Waking Kiss (18 page)

Oh, Jesus. It was hard to stay in control standing so close to her beautiful naked body. I suppressed a groan as I guided her to the bed and eased down next to her. We lay on top of the covers, propped against a pile of pillows.

“Comfortable?” I asked, even though I was not at all comfortable.

She shifted a little. I couldn’t blame her. My cock was reaching monster-size proportions against her leg. “It’s gonna get hard,” I said, readjusting it so it wasn’t flat-out poking her. “I don’t want you to stress about it. It’s natural, and most men have control over their sexual impulses.”

“Well…what do I—? Do you want me to—?”

I put an arm around her, drawing her closer. “You don’t have to do anything about my hard-on. I just want you to relax and lie here with me, and talk with me about some stuff. Because the nakedness”—I waved a hand over our bare, intertwined bodies—“does not mean anything. Not if we don’t want it to. It doesn’t compel you to do anything at all. Got it?”

She stared at my dick. “It’s getting bigger.”

“I’m aware,” I said, palming my balls. “It’s because I think you’re hot. You can touch it if you want.” I stopped her when she reached for me automatically. “It’s not a command. You can touch me
if you want to
.” Not the sexiest chat up ever, but I didn’t want her to feel pressured or threatened. That was the whole point of this exercise—to teach her that she had control.

After a few moments she reached out to stroke a hand down my extremely stiff length. It was hard not to react, not to grab her hand and make her stroke me harder, faster. She circled the head with her fingers. “That feels good,” I said in a soft, encouraging tone. “You’re really making me feel good. I could stroke you too, stroke your clit for instance, and make you feel good. Know why I’m not?”

Her hand stopped moving. “No, I don’t know.”

“Because I’m not sure yet about your signals. I’d probably start with something like this first.” I brushed my fingers across her hip, tracing the delicate curve. “I’d wait for some signal that you were warming up. That you wanted more touching. Movements or sounds, or words. You could ask me to touch you, as long as you asked really nice.”

She laughed a little, her fingers curving around my cock. “What does that mean, ‘ask really nice?’”

“You can’t throw orders at me,” I said, grinning. “I’m a dominant, I don’t like orders. But you could probably figure out a sweet, deferential way to ask for what you wanted, if you wanted it bad enough.”

She gave me a look that made my cock buck in her hand. She dropped it like it was on fire and then I laughed along with her. “See what you do to me?”

With my other hand, I traced the graceful slope of her shoulder. She continued to play with my cock, stroking, touching, making lazy forays into my thatch of pubic hair. “That feels so great,” I sighed. I moved my arm a little so I could reach to caress one of her breasts. I started lightly at first, just a tease of sensation. She pressed her face into my neck when I raked over her nipple with my thumb. “You like that. I remember.” I nuzzled the side of her head and toyed with her until she forgot all about my cock. Her body tensed against mine.

“Maybe… Please… Can you touch me…?”

“I’m already touching you,” I said, giving her nipple a quick pinch. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Can you touch me…please…between my legs?”

“You want me to touch your pussy?”

She trembled against me, but I was ninety-nine percent sure it was from pleasure, not fear. “I— Yes, please.”

“Tell me then, very pretty. I adore begging. ‘
Please, Liam, will you touch my pussy?
’”

“Please, Liam, will you touch my pussy?” she whispered.

“Show me where. Show me with your body where you want to be touched.”

She looked up at me, confusion clouding her gaze. “What do you mean?”

“Show me. Spread your legs. Turn toward me. Open for me and show me that you want me to touch you. Be responsive so I can read you.”

She let out a long, slow breath and shifted against me. I moved my hand down her waist, across her thigh. I wanted to feel her wet heat so bad but I couldn’t grab her the way I wanted to. I couldn’t grope her and thrust three or four fingers up there so she moaned and fought me. No. Those were the other girls. This was Ashleigh, who was looking a little more scared now.

“Jesus, baby.” I slid my fingers over slick, bare skin to part her pussy lips. “You have no idea how much you excite me. You’re shaved bare. It’s so pretty.”

“We…we have to be bare,” she stammered. “For dance.”

“Well, I like it. Your pussy is beautiful. So soft and wet.”

