Slow Surrender (5 page)

I could see how it made sense to have a check-in with a friend if there was even the slightest chance things could get sketchy. But I didn’t want to go overboard. “What if I forget to call you? I don’t want you to put out an APB if I’m having a nice time.”

She sighed again and leaned against the bathroom door frame. “Set an alarm on your phone. I’m serious about this, Karina. Call or text me to say you’re okay. If you’re not okay, don’t call. Or if he’s listening and you’re pretending it’s okay but really it’s not—” She snapped her fingers, her eyes brightening. “I know! Let’s have a code word!”

“Becks, I really don’t think we need to get all James Bond about this.”

I think her enthusiasm was only heightened by the mention of James Bond, though. “No, really,” she insisted. “If everything’s fine, use the word
sunrise
somehow, and if it’s not, use
sunset
.”

“Uhhh…”

“You know. Like if everything’s all right, you could say ‘I might not be home until sunrise’ or ‘Don’t forget to sign us up for that sunrise yoga class.’”

“I thought you were supposed to be my mother.”

“You wouldn’t take a yoga class with your mother?”

“I wouldn’t tell her I’m going to be out all night with a strange…guy.” I’d nearly said
strange man
which was surely what my mother would’ve considered him, but changed at the last moment to
guy
. Although guy didn’t really fit him. Brad was a “regular guy.” James, though? He was basically the same age as Brad but was nothing like him, or the couple of other men I’d known. I really was leaping into unknown territory, wasn’t I? Maybe that was the point. I didn’t know anything about his life, and he didn’t know anything about mine. Maybe tonight we were going to sit and talk and find out all those things, though I seriously doubted it. He had asked me to dress a certain way, a way that Becky thought was whorish and that even I had called “sexy secretary.” Even if whorish hadn’t been his intent, though, I thought he probably picked the outfit because it turned him on.

I
hoped
it turned him on.

Becky cleared her throat. “So are you going to do it, or not?”

“Sorry, daydreaming.” I shook my head and stood up. “Do what?”

“Call or text me,” she said, exasperated.

“Oh, right. Yes. Okay.” I picked up my phone and set the alarm for 10:55 p.m. Then I realized the time on the phone was showing 7:01. “Shit!” I fumbled with the recent call list, trying to pull up his number.

It rang. Becky rolled her eyes at me and went back to her room. My heart was rapid with panic as it rang and rang.

Then, thank God, he picked up. “Karina?”

“Yes, it’s me!”
Calm down,
I told myself.
Try to make it sound like you thought you were right on time, not late.
I put on my “sexy secretary” voice. “Um, hello, Mr. Rich.”

“Hello,” he said, his voice warm and almost dripping through the phone. I think he was amused that I sounded flustered. “I’m in the car outside. Come downstairs.”

“Right now?”

“You have sixty seconds,” he said with a chuckle, but I didn’t think the laugh meant he was kidding. He hung up.

Quick, girl!
I stripped off the white cotton briefs, pulled on the skirt, and jammed my feet into the pumps. There was no time to figure out what shirt to put on. I was wearing a black Siouxsie and the Banshees T-shirt, a long one that was soft and comfortable. Maybe it would just look punk with the skirt and all. Maybe it didn’t matter because we were only going to play in the car or because he was finally going to collect that blow job I expected to give. Or maybe it was his fault for not specifying. These thoughts were all crowding my head as I rode the rickety little elevator down to the first floor and hurried past the mailboxes in the vestibule.

The same black car as before was sitting at the fire hydrant, and the same young man who had driven before was standing beside it in a well-cut suit, no hat this time. He opened the passenger door as I approached, then shut it after I climbed in.

My date was in the backseat, of course, taking in my appearance with a cool sweep of his eyes. He had one arm along the back of the seat, but he didn’t look relaxed.

“Did I make it?” I couldn’t help but ask. “In sixty seconds?”

“And if you didn’t?” he asked, a slight smirk coming onto his face.

“Um, I wouldn’t get my wish?”

He laughed and knocked twice on the glass that separated us from the driver. The car began to move. “If there is a chance to win, there must be a chance to lose, too,” he said. “There should be a penalty for failure.”

