“You know I’m going to have to do this all night, right?” he said, sucking on my clit then, flicking it with his tongue. “Which means I can’t make you come for a long time.”
“What?” I asked as I squirmed. He chuckled, his mouth vibrating against my pussy as he started to lick it eagerly.
“I can’t make you come too much or you’ll get sleepy on me,” he said. “I’m sorry, baby, that’s just the way it is.”
I whimpered, unable to respond with words as he stopped licking my clit and started licking at the outer lips of my pussy, teasing me, occasionally brushing the sensitive spot with the tip of his tongue.
“I didn’t agree to this,” I breathed.
He wrapped my legs over his shoulders and continued to taste me, his mouth sucking at my folds while I moved breathlessly underneath him. He didn’t let up even as I started to buck against his face, panting and whimpering, the cord inside of me growing tighter and tighter, threatening to snap. He pulled his mouth away from me then and kissed my thighs again, down to my knee and then back up again. His hands traveled to my breasts and cupped them through the thin fabric of my nightgown. My nipples were hard and sensitive, and the need in my pussy increased as he started to stroke them with his thumbs.
“You like that?” he asked. “You want me to suck on your nipples?”
“I—I…” I couldn’t answer him, but blushed deeply.
He took that as a response and reached for my shoulders, pulling my robe down to reveal my bare breasts. They were average-sized, but seemed small compared to his hands, which encompassed them entirely as he caressed them with his palms. He moved his face upward and took one of my nipples between his lips, circling his tongue around the hard bead, tasting it eagerly. I closed my eyes as he sucked on it more firmly, his fingers teasing my pussy by barely brushing over it.
“You can’t make me wait all night,” I whimpered to him.
He started to stroke my clit with his finger as he switched to the other breast, making my legs spread even wider for him. I was breathing heavily, feeling desperate and starving for him as his fingers straddled my clit and rubbed up and down either side of it. It was exactly the way I liked to touch myself, like he already knew what felt best. He knew he’d found the right spot the moment he started stroking me there, and he smiled with my breast in his mouth as he started to rub it with deliberate strokes.
I groaned in frustration when he pulled his hand away.
“You feeling sleepy?” he asked.
“No.”
I had no idea how he was affecting me like this. I never lost it this way for men—they were attractive to me, sure, but from a distance. Logan was anything but distant from me in that moment; we were totally connected, our eyes locked together as he lifted his face to watch me whilst he dipped a finger inside of my pussy. Even one felt big as he started to curl it inside of me, and when another one joined it, my breath caught in my throat.
“How’s that?” he asked as he started to slide them in and out for me. “That too much for you, baby?”
“No,” I said softly, biting my lip as I ground against his hand.
He crawled back down my body and continued to finger me while he wrapped his lips around my clit, sucking on it gently. I put my hands on his head, ran them through his hair, holding him close as he continued to devour me.
“You better not fucking stop,” I breathed, filled with desperate need. I never cursed, never let myself get out of control, but at this moment I didn’t know what I would do if he pulled back. I was on the verge of crying out with desperation already. Everything about the way he touched me felt good, from the way his fingers stroked the inside of my pussy to the way his tongue traced my clit.
He grinned against my pussy as I started to come.
“God, thank you,” I moaned as I shuddered around him, my hips bouncing against his face. He chuckled and licked me in long strokes until my orgasm was finished, but didn’t stop there. He continued for what seemed like hours and probably was—I didn’t know how much time passed as he licked me, holding my legs spread apart, making sure I didn’t fall asleep. I was half-there, in a haze of pleasure that just seemed to go on and on. I couldn’t even open my eyes by the time he was finished, yet I pouted when he pulled his mouth away.
“What are you doing?” I asked him. I still wanted more. I never wanted it to stop. He laughed and kissed me.
“I think you can go to sleep now,” he said softly.
“I’m not tired,” I protested through heavy lids, taking his mouth in another kiss, trying to coax him into touching me. He grinned and pulled away, kissing my forehead.
“Go to sleep, Lily,” he said softly. “I’ll come find you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said, wishing that he would stay but knowing it wasn’t a good idea to invite him. He kissed me one last time, saying goodnight before he disappeared. I was left lying in bed, though I didn’t fall asleep as soon as I thought I would. I thought about Logan again and blushed when I thought about how the night had gone. I’d just met him, yet I’d given myself to him without hesitation, spreading my legs as if it was something I did all the time. I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed when I thought about it and the idea came to me that it was probably the reason he’d left afterward—I knew men, how easily they could be turned off, and I hadn’t even tried to be mysterious or hold out the first time he asked to touch me. I was probably too easy for him, and now he regretted having done it at all.
I fell asleep in a bleak mood, despite the fact that my body felt incredible after the pleasure he’d given me.
6
Logan
I thought about Lily as I made my way down to the work area, where most of my men were already waiting. There had been some issues I’d had to deal with before I left the retreat, and the men had called me several times while they’d been waiting. The service was spotty up here, and when I’d tried to call them back, I hadn’t got ahold of them. It wasn’t like them to call me multiple times while I was working, and I wondered if something was up at the site. I hurried down on foot, finding it easier than taking one of the carts down the bumpy incline.