She made a stifled moan of a sound as I found the hood of her clit and massaged beneath it, to her thrusting little pearl. “
Ohh
,” she said. Her whole body arched off the bed.

“I wish I had some clothespins to put on your nipples,” I whispered. “And on your clit. I think you’d like that even more.”

“They hurt,” she sighed.

“Like this?”

I pinched one of her nipples—hard—at the same time I manipulated her slippery button. Her mouth fell open and I pinched it harder. She pressed her body against mine, seeking the roughness at the same time she tried to push my fingers away.

“No,” I said. “Let me.”

I pinched the other nipple just as hard, caught up in her sweet stuttering breaths. I almost kissed her, but then I didn’t. This was power exchange, not romance.
No strings attached.
I held her close and stroked over her clit again. “I can tell you enjoy that, baby. Do you want me to make you come?”

I almost said “Do you want Daddy to make you come?” because I was with a lot of girls who got off on that, but I’d retained just enough sanity to catch myself. “Let me make you come,” I whispered. “I can tell you’re close.”

She opened her legs a little more, thrusting her hips against my side. It was criminal that this sensual, responsive woman had gone so many years without the pleasures of sex. I hoped she didn’t stop me or ask me to do something else to her because I really, really wanted to bring her to orgasm right here, right now. I could feel her draw up tighter, hear her breathing intensify the closer she got.

“Please,” she said. “Please, try now.”

“Try what?”

“Sex. Please, I want you inside me. Please, Liam.”

Damn her for the begging. It was a weak spot with me. “Are you sure?” I rasped. My cock was aching, about to explode.

“Yes, please.”

Her eyes were closed. I studied her. Worried a little. “Look at me. Eye contact.” She opened her eyes but she wasn’t really looking at me. When I pressed deeper between her folds to finger her pussy, I could see I was losing her.

“Tell me to stop if you don’t want it. Just tell me.”

“Don’t stop. Please! Please just make me. Make me do it!”

It was like a bucket of ice water. I sat up on the bed beside her, shaking my head. She looked about to shatter.

“Why are you stopping?” she cried. “Just make me.”

“No. You know I’m not going to do that. I’m never going to force you, I told you that from the beginning.”

She burst into tears. I rubbed her back and then I pulled her to me and hugged her. “I know,” I said against her ear. “I know you’re angry, I know you’re frustrated. I know you want me to keep going, to force you to do it, but I can’t. If I’m trying to help you, honey—” She pushed away from me but I held her tight. “Look at me. If I’m trying to help you, why would I do exactly what your father did to you? I’m trying to give your sense of safety back, not make things worse.”

“You don’t understand,” she cried. “I just need to— I just need to get past it. Then I think everything will seem better.”

“Oh, you think that? I think everything will seem worse. Because then Liam Wilder is Daddy with a different face.”

She struggled away from me, ran to the corner and started to dress. “I have to go. I can’t do this.”

“It’s okay if you have to go.”

“Yes,” she said over her shoulder. “Consent, right? Great. But you’re not helping me.” She flailed behind her, trying to reach the zipper of her dress. I pulled on my jeans and crossed to her, but she batted my hand away. “Leave me alone.”

“Let me help you,” I said.

She slid away despite my best efforts and yelled at me from across the room. “I don’t need your help. All of this is stupid and pointless. Stupid games that mean nothing!”

“Games?” My temper flared. “I’m doing what you asked. You
asked
me to help you, sweet pea. Remember that?”

“I asked you to help because I thought you’d actually help me.”

“I’m trying to do the responsible thing, trying to protect you.”

“And I have no say in anything? Oh, that’s right, because I’m the fucking submissive in this—this—ridiculous farce!”

Ridiculous farce? Oh, even better. “You wanted the D/s,” I reminded her. “You practically begged for it.”

“Because I thought you’d know what you were doing, but you don’t. You’re too wishy-washy. Too soft.”

The longer she stood there screaming insults at me, the more I questioned what the fuck I’d ever hoped to accomplish in these sessions. What on earth made me think I was qualified to help her?

“Fine. Go,” I said with a dismissive wave. “Let’s not waste any more of each other’s time.”

