As Grace was coming out of the shower the next morning, the smell of cigarette smoke drifted under the towel draped over her head. She looked up and jumped back at the sight of a man sitting on the edge of her bed.
‘Reeve!’ She leaned back against the doorjamb, hand at her throat. ‘What the fuck?’
‘You still refuse to call me Simon,’ he said, tapping ash from the end of his cigarette into the glass dish on the bed next to him.
‘It’s a habit I can’t break,’ she said, and resumed scrubbing her hair dry. ‘And I’ll thank you not to smoke that in here. It’ll stink up the whole house.’
‘Aren’t we the lady of the manor now?’ He took one last drag and stubbed it out, then chuckled as she shimmied out of the bath towel around her torso. ‘Tell me you at least dress yourself when you’re lounging about the house.’
‘I rarely lounge about, and I do dress myself, but I see no point in being modest in front of someone whose face I once sat on.’ She draped her towels behind the door and went to the dresser. ‘He’s still gone, is he?’
‘For at least another twenty minutes. I timed my entry in case you wanted to make a clean break.’
Grace frowned as she squirted hair de-frizzer into her palm. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your message. “I’m ready to leave,” it said.’
Making a squelching fist around the gel, Grace pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth as the little chill of dread passed through her. ‘I didn’t think I hit send. I must have done it accidentally.’
Reeve didn’t say anything as she ran her hands through her damp hair, nor when she slipped into her bra and panties. Grace kept her back to him as she dug into the dresser for something to wear.
She’d typed the words into her phone, but she hadn’t sent it, or so she thought. She cursed the sensitive touchscreen as she pulled out a shirt-dress, then as she buttoned up she cursed herself for even typing the words.
‘Did you tell him?’ she asked as soon as the devastating thought came to her. Her blood seemed to thin in her veins at the mere thought of Taureau learning second-hand that she had genuinely considered leaving him, especially now that he’d shared such a painful part of himself with her.
‘It’s not up to me,’ he said, and, after another moment, ‘Did you have a change of heart?’
‘I did.’ She pulled the belt taut around her waist and looped it, then turned. ‘I had a moment when I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea to stay. It came and it went, and now it’s over. I’m sorry you came this far, though you could have sent a message back.’
‘I didn’t want to press you. You called, I came. That’s how it works.’
‘And now you’ll, what? Just go back?’
He shook his head as he got up. ‘Since I’m here, I might as well meet with Jacques about this thing with his father. You were here when Dominic showed up, I understand.’
‘I was.’ She stepped into her flats. ‘I couldn’t tell whether he thought I was a gold-digger or a prostitute.’
‘Knowing Dominic, I’d say the latter. He doesn’t think highly enough of Jacques to believe anyone would want him even for his money.’
She didn’t say anything in response. She was in complete agreement, but she didn’t need to hash out what a bastard Dominic Taureau was, and Reeve didn’t seem keen to explore the topic either.
She returned to the dresser and clipped her damp hair behind her head, then turned. ‘Come on. I could use a second pot of coffee.’
‘Decaf tea for me, actually. It’s in the pantry.’
‘Good God, how do you stay awake during your jet-setting without caffeine?’
‘I have an espresso in the morning at around five thirty, after I finish a run. After that, I keep things clean.’
‘And yet you smoke,’ she noted as she led him into the kitchen.
‘I only smoke when I’m here at The Convent House. It wouldn’t seem right if I didn’t, so I have my cigarettes. He left her in the kitchen, hung his coat on the hook next to the door and peered out as he straightened his cuffs. ‘Did he let you up there?’
‘I let myself up once, just to have a look. He didn’t throw me out, but I haven’t been back.’
‘Did you watch any of the discs?’
Does he mean, did you watch the disc?
‘We were too distracted by revisiting my own digital history on his computer to look at the other discs.’
‘He won’t keep any of you and him together. That’s not what he does when he brings others here. He abhors being on camera himself.’
Others.
Grace kept her mouth shut as she filled the kettle.
‘How many others have there been?’
‘A few, but only one long-term visitor. Me.’
Grace kept her gaze on the countertop as the question bubbled to the surface. ‘Were you lovers?’
Reeve smirked. ‘You don’t show a thing on your face when you feel something. It’s like a shimmer, like light reflecting so fast you can’t tell whether you saw it or not.’
‘There’s no need to make fun of me,’ she retorted and placed the kettle on the burner. ‘I knew you were from his past. You told me that yourself. I knew you had been here when you both were teenagers. You might as well go on, since you’re clearly dying to tell me. Well, were you?’
