Safeword Quinacridone (46 page)

His smile was truly scary now, as he finished with, “Just as the furor over the racist video faded, I provided another that began with him spouting homophobic statements and ended with him vigorously fucking another man in the ass.”

Cara took a moment to absorb the information. “That’s terrible, Travis. You destroyed those men’s lives.”

“They wouldn’t leave me alone, Cara. They were making shit up, attempting to bug my phones, launching DOS attacks on my servers to try to hack them... I had to do something. Once I made an example of them, all harassment stopped. No one’s gone over the line in more than four and a half years.”

“But, people still follow you, and take pictures, and post them, and—”

He interrupted. “Everyone knew I was responsible, though no one could prove it. I let it be known, in a roundabout way, that I didn’t mind people trying to make a living and only had issues with those who went too far.” He smiled. “A little publicity here and there is good, after all.”

“But this tabloid absolutely went too far.”

“Yes, they did.” He turned the page. “Vernon Bishop worked for a legitimate paper five years ago. Two years ago he began taking pictures of celebrities and selling them, and realized trash journalism paid much better than the real thing. Within a few months he’d started an online gossip site and by the end of the year was publishing hard copies as well as the internet version. Either he doesn’t know how unwise it is to piss me off, or he thinks he’s untouchable.” He shrugged. “I need some time to figure out which is true, and yet a little more to decide the best way to deal with him. The company appears to comprise him, a web geek who manages the server and most of the site, and a woman who types and answers the phone and holds down the fort while he’s out photographing and interviewing. If I take him down, I’ll bring the company down.”

“It’s not fair to make those two people lose their jobs.”

He sighed. “If I find they don’t approve then I’ll find them other employment. If they help him with his sleaze, they’re on their own.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Travis procured an invitation to a movie premier, complete with red carpet and a dozen a-list actors. Cara insisted she purchase her dress and it killed Travis to let her pay thousands for it, but she told him if he brought it up again she’d find a used one at a consignment shop, so he dropped it. Jacob did well picking it out though, and she looked stunning.

He could tell she was star struck but he doubted anyone else realized, and when one of the biggest actresses commended her for not going into hiding, Cara managed to gracefully thank her and hold her own in a five minute conversation.

The next day their pictures were all over the gossip sites, and they even made one of the entertainment shows on Monday evening.

Cara fell asleep in the limo after the premier Friday night and Travis had the driver/security guy carry her up to the hotel room, to keep from waking her.

They were up fairly early Saturday since their internal clocks were still on east coast time
,
and spent the day exploring, playing tourist, and shopping. He took her to a popular club that evening and she danced with one of her movie star idols. Travis loved seeing her so happy, especially since she kept looking at him and smiling as she danced.

She managed to stay awake until they reached their hotel, but was asleep within seconds of falling into bed.

When he awakened Sunday morning his cock reminded him it’d been over a week since it’d had sex, or a blowjob, or any attention at all. Cara was spooned into him, and he reached around to fondle her breasts. Her body responded even though her mind wasn’t awake, and he worked her slowly until her hips moved to the rhythm of her moans. He pulled her top knee to her chest, probed forward with his cock, and eased into her pussy, surprised at the feral noise coming from his own chest as he sank into the comforting warmth of her body.

She finally roused, going stiff for a brief moment before relaxing in his arms, pushing her ass towards him, and moaning, “Oh god, Travis. Yes.”

He moved slow and steady without varying his pace and her moans continued ramping up until he was surprised she wasn’t thrashing around, milking his cock. He kissed the side of her neck. “Mmmmm
.
I take it I’ve managed to hit the right spot?”

“Yessssss. Whatever you did to get this angle, try to remember it
. Y
ou’re scraping my g-spot every time you go in and out. Fuck, I’m gonna come,
already
.”

Travis didn’t speed up, didn’t give her anything extra, just held her as she spasmed and jerked, her breath coming faster and faster as her orgasm rose to a crescendo and held. He must have kept at it twenty minutes and managed to keep her riding the zenith the entire time without speeding up, just slowly loving her.

As her orgasm reached yet another peak his balls stirred and he relaxed into it, letting his own pleasure have free rein as Cara’s rippling and shuddering inner walls sent him over the edge, instead of the speed of his thrusts.

Neither of them spoke for a while afterwards, they just lay, with Cara content in his embrace. Travis reflected on how she’d jump up and escape his arms after sex when they first met and thought that now, having her so relaxed and comfortable in his arms was the sweetest thing ever.

He kissed her temple and she shifted, turning a little so she could see him. “I love you so much, and that was incredible. We had vanilla sex and we both came! It was even
slow
vanilla sex. Maybe we aren’t as broken as we thought?”

“Oh Cara Mia, we’re not broken; our sexual tastes are merely a bit different.” He was quiet a second and added, “I don’t know how to explain what just happened, though.”

Her expression transformed into a dreamy smile, and she said, “Magical? Breathtaking? Exquisite?”

Travis laughed and pulled her to him a little tighter. “How about all of the above? What do you want to do today? I need to give the pilot a rough timetable but I’m good with either heading home early or exploring some more and flying back tonight.”

She grinned her naughty smile and said, “I vote we get some breakfast and head back, and have sex in the plane the entire way home.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Cara had spent at least two days and nights in her solarium. She’d napped on and off for maybe six or eight hours combined, the rest of the time so absorbed by painting she’d barely noticed the passage of time.

