The Darker Side of Pleasure (9 page)

“Now I want you to use the vibrator again. I want you to cover the tip of it in lube. And I want you to rub some lube over your pussy.”

With shaking hands she managed to coat the pink phallus in lube, then she smoothed some over her fingers. She touched her sex with her lubed fingers, rubbed over her whole mound. It felt incredible. She could hardly wait to use the vibrator.

“Now, Cam?”

“Now.”

She turned the vibe on, let it hover over her waiting sex for a moment, teasing herself. Then she touched it to her swollen lips, lightly. The buzzing rocked through her body, making her more aware of the clamps on her tits. They ached with heat and pain. She wanted more.

“Move the vibrator over your pussy, baby,” Cam told her. “Tease yourself a little for me. Run it over your pussy lips, your clit. But don’t let yourself come yet.”

She followed Cam’s directions, watching herself in the mirror as she slid the vibrator over her outer lips, spread them apart to tease her inner lips, then back up to touch the hard and swollen nub peeking out. She thought she’d die of pleasure. It was almost too much. Her burning nipples, the vibe between her thighs, and the sight of her sex spread wide open, almost dripping with her own damp heat. She wanted to watch as she slipped the vibrator inside herself, into that small pink opening.

“Now sit back in the chair and spread your legs wide. And push the vibe inside.”

Yes!

She leaned into the back of the chair, lifted one leg and rested her foot on the edge of the vanity, opening herself up wider. And then she watched in the mirror as she slid the vibrator into her wet hole, one slow inch at a time.

She’d never felt anything like it before. Her body was quivering from deep inside. And she loved seeing the vibrator buried inside her. Again, she trembled on the edge of orgasm.

“I don’t think I can wait, Cam!” she gasped.

“Then come for me, honey.”

“Yes!”

She angled the vibrator so that it hit her g-spot. And her orgasm swept over her in a swift tide of pleasure, while her nipples screamed in pain, making it even better. She used her free hand to rub her clit hard, heightening the orgasmic waves thundering through her. She moved the vibrator in and out, thrusting deep into her sex while it convulsed around the rigid shaft.

She came and came; it seemed to go on forever, the vibrator and her hand driving her climax on mercilessly. And when it was over, she slipped the vibrator out and collapsed in the chair, breathing hard.

“Good girl.”

Even now those words, his deep, sexy voice, caused a shiver of pleasure to run down her spine.

“That was good, wasn’t it, baby?”

“Oh, God, yes!”

“And it’ll be even better in a few days when I get home. Now take the clamps off. Be careful and do it slowly. You’ll get a rush of pain as you take them off. Give yourself a minute to catch your breath after the first one. Your nipples will be sore for a while. Then get into bed and sleep.”

“I love you, Cam.”

“I love you, too, honey. You know I do. Now go to sleep. And dream about me, Jillian. Dream about all the things I’m going to do to you when I get home.”

They hung up.

Removing the clamps hurt worse than putting them on had, making her suck in a sharp breath, but still she reveled in the pain. It was all too good.

She went to bed and slept, dreaming about what Cam would do to her with their new toys, about the pleasure he would bring her. About the oddly lovely pain. Just as she had been instructed.

Cam’s return home was delayed an extra day. Jillian missed him, but more than that, it gave her too much time to think. While he’d kept her in a state of intense arousal, she’d been able to turn her brain off. But now she was home from work, with nothing to do. She sat in the living room with a glass of white wine in her hand, staring through the tall windows into the night.

Cam had designed this house himself, and Jillian had always loved it. It was more glass than it was solid walls, letting the outside in. There were fireplaces everywhere: The living-room hearth was two-sided, with the other side opening into the dining room; there was one in the master bedroom, another small one in the master bath.

The house was sleek modernity at its best, with hardwood floors that warmed up the bold architectural lines. They had decorated together, choosing simple, contemporary furnishings and neutral tones with splashes of bold colors here and there, giving the place a Zen feel.

It had always felt peaceful to her, serene. But tonight it just felt lonely. Too big. And all that glass made her feel that the world could too easily intrude.

She leaned into the dozens of Moroccan-inspired throw pillows on the long, L-shaped, tan suede sofa and pulled a handwoven blanket over her. The skylight overhead showed the faint twinkle of stars through the thin sheen of fog in the sky. Seattle was almost always fogged in, often making her wonder why Cam had bothered to build the skylights here, as well as in the dining room and their bedroom. But it was part of his idea of letting everything in, of building with as few boundaries between the inside and the outside as possible.

Boundaries. She was having some trouble with that tonight. Now that she had a span of time when she wasn’t being stimulated, when her sex drive wasn’t in control, she had some time to think things through. For a while it had been fine just to go along with what was happening. After all, she and Cam were much closer than they’d been in a very long time, and that was good. But she had to stop, finally, and question what they were doing.