He waited while she switched on the coffee pot, then he spoke. ‘I suppose there could have been some experimentation with each other if we hadn’t been too busy trying to get the girls on their backs. We got older and wilder. We shared, we joined in, but we never went solo. I suppose the window of opportunity had passed by the time I overdosed and had to dry out here.’
Reeve’s tone seemed to hold nothing but matter-of-factness, and it struck Grace that she had this in common with him. She wondered if this was a trait that specially appealed to Taureau, who had grown up in a world where everyone around him was trying to trade a compliment for a favour.
She wondered if Bette, the only other notable in his history that she knew of, had also shared this trait.
‘Is this place where people go when they fall apart?’
‘I guess you could say it is. It is the perfect escape, isn’t it? Do you want to hear more?’ Grace nodded, and Reeve seemed to relax into himself a little. ‘I went to rehab on his dime, but when my three months were up, instead of being pushed back into the world where he knew I would just relapse, Jacques brought me here. I guess you could say he exploited our friendship by saying he needed me here. He knew I wouldn’t say no. So I came here and there were just the two of us.’
‘But you weren’t lovers.’
‘I get the feeling you’d be more than a little excited if I ’fessed up, Grace.’ He laughed. ‘Even if either of us was so inclined, towards the end I sort of saw us as prisoners together. We formed that sort of bond that came out of being trapped together. For different reasons, neither one of us was prepared to deal with the world outside, until one day I felt ready to do it.’
‘And so you just left?’
He folded his hands in front of him and gave them all his attention. His voice dropped to a murmur as he went on. ‘And I just left. In the morning I told him I was going home, and he just nodded and told me that it was for the best.’
A crushing feeling came over her. Was that how it would end with Taureau when they were finished? Would she simply leave?
‘You can leave any time,’ he went on. ‘That’s what makes you different. You’re not hiding here. You’re not crippled by anything.’
‘Why do I feel like you want to add “yet” to that statement?’
‘It will get to you eventually. I doubt it will take six months.’ He leaned back and held her gaze for a moment.
He was right, she realised. It wasn’t that she expected anything from Taureau. She hadn’t been lying to him, but in that lack of expectation was the same frustration as following a long, winding path and wondering how much longer she would have to walk before coming to something.
Grace suddenly resented Reeve’s bringing it up, and when he asked his next question she bit her tongue to hold in her misdirected anger.
‘Are you sure you want to stay?’
She nodded, then glanced at him. He looked as though he was waiting for more than just that. ‘Yes, I’m sure. I may not have the endurance to stay six months, but I’ll be damned if I scurry off after barely two.’
‘Do you want me to leave?’
Yes.
She wanted to go back twenty-four hours, before she typed that message and accidentally sent it. She wanted to go back before Dominic Taureau darkened the kitchen door. She wanted to be where she was the previous morning when she woke up in Taureau’s huge bed, arms and legs tangled with his, his warmth closing around her as he stirred and drew the blanket over their shoulders.
In those moments, life wasn’t complicated; it was just the way it was supposed to be.
‘I don’t want to chase you off,’ she lied. She poured out her coffee. ‘I don’t want you to stay long, and I don’t want to discuss your reason for being here any longer. Besides, something tells me that he would take your presence like a spitting tomcat after the last time all three of us were together – so to speak.’
A smirk twisted one side of Reeve’s mouth and he leaned back in his stool. She watched him twist his tie loose and a question popped into her head.
‘It’s too bad,’ he said. ‘It could be interesting.’
‘I’m sure it would, and not necessarily in a good way.’ She leaned forward and regarded him curiously. ‘What would you have done if I hadn’t agreed to have dinner with you that night?’
‘Was there ever a chance of that happening?’
The last of the tension broke in Grace’s laugh as she took the kettle off the burner. ‘I don’t know whether to take that as a remark about my active sex life or about your conceit.’
‘I was thinking more in terms of our respective success records. You have to admit that, even without all the business, if I had had another reason to come to the Toronto office for a meeting with Caroway, we still would have ended up in your apartment.’
‘You’re probably right about that. It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it? You could have just been another man passing through my bed, and Jacques would have just been a name on the letterhead.’ She brought him his teacup and sipped her coffee as she watched him dunk the bag into the water until it was a mossy green.
Taureau made his return about twenty minutes later, just as she and Reeve were running out of things to talk about.
As soon as Taureau passed through the door, unzipping his leather jacket, he acknowledged Reeve with a nod.
