Out of Control (25 page)

“Was it fun?”

“In hindsight, yes,” she admitted. “But I’m never leaving the door unlocked again. I don’t want something like that to happen for real. If we decide to do something like this again, we’ll need a way to set it up in advance.”

As she said that, the room spun. Jen staggered, then threw herself into Drake’s arms to cover her shakiness. “See? I’m swooning at the very thought.”

“Too bad we don’t have time to do some shibari tonight,” Drake whispered. “You’re already in sub-space, all soft and melting and ready. You’d just float away in the ropes. But I know you have to get to the bakery soon.” His hand slid up the leg opening of her shorts, and she shifted to give him access, allowing him to slide into her panties as well. “Oh yes, nice and wet.”

Shaky as she was, Jen pressed herself against the questing fingers, seeking more contact. “Yeah,” she breathed. “And shibari would be nice, but right now I want something rougher. Something more like where you’d have taken this if I didn’t crack up.”

“I was going to cut your clothes off,” he whispered, “but now that I’m not pretending to be a thug, I guess I should ask first.”

It was hard to answer when Drake was touching her. She’d known she was aroused but hadn’t known how much until he began caressing her. Finally she collected her thoughts. “I like this shirt. I’ll undress.”

Drake circled her clit with two fingers, hard and fast, showing no mercy. “First come for me. Come now.”

Turned on though she was, Jen was surprised by how quickly she obeyed, and how hard, shaking and crying out as she pumped against his fingers. Weakness overtook her again, but this time Drake anticipated it, holding her close. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Good little slut.” Funny how something that was often an insult could be an endearment under the right circumstances.

Then Drake shoved her away, not hard but with enough force to know he’d gone back to role-playing the sexy bad guy again. She staggered, narrowly avoided the end table with a Linda Perrin vase on it and caught herself on the wing chair.

Drake’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. He looked fierce. Hard. Nothing like the genuinely kind academic she’d come to know. His cock was erect, and she couldn’t help imagining him throwing her down on the hard floor and taking her brutally. At that thought, she swayed on her feet, glad of the chair’s support. “Well? You still have clothes on. Want me to cut them off you after all?”

Part of her thrilled at that idea, but she didn’t own that many pairs of shorts, and the shirt was new, a gift from Melinda. Breathing deeply and slowly to steady herself, Jen undressed, ripping the shirt over her head, tossing her bra after it, kicking off her sneakers, worn without socks, and slithering out of the shorts and panties, holding the chair for balance. Her clothes strewn around her, Jen held herself tall and looked this altered, erotically scary Drake in the eyes.

In two strides, he was on her. With one hand, he grabbed her hair, forcing her face upward. He placed the other on her throat. Placed, that was all. No pressure, no risk, no discomfort—but that didn’t matter to her hindbrain, which wanted to run away.

Or to her cunt, which became even more liquid, opening for him, wanting to take him in.

She didn’t know whether it was the sense of danger or the knowledge it was a game and that she could trust Drake that turned her on so. She had a feeling she shouldn’t look too hard for the answer to that question at the moment. She was foggy, blissed out. Thinking was hard. And she didn’t really want to look hard truths in the face right now.

She wanted to be fucked.

With the way Drake was glaring at her, she didn’t dare to speak. It was a fake glare, she knew, acting, just like the bit with the knife that wasn’t a knife had been. But his eyes looked so cold that her hindbrain believed, and never mind that she knew it was his eye color and the slanted light, combined with a surprising flare for role-play, that made him look that way. Instead of speaking, she tried to let the complex brew of pleasant fear and deep sexual need show in her eyes, her expression, her body language, pressing into him with her pelvis and undulating, rubbing her breasts against him.

Drake released her hair suddenly enough she realized he’d lifted her off balance. Both his hands glided down her body to her breasts.

She drew in her breath, surprised by the delicate pleasure of his hands barely floating over her skin.

Then he slapped her breasts, hard, across the nipples.

