Bound Hearts (11 page)

“What we did last night and tonight doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change anything about you, as a woman or otherwise, other than the fact that you enjoy submitting to me.”

“I’m not naturally submissive. I’ve never been quiet or compliant in pretty much any part of my life. I’m not sure why this is different with you.”

“Maybe I’m different. You ever consider that?”

“What if you’re not?” she worried. What if he was like every other guy who once close enough, realized she was comprised of nothing but doubt, and decided she wasn’t worth his time, for the short or long term?

“There’s only one way to find out. We spend time like other couples do, in and out of bed. If we work, we work. If we don’t, you’ll leave this relationship with a greater appreciation and experience for different kinds of sexual experiences. I’ll have had the pleasure of your brain and your body for however long we last. We both win.”

“What do you know about my brain?”

“I know you don’t become a high school math teacher without possessing a pretty big brain. Almost as big as your pretty green eyes.”

She looked away, uncomfortable with his praise. She’d never accepted compliments well, particularly from men in her life.

“What do you say about taking a bath?”

“Together?”

“It’s more fun than doing it alone.”

“I say yes.”

Chapter 7

David’s bathroom was fit for a sultan or a third world dictator. Glossy soft gray marble countertops anchored a sizeable vanity to one wall. Another wall boasted a deep, sunken tub that looked as though it was made to contain the entire Tide football team. A stand up shower graced the opposite wall. He drew the water, only stopping when the tub was full to bursting. He kept the lights off in keeping with the rest of the house. Several candles strategically placed throughout the bathroom pitched shadows on the walls, lending a soft glow to surround the tub’s occupants.

The warm water soothed her in places she didn’t realize needed soothing until she sunk as deep as the tub allowed while David levered himself down at the opposite end of the tub.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a man with bubble bath.”

“Oh really. Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. It seems sort of…not macho.”

“You really do think I’m macho, don’t you?” His self-assured and self-satisfied look should have annoyed her. Instead, it charmed her all the way down to her tired toes. Even her feet were worn out by their horizontal workout.

“You’re pretty manly,” she reluctantly acknowledged. “At least, by Portland standards,” she qualified.

“Somehow, I’m guessing this is going to be yet another problem for you,” he said, as he ran a sudsy washcloth from the soles of her feet up her calf, to her knee, and then back again. Never before tonight had each and every section of her leg been so supremely sensitive. Maybe it was the man. Maybe it was his hands. Whatever it was, she was trying to tell herself to simply relax and enjoy it.

“I didn’t say that,” she responded, twisting her leg to give him greater access to the backs of her calves. Calves that were quickly turning into erogenous zones.

“Well, since whatever I think is appropriate, you seem to find completely objectionable, I’m going to out on a limb here and wager a guess that you’re about to tell me you’re not attracted to manly or macho men.”

“That’d be a big fat lie, don’t you think, given how we spent the last hour along with last night?”

He smiled at her, lighting her up from the inside out. Crap. If one smile and multiple orgasms were responsible for this kind of loopy behavior, how would she react if they were together for more than two days at a time? What if she fell in love with him? Would she fall at his feet, worshipping him? Do whatever he asked in bed and out of it? Beg him to never leave her? Promise to give him as many children as he’d impregnate her with?

“What I think is that whatever road trip you just took in your head, you need to stop, turn around and return to the here and now.”

His insight disarmed her, abruptly and completely.

She shook her head, intent on resuming her study of him. He embodied the phrase, “a man’s man.” His chest was delightfully masculine, with the right amount of hair on his chest before bisecting a respectable six pack in a happy trail. His shoulders were strong, deeply grooved with muscle and spanned the width of his tub. A five o’clock shadow she must have been too nervous to notice before roughened his jaw, making him appear slightly disreputable and dangerous in the soft candlelight. Of course, the man was dangerous. Dangerous to her emotions. Dangerous to her sex life. Dangerous to her self-control.

