’s beautiful when she cries those real tears. The love thing has never worked for you before.
I blew out the breath I was holding and returned to my bedroom, sliding in beside Juliet. I rested a hand on her ass, and it was still there in the morning, unconsciously tracing the whip welts I’d made. I came awake surprised that she was there. Her side of the bed was a shambles of rumpled sheets and overturned pillows, which became even more rumpled when she executed a huge stretch.
“Ow,” she said. “My ass hurts.”
“That’s what happens to bad girls,” I said, bringing her awake with a slap to her sore bottom. “Want to go to my dungeon again? A morning session this time?”
She scooted away. “Please, not yet.”
“I’m joking. Are you ready to get up?”
“Sure, I’ll… I’ll just…” She looked around like I expected her to dress and exit.
“Your robe’s still in the guest bathroom,” I said. “There’s no hurry. I’ll make you some tea.”
“You have tea?”
“Now I do.” I stood, angling away from her so she wouldn’t see my rigid morning wood. My body wanted to ravish her, but my mind knew a cuddly morning fuck would send too confusing a message. “Meet me in the kitchen, Sparkles.”
It wasn’t a big deal to pick up some tea to make for her with my coffeemaker. The machine was designed to do both. While I made coffee and tea and waited for her, I set out some other things on the counter, breakfast rolls and cold cuts, and a few different types of olives. I fucking loved olives. What was taking her so long? She must have been investigating her new marks in the mirror.
“There you are,” I said when she finally appeared. Yeah, she was blushing.
“Good morning.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “Late morning. What time is it?”
“Eleven o’clock. You missed church.”
She laughed at my joke and slid onto the bar stool next to me. I enjoyed watching her little gasp of pain as she settled on her sore hindquarters. I’d paddled her hard for a beginner, and whipped her over top of it, eighteen neat stripes. I’d been hoping for twenty, but since I didn’t allow my partners to use safe words, I had to err on the side of caution. For her, eighteen had been enough.
I pushed over a steaming cup of tea. “It’s your basic Earl Grey. I hope that’s all right.”
“It’s wonderful, thank you,” she said.
“Milk or sugar?”
“Both, Sir, please.” The Sir fell out of her mouth so easily, bringing a jolt of lust to my cock and balls. I felt very “Sir” this morning, because she was so tousled and sedate. I wondered if I’d disturbed her sleep last night, tracing my fingers over her whip marks.
“What do you have planned for today?” I asked.
“Well, since I already missed church…” She wrinkled her nose. “Just kidding. I usually spend my Sundays hanging out and catching up on email. Sometimes my boss and I go out for brunch.”
“Did I make you miss that?” My words sounded gruffer than I meant them to. “Have something to eat.”
We both fed ourselves for a moment, sloppy Sunday-morning noshing with fingers, interspersed with sips of coffee and tea. Meanwhile, all the things I’d done to her the night before banged around in my head. The black chair, the paddle, the clit clip and ginger oil while she was tied down over the spanking bench…
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You seem restless.”
“I’m fine. How are you this morning, Sparkles?”
She shifted on her sore butt. “I’m okay.” Then everything else spilled out of her like a gushing river. “I mean, I feel okay, but also a little scared of you, and I feel… I feel changed. It’s like, last night, you turned me into a different person, which was really crazy, but it’s also amazing that you can do that. Did you mean to do that? I mean, was that what you wanted?”
I blinked at her. “What kind of person did I turn you into?”
“A sexually voracious person.”
“I think you were that before.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t. Not…in that way.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that, but I could understand that she felt insecure now, in the light of day.
“Was I okay last night?” she asked. “I mean, do you think I’m good at this stuff? Compared, you know, to the other women you do this with, at your club? What’s it called again?”
“The Gallery. You should remember that, since you work for an artist.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
I studied her a moment, rubbing my forehead. “Here’s what I wanted out of last night: to make you cry, and to feel sexual pleasure. Both of those things happened as far as I could see, so from my perspective, it was a great session.”
“Oh.” A little of the anxiety left her expression.
“Do you want to meet again?” I asked, slicing an olive and sticking it in my mouth with a piece of bread.
She stared at me. “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
I chewed and swallowed. “Think about what I did to you. I strapped you down with a dildo in your rectum. I punished your pussy for the pure thrill of seeing you scream. I called you a slut and tore up your ass so bad that you almost passed out.”
“I didn’t almost pass out.”
“Your whole body was shaking.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Because it hurt like hell. You should see what it feels like.”
“I know what it feels like. There’s nothing I do to you that I haven’t tried on myself first.”
“Even the chair?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
I raised my brows in response. “You think a pervert like me’s never had something up his ass? If you prefer to play without safe words, you have to know how things feel.”
“I respect that,” she said. “I guess there’s more to being a sadist than recklessly hurting peop
le.”
“Recklessly hurting people isn’t the objective.” I looked into her eyes, so blue, so utterly lacking in guile. “So I didn’t go too far last night?” I pressed. For some reason, I needed to hear her say it.
Instead she asked, “How did you find out that you liked to hurt people? You know, sexually?”
“You’re changing the subject.”