Florida
Ashleigh
I opened the sliding glass doors and stepped onto the deck. I took a long, deep breath and it felt delicious. After over a week in the hospital, a few days here in the warm, balmy air meant I was finally starting to get my strength back. I could speak without wheezing. I wasn’t taking hits of my inhaler every five minutes.
It was like my body was finally mine again. I’d spent this morning walking along the beach, and I’d almost cried at how good it felt. To breathe without pain, to walk with confidence.
I’d spoken to Arthur and he informed me of his plans to visit next week. He also said we could discuss alternatives to Switzerland that would be more conducive to my health.
Did that mean he was caving? Would he let me go to college? Even if it wasn’t Princeton, I would take anything at this point.
There was a knock on the door to my hotel room. I assumed it was housekeeping, but when they didn’t attempt to open the door, I got up to check it out. What if it was another bodyguard Arthur had sent to watch over me? He knew where I was this time, so what was the point?
I opened the door and felt the breath freeze in my lungs. Then, because I’d been in the pattern for weeks, I forced myself to breathe. Easy in, and out.
“Easy in, and out,” Marc said.
“I am. I’m good now.”
He walked inside the room confidently. There was a duffel bag over his shoulder. “Nice digs. But I guess I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“You came,” I whispered. When I’d asked him to come, I wasn’t sure he would. I’d been gone for months. We’d had that fight. I didn’t know anything about what was happening in his life, really. Outside of whatever he texted me, which wasn’t much beyond school.
I wondered if the separation had done exactly what my father intended. What if he’d moved on? To a girlfriend, to a future that didn’t need to include all the drama he thought I was creating intentionally.
I believed he needed me. I didn’t know it for a certainty. But he was here, and I was so happy to see him I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.
“George gave me the details of where you were.”
I nodded. He’d set his bag on the couch and was rubbing the back of his neck.
“Long drive?”
“Yeah, I drove straight through. About ten hours. Your father’s not planning to come until next week.”
“I know. He just told me.”
Marc nodded. The two of us stood awkwardly in the middle of the suite. I felt this bubble of lightness, but he, as always, looked grim.
“Can I get you a beer? The mini bar is stocked.”
He hesitated a second, looking at me in a way I couldn’t decipher. The last time we’d been together alone, he’d taken my virginity. Shown me how to give him a hand job in the shower. One night together. Something we’d been destined for. Now we were here, and I didn’t know what to expect.
It didn’t stop the pulsing between my legs.
“Your father’s going to let you come home.”
“How could you…” I stopped and thought about the strange conversation I’d had with Arthur. “Marc, what did you do?”
“I agreed to work for him. Said this way he can keep me too busy to be around you, while keeping his eye on me at the same time.”
I shook my head. Feeling the dread inside my gut churn. “You can’t do it. You can’t let him have any control over your life. It’s not good. You don’t understand—”
He stepped toward me then and cupped my face in his hands.
“Breathe in and out,” he murmured.
I did it with him. A long breath in, and a slow breath out.
“You can’t do this,” I said more calmly.
“It’s done. You can’t stay in Switzerland. I won’t allow it. This way, I get to finish my degree. I work for him, learn from him, and the whole time he thinks there’s nothing between us.”
He was still holding my face in his hands. Still looking at me in a way I didn’t completely understand. “And is there? Nothing between us?”
He bent his head, so his forehead touched mine. So our breaths mingled. So the world narrowed to the space surrounding only us.
“There can’t be. Not as long as he’s watching. Not as long as he has any power over you or me.”
“Then why did you come?” I asked. “You could have texted.”
“Because I had to see you,” he said thickly. “I had to know you were healthy. I had to know you were here. Where I could touch you, if I needed to.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and tried to get closer. “I’m here. I’m okay.”
I pushed my hands underneath the T-shirt he was wearing. Felt the skin of his back, his waist. Then I was moving my hands up his chest. He didn’t stop me. In fact, he groaned when I brushed my fingers over his nipple.
“We can’t,” he whispered. “We shouldn’t.”
Still holding my face, still not stopping me from touching him, I met his eyes.
“We have to,” I told him.
Then I pushed forward until my lips met his, and he didn’t stop that, either. It was like coming home. He cupped my neck with one hand, the other seeking out my breast. I was in shorts and a T-shirt and it took nothing to whip the T-shirt over my head. I hadn’t bothered with a bra, and it must have pleased him because he immediately dipped his head to suck on my nipples.
Because he knew I loved it, but also because he loved it.
What had been a pulse between my thighs was now a fire. I remembered the pain of taking him inside me, the shock of him spanking me. The overwhelming nature of everything that had happened because it was my first time. This time, I wanted to savor it. I didn’t want to rush. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted him to touch me in every way he wanted to touch me, for as long as he wanted to touch me.
He pushed my cotton shorts down my hips even as he returned to my mouth. Kissing me, with his lips and teeth and tongue. Drinking me in like he’d been a man dying of thirst, and I was his oasis in the desert.
I felt his fingers seeking between my thighs and I spread them out so he could have access to what he wanted.
He thrust a single finger deep and high inside me, and I gasped.
“Fuck, you’re wet.”
I might have grunted. His thumb found my clit and he started slow circles even as his finger continued to pump, and his head dipped again to bite my shoulder. And lower until his teeth worried my tight nipple.
Standing in the middle of the room, the afternoon sunlight blazing in, I was naked and helpless before him. His very own sexual sacrifice, while he remained dressed and in control.
“This isn’t fair,” I whined. “You’re in charge of everything.”
He lifted his head but didn’t remove his finger. In fact, he looked down at his hand, watched as he thrust it inside me. Saw how slick it was each time he pulled back. Then he released me and swallowed.
“What do you want to be in charge of?” he asked me.
I had no freaking clue. I just didn’t want him to think I was still a virgin he had to walk through the act. I wanted to be a seductress. I wanted to make him beg a little.
“You always said I wanted you on your knees in front of me so you could worship me….”