What the Lightning Sees: Part Three Read online

  “It’s perfect.” I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. “I like that you like it.”

  “I do. It’s as if I’m giving myself over to you.”

  I filled my lungs, needing a beat. I didn’t want to rush. Whatever we were doing, exchanging, it needed to be savored.

  “Undress,” I said. I tried to say it as if her gift hadn’t brought me to my knees. She wanted me in control and that’s what I would give her.

  She hesitated as if it took longer than usual for the words to turn to meaning in her head. She pulled her dress over her head in one graceful movement, uncovering black lace underwear.

  Watching her, knowing what was next, relaxed me.

  She released the clasp of her bra, revealing her beautiful breasts. Her creamy, smooth, white skin might have been marble from the perfection of it. Even one of Rodin’s sculptures, but I knew how soft and warm it was. The memory of her heat buzzed over my fingertips.

  “Put your hands down,” I said, moving her slightly so she was standing between my knees.

  She complied quickly and I stood up, pulling the rope through my hands, the fibers bending under my fingers as I searched for the middle section.

  “We’re going to try something new. I’m going to tie the rope around you so your arms are fixed by your sides. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. Her eyes were wide.

  “Are you frightened?”

  “No. I want it,” she whispered.

  Jesus. I needed to stay focused. I needed to give her what she wanted.

  “You tell me if it hurts or if your hands start to tingle. Do you hear?”

  She nodded.

  “Haven, tell me you understand.” I grazed her peaked nipples with my knuckles.

  “I understand.”

  “You need to be comfortable. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I pressed the rope against the skin of her belly, trying to distract myself from the way her flesh yielded around the fibers. It was the perfect density to leave that delicious red mark without causing pain. Slowly, using both hands, I began to wrap the rope round her, working my way up and down her torso, wrapping her up, readying her for me. “How does it feel?” I asked as she watched me.

  “Good,” she replied. Her eyes were slightly glazed and her mouth parted as she drifted under my control.

  “How good?” I trailed my fingers down her stomach to her slit. I knew before I touched her what I would find. I could smell her arousal. It surrounded her like a cloud. “Slippery already?”

  She groaned and her head fell back. I worked faster, coiling the rope around and down past her elbows, taking care that there was room between the rope and her skin. It was the perfect length. I secured the ends and took a step back to see what I’d created.

  There she stood. Her amazing tits jutted out over the top of the rope and were framed on either side by her hair. You couldn’t see her flesh through the rope, but I could imagine it compressed, the blood pushed out of the way. When my eyes met hers, I could see desperation.

  “Can you move your arms?” I asked.

  “No.” She made a small attempt to struggle, but she was tightly bound. “Jake?”

  “Yes, baby?”

  “I need you to fuck me.”

  I groaned at her request. I wasn’t sure I needed to touch her. She looked on the brink of climax where she stood, without any additional help from me. “I want you to bend over the bed. Turn your face to the side so I can still see you.”

  She did as I asked and thrust her ass into the air as she dropped to the bed.

  “Open your legs.”

  I stripped off my clothes and fell to my knees behind her. Her wetness glistened, inviting me in, but I was going to make her wait until I tasted it. Just a little. I bent forward and licked the back of her knee. She buckled and I steadied her. Her body was so responsive, so perfectly attuned. I dragged my tongue up the back of her thigh in a heated trail; her skin was soft and tight. As I reached her ass, I bit down and thrust two fingers into her at the same time.

  She lifted her head from the mattress. “Please,” she cried.

  I soothed the just-bitten area with my tongue, then sucked and sucked. I wanted her marked. By me. By the ropes, my teeth, my cock. I wanted to own her.

  My fingers found a rhythm and quickly became coated in her as I rubbed her clit with my other hand. Breathlessly, she began her climb toward her climax. “No. Jake. Please. God. Yes.”

  Her words got quieter as she got closer, and I pulled away from her, needing to hold myself back if I wasn’t going to fall over the edge with her.

