Trust Me (Rough Love #3) (11 page)

“You know about our thing,” I told him. “You’re in a power exchange relationship too.”

“Yeah, but mine isn’t so smothering.”

“You don’t have rules and consequences?”

He lowered his voice and leaned closer to me. “Not like you. I hate that I can’t see you whenever I like. This whole once-a-week rule is creepy.”

“He wants me to focus on work right now.”

“Bullshit. He wants you all to himself.” The waitress delivered our food, and Andrew bit into his sandwich with barely restrained vitriol, before violently dunking a French fry in ketchup. “I mean, even this,” he said, waving a hand around. “Making us meet in a public place? How many hours did we hang out together at your apartment when we were in school? I mean, what the fuck does he think is gonna happen? I’m super flaming gay.”

He announced that very loudly. An older gentleman at a nearby table turned to Andrew with a speculative smile, but Andrew was taken, and he wasn’t in the mood to flirt. I watched him murder another French fry.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “We like this place. Does it really matter where we hang out? Why are you getting so upset?”

“Why
aren’t
you getting upset?” he shot back. “I mean, your thing with Price isn’t normal or healthy. All this controlling structure, all these rules?”

“There aren’t that many rules.”

But there were. I wasn’t supposed to meet with a man, any man, gay or straight, unless it was in a public place. I had to show Price any texts I exchanged with men, including Andrew and Vinod. There were rules about what I wore and where I went, and where I slept, and when I could orgasm. There were rules about speech and posture and how I reacted to punishment, and now there was a rule about wearing a gold and garnet ring.

“If you don’t see how freaky it is—” Andrew said.

“We like freaky, remember?”

He glanced over my shoulder. “Shit. Speaking of freaky, Professor Predator has entered the building. Keep your head down. Maybe he won’t notice us.”

It was easy for me to blend in, with my plain brown hair and short stature, but Andrew stuck out like a beacon with his huge mop of blond hair. Within moments, Martin Cantor, ex-professor, rejected lover, was standing beside our table with his takeout order under his arm.

“Hi, kids,” he said.

I looked up at him in exasperation. We were in a public place, yes. I wasn’t breaking any rules by talking to him, but I’d still have to tell Price that I’d run into Cantor—and based on his mood the past couple weeks, he would likely react in a fucked up way.

“How are you, Professor Cantor?” said Andrew.

“I’m good. How are you? How’s the painting?”

“It’s great. I’ve got a website now, and lots of studio contacts. I’ve been busy.”

“Glad to hear it.” He turned to me next, his eyes dark and probing as ever beneath his scruffy salt-and-pepper hair. “And Chere Rouzier, what a pleasure. I haven’t seen you since graduation. How’s the real world treating you?”

He’d seen me at graduation on Price’s arm, and his skewering regard told me everything I needed to know about his feelings on that.

“The real world’s been treating me well,” I said. “I’ve set up a studio, and I’m designing for a pretty big client. I can’t say anything about that yet.”

“So big you can’t drop names, yeah?”

“I guess.”

Cantor always made me feel defensive. We never would have worked out. “I just got back from Paris,” I said, to change the subject. “It was beautiful.”

“Ah. Price dragged you there for the architectural conference?”

“Well, I didn’t go to the conference. But I soaked up a lot of inspiration.”
And got punished. And got a new ring that means…something.
“It was an eventful trip for me,” I finished lamely. “I was happy to go.”

“I guess it helps to have rich, powerful friends.”

Cantor had always been a squirm-inducing combination of nice and nasty. Now I was the one murdering French fries as he stood there with a judgey expression. “So, you and Price are still together?” he asked, trying to sound casual. “All is well?”

“Everything’s great.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Andrew watched the two of us, a bemused smile at the corners of his lips. He was the one who’d coined the term “Professor Predator” based on Cantor’s inappropriate interest in me. I guess Cantor had been a pretty good metals professor, but now that I’d graduated, all we really shared was an awkward past.

