Antiaol, bmango and mskathy own me. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. But I own Subward.
As a quick heads up to anyone who's uncomfortable with the D/s part of this fic (you do realize this is a D/s fic, right?), this one's not entirely for the faint of heart.
Our Lives Unbound, Chapter 26: My Past, Before Me and Behind Me
I moved to college a frustrated, terrified virgin. Barely able to meet my roommate's eyes - much less talk to him or his rowdy, womanizing friends - I spent most nights alone in my room, studying and writing and hating everything about the painful stutter and the shyness that kept me from the laughter that surrounded me. The nights my roommate put a tie around the doorknob, sounds of pleasure and sex practically radiating through the door, I slunk off to the library. Sometimes I even fell asleep amidst piles of books, wanting and lonely, the sad music in my ears reminding me that I was the only one who was so incredibly, permanently alone.
The few friends I eventually made were all people I'd been thrown together with in uncomfortable group projects or peers from workshops. Like me, they were quiet and often shy, and even amongst them, I stood out as stiff and awkward, my few broken, stilted words eliciting little more than nods and sympathetic glances.
The one exception was Angela.
Studying in the library or the lounge, she would place her hand on my arm, warm brushes of fingertips on skin that made me burn with all the unharnessed, pressing want, fearing that I would lose my mind if I never found someone to touch. Someone to love.
When I stuttered, she waited, patient and smiling, and one night, when my tongue seized up completely, my brain careening with so much thought and need, she kissed me.
For two strange, uncertain months, we bared ourselves through words, and eventually, we bared other things, too. Finally unleashing some of the desperate desire of my untouched flesh, I let her touch me, so much relief pouring out in every tentative stroke. I touched her, too, eventually, learning the pieces of a woman's body that I had longed for. The day I finally lived out my fantasy of kneeling on the floor and putting my mouth to soft, female flesh, she lay there with her hands above her head, as passive and silent as stone, and afterward, as I wiped my mouth and tried to hide my body, she smiled and told me that I could. If I wanted to. That we could.
That first time, it was easy to dismiss my shuddering whimpers and my embarrassing, shocking quickness as the effects of being a twenty-one-year-old virgin. Her quiet acquiescence and her lack of response weren't so easy to shake off, though.
Especially the second time.
And the third.
Two weeks and so much simmering silence later, I was unsurprised to find myself opposite a cafe table from her, watching her lips as they spoke of incompatibility and of how we should still be friends. I sat there, despondent and yet accepting, hot with the shame of failure and the loss of my only connection to the sort of pleasure I had craved for so long and yet which still seemed so out of reach.
Only it isn't out of reach. Not anymore.
I'm not the same scared and hopeless boy I was then.
And the woman staring at me like a ghost from a past I can scarcely recognize is not the same one to whom I ceded my virginity.
"Edward?" she asks again, and I see a shadow of doubt move down her face.
Reminding me that he is there, Garrett clears his throat. "Edward, you know - "
"Aaaaangela," I supply. At the elongation, I cringe and close my eyes, my hand floating up to my collar, but even that is not enough to calm me.
Garrett is speaking, but all I can see is the small woman before me. The woman I haven't seen in almost a decade.
And the metal chain around her neck.
"I'll just let you guys catch up then?"
Angela turns to Garrett and touches his arm, the gesture so familiar and so reminiscent of things I do not want to feel now that it almost hurts. "Yeah, we're fine, Garrett. Thanks."
Garrett shuffles a bit uncertainly but then nods. "Nice to meet you, Edward."
"You, t-too," I manage, averting my eyes to my feet and shifting nervously.
I don't know how long we stand there, not looking at each other, but eventually, Angela breaks the silence. "Listen, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just saw you and wanted to say hi. If you don't want to, I can - "
"It'sssss ok-kay." I shake my head and chance a glance up.
She is smiling shyly as she looks at me, tilting her head toward a corner of the room. "Would you like to sit? Maybe catch up for a minute? Or are you here with someone?"
