Wanting Wilder (24 page)

Wilder looked at the table. A lone key lay atop a plain file folder. That addressed his second question. He lifted his gaze to look at her. A jolt ran through him, as it had every morning he spent with her, at the sight of her loveliness.

He couldn’t let her cook for him. He couldn’t take advantage of her. “Lydia.”

She turned away, attending to that heavenly hash on the stove. It had tiny, cubed potatoes, red peppers, cubanelles, and a few secret ingredients she’d refused to identify, not that she made it quite the same way twice. He’d raved over the dish the first time she’d made it. This was the only dish he’d requested again. For the most part, he loved seeing what she thought up to surprise him.

“Let’s eat first. Discussing things on empty stomachs is never a good idea.” She loaded the food onto plates.

He agreed, but he didn’t feel right eating the fruits of her labor after what he’d done to her. “I don’t expect you to cook for me.”

She crossed to the table and put down the plates. Then she returned to the counter and poured coffee into two mugs. He was struck by how at home she seemed in his kitchen.

“I know. I wanted to.” She added one spoonful of sugar to his and cream to hers. “This is one of those times you just go with the flow. You said you wanted to be friends. We can start there. I think friends can have breakfast together.”

The word “friends” hit him squarely in the gut. Yes, he wanted to be friends with her, but he wanted so much more than just friendship. He could tell from the mulish set of her jaw that she wasn’t going to cede the point. If she left, it would be because he chased her away. He couldn’t live with that.

He ate in silence, suffering through bittersweet images of her eating and smiling at him. Halfway through the meal, he pushed away his plate. “Lydia, what are you doing here?”

She lifted her napkin to her mouth and dabbed at her lips. “You once told me that when a Dom makes a mistake, he takes responsibility and apologizes. I’m giving you the chance to do that right now.”

The sentiment was something he would say, but he hadn’t said that to her recently. He’d said that to her eight years ago, and that time was a topic they’d studiously avoided. He didn’t know what to say.

“I had a long talk with Micah.” She toyed with her food, stabbing chunks of potato with her fork and letting them slide off. “It seems we’ve both been wrong about each other more than once. Eight years ago, you slid a note under my door. I never got it.”

The implication of what she said penetrated. He found breathing difficult. “You thought I just left you without a word?”

The tiny movement of her head revealed a wealth of information. Hurt, regret, and sadness intermingled. “I waited in that diner for two hours, and then I went to your hotel.”

He knew the rest of the story. He’d checked out. By the time she would have stopped by, he was on a plane to Vermont. The misery in her eyes and in her quiet voice cut him deeply. “My God, Lydia. I’m so sorry.”

Lifting her hand, she cut him off. “I am too. You changed my life, and I fell for you. That feeling has never gone away. I still have feelings for you, deep ones, and I don’t want to lose you again. I just need you to be honest with me and tell me if it’s all in the past for you.”

“No.” He shook his head. He dreamed about her. He’d compared every woman who put herself in his path to her, and he’d found them all lacking. “Hell no.”

The hesitancy disappeared, and she smiled brilliantly. “I made a wish.”

“A wish?”

She gestured to the file folder on the table. The key still lay on top of it. He eyed it warily. She’d made a wish?

Hesitantly, knowing that whatever he found inside the folder would change his life, he slid the key away and opened the top cover.

Case 4—Revisited

Years ago, I met a man who helped me explore my submissive side. I fell for him for a lot of reasons, not just because he uncovered an essential piece of me that I never would have found otherwise. Our time together was brief, cut short unexpectedly. I want a second chance with him.

LYDIA HELD HER breath as he read. When he lifted his sky-blue gaze to hers, the clouds had vanished. They were bright and clear. Half of his mouth lifted in a smile that managed to be both predatory and charming.

He pulled his plate closer and flipped to the second page in the packet. She watched as he finished his breakfast and read every single word detailing her wish. Part of her was grateful for his attention to detail. She’d spent hours putting it together. The other half of her waited in anxious anticipation for his reaction.

