Cries of Penance (13 page)

And then…

I open my eyes and look again upon her face. I whisper, “Abigail.”

She wets her lips with her tongue but doesn’t speak.

Ducking my head down, I kiss her. But more than that I savor each nuance of the kiss, her taste, her scent, the crush of our lips against each other. I suck her bottom lip into my mouth, pul ing on it gently. Need pul s between us like thick taffy, but I refuse to give into the moment. There has been too much quick pleasure between us, barely sated need. Tonight I want more, and I hope she is able to give me what I need.

“I want to see you.”

I’ve requested the one thing she never al ows. Of course I’ve seen almost al of her body naked, but only sections at a time. She hides her body from me, hiding it behind nightgowns, robes, or the veil of darkness. I suspect she is shamed, self-conscious, or embarrassed. And though it is true that she doesn’t have a twenty-year-old’s suppleness, I don’t think she should feel anything less than beautiful.

She pul s away and turns her back to me. I take it as an invitation, though I’m certain she didn’t mean it as one. I slide my arm around her middle, pul ing her hips tight against my groin. With my other hand I unzip her dress the rest of the way and slide the fabric down her arms.

Dress trapped between us, I unhook her bra and pul it away, dropping it on the floor.

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She tenses when I start to ease the dress over her hips. I kiss her neck and shoulders and keep lowering the fabric until it fal s to pool at her ankles. I start unfastening the row of hooks holding her girdle closed.

“Lex?”

I whisper against her neck, “Relax,” and with a hiss the body shaper slides free and I drop it.

I run my hands over her bared breasts and stomach, enjoying her curves.

“Can we please get into your bed?” she begs, trying to lead the way.

I hold her back, running my hands lower, feeling the silky weave of her pantyhose. I rol them down, squatting as I do so. I help her step free of each shoe and pul the stocking away from each foot, leaving her standing in her underwear.

She trembles slightly, and I like it that she does. I kiss the back of each of her thighs before tugging the waistband of her panties down and helping her out of them.

Standing, I take her hand and lead her to an armless desk chair. I tel her,

“Sit,” and my tone of voice brooks no refusal. Sure, she could disobey. There is the choice after al , but I think she’s intrigued now that the fire of passion has cooled a bit.

She sits, her bare bottom sliding against the satin of the chair. It is a sensory jolt reflected in her facial expression. Her discomfort at being so exposed is evident in the chal enge of her arched brow.

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I turn on a desk lamp and angle the shade to cast its light on her stomach and juncture of her thighs. She starts to stand, saying, “That’s enough. I don’t know what game this is, but I don’t—”

I push her back down, her bottom hitting the cushioned seat hard. Our gazes clash. “This isn’t a game. I said that I want to see you, and I intend to see al of you. I want every inch of your flesh bared to me. I want your emotions raw. I want to see your soul.”

Her gaping mouth slams closed.

“You are going to do everything I ask you to do, Abigail. Do you understand?”

Her lips part but she doesn’t speak, she only nods.

I kneel in front of her. “Separate your knees.”

She does but barely. None too gently I push her knees wide, making her gasp. I angle her legs to either side of the seat, looking closely at her. Her downy fine pubic hair curls over her clit. The pink nub barely peeks through. Her hair below is only slightly darker blond than the platinum blond on her head. Touching her lightly, I tease one of the curls away, considering asking her to shave it but as quickly decide against it.

I tease the nub of her clit with my thumb, drawing the moist evidence of her desire back with the hood of skin trying to hide the hidden bud.

“Lex, you’re making me uncomfortable.”

“No words, Abigail.” I meet her gaze, saying, “Tonight is only about what I want. What I want to take from you and what I want to give you. This moment I want to look, and if that makes you uncomfortable, then I want that too.”

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I return my gaze to her clit. Looking, just looking, and knowing by her rising heat and scent that she is growing moist beneath the coils. That if I only reached out, I could dip my finger into her wetness. I don’t. I flick her clit, making her jerk, making her cry out. I shake my head. “Sh-h.”

I flick her clit again.

And again.

“Stop it, Lex! That hurts.”

I caress her cheek, gazing deep into her eyes. “Accept that I want to hurt you tonight.”