My eyes seek out Bella's instinctively, only to find her with her back turned to me, talking with the same group of Dominants from earlier. I cough and nod, hazarding one more glance back at Angela. "My … my Mmmmm … Mmmmm-m-Mistress is over there."
Angela's smile widens hugely, and I feel her hand at my elbow, touching innocently. I don't like it, but I say nothing. "Oh, Edward. I'm so happy for you." Beckoning me forward, she leads me back to a corner of the room where we each take seats at a high bar table.
After a few more minutes of stilted pleasantries, she smiles again. "You know, I wondered about you a couple of times in the past few years. Once I found all this," she says, indicating the room around us, "it struck me that you might have liked it here. That you would have liked this." This time, she gestures again at my collar.
Then, as I watch, she does the unthinkable, reaching forward slightly as if to touch the rope of leather and steel that binds me to my lover, and I instinctively recoil, pulling back just in time to make her pause. "I'm ssssorry," I say instinctively, self-conscious, as my thumb and forefinger close around the metal.
Angela's hand drops, her face sufficiently chastened. "No," she says, tucking her hair behind her ear and folding her hands in her lap. "I shouldn't have … I know."
"It's just … it's … p-personal."
She nods, but she is smiling. "She must be really great."
"She is."
Awkward moments pass. I have rarely thought of Angela over the years, but her significance in shaping my life's story is not lost on me. As the only woman I slept with more than once - the only relationship I had before resigning myself to years of lonely nights and even lonelier, fumbling encounters - she set a precedent. Still, I bear her little ill will for her disappointment with what I am.
With what I was.
Finally, I find the nerve to break the silence. "And you? Hhhhow have you b-been?"
"Fine," she says, relief on her face. "I'm here with him." She points to a self-assured man, a bit older than we are, standing on the opposite side of the room from Bella, but also conversing exclusively with people who appear to be Dominants. "We've been together for a couple years."
"G-good," I manage. "He lllllooks nice."
She snorts. "He's a hard-ass. But that's why I love him."
The word 'love' is a strange one to hear from between those lips, and I nod anxiously, licking my lips and shifting in my seat. That backfires, though, making the piece of plastic in my ass shift, too, and a low flare of arousal blooms at the stimulation.
At that, I look at the woman before me. In many ways, she is similar to Bella. Both are slim but shapely; both have pale skin, brown eyes and brown hair.
But this woman does nothing for me.
Nothing.
"I just …" she says, interrupting my reverie. "I've felt bad all these years for the way we left things. You looked so broken when we split up, and I've always regretted - "
"It's fffffine," I insist. It is. With no interest in rehashing the past, I scramble for the words to deflect.
"Just let me … let me say this? Please?"
With a sigh, I sit back in my chair.
She laughs darkly to herself. "I really liked you, Edward. I really, really did, and it killed me to break up with you. I always wondered why it didn't work out. Why we never fit."
As she speaks, Angela and I both are fiddling with the bands around our necks. We both seem to notice the mannerism simultaneously, but I am the first to laugh.
At the image of her, silent and unresponsive beneath me as I embarrass myself and come, there is nothing left to do but laugh.
It is far too late to cry.
"Nnnno," I insist. "I g-get it." I gesture at at each of us. At the overtly sexual clothing. At the collars. "Llllike you said. Inc-c-c-comp-patible."
Her lips twist up sadly. "Two subs rarely fit."
"Wwwwas that it?" I finally ask. "Even then?"
"I think so," she says quietly. "I always hoped you'd take control or tell me what to do."
I smile weakly. "And I alwwwways hoped you'd d-do the same."
"Incompatible," she echoes. She looks up at me with an expression that is familiar. I saw it on her face almost a decade ago, sitting just like this, across from each other at a table.
Only now, it looks less like disappointment.
And more like regret.
