Yes.
He was everything.
“How bad?” she pushed, landing another blow.
“Very bad,” he forced out on a huff, rocking with the blow and again tipping back.
“Tell me,” she demanded, lighting another crack.
“I’ve been very bad, baby. Crop my ass.”
She did, ordering, “Tell me.”
“More, Angie,” he grunted. “Crop me raw.”
She kept going, watching his fingers tighten on the ropes, the posts swaying the headboard with his movements, commanding, “Give me what I want, handsome.”
“Been very bad, baby. Take my ass, it’s yours. Crop it. Fuck it. Use it. Strip it raw.”
She delivered another quick succession of blows before she dropped the crop and went in, fisting his cock at the front, spanking him skin to skin at his ass.
His head dropped back and he hissed out, “Yes.”
Her big boy liked his ass spanked best of all.
And she liked spanking it just the same.
“Is this my ass?” she asked, still slapping it.
“Yes,” he bit out.
She stroked him deep. “My cock?”
“Yes, Angie.”
“I’m gonna fill that ass, baby. Offer it again to me.”
He tipped back again immediately and she moved away, to the toys she’d already selected to choose from should she want them. She prepared the one she’d be using and moved in behind him.
“Stay in position,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She barely gave him time to rumble out those two words before she positioned the head of his toy where it needed to be, shifted in and, with one of her hands wrapped around his distended dick, her other hand on the toy, the base of it to her hips, she started gliding it in.
“Fuck, give me that,” he growled.
“Stay in position.”
She felt him straining, needing to thrust into her hand, shift back into her hips to take more of her up his ass, and she took it slow, stroking him and filling him.
Once she’d planted the toy fully inside, she cupped his balls in her free hand and whispered, “Stay in position, handsome.”
“Fuck,” he grunted.
She pumped his dick, lightly squeezing his balls, and he held for her.
She went faster, tightening her fingers in both places, and Branch, so damned perfect, held for her.
She watched him grit his teeth as she kept at him, a muscle jerking up his cheek.
And he held for her.
Finally, he broke.
“Ma’am,” he ground out.
“Who’s taking your cock?” she asked.
“You, baby,” he pushed out.
“Who’s filling you?”
“You, Angie. Untie me, I wanna come inside you with you up my ass.”
“No, handsome. I like to watch it too much when you blow for me.”
“Fuck,” he bit off.
“I’ll let you eat me after I tie you to your belly. But first you’ll give your cum to me.”
“Fuckin’ fuck,” he hissed, his hips slightly jerking. “Gotta do that now.”
Not quite yet.
“You like me doing dirty things to you, Branch?” she pressed.
“Fuckin’ love it, honey. Now let me blow, baby.”
She went faster, squeezed harder, pressed closer to his back and put her lips to his skin.
“Missed being inside you,” she whispered there.
“Me too. Fuck, Angie, me too. Nothin’ better than havin’ you buried deep. Now please, baby, fuckin’ let me come,” he grunted.
“Since you asked so sweet,” she kept his dick pointed down to the towel covering the pillow, “show me what I do to you. You can move, handsome.”
With that he thrust into her fist, his ass slamming into her belly, once, twice, three times, before his head shot back, his groan reverberated through the room and his cum gushed from his cock onto the towel as his body jerked and bucked in her hold.
She absorbed his orgasm, her clit humming, the hard buds of her nipples an agony of perfection brushing his back through her bra, and she gave his balls a gentle squeeze when the bucks turned to light spasms as his climax slid into the aftershocks.
She kept hold of him, fit close to his back, when he sagged into his bounds, his head falling forward.
And that was when she took them out of the simplicity of just living life, the natural progress that had earned her.
And she took a risk.
Releasing her hold on his balls, she swept her hand up until she found it.
The scar at his belly.
She felt his body still as she traced her fingers lightly across it.
“Angie.”
His voice was low, gruff, sated.
But it still held a warning.
She ignored that warning and trailed her fingers up, to the scars at his shoulder, and she caressed them, a part of him, therefore doing it adoringly.
He felt her touch.
And he knew what it meant.
“Honey,” he whispered.
“You know I want all of you,” she told the skin of his back, gliding her lips across a scar there too.
“Babe—”
“You don’t want to tell me, okay. I can’t imagine the stories are ones I’ll like hearing. But whatever made these, I don’t care.” She touched the scars and then down, to the one at his belly again, and down further, to the ones on his thigh, her fingers going right to them because she’d long since memorized their positions. “They’re a part of you and I want them. I want anything that makes you.”
She knew he’d turned his head to try to catch her eyes over his shoulder when she heard his “Angie,” but she kept her mouth to his back, lining another scar with her lips, and she kept talking.
“But if you want to give it to me, Branch, I’ll take it no matter what it is and I’ll want it too.”
To that, he said nothing.