‘That was fast.’
‘I was on my way back from St John’s when I got your email,’ he lied.
‘Is that fresh?’ Taureau asked Grace, gesturing towards the coffee pot, and when she nodded he moved to prepare himself a cup.
Reeve leaned forward. ‘I thought I might talk you out of it.’
‘Then you’ve wasted a trip. Make it go away, but do it tactfully and gently.’
‘Give the girl a talking-to and a ride to the clinic? Hold her hand when it’s over?’
The acid in both men’s tones made Grace get up and put her empty cup in the sink. ‘I don’t think I need to listen to this.’
‘There’s nothing to listen to,’ Taureau said, but the glare between himself and Reeve didn’t abate. He took a slurp from his cup, then ran his hands through his hair. ‘I need a shower. You can talk at me some more when I’m finished, but there’s no point. You might as well move on.’
‘Grace has invited me for lunch,’ Reeve said cheerfully, ‘and, judging by the state of her ass and thighs, and that contraption I spotted hanging from the tree out there, she’s due for a break.’
Taureau stood unmoving, cup to his lips, and looked at Grace. The question on his face made her feel like apologising. She’d been on the mark: Taureau didn’t want Reeve sticking around.
Reeve laughed and cocked his head at his friend. ‘Come on. I need social intercourse – and when was the last time you had a cheeseburger and a chocolate-peanut-butter shake from the Dairy Bar?’
Taureau set his cup back on the counter and walked away.
‘Tell them not to skimp on the pickles,’ he called over his shoulder, and disappeared into the hallway. Neither Grace nor Reeve said anything as the heavy tread of his boots grew fainter, and when they stopped altogether she looked at Reeve.
‘Dairy Bar?’
Reeve chuckled and drained the last of his tea. ‘You’re going to have a burger so good you’ll actually punch him in the face for not taking you up there sooner.’
* * *
Later that afternoon, Grace sat at the counter composing an email to her mother on her phone when she caught sight of Taureau passing the door. At first she gave only a glance, but once her brain registered a bare chest and back she perked up. She quickly finished her message and sent it, then pulled open the aluminium door.
He’d stripped down to nothing but a pair of filthy running shoes and some soccer shorts. He was carrying two buckets – one full of suds and the other of clean water – from the garden hose to the bike that had been left parked alongside the house, and the strain of the weight made his shoulders roll delectably.
‘Well, hello there,’ she said, then gave a catcall. ‘I might need to run up and get a vibrator if I’m going to watch this.’
He laughed, his smile shy as he set the water down by the bottles and sponges he had assembled next to the bike. ‘It’s getting pretty grimy.’
‘I’d offer to help, but I know you’d rather set your baby on fire than let me do anything more than sit on it. I’ll just enjoy the view.’
She ducked back into the kitchen and grabbed her soda, then took the Adirondack chair next to the door. She expected that Taureau was a little annoyed that she had intruded, but she couldn’t help herself. These moments when she could just sit back and watch him be normal were so few and far between that she leapt on them when she could.
What a day it was. Taureau’s mood had changed from surly to laidback when she and Reeve returned from the Dairy Bar with a mountain of food. She was able to see the rapport between them bouncing back and forth as they stuffed their faces, two men becoming boys as they reminisced about the summers they had spent in this place.
She’d been a little jealous. She’d thought that Taureau was starting to get truly comfortable, but seeing him with his oldest and apparently only friend led her to believe otherwise. With Simon present, Taureau seemed to shed some of his instinctive mistrust.
Now that Reeve had gone to check into a hotel in Moncton, the walls were back up. She recognised that they weren’t as thick as when she had arrived, but they were there nonetheless.
‘Who cuts your hair?’ she asked him as he rubbed the curls off the back of his neck.
‘I shave it when it gets too long. I guess I’ll have to do it again soon.’
‘You could do with just a trim,’ she said, and leaned forward. She liked how wild it was getting, liked twisting her fingers in it while he was on top of her, but with the hot summer sun coming down on him it clearly bothered him. ‘I could cut it.’
He glanced back at her, brows twisted with doubt. ‘Do you know how?’
‘Of course I do. Didn’t I tell you that my mom was a hairdresser? She used to cut hair at the kitchen table and showed me how to do it. Nothing major, but I can make it neat and clean so you don’t have to look like a Russian serial killer for the summer.’
Taureau laughed, but said nothing as he resumed sponging the chrome.
Grace let out a groan from the back of her throat. ‘You don’t think I can cut your hair.’
