CHAPTER 23 #3
His mouth goes to the corner of my jaw — the freckle, my mother's freckle, the freckle he has wanted to put his mouth on since November the nineteenth.
He kisses it. He kisses down my throat over the faded bite-bruise at the carotid line that he put there six nights ago.
He kisses the hollow at the base of my throat. He kisses the sternum, slow.
He moves down my body in a slow careful line — sternum, the underside of my left breast, my nipple (his tongue), my ribs, the inside of my left hipbone, the seam of my hip.
He skips over the place I want him most. He moves to the inside of my right thigh.
He kisses the inside of my right thigh in three slow places — the knee, the middle, the high inside.
He kisses the femoral region of my right inner thigh.
He does not bite. Not yet. He marks the spot with his mouth.
He moves between my thighs.
He sets his right palm under my left thigh and lifts it open.
He sets his left palm under my right thigh and lifts it open.
His left forearm has moved out from behind my back to under my right thigh; the brand is cold against the back of my thigh now, against the soft skin behind the knee.
He bends his head between my thighs and puts his mouth on me.
The first thing his tongue does is run the long flat slow line from the entrance of my cunt to my clit. The second thing is a slow circle around the clit without touching it. The third is the press of the flat of his tongue against the clit at a slow rolling pressure.
I make a sound new to my own throat. The dark of the blindfold makes the sound louder in my own ears.
The silk at my wrists holds. The iron of the post is warm now from the heat of my forearms and the heat of his hand earlier.
He works me with his mouth — slow, slow, careful, methodical, the man who has spent five hundred years auditing the bodies of mortals at the right temperature for the right amount of time, and who has spent the last twelve days auditing mine.
He goes patient because he is going to make me come hard and he has the time.
At 22:08 the slow build that has been ratcheting up my spine since 21:30 reaches the place at the small of my back where the orgasm begins. At 22:13 he slides two fingers inside me and works them slow at the front wall against the rhythm of his tongue on my clit. At 22:15 I come.
The orgasm is a long slow heavy one — a wave that lifts my hips off the linen and pulls my shoulders up against the iron of the post and tightens my whole body against the give of the silk sash.
The dark of the blindfold becomes a brighter dark for one full second.
My wrists pull against the sash. The sash holds.
I shout — a single syllable, into the dark of the blindfold — "yes.
" My voice in my own ears is hoarse and clean.
Julian holds the rhythm of his tongue through it. He works me through the orgasm and out the other side until I am breathing again, and then he lifts his head from between my thighs and kisses the inside of my left knee once.
He climbs up the bed. I feel him settle on his elbow at my left side. I feel his fingers go to the silk at the bridge of my nose.
"I am going to remove the blindfold," he says, low. "Before the bite. I want you to see me."
"Yes."
"Color," he says.
"Green."
"Tell me again what I am going to do."
"You are going to bite me at the femoral region of my right inner thigh. Not the artery — the surface vein system. It is medically clean. I will come on the bite. You will drink about twenty milliliters. You will release within two minutes. You will lick the bite closed."
"Where."
I lift my right knee and slide my right thigh open against his side. I tap the inside of my own thigh with my forefinger at the high inside, in the soft place above the line where the leg meets the body, two inches below the seam of the hip. "Here."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
He bends his head to my thigh. He kisses the spot once. He looks up at me one more time. He says: "Are you with me?"
"Yes."
He puts his mouth on my thigh and his fangs go in.
The first second is a small sharp sting that I am ready for.
The second second the saliva enzyme dilates the topical pain receptors and the sting goes; what replaces it is a slow drawing warm pressure at the inside of my thigh, a tug that is sourced inside my body rather than outside it, a pulling-warm-pressure like a current at the femoral.
The pulling-warm-pressure runs up the inside of the thigh and meets the rhythm of the orgasm at 22:15 still echoing at the small of my back, and the two collide, and my body recognizes the collision as the same orgasm it has been having for twenty-three minutes, and the wave that lifts me at 22:38 is the second orgasm of the night, faster than the first, harder, surprising.
My hips lift; my wrists pull against the silk; the sash holds.
I do not say basis-point. I say nothing at all.
