After the Fall

Thank you to Deathmarch4 for his review and thoughts on this chapter. Your input helped tremendously.

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Continuity Error: In Chapter 1, Michael's private wing should have been described as the east wing rather than the west wing.

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Michael woke up the next morning feeling energized. On his way to the kitchenette for coffee, he eased Mariah's door open to peek in. She looked serene, asleep on her side with her arm resting over Henry. Henry raised a furry brow at Michael. Michael backed out and closed the door gently.

The coffee smelled wonderful. He wondered how Mariah took hers. It had to be years since she had a cup. The thought of going so long without coffee made him savor his own. As he finished off his cup, he thought about his plans for the day. He couldn't wait to get his hands on her again, but he was also looking forward to getting to know her better.

He was coming to the realization that years of watching her over the security camera feeds had not conferred as great an understanding of her as he had believed. It was nerve-wracking, but it was also exciting. It wasn't that she was different; she was the same person he knew her to be, but his knowledge was incomplete. He had not anticipated all the dimensions of her personality that he hadn't had an opportunity to see on the video feed.

What surprised him most was her vulnerability. The security cameras he could access were only in public places or offices. Even in public, people let their guard down sometimes. Although he believed he had seen Mariah with her guard down, he had never seen her in a truly private space until yesterday. And of course, he had never seen her grapple with a choice like the one he presented.

He knew Mariah hadn't wanted to give up any of her independence, but it was for the best. She would be safe and comfortable inside the compound and he was committed to doing anything in his power to make her happy here. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that she saw the safety and relative luxury of the compound as a fair tradeoff for the restrictions he imposed. She accepted his terms because he was offering something far more important to her. The project to alleviate the suffering in Ashland was exactly what she wanted, and he was uniquely positioned to offer it to her.

He had taken a huge risk by imposing a requirement that she offer her companionship and sexual submission. He knew how terrible it sounded. It was necessary, though. There was no way he could have had her right under his nose every day without pursuing her. She would not have welcomed his advances. Her hostility toward him during their first meeting demonstrated that much. He would not have stopped pursuing her, and it would have made it impossible to work together.

By establishing the nature of his access to her in the beginning, he prevented a situation that would inevitably sabotage the project. He realized how suspect it was that the solution he devised conveniently included sex with the woman he had wanted for years, but his rationale was sound. She accepted his terms voluntarily. It was done, and he wasn't sorry. His cock swelled as he remembered her wrists tethered to his bed last night, breasts bouncing as she absorbed his thrusts and shuddered around him. No, he was never going to regret that. On the whole, he'd been pleasantly surprised that she had accepted the sexual aspect of their relationship so well.

Sex was the one area where he truly had no idea what to expect from her. As far as he knew, she hadn't had any serious relationships since he began watching her. He assumed she had sexual encounters, but he had not had the ability or desire to find out about them. Once, he had seen a courier demanding sex before he would sell her the medical supplies she wanted. It had been weeks after that before he could bring himself to return to the video feeds.

Mariah's initially reluctant response to his advances yesterday did not surprise him. What did surprise him was the level of her attraction to him despite her clear preference to avoid intimacy. He had believed that one of the benefits of their arrangement would be that he wouldn't have to face the uncertainty of trying to seduce her. That was before he discovered the thrill of it. She was always evading, slipping away like water, but she couldn't hide her reaction to him.

He could see it in the way her eyes grew darker and unfocused. He heard it in the way her breath became quick and shallow, and the way it caught in her throat when he touched her. He saw it in the way her pulse beat in the hollow of her throat when her heart raced like a rabbit's. Her inability to disguise her natural response to him lent her an air of naivete that made him want to push her further.

She harmonized contradictions in ways he found as beautiful as they were bewildering. Despite her arousal, her diffidence never completely faded. It merely blended with a more sultry, lustful version of herself. The juxtaposition was intoxicating. One moment Mariah was standing there, not wanting to take her bra off, and the next she was greedily licking precum from his fingers. She was suddenly shy about being tied up, but then she was arching to meet his strokes in a truly wanton display.

