The Submission of Alistair Ingram (9 page)

He
flinched. “Please,” he added, grabbing her duffle bag. “I’ll have your suitcase
brought in.”

“Get
out of my way,” she said, stepping down out of the S.U.V.

He
hooked his arm thorough hers and escorted her up the walkway to the door.
“Welcome to my home.” He smirked. “Well, the house I own. It’s not exactly a
home, and I don’t like being here but welcome anyway.”

He
put a key in the lock and opened the door. They stepped inside, and Bethany
gasped.  “Jesus,” she said, “nobody should have this much money.”

“I
know,” he said, tossing his keys on the console table by the door. “I can’t
believe what they pay me to look good, say what they tell me to say and walk
where they tell me to walk.”

Bethany
turned to him and grasped his collar. “You’re used to doing what you’re told,
so why are you so resistant to me?”

Alistair
couldn’t resist the luster of her hair. It looked so shiny and soft he had to
touch it, run his fingers through it. “I need something I control.”

“You’re
mistaken if you think that something is me,” she said, letting him go and
turning away. “Where do you want me?”

Where
did he want her? So, so many places. His bed was the first that came to mind.
“Come with me,” he said, too eager to test her, see how she would respond, to
let his mind warn him against it.

He
held her hand and led her up a curving staircase, down the hallway of white,
heavily padded, plush carpeting to the mahogany, double doors at the end. He
turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. “Let’s not pretend we don’t both
want this,” he said, lifting her in his arms and walking into his bedroom.

“Alistair!
Put me down!” she cried, shoving against his shoulders. “You can’t manhandle
me. This isn’t what I agreed to!”

He
set her on her feet beside his enormous California King-sized bed and pulled
her into his arms. “Shut up, Bethany.” He grasped her face between his hands
and kissed her.

Her
lips were tight and hard, resisting him. He traced her bottom lip with his
tongue and threaded his fingers in her hair and felt her soften against his
mouth. Encouraged, he deepened the kiss and led her down onto the bed.

Her
sigh warmed his lips, and he ran a hand up her thigh under the hem of her
sundress. She wasn’t fighting him. It put him on his guard. He didn’t like it.
He felt like he was taking advantage of her somehow.

“Bethany?”
he whispered. “Why are you giving in to me?”

“I
don’t know what else to do here. I’m out of my element.”

He
let her go and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “You’re killing me.
One minute you’re tough as nails, the next I feel like you’re going to let me
take you however I want without a fight.” He turned to look at her. “Which is
it?”

She
closed her eyes and shrugged. “Both? I don’t know. When you kissed me in the
men’s room…” She groaned.

“What?
When I kissed you, what?”

She
opened her eyes and shook her head. “You broke me, Pretty Boy. I don’t know who
to be with you.”

God,
he knew she had some fucked up past that she was working through, but try as he
might, he didn’t understand how this woman’s mind worked. “Try being you. How
about that? Be Bethany.”

She
let out a ripple of laughter filled with sorrow. “I haven’t been her for so
long, I don’t remember how.”

Alistair
couldn’t deal with this. He stood and unfastened his belt, slid it through the
loops and handed it to her. “Then be Black Betty.”

She
ran the belt through her hands, her fingers stroking the soft leather. “Is this
what you want?”

He
nodded. For now. He’d take Black Betty over the unsure, unstable Bethany for
now. Until he could piece her back together, little by little.

Alistair
knelt at her feet and dropped his eyes. “Do your worst.” He flicked a glance up
at her. “Or your best. I dare you.”

Without
another word, she was on her feet and standing behind him. The belt was around
his neck. “Take out your cock,” she whispered, her lips brushing his ear. “I
want it rock hard. Don’t disappoint me or you’ll regret it.”

Disappoint
her? Hell, he’d been sporting semi-wood all day waiting for the chance to get
inside her. Alistair unzipped and unbuttoned his pants. Bethany reached down
over his shoulder and shoved the waistband of his boxer briefs down, releasing
him. His hard length flopped forward.

“Very
nice,” she said, running her fingernails down to the tip.

He
exhaled sharply from his nose and shivered. “God, that feels good.”

She
gripped him, hard. “Did I tell you to speak?”

“No.”

Her
hand jerked, causing a brief moment of pain and panic. “If I want you to speak,
I’ll ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

Her
hand jerked again. “That wasn’t a question.”

Alistair
almost spoke again to get her hand to stroke him like the past two times. The
sensation was like nothing he’d known before. Pure adrenaline mixed with
desire…crazy ass lust.

Fuck
it.

He
spun on his knees, yanked the top of her sundress down and took her nipple in
his mouth, sucking hard and fast.

She
let out a shrill cry, then sank into him. “No,” she whimpered. “I can’t let you
do this to me.”

He
flicked his tongue a few times and squeezed both of her breasts. “Stop?”

She
let out a sob and pressed his mouth back to her nipple.

Bethany,
he thought. This was Bethany. She wanted him. Wanted to give herself over but
fought it because of her past—because of whatever made her turn into Black
Betty.

Right
now he’d take both of them if he could hear the whimper that was coming from
her as he worked his teeth and tongue over her nipple. He had to know what else
he could get from her.

Alistair
slipped both hands up her dress and tugged her panties down to her ankles. Her
hands grasped his head, then his shoulders, then his arms, but she didn’t protest.
He turned them around and pushed her back onto the bed.

“I’m
going to taste you and suck you and you’re going to let me,” he said, gathering
her sundress up around her waist.

Her
eyes were enormous blue pools. She looked so innocent, for a second, he forgot
she wasn’t Black Betty and felt like he was taking her virginity, like he was
the first man to press his face between her legs.

The
thought made him chuckle as he tossed her panties aside, grabbed her ankles and
spread her legs wide.

