Page 35 of After Dark
She couldn’t sit up all the way, not with the plug jutting out of her. That meant that she straddled the arm of the sofa with her pussy now rubbing against the rough fabric from a deliberate angle, andthatmade everything... wild.
Josette could feel that she was sweating. Her heart was galloping in her chest. She had slept on her wet hair and it fell all around her as it liked, and she was certain that she looked disheveled. Arlo went and washed his hands in the sink, then came back and cast a critical eye over her. She thought he looked satisfied.
Then he reached to pick up the ball gag and that steel gaze of his made her shudder again. “Open, please,” he said.
There was not one single thing that Josette liked about a ball gag. Something Arlo knew very well indeed. She hated the way the ball pressed against her tongue, forcing her jawopen. She hated the way he buckled it around the back of her head, so that her hair was mashed up in it, pulling a little every time she moved, and it was really all just unpleasant.
She also hated that she would inevitably start drooling and there was nothing she could do about it.
It was one of those speed bumps, she knew. It was easy to submit when it was all glorious fucking and a thousand orgasms. Who wasn’t a fan ofthatversion of BDSM? But the only way to submit the things she knew she didn’t like—like the paddle last night, like this—was to stop thinking about herself.Heliked this.
And if she truly loved him as much as she knew, deep in her heart, that she did, then all she had to do was focus on him to survive this. Not only to survive it, but to find a way in.
Though that was easier said than done, of course.
At first, it was impossible.
He watched her, his gaze narrow and assessing, as she tried to come to a place of peace with the fucking thing in her mouth. And, at once, the drool gathering. There were tears in her eyes, too, because her ass hurt and her breasts ached. There was that monstrous thing up her ass, and every time she breathed she could feel it inside of her. Her hands were cuffed and she was grinding down on her clit, which was a little too much under these circumstances, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of these things.
Not one thing, unless she wanted to safe word out. And as uncomfortable as all of this was, she did not.
Meanwhile, Arlo stood in front of her dressed in the T-shirt and jeans he’d put on when he rolled out of bed. But incase she was tempted to imagine that made this casual, his gaze was nothing short of merciless.
“I’m going to take some business calls,” he told her. “You will sit over here and entertain me.” His voice helped, she found. When she focused on his voice, it was easier. The ball in her mouth seemed less rude. The ache in her breasts and her ass… changed. “I want you to hump the arm of the sofa, Josette.” He waited for her to take that on board. “You will not be able to utter your safe word if needed, so if you do need it, all you need to do is stand up. Just remove yourself from the arm of the chair, I’ll know that it’s the same as you saying the words. Do you understand me?”
She nodded her head. Arlo tilted his head as he gazed down at her.
“You are not to come,” he warned her. And it was definitely a warning. “I want you to come close, but never quite tip over. I want you edging yourself, Josette, so that you’re ripe and juicy for me when I’m ready. I do not want you sitting still. And most importantly, I want you silent. No sounds, just work. Do we understand each other?”
When she nodded again, one of his brows rose, and she understood it was time to begin.
And the trouble wasn’t that it was all so uncomfortable. The trouble was that it didn’tstayuncomfortable.
That was always the trick.
Arlo went over to his desk, sat down, and started his session of video calls.
And he sounded stern and corporate on his calls. Only she could see that gleam in all that gray steel. Only she could see the way he sat back, nodded thoughtfully, but was looking past his screen to watch her move for him.
At first she couldn’t think about anythingexcept the ache in her jaw and that stretching in her ass. But soon enough she rocked herself into a different space altogether.
In this space, everything was electric. Everything was sensation. She rocked herself again and again, bracing her hands on the arm of the sofa in front of her and never quite getting there. Getting closer, and closer, but still not quite far enough. The sofa arm was too wide, the angle too tilted. It wasn’tquitethe right pressure.
It was diabolical.
It was all competing sensation, keeping her full and so turned on, and all those aching parts of her were complicit too.
He rolled from one call into the next. Maybe he had a thousand calls, she didn’t know. Her every breath was her obedience. Every beat of her heart was her surrender. Josette didn’t come. She worked as she sweated, as she drooled, and she felt that plug in her ass as if it was connected to an electrical source somewhere and emitting sparks.
Her clit was almost worse. But she still didn’t come.
On and on she went, until she heard her name.
She looked over at him, every part of her trembling, and then trembling more when he beckoned for her to come to him.
He’d told her to stay on her knees, so she went down into a crawl when she dropped off the sofa arm. Arlo had a thick rug in this office and she was grateful for that as she made her little shuffling way over to him, then followed his hand directions as he beckoned her to kneel between his legs. She heard voices—a group of men talking about systems and security measures—and Arlo now and again made assenting noises.
Josette supposed she should have been worried aboutwhat they could see, but she wasn’t. She knew him too well. He’d either turned off his camera or wanted whoever these men were to watch, and either possibility thrilled her.