Something about the way he said the word
penalty
made me feel melty between my legs. He put an emphasis on the word that made it sound dirty and delicious. He had a very careful way of speaking, each word coming out at a deliberate pace, and again I heard just a hint of a British accent.

“What sort of penalty?”

“Well, ideally it would be something you don’t particularly like but something I do.” He reached up and tugged on one ear as he mulled it over. “We’ll have to discover those things as we go along. What is considered a penalty for one person might be a reward for another.” He gestured toward my legs. “Spread them a bit apart, if you please.”

I separated my knees until the hem of the skirt was taut.

“Tell me what you like, Karina.”

“What I like?”

He gestured for me to continue, giving no clues as to how to answer the question.

“I like pre-Raphaelite art.”

“Indeed? I would love to discuss it later.”

“And…and Thai food, and real ice cream.” Ugh, that made me sound like I was five, but it was difficult to think with him so close. I wanted to crawl into his lap and bury my nose in his collar, among other things.

He nodded as if my answers were acceptable and encouraged me to keep going.

“And…” I tried to think of how to say what I liked in sex. This was my chance to express that, and I knew it. But I didn’t really have a good answer. What I did know was that what little sex I’d had, when it wasn’t outright painful or uncomfortable, had been mostly disappointing. Brad had been the ultimate example of that, which gave me one saucy thing to say. “I like guys who can get it up and keep it up,” I said.

That startled another laugh out of him and he pressed his fingertips to his lips as if he were holding back more. He cleared his throat and said, “I see.”

“Are you going to tell me what you like, too?” I asked.

“Oh, but you already know,” he said. “I like telling you what to do, and I like it even more when you obey. I like it when you succeed and I like rewarding you. However, when you fail, I also like enacting penalties. So, you see, it’s a win-win game for me, so long as you continue to play.”

“Huh, okay.” I suddenly remembered he preferred me to say
yes
instead of
yeah
or
okay
. “Yes, I think I understand that,” I amended.

“Good.” His tongue darted out to moisten his lips before he continued. “Then I want you to reach under your shirt and pinch one of your nipples as hard as you can.”

“Oka—damn, I mean yes.” Why couldn’t I remember that?

“Two pinches, then,” he said, penalizing me already.

“One on each side?”

“If you like.”

I reached under my shirt and held each nipple loosely between my thumb and foreknuckle. I took a breath, then squeezed. “Ouch!” I hadn’t even squeezed particularly hard, but they were sensitive. In the moment after the pinch, though, I felt a lovely warm flush spread over my skin. Did he know that was what it felt like?

“Good,” he said. “You know, I don’t even know what your breasts look like.”

That was true. I hadn’t undressed for him. He hadn’t touched me. And I hadn’t seen what he looked like under his clothes either. This is half the mistake I’d made with previous guys. I’d always been told it was better to wait, but all that meant was I wasted a bunch of time getting to know someone who turned out to be a dud in bed. Somehow, I had the feeling this was different. “Would you like to see them?” I asked, my hands already on the hem of my shirt.

“Yes, please, my sweet. I would like to see your nipples now that you’ve pinched them.”

I lifted my shirt just enough to expose my dark nipples and I saw him swallow. He hid it well, but there was that slight shift, a tiny movement that exposed how tightly wound with desire he was. My own need seemed to rise in response. I wasn’t used to that feeling. It was heady and delicious.

He nodded and gestured at me to cover myself again. “Thank you. Now, you were eight seconds late. I think you should pinch and hold them for eight seconds as your penalty.”

I sucked in a breath. “I’m…I’m not sure I can.” That sounded like a long time to be in pain.

“Does that mean you want me to do it instead? I assure you I won’t go easy.”

“No, I…What if I can’t stand it and I let go? Does the timer start over or can I do it in pieces?”

He pondered a moment. “The timer starting over seems a fitting penalty for failure, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose.” I swallowed. “In that case, maybe you should do it.”

“You want me to pinch your nipples?” He arched an eyebrow, reminding me of Becky.

“I want…to feel your hands on me,” I said.

His smile was warm and genuine. “I approve of honesty. Come here, then.”

I slid closer to him on the seat, thrusting my breasts toward him.