I can feel my own features softening, my hand about to reach across the table, when the sound of a throat clearing behind me brings me back to myself, and I sit up straighter, sending another hot jolt of arousal through my abdomen. The tingling warmth of Bella's fingers on my neck, stroking the loop of my collar is a relief, and I lean back into it, a sigh of pleasure escaping my lips.
"Doing alright, Edward?"
"Yes, Mistress." I turn to look at her, but her eyes do not meet mine. Instead they stare straight ahead. Glancing at Angela and then back at my Mistress, I offer, "This is Angela. We were fffriends in college." I only hear my words as I speak them, and they shock me.
The lie is so easy.
So wrong.
I wince to hear it, and even more to think how my Mistress will have my ass for it when I confess. Just the thought makes me both panicky and hard.
In these clothes, it is so, so uncomfortable to be hard.
"Angela." Bella nods curtly, her posture stiff and her voice wary as she bids me up. "Ready to go?"
I glance down at my watch before standing, surprised to see how much time has passed. "Yes, Mistress." Raising a hand, I bid Angela farewell. She says goodbye with the same regretful look in her eyes, but all I can do is look away as I follow my Mistress toward the door.
As I do, I leave my past well behind me.
But I still cannot shake the feeling that this window into it is far from closed.
#~~#~~#
The twisting pressure at my ear is sharp, Bella's breath wet and hot against my neck as she pulls me down onto my knees. There, just barely inside the door of my apartment, I yield, falling willingly until my hands meet the floor, and I am level with her sex. My arousal, low and lingering as it has been for the entire ride home, flares quickly, and I am suddenly, painfully erect inside too-tight jeans, the head passing out through the twisted top of the thong.
"Who was she, Pet?"
Beyond the most basic pleasantries, these are her first real words since leaving the restaurant; at the sound of them, I close my eyes and bow my head, trying to collect my thoughts. The flicking sensation at my ear again makes me yelp slightly, but there's something good about it, too.
Something floating.
Something safe, for all that I know that I'm in trouble.
My Mistress's voice is a low hiss now, her hands hard and twisting in my hair as she jerks my neck up. "I know she wasn't just a friend."
"No, Mistress."
"Tell me."
"She … she was my g-girlfriend. My first."
"Your first what? Your first kiss? Your first fuck?"
"Yes," I choke. "Both."
Her hand releases my head, and there is nothing to keep me up as I stay there, kneeling before her. "I'm sssorry, Mistress."
She is pacing around me now, and I have to close my eyes. "Sorry for what? For lying? "
"Yes." I wince.
The clicking of heels pauses, and I hear her breathing deeply. Softer now, more calmly, she asks, simply, "Why?"
I don't know why.
Still, I try. "Because I was ashamed. B-because I don't want to be the man I was then. Because I don't want you to see that p-part of me." I shudder and curl inward, but really I am reaching.
Always, always I am reaching for her.
"Please, Mistress. I'm sorry."
Behind me, I hear the rough, heavy sound of her sigh. "Your room," she orders quietly. "Naked. On your knees."
I scramble to obey, my eyes on the ground. Once inside my room, I strip with speed, my cock aching with relief as it is freed. Folding things messily, I lower myself down.
And then I wait.
For the longest time, it seems, I wait.
Uncertain what Bella is doing in the other room, I take the time to run over everything in my mind. The feeling of Bella behind me in the restaurant. The treacherous words and my nerves. The memories of hopelessness and of my own desperate body - of a time when I was no one's.
And when no one was mine.
Of sex.
Terrible, terrifying sex.
My breath grows quicker the longer I wait, and there is panic rising up in my throat, but there is also calm.
I'm Bella's now.
I am my Mistress's.
My Mistress will make this right.
My Mistress will help me make this right.
When she finally joins me, it is with a quiet intensity, her steps firm and sure on the carpet. With my eyes cast down, I can only see so much, but it is enough to see that she's still fully dressed. From this angle, I cannot see her face or gauge her mood, and I am left dependent only on her words.
