Committed (23 page)

Whatever he wanted of her, she was willing to offer.

Damien pulled away from her and she whimpered at the loss of his body, the weight that pressed the ropes into her skin, and his heat.

“Shh, sweetness, I’m here. I’ll always take care of you,” he whispered, stroking her body, drawing trails down her chest and stomach, up her legs. “I’m going to fuck you now, unless you want down.”

“No,” she wailed.

“No, what?”

“Don’t take me down, not yet. Please, sir.”

He cupped her face, swiping his thumb across her cheek. “You’re flying hard, aren’t you?”

Poppy knew he didn’t mean the ropes. She nodded.

“You have to open those eyes. Watch me fuck you. Know who it is inside you.”

She pried her eyes open again, unsure when she’d closed them, and peered up at him. Her muscles were starting to ache, and she would have rope burn, but those physical reminders would be her most precious possession. Because he’d given them to her. He’d given her this.

Damien rocked back on his heels and she realized for the first time that he was completely naked. His big, black cock jutted toward her. Again she wondered how he’d fit last time, and if he would now. She hoped so. She ached to feel him again.

He ripped open a condom and rolled it on. His gaze slid to her and she froze. Not that she was allowed much movement, but she stilled. Her body swayed on the ropes, not having gotten the memo.

The blunt head of his cock pressed against her opening. He grasped the ropes suspending her hips and pulled. His length slid into her channel and she gasped at the intrusion. Slick from orgasm, her muscles stretched around him. She groaned as he pulled the ropes again, impaling her further on his length.

This was completely new. Not only was her mind soaring, her body was floating on air.

Damien grasped the harness around her hips and thrust deep, seating himself fully in her channel. Her eyes fluttered wide and she gasped, feeling every inch of him. Her toes curled and she dug her nails into the rope.

They froze for a moment, each breathing heavily, gazes locked.

He moved first, grasping the chest harness with one hand and hauling her upright, into a sitting position, and taking her mouth in a savage kiss. He thrust up into her and she squealed against him.

“Hold on to the ring.” His voice was low and rough.

She did as he told her, grasping the ring, which changed the position entirely. Now she faced him, but still she was suspended.

Damien held on to her hips and thrust. Her breath stuttered out and her head rolled back on her shoulders.

So good
.

He touched all of her, every nerve ending and secret place. The drag of flesh on flesh urged her ever higher.

He withdrew and thrust hard, but didn’t stop. With the harness restraining her, he had complete control. Again and again he thrust deep, pushing her further up.

She came on a shout, moaning out her release as he continued to pound into her, and the
room resounded with their lovemaking, raw and primal.

Damien came in a series of frenzied thrusts, freezing at the last second to bite down on her shoulder, muting his shout of release. She hissed, but didn’t begrudge him another mark on her body. He’d branded her his, and even if this was a passing relationship, a little piece of her would always belong to him, and that was a terrifying thought.

“Poppy. Poppy, wake up.”

Poppy pried one eye open and stared up at Damien. The morning light came through the window, casting a faint glow on his face.

It hadn’t been a dream. She smiled into the pillow and stretched.

“Poppy? Poppy are you still asleep?” a woman’s voice called.

That was not Damien.

The front door creaked and the floorboards squeaked. Mario and Yoshi rose in unison, their eyes on the bedroom door, ready to bolt.

Mother
.

Poppy sat up, shoving the comforter down, and scrambled out of bed. All she wore was Damien’s T-shirt.

“Poppy?” Her mother leaned around the corner, her smile freezing as she caught sight of Poppy, then Damien. Her eyes widened and Poppy could see it all registering.

Rose, Poppy’s sister, stood behind their mother, gaping. Unlike Poppy, Rose had married a boy they’d grown up with, and was still very much plugged in to the commune’s way of life.

“Mom. Rose.” Poppy tugged the hem of the shirt lower, but no amount of wishing would make it longer. “What are you doing here?”

“What is he doing here?” Her mother stepped over the threshold, today’s tie-dyed dress long enough to brush the hardwood floor. She gaped at Damien, who had the blankets pulled up to his chest, but there was no disguising what had happened.