“So, it strikes me that I know exactly how your hands feel when you grasp my hips as you’re about to come, but I have almost no clue about your background,” she began, anxious to learn about him.

“What do you want to know?” he asked, continuing his gentle ministrations on her legs.

“Anything. Everything. Family. School. How you ended up out here. Any exes I need to know about. Children.”

“Let’s start with the easy stuff first,” he said, massaging a foot in each of his hands.

“I’m the oldest of three boys. I grew up in Missoula, Montana. My parents are God-fearing Methodists who believe in sports, God, family, food, and wine. In that order. My dad is an engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers. Mom spent most of her career as an emergency room nurse. She’s now a nursing professor at the university in town. They could have retired several years ago, but love their jobs way too much to ever do so. I think they’ll have to be forced out before the two of them will ever willingly slow down. I guess maybe it keeps them young, though.

“My two younger brothers are about as opposite as can be. Tim is a mechanical engineer and works with some outfit down in San Diego. He married his high school sweetheart, Sally, a few years ago. No kids. Mark is a freelance investigative journalist who, right now, is holed up with some poor woman in Chicago who’s supporting his freeloading, unemployed ass while he waits for his next story to sell.”

“No nieces or nephews then?”

“Not yet. I think Tim and Sally are probably working on it. They want them. And I hope for the love of mankind that Mark has no plans to reproduce. Not now and not ever,” he said on a shudder.

“Do you have kids of your own?”

“No.”

When he didn’t follow his answer up with anything, she was compelled to ask, “Don’t you want to know if I do?”

“I know you don’t.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“You never mention them. The only family you ever mention is your mother.”

“So? Maybe they live with their father.”

“There’s no way in hell you would allow that.”

Even though his statement was absolutely true, it still grated on her nerves that he seemed to be such an authority on her personal life and characteristics.

Even if he was right.

“Oh really? And why is that, Mr. Expert?”

“You’re about the most protective teacher I’ve ever met in my life. Given how you treat your students, there’s no way in hell you’d let your flesh and blood out of your sight to live with their father for any extended period of time. Not a chance.”

“Fine. One point for you. What else do I need to know?”

His hands were now doing delicious things to her toes. Who knew attention to her toes would send signals to other, more sensitive parts of her body?

“Well, I went to school at the University of Montana and knew I wanted to enter Sports Administration. After I earned my MBA from Stanford, I accepted an entry level job with the Dolphins in Miami and stayed there for about three years after graduation. After Miami, a better position opened up with Buffalo. I lived there for another five years. When the GM job opened up with the Tide, I made contact with the Silverstons to let them know I was interested. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“Buffalo’s about as different from Miami as football is from swimming. Was that a hard transition?”

He shook his head. “Not hard at all. Weather wise, I never really acclimated to Florida. Too hot and too muggy all the time. Buffalo was more what I was used to growing up in Montana. Cold, harsh winters. Crisp summers.”

“Now you’re in Portland.”

“Now, I’m in Portland,” he agreed. Switching gears, he asked, “How sore are you?”

Intentionally mistaking his meaning, she said, “My legs feel a lot better since you’ve been rubbing them. And letting them soak in this water seems to help as well.”

He sort of grinned. Not completely, but partially. “That’s not the soreness I’m talking about. Am I going to have to make you use your words again?”

The heat on her face told her that she wasn’t just overheating from the water.

“I ah, I think I’m okay,” she stammered.

“Come over here and let me be the judge of that,” he commanded. He widened his legs so that she floated right over to him. He arranged her legs on each side of him while she rested comfortably against him.

“Just let yourself relax, Calleigh. Don’t tense up your muscles,” he said as his warm, wet hands started kneading her shoulders before moving down over her back.

The water loosened her up all over, internally and externally, but even still, this was entirely new. She’d never bathed with a man in her life.

“Just relax,” he pleaded, leaning up to kiss her neck right under her earlobe. He nuzzled her neck continuously until he introduced one finger to her sensitive flesh as he continued kissing a myriad of different points on her oh so sensitive neck. His finger dashed all around, coaxing her walls into heating up and preparing for him all over again.

