Menage (34 page)
'I like watching the way you watch my hands,' he said, 'the way a flush crawls over your cheeks, the way your hips roll a little - as though you're imagining how I'll feel inside you. You know I'll be big. You know you'll have to stretch to take me.'
I opened my mouth to catch a clear breath. He pushed the shirt-tails behind his hips and bared his glory. Its size distorted the fall of his elegant slacks, pushing out the zip, creasing the crotch.
'I'm imagining it, too,' he said. 'I remember how wet you'd get, how you'd drench me when I pushed inside you. I especially enjoyed the way you'd squeeze me with your cunt like you wanted to trap me there all night, like you wanted to milk the life out of me.' He leant over the footboard, sharing a secret. 'I hope you'll do that today, Kate.'
Fat chance, I wanted to say, but all that came out was a pitiful whimper. My nice Christian Dior trousers were halfway to drenched already. They grew more so when he shrugged each shoulder free of his shirt. I'd always thought Joe had the perfect physique, but this was ... That hair-covered wall of hard male muscle affected me so strongly, so primitively, I felt embarrassed, almost disloyal to my memory of the younger, smoother Joe.
Heavens, he was gorgeous - a Greek statue in warm, living flesh. I wanted to touch him, to rub myself all over him like a cat marking its owner.
My desire must have shone on my face. He grinned and flexed for me. His
pecs
flicked up and down. He slapped the rippling six-pack at his belly. 'What do you think, Kate? A hundred thou a week pays for a lot of gym time.'
I could not respond. My throat was too tight. His hands fell to his belt buckle. The distinctive clank of it opening, the hiss of leather through the belt loops, made me shiver. Those sounds meant sex to me: meant the imminent approach of relief. But not today. Today, relief was no sure thing. I should have been enraged. Instead, I lay spellbound.
He undid the waist catch and drew down the zip, inch by rasping inch. He paused, holding the edges together. My body tensed from toe to scalp. Let go, I thought. Let me see. His fingers opened. The trousers slid to the floor in a sibilant, silk-lined rush.
He wore nothing beneath them, just himself, springing upward now from a nest of shiny black curls. He planted his hands on his hips and widened his stance. His balls swung free between his thighs, heavy and full. I couldn't laugh at his machismo. He looked too good. In any case, he was laughing at me, silently, his eyes dancing with triumph. Somewhere I found the strength to frown.
'Now, now,' he said. 'Let's see if we can't make you more comfortable.'
I discovered what the scissors were for then. He cut the clothes off my body, piece by piece, skimming my limbs with the back of the cold, sharp blade. To my shame, I hadn't the presence of mind to regret the loss of my designer outfit. I was too elated at the prospect of being one step closer to intercourse. With a flourish that suggested he knew my expectations, Joe reserved the final snips for the sides of my panties. He pulled them from beneath me as smoothly as he had the rest, then sat beside me with one leg bent on the mattress. The smooth skin of his hip warmed my thigh, the hairy skin of his thigh, my side.
He cupped the rise of my mound, surrounding it, squeezing it. The tip of his middle finger slipped into my pooling warmth, just grazing my clit. My hips surged off the bed, but as soon as I moved he withdrew. I couldn't bite back a groan.
'You want me a lot, don't you?' He pulled his fingers lightly up my meridian, bisecting my belly and breasts.
Silence was my only
defence
, a thin one, considering how badly I was shaking.
His fingers ghosted back to my fleece. They drew an outline around its periphery, an arrow of lust. "That's all right, sweetheart. You don't have to answer. Yet. I'm looking forward to torturing it out of you. I know you need to give yourself completely to a man, not the separate parts, but the whole: mind, body and soul. You want mastering, Kate. You need it.'
He didn't see me grinding my teeth because he turned to the bedside table and opened the drawer. Instead of the small foil packet I expected, he removed a
calligra-pher's
brush.
I stared at it, bemused.