She rubbed her nose against his back and slid both her hands up to his stomach, where she wrapped her arms around him.
“Now, I’m going to untie you and take away the towel. Once I do that you’re going to lie down on your bolster and I’m going to bind you again for me because I’m not done with you. Then I’m going to slide out your toy and slide in your jewel because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen me winking inside you and I want that back. Now after being filled this full, are you good to take that, baby?”
“Take anything from you, Angie,” he replied, quiet and gentle.
She fought back a smile even though the tone of his words gave her more, more that wasn’t just sweet, it was sad and sweet, she just refused to hear the sad part of it.
“Good,” she murmured.
“Angie—” he started but stopped when she nipped his back with her teeth.
“No, Branch. We’re playing my game now. And you know how it goes. My game, my rules.”
He let that lie for long moments before he replied, “Your game, baby. Your rules.”
“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled against his skin then turned her head, pressed her cheek to his back and held him to her.
“Give you something,” he said softly when she didn’t move for a while.
“You give me everything, Branch.”
He ignored her and carried on, “If I could give it, one woman on this earth I’d give it to, it’d be you, Evangeline.”
At that, she let herself smile.
“But I can’t give it, honey,” he finished so low, she fancied if she didn’t feel his words at her hands as well as at her ears, she wouldn’t have heard them.
But she heard them.
“That’s okay too, Branch. Since the beginning I knew I’d take what I could get from you and since the beginning I knew I’d be happy with that if it was from you.”
He let another several moments lie between them in silence before he muttered, like he was talking to himself, “I’m a
motherfucker.”
She put her chin to his back, looking to his head, seeing it again bowed, this time not from experiencing a hard climax.
Like he was experiencing defeat.
He would, eventually.
But not what he was right then thinking.
“Maybe,” she replied. “But if you are, you’re my motherfucker,” she stated, giving him a squeeze on the word “my.” “And I’ll take that too.”
“My Mistress is stubborn.”
She couldn’t stop her body from stilling but forced it to relax, hopefully before he noticed.
He’d said his Mistress.
Not his Domme.
Not “ma’am.”
His Mistress.
More progress.
And yes, hell yes, she’d take that too.
She watched him turn his head, look down his back at her, and he guided them out of the moment.
“Want my jewel, baby.”
She grinned up at him, watched his eyes get soft, then she kissed his back.
After that, she took care of him, tied him down on his belly and gave him what he asked.
And then some.
So in the end, when Evangeline fell asleep curled around her big bound boy at her side, their Sunday wasn’t a bust.
It.
Was.
Delicious.
seventeen
Win or Lose
EVANGELINE
Evangeline was at her desk late the next morning when her phone rang.
She looked down at it, saw the screen telling her Branch was calling, and a slither of panic slipped through her belly because the last time Branch had called, he’d retreated, then she hadn’t seen him in four days.
And she’d pushed him last night, reminding him what she wanted from them, thus reminding him where he was at in his head.
So this call could be not such a good thing.
But it was from Branch so she couldn’t ignore it because maybe it would be.
She took in a deep breath, preparing for battle (if that was necessary), and snatched up her phone, engaging it and putting it to her ear.
“Hey, honey,” she greeted chirpily.
“Angie—”
At least he was calling her Angie.
She didn’t let him get further.
“Guess what.”
A hesitation before, “What?”
“That client I was telling you about yesterday?” she asked.
“Yeah?” he prompted when she said no more.
“I called him. Told him that I had some family issues that would be taking my time so I needed to refer him to another agent. Then I referred him to a male agent here at the office who’s kind of a jerk. So I’m done with him, and double the good, the agent who’s got him now who I don’t like all that much has to put up with his crap.” She paused for a breath. “And that’s that!” she cried the last excitedly.
“Good for you, baby, proud of you,” he replied, sounding it.
And that sounded good.
“I’m proud of me too,” she shared honestly.
“You should be,” he murmured.
“I have to thank you, Branch.” She smiled in order to put that in her voice so he could hear it because she knew he liked it. “You give good advice.”
“More than welcome, babe,” he returned.
She had nothing more to say and was scrambling to come up with a topic before Branch shared the reason he called, which might not make her day, when Branch spoke.
“Listen, I need a haircut.”
She stared at the top of her desk, thinking, if she’d had to make a list of all the things he might have called about, that wouldn’t be in the top ten.
Or the top one hundred.
“I, uh … okay,” she mumbled.
“I need a haircut, babe,” he repeated.
Evangeline was still confused.
“Okay, Branch,” she said.
“Babe.”
That was the only word he said but the depth in it, clearly, he thought communicated something to her.
“Sorry, honey, you might need to give me some more because I’m not sure what you want from me,” she admitted.
“I’m yours.”
She sucked in a breath that was so sharp, he had to have heard it.
“Yes,” she whispered because she physically couldn’t get her voice to go higher.