‘I never said that.’
‘But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
He twisted around, the gravel scraping under his sneakers, and squinted against the sun over her head. ‘I don’t like it when you’re in my bathroom. What makes you think I want you cutting my hair?’
For a moment she could only splutter affronted sounds. Sometimes his frankness amused her and even charmed her, but today it pierced her like a pin.
‘Because I’ve been here all summer. Because we’ve been sleeping next to one another, eating with one another, and working alongside one another –’
‘Except when you kick me out.’
‘That’s because you’re too much of an asshole to work with,’ she grumbled, trying desperately to remain impervious to his half-smile. He was speaking seriously but he did so with a smirk.
She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I wash your shorts. I cook your meals. I had Mike drive me a half an hour into the city so I could get waxed.’
‘Not that I don’t appreciate how silky and smooth your pussy is when I go down on you, but you’re not cutting my hair.’
His tone was so sincere it was impossible for Grace to maintain her scowl. She burst out laughing, and now that he’d turned his back on her she saw that his shoulders were shaking a little.
Resting her head against the back of the chair and her arms over her laugh-sore stomach, Grace let out the last of her giggles.
‘Come on. Please. You were planning to shave it all off anyway, so why not?’
He sprang to his feet with an irritated growl, sloshed the sponge back into the bucket and threw out his hands.
‘Why is it so important to you?’
‘Because you’re so adamant about it. You’d think I’d offered to cut your pubic hair with a paring knife. You’re just getting huffy because for a half an hour you would be at my mercy, and you hate not having complete control at all times.’ She shook out the last drops from her soda can, then got to her feet. ‘Consider it a trust exercise. You might even get off on it. I read somewhere that men love going to the salon because they get a scalp massage while looking at a nice pair of tits.’
She left him to his soapsuds and his bike and returned to the house. She wasn’t pissed off with him like she’d been before he revealed his secret, but she was nonetheless annoyed that even now he scrambled to keep her at arm’s length. She was getting tired of the scraps he threw her. Big or small, they were still just scraps.
About a half an hour later, Taureau stopped in the doorway of the bedroom where she had camped out to read. He was stubbornness personified, hands on hips, an angry line bisecting his forehead.
‘All right, let’s do this.’
A snorting laugh escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth but it was too late and she had to apologise.
‘Now?’
‘Before I change my mind.’
‘All right then.’ She bounced from the bed and grinned at him. ‘Bring me your clippers and a towel. I’ll get the scissors.’
She wet his hair at the kitchen sink and found it a challenge to keep her hands busy with her task. He hadn’t been out long but the sun had left a blush across those sloping shoulders and muscled back. She longed to skim her hands up and down his back and his ass, but she knew he’d seize the opportunity to get out of the haircut and she’d let him, and when her temperature cooled and she caught her breath she’d be furious at herself, not him.
With Taureau face-down, she couldn’t gauge whether he was relaxing. His body never let its guard down, even when they were in bed. Only after he’d rubbed his head and tossed the towel aside did she get a look at his face.
He was not happy. Surly had transformed into downright mean, and she thought about relenting, but said nothing as he dragged the stool from the counter and sat down.
Grace turned on the clock radio she’d installed on the windowsill and draped an old bath towel over his shoulders. As she collected comb and scissors, Taureau reached out from beneath the towel and picked up the paddle mirror he’d brought from his bathroom. She went behind him and he raised the mirror, and, before she could make some quip about him worrying that she’d give him a fauxhawk, she saw the reason for his concern staring back at her.
Oh. Shit.
Whether he trusted her or not didn’t matter much at that moment. In her insistence, she’d probably turned herself into his worst nightmare: a woman standing over him with a blade in her hand.
Now that she’d put herself in this position, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. As he stared at her reflection in that mirror, she ran the comb through his hair and smoothed it down. When she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and moved slightly out of view, the mirror followed.
The urge to cry came over her. It was just a haircut and she posed no threat to him, but he was visibly stressed. Teasing him was one thing: what if the feel of cool metal on his hot neck gave him some sort of panic attack? What if he retreated to the cottage and just never came out?
‘You going to give me a haircut, or what?’ he asked.
She wiped the damp comb on her dress. ‘If you really don’t want to do it, I won’t make you. I shouldn’t have been so bitchy about it.’
In the mirror she could see only part of him. It was like a snapshot of the past, when for almost two months this had been all he allowed her, and she moved just slightly so her arm touched his and she was sure this was real.
