When in Rio (19 page)

It hadn’t felt like foreplay at the time, but when he kissed me,
everything
lit up, and I leaned into him as eagerly as I could to return his kiss. He deepened it slowly, pacing me, releasing my lips before I wanted him to. I watched, helpless to do more, as he turned out the bedside lamps and opened the curtains to the balcony, leaving the room lit only indirectly by the lights from the hotel’s exterior and the broad avenue below.

He moved to the other side of the bed and I shifted my head over to track him as he took his clothes off, letting them fall to the floor before climbing back up beside me to kiss me again. Light, teasing kisses, and a warning spank on the thigh when I tried too hard to catch his lip between my teeth. He mouthed his way across my shoulder and down my back to place soft kisses everywhere the skin on my ass seemed most in need.

And fingers, busy between my legs as he caressed me with his mouth. First he stroked until my pussy was throbbing with want and soaking wet again. Then he pulled away, leaving me hanging. Back a moment later, working two fingers quickly inside my lips and pumping in a shallow, steady rhythm for too short a time and then thrusting only once deeper, curving his fingers to stroke the spongy pad that was already swelling slightly…and then gone again, his hand somewhere far less interesting. A third time, he used the fingers of both hand to gently part my labia, stroking at the slightly fluted edged with the juices gathered there, and then tracing a slow line along to my already-aching clit.

One stroke, a second, third, fourth…a building tempo of pressure and motion…

And stopped again. Jack laughed at my pleading groans.

Next was his cock, Jack stroking it first against the marks on my backside and then against my sopping cunt, while I shamelessly tried to open myself farther, move closer, despite the fact that I was tied firmly to the bed.

“
Mmm
. You want that, don’t you, little one? You aren’t getting it at the moment, just so you know. But tell me what you want anyway.”

“Fuck me, Sir, please fuck me!” I said instantly. “Please, I want your cock inside me,
pleasepleaseplease
, Sir,
please
…”

“All right, Katie, I get it. You
are
getting better at saying it, aren’t you? I’ll take your request into consideration. All in good time.”

Damn.

Jack bent behind me again, holding me open with both hands and dipping his tongue to lap at my clit a few times, then licking higher. He used his fingers to stroke along my outer lips as he licked me with his tongue, and then dipped his finger inside my pussy as he suckled his way back down to my clit.

It was sheer heaven, although torture as well because I wanted so badly to come. And then I felt Jack move one pussy-wet fingertip just an inch or so higher, and he pressed the wet digit gently against my anus, clearly about to seek entrance.

I couldn’t help it—I clenched so tightly I almost pulled a muscle against the restraint, and my little gasp sounded of distress even to my ears.

Testing, obviously wanting to be sure, Jack pressed his fingertip, and then what felt like a knuckle, against the ring of muscle, only pulling back when I whimpered.

“Talk to me, little Katie. You’re not giving me traffic signals but it doesn’t feel like you’re playing, so what’s going on…
here
?” He dipped his finger toward my ass again but only for a second, before pulling back and tracing along my perineum instead.

“I really don’t…like that, Sir. That whole area is usually just, um, off-limits.”

“I see. So is that a hard limit?” He stroked my perineum once more, trailing just the edge of his fingernail there and eliciting a shiver in response before moving his finger away.

“I really don’t like to set hard limits,” I said uncomfortably. I didn’t even like to discuss them, actually, unless it was absolutely necessary. Jack, however, kept picking at the topic, carefully peeling up the edges.

“Maybe you need to,” he pointed out. “We all have hard limits about certain things, even if we don’t say it. Maybe you need to say it. If it’s something you genuinely aren’t ever going to be comfortable with.”

“Somebody…tried that. Once. It didn’t go well.”

By “didn’t go well”, I hoped he understood that I meant, “I was sobbing in the fetal position for about ten minutes before I could unclench enough to get dressed and go home”.

“Ouch,” he said with a wince. Clearly he understood enough. “How far in did—”

“Not very far at all, and I really don’t like to talk about it. Can we just move on, please?
Sir
.”

