Grounded (Up In The Air #3)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mr. Damaged

He unfastened me swiftly, cradling me against him. He laid me on the couch, crawling on top of me. He smiled down into my eyes, his dark golden hair framing his face. He looked like an angel.

“We’re going to need a new divan in here. This one is covered in paint,” he said softly, but not like he minded.

I shook my head, running a hand along his cheek and into his hair. “No. This room is going to see a lot more painting sessions. I say we leave it.”

He smiled, a joyful smile, the most carefree expression I’d ever seen on his perfect face. “I love the sound of that. Have I told you today how happy you make me? I can never go back from this, Bianca. It would break me to let you go. You know that, right?” Had he read my mind?

I felt a tear slide down my cheek, then another. What was it about being in love that had turned me into a baby? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t seem to stop it, whatever it was, no more than I could stop the being in love part. I had fought it every step of the way, but that hadn’t helped, not even a little. I had it bad. So bad.

“I wouldn’t know how to go back from this, James,” I said in a whisper. It was perhaps the closest thing to making a long-term commitment that I’d ever given to him, paltry as it was. But he knew what I’d given him, and he accepted it with such a loving promise in his eyes that I couldn’t be sorry for it.

“If you could pick one place in the world that you want to visit, any city, any country, any continent, where would it be?”

I studied him, my brows drawing together as I tried to follow his strange thought process. I didn’t even have to think to have my answer, though. “Japan. Especially Tokyo.”

He looked a little puzzled. “That was a quick but unexpected answer. Why Japan?”

I gave my little shrug, though it wasn’t quite the same with him pinning me to the bed. “It just fascinates me. It always has. And it is the home of manga and anime.”

He grinned. “Of course. Okay, Japan, especially Tokyo. Got it.”

I jabbed a finger into his chest. “Why? What are you planning?”

“Nothing yet, but in a few weeks, maybe a month, I want us to get away for a week or two.”

That sounded divine, but… “James, I can’t take any more time off work. I used it all up with my…injuries.”

He gave me an imploring look.

I caved in a heartbeat.

“You just need to find someone to pick up your shifts, right?” he asked. “You can drop as many as you want, if you find someone else to work them. Stephan explained it to me. Leave it to me. I’ll handle everything. Just say you’ll go.”

I should have said no. I should have told him that yes, I could drop the shifts, but it was really hard to find people to pick them up at straight time, when they could be working overtime for similar shifts, not to mention that if I dropped those shifts, I wouldn’t be making any money for those days. I meant to tell him all of that, but instead I looked into his eyes and just caved. “Yes. I can’t think of anything I’d love more.”

He squeezed me so tightly that I yelped. “Thank you.”

He picked me up again, cradling me as he left the studio and carried me to our bedroom. It was on the same floor and close, thank God, because we were both buck naked and covered in blue paint.

He took us directly to the bath, stepping into the deep tub with me as it filled with water.

He washed me slowly but thoroughly, scrubbing the paint where it was caked onto my skin. The bath quickly turned blue. We laughed as it just got darker and darker.

James had to work on us both for a while.

“Want me to help?” I asked, so relaxed that I wasn’t sure I could work up the energy to be that helpful.

“No, Love. I want you to relax. When we’re done in here, I’m going to take you to the fourth floor and give you a very thorough massage.”

“Mmm,” I said, closing my eyes. I felt his fingers move between my legs, and I opened them wider. He began to stroke me, humming against my throat as his clever fingers got to work. He pleasured me with his hands while he sucked on just the perfect spot on my neck. It was an almost leisurely orgasm, at least compared to what he usually gave me.

When he continued to thrust his fingers into me even after I’d come, I wiggled. “I want you inside me, James.”

He bit my neck, hard. “You’ll know when I’m ready to give you my cock because you’ll have it inside of you,” he said, thrusting the cock in question hard against my butt. “In the meantime, open your legs wider.”

He worked at me with two fingers thrusting inside, dragging his other hand down my body to rub my * just so.

“Come,” he said into my neck, and I fell again.

We ended up showering after the bath. I had been a little overzealous with the paint apparently, because the bathtub ended up looking like it had been attacked by a paint-gun.

James dried me but left us both nude, pulling me to the elevator by the collar.

I had a thought, fingering his mother’s earrings still in my ears, wet hair trailing around them. “Oh, James. I forgot I was wearing your mother’s earrings. I didn’t mean to get them wet.”

He shot me a very doting smile over his shoulder. “They aren’t my mother’s. They’re yours now, and a little water won’t hurt them.”

He went directly to the elevator, pushing the button. He grinned down at me. “Just pleasure tonight, Love. You need some time to heal from the roses. The fourth floor isn’t only about the pain.”

“I know,” I said softly.

It had always been about more than pain, every bit of it.

He pulled me into the car as it opened, pushing me hard into the wall, pinning me there. “Have you ever been f*cked in an elevator?” he asked with a smile.

I laughed. “You know I haven’t.”