Either because the connection she needed had affected him, or for some other reason she wasn’t privy to, Taureau shook his head.
‘No, cut it,’ he said, and shifted the mirror from one hand to the other. ‘Just don’t take my ear off.’
‘Wise-ass,’ she said, but still felt a tremor as she tucked the comb in her pocket.
The tension remained as she snipped along his neckline and began to work. She’d done this hundreds of times, having made some easy money in university doing the same job on friends and fellow students, but she’d never been so nervous. They didn’t speak as little flakes of hair fell onto the towel and the floor, and he didn’t lower the mirror. He watched her like a cat watches another cat that’s ventured a little too close, tilting the mirror up and down, side to side, but the real challenge came when she finished trimming and clipping the back and it was time to tackle the thickness on the top of his head. He became like stone as he tilted his head back and held up the mirror.
Yet, after a moment, he broke the silence. ‘I should have picked a lower chair.’
‘I’m good,’ she assured him, even though she had to stand on her toes.
‘I was thinking about what you said about lying back with a pair of tits hovering over me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a salon or one of those spas.’
‘If this goes well, later tonight you can have a soak in the tub and I’ll give you a full facial. Come back a little.’
He tipped his head back all the way, and to her great relief he lowered the mirror. ‘That stuff you put on your face that smells like cat litter?’
‘I haven’t worn it around you. Have you been snooping through my things?’
‘I don’t need to snoop when you leave your things in my bathroom.’
The silence resumed, a little lighter than before, and Grace noticed he had closed his eyes. She wouldn’t go so far as to say he was enjoying himself, but he’d given in a little.
Not to her, but to himself.
She finished up quickly with the scissors and evened things out with the clippers. He lifted his head as she came around to face him, and Grace took the mirror and held it up.
‘Well?’
He turned his head from one side to the other, and her spirits fell as a scowl appeared. She had thought she had done a good job, but he obviously felt otherwise, and she held back a sigh at the thought of buzzing that gorgeous hair off.
Taureau swiped his hand across his cheek. ‘I’m going to hop in the shower to get the itch off my neck. How do you feel about giving me a shave when I get out?’
Grace could have dropped the mirror. Not fifteen minutes earlier he had looked like he expected her to take his head off with those scissors, and now he was asking her to take a razor to his throat.
‘Yeah, sure.’
She passed him the mirror and watched as he touched the back of his head where most of the length had gone. After another few moments of scrutiny, he handed back the mirror, pulled the towel from his shoulders and got up from the stool.
‘I’ll help you clean up first.’
‘No, it’s good,’ she said quickly, and brushed a small chunk of hair off his shoulder with a smile. ‘You get your shower, and I’ll see you in a few minutes.’
The truth was that she needed a few minutes to herself. As soon as he was out of sight, she gave a wide smile and let out a long sigh.
She’d somehow managed to fall in pigshit and come out smelling like Chanel. She’d spent her time at The Convent House being deliberately careless, refusing to treat Taureau as fragile. If she discovered she’d pressed one of his buttons she never stopped right away. She’d tap and tap and tap, just like she’d done the night before the fire, until she knew she was in too far territory.
She couldn’t take any credit for it, she thought as she ran the vacuum across the kitchen floor. She hadn’t made him do anything. If he had really been adamant, he never would have sat down in that chair. This had been his hurdle, not hers, and he’d cleared it.
A fog of steam was billowing from the bathroom when she went upstairs. He stood naked before a full sink with the contents of his shaving kit laid out. The colour on his shoulders had lit up with the heat of the shower, and she noticed another pair of splotches further down his back.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without that fuzz,’ she said. ‘The insides of my thighs will probably thank me.’
‘It won’t last long. My mother used to joke that I was part werewolf, like Grand-Père.’
‘That’s actually kind of sexy.’
She reached for the can of shaving cream, but he caught her and dragged her between him and the sink. She gripped the edge and leaned back as he went to work unwrapping her from the dress. The bra followed the dress to the floor, but she kept her panties.
Grace ran her hands across his chest and finally tested the burn on his shoulders. The slightest touch made the crimson skin flash yellow.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It’s not that bad,’ he said, and placed his hands on her hips. He ventured no further, and didn’t look at her body to see the damage such a simple touch did to her. Nipples hard and goose flesh lifting the hair on her arms, Grace leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against the bristle that in moments would be scraped away. She’d miss it when it was gone, though she was right when she said her inner thighs would enjoy the reprieve.
