Resist (Songs of Submission #6) (6 page)

“I have a piano.”

“All my staff pads are at home. All my notes. Forget it.”

He picked me up gently by my biceps, but his fingertips sent bolts of not-so-sexy pain through them. He must have seen me flinch. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll come to your place. Let me drive. Please. Give me a couple of hours to do nothing but make you squirm.” He tugged at my skirt, and I hoisted myself up so he could get it back in place.

I put my arms over his shoulders and kissed him. I couldn’t help it. I had absolutely no choice. His lips sat so close to mine, and they were so responsive. His tongue ignited the smoldering fire between my legs. I wrapped my legs around him, letting his mouth take mine.

“My place until sunrise,” I said as he kissed my jaw, then my neck. “Then you get the hell out so I can get to work.”

“To write,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

I pulled away. “I might also go to the bathroom once or twice. Do I need to fill out a form or call you first?”

A smile drew across his lips. A joke was incoming, but there was a click as the door was unlocked from the outside. Jonathan got his dick back in his pants before the cleaning crew swung the door open.

Chapter 12.

“Saying I don’t know what I’m dealing with is plain insulting.”

We were on the matte black rocket, which I loved because I had my arms around him, inside his jacket, and I could feel the angles and bumps of his body. I’d tucked my skirt around my thighs to his satisfaction so I wouldn’t expose my pantie-less glory to Los Angeles. Once that was settled, he’d put my helmet on me as if to cut off any further discussion. Talking to him when he was a disembodied voice was hard. I didn’t want to wait until we got to my house to talk to him because we’d be in a private place and he’d try to shut me up with sex again. It would work, for the hundredth time.

“I’m not insulting you. I’m telling the truth. Jessica can teach Machiavelli a few things,” he said through the speaker in my helmet.

“I need to see your face.”

“You’ll see plenty.”

“Stop the bike.”

We were on Sunset, by the Junction, the one neighborhood where people gathered on the street, walking from bar, to restaurant, to bar, to home.

“We’ll be to your house in eight minutes.”

“Now.”

He stopped at a light and pulled off his helmet. His hair spiked and curled with the disruption, and when he turned to me, incredulity was in his eyes. I couldn’t hear what he said, and I folded my arms. I meant what I said, no matter his unheard response.

He held the corner of the helmet to his lips, and his voice came through my helmet. “You don’t get to give orders.”

I pulled off my helmet. I could only imagine what it did to my hair, but I was past giving a shit. I put the helmet on the seat and slid off the bike.

“Monica.”

“Jonathan.”

The light changed. Horns shrieked. Curses cut the night. Jonathan and I stared at each other as our lane slowly sifted around us.

“What’s the problem?” he asked, paying the flipped birds around us no mind.

“I want to talk, and I want to do it somewhere you can’t fuck me.”

“You think dragging me into a coffee shop is going to stop me from fucking you? Shit, if I want you in the middle of this intersection, I’ll take you.”

He would, too. But also, he wouldn’t.

I stepped away from the bike. A dented Acura came to a screeching halt inches from me.

“Fuck!” Jonathan shouted, swinging his leg over the seat as if he was about to cradle my broken body in his arms.

The Acura’s driver cried obscenities. Something about me being a stupid fucking bitch. Blah blah. I’d been called worse on a random Tuesday night at the bar. I flipped him off without even looking, walking backward, drawing Jonathan out of the street.

But what I considered a meaningless gesture, the driver considered a call to arms. He leaned so far out of the car I had no idea how his foot stayed on the brake. “Get your big flapping twat outta the street, you bitch whore!”

Jonathan put the kickstand down on the bike, which I didn’t understand. Why on earth would he park it in the middle of the street? The light had turned red again, but obviously that was temporary. The guy in the Acura flung some more curses my way. Apparently, he didn’t see the guy with the stone-cold expression heading for him. If he did, he might have stopped calling me a fucking skank and started getting into a defensive posture.

Shit.

I darted in front of Jonathan, but he was moving so fast, I had almost no time to get between them. My ass pressed against the door of the car, and Jonathan was nearly there. I held up my hand. “Stop.”

“Get out of the way.”

“Hey, bitchface!” said the guy behind me.

“Get the bike, please,” I said to Jonathan.

“Get out of the way.”

“Are you a fucking adolescent? You’re going to get into a fight on Sunset Boulevard? What the fuck? Please, bend me over in the intersection instead.”

“You people are fucking crazy!” said the driver the second before the light changed. Despite the fact that I was practically leaning on his car, he took off.

More honking as Jonathan and I stared each other down in the middle of the street. More cursing as his bike sat in the middle of the center lane. We had to yell to be heard over the noise.

“Why can’t I meet with Jessica?” I demanded. “Why is it so important to you?”

“You’re asking me
here
?”

“If you can fuck me in the intersection, I can ask questions.” He grabbed my arm. I shook it off.

“You don’t know her! This is a game, and you don’t know the rules. If she gave you her number, it’s because whatever she’s trying to do to me, she’s going to use you for.”

“So you’re protecting yourself,” I said.

“And you.”

“I don’t need protecting,” I yelled. A delivery truck missed me by inches as it tried to make the light. The wind shear thrust me forward a few inches.

“Goddess,” he said, pulling me to him for safety, “you are a shitload of trouble.”

“You sorry you wanted a commitment?” Cars whipped around us at the green, horns screaming again.

“No. You’ve turned my existence into a life.”

An SUV swerved, but we held our gaze. “I’m about to turn it into your death.”

As if daring L.A. drivers to hit a couple in the middle of the street on a Saturday night, he leaned over and kissed me. I kissed him back. It’s not every day you get to flip off a whole city.

