Slow Surrender (7 page)

“My first question,” he began. “Let’s start with an easy one. What’s your favorite dish when you go out for Thai food?”

That he’d remembered what I said earlier made me laugh a little, and I switched to running two fingers up and down my seam, getting them slippery and then running one to either side of my clit. “What I love most are all the appetizers. Curry, noodles, they’re okay, but the appetizers! Fried tofu with meat in it, crab rangoons, all those little fried things.”

It felt decadent and dirty to be touching myself in front of him, and yet he seemed so genuinely interested in my answers.

“And what did you mean by ‘real’ ice cream?”

“Oh, you know, there is the soft-serve stuff that comes out of a machine, but you can barely call that ice cream. I mean the kind you have to scoop out of a tub, made with real cream. When I was little, there were small dairies that would each have their own stand that would open for the summer.”

“Where was that?”

“Columbus, Ohio. They would make hot fudge so thick that it would stick to your teeth.” As I drew my fingertips across my clit, my muscles tightened and I felt the glass Ben Wa ball again.

“Tell me what upset you earlier.”

“Something upset me?” I asked. He tugged a little on the tie as if threatening to pull my hand away from where I was touching myself. “Oh, the bit about my thesis advisor.”

“Indeed. Would that have anything to do with why you called me, somewhat upset, earlier this week?”

The thought was enough to dampen my mood. I stopped moving my hand of my own accord. The thoughts I had been obsessing over regarding Renault all week came spilling forth. “Yes. I want to graduate in May. My thesis is done. My advisor has been sitting on it for a few weeks. He’s not even my real advisor, but my old one got sick. He’s a jerk. A total and complete jerk.”

“What sort of jerk?”

“The sort of jerk who says I’m not fit to graduate unless I…I wear a dress…and…Get this. He hasn’t even read the thesis, but he told me the other day that if I sucked his cock, he’d pass me.”

“What!” His spine straightened as his eyebrows flew together in a frown. “That’s ridiculous.”

“See! Even you don’t believe me.” I drew my legs together and turned away from him.

“No, no, don’t misconstrue what I said,” he said quickly. “His behavior is what’s ridiculous, not your story! Of course I believe you.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. He was biting his lip and frowning.

“You do?”

“Yes. Please tell me you didn’t agree to go along with him!”

“Oh, I certainly didn’t! I flat-out refused, and he tossed my dissertation into the trash. Went on and on about how I had proven myself unfit to graduate because I didn’t dress up nice and didn’t kowtow and suck his cock, like apparently I’ll be expected to in the corporate world or something.”

He made a disgusted noise. “I like to think there is less of that these days, but his very existence proves the attitude lives on.” He shook his head. “What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I’m far from the only student he’s demanded favors from.” My voice was starting to shake. “I mean, how sick is this? He has a little pillow on the bookshelf by his desk that people can put under their knees when they…you know.”

“Disgusting.” He seemed to fall into thought for a few moments. “Tell me. How important is it to you to graduate?”

“Well, I’ve got student loans. It would be pretty stupid to have paid all that money for nothing.”

“I see why you wanted to save that topic of conversation for later,” he said. “That’s a very serious matter.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill the mood with it.”

He bent his head, looking at the end of the tie that was still in his hand; then he looked up at me through his lashes. “Never apologize for being honest with me. Please, come here.”

I didn’t say anything but fairly threw myself into his embrace. He was all rigid muscle under his fine dress shirt, stiff and masculine, but one of his hands was gentle as he rubbed my shoulder comfortingly. The sound of the road under the wheels of the limo was soothing, even as we slowed and sped up, moving through the ever-present traffic.

After a while I raised my head. Through the dark-tinted window it looked like we were probably on the West Side Highway. The warmth of his body and the scent of him seemed to seep into me, driving Renault out of my mind and rekindling the arousal that had roared during dinner.

“I’m ready to continue,” I said, “if you still want me to.”

He brushed a bit of hair away from my eyes. “Want you to what?”

“Well, your command was for me to touch myself.”

“That’s true.”

“And you were asking me questions.”

“Yes, I was.” He shifted on the seat so that we faced each other.

