Private Research: An Erotic Novella (12 page)

“I’m sorry about the dinner and about the way he talked about you.” The apology startled me even more.

“So you wouldn’t have wanted a threesome with him included, assuming no Kate?” I challenged.

“That’s not really a fantasy of mine. Yes, I’ve done it.” I nearly laughed. What
hadn’t
he done? “There was this night in Ibiza . . .” He trailed off. “But those games, that’s all in the past.” I parted my lips, taking a breath to ask how far in the past. Had that night in New Jersey been part and parcel of some old Sebastian, or was he simply talking about escapades with Nigel? “I’d much rather watch you with another woman,” he continued, and my lips closed shut. “But if that had been what you wanted . . .” He trailed off, his voice sounding tight, as if, despite his words, he wanted me to deny any interest in his cousin or having sex with him and another man. Interesting. Almost cliché.

“Not really a fantasy of
mine,
” I quipped. And it was true. I could hardly deal with my past promiscuity. The last thing I needed was to experiment more.

He smiled, all signs of tension gone. “Yes, threesomes don’t really seem to be your thing.” His head dipped close to mine, his breath scented with a hint of the whisky he’d had after dinner. “But what
are
your fantasies, Mina?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Being a virgin sacrifice, getting finger-fucked in the doorway of a parking structure.”

He laughed and moved away, opened the door, and waited for me to pass through. “
Your
fantasies.”

“If by fantasies, you mean the things I think about when I masturbate? Most of them I’d rather keep in the privacy of my own fucked-up imagination, thank you very much. There’s a difference between what turns me on and what I really want to experience.”

He shrugged. “That’s true. Still. There’s a whole world in between.”

And without a doubt, that conversation was exactly why, an hour or so later, as I sought my release with Sebastian thrusting between my legs, I was imagining another man, who looked suspiciously like Sebastian’s clone, filling my mouth. I came hard and fast . . . but that wasn’t a fantasy I wanted to make reality.

O
N
M
ONDAY,
S
EBASTIAN
was back in the office, and I hit the Internet again. I only left the apartment to get a latte down at the corner coffee shop, which was a luxury but one I could afford, considering I was practically a kept woman.

At six, he texted me that it would be a later night, so I made dinner, ate my half, and put his away for later.

Shortly after nine, when he finally arrived, I was back on the couch, this time working on the text of my dissertation, on the parts that would be similar regardless of whether I went with my original argument or the backup.

I looked up briefly when he walked in and offered him a smile. His tired smile in return made my chest flutter in an uncomfortable way, and I focused on the computer screen as he went about the apartment, dropping his computer bag, taking off shoes, disappearing into the bedroom to change.

Only when he sat down next to me and peered over my shoulder did I close the computer and give him my attention.

Funny little chest flutter again.

“How is it going?”

“Good, lots of progress. How was your day?”

“Some issues with the IT department, but otherwise the usual,” he said simply.

By now I knew he wouldn’t elaborate, so I thought through the Harridan House work I’d done. “I’ve finally finished looking up all the people Colin mentioned from the first year he attended Harridan,” I informed him. The entire project had taken several days, including a return trip to the National Archives. “He could have blackmailed so many people. I mean, yes he didn’t name people by their full names, but I’m sure to anyone in society back then, these descriptions would have given it away.”

“We don’t have the benefit of that same knowledge.” Sebastian sounded disappointed.

“No, we don’t. I did, however, make a list of all the other young aristocrats who were of his age and listed as having attended the same school, and I checked it against his correspondence. It’s interesting your grandfather didn’t enlist.”

“Yes. His brother did, however.”

And that brother had died.

I moved on quickly. “So I managed to narrow it down to a few possibilities, only one of whom is still alive, and he’s not listed, or is, as you Brits say, ex-directory.”

Sebastian laughed. “Naturally. Who is he? I’m sure we can find his contact info fairly easily.”

“Marcus, Lord Young.”

Sebastian eyes lit with recognition. “I know Garrett Simmons, who’s in line for the title. I’ll inquire.” But as excited as he seemed, he also had that reticence.

