Hold Me Close Read online

  prologue

  The hum and the sting.

  The artist bent over my wrist, tracing the outline of the simple design with the needle, the gun. Filling in the lines with ebony and shadows. My skin soaked up the ink in a way that made the girl murmur appreciatively.

  “This is going to look great,” she told me. “Super fucking cool.”

  It hurt. Of course it did. Tattoos always do—it’s not like they’re licked on by baby unicorns with tongues made of kittens for fuck’s sake. I had two others, a small Jewish star on my right hip and a somewhat-but-not-entirely regretted tramp stamp of a flaming sun on my lower back. This one on my wrist burned worse than the others had. Ink always hurts, but it’s a clean sort of pain. An on-purpose ache that lingers when the tattoo is finished and healing, and sometimes even long after, like your skin forever wants to remember how it felt to be so marked.

  “What do you think?” She sat back and wiped my skin again of any excess color.

  I didn’t need a mirror to see the inside of my left wrist. I’d picked that place because I would always be able to see it, whether I wanted to or not. The design there, no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, was simple. Black and gray. Stylized lines and curves that nevertheless clearly made a picture. The skin around the edges of the design was still a little raised and red the first time I saw it. Still stinging. Looking at it would always sting.

  “Why a rabbit?” she asked with a tilt of her head. “I don’t usually ask, to be honest. I mean, it’s personal, yeah?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And far be it from me to judge,” she continued. “I mean if you’d wanted a butterfly or a fairy or a flower, I wouldn’t even ask. But a rabbit’s cool. What’s the significance?”

  “It’s so I don’t forget,” I told her.

  She grinned and didn’t ask me what I needed to remember. “Fair enough. You’re satisfied, then?”

  Satisfaction wasn’t exactly what I’d been going for. Pain and permanence, yes. An eternal reminder. But since I’d been given those things, and the design we’d worked up together was exactly as she’d drawn it, I had to nod.

  “Yes,” I told her. “It’s perfect.”

  1

  There’s something so lovely in the curve of a man’s spine when he is on his knees, head bowed, hands behind his back. The back of his neck, vulnerable and exposed. The splay of his toes pressed to the hotel carpet that rubbed at his knees and would scrub them briefly red. I would leave my own marks on him, careful to be sure they’d fade as fast as the rug burns. I couldn’t leave anything permanent on him. We’d agreed on that from the first.

  I didn’t want to hurt him much anyway. That had never been my game. A little sting, here or there. The slap of leather on his bare skin. The press of my teeth or scrape of my fingernails—those were things to make him shudder and moan. I would always rather get what I wanted by promising pleasure instead of pain. That was what worked for us.

  Esteban had been waiting for me in that position when I came into the hotel room. The lamps off, late-evening sunshine glimmering through the mostly drawn curtain providing the only illumination. He would’ve been willing to do the things we did with the curtains open wide, every piece of both of us exposed and nothing soft about it. I was the one who liked the lighting to be dim, unfocused. Dreamy. I found myself more easily that way.

  “I brought you a present,” I said as I shrugged my shoulder bag onto the desk. It clinked heavily, as I’d meant it to, so that he’d wonder what on earth I had for him inside it—and maybe be a little nervous.

  Esteban was not facing me, and he didn’t turn while I unpacked my bag, even though I could tell by the strain of his muscles that he wanted to. Desperately. I laid out all the presents I’d brought. Sometimes I had a plan for how things were going to go on our monthly dates. Carefully constructed scenes I worked out thoroughly in my head so I could be sure to get it all right. Not today, though. Today I felt ripe with possibilities I’d not yet even considered.

  With a hand behind my back to hide what I held, I took a seat in the chair in front of him. I let my skirt ride up a tiny bit to tease him with the glimpse of stockings beneath. I put one high heel between his knees, my shin grazing his inner thigh.

  He smiled, but didn’t move. His mouth was a little wet from where he’d licked his lips. I leaned and cupped his cheek, and he nuzzled into my palm.

  “My good boy,” I murmured. I held out the small box that had once held a bracelet. “Open.”

  He took the box from me and sat back on his heels to pull off the lid. Inside, a coiled black ribbon. He shivered a little when he took the satin from the box, letting it trail over his hands and wrists. He looked at me, and I tugged the end of the ribbon to wrap it around his wrists, now crossed in front of him, not too snug. There was enough ribbon to go loosely around his neck, too, and to loop down around his already hard cock.

  “I thought it would be something...tighter,” he said in that delightful accent that never failed to trigger a shiver of my own. “So I couldn’t get away.”

  “If I need more than this to bind you, then I might as well go home right now,” I said.

  Esteban shuddered, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. When he opened them, his gaze had gone dreamy and dark. Several beads of sweat had gathered on his upper lip, and his tongue dipped out to taste them.

  I loved seeing how my simple words affected him. I leaned to nuzzle the corner of his mouth, close enough for intimacy, though we never kissed each other on the lips. It was another of our rules, this one unspoken but never broken. I stroked a hand over his dark hair and let it linger on the back of his neck, feeling the muscles bunch and pull at my touch. I let my mouth travel along his jaw to his ear.

  “Open,” I said again, not meaning a box this time.

  Esteban opened his mouth at once. Obedient. Willing. Delicious and beautiful and, for the moment, mine.

  I slipped my first finger into his mouth. He bit playfully; I took him hard by the chin to make him go still. He gave a soft sigh-moan, so I gripped him a little harder. I pulled his face toward me, teasing him with the promise of a kiss we both knew would never come—but that was part of what worked for us. That promise, that denial.

  I ran my wet finger down his chest and circled the head of his erection, which was tapping his belly. When he strained toward me with a small growl, I gripped him tight and said into his ear, “Hush.”

  He did at once, my good boy, his cock throbbing in my hand. I put my fingers in his mouth again, and this time he didn’t bite but instead wet them eagerly for me. I stroked his ribbon-bound cock again with slick fingers, slowly, then moved my hand down to cup his balls.

  “Tell me what you want.” Sometimes I made him send me a list of things he fantasized about beforehand, though I hadn’t this time. And I asked without any intention of giving him what he wanted, which we both knew. Yet today, without a plan, restless and feeling caged by work and family and life, I was curious to see if what he asked me for was something I would give.

  “I want to kiss you,” he told me, “there.”

  “Here,” I replied, easing up my skirt to show him a hint of lace panties. I pressed my fingertips between my legs and raised an eyebrow.

  “Please,” he added.

  “Maybe.” I laughed at his frustrated expression. I leaned to take his face in my hands, looking into his eyes. “You are adorable.”

  He tilted his head, his eyes half closing for a moment. “I want to please you.”

  “I know you do. And I want your mouth on me—” I laughed softly again at his shudder. “But not just yet. Get on the bed.”

  Esteban blinked a few times, not responding immediately. I was ready for that, my hand already grabbing the ribbon tangled around his cock and tugging in sharp command. The tug wou