Pain and Pleasure (5 page)

He looked away first, reaching into the cage, bending to collect my clothes. He handed them to me one at a time, and I dressed, feeling slutty and dirty, in need of a long, hot shower. Once I looked as presentable as I could, I stepped out of the cage and we crept back the way we had come. In the store, everything was as it had been, the aisles deserted, the stock on the shelves replenished. I wondered whether the employees who had seen us had been speculating where we’d gotten to then I decided I didn’t care.

“You go and find something to buy,” Gabriel said. “And I’ll meet you outside.”

I nodded then walked away, conscious that I must have had that just-been-fucked look.

Again, I didn’t care.

I went over to the clothing area and browsed through the underwear, losing track of time as I always did when deciding what to buy. I was drawn to a pair of lacy white knickers. I was all for wearing the same clothes tomorrow, but the underwear had to be clean.

At the till, the two women who’d been nattering earlier continued their conversation as though I wasn’t there, one of them scanning my purchase.

“That’s one lucky lady,” the blonde one said. “What I wouldn’t give for my husband to buy me those.”

I frowned, staring at the knickers. “What, these?” I asked.

“No, not these ones,” the brunette said. “Some bloke who was in here. Just served him. Rugged-looking. Really—and I shouldn’t be saying this—sexy!”

I smiled, knowing she’d meant Gabriel. Oh, yes, he was sexy, but he was
my
sexy.

That brought me up short. I was already thinking of him as mine.

In too deep, too fast?

The brunette held her hand out for cash.

I didn’t have any.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered. “I’ve left my bag in the car. Could I just…?”

Blondie waved her hand. “Yep, it’s not like there’s a queue waiting, is it?”

They laughed uproariously at that, and I quickly walked off toward the main doors, their chatter resuming behind me. Outside, a slap of wind barged at me, and I zipped my coat up then dug my keys out of my pocket. I reached my car, looking around for Gabriel, but like at the train station, he wasn’t there. I frowned, pressed the key fob, the resulting blip-blip loud in the quiet night, then reached inside for my bag.

Something white caught my attention, to my right, on the windscreen. I turned to see what it was. A pair of lacy knickers had been secured beneath the wiper—the exact pair I’d been about to buy.

“Do you like them?” Gabriel asked.

I stood upright then turned around to find him standing behind me, the faint light from a Victorian street lamp taking him from outright silhouette to gray. His smile was barely visible in the darkness, but it was gentle, much as I imagined his eyes would be if I could see them clearly.

“I saw you choosing,” he said. “And you kept going back to those ones, putting the others on the hanger again.”

I swallowed the lump that had suddenly landed in my throat. “That’s… They’re lovely.”

He went to the front of the car, raised the wiper then lifted the knickers off, holding them up. “You’ll look beautiful in these. And I’ll have much pleasure ripping them off.” He stepped around my open door and tugged me toward him, tossing the underwear into the car. Kissed me soundly. “But for now, Isabella, you’re going to take me home, and we’re going to have a nice long shower—shared, of course—then fall asleep, into dreams of dirty alleys and fucks against walls.”

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

A Bit of Strange: Beauty and Pain

Harlem Dae

Excerpt

Chapter One

Every morning was the same routine, except for weekends, when I didn’t have to get up at stupid o’clock to catch a train to work. Monday to Friday saw me wishing I could do something different—so different that if my colleagues or friends heard about it they’d possibly think I’d gone insane. I wanted…I wanted a man, plain and simple. A stranger who wouldn’t see me as a brazen tart if I approached him in public and made it clear that I wanted to have sex with him. A stranger who’d desperately want to see me again after our first fuck, beg me to meet him at the same time the next day. Until we were together again I would become his everything, dominate his thoughts, hold his desires harnessed.

Did such a man exist?

Did I have the courage to go and find out?

Had I already met him without knowing?