He turned his head and brushed his mouth against hers, and as his tongue slipped and twined around hers Grace had to chase away the urge to reach between them and bring his cock to its full potential. She gave him a little push to put some distance between them, and offered him a smile.
Though there was a mirror behind her, Taureau kept his eyes on her while she scrubbed his face and neck to loosen the hairs. He glanced away when she smeared a layer of shave gel across his beard, then looked back at her when she took the razor in her hand.
‘It’s thick,’ she said after the first nervous stroke. ‘How often do you do this?’
‘Once a month. Not since you’ve been here.’
‘Would you keep it clean if I asked you to?’
‘No.’
She sloshed the razor in the sink and laughed. ‘Good. I’d be disappointed if I suddenly discovered you were pussy-whipped, even if it was my pussy that whipped you.’
One stroke at a time, Taureau’s appearance changed. Without the shadow on his cheeks and chin, he started to resemble that lost young man of his youth. The reappearance of the scar across his neck brought back the man he had become, and deep down she was grateful for it. The way it had happened had been horrific, but, without it, Grace would never have had the many pleasures of knowing Taureau.
His blue-eyed stare returned to hers as she set the razor aside. ‘Well?’
‘Different. You don’t get much sun, so your face isn’t two-toned.’
Taureau emptied the sink and rinsed the facecloth, then wiped it over his face – all without letting Grace escape the wall of his body. When he’d finished, he tossed the cloth into the empty shower, then resumed his hold on her.
Her job done, Grace looped her arms around his neck and tilted her head back to get a good look at him. Taureau robbed her of it and kissed her again with the same hunger as before. She wrapped her legs around his waist and utterly gave in.
After a feverish moment, Taureau dragged his mouth across her cheek. His attention on the sensitive dune of her neck. Sharp teeth pinched, and hot tongue lathed where the sting had punctured her. She closed her eyes and became drunk with the hot shivers he induced. She moaned – only it wasn’t a moan that escaped, but words: ‘Thank you.’
Spell broken, Taureau lifted his head. ‘For what?’
‘For … bringing me here. For this.’
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. His fresh new face dumbstruck, he struggled so much to get words out that Grace’s guts twisted with regret. Before she could try to take back what she’d said, he cupped the back of her head and leaned close.
‘I don’t know what to do with this. I feel like I don’t deserve it,’ he said, and their words clashed – hers to argue, his to silence her. He dominated her as always, butting his forehead against hers. ‘I needed to do something for you, just this once, just so you know that –’
He stopped, and she could feel the breath he took. As much as she longed for him to finish, she felt the time for words slipping away, and so she let it go and drew away the hand behind her head.
‘Will you do something else for me?’ she asked, her heart drumming in her throat and her head light as excitement and panic.
He curled his fingers around hers. ‘I don’t know what else I could possibly give you.’
The urge to laugh made her bite her lip. He could have given her anything with a price tag, but that’s not what she wanted and he knew it. From his apologetic tone it was clear that he thought himself an emotional pauper.
She kissed him lightly, softly, then spoke against his wet mouth. ‘Let me take you to bed. Let me tie you down like you tie me down. Let me reduce you to what you reduce me to.’
For a moment the atmosphere of the bathroom became stifling, a summer storm drawing power from both of them. Grace was suspended, waiting amidst the charge, while Taureau held her gaze and his breath.
He tilted his head just slightly and swiped his tongue into her mouth, then withdrew it as she sought to take more of him.
‘You’ll never do to me what I do to you,’ he told her with absolute confidence.
‘Let me try,’ she countered, and smiled against his mouth. ‘I’ll treat you so good, Jacques.’
A burst of laughter broke from him and vibrated against her lips. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’
She could feel the live wire of uncertainty running through him and wondered if the experience was the same for him when he introduced his whip, or the egg, or some other sinful device he had squirrelled away. As Taureau had done with her countless times, she gave him the opportunity to say no. Unlike Taureau, who was always sure that she would bite her lip and take whatever he had in store for her without complaint, she wasn’t sure what he’d do. She knew he could refuse and she wouldn’t push him on this.
He bowed a little and rested his head in the curve of her neck and shoulder. His cheek was still damp and the smell of menthol from the shave gel was so strong she could taste it. He welcomed the tangle of her fingers with his, then slid his hand to the small of her back, turning his possessive touch into an embrace that begged for reassurance.
‘I’ll let you,’ he said at last, and his body quivered as he took a breath. He lifted his head and gave her a faint smile. ‘I’ll let you own me for a little while.’
