Breaking Joseph (8 page)

God, I was
going to be sore.

“How long can
you take this before you start to beg?” he said.

“You didn’t
break me earlier. You won’t now.”

But he had
broken me. He’d done it as soon as I stepped into the apartment
with its soft lighting and messy coffee table, the cupcakes and the
chatter and the conveniently placed rope–all of it was symbolic of
a rapport I had worked so hard to achieve with Matt, and how I’d
never quite got there. For the first time in my life, I felt
perfect.

And I knew
something that I hadn’t before.

The heel probed
further now, and Joseph angled himself to drive it in with slick
force. His poor neighbours…I dread to think what I sounded
like.

“Are you going
to come, sweetheart?”

I sucked in
half the sky. Nodded between contractions.

“Mmm. Maybe
not.” He slowed, turning the shoe so it scraped me roughly. “I’ll
fuck you,” he murmured, “but I’ll do it hard. It’ll hurt.”

I found myself
gasping. “I want it to hurt.”

A tall shadow
rose over me. Each shirt button popped with savage precision, his
belt collapsed with a sharp clink and his trousers followed in a
heap on the floor. As I tensed, the heel slid out and bobbed
beneath my vulva in a sticky little puddle.

Then, he took
me.

Of all the
positions he had me in, this simple contortion–he bore down on top,
I spread out below–was the most intense. I loved how his arms
covered mine as they hung, tethered, how he used my bound wrists as
leverage for every thrust, like he fucked me from the top and the
bottom at the same time. I ached inside from the heel’s dainty
point and the stretch of him was acidic with it. No mercy here, and
yet he was a kiss softer than any, a fingertip lingering over my
spine.

He watched me,
his breath gruff, as I struggled to stay quiet in our battle of
wills. My breasts ached as he shoved them back and forth, my
buttocks burned as they rubbed against the tiles and my inner
thighs were raw with him.

I was ready to
snap when he reached for my tied ankle and yanked it free. My leg,
almost numb from the thrashing, slid around him with languor and
ease. I held him to me, inviting him to sink further into my skin,
my flesh, everything. He wasn’t pounding anything out of me now–he
tore a space for himself and filled it right up. So beautifully. I
cried out long before I recognized my own voice.

Charlotte fell
in on herself–smash, crumple, shuddershudder–and the second he
realized my orgasm had hit…he stopped. God knows, it was obvious,
the way I stiffened and moaned his name. I writhed beneath him
until he moved again, and then it was a slow dance as he made me
work for every breath-sucking contraction. Fear pricked the back of
my neck, the terror that it would fall away and I’d lose
everything…but he forced me to fight until the last wave ebbed. I
did beg. I begged until my voice cracked and my throat was dry.

“Leila.” He
came up on his knees, wet cock in his fist, and I arched back to
spread autographed midriff like a canvas. Air hissed through his
teeth, my name got stuck on the way out, and then warm splashes
flew across my stomach to settle on the carved pink welts. I opened
my eyes. Purred like a kitten. In the glowing deck lamp light, his
chest roved in and out of shadows as he caught his breath.

When the moment
faded, he went to fiddle with the hot tub while I lay drowning in
my own breath and the sound of bubbling water–he’d switched on the
jets. Broad-shouldered and naked, he stood framed by frothy clouds
of steam.

“Are you
planning on untying me?” I was beginning to get cold.

“No.”

He wandered
back inside the apartment and emerged a moment later with our
glasses in hand. It was only when he sat next to me that I noticed
the flush that fanned like a bloodstained butterfly, across his
collarbone.

“You need a few
minutes to recover,” he added, rubbing a stray drop of himself into
the top of my stocking. “Besides…I think I like you best like
this.”

“So I can’t go
anywhere?”

“So you get
annoyed and kick me like a girl.” He grinned.

“I can do that
again, if you like.” I attempted to catch him with the heel, but he
sat too close and it was awkward. “Move down a bit and I promise
not to be gentle this time.”

He set his
glass on the tiles and climbed back between my legs, his hands
outspread. “Take your best shot then, sweetheart.”

Did he really
want me to kick him hard?

“Still
pathetic.” He shrugged me away with the slightest tremble.

