Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

  “And your nipples. Such a lovely shade of pink. I can think of a dozen ways to describe them already.”

  Small. Tiny. Flat-chested. All the ways men have described my breasts in the past ring loud and harsh in my ears. You don’t have boobs. You have titties. Alaric White wouldn’t want a woman with a figure like mine.

  I lean away from him. “I’m not …” I brush his hands away from my chest.

  He frowns at me. “Not what?”

  “Not … you know, big. Your characters probably have big breasts.”

  He tweaks my nipple. “Yes, usually. The last one had porn star breasts. But this character, Erica, has small delicate ones. Like yours.”

  He plants a gentle kiss on each one before darting his tongue out to trace the outer edge of one nipple. My sex clenches hard. The need to feel his tongue directly on my nipple is unbearable.

  “Mmm,” he responds to my guttural moan of pleasure, of need, of desperation. “Your breasts are perfect the way they are, Caterine. I can’t wait to write about them.”

  A man’s touch has never made me desperate before. Right now, I would promise anyone anything—anything at all—if only he would lick my nipple.

  Then his tongue flicks quick and hard over the aching nub. I can’t hold in the small cry of relieved ecstasy. The lacy panties he gave me were now soaked with my desire.

  “I would love to make you come just by touching your breasts.” My nipple cools as he draws away. “But not tonight.”

  His hands slide along my ribs, then my hips, until his fingers hook the waistband of the panties.

  “Please,” I moan.

  “Please what?”

  “Touch me some more.”

  I feel the panties begin to slowly slide down my thighs.

  “Oh Caterine. I could spend all night sucking your breasts, but I can’t give you everything until you decide to take the job. Besides, this isn’t about your pleasure, is it? This is a test you need to pass as part of your interview. What are we testing, Caterine?” His voice is all matter-of-fact business, no longer effusive with compliments as he’d been moments before.

  I feel my legs tremble as I lift first one foot, then the other as he slips the panties off.

  “To make sure I can come … and that you like my tattoo.”

  “Ah, the tattoos. I almost forgot those.” He brushes a finger over the rose on my hip. “This isn’t too bad.” He presses a kiss to it. “Turn around for me so I can check the back. And open your eyes now. I don’t want you pretending this isn’t happening.”

  I open my eyes and turn slowly for him as he inspects every inch of my body. Outside the window, the sky is streaked with pink and orange and purple, the remnants of daylight. He runs his palms over my ass and down the inside of my thighs. I feel weak and lightheaded as I turn to face him again. He is kneeling, looking up at me.

  “Well, you passed that test. No tramp stamp or incomprehensible Latin quotations.”

  He stands and lifts me into his arms, worsening the lightheadedness. Being this close to him, I’m certain I’m about to faint. My breast is pressed against his bare chest, his elaborately tattooed arms are beneath my bare ass. He smells musky and spicy. Male. I can’t help myself. I bury my face in his neck and inhale, long and deep. His chest rumbles against my breast in response.

  “I know the feeling, Caterine. In a moment, I am going to breathe in your most intimate perfume.”

  He speaks like a writer. I like that. It’s better than my hookups’ lame attempts to talk dirty. He lowers me gently to the edge of the bed, keeping my back in a seated position.

  “Watch me while I do this, please.” He pushes my knees open as far as they’ll go. He presses his face to my folds and inhales as deeply as I had, then exhales. A sharp cry escapes my lips. His breath against my most sensitive skin is torture.

  He’s right. This isn’t about my pleasure. He’s torturing me, methodically torturing me. Exquisitely torturing me.

  He runs his thumbs lightly over my outer lips, already swollen with need, then he dips a finger into my wetness. His eyes look up at me as he sticks the finger between his lips and sucks off my moisture.

  “So sweet, Caterine. Would you like to taste?”

  I am shaking my head but he dips his finger into me again and holds it up to me. “Suit yourself.”

