Beauty and Pain (5 page)

“Jesus Christ…”

“You’ll be willing to take that nap after you get home then and meet me at three?” I smiled, knowing I’d got him, that he’d be meeting me all right.

“More than willing.”

I glanced at my watch, sad to see our intimate encounter would have to come to an end. “We really ought to get going.”

He grinned. “I thought we’d already done that.”

I returned his smile, moving my finger from his lips to trail it down to the collar of his shirt then swirl it over the knot of his tie—a tie I’d very much like binding my wrists while he wielded that stick of his again. Either stick, actually. His tie was red, and an image of it on my wrists—that were just as red from chafing—flicked through my mind.

“Make sure you wear this,” I said, tugging the tongue of his tie. “And”—I went on tiptoes to glance over his shoulder—“you might want to get that device of yours. You left it on the shelf there.”

He stepped back, me still holding his tie, and reached blindly for the stick. After finding it, he slid it into his inside pocket, and before I knew it, he was looming over me again. He kissed me—long and hard and oh so bloody toe-curling—then let me go, abruptly, as if I’d given him a shock.

I cocked my head and stared at him, disguising my surprise.

“I need to get away from you, woman,” he said, holding his hands up. “Because if I don’t, I’ll spend all day fucking you on this train. We may well go to Swansea and back and we wouldn’t notice.”

Relieved he hadn’t meant something else entirely, I laughed. “That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

“No, and that’s the problem. I have an important meeting today. I can’t miss it. And believe me, if I could, I would. You’re far too tempting.”

“Delilah to your Samson?”

“Something like that.”

He stared at me for what seemed a long time, and I kept a steady gaze, unwilling to let it waver. I had a feeling he was once again trying to prove I was a sub—to make me look down or at least shift my eyes left or right.

He wouldn’t win this battle.

A tinny voice came from a hidden speaker, announcing the stop before ours. He glanced at the door. I allowed myself the beautiful taste of victory. It spread through me, giving me the shivers and resulting in a tremor in my pussy.

Oh, God, the things he does to me…

“Normally,” he said, “I’d say ladies first, but in this situation I think I’ll leave before you. In case that man’s out there again.”

“And if he is?”

“I’ll distract him so you can come out.”

He moved toward me, touched his fingertips to my cheek, then walked out of the door.

It closed behind him, and I went to it, opened it a tad to peek into the buffet carriage. Gabriel was at the other door. He turned and jerked his head. I left our little room and followed him into our carriage, but I didn’t sit when he did.

Instead, I leaned down and whispered in his ear, “I’m going to the toilet. I want to look at my arse.
Sir
.”

He stared up at me, clamping his lips tight as though if he didn’t, he’d say something he wouldn’t want others to hear. The man next to him had left, but the woman beside my seat was still there, this time with her headphones dangling around her neck.

I left him and made my way to the toilet. Inside, I yanked up my skirt, pulled my knickers to my thighs and turned so my bum faced the slim mirror secured to the back of the door. I stared over my shoulder, pleased to see angry red lines on my backside. Now I knew what they looked like, I could think of them during the rest of the day.

Pulling my knickers back up then sorting my skirt out, I turned to look at myself. Yes, I had smudged mascara, but more than that, I had a round pink mark on my face.

The imprint of that drawing pin.

For some reason, that pleased me as much as the red marks on my arse. Perhaps because it was visible for anyone to see. Other passengers, my work colleagues… My boss.

I left the toilet without fixing my mascara, without rubbing at the mark to make it go away. I’d wear them as proof of what had happened and wouldn’t give a damn if people stared at me. I’d had a fantasy and I’d taken the bull by the horns and had gone out to get it, to make it real. I wasn’t about to hide the proof of the pudding, be made to feel ashamed.

I felt more alive than I had in months.

Back in our carriage, I slid carefully into my seat and stared across at Gabriel. Leaning toward him, I whispered, “How are you, Sir?”

He clamped his lips together again then said, “You look the perfect little slut like that.” He nodded. “Your mascara. Don’t wash it off all day. Keep it like that until you meet me in the supermarket. I want you to look just like you do now—raw and primal.”

His orders thrilled me.

“If that’s what you want, Sir.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve tapped into me pretty well already,
sub
,” he said quietly.

I narrowed my eyes in return. “And you’ve tapped into me. Hopefully, if we’re so in tune, you’ll know exactly which toy to bring tonight, won’t you?”

It was a challenge, one I hoped would fill his lunchtime as he scoured the sex shops in order to find the perfect thing. Unless he carried something else on him—or had a selection of toys at home.

“Here,” he said. “For you.”

He passed me a handful of paper, or at least what I thought was a handful, but when I took it, I saw it was a carefully constructed rose, origami style, slightly dog-eared but beautiful all the same.

“What’s this?” I asked, glancing at him then studying the intricate design. The paper was folded neatly and precisely to form petals that started off small and grew larger. He’d formed a small stalk too, minus thorns luckily.

“Did you just make this?” I asked. “When I went to the loo?”

He glanced away. “No, I…”

“What?” My God, did he look a bit bashful?

“I made it last week,” he said, “when you were sitting in the seat in front of me. I had an idea to pass it to you, or leave it on your seat or something.”

“That would have been…sweet.”

He huffed. “Sweet, yeah, I suppose. Open up that big petal.”

I did as he’d asked and saw the word
Hello
written in blue biro.

“Hello.” I turned to him with a smile.

He grinned. “And the next.” He nodded at the paper flower again.

I peeled that fold back too. There was a pen-drawn picture of a bottle of wine, two glasses and a table with a candle on it.

