Can't Get Enough (14 page)

She glanced up at him with glazed-over eyes. “H-hell, Sir?” She could hear the breathlessness in her own voice, and the pulse that was thumping in her ears like the surge of waves.

He nodded, a smirk playing across his lips. “Thirty lashes with the rosewood paddle. On a wet bottom.”

She gasped. The rosewood paddle was varnished, which meant that it left a mean sting. Thirty lashes with it on a dry bottom would be quite the punishment. Thirty lashes on a wet bottom would be positively criminal.

Steve wasn't done, though. “And no other orgasms for a week.”

That was even worse. Worse and phenomenally cruel under the circumstances. Yet she knew without even having to think about it that she'd choose the immediate climax over the delayed ones. She needed the release. She needed it like she needed water and oxygen, and it was so tantalizingly, breathtakingly
close
.

“So,” said Steve, his lips curving into a smile. “What's it going to be, kitten?”

She blurted out the answer without a moment's hesitation. “Now, please, Sir. Now.” She moved the vibrator a fraction of an inch, trying to hang on to the maddening tension that was unfurling in her pelvis.

In answer, Steve rose to his feet, then sank to his knees at the end of the sofa. As his hands tilted her pelvis and drew her toward him, he looked at her from between her splayed thighs. “As you wish, my naughty, desperate, needy kitten.”

A gasp burst from her lips as he pressed his face to her sex and laid a warm kiss on her entrance. She could feel his hot breath pouring over her pussy, making her lust surge.

Almost involuntarily, she lifted the vibe a little higher to give
Steve better access. The head of the toy hummed against her throbbing clit, sending endless ripples of shock through her. She closed her eyes and let the ripples wash over her, waiting for the big wave to crash over her and take her under.

As the tip of Steve's tongue darted out and rolled over her folds, from her sticky entrance to the smaller hole farther down and back again, Melanie clasped his head with her free hand, glad to have something to hold on to. She bucked her hips against his face and the buzzing toy. Flaring sensations were coursing through her body, building up to an inexorable climax. She knew she wouldn't be able to hang on much longer.

“Permission to come, Sir?”

Steve didn't answer. With a slow, measured thrust, he pushed his tongue deep inside her and drilled into her most sensitive spot, teasing her until her entire body was one huge, shuddering throb of need.

“Please, Sir?” she begged, her free hand trembling in his hair.

Again he ignored her plea. His tongue circled her entrance, making her writhe against him.

“Please?”

He briefly lifted his head. “Very well. Have your damned orgasm, wench.” He bent over her again and speared his tongue into her, roughly and urgently.

Her head pulsed with a rush of blood. A tremor ran through her, racking her whole body with spasms of pleasure, and she squealed with rapture as the release she'd craved for so long ripped through her and set her free.

From beyond the bliss, she heard Steve murmur his appreciation. Then he withdrew from her again. As she switched off the vibe and rolled to her side, still shuddering with the intensity of her climax, she saw him walk to the toy box and begin to search
through it. When he turned around again, his face still coated with her juices, he smiled his most devilish grin.

He was holding the rosewood paddle.

Melanie smiled back at him, a little nervous but not afraid.

The next half hour wouldn't be fun, she knew—or at least, it wouldn't be fun only. She'd be hurt, and chances were she'd feel that she'd made the wrong decision, that she should have chosen the long-term fun over the immediate release. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Steve was back and ready to inflict his cruel but exciting games on her again. That had to be worth a sore bottom. A sore bottom, and much more besides.

THE END OF SENSIBLE

Louise Blaydon

T
om was late.

A month ago—hell,
two weeks ago
—Jack probably wouldn't have worried about it the way he was worrying now. Now, though, the first thing that came to Jack's mind was the thought that Tom just didn't want to come after all, knowing what Jack was probably expecting. Maybe Tom was starting to regret this whole bloody thing. Maybe Tom had noticed that Jack was having trouble paying much attention to any lasses who weren't Tom, and maybe he was more concerned than Jack was about the fact that Tom had swiftly become his best girl.

