Crave Me Read online

  I could have denied it, but I’d already accused him of lying to me earlier. Slipping my arms into the sleeves of my pajamas, my fingers trembled as I worked the large, plastic buttons. “Yes, I’m turned on at the thought of you spanking me, and yes, I’m confused.” Once my breasts were covered, I fixed my attention on him. “What are we doing here?”

  “Spending time together. Getting to know one another so we can trust each other better when we play. Are we complaining?” His arms crossed over his still bare chest.

  I drank in the delicious expanse of his skin and muscle and power he’d just used on me, before lifting my head to him. “No. I’m not complaining. So you’re saying this is all clinical? Something you do with all your subs?”

  “You’re not just a sub, Chloe. You and I have a history and your family complicates things.”

  “Right.” I stepped into my pants and re-tied the waistband. He pushed off the wall and became a blockade in front of me, preventing me from leaving the room. “So glad we could work on our trust tonight, then.”

  “Give me a small break, here. Your family finds out about this, who knows what in the hell they’d do. Go public? I’d lose my job, my entire teaching and coaching career. You know what’s at stake for me in this.”

  All the enjoyment of the evening and the exceptional orgasm he’d given me vanished.

  “Okay, then. Thanks for stopping by.”

  I went to skirt around him but he flung his arm out, gripping my bicep. “Don’t get bratty on me now. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

  “Then why did you come here?” I was seething. I knew his risk, but I could handle my family if something ever did happen. Cassie despised him, but she hadn’t given them the full specifics, either.

  His lower jaw popped out, gritting his teeth together. “Because I like being around you and I wanted to see you. Can’t it be enough?”

  “Only if you’re honest about it.”

  He swiped his hand through his hair. Cursing, he stepped back from me and locked both his hands together behind his head. “What if I don’t know how much I’m thinking is honest yet?”

  “Then figure it out, but don’t toy with me while you do.” I shot him a look, revealing the pain in my eyes. I wanted him. Stupidly, I’d gone after him. He knew I wanted him for more than just his magnificent dick and teaching skills.

  “I’m sorry.” His hand fell and he reached for me. Curving his hands around my shoulders, his thumbs brushed my collarbone, tickling me. “I didn’t mean to. I am being honest. I want to continue training you, but I want to spend time with you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for months, Chloe. I’m not talking about last week when you were at Luminous.” His eyes darkened in a way I knew the memory of me on the cross still made him want to shove his fist through the wall. “But since the gala. There’s my honesty. I’m also one hundred percent certain a relationship with us would not work out, not long term.”

  I flinched at the surety in his voice even if he was right. I couldn’t very well bring my sister’s ex-boyfriend to family dinner.

  “I understand.”

  “It doesn’t mean we can’t hang out more often while we’re doing this. Privately, though, so your parents don’t run into us.”

  A dirty kept secret. I wasn’t one to slink around with anything but given his concern, his job, I understood, too.

  I lifted a hand and covered his, squeezing it warmly. “Okay.”

  He kissed my forehead. “Now. How wet, exactly, did you get when I mentioned spanking you? How about you show me, so I can make it all better for you?”

  I rolled to my toes, whispered exactly how wet I was for him, how much I wanted him.

  Hours later, when he collapsed next to me, after giving me two more orgasms, one with his fingers, one with other parts of him, pinning my hands to the mattress above my head, he’d made everything completely all better, for the first time since I could remember.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chloe

  I stood in front of my full-length mirror in my small bedroom and ran my hands down the length of my skintight bright red dress. A garter belt beneath and stockings were the only other things I wore until I put on matching red shoes with spikes for heels. No under garments, per Simon’s rules.

  His exact words last night when we spoke and he told me he was taking me to Luminous, putting me back on a St. Andrew’s cross, had actually been, “I don’t want anything hindering me from touching you, wherever and whenever I want.”

  The dress, while modest in the front with a neckline cutting straight across my collarbone, left my back completely exposed. It dipped down to just above my ass and one wrong move could expose the sides of my breasts, my butt, or my pussy to anyone.

  I slid into the heels which gave me an extra five inches in height and reached for the black coat I’d draped on my bed.

  Simon would be here soon.

  With another quick glance at myself in my mirror, I fluffed my hair, gathering what had gotten stuck in the coat so it fell down my back. I’d gone light on my makeup, especially the mascara, so if what he did caused me pain, it wouldn’t be evident by streaks down my cheek.

  To say I was nervous was an understatement. As we talked over the week, he decided going back to Luminous sooner rather than later was best for me. He wanted to get me back on the cross and give me a completely different experience. Hopefully it would end in pleasure and orgasms and not pain and tears.

  To say I was excited was also an understatement. I’d been to Luminous a handful of times before the night a few weeks ago, but while I’d spent time in the main social area, I hadn’t seen what all the rooms had to offer. Tonight, I was hoping to explore all of it, from the group rooms, some I hadn’t yet entered, to hopefully, one of the private ones.

  After his declaration on Sunday when he’d said he wanted to see me and hadn’t been able to stop thinking of me, he’d handed me a kernel of hope. I wanted to plant it and watch it grow, to show him we would be perfect for each other, despite his reservations.