As I approached the worksite, I saw all the men crowded at the bottom of the hill, where the logs had rolled down and crashed into the trees. I’d warned them about it beforehand, though I hadn’t told them that somebody had cut the chain. My workers were easily spooked around here, something that still annoyed me even though I’d learned to deal with it.
“What are you guys doing down there?” I shouted to them.
Harold looked up at me. “You’d better come down here,” he said, his voice sounding grave.
A shiver ran down my spine for some reason as I carefully made my way down the hill. Six men were standing in the snow near the logs, staring at them as if they had never seen anything like them before.
“What is it?” I asked. They stepped aside so that I could see the logs and my eyes widened when I stared at them. There were carvings in the wood, deep gouges, a jumble of English letters that didn’t make sense. There were smiley faces, too, and when I looked closer I realized that there was one coherent word written in the bark: die.
I raised my eyebrows. “Looks like we got some pranksters. Must be the lawyers. They get bored easily.”
“The campsite is all blocked off,” Harold said. I looked at him to see that he looked genuinely afraid. They all did.
“Guys, it’s nothing,” I said. “Someone at the retreat snuck out here and decided to fuck with us.”
“It’s the curse,” another man said, an older man named Eddie I’d hired in the very beginning. He was small, smaller than most of my guys, yet somehow he seemed to be able to carry loads that were twice his weight with little effort.
I rolled my eyes and sighed. The last thing I ever wanted to hear about was the curse, especially when there were strange things going on. It only detracted from whatever the truth was, something that I didn’t have time to deal wi
th.
“I have told all of you several times, there is no curse,” I said impatiently. It was something that the employees brought up every once in a while when something went wrong at the retreat. It had always annoyed me, but even more so now that the men seemed to be genuinely afraid.
“What’s the curse?” a man asked, a new kid named Jerry that I’d hired just this year. Jerry was kind of dopy, but he was a good kid. He worked hard and got along with everybody else as far as I knew, but I hadn’t gotten to know much about him. From what I could tell, he was exactly what he seemed—young and naïve. He was a hard-worker, but not someone who was particularly bright.
“It’s nothing,” I said to him. But everybody had turned to look at Eddie expectantly, knowing that he told the tale better than anybody else. I sighed again, knowing there was nothing I could do but indulge them for at least a few minutes.
“Let’s go back up to the truck, at least. We’re going to have to haul these up.”
They nodded and seemed relieved to be able to get away from the logs and back up to the worksite. I stood, leaning against the truck while the men sat around on the crates we’d brought to take breaks. I shook my head as Eddie cleared his throat, beginning to speak as if he was telling a ghost story to a bunch of terrified children around a campfire.
“The curse started right when this place was built,” Eddie said.
“When was that?” piped in Jerry.
Eddie shot him an annoyed look. “The retreat was built over a hundred years ago,” he said. “On tainted soil. There was something evil in the trees. It was released when they knocked them down.”
I snorted. “This is ridiculous—”
“Let me finish,” Eddie snapped. “The woods here were cursed before they even built the place. The guy who owned it didn’t care until the curse started acting up and killed his wife. It killed him, too, and every owner of this place since.”
“Not every owner,” I said.
“How did he know the place was cursed?” the kid asked.
“Legends have surrounded this place for hundreds of years. Witches used to come out here and do rituals, make human sacrifices up in the mountains. People used to come up here and hang themselves—”
“That’s enough,” I said. I was getting annoyed at the whole conversation. I’d tried to convince Eddie and the other men over and over again that there was no such thing as curses, but none of them ever seemed to listen to me, and their beliefs were only reinforced by every seemingly strange thing that happened at the retreat.
“He should hear the whole thing, boss,” Harold said, looking up at me seriously. “He has a right to know.”
“There’s no such thing as curses,” I said, but Eddie decided to barrel on with his story despite my protestations. I rolled my eyes and let him continue, though I knew that my patience wasn’t going to last for much longer.
“People have seen ghosts up at the retreat. The owners always die in the building. Always. And they haunt the place, never let anybody rest in peace, one night I—”
“Ghosts?” asked Jerry, shivering visibly.
Eddie nodded, his face grave.
“How did the people die?” Jerry asked, sitting on the edge of his seat. He was completely caught up in the story, captivated, and I could tell he’d fallen under the spell. He was convinced of the curse already, and there was nothing I was going to be able to say or do that would change his mind, just like it had been with the other men.
“Different ways. Some of them hanged, another one got shot—”
“This really is enough, guys,” I said, gesturing for them all to stand. “You can talk about this bullshit on your own time. We need to get to work.”
The men grumbled. I didn’t usually talk to them that way—I was mostly relaxed on what I expected from my work crew, and the environment was mostly casual and joking. The more I heard about the curse, though, the more annoyed I got. It was something that had hounded me since I’d started the job.
