A Single Glance

by W Winters

  In between every round, he gives me more information, and occasionally asks me insignificant things. Things I don’t mind answering, all the while Jase promises to tell me more. It’s not quite tit for tat, since he’s giving me more and more information about The Red Room and what happened to make it become what it is, all while asking me simple questions that don’t require more than one-word answers. But he’s gauging how my body reacts when I tell the truth. Taking the time to learn my body. My only response to that is that I’m not a liar. I don’t have the time to tell him that though as he continues to feed me information.

  “I enjoyed the control. Knowing when and where everyone would meet up. Giving them a space where they could enjoy themselves, and observing them in the meantime. I wanted to know the ins and outs of every partner we had. I wanted their secrets…”

  I can barely breathe as he gives me his past so easily, all while bringing the mostly melted ice down farther than he ever has to my pussy, and gently pushing it inside of me. My lips make a perfect O as every nerve ending in my body lights.

  He continues his story as my lips part, feeling the rush of desire spark inside of my body. “So we could blackmail them. I used the bar to set everyone up to owe us in some way, or to have information we could use against both our partners and our enemies. In this industry, everyone is an enemy at some point, and we would be ready the second anyone thought they could turn their backs on us.”

  It’s exhilarating.

  Both his touch, and the tale of how they rose to power. Creating a place for divine pleasures and allowing everyone to taste, for everyone to fall into their grasp to be controlled and their actions predicted so easily.

  He lowers his lips to the crook of my neck, letting his warm breath be at odds with the chill that’s slowly melting at my core, being consumed with his criminal touch.

  “I sell every addiction possible and I don’t have rules within those walls.” As he speaks, he pushes his fingers inside of me, dragging them against my front wall and bringing me closer and closer to the peak of an impending orgasm. I close my eyes tight, trying not to give in although I know it’s useless. My toes have curled and the pleasure builds inside of me so quickly like a raging storm, unstoppable and demanding its damage be done.

  “Every corner of that place is defiled; every square inch has been touched by sin. That’s the kind of business I conduct in The Red Room.”

  My neck arches as I give in to the need, a wave of pleasure rising from my belly outward, followed by another, a harsher, more severe wave crashing through me. I can’t move an inch as Jase grips my throat with his free hand and continues to torture me, fucking me with his fingers and drawing out every bit of my orgasm. I wish I could move. I want to get away from the third wave threatening to consume me, but I’m paralyzed as it rages through me.

  Every nerve ending in my body ignites, my body shuddering and trembling as my release takes its time, wandering through my body and slowly dissipating. Jase removes his fingers carefully, and I gasp in pleasure as he circles my clit before bringing his fingers to his mouth.

  My arousal shines on his fingers as he sucks it off, one by one. I can’t bring myself to look away when he groans in sheer delight.

  Even as my heart races and adrenaline and excitement race through me, fear freezes my body when Jase picks up a knife from his bag. It’s only a pocket knife.

  It’s just to get the ropes off, I tell myself. It’s amazing how the sight of it destroys the previous moment. I close my eyes, waiting to hear the sound of the blade sawing at the rope, but Jase doesn’t allow me to.

  “I need your eyes open for this. You need to stay still and I don’t want the touch to startle you.” He sounds so calm and in control as he splays a hand on my chest. His elbow rests on my shoulder and pins me in place as my heart lurches inside of me, ready to escape.

  My gaze begs him to explain, to stop, to reconsider whatever he’s doing as he brings the knife closer to me.

  “It’s only to shave the small hairs from your body,” he says, answering my unspoken questions. “I won’t hurt you,” he tells me soothingly as the blade just barely touches my skin. He drags it slowly across my breast, all the way down my mound and then back up, avoiding my sensitive, swollen nub.

  “Can I let you go?” he asks me, gently lifting his elbow. “Or are you going to move?”

  I can only swallow, I can barely even comprehend what he’s saying since the panic is so alive within me.

  “If you move, it will cut you,” he tells me.