  But after he left, we’d barely spoken throughout the week. Short conversations, nightly check-ins with hints at flirting and teasing, but mostly it seemed like he was keeping his pulse on me, ensuring I was okay like a Dom would do, and not as some guy who wanted to be with a woman.

  With a fortifying breath, which did little to quell my nerves, I grabbed my small clutch bag, an overnight bag because he’d told me I was staying at his place, and left my apartment, locking it behind me.

  I was stepping out of the elevator at the main floor just as Simon walked into the lobby. The doors to the elevator dinged closed behind me, but I was frozen in my spot on the wood floor. God, he took my breath away. Every time I was around him, he seemed to become more attractive. Lickable. Kissable. Huggable and lovable and a slew of other—ables I couldn’t express with more than a whimper.

  Dressed in a black suit, white dress shirt, black tie, his pants were a slim cut and his shiny black dress shoes ended in a severe point at the toe. He could have just stepped out of a model shoot from a men’s fashion magazine, not showered after a high school hockey practice.

  Simon, on the other hand, had no problems sauntering toward me like he owned not only the apartment building, but me, as well. He wasn’t too far off the mark.

  “You are stunning,” he said, reaching me and taking my hand in his. “You ready for tonight?”

  I stared at him. So much stunning beauty smiling down on me, it was hard to think straight.

  “Chloe?”

  I didn’t answer.

  His head tilted, eyes narrowed with concern. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, um. I’m okay. Just, you look good.”

  He laughed softly, lifted his other hand and slid it to the side of
my neck. His hand always landed there, a gesture of possession as much as I knew he was checking my fluttering pulse. “Trust me, no one will be looking at me tonight. They’ll all be staring at you. Ready?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I’m ready.”

  He pulled me toward him and gently kissed my cheek. “No need to be nervous, Chloe. I’ll take care of you.”

  I nodded against him. The brush of his unshaven stubble across my skin made me shiver.

  “Let’s do this, then.”

  He chuckled softly, but wrapped his hand around my elbow and held me to his side. I waved good night to the security guard and when we were outside, Simon helped me up into his Tahoe. Once we were enclosed in his SUV, he pulled out onto the street and headed east on Michigan Avenue. Every block he drove us closer to Luminous made my pulse and nerves pump harder in my veins.

  “There’s no reason to be scared,” he said. “I can feel you thinking from here.”

  I glanced at him and then out my side of the window where business and apartment buildings flew by. It was dark, the sun having set hours ago. The streetlights curved over the sidewalk and light from windows sparkled in the crisp, clean night air.

  “I’m not scared,” I admitted, my voice small, barely audible over the quiet country music playing in his SUV. “I’m nervous.”

  “They’re not altogether different. Nerves come from a place of fear, even if it’s a small speck of it.”

  He was trying to calm me, but knowing he’d be baring my body and whipping it in a matter of hours in front of whoever wanted to watch, wasn’t something I was used to. My first public experimentation didn’t exactly end so well for me.

  “What are you nervous about the most?”

  I kept my gaze on the window, startling as his hand landed on my thigh. Through my sheer black stockings, he was warm to the touch. His thumb brushed up and down my skin, electrifying me.

  “Answer me,” he said, when I didn’t answer. “And uncross your legs.”

  I did the second first, and gasped when his hand brushed high on my leg. His fingers dipping to my inner thigh where the tops of my stockings met my flesh.

  “Chloe.”

  I had to fight the urge to cover his hand with mine, to stop his firm movements against my flesh. He pushed higher, tugged my legs further apart. Warm air from the heater hit my center and I flinched.

  I pulled my gaze off the window and turned to him. He glanced at me before looking back on the road. “Tell me.”

  “What if I can’t forget the last time,” I said. My hands curled into fists at my sides as I fought through the nerves. “What if with everyone watching, I can’t let go?”

  His lips lift into an amused smile. His hand on my thigh drifted higher, squeezed firmer, and then his finger was at my sex.

  “God,” I whispered at the hint of what was to come.

  “You think I’d put you in a room filled with people and not ensure the only person you were thinking about is me?”

  “I think you’d try to ensure it.”

  He glanced at me again, smile fading. Another brush of his fingers against my sex had my toes trying to curl in my heels. “The main part of submission, Chloe, is trusting your Dom to take care of you. It’s my job, my duty, to be certain you’re in the right headspace anytime we play. You understand that, right?”

  Intellectually, I totally got it. It was the emotional aspects that scared the hell out of me.

  “I understand.”

  “But?”

  “But I’m afraid of disappointing you. Of not being able to let the rest go, I guess.”

  He laughed, quiet but warm. The ache, a pinch of fear in my chest lessened as I took in his softened features. “I find it amusing,” he said, and pressed his fingers against my slit, slid them back and then worked a finger deep inside of me. “That you can be in this car, listen to every command, take my fingers like you need to fuck me in the next five seconds, and be scared you won’t be able to focus on me with other people around.”