"All fours," she directs. Her voice is a low burn on a hotwire to my cock. My flagging desire is back now as I lean forward, feeling so exposed as I point my ass in the air, but the vulnerability of it only serves to make me hotter. Harder.
With every motion, I submit. I take my needs from my own hands and I give them to her.
"Remind me why I'm punishing you instead of giving you your reward."
Something twists inside me, but it is alright. "Because I lied."
"What should you have done?"
"Been truthful with my Mistress," I breathe, clenching my eyes at the feeling of leather sliding its way down my naked spine.
"Ten, Pet. Count."
The first blow is only a little harder than I like, but I grunt all the same. "One." The second is harder, and the next one harder still. At each one, I hiss and groan, and there is pain. In the back of my mind, I know that she has never hit me this hard before - that I have never disappointed her so badly, and that knowledge hurts worse than the lashes.
On the eighth blow, she strikes not just my ass but the bit of plastic still embedded there, and I feel tears well in my eyes, confused and overwhelmed . By nine, I am remembering my safewords, and at ten, I am collapsing forward, thanking her and apologizing.
I'm so, so sorry.
For a moment, I simply hover there on my knees and elbows, my forehead to the floor, trying to find my breath again. Behind me, I can hear Bella's breathing, too, loud and rasping, like she has run for miles, and I am too ashamed to show my face. At the feeling of her hand on my hip, I shiver, pulling away and burying my face in my hands, trying to brush the few lingering tears away, but she'll have none of it. Her touch travels up and down my spine, finally rubbing over the flaming flesh of my ass before traveling back to my shoulders.
When she sits down on the floor beside me, I turn my head away, strangling back the emotion and the shame and gasping for breath when her lips press to the space between my shoulder blades.
"Talk to me, Pet," she says. Her voice has the edge of authority she always invokes as my Mistress, but there is something else there, too, twisting it and making the words catch in her throat.
"I'm fine," I breathe through a quiet, choked sob.
"Look at me," she insists.
I shake my head, uncertain how to, but her hands keep running lines along my back, slowly unfolding me, making my tongue loose. My voice is still tight as I whisper, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, Pet. It's over." So steadily, she keeps touching me, a constant bath of warmth and hands and lips. In spite of myself, I feel the tension leave my shoulders as my hips sink lower. The pain and discomfort fade beneath the firm weight of her touch, and when her mouth moves to my ear, I begin to lean into her, exhaling a shaky sigh as she murmurs, "I forgive you."
Finally, I turn my head and meet her eyes. There is no masking the concern there nor the conflict, and I hate that I have made her doubt herself. With what strength I have, I shift to rest my head on her lap, lying on my side. She exhales deeply, raking her fingers through my hair and speaking quiet words of encouragement. There's "It's okay," and "We're okay," and, most devastatingly of all, "You did so well."
At that, I sniffle and rub my hand over my eyes. "I d-disappointed you, Mistress."
She sighs but keeps stroking my hair and bends to kiss my cheek. "And so I punished you." I can feel her restraint as she reaches to grab my hand, squeezing it reassuringly. More quietly, she asks, "Are you okay to keep going?"
I pause before answering, assessing my body and my mind. My ass is still hot, but my shame is less so, driven back by my Mistress's affection, and I crave more. I crave the chance to make this up to her.
I crave the freedom from my own guilty thoughts.
Still on my knees figuratively if not literally, I nod, my cheek rubbing her thigh, and I brush the back of my hand beneath my eyes.
"Good boy," she purrs. "Such a good boy. "You alright to lie down? On your back?"
I flex my back and feel the soreness, but it is not overwhelming. "I think so," I agree.
At her urging, I move to the bed and lie down gingerly. It's uncomfortable, but not nearly so bad as I had feared, and Bella gives me a moment to settle myself. On the other side of the room, she seems to be collecting herself, too, and I watch in fascination as she strips down to only the corset, her bare legs so white and long, her sex flushed. The entire time, she keeps her eyes down, and when she finally lifts them back to mine, I can see that any traces of doubt have been washed from her face.