We got up and got started on the agonizing process of hauling the logs back up the hill. It was hard work, and though it was cold outside, we were all sweating by the time we were done. It had taken us a full day and put us behind on our work schedule, something we couldn’t afford if we wanted to get the construction done by our deadline.
I was irritated as I made my way back up to the retreat, only to see that all of the lights in the building were off. Several people were standing outside, including a couple of employees, a pair of twins named Stephanie and Lola.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Power went out again,” Lola said in a bored voice. It was something that happened frequently at the retreat and nobody yet had been able to figure out why. The wiring in the place had just been updated the year before and there had been no problems with it after multiple inspections.
“The curse,” said Eddie, standing behind me.
I gritted my teeth and headed inside, up the stairs and to my office to report the outage. I stuck my key in the lock to open the door but I found that I couldn’t slip it all the way in. I tried again but it was stuck, and I yanked it out, crouched to look into the keyhole. There was something sticky on the handle, and when I got closer I realized that it was gum. Somebody had jammed the lock. I cursed, closing my eyes, irritated with the whole day. It could have easily been a prank, yet somehow I didn’t think so. Somebody was trying to send me a message, one that it was getting harder to ignore.
I managed to call someone about the power outage and find somebody to come fix the lock. I felt on edge and tense, and since I couldn’t get in my office, my mind wandered to Lily. I hadn’t seen her all day, and when I’d been doing all the manual work outside, she’d been the thing that was running through my mind. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the night before, how long I’d gotten to lick her pussy. It was something I’d always enjoyed doing for a woman but for her, it was different, even better, especially given the look on her face when she was desperate to come. I decided to go and see her. Even if she didn’t let me touch her, I knew that it would relax me to see her.
I knocked on her door and when she answered it, I was surprised to see a blank look on her face.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Hi,” I said to her. “How are you?”
“I’m not supposed to be up on my leg,” she grumbled. “Do you need something?”
I stared at her in surprise. “No, I just—I wanted to find out how you were doing after yesterday.”
She snorted. “I’m fine.”
“What’s wrong, Lily?”
“My name is Lilian,” she said sharply.
“Okay,” I said. “Lilian. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said, biting her lip. “Look, last night was a mistake. I never—I don’t do that sort of thing. Ever.”
I met her eye, wondering what she was thinking. She didn’t look like she regretted what happened—in fact, she looked like it was still on her mind. Just standing there in front of her made me want her desperately, but I kept my hands to myself.
“Okay, Lilian,” I said to her. There was nothing I could do to argue with her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said, her features softening. “I just don’t want to do it again, okay? And it’d probably be better if we didn’t see each other while I’m here.”
“Oh,” I said, my mouth dry. I hadn’t been expecting that. It was one thing not to touch Lily, it was another thing not to get to see her altogether. “Okay, Lilian.”
“Okay,” she said. “Goodnight.”
She shut the door behind her before I could say anything. I stood there staring at it, having no idea what I’d done wrong, what had happened. She hadn’t looked upset when I’d left the night before, but sleepy and content. I shook my head and went back to my room, my mind going back to that stupid curse the men had been talking about. The carvings had been strange for sure but I didn’t think there wa
s any reason to put much stock in them. I was much more worried about what had happened with the logs, how they’d fallen and nearly killed me.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax. Though there were more pressing matters in my life, I found myself thinking about Lily, a girl I’d just met but couldn’t get off my mind. I knew that signaled trouble, especially if I’d never get to talk to her again.
7
Lilian
I spent another day in bed after telling Logan off, and I was pissed that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had no idea why I was reacting this way to a man I’d just met, and I continuously chided myself for the feelings that had come up in me when I’d told him to stay away.
I dragged myself out of bed the third day and trudged to the bathroom, stripping out of my dirty clothes, which I hadn’t bothered to change out of in two days. I stepped into the shower and was surprised by how good the water felt on my skin. After what had happened with Logan and how good it had felt, I’d half-expected that nothing would ever match it in terms of pleasure. The long-awaited shower came close, however, and I found myself lingering there for a long time before I finally got out and got dressed for the day. I’d looked on the schedule to see that there was a yoga class that morning, and though my leg still hurt I wanted to go. Yoga was one of the things that calmed me down best, and I desperately needed some relaxation after how the retreat had gone so far.
I slipped into a pair of yoga pants and a sports bra, suddenly wishing that I’d brought something more suitable to work out in public. It was what I usually wore to the gym, but the place I went was all women, and I never ran the risk of running into Michael while I was half-dressed. The thought almost stopped me from going, but then I squared my shoulders and forced myself to leave the room, determined not to allow Michael to keep me locked up for the entire retreat.
I made my way through the building to the far side where there was an open room, set up with mats on the floor. Several people waited in the room, and my heart skipped when I saw Logan up front. He was standing next to a woman, pretty, dark-haired and perfectly shaped, her body lean and lithe and beautiful. I could tell she was the instructor, and I could also tell that the two of them were flirting heavily. He had the same smile on his face as when he’d looked at me, and she was looking up at him with such adoration it made me sick.
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