Exit Strategy (18 page)

I brace myself for what’s to come even as I return his kiss eagerly. He runs his fingers down my throat, across my clavicle, then cups my breasts. He fans out his fingers and uses his thumbs to tweak both nipples until I’m squirming from the acute, exacting pressure he applies to them.

He slides one hand down the curve of my hip and slips two fingers between my legs, testing to see how close I am. When he’s apparently satisfied with his findings, he pulls away, but only for a second before I’m moving again. My back touches what has to be leather, and he straps my hands and feet to a contraption. I’m at an angle, not fully lying down, but not standing up either. My legs are open, baring my sex to him unabashedly. He releases the harness from the suspension rig, and I hear it retracting back into the ceiling. The plug is still doing its thing, and I’m humming right along with it.

Then Tristan is back. He hovers over me and kisses me from my mouth to just above the apex of my legs, where I’m drenched almost to the point of discomfort simply because I feel so exposed. Every so often, I feel the weight of his cock dragging against my skin, pressing insistently in places when he pushes himself close to me.

He leaves for a moment then returns and takes my wrist.

“I’m going to put your Hulk Watch on now,” he says. “However, if you feel panicked in any way, use your safewords, Keisha. What are they?”

“Exit and strategy.” I’ve chosen a new set of safewords because the old ones remind me too much of when I left him, and I don’t want to experience that pain again or remember why I uttered them in the first place.

“Good girl.” I can hear the excitement in his voice. On one hand, I’m a bit nervous about being back in here with him, but on the other, I’m glad we found a way to be able come back in here and experience the full effects of what it means to practice BDSM. Who knew I would take to this lifestyle so wholeheartedly? With the exception of the anxiety attacks, I enjoy the dressing up, sometimes pretending to be someone else, and the intense, mind-blowing sex.

I wonder what he’ll use. Crop or flogger? As I’m contemplating this, I feel something soft and flat hit my sex. It’s a crop, judging by the crisp sting of soft leather. At first he uses a relatively soft touch. He does a staccato tapping before he drags the crop up the length of my body, circles each breast, and assaults them.

With each successive movement, he increases the pressure. It’s the strangest thing to become so conditioned by the pain that I orgasm from those sensations as quickly as I do from pleasurable ones. It’s not unbearable, but it smarts, and I’ve grown to love it.

As soon as my orgasm hits me, he positions himself over me and moves inside me again. It’s foreign to have him fill me as I begin to come. The friction makes this orgasm that much more intense, and it immediately pushes my body toward another. I’m not sure how much more pleasure I can take. Multiple orgasms in such a brief period of time are about as exhausting as running a marathon.

Tristan moves in me like a man possessed, controlling me, body and soul. I want to throw my arms and legs around him, but I don’t think I could manage it even if I weren’t strapped to a contraption. However, his movement is enough because he elicits yet another orgasm from me. Then he kisses me throughout his own explosive orgasm, groaning some garbled version of my name into my mouth.

I’m limp and practically boneless when he releases me from the apparatus. I collapse into his arms with a slack-jawed smile, giddy from a superb round of scenes.

“Now that was a proper welcome back to my world, if I do say so myself, Ms. Beale.”

He leaves me briefly on the cross while he puts everything away. He returns, removes my watch and carries me to the bathtub, settles me in, and slides in behind me.

The bath is so warm and bubbly I have a hard time keeping my eyes open. Tristan makes quick work of washing me, then himself, and emerges from the tub in all his slippery glory. I’ve missed seeing his male perfection, and I sit in the tub watching while he quickly dries himself.

As he slips into a thick robe, he notices me watching. His smile is my only clue that he isn’t serious when he says, “Stop ogling me before I take you back into the role-play room for another scene.”

“Yes, Sir,” I say through a stifled yawn. He offers me a hand, and I step out of the tub and into the towel he holds out for me. Once I’m dried and dressed in a robe, we leave the role-play room, his arm firmly about my waist as we walk down the hall to the bedroom.

In the sitting area, we eat from a tray of fruits, cheeses, pate, and gourmet crackers. There’s sparkling wine and a pitcher of cold water, as well. After we’ve had our fill, I’m ready for bed, and all I want now is to sleep for about sixteen hours. It’s only a little after ten, but I’m exhausted.

“May I be excused to retire for the night, Sir?”

“Yes, you may.”

I move like a zombie toward the bed, but he stops me in my tracks.

“Are we forgetting something, Ms. Beale?”

I turn around while racking my brain in the process. As I stare back at him, he rises from the chair and moves toward me in that predatory way he usually adopts in the role-play room. His gaze is expectant, even though his eyes are narrowed almost to slits. My befuddled mind still can’t imagine what it is he wants. I hope it’s not what I think.

He stops mere inches away. I look into his eyes and say with as much feeling as I can muster, “You may have me again, Sir, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be responsive.”

Tristan throws his head back and laughs. I manage a weak smile and shake my head, but I don’t dare show any irritation.

“I would prefer you conscious, were I of a mind to have you again.” He pulls me to him. “I was referring to a
good-night
kiss.”

“Oh.” I go onto my toes, and he leans down to meet me somewhere in the middle. The kiss is almost convincing enough to reanimate me.

“Good night, Keisha,” he says. Then he turns me by my shoulders and points me back in the direction of the bed.

“Good night, Sir,” I mumble.

Tristan chuckles as I shuck my robe, turn down the covers, and stumble into the comfort of the bed. I’m out almost as soon as my head touches the pillow.

