Chapter 7: Ninety-One Days of Want

ninety-one days thinking about what I'd do if I got you back in this room," he said, each word pressed into the skin below her ear like a thumbprint. "And every version ended the same way."

His fingers found the zipper on the side of her skirt. He dragged it down tooth by tooth, the sound impossibly loud in the quiet room, and the fabric loosened around her waist. He didn't pull it off. He let it hang there, barely clinging to her hipbones, the top of her ass exposed, the front still held by friction and gravity and nothing else.

"Arms up."

She raised them. He pulled the blouse over her head in one smooth motion and dropped it on the floor beside them, and the air hit her bare breasts and her nipples tightened further—hard, aching, flushed pink—and she heard his breath catch behind her, a small hitch that he'd never admit to, a tell she collected like currency.

"No bra," he said. "I didn't tell you to skip the bra."

"You told me to wear a blouse thin enough to see my nipples. A bra would have defeated the purpose."

His hand came down on her ass—hard, open-palmed, a crack that echoed off the walls—and the sting bloomed hot across her skin and she gasped and pushed back into it, involuntary, greedy. He rubbed the spot with his palm, slow circles over the heat, and she felt herself getting wetter, felt it on the inside of her thigh, a slick trail she couldn't stop.

"Cheeky," he said. "Three months away and you're already arguing with me."

"I'm not arguing. I'm reasoning."

Another spank. Harder. She moaned, and the sound bounced off the mirror in front of her, and she watched herself in it—flushed, half-undressed, pinned against his chest with his hand prints darkening her ass—and the sight made her legs shake.

He pushed the skirt down. It pooled at her ankles and she stepped out of it, and she was naked now, fully, while he was still fully dressed, and the asymmetry of it did what it always did—made her feel exposed and owned and desperate in a way that bypassed her brain and went straight to her cunt.

"On the bed. Face down. Hips on the edge."

She moved. The sheets were cool against her stomach, her breasts, her flushed cheeks. She turned her head to the side and watched the mirror—her own body spread across the dark fabric, the red marks on her ass, the pale line of her spine—and behind her, Jason unbuttoning his shirt with the same unhurried precision he applied to everything.

He folded the shirt. Placed it on the chair. Unbuckled his belt.

The sound of the belt sliding through the loops made her clench. She heard him double it over, heard the leather fold against itself, and her fingers gripped the sheets.

"Not tonight," he said, reading her tension. He dropped the belt on the chair beside his shirt. "Tonight I want my hands on you. All of it. Every mark I leave is going to be from my palm, and you're going to feel me in every one of them tomorrow."

He came up behind her. She heard his zipper, the rustle of fabric, and then nothing—no contact, just the heat of him close to her ass, the weight of his presence, and she pushed back toward him instinctively, seeking, and his hand pressed flat between her shoulder blades and pinned her to the mattress.

"Stay."

She stayed. His other hand found her ass, and he kneaded it—rough, possessive, pulling her cheeks apart and exposing her, and she felt how wet she was, knew he could see it, knew the light from the bedside lamp was catching on the slick folds of her pussy, and the shame and the want tangled together until they were the same thing.

"Three months," he said, and his thumb traced a line through her wetness, root to clit, a single slow stroke that made her hips buck against the mattress. "This is what you were doing on your couch. Thinking about me. Getting yourself off to the memory of me."

"Yes."

"Tell me exactly."

She swallowed against the sheet. "I'd think about the first night. The way you tied my wrists. The way you—" His thumb circled her clit, slow, maddening, and her voice fractured. "The way you made me ask for it."

"Ask for what?"

"Your fingers. Your mouth. Your cock. Everything. I'd think about your voice when you told me I was yours and I'd come so hard I'd bite through my lip."

His thumb pressed harder. Two fingers slid inside her—no warning, no preamble, just a deep, curling thrust that found the spot that made her vision blur—and she cried out, and the sound was raw and graceless and exactly what she sounded like when it was real, and she felt him lean over her, his chest against her back, his mouth against her ear.

"That's the sound," he murmured. "That's what wasn't in those photos. That's how I knew."

His fingers fucked her slow and deep, curling on the pull-out, pressing on the push-in, and his thumb kept its relentless circle on her clit, and she was already close—embarrassingly close, ninety-one days of want concentrated into two minutes of his hands—and she felt it building, the tight bright coil low in her belly.

"Don't come yet."

"Jason—"

"Don't come." His fingers slowed. Torturously. "You come when I say. You understand?"

"I understand."

He withdrew his fingers, and she made a sound that embarrassed her—a whine, high and thin, the sound of a person being denied something essential—and she heard him lick his fingers, heard the wet sound of it, heard the low hum of approval in his throat.

"You taste the same," he said. "I thought maybe three months would change something. It didn't."

She heard the condom wrapper tear. The bed dipped as he stepped closer, and then the head of his cock pressed against her—not inside, not yet, just sliding through her wetness, root to clit and back, coating himself in her, teasing the entrance without pushing in.

"Tell me what you want."

"You. Inside me. Now."

"More specific."

"I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me hard. I want to feel you in my throat."

He pushed in. One long, deep, relentless stroke that bottomed out and held, and she felt her body stretch around him, felt the fullness of it, the rightness of it, the way her cunt gripped him like it had been designed for this specific purpose, and her moan was loud enough that he put his hand over her mouth.

