Page 35 of Role Play
It was an outright lie. He knew it. I knew it. If my tear-stained cheeks and heavy breaths weren’t obvious enough, my reluctance spun between us, filling what little space was left between our bodies as Ash stepped forward. My breasts were inches from his body. No, not inches, plural. Inch. Singular. One little inch separatedus.
Ash wrapped his arms around my waist, drawing me closer. Encasing me in his hold and pressing my body flush to his. His hands scooped up my back, grasping my hair at the back of my head, and with a gentle tug, my eyes were directed to his. “Don’t lie to me,Luciana.”
It felt so damn good in his arms like that. It feltperfect.
The intensity of his eyes was striking; a formidable power that seemed to wash over me with that onegaze.
“Even if the truth is that you’re not ready to talk about it,” Ash said, sucking in a trembled breath, “Don’t lie tome.”
I nodded. What else could I do? Sniffing, I licked my bottom lip, still able to taste the remnants of his tongue that had brushed across there hours ago. “I’m not ready to talk aboutit.”
My heart slammed against my ribcage. My head spun. Every one of my senses was heightened andfrazzled.
He nodded, still looking down at me. “You liked being spanked earlier.” It wasn’t aquestion.
I shook my head, no, and a cautious smile tipped his lips slowly. “What did I just say? Don’t lie tome…”
Shit.I pulled in a breath, feeling the sting in my lungs, mustering the bravery to admit the truth. To admit something I had known for years about myself and couldn’t even say aloud in the privacy of my own home. Something I couldn’t even admit to Andrea. “I liked it more than Liza likesbelting.”
A heavy laugh shook Ash’s chest, but he didn’t release his hold on me. And his eyes never left my face. “You wanted itharder?”
Another nod of myhead.
“Did I push too much? Toosoon?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head as I lifted my hands to his chest, grazing them over his tight muscles. No. He had pushed just the right amount. Just enough to pique my interest. He had no idea that it wasn’t him, but rather my mother’s text that had triggered my doubt. My biggest fear andinsecurity.
But I didn’t want to focus on that. I spent my entire life focusing on that in one way or another. Always trying to please her. I sought her approval like a hit of dopamine. I craved that acceptance. When I got it, I felt loved. When I didn’t, I wondered what I was doing wrong. Whenever I screwed up or made an honest mistake, my stomach plummeted to my toes, and I was terrified to see her disappointment, to feel how she pulled away. I would spend nights wondering how long until she would forgive me and come back to being my mother. And a darker part of me wondered, if I screwed up big enough, would it be the catalyst that spiraled her into another depression where I lost her for good? It was a lot of pressure for one kid. Her love was conditional upon my perfection. And when I rejected her choices for me—even choices as trivial as the clothes she had picked for me, to important things such as my boyfriend whom she had chosen, and the major she had decided for me—it took a whole year for her to talk to meagain.
I raised my gaze to Ash’s muscled throat that begged to be licked. A spray of short chest hair peeked out from beneath his button-down shirt, now significantly more wrinkled than when we had started the day. He pushed a breath through his tight lips when I curved my fingers over his shoulders. As his fingers stroked the back of my neck, every nerve ending awoke with a fierce jolt, my nipples tightening from beneath my shirt. How long had it been since I’d been touched like this? Stroked? Cherished? A year? Two years? Maybe never. Never had a lover looked at me the way Ash does. Touched me with the focused intent of mypleasure.
But Ash and I weren’t lovers. We werefriends.
Friends. That word didn’t even make sense anymore. Not in the context of me andAsh.
I instinctively shivered. He noticed the change in my body language immediately, pulling back to examine me. He released his hold on my hair and moved his hands to cup either side of my face, his thumbs resting at the corners of my mouth. Ash wasn’t just a man. He wasn’t even just a man into BDSM. He was the living embodiment of my mom and dad’s dynamic. And what I walked away from with my own mother. A challenge to that control I worked so hard to break free from. Or… was he? My mom forced me to choose between doing it her way in order to receive love and attention, or living my own life and feeling her absence. Ash wasn’t asking me to make that choice… yet. But he was bossy by nature. I had no doubt it was why he was such a successful director. The question remained, would that personality carry over into his home life or into thebedroom?
He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t let him. Pushing onto my toes, I claimed his mouth, licking, searching, tangling against his velvet tongue. Ash moaned in surprise, pinning me against the wall of the closet with his pelvis. With a thrust of his hips, his erect cock—caged by cashmere dress pants—slid against my bundle of nerves. A stab of pleasure surged through mycore.
Excitement jolted down my spine as he slid his hands down, pushing open my legs. A searing white ball of fire sprang to life at the base of my stomach, clawing down between mythighs.
I wanted to feel his rigid cock inside of me. I wanted those hands coming down hard on my ass again. I wanted to be marked, tied up, forced on my knees, his dick so far down my throat that tears sprang to my eyes and I gagged. I wanted those dry thrusts from earlier to be real and slick with wetdesire.
“That was your one pass,” he said quietly. “From now on, you offer your lipsto meto kiss. You don’t just kiss me.Understood?”
Fuck, that was hot. Inodded.
“Turn around,” he demanded. Even though every ounce of self-preservation warned me not to follow his directions, I found myself spinning on my toes, facing the wall behind me. “Palms flat against the wall. You do not move them until I tell youto.”
I lifted my hands, placing them gently against the cool, smooth wall, my breathing shallow and fast. Sparks of anticipation popped off in my belly and my clit felt swollen andachy.
Reaching around, he popped open the button on my jeans. The baggy denim fell to the ground, pooling at my ankles with little effort at all. There was a sharp intake of breath behind me and I was certain he was taking in my red, lacy thong. “Surprised?” I asked over my shoulder. My sexy underwear was my dirty little secret. The little piece of myself I had kept from a couple years ago; so that despite my dowdy clothes and drab hair, I felt sexy. I just never expected anyone—especially not Ash Livingston—to see that side ofme.
“Surprised doesn’t even cover it, LucianaRodriguez.”
I stiffened at the use of my full name… I never told him my last name. Which meant he was digging. “Fuck,” he whispered, and dragged his fingers across the red lace at myhip.
Sliding his other hand up my shirt, he cupped my breast, his thumb dragging along the underside of the swell. “This okay?” he whispered, his hot breath slamming into myearlobe.