Jack frowned and shook his head slightly, disapproving. “Hey, I think it’s a time-out, Kate. This just got derailed a little and we both know it, don’t try to… That clouds things, okay? We’re just stopping to talk about it for a minute.” He started removing restraints as he spoke, although despite the sudden freedom I remained where I was, only moving my arms in to fold them and rest my head on them.

I was properly chagrined. I knew it had been a catty, petty thing to say just then, and that I was being silly to withhold information about something that, after all, had happened many years ago and had hardly been Jack’s fault. “This wasn’t part of the official history, I guess. I was about nineteen, the guy in question and I were both complete idiots who knew nothing about what we were doing. This was before…before I knew what I wanted, all right? It was a very vanilla situation, on the whole. But he pushed and pushed about trying it, I finally gave in and let him try it—and he didn’t know what he was doing. And I didn’t know enough to
realize
that, because I didn’t know anything at all back then. I didn’t even know about lube, so I didn’t know it was a problem that he had none.
Idiot
. I thought I was going to either die on the spot or kill him.”

Jack nodded, stroking my back gently. “I think we’ve all been someplace like that at one point or another. Still…poor Katie.”

I looked for sarcasm and, finding none, continued. “He didn’t really apologize either, which I think was the worst part. He made it clear he thought the fault was somehow mine. For being…uptight or something, I don’t know. We were in college.”

“That does excuse a lot of idiocy. Although how he could mistake you for uptight is baffling.”

“Yep.” I was getting a little drowsy now, the soothing motions of his hand along my spine and the relief of telling him—telling anyone—this tense little piece of history combined to make me more relaxed than I’d been in years. It’s possible the repeat international-caliber massage I’d enjoyed a few hours earlier contributed too, of course. I was in danger of becoming addicted to those massages. “So that’s my no-butt-sex story, I guess. The early trauma that makes me clench up at the very idea.”

His laugh was warm, thrilling as always, and it lured a smirk and a snicker out of me in response. Turning my head toward him, I met his eyes and still saw no sarcasm, no cynicism and, most importantly, no agreement at all with the idiot boyfriend who thought I was uptight.

What I saw in Jack’s eyes was that he found me attractive, interesting…and because of that, around him I
felt
attractive and interesting. I felt that the traits I feared might be annoying were, instead, sort of endearing. I felt like a better person, seeing myself through his eyes. It was like a magic trick.

“You know about operant conditioning, right?” Jack said in that easy, conversational tone. As if we’d just been having a friendly talk about Skinner boxes.

Somehow the fact that he could drop into that intellectual mode in the middle of a sexual romp was, in itself, attractive to me. I realized that, contrary to what I usually thought about
Doms
, I found Jack just plain cute at times. And he seemed okay with that. He was very good-looking but at heart he was kind of nerdy, and had an irrepressible sense of the absurd.

“A response can be conditioned different ways. Repeated punishment or reinforcement of a behavior is usually what we think of, but there’s always the conditioning that can happen with one really bad scare. It’s the hardest kind of behavior to change.”

“True,” I agreed. “Although in this case I don’t know that it was the scare or the pain itself. I think it was more the way Ken acted afterward. Um, Ken was the guy who—”

“I figured. And from what I know of you so far, I think you’re probably right about that. The way he acted would matter more to you.” He paused thoughtfully, playing with the loose ends of my hair. “What a jerk.”

I gave that a little thought. “Maybe. I think he was mainly just young. And so was I. Young and ignorant.”

“But he’s probably gone on to talk somebody else into letting him experiment on them without doing his homework first, whereas you’re left with a huge piece of baggage. Which also affects anybody you’re with from then on.”

“Isn’t that what college is for, Jack? Accumulating our baggage?” I asked cheekily, earning a chuckle.

“Yeah, from what little I can remember of college.” He slapped my
tush
affectionately then drummed his fingers, deep in thought again. “I think it’s time you started chipping slowly away at that issue, Kate.”

I tensed up all over again. “What?”

“No, hear me out.” He flopped on his side to face me directly, a look of boyish eagerness stealing over his handsome features. He looked like an excited kid with a cool new project in mind, which was a charming look. I was just a little uneasy about my own part in the project. “You can have a hard limit if you want to. And I’ll respect that for as long as you say it’s there. No anal, okay? I get that. But you seized up when I just started to—”

“I think ‘seized up’ is a bit strong,” I interrupted.

