.jpg)
by Alexa Riley
He slowly strokes my ankles, and then my calf, making me close my eyes to enjoy the sensation. “You have the most perfect legs I’ve ever seen.” His words draw my eyes back open. After a moment he speaks again. “You’re not running from the room.”
“Should I be?” I say lazily as he continues to rub me.
“No, I would never hurt you.”
“I didn't think you would.” I didn't. Not even for a second did the thought cross my mind. I was just more startled to catch Charles in action. I heard he runs his business with a firmer hand than others. I’d lived on the street for a few years before I came to work with the Cortez brothers. Seeing two men fight is nothing new to me. While we might be in a fancy hotel, men don't like when you fuck with their shit, and I'm guessing that's what happened here.
I’d never seen him act like that until today, but I'm not a terrible judge of people. I feel like if Charles needed to make a threat, it was due. I also know Aaron and Justin wouldn't let me near him if they thought he’d harm a hair on my head, but I’m starting to wonder if they thought about my heart.
“Do you want to ask me?”
I do, but I just shrug, going with my ‘less is more’ rule.
“Kitten, I’ll tell you anything if you ask.” I like that there are no games with him.
“Why do you want to,” I raise my eyebrows, “put him into a hole?”
“Doesn't seem so intimidating the way you say it,” he laughs, but his tone soon turns serious. “They’re after my father’s casinos.”
“I thought your casino wasn't tied with your father’s.” I looked Charles up online before I came to work for him. I knew he owned his own casino and that his father had a string of his own as well, but they aren’t affiliated.
“It’s not. Doesn't mean I wouldn’t step to my father’s defense if I saw someone trying to poach his casinos.”
Leaning up, I palm his cheek, feeling his rough stubble barely breaking the skin. I rub my thumb across it. “Goo in the center,” I say, looking into his dark eyes, and he leans into my hand. Most people probably wouldn't think he cares about his father’s casinos considering how he wouldn't take any of his money. I'd read that too.
“Goo?”
“So hard on the outside, but all gooey and soft on the inside.”
“I’ll always protect what’s mine.”
I understand what he means. I’d do anything for Aaron and Justin. That is part of the reason I’m sitting here right now.
I have to ask. I don’t want it sitting at the back of my mind where I keep pushing it, lying to myself that it doesn't matter.
“Is this about the Cortez brothers?” I drop my hand from his face and motion between us.
Standing up from his chair, he grips my face with both hands, making me look up at him. “Everything is about you.” He takes my mouth in a deep kiss, his tongue pushing past my lips. His hands leave my face and dig into my hair, pulling it down from the knot I have it tied in. The still-damp tresses trail down my back.
I wrap my legs around him, trying to pull him closer, digging my heels into his ass. I want his body against mine. I want to rub myself against his cock.
When I can't get close enough with my body because of the position preventing me, I use my hand on him instead. I grip his hard thick cock, and I have no idea how I’m going to get this thing inside me, but I’ll die trying. He jerks away from my touch like I burned him, pulling his mouth from me, dropping his forehead to mine.
“I have no control around you.” His words are pained.
“I thought the point of this submissive thing was that you have all the control.”
“Never doubt that you’re the one with the control, kitten. You hold all the power.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t know a ton about whatever this is but—” He cuts me off with a soft kiss.
“It’s simple. I like to be in control. It gets me off when I tell you to do something and you do it. But this,” he rubs his thumb across my lips, “what we have here doesn't follow any guidelines. We’ll make it up as we go and do whatever fits us best. Just know that everything I do is for you. Every. Single. Thing. I do. Is because I know what you need, even when sometimes you won’t give yourself that.”
I feel tears sting my eyes. The distance I was trying to keep between us falls away, and I launch myself at him. I try to crawl up his giant body to wrap myself around him. I find his mouth and I kiss him. It’s untrained and sloppy, but I just can’t help myself.
The next thing I know, my back is on his desk and he is over me, taking control of the kiss. It’s hard and desperate. Maybe he’ll finally take me and slide inside me for the first time. I’ll beg. I don’t care anymore.
I push at his shoulder, making him pull back from the kiss and look into my eyes. “Sir, I need more. I want you inside me.”
“Not yet, kitten. But I’ll take the edge off for you until tonight.” With that, he slips down my body, and I drop my legs open, inviting him to take whatever he wants from me. It’s all his. He pushes my dress up, making it bunch around my stomach.
“You seem to be able to listen to one rule today,” he says, seeing my lack of underwear, “but don’t think I’ve forgotten about the others you’ve broken. We’ll get to that later.”
Before I can try to defend myself, his mouth is on me. I buck my hips in response. He grabs hold of them, his fingers digging into my skin as he pins them in place so I can no longer move. I’m helpless against the attack of his mouth on my clit.
My orgasm hits fast, making me scream out his name. Having been on edge since he placed me on his desk, I was ready for some kind of release. I try to jerk away, the sensations too much, but he keeps sucking and licking. Just when I think I can’t take anymore, another orgasm hits, shooting through my body all the way down to my toes. I try to curl them, but my heels prevent me from doing so.