  “I’ll be still,” I whisper and as the blade lowers to my skin I consider the word, stop. So easy to say. I could say it; it’s right there, waiting to be spoken. But Jase drags the knife along my chest before I can utter it and then he kisses the sensitized skin. An open-mouth kiss that feels like everything. Like this is the way a kiss is meant to be, and every other way is wrong.

  My head’s fuzzy and a haze clouds it as he scrapes the knife along my body, leaving a pink path occasionally, but his kisses and the ice make the evidence vanish.

  It’s all overwhelming and agonizingly slow. By the time he gets to my pussy, I’m on the edge of another release. My impending orgasm is waiting for the knife, for his touch, for a kiss. But it doesn’t come.

  After the longest time, my body feels his absence and I open my eyes. He pours ethanol onto a rag, then wipes down my body in one swift stroke and before I can say anything, a flame lights on a candle and he lowers it to the ethanol, lighting my skin ablaze.

  The scream is trapped in the split second, but before its escape, his hand follows the path, quenching the heat and leaving me wide eyed and breathless.

  So hot, and then so cold.

  With a pounding heart, I take in the reality. “You lit me on fire.”

  “No, I lit the alcohol just above your skin on fire.” He does it again and this time hot wax drips with it and I suck in a tight breath, my hands turning to fists from the slight pain, the immediate heat, and the cold absence that comes afterward. My head thrashes from side to side as he does it again and again. The pain morphing to unmatched pleasure makes my body feel alive in a way I never knew was possible.

  Every climax feels higher and more unbearable than the last. My words fail me as Jase moves down my body, not sparing any inch of my skin.

  The alcohol, the fire, his touch. Over and over. He massages the wax onto my breasts before using the knife to pick it off, and the third time he does it, I cum violently.

  The pleasure rages through my body with no evidence of it even approaching until the blinding pleasure rocks through me, from my belly to the tip of my toes and fingers.

  It’s as if my body has rebelled, choosing his touch and this heat over any sense of calm. It prefers the chaos, the unknown, the absence of all control and stability.

  With my bottom lip still quivering and my belly trembling as the tremors of the aftershock subside, Jase kisses me, madly and deeply. I feel all of him in this kiss and it kills me that I can’t lift my hands up, keeping him where I want him.

  I’m at his mercy. Fully and truly, and that very fact plays tricks on me. Telling me I love it. Telling me he knows what I need more than I do.

  With every pleasure still ringing in me, he pulls away and stands up, removing his shirt and the light from the candle plays along the lines of his defined muscles. I can see his thick length pressing against his zipper and when he palms it, I have to look away. I’m so close to another orgasm. My clit is throbbing; I feel swollen and used, but he’s hardly touched me there.

  The sound of a zipper makes me look back at him and the instant I do, his pants, along with his belt, drop to the floor with a clink and a thud and his dick is all I can see.

  His girth is so wide I’m not sure I could wrap my hand around him. I can practically feel the veins pressing against my walls and pulling every ounce of pleasure from me, practically imagine his rounded head sliding back and forth over my clit. Oh my God. He’s ma
ssive. He grabs his cock and rubs the glistening precum over the head and that’s when I lose it.

  Cumming again, and he didn’t even touch me. That’s how much power he has over me. Just the thought of what he could do to me, how he could ruin me, how he is so much more than any boy I ever thought of letting touch me… all of it is fuel that ignites a raging fire inside.

  Jase groans deep in the back of his throat, dropping to the floor so quickly and so hard, I know it will leave bruises on his knees. “Cum again,” he commands me breathlessly, leaning over my body to kiss and bite the crook of my neck as he pushes three fingers inside of me and ruthlessly fucks me with them.

  The waves of my last release have barely left me when the next orgasm crashes through me, harder and higher than any of those before. My scream is silent, my body stiff as it commands attention from all of me. My body, my soul.

  And Jase doesn’t stop, even as my arousal leaks down my ass, he continues. Even as I feel myself tighten around his fingers, he doesn’t stop.