The pull of his mouth at my thigh is steady and slow and he is counting in his head the way he counts everything, and at 22:42 he releases his fangs and his mouth opens against my skin and the small line of his tongue runs across the bite.
The saliva enzyme closes the surface vein in a slow two-minute seal that I feel as a faint warming at the puncture line.
He lifts his head. There is a small line of red at the corner of his mouth.
He licks it once. His pupils are wider still.
The cold from his skin has left him; he is warm now from my blood; his temples are flushed; the brand under my left shoulder where his forearm has gone back has thawed to ordinary cool, the cool of a piece of metal that has been near a body.
"Quinn," he says.
"Vance."
"I am going to take you now."
"Yes."
He moves up the bed and settles between my thighs.
He lifts my left leg up around his hip and my right leg up around his hip; the slate sash at my wrists still holds them above my head against the leftmost iron post. He kisses my mouth — I taste the copper of myself on his tongue, faint, clean.
He puts the head of his cock at my entrance. He says, against my mouth: "Color."
"Green."
He pushes in slow. The stretch is generous; my body is so ready for him that he takes me in one careful long slide to the hilt and stops at full depth and breathes.
His left forearm is under my upper back again.
The brand against my upper back skin is cool now, not cold.
He stays at full depth for one long beat. He says, low: "Quinn."
"Move."
He moves. He fucks me at his own slow rhythm — long strokes, the head of his cock at the place inside me where the second orgasm had bloomed; my wrists above my head against the iron post; the slate sash on my forearms; the brand at my upper back; his mouth at the corner of my jaw.
He says into the freckle: "Fuck, Quinn. " The one allowed word, the once-per-scene rule; he has paid it tonight.
I take him for thirty minutes. The wood in the iron grate has burned to a low gold by the time the third orgasm begins to build at the small of my back at midnight.
At 00:06 his hand goes between us and his thumb finds my clit and presses at the rhythm of his cock and at 00:08 I come for the third time.
This orgasm is slower and deeper than the second; it arrives the way a tide arrives, patient, the thing that has been moving toward me for two hours.
The silk sash at my wrists holds. The iron post has warmed under my forearms. I stay quiet this time.
I close my eyes. He stays inside me. He kisses my mouth through it.
When I open my eyes he has lifted off me a fraction. He looks at me. He says: "Untie."
I nod.
He reaches up to the leftmost iron post and pulls the tail of the slate sash.
The quick-release loop gives. The sash slides off my wrists and down to the linen.
He takes my right wrist in his hand. He turns it palm-up.
He kisses the inside of my right wrist over the place there is no scar (the chemical-burn scar is on the inside of my left wrist; he knows). He takes my left wrist.
He kisses the inside of my left wrist over the dime-sized chemical burn from the cracked sulfuric flask of my father's lab in 2018. Until tonight he has only put his fingers there as the anchor when I am about to lie. He puts his mouth there now. It is the gentlest thing he has done tonight.
He lifts off me. He lies on his back beside me on the white linen.
"Your turn," he says.
I swing my leg over him. I straddle him. The brand of the silver wheel on the inside of his left forearm is bare against the linen now; he has crossed his hands behind his head; his pale gray eyes are on me; the firelight is on his cheekbone.
I take him in my hand. I guide him into me. I lower onto him until he is at full depth inside me and my hips are flush with his hips and the sweat of my thigh is against the sweat of his hip. I do not move yet. I sit on him at full depth and breathe.
He says, soft, looking up at me: "Quinn."
"Don't say my first name yet. Save it."
"For when."
"For the bond. Not tonight."
His pupils widen another fraction.
I begin to ride him. I take it at my own pace; I keep it slow.
I put my palms flat on the white linen on either side of his head; my hair falls forward around his face; I work him with my hips the way the auditor in me works a ledger — slow, careful, patient, complete.
He keeps his hands behind his head. He holds them there.
He has decided to let me have him; he is letting me.
I take him for fifteen minutes. At 00:24 I lean down and kiss him.
I take his lower lip between my teeth. He says, against my mouth: "Quinn, fuck, Quinn.
" The second use of his one allowed word; I will tell him later that he has spent his allowance and he will say I will overspend it for you and I will tell him I will let him.