Out of Control (22 page)

Jen tilted her head to one side, studying him like a curious owl. She straightened her head and ate another few bites of burger. Drake realized he was holding his breath, waiting for her to say something.

And finally she did. “Got a better idea.”

He raised an eyebrow. “About taxes? About this whole relationship?”

“Neither. About the rules list. You set it up the way that works for you. Then e-mail it to me, and I’ll color-code it. Seriously, color-coding helps me remember stuff.”

He leaned across the table, gave her a quick, teasing peck on the lips. “It’s a deal. But for the next few weeks, let’s just focus on figuring out what the first rules will be.”

“And on getting to know everything that makes the other tick.” She kissed him this time, and it came close to pushing his boundaries for public displays of affection where students and colleagues might see him. But since his toes were curling and his blood was singing with joy, he didn’t mind.

“Yeah,” he finally said when she gave him a chance to catch his breath. “That. And lots of kinky sex.”

Chapter Seventeen

Drake woke up before Jen did the next morning and managed to get up without disturbing her. For a few minutes, he stood by the bed, simply watching her sleeping. She sprawled on her stomach like a child, her hands flung above her head. Either she’d kicked the sheet off in her sleep or Drake had pulled it back farther than he’d intended when he got up, but she was bare to the thighs.

And even though he’d spent hours the night before exploring Jen’s naked body in various ways, the sight was still riveting. Drake might not have Jen’s artistic sensibilities, but he knew beauty when he saw it. The lines of her back, the muscles surprisingly well defined for such a petite woman. The texture of her skin. The sweet dimples at the base of her spine.

The bruises and ridges he’d made on her ass last night.

He’d woken up with a good case of morning wood, but after the excesses of the night before (six times, he thought, although the last one might have been a dream), he’d felt no sense of urgency. Now, looking at Jen’s marked ass and remembering she said she was his now—his sub, his girlfriend—his cock strained. He needed her again.

But not necessarily to fuck. Seeing her lying that way, sweetly defenseless in sleep, gave him an evilly sexy idea.

He was usually good at resisting those, or at least tabling them until he could talk them through with his playmate. But Jen wasn’t just a playmate anymore. She’d given over more control to him last night, relinquished some power. He could act more impulsively now, right? At least if his impulses were things he already knew she craved.

She’d probably wake up before he got too far anyway. No one could possibly sleep that soundly. But wouldn’t she get a kick out of waking up and finding him tying her up?

Quickly, quietly, he grabbed a length of rope that he’d left lying on the floor last night. Despite his usual tidiness, he’d been too sex-weary and too unwilling to let go of Jen to bother putting it away, and now he was glad.

He managed to wrap the rope around her crossed wrists and make a quick tie without her doing more than sighing and shifting a bit, as if her subconscious wanted to give him better access. He secured the rope ends to one of the D-rings set into the bed frame.

She still slept.

Was she that exhausted? She ran on a chronic sleep deficit, he knew. She might be tired enough to sleep through just about anything.

Or she could be pretending to sleep at this point, going along with the game and waiting to see what he’d do next.

Drake took one step back from the bed and watched her. Sleeping or faking? He couldn’t tell. Her breathing was deep and even, but Jen was smart enough to fake that.

He laid his hand on her bare butt. Caressed her warm skin. Slid his hand between her thighs, teasing at her pussy from behind. She was damp, but he couldn’t tell if she was freshly aroused by the ropes or still moist from the night before.

No reaction.

That settled it. She
had
to be faking it. How could an intimate touch like that not wake her? She might still be drowsy, enjoying what he was doing in a pleasantly half-dreaming state, but she couldn’t possibly still be asleep.

And if she was just pretending to be asleep to learn what he’d do next… Well, she knew him, and she knew she’d been tied up. She shouldn’t be too shocked if he took things one step further.

Drake pondered for a second but decided he’d stick with a simple classic. Nothing too crazy, nothing too sadistic. Drawing back his hand, he gave her a good spank.

