Bound Hearts (7 page)

Not entirely caving to her enjoyment, she smiled to herself and decided to fuck with him a little. After their dinner, he deserved it.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know any ‘me.’ Do you go by any other names? Aliases perhaps,” she taunted.

“Knock it off, Calleigh and let me up. Otherwise, you’re never going to get to see the presents I brought you.”

His words rendered her momentarily speechless.
He’d brought her a present? Something for her?

“Presents as in plural?”

“You’re never going to find out if you continue to play twenty questions. Let me up now or I’m leaving.”

Her curiosity overtook her and she buzzed him up. Figured he’d come over to see her when she was damp with sweat, still in her sweat pants and sweaty t-shirt with armpit rings.

David’s heavy knock rattled her walls. Those of her loft, too.

Opening the door, she checked him out to see what the presents were, only to realize his hands held a single, small, brown paper bag.

“Is that it?” she accused, her lips turning up in disappointment as she checked the rest of him out. He still sported his soccer gear, his navy Adidas pullover looking like he’d used it for more than just window dressing, the cuffs worn and frayed. Matching warm-up pants completed the athletic ensemble.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you you’re not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth?” he chided, coming into her loft without waiting for an invitation, orienting himself around until he found the kitchen.

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you.” He opened up her drawers and cupboards like he owned the place, as though it was his kitchen.

“Is there something I can help you find?” she asked, watching him while he continued his assault on her kitchen drawers and cupboards.

“No. Why don’t you go ahead and open up your presents?”

“My presents are in there?” she grimaced, pointing towards the plain paper bag.

“For all you know, it could be a Tiffany’s pendant,” he rebuked.

“Ha! Last I looked, Tiffany’s didn’t use brown paper to wrap up its esteemed gifts.” She waited a beat before continuing. “Are my presents really from Tiffany’s?”

He laughed and removed two bowls from the cupboard above her refrigerator.

“No.”

Not able to stand it any longer, she ripped open the bag and let loose a short guffaw.

“Well, I guess I should be reassured you can at least count. Even if you enjoy misleading vulnerable young women.”

“If you were a man, I’d say thems are fightin’ words,” he said, a smile turning up his lips as he studied her.

“But I’m not. You lied to me.”

“How did I lie to you? Are there not two pints of Ben and Jerry’s right in front of you?”

“Yes, but it’s only one type of present.”

“It’s two individual presents.”

“Whatever.”

“Do you have an ice cream scoop? I found the spoons, but I can’t seem to find one in any of your drawers.”

“No. Sorry. You’ll have to use a serving spoon.”

David looked up at her. “What do you mean? Aren’t you going to join me? You’re not going to let me eat both the Chubby Hubby and the Cherry Garcia all by myself are you? It’s my peace offering.”

“Is this your apology?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made the remarks that I did about your friend the other night. I don’t know her and I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, what about the ice cream?” he asked, motioning to the pints.

Trust this man to know her complete and utter weakness for sweets. And not simply any kind of sweets, but
Ben and Jer
ry’s ice cream
. Her taste buds started watering while thinking about the sweet, sweet treat in front of her, but then Lauren’s famous words, cut through.
A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips, Calleigh. Men don’t like fat women. You eat like that, a
nd you can count on being single for the rest of your life.

She offered him a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Sorry, but I didn’t play soccer for two hours tonight only to ruin it with ice cream.”

“What’s the point of playing sports if you can’t eat what you want? Besides, you probably burned between six hundred to a thousand calories as much as you ran tonight. A single bowl isn’t going to come close to using up all those calories.”

Spoken like a man in his physical prime who’d never questioned his looks and never worried about attracting members of the opposite sex. Never worried that anything more than a thousand calories a day would result in Armageddon.

“Come on, Calleigh. Live a little. Come over to the dark side,” he goaded, spooning a heaping serving into the second of the two bowls and pushing it towards her. “Otherwise, it’s going to go to waste. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Cursing him and herself, she took the bowl he offered and dug in. They stood around her counter, silently eating their ice cream until the bowls were clean.