“It’s as I thought,” he whispered into her ear.

“What’s that?” she asked, gyrating her hips softly around his finger. At first, it had felt like too much pressure. Now it wasn’t enough.

“You’re wincing,” he replied.

“No, I’m not. I’m fine,” she said, trying to persuade him to finish what he started.

“You can’t see the expression on your face which tells me all I need to know. You’re sore. I knew I should have used lubricant. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. Let’s dry off and get back into bed.”

David took great care, drying her off with the plushest towel her skin had ever known. Up and down, he didn’t leave one single spot on her body untouched. He even dried her hair before taking her hands and leading her back to his bed.

“Lay down.”

She did, never dropping her eyes from him at any time.

“Open up your legs for me.”

She did.

He crawled towards her on the bed, like a dark panther intent on feasting on his prey.

And feast he did. Without any preamble or warning, he placed his mouth directly on her. She couldn’t stifle the moan that floated from her lips.

He rode her with his tongue, up and down, back and forth, never staying in one place too long, never quite letting her fall off the sexual cliff she was continually perched on. Over and over again, he loved her with his mouth. She derived great satisfaction from looking down and seeing nothing but his dark blonde head between her legs, shoulders bunched up, working his mouth hard over her.

She lacked all sense of time, all sense of beginning and end. Right now, at this moment in time, nothing existed except for the two of them. Anything he asked of her, she’d give.

Finally, he began letting her come. Once one orgasm was completed, he kept working her towards the next one, until finally, even he must have been exhausted. Gently kissing the top of her mound, he moved up to spoon her in bed and pulled the duvet over both of them.

Reaching behind her, she found his cock, hard and unsatisfied.

“But, what about you?” It would be selfish not to see to any of his needs after the gifts he’d given her tonight.

“I told you. You’re too sore. Even with lube, you couldn’t take my size. Not tonight. Don’t worry about it. It’ll go down shortly. Go to sleep.”

She turned towards him. “We don’t have to have sex. We could do…other things…”

“What’s on your mind?”

“How about if I show you instead?” she responded, as her hand closed around him, and began pumping him steadily up and down.

Show him she did.

§ § §

The following night, Calleigh tooled around her loft straightening up. Opening up and separating her mail into bills and trash. That was all the United States Postal Service delivered to her door. Bills or junk mail singularly destined for the garbage can. Ads for handbags she couldn’t afford. Oil changes she continually forgot about. Her Macy’s bill that never seemed to reach a zero balance.

Her plants were dying for water and she’d ignored a stack of magazines on her living room table for far too long. Maybe tonight she’d catch up on the events of the world she’d been too busy to notice while she was having wild, crazy, hot sex.

With David Shalvington.

In positions she’d never expected and had only marginally experienced before him.

David. He’d kissed her slow and deep when she’d set off that morning, neither one of them saying anything about when they’d see each other again.

The last two nights had been a revelation in more ways than one. David was dominant, domineering, and controlling. He could also be incredibly gentle and had exhibited those traits when she so needed them. In the tub and afterwards. He was also loving. And tender. Was that how all sexual dominants were? She worried that if she Googled “BDSM,” she’d be marked as some sort of sexual weirdo by people who kept track of that kind of stuff. Irrational? Absolutely. But she’d never even looked at porn online. Had never ordered an adult movie on demand through her cable provider. Now, she could only imagine what such a search would generate. Were there internet porn police? What would they do? Send out some search and rescue for her. Send out some sort of alert to the Walker administrators along the lines of “One of your math teachers is into some shady stuff. Better keep an eye on her.”

Of course, her rational self urged her that she was acting slightly irrational. Maybe she should travel to Powell’s and find the “adult relationships” section and check out some books on the subject of BDSM. But what if one of her students saw her? Or their parents? Or any of her colleagues?