  She whimpered. “More,” she cried. “Please, don’t stop.”

  I pushed my fingers back inside her, unable not to give her what she wanted when she asked. “Don’t stop?”

  “Don’t ever stop.”

  “Oh, baby, you’re going to be begging for me to stop.”

  I thrust my fingers and my tongue against her, and in seconds she was pulsing around my fingers, crying, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  I replaced my fingers with my tongue, pushing into her, her muscles clenching around me, my hands prizing her open wider. I alternated between licking and sucking until she started to shake. I pushed deep, deeper, and then my thumb found her clit. When she came again, it was as if in surrender. There were no words, simply her private sounds of pleasure, reserved just for me. Panting, moaning, and juddering.

  My cock was thick against my stomach. I had to be inside her. I stood and positioned her now weak legs.

  “Can you last a little longer in this position, baby? I have to have you like this.”

  “Yes, fuck me, Jake. Please.”

  I groaned and after a single stroke to my cock, I pushed into her slowly but without stopping, so deep I was drowning in her.

  Haven

  It was as if he filled every part of me when he was inside me. He made me come as if I was a generator on which he just needed to flick the switch, as if he had some secret code. He could make me climax with his fingers, his tongue, but it was only when he was inside me that I felt completely his, bound to him, my soul stripped bare. The intensity was magnified by the pressure of the rope, as if it squeezed more out of me when I thought I had nothing left to give him. It tied me to him. He owned me.

  He pulled out and slammed back into me. He was usually more gentle with me at first, allowing me to get used to his size, but now it was as though he couldn’t hold back, as if I had the kind of power over him that he had over me. Relief pulsed across my body with the realization that he needed to be inside me as much I wanted him there.

  His fingers fiddled with the ropes, adjusting them slightly. I hoped he wouldn’t release me yet, I was sure I would fall apart without the silky fibers twisted around me. The rope tied me to the moment, so I didn’t have to worry about what was next, whether what was between us was constant. I felt certain of everything in that moment.

  I was still bound as he hooked his hands under my shoulders and pulled me back onto him, pushing into me as deeply as he could go. I cried out, not knowing if any sound left my body. All I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears and Jake’s grunts behind me as he took what he needed.

  He withdrew unexpectedly and I tried to look over my shoulder to see why.

  “I’m going to turn you over,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly like disturbed bedrock. “I need to see your face.”

  He rearranged me on the bed so that I was face up and my thighs were parted, ready for him. My body limp and helpless, he had complete control. I wanted to give him what he needed and this was all that was left—complete submission. He didn’t need to ask me, I offered it willingly. “God, you look so good like that, Haven.” He pushed back inside me, grabbing my hips, pulling me onto him.

  He was concentrating. On what, I wasn’t sure. His breathing, his rhythm, my face. My muscles clenched involuntarily around him and he closed his eyes.

  “Shit,” he whispered and he twi
sted, making me clench again.

  He could do anything to me while I was laid out in front of him, bound. I was completely vulnerable and under his total control. It wasn’t frightening; it was freeing. His pace increased and our sounds intermingled. I couldn’t distinguish his cries of pleasure from my own, and staring into his eyes tipped me over the edge as my orgasm thundered across my body. It was like nothing else that had come before it. It ripped through me, crushing me and renewing me.

  Jake called my name and I felt his grip on my shoulders grow tighter before he shuddered, emptying himself inside me.

  At that moment, I needed to touch him, to have his skin against mine and he knew. His fingers plucked at the rope, and within seconds, I was in his arms and my hands were pressed against his heartbeat.

  “You’re amazing,” he whispered to me.

  “I’ve never . . .” It had been as though our previous times together had been leading up to that moment.

  “I know,” he said. Had he felt it too? “You’re mine.” His fingers traced the indentations across my skin left by the rope. “Are you sore? Do you have cream? It will help soothe it.”