“You want some more?” he asked, digging in for round two.

“No. Anything more and I won’t be able to fit into my pants tomorrow,” she lamented, mentally calculating how many miles she would have to run in the morning before class.

“You look terrific in your pants if you ask me,” he purred, his eyes focusing in on hers and refusing to let go.

“Well, I’d like to keep it that way and be able to button them tomorrow so I have to stop now.”

“Even though you still want more?”

“
Especially
because I still want more.”

“You always deny yourself something you want?”

“Only when it’s not good for me,” she croaked, caught within the grip of his mesmerizing stare, scared to continue looking at him, scared to look away.

He moved closer to her, blocking her back against the counter, using both of his arms to trap her.

“What about me, Calleigh? Do you think I’m not good for you?” he questioned, leaning down towards her neck, rubbing his nose right across the most sensitive part of her neck.

“I don’t think you’re good for me at all,” she responded in a husky voice she didn’t recognize, wanting to grab his face from her throat and put it where she could use it the most, on her lips. Or other hungry body parts.

“If you want to be bad, we can be very bad, Calleigh. I’m good at being bad,” he responded, moving to the opposite side of her throat, placing his hands on her breasts, his heat pouring through both her sports bra and t-shirt, sending ripples of sensation throughout her torso. It’d been awhile since she’d been with a man, and she couldn’t remember a time when she’d wanted a man as much as she wanted the one touching her right now. In spite of everything, she wanted him. Right here, right now.

“I’m a good girl, David,” she replied linking her arms behind his head, urging him with her body to continue.

“I know you’re good,” he responded, nipping at her breasts through her shirt and sports bra, the contrast between the cotton and his mouth making her wetter by the second. She felt her center reach out for him.

“But I’m not,” he continued finally moving his hands under the waistband of her pants to find her underpants before inserting a blunt finger in her pussy. Taking his time, he relentlessly circled his finger around and around her clit in circles until she was about to come. Then, he stopped. Whimpering, she arched upwards towards him, silently begging him to finish.

“Do you want to come, Calleigh?”

“Yes…..”

“How badly do you want to come? How important is it to you? Hmmmm?” He continued nuzzling her neck as he kept her right on the precipice with his finger an inch away from pulling her trigger.

“Please.”

“Please what, Calleigh? If you want to come, you have to say the words. Say them, Calleigh.”

“Please make me come,” she whimpered.

And he did, using his deft fingers to send blasts through her until she was limp in his arms. Once she could re-focus, she looked down at him, where his cock was straining against his warm-up pants. She nibbled on her lower lip, an action she hadn’t taken in years, and questioned whether or not she wanted to take the plunge. He would be a powerful, demanding lover. She had been a good girl and where had it ever gotten her? Alone and single at thirty-two. Maybe this was all there was, this one, simple moment with a man she was attracted to and who seemed to return the feelings. Even if they were only temporary.

“My bed is over there,” she offered, tilting her head to the right, indicating where it sat behind the oriental screen she used as a divider, waiting for him to respond. If he rejected her one more time, she’d have to punch his lights out. On principle alone.

“Calleigh, I have to tell you something.” His eyes drilled into hers, with an intensity and an earnestness she never would have expected to see peering out at her.

Great. True confession time. He was probably going to tell her he was still married to some woman in Wyoming with a couple of kids. Or he wanted to wear her underwear or high heels. Or wanted to watch her with another woman. Or God forbid, another man.

“What?”

“I’m a Dom.”

“What?”

“I’m a Dom.”

“If that’s some kind of Chinese zodiac symbol, you should know I was born in the Year of the Snake.” She had no idea where this conversation was headed.

A short laugh left his lips as he rested his forehead against hers in a tender gesture she would never have believed him capable of.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with China, zodiacs, or symbols, Calleigh,” he whispered against her cheek, his breath moving softly through her ear.

