by Joey W. Hill
She did. Her mouth returned, moving on his, her lips a pleasing cushion, her breath a little irregular. Nerves, but maybe something else. With the blissful ignorance of the sexually innocent, she followed her curiosity, parting her lips to taste his bottom one. She was killing him. He felt a glancing brush of her tongue, but she was shy about that. Yet her body, responding to primal instinct, was resting fully on him. His stapled wounds complained, but he told them to shut the hell up. Her hand rested against the base of his throat, fingertips against his crashing pulse. If she shifted over him, she’d come in full contact with the involuntary reaction of his body, his cock starting to pulse right along in time with his carotid.
One of her tiny fangs pinked his lip, unintentional, but when she kissed away the drop of blood, he bit back a groan.
I’d like to touch you. Need to touch you. Just in time, he came up with better phrasing. “Would you like me to touch you?”
“As you did before. My face…my neck and shoulders.” She paused, hovering over his mouth. “The more I do this, the more I want to feel your hands, so many places. As long as it can feel as it does while on my face. Good. Necessary. Not like necessary as in required. It is the wrong word.”
“Desired, my lady. You desire me to touch you. Will you say it for me?”
“Will you stop if—”
“I will stop the second you tell me,” he said instantly. “And if you tell me you want me to touch you again a blink after, or whenever it feels right again, I will. Just as I will stop if you say so right after that. All I desire is to give you pleasure.”
“Has it been like that for you and other women?” Her touch was on his face still, her lips brushing the corner of his mouth, but she paused there, her forehead resting against his blindfold. One of the snakes stirred, tunneling through his short hair and resting its body against the side of his head while it explored the sand. They were getting used to him. Or they knew their mistress was.
“A constant stop, start, stop, start,” she clarified when his brows raised in question at her comment.
“For some. When they needed that.” He wasn’t going to get into the therapeutic scenes he did with submissives right now. Definitely the wrong timing. “But for others, I read their consent from their physical responses to me, and the way they touched me. Their eagerness and desire were the paths I followed, rather than the spoken word.”
“And they trusted you to go no farther than they desired.” She drew back, but her hand remained on his chest, an encouraging sign, though he missed her mouth intensely.
“They did. When desire becomes passion, and you’re in it together, the fear goes away, because demand is created by the passion. It’s a form of violence, the right kind.”
“The right kind.” She mused on that. “Is that why one part of me doesn’t want you to…be so courteous?”
For someone with her past, it was an incredibly brave question to ask, and he treated it with the respect and reverence it demanded. “It is very normal, when you desire someone. And when you trust them not to hurt you.”
He unlaced his hands and laid one on hers, but she took it away. “How would you like to touch me?” she demanded. Her voice was worried, but he couldn’t tell the source of her tension.
‘There’s no way I wouldn’t like to touch you. But for right now, if you permitted me, I would touch and stroke your face, your throat and shoulders, slide my hands down your arms. I’d trace the lines of your palms, caress the pulse in your wrists. I’d clasp my hands around your wrists, feel that beat.”
“You like holding my wrists.”
“I do,” he said carefully. “Do you like it, my lady?”
She didn’t answer that, merely saying, “Keep telling me how you would touch me.”
“I’d trail my fingers from your throat, down between your breasts. I’d like to cradle them, feel your nipples get hard against my palms. They do that when a woman is aroused.”
“I know that,” she said defensively, as if it bothered her that he thought her so unschooled.
“Do you?” He was intrigued. “How?”
“At the temple, in the baths, the women would sometimes please one another with their hands, their mouths. I never… I was too young, but I would watch, hidden. It was not spoken of, because maidens of Athena were to be chaste, like her, but Klotho said Athena was strong, a warrior woman. She had no doubt she indulged in self-pleasuring, since the desires of the body are a sacred gift from the gods. After what happened with Ukrit, I thought she was mistaken. I forgot what I felt when I watched those women.”
He could feel her scrutinizing his face closely. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I’ve just figured out where I want to go after I die,” he said.
When she understood, he heard her chuckle.
“You are right, John Pierce. Men are very simple to please.”
Christ, he’d love to see her laugh or smile. Just hearing it in her voice made the whole world shine, even in the darkness behind his blindfold. Maddock had never doubted that when JP met Medusa, her reality would only enhance his feelings, rather than diminish them. Maybe because JP had never doubted it himself. But the confirmation was still a miracle.
“If I was one of those women, where would you have me touch you?” he asked.
She cupped one of his large hands in hers, turning it over to play with his fingers and stroke his knuckles. “These are not the hands of a woman, John Pierce. And I can’t imagine you as one of my sisters. Except maybe Phyllidos. She was six feet tall and strong like a man. Yet your shoulders are far broader than hers, your thighs so muscular.” Her fingertips trailed along his body there, the shorts making it a skin-to-skin contact.
If she wasn’t so innocent of sensuality and caught up in the worries of her past, he’d accuse her of being a terrible tease. Arousal was starting to get painful. Fortunately, the hold of the denim and the night shadows concealed it.
“My lady, you have the makings of a delightful Dominatrix.”
