One Year With Him Read online

  He drew the can, its sharp edge, and his warm, rough tongue inside my thigh. I was a throbbing, swollen hot mess by the time he put the can down and placed the tip of his tongue between my legs. He moved slowly up and down my slit, a tease that left me gasping, thrusting, pulling against the plastic bags binding me.

  Bringing his tongue back up my abdomen, he landed on my mouth in a kiss. I opened my mouth for him, tasting the mix of cream and sex on his tongue.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I want you.”

  “You have me.”

  “I want your dick in me,” I said.

  “When?”

  “Please, sir,” I breathed, “any time after right now is good.”

  He smiled and kneeled above me, spreading my legs. He dragged his finger up and down my pussy. My hips hitched, and I flung my knees farther apart, begging for him without a word. With one hand on my kitchen cabinet and another guiding his cock, he slid inside me, pushing in and rocking before pulling out. He closed his eyes and moaned. Seeing him feel pleasure brought my mind and body to the same focus. He thrust inside again, harder that time, and a sound left my lungs even as I tried to remain quiet.

  “How do you want it, Monica?”

  Could I ask? And how? Wasn’t what I wanted exactly what scared me most?

  “I want to please you,” I whispered, telling the truth but avoiding the real answer. My pussy was almost in charge and doing the talking. As long as I had that last sliver of control, I didn’t have to admit anything.

  “You please me,” he said, moving in and out of me in a slow, forceful rhythm. “How can I please you? Say it. Say what you want.”

  I was close, on the edge. Stoking a white-hot fire where his dick and my body met, I couldn’t decide what to say. He sped up just a little, and the words came out of me unfiltered before I had a chance to be afraid. “Take me,” I groaned. “Use me.”

  It took him one slow thrust to start pounding me, deep and hard. Fast. As though his only goal was to finish. He put a hand on my breast and squeezed it. The backs of my thighs, sore from spanking, ached with each thrust as his skin hit mine. Being under him, trapped, objectified, I lost all fear. With Jonathan, I felt safe. I felt a loss of control so complete, a surrender so honest that it became a luxurious indulgence.

  “Jonathan, I’m...” I had no words. He was fucking the air right out of me.

  “Go.” He could barely get words out himself. “Yes.”

  “Oh...”

  If he’d told me to be quiet, I wouldn’t have heard the command over my own cry. The wordless sound, not even defined by a vowel, shot up from the base of my spine and out my mouth. I clenched around him, twisting. He held me straight, still beating me with his cock, as I came in a series of explosions that felt like the pounding of a drum hit hard, repeatedly, until it was hot with friction and resistance.

  His name left my lips over and over. Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan.

  He slowed down and fell back into a rhythm. He hadn’t come yet, and I wanted him to. I wanted to own his orgasm the way he’d owned mine.

  “Sir,” I said. He put his face close to mine. “Use me for your pleasure. Please. Have me.” God, what had I become? Such a whore that when he smiled at the thought of whatever he intended, I felt a surge of delight at pleasing him.

  He kissed me, then reached up to the counter and retrieved a steak knife. I was still out of breath when he cut me from the drawer handle. My hands, however, were still tied together. He looked at me with a devilish grin when he stood up.

  “On your knees, little goddess.” I couldn’t with my hands tied, at least not fast enough. He pulled me up by the bicep. My pussy throbbed, and when I got to a kneeling position, I felt warm fluid drip down my leg. Standing before me, his pussy-slick cock in front of my eyes, was my master. He was the ache between my legs, the desire in my belly, the tingle on my skin, the very embodiment of my gratification.

  I felt his hand on the back of my head, grabbing a handful of hair and pushing my face forward. I opened my mouth, and he shifted, guiding his wet dick in me. I tasted the sharpness of my sex on him. Slowly, the length of him went down my throat, and he groaned, tilting his head back in that same position of surrender he had the first time my lips touched his cock. I breathed and took him again, slowly, my tongue coursing him. He jerked out a little, then shoved himself back in, all the way, until my nose touched his stomach. His full, hard shaft filled my mouth. I groaned, vibrating his head.

