Chapter Twenty #2
“You don’t know that. I could make such a hash of everything.”
“I promise you, you won’t. In fact, exploring what you desire, what makes you feel good—it will only deepen the connection between you and magic.
It will make it second nature, the moment you understand completely whatever it is that gives you the most pleasure.
All you have to do is just touch yourse—”
This time, he cut himself off. Though she knew exactly why.
She had blushed too deeply, over what he had definitely been about to suggest. Winced, just a little. And she saw the moment
he caught it. His eyes widened; she heard an actual intake of breath.
She braced for the mockery that would follow.
Then didn’t know what to do with the softening in his expression.
“You’ve never made yourself come,” he said, hushed, unsettled.
It made it hard to know what to say, in response.
“Sex is just not a thing for me. I told you that.”
“Yes, you did. But I thought you just meant . . . I didn’t think you meant . . . ”
“Well, now you know I did mean those things. So you can be quiet about it.”
She kept her eyes away from his. But she could see him searching for an angle that would make her meet his. He ducked his
head, tilted it—and then most wonderfully awful of all, his hand lifted. It moved too close to her face.
As if he wanted to touch her chin and urge it up.
But in the end, he couldn’t seem to do it. He confined himself to words.
“How can I be? All the possible pleasure inside you, all the ways you are so obviously ripe and eager, and now you tell me
you have never once allowed yourself to explore it, or give in to it, or even grasp that it’s there. God, no wonder a dance
and a bare body on a bed and a few words have you looking like this,” he whispered, and oh lord, the sincerity in his voice.
It sounded so real.
She slipped into asking about it before she could stop herself.
“Like what?” she asked, fool that she was.
Because this was his answer:
“So ready for someone to have you.”
And after that, there was nothing but the beating heart between her legs.
An ache intense enough that she couldn’t hold back her intake of breath. It was honestly a miracle she managed to tell him
no. “I can’t let myself do that with you,” she said, half stumbling over the words, choking on them, sure he was going to
laugh at her clumsy assumption the second it was out.
However, he didn’t even give her that.
“But you can do it to yourself.”
“No. Maybe. I barely even know where to—”
“Begin? Then let me help you. Let me tell you what feels good.”
“How would you even know something like that?” she asked, aiming for incredulity. Only somehow it came out restless, impatient. Go on, she heard,
in the back of her own voice, behind the actual words. And he leaned in close again, at the sound.
“I told you, darling. I can hear your body. I can see every time something brings you pleasure. I can catch the scent of it
before you even know it’s there. Just say the word, and I will take you to it. Give you everything you need. Make you feel
so good you forget it’s even me here with you,” he said, every word like a caress against the lips he was now an inch from.
It took everything she had to not do something foolish.
To stick with at least some small resistance. “But I will see you.”
“So close your eyes. Close your eyes, like last time. Think of him.”
“All right. All right. Though you have to know I’ll know it’s you, the second you touch me.”
Because your hands are colder, crueler, she thought and shivered just imagining it. The slide of them over every single place she ached—the curve of her breasts,
her belly, that softness between her thighs. By the time he spoke again, it was almost a disappointment to hear him say he
wouldn’t. “There is no need for me to lay a finger on you,” he whispered, before he dipped closer for the kicker. “When I
can do everything you need just by saying this: Slip your hand under that pretty dress. Do it for me now, before you can even
think about it. Before you can consider how terrible it is, to be doing this in front of me.”
And it was terrible, too.
She thought of him seeing her like that, all spread and lewd. One hand working between her legs, in any way he liked. Then
blushed so hard it almost felt like something else. She had to rush to put in guardrails, before it got worse.
“I will, if you—”
“If I what? Tell me, if I what?”
“I want you to close your eyes, too.”
“They already are. Now tell me you’ve done what I told you to.”
How could I not when you talk like that? she thought. And it wasn’t even over that “told you to,” either. It was the first thing. The first thing. That simple admission
that he had stopped looking, before she even asked. The way it sounded, caught somewhere between the idea that seeing would
be too much for him to stand, and the need to not look just to make her feel safe.
She couldn’t decide which one it was.
She only knew that both of them were mad, completely mad.
And that they made her do it without even thinking. She had to, just to stem the sweet ache that happened the moment those
two possibilities occurred. He wants to and yet won’t, she thought, and suddenly her hand was beneath her dress. It slid there of its own accord, and cupped the soft curve it found there. Then it squeezed, gently.
