by Logan Fox
“Want to take another stab at jumping?” Tanner’s hand closed over her shoulder, the other her upper arm.
Trapping her.
Pearl took a step back, sitting down forcefully on the bench half-pulled out from beneath Tanner’s dresser. His smile inched up. He straddled her in an instant, before thought of slipping off the bench had time to reach any of the muscles involved in making something that complicated happen.
He was heavy. Heavy enough for her to think that the bench wouldn’t hold their weight. But it wasn’t the first time he’d shared it with her — last time it had been him beside her, never-minded as fuck after she’d accused him of murdering a bunch of Fox Pit girls.
Tanner leaned into her. She arched her back, her spine hitting the edge of the dresser. Tanner’s slid his arms out on either side of her head, his eyes flickering away from hers as he reached for something on the dresser.
Pearl closed her eyes, not knowing what he’d bring back with him when he straightened. Not wanting to know.
Seconds later, the unmistakable tap-tap-tap of Tanner cutting a line came to her. Pearl’s eyes fluttered open. He was absorbed in his task; grey eyes narrowed in concentration. Because of course he snorted coke. Which billionaire playboy didn’t?
“Hold still, baby girl.”
He ducked his head, crushing her to the dresser. Two soft, nasal snorts later, he straightened. Touching the edge of his thumb to his nose, he watched her from the corner of his eye as he gave a hard, disgusting snort to make sure everything had been assimilated into his nostrils.
Pearl swallowed, feeling bile rising in her throat.
“Want?” Tanner asked, his eyelids flickering almost imperceptibly.
“Never.” Her voice carried a good lashing of disgust, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Never say never.”
Tanner slid off her and beckoned her up from the bench. Pearl watched him warily for a few seconds before standing. The room had settled — it no longer lurched around like before, unsure of its place on this plane of existence. She wished the same were true of her legs.
“More weed then? Tequila?” Tanner asked, yanking her against him. He nuzzled her ear, catching the tip of her lobe between his teeth.
Pearl shivered. “No.”
“Thought you wanted to be out of your mind for this.”
“Out of this world, preferably.”
Tanner’s hands glided down the curve of her back, grabbing her ass and urging her closer. He was hard, but whether this was from the coke or their proximity, she couldn’t say. Probably both. Or maybe Tina’d given him a hard-on that hadn’t worn off yet.
“Happy to oblige. Ten minutes from now, you’re not going to know what universe you’re in. Or your own name.”
“Just yours, right?” Pearl turned her face away from Tanner’s searching lips. “Since that’s what I’ll be screaming?”
His grip on her ass tightened. When she faced him, he was staring at something over her shoulder, his jaw bunching.
“So you’ve heard it all, have you?” His voice was quiet. “Every one-liner? Every single pick up line? You’re a bigger slut than I imagined.”
Pearl inhaled a sharp, disbelieving gasp and squirmed against Tanner’s hold. When he didn’t release her, she slapped him.
His face remained at the angle her palm had driven it — facing the balcony. For a moment, his eyes seemed to be considering how heavy she’d be; how difficult it would be to carry her outside and toss her over. But then that flash of anger retreated, snuffed out by another languid smile.
He turned to her, wide mouth flashing a row of perfect teeth.
“Tit for tat,” he said in a low voice. “So I wouldn’t do that again if I was you, baby girl. I play a lot of tennis.”
Pearl clenched her fingers into a fist, her hand trembling. It stung like nothing else, and she couldn’t even see a hand print on his cheek.
“You didn’t start without me, did you?” Tina’s voice roused Pearl from her study of Tanner’s face.
The girl had paused in the doorway, naked as sin, twisting her hips from side to side.
Tanner was still looking at Pearl when she brought her eyes back to him. Without looking away, he gestured to the dresser.
“Help yourself. Our little wet blanket here’s decided she’s going to be a nun when she grows up.”
“More for us,” Tina said.
Pearl heard the girl cutting another line — or two, probably — and the decidedly unladylike snort that followed.
Tanner’s smile faded. He lifted his hands from Pearl’s ass, laying his fingers gently on either side of her neck, his thumbs on her jaw.
