In Flight (Up In The Air #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mr. Wonderful

I couldn’t tell where he went from my prone position, but it sounded like he’d gone to the other end of the room.

He was gone for several agonizing minutes before I felt him behind me, stepping close enough for his now bared chest to brush my back.

“Just a taste. For not trusting me when I told you to let go,” he whispered in my ear before adjusting the strap at my ass until my backside was fully exposed to him.

Something slapped against me hard enough to make my eyes sting with tears. He repeated the action twice before he readjusted the support strap until my butt was again covered, and my sex was exposed.

He circled around until I could see him again. He was shirtless and shoeless now, but his slacks remained on, his erection straining against his fly. The expensive cloth against his perfect, bare skin made his muscular physique even more starkly apparent, his muscles bulging as he folded his arms and stood, legs apart, just looking at me.

His eyes were hungry, but so stern.

He held a rectangular paddle in his hand casually. It reminded me of the kind they used to say were used at schools for punishment, though this one was black.

He walked between my parted thighs. He bent and kissed my forehead.

“Exquisite,” he said against my skin, then pulled back.

I writhed, becoming impossibly impatient in my need for his physical contact. He placed a hand on my inner thigh, just shy of my cleft. It was torturous, watching that hand touching just above where I needed it. The flesh beneath his hand quivered.

In a flash, he slapped my other thigh with the paddle just hard enough to sting.

He took a step back, grabbing my wrist and giving the swing a hard shove, sending me spinning in circles until I was dizzy. I gave an embarrassing little scream of surprised distress.

He stopped my spinning with a hand on my wrist, and he was suddenly between my legs, thrusting into me in a smooth but brutal motion. His hands kneaded the flesh of my breast around the nipple clamps firmly. Those were our only two points of contact. Cock to cunt, and hands to breasts.

He thrust in and out, only a half a dozen slow strokes, before he pulled out of me, stepping back and spinning me again.

He was stepping between my legs as I came to a halt, right onto his well aimed cock. He gave me a longer taste this time before pulling out. My head had just stopped spinning when he whirled me again.

He stopped me with a grip on my ankle this time, and thrust into me harder, working in and out like a jackhammer. He massaged my * with one hand, the other getting rough with the clamp that held my nipple.

“Come, now,” he ordered, and it worked, as it always did.

I came with a scream, my head thrown back.

He pulled out, flipping me around before my walls were even done clenching in orgasm.

He had me repositioned, face down, ass up, in a blink. He worked in slowly, and I shivered around him, still having little aftershocks.

“F*ck,” he cursed. “Those little clenches are gonna make me come.”

“Yes,” I sobbed. “Come.”

He slapped my ass, thrusting agonizingly slowly inside of me.

“I won’t come until I’ve shown you more of the delights this little swing has to offer.” He wrenched out of me, sending me spinning again.

I whimpered.

He jolted into me hard when I stopped this time, moving with a purpose now. He reached around me, his talented fingers collaborating to bring me to my next release.

I sobbed out his name as I came again.

He flipped me in a flash until my face was only inches from the floor. He began to suck at me with his mouth, the soft contrast to his previous treatment making me beg brokenly. For what, I wasn’t sure.

He pulled his mouth away, and a moment later he was working his stiff cock into me again. It was a slower process in this position. He had to squeeze in inch by inch. I heard him cursing. I was stuffed so full that I held my breath in alarm at the sensation. He made little rough strokes for only a moment before pulling out.

He rearranged me upright, taking several minutes to suspend me just above him. Our mouthes were on a level for the first time.

He kissed me passionately as he thrust into me, letting loose and thrusting wildly.

I was keening in my throat. I couldn’t touch him with my restraints, but he touched me.

His hands were everywhere, caressing and pinching and soothing with incredible skill.

“F*cking come,” he said between gritted teeth, as his head fell back with his own release.

It was mesmerizing to watch him lose it like that, and so my eyes never left him as I came at his command. I moaned his name.

“F*ck, f*ck, f*ck,” he cursed, again and again, as he poured into me.

He unfastened me masterfully and cradled me in his arms. He carried me to an oversized bed in the corner. He laid me on top of the spread, sprawling at my side.

I saw that he was completely naked, a fact that I had somehow overlooked before.

He must have stripped out of his pants while I was spinning, my dazed mind noted.

He removed my nipple clamps, sucking gently at the red flesh. He took his time, giving equal attention to each abused nipple. After long moments of drawing on them with special focus, he straightened to study my face.

He loomed over me, a hand pressed flat to my lower belly, just watching my face for long minutes. He kissed my forehead. He seemed to be waiting for something.

I asked him what.

“I was waiting to see if you were falling asleep. Are you in the mood for an information exchange?”

