Bodhi Read online

  “We don’t have to keep talking about it now.”

  “You should see a therapist.”

  “I’m talking to you. You’re my partner.”

  “Sex partner. Life partner. This is something else.”

  “I know it's a lot to absorb in one night.”

  “I hold you down sometimes. Is that what you want? I’m not going to rape you.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “I’m rough. We have it good, ABS. Don’t mess with a good thing.”

  “Dell, I…”

  Maybe she’d gone about it all wrong or used the wrong tone with him. Maybe if she’d opted for the boobs she knew he wanted, he might’ve been eager to try something new or forbidden. Or maybe he would’ve taken her to a place where they could’ve watched and learned.

  And now here she was — watching and learning in a dungeon with a Dominant. A sadist. Someone who would strip away anything false and expose truth.

  Audrey would be the best pupil under the best tutelage. It had only been two days of being in the presence of this man. Did Gavin know she would fall down and worship him? Beg for his cock? Beg for his ministrations? Beg to be beaten and used?

  “How do you feel…” he asked, tapping her temple, “in here?”

  “Aware,” she said and paused. He seemed to be waiting for her to continue speaking. She swallowed. “Aware of my nudity. Aware of each nerve ending. The cold on my skin. The empty space between my legs. The ache in my arms, legs, and hands.”

  He traipsed a finger from the top of her spine to the top of her tailbone. “What do you feel when I touch you?”

  She blew out a breath and closed her eyes. "I feel alive. I feel fire." She believed this man could bring to fruition and then satiate the things she didn't even know she desired.

  As she’d spoken, he’d taken items from the wall. One was a flogger, and he started with that. He teased her at first, swiping the leather ribbons across her backside, explaining that he was warming the skin, and then he struck her, but it didn’t hurt. The material made contact with her back and ass many, many times, but it didn’t hurt. It lulled her into that place between dreaming and sleep.

  “What’s your word?”

  “King.”

  "I trust you’ll use it with me anytime you need to. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “The cane is a beautiful pain,” he said, trading the flogger for it, rolling it around in his palm.

  “Have you been caned?” she asked, craning her neck to try to see his expression.

  "Yes,” he replied without explanation. She could only see him out the corner of her eye. “A Dominant, especially a sadist, should always understand what it is he inflicts on others.”

  “But have you submitted?”

  “I have.” He touched the cane to her back.

  It was cool and firm, reminding her of bamboo. Its power was deceptive.

  “Who?” she asked, but then he struck her, and the blunt force on her buttocks took the breath from her lungs.

  “Count to six, Audrey. Give in to me.”

  He struck her right thigh.

  “One. Who?”

  He struck her left thigh.

  “Two. Who?”

  He struck her across the ass again, and she screamed and buckled. Tears began to fill her eyes.

  “Three.”

  “What’s your word?”

  “King.”

  “I'll push you far, Audrey. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Fucking say it.”

  “Y-yes. Yes, I understand.”

  “I trust you. Do you need to use your word?”

  “Please. No. Don’t stop, sir.” She sobbed out the words in broken syllables. “I promise.”

  The cane made contact, and she let out another yelp of self-discovery.

  “Count, Audrey.” Gavin’s breath was ragged. His voice like ominous clouds blowing across the sky.

  “Four.”

  Five and six came in quick succession, landing across both butt cheeks, leaving a trail of fire over her body she wanted to still feel and absorb when she lay in her bed alone tonight.

  Without warning, he dropped the cane, grabbed her hips, and entered her dripping warmth in one hard, vicious thrust, causing her to cry out in sheer shock from the force of it. His cock attacked her cunt like a starved hunter fighting for survival. The searing on her thighs and ass made for one hell of a cocktail.

  Sex and pain, lust and resurrection — with a twist. No longer separate. Always side by side.

  “Aware now?” he growled, thrusting in time with each word.

  Unable to answer, Audrey’s pussy surprised her by exploding around his cock, milking him.

