LoveSexSpumoni Read online

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I can’t expect you to be willing to entrust me with your power if I wouldn’t be willing to do the same.”

  I stared up at him, examining his face now that my vision had begun to adjust to the darkness. The fact was that I had no interest in that scenario and I was kind of glad he wasn’t interested either. I wanted him to be the strong, commanding Alpha male, wanted to put myself at his mercy and trust him to arouse me without endangering me. Was that gender stereotypical? Probably. But it was what I wanted. Still, knowing that my big, strong hunk of a man would have been willing to let me take complete control reinforced the faith I already had in him. He tucked a stray wisp of hair behind my ear.

  “Is that what you want?”

  “No. Not at all.” I explained the thoughts that had been going through my mind. “That’s not really fair, though, is it?” I asked. “To expect you to be the strong, in-control party all the time.”

  “We’re only talking about my being in control in the bedroom, not in day-to-day life. I know that if I’ve had a horrible day at work and feel like I’ve failed my patients, I can lean on you. I know if I get teary watching Field of Dreams, you aren’t going to think I’m a total pussy. We’re also not talking about me being in control in the bedroom all the time. Yes, I love fucking you, feeling like the hunter taking his prey. But I also love it when you ride me, when you ask for exactly what you want, how you want it. You remember the time I slipped into the shower with you and you grabbed my hair and growled at me to eat you?”

  I blushed and nodded. How could I possibly forget? My neck had been aching from too many hours at my microscope and he’d sent me off to take a long, hot shower while he put together a lasagna for dinner. The warm water had eased my muscles almost immediately and Geoff’s usual thoughtfulness soon had me fantasizing about sex on the dining room table.

  I had just begun to imagine licking gelato off his hard, manly chest, just preparing to slide my hand down my stomach and feather my fingers across my clit when the shower curtain had opened and the object of my desire stood before me in all his naked glory. I’d heard myself order him to pleasure me, but I could hardly believe the voice was my own. I’d never sounded so greedy, so in-control in my life and it shocked me nearly senseless, but then his hands grasped my ass and his tongue touched my clit and all my senses came roaring back with a vengeance. The steam had warmed every inch of my skin and reactivated the scent of his woodsy aftershave. The water had seemed to pound like the surf, but it might have been the rush of blood through my veins. My nerve endings had come alive and the pleasure points across my body had pulsed with arousal. Power had surged through me, seeming to gather like a cloud around me. I’d felt invincible, worshipped and sexier than ever before. Geoff had seemed to think so too.

  “That was so hot,” he said, breaking into my memory. “Jesus, I couldn’t get on my knees fast enough.”

  “I was pretty demanding, wasn’t I?” I asked, my heart racing at the memory. I’d always preferred to be in control of myself, but I’d never taken control of someone else like that before, never dreamed I would want to. But the high—and the orgasm—had been intense and I began to understand why Geoff was turned on by the idea of spanking me. It wasn’t about humiliation or degradation or even control, exactly. It was more about trusting your partner not to take advantage of the situation and a burning desire to serve the other person for a while—about opening up and letting go and offering oneself up to mutual pleasure.

  Geoff’s eyes glowed with his own memory of that day. “Yeah you were. I’d thought I was going to sneak up and ambush you and you flipped the script on me completely. It shocked the shit out of me to hear you issuing terse orders about how to lick you and where to put my fingers. I’d never seen you that commanding during sex. I also didn’t know you could have that many orgasms in a row. But I learned a lot about how to touch you and I admit, it was seriously arousing.”

  God, it had been. I’d felt so free, so liberated. For the first time in any relationship, giving precise instructions hadn’t felt intimidating or awkward. He’d wanted to know what turned me on, urged me to tell him, to show him, even. He’d been a quick study, too, catching on almost immediately to the way I circled the top of my clit with ever-increasing pressure, to how much I loved feeling stretched wide by as many fingers as he could fit into me. I’d come the first time with thought-shattering intensity, but he’d wanted to keep practicing and he’d driven me over the edge time after time until my thighs shook so hard I could barely stand and my ears rung with my own cries of ecstasy. And then, finally, after what had seemed like hours of sweet torture, he’d looked up and asked if he could fuck me.

