“I’d get to torture you a bit,” Einar replied, but there was more affection than menace in his voice. “Just a little. Just enough to help you understand how much better it is to be a good girl for me.”
I rubbed my face against his palm, and he ran his thumb across my lips with a low, guttural, satisfied rumble in his chest.
“And do you know why it’s better for you, babydoll?”
I wanted to reply, but his motion increased both in speed and intensity, and the words melted into an inarticulate sound in my mouth.
“Because then I can have the pleasure of rewarding you.”
One after another, he enclosed my ankles in a warm hand and lifted them up until they rested on his shoulders. He simultaneously straightened up and leaned closer to me, the straining tendons in my legs protesting at finding themselves at an angle so close to my torso. If it weren’t for the bondage, I would have instantly laid an arm across my stomach to hide astubborn roll of fat—the only tangible thing I gained from all the IVF medicine. As it was, I could only look down on it to be pleased by discovering that, after the deprivations of quarantine and travelling, it was no longer there.
Einar’s arm wormed its way underneath me. He raised my hips higher, altering the angle of his occupation of me, until he pressed hard against my clit and front wall, the sensation of him maddening even when motionless.
Once satisfied, he then thrust his hips forward just the once, testing. Not realising I would do so until I did, I screamed with ecstasy.
I looked up at him in astonishment, panting hard. Smug, Einar gazed back at me with unfazed, challenging confidence that made me want to hear him call me a ‘good girl’ again. I nodded imperceptibly, expectantly, signalling my readiness, beckoning him to give me more of the same.
Which he promptly did, and the world around me dissolved. The word ‘please’ drifted through my ears on repeat, but I was neither sure whether I had said it out loud, nor what it was I was begging for. I could no more bear for it to end than to arrive at the devastating destination that was brought closer to me by each of Einar’s movements. But arrive there I did with the startling realisation that heaven was a real place after all, and it could be found no further than between my own legs. When I regained my senses not long after, I discovered that my face was wet with tears.
“That’s it.” Einar wiped my cheeks carefully with his freed hand. “Deep breaths. Are you alright, babydoll?”
“You’re too big,” I told him accusingly, my breath coming in short rasps.
“And yet you take me so well. Like your pussy was made to choke my cock.” He ran his thumb over my lips, his own parted in a feral smile. “Do you want more?”
The air was warm and thick with the smell of burning candles and the vaguely unsettling musk of intimacy. My ears thrummed with the rush of blood.
“That is for you to decide, Sir. I’m yours to do with as you please,” I told him plainly, and saw surprise flash in his eyes, the muscles in his face slackening momentarily before he found his bearings again.
“Brave darling,” he said admiringly, drying my last tear. “I’ll be a bit gentler this time.”
And so he was, until he caressed my face with an assertive grin and inserted a finger into my mouth. With what I hoped was an equally confident expression, I sucked on it, closing my eyes into sleepy slits. Then I bit into it, harder than was strictly speaking necessary.
Einar scoffed, but good-naturedly so, not a hint of annoyance in his features, nothing but a promise of vengeance glowing in the way that his skin tightened around his eyes. In an alarmingly quick succession, he pulled out of me and, fingers closing around my thighs, he flipped me over. The headboard creaked at the tug of the twisting rope. Einar slapped my rear with about as much mercy as I had shown his digit, then rammed back into me, enveloping me in an embrace. His hands sought and squeezed my breasts, pinched my nipples until each blazed sharply with pain that was precisely on the edge of tolerable. Then he began his thrusts with all the tenderness of a sledgehammer.
I bit into the pillow to smother the cat-like yowls tearing at my throat.
Something like an electric current spread through my entire body. Every inch of me tensing, I fought a desperate urge to beg Einar to stop and continue at the same time. Just as I arched my back in an involuntary convulsion and cried my helpless cry, Einar expanded and hardened to a rock inside me with a great tremor before exiting me fast, hot liquid landing on my back. Hegroaned, collapsing next to me. Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes momentarily with the air of utmost satisfaction. Then he untied me, wiped my back diligently with a towel and pulled me close, our limbs entangling under the covers.
“Just as I suspected,” he drawled once we had both managed to catch our breaths. “Beneath all that classy exterior, you are completely feral, aren’t you?”
“Oh, and you want to tame me, is that right?” I scoffed at him challengingly before settling my head on his shoulder.
“Hell no. If anything, I want to set you free.”
12
SPINE AND STEEL
After some time had passed, in a moment that I knew had to come sooner or later, Einar pulled down the black satin covers and traced my scar with his finger. I squirmed under his touch, discomposed and acutely uncomfortable, to which he reacted not by removing his hand altogether but by laying it flat on my stomach, covering the scar, same as I had earlier.
“You may not want to talk about this,” he said, “but—if you do want to tell me—is ... are you ...” He struggled to find the right words, and I didn’t blame him.
Since my scar looked exactly like one from a caesarean and there was no child by my side, this was a very difficult question to pose.
“I’ve never had a baby,” I cut him off, but not unkindly, I hoped. “The scar is from a surgery I had about a year and a half ago.”
For reasons I couldn’t quite understand, I didn’t stop there and elaborated further, “My partner and I tried everything, including IVF. But I never got pregnant. Not once.”