  “Did I give you permission to come?” he hissed on his next powerful surge.

  “No, sir.” Her voice and limbs shook.

  “I should stop fucking your sweet hole and punish you, but this will be enough — fucking you raw inside your sore little cunt.”

  He pinched her clit despite his earlier promise, and she closed her eyes and cried at the contact. Reveling in the tears, she gave in to them, tasted them, wanted more of them, offered them on an altar for him.

  Her body screamed with pleasure, imagining the bruises and stripes he'd just inflicted, the vision already pushing her to the verge of coming again. He didn’t need to fuck her hard and fast. He only needed to hold his cock to the wall of her womb so she could absorb him into every fucking part of her soul.

  “Sir?” she asked on a sob, sucking in the tears, holding back the wave of the threatening orgasm. “Please?”

  “No.” He pumped her with a renewed violence. Slow, deliberate violence. She sobbed openly, loudly.

  “Please?” she yelled.

  “No!” he replied, fucking with so much intention, picking up speed, that surely his dick would pierce though her insides. “This fuck is for me. That is also your punishment.”

  The onslaught went on and on. Audrey’s mind went blank. Her throat dry. Only sensations. Bliss. Grass saturated from a hard rain.

  “You will say my name when I come inside you.”

  “Gavin,” she whispered. “Gavin...”

  “Tell me you’ll hurt for me. Tell me you’ll please me.”

  He hadn’t stopped his exertion. He maintained the pressure and pace.

  “I will please you, sir. I’ll hurt for you, Gavin. Please... I hurt for you.”

  She felt his knees buckle, heard his breathing change. He bit her shoulder as he poured his seed into her body, then slumped against her backside.

  Audrey glanced up. Darcy was in the room, near the doors, and she’d probably already locked eyes with Gavin sometime during the vicious lovemaking because she didn’t look fazed. Darcy had probably seen the whole fucking scene.

  “Go open up room six,” Gavin said to Darcy.

  He unbuckled Audrey and lifted her into his arms. She laid her head against his chest.

  “Look at Darcy,” he said as she began to pass.

  Audrey reluctantly shifted her head.

  “There’s nothing to hide from here.” He lowered his mouth to her ear, and whispered, “Soon I’ll have you in a room full of hungry people standing on the outside. And they won’t be hungry for food, baby girl. They’ll want you, your cunt. They’ll look at you like you’re the last meal on the face of the earth.”

  She buried her head in his chest.

  “Look at Darcy,” he repeated.

  As Audrey met her eyes, Darcy nodded in agreement and understanding.

  In awareness.

  And then they followed her to room six. Audrey didn’t even know if she’d seen room six before. During the tour, they’d all started to look the same.

  Gavin laid her on the bed, said things to Darcy Audrey couldn’t hear, and then he left the room. Audrey couldn’t move. The pain was isolated but radiated. Everything ached and stung. And her chest felt hollow. She wanted the aftercare from hi
m.

  The warm washcloth touched her skin first, then Darcy’s fingers. She consoled Audrey with creams and oils and whispers. Then Darcy fed her pain medicine and water.

  Afterward, Audrey finally managed to mumble, “Why didn’t he? Why isn’t he…?”

  “He…” Darcy began and stood, chewing on a fake fingernail — orange to match her new highlights. “He hasn’t topped anyone for months, kid.”

  Darcy covered Audrey with a blanket. “You need to sleep.” She brushed her orange acrylic across Audrey’s forehead, closing her eyelids.

  “Why?” Audrey croaked as Darcy reached the door, too sleepy and flying too high to consider her mixed bag of emotions.

  “Same reason he won’t do the aftercare, pet. He sets rules for everyone else but breaks them for himself.”

  5

  When Audrey awoke, Gavin stood in the white room, leaning against the wall with his damn biceps threatening to break through his motherfucking T-shirt.

  She could live on those arms. Forage there.

  “I’m here every day,” he said as their eyes met in some kind of brutal understanding — the way they had from the moment she’d first made connection with his perfect Copenhagen blue.