“I don’t. You felt like you were going to levitate off the mattress. And that’s just not right.”

“So you see it as your mission to enlighten me about the joys of the anal region? I think I’ve been doing just fine without them, thanks.”

“Hey, hey…” He raised a hand to my cheek, stroking a loose thread of hair back behind my ear. “See, this is what I mean. You’re getting all tense and defensive, and now neither of us is having fun. You let that creep in college steal that fun from you.”

“Steal my fun?” I wasn’t sure whether to giggle at that or snort derisively.

“Yes, steal your fun. I admit, full-on butt sex is mostly entertaining for the person on top. But not exclusively so, by any means. That region in general,” he slid his hand down again, fingers lingering just at the edge of anything troublesome, “has as many nerve endings as the fun parts you’ve been enjoying. For you, right now, the fun stops
here
.” Jack pressed his fingers without warning back down against the back edge of my perineum—and I tensed nearly as much as I had the first time he’d gone there.

I tried to make myself relax but had only limited success. My body and mind recalled the jolt of unexpected and truly agonizing pain, the embarrassment afterward, like a dose of poison. Things—fingers, toys, penises—just shouldn’t go
there
.

“See?” Jack said softly. “You went right back there, where he left you hurting. Jerk not only stole your fun, he’s
still
stealing it. You’re what, twenty-nine? He’s been stealing it for ten years, Kate. Is that really what you want?”

His voice, low and even and eminently reasonable, made me want to listen to him. But I was clearheaded now, not in the mindset of obeying automatically and the disconnect was unsettling to me. It wasn’t a dynamic I was used to or comfortable with, listening to a Dom make a persuasive argument rather than just ordering. It was clear that this discomfort was transmitted to Jack. He kept his hand where it was though, and kept talking, changing his tone just a little.

“I’m not being altruistic, little one. I will readily admit I have an ulterior motive. I want to be able to play with your body like the beautiful toy it is, and right now I can’t play with my whole toy. My pet needs some reconditioning, I think. A little positive reinforcement.” He slid his hand lower, palming my labia and just tickling at my clit. “What do you say, Kate? You didn’t red-light me right away, which tells me you’re not completely opposed to the idea in theory. Think of it as a science experiment. All those nerve endings…”

“You’re not really playing fair,” I pointed out. “It’s a different set of nerve endings than the ones you’re playing with right now.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that.” Jack had slowly maneuvered down my side and was now kneeling back between my legs, using his free hand to stroke up and down on my inner thighs, push them farther apart again so gradually I almost didn’t notice. Almost. “I don’t want to play fair. I want to play foul. I thought I’d made that clear.”

I groaned at the bad pun—and then groaned again as he slid a finger into my pussy and out again, spreading the moisture over my lips and clit.

“Five…no, ten minutes. Give me ten minutes. We’ll set the alarm clock. When the clock goes off, if you still want me to stop what I’m doing, you tell me and I will. And I won’t ask again. Okay?” When I hesitated, he flicked his finger against my clit, playing foul again. “Ten minutes. No scene, just…us. I can promise that there will be absolutely nothing painful involved. Not even potentially painful. I can also promise,” he leaned over my back, dropping his voice again in the way he obviously knew drove me crazy, “it will feel very good if you just relax and allow yourself to enjoy it, even though it’s different. You have to just trust that I only want to make you feel good.”

I did trust him for that, I had to admit. He made me feel better than I’d probably ever felt in my life. No, not just probably. I didn’t really have any basis for comparison. I was already hooked on Jack, and I thought he could probably talk me into just about anything, much less ten minutes of applied attention to what was, after all, widely considered to be an erogenous zone.

“Okay,” I conceded. If I seemed a bit anxious still, he let it slide. Reaching over me, he grabbed the small bedside clock and set the alarm for eleven minutes—saying he wanted some lead-in time, which made me tingle in anticipation—and then placed it on the bed next to my head before resuming his earlier position, snuggled between my thighs.