“Our worlds colliding.” Adelyn grasps the back of my head and pulls me down. Her mouth takes complete possession of mine until she smiles, breaking the contact between our lips. “That was sooo good.”
Fuck. She’s happy about what just happened.
I can’t argue that the sex was good. Hell, it was fucking awesome. But my big hand was wrapped around her small throat. Squeezing. “I was strangling you while we fucked.”
“No, you weren’t. I could breathe the whole time.”
“Why did you tell me to do that?”
“It’s a huge turn-on for me.”
No way. She can’t mean that. It’s too fucked up.
I recall what she said about Martin. He knew shit. Kinky shit. And it was good. I liked it. A whole fucking lot.
“That sadistic son of a bitch taught you that, didn’t he?”
“Do you really want to go there?”
I move off Adelyn and roll to my back. I stare at the ceiling contemplating why in the world she would ask me to do something like that. “Haven’t you been hurt enough already?”
“I didn’t ask you to hurt me. And you didn’t.”
She’s wrong if she believes this is a game. “I’ve been choked by my biological father to the point of passing out. It’s not harmless.”
“It’s not about cutting off my oxygen to make me pass out.” Adelyn gets up and moves over on top of me. Straddling me. She grabs my wrists, pinning my hands over my head. “It’s about this.”
“Which is what?”
“Domination. Power. Control. How I feel when you exert your strength over me. All of it turns me on.”
“Why?”
“There’s something primal and exhilarating about a man who takes complete control in the bedroom. That’s what it’s about for me. I want to feel desire. Real desire. I need a man who will grab me and make me feel small and vulnerable and feminine but without hurting me.”
She releases my hands and sits upright, still mounted on top of me. “Outside of the bedroom, it’s all a level playing field. I’m an independent woman, and I control everything in my life. But in the bedroom… I enjoy being controlled by a strong man.”
“And choked.”
“I need an alpha male. I crave the dominance and show of strength he has over me.”
She reaches for my hands and intertwines our fingers. “You’re the first man that I’ve been able to trust in years. I couldn’t have let anyone else put their hands on me that way. It had to be you.”
She releases my hands and leans over me, propping on her lower arms. Her hands grasp my face and she presses a soft, closemouthed kiss against my lips. “Only you.”
She wants an alpha. A controller. A choker.
God help me, I like what I just did to her. I want to do it again. And that’s totally fucked up.
I spent my childhood being controlled, dominated, choked. What kind of person does that make me if I do those things to her? Even if it’s what she wants?
“I can’t do it.”
She presses her forehead to mine. “You can. You did.”
Yes, I did. And it was wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong.
“Not again.”
“I saw your face. You liked my submission. You liked putting your hand on me like that. You weren’t repulsed. And in those few moments when you held my life in your hands, I belonged to you. I knew it. You knew it. And you liked it.”
Only a monster could love holding another person’s life in his hands.
I grasp her hips and move her off me. “You’re confusing me with your last lover.”
“Don’t do this.”
I yank on my boxer briefs. “You shouldn’t have dropped something like that on me without any kind of warning.”
“I bet you’ve never come so hard in your life.”
I can’t argue with that. To do so would be a lie.
“Say it. Tell me.”
“Fine. I’ve never come so hard in my life.”
“See?” She leaves the bed and comes to me as I’m pulling on my jeans. “We’re good together. And that was only our first time.”
She kisses my chest and sucks my nipple into her mouth, biting down on it. And my dick spasms. “Imagine what it would be like after we learn how to fulfill each other’s sexual fantasies. Pure ecstasy.”
I’m scared as hell to know what her sexual fantasies are if she was brave enough to reveal her choking fetish the first time we’re together.
I pull my T-shirt over my head. “I’m sorry but this isn’t going to work for me.”
She steps away and wraps her arms around herself, hiding her nudity from me. I feel like a huge asshole so I pick up one of the towels from the floor and wrap it around her.
“We’re neighbors. We’re going to see each other. A lot. Where do we go from here?”
She looks so wounded. I didn’t want to hurt her, physically or otherwise.
She forms a faux smile accompanied by glassy eyes. “We’ll wave when we pass on the street and say hello when we see one another outside. We’ll resume our lives as they were before this relationship began, and we’ll pretend that this night never happened.”
Pausing for a moment, she quietly adds, “It can be another secret we add to our collection.”
Adelyn is special to me. I don’t want to not have her in my life. “No more hanging out?”
She looks at the floor and shakes her head. “I can’t. Not after this.”
I don’t want our friendship to end over this. “Maybe we break for a day or so and see where things go.”
A tear falls from her cheek onto the floor. She covers her face with the end of the towel and shakes her head. “No. I’m so humiliated I can’t even look at you. Please go.”
She shouldn’t feel humiliated. I was unprepared.
I don’t know how I feel about this yet, but I know that I don’t want to let her go.
“Adelyn…”
“Don’t. Just go. Please.”
There’s no damn way I can concentrate on work today. Not after my disastrous night with Adelyn.
