“Gorgeous?”
The word makes my breath catch. I know it’s only skin-deep. He doesn’t think I’m gorgeous on the inside. No one thinks that. No one cares. Even so, this is different than before. Not as hateful. More like I imagined regular sex would be, if I had ever let myself have it.
“I’m afraid.” The admission is about more than oral sex, and he seems to know that. His lids are low, eyes a million years wise.
“No one’s ever licked you here?” He doesn’t give me time to answer before he shows me exactly where, a long and slow lick from the base of my slit to the very top.
Heat courses through me, and I stifle the groan I would have made. “No.”
“Or sucked your pretty little clit?” he asks.
And just like before, he shows me exactly what he means, his lips warm against my most sensitive skin, his suck hard enough to bring my hips off the table.
“God.”
His voice has gone low and husky, thick with something like hunger. “No one’s ever fucked you with their tongue? No one’s tasted your cream?”
My inner muscles clench at his words, already anticipating, already pulsing and slick with cream for him to taste. His eyes close as he shoves his tongue against me, as if he’s doing something incredibly pleasurable, as if he’s getting off as much as me.
His tongue feels foreign and impossibly good, my whole body suspended between ache and orgasm. Between pain and what comes after, the precipice razor thin.
“Why?” The question slips out, more admission than wonder. “Why are you making me feel good?”
This is supposed to be punishment. If it’s not about hurting me—then what?
He doesn’t answer right away. I think he won’t answer at all. His mouth is open, kissing and licking and sucking me, languid and slow. Only when I’m shuddering on the brink does he pull back. “I never stopped wanting you. I fucking dreamed about tasting you. Even when I was overseas, when it had been years since I’d seen you, when I fucking hated you, I still wanted to lick your clit until you came, until you poured your cream on my tongue.”
The admission shouldn’t surprise me. Isn’t that what Candy has been telling me? And maybe I always knew. It wasn’t an accident that he ended up at the Grand. He came to make me pay, and there was only one way to do it. I always recognized the lust in his eyes, even though it made me feel different than every other man. More afraid, more helpless. More strangely hopeful.
It isn’t his desire that surprises me, though. It’s the fact that he admitted it, that he made himself open and vulnerable. The way he almost humbles himself as he focuses on my clit, sucking and licking until I’m moaning, as he shoves his fingers inside and curls, as he seeks my pleasure with every part of his body.
My orgasm slams into me like a tidal wave, powerful and devastating. I rock through the spasms, crying out his name. And he answers me with soothing touches, soft sounds while I collapse on his dining table, spent and utterly limp.
In the Grand I’m always active, always working, always dancing and twirling and shaking my ass. At the club I’m a sex object, something plastic—like a dancer in a jewelry box made to dance whenever it’s opened.
Blue turns everything upside down. He doesn’t make me dance. Doesn’t let me do anything. He turns me into a woman again, one who’s hurt and betrayed him, one who’s been hurt and betrayed. This is the last thing I wanted—to feel again. Physical pain I accepted, almost craved. What he does to me is deeper than that. He roots out every old wound I have. And the salt is the tender way he kisses my mound, an intimacy that has everything and nothing to do with sex.
*
I wake up in the dark, warm and naked and alone. Satin sheets enfold me, still cool against hot skin. Sleep swirls around me, threatening to drag me under again. It’s too comfortable here, as if I were tucked in. Except that would be a dream. No one has ever tucked me in. Until now. That’s the only way I could have gotten here, carried by the man who’s still here.
There’s another presence in the room. Enough nights spent hiding in the closet have taught me to tell when I’m alone or not, have taught me to measure a threat in the feel of the air.
I don’t feel threatened, but it’s not a surprise to look sideways and see Blue there.
The way he’s sitting, though—that’s a surprise. He’s shirtless, his broad back curving as he rests his elbows on his thighs. His head rests in his hands. He looks defeated. It’s the pose of a man vanquished, and I ache to see him that way.
“What’s wrong?” The question pours out of me without thought, like water rushing to fill a void.
His awareness of me fills the air. I think he stiffens slightly, the broad muscles of his back shifting beneath shadow-dark skin. He doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t respond.
I push up and throw the covers off. Nakedness doesn’t bother me. The way he looks bothers me. A man bent too far.