“Get out of my way then. You’re blocking the door.”

I gave a mocking bow and moved to the side, resisting the urge to grab her and hold her down and make her take all her words back. I let her go without trailing along after her, because the whole purpose of my “consent talk” was to teach her that leaving was okay. Mem would have heard the yelling from downstairs. He’d intercept her, calm her down and see her back to her place.

As for me, I didn’t know my next step. I knew this process wouldn’t be a cakewalk, but I didn’t think it would get so wretched by the second session. I felt protective toward her, too protective, too involved, and I hated that feeling. I could run a company providing services for thousands of clients, but I couldn’t bear to feel connected to this one tormented girl. I could play with dozens of “crazy” partners and feel nothing, but playing with Ashleigh…

I sat at the table and stared into space, steeling myself against hurt feelings.
No strings attached.
That was the only way I’d survive this. I wasn’t going after her. I couldn’t force her to return for another session, any more than I could force myself between her legs.

I heard a quiet knock at the door. I wished it was Ash, but no, it was Mem’s signature tap. I looked over my shoulder at him.

“Not now,” I said. “Some other time.”

He ignored me, entering and sliding into the chair across the table. “Travis has left to take
Little Ishi
home.”

“That’s not her name. Stop calling her that.”

He said nothing, only stared at me with great forbearance.

I steepled my fingers and leaned my forehead against them. “Okay, give it to me. I’m ready for my lecture. Say whatever you need to say, whatever will get you fucking gone.”

“I only wonder what you are doing to her in this room.”

“What I’m doing doesn’t concern you. It doesn’t concern anyone but Ashleigh and me.”

He inclined his head in slow agreement. “I do not wish to pry. But just now, when she left, she was very upset.”

“Was she? I hadn’t noticed.”

Mem smiled patiently at my bitter joke. I hated when he looked at me like that, like I was the world’s biggest, stupidest asshole. “We had a fight, okay?” I said, hiding my agitation in a casual shrug. “People fight. They have arguments. Me and her…” My voice trailed off, because I was about to lie to him. “We aren’t anything alike. We probably won’t be hanging out much anymore.”

He absorbed my lies with a thoughtful, probing expression. “You know,” he said quietly, “the world won’t end when you open your heart to someone. Nothing catastrophic will happen.”

He was treading too close to a line he wasn’t allowed to cross. “That doesn’t apply here,” I said. “This has nothing to do with my heart.”

“What about her heart?”

“What about it?”

“Are you being careful with it?”

Mem and his fucking questions. “I told her the deal from the beginning—I don’t want anything to do with her heart.”

“Ah, the familiar refrain. No hearts, no love. No feelings.” He heaved a sigh, tilting his head at me. “You must let go of your past,
Ishi
. Too many years now, you’ve been punishing yourself, and now you’re punishing her.”

“Jesus Christ,” I groaned, burying my head in my hands. “How many fucking times do I have to say it? I’m trying to
help her
.”

“If you truly wish to help her, you must first make peace with what happened to you. Just as the storm must crash before the flowers bloom—”

“Mem, no.” I ground my fists into my eyeballs. “No storms, no flowers. Stop. This isn’t about me, not in the slightest. She has issues, okay? She came to me for her issues, to help her with her issues, but they’re
her
issues. That’s all this is about.”

“She is not the only one who has issues, my son.”

“I’m not your son. I’m nobody’s son, as you well fucking know.” I was finished with this conversation and his goddamn interfering ways. “Get out. Just get out and fucking leave me alone. And if she comes back, tell her… Tell her…”

“Tell her what?” Mem asked, rising to stand behind his chair.

Yes, tell her what, Liam? That this is starting to feel too risky? That she hurt your pride? That you’re a fucking loser who’s afraid of falling in love with her?

“Tell her I’m finished playing games,” I said roughly. “She’ll know what I mean.”

I didn’t want to visit Liam Wilder any more. I decided our thing was weird and inappropriate, and unlikely to work anyway. I busied myself doing other things, whatever it took to keep my mind off the idea of going back again. By the second week of January I’d prepped enough pointe shoes to last me until summer, so many pointe shoes that the costume department cut off my supply.