The Willing (13 page)

He swallowed hard. "N-no."

"That's right." I wasn't permitted to touch him in any way remotely sexual, but if this was about control, then his orgasm happened if and when I allowed it. "You like being punished, huh?"

Oliver nodded as best he could with my fist pulling back his head. It wasn't as easy as it might have been; he wore his hair too short for a sound grip and as Evangeline had warned, he perspired profusely. True enough, I'd given him a pretty good workout so far. I was impressed he wasn't begging me to let him come yet.

He would, in a little while.

"Stand up and face me," I hissed, kneeing him lightly in the side. Unlike the last time, I'd shown up for our session in a full cat suit, all black leather, with no skin showing, not even my hands. I wanted him to feel understand he was the one on display. It was why I had left the bedroom door open—once I had his solemn promise that no one could come into the penthouse while we were playing.

I took my time scrutinizing his body as he staggered to his feet. The skin on his knees was slightly abraded from rubbing against the carpet, his toes flexing as he tried to keep from swaying. My hand found the small of his back, a steadying, latex-slick caress to keep him from toppling over. He hissed with the ache, skin too tender to suffer even the lightest pressure.

My gaze slid up his body to his joined hands—the wrists cuffed in front of him—which were now ineffectually trying to conceal his erection. Oliver hadn't taken off his briefs this time, either, and I hadn't pushed him on that point. It was a pity, though, because I couldn't see his ass cheeks glow warm with every and I so desperately wanted to.

"Put your hands over your chest." I didn't have to raise my voice to him this time, we were standing close enough that even a whisper was perfectly intelligible.

Oliver forced his eyes to meet mine, brows furrowing.

"Do it now or you don't get to come tonight." He could be the boss when we were outside this room, but in here, he had elected to hand over the reins and be a good little submissive. If he wanted to challenge those terms, he could always tap out.

I knew him well enough by now to suspect that wouldn't happen for something as paltry as anxiety.

His hands drew up, fingers interlaced as if he was praying. The gesture left the swell of his cotton-covered cock visible to my gaze. I pinned a fist to his trim waist, fingers just lightly hooked in the elastic of his briefs. Poor Oliver started as if he'd been struck.

This time, I didn't even look at him as I chided with a sharp "keep still." He was beneath my notice. He was nothing.

He really wasn't.

"Please... ma'am. Please," Oliver bit out, shaking.

"What do you want, boy?"

There was no right answer to that question and Oliver knew it. If he asked me to stop, I could choose not to—unless he safeworded out, he was mine to do with as I pleased. If he asked me to grant him release, I could deny him and prolong his torment beyond what he felt he could take. God, did I ever want to run my hand over his dick, feel him swell against my palm.

"Please," Oliver pleaded, "let me come."

"Not yet."
Not like this
was really what I meant, but I knew I'd enjoy the sharp catch of his breath when he saw me pick up the flogger. I wasn't disappointed. His eyes tracked my every move, but he seemed especially attentive as I ran the tails over his belly and thighs, so far spared from my lashing. In different circumstances I'd run the flogger over his hard length just to see him quake in excitement and fear, but I didn't want to take him out of the headspace, only skirt around his self-imposed limits.

"You'll count to ten." I tapped his cheek with the handle of the flogger. It was a beautiful thing, braided leather over a core of plastic. It didn't hurt my wrist one bit, though my hands were aching a little from manipulating it for the better part of an hour. I liked that Oliver had money to waste on expensive toys. Some things should be splurged on—things like wine and chocolate. And apparently floggers. Who knew.

I didn't wait for Oliver's confirmation before I drew back my arm. The trick of aiming the flogger right was to roll the wrist and hit in a circular, steady, unending stream of blows. I could have pulled back even further, until I was just brushing the untouched skin of his pale thighs, but Oliver liked pain more than most people. I wanted him to enjoy himself.

The response was immediate. He cried out, eyes squeezing shut as he rocked back on the balls of his feet. I knew that without me ordering him to stillness, he would've bolted already. "One," he choked, "t-two..." And rest followed, a panted string of numbers that didn't begin to match the strokes.

