When I didn’t respond, he moved his hands back to my nipples and twisted hard. I yelped, and felt a sudden warmth spreading through my breasts, radiating outward from my nipples. It should have hurt, and it did hurt, in a way, but I didn’t mind the pain. It made me feel like I was fully awake at last. Like my whole life, up until this moment, had been a long dream, and I had finally opened my eyes.
“That’s right,” Carter said, and I tipped my head back against the sofa, looking up at him, feeling my panties damp between my thighs. I didn’t know what to say, but I hoped he would see something in my eyes that would convey to him what I needed, and how badly.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Carter said, voice low, and moved one hand to caress my cheek, a brief touch to my cheekbone. “I think you’re ready.”
I looked up at him, neck arched backward, throat bared.
He moved his hands to my hair, and began pulling out the bobby pins that were holding together the messy French twist I’d spent half an hour constructing with the aid of a video tutorial. He placed each pin on the side table with a small click. When he had gotten most of them, he ran his hands through my hair, searching for any strays, combing out my hair with his fingers.
Finished with that, he said, “I want you to get up and take off your underpants. Then I want you to walk into the bedroom and sit on the end of the bed.”
“My shoes,” I said.
His eyes looked very dark in the dim lamplight. “Leave them on.”
I stood, and shimmied my panties down my hips. They landed on the rug, and I stepped out of them, lifting one foot at a time, careful not to overbalance. I had gotten much better at walking in heels, but wine and arousal were combining to make me unsteady on my feet.
Carter watched me, hands curled around the back of the sofa. He was gripping so hard that his knuckles had turned white.
I shook my hair back over my shoulder. I spent most of my life feeling small and powerless, insignificant, a tiny cog turning and turning in the big wheel of the city; but the way that Carter looked at me made me feel like my life, finally, meant something to someone other than me.
It was an expansive feeling. It swelled inside me until I thought I might burst.
Fully naked except for my shoes, I walked around the sofa, brushed past Carter, and headed for the bedroom.
The bedroom was dark aside from the faint light coming in through the ceiling-to-floor windows along one wall. But the bed was covered in white linens, and it seemed to glow in the darkness, enough so that I was able to walk to it without fumbling. I found the end and sat, shoes planted on the floor, the sheets soft beneath me.
From the doorway, Carter said, “You could have turned on the light.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t think he really wanted me to.
He hit a switch on the wall, and a small lamp beside the bed turned on, casting a warm circle of light.
I looked at Carter, my body aching, waiting for him to come to me.
He crossed the room, feet soundless on the plush carpet. “Lie down,” he said.
That sounded promising. I shifted backward a few inches and lay back on the bed. The comforter was so fluffy that it felt like lying in a cloud. I kept my head raised so that I could see him. I wanted to watch what he did next.
Carter set his hands on my knees and drew them upward, along my inner thighs, but stopped just short of where I really wanted him to. “You know how to be good for me, don’t you?”
My face went hot. “Yes,” I said.
“Tell me,” he said.
How could I say it? How could I not? “I need to stay still, and not say anything,” I said.
“Very good,” he said, and sunk to his knees on the carpet.
I held my breath. I was so wet, and I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but I thought that maybe—I hoped—
He moved his hands to my thighs again, stroking the crease of my hip and then gently spreading my legs apart, opening me to him.
I let my head fall back against the mattress and closed my eyes. My hands drew into fists, and I tucked them beneath my hips. I would be good. I wouldn’t move at all.
Carter hooked his hands behind my knees and pushed them outward and up, toward my shoulders, and I tried not to think about how exposed I was. He could see everything. I tried not to be embarrassed—he had already seen me naked, and clearly liked it well enough that he wanted to do it again—but my old habits of shyness and concealment were hard to shake. I hoped he wouldn’t say anything.
And he didn’t. Maybe he could read my body language, or maybe he just didn’t like talking too much during sex. I felt his hair brushing against my inner thigh, and then the touch of his lips, soft, dry, in the crease of my right leg, where I had a small, hidden birthmark.
I let out a quiet gasp and arched my back, desire filling me like a river overflowing its banks. Was he going to—
“Hold your legs,” he said, moving his hands away from my knees, and I obeyed instantly, curling my hands around the back of my thighs, holding myself open.
The next thing I felt was his fingers stroking at my wet slit.
I bit my lip to keep from crying out. His touch was light, teasing, and he ran his thumb along my folds a few times before he moved his hand to hook around my leg and tug me closer to him, closer toward the edge of the bed.
“Don’t move,” he said, and I froze, every muscle clenched with anticipation, until I felt his mouth against me, and the tension turned into a sudden liquid warmth as I practically melted into the bed. I was like Icarus, too close to the sun.
I had never felt anything like it—never imagined anything like his tongue sliding against me, slick and languid one moment and fluttering the next. I gripped my thighs tightly, afraid I would let go without meaning to. The world narrowed to a single, molten point: Carter’s mouth between my legs, teaching me an entirely new vocabulary of pleasure.
He went slowly at first, licking me in long strokes, making me tender and swollen. I squirmed against him, wanting more, but also already so overwhelmed that I wasn’t sure I would survive it. Had anyone ever died from pleasure? Maybe I would be the first.
It wouldn’t be a bad way to go.
As I grew hotter and more eager, opening to him, I noticed that my hips started rocking against him in small involuntary pulses. He took it as an invitation, and intensified his exploration, sucking and even using his teeth, gently, but enough to make me moan. I felt that familiar pressure building, and it grew more urgent the more he worked me over with his mouth, that feeling like the tickle right before a sneeze.