“Don’t make me take this from you, Pearl,” he whispered down to her.
The grey of his eyes was but a strip of neutrality… his pupils, a void. He dipped his head down. The pads of his thumbs slid over her chin and touched the bottom of her mouth.
Pearl swallowed. Her tongue darted out, dampening her desert-dry lips.
Tanner watched this with a hungry gleam in his eyes, his fingers tightening around her face.
Fingers brushed the nape of her neck. Pearl started and tried to turn, but Tanner refused to let her face move in his grip. He used his thumbs to swivel her head up, holding her still as he touched his lips to hers.
He tasted of Durban Poison and tequila. His mouth was hot, his tongue insistent, and the practiced movement of his lips were encouraging, urgent.
Tina sank her fingertips into Pearl’s hair, running her long nails along Pearl’s scalp. Pearl shivered, trying to turn her head away, trying to keep her lips closed.
“Hold still, little rabbit,” Tina murmured. The girl was on a similar height to Pearl, putting her mouth right by Pearl’s ear. “The wolf’s going to bite you if you try and escape.”
And just when in the hell had Tina decided to throw role play into this smorgasbord of hedonistic whatnot? Pearl wanted to be angry with her — furious, even — but she had a feeling Tina thought she was helping. Making this — whatever the fuck this was — easier for poor, terrified Pearl.
Which pissed her off. Royally.
She wasn’t frightened. She wasn’t a fucking wet blanket. She just didn’t want this. Not now. Not here. Not with him.
Did she?
Tanner’s grip relaxed. His hands slid down her throat to her shoulders. His thumbs brushed the chiffon over her collarbones, tracing the lines of her skeleton as if he’d like to see her without her flesh on, someday.
But his lips never stilled. Never stopped moving against hers. Urging her to respond. Enticing her. Entreating her.
Pearl’s lips parted — how could she keep them closed in the face of such insistence?
Tanner made a small sound — almost a groan — in the back of his throat. He pressed into her again, grinding against her so she could feel how hard he was for her. Pearl wanted to retreat, wanted to break off that insidious kiss, but Tina closed the distance between them as if sensing their prey might break free.
Which would be bad. ‘Cos then the wolf would bite the little rabbit.
And this little rabbit didn’t want to get bit.
2
Tanner’s Little Rabbit
Tanner was the devil. Satan incarnate, sent to earth with the sole purpose of tempting Pearl into a ruinous depth of sin. Of swaying her to commit hedonistic acts she would never have been able to conceive, let alone commit, on her own. He had a power over her that revealed itself slowly, as insidious as his kiss had been. As beguiling as the initial gentleness of his hands, the caress of his fingertips against her skin, his breath on her lips.
He came to her as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hiding his teeth and claws from her until it was too late to escape the snare he’d set for her.
The snare they’d set for her.
Because Tina had to be in on it. Her own touch was just as soft, just as suggestive of romance and frivolous high spirits.
They were both jus
t trying to reassure her. To calm the furious patter of her little rabbit heart. To make her believe that she wouldn’t be harmed. That she wouldn’t be scarred. That she wouldn’t be devoured — consumed — by their lust for her.
Tanner’s kiss deepening was the first warning flicker of that wolf biding its time inside him. Waiting out the rabbit’s paranoia, its skittish nature.
Pearl responded — foolish creature that she was — because his mouth was laced with a slow-acting poison that drugged her as surely as the weed had. That fogged her mind as definitively as the tequila had. She swayed on her feet, muscles numbing under the intense wave of pleasure that swept through her.
The wolf knew how to kiss. Knew how to lure its prey deep into its lair before pouncing.
Tina’s lips were on the nape of Pearl’s neck. The girl brushed shivers over Pearl’s skin, working her lips to the side of Pearl’s neck. To her ear. To her cheek bone.
The wolf’s hands never remained idle. During the slow deepening of his kiss, Tanner’s hands traced every outline of Pearl’s collarbones, the ridge of her breast bone, her shivering navel. His fingertips lingered with licentious intent above her pubic bone, nails raking against the chiffon so tremors of friction shivered over her clit.
