Personal Geography (14 page)

“Answer two questions and you might find out.”

“Shake on it?”

I look into his slate-blue eyes. Can I do this? But he’s warm and earnest, and he’s ceded so much control. For people like him, that’s no small thing. I put my hand in his and shake.

“You have yourself a deal, Mr. Ardmore.”

He holds on too long, and it makes something pool in my belly.
A handshake? Really, India? Are you going to start going weak in the knees when you meet a client? Swoon when you seal a deal at work? For fuck’s sake.
Although, when he lets go, I’m disappointed. I liked his skin on my skin.

“What would you like to know, Kit?”

This power is heady. I can ask Cris anything I’d like. How many lovers he’s had, his worst fear, how much money he makes… But I don’t want to abuse what he’s handed me, so I reiterate, “How’d you break your nose?”

“Which time?”

Ah. I thought it’d been more than once. “Will that count as more than one question?”

“No. It’s all the same, anyway. I’ve broken it three times, surfing. Once on a reef, once on some rocks, once on my board.”

“And you still surf?” It’s out of my mouth before I can help it, but he offers me an out.

“Are you sure that’s how you want to use your second question?”

“Sure.”

“Then, yes, I still surf. Nearly every day.”

That’s how he got that body. That tan. The pale scars that dot his skin. Surfing. I picture Cris on a board amongst the waves. It fits. As does the St. Michael’s medal—protection against dangers at sea.

“Your St. Michael’s medal isn’t really doing the trick, is it?”

He blinks and fingers the disc at his throat, a compulsion. “My mom gave me this the first time I had a serious wipeout. I think it’s done a yeoman’s job, considering. I’m still here, only a little worse for wear. Other people haven’t been so lucky.”

Cris has had friends die out there, and he still goes. Does that make him dedicated to something he loves, something he couldn’t live without? Or insane? I don’t have time to consider because he’s turning the tables.

“That’s more than two. I believe it’s my turn.”

“It is.” Nervousness claws at my stomach. But why? I’ve got veto power. He could ask me if I liked the paella, and I could answer no comment, although I wouldn’t. It’s delicious, and I’ll tell him so before I turn into a pumpkin.

“So are you an attorney?”

“I have a law degree, and I’ve passed the bar.”

He laughs, and my insides melt. “Spoken like a true lawyer.”

I narrow my eyes, trying to contain my threatening grin. “I suppose so, yes.”

“See, that wasn’t so bad.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

We continue our chatter over lunch, and I learn that Cris has been surfing since he was eight—competitively until he left for college—and his father taught him how to cook. I’m about to ask what his favorite dish to make is when Cris checks his watch and says it’s one thirty. Oops.

Once we’ve completed the requisite paperwork and Matty’s told me to text with major US cities, I entrust myself once again to Cris’s capable hands and the games begin.

*

Cris is a
creature of habit, though in a way that’s soothing, not dull. He bathes me, and by the time he’s restraining me on the table, I’m putty in his hands. After he warms me up—teasing me with bites and kisses, suckling at one breast while rolling the other nipple between talented fingers, dipping his fingers inside of me and finding me wet and wanting—he produces a riding crop.

“You’ve played with one of these before, pet?” He trails the keeper up my instep and over the inside of my calf to my thigh. At the gentle touch, my muscles clench from my knees all the way to my groin.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you like it?” He draws the tip farther up to my hipbone and traces a languid circle around it.

“If they wanted me to, sir.” I’ve been both punished and rewarded with one of these devilish tools, and I wonder which Cris has in mind. I haven’t misbehaved yet as far as I know, but I’m more conscious than ever of my helpless, exposed state. In addition to my arms being bound above my head, my legs are also restrained. Each ankle is bound to each thigh by cuffs and a length of chain, and my legs are spread, knees resting on rolled towels and held in place with leather straps tethering them to the outsides of the table. The bondage alone has me squirming.

“I want you to.”

He drags the keeper across my pelvis to my other hipbone. The feeling it creates in my core makes me buck my hips and mewl.

“That’s right, no need to be shy.”

He continues his tour, looping around my navel and heading toward my breasts. He traces under them and around, making ever smaller figure eights until he’s just shy of my areolas. The crop leaves my skin to return with a sharp bite to my nipple. I groan, and another blow lands in quick succession, this time to the other nipple. He’s got good aim, and he’s hitting me hard enough that it’s at the border of pleasure and pain. The sensations are sending pulses south.

“Do you like this?”

“Yes, sir.” I’m panting, and if he kept this up for long enough, I could come.

“Then let me hear you.” He lands another blow, and this time I don’t hold back, letting out a moan. “That’s better.”

His words are fanning my desire, and I’m shamelessly letting encouraging noises emanate all the way up from my core.

“Could you come from this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you won’t. Not without permission.”

“No, sir.”

