Sheer Discipline Read online

  “Landon.” I pressed my palm against his chest, feeling his heart beating steady against my hand. Whatever he’d been through was more than just his father’s rejection – there was something deeper to his pain, something he’d shut off long ago.

  He grabbed my wrists, his grip so tight that it hurt.

  But I stood my ground, staying still, taking the pain, letting him work it out on me.

  Finally, after a long moment, his grip loosened.

  “I didn’t think they were.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I met you.” He let go of my wrists and slid his fingers down my arms, over my elbows, up to my shoulders, his fingers massaging the back of my neck in slow circles.

  “I thought you said you could never love me,” I said.

  “I can’t.” He shook his head, torture in his tone. “At least, not the way you deserve to be loved.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re perfect. And I’m fucked up.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, and as he did, I could feel his cock between my legs, bumping against my slit.

  “I’m not perfect.” I closed my eyes, letting the realization of the words wash over me, wishing he knew just how true they were.

  “You are to me. Perfect. Pure. Untouched.” He kissed up the hollow of my throat, his lips tracing a line that punctuated each word. “You have already set my world spinning.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I said, but I knew what he meant. He’d already set my world spinning, too.

  He grabbed my hips and slid me toward him, and now the tip of his cock was right against my entrance.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know you. Not completely. But I know how I feel.”

  “If you feel that way, then why did you shut down like that?”

  “I shut down like that because I feel that way.” His hands tightened on my hips, his nails digging into my skin. “Jesus, Aven, you have no fucking idea what you’re doing to me.”

  “Tell me.”

  He tried to look away, but I touched his face, pulling it back toward me, forcing him to look at me.

  “I have this overwhelming need to protect you, to punish you when I feel as if you’ve done something bad, something that could put you in danger or take you away from me.”

  The head of his cock was flush against my opening, pushing against my clit, which was aching with need for him. The sight of his broad shoulders, the cords of muscles, the dip of his collarbone, the expanse of his chest would have been enough to turn anyone on. But to feel his hard dick against me while he talked about wanted to punish me was enough to make me feel as if I were on fire.

  “So punish me,” I whispered. “I want it. I need it.”

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “What I most need to protect you from is myself.”

  “Why?” I whispered, cupping his chin in my hands and rubbing my thumbs over his cheekbones. “Why?”

  He leaned forward, his forehead pressed against mine. His cock twitched and pulsed under the water.

  “Even now,” he said. “Even now, I can’t…” He trailed off in frustration.

  “You can’t what?”

  “I can’t fuck you without… without wanting to punish you, to belt you, to whip you for leaving me.”

  I scooted a tiny bit forward, and his cock breached my opening. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, you can.”

  “Aven.” My name was a half moan, half prayer.

  “Shhh.” I pressed my finger to his lips. “Shh. Just… just try. Just once.”

  I slid further, taking him inside of me, and he grabbed my hips, steadying me as he pulled me onto his lap, his cock sliding slowly, inch by inch until he was buried inside of me.

  “Aven,” he murmured against my lips. “God, Aven.” He began to rock me up and down on top of him, still totally in control even though he wasn’t beating me or tying me up.

  Instead, he rocked my hips, his lips finding mine, our tongues intertwining, rubbing and stroking as he fucked me.

  His hands tangled in my hair, tugging softly, using his strong grip as leverage as he guided me up and down on his cock.

  “Landon,” I called his name as I came, as I felt him pulse and spurt inside of me.

  And this time, when I collapsed on top of him, sated and spent, he stayed close, rubbing my back, letting me catch my breath before lifting me gently out of the tub.

  We dried off and dressed in the black satin robes Landon had packed for us, the material supple and silky against my raw skin.

  We ordered Chinese food, eating egg rolls and lo mein while we watched a silly action movie and talked about what we liked about New York. (Him, the energy and possibility, me, the bookstores and opportunity.)

  We fucked again before we fell asleep, soft and slow, his arms holding me tight, his legs entangled with mine as I drifted off to sleep.

  In the morning, we dressed and loaded our things into the car.

  As we pulled back onto the highway, paper cups of coffee we’d gotten at a drive-thru warming our hands, anxiety bloomed in my stomach.

  According to the GPS, we were two and a half hours away from Landon’s house in Vermont. Two and a half hours away from Violet, two and half hours away from whatever I was going to find there, whatever it was that Landon thought was better I hear from my sister.