I dream I’m having dinner at Lydia White’s house, but this time there’s only me, Lydia, Tristan’s ex-sub Sara, and the redhead I saw on the gurney. Lydia and Sara are saying awful things about Tristan, but I’m gagged and can’t defend him. The redhead is talking, too, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. I strain to hear her even as Lydia and Sara scream at me, drowning out the redhead’s voice.

All of a sudden we’re in the role-play room, where Lydia and Sara continue their slander. I’m strapped to the cross while the women take turns beating me. The redhead is there on the gurney, and I don’t know why, but I’m ashamed to have her see me like that. Tristan comes into the room, but he doesn’t help me. Instead, he quietly takes the redhead on the gurney and wheels her out of the room as I scream at his retreating form.

“Tristan!”

I wake up alone. My Hulk watch is beeping, and I’m hyperventilating. I see that my heart rate is approaching anxiety attack range, and I immediately begin my breathing exercises. Once it’s come down to a resting state, I retrieve my robe and go in search of Tristan. It’s three in the morning, and I can’t imagine why he would be up this early on a Saturday. The truth is, that dream spooked me, and I don’t want to be alone right now.

I’m in the middle of the stairs when I hear a woman’s voice coming from the foyer.

“Sorry to have bothered you at such an ungodly hour, Mr. White. She’s just been so agitated since we moved, and this time I couldn’t get her to calm down. Thank you for staying with her until she could get back to sleep.”

The voice sounds like the woman in the scrubs from the day I came back. Who are these people, and what connection do they have to Tristan? I’m not going to eavesdrop this time; I’m going to join him and whoever she is.

“No problem,” he says. I hear the elevator ding softly, and her response is muffled. “You, too,” he says.

When I make it to the bottom of the stairs, Tristan is headed up. He’s dressed in a blue Henley, a pair of jeans, and topsiders with no socks. He looks tired, and I decide not to bombard him with questions that I don’t have the right to ask, anyway.

“Did my nocturnal excursion wake you?”

“No, Sir. I had a bad dream.”

He pulls me into a hug. “Sorry I wasn’t there to be a calming voice for you in the aftermath of your nightmare.”

I grin up at him when he releases me. “No worries. My Hulk watch worked like a charm.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think its beeping and my screaming woke me up in the nick of time. Then I did some therapeutic breathing until my heart rate was back to normal.”

“I’m glad it’s working for you.” He takes my hand and starts up the stairs. “We should get back to bed.”

“To sleep, Sir?” I ask coyly.

“Yes, Keisha,” he says in mock exasperation. “To sleep.”

~*~

“Keisha?” The cell phone number on my screen is Jada’s, but the voice doesn’t sound like hers.

“What’s wrong?” The last time I heard her sound like this was the first time she and I shared our deepest secrets with each other.

“Can you come home?” Jada doesn’t do needy or clingy, so I know this has to be something serious.

I don’t hesitate. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

We’re in Tristan’s office, where I’ve been using his Garage Band application to write a song bubbling up in my brain while he opens mail.

“Sir?” He looks up at me. “Something’s going on with Jada, and if I may, I’d like to go see her.”

Tristan doesn’t look at all surprised. “Permission granted to go console your friend.”

Walking out the door, I realize he used the word
console
. I’m about to ask what he meant when he stands abruptly and drops a letter on his desk. “Fuck!”

“What?”

He picks up his cell. “Velasquez, I’ve got another one... okay... . Okay... I’ll see you in half an hour.”

I move toward him, but he holds up one hand. “You don’t need to see this, Keisha. You’re already having nightmares.” He leaves the letter on the desk and comes around to meet me.

“Not sure if now’s a good time for you to go see Jada.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts.” His tone is firm, but his hands are gentle as he takes me into his arms. “I’ll get Moses to drive you after Velasquez and his security team have examined the evidence.”

“Sir, I get that you want to protect me, but Jada needs me
now
.” I smooth my hands over his chest. “I’ll do everything I can to return before dinner.”

“I don’t know—”

“Is something going on with Jada and Nate that I don’t know about?”

“How in the world would I know?”

He answered a bit too quickly. “You said I had permission to go ‘console’ my friend. What’s happened that Jada might need consoling?”

Tristan sighs. “Nathan called me this morning. Apparently some photos of him and Lavender have surfaced on the Internet gossip blogs.”

“Oh shit,” I say. “So, is there anything to these pictures? Jada can’t handle that kind of betrayal.”

“That’s something she and Nathan are going to have to work out... or not. All we can do is be there when they need to talk. That’s exactly why I don’t—”

“What? Put yourself out there and participate in a real relationship?” I know my questions are bordering on insolence, but I don’t care. I pull away from him. “Go ahead, finish your sentence.”

“Keisha . . .”

I don’t back down. “Call Moses, or I’m calling a cab.”

“I’m giving you a pass because I know how much Jada means to you and because my brother’s actions have hurt her. But I would advise you to undergo an attitude adjustment before you return here tonight.”

I’m not stupid, so I say, “Yes, Sir.”

“I’ll have one of the security details meet the car so the team here can return when Velasquez arrives. Can you at least wait ten minutes until I work this out?”

I sigh with relief. Talk about dodging a night of pain and possible anxiety attacks in the role-play room. “Yes, Sir.”

~*~

When I get home, Jada’s in her bedroom, crunching numbers. If I didn’t know her so well, I’d think there was nothing wrong, but she immerses herself in numbers when she’s worried. She has her mp3 player on the dock playing alternative rock music—a dead giveaway of her current mood. And she’s been running her fingers through her hair because her short do is spiked crazily on her head.

“Shit!” she exclaims and hits the keyboard with both hands.

“I’m no financial guru, but if you keep doing that, I don’t think it’s going to help.”