“That was my idea of asking you out for dinner. Silly, huh?”

A lovely warm, gooey feeling went through me. He’d been planning on asking me out for dinner. Had been plucking up the courage and making me little paper presents.

He leaned across the aisle. “If you open the last outer petal, you’ll see the final part of my message.”

That fold proved a little trickier, it was well slotted in. But once it was free, I saw the name
Gabriel
along with a mobile phone number.

I turned to him and held the rose to my chest. I knew in that moment I would keep it for always, and the fact that it was paper and not real made it all the more special. The delicate beauty of a handmade flower would always remind me of my sensually painful first time with Gabriel—at least I hoped that was the first and not the one and only. That thought didn’t deserve entertaining.

“What would you have said to the dinner question?” he asked. “If I’d dropped it on your lap or something?”

“Yes, I would have said yes. Still would, actually.” The thought of time with him in any situation was growing more appealing by the minute.

“Ah, but now we have something so much more fun set up, haven’t we?”

“Yes, and—”

That voice from the speaker came once more, swirling into our conversation and informing us our stop was imminent. Everyone stood as did we, except we stared at one another the whole time. I didn’t want to turn away when we had to leave the train, but it was single file only down the aisle, and one of us would have to break the connection first.

He did, taking my elbow and twisting me so that I walked ahead of him. While we waited in line as people gathered in front of the doors, he gave my arse a severe pinch. I cried out in surprise—he’d gotten me right on one of the red lines—and didn’t bother looking around to see who was giving me their attention. They could stare all they liked.

The doors opened and people surged out, ants pouring from a broken hill, and I inched up the line, eager to get out into the relatively fresher air of the station, yet wanting to stay inside the train at the same time. In less than two minutes it would be our moment to say goodbye.

He pinched my arse again—and twisted.

I managed to remain quiet, biting my bottom lip.

“You had better be ready for another rude awakening on your arse tonight,” he whispered beside my ear. “That or… Yes.” He paused. “I have something else in mind. I’m going to make you come so hard…”

I held my breath, hardly believing he’d said what he had. This was the stuff of my fantasies, and he was the man I’d been looking for.

“Move along, sub. There’s space in front of you and people waiting behind me.”

I walked forward, arse still burning, the heat of it beginning to itch. Jostled out of the train by a man leaving from the opposite direction, I whirled round to speak to Gabriel.

He wasn’t there.

I frowned, spinning full circle, scanning the crowd to catch sight of him. There were too many people, and frustration frothed up inside me, threatening to spill out in the form of a catty remark to anyone who might bump into me or step on my toes in the surge of the crowd. I remained where I was, telling myself to keep still until the rush had died down, and when it had, I took stock of the platform again.

There he was, standing a few feet away at the steps that would take him up to street level. With one foot at the bottom, left hand on the rail, his unread newspaper under his arm, he nodded once then raised his other hand. He kissed two of his fingertips then held them up before winking and disappearing upwards.

My heart skipped a few beats, and I stayed on that platform until everyone had gone and the train had pulled away, our sexy encounter breezing through my mind. I relived every second, every touch, every breath, every bite of pain.

Then strode toward the stairs myself, knowing I had that—and more—coming my way at three a.m.

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

That Filthy Book

Lily Harlem and Natalie Dae

Excerpt

Chapter One

I stared at him, this husband of mine, his naked form rendered a silhouette from the brightness of the sun streaming through the hotel room window. The light filtered through his black tousled hair, glinted off his shoulders, giving him a glowing aura. This was our first time alone together since what felt like forever, what with meeting and having children in the blink of an eye. Ten years had passed—where had the time gone?—and here we were, away for two nights just so we could get back to being who we used to be; why we’d become a couple in the first place.

The sun had hung heavy in a blue swathe of cloudless sky earlier, the fiery orb almost lazy in its placement, as though someone had painted a picture and tossed in the yellow ball, not caring where it landed. Funny how the sky could be deceptive, making a person think it was hot outside when it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Faint, puffy clouds had appeared since I’d first woken, too, and I marveled at the way my body had gone back to its old, pre-children habits. Waking, having sex, dozing off again.

Now—around noon—it was time to get up, go out and do something, I supposed, but what I didn’t know. I didn’t have any energy for anything much beyond another languid fuck. A tress of my long blonde hair tickled my bare breast, the ends teasing my nipple. It sparked desire inside me again, and I wondered if my body would ever get enough this weekend. God, I’d been insatiable since we’d arrived last night. Perhaps shirking off the shackles of motherhood, of the responsibilities that came with the job, had freed my mind and allowed me to abandon everything. I had become what I once was—a woman who enjoyed a hot night of sex with her man, not giving a hoot whether her screams of pleasure could be heard; whether the banging of the headboard would wake someone.

But I hadn’t shaken them off. Not really. They still lingered, a shadow of feelings, whispers of our children’s laughter, thinking I could hear them calling me… Tess and Lucy, our two wonderful little girls. And then there were whispers of my fantasies, ones I’d held in check since I’d read a sexy book many years ago. Ones that had made me think I was dirty for wanting them. When I’d first met Jacob, I’d shoved away the feelings of guilt and let the fantasies surface, briefly. Our rampant sex had been too enjoyable, too damn hot to allow myself to dwell on whether what we did was right, but as the years had rolled by and I’d become embroiled in motherhood, kinky sex had fallen by the wayside, and the old trappings had moved in permanently. We can’t do this because we’re parents. We can’t do that because of the girls. We can do that because it’s too
rude
…