This wasn’t Travis’ first experience with her manic painting phase. They’d lived together for over a year and he’d learned how to take care of her without pissing her off when she grew so consumed by her need to paint she’d only occasionally stop for a one or two hour nap.

She drank water and ate nutrition bars when he put them in her hands, as he insisted she stay hydrated and get enough sustenance to keep from losing weight. She knew he kept an eye on her — he was honest about the video cameras out here from the start or it would’ve creeped her out. She also figured Papa Bear and Kiki had told him how to handle her when she got like this.

However, she was finally finished and ready to begin the clean-up process. She pulled out her turpenoid and soap, removed the brushes and pallets she’d stored in the freezer while too busy working to bother with cleaning, and had almost everything free of paint and in its proper place when Travis walked through the door. She looked up at him, then down at herself, covered in paint.

“What do you need, Cara.”

“I need help winding down, please. But I’m a mess.” She hadn’t talked in so long
,
her voice sounded unfamiliar.

“I’ve sent everyone home for the day. I love you like this, with your work still all over you. Don’t clean yourself
. F
inish washing your brushes and pallets and meet me in the playroom, please.”

He turned to leave and she said, “Travis.” His hand touched the door as he stopped, but he didn’t turn around, for which she was grateful. It was easier to say things to his back than his face sometimes.

“I need pain, but I’m afraid of how this feels. I don’t think I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

His back still to her
,
he said, “Do you trust me to not take you too far?”

“Yes. I’m just telling you I don’t trust myself to warn you.”

“I won’t harm you Cara. I’ll hurt you but I won’t go too far.”

“I know. If I didn’t I’m not sure I could stay with you.”

“I need to hurt you. You need to be hurt. It’ll work out.”

He walked out without turning around and she knew it was because sometimes he was aware of how cold his face was. Sometimes, he didn’t want to show how much he needed to cause pain, to hear the screams.

* * * *

Cara detoured by the laundry room and stripped out of her clothing, loading it straight into the washing machine and starting the cycle — not that the dried paint would come out, but this would keep what was still wet from getting on anything else. She wanted to shower but knew he wanted her as she was, so she stopped in the bathroom only long enough to relieve herself, run a warm washcloth across her underarms and private parts, and brush her teeth. She hadn’t shaved in days and felt prickly. No, she felt prickly because she was manic and needed to wind down. Needed to crash. Travis would help with that.

He’d cleared the center area of the playroom when she arrived, and a spreader-bar hung from the ceiling winch. This playroom had wooden equipment stained in a soft walnut and had silk ropes instead of steel chains, and wood spreader-bars in lieu of steel. Warm and romantic. Sort of.

Without being told, she positioned herself as he obviously intended, and he put cuffs on her wrists before connecting them to the edges of the spreader-bar. He went to his knees and wrapped cuffs around her ankles, and she passively watched him tie them off to recessed anchor points in the floor, pulling her legs to the edge of comfort.

He stood without looking at her and walked to the side of the room to retrieve a rolling cart, pushing it in front of her so she could see the contents — his electrical equipment and steel butt plug, a small dish with nipple clamps, the bullwhip coiled around it, and several floggers hanging from hooks on the side. She looked up and saw cold eyes in an icy face.

“No objectification tonight, Cara. I’m doing this to you. I see
you
, the woman I love. And I will see you hurting. Tell me your safeword.”

“Quinacridone.”

He picked up the steel plug
,
large but not obscenely so
,
and put lube on it while she watched. She didn’t turn her head as he stepped behind her and she soon felt the cold tip of it pushing at her ass, but she didn’t relax.

“Let me in or have it forced.”

She needed violence and subjugation, wanted him to conquer her, and she clenched shut.

An unlubricated finger pressed in and she couldn’t stop it. He pulled sideways in her ass, prying her open and making room as she tried to hold herself closed. The finger left and something squeezed her clit, and pain rocketed through her, stealing her breath. She must have relaxed momentarily at the shock because the plug pressed in, breaching the outer muscles, invading. He pushed harder and faster than was comfortable and she squeaked in pain as the widest point passed, and it was in. She clenched around it, didn’t try to relax and accept it. She
wanted
to feel it.

He threaded the wire through her legs and connected it to the steel butt plug, and Cara was thankful for his silence as he adeptly installed equipment. He didn’t look at her face as he placed pretty, silver clover clamps on her nipples; her gasps of pain apparently enough. Brown twine connected her nipples to the spreader-bar over her head, keeping tension and lifting them high until she went to tip toes.

Travis reached for one of the harsh floggers that a year earlier he’d have ended with, not started. She wanted him to begin with the whip today, to be even more vicious than he planned, but she didn’t say anything.

He circled behind her and started at full strength, giving her no warm-up and no time to get used to the flogger. She could see him in the mirror, his arm traveling in a rapid figure eight pattern so the strands continually struck right, left, right, left again and again without slowing as he moved from shoulders to ass, and back again.

She wasn’t screaming yet, but released gasps and moans with the occasional “Fuck, that hurts” thrown in. He’d once told her true pain didn’t begin until one was past the ability to form words, but the phrases kept materializing. Maybe she was trying to make him hit her harder, because that’s the affect speech usually had during this kind of scene — challenging him to take her past the point of rational thought.