  “You okay?” Landon asked, glancing over at me. The storm had stopped late the night before, and the wind had gone still. The snow had been pushed and wrangled into sparkling piles that lined the streets, the only sign of the storm that had raged the night before.

  Now the traffic was normal, the world resuming its pace as everyone returned to their daily activities.

  “I’m fine.”

  He reached for my knee, his hand tightening around it protectively. I swallowed and tried not to show how nervous I was.

  “What is Conner like?” I asked, knowing I would be meeting him in just a few short hours and wanting to know what I was in for.

  “Conner is… charming.”

  “Charming? Why does that sound somehow ominous?” I remembered again how I’d asked Landon if Conner was the one who he’d taken the blame for with the stalking, and my anxiety deepened. A surge of adrenaline shot through my veins, and my head felt light.

  “What is Violet like?” Landon asked, ignoring the question.

  “She’s fun,” I said, staring out the window and trying to settle myself as the landscape rushed by. “But not in the life-of-the-party kind of way. It’s more like she can make a good time out of anything. Like this one Thanksgiving we had at my grandma’s house– Violet and I snuck upstairs and played Uno while everyone else argued about who burned the turkey. And when we were younger, she was always coming up with the best ideas– makeovers, cooking competitions, turning our bedroom into a neighborhood library and lending books to all our friends.” I reached up and traced a melting snowflake that was sliding down the other side of the glass. “She’s not bothered by anything. Not like me. I can make a big deal out of the littlest thing, but Violet…” I shook my head and blinked my eyes, missing my sister so much it hurt. “Violet can make the biggest thing seem like nothing.”

  Something about this seemed to set Landon on edge. He took his hand from my knee and sat up straight.

  The relaxed, easygoing Landon who’d fed me Chinese food and held me all night was gone, replaced with the version of him that I knew better – the man who was cold and shut down.

  The car descended into quiet, and the miles slipped by.

  I’d thought that the ride would have felt like it lasted forever, the way it did when you were waiting for the last day of school, or for finals to be over.

  But instead, it was the opposite.

  The drive raced by, the road becoming less and less inhabited, the scenery becoming more rural, rockier, the snow banks that lined the sidewalks becoming higher and more frequent.

  The air around us grew misty with fog,
as if the snow had permeated everything, including the air.

  Landon pulled the car off the highway and onto a county route, then onto a side street, then onto a private road.

  There was a sign at the end of it, hung on a bare branched pine tree, the words RIDGEBURY etched elegantly into a slab of grey wood.

  We slid down the long road, which twisted and turned seemingly at random. Landon followed it expertly, not allowing the long branches of the trees that surrounded us on either side to scrape against his car.

  Finally, we got to a gate, with a keypad mounted next to it.

  Landon pressed his finger to the touchscreen. It lit up green, and the gate opened.

  It was another probably half mile or so past the gate before we got to the house.

  If you could even call it a house.

  It was more like an estate, one of those homes you heard about celebrities having, the kind with indoor tennis courts and saunas and sixteen bedrooms and twenty bathrooms.

  The house was majestic, the front of it made of grey stone. Two curved turrets rose into the air, one on each side, the tops swirling with fog. In the background, a mountain glistened majestically.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “This is yours?”

  “Yes.” Landon slid the car into park.

  I looked around at the driveway. There were no cars parked here, no sign of life. The house looked almost abandoned.

  I swallowed, suddenly nervous.

  What if Violet wasn’t here? Or worse, what if she was, and something had happened to her?

  “Aven,” Landon said, reaching out and taking my hand. His touch was a comfort, but something about the tone of his voice led me to believe that whatever he was about to say wasn’t something I was going to like very much.

  “Let’s go,” I said, stepping out of the car before he could stop me.

  He was behind me in a second, the car making that soft beeping sound, letting me know that he’d locked it.

  I climbed the steps, getting to twenty before I reached the long, wraparound porch. When I got to the door, my heart was pounding.

  I reached up and took the door knocker, which was heavy and brass, the S for Sheer visibly etched into its face.

  Then I thought better of it and rang the doorbell.

  It echoed through the house, reverberating through the door.

  “It’s my house,” Landon said, pulling a key off its chain and sliding it into the door. Another keypad was mounted next to it, and he put his thumb to it, waiting for it to flash green.

  It did.

  Landon turned the key and opened the door, calling his brother’s name.

  And after a moment, I took a deep breath and followed him…

  The End of Part Four

  Look For Part Five, Coming Soon!

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