Bound to Accept (11 page)

His cock twitches in my mouth, and then hot,
sticky liquid spurts from the head of him, to coat the back of my
throat. I gag, choke, but somehow, I manage to get it down.

Tristan groans, and for a
moment, he almost looks like he's in pain. Then his face relaxes,
and he squeezes one of my breasts. “Mm.
God
. My cock feels like
rubber.”

My throat hurts a little, and my mouth is
thick with the taste of him. It takes me several attempts to
speak.

“
Are you happy,
Sir?”

He closes his eyes and looks quite content.
“Ecstatic.”

I glance at the clock. It's almost ten.
We've been at this for almost four hours.

Tristan yawns, and gives another one of
those sexy moans. Then he glances at the clock, and gives me a
rueful smile. “Looks like you'll be spending the night with
me.”

He gets out of bed, sliding off the leather
pants the moment his feet hit the floor—oh my God, his ass—and
pulls on a pair of boxers and loose pajama pants. I stare after him
as he shambles into the bathroom.

A few minutes later, he comes out. “You can
use my toothbrush, if you want.”

I do want. My mouth is still sticky with his
come, and the idea of cleaning it off with his toothbrush strikes
me as the perfect vengeance. I wash my face, and then brush my
teeth thoroughly, even my tongue. Especially my tongue. When I come
out, Tristan has the bedclothes pulled back.

“
Take off your
skirt.”

Swallowing, I slide it down. He watches me
wrap the flannel shirt around myself with hooded eyes and a faint
smile. When I get into bed beside him, he yanks my shirt off and
tosses it on the floor. I am naked and he's wearing pants. It
doesn't seem fair.

Tristan chuckles, and pulls me tightly
against him, and I can feel his soft cock rub against my butt
through his pants.

“
My little pony girl,” he
murmurs, threading his fingers through my hair. I glance back at
him sharply, wondering if he's mocking me, but his eyes are closed.
A few minutes later, he's snoring. Tristan has always been a
snorer. But I've never had to sleep this closely to him before.
Past sleepovers were always closely supervised by our parents. I
shudder to think of our parents supervising what we just did
tonight. He's so loud, I think there's no way I could fall asleep,
but somehow I do, because I close my eyes, and when I open them
again it's daylight and Tristan is gone.

Chapter Seven

Tristan is gone.

I'm hurt at first—it's the first time
I have spent the night over at his place in a sexual context, and
to find that he's simply vanished cuts to the quick.

I glance at the clock, and
heave a soft sigh of relief when I see how late it is. 11:30 A.M.
Tristan must have gone to work
hours
ago.

He isn't disgusted by me,
he's
working
.

This is a relief. Such a huge relief
that I am annoyed with myself for not giving him the benefit of the
doubt and automatically assuming the worst.

Still, waking up without
Tristan kind of cheapens the act and makes it feel like a one-night
stand, even though I know how ridiculous and irrational that is.
Tristan can't very well miss work to stay home and spoon with me.
And even if this
were
a one-night stand, I would be well within my rights to have
one.

I roll out of bed and pull on my
flannel shirt and skirt. The fabric feels rougher now than it did
before. My skin feels raw, hypersensitive, like I'm a butterfly
that has shed its cocoon to reveal the membranous tissues that lie
beneath the hard, outer shell.

That's what it seems like Tristan is
doing. Peeling me back, layer by layer, exposing the secrets
beneath.

I wander into the living room/kitchen
area. My stomach is growling. Sex is exhausting work—I've started
eating twice my usual amount. I keep waiting for my pants not to
fit, but it seems as if the extra pounds have yet to keep up with
me.

A note is taped to the
door.

There's a surprise for you
on the table, and another inside the fridge. I want to see you on
Wednesday night.

That's three days from now.

I check the table first. There is a
small cardboard box sitting there innocuously; I missed it during
my initial cursory inspection of the room.

I open it and gasp softly.
A silver necklace is inside on the soft bed of fluff within the
box. It has woven silver chain and a clasp that is shaped like two
interlocking handcuffs.
When you wear
this
, says the note inside,
it means you're
mine.

That's…a little alarming. Of course, I
trust him, but sometimes I wonder if he assumes I know more about
BDSM than I actually do. Does being “his” carry some sort of weight
that I might not like?

I slip the necklace around my throat
and fasten the clasp. I walk to the mirror Tristan has hanging in
the hall and check out my new accessory. Whatever it means, it's
beautiful.

My next stop is the fridge and when I
see what Tristan has put in there, my heart melts into a puddle of
goo. There's a box of sushi on the top shelf and a cup of my
favorite flavor of bubble tea. He even remembered the coffee jelly,
bless him.

I eat the food at the table and then
dispose of all the trash when I'm done, very careful to erase my
footprints. I'm not one of those possessive sorts who has to
announce their presence in another's life by dragging in all their
baggage, physical and mental. In my limited experience, men seem to
prefer it when a woman does not encroach upon his living
space.

I should probably leave soon. It was
nice of him not to wake me up and kick me out, but I don't want to
overstay my welcome. I grab my purse and my hand descends towards
the doorknob, stops.

He has one of those locks that only
locks from the outside—and I don't have a key.

I
do
know where he keeps the spares. I
open the junk drawer in his kitchen, shifting through broken pens,
loose change, a sea of paperclips, about ten lighters, until I get
to the layer of keys at the bottom.

The front door key to his apartment
isn't there.

Now what am I supposed to
do?

I pace back and forth in his living
room.