Chapter 13.

MONICA

I didn’t tell Jonathan my phone had started buzzing while we were in the street. As I dismounted in my driveway, I glanced at it.

Jessica.

As if sensing something was amiss, Jonathan took hold of my wrist. He saw the screen display his ex-wife’s phone number in brilliant backlit blue and white. His eyes flicked up to mine, the phone lighting his face from beneath, as the phone purred in my hand like a kitten. His lips tightened.

“What?” I asked.

“You know what.”

“I’m not convinced I’m a tool for your destruction. I might be a tool for your salvation. Have you thought of that?”

“What if she told you I fucked her?”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You’ll believe her. And even if you don’t, a part of you will always wonder. She’ll alienate us from each other,” he said.

“I’m insulted by the notion that I’m going to be used to hurt you. I’m not so weak-willed. Not with her or you. I’m going to see her. I’m going to let her think she’s using me, and I’m going to find out what she wants. I’m going to let her think I’m on her side.”

He gritted his teeth. “This is not a woman you take on a fishing expedition.”

“You may not love her any more, but you respect her. Which is more than I can say for how you feel about me.” I walked toward my house. I felt him reach for me, but I was too fast. I jangled my keys and approached my door.

Jonathan came up behind me, pressing his front to my back. “I’m sorry.” He nuzzled my ear.

“No, you’re not.” I turned the key.

“I am.”

“Good. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

He reached around and pushed the door open. “My apology doesn’t mean I’m letting you go.”

“I’m going.”

He pushed me in and slammed the door behind him. He reached for my clothes, attacking my mouth with his, lips churning, tongue probing, hands yanking. My hands explored him as well, taking the edges of his clothing and unbuttoning, unzipping, unfolding, exposing whatever piece of skin I could find. He pushed me back into the bedroom, kissing me as he went, stripping my shirt. He thrust me against the doorframe and lifted my bra, exposing my hard nipples. His tongue found them, then his teeth. I held the back of his head as his hand found my other breast and twisted the nipple he wasn’t sucking. My fingers ran through his hair, and my legs wrapped around him. I felt his erection, hard and hot, pressing into me as he shifted and dropped me through the doorway. We fell onto my bed.

He pulled his shirt over his head, exposing his tight, lean frame. I reached for his chest, but he held my hands down and kissed my neck then my breasts, biting where curve met plane.

“Oh! Yes.”

“Hurt?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice husky with lust. “Again.”

He did, biting and sucking the skin of my neck and breasts. I thought I’d explode. The pain was alive, coursing through my body, a sensation like pleasure but hard, cruel, heated. He opened my legs while sucking the skin of my shoulder. My pussy was ready for him. He put his head between my legs, kissing me from knee to the curve where thigh met pelvis.

“Ah, yes,” I cried.

He slapped inside my thigh, and the sting went right to my pussy. When he leaned in and bit where he’d slapped, gently, then harder, I uttered affirmations. I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted to feel it. All of it. His tongue slid over my clit while he bent my legs to my chest, his teeth on my wet cleft. His fingers scratched my skin and landed in my hole, thrusting inside. It felt, raw, passionate, all-consuming.

He sucked my clit, and the pain made bookends for the pleasure, heightening it. Reaching with his other hand, he put three fingers in my mouth, and I felt bound and helpless, like a hooked fish. The pain was my only companion as the flood of pleasure came. I screamed into his fingers, arching my back and ass off the mattress.

He kept me immobile with his teeth, fingers, and tongue, licking and sucking until even the pleasure was pain, and tears streamed down my face. He picked up his face, kissing inside my thighs, my belly, licking the diamond navel ring that came to signify his ownership of me. I breathed heavily, eyes half-closed in post-orgasmic rapture.

“I’m going to be sore all over tomorrow.”

He kissed my cheek, pulling one knee back up to my chest, gently pushing my calf until it rested over his shoulder. “You have no idea how sore you’re going to be.”

I was so wet from his mouth and my own arousal that he slid all the way into me in one stroke.

“Do it.” I gasped. “Make me sore. Make it hurt again.”

“I can make it hurt. You know your safe word?” He fucked me slowly, knees under him, my leg over his shoulder.

“Small, orange fruit.” I felt another orgasm scratching and mewling at the door. It wanted in, but Jonathan had to turn the handle.

“I need you to promise me something,” he said.

“Anything.”

“You’ll let me take care of my business.” He fucked me harder, leveraging himself by gripping my bicep.

“Yes.”

“You won’t interfere.” He went deep into a thudding pain inside.

“Yes, sir.”

“Say it.”

“Sir. I won’t interfere. Just do it. Please.” He slapped my breast, then grabbed it painfully before he slapped it again. “Yes!” I cried.

He continued, hurting me just enough to heighten sensitivity, hitting me with exuberance as I cried
yes, yes
so he wouldn’t stop. He hit my breasts, my ass, my inner thighs without humiliation or punishment. Only joy. He did it because I liked it, and he liked it. Together, we were red-faced, near laughing, sometimes screaming, twisting, begging, fucking deep and hard, shamelessly gratifying each other’s most secret needs.

And when the thunderclouds gathered, coalescing into a solid wall of sensation, blocking out the sun and sky, I had his name on my lips. Pain and pleasure became indistinguishable, and I shut down into a clenching ball of
now
. His face was close to mine. I was twisted in a knot from the pressure he put on my knees and elbows and exposed sensitivities. I caught the last of his orgasm as my sky cleared and I could see the firmament again. He dropped his head in the crook of my neck and bit. The pain brought me back to myself, like a wakeup call from a dead sleep.