  I blushed furiously, remembering my answer, and looked up to find Geoff staring at me, watching me remember. I let out an unsteady breath and tried to bring myself back to the present, to the gazebo, to the conversation at hand. Trust and control. Balance of power. Vulnerability.

  “Even at the end?” I asked.

  He looked deep into my eyes and, even if I hadn’t been able to see the pure, powerful desire in them, I’d have heard it in his voice. “When you wouldn’t let me fuck you, you mean? When you ordered me to stay on my knees and masturbate while you watched?”

  Yes, then. I blushed more furiously and glanced away, but he tilted my chin so I had to look at him.

  “Don’t ever be embarrassed about that day. You were amazing, erotic. Your hair was everywhere and water glistened all over your body and your eyes blazed so green. You were a goddess and I was perfectly content to be the mere mortal doing your bidding. Do you think it wasn’t exciting for me to feel you coming over and over under my tongue? Yes, I love putting my cock in you. But kneeling in that shower in front of you, stroking myself, knowing you were watching me? That was easily the most powerful orgasm I’ve ever had from a hand job—especially when it was my own hand. Sexual release aside, that day took our relationship to a whole other level of intimacy. Didn’t you feel it?”

  He was right. I had felt it. The freedom and electricity of that episode had solidified my feelings for him. I’d felt so alive, so adored. And watching him touch himself? Looking down at his strong, virile body while he pumped and groaned and worked his rigid cock until spasms shook him from head to toe? I’d never had a sexual encounter so private, so personal, never felt so bonded to anyone as closely as I had that day. We’d managed to get the lasagna out of the oven just in time and the fragrant comfort food that he’d made from scratch, just for me, had warmed my body and heart even further.

  Then we’d cuddled on the couch with a movie, barely speaking, barely moving, but curled together as though nothing could pry us apart. We’d slept the same way, my head on his chest and his powerful arms wrapped around me, sheltering me, protecting me. That was the day I’d known I could fall in love with him. And our power play in the shower hadn’t lessened the feeling at all. It had actually strengthened it immeasurably. Maybe letting myself submit to him would do the same.

  “Look,” he said, once again interrupting my internal musings, “I’m as big a fan of a down and dirty, purely physical fuckfest as the next guy. But I’m a psychologist too and a relationship-builder by nature. I love the way emotions drive sexual satisfaction and the way sex drives emotions. Intimacy and trust are very important to me and I think experimenting in the bedroom is a great way to build those things. Every time we share a fantasy or a desire, every time we try one out, that just makes us stronger. And I…well, I want to keep building our relationship. I care more about you than I think you know.”

  I could see the truth of it in his eyes. I wasn’t the only one thinking about forever. And if I was going to spend the rest of my life with someone, I wasn’t willing to settle. I wanted the kind of deep, unshakable bond that writers and moviemakers marketed as fiction, the kind of enduring partnership that people said was only a fairy tale—as if wandering knights errant were known for their dedication and co
mmitment. A friend of mine had recently found her storybook love with an estate attorney. No reason I couldn’t find mine with a behavioral therapist. But I needed to know that I could trust him completely, that I could allow him to see me at my most vulnerable, that I could share anything with him without fear of rejection or ridicule. I’d never know that if I didn’t try. I took a deep breath.

  “So, about, uh, this. What exactly were you picturing? Like, how did you imagine the scenario playing out?”

  “Well, I’ve imagined a couple of variations, based on the situation. Haven’t you?”

  I nodded, then cleared my throat. “But what were you picturing for tonight?”

  “Tonight?” he asked, surprise ringing in his voice.

  “Earlier. You said if I didn’t quit teasing you—”

  “Yes, but I didn’t necessarily mean I was actually planning to spank you tonight. I wasn’t. Besides, saying it’s for teasing me is just sort of an excuse. Kind of foreplay for the foreplay, if that makes any sense.”