Slowly, she walks over to the bed, and I feel the warm stirrings of arousal again, my cock hardening against my belly, and I groan aloud when pleasure eclipses pain as she moves to touch me. With utmost softness, bare fingers trail up and down my body, caressing my ankles and then my knees, while I lie there, still and silent. When she reaches my growing erection, she gives it the same treatment, the same teasing brushes, coaxing it to its full length and making me forget my shame.
Moving back up my torso, her hand reaches my jaw after a time, and she traces back and forth beneath my chin. "Such a beautiful boy," she says quietly, and the sting of punishment fades even lower as her thumb moves over my lips. There is something sparkling in her eyes as she looks me over, and it makes my chest tight to see her gaze at me this way. "You should have seen everyone staring at you, Pet. Wanting you."
I hear the edge of something wistful in her voice, and I search her eyes.
"I only want you, Mistress," I breathe.
And her face looks fragile enough to break when she smiles.
Bella's hand strokes my lips once more before settling to the bed beside my head. Raising one knee and then the other onto the bed, she straddles my chest. Uncertain if I am allowed to move or not, I take the risk and bring my hands to her waist, rubbing the soft, naked flesh of her hips and thighs as she bends to kiss me. She does not chastise me, and I give myself over to the kiss and to the feeling of her in my hands.
Slowly, she trails her fingers down my face and neck, brushing gently over my arms to clasp my hands in hers. Lifting them over my head, she says only, "Leave them there," before rising onto her knees and stretching to reach into our drawer. From inside it, she retrieves the cuffs I bought for her, and I feel something twisting inside at the feeling of being restrained this way. With tenderness that seems almost out of place in this sort of scene, she closes each strip of leather around my wrists in turn, and it feels right.
Bound to her, heart and soul, it feels right for her to bind my body as well.
"My good, good boy," she murmurs as she sweeps back down my body, only this time it is with her mouth following just behind her hands. Soft, wet kisses slide down my chest, across my stomach and to my hip. My erection is straining toward her, and I groan embarrassingly loudly when she slips the head into the warmth of her mouth.
"Mistress," I plead. My eyes clench tightly shut, and I fight to keep my hips in place, but still I slide a little farther between her lips, the pleasure easing everything. Too soon, she lets me fall from her mouth, and I swallow hard at the lack of warmth, but it is only for a moment. Moving lithely, she climbs back onto the bed, facing away from me as she straddles my hips and glides her sex along my flesh. The feeling of wet and heat and sliding eclipses all my senses, and I wrap my hands around the chain between the cuffs to try to ground myself when she backs up enough for my head to nudge her clit.
Without taking me inside, she makes a few more long strokes, my body fitting just to the softness between her thighs, and I can see the head of my cock against my stomach, just below the perfect curve of her ass as she slides her pussy all the way to the base. Her hands trail up and down my thighs, and when I feel them at the sensitive flesh behind my balls, I tense, still battling back the urge to thrust, longing to be buried inside her - to erase all the lingering ghosts of bad fucks past by fucking her.
By making love to my Mistress.
One hand stays between my thighs, urging them farther apart until she can fit a finger against the plug that's still in my ass, and I twitch hard at the feeling of it pushing against that part of me that makes me desperate to come. Just when I am about to beg, she lifts her hips and slides the other hand to grip my length, lifting me just enough so that the head is pushing against wet flesh, and then there is only sliding heat and her body surrounding mine.
"Mistress," I gasp as she rises up and lowers back down, slickness and the vision of my cock, glistening with her as it disappears and reappears over and over.
"Tell me it's good," she murmurs. I crane my neck to try to see better, but then fall back to the mattress as she taps the plug in time with her thrusts. I can feel her fingertips just brushing the base of my cock, and I can tell from the sounds of sex and wet flesh sliding that she is touching herself as well.