“Sir, please stop, please!” I can’t take anymore, everything is so sensitive.
He pulls his mouth from me, a smirk on his face. “Disobey my rules again and I’ll eat you to four orgasms, one right after another.”
Dropping my legs down, I lie boneless on his desk. I don't think I could survive four orgasms like that.
“Do you know how many times I imagined you like this in here? How hard it was to have you working for me, so close to me, but so far away at the same time?” He voice sounds pained again, and it breaks my heart.
“I’m here, I’m yours.”
Pulling me to a sitting position, he runs his finger along the beautiful collar around my neck. “Yes you are, and so utterly perfect.”
“Am I now?” I tease playfully. He makes me feel so beautiful and sexy, which I never would’ve thought of myself as before. But with him it's like I'm the most perfect thing ever.
“Yes, your neck.” He places a soft kiss there.
“Your ears.” He grabs onto my earlobe with his teeth, giving it a little pull.
“Your nose,” he adds, kissing the tip of it.
“Your eyes.” I close them as he places a kiss on each eyelid.
“Your sassy mouth.” He places a soft kiss there too.
“I could do this all day,” I giggle in response.
I hear the sound of a cell phone. “You better get that,” I say, placing another kiss on his mouth.
“Fuck ’em,” he mutters before kissing me again.
“It’s probably Cupid. I kinda gave him the slip.” I try to say it in an innocent voice, like I didn't really mean to escape.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the phone. “I got her,” he says when he answers.
After a second, he speaks again. “No. Hang on. Kitten, would you like something to eat?”
It wasn't long ago he fed me breakfast, but the idea of him feeding me again has me ordering lunch.
“Cream barley? Maybe a bottle of champagne?”
He repeats the order to Cupid, and then drops his phone down on the desk with a clink.
“You’ll crack it,” I warn, snatching it up to see if he did. When I touch the screen, my face shows up as the screensaver. It looks like a picture of me from last night. I’m wearing the collar, my hair is spread out against the red sheets, his thumb is to my lips, as if he’s feeling the softness of them.
“You put a picture of me on your phone?”
“Never far from me.”
He picks me up and carries me over to the sofa, sitting me in his lap.
“How come when I worked here you treated me like I was dumb?” I find myself asking him.
“You thought I thought you were dumb?” he asks, sounding appalled at my question.
“You gave me the stupidest stuff to do and hovered over me! What was I supposed to think?”
“That if I gave you bigger projects you’d be away from me more—out in the casino, out of my reach. I wanted you close to me. I spent more time coming up with things for you to do around here,” he motions around in a circle, indicating his office, “than I did actual work.”
My bitterness at that falls away instantly. Seems a lot of things with him happen that way, and I can't bring myself to question it. I question everything in my life and look at it from every angle. I’m just going to enjoy this.
“Well, why don't you bring me as close as possible right now?” I move from sitting sideways on his lap to straddling him. I don’t want him to protest, so I take his mouth in a forceful kiss, the way he kisses me. Suddenly, a knock sounds at the door.
“Kitten. Do you remember about me eating you to four? Because you’re knocking on that door.”
I crawl off his lap and plop down on the couch, pretending to pout, but he just laughs as he goes to the door. He opens it a crack and takes a tray from someone, and then closes it again.
Setting the tray on the table in front of the couch, he pops the champagne, fills a glass and hands it to me. I take a drink, and then place it back down on the table. He removes the lid from the steaming dish and sits back down on the couch next to me.
“Straddle me again.”
I don't hesitate. I crawl onto his lap. He slowly feeds my bite after bite, stopping to kiss me throughout, until the dish is empty. Everything has seemed so perfect that I just have to ask something that’s been playing on my mind. After all, he did say I could ask him anything.
“Did you have other submissives?” I know he said he’s never collared anyone, but jealousy is a nasty bitch. I’d grabbed on so quickly to how he is different with me. I want to keep a hold of it.
He hesitates for a second, making my heart drop. My face must show it, because he finally answers me. “Never. Not one.”
“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better,” I whisper, looking up at him through my lashes, not wanting to make eye contact.
He grabs my face to make me look at him. “I hesitated because I wasn't sure how I should answer. Yes, I’ve played before, but it’s been years, and never here. Also, never more than once with the same person. I didn't want to tell you because, well, I don’t want to hear about any partners you’ve had before me. That thought makes me want to dig a few more of those holes out in the desert. I didn't want you to feel that; there’s no reason for you to. There hasn't been anyone since I laid eyes on you, and there wasn’t for a long time before that.”
Shit. I feel myself tumbling over the edge of this man, and I’m just going to let myself go. I want to reassure him too. “There is no one but you,” I tell him, and he gives me one of his rare smiles. I don’t think he gets that he’s my first everything, unless you count one terrible kiss when I was seventeen. Which I don’t.
“What do you want to do, kitten? You can lie here on the sofa while I work, or I can take you up to the room. I did install an eBook app on your phone if you want to read.”
“Stay here.”
Lifting me off his lap, he sits me down on the sofa. He walks over to his desk, grabs my phone and brings it back to me.
