Knowing the Ropes Read online

  Then again, after what he’d just done to her, he could transform himself into Jabba the Hutt, and for a few minutes he’d still look pretty good to her lust-dazed eyes.

  She managed to unfreeze herself long enough to draw down his bikini briefs.

  All that and a fat cock too? Damn, she was a lucky girl!

  Instinct and desire made her drop to her knees, open her mouth expectantly. He shook his head. “Tempting, but not now. I want to fuck you while your ass is still warm from my hand. Get up and bend over the bed. Stick your bottom out for me.”

  She posed herself as directed.

  The sound of a tearing condom wrapper, a few agonized seconds of waiting, and Nick’s hands gripped her hips and his cock pushed into her.

  No preliminary teasing, because she was so wet there was no point in waiting. One push and he was in to the hilt, his balls against her tender ass, his fingers digging into her, and all she could do was gasp, “Fuck, yes!”

  “Come on my cock,” he said. “Come all you want.” And that was the last articulate thing either of them said for a while.

  He wasn’t gentle, not at all. Wild and rough and fierce, not lingering for her pleasure, but chuckling under his breath every time she gasped or moaned. He pounded into her, and she drove back onto him, trying to make it even harder, trying to take him so deep inside her that when he came, she’d taste it. He slapped at her ass and thighs, and each slap drove her a little further toward madness. With each thrust, her breasts bobbed, rubbing her nipples on the chenille bedspread, stimulating her further.

  And then he turned his attention from her ass to her breast, slapping at those.

  The orgasm, she swore, didn’t start in her cunt, but on the deliciously abused surfaces of her breasts and butt, and its waves rippled inward until she was contracting around Nick and making the kind of crazy noises she’d always thought were sure signs of faking it.

  Nick swore and bucked into her as he came. The hand still braced on her hip clenched, and that little extra pleasure/pain pushed her into another orgasm. Then his weight sagged on her, and they both collapsed onto the bed.

  Nick woke up feeling a bit smug, a bit possessive, and a bit infatuated.

  And whatever his brain might have to say about feeling that way—”stupid” and “crazy” featured prominently—the rest of him was too busy paying attention to the throbbing of his cock to listen for long. Never mind that they’d woken up in the middle of the night and fucked again, that time more slowly, with Selene exploring his body as thoroughly as he’d explored hers the night before.

  Did it damn well too, eagerly and adventurously. And she knew how to let him lie back and enjoy while she rode him but in a way that still left him feeling in charge. Very hot. And definitely worth repeating.

  He felt a bit like a kid, all wrapped up in his shiny new playmate, without the slightest bit of perspective. But perspective was highly overrated, Nick reasoned, compared to enjoying the moment—the bright morning, Selene’s silken body against him, still pliant with sleep but starting to stir, the scent of last night’s sex rising off her and stimulating him toward the next round, and no place in particular to be except…

  He sat up and swore at the clock, which assured him it was nearly noon.

  Selene went from dozing to wide awake in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

  “Minor annoyance,” he soothed. “I’m supposed to go to Garth and Alison’s today. They’re having a barbecue to show off their new pool. Which wouldn’t be a problem if I hadn’t told them I’d be there early to help them set up, and it’s not early anymore.”

  He ran one hand over Selene’s curvaceous side, wanting nothing more than to bury himself in her body. Curling up for a little more sleep with her came a close second. But he’d made a promise. Dammit. He threw himself from the bed, saying, “So, since we can’t spend all day in bed, want to come to a pool party instead? It’s going to be hot again—and not just because of you.”

  She grinned. “Sure, though I’m kind of lacking a bathing suit. Or clean clothes, for that matter. Anything I can do to help us get out the door?”

  “Feed the cats upstairs?” He handed her a key. “Kate and Stephanie are away this weekend, and I said I’d look after them. Their place is laid out differently from this one; you’ll walk right into the kitchen, and the cat food should be right out on the counter. Don’t let the little furry con-men get to you too much; Kate and Stephanie spoil ’em wicked, and I was up there for a while yesterday.”