“Well, okay then,” he said, shifting his takeout bag to his other hand. “I’m back to Norton. You two take care.”

As soon as the door shut behind him, Andrew burst into laughter. When I frowned at him, he laughed louder and leaned his forehead down to the table, like he was bowed under the weight of all the fuckupedness.

“It’s not funny,” I said. “Not that funny, anyway.”

Especially for me, because I’d have to tell Price about our random run-in. I didn’t tell Andrew that, because I didn’t want him to start going off again about Price’s possessiveness and his crazy rules. I knew. I lived by them. My ass died by them. It wasn’t funny at all.

“He still wants you,” Andrew said when he caught his breath.

“He’s an old horn dog professor. Whatever.”

“He’s the same age as your horn dog Master, and you don’t think he’s old.”

“You’re barely legal, so what do you know?” I said, flicking a finger at him. “And you’re with an older guy too.”

“Craig is your age, honey, so don’t call him old.”

“How is Craig?” I asked, to move the conversation along from Cantor. Andrew indulged me by launching into a recitation of their divine life together, with all Craig’s wonderful qualities, and all the things they’d done in bed the night before. I was glad they were so happy. I was happy too. I was.

I had a ring, and poetry. Yes, there were a lot of rules, but for now, for Price, that was the way things had to be.

To play it safe, I texted Price that I’d talked to Cantor before I even left the diner. I figured that way he could get over his initial irritation and maybe forget about it altogether before I saw him again.

He texted back right away.
What did you talk about?

Nothing. We just said hello. He asked what I’ve been doing. He talked to Andrew too.

How is Andrew?

I breathed a sigh of relief.
He’s fine.

Then, a moment later, he texted,
Did you feel anything for him?

I knew he didn’t mean Andrew. Did I feel something for Cantor? Hell no.
He actually made me uncomfortable
, I texted.
He asked about you. About us.

What did you say?

That everything was great. I didn’t feel anything for him, I swear. I never did.

That was mostly true. The only reason I’d considered getting into a relationship with Cantor was the crushing loneliness I’d felt while Price was away. I thought a moment and added,
I only love you.

Too risky to say that. Too effusive. Price got freaked out about love, even though he claimed to love me. There was no reply for a while. Then:
Be a good girl. Busy afternoon. I’ll see you tonight.

*

We had Chinese
takeout for dinner. Price asked them to throw in two extra pairs of chopsticks, and then set them aside until we went to the dungeon. Now the chopsticks were rubberbanded onto my breasts, with a nipple pinched between each set.

He’d warned me I wouldn’t always like belonging to him. He’d warned me there would be days I’d hate the dungeon. I hated it right now. My nipples burned and my shoulders ached from the rope harness holding my bent arms behind my back. My ass clenched on a huge glass plug that had only made it into my ass with copious amounts of ginger-infused lube. My knees hurt from the hard floor as I tried to focus on my Master. His hand twisted more tightly in my hair.

“Keep your mouth open,” he demanded. “When you’re on your knees, your mouth is open and your attention is on my cock.”

I knew that. He’d taught me that, but sometimes I forgot, and sometimes I just freaking had to take a moment to swallow. My eyes streamed with tears, not from the chopsticks or the ass plug or the sharp, hair-pulling scolding, but from the sheer physical trauma of having his cock shoved into my throat again and again. I sucked in air through my open mouth, and breathed through my nose when he plunged forward.

I couldn’t remember anymore how it felt to give a relaxed, sensual blowjob. With Price, they always involved violence, and a terrifying lack of control. I opened my mouth as wide as I could, teetering on my knees, trying to seem hungry. No one ever said being a sex slave was easy. I desperately wanted a washcloth to wipe my face.

“Get up,” he said, yanking me by the hair.