It’s getting harder to keep my word, my abdominals aching with the effort of trying to thrust my hips, restrained as I am. The blows stop, and I cry out in protest until the crop lands between my legs. The bite is pleasant and sharp against the most sensitive part of me. This, I won’t be able to tolerate for long. I’ve closed my eyes tight with effort, and I’m straining at my bonds.

“Go ahead. Let me see what I do to you.”

A few more licks land before my orgasm overtakes me, and my body tenses before it careens out of control. I’m gasping in time with the waves of release, glad to be tied down. I can’t make any promises about what my body might do if I weren’t. The blows have stopped, and he’s holding my hipbones, providing another point of resistance for my unruly body to rage against. When my climax has burnt itself out, he strokes his thumbs across my belly. I open my eyes, and he runs his hands up my stomach, over my still-heaving chest, to cradle my head.

“Enjoy yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now I’d like to enjoy you.”

Cris passes a thumb across my cheek, presses a kiss to the other, and then untethers me bond by bond and brings my knees together. He slides my feet off the table, leaving the backs of my knees resting against the edge. My wrists are released as well, although he doesn’t take off the cuffs. He sweeps my hands to my sides and slides his hands under my back and my skull.

Of all the things Cris does to me, this is my favorite. It fills some deep need in me to feel cared for, but it’s esoteric enough I don’t worry he knows it. I barely help as he sits me up, meeting me eye to eye, chest to chest at the end of the table. I blink at him and raise my chin, asking, begging to be kissed, and he obliges, telling me it’s okay to touch before he does.

I take full advantage of the permission I’ve been granted, pressing into him, sliding my hands under his open shirt, gripping the muscles of his back underneath my fingers. He returns my ardor, his hand in my hair tightening into a fist, tugging, and his hand on my back pressing me still closer. Kissing. Who would’ve thought?

He breaks our connection by pulling hard on a fistful of my hair, and I want to protest. But when he says, “Legs around my waist,” I don’t mind anymore. I hook my ankles at the base of his spine, and he releases my hair to grip my hips and slides me off the table until he’s bearing my full weight. Draping my arms over his shoulders, I run my teeth over his stubbled jaw and nip at his ear before kissing my way down his neck.

He presses my back against the cross, pinning me with his hips. “Arms up.”

I lean back against the wood, raising my arms to be tethered. He hooks the clasps, well-practiced, before his hands are at my neck.

“Jesus, Kit, are you ever divine.”

India
, I want to say,
my name is India
. What I wouldn’t give for him to tell me he finds me heavenly. But that’s not something I’m allowed to have—a luxury I can’t afford, a gamble I’m not willing to make. I trusted someone with my heart, my secrets, my life once. I won’t do it again, no matter how tempting Cris makes the prospect. I stifle the words rising in my throat with a moan before his mouth is once again on mine.

*

The rest of
the weekend passes in a haze of pleasure. In some ways, our bodies are still getting acquainted, but in others, I feel like we’re merely becoming reacquainted. I don’t go in for past life stuff, but Cris’s understanding of what’s going to set me on fire is so intuitive I have my doubts.

This isn’t normal.

On Sunday, he calls things an hour early. I’m not distraught. I know what’s coming: a walk down to the cove, lazing in the hammock and wading into the warm water hand in hand. At precisely six o’clock, he sends me off with Matty, again with dinner, back to the chaos of my real life.

‡

T
he next time
I get Cris’s contract, I’m in Provo. When I review it, I’m more entertained than annoyed that the damn conversational clause is still there. If he wants to keep trading decadent lunches and personal information for the one-word answers I’m inclined to give, fine by me.

Instead of flying directly home when I wrap things up, I change my flights to make a stop in San Francisco, feeling the need for a tune-up from my pit crew.

Rey picks me up in the Maserati he’s driving these days. I’m not sure he appreciates what a fine car it is. What he does enjoy is everyone else’s attention, and we attract quite a bit of it. As we settle into the high-backed banquette in a prime corner of the nouveau French place he’s brought me to, he gives me the eye.

I glare at him until our champagne cocktails arrive. “What’s your damage, Walter?”

“Nothing, bluebird.”

He’s perusing the menu as if he hasn’t already ordered our food, as if our first course won’t arrive at any minute. Rey doesn’t leave these kinds of thing to chance. Or to me. He knows better. I draw the tip of my finger around the rim of the flute and narrow my gaze until he looks up with a faint smile.

“I was expecting an angry phone call yesterday, that’s all.”

Right.

“I decided it wasn’t worth getting worked up about. What the hell do I care if he wants to have a little chitchat before we fuck?”

“Chitchat?” Rey’d better knock off that smugly amused look before I knock it off for him.

I scowl as I take a deep sip. “What—you missed the India Burke shitshow?”

“No, there’s plenty where that came from.”

“Then what?”

Rey picks up the slim, silver dinner fork from the place setting in front of him and twirls it in his lithe fingers, back and forth like a baton. After a minute of this hypnotic party trick, his eyes meet mine.