Page 23 of Reckless

What if he doesn’t let you hide?

Chapter 8

ALASTAIR

“Robbie.” I kept my voice soft. I had no wish to startle him out of wherever he’d gone.

He didn’t stir. He was still breathing, so that was good. His face was buried in my pillow, though, and he hadn’t made a sound since I’d tied him to my bed.

I’d bound him to the bed using two pairs of soft restraints that had been included with my medical supplies in case of an emergency. My feelings for Robbie Finch were leading me into some tricky grey areas, ethics-wise, but as long as no one discovered that the restraints were seeing non-emergency use, why let them mould in a cabinet?

He turned his face outwards so I could hear him. “Did you tell me to do something?” He sounded half drunk.

“No.” I rubbed his lower back gently, indulging once more in the private thrill of touching him, the warmth of his skin, the slight tackiness of sweat. “Do you want to keep going?”

He didn’t answer, and I was enjoying this too much to rush him.

“Yeah,” he murmured at last. He tugged against the restraints, the muscles of his arms bulging for a moment, so that I nearly had to look away to avoid putting my hands all over him.

I hadn’t blindfolded him, but I’d put him facedown so that he could lose himself in the darkness provided by the pillow, if he so chose. And he was choosing.

I studied him for a long moment, something suspended inside me. For this to work, I had to trust him to tell me what he was feeling. Not with words, necessarily. But as I’d discovered recently, there were plenty of ways Robbie Finch could let me know what he wanted.

But mostly, I had to trust myself to read those cues accurately. To pay attention in a way no-one had made me do in some time.

I could do this. Just had to break out of the autopilot mode on which I’d run everything from my job to my marriage before coming to Dauntless. Focus on what was in front of me. Who was in front of me.

I took my time.

I proceeded to use anything I could find to create an array of sensations: my fingernails passing lightly back and forth across Robbie’s shoulders. The tip of my curved forceps dragged down the bumps of his spine, circling his tailbone. A plastic comb, its narrow teeth scratching lightly at his well-developed biceps, his elbows, the edges of his armpits.

He responded at first by going completely rigid with tension. But that didn’t last long. He was very quiet as I experimented, but I let myself relish every small gasp or hitch in his breathing, the soft moans he made into the pillow.

He seemed to like my hands the best. That flattered me in some obscure way—that despite my efforts to get creative, he responded best to simple touches, my skin against his. If I was honest with myself, I liked that best too.

Eventually, when I got bold enough, I allowed the hand circling his hip to slide down to his arsecheek. I didn’t do more than touch—massaging, kneading, tracing patterns with my nails. But his hips began to shift, subtly at first and then with more urgency. I tried to keep the contact steady, but the more he moved, the more erratic I became, gripping handfuls of his arse and kneading, encouraging him to hump the bed, until at last I slid my hand between his legs and traced a line up his inner thigh with my fingertips. His back dipped, his arse thrust upward, and he came hard, letting out a startled grunt as I rubbed behind his balls with my thumb.

I felt something release inside me too, though I hadn’t given myself a single stroke. And despite how hard I still was, I felt no urgency to pursue my own satisfaction. My focus was entirely on him.

He took long, shuddering breaths as I rubbed his back.

“Okay?” I murmured.

He nodded vigorously into the pillow.

I stroked upwards from his hip, over one side, across his back, then down the other. There was a quiet in me that bordered on melancholy. I couldn’t pin down what, exactly, the source of my sadness was, and I didn’t want to. Regret, uncertainty, memories good and bad…all of it drifted above me like the clouds that floated over the sea each morning.

I pulled my attention back to him. Made myself notice which muscles twitched at each touch. Where his skin was the warmest. The exact moment his breathing steadied.

An idea was taking shape, and I honestly had no idea if he would consider it too kinky or too tame. Or just right.

“Keep going?” I asked.

He hesitated—only for a second, but it was there in the line of his shoulders before he exhaled and said hoarsely. “Yeah.”

I ran the backs of my fingers over his arse. His breath hitched.

“You’ve already come,” I said. “But some people find it possible to have a second, dry orgasm after the first, if the prostate is stimulated correctly.”