Out of Control (7 page)

Time to get away and pull himself together—before he
really
said something dumb.

He stood. “I’m going out for a while. I need to clear my head. You’re right that I shouldn’t have spoken for you. I did it because my brain is still on vacation. I’m going to try to convince it to come home. I hope we can talk when I get back.”

“Maybe.” He went to kiss her, but she turned her head away, a message too clear for even his muddled brain to ignore. “Or maybe I’ll be out myself, or busy unpacking. Or maybe at the studio. I have work to do.”

If she were mine,
he started to think… But she wasn’t, and if he didn’t rein in those thoughts, he and Jen would never have a chance to be anything more than neighbors with an awkward history.

Instead, biting his tongue and driving his nails into his palms so the pain would focus him, Drake slipped away.

The dojo was open for practice bouts and kata for a while longer, and then there was a high-level class. The ritual of kendo would get him back under control, back into his head where he belonged. Sounded like a much safer place to be than his own house was, in proximity to Jen Kessler.

Then again, a war zone might be a safer place right now.

Chapter Five

Jen’s ass was still tender. Pulling her jeans back on—angrily, jerkily, gracelessly—had been uncomfortable in a weirdly comfortable way. Even now her butt felt red and swollen, the denim pinching and confining, although her jeans were soft and loose.

Each movement was a delicious reminder of what had just happened.

And each reminder of the awkwardly ended erotic interlude pissed her off again. Not because it happened but because more didn’t happen. Drake had turned from hot and sexy and connected in the most intimate way to distant and weird and acting like he’d done something wrong instead of something very, very right.

Jen fumed as she threw sheets onto the bed, fumed as she hung clothes in the closet. What was the matter with Drake?

Not a damn thing that I can see,
her libido opined, flashing her images of gray eyes and silver-dusted sandy hair and godlike arm muscles, vivid sense memories of Drake holding her down effortlessly, making her feel controlled and out of control at the same time. And each movement reminded her of that spanking, that crazy, unexpected, wonderful spanking that she hadn’t thought to imagine before it was happening, even though she’d known Drake was kinky.

Why the hell had he had to blow it by acting like her choices were his responsibility? She was a big girl. She’d been on her own since she was eighteen, and she’d stopped being a blushing virgin a few years before that. Not that she was planning on telling her father in this lifetime. She didn’t think any amount of time or logic would convince her dad she wasn’t a child anymore. Which was a cute, though occasionally annoying, trait in your father. Just plain annoying in your lover, especially when he was a brand-new sorta-kinda lover, not even a long-term boyfriend who’d earned a right to fuss over you and vice versa.

And what was with that weird combination of controlling and dominant in a good, sexy way one minute, bossy and domineering in a bad way the next, and then awkwardly apologetic, but about the good parts, not the aggravating ones?

She didn’t want to write him off as an asshole. He had definite potential, if they could get past whatever was bugging him. Besides, even if things didn’t work out that way, which would suck, she was still going to be sharing a house with him. She had to assume the best. They’d figure this all out, and with any luck in a way that would allow her to finally get her turn to explore his well-muscled form.

But she was still seeing an ugly puce haze of annoyance whenever she thought about it.

Should she call Avi again? No, that was just plain embarrassing. Best to try to figure it out for herself and then report success or failure.

She distracted herself by unpacking the kitchen and trying to get it organized. The kitchen at Melinda and Rafi’s had been much bigger than this one, but this tiny space had better lighting. For the first time in ages, she had a good window for a hanging plant. The sunshine-yellow Formica counters, battered white tin cabinets and weird brown linoleum with turquoise flecks were growing on her.

And it was hers, all hers. She could arrange things the way that made sense to her. It made it hard, she knew, for anyone else to find things in her cabinets, but the red frying pan had to go next to the red mixer and the equally red vase and her mom’s home-canned tomatoes and any other red boxes and cans, and the blue mixing bowl had to be filled with blue potholders and dishcloths and sit on top of the blue-and-white ceramic pie plate she’d found at a yard sale out in Trumansburg, and the spice jars, the grain jars and the small, clear bud vases she’d made when she was first learning to blow glass went in the same cabinet since they were all cylindrical.