At least they’d packed up the kink equipment last night, to prevent cat hair from getting on everything.

“Why do you have a black man here?” Her voice rose as she spoke, her finger jutting toward Damien. For several seconds no one spoke.

Poppy held her hands up. How was it that her mother could make her feel five years old all over again? “Mom.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. I raised you better than this,” her mother said, her
voice wavering.

A little piece of Poppy withered inside. She’d never agreed with her mother’s way of life, but she could see any hope of acceptance dying in her mother’s gaze. Poppy had always followed the rules. Guilt had been a major motivator for moving out, because she didn’t want to live under the heavy-handed rules that governed The House. She wanted to be free.

Poppy drew in a calming breath. Her voice still wavered when she spoke. “Mother, please, let’s take this into the living room?”

“Mom, let’s just go.” Rose backed out of the door, tugging on their mother’s arm until she followed.

Poppy slammed the bedroom door closed and put her back against it. She shoved her hands through her hair, still disheveled from last night.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

Profanity. Another rule she’d broken since moving out, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t so bad.

She needed to put on clothes that didn’t smell like Damien, something that wasn’t obviously menswear. What she needed was something demure, that covered everything. Especially the rope burns.

Damien came around the bed, wearing nothing but his boxers, and gathered her against his chest. This was not the way she wanted to introduce her mother to Damien. Not that she’d thought they were remotely close to that step, but anything was better than being caught in bed with a man by your mother. She wanted to crawl under the bed and burrow to China. She would need that much distance to not feel her mother’s disappointment. Right now it cut her more deeply than any blade ever could.

“What do you need me to do?” Damien asked, breaking her train of thought. This whole situation had to seem so absurd to him. Most people their age weren’t hung up on their parents knowing they had sex. It was a natural part of life. Unless you lived in The House, and then all babies were immaculately conceived.

She shook her head. “I need—I need clothes. Shit. She saw me wearing your shirt.”

“Sweetness, I hate to point this out, but we were in bed together. I’m pretty sure your mother added one and one together.”

She shoved him away. “Not funny. She thinks I’m still a virgin. Or she thought I was.”

Damien’s brows rose and he held his hands up. “Okay, okay.”

“I’m sorry, this sounds really wrong. I’m not ashamed of you. I’m just … embarrassed,
and I need clothes.”

Damien grasped her hair, his grip firm enough to bend her head back with little force. “Take a deep breath.”

She did as told, splaying her hands against his pecs.

“Good. Now, clothes. In the closet?”

“Yes. Can you just grab me something?” He let go of her hair and she dashed to the dresser sitting between the windows. She pulled out clean underwear and a bra, exchanging the T-shirt for the essentials.

Her hair was a tangled, wild mess, but after the kind of sex they’d had, she was surprised it wasn’t worse. She attacked it with a comb, getting it to a somewhat manageable state, and wound it up into a simple bun.

“What the hell?” Damien’s voice came from the closet.

The closet that was a complete wreck.

The closet that also held her costumes.

“Honey, did Disney shit in your closet?”

Poppy whirled and dashed into the closet, skipping over both cats and the pile of clothes. Damien was examining several of her princess costumes. She had just about all the variations, from sexy to conservative. If it was in a movie and female, she had it, from Snow White to Princess Buttercup, and everything in between.

“They are important literary pieces,” she said, holding tight to whatever dignity she still had. She pushed past him and pulled a shapeless, purple dress she wore to work on her lazy days off a hanger. It would do.

“I don’t know what’s literary about this.” He pulled a green, shimmery corset and matching tutu out. “What is this supposed to be?”

“
The Princess and the Frog
. There’s a frog hat somewhere.” She pulled the boring dress on over her head and blew out a breath. The heat in her cheeks had her eyes watering. She grabbed a flowing, pink sweater to cover her arms and the burns.

This was it.

“Okay, okay. Can I do something? Should I stay here? Come out there?” He still held the green tutu outfit. If her mother weren’t in the next room, it would be comical.

