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  “This much.”

  When he kissed her ear she could feel the scruff of not quite a beard but more than a five-o’clock shadow tickling her neck. She wanted this, didn’t she? Wasn’t this what she’d been waiting for, what she’d been aching for since she’d come back to Kingsley’s? A male body, strong arms...power? Right? And Griffin kissed masterfully. He could dominate with a kiss alone by setting the pace, holding her where he wanted her, keeping her captive and mute with his tongue in her mouth so that she couldn’t raise a word of objection.

  But.

  It wasn’t quite right.

  Something was missing, and she knew she needed it if this were to go further than one good kiss.

  “Please...” Griffin growled in her ear. She loved to hear him beg.

  “Please, what?”

  “I have to fuck you.”

  “No one has to fuck me. You want to fuck me. Going without sex never killed anybody.”

  “But why take that chance?”

  Elle reached down between their bodies and pressed her hand into his cock through his jeans. Already erect, Griffin stiffened even more in surprise and what must have been a modicum of discomfort.

  Elle laughed softly and the sound of it surprised her. It was an arrogant, throaty laugh that sounded foreign to her own ears. Kingsley laughed like that while he mocked a trussed-up submissive when she squirmed or begged for mercy. It was a dominant’s laugh. A queen’s laugh.

  She unbuttoned his jeans. Hidden in such a faraway corner of the stacks, she felt it was safe to touch him. If they got kicked out of the library for fooling around? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  “You did miss me, didn’t you?”

  He put his mouth at her ear. “I still think about that night, your birthday. When we were in the Rolls and—”

  “I remember.”

  “Fucking you...watching King and Søren fuck you... Jesus, I’ve known gay guys who didn’t love cock as much as you do.”

  “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

  “But you do,” Griffin said, tilting his pelvis forward to push his cock against her hand.

  “I do want it. But on my terms.”

  “What are your terms?” Griffin asked. She had a feeling he’d agree to anything at this point, including but not limited to committing felonies. Or, at the very least, a series of misdemeanors.

  Elle looked up and met his eyes. He was so much taller than her but she didn’t care. She had his attention.

  “I am not a submissive anymore, and I will not be treated like one. I kiss you. You do not kiss me. I top you. You do not top me. If you can play by these rules, we can play. If not? Game over.”

  Griffin closed his eyes. He’d grabbed on to the bookshelves on either side of her arms, and gripped them as hard as she gripped him.

  She slid her hand down his cock and wrapped all five fingers around the base, squeezing, holding, waiting. Griffin’s hips pulsed against her hand, fucking her fingers until he could fuck other parts of her.

  “If you let me top you, we can fuck. Deal?” she asked.

  The slightest cry or maybe it was a whimper escaped his lips. His eyes were shut tight as if he were in pain or in pleasure or in both. Didn’t matter to her except he better make up his mind fast before he ejaculated all over The Collected Novels of Willa Cather.

  “No pain?” he asked. Griffin was no coward, but he was a recovering drug abuser. When he was in pain he wanted drugs to ease the pain. Even one strong painkiller could send him backsliding into the hard stuff again.

  “No pain. I promise. Only other sorts of torture.”

  “Fun torture?”

  “There is no other kind of torture when you’re with me.”

  Griffin took a shuddering breath as she ran her hand up and down his cock again.

  “Deal.”

  A smile crossed Elle’s face, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever smiled like that before, as if she were nothing but smile.

  “Good boy.”

  8

  Seven

  THEY TOOK A cab to his new place in Chelsea where Griffin had moved three months ago. Inside the apartment he tossed the keys into a silver bowl and locked the door behind them. He offered a tour of the new digs but she declined. All she wanted to see was the bedroom and the bedroom did not disappoint. His bed was a king-size, low to the ground and minimalist. Black frame—padded black leather headboard, metal slatted footboard. The headboard was for cushioning the head during rough sex. The footboard was for bondage. She gave Griffin credit—the kid could decorate like a motherfucker. The coverlet and sheets were black, red and white. Apart from the bed he had nothing much else in his room except for a black leather Chesterfield sofa, the sort of sofa one fucked on if one were the sort to fuck on sofas, which Griffin was.

  Elle stood facing the bed. Behind her, Griffin locked the door and came up to her. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the side of her neck.

  “I’m all yours,” he whispered.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Anything.”

  “I haven’t had sex with a man in over a year.”

  Griffin grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. He looked at her as if she’d sprouted a second head.

  “How are you even alive? Over a year without sex? How’s that even possible?”

  “I was in a convent, Griffin. No men in convents.”

  “Then order delivery. There are people who will bring the sex to your house.”

  Elle laughed. “It’s okay. I said I hadn’t had sex with a man in over a year. I have had sex.”

  His wide eyes widened even wider. If they got any wider, they’d fall out of his head.

  “You fucked a girl.”

  “Shh...don’t tell.”

  Griffin fell sideways, collapsing on the bed.

  “Griff?”

  He rose up on his elbows. “Was she hot?”

  “She was a twenty-one-year-old virgin with small breasts and long legs. And yes, she was hot.”

  “She was a virgin until you?”

  “Yes. I fisted her our first night together.”