I wouldn’t say he was being any rougher tonight than he normally was, but there was some added tension in his gaze, and his grip. Because I’d spoken to Cantor? Maybe he thought I was lying when I said I didn’t feel anything for the man. Maybe when I told him I loved him, he thought I was overcompensating out of guilt. Again, the angst between us came down to a simple lack of trust.

But I couldn’t talk things out with him in the dungeon. I wasn’t allowed to talk, and he was naked and hard and not in the mood for talking either. He walked me over to the spanking bench and battened me down, hooking my collar to the structure and binding down my waist and legs. My arms were still cinched behind my back in a lattice of rope knots, and no amount of squirming could free them. When I was finally restrained to his satisfaction, he went to the chest of drawers and returned with a heavy strap.

So it wasn’t going to be a long, drawn out session tonight, just a beat down that was probably going to make me bawl. The strap brought real tears, not just the moisture forced out of my eyes through choking and physical exertion. He didn’t reserve the excruciating blows to my ass either, but worked over my thighs until I strained against the bench.

“Is your mouth open?” he asked as I cried and panted. “Open your fucking mouth in case I want to put my cock in it. You’re mine to use, in whatever fucking hole I want.” To illustrate that fact, he whapped the strap across the base of the butt plug, then walked around the bench and jammed his cock between my parted lips. I wanted to tell him that I felt hurt and exhausted, and that my asshole felt fucking abused by that plug, and that I hated the strap he clutched in his fist.

“If you can use that mouth to talk to Cantor,” he said, fucking my face, “then you can sure as hell keep it open to serve me. And if you can’t, we’ll get out the cock gag and do a little more training.”

Oh, shit, the cock gag. A thick, hard, intrusive piece of rubber that was as humiliating as it was uncomfortable to wear. I opened my mouth wider and let him pound me out.
Please, no cock gag. Please, I’m sorry I spoke to Cantor. I’m sorry he ever almost came between us. In the end, I chose you…

“Keep your mouth open,” he said, pulling away from me. I did, even though a thick string of drool dripped from my lips. He gave me a dozen more blows with the strap, until my butt throbbed with a hot, deep pain, then he put the strap away and returned with a vibrator wand. I eyed it in dread.
Please, no, please, not the forced orgasms.

He shoved it under me, positioning the wand between the bench and my body, and setting the oscillator squarely against my clit. Did it feel good? Yes. Was I wet and riled up from everything he’d done to me so far? Yes, but I knew this horny, trembling pleasure was about to be turned against me in the very worst way.

He walked behind me, grabbed my shaking hips, and impaled me on his cock. My nipples throbbed in their chopstick prisons as his shaft pushed inside, rubbing along the unforgiving glass plug in my anal channel. His cock felt awful and wonderful at once, slipping, sliding, hurting me, filling me, taking up every inch of space inside me at his whim. He slapped my ass as I keened from the pleasure and pain. The wand vibrated my clit, building to an intensely sharp orgasm. I contracted on the hard intrusions inside me, my whole body shaking from the power of the release.

I clenched my teeth to stop myself from babbling
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
He slapped my sore thigh. “What did I tell you? Keep your damn mouth open.”

I obeyed. I opened wide and made frantic, crying sounds through my lips. He loved to show me that he could take over my body and command me to do almost anything. At the moment, I was nothing at all, except
his
.

The orgasm started to wane and my body quailed with exhausted satisfaction, but the wand continued on, stimulating my clit. I tried to arch away from it, but the strap around my waist held me captive to the continuing vibration. He continued to fuck me, steady, hard thrusts that felt even fuller now that I’d come. I knew it would go on like this for fifteen or twenty minutes, that he would purposely hold off his own orgasm as long as possible to make me suffer the maximum amount of overstimulation.

I tried to relax. I tried to let another orgasm come even though I didn’t want it. I came again, and a few minutes later, again. My clit felt swollen and overused, but the vibrator did its work, and physiologically, my body kept coming in a continuous volcanic eruption.