He slid his hands under the shirt and grazed his thumbs over my nipples. They hardened eagerly under the caress, and my breathing went ragged.

“You like being touched like this,” he whispered, now that I was close to him.

“Y-yes,” I said. None of the guys I had been with had known what to do with my breasts. They’d either squeezed them too hard or their caresses had been more annoying than pleasurable.

“This is your reward for being honest with me about your desires,” he said, teasing me with his thumbs, gentle sweeps up the curve of my breasts and then again lightly over the nipple. I shivered, my arousal surging. That was the way I touched myself when I fantasized, only it felt even better when he did it. His mouth was close to mine and I imagined kissing his lips, which looked lush this close up. In the shadowy light of the car, his eyes were almost gray. I could see a dark dot on his ear like he’d had it pierced but wasn’t wearing an earring. “And now the penalty.”

He squeezed then and I cried out, my voice sounding loud in the closed space of the car. When my cry trailed off, I realized he was whispering numbers into my ear. “Four…five…” He seemed to be squeezing harder as the numbers went higher, and I realized I was clinging to his shoulders. “Eight,” he breathed, and let go, and I held on to him tighter.

He held me also, for a few moments, now that his hands weren’t torturing me. His arms felt muscular, surrounding me with strength and that delicious scent. Then he sat back and I composed myself, putting a few inches between us, trying to gather my wits again. The flush I’d felt the last time was stronger, covering my entire body and centering between my legs.

“Too much?” he asked.

I shook my head, but my hand was shaking as I reached up to wipe the sudden tears that had sprung from my eyes. Whew. “Let’s just say that’s good incentive for me not to fail,” I said. I loved how I felt now, but the pain itself, well, it had hurt. Then again, I was surprised by how good I felt now. When Brad had been clumsy in bed and hurt me—like the time he thought it would be sexy to bite my neck like a vampire and had bit too hard—I felt shitty afterward. I suppose there were different kinds of pain. I took a deep breath. “What next?”

He drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his forehead. Nice to see I wasn’t the only one affected. When he had composed himself, he said, “Tell me what you have on under the skirt.”

My heart rate was already fast, but it sped up even more with excitement. “Well, you didn’t say to wear any panties. So…so I thought I shouldn’t.”

“Is it really that you’re such a good girl that you thought you shouldn’t?” He chuckled. “Or that you’re a dirty girl who hopes I’ll do wicked things to her?”

“Can’t I be both?”

His grin was one of delighted surprise and he put a warm hand on my shin. “Indeed, my sweet. Life’s full of people who want to split everything into either/or, when in reality so often
and
would serve them better. Perhaps that should be our motto. ‘Forget
or
—embrace
and
?’ I like both, so let’s have both.”

His hand smoothed up and down the stocking, a sensual touch that felt so different from a caress on bare skin. “You appear to have followed most of my instructions to the letter. Should you get a reward for that?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Except that you did wear a shirt, and I don’t recall telling you to do that.”

Damn. He had a point. “Well, I had to wear something or get arrested.”

“It’s legal for women, as well as men, to go topless in New York,” he said wryly.

“Oh. Really?” Who knew? “Did you actually want me to run half-naked to the car?”

His hand drifted up to my stockinged knee. “I want to see what you’re not wearing.”

I froze, not because I didn’t want to show him but because I didn’t know how to do it without looking like a dork.

“Put your feet in my lap,” he said helpfully.

I kicked off the pumps and settled my feet in his lap, my upper body leaning back against the car door. I could feel the
seriousness
of his erection through the soles of my feet.

“Now spread your knees.”

My cheeks went hot as I did it, and I had to look away. I hadn’t ever simply showed myself that way before. My wide-open crotch was staring him in the face.

“May I point out that you are dripping wet with desire?” he said.

“Thank you?” I blushed harder. “That was a compliment, right?”

“Yes, it was, my sweet.” He settled his warm palms against the insides of my knees. “It reassures me you like this game. As for whether I wanted you to run half-naked to the car, the sight would have pleased me, surely, but your choice to wear a shirt is more prudent and it gives us more options for where to go this evening. After all, restaurants may refuse service to those without shirts.