  I can’t. I can’t take it. I can’t breathe.

  I can’t move. I can’t speak.

  I’m helpless and consumed by fire and lust.

  I try to focus on Jase when he whispers in my ear, but my body won’t stop shaking and my neck is rigid. “When you look at me, know this is what I want from you. Only I can give you this.” His words hiss in the air, crackling and demanding to be burned in my memory.

  Jase Cross destroyed me and what I thought was pleasure.

  And where I thought my boundaries lied with him.

  Bethany

  My eyes open quickly, the darkness consuming me except for the moonlight from the bedroom windows. My heart’s racing and it’s then that I realize the trembling isn’t a dream. I can’t stop shaking and I’m so fucking cold.

  “Shhh.” Jase’s voice is anything but calming. After the initial shock of realizing he’s in bed with me, I barely turn around before the bed groans and he pulls the weighted blanket up and around my entire body.

  Frantically I try to recount it all, every moment that I can remember.

  “What did you do to me?” I ask, and the question comes out viciously. I’m fucking freezing, and I can’t stop trembling.

  “I brought you to bed,” he says lowly, a threat barely there, warning me to be careful but fuck that.

  “What did you do?” The words are torn from my throat. It’s not even the fear that’s the most overwhelming. As my throat dries and a sinking sensation in my stomach takes over, I look him in the eyes and realize how much trust I had in him. It wasn’t just business. I gave up more than I should have, and he did something to me. He hurt me.

  How could you? I want to say the words, but I can’t bear to bring them up and admit to the both of us that I thought he wouldn’t hurt me. That I was that fucking naïve.

  Jase’s arm is heavy and pulls me closer to him, even though I attempt to push him away as he says, “It’s just the endorphins crashing.” Although his words are drenched with irritation, there’s something else there, something buried deep down low in his words that I can’t decipher. “You’re okay,” he nearly whispers and then pulls me in closer, dragging my ass to his groin, my back to his chest and nuzzling the nape of my neck with the tip of his nose. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

  His voice is a calming balm. Even as I continue to shake. As my fingers feel numb and then like they’re on fire. Cold again. “I’m so cold.”

  I almost expect my confession to turn to fog in front of me. Like warm breath in the winter air.

  “You were on a high,” Jase tells me and then presses his arm against mine, pushing it closer to me and acting as if I’m not trembling uncontrollably. “It’s all coming down. I thought you may have a little aftershock. That’s why I stayed,” he explains.

  Aftershock. Endorphins.

  He didn’t drug me. It’s not drugs. I can barely swallow for a long moment, trying to make it stop, but my body’s not listening.

  “Does this happen all the time?” I ask him, attempting to let go of the anger, swallowing my regret that I immediately assumed the worst of him. It was my first instinct, and shame hits me hard as I realize he did quite the opposite.

  I’m a bitch. I am an asshole. An embarrassed asshole.

  With sleep lacing his words he tells me, “Not often, but I imagine that was your first?” and I instantly clench my legs. Remembering the ice, the cold, his touch, the fire.

  My shoulders beg to buck forward, my eyes closing at the memory and the heat flourishing in my belly.

  “Was it?” he teases me, nipping my neck and just that small touch threatens to push me over again.

  “I can’t,” I say, and the words leave me in a single breath. A single plea. Instantly a chill creeps up my neck, the open air finding its place there as Jase moves his head to the other pillow.

  A shaky breath leaves me as I turn my head to peek at him, craning my neck as my back is still positioned firmly against his chest. “Did we have sex?” I ask him, feeling a weight press down on my chest.

  Jase merely gazes back at me. The depths of his dark eyes deepen as I stare into them. Licking my lower lip first, I explain, “I don’t remember everything.”

  “We didn’t. No,” he answers me, and his expression remains guarded. “I told you, you’d have to beg me for it.”

  His warmth calms me and slowly I stop trembling as hard. Very slowly, but the tremors are still there.