I had thought that he was joking, but of course he wasn’t, and he slid a leg between my thighs, pushing them open, and lifting me up. He had me wrapping my legs around his hips and was sliding into me in a flash. He pinned my arms above my head with his hands and began to thrust. I gripped him tightly with my thighs, whimpering as he pulled out of me, dragging along those perfect nerves and drove in again, driving me relentlessly towards another orgasm. He pounded at me, those mesmerizing eyes of his watching me with desperation, and an ardor that made it seem impossible that he’d already taken me less than an hour ago.

“F*cking come,” he gritted, his words hard, his tone hard, but his eyes so unbelievably soft on mine.

I obeyed, losing all control at his command. “James,” I cried.

He kissed me, not letting me down, not pulling out of me. He let my wrists free to wrap his arms around my back.

He began to walk, but didn’t let up kissing me, didn’t pull himself out of me. He padded down that ominous gray hallway and into our playground.

He was bending forward at his waist, and abruptly let me fall back.


I gasped. I didn’t fall far, my back making contact with a firmly cushioned table. He thrust into me twice roughly before letting himself come with a low groan. “Mine,” he said.

I only then realized that I was lying on a massage table as he dragged his thick length out of me, turned me over onto my stomach, and shifted me until my face was over the table’s opening.

Within swift moments, he was pouring warm liquid into the center of my back, rubbing the oil firmly into my skin. He massaged up to my neck, rubbing on that sensitive area for long minutes, working over to my shoulders, taking his time, rubbing until each of my muscles had been loosened thoroughly by his strong hands.

He worked down one arm, paying special attention all the way down to each of my fingertips. He worked back up and over, paying equal attention to my other half.

“Your hands are magic,” I said to him, my eyes shut in pleasure.

He didn’t respond, working on my back, kneading and rubbing that tissue into relaxed submission. He spent extra time on my lower back, working with teasing slowness into my ass. He made a delicious little noise in his throat as he kneaded my butt. I felt a kiss there a scant moment before I felt a finger at that entrance. I gasped and tensed as he pushed a well-lubricated finger into me.

“Shhh, Bianca, relax. Relax.” He pulled that sneaky finger out of me, leaving me for too long before coming back. He began the massage where he’d left off, kneading at my butt and upper thighs.

He covered every inch of my back with strong kneading strokes, all the way down to my toes, before he flipped me onto my back. He began the same treatment at the front of my shoulders, taking his time, relaxing every part of me as he worked down. When he reached my sex, he plunged a finger into me. I was wet, of course, and he worked that flesh with sure strokes, using his other hand to part my legs wide, drawing my knees up into my chest. I gasped and tensed as he used his other hand to breach my other entrance again, working a lone finger in slowly, not stopping the smooth strokes at my sex with his other hand.

“You see why you need to be relaxed?” he asked me, leaning close as those wicked hands worked together to bring my overwhelmed body so much pleasure.

I did see; the other penetration more alarmingly intense than I would have guessed. It wasn’t even about pain, but more about the oddness of it, the strange fullness in a place where perhaps it shouldn’t be, whereas having him fill my sex only ever just felt right. Still, I didn’t want him to stop, didn’t want him to let up. The strangeness gave the act an almost forbidden quality that the perverse part of me relished, as it did all of the taboo things James was attracted to.

Both fingers moved inside of me, working together, and he had me gasping out another orgasm with consummate skill. Before I’d even come down from that blissful trip he was shoving another finger into each entrance, one cleft getting hard thrusts, the other a gentler, easier touch, just working inside and making delicious little circles.

“Relax and push out, yes, like that,” James said, jamming the fingers inside of my sex harder and rougher until I came again.

He pulled one set of fingers out, using that hand to shift me back onto my stomach and dragging my hips until my legs hung off the edge of the table. He moved his hips against me from behind, bringing a hand to the front of my neck and applying a light pressure.

“Don’t move,” he said. I heard him walk away, knew he left the room, heard a door down that daunting hallway open and close, then open again. Short minutes later he was at my back, moving close behind me, parting my legs to get close.

I felt something warm and hard and vibrating brush my * and I knew it wasn’t a part of James.

“James,” I protested, as he worked my * with that too intense pressure.

“Shhh,” he said, moving the vibrator from my *, teasingly over my cleft. He dipped it in once, and then again, holding it inside of me while he worked another well-lubricated, softer object into my other entrance. I knew it wasn’t him because it was smaller, and though it was firm, it wasn’t hard enough.

“James,” I said again, my voice more urgent this time.

He worked the toy into me slowly, the vibrator in my sex still embedded deeply. “Relax.

“It’s too—“

“Yes, you want my cock, I know. Relax for this and I’ll give you what you want.” He growled, and I tried to obey him, tried to relax around those two strange pressures.

I felt like I was just growing accustomed when he pulled it out and replaced it almost immediately with his cock. It was so slick, but also so much bigger than the other. But it was James, and I found that my body submitted much more quickly with that knowledge. He worked in slowly.

He dragged the vibrator out of one entrance even as he pushed himself into the other. I heard a ‘thunk’ as he dropped it to the floor, bringing his now free hand to the front of me, circling my *.