“And I think you were stopping me from pleasuring myself when you didn’t like the answers I gave.”

He clucked his tongue. “The only answers I don’t like are dishonest ones.”

“All right.” I lay back against the door again and propped my feet up on the seat, my knees spread. “May I try again?”

“Yes, once you answer a question. Let’s see.” He readied his end of the tie in one hand. “Tell me about your first date.”

“Well, first actual date that counted as a date?”

“You can count it however you wish.”

“All right.” I slid a little farther down. His gaze was making me feel warm all over. “I count my first official date from junior high school, because I wrote about it in my diary. I went to the mall with Frank West, with his father and my mother tagging along about twenty yards behind us the entire time.”

“As chaperones?”

“I guess. And it counts as a date because instead of getting separate ice cream sundaes, we got one big one to share.”

“So there is an ice cream connection after all?”

“Maybe?” I laughed and moved my fingers in a circle, not in any hurry, merely enjoying the sensation and the game we were playing. “It occurs to me now that my mother probably considered that a date with Mr. West.” Perhaps that’s why she had been so bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t interested in going out with Frank again. The reason I wasn’t interested was that the “date” had released a torrent of criticism from my mother about how I walked, talked, dressed, laughed, and even breathed while on the date. Like I was supposed to become someone else to keep Frank interested. Frank was plenty interested, but I wasn’t anymore.

He tugged on the tie and I realized I had fallen silent. “Yes?” I asked.

He licked his lips. “Pre-Raphaelite art, was it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?”

He tugged on the tie. “Lying to me counts as not speaking. In fact, it’s worse. Five-second stop.”

“I’m not lying!” I moved my hand to my thigh and squirmed.

“Then you are lying to yourself. You don’t spend years studying something just on a casual interest.”

I slumped. “You do if you’re me.”

“You’re telling me you think graduate school was a waste of time, then?”

“No! I mean, well, I don’t know.” I sighed. “That’s the truth. I don’t know what I want.”

He must have believed me because he let the tie go slack again. My clit was suddenly too eager for touch to care that my mind was in turmoil.

“Tell me your favorite painting,” he said as I began to pant.

“So many of them are gorgeous,” I answered. “I love how beautiful the women are.
Sappho
by Mengin. Edward Burne-Jones has
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
.”

“Ah, yes, I’ve seen it. At the Tate in London.”

“Have you? I’ve never seen it in person. I really want to, though.” I moaned a little.

“Is that painting special to you?”

I paused to think for a moment and he let me. It was only one of many paintings I’d included in my thesis, but part of me wished I’d concentrated on it a bit more. “Well, it’s kind of my Cinderella story again, isn’t it?”

“Tell me the story,” he said.

“Well, there are various versions of the legend, of course. Basically, the king looks out his window one day and sees a beggar maid so poor that she has no clothes. He falls in love with her at first sight and vows to wed her.”

“Ah. Love at first sight.” He licked his lips. “Are you close?”

“Very.”

He leaned in. “I’m going to make a rule, Karina. I don’t just mean for right now. I mean a general rule. Lie, and I’ll deny you. Speak the truth and I’ll reward you. Does that sound simple enough?”

“Yes. How will you know if I’m lying?”

“You’ll tell me yourself because if you don’t, then we have nothing here but smoke and false promises.”

I licked my lips, completely lush with desire and taut with near-peak arousal, but I wasn’t so drunk with lust that I didn’t realize he’d said we had something more than a kinky game. Something he cared enough about to demand the truth over. “Yes,” I said. “That sounds right.”

He leaned closer and put a hand on each of my thighs. “I’m going to suck you now.”

“Oh—” At that moment, my phone started to beep. “Ack, my alarm.”

“Alarm?” He raised one eyebrow.

“I’m supposed to call my moth—I mean, my roommate—at eleven. To assure her you’re not an ax murderer.”

That made him snort. “Your roommate is savvy.”

“Is she? She’s actually kind of a dork.”

He slapped me lightly on the thigh. “Call her.”

“I could just send her a text.”

“I said to call her. And remember, no lies.”

“What? To anyone?”

“To anyone.” He brushed his thumb over my clit and I sucked in a breath.