She didn’t respond to that, telling him her attention was firmly caught by priorities other than asking him to clarify a term she wouldn’t have heard before. He had no objection, since her next move was to place his hand on her side. Her laced top was short enough his hand was on her bare waist.
She was thin. Not a surprise, because a bird had to have a rapid metabolism to fly and he expected a winged humanoid would be the same. Plus she kept herself battle-ready. It pained him, knowing she’d been taught to defend herself from an early age, but she hadn’t been taught what kind of enemy she should be prepared to face. It didn’t matter how much training anyone had; the element of surprise could overcome it if it came at one the right way. Like from a man who’d stolen magic from a god.
He suspected she’d adapted her training since then, and far surpassed whatever was taught at the temple. The mantra of “never again” had likely powered every drop of sweat.
He imagined the pleasure of matching skills with her in that promised sparring bout. While the bet was putting the other on the ground three times, he indulged the fantasy of pinning her there, having her at his mercy, feeling her body tremble for all the right reasons at that kind of play.
Optimistic thought, John. She could just as easily kick your ass and you end up at her mercy.
Well, that could be fun, too.
Yet this give and take was the ultimate sensual strategy game he desired. He picked up clues from how her breath held and caught, the minute tremor through her limbs. The way she softened under his touch as he did the exact opposite.
He slid his hand up her side, his thumb following the outside of her breast. He didn’t linger but he didn’t rush, giving them both the full measure of sensation. The curve lifted, as if she’d drawn in a breath, and he continued up over her shoulder and to her collar bone, thumb sliding in the pocket between the two, down the sternum, only halfway, then across, over the tops of her breasts. The halter-style top was bli
ssfully low cut, laced at a deep point in her cleavage. He sensed her lifting into his touch again, and he reversed course, now curling his hand to let his knuckles glide up to her throat.
Her chin became part of the vertical track, telling him she’d dropped her head back on her shoulders. He wanted to ask if she’d closed her eyes, relaxing her defenses that much, but he didn’t want to raise them again with the question.
His knuckles glided along her windpipe and the area around it. When one of her silken curls of hair looped around his finger, a snake’s head brushed his knuckles. He felt its forked tongue feather him before it retreated, as if the creature knew it shouldn’t interfere with his mistress’s absorption.
JP made his way up over the slim point of her chin to find her lips. As he caressed them and they parted, male satisfaction surged through him, especially as the tip of her tongue touched him, tasted, but again quickly withdrew before he had a full sense of it. He moved his fingers over her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, eyebrows and forehead, and then he did what he hadn’t done before. He tunneled his fingers through her hair.
The snakes weren’t woven into a crown on her head right now. Instead they seemed to be uncoiled and moving over her shoulders and arms. As he passed his fingers through the thick strands, the contrasting braided-skin texture of the snakes alternated with the silky feel of her locks. He stroked the snakes, too, not avoiding them, giving them the same message of ease and nothing-to-fear. Descending to caress her nape, he glided around to the sensitive skin beneath her ears. The movements of her head were following his touch now, increasing the pleasure of the attention for both of them.
“Your snakes are sleek. I bet their scales shine in the sun just like all this gorgeous hair.”
“They sometimes look like they are dipped in oil,” she agreed. She hesitated over the syllables, as if struggling with arousal. Just the thought of that being true was enough to get him harder.
“I only feel four.”
“Treebark is avoiding your touch. He is more cautious than the others.”
He slipped his hands back over her face, spreading his fingers out. It was a fine boned oval his palm and fingers could easily cover. “What color were your eyes, before?”
“Green. Like the sea on an overcast day, Klotho used to say. Now…” She drew a painful breath. “The pupils, all of it…are like snake eyes.”
“The irises reminded me of rose petals.” Yeah, he wasn’t a poet, but that deep rich color had only one comparison in his mind, the perfection of the crimson flower.
Though she stiffened at the reminder of his stolen glance, he didn’t interrupt the rhythm of his touch. He wanted to keep reminding her he could look at her without her worrying that a glance could turn him to stone. He also wanted her to remember that when he’d looked upon her, nothing about her had repelled him.
“You have a snake’s grace and quickness as well, my lady. In addition to the rose petal eyes and forked tongue.”
Stillness again. Maybe she was debating whether or not to take off. He could feel that something was happening, some kind of mental struggle. Hoping to help her resolve that in a way that kept her right here, he slid his hand back over her shoulder and returned to his track down her sternum, over the rise of her breasts.
Her hand closed over his wrist and he stopped. He didn’t withdraw, but he didn’t press forward. Waiting to see what she wanted to do.
One heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three… Clasping his other wrist, she brought both his hands up, guiding them to cup her breasts as he’d described his desires. Her hands were shaking.
Firm and round, two lovely words. She wasn’t overly large, perhaps a B size in his world, perfect for her warrior-slim frame. As he already knew, her top wasn’t thick enough to conceal the tightening of her nipples as they responded to his touch, but he resisted the temptation of focusing on them. Instead, he savored the incidental pleasure of having them press into his palms as he caressed her curves. He wanted those taut peaks aching for an isolated touch, a gentle pinching that could become less gentle. He let his thumbs play in the laced valley between her breasts, cleavage he deepened when he constricted his grip, letting her feel a taste of male demand at what he hoped was just the right timing.
