Resist (Songs of Submission #6)(15)

“I can make it hurt. You know your safe word?” He f**ked me slowly, knees under him, my leg over his shoulder.

“Small, orange fruit.” I felt another orgasm scratching and mewling at the door. It wanted in, but Jonathan had to turn the handle.

“I need you to promise me something,” he said.

“Anything.”

“You’ll let me take care of my business.” He f**ked me harder, leveraging himself by gripping my bicep.

“Yes.”

“You won’t interfere.” He went deep into a thudding pain inside.

“Yes, sir.”

“Say it.”

“Sir. I won’t interfere. Just do it. Please.” He slapped my breast, then grabbed it painfully before he slapped it again. “Yes!” I cried.

He continued, hurting me just enough to heighten sensitivity, hitting me with exuberance as I cried yes, yes so he wouldn’t stop. He hit my br**sts, my ass, my inner thighs without humiliation or punishment. Only joy. He did it because I liked it, and he liked it. Together, we were red-faced, near laughing, sometimes screaming, twisting, begging, f**king deep and hard, shamelessly gratifying each other’s most secret needs.

And when the thunderclouds gathered, coalescing into a solid wall of sensation, blocking out the sun and sky, I had his name on my lips. Pain and pleasure became indistinguishable, and I shut down into a clenching ball of now. His face was close to mine. I was twisted in a knot from the pressure he put on my knees and elbows and exposed sensitivities. I caught the last of his orgasm as my sky cleared and I could see the firmament again. He dropped his head in the crook of my neck and bit. The pain brought me back to myself, like a wakeup call from a dead sleep.

When his mouth slackened and his groans stopped, I said, “Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

I turned my head toward him and laughed at the absurdity of it. He caught on and laughed with me, holding my head close as we kissed, smiling. I untwisted myself and lay flat, joints and muscles loosened. I knew I’d suffer tomorrow from our f**king, as well as the promise I had no intention of keeping.

Chapter 14.

JONATHAN

I ordered breakfast from the diner around the corner, and when the delivery guy rang the doorbell, I was on the patio setting out plates. I heard the bathroom door shut. She was awake.

What Monica didn’t know, and what helped me sleep, was that her house had been swept twice for cameras while she’d spent weeks crashing on her friend’s couch. The place was clean, so I felt fine about giving her the roughest f**k I’d given anyone in my life. Even with Sharon, who’d suffered getting shit beaten out of her to the point of an emotional breakdown, I’d been more careful. She was breakable. Others had done a good job of proving that.

Monica, on the other hand, was made of tough stuff. That toughness was showing in her insistence on seeing my ex-wife. I had a gut feeling that by seeing Jessica on her terms and her turf, Monica would be walking into more than she could handle. She thought they would have a conversation, but it would be a game. The end result would be us separated by my ex-wife’s casual half-truths and outright lies.

The idea that I could keep tabs on Monica until the whole thing went away looked more and more impossible. I couldn’t suddenly restrict her. She was used to being her own woman. She had to work, and she had to play music. I couldn’t put a team of people on her when she’d just gotten over the cameras in the house. I had to make her not want to see Jessica, and the only way to do that was to make the trouble she was causing seem unimportant. It was a good strategy, and I was failing at it.

She came out as I finished putting out her tea. She wore a long-sleeved, black turtleneck and skinny jeans. She walked stiffly, but her smile was loose and relaxed.

“Good morning,” I said.

“The king sets the table.”

“He’s hungry.” I put my hands at her neck and kissed her. Her lips tightened. I pulled back and saw what had made her flinch—a tiny smear of reddish-grey where my fingertip had touched her jaw. Stroking her collar away, I saw that her neck was covered in bite marks and bruises. “Jesus Christ.”

She refolded the collar until her neck was covered. “I didn’t know whether to show you or not.”

“Up.” I tugged at the hem of her sweater. She bit her lip. “Come on.”

“The last time I looked like this, you felt too bad about it to f**k me.”

I pulled up the shirt. She lifted her arms, her face contorted in pain. I pulled the sweater off completely, and she tucked her head so the collar would expand around her. She stood before me, naked from the waist up, looking as though she’d been beaten in a back alley. The curves under her br**sts were deep red where blood vessels had broken under my teeth, and the mounds themselves were bruised. The bend of her neck had the same beaten mottle. Her biceps were blackened in fingertip shapes. I touched them lightly, drawing my fingers down to the striated ligature marks on her elbows.

“Your knees?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Matching marks on those. You tied me really tight.”

“You said it felt okay.”

“It did.”

“Your thighs? Your ass?”

“I’m fine.” She put her hand on my face, but I didn’t want to be comforted. I unbuttoned her pants.