Page 28 of Mr. North
Raphael moves subtly from one foot to the other. He scratches his chin, angling his head down, then he slowly slides his own VR glasses off, turning it over in his hands, studying it with enough intensity to melt the damn plastic. “Our bodies are aligned, Beth. You can feel the connection pulling taut between us every time you’re near to me. Don’t tell me you can’t. Don’t deny something so obvious.”
“So what if I do feel it? It doesn’t mean anything, Raph. We’re from different worlds. Our lives are polar opposites. I’m not just going to—It’s not as if I can just—”
Raphael holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Our worlds are one and the same. We’re just people, Beth. Who’s told you we can’t be together? Who’s told you we can’t make this work?”
“Common sense—”
“Fuck common sense. You want me, Beth. I can feel it pouring off you like wildfire. I can fucking smell it. I want you just as badly. Come downstairs with me. I want to show you something.”
“I think I should probably go home. It’s late, and we’ve both got a lot to think about.” I certainly have. I’m going to be thinking about this all night. For days. I’m not going to be able to think of anything else. Raphael shakes his head, his eyes narrowing. He crosses the room, packed muscle shifting over bone, veins standing proud in his corded arms, and the way his eyes flash makes my stomach twist and turn. Fuck. He is so goddamn sexy. Sexy isn’t the right word, though. The energy that pours off him is primal. Base. Deep and penetrating. He may be wearing an Armani shirt, the buckle of his belt may be an understated Tom Ford logo, and the shoes on his feet might have been handmade in Italy, but at his core, all the trappings and fixings of being wealthy mean nothing, because he is raw . He is wild. He is savage, and he is walking toward me with a look on his face that says he wants to eat me. Raphael flexes his hands, turning them to fists, and he smiles, flashing me perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth.
“Stop over thinking things and come with me,” he says. He’s clearly used to people doing as he commands them; he doesn’t wait to see if I’m going to do as he’s asked. He walks right past me and disappears down the hallway to the left. I look around the VR studio for a second, my heart doing backflips all over the place, and then I walk slowly down the hall behind him.
What the hell am I getting myself into? I should have left the moment his arrogance level jumped from a three to an eleven inside the VR simulation. I should have been home hours ago, it’s late, and I’ve had more than enough wine. I’m not in my right frame of mind, clearly. I need to leave. I need to go home. And yet I keep putting one foot in front of the other, left, right, left, right, left, right, and with every step I feel as if I’m growing closer and closer to something dangerous. Something…wicked. “Don’t go to strange places with strange men, Beth. Don’t follow blindly. Don’t go into the dark.” Usually my mother’s words, rattling around the inside of my head like a screw in an old tin can, are enough to stop me dead in my tracks, but not today. In my mind, I close a hand around the words until I can’t see them anymore, until they grow smaller and smaller, shrinking, their importance evaporating. I’ve never done this before; I’ve never purposefully tried to shut out Mom’s warnings. Doing so would never have felt safe, but the interactions I’ve had with the other men in my past have been very different to this. I’ve looked into their eyes and not been able to break through their walls. I haven’t been able to decipher the true meanings behind their pretty words. I’ve never found anyone quite as honest and straightforward as Raphael North. When I look at Raph, I don’t feel that way. I see plenty of hurt, yes. Plenty of pain.I can see it all reflected inwards at himself like a mirror, though, not projected outwards at the people around him. He’s unlike any other man I’ve ever met. I know he won’t hurt me. I know he won’t drag me to the floor and force himself on me. I know he will never take anything from me, be that my emotions or my body. He just swore he wouldn’t. And I believe him.
Raph stops in front of one of the many doors that line the hallway. Nothing marks it as special or any different than the others, but it is. I know there’s something waiting for me behind that door that I’m going to find confronting. He stands perfectly still with his hand on the polished brass doorknob. He turns his shoulders, angling his body towards me, and he looks me dead in the eye. “Don’t run,” he tells me gravely. “Stay with me here and experience this. I just want you to see it. I want you to go away and think about it. I want you to spend some time imagining what it would be like to walk into this room and…participate .” He hovers over that last word, and I can tell: the idea of my participation, whatever and however that may be, excites him. Shit. There’s something very intriguing about this, though. I don’t want to be intrigued. I want to be disinterested. I want to be smart, more importantly. A part of me needs to know what lies on the other side of this door. I’ll forever be curious otherwise.
The idea of facing my fear in this particular situation feels very freeing to me. The concept of being free is more than a little appealing. I’ve lived a life overshadowed by fear. I’ve been crushed under its boot heel, unable to form normal relationships or connections with people because of the constant warnings from my mother. While every single one of my friends in high school were going out on dates, kissing boys, eventually losing their virginities, I was huddled under a blanket in my bedroom, biting the insides of my cheeks until they bled because I felt wrong and dirty for wanting the same things. Years have passed, and I’ve overcome so many of the obstacles in my life. I never thought I’d be able to maintain a relationship with a guy or have sex, but I managed to make that work with Robson, my ex, for three years. I can sit alone on the subway now without breaking out into a cold sweat whenever a guy sits close to me. These are huge accomplishments, and yet I still wake up some nights covered in sweat, imagining myself in my mother’s place, pinned down and unable to move as a faceless stranger pushes my legs apart and steals my dignity from me. What would life be like without that dark seed of rot twisted around the very root of my being? What would it be like to truly be free of that terrifying, awful day?
