The Parlour (VDB #1) (26 page)

Shit
. My eyes fly to the floor. Fucking emotions. Jesus
. Legal head
. What am I even doing discussing this? Christ. I get nothing in response. Nothing. Just silence as I gaze at the beige carpet and think about how to move the conversation onto another topic, all the time imagining his lips on mine, the soft caress of his fingers on my spine, the effortless way he made me feel safe and protected, if only for a minute or two.  If his aftershave would just stop assaulting me from every angle, I might have a chance of thinking straight. Then I do the stupidest thing possible and lift my head to the window to gaze at the park instead, just compounding the problem further.

He abruptly gets up behind me and begins to pace about, so I flick my eyes over to find him wrenching at his shirt until it and his jacket are tossed errantly onto the couch.

“Up,” he snaps.

“What?” I reply, my eyes widening at the vision of his bronzed, half naked body.

“No, not another word. You simply do as I say. Do not think, do not compromise my position, and do not burden yourself with concerns.”

“But I–”

“Kneel. Here,” he says, pointing at the floor in front of him and burning me with a frown over swirling eyes. “There are no safewords here. There is no way of removing yourself. You will do as I ask.”

My mouth opens again to say no, but nothing comes out as I lose myself in those eyes again. I’m not sure if it’s the look of him, whether I do need to get on my knees for him, or if I simply don’t have the ability to turn him down. I don’t know anything, but I do know, for whatever reason, that’s he’s doing the right thing. Something deep down inside of me is desperate for him, to maybe give myself to him, or maybe just get this done. I can feel that circulating in my chest, in my veins. I can’t explain it. He’s like a whirlpool dragging me under. I should contain this somehow. Get the control back. Say no and ask him to leave. Stop these damn emotions traveling through my mind and force him to leave me alone, but I can’t, and don’t. I just let my eyes rest on the very spot he’s pointing at and breathe steadily, calmly, and then find myself moving toward it.

“Discard the robe.”

My hands find the tie, and before I’ve thought it through, I’ve undone it and gently cast it aside. I’m spellbound. I’m not sure I’m even moving my own body anymore. All I can hear is his voice and all I can see is his frame towering over me. He suddenly feels huge, as if the rest of the room has collapsed somehow and it’s just he and I in some kind of vortex. Everything is quiet. There’s no noise outside, no cars, no horns blaring, not even a thought in my head. Just him.

I slowly find myself getting comfortable beneath him and lift my head to meet his eyes.

“Good. Now widen your legs and entertain yourself for me,” he says, frowning a little and never once removing his eyes from mine. What? My body damn near shrivels into the floor. Really? “Look at me and do as I ask, Lilah.” Something in his eyes softens, just a touch, just enough to show me his need is as great as mine. And so my hands slowly accept his request. They both glide across my skin until one is resting on my nipple and pulling it to attention while the other curls its way down to my clit before something stops me. Maybe it’s just the situation, nerves, I’m not sure, but my face flicks away from him, and…

“Look at me. Do not think, Lilah. Do.”

My eyes find his again and I sigh out in pleasure as my fingers miraculously end up rubbing at my clit. Instant relief at the oncoming bliss begins to rush across me, and my body melts beneath my own touch. Every point is practised perfection. There isn’t a hint of self-consciousness or concern for what is happening. It just is. And no one has ever made me come like I can myself. Only once has someone managed to make the connection between the places I can find on myself, and he’s standing above me, watching. I can feel his eyes boring into me as my hands speed up their ministrations, swirling and rubbing at the precise locations necessary to bring me my climax quickest. My fingers leave my nipple and run down to sink some depth inside myself. I’m desperate for that feeling of substance to finish me off as my other hand starts speeding furiously, increasing the pressure to painful proportions, as always. The moan that echoes around the room is followed by more of my own panting and whimpers. I’m so close, so very close. I’m just sinking two fingers in and out as forcefully as my own weight will allow at this awkward angle, wanting nothing more than to roll onto my back or pull my weight up onto all fours. A hand grabs my chin and forces my head back up to look at him.

