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  Reunion Submission

  JB Brooks

  Samantha runs into Simon, her infuriating, irresistible high-school nemesis, at their reunion. Unbeknownst to Sam, he has been as obsessed with her for the last ten years as she’s been with him. When he declares his passion and demands she strip for him, she is forced to admit she might actually want to obey. And she cannot resist his masterful advances.

  A skilled and calculating Dom, he initiates her into an erotic seduction and submission that even her most vivid fantasies haven’t prepared her for.

  Inside Scoop: These two engage in a hot BDSM tryst, featuring a most creative use of lab equipment.

  A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Reunion Submission

  JB Brooks

  Chapter One

  “Sam, I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I froze at the sound of that smooth, caffè latte voice. I hated it. It rasped over my already edgy nerves and dragged me back ten years in time, to the last time I’d spoken with Simon Pierce, here in this very building.

  On the last day of school, the final hour actually, he’d cornered me in the narrow corridor outside the hall. He’d crowded me with his larger body and touched my breast. In distraught confusion, I’d thought he was going to kiss me goodbye. I’d wanted him to. But with a knowing look he’d pulled away and left me flushing with embarrassed disappointment and a message in black marker pen on my breast. Next Time, Simon.

  I’d felt that touch every day for the last ten years, my breath hitching in my throat, my nipple contracting under his hand. I still had the shirt too, because many of my friends had signed it and I couldn’t throw it away just because he’d spoiled it.

  I turned to face him now, hoping he hadn’t noticed me falter, and my gaze slammed into his winter-sky-blue eyes.

  Holy crap, he’d grown up in the last ten years, and what a job he’d done of it! He lounged indolently against a balloon- and streamer-festooned pillar, like a devil under a cherry tree. He was a devil—temptation and damnation in one fine package. His face, which held that perfect mixture of symmetry, hardness and sensuality, topped by sexy, curling dark hair, was the stuff that fantasies were made of—mine anyway. He’d been tall and lanky in high school, now he was tall and ripped. My eyes dropped to his throat, which, in my three-inch heels, was level with my face. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned and the loose ends of his bow tie hung on either side of the collar, framing a very masculine patch of tanned skin stretched over the powerful tendons of his neck. I registered the top of a tattoo peeking out, a hint of something dark, just above the second loose button, and my thought processes stuttered as every cell in my body responded to his fundamental sex appeal. Unfortunately I hated Simon Pierce.

  I’d been staring too long. I stepped back abruptly, trying to gather my wits, so that I wouldn’t have to look up so sharply to see his face. I was flushing and feeling like a fool. He’d always made me feel like a fool. But I really hadn’t expected to see him here. I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t thought it was safe.

  “Simon,” I said, forcing my voice to come out cool and low. Oh God, it was my sexy phone voice! What was I doing? “How unexpected.”

  He smirked, one side of his thin-lipped, mobile mouth twisting downward—who the hell smiled by pulling their lips downward?—and answered my unvoiced question.

  “I didn’t RSVP on Facebook. I phoned Jeanette last night to let her know that I was coming.”

  Damn, and I thought I’d been so clever, checking the RSVP list on Facebook and only posting my own reply late yesterday afternoon, when I was absolutely sure he wasn’t coming. I frowned. His statement implied that he somehow knew I’d been watching the posts. I hastily brushed aside that disturbing notion.

  “Last night? That’s very impulsive of you.” I tried to sound dismissive and maybe slightly mocking.

  “It wasn’t impulsive. I was waiting for some information.” He was studying me closely, intently, as if looking for some hidden meaning in my words.

  I felt a vague sense of unease at his quietly spoken reply. I took another step back, seeking a bit of distance from his disturbing gaze, and took a more careful look at him. He was an eyeful, literally. He was wearing an austere black waistcoat over his shirt, the snug fit of the vest molding his muscular torso, and his thighs were thickly outlined under the expensive cut of his tux pants as he stood with one foot crossed over the opposite ankle. I suddenly thought with shocking vividness of those thighs pushing in between mine, forcing me to spread so that he could reach my pussy. He’d have to split my legs so wide just to get inside me, I’d be pinned in place and open for him.

  To my horror my whole body flooded with arousal at the thought of being helpless under Simon, and I felt my cool facade rapidly slipping away as lust and alarm spread through me in pretty equal measures.

  Simon had been my nemesis all through high school. Good-looking and competent, he was every teacher’s darling in the classroom and every coach’s dream on the field. And he did it all with a sickening lack of effort. I had done well in school, always coming in the top three of my year, but I’d had to work my butt off to do it. And for all the hours of studying, the extra time spent on projects and research and the late nights slogging over my assignments, I’d never managed to do better than him. He’d always been one-up on me, congratulating me and commiserating with me in that voice, while I seethed with frustration. Although he always sounded so polite I could sense him mocking me, patronizing me, relishing our ongoing competition that he always won. By the end of high school I could hardly look at him without flushing with anger and my pulse racing, and speaking to him was almost impossible. I used to avoid him, but also spy on him all the time, watching him obsessively, until my friends thought I was crushing on him. The truth was that I couldn’t bear him.