He began to thrust when he was nearly in, small thrusts that went a little deeper with each movement, but never pulled all the way out. I whimpered. The feelings were strange, but still not precisely painful, more of a stretching that felt like it went too far.

“James,” I cried as his fingers worked and his thrusts got bigger and faster.

“Say it, Bianca,” he said into my back, then bit hard enough to leave marks. I thought that the bite was to distract from the fact that he was pounding into me now, and that it did hurt. But pain had never been a deterrent to my own pleasure, and I came, a hard release that left me limp.

“I’m yours, James,” I gasped. “Yours.”

He emptied himself inside of me, lingering long enough to kiss my back and soothe me before pulling slowly out of me.

He picked me up, cradling me. He carried me down the gray hallway. He slipped into one of those dark, mysterious rooms, and as he turned on the light, I saw that the room closest to the playground was just a large bathroom with an insanely large white tub.

“Since our other tub is blue at the moment, I guess we’ll be using this one,” he said, a smile in his voice.

I giggled, a little delirious from what felt like a hundred orgasms.

He carried me into the tub, arranged me until I was straddling him, my cheek pillowed against his delicious chest, and started the water.

He stroked my hair and I sighed in pleasure as the hot water slowly covered us. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so relaxed, so deliriously content to just lie down and enjoy the moment. I had been restless since I could remember, always having the instincts of a runaway, always anxious that the next moment would bring something bad, and it felt so good to just let that anxious part of me go, and savor something so wonderful.

I was lost in my own thoughts, practically purring against him, when I looked up.

His face was a carefully blank mask.

I stroked his cheek with a hand. “What’s wrong, James?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, leaning into my touch. He didn’t answer for a long time, but I knew he wasn’t ignoring me. I knew as well as anyone that the really rough stuff always took time to form into words.

“That thing we just did—that act, takes my head into a dark place,” he said finally, his words so quiet that I had to strain to hear him.

Of the two of us, he was by far better at showing his feelings, but I could tell that it was a struggle for him to share that with me.

I rubbed my hand soothingly over the spot where my name was etched so beautifully. “Will you tell me about it?”

He swallowed hard. “We won’t be doing that often, if ever. I don’t want to disappoint you. I needed to do it once, needed to claim you like that, but it doesn’t take me to a good place. It’s like the roses for you, I think, taking me too deeply into the thing that made me like this.”

I understood so well just what he meant. We were so alike in the really important ways. I cupped his face in my hands. “I won’t be disappointed. I liked what you did, I enjoyed it, but I certainly don’t need that. You fulfill so many needs that I didn’t even understand about myself, and that was not one of them. Thank you for showing me, for initiating me into so many things that I find wonderful. Don’t ever think that you could disappoint me by telling me your preferences—by telling me no.”

He was silent again, and I couldn’t tell if my words had reassured him, or if I had even reached him at all. His eyes were faraway and a little glazed over as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Spencer did that to me,” he said finally, his voice raw but his eyes still blankly looking up. “It made me feel so helpless, so…worthless. I don’t know how to explain it. I know you weren’t unwilling, but I just remember how I felt after he would do that, and some part of me feels like I’ve done something awful to you, something terrible, something like what he did to me.”

“I knew it would make me feel that way, if not during, then at least after, and I still did it, still managed to enjoy it. I feel…loathing, for my weakness, for my need, wondering if it made you feel even an inkling of what I did. It makes me wonder if everything I do to you is a sort of rape—if I’m taking advantage of that beautiful submission that you give to me.”

I started to speak, to try to reassure him, but he cut me off. “I know you’ll tell me that’s not true, and some part of me even knows it, but I still feel it. Like I said, that act just puts me in a dark place.”

I cupped his face softly. “I understand. The roses were like that for me. They reminded me more of my father than anything you’ve done, and they terrified me. I felt more pain and more fear on the violent end of those than anything else we’ve done, but the pleasure was just as great…more so. It made me think of those dark things even as it made me come. I couldn’t control my pleasure any more than I could control my fear. That terrifies me.”

I had to take a few deep breaths before continuing, still finding it hard to be generous with my emotions, and my words, even though he had been nothing but generous.

“We don’t have to face those dark thoughts alone anymore, James. I can’t say I’ve been through what you’ve been through, but I do understand your self-loathing about a thing you can’t control. You admit you’ve been a slut with your body, but I think you’re more well adjusted than I am when it comes to sex. You have a preference, but you can still function without that preference. I have a fetish. I wasn’t even interested in a man until I found you, until I found this. That terrifies me too, how broken I am. But I also know I’m lucky, so lucky, to have found someone so perfect for me, so safe, to help give me the things I need without taking my self-respect, and without putting me in danger. You’re a gift to someone like me, James. Don’t ever forget that.”

He pushed my face hard into his damp chest, my chin just skimming the water, but not before I saw the tears in his eyes. “Thank you, Bianca,” he said, his voice shaky.

I closed my eyes, my tears sliding slowly down my cheeks and onto his chest.

“Thank you, James,” I said, my voice thick.