“You know, if you feel uncomfortable disturbing a ninety-five-year-old man, I’m sure there are other clubs like Harridan House that exist today,” I teased. “Certainly swinger’s parties or even dungeons.” I might have been innocent and naive two years ago, but I’d read my fair share of erotica.

He shot me an inscrutable look.

“You think that’s what I want?”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word.

He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s what you think. That I want to go fuck a bunch of strangers.”

It’s what I’d done on my quest to be more like him.

“What? You’re obsessed with sex, Sebastian.”

“Right. The Bosworth legacy.” His lips set into a hard line, and, with jerky motions that indicated pretty clearly he was not pleased with my observation, he stood, unfastened his belt, and slid it out from his pants. Oh God, he was undressing? Unfair.

“And you’re not?” he demanded, opening his fly, pulling out his semihard dick.

Shock at the abruptness of his actions froze me for a moment, but I stared at him, licking my lips nervously. He was right. I was obsessed. At least with him. There was nothing more I wanted to do than be on my knees in front of him, tasting him as he grew bigger and harder.

In fact, he was growing under my gaze. I looked up to his face. He raised an eyebrow.

I slid off the couch and crawled over to him, not breaking eye contact. By the time I slid my lips over him, he was fully erect. The salty tang of precum met my tongue. I gave in with an internal sigh that seemed to release all tension, ease everything but the desire to taste him, feel him fully.

His hands tangled in my hair, and I relaxed more, wanting him to take over, to fuck me this way, the way I’d read it described in books or seen in a porn video, or even in his grandfather’s memoirs. I wanted him hard and overwhelming.

Instead, he pulled away, knelt in front of me, and pressed his lips to mine.

“Don’t judge me,” he whispered. “And don’t presume this is all about sex.”

My mind swirled in haze of desire, trying to make sense of that.
Not all about sex?
Then what was that little battle of wills about? Why had he needed to prove that I was as depraved and obsessed as him?

“Okay,” I said, breaking the kiss. “What then?”

“Getting to know each other.”

I laughed. We knew everything we needed to know about each other for this little affair. In fact I’d told him too much that last night at my old flat, and he’d told me next to nothing about himself.

“I’ve never been to a dungeon,” he offered, his hands slipping down to the hem of my shirt, lifting. Yet again, a topic about sex, disproving whatever point he was trying to make. “Have you? Are you a secret dominatrix?”

I rolled my eyes even as I raised my hands over my head to let him pull the tank off, my mind filled with an image of leather, whips, ridiculously high stiletto heels—the clichéd limit of what I knew about the BDSM lifestyle.

“I don’t think so,” he continued. “I think you’re more of a submissive. I think you want to do everything I want.” Like suck him off at the unbuckling of his pants and the simple raising of an eyebrow?

I shuddered, the feel of him still fresh on my lips, desire building. If that was the definition, then maybe.

He tugged down on the cups of my bra until my breasts were free to the air, to his gaze, to the warmth of his palms.

“It wouldn’t have been this way between us two years ago.” He tugged on my right nipple, which pebbled under his touch. But inside, I was freaking out at his continued monologue, at this new direction: the past. “Whether I’d asked you out properly, or if you’d said yes to my rather ill-advised suggestion. Either way. Take your shorts off.”

I was a mess. Emotionally still responding to that mention of the past and then, suddenly, he gave an order, and my mind emptied of everything but that clear directive. Simple. Doable. I stood, slipped off my shorts and underwear, my bra as well. He stood, too, pushing his pants down and then off, unbuttoning his shirt.

I stood there, naked, trembling with desire and confusion, watching the slow reveal of his chest, of the defined but not overly developed muscles.

“Into the bedroom.” I went, looking back over my shoulder, half-worried he wouldn’t follow me. He seemed angry for some reason, but he was caressing himself as he walked, keeping himself erect. I was intensely jealous of his hand.

When I reached the bed, I stood there, directionless, and turned to him, waiting. We were role-playing maybe. Or perhaps there was some truth to what he had said. But either way, I needed him to tell me what to do.