  “Look at me.”

  I cast my eyes upward. His face was slack with arousal. I leaned back, still looking at him, letting his cock slip from my mouth.

  “I own you,” he said. He grabbed the back of my head harder, pulling the hair painfully, and pushed back in. His eyes closed a little, and a long breath escaped his lips. “Ah. That’s right. I. Own. You.”

  We watched each other as his thrusts got shorter and faster. I had to breathe through my nose and concentrate on not losing him, not looking away, opening up for him totally as he fucked my mouth.

  “Monica,” he whispered. His eyes dropped lower and he whispered again, “Monica, Monica, I’m coming, baby. Take it. Ah.”

  I took him deeper, letting him come right down my throat, the base of his cock pulsing on my lower lip.

  “Fuck,” he whispered like a prayer, bending in supplication and release. His eyes closed, and after a final hitch in his breath, he pulled out, the last of his erection slick with spit and sex.

  “How you doing, sir?” I was smirking. He’d tied my hands and forced the rhythm, but his orgasm was mine. He reached for the steak knife again, and I held my hands up. Slashing my binding, he bent down to take me in his arms. He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him, resting my head on his shoulder. He carried me out of the kitchen as if I was a child.

  Chapter 9

  JONATHAN

  I don’t know how a man can feel ripped apart and whole at the same time.

  Under her covers, on my side, and facing her wasn’t close enough. I twisted my legs in hers, touched her face while she talked, and held her hand on the mattress.

  When I’d carried her out of the kitchen, she’d been sticky all down her front. Her braid was a big knot. Her ass cheeks were pink and sore. Her throat was coated in my orgasm.

  I took her straight to the bathroom so we could shower. We soaped, and kissed, and laughed, but she was wiped out. Her eyes drooped, and her hands worked over her body lazily. When we’d finished, I put a towel around her and brushed her hair. She insisted on a braid, so I put a loose one down her back, just to get it over with, and carried her to bed.

  “I’m sorry about breaking the mood with the plastic bags,” she whispered.

  I stroked her cheek. “It’s fine. I don’t want to asphyxiate you, Monica. That’s way past my threshold.”

  “I was scared.”

  “I know. And I don’t want you to be scared, either.”

  “I should have put that on the list.”

  “We’ll make a new list.” I touched her forehead and drew my fingers down, forcing her eyes closed.

  “You’re my king, Jonathan.” She’d opened her eyes, but they looked heavy. I kissed them over and over, eyelids, cheek, nose, lips, eyelids again, forcing them closed over and over. When her eyes stayed closed, I knew she was asleep, and I could rest.

  But I didn’t. I replayed the night in my head while looking out her window. Dogs barked. A police siren faded into range, then out. She hummed a little in her sleep, then stopped. She’d thought I was going to choke her. She’d thought I was going to put a plastic bag over her head until her body seized up. For thrills.

  Obviously, she didn’t trust me yet. It would take time and patience. I hadn’t given either to a woman since Jessica because I gave her too much. My relationship with Monica could only go one place. Me, exposed to her, raw at the edges, breaking down at a shareholder meeting. Crying like—

  I couldn’t let myself f
inish that thought.

  In the dead of night, when everyone else slept, was when it happened. I’d never been much of a sleeper, maxing out at four hours a night by the time I’d finished adolescence. Having business in Asia helped. I could make calls and send emails. Taking a lot of women to bed helped with the voices a little, but the dead-of-night hours were still spent alone. Then it took over.

  It was my father’s voice. The voice told me that the things I had done wrong were irreversible. My mistakes were yokes I could either break under or become strong enough to pull, but they could not be shaken. Marrying Jessica, which I had convinced myself was the only right thing I’d done, sat front and center. I’d screwed it up by trying to get her to fit into my sexual fantasies. If I’d stayed silent, just done things her way, I could have been happy. In the dead of night, the regret of putting my desires above love split me, gutted me, dragged me into despair. Come morning, the voice slumbered. The torment played on an infinite loop until I dreaded the sun’s dip below the skyline.

