Page 17 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

SILAS

“ D id you like that?” Marshall asked me, voice barely louder than my heartbeat. “Being told to do something mundane like eat your dinner?”

The immediate answer was a loud and resounding yes, but the explanation of it was a little more complicated.

This level of submission was uncharted territory for me, and it sounded like it was maybe the same for him.

Or at least a road very untraveled. I’d spent most of my adult life focusing on the sexual side of submission, of bending over and being spanked, of getting fucked or denied.

I liked all of those things… most of them, at least. I didn’t think anyone truly liked denial, but the payoff was always worth it, so it felt like a reasonable trade in the end.

But it had always been about sex before.

Sitting beside Marshall and eating a salad because he told me to wasn't about sex at all, although my body failed to get the memo that what was happening wasn’t foreplay.

“I did,” I answered, because complicated or not, it was the truth.

“If we dated—” Marshall paused, dragging his tongue across the front of his teeth. “I would want to do this more. ”

“Have dinner?” It was an attempt at a joke that fell painfully flat. My nerves were fucking flayed.

“I would want to choose our meals,” he said thoughtfully, ignoring the failed tease. “It would be my responsibility to make sure you ate enough, that you got enough sleep.”

“I’m twenty-five,” I reminded him. “Not five.”

He nodded. “And yet.”

“And yet,” I repeated.

I looked down at my hands, fingers tangled together in my lap, and the absurdity of not knowing what to do with my hands was laughable. I’d been on dates before. I’d scened before. Marshall had already been inside of me, so why did this conversation feel so glaringly intimate and exposing?

“I don’t want to strip you of your free will,” he said next. “I quite enjoy seeing what you do on your own, but I do want that responsibility, Silas.”

“It’s ownership,” I rasped.

“Yes.”

“Is it both or nothing?” I asked.

Marshall’s tongue still worked across the front of his teeth, and he made a small sucking sound before he pinched his lips together to quiet the noise.

“What if I said yes?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about it bothers you?” he asked next. “Why is it okay in the bedroom but not out of it?”

“I have a life, Marshall.” I brought my hands up to the edge of the counter and pressed my palms flat against the cool marble. The temperature change worked quickly to reduce my anxiety over the conversation, and my shoulders sagged in relief.

“Of course you do. I don’t want to change that.”

“How, then?”

“If you have a bad day at work with your dad, Silas, I want to know about it so I can make sure you take care of yourself afterward. So I can tell you to take a shower, or go to dinner with Lincoln, or come to my house and let me take care of you. I don’t want you to hole yourself up.

I don’t want you to be alone,” he said, and it all sounded so nice.

It sounded so fucking nice.

“Are you worried I’m going to take you away from your life?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve never done this before.”

“This might be odd for me to say, all things considered, but I believe you’re overthinking this one a little.

” Marshall let out a small chuckle, then climbed off the stool, smoothing his hands down the front of his slacks to ease away any wrinkles.

“Put the dishes in the sink, Silas, then join me in the bedroom. We can talk more there.”

My legs moved on their own, getting me upright while I watched Marshall disappear from my sight.

I stacked the empty plates and silverware, carried it all to the sink and rinsed them off.

I ran some water through the empty wine glasses wishing I’d had more than a few sips while also understanding the reason for it.

I dried my hands on a navy blue dish towel, then headed for the bedroom.

Marshall sat at the foot of the bed, his forearms resting on his knees.

When I walked in, he looked up at me, one brow arched in an unspoken question.

I gave the room a quick onceover, finding the bolts in his bed frame still in place, the sheets just as clean and white as they had been the first time I stepped into the room.

Nothing was out of place, everything was in order, and in that moment, everything made sense.

“I don’t want you to think I don’t want to do it,” I blurted, flipping my hands upside down and sliding them around the back of my neck until my fingers joined together in my hairline. “I just haven’t done it before. ”

“Would it be easier for you if we start without it? If we integrate it slowly.”

“I’m not sure.” My cheeks burned, but I was focused on not hiding from this man.