Grace still wasn’t completely sure of herself as she got down from the vanity and led him into the bedroom. She didn’t know if pushing him down and taking control would really turn either of them on. The electricity pinging through her body didn’t come from anticipating the act, but from the thought of them journeying together into this thrilling, unknown territory.
At the bed, tradition was broken. Normally Taureau would pull her against him, cock stiff and throbbing against her back while he made his possession known with insistent fingers rubbing over her body. This time they faced one another. For a moment there was only skin on skin, hands and fingers exploring over each other’s body, and then Taureau bowed his head and Grace pulled him closer. Beneath the chest pressed against hers she felt that dominant animal stirring.
He challenged her, pushed against her so the edge of the platform bed jabbed into her calves, and cupped her ass. He thrust his tongue over hers, and Grace allowed it. She allowed him to put her down on her back and hold her down, to thrust his legs between hers to open her up while he fucked his tongue in and out of her mouth. She surrendered to him just as long as it suited her, until he was like iron and her pussy was slick, and then she turned on him.
Planting her hands on his shoulders, Grace put every ounce of strength into pushing him off her. His face flashed with surprise as she straddled him, and then settled into a curious resignation as she thrust his hands over his head.
He kept his position as she reached for the black cord coiled in a spiral on the floor. She sat up and drew it taut between her hands, and watched the last of his apprehension chase hers away.
A loop around one wrist and then the other. What a thing a knot was. There had always seemed to be magic in it when she watched Taureau’s talented hands bind her, but now that the power was in her hands she saw the beautiful simplicity of it.
She ran her hands down his huge arms, across the prairie of his chest, and cupped his smooth face. ‘You’re mine now, aren’t you?’
Taureau shifted his lower body until the thick cockhead butted against her wet flesh and the challenge returned in a twisting smile.
‘Have you ever done this before?’
‘I tried once.’ She rose up onto her knees and reached between them. ‘It wasn’t an experience I cared to repeat until now.’
‘Didn’t it do anything for you?’
She ignored the question for a moment as she sank over him. Without his hands on her ass or her hips to guide her, Grace found herself giddy and free to take as much as she wanted. She closed her eyes, rocked back and took it all.
‘No, it didn’t,’ she admitted, and splayed her hands across his chest to keep her balance as she rocked forward and back. ‘He wanted me to own his ass – literally: he wanted me to peg him. I said I’d think about it and he started to whine and beg. That was the end of my brief sexual career as a Domme.’
‘I won’t beg you,’ he said with just a little taunting in his deep voice. ‘And you couldn’t own my ass if you tried.’
‘I don’t want to own your ass,’ she countered, and stretched forward until she only had the fat tip plugging her. ‘But, all the same, those are fighting words.’
As Grace dismounted, Taureau’s cockiness wrinkled into concern. She didn’t venture far. She’d decided once she had him down and she wouldn’t abuse his trust: she’d move only where he could see her, she’d go slowly, and she’d go small.
She slid open the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe and collected one of the crops he’d used on her. His conflict was obvious, and she knew why: he couldn’t take pain like she did, yet he didn’t want to admit it, given the marks he had left on her ass with that same crop.
‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him as she returned to the bed. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. Open up.’
‘I wasn’t worried,’ he said with a relieved grin, and snapped down on the crop.
There was a brief, hushed pause as they regarded one another. Grace swept her gaze from the rope around his wrists to his feet hanging off the end of the bed, and in her head she quickly made an inventory of playthings at her disposal.
In the end, there was only one plaything she wanted, and that was the man on the bed.
As he watched, she delved into the nightstand and drew out the small bottle of lubricant kept there. It was nearly empty, but that didn’t matter when there were three more: errands to the nearest drugstore had become as common as trips to the post office to get those wicked packages that were too large to be left in the community box. She flipped the top and turned the bottle over, and with a small squeeze she drizzled the glossy liquid over his cock.
‘You remember that first night I was here?’ she asked as she climbed on him again, this time seating herself on his thighs. She glanced at him and grinned. ‘Oh, that’s right. You can’t talk right now. You do a lot of talking. You never shut up in bed, Jacques. You can get so quiet on me sometimes, but when you’ve got me where you want me you can’t stop.’
Taureau twitched his wrists inside the figure-eight she had made around them. She recognised the movement: he wasn’t trying to escape, he just needed to move. He lifted his head and looked down to where she had formed a slippery shelter with both hands and fucked the tip through a hot groove she had made.
