22. Adam

22

ADAM

I linger there a moment. Desire may be an angry scarlet river coursing keenly through my veins, but there’s stillness here in this sacred spot. There’s peace in the flicker of her pulse, in the elusive ghost of her perfume, in the smooth surface of her skin. She’s a shadowy hollow in the woods on a too-warm day; she’s a balm for this weary traveller. I part my lips just enough to let the very tip of my tongue slide over her skin with the lightest of tracks.

The sound she makes in her throat is involuntary and shuddery and incredulous, the purest form of surrender. She’s acquiesced to me, even if she’s not ready to admit it to herself quite yet.

My hands are still braced on either side of her head. Our only points of touch are my lips and tongue against her neck, and the tip of my nose, already dampening as my breath condenses against her skin. I draw one last tiny line with my tongue and reluctantly straighten up to admire the effects of my handiwork.

It’s what I wanted to see: her pupils dilating as ink soaks through blotting paper, gaining ground against the deep, clear chocolate of her irises as she trains her eyes squarely on my mouth. Her lips are parted, and I trace the line of her lower lip with my fingertip, just as faintly as my tongue traced the trembling contours of her neck.

I’m waiting for her to come to her senses, to slap my hand away and push off the wall and call time on this thing we’re doing, but she doesn’t.

I’ve never touched a woman quite so little and been quite so overcome. This is so much less than when she was crashing. When I forced my fingers inside her mouth and rubbed at her gums and stroked her hair and held her upright. It’s so little.

And so much.

I allow myself the merest downward tug of her lip with my fingertip before I withdraw it, watching with something approaching reverence as it springs back into place. I’m so hard I should be thinking only with my dick, yet I’ve never felt so present. So grounded.

This ballerina corset is a frame showcasing the mastery of her bone structure to perfection. I settle the tip of my index finger in the pale hollow that marks the centre of her clavicle, noting how perfectly it fits, before taking both hands and trailing all my fingers along her clavicle so they form a fan. My skin, still tanned from Miami a few weeks ago, is dark against hers. My fingers look huge. The heels of my hands hover over those pointed little nipples.

I flatten both hands against her skin, slowly, slowly, and I grind their heels over the hard buds. The effect on her is instant. She shuts her eyes, eyelashes fluttering and diamanté arcs glittering on her lids.

‘Oh my God,’ she whimpers.

‘Natalie.’

She opens her eyes. She’s teetering on the knife edge of desire and perceived bad decisions. Not merely bad decisions, but surrender. I’m fairly sure surrender to me would feel to her like the most shameful capitulation to enemy forces—unless I make it worth her while.

‘Everything that happens from here is for you,’ I tell her, and my dick twitches angrily at this subjugation of its needs. ‘Do you understand? All I’ve wanted to do since I first laid eyes on you is make you feel extraordinary .’ My voice is so deep it rasps on that final word. ‘For God’s sake, take this moment for yourself.’

I sweeten my plea with a firm grind of the heels of my hands against nipples so tautly pebbled I swear they could lacerate this chiffon.

Her eyes roll back in her head. ‘Okay,’ she whispers.

‘Okay, what?’

‘Don’t make me say it. Please .’

And suddenly I understand: words that for me would mean consent would for her mean defeat.

‘Do you have a safe word?’ I say instead, and she looks blank. She’s admitted she doesn’t come in here— usually —so of course she won’t have a safe word. ‘You can tell me to stop anytime. I promised you I won’t lose control. This is all for you.’ I pause. ‘But I need you to take this top off first and show me these pretty little tits so I can give them the attention they need.’

‘I’m not taking my top off for you,’ she says as if surprised, and it strikes me that this brain of hers is still lagging far behind her body.

‘I think you are.’ I keep my gaze on her face as I slide my hands down and roll my fingers over her nipples, pressing them as hard as I can through the fabric.

In my peripheral vision, her hands flutter uselessly at her sides as her face contorts inches from mine. ‘You just want to boss me around. You want to prove a point.’

I don’t lessen the pressure of my fingers. ‘I promise you, the only points I want to prove are that I’m not the only one in this room with a red-hot attraction and that I can make you feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life. It would be my privilege to show you what your body is capable of, if you let yourself loosen up enough to allow it.

‘And I’d boss you around all day long if I could get away with it, you sweet little thing, but I swear to you, if you let me take charge for the next hour or so you’ll be coming so hard around whichever of my body parts you like that you won’t give a flying fuck about point-scoring. Now, how does this thing come off?’