“Just, uh, stay here for a minute. Maybe put some clothes on. I don’t know.” She whirled and fled the closet and bedroom.

Poppy closed the door and held still for a moment. The apartment was eerily quiet. She
edged into the living room.

Her mother stood at the window, looking out on the street, while her sister sat on the sofa.

Rose glanced at her, lines creasing her face. Poppy would get no understanding there. Though Rose had been the one to step over the line more often than Poppy when they were growing up, this moment would overshadow their childhood for the rest of her life.

“When did you get married?” Rose asked, barbs in her voice.

“I’m not married,” Poppy replied. She gripped the back of the armchair, clinging to it for support.

Her mother turned toward her, frown lines prominent. “I did not raise a whore.”

“I am not a whore, mother. I don’t have sex for money.” Poppy had rehearsed this argument before, after the first time she’d had sex, because she was positive her mother would somehow know what she’d done. Now the words came back to her, even as anger lent her strength.

“He’s not your husband. And he’s black. Did he give you drugs, too? Does he even have a job or a home? Did you think about the consequences before you—you desecrated yourself?”

Poppy stared at her mother and felt no kinship with her whatsoever in that moment. This hateful creature was not the absentminded woman who had raised her, sang lullabies to her, and taken her to play at the beach … with black children from the shelters they helped manage.

Her voice didn’t shake when she spoke, not this time. “No, he is not my husband. And for the record, he’s mulatto, which is the technical term for someone with one black parent and one white parent. Racially profiling him as drug user and a loser is beneath you, mother. And the consequences? There’s a thing called birth control. Maybe Rose should use it.”

Rose gasped and placed a hand on her second-trimester baby bump. Since she’d gotten married at eighteen, the couple had averaged a child a year. Ten children was too many, especially for a communal lifestyle to support, but the economics of The House wasn’t something she wanted to think about. It wasn’t her responsibility.

“That’s just rude,” Rose said.

“It was. I’m sorry.” Poppy glanced away, shame burning inside her. Her sister’s choices were not hers.

“Poppy, you need to come home so we can get these urges under control,” her mother said.

“I am not five years old, and you don’t have to correct me. I’m twenty-nine and an adult. If I want to take birth control and have sex with another consenting adult, that’s my business.”
This whole situation was absurd and ridiculous. It was past time she gave up any notion of following her mother’s rules, now that she no longer lived under her roof.

“I’m so disappointed in you.” Her mother shook her head. “Come on, Rose. We’re leaving.”

Rose followed their mother as they turned their noses up and marched out. Poppy let them leave, though the little girl in her wanted to run after her mother and beg for forgiveness. Even if she did apologize, it would be hollow. She couldn’t be sorry for what she’d shared with Damien. They’d been uninhibited and honest in their desire. It was nothing to be ashamed of, but being called a whore still stung.

Poppy sank into the armchair and buried her face in her hands.

That could have gone better. A lot better. Her mother’s words had been horrible. She didn’t even know Damien. Something must have happened at the shelters recently to warp her view.

The bedroom door creaked open and the unmistakable sound of Yoshi meowing to be let out reached her ears. Little feet thundered across the floor and both cats dashed out, glancing around to ensure the coast was clear.

Damien followed them, his pace slower.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Part of it.” He perched on the armrest and rubbed her back.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m not black enough for the black folk, and I’ll never be white enough for anybody.” He didn’t sound the least bit bothered, but she still hated it. Why did skin color have to matter? When she looked at Damien she didn’t get hung up on the parts, just the whole of the man who made her feel things she’d never experienced.

They fell into silence, and she took comfort in his touch and presence. There were no answers for what to do about her mother. Either she would come to terms with Poppy’s choice of a different lifestyle or she wouldn’t. The idea of being cut off from her family made her heart ache. After school, she’d had the opportunity to go somewhere else, but leaving her home hadn’t appealed to her, even if that home wasn’t in the best neighborhood and the schools were a little dangerous. It was where her family was, and where all the memories of her childhood were.