Jen’s eyes widened, and she let out her breath on a rush, but she didn’t cry out. The abrupt pain was sharp and shocking, yet at the same time welcome, sending a rush of heat through her body. Four times more, he struck each breast, until Jen was swimming in sensation, her cunt even wetter than before, her thoughts lost in a haze of red. “Perked your nipples right up,” Drake said. “Little pain slut.”

She thought, to the extent she could think, that he was pretending to sneer and say something a nasty guy would say to demean a woman, but the way it came out, all husky and purring, she knew he meant being a pain slut was a great thing, something they could both enjoy. He pinched her nipples hard, and she arched her back, glorying in a sensation so strong her head swam. A moan escaped her lips and he slapped her left breast again, harder than before. Fire flared through her, searing yet pleasurable. “What a good little pain slut,” he said, and there was no way to doubt this time that it was a compliment.

“Thank you, sir,” she somehow said, and was rewarded with a warm, unexpected smile that broke character but made the moment even better and hotter.

He grabbed one arm, yanked her around—or gave the illusion of yanking, while actually guiding her with his other hand, another sweet combination of ferocity and gentleness. Bent her over the seat of the chair, hips high and head down. Blood rushed to her head, and everything blurred. For about half a second, she thought about calling a time-out—not using her safeword but seeing if maybe they could take things into the bedroom. It wouldn’t matter if she had a wave of dizziness when she was already lying down.

Then Drake grabbed her hips and slammed home from behind. Suddenly she didn’t care if she was woozy. He was driving into her hard and furious, and the pleasure made her light-headed anyway. His cock hit all the rights spots inside her, and it felt so good that the world could be struck by a mega-comet right now and she wouldn’t care as long as Drake kept fucking her as the planet exploded. She thought nothing could possibly feel better than that death grip on her hips, that fierce pistonlike penetration.

When he moved one hand to her clit, Jen realized how wrong she’d been. The contrast between the delicate skill of that caress and the ferocity of his fucking, and of the whole scene, was insanely good. The pleasure built almost too fast, pushed her almost too quickly to someplace she longed to go. “Going to come,” she gasped. Then enough brain cells fired that she remembered Drake’s previous directives. “Please, sir, may I come?”

Drake backed off on the caress, not removing his hand but making the touch more teasing, caressing around her clit more than the clit itself. “Hold off, slave. Hold off a little while.” Jen’s rational brain, barely functional as it was, decided to retreat from that wording until later. Maybe much later. Her body surged, though. Lost deep in red passion, holding back from orgasm by a mysterious desire for another
good girl
, or even
good slut
, from Drake, the word
slave
seemed an endearment she’d always craved. And it fit the moment, the heady mix of brutality and gentleness.

He slammed into her harder now, his hips moving frantically. “Can’t hold back,” he spat out, sounding as if he was clenching his teeth or biting his lip.

“Don’t. Please don’t, Master.” The word slipped out easily. God, she must be high on endorphins. They’d agreed they didn’t have a master-slave relationship, but it sure felt good slipping out of her mouth.

“Oh God,” Drake roared, letting go as she’d never heard him do before. “Come now, slave. Come with your master!” His words and the violence of his thrusts as he reached his own release pushed her over the edge, and she tumbled into orgasm. The room glowed red, then shifted again to a color that had no name, somewhere beyond the spectrum she recognized.

“Wow,” she finally said as Drake slipped out of her, leaving a slick, hot trail on her thigh. “Wow.” Her voice sounded hoarse, and she wondered if she’d been screaming without realizing it. Wondered if the neighbors had their windows open on this warm evening. Decided she didn’t give a damn.

She tried to straighten up, but her muscles were uncooperative and she sagged again. Drake put his arms around her, helped her stand. “The only problem with this kind of play,” he said, “is that my bed seems awfully far away right now, and your floor looks awfully hard.”

“It is. But my bed’s close. Just don’t let me fall asleep for long. Bakery tonight.”

She took two steps toward the turret.