I drew my leg
back and launched it at him. His flesh gave like butter.

“Fuck! All
right, all right.” A hand clapped over his side as he winced. “You
win.”

“Untie me now?”
I pulled at the rope.

He glanced over
at the hot tub–white foam licked at the sides. Then he reached for
the scissors.

“Only because I
intend to do worse to you in that bath.” He squeezed a breast in
one hand while he freed me with the other.

The warm water
turned my limbs numb, and I sank against him in sleepy rapture.

“This is nice,”
I murmured.

He twisted my
damp hair around his fingers. “It’s better with company.”

“Don’t you feel
like everyone’s watching you?” I gestured to the city below. “Being
out here and all.”

He smiled
between kisses. “Excellent, isn’t it?”

“I want to know
how you got that nickname.” I nipped along his jaw. It never failed
to feel indulgent, petting him like this. “Were you hiring back at
uni, even?”

“Nope. Little
need with that much cheap alcohol flying about.”

“Oh, you’re
classy.”

“I am.” He
toyed with the top of my wet stocking. “I’m in a hot tub with the
cleverest, prettiest girl in the company and I just fucked her with
a shoe.”

“See, I hear
it’s only classy when you use the whole shoe.”

“Don’t tempt
me.” Despite the water, my belly was still plastered in sticky
ribbons and he massaged them into my skin with slow strokes. “I got
that name because I got…around.”

“Mmm.” I
brushed beneath his chin. “I suspect that’s an understatement.”

“We were a bit
brazen about it all. Used to hold parties with special rooms, and
the like.”

I giggled. “And
you were the
ring
master.”

“Do you ever
run out of awful puns?”

“Only if you
pound them out. You do seem to be rather good at it.”

“As half of New
York just heard.” He looked away, but I caught the corner of his
smirk.

“This is your
hobby,” I said.

“It’s
recreational.”

“And all these
recreational girls…they just walked away after?”

White wolf’s
teeth played on his bottom lip. “No. Though I think you know
that.”

“But you
graduated, what? Fourteen years ago? And up until a week ago, you
were still choosing girls like Isobel.”

The arm curved
around my shoulders went rigid. “And? I’m not sure what you want me
to say.”

“I’m just
curious. I mean, I’m like you, the things I want…is that what I’m
headed for?” Would I emerge in a few years a fully fleshed
predator, a trail of broken Matts in my wake? “Do we ever
learn?”

“I have
learned. I never promised a girl anything, Leila–not beyond the
bedroom. But they want what they want. I can’t help that they’re
programmed differently.”

“You don’t have
to hire a girl to have casual sex, Mr Merchant.”

“I beg to
differ,” he said. “It’s never casual.”

Oh.

“It’s an event.
But how many sports do men and women compete in side-by-side?
There’s the problem, huh?” He dragged those teeth over my earlobe.
“Hard to find an equal.”

I prodded him
in the ribs. “Now you just sound like a mean old misogynist.”

“Do I look like
a man who hates women?” Empty laughter spilled from him in rough
bundles. “I’m tired, all right? Cynical. Frustrated with you all,
as a gender. But I don’t
hate
anyone. God. I wouldn’t have
the time for it if I did.”

“But you have
time for us as a hobby, hmm?”

“You could say
that.” He pulled me into his lap. My forehead bumped lightly
against his. “I like watching you come too much to hate you.” His
cock stirred against my belly.

“Hmm.”

“See, this…this
is my recreational drug.”

“Not an
addiction?”

“Says the girl
who does it vocationally,” he teased. “Are you addicted,
Leila?”

“To the act, or
to you?” The words came before I thought about them, and I looked
away with embarrassment.

“Either.”

“Fuck me
again,” I murmured into his wet skin, “for research purposes.”

“See, this is
what I like about you. You’re a worthy opponent, even if your
rhetoric is awful.”

“Sod off.”

“Your language
is foul too, but I’ll forgive you because I’m about to make you
desperately sore.” He started to peel my wet stockings off, fingers
scratching through the weak thread.

“Please.”

“You’re meant
to be refusing me,” he complained. “Did you forget that?”

“No. But I’d be
lying, and one doesn’t lie in court.”