  He pops the finger into his mouth again and then his hands are between my legs and parting me, pressing my flesh completely open to him. None of my hookups had ever done this. They all wanted oral sex from me, but none had reciprocated.

  I wait for a hot flush of embarrassment to descend upon me, but it didn’t. I watch as Alaric White, a man I barely know, stares intently at my most private spot and I’m oddly not embarrassed.

  Instead, I become more and more aroused with each passing second. When he licks his lips, I whimper. I want that tongue on my skin more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  Then the tongue emerges again and this time it licks me straight up the center. I cry out. Alaric’s lips curve into a smug smile before touching his tongue to me again. It’s a mesmerizing sight, his pink tongue running up and down my dark pink flesh until it stills at my aching clit. He circles it once, twice, three times before closing his lips over it and drawing it into his mouth. The suction isn’t gentle.

  My hips push forward and a yearning begins to build deep within me. My body is being pulled toward the edge of something as I struggle for air. The sensation grows more urgent, great waves of anticipation I am powerless to resist.

  Alaric’s lips release my clit. “Come for me, sweet Caterine. I can feel how close you are.”

  The tip of his tongue flicks at my clit, pushing me harder toward the cliff I know lies just beyond. When he plunges his fingers deep into me, the ground drops away beneath me and I fall, hips bucking shamelessly against his mouth. My sex spasms around his fingers and my cries are wordless until I float back down to earth, back down to the bed in Alaric White’s hotel room.

  He leans back and looks up at me with wet lips and a dark glitter in his eyes. He makes no move to stand, just stares at me as I regain my breath.

  “I think I passed.”

  “Yes, you did. With flying colors.”

  He rises and sits down on the bed, next to me. It’s impossible to miss the hard bulge beneath the soft linen of his pants and I want that in me, want him to fuck me. When I lay my hand on his erection, he coolly lifts it off.

  “So have you had an orgasm before tonight, Caterine? Or was this the first?”

  I pause before answering. Maybe I was more of a virgin than I thought. At the very least, I had wasted my body on college boys, when there were men like Alaric White out there who could lick me into a mindless frenzy.

  “This was the first,” I admit quietly.

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Very sure.” I glance over at his crotch. Still hard.

  “I know you want that too, Caterine. But not tonight. I need to hold some incentive in reserve, in case the money isn’t enough.” He laughs gently and rises to walk over to the hotel bureau. He pulls a white tee shirt from a drawer and tosses it to me.

  The tender moment I thought we were about to share evaporates into reality. This is a job interview, an unorthodox one to be sure, but still just business to Alaric.

  “I should get going. I’m driving back to Pennsylvania tonight.”

  Alaric undoes his pants and drops them to the floor, then takes off his grey boxer briefs. His erection is softening. He turns off the lights in the living room, then returns to the bed and peels back the sheets.

  “Stay with me tonight. Sleep on everything I’ve told you and tell me your decision in the morning.” He slides his long, lean body into the bed. “But put on that shirt, please. Just because I’m trying to preserve some incentive for you to say yes doesn’t mean I don’t want to fuck you seven ways to sunrise.”

  8

  Caterine

  I lie in bed listening
to Alaric White’s even breathing and thinking for the first time in my life that I want to be fucked seven ways to sunrise. Even though I have no idea what those seven ways might be. My entire body still aches with need. The orgasm only stoked my lust higher.

  And, no, I most definitely have never had one of those before. I wonder why not. Alaric seemed to take great pleasure in giving it to me. His body certainly couldn’t lie about that. Why hadn’t any of my college hookups bothered to make me come? I made them come. There was no way to mistake that. Men have an advantage there. Sex for them is so much more straightforward.

  A tiny voice in my head whispers that what Alaric White had offered me is anything but straightforward. Acting out sex scenes while he watches and then writes about it? Having sex not just with him but with his friend too?