“Be good, kitten.” He goes back to work while I drink my champagne and play on my phone, syncing it up and looking at the books that I had pre-ordered and that have come in. When he isn't paying attention, I snap a pic of him and make it my screensaver. He asks me occasional questions about work, but the next thing I know, I’m being lifted into his arms.
“You fell asleep. I’m taking you to our room.”
I notice my shoes are strewn on the floor. “You can’t carry me through the casino.”
“It’s fine. The elevator is outside the door, and I’ll carry you wherever I like whenever I like.”
“But everyone will see.”
“They already saw when we kissed that night at the bar, and when I dragged you back here after the auction.”
“Yeah, but they could think that was—”
“Don’t say anything. Trust me. They know. I’ve never acted this way before.”
My stomach warms at his words. There it is again. I’m different. He’s different for me, with me.
Soon, he has me naked in our bed, and he’s cuffing one wrist to one of the posts.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’ll only be gone for a little bit. Sleep, and when I get home, I’ll wake you up in a way you’ll never forget.”
“But what if I need to get up before you get back?” I pull at the cuff to show I have no escape.
“If I see you wake, I’ll be here in minutes.”
“See me wake?” I can hear the shock in my voice.
“I always have eyes on you.”
“But that means…”
“That you played with yourself this morning, and I had to watch you moan my name while I was on a conference call with ten other people? Yeah, I saw that. You’re lucky I forgot to tell you that only I get to make you cum. Do it again and I’ll spank your ass.”
I can’t find the words to respond. I should be pissed and freaked out that he’s watching me, but all I feel is cherished.
“Sleep, kitten,” he whispers. And I do.
8
Charles
After my last meeting, I exit my office and head home. I don’t know that I’ve ever been this excited or happy to go home before. Knowing that Mandy is there waiting on me, I can’t get there fast enough. In reality, home was a place I avoided before. There was never anyone there, and although the quiet was a retreat, after meeting Mandy, I longed for her to be there. After the first moment I saw her, I would come home and just sit and think of her.
I’ve been watching her on the cameras the whole time I’ve been in meetings. She looked like she was starting to wake up, so it’s time I go home and take care of her. The feeling of knowing she’s there now, waiting on me, makes my heart beat a little faster and puts a spring in my step. I can’t help but feel the smile spreading over my face at my excitement. I can't remember the last time something held any excitement for me.
When I get to the elevator, the doors open and reveal Cupid. He looks at me for just a second before he smiles too. I drop my smile after that, not needing to add fuel to his fire.
“Mr. Townsend.” He does a little bow as I enter the elevator and slide my card for the penthouse.
“Cupid.”
“I had a wonderful day at the spa.”
I want to roll my eyes at his comment, but I just make a noncommittal hum.
“It’s too bad I missed Mandy. She was there one minute and then gone the next. I’m glad she was able to find you. Did you two have a pleasant afternoon?”
“We did.” My blood heats thinking about how she sneaked into my office. She wanted me bad enough to seek me out. She wants me as much as I want her, and now that she’s asked for it, I’m going to give her all of me.
“I just wanted to catch you before you knocked off for the day. The Cortez brothers have requested a meeting with you and Miss Burch to check on things.”
I grit my teeth. After a moment I take a breath and answer evenly. “They can see her at the end of the thirty days. I
want the time I paid for. She’s exclusively mine until that period is up. They should know better than anyone how important that is.”
“I’ll inform them.”
The elevator doors open, and I exit. Before the doors close, I turn back to Cupid. “I’m taking the rest of the day and tomorrow off. See that we aren’t disturbed.”
“Yes, Mr. Townsend.” I see his head bow slightly, and just as the doors close I catch his grin. I don’t care if the whole world knows I’m about to fuck Mandy. She’s mine, and the more people who know it, the better.
I punch in my code and enter. I go over to the kitchen and pull a bottle of champagne out of the chiller and grab a few things from the fridge. I want to make this moment with her special.
I bring them with me to the bedroom and set everything up quietly while Mandy sleeps. The cuff I put on her wrist was loose enough that she could roll around in bed but not leave it. I wanted her to be comfortable, but also recognize that she is bound to what I want.
After getting everything in place, I go to the bed and take off her cuff. Crawling over her, I start kissing her neck. She moans slightly at the warm contact, and I kiss lower down her chest, down to her breasts. I give one nipple a long lick, and then suck it into my mouth, trying to get as much of her into my mouth as possible. When I’ve feasted on one, I move to the other, loving it the same way.
I feel one of Mandy’s hands tunnel through my hair and hold me to her. She moving under me, and I can feel how her warm soft body searches for mine. Releasing her nipple with a pop, I look up and see her sleepy eyes staring at me. She’s got a smile on her face that looks so content and happy I want it to be there forever.
“I believe you’re naked, Sir.” She moves her long legs, wrapping them around my waist, pulling me closer to her warmth.
Hearing her call me that makes everything in me want to explode. Especially my dick. I’m pressed against her wet heat, and all I want to do is to thrust inside her, hard and deep. But I want her begging me.