Her hands came around his thighs, grasping, pulling him closer. “Yes, good girl,” he crooned as he thrust into her face. “Good, good girl. Nothing wrong, is there? You just needed to be put in your place.”
She murmured something around his cock. He pulled back. “What’s that?”
“Yes, Master.”
Pleasure, hot as fire, arced through him like lightning. “Say it again. ‘Yes, Master. Thank you for putting me in my place.’”
“Yes, Master, thank you for putting me in my place.”
He groaned and pulled her up by her hair. Not brutally. She was like liquid now, this beautiful slave, sliding along his jagged edges and settling into place. They were suddenly dancing, him and her, a choreography of dominance and submission that had always come to them with unexplained ease. He dragged her back to the bedroom, pushed her onto the bed and shoved her head down into the blankets. Her hands made fists beside her head as he slapped both her ass cheeks. Without thought, without pause, he drove inside her deep, fucking her hard. He slapped her thighs again, once, twice, feeling her tense around him from the pain. His hands ran up her sides, then forward to squeeze and cup the heaviness of her breasts. He pinched her nipples viciously between his fingernails only to hear her frantic cries.
She bucked back against him every bit as hard as he fucked her, searching for a release she’d doubtless needed for some time. He urged her on. “It’s okay. Let go. Be my horny little slut. My whore. I love you this way.”
Her hips twisted at his crass intimacies. She started making noises, and he felt them as intensely as he felt each stroke into her tight, hot sheath. His legs shook, his balls drew up in excruciating tension. Her hands clenched on his bed sheets and her legs opened farther. She threw her head back and wailed as she contracted around him.
He grabbed her waist and drilled her, his own orgasm seconds away. Until the end, he intended to pull out, to splash his cum over her as a claiming, a mark of dominance, but at the last minute he stayed buried inside her. It didn’t matter. He knew she couldn’t get pregnant. They were both recently tested and clean. He wanted to stay inside her, to fill her with his release, and so he did, jerking with the novelty of emptying himself in her hot, welcoming depths. By slow degrees, his fingers relaxed their hold on her hips, leaving red marks behind.
“Okay,” he whispered, running a hand up her back to soothe her trembling. “Okay. You’re okay now.”
Okay. Yes. This had been inevitable all along. Mephisto pushed her down on the bed, flipped her over. She was wide-eyed, perhaps expecting more violence, more demand. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy those things, but he didn’t feel like giving them to her just now. Instead he gave her tenderness and warmth. He slid one knee between her legs, gathering her close and cradling her. He brushed her hair back from her face and dropped kisses on her cheeks, her chin. He nuzzled her ear and marveled at the calm that settled over him. He wasn’t sure if this was the start of something more, something serious, or just a much-needed release for both of them, but either way, he was grateful for it. Holding her was a balm. Delicious relief.
“Ah, Molly,” he whispered against her ear. “I’ve missed you so much.”
He could feel her smile against his cheek. “I’ve been right here.”
“You haven’t been here in a while. Not the Molly I remembered.” Mephisto leaned back after a moment, touching a lock of her hair, and then brushed her eyelids with his lips. “What did Eliot do to you? He didn’t humiliate you, did he? Mock you?”
“No.” Molly toyed with the end of one of his dreadlocks, then traced a meandering Celtic tattoo up and over his shoulder. “I didn’t even tell him about me. About my past, my slavery. All he did was have sex with me. He was very generous, very sweet.”
“Ah.” Mephisto nodded. “Too sweet?”
“I thought it would be fine. That being with a normal, vanilla guy would feel just as good as being with a lifestyle guy, only different. I really liked him a lot, and I was excited about being with him, you know, intimately. But it was awful. It actually upset me. It’s hard to explain.”
“You don’t have to explain. I’ve been there. I’ve tried to tone myself down to be with vanilla women because I was physically attracted to them, mentally attracted to them, whatever.” He laughed. “It never works. Not only does it not work. It’s—”
“Wretched,” Molly supplied, laughing too. “Awkward. Excruciating. Weird.”