  “I’m fine. It’s good. Like I’m floating, still.” What he did to my body made me feel he knew me like no one else. Or perhaps he understood me so fundamentally that he was able to elicit the things he did from my body. Either way, I belonged to him.

  He pulled me closer as I lay limply across him.

  “You’re beautiful. Those marks against your skin . . . They’re proof you’re mine.”

  He kissed the top of my head and our breaths synchronized.

  “I think we should take a bath or you’re going to be sore tomorrow,” he said.

  Jake left me to regain my strength and went into the bathroom. The sound of rushing water filtered through the walls as I lay there, not quite believing what had just happened.

  “Come on, let’s go soak,” he said, returning to the bedroom. He lifted me to my feet and guided me through the door.

  “Hair?” he asked and I glanced around the bathroom, trying to spot one of the various hair ties littered across my flat. I reached out to one I saw by the sink but Jake got to it before I did, positioned me facing away from him and started to fiddle with my hair.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Braiding your hair and putting it up.”

  “Should it worry me that you can do women’s hair?”

  “I don’t think so. I like rope. It braids nicely,” he said in response.

  It was an admission that I wasn’t the first girl he had restrained. It needled me, lifted some of the afterglow. It felt too intimate for it to have happened before. Had he shared this connection with others? I wanted to be special to him, in every way, as he was to me. Maybe it hadn’t been as intense for him. I felt silly for assuming that I was the only woman to have experienced this with Jake but I hated the thought of others seeing that part of him.

  “Did you restrain Millie?” I asked.

  “No. It wasn’t like that between us,” he replied.

  What did that mean? I wanted to know how it was different. How I was different. Was I special at all?

  He held my hand to steady me as I stepped into the deliciously warm water. He got in behind me and sat down, arranging me between his thighs, my back to his front. I relaxed against his chest.

  “There’s only been one other girl that I’ve used rope with,” he said without my prompting. “A girl at college. My only relationship that’s lasted over three months, as Beth likes to remind me.”

  “Were you in love with her?”

  “Not like I’m in love with you.”

  “Jake.” My breath caught in my lungs. I’m in love with you. The words echoed around my head. He’d known what I’d needed before I had. It was as if he could read every thought of mine before it was formed. It was what I craved from him and what I felt for him.

  He pulled his cupped hand up my body and let the gathered water trickle over my breasts. Then he stroked my newly warmed skin, following the flow. “I know it’s soon, but it’s how I feel,” he said as if we were simply describing a fait accompli.

  Jake’s phone buzzed, shattering the near-perfect moment. Instead of ignoring it, as I assumed he would, he scrambled out from behind me and leapt across the bathroom to retrieve his phone from the washstand.

  “Hi, Millie,” he answered and my gut wrenched. “I’m at Haven’s. Yes. I’m sure that’s normal. Isn’t your sister there?” He sighed and gazed at me. “Okay,” he said and hung up. “She had blood on some toilet tissue and her sister’s out of town. She wants me to go over.”

  “Oh,” I said, hugging my knees to my chest. He was going to leave me.

  He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Can I call you when I get there?”

  “Sure. Go. Do what you’ve gotta do,” I said, trying to sound as though him leaving me in the bath at nearly midnight to go and see his pregnant ex-girlfriend was the most normal thing in the world. I wanted him to be a good man, but I wanted him to be my good man. He was the man I loved and I hadn’t told him and he hadn’t seemed to notice.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Hey, it’s not your fault. Is it better to speak tomorrow?” On top of everything, I didn’t want him to feel as though he had to babysit me.

  “I guess you need to sleep. I’ll call you first thing.” He pulled on his jeans and sweater, then grabbed his keys and wallet. Within moments he was gone, leaving a huge space that should have been filled by his declaration, by him. I had never felt so physically, emotionally and sexually connected to anyone as I had with Jake. And now? Him abandoning me to go see Millie seemed somehow prophetic.