Though god it felt like anything but.
She couldn’t even tell him she had obeyed.
The only thing she could manage was a startled moan.
But naturally, he knew what it meant. He knew.
“Oh, yes. I bet it feels so sweet to cup that pretty cunt,” he said, while she searched what to be staggered by first. The sigh buried
in that yes, the word pretty, or that last one—oh, the way that last one kept unraveling her.
“God, when you use that word,” she said.
And of course he set his mind to making it worse.
“Do you want me to use another? I could say sex, pussy, quim.”
“Jesus, that’s even worse. That’s so much worse.”
“Even though it’s making you stroke yourself, before I’ve even told you to?”
She wasn’t, exactly. She had just started rubbing a little. Only a little.
Yet still she felt like she had to explain. “Because I’m aching; god, I’m aching—oh, I’ve never felt anything like this in
all my life. I can hardly take it; it feels like too much. Like I might not be able to stay on my feet.”
“Then let me hold you.”
No, she tried to say.
Then somehow nodded instead.
She let him slip a hand around her waist, like he was about to lift her and fuck against this wall.
For one thrilling second it even felt like he might—and then that sudden touch stopped.
It came to rest just above the curve of her ass.
Hard enough to keep her on her feet, soft enough to be absolutely maddening.
She moaned over it, hand tightening reflexively over that soft swollen place between her legs.
And that was before the words.
“Oh, that’s it. That’s it. Ease that ache.”
“It won’t ease anything; it’s unbearable.”
“Then go a little further, for me. Slide your hand inside your underwear.”
She flushed at the suggestion. But only partly because of how rude it sounded, coming from him. There was another thing she
had thought he knew. Only somehow he didn’t, and now she had to explain. “I want to, but . . . but . . . ” she said, then
froze to hear a sound come out of him. A moan, caught somewhere between horror and desire.
Too close to either tell which one it was for sure.
Yet blistering to her, either way. She actually bucked into her hand.
While he talked, quick and faint.
“You liked that idea. Of going without anything on under your clothes,” he said.
And what could she say? No?
“I didn’t even realize I had done it, until this moment.”
“And now you know; now you can feel your own bare cunt—”
She made a frustrated sound. “It feels unbearable. So terribly sensitive.”
“Oh, I am sure it is. Almost agonizing to touch, I would imagine. Every single thing you do only seems to make it worse. So listen to me, just listen to me—stroke yourself softly, with just the tip of one finger. No pressure at all, simply let it glide over that seam between. Just slow and simple and careful, back and forth, back and forth. Like you’re almost teasing yourself open.
Like you’re readying yourself for more,” he said, and oh, how it felt when she listened.
The sensation that rolled through her. She couldn’t stop her soft gasp of shock and delight.
Or the way she squirmed in his arms.
And of course, he knew what it meant.
“Oh, does it feel that good?”
“Mmmm-hmm.”
“Then go further for me. Let me hear how wet you are.”
“So wet I can feel it now. I can really feel it, all slippery.”
She could, too. Every time she stroked, that slickness eased the way. It made the contact sing, made her ashamed at the thought
of him hearing. Even though hearing made him talk faster, hotter. “But it’ll be better if you just ease down, down, into the
swollen seam. If you sink right into that hot, wet cunt. Go on. Go on try for me; let me hear you finger yourself, just like
you did for him.”
Who? she thought wildly, who?
But then she realized: his better double.
The one she’d needed, the last time they’d done this.
Yet somehow she didn’t need anymore. She hadn’t thought of that safety net even once, all the way through this utter filth.
And she didn’t even want to now. She just did as he had said. She found where her body dipped and rubbed there just a little.
Then when it sent a spike of pleasure through her, she couldn’t resist sinking in.
Slowly, half of her wondering if it would hurt.
Only it didn’t; it didn’t at all. It made her twist in his arms, instead, over so intense a sensation.
While he held her fast. While he whispered in her ear. “Good girl. Good girl, that’s it. Ease them in nice and slow.”
“Oh, it feels really, it feels so, it feels almost like—”
“I know. I know, oh god, you’re so close. I can feel how close you are. Are you going to come for me, just like that? Just those fingers working in your cunt—oh, you’re so desperate