“Thought you were too good to go to bed with me?” His smile has never looked fiercer. “Then you don’t get a fucking bed.”
He pushes me backward so hard I nearly fall. I stagger against the desk, and Jonah shoves my shoulders down so that I’m splayed on top of it. The wood is hard against my back. Both of his hands grip the top of my dress, and he tears it almost in two. Pink fabric slides down on either side of my body, exposing me completely to his contemptuous gaze.
It only takes one hand to rip my panties apart.
Jonah works so quickly that I only realize he’s putting on the condom when he’s done. His hands shove my knees apart, and then the head of his cock bumps against my cunt. I realize he’s teasing me with it. Making me more afraid. Making me want it.
He whispers, “This is what you get, bitch.” And then he thrusts inside, savagely hard.
Oh, fuck. Fuck. He’s so big—enormous—he’s splitting me apart. The pain is greater than the pleasure, and I push ineffectually at his shoulders. Jonah just grabs my hands and pins them against the desk.
Silver. The word floats up in my mind again, and I nearly say it. But that’s the moment when the pleasure eclipses the pain. Jonah’s cock feels so good inside me, filling me up completely, blotting out everything else in the world.
He starts to move—slowly, at first. Still teasing me. My legs fall apart even wider; my whole body is giving in to him. Jonah owns me now.
He’s speeding up, moment by moment. “You got what you deserved, didn’t you?” he pants. “Tell me.”
“I—I got what I deserved.” My voice sounds dazed, drunk, like it’s not my own.
“Thank me for teaching you a lesson.”
“—thank you—”
Jonah laughs. It’s a sound of triumph. Then he lets go.
I cry out again as he starts pounding into me, hard and fast and brutal. The desk shakes beneath me with each thrust. My breasts jiggle back and forth, and he stares down at them with undisguised satisfaction. The slap of his body against mine is as loud as it is savage.
The pressure and pleasure build inside me with every thrust. Every way Jonah’s hurting me, humiliating me, only makes it better. I push against his hands, not because I think I can get him to let me off the desk but because the fight turns me on even more.
This. This is what I daydreamed about. What I’ve gotten myself off to for years. A man claiming me, using me like an animal, just like Jonah’s using me now. Pumping into me harder, and harder, and harder—
A gasp, dizziness as everything else falls away, and then there’s nothing left of me but the orgasm that takes me over. I clench around him, arching up involuntarily into his thrusts, as the world goes black.
It’s never been this good. Never. Jonah Marks just made me come harder than I ever have in my life.
As I slump back onto the desk, reeling from pleasure, Jonah starts going even faster—so fast no man could hold back for long, and he doesn’t. In moments he’s shouting out, his eyes tightly shut, as his fingers dig into the soft flesh of my arms. His skin is as heated and sweaty as mine. He thrusts one more time, so deeply that he’s buried in me, then goes still.
For a few seconds we stay like that, breathing hard and barely able to move. Finally Jonah pulls out of me, tugs me up from the desk, and tosses me onto the bed. Like I’m something he’s done with and throwing away. I hear him sit down heavily in the desk chair, but I don’t turn to face him. I just lie there sprawled across the covers, completely wrecked.
Always, I believed that if I ever acted out my rape fantasy the way I wanted, this would be the moment where I started to regret it. My pride would return. I wouldn’t be able to believe I’d abased myself like this, that I’d let a man treat me like a possession he owned. No matter how good the sex had or hadn’t been, I thought, afterward I’d be so ashamed it wouldn’t be worth it.
I don’t feel ashamed. Not at all. Even sore and bruised as I am, I’ve never felt better. Jonah is exactly what I always wanted.
“Hey,” Jonah says. He’s himself again. Role-playing over. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I manage to roll over to face him. The remnants of my dress don’t cover my body at all, and I feel strangely shy in front of the man who just fucked me senseless.
I understand the impulse. In some ways, we’ve just seen each other for the first time.
“You’re sure?” He leans forward, though he’s careful not to come too close. Jonah is as sensitive to me now as he was brutal a few minutes before. I nod, and he frowns. “But you’re shaking.”
“—I can’t help it.”
He gets up from the chair. Jonah’s still mostly dressed—his shirt flaps loose on either side of that perfectly defined chest, and once he’s ditched the condom he tucks himself back into his boxers, zips his jeans. I can only lie there, boneless and exhausted, as I hear water running in the bathroom. Then Jonah emerges with a glass in one hand and one of the hotel bathrobes in the other.
“Come on,” he murmurs as he helps me sit up. He holds the tumbler for me as I take a drink of water, then sets it by my bedside. With gentle hands he pushes the rags of my dress off my shoulders and drapes me in the soft white robe.
I never thought Jonah could be this caring.
He brushes a stray lock of my hair from my cheek. “Was that what you wanted?”
“Yeah.” For the first time in my entire sex life, I don’t have to lie. “That was exactly what I needed. Like you read my mind. What about you?”
“You were perfect.”
His gray eyes meet mine. He doesn’t smile, but his expression somehow gentles. Jonah leans forward. I tilt my head to meet his lips in a kiss.
This is nothing like the searing, almost punishing kiss he gave me at the party. This is soft, even tender. He kisses me as though I were something fragile and precious, only moments after he treated me like a whore.
I will never understand the contradictions of this man.
Then he pulls back, and just like that, he’s cool again. He gets to his feet and begins buttoning up his shirt. It’s as if he has an appointment later.
“Are you staying in the room tonight, or do I need to get you a cab home?” Jonah’s voice is businesslike. Crisp.
I try to act casual. “I’m staying.”
“You had a few drinks at the bar. You should eat something. Feel free to charge dinner to room service.”
“I thought the guy usually bought dinner before the sex.”
If Jonah hears my joke, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He tucks in his shirt and glances in the mirror to check his hair. Some of my lipstick is smeared across his cheek. My torn panties lie crumpled on the desk; he uses the white fabric to wipe the lipstick away.
I feel stung. But why? Jonah and I agreed—the less we knew about each other, the hotter the sex would be. So far it’s been scorching; that means we must have been on to something. He’s playing this cool, and I should as well.
“Thanks,” I say as I fold the robe more closely around me and burrow back into the pillows. “I enjoyed this.”
Jonah looks back at me then, and he’s not quite as stiff as he was a moment before. “I did too.”
My body is still weak, but I have to ask, “Does this mean we’ll get together again?”
“You can’t get enough, can you?” He pauses for only a moment. “I’ll be in touch.”
With that, he’s out the door. I’m alone with my torn dress, my sore body, and the aftermath of the most exhilarating rush I’ve ever known.
• • •
The weekend I thought would be filled with regrets is instead the best I’ve had in a long, long time. Room service delivers an excellent steak that night and an even better omelet the next morning. I drive home to my house singing along to the radio. After I’ve thrown away the ruined dress and underwear and deleted those “fail-safe” e-mails unsent, I meet Carmen at the farmer’s market. She notices nothing but a small bruise on my arm that I write off to an accident in my art studio. That afternoon and evening, I’m even able to get some work done on my thesis. The distracting fever dreams of Jonah’s hands on my body—for now, at least, they’re at low tide. I’m completely sated, totally satisfied.