It wouldn't be surprising, really. Tom always was the sensible one.

The doorbell buzzed. Tom was smiling, and Jack's first shameful urge was to smack him for making him worry, but then Tom really
would
be angry with him, and that was the last thing Jack wanted. So he swallowed the urge, though his “Took your time, didn't you?” didn't escape without a touch of cattiness.

Tom didn't seem to mind. Jack couldn't say he hadn't
noticed
—the thing about Tom was, he always paid careful notice to most everything Jack did—but he only rolled his eyes and said, “Didn't set a time, did we? Anyway”—he started to push past Jack into the vestibule, and Jack took a step back, letting him—“I didn't really want to turn up when your mum was still here, with these.” He held up one hand, from which a canvas bag dangled. Jack swallowed.

“I, uh,” he said. His heart was thumping, but after his little scare he felt the need for caution, just in case. “That for writing? Or playing? New capos?” The band was the thing, after all. It was 1963, and every poor bastard in the north was trying to catch up to the Mersey Beat.

“Jack.” Tom tipped his head to one side and smirked, and Jack felt his pulse level out again, relief spreading through him like oxygen. “Let's go up to your room.”

At the top of the stairs, Tom disappeared into the bathroom without a word, and Jack went quiescently into his bedroom to wait. Probably it was stupid, this—waiting for Tom to come out of the bathroom in his (god) girl's clothes, just so that Jack could (
oh
god) take them off him again, but that was the point, wasn't it? Maybe Tom shouldn't be the prettiest girl Jack had ever seen, but there it was.

“You're miles away,” Tom said. Jack blinked, eyes going immediately to the door, and Tom smiled at him. “What were you thinkin' about?”

He was wearing the skirt he'd worn the first time they did this, with stockings underneath. His big soft eyes were kohl-lined, something shimmery smeared on the lids, and his mouth looked pinker than usual. His T-shirt, though, was just a black T-shirt, and while Jack knew that girls did go around in T-shirts, the fact of the matter was that this was the T-shirt Tom
had arrived in—maybe the T-shirt he'd been wearing all day, so the fabric would smell like him. There was nothing feminine about it. It showed off Tom's shoulders and the neat nip of his waist, his long pale arms. So really, it shouldn't be the T-shirt that was making Jack's fingers itch to take hold of Tom and pull him in; shouldn't be the goddamn ordinary T-shirt that made Jack ache to press his nose to Tom's chest and under his arms and breathe him in. It shouldn't, but Tom was wearing a skirt for him, and stockings, and
lipstick
, so it was okay. That was the understanding: as long as Jack was working his way into a pair of knickers, anything was okay.

“Jack,” Tom pushed, mouth quirking up at one corner. “You all right?” He spread his arms a little, smile going bashful. “Is
this
?”

“Tommy,” Jack said eventually, in a dark-brown voice, and he stood up, slid both arms around Tom's narrow waist. “You're a fucking cracker, you are.”

Tom laughed and blushed, but Jack wasn't really paying attention. Up close like this, he
could
smell Tom,
real
Tom, cigarettes and aftershave and fresh sweat. His mouth went to Tom's throat, to the place behind his ear where it was all warm skin, and Tom groaned, head tipping back. Jack barely thought before he lifted him. He spun them, ignoring Tom's snort of protest, and tossed him onto the bed on his back. Years now, they'd spent sleeping in that bed after long nights of working together, singing under their breath when it was too late to make noise. And now Tom was on it on his back, legs fallen open and skirt ridden up, and Jack was going to have him.

He crawled onto the mattress, found the bottom of Tom's shirt and tugged it up. Tom laughed, sucking in his tummy like it tickled, and Jack couldn't help but notice the trail of hair that descended from his navel, guiding Jack down. Breathless,
Jack tugged the skirt down an inch and caught a moan at the blue silk beneath. They hadn't done this before, Jack realized slowly—hadn't been anywhere in the light where Jack could get Tom's shirt up,
see
him. It hadn't occurred to Tom to shave the hair off his abdomen, where a real girl would be smooth. Madly, Jack found himself hot with gratitude.