I stretched, feeling languid and exhausted, but strangely, I was far from sleep. I thought about his question. It was strange, but the thought of answering his questions wasn’t troubling to me at that moment. I supposed a half a dozen orgasms had something to do with that. I figured he probably knew that. He was far more familiar with post-coital feelings than I was.

I felt oddly open to him, uncharacteristically free of my usual reserve. I hoped, in a distant kind of way, that this was a temporary insanity, and not yet another symptom of my growing obsession with this man. I gave the little shrug that drove him crazy.

“Fine,” I said, running a hand along the chest that loomed over me. “Ask me something.”

He smiled at me softly, then bit his lip as though he was nervous.

I watched the action in fascination. I’d never seen him do such a thing. James doing anything that vulnerable just didn’t connect in my head.

“I found out what sotnos means. I want to know why a term of endearment became your safe word.”

I wasn’t shocked. I’d known by the look on his face that it would be that, or something just as personal. The words were leaving my mouth before I could talk myself out of it. I wanted to know him, so perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to let him know me a little.

“My father used to call me that,” I said. It was true, and it was the simplest answer.

His brow furrowed. He had been hoping for more of an answer, I could tell. “That doesn’t really explain anything to me. Why would an endearment from your father be a good safe word for you?”

“You’re gonna owe me one hell of a revelation after this,” I told him, poking his chest.

He nodded solemnly, and with no hesitation. It reassured me, for some reason. I took a deep breath to begin.

“He used to beat the shit out of me,” I began.

James tensed, and my hand stroked him absently.

I continued with a sigh. “Not spankings, or a slap on the wrist, or whatever normal kids get. He beat me senseless. He would wail on my mother and I with little thought for the consequences. And there were none, not for him. The only reason I knew that he had even an ounce of control was that he didn’t hit our faces. He thought we were pretty, and he was proud of that. He wanted us to stay pretty, I guess.”

I stole a glance at his face. It was ashen, his pallor suddenly gray. But I continued, feeling a weight lift as I let out some of the gory details. “He was a cold brute of a man. And huge. God, he was so huge. As a child, I thought he was a giant. Stephan fought him once. You wouldn’t know it, since he hates violence, but Stephan is a hell of a fighter. Stephan managed to overpower him, but only barely. My dad has to outweigh him by at least fifty pounds, and it was a close thing. But Stephan was a quicker and much more experienced fighter. Stephan used to literally feed us by fighting, and he was barely sixteen at the time. My dad was only used to beating on women and children, I suppose. But seeing how those beefy fists nearly sent a large man like Stephan to a hospital, I can’t imagine how my mother and I survived them for so long…”

I shook myself out of my musing, and got back to the point. “He was not an affectionate father. He was just cold, and then brutal and angry when he lost his temper. But even his rages were cold. He often addressed my mother and I with the endearment sotnos, in this cold, mocking way of his. So when you asked me to pick a safe word, for when things went farther than I could handle, I just thought of it. Nothing terrified me more than those words on his lips. It seemed perversely appropriate.”


“F*ck,” James muttered with feeling, looking distraught.

I grinned wryly. “I told you I was f*cked up,” I told him.

“How did he die?” James asked in a hoarse voice, his hand stroking my belly.

I didn’t mention the score we were keeping on our information. Apparently I was in an answering mood, because I just answered. “He didn’t,” I said softly.

His eyes went a little wild as they shot from my stomach to my face. “But you said-”

“I lied. About him, but not my mother. She’s dead.”

“How did she die? And where is your father?”

“She killed herself.” The lie slipped from my lips with no effort or remorse. It was an old lie. And a necessary one. “And I have no idea where he is. I ran away from home just after my mother died. I was nearly fifteen, and I never stopped running. He found me, a few times. The foster system was actually unhelpful enough to reunite us. But by then I had Stephan. He would always protect me, and we would run again.”

“So you were in foster care? That’s how you met Stephan?”

I gave a swift shake of my head. “We had some run-ins with foster care, but no. We were homeless runaways. I met Stephan because some homeless old man was trying to rape me, and he beat the pervert to within an inch of his life. You can thank Stephan for helping to keep my virginity intact. We were inseparable after that. We never even discussed it. We just became family.”

I saw a fine tremor rock his body. I touched his jaw softly with a fingertip. “

I want to kill somebody,” James whispered. I traced his jaw. “I can’t bear the thought of the man who beat you as a child running loose. I can’t believe that someone like you was made to live on the streets, unprotected.”

“I had Stephan,” I said simply. He had made all of the rest of it worth it. Having someone like him at my back had made my life bearable during the horrible times.

“I love that guy. Remind me to buy him a ridiculously extravagant gift. I know he likes cars…” he trailed off.

I laughed, and it felt surprisingly carefree. “I love him too, but I refuse to encourage you there.”