“And being yours in the way I’m yours, you might want my hair a certain way.”
She let out her breath slowly.
There were Dominants and submissives that had certain kinds of relationships that could get into a whole bevy of things. This included the Dom requiring that their sub dress as they liked, even to the point of the Dom selecting what the sub was going to wear every day.
It also included Dominants demanding their subs doing their makeup or arranging their hair as the Dominant liked to see it.
Or having it cut like they liked.
Evangeline would not have guessed Branch was into the life that deep.
Outside of when they played and the infrequent times she’d left her mark on him with her lipstick, ordered him to leave holding her jewel inside, he was his own man. He didn’t strike her as a man, or a sub, who would ask for that part of their lives to filter into his actual life.
Before she could get a lock on this information and process it, he spoke again.
“Just to say, you’re mine too and if you wanted to do anything with that gorgeous hair of yours, it was extreme, I’d wanna be in on that discussion. And by saying ‘wanna,’ I mean, you did anything to your hair, like cut it off, it’d piss me off you didn’t talk to me about it first.”
At that, Evangeline had to force herself to quietly breathe deep.
All of her life her hair had been a boon and a drawback.
The boon part was that, except for putting product in it that would define the curls, she didn’t have to do much with it. It was thick, naturally glossy and it gave great curl, bouncy, no frizz, the curls sleek and defined, her hair long. This meant style time was the time it took to dry. And that didn’t stink.
But there was a lot of it and she lived in Phoenix where it could get hot. So simply the amount of hair she had could make her hotter. And it wasn’t easy wrestling her mane just into a ponytail, much less anything else (but she’d become skilled with it and could manage a killer updo, if given the time).
Last, the style she had was the only style she could have. She’d tried different cuts but a short layering at the ends to give the curls more spring and stave off some of the weight was the only option available to her.
She loved that Branch thought it was gorgeous.
That was awesome.
But what had her deep breathing was the fact that he’d said, “You’re mine too.”
And not only that, he was talking future.
He didn’t know when she intended to get her hair done.
He was just intimating that he’d be there when she did and if she intended to lose her mind and cut it off, he wanted a say in that.
“For you,” he cut into her frenzied, delicious thoughts, “it isn’t about me wanting to grab hold of it if I wanna do that, even though it is. It’s that I like to look at it the way it is. For you with me, you wanna grab hold, babe, to do the things you do to me, I gotta know where you want me to go with it because I want you to have what you want. But I gotta take care of it. It’s about three weeks too far in beginning to be a pain in my ass.”
So it wasn’t about him wanting her to take them to that place where she made demands of his appearance as her sub.
It was that they were in that place where he was her sub and she his Mistress and he wanted his Mistress to have him as she wanted him.
She liked that.
Not to mention, he was right. His hair was getting pretty long. It looked good on him but she wasn’t a man-bun or man-with-a-ponytail type of girl.
“I, you, well … you can tell them to
cut it to the length it was when I met you in Aryas’s red room.”
His deep, rough voice held humor when he replied, “Not sure a barber will understand I say to cut it to when my babe first met me.”
His babe.
Beautiful.
“Just brushing your collar, honey,” she explained.
“That might work,” he mumbled.
“Not too short,” she kept explaining. “Because I’ll want the opportunity to take hold.”
“Gotcha,” he replied and went on, “I’ll be done at a decent hour tonight. If you don’t have to work late, your turn to cook.”
She would have liked him to say neither of them would cook. He’d take her out to dinner. Maybe a movie after. Do things normal couples would do out in public where people could see them, where she could show the world the handsome man who shared her bed.
But he was coming to her place so she’d take that.
For now.
“I’ll need to hit a grocery store so I still might be a little late,” she shared.
“I’ll have time to hit a store sometime today. Text me what you need and I’ll get it in.”
She kept staring at her desktop. “Text you?”
“Yeah.”
Carefully, she noted, “It’d be easier to e-mail you.”
“I don’t have e-mail.”
More staring at her desktop. “You don’t have e-mail?”
“No.”
Evangeline was shocked.
“Who doesn’t have e-mail?”
More humor in his voice when he replied, “Me.”
“Branch, that’s … well, it’s crazy. Everyone has e-mail. How do you function?”
He didn’t respond and this lasted so long, she felt the need to call his name, worried they’d been cut off.
“Branch?”
“Here,” he grunted, no amusement now.
Oh Lord.
He didn’t have e-mail because …
She didn’t know.
But the reason was something that had to do with the fact that he didn’t take her out to restaurants and he demanded she sign an NDA before she’d met him.
It had been so long since she’d been reminded of that last, she felt a chill slide over her skin.
She didn’t know him at all, not really.
She knew him. She knew a lot about him.
But she still didn’t know him at all.
“I sense you get me,” he murmured.
She didn’t.