“All of the above.” He looked down at the woman in his arms. Her laughter seemed a miracle to him, after so many tears and so much frustration. If Eliot was the one who brought her to this place, he couldn’t hate the man, not completely. “So what did you tell him? Did you just leave?”
“Sort of. I guess I’ll have to talk to him like an adult at some point, give him more of an explanation.”
“You should. It would be the polite thing to do, if he was as kind and friendly as you say.”
She shifted, brushing her hair back from her face, and let out a frustrated sigh. “I wish me and him could stay friends. I know we can’t, but still. That’s the saddest thing of all. Losing his friendship.”
Mephisto knew this was the point when he should tell her that maybe she could stay friends with Eliot. That maybe love could transcend things like sexuality and history if given enough time. But part of him knew that would only lead to more heartbreak down the line, and it had been difficult enough to see her tears before. “I’m sorry, Molly. You must feel terribly disappointed and sad at the moment. Please understand that what just happened between us wasn’t some attempt to take advantage of you. It was just...” He pulled her closer, breathing in her smell, basking in her warmth. “It just felt right to do at the time. Are you okay? Do you want to leave and go to your room, or do you want to sleep here?”
“What do you want?”
He would have to start giving her less choices. If she was going to transition into his slave, they had to find a starting point. “Here’s what I want. While I’m helping close down Club Mephisto, I want you to go and shower, brush your teeth, and get back into my bed wearing nothing at all. You don’t have to stay up for me if you’re too sleepy, but I can’t promise I won’t wake you when I return. If you’re in my bed, it’s going to be hard to keep my hands off you.”
She gave him a surrendered, sweet smile that reminded him so much of Clayton’s old Molly he almost gawked. Almost fell on her again, consuming her submission like some long denied delicacy. No...the club. He had to help with the club. Later. Later, more Molly, more submission, more of that lovely smile.
When he returned, she was sleeping like an angel. Mephisto slid into his bed beside her, breathing in her fragrant wet hair, the light floral scent of her skin. Beneath it all, some wild, seductive undercurrent connected him to her, as natural as sunshine, as constant as the blood in his veins. For the first time in a long time, he slept in peace.
*** *** ***
Molly woke to his words. “I want you.” His deep voice rumbled in her ear and resonated down between her legs. She was manipulated and moved, turned onto her back. She sleepily complied. He slid over top of her, pinching one nipple, drawing her from restfulness to alert attention. She became aware of a rock hard cock poking against her thigh, and heated arousal bloomed between her legs in response.
She looked into his eyes, into those depths that were so familiar and yet always such a fearsome mystery to her. He caressed her, preparing her for his onslaught. His hands communicated will and intention. Last night, Molly had called him Master. The word had come so easily, without prompting, and this was why. “I want you too. Please.”
He was power and threat but he was softness too, and solid reassurance on this morning when things were changing for Molly again. Mephisto shifted so his cock nudged hot and insistent between her pussy lips. “I didn’t use protection last night. But I’m clean. I assume you still are too.”
Molly turned the words over in her lust-addled brain, remembered that she couldn’t get pregnant, and yes, if they were both clean... Was he asking her for permission? Were they fluid bonding now? Things were moving so fast, but she had no desire to slow them down. She lifted her hips to meet his, which he took for the capitulation it was. As he reached down between them to stroke her clit and finger her wetness, she felt a combination of confusion and horniness. He was being slow, gentle, just like Eliot, but it was like night and day between them. What was the difference? How could it feel icky when Eliot was gentle with her, but fire-sexy-hot when Mephisto was gentle?
Because Mephisto was only gentle every once in a while. Mephisto rationed gentle so that when he used it, it felt a hundred times more gentle than gentleness from anyone else. It was a violent kind of gentle that most guys could never replicate.
How kind Mephisto was, to give her this sweetness just when she needed it, when she doubted and wondered and was searching in her heart for the answer to questions, the greatest one being
What do I want?
Right now, she wanted Mephisto. That was simple, uncomplicated truth, and there was no force or scening to distract her from it now. She just wanted him, his touch, his attention—and oh, how erotic it felt when he moved into her skin-to-skin, no condom dampening the intimacy. He felt so strong and encompassing hovering over her. His thick tool spread her pussy wide and he surged forward, forward, forward until there was nowhere else to go. She clung to him, reeling from the fullness. He paused until she moved her hips, and then they were both in motion, thrusting, fucking, groping to get closer.