The whole power play thing was pretty intense. Potent. And all-consuming while it was happening. It shut out the outside world just as effectively as Cam’s glass house let it in. But was that really for the best? She had certainly needed a break from all her thinking, from the guilt that ate away at her insides day in and day out. From her whole head trip that had caused such a rift between her and her husband.

A shard of guilt stabbed through her. She knew it was all her fault. Cam didn’t deserve what he’d had to put up with this last year. She’d been so distant—physically, emotionally, sexually. Even when they’d had sex, she was always at a distance in her head, and she knew he could feel that she wasn’t really there with him.

The BDSM stuff had certainly changed that. And she was glad for Cam. Glad for herself. But was it really going to fix them? Was it really going to fix her? She wasn’t even sure she was fixable.

She was learning to trust her body again, the body that had betrayed her so deeply when it had let go of their baby. God, it was all a tangle in her mind. Her body, her grief.

Her culpability.

Tears stung at the back of her eyes and she took a big sip of her wine to ease the constriction in her throat.

No, too much to think about now.

But when was she going to think about it? Every time she started, she got to this point and had to stop. It was too much. Too much to think about and far too much to feel. That whole line of thought reeked of the horrendous self-pity she had sunk into right after she’d lost their baby.

Too much, too much. Stop.

She bit down on her lip, hard. She had to try to make this new beginning with Cam. They had to make this work. It was time to get her act together and begin to live again. For Cam. For herself.

She wasn’t as certain about how to move beyond her doubts and fears when it came to the whole dominant/submissive thing. She couldn’t push the questions about whether or not this was normal out of her mind. She wasn’t ready to quit, necessarily. She just needed help getting her head around it.

She fell asleep on the sofa, her eyes on the stars glimmering through the skylight, her thoughts a tangled mess of old despair and new hope.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE
A
LVINA
K
RAMER SHOWING AT
J
ILLIAN’S
gallery had consumed every moment of her attention for weeks. Alvina was a new artist, but she was already internationally known. The only reason the Leighton Gallery had even been able to get her was because she lived in Seattle. Her fame had gone to her head, unfortunately, and “La Kramer,” as the gallery folk had taken to calling her, was behaving in classic prima donna manner. She’d been driving Jillian and her staff crazy for over a month already.

Finally the day arrived and Jillian was looking forward to having it over with. She spent the morning checking in with the caterers, having her staff make adjustments to the lighting. She wanted every detail to be perfect. Briana stuck by her side all afternoon, seeing that Jillian’s instructions were carried out by the staff. Finally, an hour before the opening, it was just the two of them in Jillian’s loft office. Jillian stood by her desk, running her gaze down the list on her clipboard.

“I think everything is ready to go. Why don’t you take a breather before you change, Jillie?”

“What? I’m fine. I want to get ready and do some last minute spot-checking.”

“Everything is done. I’ve already checked everything myself. Maybe you should have a glass of wine.”

Jillian looked up from the pile of notes on her desk. “Why? You know I never drink at these things.”

“You just seem a little more…tense than usual.”

Jillian sat back in her chair and exhaled a long breath. “Sorry, Bri. I’ve just had so much on my mind.”

“I know this artist has been a real pain in the ass—”

“No, it’s not that. I mean, that hasn’t been helping, believe me. I’m ready to throttle that woman. It’s just…me.”

Briana sat down in the chair across from her. “What do you mean? What’s up? I thought things were great with you and Cam.”

Jillian pushed her hair away from her face. “God, I don’t know, Bri. Everything was good, but suddenly I’m questioning it. I’m questioning everything. I mean, is what we’re doing really right?”

“Why not? You’re two consenting adults. Nobody’s getting hurt. I don’t see the problem.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“Then why don’t you tell me?”

“I’m not sure I can.” She paused, trying to gather the thoughts that seemed to be whirling through her brain at a million miles an hour. “It’s like, life was good, you know? Everything was fine, and then I got pregnant.” She made herself stop there for a moment, not wanting to reveal the one secret she’d never admitted to anybody. She took a deep breath and tried again.

“Then I lost the baby. And at five months I was showing and everyone knew. When I came back to work, everyone wanted to know what had happened, but nobody came up to me and asked. They just stared at me. Like they expected me to fall apart at any moment. What they didn’t know was that I was falling apart all the time on the inside. I lived like that, in a constant state of falling apart.”

“I know, honey. I tried to buffer you here at work as much as I could.”

“I know you did. But the thing was, no matter what anyone else did, I still had to deal with what had happened. And it drove such a wedge between Cam and me. I couldn’t seem to stop it. And now things seem to be getting better, but I don’t know how real it all is.”

“If it seems to be getting better, than it just
is,
Jillie.”