  The voice was quiet that night, just a hum of warning. I could be that man again very easily. It was no harder than tripping on a bump in the sidewalk or cutting myself shaving, a slip in concentration long enough to lose control. I could fall off the tightrope to either side if I blinked at the wrong time.

  I forced my eyes closed and listened to Monica’s breaths. Eventually, I fell asleep.

  Chapter 10

  MONICA

  I woke up at 5:16 a.m., sore everywhere. My feet hurt from the stilettos. My knees from kneeling on the kitchen floor. My pussy from getting fucked hard, twice. My ass from the spanking. My tits from the biting and pulling. I wanted Jonathan again. I had about an inch of my body, somewhere, that wasn’t throbbing and sore. He needed to find it and fuck it.

  I heard his voice from far away, and I realized he wasn’t next to me. He was on the side patio, facing the driveway and talking on the phone. After using the bathroom and getting into a robe and slippers, I joined him outside.

  He sat at the little table I’d found on the corner of Echo Park Ave and Montana. His elbow was on the glass as he wrote something in a notebook and tapped something else into his phone.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  He reached for me, pulling me into his lap. “Good morning.” I flinched when my butt touched the hard surface of his knee. “Sorry,” he said when he saw me lower myself slowly. “I mean, I’m not.”

  “Me neither.” I leaned into the pain and sat on his leg.

  “I have to go to Washington in a few days. I could be gone a week. A congressman from Arkansas doesn’t want me building hotels overseas. I have an appointment to kiss his ass.”

  He wasn’t just telling me he had to split. He was apologizing. I kissed him long and hard, running my fingers through his hair. “I knew you traveled a lot even before I met you.”

  “Will you keep yourself busy without me?” he asked.

  “In all the most boring ways.”

  He slipped his hand between my legs and stroked inside my thigh. “What will you do?”

  “I’ll call you at night,” I whispered.

  “What else?” His fingertips touched my cunt just a little, like a threat of more.

  “I’ll text you every time I think of you. So, all the time.” I opened my legs for him.

  “Uh huh.”

  “I’ll go to work.”

  “Yes.” He breathed on my neck, his finger so close to finding me sore, wet, and ready.

  “I have to work on the B.C. Mod piece. We’re really behind.”

  His hand stopped dead. “When I’m away?”

  I cringed a little inside. Shit. “You’re away a lot. Should I stop working?”

  “Maybe I should take you with me everywhere.”

  I stood and threw myself into the other chair. “You think I’m going to run off and fuck someone else as soon as your back is turned? What kind of person do you think I am?”

  He put his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbed his eyes. I had an inner, boiling-hot rage cooled only by remembering what his wife did. He needed reassurance, not defensiveness. Even if he didn’t and couldn’t love me, thinking he didn’t have feelings or carry baggage was immature.

  He said, “I trust you. I don’t trust him.”

  I leaned forward and softened my voice. “It could be huge for me. Kevin is very important—”

  “I don’t want to hear that name.”

  “How are we supposed to talk about it? I mean, you trust me, but you don’t trust him. Do you think he’ll rape me?” I crossed my legs.

  He took a long pause, looking at me. I would have bet two weeks’ tips he was deciding whether or not to say something, or reveal a piece of information, but he looked away and tapped his notebook. “Do you think his Eclipse piece said anything about how he’ll treat you?”

  “He’s Kevin Wainwright. He starts with the obvious emotions, then gets cold, then flushes what he can’t use down the toilet. So that piece? I never saw the documentation, but my guess is someone just bought a pile of drawings of a dark-haired woman getting the shit beat out of her.”

  “How is he starting this piece with you? What’s the early documentation look like?”

