14. Abigail

14

ABIGAIL

Sneaking around is fun.

Sneaking around in plain sight is better.

I informed Theo of my appointment at the BDSM dungeon yesterday afternoon.

7am. Dungeon. Room 8.

He didn't reply until dinnertime. I almost canceled out of sheer panic and embarrassment until the text came through.

You're going to be the death of me .

The smile hasn't faded from my face since.

I arrived at six. Not suspicious to my family since I often leave early to go to the gym. Plus, Dad doesn't get to the club until late morning these days.

However, if they saw the outfit I had packed in my bag, they'd be shocked.

I adjust my lacey robe around me on the leather bench. The robe parts right below my breasts, allowing full view and access to the panties and suspendered stockings I've put on beneath.

Bless Bridget for running a lingerie company.

I purchased it from her directly, which might have been risky, but I think Bridget's just happy to know I'm getting out there after being the one who usual helmed the single members of the Lyons family.

Now that I'm the last one, I know everyone has their eyes on me to find a mate, not because they think I need one but because they worry I'm left out.

I do feel left out. But I'm not in a rush.

I'm having too much fun doing things this way.

I've never gotten to take advantage of one of the dungeon rooms. Not like this. I've explored them, played around, rented them out to do work because it's funny to write a dissertation in a room made of leather and velvet.

Today, though, I get to use a room. And I've chosen the one that is one of the simplest. A room surrounded by a red velvet curtain on all four sides and one simple leather bench at the very center on a platform.

Who said this sort of thing had to be complicated?

The door beyond the red curtain opens.

Silence, except his footsteps.

I know his footsteps now, that's how familiar I am with Theodore Wallington. The weight of his feet on the ground, the sound of his shoes.

When he pulls the curtain aside, I get to watch his expression of curiosity turn to one of abject lust as his eyes cross over me.

"It's too early in the morning to give me a heart attack, Abigail."

I eat him up with my eyes too.

A crisp navy-blue suit, a striped tie and pocket square to match. The image of a perfect gentleman. And he's wearing his glasses, thank god . He knows how much I love those stupid little things.

"The feeling is mutual."

Theo eyes me from across the room, tucking his hands behind his back, a small smile on his lips. His face screams, What am I going to do with you?

I lift my chin in response to his silence.

He tears his blue gaze away and starts to pace the perimeter of the room, each footstep clipped against the floor. "You know I have a whole day of work ahead of me."

"All the more reason to get things off on the right foot, hm?"

Theo chuckles as he arrives at the back wall. He touches the curtain and pulls it back, revealing a wall of toys and tools. "Ah, here we go."

"I thought you might like to try having fun with something more than your words."

"Has that not been enough for you?"

I spin around on the bench to face him. "Oh, it's been plenty. But variety is the spice of life, isn't it?"

Theo's expression grows wary as he takes in all the toys. There are whips and chains and riding crops and paddles and every sort of tool a Dom could want.

It's overwhelming, especially to him.

"You know I'm not interested in hurting you, Abigail."

"That doesn't mean you don't know how to dominate me. You do it every time we've been together."

All ten times. Ten times in three weeks. Because we don't know how to handle ourselves. Don't know how to stay away. None of those times include my visits with Bonnie, which give way to a different sort of intimacy I'm desperately trying to ignore. The familiarity of his person. The man he is.

The man I like .

But I know he doesn't want a woman like me in return.

I'm too young. I'm fun. Not…not the material for him to make a life with.

I still don't fully understand why. And at first, I didn't care to. Now it's started to ache in a strange way.

For now, I ignore it.

"I dominate you?" He looks at me with a curious smile.

"Uh, obviously."

"How? I mean, I suppose I like control, but–"

I laugh, crossing my ankles. "That's just it. You like to have control over me. But it's not the control of pain. But of pleasure."

Theo lifts his brows. "I suppose."

"You're a Dom, Theo. You like to be in control of pleasing me. When I am pleased, what I'm pleased by or with. Sometimes, to an absolutely absurd degree," I say with a grin. "And I allow it because I'm a submissive with needs the line up with yours."

"Ah…I see."

I get to my feet and join him by the wall. "So, you could restrain me. You could blindfold me. Those toys aren't inherently painful."

Theo swallows. "I only want to do what will make you happy."

Warmth pools in my belly.

There are so many things he could do to make me happy. Not all of them would be limited to the confines of this room.

I wave the thoughts away.

"I want to please you by letting you take control of the way you please me," I say in a soft voice.

Theo casts his eyes over me, taking in my outfit again. Then, his blue eyes land in mine, clear as a ten-mile sky. "First, I want to do this."