He glanced up quickly and waved his fork at the pile of hash remaining on her plate. “Finish your breakfast. You’re going to need the energy.”

With a promise like that, she didn’t see how she could eat, but she tried anyway. Before she knew it, both plates were empty. She picked them up and took them to the sink for rinsing. The soft sounds of running water only added to the silence.

“You want to be disciplined but not punished?”

She halted the flow of water and turned to him. “Do you have an issue with that?”

He studied her thoughtfully. “You don’t have an issue with being spanked just because I feel like it, but you have an issue with being spanked because you broke a rule?”

“Yes.” She dried her hands on a dish towel and set it on the counter. “If either of us does something the other person doesn’t like, then we talk about it, discuss it like mature adults. Anything else is play. I want any impact play to be a positive experience.”

He looked down at the paper, and then he ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t have a problem with it. It’s a bit of a shift for me, but I can live with it.”

“You’re not upset?”

He motioned her closer, and she crossed back to stand by his chair. “Relieved. Some people like to punish. I’d rather we talk about whatever is wrong as well. And then I can tie you up and have my way with you.”

Standing, he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She recognized the passion simmering in his expression.

“We still have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes, Sir. We do.”

“That word sounds heavenly the way you say it.” His lips hovered so close to hers. She ached for contact.

“Sir, please kiss me.”

“It’s not going to stop with a kiss.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “God, I hope not. I’ve waited too long for this.”

He closed the distance. His tongue tapped the seam of her lips, and she opened to him with a soft moan. He answered with a groan, scooped her up in his arms without breaking the kiss, and carried her from the kitchen.

Lydia mewled as he set her gently on the bed and covered her with his weight. She knew he wasn’t going to take time for a scene. They’d engaged in foreplay every night for nearly two weeks. Both of them needed free rein to touch, caress, show the tenderness and affection they’d been hiding.

He hadn’t stopped kissing her. After yearning for the taste of his lips for so long, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted him to stop. He cupped her face with one hand and her covered breast with the other. He played one thumb lightly over her chin as he teased the curve of her breast just above the lace of her bra.

She lifted a knee and rubbed her leg against the outside of his thigh, pulling him tighter into her heat. She tried to caress him through his shirt, but the barrier only made her frustrated. She wanted to feel his skin. Reaching down, she tugged his shirt until he broke the kiss to let her remove it the rest of the way.

He stared at her, panting to catch his breath. “I’m not normally as rigid as I’ve been with you. I did that because it’s what you said you wanted in your nonwish. While I both need and like the D/s dynamic, I’m not like that all the time. Just for scenes and appropriate social events.”

She remembered the dichotomy of his preferences well. It seemed he hadn’t changed much at all. If anything, he’d become more of the man she thought him to be. She raked her nails down his chest lightly, not stopping until she grasped his shaft through his sleep pants. He shivered and thrust his hips to fuck her palm.

“You feel awfully rigid to me.”

He shoved against her again, trapping her hand between his cock and her pussy. “I said appropriate social events. Think of this as a long-overdue reunion party between my dick and your cunt.”

Extracting her hand, she wrapped her legs around him and locked her ankles over his ass. With the soft glide of her fingertips, she caressed a path up his back, tracing the tense muscles that held his full weight from crushing her. “In that case, we’re both way overdressed.”

He flipped them over. In three moves, he had every article of clothing in a heap on the floor. She straddled him, settling her wetness over his hardness. It felt so good to have his skin against hers. Cream rushed from her pussy, silently begging him to come inside.

He exhaled hard, and the pulse in his neck beat erratically.

Oasis was fanatical about health checks. She’d seen all his paperwork, and she knew he’d seen hers. Leaning closer, she paused with her lips hovering just above his. “I’ve never done this without protection before. But I’m on birth control, and I really, really want to feel you inside me.”

He ran his palms from her shoulders to her ass, where he squeezed and kneaded her flesh. The motion moved her along his shaft and teased his tip against her clit. “I want you too much. I won’t last long that way.”

