Exposed (Madame X, #2)
Jasinda Wilder
ONE
I am naked; you are clothed.
The way it always is, it seems. Do you keep me naked merely because you enjoy the sight of my nude body? Or is it another form of control, of manipulation? A way of keeping me contained, keeping me captive? Some of both, I think. When I am naked—which is often, now that I live with you in your cavernous tower-top home—your eyes flit and float to me, rake over me, absorb my dusky flesh and athletic curves. Your eyes are always on me, even when you are working. Your eyes move from your laptop to me, pause on the elegant column of my throat, slip and slide down to the valley between my heavy breasts, to the flat plain of my belly, the juncture between my thighs, and then you, somewhat reluctantly, it sometimes seems, force your gaze back to your work.
Life with Caleb Indigo: a concerto of keyboard keys clicking and clacking, an overture of gazes and glances. You are always working. Always. I wake at midnight to the sound of your phone ringing—your ringer is a plain, old-fashioned bleating of a rotary-style phone—and you answer it with a curt “Indigo,” and you listen carefully, intently, and then respond in as few syllables as possible, end the call, toss the phone onto the nightstand close to hand, and tug me roughly up against your chest. Four A.M.: You jab your legs into slacks, shrug into a button-down, fingers nimble on the buttons, announce that you have business to see to, and then you do not return till three in the morning or four or even six, when you appear looking haggard and unshaven with dark circles under your eyes. But then, I, anticipating your return, am awake. And you know this.
And you stand at my side of the bed, staring down at me, waiting. I roll over, gaze up at you. Slowly, you divest yourself of your clothing. Your gaze will not leave me, and perhaps you slide the flat sheet away to bare my form. I cannot help but notice the way the zipper of your slacks tents and tautens as you gaze at me. And I am, in that moment, flushed with desire.
I cannot help it.
And I do try. Just to see if I have found some new source of self-control where you are concerned.
But the result is always the same: I see you, watch you peel the shirt off, unbutton it quickly, swing your arms back to pinch your shoulder blades together, and the shirt falls away. Your torso is bare, magnificent, a sculpture of tanned, muscled perfection. My throat will tighten and I am compelled to swallow again and again, as if I could swallow down my need for you. And then my gaze will rake down your furrowed eight-pack abdomen to your groin, to your bulging zipper, and my thighs clench around the gush of heated need. My breath comes in panting gasps.
I don’t need to say anything.
You unhook the clasp of your trousers, pinch the zipper tab in your big thumb and long forefinger, slowly draw it down. Free your erection. It will sway in front of my face, tall and hard and perfect.
And I am undone.
Any will I possess is eradicated.
Your hands will be rough on my flesh, scraping, teasing, possessing. And I will revel in that roughness, in the clutch of hard hands on my buttocks, tugging me to the end of the bed and holding me aloft as you plunge into me, eliciting a whimper.
And I will come apart for you, watching the tendons in your neck pulse and tighten, watching your abdomen flex, watching your hips drive, watching your biceps ripple as you keep me held effortlessly where you want me.
And you will come, too, but never quickly. Never until I have reached my own climax. And sometimes not until I have reached it twice. If I do not find that release with the driving and thrust of your body, you press that big thumb to my clitoris and force me to it with gentle, skillful, insistent circles as if you somehow just know precisely how to pleasure me.
When you do find your own release, it is quiet, an intense groan, perhaps a bead of sweat trickling down your temple, as if even your sweat obeys the rule of artfulness that seems to dictate your existence.
And then, done with me, you will brush a thumb over my temple, sweep flyaway locks of raven-black hair aside, grant me a moment of eye contact, a moment of personal connection. Just a moment, only a fragment of time. But something, at least. As if you know I need those moments to continue this . . . game.
This ruse.
This deception.
This faux-domestic relationship.
Without those moments of intimacy granted in that postcoital gaze, I would combust. Detonate.
And even with them, I am discontent. Disturbed.
You know it.
I know it.
But we do not speak of it. I try, and you brush it aside, sweep the conversation away like so much dust from a corner. Answer a phone call, claim to have a meeting to scurry off to, an e-mail to answer, a deal to broker.
An apprentice to train. Although you are smart enough to not ever mention your “apprentices” to me.
But I know you go to them. I know you “examine” them and “train” them, when you leave me.
I know.
I wish I didn’t, but I do. And I cannot un-know it. I’ve tried that, too.
You slip the second-from-the-top button of your crisp, never-wrinkled button-down shirt through the loop, tuck and blouse it just so, align the silver buckle of your slim black leather belt with the line of buttons and the zipper. You roll the sleeves to your elbow in precise fourths, brush your hand through your dark hair, and then you leave. Not a word of good-bye, not a hint of where you’re going or when you might return.
Just a glance at me, a moment of intimacy, that thumb through my hair, sweeping it back around my ear. And then you’re gone.