Silently, page 9
She looked at the slip with its running list of dates, “Left msg,” scrawled beside each.
The driver shrugged. “I had a delivery nearby, so I thought I’d drop them off.” He was looking at her, expecting her to do something, but her hands were frozen in place.
“I . . . I’ll leave them here for you if that’s okay,” he said, motioning inside the doorway. “Or, wait, is there another address I should bring them to instead?”
She could read his thoughts. Maybe the guy doesn’t live here anymore.
“No, here’s fine; I’ll take them.” She couldn’t bear to send anyone away holding something of Harris’s in his hands.
She stepped aside to let him in, and he set the stack just inside the door. As he walked out, she closed it behind him before leaning against it and sinking to the floor, the hard wood cool against her back as she wept.
8
BEGINNER'S LUCK
It might have been the longest afternoon of his career, although somehow he had managed to download his photos and videos from the trip and, with Rich’s input, select the ones they would use for upcoming blog and social media posts and trailers. After the meeting he tried to write some of the content and the voice-over script for the show, but that was way too big an ask for his Quinn-addled brain.
By six-thirty, he was heading down the block for a takeout sandwich, which he wolfed down on the walk back to the office. A quick tooth-brushing, and he packed up, rode the elevator to the lobby, and was sitting in the thick of rush-hour gridlock with Gil by seven.
It had been over a week since he’d seen her; he should have taken the damn train.
When he finally got there, she opened the door and let him in. “Hi,” he whispered. She wore that silky black robe that stopped just above her knee. “I’m sorry again about last night.”
“It’s fine.” She waved off his apology, eager to change the subject. He was starting to know her micro-expressions, her tells, and he wanted to learn more. He wanted to learn her.
“Your trip okay?” Her voice and her eyes seemed sadder than he remembered.
“Yeah, it was good. Hectic.” He slipped off his shoes as he answered and noticed a stack of shirt boxes near the door, as if they’d been tossed there and forgotten. That didn’t seem like her.
Once they reached the living room, he set down his messenger bag and removed the blindfold, which he’d tucked in an outside pocket for quick access. “But it was too long.” He stepped behind her to tie the satin.
He wanted to say he had missed her, that he could not wait to see her. He wanted to kiss the soft skin along the length of her neck.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he reached for her arms and brought them behind her back, holding her wrists together with one hand. With the other, he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, then guided her slowly up the staircase.
He led her into the bedroom, and once she stood beside the bed, he slipped the robe off her shoulders and helped her down, positioning her on the mattress on her back.
This time, he buckled the restraints he’d brought around her ankles and watched her shiver at the sound the straps made as he stretched and tied them to the bedpost.
“Scarves in your nightstand?” he asked on a whisper. That’s where she took them from last time, but he didn’t want to go through her things without asking.
She nodded yes.
He found them easily and, sitting beside her, tied her wrist to the bedpost before walking around the bed and doing the same on the other side.
His cock strained against his jeans as he stood and looked at her spread-eagled before him. He undressed and went downstairs without saying a word.
He was quiet in the kitchen and on his way back up the steps so she wouldn’t know what he was doing. Hell, he didn’t know what he was doing.
But between the internet, his imagination, and watching her reactions since that first night, he had several ideas to pilot.
In the bedroom again, he straddled her thighs and, quietly, took an ice cube out of the zip-top bag he placed beside him on the bed. A cube in each hand, he held them over her breasts until the ice started to melt.
The first drop hit precisely on her nipple—beginner’s luck—and she gasped and flinched.
Another drop plinked against her sensitized skin, and then another. He bent and took a cold, erect, beautiful nipple in his mouth, first sucking, then teasing with his teeth. He alternated breasts, alternated the heat of his mouth with the chill of the ice, aiming the cold drops over her smooth belly in between. Her skin quivered and rose in tiny bumps in response.
He stopped to let her feel the sensations, like the dramatic pause an acting coach had taught him, but soon he let the drops fall on other parts of her body—the side of her neck, the inside of her wrist, the top of her foot, her thigh, the area right above her pubic bone.
She inhaled a deep breath when he bent over her to suck the drops off her skin, and he teased her even more by running his index finger, only once, lightly along her folds. She gasped and canted her hips, wanting. From her clit to her entrance, she was as wet as he was hard.
When the ice cubes melted away, he untied her wrists, undid the ankle restraints, and guided her onto her stomach. Sitting back on his heels between her calves, he spread her legs wider, cupping her ass and feeling her skin against his palms and thumbs, learning her body.
He dragged his fingertips down the back of one thigh and, when she let out another faint moan, did the same on her other leg. He could spend all night right here, focused on the rise of her calves, the sensitive skin behind her knees, the backs of her thighs, exploring every inch of her legs, not to mention where they led.
Quietly, he took the slapper from his bag, pretty damn pleased with himself for remembering to leave it open on the bed so he wouldn’t have to leave her, even for a few seconds, to retrieve the toys. With his other hand, he rubbed and squeezed her ass cheek, giving her some sensation for context before swinging the leather against her skin. She yelped, clearly not expecting it.