  “For all I know, I did tell you to fuck me,” I tell him.

  “You could barely look at me, let alone speak.”

  “Holy shit,” I murmur beneath my breath.

  “When I fuck you, trust me when I say you’ll remember it.”

  His words force a shiver of pleasure through me when I remember I saw … I saw all of him. “Why am I shaking so much?”

  “From you getting off so many times. Your body can only handle so much.”

  “I can’t believe it can feel like that,” I say, thinking out loud.

  “Sometimes the things that cause you pain can bring you so much pleasure.”

  “Not everything that brings you pain.” The hollowness in my chest expands at my thought, drifting to darker places.

  The shaking and trembling stop altogether, but Jase doesn’t let me go and I’m happy for that. There’s so much comfort in being held right now.

  “Tell me something,” I ask Jase, resting my cheek into the pillow, feeling the warmth come back to me and the lull of sleep ready to pull me under once again.

  “Tell you something?” He ponders and then readjusts on the bed, making it shake slightly. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything,” I answer as my eyelids fall heavily without second-guessing and my eyes pop open wider, remembering all the bits and pieces he told me about The Red Room. “Maybe about your brothers?”

  Once again Jase’s lips find my neck, and this time he leaves an open-mouthed kiss there. I’m starting to love those kinds of kisses. I think they’re my favorite. “I had four brothers, now I have three and I recently learned that my younger brother, the one I was closest with…” He hesitates and again that small space on my neck feels the prickle of the air instead of his warmth. “I found out his death wasn’t an accident; it was murder. And it was supposed to be me, not him.”

  “Oh my God,” I whisper, completely shocked. My heart breaks in half for him. I know the pain of losing a sibling, the agony of blaming yourself. But knowing it was supposed to be you instead? “I’m so sorry.” I put every ounce of sincerity into my words and pray it doesn’t come out the way everyone else says, like the people who say it simply because they don’t know what else to say. “I’m really sorry.”

  Jase doesn’t say anything at all. Not for a while until he requests the same from me. “Tell me something.”

  “I can’t figure you out, Jase,” I answer him almost immediately.

  “You already know who I am, cailín tine. Don’t let me f
ool you.”

  I look over my shoulder to ask him, “What’s that mean? Cailín tine?”

  He gives me one of those smirks, but it’s almost sad and short lived. “Fiery girl.”

  My entire body betrayed me earlier, and so does my heart in this moment, beating just for him with a warmth I’ve never felt before.

  As I nuzzle back down into the pillow, I remember Officer Walsh and I spit out the words before I hide them forever. “A cop came asking about you today. He knocked at my door.”

  Nerves prick down my neck, but Jase’s touch remains soothing and his voice calm when he asks, “What was his name?”

  “Cody Walsh,” I answer and then feel Jase’s nod as his nose runs along my neck.

  “He won’t be a problem. He’s just new.”

  “Don’t you want to know what I told him?”

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything.”

  His response is to kiss my neck. Then my jaw. He tries to lie back down, leaving my lips wanting but I take them with my own. Reaching up to grip the back of his neck, and pulling myself off the comfort of the bed.

  It’s a quick kiss, but it was mine to have. And mine to give.

  “What was that for?” he asks me, and I answer him honestly. “I wanted you to have it.”

  Turning my back to him, I lie back under the covers. There are no more questions or conversations. With my eyes wide open, I pretend to sleep. After a short while, the bed protests under the weight of him moving, the covers are shrugged off behind me and I listen to him leave. Across the wooden floorboards, down the stairs. I can only faintly hear him in the living room, but I recognize the sound of the front door opening and closing.

  All the while, there’s this vise wrapped around my heart. Keeping it still, not allowing it to move the way it used to.

  Jase

  “What happened to her? To Jennifer Parks?”

  Seth hesitates. Seated across from me, he slides forward to readjust before leaning back into an auburn leather armchair. It’s silent in the back of The Red Room. Not a single beat of the music or murmur of the guests makes its way through these doors.