Look Closer: No Safe Words Here 1-4 out of 5. Boxed Set Read online

  Look Closer

  No Safe Words Here

  Parts 1-4

  Boxed Set

  Preface

  I died twenty minutes after losing my virginity, left floating face up in my neighbor’s pool. If I could have seen anything, I would have known the stars were out that night, bright and beautiful. But I’d died looking at the bottom of the pool, the glint of a discarded golden wedding band my only company.

  Chapter One

  Justine

  I rounded the corner to Cherry Lane with my usual power-walking stride. It was early. I always worked out early. My husband and little boy were still snug asleep in their beds…both so sweet and dear to me. Actually, I was almost completely sure that no one else was awake this early in the morning except me…and one other person.

  I cut down the alley that ran behind the other side of Cherry Lane from where I and my family lived. I traveled on the grass that lined both sides of the alley, to make less noise than the gravel lined alley would—and slipped into the eighth gate on the left. The gate that was always left open and kept perfectly oiled so not to make a sound. I walked up to the back door of the house, it’s yellow siding and green shudders almost as familiar as my own house’s white and black—and then I took the key I’d been holding in my hand my entire work-out and slid it into the lock.

  The kitchen was spotless, as usual—sometimes I wondered if he ever even used it. I walked quickly to the hall that led to the living room. No lights were on, but the early morning sun light crept through the pulled drapes, giving the room a warm glow. But even the warm glow of morning couldn’t give the room any true warmth. The room had only a cold black leather couch on one side, and a huge, sleek flat screen television affixed to the wall of the other.

  The house seemed desolate, as if no one even lived there. Even the air smelled sterile. But someone did live there, and he’d left a pair of shiny stainless steel handcuffs in the middle of the floor. The handcuffs glinted against dark brown carpeting. They also held down a folded piece of paper: his instructions.

  I kicked off my walking shoes in the corner of the room; shed my socks and running shorts, and then my tank top. I was naked, and the cool of the room, be it air conditioning or just the morning air still trapped inside, made my flesh tingle and my nipples harden.

  I moved cautiously to the center of the room, to the handcuffs, and pulled the folded paper from beneath them. The paper was just thick photocopy paper, but the hand writing was anything but ordinary. It was a harsh scrawl, much like his raspy, hard as steel voice.

  On your knees today…hands behind your back.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. At least I wasn’t going to be chained to anything; that always creeped me out. But he still wanted me to handcuff myself. At least with the ropes, or the scarves, or even the plastic ties, I had some hope of freeing myself. But the cold steel of the handcuffs was unforgiving. I chastised myself for not having looked up how to pick the locks of handcuffs on the internet. One of these days I was going to get stuck, naked and cuffed to the wall.

  I shivered, looking over to the simple stainless steel rings—three of them spaced at different heights—on the wall. They matched the handcuffs perfectly, I knew from experience.

  I swallowed my trepidation—after all he’d always played the game by our rules…well, his rules. He never left any marks that wouldn’t fade in less than an hour, and he never kept me past time to go wake my husband and child.

  I picked up the handcuffs. They were heavier than you’d think. Not just some flimsy decorative stuff you’d find at Spencer’s or some suburban sex toy party. No, these were the kind cops had, and they could hold any man secure in their vice-like grip.

  I hated them.

  But just holding them in my hands, feeling their heft, hearing the links of the connective chain jingle, made things low in my body tighten and warm. Hate them or not, nothing on this earth made me half as turned on as being restrained and dominated.

  If it were just plain vanilla sex I wanted, my husband was right there in my bed. But I wanted to be forced into this, to be brought roughly to orgasm, to have the man that lived in this house take me over body and soul, and fuck the hell out of me while he did it.

  With a click the first link slipped around my wrist. But it was the second link that was so hard—especially when he wanted me to cuff myself behind my back. But I knew I could—and would—do it. A cold sweat broke out all over my body, from the certain knowledge that I was going to be helpless in just a few heartbeats—

  Click…

  And just like, I was trapped. Trapped by the handcuffs. Trapped by my own desires.

  I knelt down on my knees and let my head hang down in submission.

  And waited.

  He never left me waiting for long, but there was always a wait, as if he really wanted me to feel how helpless I was, to stew in my own juices…I could feel myself getting wet just thinking about how much I needed him.

  And then abruptly he was standing in front of me, only his bare feet and jean clad legs visible from where I knelt. And just as abruptly he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my face up to look at him.

  Lars…

  He was six foot two, broad of shoulder and chest, and built as lean and hard as the handcuffs that bound my wrists. He had cold, expressionless blue eyes, an achingly handsome face that was all male, not a bit beautiful, accentuated by a dark brown, gruff stubble of beard. His hair was of the same color, but was just long enough to curl around his face and neck. He was shirtless, and his strong, hard chest was dusted with the same color hair.

  He was also very pale, as if he hadn’t been out in the sun in years.

  My heart pounded hard in my chest as he slowly lowered his face down to my level. When our faces were close enough that I could have leaned in and kissed him, Lars closed his eyes and inhaled a long, deep breath through his nose, taking in the scent off me.