He touches my cheek and kisses me with tenderness.

Tenderness is an unfair thing in an arrangement like ours.

When his lips leave mine, he says, "Then I want to tie you to that bench and devour you."

He takes his time, picking out the tools he'd like to use. When all is said and done, he's used silk restraints around my wrists that loop under the bench, giving me lateral movement, but keeping my wrists up near my ears.

Theo has my legs positioned so my feet are flat on the floor, and they too are restrained so I cannot shimmy away.

The entire time he was arranging me, he asked again and again if I was all right.

I laughed at his gentleness only because it was ripping my heart out, how dear he is with me.

"Now, let's see…" He walks past the wall once more like an army captain, long, even strides. "What else?"

I watch with eagerness, my chest rising and falling with anticipation.

"I actually did bring something for the occasion." He turns back to me with a sly smile on his face.

"Oh?"

Theo reaches into his pocket and produces a thin, silky bag and, from inside, a blue, bullet toy. "Only if you'd like, of course."

I stare at it in his hand.

It's not the shape of a vibrator or a dildo. More like an arrow with soft curves. "Is that…"

Theo moves to the bench and stands beside it, staring at me.

The power dynamic between him being fully clothed and me spread out with my open crotched panties and thin robe makes me salivate.

He presses a button on the toy to activate it. It starts to rumble. "Might be forward of me, considering…"

He lets the vibrating toy rest against my lower belly, then moves it down over my pubic bone to the open gusset of my panties.

My body jumps when it thrums across my clit.

He moves it through the wetness pooling between my thighs, coating the toy in as much of me as he can, then past my canal, lower, to the tight bud of my ass.

"Oh, my god," I gasp, the point of the toy trying to nuzzle inside me. "And you pretend like you don't know you're a Dom."

Theo's lips twitch with sweetness. "I swear, I had no idea this was a form of domination."

I shake my head.

He looks into my eyes. "Is this too much? Too forward?"

It does scare me the slightest bit. But Theo has never been anything but giving and kind. "Just be careful."

Theo pouts. "Darling, I'd never be anything but." He leans over and kisses me. "Just relax."

I allow him to kiss me as bit by bit he works the toy into me. I have to concentrate on relaxing between the smacking of our lips.

It takes some time until the toy finds its berth, but once it does, the rumbling transmits through my body, and I relax around it.

"Feel all right?" he asks.

"Uh-huh."

"You tell me when to stop."

"We should have a safe word."

Theo pauses. "I've never used one of those."

"Could be my dad's name."

Theo makes a face of nauseousness. "Yes, that will do the trick."

"For someone who insists we're so different because of our age, you sure are innocent."

Theo laughs, his teeth flashing. "I am not innocent , Abigail."

"Then how am I teaching you everything? Hm? A younger woman?"

Theo considers my face for a moment, the only sound in the room the buzzing inside me. "I suppose age doesn't mean anything to what we can learn from each other."

My mouth falls open for a response, but I don't get that far.

Theo pulls my robe aside and wraps his mouth around my nipple, caressing my breast with his tongue.

I let out a long breath.

His hand travels between my legs, and he begins to play with the toy, pressing and pulling.

He ramps up the intensity, and a strange sensation grabs at my insides.

I've never been fucked like this. Never really saw the point, but the release I'm feeling. The relaxation. It's heavenly.

I didn't realize how tightly I've had every muscle in my body clenched until now.

Theo kisses the well of skin between my breasts, then travels lower and lower.

I try to reach for him, want to caress his hair, but my wrists are restrained. I huff.

"Oh, I like it when you're annoyed with me," he mutters against my belly, kissing and sucking at the skin.

"I'm sure you do."

"Next time, I'll gag you too so all you can do is make sounds and salivate over what I'm doing to you."

He gazes up at me. "Would you like that?"

"More than you know."

"Good," Theo says before diving between my legs.

Theo could probably win an award for eating pussy. He does it with enthusiasm but diligence.

Most men I've had down there are impatient, trying to lap me up and make me come as fast as possible. He, on the other hand, enjoys the work.

Which makes it even better for me.

Unlike every time before, I'm able to relax into his mouth in an impossible way thanks to the buzzing toy inside me.

I come in mere minutes.

Theo laughs against me. "You needy little thing."

"I didn't mean to, it just happened."

He ramps up the intensity of the vibrator. "I want at least three more of those."

Sometimes, I feel guilty for how much he pleasures me.

But he offers me so much.

Sometimes, I reach for his cock, beg him to let me do something with it, and he bats me away.

