Our best solution is a compromise – a divan in an upstairs room called the Boudoir that isn’t quite as exposed as the others, tented beneath a large expanse of parachute silk. People will be able to see our outlines moving beneath it, but not our faces.
He puts me on my back and fingers me with those wicked supple leather gloves on before I can utter a word.
‘I should have done this back down there,’ he says, spearing two, then three of the slim black intruders inside my cunt, keeping a thumb on my fat clit. ‘I should have made you come while they watched you. Would you have liked that?’
‘Mmm.’ I try to lift my sore bottom up so it doesn’t make contact with the mattress, but he won’t let me.
‘I asked you a question, Sophie. Would you have liked that?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I gabble, wanting the head of steam released quickly. He keeps slowing his pace, though, every time I think it’s coming.
‘Another time, maybe,’ he says, speeding up again. ‘I think you should get your arse whipped in front of strangers again. I think I should do it often. I think it’s what you need.’
I come hard, onto those shiny fingers, my bottom chafing on the velvet.
‘I don’t know though,’ he says, wrenching down the leather trousers, pulling wide my legs. ‘Maybe you’ll be better behaved now.’ He pulls me upright, moves me on to my knees, pushes my head down into the prickly pile. ‘Maybe you’ll do as you’re told.’
He fucks me hard, bruisingly, gripping my hips and pummelling my hot bottom until it’s even hotter and stings even sharper.
‘Maybe you’ll see what’s staring you in the face,’ he pants. ‘And stop giving me the run-around.’ He smacks my thigh in what seems like genuine punishment.
‘Don’t hurt me.’ My alarm is genuine. There is something a little bit feral about Lloyd tonight.
He sighs, slows down, strokes the hand-shaped glow on my thigh. ‘Don’t be stupid. You know I’d never hurt you.’
A strange comment from a man who has just beaten seven bells out of his girlfriend’s arse, perhaps, but it makes a kind of sense. The pain he inflicts is no more than skin-deep, and it isn’t even real pain. It’s pleasure pain, play pain.
He’s telling me my heart is safe with him.
He’s telling me he wants my heart.
I give him the next best thing, my orgasm, and he gives me his. The sex is good, hot, fast, hard, passionate, amazing, but is the orgasm enough any more?
Into the dying throes of my climax, a knot of fear intrudes. Have I found the point of no emotional return?
Chapter Eight
‘I think you should always wear those gloves in bed.’
I’m lying with my head on Lloyd’s chest, semi-mummified in rumpled bed sheets while his leather-gloved hand strokes my sore nipples.
‘Maybe I will then. That sounded like one heck of an orgasm.’
‘It was. You’re a genius. I don’t know where you can go after this. Any stronger and my head’ll blow.’
‘Well, make the most of the afterglow, madam, because it’s your last for a while.’
I try to sit up, but my cotton cocoon prevents me. ‘You what?’
He waits for my confusion to hit its peak before deigning to reply. ‘The next challenge. No orgasms for a week.’
‘That’s a shit challenge! How’s that even … ugh, Lloyd. Why?’
He laughs, pulling me down, ruffling my hair. ‘Because I don’t think you can do it.’
‘You don’t think I can go a week without coming? It’s easy and, what’s more, it’s really boring. Come on! You can do better.’
‘I don’t think you’ll find it easy at all.’