  “You told me.”

  “I own the place, Audrey. It’s mine. I write a blog. I teach classes. Do meet-ups. This is my life.”

  “I needed you,” she said as her voice cracked. The high was starting to fade. Her logic took over instinct.

  “I’m here now,” he exhaled the words, blowing out the regret and whatever else he held inside — the reasons for not topping anyone in months when he clearly needed a sub. And he ran the club? Owned it? Kate hadn’t been joking.

  “Who are you?” he asked, rubbing a thumb across her cheek.

  “What? You want to know my last name?”

  “I want to know everything,” he said, but then his phone rang, and his eyes went blank, or they held so much emotion he didn’t know where to put it. “I … I have to take this.”

  Audrey couldn’t help but glance at the screen, then he swiped the glass, said hello, and left the room.

  The blanket draped across her naked body suddenly felt heavy even though her feet and hands felt cold. Her clothes must’ve still been on the floor by the cross. And that was also probably where she’d left her phone…

  Audrey: I’m ready to go.

  She fired off the text to Kate from where she now stood in the main room, slipping her shirt over her bra.

  Kate: Already?

  Audrey: I have stuff to take care of, and Gavin got an important phone call.

  She finished dressing and shot off another text, one that might’ve been inappropriate.

  Audrey: I saw the name on his screen. Michael??

  Kate: I’ll be there in like twenty.

  “Hey, kid. You’re up,” Darcy said the moment Audrey entered the bar area. Her laptop was open on the counter, and her brows had been pinched in concentration as she stared at its screen.

  “Yeah.” Audrey shoved several strands of rather tangled hair behind her ear.

  “Listen … I hope you’re not embarrassed about what I saw.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I’ve seen plenty working here.”

  “I’m sure you have.” Audrey took a seat on a stool. “Do you play?”

  “Not here. Not anymore. It gets messy.”

  Audrey laughed.

  “You have a dirty mind.” Darcy tapped a fingernail to the tip of Audrey’s nose.

  “Isn’t that a requirement? One of the ‘rules’?” Audrey teased.

  “You hungry?”

  Audrey placed a palm over her stomach, chewed on her bottom lip, and looked into the distance.

  Darcy closed the lid on the laptop. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “He...” Audrey met Darcy’s violet eyes. They were rare and deep and concerned. “Gavin got a phone call … and he seemed—”

  “You want advice?”

  “You mean from, like, a bartender?” Audrey smiled.

  “From someone who’s known the guy too long.” Darcy put her elbows on the granite and leaned closer. “Don’t ask Gavin questions you don’t want the answers to.” She stared into Audrey’s eyes, seeming to want to make sure she received the message, then she stood tall again. “That should be at the very top of his list of rules.”

  “What should be, Darc?” Gavin scowled.

  “I think your pet is hungry.”

  “Kate will be here any minute,” she began as Gavin and Darcy’s eyes met, then parted. “I’m okay. I’ll pick something up.”

  “Come, Audrey,” he said as he walked off, his shoulders squared, seeming confident she would follow.

  He led her to a kitchen. It was commercial but small. Whatever was cooking smelled delicious. He grabbed a bowl and ladled thick, creamy soup into it.

  “I can take care of myself. I can feed myself, Gavin.”

  He lifted her onto the stainless-steel countertop, placed his hands on her thighs, and peered into her eyes. “Do you?”

  This was one of those times when his stare nearly blinded her — the blue so bottomless and dark, penetrating anything in sight.

  He took a breath, then spread her knees. Everything was slow and deliberate. Thought-out. Planned. He stared at her center, at the material of her clothing, at how he moved his hands, his thumbs. Then he slid the bowl closer and dipped the wooden spoon into it, scooping what looked and smelled like chunks of potatoes and tiny pieces of bacon.

  As he gently placed the warm concoction in her waiting mouth, she relaxed into his servitude, then fanned a hand in front of her lips.

  “Too hot still?”