It was. A moan caught in her throat, fueling his own response. When he allowed his thumbs to pass over her nipples, the lightest of brushes, she reacted as if jolted by electricity. Her hand dropped and inadvertently brushed his erection.
Shit.
Direct contact revealed what shadows and denim had done a halfway decent job of hiding. Her response was immediate and volatile.
She jerked away and was gone, the blast of air from her wings mixed with a chorus of surprised hissing.
He sat up. “My lady? You do not need to run away. You need only say stop if you are uncomfortable.”
“You were going to take me against my will. You were…hard.”
That was an understatement. In its current state, his cock could knock a ball out of a major league baseball park. Her response told him she hadn’t left, thankfully, but she was perhaps twenty feet down the beach, a distance safe enough to allow her to take flight before he could reach her.
“Yes. I am. You felt desire at my touch. Didn’t you, my lady? Your body was responding. That’s what arouses me, your pleasure. I would find no pleasure in taking you against your will. Do you think the husbands of married women force them?”
“I do not know. I was not exposed to married women enough to talk to them about such things.”
But she’d heard stories. He could hear the fib in her voice. She was just uncertain of her own reaction and his.
“Did you get afraid? Is that why you ran away? I don’t want you to be afraid of me.” He communicated it in the rough earnestness of his voice and was glad when she responded as if she believed his sincerity.
“I was not running away.” She drew a few steps closer.
John laid back and laced his fingers behind his head again, figuring the relaxed pose would help. “So why’d you go over there, instead of saying stop? I won’t act on my desire, my lady. Never without your consent or invitation."
"Never. I will never consent to what he did to me."
“That’s good. Because I’d chop off that part of my anatomy before I’d do that to you.” He let her hear that in his voice, too. “You enjoyed touching me, being with me, yes?"
“Yes. I wasn’t afraid exactly. How I reacted when you touched me…it took me by surprise.”
“Did you like it?”
Silence. “Yes. It is still nice when I do it to myself, but I like it better when you do it.”
He bit back a groan at the vision of her pleasuring herself, exploring her breasts and nipples with intrigued fingers.
“Then come back here.”
Did she react the way he’d often seen a new sub respond to a clear command? Desire would war with wonderment at the body’s instant answer to a display of dominance. Damn, he missed his sight when he thought of things like that, but it was icing on the cake. He knew she’d reacted like that, because he could feel it. It might startle her as much as her arousal at his touch, so it was disappointing but no surprise when she didn’t come back.
When she left him entirely.
Hearing the rush of wings, JP imagined her flying to a tree at the forest line behind him and perching there to watch him. Perhaps she’d stretch out on a branch while the snakes wound around it. Had she ever been stuck until she could coax them to unwind and let her rise?
In his aroused state, he couldn’t help an idle fantasy of being a snake charmer who could command the snakes to do just that. Bind her to a branch so her head was restrained, perhaps one winding around her throat and across her shoulders to keep her that way as he charmed not only the snakes but aroused her body past all fear. He’d take her mind beyond every worry.
Rein it back, John, he warned himself. Yet he wondered if he was being too careful. What was
the charming way she’d put it? Being too courteous.
Because he no longer felt her near, he could remove the blindfold, but he kept his eyes closed, absorbing the lingering impressions of her flesh and voice, her breath, and all the things that could fill both silence and darkness.
He remembered the surprised hissing when she’d taken off. Were the snakes lulled by her desire? An interesting idea. Did arousal act as a sleep tonic for them, so she could focus fully on her pleasures? He could ask, perhaps when she was less agitated, but she might not know the answer to the question. He’d love to help her find out, if she ever let him touch her again.
Never. I will never consent to what he did to me.
She thought that meant she didn’t want sex ever again, but he knew better. Her body, her pounding pulse and that sexy little catch when she tried to talk to him while he was touching her said differently.
When he drifted off to sleep, his dreams were punctuated by erotic images that had him waking up several times with an unabated hard-on. If this kept up, no pun intended, tomorrow morning he’d head for the waterfall at the lower elevation. Based on the current state of his knitting skin, he knew he’d be able to take out the staples first thing, so the cold water would help soothe the irritated area at the same time it calmed his libido. If it didn’t work, he’d just take his troublesome dick in hand and deal with it that way. He wasn’t going to have it interfering with his judgment.
Patience. He could be patient. He had all the time in the world for her. He wanted to know everything about her, but more than that, he was content to spend a lifetime doing so.
From his experience, that was what love was all about.
Chapter Nine
Medusa flew low over the treetops touched by the morning light. Ratqueen didn’t care for flying and usually ducked her head under her thick mane of hair as it streamed behind her and down her back. The others were indifferent to it, draping themselves on her shoulders. Well, except Waterlight. She loved flight, usually positioning herself in an upraised position above Medusa’s brow, like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. Her tongue would flicker wildly, like a flag, as the snake scented everything brought to her in the wind.