"I know how to handle myself. It's you I want to learn."

I want to learn him too, though. And I can't help but wonder if this is Theo's way of keeping me at a distance. If I never learn him, we cannot tip over into complete oblivion.

We've already let things get too far.

The next time I come, Theo pushes down on my belly, tightening the space of my all my organs, making every feeling that much stronger.

I cry out.

"Those sounds, Abigail. You'll make me come without even touching myself."

My toes curl. "That sounds like a challenge."

"You said it, not me."

As he works me again to the next orgasm, I let out every sound my body is inspired to make.

Theo starts humping the bench beneath him, grips my calves, and holds on for dear life as I ride his face.

However, the orgasm is snatched away from me when my phone starts ringing in my bag.

"Shit! I need to take that." I rail against my restraints. "The puffins! I need–"

"All right, all right, don't fret." He leaps to his feet.

I get a glimpse of the hard rock in his pants, pressing angrily at the interruption.

He fetches my phone from my bag hidden behind the curtain and as he returns, I rattle of the details. "I had an interview a couple days ago. They told me they'd call, and I've had my phone on–"

"Take it, take it," he says, but does not untie me, merely places the phone on my chest and puts it on speaker.

I gape and stare at Theo.

"What are you doing ?" I mouth.

He drops back to his straddled position on the bench between my legs. He nods toward the phone and leans back down, mouth searching for my clit.

"Abigail Lyons? Do I have the right number?" an Irish-accented voice asks through the phone.

"Yes, this is she!" I exclaim, trying to tamp down the way my body is responding to Theo's mouth and the vibrator still in my ass.

"Fantastic, this is Colleen, we spoke the other day about the research position?"

"Yes, I–" I swallow and close my eyes, trying to ignore the pleasure building again between my legs. "I remember."

Colleen hesitates. "Is this a bad time? I just realized it's still early in New York, I didn't mean–"

"No! No. It's a great time," I spit out.

Theo chuckles between my legs.

I try and squeeze my thighs around his head.

"Oh, fantastic. Well, I wanted to reach out and tell you we've come to a decision on the research assistantship position."

Pleasure compounds between my legs, anticipation skyrocketing in every nerve of my body.

"And we'd like you to join us in March to be part of our time!"

I open my mouth to gasp and, at that very moment, Theo goes even harder, snagging my clit between his lips and rolling it.

The gasp is monumental, one of excitement at the position and a literal orgasm.

My body snaps, the phone jumps on my chest and nearly falls.

Theo gets his too, his rolling hips stuttering against the bench, his mouth opening against me in a silent exclamation of pleasure.

"Abigail? Did I lose you?"

"No!" I squeak. "No, that's fantastic. Thank you. I'm so happy to–yes! That's great."

"You can take some time to think about it if–"

"No thinking necessary, that's wonderful. I'm so excited."

Colleen giggles. "Ah! Well, I'm thrilled. We'll be seeing you in County Clare in March, then. I'll send an email over with all the details. Can't wait to have you on the team."

I mutter my thanks, my excitement, and let her end the call.

Once Theo and I are alone in every way again, I dare to look him in the eye, a smile on my face. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Theo sits up, pulls out his pocket square, and dabs my essence off his face. "Congratulations, darling. Not only on the position but maintaining your composure."

"British men are infuriating." I collapse back down onto the bench.

He laughs, turns off the toy and removes it from me, leaving me empty. "You were brilliant."

"So were you. Hope you brought a change of underwear."

His face flushes. "Don't worry, I did indeed."

I laugh, taking in the image of Theo being flushed and fucked.

A sadness passes over me. "You know what this means?"

"That I no longer have to worry about you worrying about a job?" Theo leans down to undo my ankles.

I sigh. "That this has an end date now."

Theo sits back up, his forehead pinched at the center. "I suppose so."

"I mean, assuming we continue liking each other that long." I chuckle.

He is silent as he undoes my other ankle, then my wrists.

I roll my hands around, thankful for the freedom.

Theo cups my cheek, an intimate gesture I cannot shake feels more like romance than lust. "Abigail, against my better judgment and your better judgment and everyone's good judgment, I will have you as long as I can."

I turn my mouth into his hand, kiss his palm.

"If that's only the next three months, then that's what it is."

What is left unsaid is the possibility of more than three months. Because we can't be lovers forever.

When I'm gone to pursue my career, he'll find a woman to suit him and Bonnie.

The what-if, though, does not leave my mind.

What if our lust could be love? What if I could have him forever?

And what if we didn't have to hide?