I notice she is panting, and I believe that she wants this as much as I. She has been playing with me for years, blindfolds, silk binds, a little slap and tickle, but never pain. We have danced around the potential of what could happen between us if only we al owed it, perhaps if only I forced it. Is that what I’m doing now?

Forcing this to happen?

Her arms are clamped tightly around her middle, hiding what she sees as imperfection. I continue holding her gaze as I pul her arms way, exposing her further. I rub my hand over her bel y, rol ing the flesh under my hands. She squints her eyes closed tightly. “Please. Don’t. I’m self-conscious enough of my fat.”

I don’t stop touching her, kneading her. “I’m going to gag you if you don’t shut up, Abigail.”

Her eyes fly open and she shudders, but she doesn’t say anything else. I keep massaging her bel y, feeling her discomfort. I pinch a rol of flesh, letting her 119

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know with the action that I am taking a measure of her. What I don’t see as an imperfection is utterly humiliating to her, or at least that is the way she is responding. A flush of red creeps between her breasts and up her throat.

She is too strong a woman to ever cry, to ever let such weakness show, and while I admire her strength, I also want her to let go of her emotion.

I cup her ample breasts, lifting them, weighing them in my palms. She has such heavy breasts. It’s surprising real y once they are free of their fabric cage just how large they real y are. Crushed beneath foundation products meant to hide, not enhance, and her jacket, she lessens her femininity and grasps at a more male driven power. As if anyone could forget that she is a woman.

Standing, I look down on her and she sighs with relief, thinking we are done.

“Stay there. Don’t move,” I warn.

Crossing the room, I open the closet and pul out one of my bags. My toy bag.

Inside there are restraints, gags, nipple clamps of al sizes and designs, whips, floggers, riding crops, and paddles, lube, and a couple dozen dildos and vibrators also in various sizes and designs. Just unzipping the bag, my pulse speeds up a bit.

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“I like a look of Agony, Because I know it’s true— Men do not sham Convulsion, Nor simulate, a Throe—”

Emily Dickinson, I Like A Look Of Agony

Thank God for work. Even though I’m exhausted and didn’t sleep a wink. I left the house early, citing a mid-week employee meeting. Knowing Garrett, he’s stil asleep. Dawn to dusk, then rising for work. It’s quite the nocturnal life we lead, except I’m trying to lead both a normal life and night-time life. I know it’s something I’l have to find a better balance to once the babies arrive, but for now I need both the club and work, anything to keep my mind off the fact that Thomas is away.

Jackie finds me working late at The Darkness and although I’d usual y be thril ed to see her, when she opens my door and pokes her head in, I wish I’d locked it. Then I could have stayed hidden. Except my car is in the parking lot and she would have guessed I was in here. She would kick the door down.

“How about some dinner?” she asks.

“Did Garrett cal you?”

She comes into my office and poses with her hands on her hips, stretching out her ful height—al six foot six inches of her—six ten, counting her stilettos.

“What? A friend can’t show up unexpectedly to take a friend out for some dinner?”

“He thinks I’ve lost my mind because I insist in coming here after a ful night at the club.”

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She walks over and sits in one of the upholstered wing chairs on the other side of my desk. “He might have a point. How are you feeling?”

“Pregnant.”

“I’m worried about you. Ever since Thomas left…you work too hard…I don’t think that’s good for you or the babies. Have you looked in the mirror lately?

Those dark circles under your eyes mean you need sleep.” She shakes her head. “I admit there’s no love lost between me and Thomas, but I never believed in a mil ion years he would abandon you.”

Bristling, I demand, “Is that your way of asking what the hel is going on?”

“Whoa, sistah. It’s me, Jackie, no ulterior motive for prying into something that isn’t any of my damned business except for my love for you. I worry.”

I snort.

“I would jump up and down and clap with joy—behind your back, of course—if you were to tel me that demon was gone from your and Garrett’s life forever, but I do love you, and if you are hurting you should have someone to talk to about it.”