  She swallowed the rest down. “It’s really good.”

  A devious smile lit his eyes, crinkling the edges of his lids. “You always seem to have cream here.” He wiped the corners of her lips.

  “Gavin…”

  “Say, ‘Thank you, sir, for feeding me.’”

  “Thank you, sir.” Her mouth went dry as she waited for his next move. His blue eyes combed her brown ones for an eternity.

  “Good girl,” he finally replied, his voice sounding hoarse with need.

  They were quiet as he fed her the remainder, using the same wooden spoon he must’ve stirred the pot with. The comfortable silence made each shift of their bodies and slurp off the utensil — each breath from their lungs — seem like its own entity.

  She’d never been cared for like this. Well, as a child of course. But the memory wasn’t there. And this one would never leave her.

  Her phone chirped as he washed the dish in the sink.

  “Kitten?” he called out over the faucet.

  “Yeah. Where did she get that name?”

  “She earned it.” He dried his hands and smiled. “She purrs.”

  Audrey smirked as she hopped off the countertop and went toward the door. But then she paused and glanced back at him — first tripping over the outline of his biceps but eventually finding his face again.

  “I’m not sure when or if...” She blushed.

  Gavin took a few steps, and now they stood about a foot or so apart. He folded his fucking godly arms across his broad chest. Audrey’s mouth started to water. He didn’t speak for a moment. He only stared intently at her heated face, her mussed hair, her sleepy eyes.

  “We play, Audrey.” His voice sounded cold, calculated. His eyes looked the same. She was beginning to learn she might never know what was a scene and what was reality. “This isn’t a date.”

  “I know. I … I’m sorry.”

  “Never apologize for saying what you feel.”

  “Yes, sir,” Audrey breathed out on an exhale, sounding as if she’d just released long-suppressed beliefs.

  His expression changed. His cold eyes looked warm and unfathomable even though she knew he tried to remain stoic. When she acquiesced to him, he had shifted though. And he should’ve been used to people obeying his comman
ds, falling at his feet. Audrey couldn’t figure out why he was so affected by a thirty-five-year-old woman who had no experience with his level of kink.

  And, no, it wasn’t a date.

  Because she’d never felt this strong of a connection with a man at a restaurant while trying to get to know him while also trying not to seem too eager to have sex.

  Everything in life was a game. There were just many different kinds. This sport with Gavin seemed easier. The rules were already set out.

  He made demands.

  She obeyed.

  They played.

  She could get what she needed, what she’d craved for years, and he would have his desires satisfied as well.

  It was perfect.

  Bodhi might very well live up to its name.

  6

  “Shut the fridge, Bryson.”

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  “Well, figure it out with the door closed.”

  Audrey swept past him and shut it on her way to the toaster, where she grabbed the bread, then buttered it.

  “Stop riding that thing in the house, Ricki,” Bryson shouted.

  “Don’t call me Ricki,” the younger boy said as he rode his skateboard to a halt in the middle of the kitchen. Rick was nine, and Bryson was twelve going on eighteen. The perfect gap, she’d thought, but it seemed now all they did was fight.

  “Mom, tell him to stop riding it.”

  Audrey put the toast on the plate by each egg, shut the fridge door again with her foot, and shushed them on her way to the table.

  “We’ll be late. Come eat,” she said.

  “I want cereal.”

  “Rick … come to the table.”

  He did, skateboard in hand, a scowl on his face, sitting down in a huff, a humph falling from his lips

  “Where’s your homework?” she asked.

  “I want cereal.”

  “Too bad. I want a maid and a cook.” She stood, scanning the room for any remnants of math pages. “Bryson, you have yours?”

  “Yeah, in my backpack,” he replied, scraping the last bit of egg and toast into his mouth. Slipping the bag over his shoulder, he took his plate to the kitchen, managing to kiss her cheek on the way.

  “Love you, baby.” She eyed him as he made his way to the front door. “Grandpa is staying this weekend. He’ll be here when you get home.”