Claudia's Surrender Read online

  “Promise?” she teased.

  “Just you wait right here,” he told her, patting her thigh. “I’ll be right back.”

  He’d done a lot of shopping that morning, and some of his purchases were still hidden in a kitchen cabinet, stashed in a bag. It had seemed like the safest place. Red didn’t seem to pay too much attention to the kitchen. She had a few pots and pans, a matched set of dishes and assorted silverware, but when he’d first peeked into her refrigerator he’d been surprised to find it almost empty. The freezer, on the other hand, had been stuffed with frozen meals. He guessed she used her microwave a lot. Since then, he’d been to every local grocery store, comparing prices and quality. Now, the refrigerator was well-stocked, and every evening so far he’d cooked a meal for the two of them. He had something special planned for tonight, but first things first. He retrieved the bag and placed it on the counter. Reaching in, he fished around until he found what he wanted; a pair of handcuffs in bright stainless steel. They weren’t the robust type favored by the police. In fact, they looked almost fragile, more like exotic jewelry, but he’d tested them and was sure that they would restrain Red quite suitably. Whistling happily, he went back into the bedroom.

  He found Red sitting up on the edge of her bed. She smiled when she heard him come in, and lifted her face for another kiss. He obliged her. “Think you can stand now?” he asked. He pulled the blindfold up and off of her.

  “I think so. Why?” She looked up at him warily.

  “It’s time for your shower, Red,” he grinned. He held up the cuffs for her to see. She looked them over and then smiled, half-turning so he could reach her wrists and untie them.

  He led her into the bathroom and helped her into the tub. Yesterday he had, after much searching and tapping, located a beam above the tub and screwed a long, heavy eyebolt into it. Red had noticed it when she’d come home, but she hadn’t said anything about it. Today, while doing his shopping, he had found a special spray attachment for the showerhead and installed it, then attached a length of chain to the eyebolt with a stout padlock. There was another, smaller padlock hanging from the end of the chain. He lifted Red’s shackled hands up over her head and secured her handcuffs to the chain with the smaller padlock. He had been careful about the length of the chain. She could stand comfortably the way he had her rigged. He also knew which link to run the padlock through to get her up on her toes, but that would be for another night.

  “What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked him as she looked at the new shower attachment. It was a long, flexible metallic hose with a wide spray nozzle on the end. The nozzle could be adjusted for anything from a fine spray to a solid stream, or adjusted for pulsing instead of constant flow. He was looking forward to experimenting with it.

  He stepped back for a moment just to enjoy looking at her. Her pose accented the long, lovely lines of her body. It flattened out the soft curves of her breasts, but that made her puffy pink nipples, already erect with anticipation, stand out more boldly. She turned a bit, and he let his gaze rest on the ripe swelling of her hips. The gaze stay there long, because the coppery, silky tuft at the join of her thighs, as always, fascinated him.

  “Sam,” Claudia said quietly, smiling. “Are you going to give me my shower or not?” She didn’t mind him staring at her body like that. In fact, it turned her on, especially with that hungry, yearning look in his eyes. But she’d gotten a good look at the new shower toy he had installed and she was really curious to see what it could do…or more exactly, what he could do with it. She could feel her own hunger building.

  “Oh…sorry,” he shook his head, grinning, and turned on the water, testing it with his hand until he had the temperature just right…for his purposes. “All right, Red,” he said, straightening up. “Here we go.”

  Chapter Two

  Sam didn’t chain her up for dinner. As much as he enjoyed hand-feeding Red, he liked watching her eat on her own just as much. She seemed to really like his cooking, which he found gratifying, but it might also be because left to her own devices she just nuked herself a frozen meal. Maybe she wasn’t much of a cook.