“I need you to answer a question for me. Be brutally honest. Is this bad for you, what we do together? Am I like your father? We don’t have to do any of the rough stuff, if it’s too much for you. I don’t want to be bad for you.”

I traced his lips, choosing my words carefully. “I’ve been fascinated by the BDSM stuff since I can remember. It embarrassed me, and so I hid it well. Obviously, I had no experience with it, but I felt drawn to it, always. And the way you embrace it, with no shame, is liberating to me. My past has shaped me, that’s true of anyone, but I don’t think it’s bad for me to confront it in this way. It’s good for me to have someone like you, who can help me with this outlet. Someone who I think I could learn to trust. And you are nothing like my father.”

I could see that my words reassured him. He leaned down to kiss my forehead softly.

“Thank you,” he murmured against my skin.

“And we’re getting off track. You owe me a painful revelation. A few of them, actually. Why do you hate alcohol so much?” I asked.

I knew there was something there. I just sensed it. His reaction to seeing me drunk, and his instinctive tensing every time he thought I might drink alcohol, was all just too personal.

He ran his hand up my torso, tracing my ribs.

I gave him a few minutes of silence while he watched me broodingly, and formed his answer.

“I told you about my first guardian when my parents died. He was an older cousin. His name was Spencer, and I despised him. Supposedly, he was a close friend of my fathers. I could see why, right at first. He seemed nice at the beginning, never giving me any rules or restrictions. I was barely fourteen and he would let me have wine with dinner. I thought he was the coolest guy in the world. Until I realized that he was drugging the wine.”

A hand went to my throat at his words. I held my breath for him to continue, knowing with inexplicable certainty that the rest would be bad.

“It took me awhile. I would just have these blackouts. I wouldn’t remember anything after dinner. But there were…signs.”

“I was sore in places that I shouldn’t have been. I had marks on my back, and wrists, and…other places. And Spencer changed. At first it was just something knowing in his eyes. After a time, he started to brush up against me in broad daylight, and I just knew. I just knew that he had done things to me, things that I hadn’t consented to. Not that a fourteen year old can consent to any damn thing.”

Tears filled my eyes for the first time in many years, and my hands stroked him reassuringly. It both broke me, and touched me, that he would share such a thing with me.

He noted my tears, and brushed them from my cheeks almost absently, continuing. “It was just a guess on my part, but I suspected the wine. So I pretended to drink it one night, and let him lead me to his room. He had me handcuffed before I realized what he was doing. But by then, I was helpless. And then I got to experience the whole disgusting thing without the benefit of drugged wine.”

I traced those tiny scars on his wrists, and he let me. He shut his eyes tightly when I kissed them, but he didn’t stop me.

“I think he knew that I wasn’t as drugged out as usual almost immediately, but I really don’t think the bastard cared. He had convinced himself that I was a willing participant, no matter what I said or how I struggled.”

“He didn’t let me loose until morning. That was the longest night of my life. I was exhausted and sick down to my soul, but I still had the gumption to beat the shit out of him the second I was free.”

“He steered clear of me after that. And not even a year later, some angry lover choked him to death. He liked younger men who could overpower him physically. I guess it finally backfired. At least that lover wasn’t underage. It was a huge family scandal. All of my relatives were mortified. But I relished the news.” His eyes had glazed over as he told me the gory details, but they cleared as he finished, and seemed to focus back on me right away.

He leaned down and kissed me when he finished. I returned the kiss desperately. He pulled back, murmuring into my mouth.

“You’re the first person, aside from my therapist, that I’ve ever told that to. I was so ashamed by it all. Does it change the way you see me?”

In answer, I kissed him with all of the emotion that I felt for this damaged soul that seemed, somehow, to match my own. And to complement it in just the way that I hadn’t realized I’d needed so desperately.

We just kissed like that for long minutes. It was a soft and reverent kind of sharing. The type of intimacy that would have made my skin crawl at one time. But it didn’t now. I relished the contact, something having changed inside of me.

He finally pulled back, but only to lift me. “I need you in my bed, Love. Say goodbye to the 4th floor, for now. But we’ll be back, make no mistake.”

He cradled me against his chest as he walked with seemingly no effort to the elevator, not setting me down or shifting me as he boarded the elevator and it rose slowly back to his room.

I nuzzled against his chest. He kissed the top of my head.

He laid me on his bed and made love to me. I imagined it was a lot like being made love to in a forest, the huge, wall-sized window flooding us with sunlight.

He was all tender lover, though even James’s tender lover side had an edge. He pinned my legs down on the bed, parted wide, so that his every hard thrust rubbed my *oris almost unbearably roughly. He made me come again and again before he allowed his own release.

“You’re mine,” he breathed into my ear afterward. We lay together, entwined. We were on our sides, and he was wrapped around me tightly from behind, a hand laced firmly with one of my own.

“Yes,” I murmured back, and sank into a deep and peaceful sleep.