  Toward the end of the twelfth grade I had begun to have fantasies about him. The theme was always the same. In my dreams he would fall in love with me. He would beg me to accept him, his feelings for me. He would bring me gifts and speak to me in his beautiful voice, telling me how he would love me forever, how he would look after me, give me everything that I could desire. I would dismiss him, coolly, with the same slight edge of mockery that he dealt me so often, and relish being the one thing that he couldn’t have, the one that he couldn’t win over. But sometimes, in my darkest imaginings, that voice would weave around me, whispering things that made me hot, made me twist in my sheets at night and cry out into my pillow. After those dreams I used to fear seeing him at school, as if I thought he’d know.

  “Excuse me,” I muttered, more to my partner Justin than to Simon. Flustered by the crazy responses of my body, which were totally disconnected from my brain, and the sense of déjà vu at encountering him right here in the old school hall, I needed to step outside for a minute to get over the shock of him actually being here.

  I was vaguely aware of Justin’s nod and sharp glance in my direction as he examined Simon with interest, and I darted out the nearest door.

  It wasn’t an outside door but one that led to a corridor inside the school block. I wandered down the corridor for a few minutes, hardly noticing the darkened classrooms, breathing deeply and telling myself to get a grip. Sure, he was super-hot but he had ruined my life in high school, so what the hell was I doing, thinking about being sexually dominated by him? It was so not me to even be thinking like that. I didn’t waste time thinking about sex, and I most certainly didn’t do sex!

  After a few casual boyfriends and one dismal sexual experience in a failed relationship at university, I had abandoned all thoughts of boyfriends and relationships and had thrown myself into my studies, finally achieving those first places that ha
d been denied to me in school. That had led to an equally demanding job in marketing, where I worked even harder. I now enjoyed a level of success that was unheard of for someone my age, but had no time for sex, which I thought of, vaguely, as something that would come after I made my career, found Mr. Right and settled down to start a family. For God’s sake, my idea of erotic bedtime reading was Business & Finance Weekly! But for some reason, never a day went by that I didn’t think of Simon in some way, or turn for a second look at a face on the street, which never turned out to be him.

  I found myself standing outside the girls’ bathroom, so I pushed open the door and went inside, smiling slightly when it made exactly the same squeaky groan that I remembered. The lights were off, as the reunion guests were all using the toilets off the hall, but I remembered where the switch was. I went into the end cubicle for a pee—I had always chosen this one. Our graffiti was gone, covered by coats of new paint, but I could remember exactly where I had scratched a heart with Simon’s name in it and a big jagged cross over it—I hate Simon Pierce.

  But did I? Or did I still? I’d always overreacted to him one way or another, but tonight was…different from when we were back in school.

  It was amazing how much more clearly I could think now that I was away from him. I pulled up my stockings and smoothed down my short black skirt, checking that my blouse was tucked in neatly. All the while I was rationalizing to myself. Obviously the emotions from seeing him again so unexpectedly had overwhelmed me and caused me to have some strange physical reaction, no doubt enhanced by the two glasses of champagne that I had consumed on an empty stomach. I had never been keen on surprises and I didn’t usually react well to them. Justin always teased me about being a control freak, which I thought was a bit harsh, but I did like to be organized. He’d even bought me that corny little sign, A Tidy Desk Is a Sign of a Sick Mind, which was hidden in the bottom drawer of my scrupulously neat desk at work.

  I’d had serious misgivings about coming to my high school reunion but curiosity had won out in the end. More rationalizing. Just because I found this grown-up version of Simon enormously attractive didn’t mean that I liked him. Just because no boyfriend who I’d ever had had measured up to him didn’t mean that I wanted him. I took another deep breath and smoothed down my outfit one more time. I had dressed to say “successful, no-nonsense businesswoman” and I knew that I looked good. I would go back to the hall, spend a little more time talking to some of my old friends who I had actually wanted to see, collect Justin and leave. I had no need to go anywhere near Simon again.

  I flushed the toilet, took my purse off the door hook and fumbled with the lock for a moment before remembering that it had always turned the wrong way.

  I stepped out of the cubicle and froze in shock.

  Simon stood at the end of the row of basins, his shoulder propping up the wall, a flute of champagne held lightly in one strong and elegant hand.

  “What are you doing here?” I croaked, distressed by the broken sound of my voice. I hadn’t even heard the door squeak when he came in. “This is the girls’ bathroom!”

  Even as I said it I knew how ridiculous it sounded.

  He was smiling again, the corners of his mouth tipping downward as he moved toward me, putting his glass down on the side of a basin.

  “I always wanted to get into the girls’ bathroom when we were in school,” he murmured, stopping just a little too close to me.

  I refused to back away and brushed past him to wash my hands at the basin. He moved up close behind me and we looked at each other in the mirror. I could feel heat radiating from his body, seeping into my back, and my own internal heat rose in response, spreading outward from my suddenly aching pussy. I was overcome with an urgent desire for him to touch me, anywhere, just so that I could feel his heat, skin on skin. Where was the calm deliberation that I thought I had achieved just a few short moments ago? I could smell his cologne, carried on the heat of his body, something expensive and a little intoxicating, which did not quite mask the smell of his skin, his hair, his breath, the maleness of him. My senses were so heightened in my hot, agitated state, almost animalistic in their intensity. I wondered if he was affected in the same way but his face in the mirror was impassive and gave no clue of what he was feeling or thinking.