Pearl could feel Tina’s beating heart against her shoulder blade, both contracting with a heavy thump-thump. The girl’s hands were on her shoulders, keeping her propped upright, holding out against Pearl’s swaying torso.
Her eyes fluttered closed. She couldn’t look at the blur of Tanner’s face any longer. Couldn’t study the dim outline of his hair. Was the room growing darker? Or was that simply the convergence of the supernatural forces these two predators were manifesting in their efforts to make her succumb?
Pearl wanted to laugh, but her breath was held captive by Tanner’s mouth. He’d shaved — she hadn’t even noticed until now — so there was no friction. Just smooth skin on smooth skin. Smooth lips against smooth lips. Slippery tongue moving over slippery tongue.
As if sensing that he was depriving her of oxygen, their kiss dissolved. His lips skimmed over her cheek, sourcing out Tina as if he’d felt her breath on his face and wanted a part of that heat inside him.
Pearl took a massive breath, eyes flickering open. Tanner and Tina compressed her between them as the wolf gave Pearl a chance to draw air. A chance to watch him and Tina as their passion-infused kiss grew in heat and veracity. Pearl began to tremble, unsure of her place between them. Not knowing what to do.
They looked capable of igniting the entire world, oceans and all.
Tanner’s hand slid up, squeezing hard at Pearl’s breast, perhaps mistaking it for Tina’s. She gasped, cringing at that unexpected flash of near-pain. Drawing the wolf’s attention back to her.
His mouth crushed into hers again.
He tasted different now. Sweeter. Bubblegum? She hadn’t even realized Tina’d been chewing any. Maybe not gum then. Maybe just Tina. Her mouth. Her unique flavor. Just like that sweet, raspberry scent that wafted from the girl’s clothes. It struggled against Tanner’s Caribbean miasma, but Pearl caught a whiff of it whenever the girl pressed close.
The taste was gone a second later. Now it was just Tanner again — dank sweetness and oily booze.
Pearl turned her head. Blinked, slowly, lazily, as if in a dream. She found Tina’s lips, drew at them. Tasted that sweetness, now untainted by Tanner.
And, with that libertine caress, her stronghold crumbled.
“Why don’t you kiss me like that?” Tanner murmured in her ear. “Am I not doing it for you, baby girl?”
Pearl couldn’t answer with her lips still trapped by Tina’s mouth. So instead, to reassure the man, she draped her wrist over his shoulder, running her fingers up the side of his neck.
This didn’t have the desired effect. It only seemed to highlight the fact that he’d become an afterthought.
Tanner jerked her straight with a shake of her shoulders. He stepped back, drawing her with him, and sat on the edge of the bed. Tina’s hands slipped away from Pearl, but they returned seconds later, urging her forward.
A flutter of anxiety — excitement? — trembled in her belly. Pearl slid her knees onto the bed on either side of Tanner’s thighs and perched lightly on his lap, hands gripping the side of his neck. His pupils, dilated as they were, swallowed her. The gloom in his bedroom didn’t help; the russet-colored duvets were the black of dried blood, his pale sheets stark in comparison.
Tina’s hands disappeared. She disappeared; Pearl could feel the warmth of her body dissipating.
To leave her and Tanner alone? It would be less confusing, but more intimidating. She felt safe with Tina, as if the girl was a buffer that kept the wolf inside this man at bay. Tina, the lion tamer.
“See?” Tanner said, his hands tightening around her lower back, urging her down. “Life can be surprisingly fun, if you let it.”
Pearl narrowed her eyes at him. He wore that inane smile of his, all self-satisfaction and smugness. It was probably the thing she hated most about him. And she did hate him. It came to her like a wisp of smoke curling out from under a closed door. A tiny, insignificant indication of the churning inferno that blazed behind that screen of wood.
“You tried to strangle me,” Pearl said.
Her fingers tightened around the back of his neck. She could feel the thick cords of muscles beneath his skin, the way they twisted under her fingertips as he shook his head.
“I was… confused,” he said in a low, quiet voice. “I mistook you for someone else. Do you want an apology? Do you want me to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness?” His lips twitched near the end, as if he was struggling not to move them into a sneer.