He looked in on her again before he showered and shaved. It seemed she had woken and fallen asleep again before she made it out of bed. The covers were kicked off, and she was laying on her stomach with one arm hanging over the edge of the bed. He congratulated himself on picking out the aqua sleep shorts and little white crop top she was wearing. Her top had ridden up her back, showing off the curve of her spine.

It was her ass, though, that Michael couldn't look away from. One of her legs was bent at the knee and the other was straight. The position canted her hips at an angle that raised one buttock. The little cotton shorts clung to her and exposed the lower curve of her ass. He was itching to dig his fingers into those cheeks.

Mariah's hand twitched in her sleep, and he withdrew quickly. He didn't want her to wake up to the sight of him ogling her ass with a raging hard-on. Besides, he had arrangements to make before she woke up.

As soon as he was showered, shaved, and dressed, he went in search of Daniel. He found him in the garage with his twin sister, Amy, changing the oil in one of the compound's vehicles. In addition to being first-rate mechanics, Daniel and Amy did all sorts of handyman projects around the house. They had a natural aptitude for anything structural or mechanical, and possessed MacGyver-like imaginations. If you gave them some paperclips and tinker toys, they could probably build a spaceship. His request this morning was much simpler. They assured him it would take no more than an hour to complete.

After he left the twins, he checked in with Marcus about the day's meals. Michael didn't know what he hoped to accomplish, but it made him feel like he was doing something to contribute to Mariah's care. He belatedly realized that he hadn't offered her dinner last night. He hoped she had eaten something since she had lunch with him yesterday.

Marcus listed Mariah's breakfast options and offered to bring up a tray once she chose what she wanted. Michael was leaving the kitchen when an idea struck him. "Marcus, could you make a lunch that Mariah and I can eat outside? I want to take her to see the pond this afternoon, and I think she might like a picnic."

"Of course!" Marcus assured him. "I'll have it packed up for you before noon. That's a lovely idea, Michael, and such a beautiful day for it." He was pleased to see him taking an interest. Michael usually downed whatever was put in front of him as though eating was just an interruption, and he rarely seemed to do anything just for fun.

With Marcus's breakfast menu more or less memorized, Michael headed upstairs to check on sleeping beauty. He stopped on the way for a cup of coffee, cream, and sugar from the third-floor kitchenette. If she wasn't awake yet, the smell of coffee was sure to get her up. He knocked at the door to her room and let himself in without waiting for an answer. Mariah was awake and curled up on the window seat. She was still in her pajamas and her hair was tousled. She blinked sleepily at him.

"Good morning, kitten," Michael greeted her. "Would you like some coffee?"

She perked up immediately. "You have coffee?" She sniffed the air. "Oooh... you do!"

Michael handed her the coffee, cream and sugar and watched her fix it the way she liked. She raised the mug to her mouth with both hands and looked at him over the rim as she took a long, slow sip. "Soooo good," she announced. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the next sip. Michael thought she looked like a priestess having a religious experience.

"What would you like for breakfast this morning?" he asked when she finally put the cup down.

"Thanks, but I don't want anything. I'm not really a morning person."

"You still need to eat breakfast, sweetheart. I don't think you even had dinner yesterday."

"But I had a big lunch."

"That was yesterday. It doesn't count for today."

"There was a lot of cream in my coffee. That's like drinking milk for breakfast," she argued.

Michael was unimpressed. "Don't be difficult, kitten. We've got lots of things to do today, and we can't leave to do any of them until you eat breakfast."

She shrugged and acquiesced.

"So, what do you want for breakfast?"

"I'm not ready yet."

"When should I tell Marcus to have your breakfast ready?" Michael asked suspiciously.

"In a couple of hours."

He sighed. When Mariah was at a disadvantage, she just rearranged the playing field. On impulse, he tried a different tack. "You don't even want a blueberry muffin?"

"There are blueberry muffins?"

"Mmhmm. Marcus made them just this morning."

"Oooh... I'll go get one," she said, as though she hadn't just been arguing against eating anything before noon.

