Fifty shades of grey - 48 CHAPTER FORTY-EIGH

I frown—not hear him? How is that going to work? He turns, and I hadn’t noticed that above the chest is a sleek, flat, matte black box. As he waves his hand in front, the box splits in half: two doors slide open revealing a CD player and a host of buttons. Christian presses several of these buttons in sequence. Nothing happens, but he seems satisfied. I am mystified. When he turns to face me again, he wears his small I-have-a-secret smile.

“I am going to tie you to that bed, Anastasia. But I’m going to blindfold you first and,” he reveals his iPod in his hand, “you will not be able to hear me. All you will hear is the music I am going to play for you.”

Okay. A musical interlude. Not what I was expecting. Does he ever do what I expect? Jeez, I hope it’s not rap.

“Come.” Taking my hand, he leads me over to the antique four-poster bed. There are shackles attached at each corner, fine metal chains with leather cuffs, glinting against the red satin.

Oh boy, I think my heart is going to jump out of my chest, and I’m melting from the inside out, desire coursing through me. Could I be any more excited?

“Stand here.”

I am facing the bed. He leans down and whispers in my ear.

“Wait here. Keep your eyes on the bed. Picture yourself lying here bound and totally at my mercy.”

Oh my.

He moves away for a moment, and I can hear him near the door fetching something. All my senses are hyperalert, my hearing more acute. He’s picked up something from the rack of whips and paddles by the door. Holy cow. What is he going to do?

I feel him behind me. He takes my hair, pulls it into a ponytail behind me, and starts to braid it.

“While I like your pigtails, Anastasia, I am impatient to have you right now. So one will have to do.” His voice is low, soft.

His deft fingers skim my back occasionally as they work down my hair, and each casual touch is like a sweet, electric shock against my skin. He fastens the end with a hair tie, then gently tugs the braid so that I’m forced to step back flush against him. He pulls again to the side so that I angle my head, giving him easier access to my neck. Leaning down, he nuzzles my neck, tracing his teeth and tongue from the base of my ear to my shoulder. He hums softly as he does, and the sound resonates through me. Right down … right down there, inside me. Unbidden, I groan quietly.

“Hush now,” he breathes against my skin. He holds up his hands in front of me, his arms touching mine. In his right hand is a flogger. I remember the name from my first introduction to this room.

“Touch it,” he whispers, and he sounds like the devil himself. My body flames in response. Tentatively, I reach out and brush the long strands. It has many long fronds, all soft suede with small beads at the end.

“I will use this. It will not hurt, but it will bring your blood to the surface of your skin and make you very sensitive.”

Oh, he says it won’t hurt.

“What are the safewords, Anastasia?”

“Um … ‘yellow’ and ‘red,’ Sir,” I whisper.

“Good girl. Remember, most of your fear is in your mind.”

He drops the flogger on the bed, and his hands move to my waist.

“You won’t be needing these,” he murmurs, and hooks his fingers into my panties and sweeps them down my legs. I step unsteadily out of them, supporting myself on the ornate post of the bed.

“Stand still,” he orders, and he kisses my behind and then gently nips me twice, making me tense. “Now lie down. Face up,” he adds as he smacks me hard on the behind, making me jump.

Hastily, I crawl onto the bed’s hard, unyielding mattress and lie down, looking up at him. The satin of the sheet beneath me is soft and cool against my skin. His face is impassive, except for his eyes, which glow with a barely leashed excitement.

“Hands above your head,” he orders, and I do as I’m bid.

Jeez, my body hungers for him. I want him already.

He turns, and out of the corner of my eyes, I watch him saunter back over to the chest of drawers, returning with the iPod and what looks like an eye mask, similar to the one I used on my flight to Atlanta. The thought makes me want to smile, but I can’t quite make my lips cooperate. I am too consumed with anticipation. I just know my face is completely immobile, my eyes huge, as I gaze at him.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he shows me the iPod. It has a strange antenna device as well as headphones. How odd. I frown as I try to figure this out.

“This transmits what’s playing on the iPod to the system in the room,” Christian answers my unspoken query as he taps the small antenna. “I can hear what you’re hearing, and I have a remote control unit for it.” He smirks his private-joke smile and holds up a small, flat device that looks like a very hip calculator. He leans across me, inserting the earbuds gently into my ears, and puts the iPod down somewhere on the bed above my head.

“Lift your head,” he commands, and I do so immediately.

Slowly, he slides the mask on, pulling the elastic over the back of my head, and I’m blind. The elastic on the mask holds the earbuds in place. I can still hear him, though the sound is muffled as he rises from the bed. I’m deafened by my own breathing—it’s shallow and erratic, reflecting my excitement. Christian takes my left arm, stretches it gently to the left-hand corner, and attaches the leather cuff around my wrist. His long fingers stroke the length of my arm once he’s finished. Oh! His touch elicits a delicious, tickly shiver. I hear him move slowly around to the other side, where he takes my right arm and cuffs it. Again, his long fingers linger along my arm. Oh my … I am fit to burst already. Why is this so erotic?

He moves to the bottom of the bed and grabs both of my ankles.

“Lift your head again,” he orders.

I comply, and he drags me down the bed so that my arms are stretched out and almost straining at the cuffs. Holy cow, I cannot move my arms. A frisson of trepidation mixed with tantalizing exhilaration sweeps through my body, making me wetter. I groan. Parting my legs, he cuffs first my right ankle and then my left so I am staked out, spread-eagled, and totally vulnerable to him. It’s so unnerving that I can’t see him. I listen hard … what’s he doing? And I hear nothing, just my breathing and the pounding thud of my heart as blood pulses furiously against my eardrums.