“The kitsune?” Pearl’s skin began to crawl. “You really thought I was that thing?”
Tanner’s surprise was overwhelming, sudden, intense. His lips parted as he sat back from her, his hands going limp around her hipbones. His silver-grey eyes flickered between hers as he shook his head.
“How do you—”
“I saw her. It.” Pearl thrust out her chin, daring him to denounce her. “The other night. She… it came for me. But I ran. I got away.”
“She doesn’t—” Tanner’s lips closed slowly, as if forever sealing his unuttered words. Another shake of his head.
“She’s tall. Thin.” Pearl took a hand away from Tanner’s neck, drawing her fingers down her own face, from the middle of her eyebrows to the sides of her mouth. “Narrow face. Pretty, in a ratty way.” Her fingertips trembled as she lifted them again, thumb and forefinger tracing her orbital sockets through the delicate skin around her eyes.
“Her eyes are the same color as mine.”
Tanner’s eyes flashed away from Pearl. His skin had gone pale as her description of the kitsune became more detailed. His eyes fixed on the doorway, to something moving there.
Was Tina back?
A flicker of memory came to her then. The ice-cold bars of the gate at her back. A breeze cooling the tears on her face. And then that face, that gaping, snarling maw. The kitsune, lunging at her, pouncing. But she’d stopped, hadn’t she? Her dripping canines inches from Pearl’s stammering jugular. That memory swirled, and with it, a fragment she’d forgotten — overlooked — until now. The kitsune’s shadow, thrown behind her by the antiquated light bulbs on either side of the entrance.
Pearl leaned forward, putting her mouth by Tanner’s ear. He watched her from the corner of his eye, a frown between his brows.
“She has nine tails.”
Tanner jerked as if Pearl had slapped him again. He reeled away from her.
Darkness swarmed over Pearl. She cried out, jerking as Tanner’s hands caught hold of her arms. It took her a second to realize it was Tina behind her. And a blindfold over her eyes. She took an unsteady breath, pressing a hand to her frantically pounding heart.
Tanner touched her too, urging her fingers aside and laying his palm over her heart. As if her racing heart had
again triggered that wolfish instinct inside him, the man moved beneath her as he shifted deeper onto the bed, drawing her with him.
Tina tied off the blindfold. The mattress shifted as she crawled onto the bed to join them. Pearl’s head whipped around. More darkness greeted her. She lifted her hands, trying to tear away the strip of satin, but slim fingers caught hold of her wrist.
“Leave it,” Tina murmured. She touched her mouth to Pearl’s shoulder, her neck, her ear. “You’ll thank me later, little rabbit.”
If Tanner had been disturbed by Pearl’s recounting of the kitsune, it didn’t come through in the precision of his movements. He touched Pearl’s body like an artist running his fingers over a blank canvas — imagining the breathtaking illusions he would brush onto its surface.
Tina’s touch, in comparison, had become exploratory and hesitant. She ran her fingernails lightly down Pearl’s arms, twining their fingers together before pulling them apart again. Was she on X too? Pearl had never done coke — did it heighten the senses like ecstasy did? Maybe it had a similar — if different — effect because the erotic energy in Tanner’s bedroom was palpable. She was surprised they weren’t arcing off each other.
Pearl lifted her arms, but before they could touch flesh, another slip of satin whispered over her wrist.
Tina tugged Pearl’s arm behind her back, her nails hard against Pearl’s skin as she caught hold of Pearl’s other wrist and bound them together.
“Tight?” Tanner murmured.
Tina tugged at Pearl’s bond. “Yes, Sir. She’s not going anywhere.”
They were tight. Tight enough for Pearl to be unable to slip free. A flutter — panic or pleasure? — riffled through her chest.
Tanner made a satisfied sound in the back of his throat. He shifted under her, sitting up, crossing his legs under her. Pearl’s legs slid around his waist, wrapping around him, her ankles locking. She felt a touch against her back. Tina. A furtive reach with her fingers brushed against the girl’s thigh. She was kneeling behind Pearl.