  He liked to keep her naked, but she often complained that he kept the air conditioning set too low for her to be completely comfortable that way. They had agreed on a compromise. He’d bought her a fluffy white terrycloth bathrobe to wear whenever he did not bind or chain her. It was a size or so too large for her. When she stood, it fell almost to her ankles, and she could never belt it securely enough to keep him from getting tantalizing glimpses of a breast or a thigh whenever she moved. Sometimes, that was a lot sexier than complete nudity.

  He wasn’t eating at the moment. He found that his hunger just to watch this woman was greater than his hunger for food. At the moment, she was too busy eating to notice, stoking her splendid body. She really did remind him of a thoroughbred, he thought: Spirited, strong and vital.

  Claudia noticed him staring at her and paused with a forkful of that delicious, spicy pork halfway to her lips. He had an odd look in his eyes. It was partly that familiar hungering look of his, and partly…something else.

  “What?” she asked. She looked down quickly to see if she’d dropped any food onto her snowy-white robe.

  “Nothing,” he shrugged. “I just like looking at you.”

  “While I’m eating?”

  “While you’re eating, while you’re sleeping…just about any time.” Claudia felt herself blush, and she saw his grin widen.

  “That’s not nice,” she admonished him with a grin of her own. “Now I won’t be able to eat any of this meal with you staring at me.” She lifted her fork to her mouth. She didn’t know what he’d used to season the pork, but it had an aftertaste that tingled.

  “Sure you can,” he smiled. “You’re a strong woman. And anyhow, the food is way too good to let it go to waste.”

  “Is it indeed?” She stabbed one of the buttery small potatoes with her fork next, then stared at him as she took a dainty bite out of it. She could eat with him staring at her after all, she thought, if she was staring back at him while she did it.

  “It is indeed,” he replied, returning her stare as he lifted his own fork to his mouth.

  It became a game between them then, to eat their respective meals while staring intently into each other’s eyes. Blinking was allowed. Further conversation was not allowed. Claudia began toying with her food, licking it, putting it slowly into her mouth and pulling it slowly out again. She knew she was teasing him by doing that, but she was trying to get him to laugh or look away before he could make her laugh or look away.

  Her plan did not work. It wasn’t until she’d finished her meal that she realized he wasn’t at all likely to look away while she was doing all those sexually suggestive things with her food. He was left with just one small potato left on his plate, and he tried to stab it with his fork while still staring at her with that ferocious and hungry gaze. He just missed. The potato skittered off of his plate, rolled across the small table, and bounced onto the floor. She completely lost it when he ignored all that and pretended to eat the potato anyway, never changing his expression.

  “Okay…okay…” she gasped, holding up a hand. “You win!” He started laughing. That set her off again. She laughed until her sides hurt and tears were streaming from her eyes. The next thing she knew, he was picking her up in his arms. He gave her a quick and awkward kiss…he was still laughing himself…and carried her out of the kitchen into her bedroom.

  “Mmmmm….” Claudia purred some time later. “That was very nice.” She slid her leg over his and laid her head against his shoulder. He didn’t always tie her up for sex, which she liked sometimes, but she had never in her life before made love while both she and her partner were convulsed with laughs, chuckles and, in her case, irrepressible giggles.

  He put his arm around her and held her close. “Red,” he sighed happily, “’Nice’ doesn’t begin. But you gotta watch those claws of yours. My back’s never gonna
heal at this rate.”

  She had to giggle at that. She hadn’t really scratched him badly this time. He’d been too quick to grab her wrists and pin them down once he’d felt her nails starting to dig into his flesh. At the time, that had set them both off on another peal of hilarity.

  This was the calm after the storm. She closed her eyes content now just to feel his nearness, his warmth and his strength. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I guess from now on if you aren’t going to tie me up or tie me down you’ll just have to let me get on top.”

  He grunted noncommittally and kissed her forehead. “Or you could wear mittens,” he suggested.

  “Gee…I don’t know…” she teased. “Wouldn’t that be kind of kinky?”

  “Mittens? Nah…” he replied sleepily. “Now, boxing gloves…THAT would be kinky.”