He gasped her name, but she wasn’t sure what she said back to him. Pleas and whispers that made no sense, except that they urged him on. Each stroke was hot, demanding, a brazen slide in and out, but his hands were soft. His voice was a whisper at her ear. There was no time, no thought, just this sweet joining, and for Molly, a shuddering climb to a climax that threatened to destroy her. She hadn’t felt joy or closeness like this since she’d been with her Master. It felt so very much like...love.
“Mephisto!” She grasped at him, her arms around his neck. He kissed her as her moans rose in intensity, smothering her gasp of culmination. Her whole pelvis contracted into squeezing, glorious waves. He grunted and bucked inside her, driving her across the bed. He leaned on one elbow, his dreadlocks tickling her face as he gave one final snap of his hips and emitted a long, low growl, followed by a guttural “Jesus!” They both came to rest, gasping for breath.
Love, love...love. You love him, Molly.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. She couldn’t love Mephisto. He didn’t have room in his life for love, not the kind of love she wanted. Eliot had had room, but they hadn’t been sexually compatible. What kind of joke was her life turning into? She chanced a look up at Mephisto only to find him frowning down at her in that scary, penetrating way he had.
She gazed back at him, swallowing hard. “So...um. Am I your slave now?”
Mephisto blinked. “Why would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know. You said we could exchange power non-sexually. But now we...we had sex. Twice.”
Mephisto sighed and smiled a little. “You don’t go straight from friendship to slavery, even if you’ve had amazing sex. Twice. Did you immediately become Clayton’s slave? You dated first, didn’t you? You got to know one another.”
“But you and I have known each other for years.”
“Yes. As friends.” He cupped her face and kissed her nose, her eyes. “Anyway, you don’t have to look so alarmed. If you don’t want to be my slave, you don’t have to be.”
As if she could lie there in his arms and not want to be enslaved to him. That was the problem. Everyone wanted to be Mephisto’s slave, but he’d never had a serious relationship she knew of. “I think I’m alarmed because I do want to be your slave,” she admitted. “But I don’t know how it would work out.”
She looked away, struggling against a maelstrom of emotion, but Mephisto forced her gaze back to his. “One step at a time,” he said. “Let’s try being lovers. I want to be your lover. I think you want to be my lover. From that, let’s see where it goes. Let’s not barrel headlong into slavery. I know you were deep into slavehood at one time, but then, remember? You decided it wasn’t for you. I think we should take it slowly this time, okay?”
Yes, Sir. Yes, Master.
His voice always made everything clear, always made everything seem squared away. He was still pressed against her, his cock somehow still hard between her legs. He moved a little, the lines of his face relaxing into a tender, almost shy grin.
“This reminds me of that morning,” he said. “The last morning you were with me. Do you remember?”
She ducked her head into his shoulder. “How on earth could I not remember?”
He stroked her all over. Her shoulders, her back. Her breasts and stomach, her arching hips. Like that morning long ago, they fell back into pleasure, taking no note of time. He touched her in any way he could make her react, and praised her every time she came. She knew he could just as easily refuse to let her come, torment her for his pleasure, lock her into chastity for days or even weeks. If she became his, she’d have to put up with that and anything else that moved his sadistic side. But for now, making her come was moving him, and she was determined to enjoy every moment of it. He said she should take it slowly, and she would.
Because Mephisto wouldn’t give her any other choice.
Eliot didn’t take her calls. He didn’t come looking for her, even though he’d walked her home and knew where to find her. So for three Fridays, Molly waited at Mack’s Diner. Now it was the fourth Friday again. She sat very straight at her table in the corner, with her book and her sandwich and sometimes a slice of apple pie. She was off the cherry. It made her sad now. If he stayed away much longer, she’d have to turn to lemon meringue.
In her book was an envelope she had to deliver to him, but he was making it hard. She could have dropped it off at the UPS Center nearby, but she wasn’t sure a note she left there would find its way to him. And this was a really important note.