"Quiet," he said, but his own voice was ragged, and his hips pulled back and snapped forward, and the sound of skin on skin filled the room, wet and rhythmic and obscene. He fucked her the way she'd asked—hard, deep, relentless—each thrust shoving her into the mattress, his hand still over her mouth, his other hand gripping her hip hard enough to leave marks she'd find tomorrow in the shower.

She bit his palm. He groaned—a sound she'd never heard from him before, less controlled, more animal—and his rhythm stuttered, and she felt him lean down, felt his teeth on the back of her shoulder, a bite that sent electricity straight to her clit, and she was close again, so close, the coil winding tight.

"I'm going to come," she said against his hand, the words muffled but clear enough.

"Not yet."

"I can't—"

"You can. And you will." He pulled out. She almost sobbed. He flipped her over—fast, efficient, one hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder—and she was on her back now, looking up at him, and his face was flushed, his jaw tight, his eyes dark and burning, and he looked wrecked, she realized. Not composed. Not in control. Wrecked, the same way she was, the three months written in the taut lines of his body and the way his hands shook slightly as he gripped her knees and pushed them apart.

He entered her again. Slower this time, watching her face, watching her mouth open, watching her eyes flutter. He seated himself fully and stopped, and his thumb found her clit, and he pressed, and she arched off the bed.

"Look at me," he said.

She opened her eyes. His face was inches from hers, and she could see every detail—the pulse in his throat, the sweat at his hairline, the way his pupils dilated as he moved inside her, slow now, grinding, his pubic bone against her clit with every thrust, his cock hitting the spot that made her toes curl.

"Who do you belong to?"

"You."

"Say my name."

"Jason."

"Again."

"Jason. I belong to you. I'm yours. I've been yours since the first—"

His mouth came down on hers, and the kiss was brutal, consuming, his tongue in her mouth matching the rhythm of his cock in her cunt, and she felt the coil snap, felt the orgasm crash through her in waves that started at her clit and radiated outward until her fingers and toes were tingling, and she came with her nails raked down his back and his name still on her lips, muffled by his mouth.

He followed her. She felt it—the way his rhythm broke, the way his hips stuttered, the way he buried himself deep and held, his forehead pressed against hers, his breath coming in harsh, broken gasps, and he said her name once—"Leigh"—in a voice she'd never heard before, stripped of every wall, every protocol, every layer of control, and it was the most naked thing she'd ever heard from him.

They lay there. His weight on her, still inside her, both of them breathing hard, the room quiet except for the sound of it. His hand came up and brushed the hair from her face, and he looked at her with an expression that was not the door-closed stillness or the command-voice authority but something underneath both of those—the real thing, the foundation they were built on, and it was soft and open and terrified.

"I have to go to Greece next week," he said.

She blinked. "Greece?"

"A new club. The Vault is expanding. I'm opening a location in the Cyclades." He paused, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. "Two weeks. Maybe three."

"Two weeks." She stared at him. "You're telling me this now?"

"I'm telling you this now because I need you to come with me."

The room shifted. She felt the weight of it—not a command, not a condition, but an invitation, which was different, which was new, which meant he was asking instead of telling, and that distinction mattered in a way she couldn't fully articulate.

"You want me in Greece."

"I want you everywhere." He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, his arm hooked around her waist. "We're done meeting only in this room. I'm done with that. I want you in restaurants and on beaches and in hotel rooms where the curtains don't close all the way, and I want people to see us and know."

Her pulse quickened. "Know what?"

"That you're mine." His hand tightened on her hip. "And I want you to want them to know."

She thought about the coffee shop. The way he'd said *mine* with a barista three feet away. The way her body had responded—not with shame but with heat, with a flare of something exhibitionist she hadn't known was in her until he'd lit it.

"The Greek islands," she said. "Sun. Water. You. People watching."

"People watching." He smiled—actually smiled, not the sharp thing from the coffee shop but something warmer, something that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I'm going to ruin you on a beach and you're going to thank me for it."

"When do we leave?"

"Friday."

"This Friday?"

"This Friday." He pulled back enough to look at her properly. "I'll send you the details. And Leigh—pack light. I'm planning to keep you undressed most of the time."

She laughed, and the sound surprised her—light, genuine, the kind of laugh she hadn't produced in three months. "You're impossible."

"And yet."

"And yet," she agreed, and kissed him, and felt his smile against her mouth, and thought: *Greece. Sun. Water. Him. People watching. This is either the best or the most catastrophic idea anyone has ever had, and either way I'm going.*

He pulled back the sheets and tucked her against him, his arm heavy across her waist, and she lay there in the room with the lock and the mirror and the dark sheets, and she thought about the Aegean Sea and white buildings and his hands on her in broad daylight, and she pressed her ass against his hip and felt him harden against her, already, again, and she smiled into the dark.

"We have until Friday," she said. "That's three more days."

"Two more nights," he corrected. "I plan to use them."

"Good," she said, echoing him, and his laugh was low and warm against the back of her neck, and she felt the vibration of it in her spine, and she thought she had never in her life been so thoroughly, so precisely, so completely fucked in every possible sense of the word, and she had zero intention of complaining about it.