It bothers the fuck out of me. All of it. But most of all, I hate knowing that son of a bitch who nearly murdered her is the one who taught her that kinky shit. And she likes it.
I can’t stop imagining some faceless asshole putting his hands around her throat.
What is the fascination with it?
Why does she like it so much?
Why did I like doing it to her?
I turn to the one source who won’t judge me for asking. The web.
I open a private window on my browser and do a search: choking during sex.
Choking has become the new third base.
Inspired by violent pornography.
Men want a princess in public and a whore in the bedroom.
Women want a gentleman in public and a master in the bedroom.
Some of the articles and posts I find are disturbing while others are… interesting.
Deep-rooted desires of domination are no longer taboo.
Stop asking her what she wants. Tell her what to do. Order her around the bedroom like you own her. Issue commands. You are in charge. She exists for your sexual pleasure. She exists to please you.
Choking is an indicator of your strength as a man. If you are an alpha male, a woman will crave your domination and show of strength.
Who the fuck writes this shit? And who the fuck does this shit?
Everything in my upbringing, at least from the time Mom and Dad got us, taught me this is not the way women should be handled. My parents invested a lot of time in teaching me how to treat people respectfully, especially females. They taught me right from wrong and worked hard to undo all the wrong that had been done to me.
Choking Adelyn feels like I’m doing harm to her. Hurting her. In my mind, nothing could be more wrong yet these articles claim otherwise. And Adelyn does as well.
“You look exhausted. I’m hoping that’s a sign your dat
e with Adelyn went really great.”
I jolt at the sound of Lawrence’s voice like a kid caught looking at porn. And that’s sort of what it feels like I’m researching.
I minimize the screen displaying the article “How to Choke a Woman During Sex.” Lawrence would flip out if she read that heading. Or saw the photo of a sexy couple where the man’s hands are wrapped around a naked woman’s throat.
“I didn’t get a lot of rest last night.” I couldn’t sleep. All I could think of was the disaster with Adelyn.
It was so good… until it wasn’t.
Lawry was so happy when I told her Adelyn and I were going out on a date. She insisted on coming over to choose my outfit and prep me for the evening. She said Adelyn wasn’t like the others I had dated in the last few years so I might need a little coaching on the way to treat a woman like her.
No way she could have prepared me for what happened.
As much as I love my sister and desperately need to talk about what happened, I can’t betray Adelyn’s confidence. I can’t tell Lawry we ended the night on a bad note because she asked me to choke her during sex. Which I did. And fucking liked it.
I may very well be as messed up as Adelyn.
“We hung out until it was pretty late. Had a bit to drink. You know how alcohol and lack of sleep can kick your ass.”
I hate lying to my sister.
“Sounds promising.”
Might as well let her down easy and get it over with. “I don’t think so.”
“Something go wrong?”
Try everything.
“Nothing in particular. I just think we’re probably better off being friends.”
“Maybe you should give it another shot. I definitely think Adelyn’s worth the effort.”
Lawry isn’t giving up easily. “I think it’s best we’re friends for now.”
“Romantic relationships can grow from friendships. I still have high hopes.”
The worst part of all this is that I don’t even think I’ll get to keep Adelyn as a friend. She couldn’t even look at me last night. I fear that our friendship may be broken beyond repair.
I knew going in this would end badly. Why didn’t I listen to my gut? At least then I’d still have her as a friend. I’d rather have that than what remains.
“You need a pick-me-up so come on and grab a cup of coffee before we get started.”
Monday morning production meeting. And the staff at BCC will be sitting in on this one to see how things are done.
I love talking profit, but I’m not in the mood for this today.
Per usual, Lucas leads off with financial reports and projections. Iron City is thriving and earning more money than ever before. I should be smiling. But instead, I’m thinking about a redhead covering her face with a towel and telling me to go because she can’t look at me.
“There’s a fuck-up that needs to be addressed.”
“Lucas—” If Lawry’s voice isn’t a warning, her eyes are, reminding her husband that the staff from BCC is present.
He nods his understanding and moves on to the problem: the batch of sour beer that made it out of the brewery. “It was a costly mistake. Not to mention putting us behind on production.”
Bacteria. It’s a tricky little bastard in beer production. Not harmful to a consumer but it can turn beer sour.
Porter thumbs through his log. “It was traced back to tank eighteen. It’s been sterilized a second time so the problem should be solved. But we won’t turn out the batch currently in it for another twelve days.”
Which means we wait for the verdict. It’s not the first time we’ve had to sit around and await fate.
Looks like I’ll be waiting for two verdicts over the next couple of weeks.
Waiting on the beer verdict? Not a problem.
Waiting to see what happens with Adelyn? That one’s going to cause me some stress.
10
Adelyn Maxwell
“That is not a smile I see on your face.”
It’s Monday morning. I’ve been fucked. Well fucked. But, sadly, I’m not smiling. Not even a little bit.
Maurice takes a cup from the cardboard to-go carrier. My morning white chocolate mocha. He’s my hero. “Tell your Maury all about it, darling.”