When he could see her muscles relax, he swung it again, and she arched her ass toward him to meet his strike.
It grew rhythmic, their cycle of sound and stillness, tension and release, until after an especially hard slap she arched toward him once more, and he couldn’t stand it any longer.
He took a condom from the other front pocket of his bag, hustled it on fast, and positioned himself behind her.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
That was all he needed. Lifting her hips and holding fast, his eyes stayed glued to her slick opening as he slid inside her and reveled in her moan.
999, 998 . . . If he didn’t go slow, he would be done in a flash, an embarrassingly fast flash.
“Harder,” she pleaded, her voice muffled by the sheets she was gripping.
He sped up, thrusting harder and deeper. His cock swelled even more at the sound of her sighs.
“Hit me.”
He slowed his pace for a second to reach for the slapper and hit her as he pulled out, then thrust back into her and swatted her again as he pulled out. Not very smooth, but harder each time as he found the tempo. Thrust, slap, thrust, slap, thrust, slap.
“My face. Slap my face.” She ripped off the blindfold and swept her hair off her damp face before twisting around to give him a clear shot at her cheek.
He dropped the slapper on the bed and, still inside her, laid his palm on her back. “Not your face.” What the hell? “I can’t.”
“Slap my face!”
Her voice was full with despair and frustration, just like when she had asked him to pull her hair. His cock twitched inside her, it too remembering how she had cried out and came soon after he yanked it.
Instead of slapping her face—no fucking way—he reached for the back of her head, knotted his fingers in her hair, and yanked hard and fast.
A popping sound came from near her neck, and something landed on the sheet next to her. His eyes flew open; her hand shot to the base of her neck.
Fuck. Her heart necklace.
He winced at the awful whimpering sound she made.
“It’s okay, I’ll have it fixed tomorrow,” he offered quickly, trying to hold on to her hips and pull out of her gently as she struggled against him. “Here, let me take it and get it fix—”
She bolted upright to sit cross-legged on the bed, her back to him. “You need to go,” she said, her voice cracking between sobs.
“Hey, hey, calm down.” He sat on the bed and rubbed her back. “It was an accident. It can be fixed. I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.”
He would take the morning off from work, find a jeweler who could fix it on the spot, and deliver it back to her straightaway. The city was big—he would find someone to take care of it.
She knocked his arm away. “It can’t be fixed. You can’t fix it. You could have done what I asked, not . . . this.” She thrust her hand toward him, the slack chain draped over her palm, two of its delicate links stretched open and twisted.
“Go,” she repeated. Breaking the necklace was symbolic, a metaphor—he got that. But she was getting more upset, and his continued presence seemed only to make it worse.
“Okay, I am. I’m going,” he said, climbing off the bed, fumbling to pick up his clothes. “I’m sorry.”
But wait, what exactly was he apologizing for?
Anger rose in his throat. “I’m sorry I’m not some lowlife who gets off on hitting women; I’m sorry I won’t smack you around.”
He waited for her to say something more as slowly he walked out of the room and down the hall, but she was quiet except for the weeping.
His chest hurt hearing her. He wanted to go back and comfort her, hold her and rub her back until she stopped, but . . . This was Quinn, and that would not happen.
He threw on the rest of his clothes by the top of the stairs and went down, let himself out the heavy front door.
She was still quiet when he texted her later that night and the next morning and the next evening and he stopped trying when he lost track of how many days after that.
When he got Leigh’s voice mail inviting him to dinner at her apartment in two weeks, he called back immediately to accept. He wasn’t in any mood for a party, but maybe by some miracle Leigh might convince Quinn to come.
He arrived in time for cocktails in her high-ceilinged living room. Stark white walls, enormous paintings, a dark wood floor—decor as unique in the city as a private school uniform.
Quinn was not there. No surprise. Although any time another guest walked in, he turned to look, pathetically hopeful.
After a while they moved into the dining room, and he found his place card between two writers whose names he vaguely recognized and across from Leigh. She was standing with her hands on the back of her chair, watching everyone as they took their seats before she retreated to the kitchen to bring out the food.
Once she sat, he waited what he hoped was an unremarkably short time before catching her eye amid all the chatter to ask how Quinn was; he didn’t want to sound as eager as he felt.
“She’s not answering my calls,” Leigh said, her frustration obvious from her face, her voice, her sigh as she spooned something green with quinoa onto a plate. “So I’m giving her space. I just wish she could . . . hoist herself above this.”
He waited to hear it: It’s been over a year. To her credit, if she was thinking it, at least she didn’t say it.
The two writers made sympathetic sounds and frowny it’s-just-so-sad faces. One shifted in her seat, cleared her throat, and shot a furtive glance that started in his direction and quickly continued around the table, as if she were checking to make sure others weren’t listening. “I heard she’s been, um . . . going to visit Octavia.”
The woman looked at the author next to her and then at Leigh. Her tone was funny, her look conspiratorial; he pictured her nudging their elbows, although she didn’t actually.
“What’s she doing at”—Leigh was interrupted by an unseen motion generated somewhere under the table. Water shimmied in unison in the glasses at their end of the table, and Leigh’s forehead contracted. “I mean”—cough—“I didn’t know Quinn knew Octavia.”