I want to go home and sleep in my own
bed, shower in my own shower, but it is starting to look as if I
have no choice but to stay. There's no way I can just leave his
apartment unlocked. If it gets robbed because I decided to leave,
regardless, it'll be my fault. No, I'm stuck here until he returns
from work.

I pull out a notebook from my purse
and jot down a few notes for my current WIP, inspired by Tristan's
and my sexual antics the other night. That kills an hour, maybe.
Probably less.

Sighing, I drop pen and
notebook back into my purse and peruse his bookshelf. There aren't
a lot of men who read. Tristan has an okay selection: mostly
classic science-fiction/fantasy, coding books, and pop nonfiction
like Malcolm Gladwell's
Outliers
.

Tristan looks surprised to
see me sitting in his armchair with a copy of his
Game of Thrones
. He sets
down his laptop case and as he unknots his tie he says, “You didn't
have to stay, you know.”

Translation:
What the hell are you still doing here, you
psycho-stalker?

“I couldn't find your
spare key for the front door, and I didn't want to leave your
apartment unlocked, so I…stayed.”

“Oh, right. The spare. I
should have remembered. It's at my parents'.”

“Why do your parents have
a key to your Frisco apartment? Don't they live all the way in
Stockton?”

“Sometimes they want to
drop things off, but I'm not here to let them in. Food, medicine,
things like that.” He shrugs his shoulders. “And you never know.
Parents are good to have when you're in a pinch.”

He looks at me again, and his face
softens.

“Poor girl. You didn't
even get to change out of your dirty clothes.”

“
It
wasn't too bad. I found the bubble tea and the sushi in the fridge.
That was nice. And I wrote for a bit. Oh, and I used your shower.”
I peek at him. “I hope you don't mind.”

“No, I don't mind.” He
slides his finger under the handcuff charm, holding it up to catch
the light. When he brushes bare skin, I light up like a candle.
“You're wearing my gift. It looks good on you.”

I laugh nervously. “So what does it
mean, being yours? The note wasn't clear.”

“It
means that when you wear that necklace, what's between your legs
and what's inside your head all belong to me.” He lets his hand
fall away. “And
only
me.” His smile becomes sultry, mischievous. “When
you wear it, it means you're ready to play.”

“Oh. I didn't realize—” I
start to unclasp it.

“Leave it on.”

I lower my hand to my side.

Tristan smiles at the wariness of my
expression. “You get one free pass, Kelly. Next time, though, I'm
going to bend you over and fuck you sideways.”

He catches my hand in his.

“Which reminds me. There
are some things I want you to read. I have a list of kinks and
positions I'm interested in.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. I want you to
research them, then color-code the ones you're interested
in.”

He disappears into the
bedroom, leaving me wondering. What is he getting? His own
manifesto? The BDSM equivalent of the
Kama
Sutra
?

I'm relieved when he hands me a thin
stack of papers and not a four-hundred-page tome, although I'm
confused by the high-lighters.

“There's a key on the
first page,” he explains. “Pink means you're very interested.
Orange means you're open to discussion or trying it out. Green
means non-negotiable.”

I glance over the papers. “You've done
all this stuff?”

“At one time or another,
yes.”

“How
much sex have you
had
?”

His smile fades a little. “Not all of
these things are about sex, Kelly. It's a nice bonus if the
chemistry is right, but not necessary; it is possible to do a D/s
scene without any sex at all. We're not prostitutes.”

“I didn't mean to offend
you. I'm sorry.”

Tristan waves the papers at me.
“Knowledge is power.”

I fold the papers into my purse,
resolving to read them when I get home. I don't want me to watch
him look over them. His eyes sharpen a little. “Shy?”

“I'll look it over when I
get home,” I promise.

“Be sure that you do.” He
pats my cheek. “So what did you end up doing all day while
house-sitting?”

“Read
Game of
Thrones
. Wrote a bit. Took a
nap.”

“Wish I'd been there when
you did. I could get used to waking up beside a naked Kelly every
morning.”

My heart leaps. Is that
his way of saying that he
wants
to be in a committed relationship with me? Or am
I reading too much into his words?

“Hmm.” He folds his arms.
“Well, you're here and I have some time. You want to do something
for a bit before I take you home?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don't know.” He
cups my face in his hands. “I could get the TV out of the closet,
pour two glasses of wine, and we could play a game.”

I have to laugh. It breaks the tension
and helps me not to obsess over his comment about waking up beside
me every morning. “I'd love to play a game. Which one?”

“How about Super Smash
Brothers?”

“Feeling like getting your
ass kicked, huh?” I rub my hands together. “Because I'm totally
going to whip your ass, Tristan. Whip it all over the
screen.”

And then I turn red, as I realize how
easily he might interpret my words as something else.

“Are you?” he says mildly.
His sinful mouth curls into a half-smile when he sees how I squirm
in discomfort. “Let's make it interesting then. The loser has to go
down on the winner.”

“Like oral
sex?”

“Mm-hmm.” He pours two
glasses of the wine and hands me both. “Doesn't that sound
fun?”

I watch him set up the TV, shaking my
head. “How can you already want more sex?”

“I'm insatiable.” He plugs
in the Gamecube's power cable and AV outputs. “And you have such a
firm mouth. I love the way it feels around my cock.” I stiffen.
Suddenly, it's an effort to breathe. The title screen comes on and
he clicks past it impatiently. He selects Marth and has to prompt
me with a, “Kelly?”

“Pretty boy,” I comment.
My voice wavers only a little. I select Kirby. “I think he's
overcompensating for something with that giant sword, don't
you?”