  Griffin gasped and looked down at his crotch.

  “Oh, my God,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My cock twitched. I didn’t know it could do that.”

  “Can you be serious for two seconds?”

  “I am serious. It wiggled like one of those plastic flower toys that dance when you play music.”

  “I haven’t had anyone or anything inside me for a long time. I might be a little...tight.”

  “I can handle tight. I buy lube in bulk. Can we fuck now please?”

  “Not yet. You aren’t ready.”

  Griffin looked down at his crotch.

  “He just told me he’s ready,” Griffin said. “Telepathically.”

  Elle sighed. Heavily. She did want him, and his cock, but he’d agreed to bottom for her, and she wasn’t about to rush this or waste her chance. But what to do to him...?

  “You’re bi—” she said.

  “I am? Oh, yeah. I am. Sorry. I’m focused on your pussy right now. Almost forgot.”

  “You have a leather chest harness somewhere, don’t you?”

  “Maybe...somewhere...” He didn’t sound excited about the prospect of wearing one.

  “Will you wear it for me?”

  “Must I?” he asked.

  “I’ve masturbated to the thought of fucking you while you’re naked but for a chest harness.”

  “It’s in the closet, back wall, hanging on a hook next to the spreader bars.”

  She retrieved the harness and laid it on the bed next to Griffin.

  “What’s with the beard?” she asked as she ran her hand over the soft scruff on his cheeks and chin.

  “I was roughing it. Went backpacking to Clingman’s Dome with friends. Got back a couple days ago.”

  “How was the Dome?” She
tugged his gray T-shirt off and threw it onto the floor.

  “I didn’t get to the top. I came home early.”

  “Why? Bored?” She slipped the harness on him and buckled it in place.

  “I checked my messages. King said you were back.”

  Elle was silent a moment. She swallowed before speaking again.

  “You came back from your trip early, because you heard I came back?”

  “Told you,” he said, shrugging. “I missed you.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would miss me. I mean, anyone but him.”

  “Søren.”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “I know this might surprise you, but I’d gotten used to the idea of thinking we were friends. Almost best friends,” he said. “I wanted us to be that and you acted like that’s what you wanted, too. Then you disappeared and you didn’t tell me where you went or why you left. So obviously we weren’t best friends if you couldn’t tell me where you were going, which is fine. That’s cool. But knowing you didn’t feel the same about me didn’t make me feel any differently about you. When King said you were back in the city, I came back the same day. And when he said he wanted me to keep an eye on you since you were, you know, going through a rough adjustment period, I said I would. Because maybe if I keep an eye on you, next time you run off I’ll know where you went.”

  Simple words and not very eloquent, yet they somehow slipped through the cracks in the hard shell she’d built around herself since leaving the convent. No, since leaving Søren.

  “Do you want to be my best friend?”

  “With benefits?” he asked.

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  “I’m in,” he said grinning broadly. “Buddy.”

  “Good, old pal.” She pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips. He looked utterly delectable in his black jeans, his leather harness. She ran her hands up and down his taut stomach, tracing the edges of the harness, caressing his chest and arms. She kissed his scruffy, handsome face and wondered at the change in him. He’d always been a charmer, a rogue, a wicked playboy trust-fund baby cracking dirty jokes and acting as the life of the party, every party. No one who knew him as Master Griffin would believe he was on his back for her. No one would believe he had this tenderness to him. Where had he been hiding it? Did it show itself with her because they were friends? Or was it something else? Or maybe it wasn’t Griffin who’d changed at all. Maybe it was her. Maybe she’d changed. Maybe it was always there and now she finally noticed it.

  Elle lowered her mouth to his ear and whispered, “Pick a number between one and ten.”

  “What?”

  She pulled back and looked down at him.

  “You heard me.”

  “What am I picking?”

  “I’m not going to tell you until you’ve picked your number,” she said.

  “But how do I know what number to pick until I know what I’m picking?”

  “Exactly.”

  Griffin narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re evil.”

  “Still waiting on that number, Griff.”

  “Fine. I don’t know. Seven?”

  “Seven. Good.”

  “What’s good? Why is seven good?” Griffin sounded slightly panicked.

  “Because seven is the number of orgasms you’re going to give me today. And when I’ve had seven you can fuck me. And you can’t fuck me until I’ve had seven.”

  “Seven orgasms? You want me to get you off seven times? One-for-each-day-of-the-week seven?”

  “Is that a problem?” She cocked her head at him.

  “Yes, that’s a problem. A big problem,” Griffin said.

  “Is it? And why so?” she asked.

  Griffin grinned up at her, a grin she felt right in her belly.

  “Because I should have picked ten.”

  Elle laughed and kissed him again.

  “Ten might kill me,” she said.

  “But what a way to go.”

  Standing up, Elle crooked her finger at Griffin, who slipped his hands into her underwear and started to slide them down her legs.

  “Fold them,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Fold my underwear. Don’t throw them.”

  “You threw my T-shirt.”

  “Who’s in charge here? Hmm?”

  “You are.”

  “Good. Now fold them.”