  “You smell good today.” And then he licked my cheek. His tongue was hot and rough, and just that sensation made me shiver all over. Since the first time I’d met him, I’d felt he was the most dangerous man I had ever met. And the way he tasted me now made me feel even more like part off a meal than the object of his lusty attentions.

  After he licked me, he seemed to savor the taste, and then he leaned in and bit at my lips—not a kiss, just a quick nip of my lips with his startling white teeth. He moved around me, his cool, strong hand gripped the back of my neck, squeezing too hard for a few beats, and then released it to glide down the length of my spine. He rubbed the orbs of my ass with both hands, pulling them apart, baring me to him. His thumb grazed over the entrance to my anus and I shuddered.

  I hated anal sex and he knew it. But that didn’t stop him from doing it. If anything, he used it to let me know I had no choices when I was bound up in his house. I was his, anyway he wanted me. And though it hurt every time, and made me feel even more debased than I usually felt, by the time he was done with me I was always a quivering, sweat covered mound of jelly, sated beyond belief and ready for more.

  But I always had to go back to my family—to normal live. So it was always just once, every morning, and then it would be as if it never happened…at least, until the next morning.

  He moved around to in front of me again, and I looked up to his cool blue eyes as he pulled open his jeans, and pushed them down, stepping out of them. He stood there naked, and stroked himself to hardness. He was very well endowed, close to twice as long and thick as my husband—and since Marshal had been the only man I’d been with until six months ago, that had been a
cold slap in the face as to what I’d settle for.

  I loved my husband, but he didn’t make me excited sexually. Not in the least.

  Lars moved closer until his hard manhood was up in my face.

  “Well, slick it up so I can fuck you,” he growled.

  I leaned forward, opening my mouth wide, and took him into my mouth. It was the only part of him that felt warm, and it even tasted warm. I could feel his pulse on the back of my tongue as I stroked my tongue back and forth over the underside of his shaft.

  He grabbed my hair again and forced himself further back into my mouth, clogging my throat with his hardening cock. He held my face pinned to his crotch, my air supply cut off until I was near panicked for a breath. And then he let me go, pulling his manhood from between my lips and disappearing from sight.

  A moment later I felt him behind me, his hands pressing down hard on my shoulders until I was face-planted in the musky brown carpeting. I felt his cock, hard and brutal as it slid over the sensitive flesh of my bottom, and then rolled and slipped into the even more sensitive crack of my ass.

  God, he was going to do it. I took a deep breath and braced for it. The pain, the way it filled me in a way that made me feel so powerless. But it would change, it always changed to pleasure.

  Lars rubbed back and forth across my backdoor—I could hear his breathing as he became excited. He was always so maddeningly calm, except when he fucked you. Then he’d lose it and become an animal.

  He dropped his hands from my shoulders and cupped the orbs of my butt again, and with on jerking movement, and a cruel push of his hips, his cock slid down further and rammed right up into my quivering wet pussy. It made me yelp with surprise, but my body relaxed immediately as he pushed in and out of the throbbing wet mouth of my sex. My body was weeping with helpless happiness. This was exactly what I needed today. Exactly what would get me through all I had to do, until I could get more tomorrow?

  Sex with him was my drug of choice.

  He pushed into me harder and harder, until I was falling over, scuffing my knees, my breasts getting roughed up by the shitty brown carpeting.

  His lean, hard body fell onto mine, and the sweat bound us together as his cock pulled me open and left me adrift on a sea of sensation, of mounting desire. I was so close to cumming I felt like my head was going to explode.

  Somehow Lars got his arms and legs wrapped around me. Having my arms bound behind my back made that hurt, but having his body wrapped around me more than made up for that. Before I knew it I was flat on my belly, and he had my torso held off the ground, my back bent up and to the side, as he pawed possessively at my breasts. He licked my earlobe, and then down the side of my neck, lingering over the pulse of my carotid artery…and then he sucked and licked his way down to my closest breast. He fucked himself up into me harder and faster, as his mouth clamped onto my breast, his tongue roughing up my hardened nipple, as his mouth bit down on all that aching flesh.

  I was breathing so hard I sounded like I was hyperventilating. I cried out as my orgasm washed over me, overwhelming me, making everything inside me tighten and clinch. Lars growled as I tightened around him, and he punched himself in and out of me frantically, until finally his mouth released my breast and he pushed my face down hard into the carpeting. He came inside me, grunting and thrashing, pushing in and out of me in abrupt spurts, and then finally falling to rest on top of me, crushing me to the floor. I could hardly breathe, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t on cloud nine.

  Slowly he roused, rolled us over on our sides, and then grimly pulled himself out of me. He unlocked the handcuffs and left them beside my face, and then he got up and sauntered away to the downstairs bath, where, as usual, I heard the shower start.

  He left me there all alone, left completely empty where a moment ago I was filled with him. I staggered to my feet, checked my wrists for marks—as usual, there were none—and then I scrambled to find my workout clothes.

  I had to go home, shower, and then get my family off for the day.