These were questions that spun web-like in my mind. But I wanted clarity. I wanted answers, so today I was going to pay a bit more attention to what I wore and see if that kick-started my luck.

I needed something alluring, a red skirt a little shorter than I’d usually wear to the office, a flash of stocking lace visible, perhaps even the suspender clips. A black chemise, with lace on that, too, just above my breasts, the kind that would make a man wonder if I had a bra on underneath. I slipped on black stilettos then turned to look at my calves to make sure my stocking seams were straight.

Perfect.

I secured my hair on my crown in a loose bun with tendrils hanging around my face. I thought of the coming train journey and how, even though it was winter, the bright sun, as it streaked through the window, would highlight the blonde. My makeup didn’t take long. I went for the understated look—a thin covering of foundation, light brown dusting on my eyelids, one sweep of the mascara brush per set of lashes and a faint tinge of red on my lips.

Downstairs in the kitchen I poured a coffee. With my backside pressing against a cupboard, I sipped my drink and thought about the scenarios I’d envisaged so many times before. Life rarely reflected my fantasies these days, but nevertheless I looked forward to seeing just what would happen when I approached the man I’d been ogling for the past two months.

Could he be the man of my sordid dreams?

Oh, he was very different physically from my last lover, Ian, who had been a dab hand with the tools of the trade, but sadly his roving eye had meant he hadn’t been a keeper.

This bloke, though, I didn’t care if he was a keeper or not. He was a stranger and that was the way my fantasies had headed of late. A little dangerous maybe, but hey, I could never be accused of having boring daydreams. They always hung on the edge of extreme—it was my favorite place to be.

He didn’t wear a wedding ring, this new man, but that didn’t mean anything these days, did it? He traveled alone, boarding and getting off at the same places I did every morning. He’d glanced at me a few times, but if I’d ever caught him staring it hadn’t appeared to bother him. He’d stared harder, if anything, until I’d been the one to look away.

Today I wouldn’t.

I glanced at the time, startled to see it was bordering on seven thirty. I tipped my remaining coffee into the sink, shrugged on my long black winter coat, slung the handle of my bag over my shoulder then left the house.

October was a strange month, all frost with a mean bite, the wind sometimes so fierce it stung my face. Thankfully the pavements weren’t slippery this morning, so my choice of shoes hadn’t been a bad idea. I got into my car, a trusty red VW Beetle I’d had for years, and peeled away from the curb, destination the train station. On the way there, I entertained myself with thoughts of the man and how he was in for the surprise of his life today—providing he was single and everything went to plan. Perhaps he was driving to the station, too, an Audi or a convertible of some sort his vehicle of choice. Black, yes, it would be black, new, to match his crisp suits, and he’d drive like the wind so he didn’t miss the train.

So he didn’t miss seeing me.

That was a nice thought, him feeling the same about me as I did about him. He’d given no indication that he wanted to fuck me, his glances more along the lines of eyeing the goods but maybe not wanting to eat them. But, God, how I wanted him to eat
me
.

I pulled into the station car park and got out to surreptitiously look around for black Audis and convertibles. There weren’t any, of course there weren’t, but it was fun all the same. After making sure my parking permit was showing on the dashboard, I secured my car and walked toward the payment windows. There were small queues, perhaps three or four people in each, and I tagged onto the end of one and stared around some more.

He wasn’t in any of them.

A swift gust of wind slapped one side of my head, sending loose strands of my hair whipping across my face. I reached up to shift them, momentarily blinded as I fought to tuck them behind my ear.

“Here, let me do that?” a man asked.

I turned to find
him
standing behind me. All six feet of him towered there, and he looked down with a quirk to his lips and his dark eyebrows raised in question. I blinked to cover my shock, making sure I didn’t let my mouth hang open. I struggled to find anything remotely sexy to say—after all, hadn’t his offer been a sexy one? Intimate? People didn’t ask if they could touch your hair if they didn’t know you, did they?

But he does know me. Sort of.