It took a moment to dig my phone from my purse. Even though I had Becky on speed dial, it seemed to take forever to get the call to go through. He looked up at me from between my legs, licking his lips and trying not to smirk. She picked up right away. “Rina?”

“Hey, Becks. Just calling in like I said I would.”

“So everything’s okay?”

“Everything’s great.” I yelped suddenly as he planted a kiss right onto my clit.

“Rina? You okay?”

“Yes, yes! Sorry, he’s tickling me.”

“Tickling you.”

“Yes!” His tongue darted out and swiped across my clit. “Yes, it tickles a lot!”

“Oh, jeez, are you, like, in the middle of something?”

“Yes, of course I am. Hey, you’re the one who insisted I call!”

“Okay, you’re right. Look, do you know when you’ll be home?”

He raised his head and mouthed, “Under an hour.” I repeated it to her. She said she’d wait up and then disconnected the call.

I couldn’t stop giggling as he licked all around my clit. The laughter stopped suddenly when he took my clit in his mouth—sucking like he said he would. That made me gasp and jerk my hips.

He sucked and teased with his tongue at the same time. I’d never felt anything like it, and my arousal shot right to the peak and then held there while the tip of his tongue did wicked things.

“So close,” I said, and it came out a high whisper, like even my vocal cords were stretched to the max.

He hummed then, as if agreeing with me, and did something I didn’t expect.

He bit down, not hard, but firmly. I probably would have been outraged, except that I started to come instantly. And his tongue kept milking my orgasm, my hips bucking but his teeth holding me fast as he drew the explosion of pleasure out longer than any orgasm I’d ever had before. When at last I went limp, he let go but continued to lick me, very gently now, as if he knew how sensitive I might be.

It was only as my mind cleared I realized his fingers were inside me, too. I made a surprised noise and squeezed.

He lifted his head and grinned, then moved inside me. Quite suddenly I was on the verge of a second orgasm and I sucked in a breath.

“Again, Karina?”

“Please! Oh God, yes, please!” I was squeezing his fingers with everything I had and I rocked my hips forward.

And then he fucked me with his fingers and a deep pulse of an orgasm rippled through me, getting stronger with each thrust of his hand, until I cried out again, pressing my head back against the door of the car. All I could feel was pleasure, expanding outward like a sun going nova. I went limp. He sat back and pulled his hand away softly, and I saw he had the Ben Wa ball hooked in his two fingers. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his face and mouth with it, then the marble and his fingers, and then handed the cloth to me. I wiped up as best I could.

The car came to a stop, and with a jolt I realized we were outside my building again. “Wow,” I said. “Good timing.”

He chuckled. “Give yourself a minute if you need to.”

“That’s a good idea because I think that orgasm turned my legs to jelly. And it’s not easy to walk on jelly.”

He laughed again. “No, indeed.”

I picked up the skirt. “Oh jeez, I’m going to have to wash this. Well, she knew I was wearing it on a date, anyway.”

“
She
being your roommate?”

“Yes, it’s hers. I borrowed it.”

He cocked his head. “Were you unable to find a suitable skirt at the store?”

“Oh, I never got to one. I asked Becky where the best thrift stores were and…” I trailed off as I realized how sharp his gaze was. “Oh no, I didn’t do what I was told. Is that what it is?”

He nodded slowly. “That is exactly what it is.”

I knew I was in trouble, but for some reason I couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe because I’d had the best orgasm of my life.

He rubbed his chin. “Hmm. You’ll have to be punished. Are you available Wednesday night?”

His seriousness finally sobered me, and I began to wonder what the punishment would be. “Yes. Yes, I’m free Wednesday.”

He pulled a business card from inside his jacket, wrote something on the back of it with an expensive-looking pen, and handed it to me. I saw an address on the Upper East Side, Suite 324, and nothing else. “Eight o’clock sharp. Be late and the penalty will double. Wear whatever you like. You won’t be in it long.”

I swallowed, hating the feeling that I’d disappointed him. “I’m sorr—”

He cut off my apology with a flat hand to my lips. “No apologies are necessary, my sweet. You will make it up to me entirely on Wednesday. And I look forward to it.”