She shrugged. Though she was so close that a thrust or two could push her over, this wasn’t about her pleasure. This was about being claimed by the only man she’d ever really wanted. “Please, Wilder. I know you. Once you recover, you’ll make me come until I can’t move anymore.”

The world upended as he flipped her onto her back. The satiny sheet caressed her skin. It would feel like heaven after he flogged her. She filed that thought away for later as she watched his lips close around her nipple. He sucked it into his mouth, roughly biting and rolling it with his tongue. Her nipples had never been sensitive, and he had remembered how to make tingles shoot straight to her pussy.

At the same time, he thrust into her. Her pussy was so wet it offered no resistance, and he easily slid all the way inside. She gasped at the fullness. It had been so long since she’d allowed a lover to take her this way, and now she knew why she’d held out. It only felt right with Wilder.

She lifted her knees, intending to lock her ankles around his waist, but he hooked his arms underneath and pushed her legs up and apart as wide as they would go. He opened her to him and rendered her completely helpless. Liquid pleasure shot to all points. Her vaginal walls contracted, sucking him even deeper.

“Please.” She whimpered, so close that if he denied her, she would never be able to obey his order.

He released her nipple and withdrew until just the tip of his cock was left inside her. “Yes, my Lydia. Come for me.”

With that, he slammed home. She cried out as the fire in her veins turned to an inferno that consumed her with waves of sweet heat. He pounded into her twice more, and then he came, his semen pulsing intimately and triggering another orgasm.

He rolled, holding her tight to his chest, and he held her until they both came down. “I’m never letting you go again.”

She wiggled against him, meaning to snuggle closer, though it really wasn’t possible unless she crawled inside him. He kissed her forehead. She couldn’t kiss him back because he held her head so that her cheek was glued to his chest.

“Okay, but you’re going to have to ease up a little bit sooner or later. Otherwise you’ll never get to tie me up again.”

His cock stirred against her thigh. He shifted to give it some room. “Tie you up? That’s next on my list.”

She hadn’t specified scenarios because she hadn’t wanted to impose limits she didn’t intend. However, she’d spent two weeks being bound by him and left unsatisfied. “You have a list?”

Releasing his grip on her head, he tapped his temple to indicate the location of the list. “Yep. I’ve been adding to it for eight years. It’s going to take a while. It’s probably best if you move in.”

The thought of his list excited her immensely, and the fact he wanted her to be so close to him warmed her heart. She giggled. “Is that an invitation?”

He draped her leg over his hip and prodded her swollen opening with the tip of his cock, teasing and promising. “You bet your sweet ass.”

Epilogue

Six months later

The rope harness wound around her waist and between her legs and attached to thick metal hooks anchored into the ceiling. Wilder had also artfully arranged ropes to frame her breasts. Flourishes and decorative knots created an intricate design that highlighted the roundness of those globes. In the back, the lines connected to the rest of the ropes to steady her body. He’d hung her from the ceiling in their elegant living room, suspended so high her dangling feet could barely reach his shoulders.

The thick ropes around her wrists held her arms out to her sides and also attached to hooks in the ceiling. A thin silver chain laced through the nipple clamps he’d tightened down until she couldn’t hold in her gasps.

She moaned and whimpered. She’d been strung up for nearly three minutes. He’d promised to use the cane this time, but she knew he would expect a report first.

“Lydia.”

The stern warning in his tone never failed to send cream gushing between her thighs. This time was no different. “Yes, Sir?”

“Move your legs.” He touched her feet, pressing his thumb into her skin to check her circulation.

She did as he ordered. No arteries were being cut off. “This one works, Sir.” The last one hadn’t been so successful. It had compressed the artery running down the inside of her right leg, and the pressure on it had forced her to call “Oasis” before he’d finished winding the winch that lifted her up.

Trusting her to use her safe word if that situation changed, he nodded. She exhaled when she saw the four-foot length of bamboo in his hand. He typically used a light hand with it unless she requested otherwise, and she hadn’t. Neither of them felt comfortable going all out when she was suspended. Yet.