Mile High (Up in the Air #2)(77)
“She said that there’s nothing you love more than dominating two women at once,” I said quietly, wanting to pull my wrist away from the hot contact of his hand.
I heard him suck in a breath, but kept my eyes stubbornly closed. “That’s a lie. I’ve done that with a few subs, but only the subs I knew favored that sort of thing, but that’s never been about my preferences. I suspect that Jolene herself may prefer that.”
“Jolene said you didn’t stay with women unless they would do that for you.”
His palm made contact with my thigh. It wasn’t a slap, exactly, but it wasn’t a soft touch either. “This is ridiculous. I wouldn’t ask that of you. I would be distraught if you even suggested it. You aren’t just my sub, Bianca. This is much more than just a physical relationship. I feel utterly possessive of you. If someone touched you the way I touch you, male or female, I would lose my mind.”
He took a shaky breath before he continued. “I want to share my life with you, to be monogamous with you, and my past is in the past. I wish there was some way I could prove it to you, once and for all. I do have a sordid past, but I’ve never lied to any of the women I’ve been with, and I’ve never promised to anyone the things I promise to you.”
My breathing was growing more even, the strange red haze over my vision getting better with every word he spoke. He was charming me out of my doubts, and no part of me wanted him to stop. I have it bad, I realized then. It was worse than I had even realized, and I’d known I was already crazy in love with this incomparable man. “Thank you for answering my questions,” I told him softly.
He was so quiet for a long moment that I couldn’t even hear him breathe. “You’re not upset?” he asked finally.
“A little, but I’ll get over it. I get insanely jealous when I think about you with other women, and I was sick with worry that you would want me to do things with Jolene that I just can’t do, but I’m not unreasonable.” I looked at him as I spoke. His face was stricken.
He crawled on top of me still fully clothed. He moved until we were nose to nose, that awful look still on his face. “I would never ask you to do anything like that. Moreover, I wouldn’t allow it. You promised me exclusivity, and I intend for you to hold up your end of that as staunchly as I’ll hold up mine.
Will you still move in with me, still stay with me? Even though I’ve done a dismal job of protecting you?”
I agreed that I would, even though my doubt was still a thick knot in my stomach, but as I was learning, again and again, he was impossible to resist.
“You can’t exactly protect me in the women’s restroom, James. That’s just silly. And you certainly couldn’t predict that they would do that to me. I couldn’t believe it even when it was happening. Jolene showed me her piercings. I really didn’t ever want to see that.”
James got up at my words, moving swiftly into his bathroom. He returned quick moments later with a toothbrush. He was very gentle as he brushed my teeth. It was an awkward angle with me on my back and helpless. “Tell me where they touched you. I want to scrub them off of you.”
I thought he was beyond strange, and it went without saying that this was some kind of OCD on his part, but I enabled his strange need to wash them away, telling him every single thing they had done, and every part of me that had been touched.
His face was dark as he worked, scrubbing hard at my wrists. He worked for a long time on my kiss swollen lips. They were swollen more from the way I had scrubbed them myself than from the kisses, but it didn’t seem to matter to James. When he was finally done scrubbing, he moisturized me thoroughly, spreading something that felt like vaseline directly onto my lips.
“It would have saved time if you had just let me loose to shower,” I told him, trying to make him smile, anything to ease the tense set of his shoulders, and the dark look in his eyes.
“I couldn’t bring myself to untie you. I have this nagging fear that you’ll run away from me again, and I’ll have to suffer through another desolate month. That was the longest month of my life. I’d do anything to never let it happen again.”
I felt a strange wrenching in my chest at the thought of him alone and suffering because of me. I hadn’t withdrawn to hurt him. I had been scared, scared of the way he made me feel, and the way I couldn’t seem to help but do his will.
“Make love to me, James.” My voice held a clear plea as I addressed him.
I didn’t have to ask him twice. He was on top of me in a flash, kissing my mouth as though he wanted to devour me. He was still fully clothed, and the silk of his shirt rubbed against my chest teasingly. He propped the lower half of his body just out of reach. I circled my hips, trying to reach him, but my legs held me securely against the soft bed. I arched my back, rubbing my chest harder against his. He thrust his tongue deep into my mouth, and I sucked on it, drawing on it like I would his cock. He groaned.
He’d propped himself up on his elbows, setting them deep into my underarms so he could cup my face as he kissed me. I thought this was the closest James could get to sweet lovemaking. But even his sweetest moment was still too f**king hot to bear.
I whimpered against his mouth. It was a plea. My body was throbbing for him, and nothing would feel like enough until he was buried deep inside me. He didn’t seem to agree, and just continued like that for long, torturous minutes, only the top halves of our bodies touching as he worshipped at my mouth.