There's another sharp rush of pleasure inside me, and I grunt out my thanks. "It's good, Mistress. So good. Thank you."
"Tell me it's just me."
"Just you," I pant. "Just you, Mistress."
She slides faster and faster on me, her body tensing, and I wonder, near-delirious with the effort of holding back my orgasm, if I have ever seen anything more beautiful than the naked curves of her ass and my body beneath hers - the soft flexing of her hips and the way it all disappears beneath constricting satin, her hair long and wild and hanging halfway down her back.
"Please, Mistress. Please let me come."
She shakes her head in silence, but in just a few more short, rocking thrusts, I feel her tensing.
"Come, baby."
"Oh," I grunt, and I can feel the metal digging hard into my palms from holding onto the chain too tightly as I finally thrust up into her. She moans my name and pushes even harder against the plastic, and with a deep, delirious climb, I feel myself just at the precipice. With one more hard rush up into her warmth, I finally crumble, unable to restrain everything I feel as I tense and pulse and come, lost in her body.
So lost, I scarcely hear the words as they leave my lungs.
"I love you, Mistress. I love you."
#~~#~~#
Bella sits on the edge of the tub as I run the bath. My body is drained beyond the usual, and I am almost tipsy on it. I can feel the absence of her toy and the lingering soreness from her flogger. I can feel the sort of satiation that is unique to our play.
And I feel so, so in love that it is almost too much to contain.
Letting the room fill with steam, I urge Bella to turn so her feet are in the rising water and her back is exposed, peeling her from the corset and placing soft, open-mouthed kisses to every line left on her ribs. She is uncharacteristically quiet, and as we slip beneath the level of the bath, tangled together, I can sense that even though I was the one to bear her punishment, she is the needier one tonight.
Trying to trust in intuition, I bathe her quietly, rubbing her scalp and her shoulders and even her feet, trying to tell her with each touch how I adore her. How I need her.
Leaning on my side so as not to put much pressure on my ass, I finally pull her into my arms and simply hold her, pressing my mouth to various spots below her ear.
"Talk to me?" I ask.
She shrugs and shakes her head, and I try to hide my sigh beneath another kiss.
Sweeping her hair off her shoulder, I continue my exploration of her skin and of her mood. "I'm fine," I promise. "If that's what's bothering you."
"Maybe a little."
"Was it too much for you?"
With my mouth against her shoulder, I can only see the edges of her face, but I catch the furrow in her brow. "No. But it was close. It was … I know it's weird, but I do get off on spanking you. But making you cry..." She shivers as she trails off. "Really hurting you..."
I hold her more tightly. "I know my safewords, Bella. If it had gone on much longer, I'd have used them. But I was okay. I was always okay."
She exhales, and I can feel her relaxing.
"For what it's worth," I venture, "I didn't mean to keep it from you. That Angela was my girlfriend. It just … came out." I smirk slightly against her skin. "And the minute it did, I knew I'd have to confess it to you. I knew what I had coming."
At that, she turns, sliding up until her back is to the side of the tub, her hand coming to rest on my neck. Exhaling deeply, I finally see a hint of a smile. "I can't believe you're so matter of fact about all of this sometimes."
I shrug. "I love it." Leaning forward to kiss her mouth, I add, "I love you. Always."
She slides back down the tub but does not turn away, her head on my shoulder and her hand on my chest. For a few minutes, we simply hold each other in silence, the dripping of the tap the only punctuation to our thoughts. My mind drifts lazily over everything and everyone I met today. Lee and Carmen. Garrett.
Angela.
And somehow, sitting here, naked and warm with Bella, it is as if all my insecurities and uncertainties flow past me.
For one strange, fleeting moment, I imagine being proud of what I am.
Smiling broadly, I shift her to rest more deeply against me and brush my fingers up and down her side. "So what did you think?" I finally ask. "Of the munch?"
She hums and plays with my chest hair, tracing designs against my skin. "It was interesting. The other tops were sort of cool. A lot of different perspectives on the whole thing."