  After that warning, Selene wasn’t too surprised to be mugged by a fat, elderly orange tabby and a half-grown Siamese, both crying and wrapping themselves around her ankles, trying to convince her they hadn’t been fed or petted in weeks. It was tempting to stay and give them all the attention they craved, but she figured if she did, she might hold Nick up—and if she’d planned to do that, there’d be more interesting ways to do it.

  When she came back downstairs, the shower was running.

  Selene tried to stop herself, telling herself firmly that Nick was on a schedule, that he would have asked her to join him in the shower if he’d figured he had time, that it probably against some submissive’s code to take that much initiative.

  Then she decided, what the hell. She had to take a shower anyway, and if he didn’t want to take the time to fool around, it wouldn’t take much longer for her to rinse off with company.

  She shucked her dress, left it in a silky red heap on the kitchen floor and stalked into the bathroom.

  Nick definitely had his priorities in line. Towel warmer. Plushy, big towels. Slate tiles on the shower walls. Dual showerheads, the kind that delivered a wide, soft spray like tropical rain, strong but gentle on her skin as she slipped in. It was just about the perfect temperature for this already warm morning and for bodies sticky with sex and sweat.

  Nick didn’t turn around when she joined him, but something in his body language shifted. Selene translated it as “pretending not to notice”.

  Fine. Two could play that game.

  She grabbed the soap—it was a hefty bar, slightly irregular in shape and smelling like lemongrass—worked up a lather and started to wash his back.

  He managed to maintain his pretense of silence for about fifteen seconds longer, until she ran her soap-slick hands down his spine to cup his butt.

  Only then did he turn his head and say, “It took you long enough. Now keep going.” He sounded unspeakably smug and entitled, but tongue-in-cheek about it.

  She wasn’t sure whether the appropriate response was to say, Yes, sir, like a good little sub or to respond teasingly, as his tone dared her to do.

  Interesting question. As far as she could figure out, if she was cheeky, she’d get spanked for being naughty. If she was “good”, she’d get spanked as a reward for being good. Talk about your win-win situation!

  So she said, “Yes, sir,” in a slightly mocking voice, with a sarcastic little knee-dip and head bob like a Victorian maidservant trying to cover the fact she thought her employer was an idiot. Then she stuck out her tongue at him. She kept on washing his butt as she did. Why move her hands away from those glorious globes one second before she had to?

  “Oh, you are so asking for it!” Nick wheeled around, raised his hand as if to give her a good smack on the ass. “But I liked the sir. Keep using it for the rest of the day.”

  Selene dropped the soap, letting it fall into the water without even trying to recover it. She could feel every muscle, every nerve, every square inch of skin, yearning toward Nick’s hand, craving the sharp sting and the fire that followed in its wake. Without even really meaning to, she turned around and cocked her ass out, presenting a better target.

  He lowered his hand to his side without touching her. “Which is why you’re not getting it right now. You want it too badly. Don’t you, girl?”

  With the last sentence, his voice shifted to that deep and ominous timbre that make her clit tingle.

  “Answer me, Sele
ne,” he insisted. “Were you hoping for another spanking?”

  It took her a second or so to find her tongue, which seemed to have cleaved to the roof of a mouth as dry as her pussy was drenched.

  She hung her head, studying the off-white enamel surface of the tub as if it were studded with emeralds, watching the soapy water swirl its way down the drain as if it were an oracle. “Yes, sir,” she finally admitted.

  Why was her voice so small? It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. Nick knew what she liked. That was why she was here. And he couldn’t be under any illusions she wasn’t…well, she preferred the more elegant “wanton” over “horny”, but they both described the way she felt around Nick. He seemed to like her that way, like that she wanted him and what he had to give her.

  But she couldn’t speak up.

  “I couldn’t hear you.” He raised her chin, and that gentle, proprietary touch made her tremble.

  This didn’t help her ability to talk.