My stomach churned with the kind of excitement all my dreams coming true at once brought. I swallowed, hoping the nerves I suddenly felt weren’t displayed on my face.

He was so bloody beautiful. Eyes darker than the most taboo sin, the stubble on his chin just as dark. His lips were a color between red and pink, not scarlet or rose or anything I could put a name to. He appeared to have broken his nose at some point, although it wasn’t so skewed as to make it obvious, and with a rigid jaw and a look to him that spoke of a man who could stand up for himself if he had the need, I thought he might be a boxer.

“Or would that be considered too forward?” he asked. “You know, me taking that hair…” He held up one hand, finger and thumb poised as though he itched to sweep the hair away.

“No, no,” I managed. “You can take it if you want.”

Take it in your hand and wrap it around your fist, tug it hard, make my head do what I’ve fantasized it would do.

He reached out and brushed my face free of stray strands with his fingertips, his skin dusting over mine and sending my knees weak.

“That’s better, I can see you now,” he said, hand lingering mid-air.

His voice was one that could send a girl insane with want, need, and every other sexual emotion all at once. Like the darkness of his eyes, it reeled me in, coaxing me to respond.

“Thank you,” I said, annoyed that nothing else had come out. I wanted to say so many things, had rehearsed them time and time again until I knew every scenario off by heart. But this scenario—no, I hadn’t dreamt of this one.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he said, lowering his hand back to his side. “You know, touch you in some way. But you don’t do that kind of thing, do you? At least I don’t.”

“But you just did,” I said, sounding out of breath. And I was. It was proving difficult to draw air in.

“I did, and I don’t regret it.”

“Neither do I.”

Someone coughed. “Next!”

I swiveled to see the ticket line had diminished and a large gap yawned between me and the payment window. I wished I could say ‘fuck the damn ticket, I’m just talking to this man here’, but I dutifully approached the window and apologized. I paid, received my stub then turned to find the man had gone. I glanced about, hoping to spot him in another queue, but he wasn’t in any of them. Deflated, yet eager to seek him out again, I rushed to the platform around the corner of the ticket kiosk and looked from left to right.

There he was, sitting in his usual place on a red metal seat, all long limbed and broad shouldered, his legs sticking out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He seemed at ease as he held a newspaper and read it, although I liked to think that he wasn’t taking any of the words in. That he was thinking about me instead.

Usually I remained standing on the platform, wanting to beat the mad dash when the train arrived and avoid being crushed. To get my pick of seating near a window so I could gaze out and daydream. Today, though, today was going to be different.

I walked toward his bench. A gust of wind sallied along, whistling through a wire mesh refuse bin, jostling its contents before attacking his newspaper. He battled to keep it from crumpling or being blown out of his hands and must have decided he was going to lose the fight. He folded it as best he could then tucked it beneath one arm. I imagined him thinking that he’d read it when he was settled on the train.

I had plans to distract him from reading.

I sat beside him then hooked one leg over the other, letting my coat fall open so he could get a good eyeful of my exposed thigh, knee and shin. A sneaky look down confirmed that the lace of my stocking top could be seen if only he’d lean across a bit and take a peek. I placed my hands in my lap, entwining my fingers, and studied him.

He was staring at me—not at my legs as I’d hoped, but my face.

“Well, hello again,” he said. “I thought you’d have been standing over there like you always do.”

“Why would I, now that I have someone to talk to?”

That had been the best I could come out with at this point. My lungs were tight, as though being this close to him had rendered them useless, and I willed myself to breathe normally, to appear a woman in control of her emotions. And perhaps I
did
appear that way. He wasn’t to know that my heart was hammering wildly and my mouth had gone dry, that I’d never done anything like this before in my life and hadn’t ever thought I would. But there I was, sitting as close to him as I dared, our thighs almost touching, the tops of our arms an inch or so apart. If I tilted my head I could rest my cheek there, feel the softness of his suit. It would be cold, what with the weather, but would soon warm up.