As she arranged and puttered, making a mental note to buy new dish towels in a color that would make the yellow and brown and turquoise look deliberate, she calmed down. Playing with color and form, even something as mundane as boxes of cereal lined up next to boxes of crackers and pasta, arranged so the colors looked good, soothed her.

Then she stopped in the middle of the tiny, bright space and burst out laughing at herself.

People couldn’t understand her kitchen organization principle until she pointed it out—sometimes even after she pointed it out. Obvious as it was to her, it wasn’t the way most people thought. Probably the same thing was happening with her and Drake. She was missing some key piece of the Drake puzzle that would make her say,
Oh! That’s what this is all about!
when she figured it out. It wasn’t as if she knew Drake well, not as well as she probably should know someone who was spanking her, and that left a lot of room for mixed signals.

Add to that that he was a guy. There was some truth to the stereotype that men were poor at articulating emotions. Drake, being a mathematician, was probably worse than most when things were fuzzy.

Fine, then, she’d let it go and have that potentially awkward but potentially important (to him, at least) conversation. Maybe she could figure out what he was going on about.

And maybe then she could get him undressed, touch the long, toned legs she’d seen that first time, see if his chest was muscular enough to compete with his biceps and his crazy-strong forearms. Check out that cock. Suck that cock. Feel that cock inside her.

He might spank her while he fucked her. He might even tie her up first—he’d threatened to tie her up, or maybe it was more like a sweet promise. Or perhaps he’d just hold her down, using his strength “against” her but for her benefit, her pleasure.

Oh yeah.

Lust surged through her again, its warm hues wiping out the last dull irritation. Her nipples tightened. She brushed her finger over the place where he’d bitten her, feeling a lovely twinge of tenderness. She hadn’t bothered to look at her breast as she’d jerked her T-shirt back on, too annoyed to indulge herself. Now, both curious and aroused, she headed into the bathroom and hiked up her shirt.

The underside of her breast bore a bruise, a beautiful bruise, red and purple to match the colors in her mind, with the marks of Drake’s teeth clear. A real, old-fashioned hickey, the kind so-called bad girls tried desperately to hide from parents and teachers back in high school. But this mark was no trip down memory lane. High school hickeys had been accidental, the result of awkward, overenthusiastic teenage passion. This had been a purposeful way of proclaiming
I was here!
A mark of possession, however temporary.

That should have been troubling, considering how little she knew Drake, and how gifted he seemed to be at pissing her off as well as arousing her. Instead, it was erotic as hell. That might be troubling too, once she took the time to think it through, but she’d enjoy it for now and worry about the ramifications later.

Her hand strayed inside the waistband of her jeans, ran over the curve of her belly. Sometimes she looked at herself in the mirror and cursed her small pooch, but when she felt sensual, as she did now, she liked that curve—a pretty line, and a nice combination of strength and softness. Her skin felt warmer than usual, more sensitive. Each touch was intensified, as if someone else was touching her instead of her own familiar hand. As if
Drake
were touching her, stroking her, teasing his way down to her mound.

Her hand took that path. She hadn’t bothered with underwear when she got dressed again. It made it all too easy to stroke her soft pubic curls, imagining Drake’s hand there. Somehow in their play, he’d never done that. Would he be gentle or would he pull? Probably both. She gave a tentative tug and decided that it might feel good if he did it, but it didn’t work as masturbation. Then again, she didn’t think spanking herself would be the same either. She petted her soft fur idly, enjoying the sensation as her arousal built. She could hardly see the bathroom’s retro black-and-white tiles and magnificent tub over the red-and-purple swirls in her mind. Images of Drake and her entwined, fucking—of Drake tying her up—of Drake spanking her, or using that mysterious crop on her—danced among the colorful swirls. He’d said something about being cruel, about some of his desires being “alarming”. What else might he be into—and more to the point, would she like it?