My shoulders slump as I release a heavy sigh. “It isn’t so much that I’m hurting. I’m resigned. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this to happen since I first met Lord Fyre. Being with him was so chaotic, so intense, it didn’t seem like it could possibly last forever…and having both of them, Master and Lord Fyre, wel , that was just too good to be true, wasn’t it?”

Jackie takes my hand and pats it. “Nothing is too good for you, honey. You deserve the best of the best every minute of the day.”

“That would be having both Master and Lord Fyre here.”

I guess it is Jackie’s turn to snort, because she does, loudly and derisively.

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“He’s coming back,” I defend, not knowing how much Garrett has told her about the situation, and being sworn to secrecy about Thomas’s work as a covert operative makes anything I say compromising. “He was just offered a job he couldn’t refuse.”

I meet Jackie’s gaze, and the look she gives me is one of pity. She real y doesn’t believe he is coming back. Is that what Garrett told her? Panic fil s my chest as doubt floods my mind. No. No! Thomas is coming back. He would never lie to me.

Standing, she comes around my desk and taking my hands, pul s me out of my chair. She wraps her arms around me. I wil not cry. Jackie doesn’t know anything about it. Garrett would have no more compromised Thomas than I would, not even to Jackie. With my mouth muffled against her ample breasts, I say, “Dinner would be good.”

As it turns out, the sun hasn’t set yet and it is a perfect spring day. The air smel s sweet after the recent rains. Crossing the parking lot, I ask Jackie, “Do you think anyone would be at the Primal Birth Center? I know it’s not one of our regularly scheduled days but—”

“Is something wrong?” she interrupts. “Tel me you aren’t in labor!”

I laugh at her obvious distress. “Nothing quite so dramatic, I assure you.

That’s at least a month away. I just wanted to talk to someone.”

“I thought that was why I’m here,” she says cheekily. After we climb into her car and buckle up, she turns toward me, asking, “Is Garrett stil being an ass about wanting you to have a Caesarian section?”

I smirk. “Wel , of course. But that isn’t what I want to talk to someone about.”

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“I’m al ears,” she says brightly.

Starting the car, she drives through the parking lot and out onto the main road while I try to figure out how to even broach my concerns and what I’m feeling.

“Did you see Panda and Jako’s performance last night?”

She shakes her head. “I wasn’t at the club last night.”

It is only after she tel s me that I realize I didn’t see her last night. “Wel , you missed a show.”

Her eyes widen, and she smiles at me. Zig-zagging through traffic, she demands, “I need details!”

God, where do I start?

It isn’t the onstage scene my mind drifts to. Last night Master wanted to talk about the scene, hours later, and I certainly didn’t want to discuss it.

“It was fine,” I’d said, leaving him in the bedroom to go to the bathroom.

He fol owed me , and I peed in front of him.

I don’t know if it’s a normal thing to have your partner not give you any privacy for bodily functions, or just a kink thing, but I’m used to it. I washed my hands and brushed my teeth, the whole time debating whether or not I wanted to shower.

I decided I did. I’d felt dirty ever since Jako and Panda’s scene, but I hadn’t wanted to invite intimacy so I’d climbed under the covers and soon we were talking about Morgana…I thought the Jako-Panda scene was forgot en.

“What bothered you most, Kit en?”

Was it that obvious that it bothered me so much Master had to keep needling me? To escape the question, I opened the shower door and turned on the water.

“It didn’t bother me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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“Yes, you do.” His hand on my elbow kept me from entering the shower. “Talk to me.”

Holding my elbow tight, he used his free hand to stroke my breast. He drew teasing circles around my areoles with his fingertips, leaving my nipples tingling with a strange sensation. “Are you worried about how you are going to feel about your own milk coming in?”

I cringe just remembering. Jackie is waiting aptly. There isn’t any way to tel Jackie what happened other than to just be blunt.

“Jako milked Panda onstage.”

“Real y?”

I can tel by her tone she isn’t disgusted by the image.

“Yes! Real y.” My heart starts racing and I begin talking fast, probably too fast for her to understand anything I’m trying to say. “And now Garrett wants me to nurse the babies, and I’m scared to death he’s going to want to humiliate me onstage the way Jako humiliated Panda, and honestly, my mind just can’t go there. I can’t do that. I won’t do that!”