“You did so well already tonight. You came over, you ate, you cleaned. It’s not so bad, is it?” He straightened up, squared his shoulders.

I shook my head. “It wasn’t bad at all.”

“Your bad day at work is nearly forgotten, isn’t it?”

At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about.

The scrunch of my nose had Marshall looking as smug as he deserved.

Then I remembered the rest of my day. The argument with my dad about my own version of the proposal, the knowing that it was busy work that wouldn’t go anywhere.

I’d come over, annoyed and stressed, and without a single rough touch, Marshall had found a way to clear all of that out of my head.

“Yes,” I whispered, blinking hard.

Why did I want to cry?

What a relief to finally be known this way.

“That’s all I want.” Marshall crooked a finger, beckoning me closer. “I just want you to feel good. I want both of us to feel good.”

I shuffled toward him, closing the space between us.

When I reached the gap between his spread legs, he pointed at the floor, and I sank down to my knees.

I dropped my weight back onto my heels and settled my palms on the tops of my thighs.

He studied me, fingers twitching like he wanted to reach out and touch me, but he never stretched far enough to make the connection.

I found myself leaning forward, chasing after the heat of him, the feel of him.

“We can talk about the rest later, but I want to be clear in what I want right now,” he said. “Are you clearheaded? ”

“Yes. You can ask me a multiplication up to twelve and I could answer it.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Duly noted, Silas. Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll have to do that yet.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

My fingers tingled, and the muscles in my thighs quivered. I was so desperate for whatever was going to happen next, for whatever kind of release Marshall had in store for me.

“Tonight I’d like to bind your wrists behind your back. I want you to suck my cock until I come. I want you to choke on it, Silas. I want your tears to mix with your spit, to mix with my cum. All of it on your tongue.”

“Shit.”

He flashed a smile, tilting his head to the side. “Then I want you to come without your hands, without penetration.”

I had no doubt Marshall could get me off hands-free, but there was a more pressing question.

“How?”

“I want you to rut into the sheets while my cock softens in your mouth. I want you to come all over my bedding, and then I want to taste you. I want your tears and your spit and my cum returned to me after you finish.”

“Jesus fuck,” I choked, letting out another curse or five under my breath.

How was this man real?

“Because your tears are mine, aren’t they? Your spit? Everything about you belongs to me, doesn’t it?”

I wanted to die because I’d never heard anything more right in my life. My jaw went slack, words trying to form into sentences but falling short.

As if he knew, Marshall smirked and asked, “Does that sound?—”

I cut him off, finding the only word I needed, “Perfect.”

“Go to the nightstand. Get the cuffs and bring them here. ”

I scampered around the bed, yanking open the drawer and finding the same cuffs as last time. There were no condoms, no lube, and I wondered if Marshall had been planning this chain of events all along. If he somehow knew we’d end up here when I hadn’t even been certain of it.

Back at the foot of the bed, I handed the cuffs to him, and he gestured in a circle with his finger.

“Strip naked with your back to me. I want to see how I left you.”

The bruises from Friday night had only gotten darker with each passing day, and I made sure to show off my ass when I hinged at the hips to shove my pants and my underwear down. I slipped out of the rest of my clothes, then waited for his next instruction.

“Do they hurt?” he asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Walk backward,” he said, and I stepped back toward him until he told me to stop.

His large hands bracketed my waist then slid down over my hips, around the top of my ass and down to the backs of my thighs.

He pressed at the ones that hurt and ignored the ones that didn’t, and it was another mystery to add to the list of questions I had about how Marshall Covington knew me so fucking well.

Fortunately—or not—the attention on my marks made my cock painfully erect, and when he attached the cuffs around my wrists, precum leaked from my slit.

He kissed my wrists again, the same way as before, the same gentle reverence before tightening down the straps, and then he spun me to face him, bringing my erection to eye level.

“It’s a wonder how much your body loves this.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure I had words left, anyway.

“Let’s add some bruises to your knees, shall we?” he asked next, even though it was hardly a question at that point .