Octavia.
The name was familiar, and he thought about the mutual acquaintances in their slightly overlapping social circles, but he couldn’t come up with a last name. Nor could he conjure a face.
“Well, apparently they do”—ahem—“know each other. Someone mentioned it at my last writers’ group meeting. A friend of a friend said she’d seen the Market Day author at . . . I mean visiting . . . Octavia.”
“Hmm,” Leigh uttered. “Maybe they confused her with someone else.”
The conversation moved on, and he fielded questions about his show and travels. Leigh always gathered an interesting crowd, and he asked about the others’ latest projects and successes with genuine interest. Gallery exhibitions, book launches, a prestigious medical association award, a couple of needle-in-the-haystack stock picks.
There was more, but he didn’t catch the rest because after a while his mind got caught in a loop.
Octavia. Octavia. It was not a common name. Normally he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but that was a weird, gossipy conversation—and it was about Quinn.
Why the hell did he know the name Octavia?
Leigh retreated to the kitchen again. When she returned this time, she set a gorgeous cake and heaping bowl of fresh, cut fruit at each end of the table. He watched absent-mindedly as the realization hit him.
Octavia’s. If his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him, it was some kind of S&M place, a club.
She was going to a kink club? Not Quinn.
Pull my hair. Slap my face.
He had been so careful with her. Would others be?
He reached into his breast pocket, took out his phone nonchalantly, and unlocked it, hoping no one would notice.
Leigh did, a disapproving or perhaps insulted eyebrow subtly rising.
“I’m really sorry—my producer is still at the office and in a bind. I need to answer a text.”
Although he had sworn he would not lie again after lying his ass off to Delphine, tonight he made an exception. His fingers tapped out “Octavia’s” in the browser search bar.
Sure enough, Octavia’s was a dungeon, a BDSM club.
He recalled the night he now thought of as their turning point, the night she leaned against him. How, earlier that evening, she had continued to ask for more and more strikes from the slapper, how she could hardly stand after the full-tilt speed of the vibrator, how she lay blindfolded and spread-eagled in front of him as he dripped melting ice over her breasts, how the inside of her pussy felt when she was about to come.
He thought of how other nights he had ended their play because it seemed like too much sensation, too much pain.
He stood and pushed in his chair. The surrounding conversations dropped to a lull as everyone looked up. “I hope you’ll all excuse me—my producer ran into a snag with the next episode, and I need to give him a hand at the office. It’s been a pleasure.”
He went around to Leigh and kissed her on both cheeks, French style. “I’m sorry to eat and run,” he offered lamely.
“Duty calls. I’m glad you could make it.”
“Thanks for understanding.” He hadn’t pulled it often, but on those few occasions when he needed an out, no one argued with a two-cheeked kiss or an urgent, if imaginary, text from his producer.
“When Quinn returns my calls again, I’ll let her know you asked for her.”
Oh, I’m definitely asking for her.
He pictured some expressionless, burly bouncer outside Octavia’s that he would somehow have to bypass to get to her. “Please do.”
Really, he should stay away, leave well enough alone. The other shoe he always worried about had dropped. She had ghosted him; their whatever it had been was over.
So why was he jogging down the street toward Octavia’s to look for her?
While waiting at a crosswalk, he confirmed the address on his phone. He had no idea if she would be there, but he had to check. The thought of her at some kind of dungeon—vulnerable, alone, asking other men to do what she had asked him to do . . .
Shit. He hissed under his breath as he looked at the web page. The bold type, he hadn’t noticed that earlier.
At the other side of the intersection, he moved out of the flow of humanity and paused to fill in a fake name and other details so he could score the golden ticket or secret code or whatever the fuck he needed to get in. But at least they were making some attempt at security.
He shook his head as if to dislodge the jealous thoughts. It was not only jealousy; he felt protective of her. He’d felt that way since that very first night when he laid eyes on her coming out of the kitchen, clutching a glass of red wine so tightly he worried it might shatter in her hand.
The feelings that arose in him that evening, they were hard to put words to, but he had been in—and screwed up—enough relationships to know that some whys were impossible to explain.
One thing he knew was that seeing her, thinking about her, gave him the strangest, warmest, most wonderfully disorienting feeling in his chest. And that ignited an overpowering urge to take care of her, to protect her, to please her, in spite—or maybe because—of her obvious strength.
She would not be pleased with him tonight.
He hoofed it closer and closer to Octavia’s, his temples pounding with each step. Not only not pleased. Royally pissed for invading her privacy was probably more like it.
His boss would be royally pissed too if some dickwad recognized him and posted a photo of him in a sex-club-dungeon-whatever-the-fuck-you-called-it on social media.
This is a bad idea.
But clips of her continued to play behind his eyes, like edited scenes coming together into a cohesive storyline: undressing in front of him that first time, bent over the arm of the couch, blindfolded and bound. Her skin damp with sweat. The weight of her body leaning into him, so close he could inhale the scent of her hair, raspberries and a hint of vanilla.