  They both laughed, but the wild storm had passed and this was just a last straggling squall.

  “Sam…” she said after a moment “I have to ask you…”

  “What?”

  “Back then…back at the bungalow…” she could feel herself blushing as she brought the subject up, and was glad that it was too dark for him to see it. “How…how did you know I would…go along with…all that?”

  “Ah, Red…” he chuckled and drew her closer. “My first clue was when you didn’t just run out of the place screaming. Course, I didn’t know you that well then or my first clue would’ve been when you didn’t start kicking all our asses.”

  “Come on,” she nudged him playfully. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I, Red,” he answered. “But if you gotta know, well, my second clue was your feet.”

  “My feet?”

  “Yeah. You were wearing some kind of sandals that day, and I got a good look at ‘em.”

  “What have my FEET got to do with that?”

  “Oh…” he yawned, “It’s just a little something I found to be a pretty good indicator. Your second toes are a little bit longer than your big toes. And you have very pretty feet, by the way.”

  She frowned. He was right about her toes…well, about their relative lengths, anyway. But was that really a clue? “You’re kidding,” she said.

  “I’m tellin’ the truth, Red,” he replied. “It’s not a one-hundred-percent-sure thing, but it worked for me before a lot more than it didn’t.” He chuckled. “I heard or read somewhere that those kinda feet were associated with werewolves. Given what you’ve done to my back already, I’m thinkin’ about tying you down REAL good come next full moon.”

  She tried to stifle a giggle and failed. Most of it escaped through her nose in an unladylike snort.

  “Does Dianne have the same kind of toes as I do?” she asked, tracing little circles on his chest with her forefinger.

  “I hope you’re not upset about that, Red,” he answered cautiously. “I told you, I was a little bit crazy then.”

  “Mmm…” she purred, digging her nail into him a little. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Red,” he sighed, “What difference does it make now? I came looking for YOU. I’m here with you now.”

  “Until when, Sam?” she asked. “Can you promise you’ll stay with me?” Her original impression of him, that he was not the kind to stay, had come back to haunt her. She could feel it lying between them now, even with their flesh touching, breast to chest, belly to hip, leg to leg.

  He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know, Red,” he answered at last. “My first thought is to make that promise, because it’s what I want to do NOW. But…” he shrugged “This is all kinda new to me. For two years, I kept thinking about you. I had dreams about you. And for the past year, any time I met a woman, I’d find myself comparing her to you sooner or later. They never came off well when I did that.”

  “But?” she prompted.

  “Yeah…but.” He nodded. “I thought I knew what I wanted, Red. Then I met you and after just a couple of days you walked away. I thought, well, that was fun and memorable, but she’s got other stuff to do and there’s lots of other willing ladies out there. Yep, they were out there, but none of them were you or even close to you. You ruined me for other women. I fought it, but I knew I’d have to find you again, and find out if you were what I remembered or just what I imagined.”

  “So, what am I?” she asked.

  “More than a little bit of both and a bit more than either. I’m glad I came looking for you.” He gave her a quick, one-armed hug.

  “But will you stay?”

  “What do you mean by that, Red? Stay for another day, another week, a month, a year, forever? I don’t know myself right now. This is all new to me.” He yawned. “What I CAN promise right here and now is that as long as I’m with you, it’ll be just you and nobody else.”

  She felt disappointed, and she wasn’t sure why. He was being honest with her, she was sure, but that wasn’t quite enough. What would be enough? For him to tell her that he loved her and he would never, ever leave? It would be nice to hear, but she wouldn’t believe him, not right now. He’d come halfway around the world to see her again, he’d told her, but he hadn’t once said he loved her yet.

  On the other hand…she hadn’t told him that she loved him either. Did she love him? She did not know. The sight of him always made her heart skip, but was that love…or lust? Or was it neither one by itself? This was as new to her as it was to him, she thought. It would not be fair to him to expect him to make a commitment that she wasn’t willing to make herself. She didn’t like this train of thought. It threw a big, wet blanket over all of the laughing and playing and fierce-yet-tender sex that had preceded it.