  His eyes didn’t waver from mine, so he must have seen my reaction. My ears got hot and my arms tensed, because Kevin’s studio had been filled with raunchy sex drawings. Was that what he intended to work on with me? Were we talking about love or sex or the intersection of both? Had I been naïve and foolish?

  “You can’t get in the way of my work, Jonathan.”

  “He wants to hurt you, Monica.”

  “He doesn’t know how.”

  “You’re wrong. Very, very wrong.”

  I crossed my arms to match my legs. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  He swallowed, watching me. I watched him back. The tension made my heart pound, my palms sweat. My neck broke out in goose bumps, but I would not waver.

  “I do have something to tell you,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “When I say I own you, it’s just a manner of speaking. It doesn’t mean you don’t have your own life, or you’re a possession I can throw away when I’m bored. It means I am directly responsible for your well-being. If I sense a threat to your health or happiness, I will step in to protect you, even if you don’t want me to.”

  Those words, so cold and practical, without a flowery phrase or hyperbole, made my lower lip quiver and a swelling, wet pressure collect in my eyes. Fuck.

  “You can’t keep me from working,” I said, breathing hard, trying to forget the tears threatening to drop. “You have my word. I’m yours. You are the only man I want. I know what happened to you before—”

  “Monica, you’re not hearing me—”

  “I am hearing you. You think Kevin wants to hurt me, and I’m telling you he can only hurt me if I give him my body, which I won’t do.”

  He leaned forward as though he wanted to touch me, but wouldn’t. “You said yourself he gets raw, then he gets cold, and then he does the piece. Maybe you’re the piece.”

  I watched my hands fidget. “I can’t stop my career for maybes.” My eyes went back to him. “When I say you’re a king, you are. You rule the world. You have everything. You can do whatever you want. I’m nobody. I have nothing to call my own. I could die tomorrow, and I’d be forgotten in a year. Like Gabby. If I don’t record her music, it’ll disappear, and if I let you stop me from doing whatever I have to do to make work, I’ll disappear too.”

  I was crying full bore, with little sniffles and big, wet tears. He reached for his pocket, and I knew he would get out one of his expensive hankies. I hated that it was the second time I’d cried in front of him. I didn’t make crying a habit. I hated it. I found no release in it, just sore eyes and shame. I grabbed his hand before it could leave his pocket. “Don’t let my stupid crying get in the way of what you want to say.”

  “I wanted to say ‘blow.
’”

  “No need.” I cleared my throat, tilted my head, and pinched the corners of my eyes. Then I smiled a customer service smile. “See? All done.”

  He took my wrists and pulled me to him, gathered me up in his lap, and put my arms around his neck. “You think I’d forget you so easily?” he said, his face so close I could see the flecks of blue in his green eyes.

  “L.A. is full of pretty girls. You’d find another one.” He started to say something, some petty, pithy reassurance that would make me feel even more insignificant. I put my fingers on his lips before he could get a word out and whispered, “Shh. Behave.”

  He smiled under my hand, then kissed it. “We’re all forgotten. Every one of us. Even artists and rich men. Eventually.”

  “My voice could survive.”

  “But with what meaning? This moment, here? On this little patio? This makes us who we are, and in a week, it’s going to be a few pieces of memory. In a year… it’s gone, and everything’s changed.”

  “Are you a nihilist, Jonathan?” I stroked the hair on his cheeks as I teased him with my tone.

  “I believe in plenty. You, for one. Your loyalty to your friend. The way you took care of her and still take care of her.” He kissed my lips and kept his face so close to mine I felt his breath. “Will you let me take care of you?”

  “To an extent.”

  “I want to get someone in to put food in your fridge.”

  “No.”

  “Your deadbolt is broken. That day when I said the door was unlocked, it wasn’t. I opened the doorknob lock with a credit card. The deadbolt wasn’t even set right.”

  “I’ll fix it.”

  “I’ll get someone in.” His fingers found their way between my legs again, stroking inside my thighs.

  “Jonathan, I put the first one in. I can do it again.”