My fingers hooked into the straps before my brain could interfere. I slipped the dress down my arms, letting it puddle around my ankles, revealing I had no underwear on underneath.
Shyness heated me, but the brimstone on Elder’s face reminded me how much he’d burned for me last night. How, no matter my insecurities, he wanted me. He wanted me to touch him, fuck him. He wanted it so much, but he couldn’t do it himself.
I grew wet looking at him, knowing if I wanted him inside me, it would be me who had to do it. I’d have to take him. There would be no denying that I chose to have sex, not gave it.
I hated the responsibility that layered me with. I’d hoped I could lay back and let him work his magic like last night. That I’d succumb and swim in sensations he caused rather than be the one composing whatever strange song we’d sing.
“Get on the bed, Pim.”
I leapt at his instruction, grateful for it, hungry for it. I hoped he could see this would be a lot easier for me if he gave me his voice to hold.
His lips tilted into a half smirk as I obeyed, sitting on my knees on the mattress like any obedient pet. My naked thigh touching his. My skin heating because of his.
His throat worked as he swallowed; his voice roguish and full of challenge. “I’m not going to direct you through every part of this. You have to be the one in control. Otherwise, it negates what I’m trying to do.”
“What are you trying to do?”
“Save us from a lifetime of misery.”
My heart lurched at the thought of a lifetime with Elder. Not of misery but happiness. Hadn’t we had enough misery in our lives?
But how could we have a lifetime together if he kept his promise that tonight would be our last? How could I spend two years with a man who’d abused me and made me wish for death, only to find another man who made me beg for pleasure then denied me?
What sort of cruel joke was the world playing?
“Stop thinking.” Elder shifted on the bed, his cock bouncing as he rearranged. “I didn’t make you undress. I didn’t force you to bind me. Yet you did both those things. Turn off your mind, little mouse, and give in…because you already have.”
I couldn’t look away. I had to keep staring. His lips. His jaw. His chest.
He breathed faster as my gaze drifted down his front and locked onto his thick cock.
“Touch it.”
My head shot up. “But I thought you said you wouldn’t guide me—”
“Fucking forget what I said. When you stare at it that way, you make me goddamn insane.” He tested the ropes again, yanking on the spindles. “Do it.” He arched his back, his neck straining against the pillows. “Please, fucking touch it.” It wasn’t a beg but a growled bark.
My hand shot forward.
I touched it.
He groaned long and low as I cupped his overheated flesh. How odd to think this was the first time I’d been allowed to just hold rather than suck or present myself for their choosing.
I’d never studied the veins and complexities. Never run my thumb over the crown and noted the texture of smooth skin to utmost velvet.
Elder’s thighs turned to rock as my fingers captured him, stroking, squeezing, learning. He bit his lip, his nostrils wide and eyes clamped shut.
I hated that I caused him discomfort all while unwilling to let him go. I might not be good at preliminary touching, but I was a master at oral.
Straddling him, I forced myself to be brave and pulled my hair to one side. Draping it over his hip, I lowered my mouth over him.
The second my lips touched his tip, he bucked. “Holy fuck.”
The echoing shock and throbbing need in his tone infected me, granting me the courage to keep going. I’d tasted him once before, but he’d stopped me. He’d called me a whore.
My back prickled with bad memories.
He might’ve stopped me previously, but he couldn’t stop me now.
I sank down his length, swallowing him deep.
The bed shook as he fought the knots I’d wrapped him in. “Pim…stop. This isn’t for—” He strangled on the last word as I sucked him hard, corkscrewing my hand down his length.
Something happened.
The usual disgust and shame I suffered when performing such a sex act were eerily vacant. Instead of my heart shutting down and my mind turning numb, I found heat bubbling in my blood. My hips widened over his legs to sink deeper. My jaw loosened over his cock to suck harder.
To Elder, it might seem as though I gave him a gift.
To me…I wholeheartedly claimed him.
I took his breathlessness, his straining. I stole his twitches and grunts. I relished in the power cloaking me.
This wasn’t for him.
This was for me.
And I had no intention of stopping.
My tongue swirled, mouth watered; Elder grew impossibly harder between my lips. My fingers drifted lower to the twin balls drawn tight and hot.
“Jesus Christ, Pimlico.” His eyes shot wide, drenching me in pure, potent lust. The muscles in his stomach stood out in stark relief. His dragon almost distorted with how he braced himself.
Another lick. A deeper suck.
And his voice rained again, this time thick and lost to me. “Stop. Unless you want me to come. I’m seconds from—” He groaned as I unsheathed my teeth and bit him gently.
The tell-tale ripples of a release flickered beneath my fingers. For a moment, I wanted to finish him. To take that for me. But another part—a small sadistic part—wanted him to linger in lustful agony.
Pulling back, I wiped my lips, staring up his wicked torso to tortured eyes.
He sucked in greedy breaths, clamping down on the climax I’d left him to fight. When he could finally talk, he growled, “That was cruel.”
A triumphant smile spread my lips.
I never expected to feel proud or in charge from licking something I used to hate. Wonders had never ceased.
“You took that from me, little mouse.” His mouth spread into his own smile; only his was calculating and dark. “Time to return the favour.”
I frowned.
What? How?
“Sit on my face.”
I reared back. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He pushed down the bed a little; his arms strained straight. “Come here.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
His eyes blazed. “What don’t you understand?”
“I’m naked. If I sit on your—”
“I’ll be able to do for you what you just did for me.”
“No way.” I scrambled off him. “I’ve never….No one has—” I shook my head. “No, I’m not comfortable—”
“Doesn’t matter if you’re not comfortable.” He chuckled, slipping more into his role as guardian as well as tormentor. “I told you I want to give you many firsts. Well, tonight I’ll have to give you as many as I can—starting with you sitting on my face.”
My tummy somersaulted. “I won’t.”
“You will.” His eyebrows jerked into a sullen scowl. “I want to taste you. Get over here.”
The very idea of doing something so vulgar upset every value I had left, but beneath that horror was the small question of what a tongue would feel like down there. What Elder’s tongue would feel like.
Seconds ticked past as quickly as my heart.