  I stepped out of the bath and wrapped myself in a towel, patting my skin dry. The red marks of Jake’s ownership were already beginning to fade from my skin. The doubt that had been held at bay by the ropes, his words, his touch, began to seep back into my head. Jake had told me he loved me and I believed him. I just wasn’t sure that was going to be enough to get us through.

  Jake

  The last thing I wanted to do was leave Haven after the night we’d shared. But Millie had sounded upset and I didn’t know how to say no to her. By the time I arrived at Millie’s apartment, it was way past midnight.

  “Hey,” she said as she opened the door.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, come in. Can I get you a drink?” She seemed to have brightened. “I have some amazing vodka that my father brought back from Moscow.” I followed her into the living room and she started clinking glasses over at the bar. She and her sister lived in one of the most expensive areas of London, courtesy of Daddy dearest. She and Haven really had nothing in common.

  She placed two shot glasses on the counter before I had a chance to answer. “No, and you’re not drinking, are you?”

  She glanced at me and then back at the shot glasses. “No, of course not.” She flashed a wide smile at me. “Habit, I guess.”

  “How are you feeling? Do you want to go to the hospital?” She was acting as though I’d come over to hang out. She didn’t seem upset at all.

  “Slightly better,” she said as she turned down the corners of her mouth in a pronounced frown. “It’s so scary being on my own.”

  “I think you should rest. Why don’t you try and get some sleep, and you can call me if you need me?”

  “You’re not going, are you?”

  “Millie, I don’t know what I can do here if you’re better and you don’t want me to take you to the hospital.” I stood in the doorway as she came toward me, her frown giving way to a pout.

  “You could keep me company,” she suggested, tilting her head to one side.

  My eye twitched. “You didn’t call me in the middle of the night and get me to come over because you were bored, did you?” I asked.

  She wore a pained expression. “Of course not. I was bleeding, Jake. I was worried. I’m carrying your baby. I would have thought
you’d have slightly more sympathy.”

  Guilt lapped at the edges of my thoughts. “Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll stay here on the couch?”

  Millie nodded. “I’d appreciate that, thanks. Come and get some pillows and a blanket.”

  I followed her through to her bedroom. I hadn’t been there since I’d met Haven. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  “You can take those pillows,” she said, pointing to the chair in the corner. “And have this quilt.” She bent forward to pull the cover from the bed but stiffened as if in pain. She clutched her stomach.

  “Jesus. Are you okay?” I rushed over and guided her to sit on the bed. “Are you hurting?” Her eyes were closed and she ignored my question. “Here, put your feet up. I think you need to rest.”

  “Please stay with me,” she whimpered.

  “Of course. I’ve said I will.” I covered her with the quilt she’d offered me. “Lie back,” I said, and she tentatively lay against the pillows. “I’ll be here,” I said as I headed toward the chair in the corner. Shit, what was I doing? I wanted to be lying with Haven in my arms, not propped up in a chair in my ex-girlfriend’s bedroom. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and started to text Haven. She’d be asleep, but she’d have it for when she woke up.

  Jake: Millie seems fine. Just a little spooked. I’m going to stay here. I wish I were there with you.

  Being back here was a huge reminder to me of how different Millie and Haven were and how I felt so much more myself with Haven. If Haven had told me she was pregnant, I’d be bursting with pride. She would make an incredible mother. My thoughts wouldn’t be of paternity and complexity. Of being tied to someone I didn’t want to be with. The situation was so twisted, as if the universe were trying to send me a message. If I’d known Haven had been in my future, I wouldn’t have wasted time on anyone else. I would have waited for her. I had been impatient. I’d settled for okay for now and I was paying the price.

  I must have fallen asleep because when I came to, my arm had gone dead from me leaning against it.

  “Jake, I feel terrible that you’re stuck in that uncomfortable chair. You can come and lie next to me; I won’t bite,” Millie said in the darkness.