He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. He wisely decided against saying the first few things that came to mind.

"I'll go down and get it for you."

"Oh, you don't need to do that. I remember where the kitchen is. I need to go down to let Henry out anyway."

She was looking for Henry's leash when Michael stopped her. "I think you're missing something."

"My shoes?"

He shook his head and smirked.

"A key?"

He shook his head again. His smirk was getting bigger with every wrong guess.

"I give up. What am I missing?"

Instead of answering, Michael brought her to stand in front of a full-length dressing mirror in the closet. He stood behind her, looking over her shoulder at the reflection of her very visibly outlined nipples. He ran a fingernail across a nipple through the thin material and watched it harden. She sucked in her breath with a hiss.

"Still tender, kitten?"

He brought his other hand up and cupped both breasts. With a few swipes of his thumbs, her nipples were poking obscenely into the pajama top. He pinched them one at a time, listening to the little sounds she made.

"I don't know if you want to go downstairs like that." Michael gave her breasts a squeeze and watched them strain against the fabric. When he released them, one of his hands disappeared down the front of her shorts. He was fast, and before she could stop him, his finger was sliding between her folds. He was pleased to find her already wet and even a little swollen. He met her eyes in the mirror as he licked the taste of her pussy from his finger.

Mariah was getting that dazed look that Michael was becoming fond of, but she suddenly shook herself out of it. "I've got to take Henry out." She ducked out of his arms and rummaged around for clothes. She found a sundress that she liked. In the meantime, Michael took it upon himself to pull out a black bra and panty set for her. She rolled her eyes at him, but took the proffered lingerie.

"Go ahead and put that on while I find something else for you to wear. The dress you chose would look lovely, but you're going to need a skirt and blouse today."

"Are shorts an option?" she asked hopefully. She hadn't seen any, but she hadn't taken inventory.

"Nope."

Realizing that Michael intended to stand there and watch her put the lingerie on, Mariah took it into the bathroom and shut the door. She quickly washed up, brushed her teeth, and arranged her hair. Once she put the bra on, she knew why Michael selected it. She thought at first that it was the wrong size, but quickly realized the problem was the bra's design.

The bra only had half-cups, edged at the top with a band of lace. The cups were stiff, like a corset. Instead of holding her breasts in, the bra pushed them up and held them out, framed between the shoulder straps in what was essentially a display case. Her breasts jiggled in the cups whenever she moved, and the only thing covering her nipples was the lace at the top of the cups. A notch between the lace band and the bra straps prevented the lace from offering any containment. It was more like a decorative flap. The panties weren't much better.

She called out the bathroom door, "Michael, could I please have a real bra?"

"But Henry needs to go out."

She blew out her breath in frustration. Michael was not going to cooperate and Henry did need to go out. She was not going to force his hand today over a bra. She was certain that his plans for her would be the same regardless of which bra she wore.

Michael seemed to be intent on keeping the sexual tension high. That was fine with her. She would much rather they both stayed focused on the sexual aspect of their relationship. It was a relatively safe way to avert the sort of conversations she wanted to avoid. She was uneasy about his displays of fondness towards her, and was even more uneasy about how likeable she was finding him. Maybe likeable was not the right word. More like not hate-able. Except when he picked out clothes. When it came to lingerie, he was a total pig.

She adjusted the bra as well as she could and ignored Michael's smirk when she walked back out, trying not to jiggle. "You owe me a muffin," she told him, mostly to get the smirk off his face and his eyes off her chest. She was rewarded with a look of exasperation.

He handed her a cornflower blue peasant blouse with a low, square neck and a flared raspberry skirt. He even had a pair of sandals laid out for her. She threw on the clothes, eager to get downstairs. She eyed Michael's dark jeans and heather gray tee shirt. They looked unforgivably good on him.

"I thought blouses and skirts were the dress code today. Where are yours?"

"I must have left them at the cleaner."

As they made their way to third-floor sitting room, she was still trying to figure out what she could do in a skirt and blouse that she could not have done in the dress. All she could get out of Michael was, "You'll see." At the end of the hall, Michael got in the elevator. She decided to take the stairs with Henry, mostly to irritate Michael. She really was not a morning person.