Then her knees buckled. The last thing she knew before everything went black was Drake catching her before she hit the floor.

Chapter Twenty

Drake allowed himself the panic-stricken thought of,
Oh my God, she fainted. Did I do something wrong?
Then he put himself on autopilot long enough to scoop up the unconscious Jen and carry her into her turret. The room was dark, the overhead lighting on an old-fashioned pull cord rather than a dimmer he could elbow. Thankfully, the bed took up most of the room. It was easy to lay his precious burden down on the rumpled bedding.

He pulled on the overhead light, then snapped on a lamp for good measure. Jen was breathing steadily, and she didn’t feel feverish, but she was sickly pale except for red patches on her cheeks. Why hadn’t he noticed how pale she was before? Was he that much of an asshole, so intent on the game that he didn’t pay attention to her at all?

No, he’d been paying attention. He’d watched her body language, her breath, her reactions, her wetness, but with their positioning and the dim atmospheric lighting, he wouldn’t have necessarily seen her pallor. And she hadn’t said anything about feeling sick or dizzy.

He’d beat her for that omission—mostly in a fun way, but not entirely—when she was feeling better. And he’d add rules about self-care. Obviously she slacked on it. But right now, he had to make sure she was all right. Safe. Not harmed by his selfish desires.

His heart pounding as if he’d run a five K race at a flat-out pace, Drake called 911 and explained, as calmly as possible, that his girlfriend had just fainted. To both his aggravation and his relief, dispatch assured him help was on the way, but didn’t seem to be in a panic about it. He supposed that was part of the job, to keep worried friends and relatives calm…but would it be too much for the guy to show some urgency, some concern?

Drake didn’t want to disturb Jen, but at the same, he wasn’t about to leave the room, not even long enough to grab her desk chair, the most movable seat in the apartment. He sat on the floor and took her hand where it hung limply off the bed. His phone was in easy reach. He knew the door was unlocked. He was vaguely aware that he was naked and that maybe he should at least get his shorts before the EMTs arrived, but he didn’t dare leave her.

After what seemed like forever but was only a few minutes according to the immutable authority of the clock, Jen’s eyes fluttered open. “What the… Why are you staring at me? For that matter, why are you on the floor?”

“You passed out. I got you into bed but didn’t want to crowd you.” He didn’t want to admit, for some reason, that he hadn’t dared leave her to get a chair. Now that she was conscious and semicoherent, it seemed silly, but he’d never dealt with someone fainting before, and he’d been terrified. He still was, frankly, though less so now she was awake and talking.

“I fainted? How embarrassing. Did I at least swoon gracefully like the heroine of a Victorian novel, instead of crashing over like a tree in a hurricane?”

If she was making jokes, she must not be that bad off… Alarm ratcheted down to concern. “Neither. More like your knees decided to stop working, and you crumpled.” He thought of various things he wanted to add, but if he started admitting how frightened he’d been, he’d probably wind up babbling like a damn fool. “The ambulance is on its way.”

“What?” Jen sat up in bed. No, it was more like she levitated. “Why did you call an ambulance?”

“You fainted. I was concerned.” More like frantic, but let’s not get fussy.

“Can you…call it back or something? I’m fine now. I’ll feel like a dork.” Jen sounded frantic.

“You need to be checked out.”

“No, I don’t. I need to eat something and then I’ll be fine. I missed dinner.” She tried to slip out of bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Drake pressed his hand onto her shoulder, holding her in place.

“To get food. And to call back and tell them not to send an ambulance. Let go of me.”

“Not until you promise to stay put. I’ll get you some orange juice”—he had this vague memory that juice was good if someone was dizzy, although maybe that was only if they were diabetic and having a sugar crash—“and something to eat, but you are going to let the EMTs check you out.”

Jen’s eyes narrowed with fury. “I have a huge deductible on my insurance. If they want to take me to the hospital, I’m screwed. If they charge me for the ambulance, I’m screwed. I don’t think they do, but
I can’t pay for it.
”