  One part of me says I would be crazy not to take it. That kind of money, a year or so on the coast of Maine, and loads of hot sex to boot? Another part of me counters that I am insane to even consider it. What’s that word for having sex in exchange for money?

  Oh right. Prostitution.

  But it was just two men, I remind myself. And there are other job duties. Maybe Alaric is exaggerating the sex end of things. Deep down though, I suspect he isn’t.

  People at the bookstore were awfully disappointed when his last assistant didn’t show. They weren’t coming out in droves to see someone whose job was mostly looking up things on the internet.

  Could I do that? Go on tour with him and reveal myself as the inspiration for the sex scenes in his book? If my mother were still alive, absolutely not.

  I’m not sure what Zoe would think either. It’s one thing to like an author’s books, another to have him fucking your best friend and writing about it.

  I look over at Alaric’s dark head, his face buried in a pillow. He could teach me things about sex that I don’t know. Probably things I don’t even know I should know. Was there anything wrong with that? I’m a grown woman, unattached. Who would begrudge me a little sexual experience? Clearly, I had missed out on a few things with those guys in college.

  You want to do this. You’re just looking for the right justification.

  But do I have to justify it to anyone? Hell, no one other than Zoe even needs to know. My mother’s parents are long gone, and my mother was an only child so I have no aunts or uncles. I have a few distant cousins scattered around the country but I’m only in touch with them at Christmas. They wouldn’t notice if I suddenly move to Maine, and the odds that they read smutty romance books are probably low.

  Alaric shifts next to me, pulling away some of the hotel’s high thread count sheet. I’m not going to sleep tonight, not with every nerve ending in my body resolutely awake and screaming to be touched. I quietly slip out of bed and go to the living room.

  Out here, it’s easier not to think about the fine specimen of male pulchritude lying nude in the bed. The one who made me feel the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. The one who gave me a screaming orgasm. The one who wanted to take me to Maine and give me more orgasms.

  Maybe even fuck me the promised seven ways to sunrise.

  Had I screamed? I think back. My recall of that exact moment is fuzzy in my brain, although my body remembers it perfectly. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I screamed.

  At least once.

  The shopping bag is still sitting on the carpet by the door. I walk over to it and pull out Alaric’s book. If I’m going to be awake, I might as well do something. I curl up on the stiff hotel sofa and open the book to the page where I stopped earlier.

  She stepped beneath one of the wide rainfall showerheads and let the fat droplets of water run down between her breasts. She closed her eyes, enjoying the relaxing sensation of water beating against her skin. Damien came up behind her and pressed his chest against her back. His hands, filled with a foamy lather, encircled her and began washing her neck and collarbone. Breathing became difficult again as his soapy hands lowered to her breasts, tweaked her nipples. He slid a hand down to her waist, but she caught it and dragged it back up to her breast.

  “Slow,” she choked out.

  Behind her a low guttural moan escaped from his throat. Her teeth bit down on her lip at the feel of his hard length against her ass.

  “I don’t want to rush this,” she rasped.

  He spun her around. “We can take this slow. So slow you’ll be begging me to speed up.” A sexy mischievous smile took over his face as his eyes raked over her naked body.

  “Is that a dare?”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when he was kissing her hungrily, sucking away the water streaming over her lips. She darted her tongue at his lips and he took it in, nibbling at it with his teeth, rolling his tongue around hers. Then he broke the kiss with a groan. His eyes were hooded with desire as she touched her tender, swollen mouth.

  “Actually, I’m not good at slow,” he muttered. “I need a cold shower if you want me to go slow.”

  He knelt before her and pushed her thighs open. The water streamed over his head and shoulders as he pressed his face to her. The shower drowned out her cries as his tongue lunged deep between her legs.

  I read until the first rays of morning lighten the sky outside the windows, finishing the book. Alaric’s explicit descriptions of multiple kinds of sex haven’t exactly relieved my sexual frustration. I toss the book onto the floor and stretch out on the sofa to grab a few hours sleep before hitting the road. I’m awakened two hours later by Alaric’s yell, his voice hard with anger.