“Then what is it?”

Pulling back, he looked into her eyes.

“Are you familiar with BDSM?” he began, watching her face for any change in her expression when awareness was likely to dawn.

“I know what it is. People who like to be tied up and beaten,” she asserted, still confused and now acutely uncomfortable where this was leading.

“That’s one facet of what some people like. Others like to dominate their partners, who enjoy being submissive.”

The light switched on.

“That’s what you want to do? You want to dominate me?”

Chapter 5

“Calleigh, this is never going to work if you don’t trust me. Trust is the cornerstone of any Dom/Sub relationship,” David reminded her.

After he described what he demanded from his sexual partners, as well as what he promised, Calleigh paced for awhile, chewing on the night’s revelations. Back and forth in her tiny living room while David remained silent.

After she’d surely worn a hole in the floor, she stood before him and started firing questions at him with the precision of a drill sergeant.

“I have to do what you say at all times?” she asked.

“Only in the bedroom, not at any other time, like when we’re out socially.”

“We’ll be going out socially?”

“Yes, Calleigh, that’s what couples do. They go out. Take in football and basketball games. Hold hands at the movies. That kind of shit.”

A goofy smile lit up her face. “You want that with me?”

“Calleigh, right now, I want to fuck you. Badly. When I’m done fucking you, I want to do other things with you. Watch movies. Make fun of reality television. Go watch the Blazers. Bring you to Tide games. That’s what I want with you.”

“I don’t want you to hit me or whip me, David. That doesn’t sound sexy to me,” she warned.

“I don’t hit my partners and the only ones I whip have asked me for it. It’s not about me, hurting you, Calleigh,” he reassured her, his calm voice soothing some of the rough edges of the subject. “It’s about you relinquishing control and trusting me.”

“Anytime I tell you to stop, you will?”

“Absolutely.” His dark blue eyes communicated nothing but raw honesty. “I promise you we will never do anything you’re uncomfortable with. Ever. We’ll establish a safe word and once you utter your safe word, I stop doing what I’m doing immediately. If you’re restrained, I’ll undo the restraints. If I’m inside of you, I’ll immediately pull out. If I’m using a vibrator to tap dance all over your clit and you’re about to come as hard as you’ve ever come before and you use the word, I’ll turn it off and stop until you tell me what you want me to do. You have all the control. Because I’ll never stop unless and until you tell me to. But once you use your word, whatever one we decide on, everything stops. I promise.”

The pictures he painted with his words fired her up from the inside out. She never would have imagined she’d ever consider anything along the lines of what he was proposing. Did it make her a total slut that she was both excited and nervous? She’d never used any of her toys with her boyfriends, afraid they’d think she was into weird, kinky stuff that would turn them off. Now her fantasies seemed like child’s play compared to the stuff he was suggesting.

“How would you restrain me?”

He smiled. “It would depend on the types of restraints we determine you enjoy. If you like metal, we can use handcuffs. If you prefer silk, I have silk ties we can use for both your hands and your legs.”

“Anything else?”

“Occasionally, I might blindfold you. Removing your sense of sight makes you more aware of everything else going on.”

“What kind of blindfold?”

“Black silk that will completely prevent any potential light from coming in.”

“What if I’m not comfortable with that?”

“Then we won’t do it, Calleigh. But you should try it, figure out if you like it or not before you immediately reject it and cast the possibility aside.”

“What else?” she asked, her trust increasing with each of his answers.

“Everything is your call, Calleigh, your choice. I will never push you to do anything you’re adamantly against. All I ask is you trust me and try some of the things I want to do. If you try it and you’re not one hundred percent behind it because it doesn’t turn you on and get you off, we won’t do it. End of story.”

“Is there anything else?” she gulped.

He looked like a big, bad wolf sizing up his little Red Riding Hood. “There are a lot of other things I want to do with you, but don’t you think we should leave some of it to be a surprise?”