‘You like that?’ she whispered, answering the wet grunt that sputtered around the crop. ‘I always get such a thrill out of giving a handjob, like I’m sixteen again and doing something my grandmother insists nice girls don’t do. Having a cock in my hand makes me feel like a pervert, and I just love it.’
She worked that slippery shaft harder now. Taureau let loose another sound, not his usual rumble of pleasure, but a tortured moan.
Grace kept her grip with one hand and slid forward. Holding his gaze, she rubbed two fingers along her slit, smearing the residue of lube into her own juices, then pushed up onto her knees and pressed his shaft against the soft, sticky flesh between her legs.
He rolled his eyes up until she saw the whites and his legs grew restless beneath her. She moved against him in a rocking motion, as if she were riding him.
She bent her head to look between her legs and nudged her fat clit with his cockhead. A few years ago she had splurged on a dildo that had a suction cup on the bottom. She’d promptly fixed it to a kitchen chair and for weeks it was her constant plaything, which she’d used with an assortment of vibes before she recognised her addiction and tossed it out.
Now, with this pliant dildo of flesh and hot blood in her hand, Grace used him as she had used that column of silicone, gliding up and down, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. She got the best of it, she knew, with that hot underbelly rubbing against her clit. Taureau only got the privilege of staying hard, and it made her smile to watch him push his fingers into his palms as he endured it.
‘Oh, you could make me come just by staying hard like this,’ she told him, and recognised the desperation flashing in his eyes. How many times had he put that look on her own face? Dozens, with his threats to withhold her orgasm if she bucked him too much for his liking, or just because he felt like it and knew the longer he made her wait the harder she’d come.
That look made up her mind. She pressed down with both hands and held his cock against her as she shunted up and down. The throbbing flesh was better than anything a battery could power, and her climax began almost immediately. As all that heat and friction combined, Grace lost sight of her plot to keep Taureau suspended in her pleasure as long as it suited her. If she’d taken him into that raging red room with her and he’d erupted over her hand and pussy, it would still have been worth it.
In spite of his bonds and the sweet torture she was inflicting on him, Taureau offered her his support. He bent his knees and gave her a seat on his thighs. Lifting her head to look at him through the curtain of hair over her eyes, she saw a damp, flushed face, flaring nostrils and a chest that rose and fell as if he couldn’t draw a full breath. He still clutched the crop between his teeth, reminding her of a vicious dog with a bone.
She opened her mouth to speak, but quickly restrained the taunt she had planned. She had nothing to say to him, and the time for speaking had passed. She had triumphed. Though tinged with crimson frustration, his surrender was plain. Still he squirmed, but he was hers.
And so she pressed her hands upon his chest, tilted her hips and took the ultimate possession of him.
Her orgasm had watered down the cocktail of want and need in her bloodstream. She was still greedy for more, but she could wait. She would prolong his release as long as she liked, and it was tempting to do so, just to watch what she did to him.
No matter what she did to him, whether it was a rough ride or she simply leaned over him and fucked the first few inches in and out of her pussy, Taureau strained in his bonds. Every muscle in his upper body seemed to shudder in rebellion, and she knew she couldn’t control his climax for much longer. Regardless of his intention to let her drive, he began to push his feet against the mattress. With the force of every thrust came the shifting of power, until she found herself straining forward to free him.
As soon as he shook the black ropes free, Grace became the toy, the thing to fuck. He tossed the crop aside and clamped down on her waist. He held her upright as he fucked up with what felt like all the force in his body. She held onto his thick forearms and took it – what else could she do? – and found out just how far she’d taken them both with her body. Those fierce thrusts brought about an instant eruption. As his dick twitched and he shot against her, Grace rebelled against his hold on her and lurched forward, suspended as a second and much more powerful orgasm pounded her.
After a moment of being suspended over him, Grace moved just enough to let his soft cock slip from her. Face down, draped over his chest, she watched him through sleepy eyes and saw him fighting the same battle against exhaustion.
Defeated blue eyes met hers. He slung one arm across her back, trapping her with his dead weight, and threw the other over his head. The rope had left a ring on his wrist, and its presence reminded her of the crop, prompting her to lift her head to search of it.
She found it wedged against him, and placed it before her across his chest.
Taureau shook with a hoarse laugh, then stroked a trail of shivers up her back with his fingers. ‘You should put it out of sight. I might be tempted to use it on you later.’
‘I’m still a little sore,’ she said with a shake of her head.
‘Which is exactly why you should hide it.’ He rested his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes. Grace followed suit, grateful for the thump-thump-thump of his heart to lull her.