"Tops?"
She rolls her eyes briefly. "Apparently some people prefer it to Dom." Shrugging, she continues, "Lots of people who only play casually. Or who play with multiple partners."
There is something leading in her voice, and I feel a little shiver run up and down my spine. Lee's voice leaps out in my memory, asking if I play with men, and I feel the same bile in the back of my throat that I did then.
With a little lurching in my abdomen, I sit up straighter. In my mind, I see all the times Bella met my gaze across the room. The way she narrowed her eyes.
The coldness of her voice when she approached Angela and me.
And then there is just her voice.
You should have seen everyone staring at you, Pet. Wanting you.
I sit up so fast that Bella slides off my shoulder. I hear the sounds of splashing and her gasp, and my ass hurts against the tub, but all I can do is gape.
Incredulous, I gasp, "You were jealous!"
If her averted gaze were not enough confirmation, the instant flush of her cheeks tells me all I need to know. She crosses her arms and moves to the other side of the tub, a sulky pout on her lips. "Duh," she scoffs, but I can hear the hurt that underlies it.
Only I still can't believe it.
"But … How … I d-don't …" I pause, needing to collect my thoughts. "How could you be?"
She snorts. "How could I not be? And don't think I don't realize it's partly my fault. I dress you up like sex on legs and take you into the PG-13 version of a sex club and then get surprised when everyone looks like they want to fuck you. Throw in a an ex-girlfriend who looks like she wants to lick you and …"
"Angela didn't want to lick me!"
"She did so. Everyone did." She pouts, but beneath the frown there is a reluctant smile as her foot moves through the water to nudge my cock. "Not that I can blame them. You are pretty lickable."
I laugh when her light touch tickles, moving fast to catch her foot between my hands and lift it to rest against my chest, dipping my head to kiss her ankle with a smile. "Still," I say, kneading the arch and staring at her breasts beneath the water.
The idea that I could want anyone but her is ludicrous, but I cannot deny that she seems to think it's possible, and I need to set her right. Working to keep my tone in check, I mutter, "You can't seriously … Bella, you know you're it for me, don't you?"
She's quiet as she waits for my eyes to make their way back to her face. When I do look up, I find her expression vulnerable. Tender. The water swirls up and just to the edge of the tub as she shifts forward to sit atop my thighs, and sated as I am, my body cannot help but respond.
"What about when other men look at me? Are you trying to say you never get jealous?"
Her lip between her teeth is her only tell that, for all my flaws, she is honestly insecure. I lift my hands to stroke her hip bones, swallowing down the low blush of arousal at the softness of her flesh, wet and warm. I shrug and keep my eyes down, one hand lifting reflexively to touch my throat. "Of course I do." Daring to look up, I can only offer, "But at the end of the day, I'm the one wearing your collar."
I pull her forward until she has to catch herself with a hand on my shoulder, and I shudder at the brushing contact of her pussy against my cock. Unlike with Angela, when Bella reaches out to touch the leather around my neck, I do not pull back. Instead, I lift up, pressing my lips to hers.
"I like that you touch it all the time," she says quietly, playing with the metal. "I notice that. Especially today."
My hand moves to intertwine with hers against my throat. "It calms me. Makes me remember."
"Remember what?"
"That I'm yours," I breathe. "That you love me."
"I do, Edward. So much."
Giving myself over to her kiss, I pull her down onto me, exhaling hard at the sensation of being home inside her once more. The water laps as we rock together in gentle strokes, our mouths so close that we share the same air. As the pleasure begins to crest, I bring my thumb down to her clit, touching her in the quick, rough circles that make her moan.
When we come, it is with soft gasps of the other's name. And in that moment, there is no one else and nothing else.
No Mistresses and Pets.
No former lovers.
Just us. Edward and Bella.
Just love.
And just me, trying with all my might to figure out how I can prove to her that she will always be enough.
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A/N: Thanks for reading. Reviews make me smile