I take a step forward, nodding just once. “Okay,” I tell Raphael. “Show me and let’s get this over with.”
Raph’s smile turns wolfish. I’ve pleased him. Slowly, his hand turns on the brass doorknob and the door swings open. Gesturing into the room beyond, Raph steps back to allow me past him. “After you.”
My head is pounding as I slip into the silent, dark room. It’s a relatively small space—I can tell even with the lights turned off. The sound of my rapid breathing is muffled in here, like the walls are close at hand and growing closer by the second. My eyes are beginning to adjust to the darkness when Raph throws a switch behind me and a small sconce on the wall blossoms with light.
My feet are suddenly glued to the floor. The room is empty bar a single chair in its center. No windows. No pictures or paintings. No mirrors, even. There’s nothing in here except the chair…and it is no ordinary chair. My fingers subconsciously rise, touching nervously at the base of my throat.
“What is that?” I ask quietly.
“I had it made specifically for you,” Raph answers. His voice is like crushed velvet, stroking down my back, in between my shoulder blades, making me shiver. “I wanted something special in here. Something only for you. Well. For you and for me.” Raph walks around the chair, standing behind it, placing his hands on the low slung back. “This chair was designed to restrain you while I fuck you. It can be configured in many different ways. For instance, with your legs held together…” He adjusts a small lever to the left hand side, and the polished brass stirrups at the base of the chair snap together, locking into place. “I can have you laying flat on your back if I want to,” Raphael says, lifting another lever underneath the seat of the chair, so that it pivots back, snapping home. “I can tie you at the wrist and ankle using these cuffs,” he says, pointing to the flash of gold at each side of the chair, low down, close to the floor. “I can also tie your hands behind your back and fasten them to this,” he says, showing me a small length of slender chain attached via a bolt at the very back of the seat. “There are many ways I can use this chair to fuck you, Beth. Once you sit in it, you hand yourself over to me. You’ll be making a very clear statement. You’ll be telling me that I have your permission to use your body as I see fit. You’ll be telling me you’re ready to overcome the thing that frightens you most. You’re entering into a contract of sorts. You become my submissive, and I become your master. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
God, where is all of this coming from? I look down at the chair, swallowing hard. It’s mostly constructed from wood, beautifully crafted, but there are areas of deep red silk here and there as well—on the leg braces, on the seat and the backrest, as well as lining the brass cuffs. It’s a thing of beauty, really, a work of art, and yet when I look at it I find myself shaking. So many ways for him to restrain me. So many ways for him to lock me into place, to make me vulnerable. It would be impossible to escape from this chair. If I sat in it and entered into that kind of agreement with Raphael, there would be no backing out. “Why did you have this made?” I whisper. “Why would you assume that I want to have a sexual relationship with you, let alone one…like…this ?”
Raphael isn’t wounded or embarrassed by my question. The way he looks at me makes me feel like I should be the one who’s embarrassed. “You came here to play chess with me, Elizabeth, not to play hide and seek, or Guess-What-Elizabeth’s-Thinking. You’re horrible at hiding your feelings. I saw the look on your face the very first time you thought about me pushing inside you and it made my dick hard. It made your pussy wet, too. You can’t deny it. I could fucking smell how turned on you were.”
Shame rocks through me, hot and overwhelming. When did I imagine him inside me? At what point during our interactions did I allow myself to picture that? I know in my heart that it’s happened. I would only be lying to myself if I tried to deny it. But why the hell would he say something like that, though? A polite person would never give words to something like that, even if it really did happen. It would be far too embarrassing for the other party.
“Why are you blushing?” Raphael demands.
“Because! What you’re saying. It’s…it’s…”
“Rude? Politically incorrect? Fuck that, Beth. Why should I be politically correct? The scent of your arousal teased the back of my nose and it made me feel fucking good. That’s all there is to it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and I’ve had some really important mergers to concentrate on, Beth. Really, it’s you who was rude by distracting me like that. And you’re doing it again right now.”
Shit. Shit, fuck, damn. He’s right. I am turned on. Despite how absolutely terrifying this chair is to me, all this talk of him fucking me has had my insides twisting into knots. I can’t smell anything. I can’t imagine what Raphael thinks he’s smelling, but by the way his nostrils are flared and his pupils are dilated, it must be pretty damn hot. “You said I wouldn’t have to participate today,” I say shakily.
Raphael nods. “Of course you don’t. You never have to participate if you don’t want to.”
“So then…what happens to the chair if I don’t ever want to use it?”
Raphael shrugs nonchalantly. “I’ll burn it.”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone else to sit in it.”
He shakes his head slowly, his green eyes flashing with something like annoyance. “I wouldn’t do that. This was made for you. It’s measured to your body. No one else would fit it correctly, the way you’re meant to. And besides, Beth, that would be pointless. This is your fear. This is the mountain you need to climb. It would make no sense for someone else to face it.”
He’s right, of course. What would be the point in him tying someone else up in the chair, when they would probably relish the experience? They wouldn’t be challenging themselves for him. They wouldn’t be earning his attention and affection, which is clearly what he wants. The idea of sitting in the chair, allowing the circlets of metal to close tight around my wrists, allowing myself to be strapped in at the ankle and the waist, is making me feel very claustrophobic.
“You’re talking yourself out of it. I can see it in your eyes,” Raph tells me.