  “Well, if you can’t answer me,” he said, affecting nonchalance, “I guess I’ll have to find someone who can talk to take to Garth and Alison’s today. Pity,” he added with a hilariously languid gesture that looked like it belonged in a costume drama on a debauched aristocrat played by someone along the lines of Ralph Fiennes, “they were looking forward to getting to know you better. But a woman who can’t talk is no fun at a party. Unless she’s gagged, of course, and it’s not that kind of a party.”

  The hand that had imitated Ralph Fiennes reached for her nipple, pinched hard and deliciously. “Last chance, Selene. Were you trying to make me spank you?”

  He twisted as he pinched, sending a shock of sensation, painful and exquisite, through her. Her “yes” was less an answer to his persistent questioning than an affirmation, a proclamation, a cry of delight. But it was audible, all right.

  And saying it broke the dam. After that, she was able to look into Nick’s amazing blue eyes and admit, “Yes, sir, I was hoping for a spanking.”

  “Greedy, aren’t you?”

  Was that a trick question?

  She decided that it probably was, and that it didn’t matter.

  “Yes I am…sir.” She took a deep breath. “I feel like a kid in a candy store. A weird, twisted kid in a strange candy store, but you get the idea.”

  Nick grinned, the kind of grin most commonly described as either “shit-eating” or “cat that got the cream”, depending on who was talking. “The candy store’s not going to close on you. But sometimes you need to eat something besides candy.”

  He tweaked her nipples affectionately, then moved his hands to her shoulders. “I’ll redden your lovely ass another time. But I’ve been thinking ever since dinner last night about using your mouth—and since you’re such a self-confessed greedy, impatient little thing, it’ll do you good to wait awhile.”

  He pressed on Selene’s shoulders, but she was already sinking to her knees, trying to do it gracefully, like she could imagine the fragile blonde in the pictures in his living room doing. It didn’t quite work, but she didn’t wobble too badly.

  Nick didn’t seem to care. At least, Nick’s cock wasn’t voicing any complaints, and the rest of him seemed inclined to go along with it.

  Selene tried to remember if she’d ever sucked cock in the shower before. She must have. Her sex life might have been fairly non-kinky until last night, but not lacking in adventures of other sorts. But she couldn’t remember when, where, with whom.

  Not now. It was as if, at this moment, she was newborn, brought into being by Nick, for his pleasure—and hers. Definitely for hers.

  The water fell on them like warm rain. Drops temptingly beaded on Nick’s cock.

  She licked them off, feeling the heat of him through the cooling water.

  A teasing lick around the head, circling him like a lollipop, savoring the pleasure.

  She’d been thinking about doing something like this long before they’d gotten to the Barking Crab, and the calamari incident had made certain she’d keep thinking about it.

  She wrapped one hand around the base of his cock, cupped the other around his balls. She opened her mouth wider, stretched it around the satisfying thickness—not too much, just enough to feel right in her mouth—and began to work him over, slowly and deliberately taking in his length.

  Hands clenched in her damp hair, he pushed her head forward onto his shaft, then yanked her back again.

  The fantasy from the restaurant.

  He had been thinking what she’d been thinking. She’d known it.

  “I said I wanted to use your mouth,” he said. “When I want it leisurely and sweet, I’ll lie down and get comfortable.” He punctuated his words with thrusts, pushing himself into her mouth. His hands controlled the movement of her head, and his grip on her hair hurt, but in the good sense of hurt, the sense she was learning that she craved even more than she’d imagined, and she felt helpless, but that was the way it should be right now. It was as if he’d put a collar on her with his words and his touch and the callous way he was using her mouth.

  No, not callous, because it was exactly what she needed, exactly one of her fantasies, and it seemed clear to her that Nick not only knew that but was turned on precisely because of it, because her fantasy and his collided so precisely.

  Nick’s cock became Selene’s world: all she could taste, all she could feel, all she could hear, even the little noises it made as it moved in and out of her wet mouth. The warm water pouring over them layered a soft sensuality over the harder, raw sexuality of the moment and locked them into a private tropical paradise.