“What does one
do there, then, exactly?”

“I believe you
said it best with
fucking them backward with a kebab
skewer
.” I giggled.

“Did I really
say that in a meeting?”

“Yep. You were
being particularly scary that day.” I bit his bottom lip and
watched as my teeth slid away. “Bad wolf.”

He eased me
back, and foamy gushes of water hit my lap as he sat up on the tub
side. I put a hot cheek on his knee.

“You never
answered my question,” he said.

“Which
one?”

“About being
addicted.” He filled his fist with my hair, scrunching. “Are
you?”

“A little bit,
maybe.”

“To me, or the
act?”

More truths
swarmed on my tongue. “The act. But I think you…you have a rather
strong hand in that.”

He pulled my
hair now, forced me to look him in the eye. “For fuck’s sake. Do I
have to spell it out for you?”

“No…but I’m not
sure I’m ready to hear it.”

“Fine.”

He shoved my
head into his lap and I went about the business of sucking him. I
shouldn’t have tried to get under his skin–hell, he used a knife,
but I wouldn’t let him beneath mine. Or so he thought.

I looked up at
him with a mouthful of warm flesh, and he gazed back with a
mouthful of difficult words. Both would explode soon…but I didn’t
know which would be messier.

Chapter 4

Once, I felt
like a house of cards.

I’d waited for
someone to blow me away. Whether that meant to impress or
deconstruct me, I hadn’t a clue…but I never imagined I’d get both
at the same time.

It was the
carnivorous green eyes that caught me, the thick fingers that
pinned me down and the edge of his serrated knife that cut me open
and took me apart. Now, he wanted to build something with those
neat, square hands. With words that neither of us wanted to
say.

And what of the
remains left spluttering from the demolition, the pieces of myself
I’d given to Matt the perfect life in coupledom that I’d thrown to
the wolves? He still nurtured them, mourned the corpse. He clung to
the life like a ghost made for haunting. I’d built that, though I
never meant to.

If anyone was
going to put me back together, it ought to be me. I wouldn’t be
made in God’s image or grown from someone’s rib. In order to
invent, one needs a purpose, but I didn’t know how to define that
or even what mine was.

What I did know
was that in one job’s time, I’d no longer be the whore. No more
pretense. No more bank notes to function as excuses.

Time to put our
cards on the table, then. Time to decide if we’d play for
keeps.

* * * *

“Well?” said
Mum, her voice squeaky over the line.

I ducked into a
corner of the lobby and stuck a finger in one ear. “We got the
contract!” I bounced around on my ankle boots. “We’re going out to
celebrate later.”

“Oh, that’s
fantastic, darling.” A pause–she relayed the news to Dad, who said
something obscene and congratulatory. “So what does this mean?”

“It means a lot
of money for the firm and hopefully, a secure job for me. And a
happy boss,” I added.

Joseph watched
me from one of the sofas in the lounge. Things had been awkward
since our conversation the previous evening. He was behaving as if
he’d been rejected and I…well, I wasn’t sure what the proposition
was in the first place.

Who is
it?
he mouthed at me.

Mother
,
I replied. Perhaps I gave him cause to be suspicious, but I buzzed
with our achievement and felt so excited to tell my parents, I’d
dashed off as soon as my phone rang.

“What time do
you touch down?” Dad asked as he took the phone. “Do you need a
lift again?”

“No, I think
I’m okay actually. I’m going to share with Aidan.”

Dad snorted.
“There’s another boy, already?”

“Oh God, no.” I
laughed. “Aidan’s just a mate, Dad. Really.”

“That’s what
they all say.”

“He likes
boys.”

“Oh. Well I
suppose you’re allowed, then.” He sounded flustered and I had to
bite my knuckles to stifle a giggle.

“You’ll see me
next weekend, anyway–I’ve got the last payment for you.” I glowed
just saying that. “Then you’re all sorted, right?”

Dad cleared his
throat, embarrassed. “I think so.”

“Great. Right.
I’m off. Places to go, bars to drink dry.”

“You take care
of yourself. And call us when you’re home.”

“I will. Love
you both.” I stopped just short of doing my usual kiss-face.