  “I understand that. I love the way you tease me and I love teasing you, letting you know that I want you and plan to have you later.”

  “I like it too,” he assured me. “It’s part of the fun, part of what makes things so awesome when we do get to them.”

  True. But I wasn’t sure I could put that particular fantasy back on the shelf to ripen, at least not without having the whole thing spelled out so I’d know what to expect. It was too intense, too risky—meant too much beyond the purely physical execution or arousal. I had to know. “So, if it were going to be tonight?”

  “Well, I expect we’d go back to my place. We were planning on that anyway.”

  Okay his place, check. “Would you do it right away or make me wait?”

  “Which would you prefer?”

  I didn’t even have to think about that one. “Right away, I think.”

  He smiled wickedly. “Me too. I’d lead you over to the couch in the living room and take off your dress. It’s beautiful, but it wouldn’t be the easiest thing to work around. What are you wearing underneath?”

  “A slip. The pink silk you gave me for my birthday.” The slip I hadn’t thought he’d seen me admiring in the lingerie shop window.

  “What kind of panties?”

  “Just a lace bikini, but…”

  “But what?”

  I blushed a little. “Well, I had been thinking I might slip them into your inside jacket pocket at some point tonight so you’d find them later.”

  “Oh really?” he asked, a note of interest in his voice.

  I blushed a little more. “Yeah.”

  “You are bound and determined to tease me half to death tonight, aren’t you?”

  His voice was warm and rich, tinged with arousal that heated my core and distracted me from my single-minded construction of the fantasy sequence. I reached up to run a finger along his lips. “I was planning to make it up to you.” For a moment, I let myself enjoy the sweetness of being so close to him, of teasing him on safer ground. “So go ahead.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ll presume you have no panties, then.”

  I lowered my hand to stroke his chest, loving the way his hard muscles twitched beneath my touch. “Probably a valid assumption.”

  “God you’re naughty.”

  Naughty. Such a titillating word and so appropriate to our discussion. “That’s why we’re having this discussion.”

  “So it is.”

  But still, I had to know. “So I’m standing before you in nothing but a thin pink slip. Then what?”

  “Then I’d sit on the couch and pull you over my knees. Unless that doesn’t work for you? I like the idea because of the physical contact.”

  A clear, enticing visual popped up behind my eyes. “That’s what I usually picture too.”

  “Okay, good. Once I have you lying across my lap, I’d look down and appreciate the way your gorgeous bottom rounds down to your thighs and then I’d rub your ass and enjoy how the silk of your slip feels under my hand. And then I’d spank you, stopping now and then to reach between your legs and make sure you’re enjoying yourself too. I’d start out slow, giving you a chance to get used to the sensation. Partway through, I’d ease your slip up around your waist so I could caress your skin and admire how warm and rosy it’s getting.”

  “Would you,” I paused, hardly able to push the words past my mounting excitement, “do it like that? Right on my naked ass?” The thought of it made me damp and quivery.

  “Would you want me to?”

  Oh God such a hard thing to admit, but I did. Wanted it so badly that moisture soaked my panties and need weighted my body like lead. “Yes,” I whispered, trying to tell myself it was okay to be so turned on.

  He leaned his forehead against mine and tightened his arm around my shoulder, creating a small, safe harbor that blocked out the world and made shameful admissions possible.

  His voice dropped to a murmur, blocking out the past and focusing us intently on the moment. “Then yes, I’d spank your naked ass.”

  The intensity in his tone sent thrills of anticipation down my spine and my clit began to throb. I longed suddenly for him to do it right that minute, to abandon all thought and consideration and just let it play out where we sat. “How hard?”

  “How hard do you want it?”

  Because it had to be up to me, had to be my choice. Would he make me ask, when the time finally came, or would he make the decision for me, somehow intuit that I wanted him to take control? “I liked the way it felt the very last time you slapped me, a couple weeks ago. It stung like crazy but it made me so wet and excited at the same time. Are you sure that’s not nuts?” A last wash of desperate panic threaded through my voice and he wrapped his free hand around mine.