“Knees,” he said simply, and I fell instantly, led him into my waiting mouth with a distinct sense of relief, of coming home. His hands tangled in my hair again, but this time firmly, as if he didn’t plan to let me go.

“Tanya was kinky,” he said. I stiffened at her name, but he pushed more firmly, held me in place as his hips rocked back and forth. “She had these handcuffs she liked me to use. Actually, she had this whole toy chest. Dildos, vibrators.”

I’d seen some of those toys when I’d accidentally walked in on her washing them in the bathtub. But why was he saying this to me now? He couldn’t have been so oblivious that he didn’t realize mentioning her would hurt me. Why was he being so cruel?

I laid my right hand over his and started to pull it away from my head.

“It was a game for her, but I think for you . . .”

I froze. Was he serious?

“I don’t think it would be a game.”

He was fucking my mouth and analyzing me. I was angry and turned on all at the same time. I dropped my hand from his and instead focused on his cock, on his balls, on stroking all his sensitive places and bringing him to the brink. On eliciting those delicious groans that made me know I had power, wasn’t some weak person who had no control over her life.

When he stiffened, holding my head still, I gagged a bit at the force of him nearly against my throat and struggled to take the flood of his semen. After his grip loosened, and I’d swallowed, I stood and angrily pushed him away.

“You think talking about your other fucks is a turn-on for me?” I demanded. “You think I want to be tied up and used by you? We’ve both made it very clear that we like sex, but that’s it, Seb. Don’t mind-fuck me, too.”

I turned away from him, ran my hand through my hair, and looked up helplessly at the ceiling. I’d put myself in an untenable position. I was living in his apartment. I couldn’t storm away because I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and changing my airline ticket yet again would involve more money I couldn’t afford to spend.

“There’s sex and then there’s what’s behind the sex, Mina.” He laid his hands on my upper arms, pressed me close to him, wrapping his arms around me. “Two years ago, you wouldn’t have jumped into bed with me on a first date. What changed?”

I swallowed hard. He’d been making a circuitous argument in response to my claim that he was obsessed with sex. All of this was his answer because he was too fucking perceptive.

“I had no idea you were so manipulative,” I fumed. “You want some deep, emotional answer from me? Like I said before, Seb, studious Mina needed a break. And I’ve always been curious what if.” It was half the truth. He wasn’t getting it all. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“I want to know what’s going on in your head,” he whispered, and I tried futilely to understand that expression on his face. “I want to know every single thing about you.”

Something about the words, his tone, strummed the despair in my chest. Once I would have loved him to say such a thing because it would have meant something far different. It would have meant he cared. But now there was this other element between us.

“Why?” I demanded. “I would think it’s enough that I’m willing to satisfy every one of your desires. That you have a living, breathing sex slave living in your apartment.” I reached for his cock, only semihard and still damp from my mouth, stroking it. “It’s early yet, Seb. Tell me what you want me to do.”

He pushed my hand away and stepped back, assessing me. He wanted to know what was in my head, but he was the mystery to me. Too much a mix of contrasts.

“You’re not my sex slave,” he said finally.

“But I was your virgin sacrifice, surely I can be a slave as well.” I was still angry with him, but I was settling into the role, the eroticism of playacting. I was determined to turn him on, to make him use me again the way he seemed to think I wanted to be used.

He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath.

“It’s not all about sex,” he repeated. He turned away and I stared at his back.

What else then? There was nothing else between us.

I watched him pull boxers and a T-shirt out of his dresser. Pissed, I climbed onto the bed and lay down, hand between my legs. I knew exactly when he caught sight of me in the mirror. He paused and watched me for a moment. I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation of my fingers on my flesh, taking it slow. I moaned, even though I wasn’t anywhere near that point yet, but this was partly for show.

The creak of wood beneath his feet and a slight breeze of air made me open my eyes again. The room was empty.

I could hear the distant clicking of the keyboard. He’d retreated to his algorithms. His tidy game of numbers.

I finished masturbating angrily, the climax unsatisfying, then rolled over to my side and struggled to understand why I wept.