  “Caterine!”

  9

  Alaric

  I open my eyes to an empty bed and panic. She is gone, snuck out in the middle of the night, abandoned me, left me with no Erica.

  “Caterine!” I yell in frustration, punching the pillow next to me for good measure. It doesn’t help.

  “Yes?”

  My head jerks up. Caterine stands in the doorway, still in my thin white undershirt barely long enough to reach her thighs.

  “I thought you left,” I say, my voice softening. I take a deep breath and feel my muscles release some of the anger and tension.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I read for awhile. Then I fell asleep on the sofa.” She tugs fetchingly at the hem of my shirt. “I finished your book.”

  “You did? And what did you think?”

  She stays in the doorway, making me think she is still on the fence about staying or going. She has killer legs. I didn’t notice that last night. They are long and slender, her thighs and calves nicely toned. Coltish, I would describe them.

  My eyes skim up her body to where her nipples jut through the cotton fabric. Her blonde hair is bedhead messy. All in all, not a bad sight to wake up to.

  Fuck. I’ve never felt a woman come as hard on my tongue as she did last night. Fuckfuckfuck. I want to do that again. I want to do it way more than once. But I have to wait.

  Caterine is relatively inexperienced and I want to keep her that way, for the sake of Erica. Sim and I have so much experience between the two of us—probably a century’s worth, easy—that it’s hard for me to conjure up that feeling of discovering sex for the first time, of plumbing the depths of one’s own capacity for pleasure. The thought of helping Caterine plumb her depths is intoxicating.

  “It’s, um, descriptive.” She folds her arms self consciously across her chest, which only makes the hem of the shirt rise a little higher. My morning wood is now morning granite.

  I smile at her, at the sight of my Erica standing before me clothed in next to nothing, just as I’ve imagined her night after night.

  “I told you details are important to me. And readers don’t want to be spared any of the details either. Come here.”

  I sit up and throw my bare legs over the side of the bed. I’m glad to see she doesn’t hesitate at my command. I slip my hand beneath the shirt and between her legs.

  “What are you—”

  “Just seeing if my descriptions were any good.” I aim my best wic
ked smile at her. “Seems like they were. You’re soaking wet.”

  I pull her onto my lap, pushing her knees to the outside of my thighs. I slide my hand into her pussy again, gently pushing through her folds. This is good. Very good. It helps if my assistant is easily aroused. Not that Sim can’t be diligent with the foreplay but it speeds up the process considerably.

  “So you like my naughty books. Should I be flattered, Caterine?”

  One look at her face tells me I’m not likely to get an answer any time soon. Her eyes are already hooded, her soft pink lips open and trying to get more oxygen into her brain.

  “Do you want to come?” I stroke her, my fingers gliding smoothly through her moisture.

  She nods, mute with desire. But she doesn’t have to speak. Everything she wants is written all over her face.

  “I want you to come, too. And I want to watch your face while you do it.”

  Her eyes widen slightly at that. This is a good test for her. It’s one thing for her to watch me last night. It’s entirely different to be watched, however. This will be a much more intimate experience for her.

  Many women believe that their most intimate place is between their legs. I know different. It’s always a person’s face that reveals what is going on inside.

  Plus, my assistant needs to be comfortable with being watched. I expect her to be a little discomfited at first—I want that shyness for Erica—but it can’t be a long-term handicap. I’ve never had to switch assistants mid-book and I don’t want to start now.

  She squirms in my lap, rolling her hips back and forth.

  “I love that you want this, Caterine.”

  I do love it, for some reason. A voice in the back of my head cautions that I shouldn’t, though. It shouldn’t matter what I feel, as long as the assistant is able to perform.

  I pointedly ignore the voice. Right now, I do care that Caterine Schwartz wants me to make her come again.

  I could get her addicted to this so easily.