Bethany’s
palms hit the mattress, and she gathered the grey duvet in her fists with her
eyes screwed shut. Jesus, she looked like she was prepared for a root canal.
“Hey,” he said, stroking her inner thigh, “this won’t hurt. I promise you’ll
even like it.”

She
licked her lips, took a big breath and relaxed a little, but kept her eyes shut
tight.

If
he ever got his hands on the ex who fucked her up, Alistair might kill him.
Bethany was no Dom. He didn’t know a lot about that lifestyle, but he knew
enough to know if she were, he’d never have gotten this far.

The
real Bethany was hidden inside there somewhere, and he was going to draw her
out, one lick at a time.

Tearing
Down Walls

Bethany
fought the panic zinging through her body.

This
was Alistair.

Alistair
wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t one of
them
—her ex’s.

His
lips tugged and sucked, and her hips rose despite the battle in her brain. God,
it felt good. Incredible. How had this man pushed his way into her life and
torn down the wall she’d held firmly in place for ten years?

Nobody
touched Black Betty like this.

Nobody
penetrated that wall.

Except
Alistair Ingram.

Her
body started to tremble. Her hands, fisted in the sheets, let go and wove into
his hair pulling him even closer. Heat gathered under his mouth, radiating deep
inside where his fingers worked, gently stroking and pressing.

Oh,
God. No. This couldn’t happen.

Bethany
jolted up, pushing him away and scrambling up the bed.

On
his hands and knees, Alistair licked his lips, taking in her expression.
“Please don’t,” he said. “I only want to make you feel good, Bethany.” Slowly,
he crawled toward her. “You were shaking, but this time it wasn’t because you
were afraid.”

Alistair
sat back on his heels when he reached her. Carefully, he stretched his arm out
and trailed his fingers down her leg, from her knee to her ankle. “It’s okay to
feel good. I won’t use it against you. It’s as much for me as it is for you.”
Little by little, he inched forward until he was beside her against the
headboard. “I
want
to give this to you.”

The
tense muscles in her arms, wrapped protectively around her chest, relaxed under
his sincere gaze. “Why?”

“Because
I need it.” He brushed a lock of hair back over her shoulder. “You need it.”

He
wasn’t making any sense. “Why would you need this?”

He
pressed his lips together and held her eyes. She could see his thoughts
swirling. “I take everything I want, all the time. It all comes easy for me. It
wasn’t always that way. When I first moved here from London, I took shitty
parts in commercials and worked as a pool boy for a director who had a few
decent movies under his belt.”

Alistair
rubbed his forehead, his eyes wandered to her hand where he was playing with a
silver ring on her finger. “I was his bitch for two years,” he said, a hint of
his British accent tumbling over his tongue. “Got me nowhere. When I finally
landed the movie,” his eyes flickered back to hers, “which we won’t name
because I hate remembering it, I was ready to move back and work for my dad’s
marketing firm.”

Bethany
sank into the pillows behind her, as he laced his fingers between hers.

“I
fell hard into the movie star lifestyle,” he said. “Or what I thought was the
movie star lifestyle. Drinking and drugs and women. I was a debaucherous whore.
I hated myself, but what I hated more were all the people kissing my ass day
and night.”

Alistair
scooted closer, laying back into the pillows beside her and bringing their
joined hands up to rest on his chest. “Why do people do that? Kiss celebrities’
asses because they’re on T.V. or in a movie? Who cares? It’s not like I’m
saving lives every day. I don’t even make the shit up.”

She
hadn’t seen this tortured side to Alistair. He came off as one hundred percent
confident. Now she knew it was another role he played. The Alistair Ingram
role.

He
dropped his eyes to their hands. “So, I want to give this to you because I can.
Because you can trust me not to hurt you.” He looked up at her, and her heart
seized. “I don’t want to be that guy anymore, Bethany. I don’t want to hate
myself. If I can bring you back from wherever your ex sent you inside yourself,
I won’t hate myself anymore.”

Oh
no. She had to stop this line of thought. She pulled her hand out of his.
“Nobody can do that. Don’t bother trying.”

Alistair
narrowed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. “Why don’t you let me
give it a shot?” His hand trailed up her thigh and under her dress. She inhaled
sharply when his fingers parted her delicate folds. “Do you even give this to
yourself, Bethany? How long has it been since you let yourself feel something?”

She
didn’t answer him. It was her job to make her customers quake and gasp and
writhe under her ministrations, not the other way around. And no, she wouldn’t
give herself the satisfaction of pleasuring herself. Her mind couldn’t be
trusted not to wander ten years into the past while she indulged, and the last
thing she needed was to have a breakdown. She was in control at all times. That
wasn’t going to change.

Bethany
gripped his wrist. Before she could remove his hand, his thumb circled her clit,
and his fingers entered her. Every muscle in her body locked with the delicious
sensation emanating from her center.

“Relax
for me,” he whispered, kissing right below her ear. “Don’t think of being
anywhere but right here. This is all I want to do. Take this from me.”

Could
she? God, her body craved this from him. Her hips were rolling against the
waves of heat he was stoking inside her while her thighs parted wider
involuntarily. Her traitorous body was going to let him win.

Alistair
kissed a fiery trail across her jaw and down her neck to her chest. He tugged
her sundress down until her breasts were free. One fell claim to his fingers,
plucking and rolling the nipple, the other swelled in his mouth against his
talented tongue.

The
room filled with her pants and gasps. Her moans rewarded with his groans of
desire. She began to tremble again. The burning pressure between her legs was
too much to control. “Let it go,” he whispered. “Take this from me.” His
fingers worked harder and faster, not willing to relent and give back the
release that was on the verge of exploding inside of her.