Page 27 of After Hours
Because, clearly, she was flaunting herself in a pair of yoga pants.
She didn’t really want talk about it. Zachary didn’t ask.
“We’ll start with some basic training and see where we end up,” he told her.
And it took her a couple of weeks to realize that when he saidtraining,he meant all kinds of training. He trained her in the gym, yes. But he also trained her — just as he’d promised— in exactly how to fuck him.
He sat with her she joined the Club, though she kept her profile in private mode. He still made her fill out the extensive questionnaire, filled with a great number of sexual acts or interests that Romily had never heard of. She filled in her lists and then she got to see his.
That initial question and answer period still made her shiver—happily—to recall, as Zachary had taken the time to explain the things she didn’t know. Then demonstrate some of the things hethought she might like, though not at the intensity he would if they were actually doing it.
By the end, she’d been so turned on she couldn’t see straight.
He’d taken care of that, too.
Zachary trained her to take his cock, in her mouth and in her ass. Every day, he gave her a little bit more. He liked to work on her cocksucking capacity while using ever larger butt plugs to warm up her ass, and Romily sometimes wondered what a previous version of her would say ifthisversion of her went back in time and told her how unbelievably hot it all was.
It turned out that she loved the things Zachary liked to do. She liked it when it was uncomfortable, or even hurt a bit, because she knew that whatever happened, it would end in another one of the impossibly intense orgasms he handed out like candy.
The man was a twisted, dirty purveyor of happy ever afters. Romily couldn’t get enough of him, or the way he touched her like he owned her—but, crucially, thought she was precious. Not a possession to be kicked around, but to be cherished, cared for, even fussed over.
It took her a solid month to manage to take the whole of his cock in her mouth and then halfway down her throat. When he finally came like that, she felt as if she’d won a prize.
Even more so when he rewarded her by burying his head between her thighs and licking her into one orgasm, complimenting her on gettingthat wetsimply because he’d come down her throat. Then he’d fucked her hard, from behind.
It took longer to fully take him in her ass, though he had a lot of tricks to help her along, from fingers to the butt plugs he seemed to have in a never-ending supply until finally, one day, he finished there, too.
When he flooded her ass at last, she came as hard as if he been buried deep in her pussy.
“You are a wonder,” he growled at her as he carried into the bathroom for the ritual washing he insisted upon.
Because you think this is all dirty?she’d asked once, slightly afraid that it would make him angry.
If he was angry, he didn’t show it.Because I like to take care of you, little bird,he’d said.That’s the whole point.He’d tipped her chin up so he could look at her intently.You need to surrender. You feel free there.
It wasn’t a question but she’d nodded anyway, feeling vulnerable and cut wide open?—
But Zachary didn’t see vulnerability as weakness. He treated it like strength. Like beauty.
That’s how taking care of you, in all the ways I take care of you—some of them more painful than others—makes me feel,he’d said.
Romily turned that over and over inside her head for days. It had never occurred to her that they could…matchlike that. That he couldneedthis thing they did as much as she did.
It made everything seem… luminous.
Even this gritty neighborhood in the damage of Oakland.
He liked that she had her therapy sessions, but he didn’t like that she otherwise hid on her boat because she had only so much money. And for other reasons.
It turned out that Romily didn’t much like it when Zachary didn’t like something, so when he announced to her that she could take over reception for the gym, she accepted it.
“You don’t really need a receptionist, though,” she said.
He gazed at her, standing in the middle of the gym floor late one night, because he’d decided they needed to lift a little. There were weights scattered all around, but she knew how to use them now. The paraphernalia of stripped-down gyms like his didn’t scare her anymore.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he replied with a laugh. “I’m good at managing a lot of things, Romily. Obsessive, you might say.”
“Just a little,” she murmured.