We hit ten and he doubled over, still holding himself up with legs slightly splayed and hands clutched to his chest. I caught his shoulder, pressed his cheek against the leather of my cat suit. "Very good, boy. Look at you... taking it like you love it."

Oliver moaned something unintelligible, his breaths rattling wetly through his nose.

"Still green?"

"Y-yeah." He sounded dazed and as he made to stand, it occurred to me I'd been edging him closer and closer to the point of no return for some time. He'd earned a reprieve.

Kneel
, I thought and pressed hard against his right shoulder. Oliver dropped without resistance, not because I was stronger but because he wanted me to be. A man like him wasn't allowed to be weak; he was always in the spotlight, always judged and constantly under pressure. It was only in this room, with me, that he gave it all up. The power trip was heady, enough to drive me to press his cheek against my stomach. "Stroke yourself."

"Ma'am?"

His voice was doing things to me—as was the feel of his breaths against my hipbone, throat working as he swallowed past a knot of apprehension. This was taboo, or close enough that he felt reluctant to obey.

"You want to come? Stroke yourself for me." He would have to do it through his briefs; I didn't ask him to remove them and didn't expect he would. We were four sessions in and we had found a rhythm to our play: I no longer questioned his hang-ups and he no longer pretended our time together was spent on something other than sex. Kinky sex, sure, but sex all the same.

I tried to be content with that paltry victory.

When I looked down, though, it was with a sharp, stubborn little pang in my heart. Oliver's right shoulder was moving fractionally, elbow brushing my knee as he worked over his cock with quick, graceless strokes. I didn't know why he didn't let me touch him. I didn't know why I wanted to feel him come in my hand so, so badly.

I kept quiet, shoved my own needs aside.

It happened quickly. I only knew it for the shakes that followed. Oliver was so quiet, smothering every moan before it could make its way out of his throat. "Good boy," I breathed, stroking his nape. "You're so good for me." He was. Between the parameters we'd set and my irrational bouts of longing, he was a pretty good sub. I was the one slipping up.

After he finished, Oliver turned away from me and disappeared into the bathroom. Another one of his habits, that. I heard the shower run and quickly worked open my cat suit. I tried to ignore the wetness between my thighs, but it was no use, so I balled up my underwear and stuffed it into my small shoulder bag along with the itchy, leather cat suit and high-heeled boots. Hopefully I didn't get mugged on the way home or I'd be short a work uniform.

I went to wait for Oliver downstairs. He didn't like company immediately after we finished a session and frankly, I felt a little awkward, too. The transition from domina and submissive to employee/employer was all kinds of tricky. The last time I was here, Oliver had showed me proof of another bank transfer.

I was four grand richer since I'd agreed to work for him. It was a decent living for a not so decent trade, but I wasn't going to rock the boat.

My Chuck Taylors squeaked across the marble floor of the foyer, followed by the thump of my shoulder bag. I hesitated. Sometimes Oliver seemed eager to get rid of me. Others, he looked uneasy, like he was maybe dropping a little. Those were the times I dreaded most because I didn't know how to make him let me care for him. It wasn't exactly pleasant to be reminded that he didn't want my comfort.

"You're still here," Oliver said, when he noticed me in the foyer. The expression on his face was one of surprise but not displeasure.
Small mercies
, I thought.

"Thought you might need to... you know, debrief." That was what he called it: I would've been a bit more forthright and said we needed to talk about the sex we weren't having, but hey: I was a college dropout and he ran a billion dollar conglomerate. Plus, he was paying me. It was only right I should defer to his superior wisdom. Or at least pretend to.

Oliver flashed me a smile and shook his head. "No, no. I'm all good," he said breezily. "So I'll see you same time next Monday?" I couldn't tell if it was an act; he was pretty convincing for a guy who'd just come all over himself.

I wondered if he still felt the welts on his skin, if there was ever pain the next morning to remind him of what he'd done the night before. Did he sit in meetings and press against the backrest just to feel the ache? There were so many things I wanted to know, but he never said and I didn't know how to ask.

"Same time next Monday," I echoed and grabbed my bag.

