Chapter 10 – Alyssa
It’s a miracle that I didn’t slap him when he flat-out implied he wanted to collar me like a dog!
Because apparently that’s what Julian Marcus thinks I am: his bitch.
I may have been a virgin when we first hooked up, but I wasn’t innocent or naïve about relationships or men. He thinks he’s some big brother figure right now – some pervy, incestual big brother figure I’m sure! – who is going to teach me what men are really thinking when they start grinding on me at a club. Like I don’t know! Seriously, he thinks I didn’t know that guy wanted to fuck me?
Like I said before, I had one drink too many, but I am sobered the fuck up now. How else could I feel when there is a leash dangling from my throat?
Yeah. That’s right. I put it on. Why? Moment of weakness, I suppose we could call it. An intense, stupid moment of weakness, because how am I supposed to look at this man and not fall prey to his stupid whims?
I’m wearing that sheer white negligee he bought for me a while back. You know the one… was supposed to wear it, but he had me ride his lap instead? Yeah. That one. I’m wearing that, no underwear, and my tangled, sweaty hair from the club piled on top of my head with nothing more than a few pins and a crystal clasp holding it together.
The collar is comfortable enough, I suppose. Not that I’ve worn any others before, of course. But this one has a soft leather lining that caresses my skin even when I quickly turn my head around. Otherwise, it’s a simple sterling silver collar with no add-ons. A basic but nice piece of BDSM jewelry bought straight from the manufacturer. The leash is likewise sterling silver and adjustable for play. The end of it wraps tightly around Julian’s hand as he looms from the edge of the bed, staring into my eyes.
“Think this would clear a few things up if I took you to the club like this?”
I shudder. I’m on my knees, skin rubbing against the carpet whenever he slightly yanks that chain. Gotta admit… there’s a little thrill to it. But I’m also terrified. Not of him hurting me, but of what this could possibly mean.
What if this is some point of no return I’m never coming back from? We’re never coming back from?
“I think I would be mortified, honestly,” I mutter.
“Now, now.” He pats my cheek. At first, it’s soothing. But not two seconds later I’m fuming beneath this collar. How dare he, honestly? It’s one thing to spank me. It’s quite another to patronizing me with a cheek pat. “This isn’t the kind of thing we would do in public. This is the kind of thing we do at home so we can further build our bond.”
He’s kidding, right?
Build our bond? While I’m on my knees with a leash around my neck? He’s got to be kidding!
“Lyssa,” he says to get my attention again. “I’m not doing this to humiliate you. I’m not doing it to make you hate me or, God forbid, yourself. This is both a trust exercise and meant to make us enjoy our relationship on another level. Namely…” He tugs on the leash. Like his pet, I lightly move back, compelled to put my hand against his leg for leverage. We look like the most fucked up romance book cover since ‘50s pulp fiction. “Whenever we are apart, you will always be thinking of me. When another man approaches you, I will be the first thing you think of. Do you understand?”
Oh, I understand. “I think of you already, sir.”
“That’s what you say, but tonight’s actions imply otherwise. What do you have to say for yourself about that?”
What the hell else is there for me to say? “I’m sorry that I shook your trust in me tonight, sir.”
“I never said anything about shaken trust. If anything, my main concern is that men thought it appropriate to approach you like that. It doesn’t matter what’s in your head if I’m not assured you’re protected when out there without me.”
What is this? Does he want a five mile radius free of men around me? Because not only is that impossible, but it’s offensive to me! He does realize that I talk to guys every day, right? It doesn’t matter if they secretly or not-so-secretly wanna fuck me. As long as they keep their hands to themselves, they can ask me whatever they want, even if it’s a guise to get closer to me for a few seconds. Smell my perfume, shampoo, whatever creepy shit guys do. Last I checked I had a bodyguard following me around to keep weirdos from touching or harassing me, and nothing more.
I wasn’t being harassed in the club. I was barely being touched. Some harmless dancing. Who the hell cares if that guy got hard from dancing with Cher and me? Julian’s not the only one who gets hard around me, damnit!
“When we’re not together, Lyssa,” he further explains, “the world needs to feel and see our connection. This,” he caresses the leash connecting my throat to his hand, “is everything. It’s there even when you can’t see it. You. Me. Together we are one. It’s as beautifully simple as that.”
I scoff. “Somehow I have a feeling this isn’t only about the club. You’ve been thinking about this for a while, Mr. Marcus.”
“You bet your gorgeous ass, lovely.”
For a moment, I see the real him behind the bossy, billionaire façade. Yes, folks. There’s a “real” person behind the stoic businessman Julian Marcus always presents himself as, even to me. I get rare glimpses of it, but as the days go on in our relationship, the more I become acquainted with the excited boy lurking behind brilliant blue eyes and a stoic poker face.
He looks like a man I could comfortably kiss. A man I could cuddle up with on the couch and want to spoon me in bed. He doesn’t look anything like the man who seduced me in his office not too long ago.
He almost sucks me in.
This has two effects on me. The first lulls me into a fun sense of security, a reminder that, at the end of the day, this is nothing more than a sex game, a fantasy he wants to enact.
But it also scares me. Because what if the man I’m falling in love with isn’t this one, but the façade?
Yes. Falling in love.
Like I know he’s falling in love with me.
“This?” I wrap my hand around the leash, so close to his hand that I could touch him if I want. I’ll let him initiate that, though. “The link between you and me, sir?”
A glimmer of the façade returns. “Yes. Even when it’s not physically here, it remains between our hearts. Is that a hard concept to understand?”
“Not at all, sir.”