It was her fantasy, and in her fantasy, she knew she would. She didn’t go into specifics, but every tantalizing, erotic, harsh image she’d ever seen or read about flashed into her mind in hot succession. Ropes. Chains. Whips. Paddles. Silk stockings and black leather. Hands on her body, manipulating her, holding her down, making her feel small and helpless, yet desirable and desired and loved.

She slid her fingers down to her clit, began to circle it as she imagined Drake’s finger where hers was. She was getting slicker as her pleasure built. The rich reds and purples in her mind moved like lava. Some dim part of her brain prompted her to pause long enough to unzip her jeans and let them pool around her ankles so they didn’t get soaked with her juices, a practical maneuver since she wasn’t entirely sure where her other jeans were. Trash bags didn’t come in enough colors for her to color code her packing effectively.

Putting one foot up on the tub, she sank two fingers of her left hand into her pussy, gasping at the hot, slick grasp. Poor, silly Drake. He should be sorry his cock wasn’t where her fingers were.

Of course she’d rather have his cock than her own fingers, too. Fingers were all very well, but that cock she’d felt through his clothes, and had seen outlined in those shorts, would be more satisfying, since it was attached to six-two of gorgeous, sensual, kinky man. She could picture it from all angles, him sunk balls-deep into her, his weight and strength holding her down. She could see all the muscles of his arms and chest and abs delineated, but at the same time she could imagine the ass she’d never seen or even groped, flexing and relaxing as he pumped into her. Filled her. Fucked her.

She worked in and out of her pussy in the rhythm she imagined Drake using, circling her clit frantically as she did. Pressure built in her lower body, and the colors spiraled frantically. She clenched hard, feeling the firm pressure on her fingers and picturing how Drake would react, how he’d groan in a throaty, animalistic way and look astonished by how his control was cracking. How he’d cry out as he surged into her, filling her with hot come, his body jerking, his face turning red, looking alarming and warriorlike and sexy as hell.

That image sent her tumbling into the lava pools of her mind. Light filled her, light of a color she couldn’t name, and she shattered. As the orgasm seized her, she cried out “Drake!”

At that moment, the front door opened.

Chapter Six

Going to the dojo had been a good plan, Drake reflected, enjoying the pleasant warmth of his muscles after a good workout. His instructor, Makoto, had commented that Drake had shown up seeming both unfocused and fierce, which Makoto described as a dangerous combination. Drake had wanted to spar, preferably with Makoto, who could still kick his ass most of the time. After Drake had earned his third
dan
, he swore the instructor channeled the spirit of some ancient samurai into his body to make sure Drake and the others on his level remained appropriately challenged. With half of Drake’s brain in his dick, Makoto would definitely defeat him, repeatedly, but Drake wanted the fight, the sweat, even the pain.

Instead, Makoto shook his head. “Too scattered,” he’d said. “Your mind is somewhere else, with someone who isn’t here. Do kata until you are in this moment, in your body.”

And the instructor had been right. The ritualized forms, the almost prayerful concentration of doing kata, drew Drake into himself, into order and focus, clearing his head of residual confusion and residual arousal. He hated to admit it when someone else knew him better than he knew himself, but after twenty years of teaching kendo—and observing his students—Makoto knew what he was talking about. Only after the kata, once his mind was focused, was Drake ready for the physical and mental effort of sparring—and the sheer exultation of swinging a shinai at someone, striking and blocking. The shouting helped too. He liked that aspect of kendo a lot, the combination of controlled grace and occasionally screaming at the top of your lungs.

Now he was relaxed, centered, ready to carry on a sane conversation about limits and desires.

Of course, he admitted to himself as he pulled into the driveway, he gave it about five minutes before Jen had his hormones in a whirl and his mind in a snarl again. She had the same effect on him as a red cape on a bull, goading him to madness—and though he didn’t think this particular brand of madness would lead to goring any matadors, he couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t get someone hurt.