'We're going to play a game now - an ancient Chinese game, one I learned from a Nepalese sex guru in
I did hear them. I did feel it. My eyes flew open. 'You're
hypnotising
me.'
'
Shh
.' He smoothed my lids shut with the flat of his palm. The calming singsong continued. 'No one can be
hypnotised
against their will. In your heart you know you're safe with me, and very relaxed, so relaxed that all your awareness
centres
on the pleasant sensations in your body. The sun is warm. Your body melts like honey under its rays. That's right, sweetheart, breathe deeply. Breathe in the scent of the beautiful flowers.'
‘I love when you call me "sweetheart",' I said, stupid and
stuporous
, drowsing under the spell of his words. I could feel the hairs on my arms prickle as his movements stirred the air. I wanted him to touch me, but between my languor and my bonds I couldn't budge an inch.
'Now a butterfly comes,' he said. 'It's fluttering above you, looking for a place to light. You're nice and warm, Kate. Butterflies like to be warm, but it wonders if you're a safe place to rest.'
My lips curved at the silly story. Still, I could see the butterfly, an iridescent, sapphire angel, hovering against the clear spring sky. Something soft brushed the arch of one foot, then the other, then skittered to my toes. I knew it was the calligraphy brush but, in my mind, shimmering blue wings fanned the air. I gasped at the intensity of the gossamer touch, at the trail of tingling nerves it left behind.
The butterfly skimmed my ankle, my calf. It lingered for a moment on the warmth of my inner thigh. My buttocks tightened with longing and it took flight, alighting on the areola of one nipple. The centre erected at once, painfully. I moaned and it fled to the other breast.
'Oh, God,’ I whispered as it circled there, a caress as light as air, but so potent it brought tears to my eyes.
The touch flittered to the sensitive skin beneath my upraised arm, then darted back to my toes, my belly. I never knew where it would land or how long it would stay, and the anticipation aroused as much as the moments of contact.
I heard Joe breathing hard and deep. I smelled the musk of male arousal.
He touched a point midway between my navel and pubis that almost made me see stars. Energy rushed out from my centre. My back arched off the bed.
'Ah,’ he whispered, 'we're getting closer to the warmest spot.'
He drew the brush up my clitoris, a light, glancing stroke. He repeated it. The sensation changed as the brush grew slick with dew. I felt it more, needed it more. The brush lapped me like a tiny tongue. My thighs trembled. My head thrashed back and forth on the pillow. I tightened my inner muscles, trying to pull myself to climax but the delicate stroking held me on the edge - pushing me up but not over.
'Please,' I groaned, forgetting all my promises to myself. 'Please, Joe, I need to come.'
'Do you?' His lips tickled my earlobe, setting off a new set of sparklers. The brush continued its ethereal torture. 'I wonder if you need it enough to do me a
favour
.'
'Anything,' I said, and meant it.
'How you tempt me.'
The wistful answer made my eyelids flutter open.
'Anything,’1 repeated.
His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing up the glowing gold. 'I don't want what you think I want - not sexual
favours
, not a night of fucking.'
'What do you want?' I sounded drugged. I couldn't help it. He'd never stirred me this way before. No one had.
The brush dipped for one aching moment into the well of my sex. 'I want you to marry me.'
My mouth dropped. I tried to summon the outrage I thought I should feel. 'You can't coerce a person into marrying you.'
'Can't I?' The brush flicked up my labia and circled my clit.
'No! Oh, God -' My breath caught as he increased the pressure by the smallest, most excruciating margin.
'Even if you could make me say "yes", what's to keep me from going back on my word later on?'
'But you try very hard to keep your word.' He said this slowly, deliberately, as if the phrase held a secret meaning. 'You try very hard to keep your word.'
At the second repetition, I remembered. I'd made that exact claim to Sean six months ago, when he hadn't believed I meant to stay friends. It had been a private moment, the turning point in our relationship, the day our real friendship began.
'Sean told you that?' I couldn't hide my hurt.