I left him behind with a broad grin on his angular, ruddy face, so what did it matter that I was headed home commando, my insides all warm and quivery, and my needs unmet? My job was done.

The shambles of my apartment made for a poor welcome, to say nothing of the frigidly cold shower I took in an attempt to wash Oliver off my skin. To add insult to injury, the stain above my bed seemed to be growing larger every night, so that the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning was the paint peeling off the ceiling like little flakes of rice paper. Obviously, most of those landed on my head while I slept, leading to another icy shower and a piss-poor start to the morning.

I couldn't wait to be out of here and into my new home—mine in both name and paperwork. I'd lain in bed many a night feeling both more restless and calmer than I'd been since the whole fiasco at the hotel when Oliver had all but put a gun to my head. Sure, I'd sacrificed my time for him and I seemed to have developed some kind of weird fixation with the man, but I was confident that would pass. Eventually. I was glad he didn't know what I needed the money for; he wouldn't understand. A guy like him was mired in properties with seven bedrooms and three-sixty views of the city, whereas I hadn't had a home of my own since my mother died.

   The doorbell rang, putting an effective end to my useless pondering. I peered through the Judas and discovered Carrie and the top portion of Duncan's lofty mop on the other side. The rest of him was wheelchair-bound since his last episode. I hadn't actually expected Carrie to drag him along—although knowing them, this was all Duncan's work.

He'd told me once that just because he had MS didn't mean he was quitting life. I knew he meant it.

"Didn't we say ten?" I called through the door. It took a moment of wrestling with the latch before I could let them in.

"We couldn't sleep," Duncan called back cheerily. "Too excited to put our shoulder to the wheel... What, aren't you decent?"

My neighbors were going to be so thrilled when they heard I was moving.

"Hold up. I just have to bundle my lover out the window." Finally, the door gave way. "There," I said, beaming a bright grin at the pair of them. "Wow, you two look like you're ready for some serious de-cluttering." Duncan was wearing overalls and Carrie had come festooned in her hospital uniform. Meanwhile, I was still in my PJs: a long-sleeved t-shirt gone grey from too many runs in the tumble-dryer and a pair of faded flannel pants. I unabashedly privileged comfort over sex-appeal when I was off the clock. Fortunately, none of my clients knew that unglamorous detail.

"Please tell me you haven't come straight from work," I begged Carrie. I had a good mind to pack her off to get some sleep if that was the case.

"I wish," she drawled. "I've got a shift after this. Can you imagine? I'm working Saturday nights now, ugh... By the way your place," Carrie said, glancing around, "is a pigsty." She wrinkled her nose emphatically at the chaos around us and I was reminded of her own creepily neat home. Carrie was the kind of person who alphabetized her spice drawer while I couldn't remember where I put the salt. Sometimes I wondered how the hell we ever became friends.

"It's a work in progress!" I defended. "But if you're working tonight..." Carrie wheeled Duncan in through the maze of boxes and that was an end to any talk of dispatching her to a bed.

Don't argue with the warden
, Duncan had told me once, winking over the game console. He was more like me, only tall and blond and very much a dude. He let Carrie have her way as much as he could; some people might have said he was whipped, but I actually found it sweet. I'd never met anyone more laidback.

"We brought the car," he pointed out, and I knew he meant their green SUV—the one still tagged with graffiti that invited viewers to 'suck their honk', "but I don't think the couch is going to fit. Do you have reinforcements coming in later?"

I nodded. "Yeah, but they're not taking furniture. I'm donating everything we're not taking and starting afresh." The stuff I'd accumulated here was mostly second hand or flea market-bought and for the most part, it was all falling apart. The couch was completely sunken and squeaky, the coffee table had taken rickety to the point of being unsafe. I liked the thought of starting over, even if it was with DIY disasters. 

"Sound therapeutic," Duncan quipped as he peeked into a box I'd halfway filled with DVDs. "So where do we start?"

With coffee, as it turned out, and the morning news playing on repeat on the muted television. Hunter found us like that at the appointed hour. "Good morning, slackers," he greeted, snorting when he saw me still in my pajamas. "Is this everyone?"