Maury is not the least bit uptight about anything. He flies a very flamboyant freak flag so I tell him things. Very personal things I can’t share with even my best friends, Jill and Kristin. And he never judges.
“You were taking Delicious Honey home with you the last time we spoke.”
“Shit.” My mocha burns my tongue. It’s hotter than normal because I’m here before my usual time. I left home earlier this morning to avoid running into Oliver.
“Oliver went home with me after we left the club and the night was going really well. We skinny-dipped, made out in the pool, and then we took it upstairs.”
Maury swishes his hand through the air. “Wait. Before this story goes any further, I need to know something. Is Delicious Honey hung?”
“Maury.” I should have known it was only a matter of time before he asked. He has no shame.
He lifts his brows. “Girl, you don’t have to tell me. I already know that he is. I could see the outline of it in his jeans last night.”
Oliver’s cock is perfect but I’m not going there with Maury. “I can’t believe you were checking out my date’s peen.”
“Not my fault. He’s the one who popped a chub. Speaking of which. Are you sure that didn’t happen when he got felt up?”
“I’m quite certain.”
Oliver was pissed off. I could see his anger beneath the surface, which was totally fair. He didn’t say a lot about it but he would have had every right. He didn’t. Because of me. And, damn, that makes me like him even more.
“All right. Continue on with the story.”
“So we were having sex.” Doesn’t every great story start out that way?
Maury interrupts me again. “Good sex or bad sex?”
I huff and roll my eyes. “Stop interrupting.”
“I need to know these things.”
“It was great sex. I’d already gotten off once and was working on orgasm number two. It was well on its way and then I looked up at Oliver. He looked all sexy-as-fuck moving over me, pumping away, and I thought to myself ‘You like this guy. You like this guy a lot. You want to be HIS. Make it happen.’”
“Adelyn Maxwell.” Maury is giving me a devilish grin. “Did you do what I think you did?”
“Oh yeah. And it didn’t fly with him. Not. At. All.”
“Ohhh. That’s not great.”
“It was awful, Maury.” I want to cry thinking about it now. “He made me feel like a freak.”
Maury has the hand and neck thing going. “Oh hell no. No one makes my girl feel that way. I’m the only freak around here.”
“He looked at me like I had three heads.” That look of disgust on Oliver’s face—it’s the reason I keep my desires to myself. I fear seeing that same expression on Jill’s and Kristin’s faces if I ever told them what I like in the bedroom. Especially Jill. She walks a tight and narrow rope.
“Want me to kick his gorgeous ass?”
There isn’t a chance in hell that Maurice could whip Oliver. A one-legged man could beat Maury in an ass-kicking contest.
“Nah, I wouldn’t want you to hurt Oliver.”
“I should probably stick to being a lover rather than a fighter. Might mess up my manicure.”
“Oliver wasn’t cruel. He showed genuine concern for my safety. Which makes me like him even more.”
“That’s more than we can say for the last one.”
“Oliver was interested in knowing why I’d want him to do that. I tried to explain but I think my words came out all wrong.” I wasn’t sure how to explain.
No man had ever dominated me sexually until Martin. Sure, I’d had sex with a few boyfriends in college, but it was always normal. Missionary. Average. Mediocre at be
st.
And then Martin happened.
I loved, loved, loved his domination in the bedroom from the very first time he put his hand around my throat. I craved it. Needed it. Most women would freak out over the things that he did to me, but the control made him so fucking sexy in my eyes. And it made me feel safe. Treasured. Loved.
Until it didn’t.
Control became obsession.
Dominance became abuse.
I thought my need to be dominated in the bedroom had faded away until I looked into Oliver’s eyes. There, I saw strength and passion. I felt safe and my desire was reborn.
“This is new to your man. He could come around after he’s had time to think it over. Absorb it.”
“I don’t think so. You didn’t see the look on his face.” And he isn’t my man.
“Well, fuck him then.”
“The thing is that we’re neighbors and I’m going to see him. I can’t not run into him. It’s inevitable even if I try to steer clear. Plus, Lawrence has hired me to plan his surprise birthday party.”
“When is that again?”
“Three weeks away.”
“Let Michelle take over the project. It’s just a birthday party. She can handle it.”
“I don’t want Lawrence to feel like I’ve flaked on her.”
My business is a professional agency. I don’t get to behave like an amateur because things have become awkward between Oliver and me.
“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”
“That’s right and boss lady says let’s get to work.” Maybe planning fun events for others will take my mind off my own misery.
Quickly, I figure out that I’m worthless. Last night keeps replaying in my head, and I can’t even choose the tableware for a simple luncheon.
Maury taps on my office door. “Lawrence Broussard is here.”
Shit. Did Oliver tell her what happened last night? Are they close enough that he would confide in her? Would he betray me so easily?
“Did she say why she’s here?”
“You smokin’ crack, girl? You have a scheduled meeting.”
“Oh, right.” I can’t believe I forgot. We’re working on Oliver’s party today. Bad timing. “Send her back.”