Joe smiled with his eyes alone, gently, and with genuine compassion. 'He told me everything. He knows what I'm here to do. He wants me to be happy. He wants you to be happy.'
'I can't make you choose.' The words were out before I knew it. Abruptly, I knew I was taking this proposal seriously.
'Choose?' His brow furrowed. 'I told you, I'm not in love with Sean - or do you mean choose between men and women?'
'I don't want you to look back twenty years from now and feel you've missed out, that you denied half your sexuality.'
With one finger, he teased a damp curl from my cheek. 'Everyone who marries chooses between the rest of the world and the person they love. Whatever I give up will be nothing compared to what I gain.' His gaze narrowed, a golden laser to my soul. 'I want all of you, the light Kate and the dark Kate. You gave me your heart before. Now I want the rest. I want it for myself and I want it for keeps. I've had six months to think about this, long enough to be sure I love you more than all those other choices.'
This time he didn't ask if I'd marry Sean. My answer would have been the same - that Sean wouldn't ask me. But my feelings about the answer were different. Sean and I had been in each other's pockets for half a year.
We'd been friends, partners and lovers. We respected each other, relied on each other.
Didn't Sean mind? I wondered. Not just losing Joe, but losing me?
Joe waited, following the conflict in my eyes.
'Everyone has to choose,' he said quietly.
I wondered if he meant me this time. But was it such a close race? My heart wanted Joe. My heart said: this man will be true to you all his days. This man makes you want to surrender in a way no man ever has. If a corner - perhaps a substantial corner - of my heart belonged to Sean, then so be it.
'Yes,’ I said, and a bolt of pure gladness flashed through my being.
Joe released the breath he'd been holding. 'You'll marry me?' The old Joe struggled in his face, fighting to believe. 'Really?'
'Really.' I laughed, not believing I was doing this, giddy as a schoolgirl on champagne.
'Yes!' His fist punched the air as if his team had won the cup. 'Oh, but I have to get you out of this.' He reached for the scissors.
'Not so fast.' I stopped him before he could cut me free. 'You have some unfinished business,
Mr
Capriccio.' I stared meaningfully at the calligrapher's brush.
'Oh.' He looked at the delightful instrument of torture, then at my glistening sex. 'No, I'm sorry, Kate. You look too delicious. The brush will have to finish you another day.'
He reached into the bedside table. This time he brought out what I expected, and something else as well: a small black
jeweller's
box whose eye-popping contents sparkled with the clarity of spring water. Jesus. That diamond had to be three carats. He slid the ring on to the third finger of my left hand, where the gold immediately began to warm.
My first response was to coo the way any woman would at the sight of such a rock. I wished I could pull my hands free to admire it. But the ring made the engagement too real - too real and too scary. 'Joe, it's beautiful, but I can't accept it.'
'Yes, you can.' He clambered between my outspread legs and bowed to me, his muscular haunches' rising, the curve of his spine like a reed bending in the wind.
At once I forgot my protests. It had been a long time since I'd felt those silky locks between my thighs. I moaned as his thumbs slid up the petals of my sex, parting me for his kiss.
'Ah, Kate,’ he breathed. 'How could I have forgotten how beautiful you are, like a wet pink seashell?' He ran the tip of his tongue up my clit, lifting it gently, his touch as subtle as the Chinese brush. My hips strained towards his mouth. My wrists tugged the ties that bound them.
'Don't tease me, Joe.'
He repeated the feather-light caress. 'Just a little longer.' He nuzzled closer and sighed. 'You don't know what it does to me to see you squirm. It's been so long.'
Two whole months.'
'Six,’ he corrected, and rose to his knees. His sex stood out from his belly, dramatically thick and proud, every
millimetre
vibrating with power. He propped his hands on either side of me. 'It's been six months since anyone made me feel whole in bed. I need to take you, Kate.' He shifted and the tip of his cock probed my curls. ‘I need to take all of you.'