  Griffin gave her the classic “you’ve gotta be kidding me but if it’ll get me laid...” look and obediently folded her black silk panties. Clearly he hadn’t folded much women’s underwear in his life as they resembled a pocket handkerchief when he’d finished with them. Someday they would go out in formalwear, and she’d make Griffin put her panties in his breast pocket.

  “Any rules?” he asked.

  “You can use your mouth, fingers and toys, but no cock.” She crawled back onto the bed and lay back on the pillows.

  “How many fingers?”

  “Are you asking if you can fist me?”

  “They don’t call me Griffin Fist because I know how to box.”

  “If you can get your whole hand in there, then you’re welcome to. But I’ll be surprised.”

  “Have a little faith in me. I’m the David Copperfield of fisting.”

  “The Dickens character or the magician?”

  “There’s fisting in Dickens? I should have majored in English instead of art.” Griffin winked at her as he grabbed a pillow from the head of his bed and pushed it under her hips. He kissed her again on the mouth and she sensed real affection in Griffin’s kiss. He cared for her. It made it easier for her to relax and open her legs for him without any nervousness or self-consciousness.

  With the tips of his fingers, Griffin found her clitoris and lightly rubbed it as he kissed her neck. Passionate kisses on a naked neck. No, she didn’t miss her collar at all.

  Griffin slid down her body and settled between her thighs. Carefully he parted her wet folds, touching her at first with his fingers. When he lowered his head and licked her clitoris she inhaled sharply. Such sudden pleasure, it was a gift.

  “The clit.” Elle sighed. “The only organ on the human body designed solely for pleasure. Proof God is a woman.”

  Griffin laughed and his warm breath brushed over her most sensitive parts. He worked his tongue over her again and again, lightly at first and then harder as she began to pant. What was better? What she felt or what she saw? Looking down and seeing Griffin’s naked shoulders, the leather harness strapped on his back moving with every breath, the hard muscle, the tan, the prominent ridge of biceps as he held himself in place. Bare feet. Ripped black jeans. A willingness to submit to her.

  “You were the right man to break my dry spell,” Elle said.

  “Welcome to a long, hard wet spell,” Griffin said, a divine bit of poetry.

  He pushed his tongue deep inside her before returning his attentions to her clitoris. He slipped a finger into her and pressed into the soft depression right under her pubic bone. Elle let out a very un-domme-like gasp of pleasure. She was so close...so close... She hadn’t been touched so intimately in so long she knew she would come any second now. Any second... Everything throbbed inside her, everything ached, and her hips rose off the bed and pulsed against Griffin’s mouth. Between her thighs his head dipped and his tongue licked and his lips sucked and she came with a cry, clinging to the pillow Griffin had put underneath her.

  He rose up as she panted to calm her racing heart.

  Griffin wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand.

  “One down,” he said. “Six to go.”

  “I’m not going to survive it,” she said, panting hard. “I should have made you pick a number between one and five.”

  “Too late. Don’t give someone as competitive as I am a challenge if you don’t want me to do it.”

  With that pronouncement, Griffin’s head disappeared again. Not between her legs but under the bed.

  “Griff?”

  “B
e right back,” he said and she heard him rummaging under the bed for something. She put both her legs on his back to anchor him and because she really wanted to put her boots on his back.

  “You make a very sexy ottoman, Mr. Fiske,” she said.

  “I’m not Turkish.”

  “I meant the furniture, you ridiculous slut.”

  When Griffin resurfaced from his under-the-bed diving expedition, he had a metal briefcase with him.

  “What’s that?” she asked, eyeing it as he clicked the locks.

  He opened the lid and turned it to face her.

  “Vibrator collection,” he said. “Brand-new. Time to christen them. Your pussy is their maiden voyage.”

  “You’re a man with a vibrator collection?”

  “I was a Boy Scout a million years ago. Gotta be prepared.” He gave her a three-fingered salute.

  Griffin set the open briefcase next to her on another pillow. He sat back on his knees and unzipped his pants.

  “No cock yet,” she said wagging her finger in that way Kingsley wagged his. Great, now she was doing it. Must be a dom thing.

  “I know, but I want to get closer to you. Is that okay?”

  She smiled at him. “Very okay. But first—touch yourself.”

  His jeans were unzipped and open, hanging low on his narrow hips. She wished she had a camera to take a picture of this scene—Griffin running his hand up and down and all over his erection, the look on his face as he stared directly in her eyes while he did it, shameless, sensual, sexual, all in one.

  She crooked her finger at him and he crawled over her kissing her on the mouth again.

  “Can I take your clothes off?” he asked. “Please?”

  “Of course.”

  She sat up to help him pull her shirt off. This time she didn’t have to tell him to fold it neatly and put it away like a good boy. Fast learner. She liked that.

  He unzipped her denim skirt and folded it. He slid her bra off her arms and hung it from the knob on the nightstand drawer. When he went for her boots she issued an order.

  “Leave those on.”

  “With pleasure,” Griffin said, dipping his head to kiss the laces.

  “For a dom, you’re a very good sub.”

  Griffin grinned at her. “If I have to fold your underwear and kiss your boots to get inside you, then I’m more than happy to do that. But—for the record—King diagnosed me as a born service top.”