“Jackie,” Tom said, half a warning, and then Jack's nose pressed into his navel and Tom shouted a laugh, breathless, muscles twitching against Jack's face. “Jack, don't!”

“Shut up,” Jack told him, hot against his skin, and mouthed at Tom's navel, then lower, following the line. He caught the edge of blue silk in his teeth and tugged it down, half to show off but half just
because
, god. His heart was going like maracas; he got his hands up under Tom's skirt and cupped him firmly through his knickers. “Just let me, all right? Let me.” Another kiss, low, and Tom's belly quivered. “Tom.”

Tom let him. By the time they were done, they were naked but for the T-shirt and stockings Tom had retained by silent mutual agreement, though Jack's hands had mapped him everywhere. Tom was shaking, still, and Jack couldn't seem to stop rubbing his fingers over Tom where he'd opened so easy for Jack's dick, where he was wet. Against him like this, Tom could never have been taken for a girl. Not even with Jack's glasses sitting on the nightstand. But the stockings were still on, suspended from the little blue belt Tom had nicked from somewhere, so that was all right. It didn't make much sense, Jack had to admit, but they both seemed to be agreed on it, and that was usually the way bills were passed in the band. It was Jack's band, after all. It was all right.

That was the first time.

But it was like breaking a dam, setting a precedent that
couldn't be unwritten. So long as Jack could slide his hand up Tom's thigh and find silk, nothing else mattered. Everything else was okay, because that was what they'd decided, and that was how it would be.

The first couple of weeks of it, they were, within certain parameters, careful. Practice nights were for practice, and nothing else. When they were playing actual gigs, it was worse. There was something about standing on a rickety stage with Tom, the glare of the spotlights making them sweat and Tom's mouth almost brushing Jack's cheek over the mic, that led to bad places. More than once, Jack had caught himself missing his place in a song because his attention was fixed on Tom's face, or the curve of his throat, or the line of his clavicle where it emerged, sweat damp, from the neck of his shirt. More than once, too, he'd stumbled off the stage breathless and half-hard, voice scraped raw, and Tom had flashed him the eyes that said,
Make an excuse
,
quick
. Then had come hasty bus-rides and fumbled changes of clothes in Jack's little bedroom, Jack's hand in Tom's mouth to stifle the noises as they rutted against each other. But it was almost six miles back to Jack's from the George, and the bus took its fucking time. And every set they did, the urgency seemed to get worse. Jack found himself holding his breath, waiting for something to snap.

The night something did, it was a Thursday. Not a hugely busy night out in Newcastle, but a sort of amping up tended to happen on Thursdays, everyone getting ready for the weekend, desperate for Saturday to come. Onstage, Jack was feeling a little desperate, too, hair sticking damply to his forehead and smoke in his eyes. Tom was close enough that Jack could see the thin line of spit connecting his tongue to his teeth when he opened his mouth; could see it snapping when Tom grinned and
launched into the chorus. Jack wanted to be the one to snap that line of spit himself, tongue to Tom's tongue, tracing the shape of his teeth. There was one at the front that was slightly crooked; another a little farther back had a rough sort of chip in it, from where Tom had come off his bike and bashed his teeth on the handlebars. Jack knew these things, had felt them, learned them, like none of Tom's girls ever had. Tom caught his eye, and Jack felt a rush of possessiveness surge up in his chest like a serpent, violent and a little untrustworthy. God, but home was a long way off. Not for the first time, he almost wished he lived in a hut on the Quayside, just so he could get his hands on Tom that much quicker.

After the set, he gathered his things quickly. It had become a routine for both of them, however many irritated looks Keith threw their way, no matter what he muttered about the two of them being sissies all of a sudden, desperate to get home to bed. Jack slung his guitar up onto his shoulder and moved out into the dank corridor, waiting for Tom to catch up to him with a smile, and a “C'mon, if we run, we can make the bus.”