  “Shit.” I gasped, my head fell back against the headrest as he pressed and pulled his fingers inside me. Out and in, slowly but firmly. My hands curled around the edges of the leather seat and I arched into him.

  “You get wet at the mere mention of being spanked. Sucking my cock makes you orgasm like my cum is your reward. Once I get you strapped to the cross, my fingers inside you, pinching and biting your nipples, I’m certain you won’t have any trouble focusing on me, and what I’m telling you to do, what I’m making you feel.”

  My body was heating, primed for release, and I shifted against him, rolled my hips to try to suck his fingers deeper. His voice hit my ears as though he was speaking through a tunnel, barely registering but echoing deep inside. “Simon,” I mewled, unable to express anything else.

  “Sir.” He clipped the word forcefully, pulled his fingers out of me.

  “What?” I turned to him just as he inserted the fingers he’d had inside me into his mouth. He cleaned the taste of me off himself before dropping his hand back to my thigh like nothing had happened.

  “You’re just going to stop?”

  He grinned, wide and full of mirth and fulfillment. “Just think, now you’re so close to coming, once I touch you, even if dozens of people are watching, the only thing you’re going to want is relief.”

  I huffed and turned away but his hand came down on my thigh, spanking me and sending a jolt to my center. “Ow! What the heck?”

  “Tonight, you also need to remember the rules of the club and how you’re supposed to treat your Dom. No eye rolling or annoyed looks, not while we’re in there. At least, unless you want to be punished.”

  Before, he’d promised orgasm denial as a form of punishment. That was the last thing I wanted.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, my voice petulant in tone, obedient in word.

  Uncertainty swirled inside of me. I’d been so mortified last time I left. Needing something to get my mind off everything, and how he’d left me so aroused, I dug into my little clutch and pulled out my small tin of mints. I popped it open and dumped two into my mouth. I’d just clicked the tin closed when Simon’s hand covered mine.

  “What is that?”

  “My mints?”

  He took the tin out of my hand and brought it to his face, inhaling.

  “What are you doing?” I laughed softly. His gesture was absurd. The heat in his eyes as he glanced at me, anything but.

  “You always smell like cinnamon. Just a hint of it. I’ve been wondering for six months whether you chewed gum when I wasn’t around or snuck shots of Fireball Whiskey.”

  I laughed at the image. I rarely even drank. A beer or two, wine in moderation. I didn’t enjoy losing control unless I was kneeling at his feet.

  “Sorry.” I took my mints back and put them in my clutch. “Not a whiskey addict, just a mint one.”

  “I like it. Every time I get a whiff of something cinnamon now I think of you.”

  This man. He made my heart beat so rapidly I feared it could leap from my chest. And he’d thought of me, the taste of me. He’d admitted it before, but he’d just admitted to doing it frequently.

  It cleared away all the doubts, all my lingering fears. I trusted this man. I always would.

  He squeezed my thigh in warning before letting go. “Good job, Little Bird. Trust me. You’ll do just fine tonight.”

  * * *

  The last time I was at Luminous, Jared had walked up to me and introduced himself before I was able to make it to the bar. He’d played the perfect Dom. He asked me if I was owned by anyone and if I wanted to play. We’d gone through a brief contract negotiation before he took me to one of the public playrooms.

  I’d been enamored by all of it, and yet excited to finally get started, to find
what I’d been wanting for so many years, even if it wasn’t going to be at Simon’s hands.

  The memory of the pain of the cane whipping across my back made me freeze as Simon and I walked through the social room together. His hand, firm on my lower back, fingertips sneaking around to my hip, rubbed slowly up and down.

  “You’re thinking too much,” he said, peering down at me with all the understanding in the world. “I believe I told you not to, tonight.”

  I dropped my gaze from his eyes and to his shoulder, my hands curling into tiny fists at my sides. “It wasn’t you who was humiliated, either.”

  I glanced around the room, as if I felt eyes on me, people watching me, like they knew I was the naive, inexperienced submissive who allowed herself to be beaten.

  Simon reached out. His thumb and finger pinched my chin and dragged me back to him. I wasn’t prepared for the anger in his expression. Had he not had such a firm grip on me, I’d have stumbled backward. “You will not talk about yourself like that. Not around me, and if I ever hear you have, I’ll spank your ass so red you won’t be able to sit for a week. Nothing that happened last time you were here was your fault.” His head dipped lower, stormy blue eyes inches away from mine. “Do you understand me, sub?”

  His hand slid from my chin and he wrapped it around the front of my throat, holding me with one hand to him. His touch undid me. It showed his strength and control along with his constant need to be connected to me. The brush of his fingers against the pulse at my neck evaporated my fears.

  He had me. He was in control of me. With Simon, I had nothing to worry about. “Yes, sir.”

  “I brought you here tonight to give you a better memory than last time. And trust me, by the time I’m done working you over, you won’t remember a single moment of your time here before. All you’ll remember is the pleasure I give you. Understand?”

  His hand had tightened on my throat, not enough to choke me, but it forced me to pay close attention to every move he made, every word he spoke. And all of it made me relax. A warmth spread from his hands at my neck to my shoulders, down through my limbs, loosening me and making me pliable.