  “It’s not nuts, but that’s pretty intense. I don’t want you in actual pain.”

  That worked out since I didn’t want to be in real pain either. “I don’t think I’d want more than a couple like that. But, as a grand finale…” I cleared my throat, determined to move forward. “Anyway, isn’t that what spumoni is for?”

  “Point taken. I’d rather you not have to use it, but if that’s what you want, this is your spanking—your hypothetical spanking—so it’s your call.”

  “And afterward we go to bed?” Because I’d need the release—and reassurance—that would bring.

  His eyes darkened with a desire more profound than any I’d ever seen. “Afterward we go to bed. Euphemistically speaking. We might be too horny to make it off the couch.”

  “Geoff, I’m not sure I’m not too horny to make it off the bench.”

  He didn’t say anything, just smiled and took my hand, placing it on the hard bulge in the front of his pants. He was as turned on as I was. And all we’d done was talk. God, if just talking about letting him spank me was working me up so much, what would actually doing it be like? He stroked my breast through the fabric of my dress.

  “You know,” he whispered, “this is a very private gazebo. And I really want to make love to you right now.”

  “Make love or fuck the shit out of me?”

  “A little bit of both to be honest.”

  Raw desire hummed through his tone and reverberated down my spine. I understood completely because I felt the exact same way. But how on earth would we manage without destroying our party clothes? Not that it wouldn’t be worth it, but we couldn’t walk back into the wedding covered in dust, looking like we’d done the nasty in the middle of the woods.

  “When do you think someone cleaned around here last?” I asked, hoping he knew about some routine maintenance schedule that would give me peace of mind.

  “This morning,” he said. “I did it myself.”

  “What?”

  “I even brought blankets in case it got cold.”

  He patted a stack of lightweight fleece folded on the cushion beside him. Between the dark and the intensity of our conversation, I hadn’t even noticed.

  He
took my hand, rubbing tiny circles around the inside of my wrist, and my nerve endings quivered in response. “You remember the last fantasy discussion we had?”

  Ah, yes, the sex in public fantasy. The one we’d toyed with in the parking lot at Six Flags. The one that probably wasn’t such a great idea since I worked for the government and he had clients to think about. Arrest wasn’t ideal in either of those scenarios. Except that we were technically on private property, and in a very secluded area on a dark night to boot. The actual probability of discovery was infinitesimal, but with a huge wedding only a few dozen yards away and the open walls of the gazebo exposing us to the woods around, the risk felt much higher and the arousal factor increased in tandem.

  I looked into the eyes of the man beside me. My warm, thoughtful, brilliant, erotic and wholly wonderful Geoff. Who else would have figured out a safe way to make the fantasy happen? So few would have bothered to make the effort. But I knew without a doubt that he would always bother, always try, always care. And that was the biggest turn-on in the world for me.

  “So you planned to lure me out here and seduce me all along?” I asked, desire thrumming through me like a heartbeat.

  “Guilty,” he said, sounding not the least bit sheepish. “Is it working?”

  Was it ever.

  Even if our fantasy discussion hadn’t turned me into a boiling mass of lust and anticipation, the romantic setting and the amazing man sitting next to me would have been more than enough to make me crazy. I tilted my head and he kissed me on cue, a deep, longing kiss that burned through my body like a fever. With one hand, he tugged at the zipper of my dress. As soon as the bodice loosened around me, he slid his other hand beneath the neckline to cradle my breast in his palm and rub his thumb across my nipple. It hardened instantly and, deep within, my core quivered in response.

  My hand still rested on the bulge in his pants and I squeezed lightly, eliciting a groan from deep in his chest that made my heartbeat quicken.

  He broke our kiss and leaned his forehead against mine. “Is there some way to hang this thing up?” he asked, his voice heavy and rough with need. “There are a couple of hooks on one of the posts.”