  “Simon,” I said, my voice a rough whisper, “why are you here?”

  “It’s our ten-year reunion,” he replied, the same little smile tugging down the corners of those thin, sexy lips.

  “Don’t be glib!”

  He studied my face carefully in the mirror.

  “I am here, with you, in the girls’ bathroom, because I thought that we might be grown-up enough now to stop our little games and do something about our feelings for each other.”

  As he spoke he placed his hands carefully and firmly on my sides, just above the waistband of my skirt. Heat flashed through me at the contact even though my silky blouse was between us, and my internal muscles clenched frantically at the movement of his fingers against me. I could not make any sense of my reactions to him. I had never felt anything remotely like this before.

  “What feelings?” I gasped as his fingers traced and moved against the silk, drawing tiny circles on my ribcage.

  “Now who’s being glib?” he growled, his grip tightening suddenly. He yanked me around abruptly and dragged me flush against his body. He didn’t look quite so calm anymore—his eyes were flashing and his face was flushed.

  “This feeling!” His voice was a dry rasp and for some reason I found it unbearably exciting.

  “This feeling that I want to pound my cock into you and fuck you senseless in every possible way! This feeling that you’d take it all and beg me for more. This damned feeling that we’ve had ever since high school!”

  “Speak for yourself,” I shot back. “I don’t like you and I never have!”

  “Sam,” he said in that patronizing tone that I remembered so well, “it doesn’t matter if you think you hate my guts. You want me anyway. You want me to take you, to do things to you. All those years at school, did you tell yourself that you hated me? Or that I hated you? You couldn’t have been more wrong. You’re just scared that you won’t be in control with me.”

  I whimpered in protest. Surely he couldn’t be right?

  “You know it’s true. I was out to get you, yes, but not the way you thought.” His voice was suddenly strained and breathless, laden with frustration.

  “I was crazy for you, Sam. God, how could you not have seen it? I spent my life trying to impress you, and all you did was lock me out.” There was some real pain in his voice now too.

  He ground his hips against me, trapping me between his body and the cold porcelain basin behind me. His erection was hard and hot against my stomach.

  My head was spinning. I was trying to think, to remember, but he was bombarding me with so much raw sensation. Was it possible that I could have been so wrong for so long? It would take months on the couch with my shrink to sort this one out. If he was telling the truth…

  He slowly raised a hand from my side, leaning into me heavily, as if he expected me to try to make a dash for freedom, and lowered his head to mine, slowly, slowly threading his fingers through my hair and twisting it around his fist, a strange mixture of tenderness and dominance. Just before he kissed me I saw his lips tug down into a smile.

  He brushed his lips over mine, once, twice, gently compared to how he was holding me, and then abruptly he sharpened the pressure, demanding entry to my mouth. I resisted for all of a second then gave up, opening to him. His tongue surged inside and he kissed me deeply, deliberately exploring every part of my mouth, every recess, giving me no chance to catch my breath. Some small part of my mind was thinking that I would have been revolted if anybody else had tried to kiss me like that, but his overbearing dominance excited me like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I moaned and opened my mouth wider, surrendering to his invasion, allowing him to bend me back over the sink
. He held me there with his arm around my back, his hand clamped in my hair and his other hand spread over my ass, gripping and feeling me through the fabric of my skirt. I couldn’t move, could only swallow his kiss and hope that he’d let me breathe, my hands gripping his arms, fingers digging into his biceps.

  He eventually lifted his head, pulling me back upright but not moving away from me. His eyes glinted with satisfaction as he wiped his saliva from the corners of my mouth with his thumb.

  “That’s the feeling I’m talking about,” he ground out, punctuating his statement with a hard thrust of his hips against me.

  I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. He couldn’t be right, could he? Could I really want him like that? My sense of self-preservation was screaming at me not to lose control, but where had control gotten me in the last ten years? For all my success, I was deeply lonely.

  “No?” he said, sounding angry, frustrated. “There is no ‘no’ with me, sweetheart. Not anymore. Do I need to show you?”

  I shook my head again in wordless denial. I was utterly confused and desperately aroused.

  “I’m going to check you,” he rasped, “and if you’re wet for me, then there’ll be no more arguments. You’ll come with me, and you’ll do as I say.”

  My heart pounded. Oh God! Every word out of his mouth was making me wet. I could feel it throbbing out of my body as my muscles clenched inside. He turned me to face the basins again.

  “Pull your skirt up around your waist,” he said, his eyes boring into mine in the mirror. I couldn’t believe that he could keep his voice so level while issuing such commands.

  “Remove your stockings and panties then bend over the basin with your feet a meter apart.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. Was he serious? A meter?

  He moved to the basin next to mine and started washing his hands very thoroughly. I could use this as an opportunity to run, I thought frantically. But I didn’t. Instead I took a deep breath and started to tell him what I thought, what I wanted. Mostly that we needed to talk.