  Vision didn’t matter; she closed her eyes. The strain in her thighs didn’t matter; in fact, it felt strangely good, a little sacrifice she was making for her dom. He pounded into her mouth, and it should have been uncomfortable—okay, it was uncomfortable, but it was also remarkably good. She could feel the answer building between her own legs, lava hot, slick, needy. Yet she didn’t start playing with herself, as she’d often done in the past while giving her boyfriend du jour a quick blowjob. She was getting a lot of pleasure from his sleek length, the musky hints of precome, the calculated brutality of his thrusts.

  Was it possible to come without being touched, to explode from a fantasy fulfilled so perfectly?

  Her legs started to shake.

  “My balls,” Nick gasped, and she understood. She stroked, a gentle caress with a hint of fingernail. Repeated it. Found the spot between his balls and ass where many men liked a bit of attention and applied pressure there.

  Nick thrust faster, using her mouth like a pussy. Selene could barely breathe around the force of it, but she could tell she wouldn’t need to for much longer.

  She shimmied her hand, vibrating on the sweet spot as she took a particularly deep thrust, one that hit the back of her throat enough that she should have gagged but somehow didn’t.

  “Oh sweet Jes…” His words broke off into a roar that echoed around the confines of the bathroom, and her mouth flooded with Nick’s come.

  Selene convulsed as pleasure passed through her, a quick, shimmering shock that was a shadow of Nick’s loud explosion, a shadow of the staggering orgasms she’d had the night before.

  But unmistakably an orgasm—hands-free—from the sheer amazing rightness of the experience.

  Weak, she sat back in the tub, letting the water and the joy wash over her.

  “Wow,” Nick said quietly, and “Wow,” she echoed.

  And then, once they’d both started breathing again, Nick drew her to her feet and washed her back.

  Chapter Seven

  She hadn’t known what to expect from Garth and Alison’s house. Something about Garth suggested that he ought to be living in a British manor house to match the lord-of-all-he-surveyed air, but she knew that was about as likely as Nick’s condo really having turned out to be the debauched pleasure palace of her most fevered imagination. Back in central New York, she wouldn’t have blinked at the pleasant early twentieth-centu
ry house set in a wooded lot. It was charming—lavender lining the front walk, a big side porch looking out over the side lawn, and modest wooden columns by the front door that suggested that the original builder was going for the upwardly mobile market with pretensions of elegance—but not spectacular.

  She’d done a bit of house-hunting, though, before realizing that with the proceeds of selling her house in Rochester, she would be lucky to find a tiny condo in an outlying town that wasn’t even on a commuter rail line. This close to Boston, a house this nice on such a large lot might as well be a lordly manor as far as she was concerned. Either they’d gotten it years ago as a fixer-upper, or they were…not exactly rich but more than comfortable.

  The driveway and the street were already crowded with cars, everything from oversized, overpriced SUVs to hybrids to classic soccer-mom minivans to a few beaters held together with bubblegum, duct tape and the power of prayer. Many of them sported the same small sticker: black-and-blue stripes with a red heart.

  Selene suppressed a giggle at that and wondered if she would have figured it out if she hadn’t been clued in.

  The backyard was hidden, the view from the street blocked by a tall wooden privacy fence—made sense with a pool, she supposed—and as they approached the house, Selene could hear a buzz of voices from behind the fence. There was a gate in the fence, but instead, Nick guided her to the porch steps. Several strangers and Betsy from yesterday were ensconced in chairs on the porch, drinks in hand, chatting. Betsy was drinking what looked like iced tea; the others had beers or mimosas.

  “Hey, Nick, Selene,” Betsy said calmly. “Herself’s out back, imitating a very small force of nature and somehow making food magically appear from the air. You know the Alison magic—you think, just think that chocolate chip cookies might be nice, and suddenly they’re there, and don’t ask how she baked them in this heat, but apparently she did. Himself is around somewhere.”