“That’s so good.” He brushed his hand inside my thigh. “Sweetapple, I’m going to make this a night you never forget. Everything I ask you to do is for your pleasure and mine. Communicate with me if I ask. Tell me what you like.”
“You’re a bag of tricks, Dash Wallace.” I barely got the words out around the dryness in my mouth and the chest-inflating heaves of my breath.
“You are too.” He pulled the garter strap and sat up straight to pull the car in.
He got out of his side and opened my door. If I’d asked for it, I could have gotten out of it regardless. Right? But I didn’t want out. I’d had sex for intimacy and love, but I’d never had sex strictly for pleasure.
All I had to do was ask him to stop if I wanted him to stop. Stop holding my hand up the stairs. Stop guiding me into his house. Stop turning on the soft lights.
Stop being nervous.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“I’m okay. A little. I’m not sure.” I laughed nervously, and he smiled, plucking an orange from a bowl on the counter.
He dug a nail into the leathery skin and said, “Take the dress off, sweetapple.”
I paused. He didn’t say please. He didn’t even look at me as he peeled a chunk off the fruit. Then he glanced up. I should have felt threatened by the way he looked at me. He was being bossy. He expected me to just do what he said. But his expression was kind and gentle, and I wanted all the things he’d promised.
I undid the side zipper, pulled my arms free until the sleeves were inside out, and let the dress fall down.
He ate me alive with his eyes. Toes to head, he made a meal of me, then he split the orange open. “Open your mouth.”
I didn’t. Not until he faced me, then I remembered I was supposed to do what he said. I parted my lips, and he brought a wedge to them. I opened up more, and he slipped in the orange.
“You’re nervous.”
“A little.” I chewed.
“Why?”
“It’s been a long time.”
Another wedge. I took it in my mouth. It was delicious.
“That’s a crime.” He fed me again. It was nice. I let myself feel cared for.
“Thank you.” I was grateful for his sensitivity. I was willing to give up my power and take a few orders, but I wasn’t ready to go full bore into whatever the essence of his kink was.
“More?” he said when the orange was gone.
“No, thank you.”
He took my hands and looked at me in my expensive lingerie and high heels. I’d definitely gotten my money’s worth at La Perla. He stepped back into the hall and led me by one hand into his bedroom.
All the lights were out but a nightstand lamp. King bed. Very few pillows. Geometric bedspread made to hospital corners. Dark wood. A patio with two chairs overlooking the city. What else? I couldn’t even take it in.
He stopped me at the foot of the bed and took my chin in my hands, pointed it upward, and kissed me. His tongue filled my mouth, owning it, commanding it to respond. I gripped his lapel and tried to get his jacket off, but he took my wrists and pinned them behind my back with one hand.
He lost it a little just then. I felt it in the movements of his body and the way he breathed into me. Pinning my hands did something to him, and it did something to me as well.
“Take me,” I whispered.
“Oh, I will.”
Still holding my wrists together, he slid his finger inside the cup of the bra. It collapsed under the pressure, and my rock-hard nipple appeared. His mouth closed on it, licking and sucking, driving pleasure between my legs until I could barely stand. He let my wrists go and pulled the bra up, then he twisted one nipple and sucked the other.
I made a noise that was a word in some language, and he responded with a deep-throated groan. I wove my fingers into his hair and let my eyes flutter closed as he took my breast in his mouth. His hair was sticking up when he stood straight again and pulled my bra over my head.
“You ready?” he said. “I’m going to eat your * now, and you’re going to love it.”
My hands covered my crotch. It was a reflex. I wasn’t even thinking about it, but I was suddenly seized with the fear that he wouldn’t like it. That I was dirty and gross.
He pulled my hands away. “What?”
“I told myself that I didn’t want to, so…” Deep breath. “I didn’t shave or anything.”
“You’re supposed to have hair, sweetapple. You’re past puberty.”
How could I explain what Carl had said? Anyone would have thought I was crazy to even listen to it. But I didn’t want this first time to be burdened by my ex-boyfriend’s hang-up about unsanitary hair.
Dash didn’t miss a beat. My expression was enough.
“Come on.” He pulled me, but I resisted. “Trust me.”
He yanked me again, and I followed him into the bathroom. He flicked on the light. The room was twice the size of mine and gleaming white. I caught myself in the mirror, bare-breasted and gartered in black below the waist.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he reached into the cabinet.
“Making you comfortable.” He took a leather envelope from the shelf.
“Oh, no no no.”
“Oh, yes yes yes.”