She hadn't counted on Henry wanting to sniff each stair individually. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Michael was already coming back from the kitchen with a muffin. Outside, she let Henry off the leash and he trotted over to the tree line to take care of his business. Mariah stood with Michael in the warm sun, eating the muffin. It was delicious. She noticed Michael wasn't eating anything, but decided to save that observation for the next time he tried to cram breakfast down her throat.

"Would you mind if I let Henry run around for a bit before I take him back in? He's been cooped up in my room and I'm sure he'd like to stretch his legs."

"Of course." He already liked Henry. He also realized that being nice to Henry meant brownie points. It was a win-win. "I was wondering, does he have stay in your room all the time?"

"No, I was hoping he could have free run of your private wing. Duncan and Julia, too. If you don't mind keeping the doors to your wing closed, I could leave my room open for them to come and go. You'd just need to shut your bedroom door to keep them out."

"Sure," Michael agreed. "But if you want, they can have access to the whole house."

"I appreciate that." She leaned up and kissed his cheek. Michael knew when he was being manipulated, but he didn't mind a bit. She was welcome to ply him with kisses all day long.

"I'd better restrict them to your wing for now, though. The house is so big, and I haven't even seen it all to make sure it's safe for them and from them."

"Safe from them? You make it sound like they're arsonists or termites."

"No, they're merely vandals and thieves. If you had a teddy bear collection, Henry would steal the teddy bears and slobber all over them. If you had an aquarium, it would need to have a lid to keep Duncan out of it. That sort of thing."

Michael laughed. "I'll be sure to hide my teddy bears."

Hearing his name, Henry came bounding over to them. He made a play bow directly in front of Michael.

"He wants you to play with him," Mariah explained.

Michael held up his empty hands. "I don't have anything for you to fetch, bud."

"He doesn't want to play fetch. Here, I'll show you." She charged at Henry and he took off. He looped and darted and dived, but never ran too far ahead of her. Sometimes, Henry and Mariah switched, and he chased her while she dodged and feinted. Michael couldn't tell what rules of the game governed who was supposed to chase who at any given time.

Mariah was out of breath by the time she walked back to Michael. "Like that."

To Henry's delight, Michael rushed at him. Michael got the hang of it quickly, and soon he was anticipating Henry's setups. He settled into an easy lope when he ran after Henry, but when it was Michael's turn to be chased, he broke away with explosive speed. Not as fast as Henry, but impressive, and he was agile enough to swerve and turn on a dime. His movements had a natural grace Mariah found compelling.

When they came jogging back, Henry's tongue was lolling out of his mouth. He flopped over dramatically at Mariah's feet.

"You broke my dog!"

"Are you kidding? That vicious animal tried to run me down!"

"Okay, Henry, you vicious beast. Time to get you inside." Mariah clipped the leash to Henry's collar.

"Hold on," Michael stopped her. "I was planning to take you around the compound today to show you the outbuildings and introduce you to everyone. Would you like to take Henry with us? I was going to get a golf cart from the garage. He could ride in it or run along beside us."

Mariah gave him a big smile. "I'd love that."

In the garage, Michael opened a key safe with his thumbprint and retrieved the key to one of the golf carts. Mariah counted seven of them, and the empty spots suggested that a few were currently in use or parked elsewhere. Michael came around to the passenger's side of the cart with Mariah. Once she was seated, he leaned over her and pulled the neckline of her blouse down below her breasts. He caught her hands when she tried to pull her it back up.

"No, Mariah. Let me look."

"But the camera..."

"I'm standing between you and the camera. Nobody but me is going to see you, but I

will

see you, kitten. Just be good for me and we'll be ready to go in a minute."

She shivered in the cool garage. Her nipples were hard and puckered, and they were pushing against the band of lace that covered them. Michael folded the band of lace down, leaving her nipples exposed above the half cups of the bra. He stroked them lightly.

"I told you last night that I was going to enjoy playing with your nipples. Are they sore, Mariah?"