Jen woke up yowling, a fiery pain in her ass. She jumped, tried to roll over…

Realized she was tied up, her arms bound over her head.

“What the fuck?” There was a second of actual terror. Then her eyes focused, her fuzzy brain started to focus, and she put together what was going on. “Drake, you are an
asshole.
” She turned her head so she could watch Drake’s face fall, watch him scrambling for words.

He muttered something that must have been an apology as he fumbled with the ropes that held her wrists together.

He was adorable when he got concerned, though she would never let him know she thought of him as adorable. Not unless she wanted a particularly fierce spanking, but with her luck, she’d get lines instead.

With the dreaded lines in mind—put her on the rack any day!—she overcame the temptation to let him stew. “I said you were an asshole, but I didn’t safeword. You just startled me.” She stretched experimentally. Now that she was properly awake, the ropes cradling her wrists felt great. As for the rosy throbbing in her butt, it brought back all sorts of delicious sensory memories of the night before—and reminded her of the milestone conversation they’d had. “How about a little more?”

“Are you sure?” Drake asked, even as he drew back his hand.

“Absolutely. It would be a nice way to start our day.” She thought for a second. She didn’t want to sound like she was the one giving orders or anything, but there was one bit of information he definitely needed. “My ass is pretty tender, though.”

“It should be. Lucky for you, I’m feeling merciful.” Drake chuckled. “And/or lazy. You wore me out last night.”

“Ditto.”

“But, woman, I lose control of myself when I see your ass. Especially when I’ve already marked it. Especially when I know it’s mine to enjoy.”

“So enjoy it.” Jen wiggled her butt as best she could. “We both have to get to work soon, but we might as well enjoy the time we have.”

At noon, she got a text from Drake:
Come home early tonight. Lots to talk about
.

She texted back immediately with a simple
???
but got no response.

Oh, he was such a tease! Jen was on pins and needles for the rest of day, waiting to learn what Drake wanted to talk about. It had to be something sexy, she figured, and he’d wanted to tantalize her beforehand. Something that would probably start with,
Take off your clothes
and get interesting from there. He must have come up with a particularly involved idea and wanted to tease her by talking it through first, maybe see if she had additions to the scenario.

Yeah, that was it.

When she got home after a long day, though, Drake didn’t immediately launch into something erotic. He seemed subdued, anxious. After one long kiss, intense even by his standards, he almost ignored her, fidgeting around his living room and straightening up things that were already tidy. It made Jen anxious just to watch him, the way flower gardens all organized in straight lines did. She found herself pacing along with him, trying to calm her nerves or maybe make sense of his behavior by echoing it. “Sit down,” he finally said, “and listen to what I’m about to say.” Drake’s voice was soft and not especially domly, but she still obeyed without hesitation, plopping onto his sofa.

She’d have obeyed even if he wasn’t her dom. Something was up, and she didn’t like it. She’d do whatever he needed her to do so he could spit it out.

Drake kept pacing until Jen thought she would jump out of her skin in sheer frustration. Finally, she whispered, “Drake? What’s up?”

He glared at her, eyes wild, then folded himself onto the floor with a grace that Jen figured must come from his martial arts practice. He hid his face in his hands, a defeated gesture, though his spine was still proud and straight, another martial arts holdover, she figured.

Jen couldn’t help herself. She slipped off the couch, settled on the floor behind him and wrapped both arms and legs around Drake’s rigid body. He sighed. She thought it was a sigh of pleasure or comfort, but he didn’t relax.

He wouldn’t, she guessed. He needed to say something, and she imagined it would be easier if he wasn’t looking at her. Difficult conversations often were.

But what could possibly be so hard to say? Unless what he wanted to say was that he didn’t actually want to explore a more serious relationship. The kiss and Drake’s strange intensity suggested otherwise, but it would explain why he was acting odd. He obviously desired her and cared about her, but all along he’d been running hot and cold, pulling her close, then pushing her away. Maybe this was just another example. But it felt more serious. His body was stiff with tension.