“Fuck yourself harder, Lilah.”

My hand speeds up again. Gasping for breath, I’m desperately trying to find the angle needed to make it happen as he tilts his head and watches me, but I can’t. I can’t get the last blinding feeling to burn through me. I’m stuck in a state of constant almost bliss, twirling through my skin and rendering me incoherent to everything other than his voice. I wrench at my clit and begin to give in to the fact that it’s not going to happen, that it’s just not right, or something’s off in the room. Why? I’m desperate for it. I can always make myself come. I can hardly breathe I’m going so fast, and then, as he suddenly reaches and pinches at my nipple viciously, I scream aloud. Instantly, my orgasm crashes across me, lights and explosions flooding everything. I don’t breathe. I can’t. The mix of agony and bliss renders me useless as he increases the pressure again, then does the same to my other nipple. “Again, Lilah. Harder.” He growls at me. It’s the most intoxicating sound I’ve ever heard, and as I wrench in a breath and try to speed my hand again, he drags his up to my cheek and slaps it, hard. My eyes glaze at the impact, but for some unknown reason, my hands work even more furiously for me, or for him. I don’t know anymore. The lines are blurred, and the rush that follows sends my head spiralling as my body continues to shake. “You need a beating, Lilah. Are you prepared?”

“I…” I can’t speak.
Beating?

“DO NOT THINK!” His tone shocks me into looking at his eyes again. They’re utterly composed as he leans over me and proves his serenity in the midst of my mess. He’s so tall, so big, so all encompassing. And those eyes just make me work harder, hoping for another blinding release, begging myself for it as I chant ‘please’ to myself over and over again. It still won’t come. Nothing’s coming other than a torture of nearly there, on the edge but not able to fall.

“Please,” I stutter out loud, with my hand still bruising my own clit in hope. Just more, more of that, anything. I can barely breathe let alone think, and all I want is that rush again. I need that beautiful burning sensation to run across me and deliver the sting that helped me over the edge. The pain that suddenly radiates across my other cheek has me tumbling uncontrollably into the floor. Pure energy races through my whole body, adrenalin spiking every corner of my being until there’s nothing left but a moaning mess of limbs draped on the carpet. I’m sprawled out with my forehead sticking to the wool and a pulsing sensation encircling me. I pant loudly, pulling my legs up to my chest and letting the crescendo still travel its way around me. Whatever this is, it’s gone past normal. It’s divine. Primal. I’m overwhelmed with a strange floating sensation, caressing every inch of me and still bursting intermittent spasms of dull aches. I can’t think, and I don’t want to. I just want to be in this. I just want to live here for a while. It’s beautiful. Heavenly.

I slowly open my eyes after God knows how long to see his boots in front of my face. Just two highly polished black boots gleaming at me. I smile at the vision and continue to lie here, staring at the beauty of them. Everything seems beautiful at the moment. Relaxed and calm. Peaceful. My limbs hum with some unknown feeling that I’m desperate to linger in for as long as possible, and I feel my hand inch its way forward until my fingertips rest on the toe of his boot. They’re suddenly the boots of a God, and I find myself tracing them reverently out of respect. For what, I don’t know. I just know that’s how I feel. How he’s made me feel.

The leather of them makes me shudder. It’s an odd sensation, more calming than scary. Leather, it’s hard, yet soft somehow. Visons of his suite assault me and all the implements hanging around in there. Whips, cuffs, floggers – all things I know nothing about, yet they seem familiar to me now, as if they are an extension of him, things he uses not to inflict pain, but more likely to deliver pleasure through pain. Every time he’s been with me, apart from the kiss in the park, he’s caused pain. He’s right; the brutality of his hold is indescribable, unlike anything anyone’s ever delivered to me before, and I can’t for the life of me understand where this need has suddenly come from, but it’s here, nonetheless. Perhaps it’s always been here but no one’s ever found it.