  Chapter Two

  Lila

  The cool, crisp sheet flattened under my touch. I tugged it gently, and then tucked it up under and made a perfect hospital corner. Next, I pulled the duvet up along the length of the mattress, folding the two firm yet fluffy down pillows underneath it, and then shaped it into fluffy ridges all the way down the length of the bed—just as Martha Stuart taught us to do just last week. It was a beautiful effect.

  The shower turned off down the hall. Tom was naked and clean, and was no doubt toweling himself off with one of my thick, pure cotton towels—I hung those towels out to dry in the hot Arizona sun, no fabric softener needed.

  I felt a pang of longing, of frustration and shame just picturing my husband naked and clean. It was my greatest wish in this life to clean everything that was dirty…the whole world over.

  I also wanted my husband to touch me; I wanted that more than I ever could have imagined.

  We hadn’t made love in over six months. Before that, it had been every couple of months, and that had been enough to sustain me. But then six months ago he’d started to say he was too tired…

  But he stayed up late every night going over the city budget, over voter poles, and his re-election champagne.

  Which was a no brainer—he was the Mayor of our fair city, and running a city the size of Tempe was more than just a part-time job. And that was on top of his legal practice.

  But none of that mattered. What mattered was that my husband didn’t want me. I was certain he’d wanted me madly when we’d met in college—I was taking a double major in economics and literature, he pre-law. We could hardly keep our hands off each other. And then came marriage, and we were so very, very happy.

  We’d gotten everything out of life we could have ever wanted, including a beautiful little girl…

  Emily…

  But leukemia stole her away from us. Ripped her life from our grasps in one short year, and left a gaping hole ever after. Tom had poured himself into his work…I cleaned, and cleaned, and cooked and volunteered at the homeless shelter, the public library…and I cleaned some more.

  That was something I could control, so I did it as much as humanly possible.

  Now I was thirty-nine years old, Tom forty, and I couldn’t be sure my husband loved me anymore. He liked me; that was still true. But I didn’t know if he was still in love with me. And that hurt.

  Mostly because I was still madly, passionately in love with him. I just couldn’t push myself on him to show him. It would be too humiliating. It would be a blow to my shaky self-esteem that I didn’t think I’d rebound from.

  Especially if he rejected me…

  I shook all these thoughts out of my head. I needed to get cracking on my list of chores: laundry, cookies for the church bake sale tomorrow, cleaning the oven and the refrigerator. And after I did those I had a shift at the homeless shelter to take care of. That I did to help—to help the poor lost souls that clung perilously to life there, and to help Tom look good. The time I spent at the library, those volunteer hours were all for me. They were what meant more to me than anything anymore. I would die happily surrounded by old, musty books one day…since fat grandchildren weren’t in the cards anymore.

  I grabbed the laundry basket I’d set by the door before I changed the sheets on the bed…and that’s when the central air conditioning kicked on…and then just screeched and kicked off. I stood very still, listening to be sure. I set down the laundry basket and went to the thermostat at the end of the upstairs hallway. It read seventy-two degrees. That was the temperature Tom preferred. I hit the down button until the temp was at sixty-eight degrees. And then I waited. Nothing happened. And just then I felt sweat break out on my lower lip and forehead. Tom sauntered out of the bathroom, dressed in muted gray suit pants, with a silver silk shirt unbuttoned and exposing his chest.

  I gasped at how in shape Tom was now. He’d always taken good care of himself—much better care than I’d
given myself over the years—but now he had cut muscles on every angle of his powerfully build torso. And his smooth, tanned chest made my tongue hungry to lick his flesh—just as it had back in those first years in college.

  Tom looked at me and flapped the open silk shirt in front of him. “Did you turn the air conditioning off?”

  I shook my head, tried to speak and had to cough to get my throat to work again. “I think the central air just died.”

  “Shit!” he groused. “We’ve got the Tomolsins and Jenkins coming over for dinner day after tomorrow.”

  I wanted to reach out and touch the beautiful flesh of his chest so badly. It glistened from the moisture of the shower…or was it a thin sheen of sweat. But I just couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted him, or how much I hungered and ached for him, I would not beg my husband to touch me.

  I wouldn’t live through the humiliation.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said, dragging my gaze from his glorious chest, until I was looking into his gun metal gray eyes. When he was angry, light seemed to flash behind those eyes like lightning through thunder clouds. “I’ll make it my number one priority.”

  Tom swiped the sweat from his brow, and then rubbed the back of his neck. He smiled at me. It was the first smile he’d given me in…longer than it had been since we’d last had sex. He looked so…grateful. He looked like the young man I’d fallen in love with the first time we’d met.

  I suddenly wanted to slap him…but I couldn’t begin to fathom why. He was my husband, my first true love…the true love I still loved. Why would I suddenly have the urge to hurt him?

  He came closer and leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, his strong, warm hands grasped my upper arms. He smelled so deliriously good. But the kiss was chaste, and all too short. And just like that Tom turned and walked away, back into the bathroom. I watched him button his shirt, tuck it into his slacks, and then expertly knot his tie. It was silver and gray, with tiny blue dots.