The minutes ticked off, counted by the old-fashioned wind-up clock on Drake’s bookshelf, a piece that he’d mentioned was an inheritance from his great-aunts. She focused on the ticking to distract herself from her rising fear. Jen realized she was holding her breath and let it out with a rush. The colors inside her head were all mud browns and grays, the hues of a dirty February day when it seemed like spring would never come to the hills of the Finger Lakes.

Finally, Drake spoke. His voice was just above a whisper and sounded as hoarse as if someone had been strangling him. “I don’t know how to do this, Jen,” Drake said suddenly. “I don’t know how to hold you without grasping too hard, don’t know where the line is between being spontaneous and being creepy, between showing I care and being a stalker. It’s too soon to care about you as much as I do, too soon to want to own you.”

“Says who?” It seemed like an obvious question to Jen. She’d spent most of her life having people spouting facts at her that turned out to have little basis in her version of reality.

He sighed. “I have rules, only the rules don’t seem to work with you, and I lose control. I want to say you make me lose control, but I can’t blame you for it. I’m letting it happen to me, letting myself get obsessed, and no matter how hard I try to keep things in perspective, I can’t. This morning just proved it to me. Hell, last night proved it to me. It’s too soon for me to say you’re mine, even if it feels that way sometimes. I can’t trust myself where you’re concerned.”

Drake tried to pull away from her, but she clutched at him, using legs strong from cycling everywhere to keep Drake from getting too far. “Uh, no. You’re not getting away that easily. We’re finally getting somewhere.” Jen did her best to keep her tone light, almost dry and off-hand, to counteract the edge of panic she sensed in Drake. There was something much more going on here than a guy flipping because things were moving fast.
That
, she could understand—they’d been traveling together at warp speed all along, and she might worry about it too, except it felt so right. “Is this a dom thing, that you should never feel any doubt or confusion or whatever? If you think that, you’re believing your own PR too much. Doms are human. New relationships are fun but also frightening. Deal.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not that. It’s…” He shook his head, and the movement shuddered through his whole body. “I’m getting too emotional, too unclear. This isn’t good.”

This time when he pulled away, Jen let him. Otherwise, she was afraid he might hurt himself or her in his need to escape.

He scrambled to his feet with far less grace than when he sat down, stepped as far away as he could in the room, and turned to face her. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “The way I’ve been acting with you is inappropriate. The way I feel is inappropriate for how long I’ve known you. It’s real, I think, but it’s too soon, and it’s making me do stupid things.”

Jen wondered if she was hallucinating. Drake made no sense at all, and she told him that.

“I know! I know!” She’d never heard him raise his voice, and she flinched at the sudden fierceness, the anger, although it didn’t seem to be directed at her.

He pulled back into himself almost instantly. “That was definitely out of line,” he said, soft-spoken again, unnaturally calm. “I apologize.”

The inside of her head swirled and pulsed, an accident in a paint factory, and she couldn’t sort the colors out. Her temper flared. “Stop apologizing! You fucking apologize every time you start to get real, every time you show some passion or emotion. If you don’t want to be with me after all, or if you’re uncomfortable because we’re moving too fast and you want to backpedal from last night, just say it. I won’t be happy, but I’ll understand. But don’t run hot and cold and apologize when you run hot. If you’re going to apologize, apologize for the cold!”

Drake looked stunned, like she’d hit him with a brick. Only it must have been some kind of magic clue-brick. He took a step closer, then another and another, until he was close enough to touch her. He pulled her into an embrace that wasn’t, for once, all scarlet and purple lust and need, but a quiet rose with just a hint of desire to prove it was still him. He didn’t apologize, he didn’t kiss her, he didn’t say anything. He just held her, as if without her as an anchor, he might fly away.