I close my eyes when he lightly kisses me. I’m ready. To throw myself into this fantasy, that is.
Julian wants to feel perpetually connected to me? I’m not a girl who is about to turn that opportunity down. I can hear the other interns yelling at me right now. “Do it, girl! Lock that shit down! Make him love you long enough to make you his first Mrs. Marcus!”
He kisses me harder, hand giving my leash a firm yank. He pulls me forward. I’m at his mercy, now.
Before, my eyes were opened to these behind-closed-doors possibilities. I never thought of myself as submissive in the bedroom, but had I a real chance to explore that before? I wouldn’t trust any of my ex-boyfriends to help me learn about that, let alone be a good partner in the realm of soft BDSM. Julian, though? A man as strong, dependable, and assured as him? He knows what he’s about. He knows what he wants from his relationships. His older, wiser experiences scream that he’s ready to show me everything I’ve been missing in my life.
How fortunate I am to meet him when I’m still young!
“How proud would you be to be seen like this with me? Out there?”
I remain kneeling before him, my lips against his while my knees and palms dig into the carpet beneath us. He’s truly the dominant one in this situation. And me? Submissive to my excited core. He has his powerful, gorgeous suit on, and I’m in nothing but this sheer negligee. If we walked outside right now, I’d freeze! And that’s before the public would see my nipples and pubic hair beneath the white of this barely-there fabric. I’m his woman. His lover. His bedroom slave he gets to do whatever he wants with. At least now I’m not ashamed to say that it’s making me wet.
His finger grazes my nipple. Well, now I’m really wet.
“I’m going to get you a real collar after this, lovely. Tomorrow we’re going to the jeweler’s to pick out something we both adore. Don’t worry. It’ll be appropriate for public wearing. Unlike this outfit.” Julian hooks his finger beneath my strap and forces it down my arm. My left breast almost falls out of this negligee. “This outfit is only for me to enjoy.”
He turns my head back toward him before I can respond.
“Promise me that you are mine, Lyssa. And I will promise that I am yours.”
My eyes widen. “Truly?” Even now, with all the demands he has of me, it seems impossible. How could a man like him be mine? I admit, I am prone to jealousy as well. Sometimes I see him in meetings with women. Beautiful, intelligent women who can go toe-to-toe with him in the boardroom. Women making deliveries who are so cute he double-takes at them. Women passing us by in restaurants and on the street who are so well put together that they have a confidence I never will. Am I afraid that one day he will realize these women are way more his type and suitable for a relationship with him than I ever will be? Absolutely. A part of me – or many parts of me – worry every single day that Julian’s going to wake up and wonder what the fuck he’s doing with me. Oh well. It’s been a grand ride, right?
“Truly.”
I want to cry. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be so taken in that I want to cry. Yet here I am, falling hook, line, and sinker for his promises that may or may not mean anything at all.
“I’m yours,” I tell my boyfriend. “I’m totally yours.”
“And I’m yours, my sweet.”
When we kiss again, it’s with the unbridled passion I’ve come to expect from a man like Julian Marcus.
Dare I believe that this isn’t a fling? That this isn’t only a passing interest that he has in me? That this could possibly last years? My life?
Dare I believe?
I’m not shocked when he takes me to bed. I’m not surprised when he takes off his clothes and makes love to me with my collar and leash still on. I’m anything but confused when the urgency with which he makes love to me overpowers everything else and makes me feel like I honestly, truly belong to him. He wasn’t kidding when he said we could be one. And yet… it feels so impossible to me! How could we possibly be “one” when we’re such two completely different people? When we’ve known each other for such little time? The way he kisses me doesn’t betray the differences between us. If anything, I’m able to forget that we are who we are. That I’m Alyssa Pendleton, twenty-one-year-old intern with nothing else going for her other than her boyfriend… and that he’s Julian Marcus, billionaire son of an old family fortune that goes back beyond when Europeans first settled the west coast.
When we’re naked like this in bed, you’d never guess that we were anything more than two simple people.
He wants me so badly. I can feel it in the way he thrusts between my legs, urgently filling me up with his body, his heart, and pieces of his soul. This isn’t like the first time we made love in his office. Back then, it was all about the physical. The sexual. Now? I daresay we’re enjoying the finer fruits of actual lovemaking.
I wish it didn’t scare the damn piss out of me. I’m not ready to fall in love like this. I’m not ready to throw myself to the first man who comes along and says he’ll have me. That’s not healthy, right? That’s not how it works in the real world. This is some crazy fantasy I find myself in. Every thrust into my body brings me dangerously closer to reality, and that’s the last place I want to be. Ever.
I don’t even orgasm. I don’t have to. Having Julian make love to me is enough to make me feel so good I can’t possibly come down from this high ever again.
But he comes. Hard.
I’ve never heard him make this sound before. For as much sex as we’ve had by now, I know I’ve definitely never heard this guttural groan before. It’s not merely desperate. It’s needy.
For me.
I’m but a mere woman, you know? I’m tiny compared to him. Yet I feel like a comparable vessel to whatever he wants to give me. When he climaxes, it’s more than usual. One, two, sometimes three spurts… he’s done. Spent. I’m always amazed, of course… but not as much as I am tonight when I get a fourth filling of his seed inside of me.
Hot. Intense. All for me.
Slow, languid kisses commence before we’re allowed to acknowledge that it’s over. The leash is tossed to the other end of the bed. Right now it’s only me and Julian. We don’t need the leash to show the world how connected we are. Wherever we go, I know he’s there. In me. A part of me.
I don’t want this to end.