  “Just me? Only me?” she asked teasingly, changing the subject. “Even if Dianne comes to visit?”

  This felt way too much like walking into a minefield to him. Was there ANY safe answer to that question?

  “I gotta ask you what you mean by THAT, Red.” He knew that she and Dianne had “played” together more than once, but he was wary about this sudden change of course.

  “Well…” her fingernail was back to tracing swirls on his chest again. “Don’t most guys have fantasies about threesomes?”

  Okay…was this an invitation or bait for a trap? “I don’t know about most guys, Red.”

  “Come on…you’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”

  “Well, you’ve got me thinking about it now.”

  “And?”

  “And what? I’m just thinking…and I’m wondering why you brought this up.” He wished he could see her face, but all he could see was the back of her head as it lay on his chest, and it was too dark to see her expression anyway. Well, he wasn’t going to try to defend himself until or unless she attacked…if she was going to attack. He didn’t know, and not for the first time, he wished he had a better idea what went on behind Red’s lovely green eyes.

  “Anyway,” he said, stroking her hair. “Don’t women have fantasies about threesomes too?”

  She stirred, chuckling. “I suppose some do,” she replied. “But, you see, for a woman the fantasy is likely to be about two guys and a girl, not two girls and a guy.”

  “Is it that way with you, Red?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she suddenly rolled off of the bed and onto the floor. She struck a pose on all fours, her head up, her back arched. He could just make out her form in the streetlights that filtered through the drapes. As always, she was lovely.

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded playful again. “Now, how many cocks do you have, Sam?”

  “Just the one,” he chuckled. “Why?”

  “And with me like this, how many hot, wet holes do I have that you can stick that cock in?”

  Was this a trick question? “Three,” he said. He ought to know.

  “Right.” She bounded back into the bed and snuggled close to him, pulling up the covers. Well, it was a bit chilly in her apartment. “See,” she went on, “one man can only service one hole at a time. A woman might fantasize about two g
uys and two holes at once. But if guys are fantasizing about TWO women…well, aren’t they biting off more than they can chew?”

  “We’ve got hands too, Red,” he chided. “And tongues.”

  “Oh, my dear Sam,” she sighed, “They aren’t the same thing. They can be quite stimulating, but they just aren’t the same thing.”

  He still wasn’t sure what she was getting at, or even if she was trying to get at anything.

  “All right,” he conceded. “But what’s your point, Red?”

  “I thought I’d made my point.”

  “If you did, I missed it. Are you talking about having another guy come in?”

  “No,” she said without any hesitation. “I’m just talking about fantasies, and how they can be different for men and women.”

  “Oh?” he shifted into a more comfortable position, still holding her close. He loved the feel of her body against his, he loved the sound of her voice in the still darkness. “So what kind of fantasies do you have, Red?”

  “Don’t I still talk in my sleep?”

  “Not lately,” he said.

  She laughed, not loudly. “And does that bother you, my dear Sam?”

  “No,” he replied. It wasn’t a complete lie.

  “So…” she put her face close to his and kissed him once. “Shall I tell you some of my deep, dark fantasies?” She laid a slim finger across his lips before continuing. “Just remember…they might be my fantasies, but that doesn’t mean I want to act them out. I’m still getting used to you, Sam…and to me, all over again.”

  He kissed her fingertip before she withdrew it. “I understand,” he said. Should he have told her that now that he’d found her again he didn’t want to share her with anybody? Not even with Dianne? Would she have believed him?

  She took a long breath before beginning. “I have one, in particular, that keeps coming back to me.” Her voice was a low murmur, barely audible. She laid her head back down on his chest. He couldn’t see her face at all now, and wondered if that was deliberate. Was it easier for her to talk about this if she wasn’t looking at him?