“Am I decent man now, Lilah? Hmm?” His voice drifts down from above me. It’s soothing, the lilt of that accent more pronounced and comforting, as if I needed any more soothing. I don’t answer. I have nothing to answer him with apart from I love you, which I’m certain isn’t what he wants to hear, but it’s all that’s swimming around my mind. It chants over and over again. I love you. I love you. I love you. Stupid, I know, and not at all possible in this small amount of time, but how could anyone not love him? He’s spectacular. It’s not surprising people bow and scrape to him. I ache to pull him down here and kiss him, to feel the warmth of him on me. To make love to him and to hold him down. To say the three words that are of no use to anyone in this room and force him to say them back to me, even if they’re not true. Instead, I slowly drag my heavy body up until I’m kneeling in front of him again, gazing back up into green eyes full of mischief with an angry frown etched in.

“Why do you look angry?” I ask quietly, not really caring as my body still floats and I let the feeling take me over again.

“This is not anger, Lilah. I am considering fucking you.”

“Do it then, whatever you need to do. Now’s good. I’m pliable to anything, open to suggestion. Let’s get this out of the way. Do it, Pascal. Take me. Take it all.” The words tumble from my mouth, out of my control. I can’t think of anything but having him inside me. Whatever business or questions I was originally planning, they’ve disappeared. Just him, that’s all there is. Just him, with me on the floor. I’m very close to begging him to have his way with me. To just get this done. From somewhere in my mind, a pair of blue eyes appears, slicing though the green slightly. Its brief, but it’s enough for me to shake my head a little.
Stay in control of him. Don’t let him in until you can afford the luxury of his manipulations.
Is he in control of this? Or do I want it? My body continues to hum as I watch his legs and try to recall the need for him, but it’s impossible. Not because of him telling me what to do, but because I want him. I want him. He’s shown me something, and I’m too lost in it to question it anymore.

He eventually backs away from me, so I wearily lift my eyes to watch him smiling down at me. It’s a deviant smile, full of undisclosed amusement and self-righteous possession. He wanders over to his coat and pulls out a hipflask, then offers it to me, just too far out of reach for me to grab it.

“Crawl, my dear.” The instant those words leave his lips, I feel the cold creep back over me.
‘Crawl, my dear’
. Crawl? Never. And I’m suddenly an anybody, a
‘my dear’
again? A body of no consequence to him. Something to use for amusement, to prove his superiority?

“Not for that,” I reply quietly, still panting out my orgasm.

“You do not wish to drink?” I shake my head and lick my lips at the smell of whiskey, a very appealing prospect at the moment to calm the sensations still coursing through me.

“I have a name, Pascal. I won’t be your kitten or your dear. I won’t be your toy or your plaything, but if you ask, I might be your Lilah.”

He just stares at me, and we hold eyes for an eternity while some of those peaceful moments in time pass between us. Just brief glimpses of something rare and beautiful and so all-consuming that I stop breathing again and wait for an answer. My mind chastises itself for such weakness, but my body is all in, and there is no use denying it.

“What is it that Lilah requires of me?” he eventually asks, still towering above me and scrunching his brow a little.

I don’t know. Love? Enlightenment? Some more of those peace-laden moments? The ability to feel eternally safe within arms of care? I stare up at him and watch the colours in his eyes swirling endlessly, the strong line of his jaw, and the tension in his teeth at his question. Who’s in there? I want that man, the one who hides in there and cowers behind his front. I also want the one who just showed me a feeling of such intensity that I’m literally floored by it.

“Your lips.” His brow raises a touch in consideration, because he knows exactly what I’m asking for. All of him, without any of the façade. To be let in, to be respected for the trust I’m giving him, to be open to the suggestion of a lasting relationship with none of the ‘my dears’ and ‘Sirs’.

He seems to deliberate this answer for an eternity, with just the occasional twitch of his lips. My knees and back begin to ache as I wait. My frame shuffles a bit as I try to get comfortable, and I find myself considering the possibility of just getting up. I’m not even sure why I’m still down here, and judging by the length of time he’s taking, the answer clearly isn’t going to be good. I sigh out a breath at my own stupidity and cast my eyes downwards. Asking that of a man such as he is completely moronic. I’m just Lilah after all, nothing special in the slightest.