Abruptly, the soft silent hiss and pop of the iPod springs into life. From inside my head, a lone angelic voice sings unaccompanied a long sweet note, and it’s joined almost immediately by another voice, and then more voices—holy cow, a celestial choir—singing a capella in my head, an ancient, ancient hymnal. What in heaven’s name is this? I have never heard anything like it. Something almost unbearably soft brushes against my neck, running languidly down my throat, slowly across my chest, over my breasts, caressing me … pulling at my nipples, it’s so soft, skimming underneath. It’s so unexpected. It’s fur! A fur glove?

Christian trails his hand, unhurried and deliberate, down to my belly, circling my navel, then carefully from hip to hip, and I’m trying to anticipate where he’s going next … but the music … it’s in my head … transporting me … the fur across the line of my pubic hair … between my legs, along my thighs, down one leg … up the other … it almost tickles … but not quite … more voices join … the heavenly choir all singing different parts, their voices blending blissfully and sweetly together in a melodic harmony that is beyond anything I’ve ever heard. I catch one word—”deus”—and I realize they are singing in Latin. And still, the fur is moving down my arms and around my waist … back up across my breasts. My nipples harden beneath the soft touch … and I’m panting … wondering where his hand will go next. Suddenly, the fur is gone, and I can feel the fronds of the flogger flowing over my skin, following the same path as the fur, and it’s so hard to concentrate with the music in my head—it sounds like a hundred voices singing, weaving an ethereal tapestry of fine, silken gold and silver through my head, mixed with the feel of the soft suede against my skin … trailing over me …  oh my … abruptly, it disappears. Then suddenly, sharply, it bites down on my belly.

“Aagghh!” I cry out. It takes me by surprise, but it doesn’t exactly hurt and tingles all over, and he hits me again. Harder.

“Aaah!”

I want to move, to writhe … to escape, or to welcome, each blow … I don’t know—it’s so overwhelming … I can’t pull my arms … my legs are stuck … I am held very firmly in place … and again he strikes across my breasts—I cry out. And it’s a sweet agony—bearable, just … pleasant—no, not immediately, but as my skin sings with each blow in perfect counterpoint to the music in my head, I am dragged into a dark, dark part of my psyche that surrenders to this most erotic sensation. Yes—I get this. He hits me across my hip, then moves in swift blows over my pubic hair, on my thighs, and down my inner thighs … and back up my body … across my hips. He keeps going as the music reaches a climax, and then suddenly the music stops. And so does he. Then the singing starts again … building and building, and he rains down blows on me … and I groan and writhe. Once again, it ceases and all is quiet … except my wild breathing … and wild yearning. For … oh … what’s happening? What’s he going to do now? The excitement is almost unbearable. I’ve entered a very dark, carnal place.

The bed moves and shifts as I feel him clamber over me, and the song starts again. He’s got it on repeat … this time it’s his nose and lips that take the place of the fur … running down my neck and throat, kissing, sucking … trailing down to my breasts … Ah! Taunting each of my nipples in turn … his tongue swirling around one while his fingers relentlessly tease the other … I groan, loudly I think, though I can’t hear. I am lost. Lost in him … lost in the astral, seraphic voices … lost to all the sensations I cannot escape … I am completely at the mercy of his expert touch.

He moves down to my belly—his tongue circling my navel—following the path of the flogger and the fur … I moan. He’s kissing and sucking and nibbling … moving south … and then his tongue is there. At the junction of my thighs. I throw my head back and cry out as I almost detonate into orgasm … I’m on the brink, and he stops.

No! The bed shifts, and he kneels between my legs. He leans toward the bedpost, and the cuff on my ankle is suddenly gone. I pull my leg to the middle of the bed … resting it against him. He leans over to the opposite post and frees my other leg. His hands travel quickly down both my legs, squeezing and kneading, bringing life back into them. Then, grasping my hips, he lifts me so that my back is no longer on the bed. I am arched, resting on my shoulders. What? He’s kneeling up between my legs … and in one swift, slamming move he’s inside me …  oh, fuck … and I cry out again. The quiver of my impending orgasm begins, and he stills. The quiver dies …  oh no … he’s going to torture me further.

“Please!” I wail.

He grips me harder … in warning? I don’t know, his fingers digging into the flesh of my behind as I lay panting … so I purposefully still. Very slowly, he starts to move again … out and then in … agonizingly slowly. Holy fuck—please! I’m screaming inside … And as the number of voices in the choral piece increases, so does his pace, infinitesimally, he’s so controlled … so in time with the music. And I can no longer bear it.

“Please,” I beg, and in one swift move, he lowers me back onto the bed, and he’s lying on top of me, his hands on the bed beside my breasts as he supports his weight, and he thrusts into me. As the music reaches its climax, I fall … free-fall … into the most intense, agonizing orgasm I have ever had, and Christian follows me … thrusting hard into me three more times … finally stilling, then collapsing on top of me.

As my consciousness returns from wherever it’s been, Christian pulls out of me. The music has stopped, and I can feel him stretch across my body as he undoes the cuff on my right wrist. I groan as my hand is freed. He quickly frees my other hand, gently pulls the mask from my eyes, and removes the earbuds. I blink in the dim soft light and stare up into his intense gray gaze.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

“Hi, yourself,” I breathe shyly back at him. His lips quirk up into a smile, and he leans down and kisses me softly.

“Well done, you,” he whispers. “Turn over.”

Holy fuck—what’s he going to do now? His eyes soften.

“I’m just going to rub your shoulders.”

“Oh … okay.”