Chapter 17 #3
“Glad you think so.” Standing up, I drag the short length of chain from the gate over. Each link feels alternatively slick and sharp from being out in the weather, cold and smooth with rust hiding in the joins between the links. “Do you want to put your arms behind your back for me?”
He obeys, and I wrap the metal around his wrists, the clink and clank ringing against the walls. I press the ends into his hands. “Hold on to these tight. Remember, you can let go anytime you need to.”
He nods once, heartbeats fluttering in his throat.
“But I’d like you to hold onto it for as long as you’re comfortable.
See how much you can take before you have to release.
You have to submit to me, fully.” I almost don’t recognize the words I’m saying, and yet I do.
This is what I want to explore, and find the edges of, my own limits.
How far can I take it? How much pleasure can I subject him to before he comes undone?
Taking the blindfold, I hover it over his forehead.
I sink down again, leaning against his chest, feeling him counterbalance me to resist my weight pushing him over.
His nostrils flare, his grassy scent warm as he breathes out low through his mouth.
This is affecting him already. He’s getting to the core of what he needs, giving over control to me.
Now I have to make sure I’m worthy of it. I can do this. I won’t mess up.
I lift the blindfold in front of his face, so he can see it.
He allows me to rest it against his eyes, and the silk whispers as I tie it behind his head, little tufts of his thick brown hair sliding out from underneath.
He takes a low shuddering breath as I rob him of his sight, his hearts pounding against me.
He’s getting heated already, and only from a little touch.
My touch. A flicker of heat builds inside me, matching each of Dom’s panted breaths.
Still leaning against him, I trail a finger down his neck and to the middle of his chest. A low moan escapes his throat, zinging straight to my core. I love that sound.
“Remember, Dom,” I whisper in his ear. “If you let me go past one of your boundaries, I'll be incredibly upset with you.”
“Yes, Law-rah.” I expected his voice to be choked, but each quiet word from his trembling mouth is measured. His skin heats, scales soft beneath me.
“Now. What shall I do with you?”
Anticipation itches under his scales. ‘Arik would have whipped me senseless by now.’
I take his chin. “But I'm not Arik.”
He squirms. It's delicious. “I'm sorry, Law-rah—”
I can’t help myself anymore. I capture his lips, stroking them with my own. He moans in my mouth and I move closer, wrapping my arms around his neck, arching into him. His muscles tense as he pushes back, keeping us upright.
Here, now, I can let go. I can be someone other than Laura Thomas, senior partner and lead in the Accu-care inquiry. Whoever she is, she kisses like a demon, seizing the alien’s soul in a single breath.
Dom’s moans turn urgent, and I pull back. We gulp each other’s air, beads of sweat trickling down from underneath the blindfold. Mm. Lickable.
So I do, tracing my tongue from the edge of his lips up his cheeks along the tiny bumps of his scales and up to his temples.
Salt and mint floods into my mouth, and I let out a moan of my own.
That sets Dom off, his legs widening, and I sink deeper into the safe harbor of his thighs.
Inside, his mind pulses, surging in waves between us.
Pink coils of longing, lust, and hot desire.
They curl around me, wrapping tight, not suffocating but anchoring—like he’s holding me steady even as the tide of his need crashes higher.
Dom’s shoulders and arms quiver, but as soon as I notice them, they still as he tenses them behind himself.
“How are you doing?” I check in with him.
“I… I… Yes,” he says.
“Is this good? Lavender time?”
“No lav-en-der,” he breathes.
“Do you want more?”
“Yes.”
“Then say so. ‘Laura, I want more, please.’”
He curls down, lowering his head to mine. “Law-rah,” he says, voice steady and low. “I want more, please.”
Goosebumps pebble my skin. “Very well,” I say, but I squeak a little. I clear my throat to retain my dignity. He’s the one who’s supposed to be getting hot and bothered, not me.
But this is doing it for me, too.
Laying my hand on his chest, I marvel at the contrast: pale peach against dark purple. His scales harden to indigo from his breast to his shoulder at first, then lighten to lilac and pink, rippling outward from my fingers.
I run my hand over the scales, and he inhales sharply. Is he reacting to my touch alone, or because he doesn’t know what to expect?
‘It’s you,’ he says in my head. ‘I can hear what you’re going to do next.’
“Well, that’s no fun.”
A bead of sweat rolls down his cheeks as they push up into a brief smile. ‘We do have a contract. I will teach you in return for… this. If you don’t want me to hear what you intend to do next, you will have to shield.’
“How do I do that?” I run my hands over his chest, lingering on his stiff nipples.
A moan rolls up the connection between us. ‘I… I will teach you. Please.’
I pull back, and he pants, eyes still closed.
‘All Bases shield to protect their Apex from their emotional state. It involves pulling in and locking down, letting nothing escape. It prevents leakage of thoughts as well.’
I mentally whisper to him, ‘What does that feel like?’
‘Quiet. Alone. Cold.’
He doesn’t paint the best picture, but then again he’s used to a peanut gallery to all his deepest thoughts.
He bites his lip. It’s delicious. ‘Not all of them. An experienced Base can hold back the most private musings and sensations.’
‘And what’s that like?’
His cheeks flush. ‘Like holding in an emission when you’re stimulated beyond endurance.’
An emission… ‘An orgasm?’
‘Yes. That’s the human term for it.’
Holding in an orgasm, hm? I’ve been on the edge before—holding it there as long as I can before I go too far and it fizzles out.
Taking a deep breath, I try thinking, Quiet, cold, alone.
Dom shakes his head, the silk winking in the dim light. ‘Pretend you want to hide inside a small shelter. You will need to bend double to get in. The shelter walls are made of betrillium, the strongest metal in the universe, the same substance as my veralash handle.’
I glance at the cold metal tube at his hip, his alien whip thing. I can't picture a room of it, it's too strange.
He shifts, chains clinking behind him. ‘Perhaps a room you are familiar with would work better. One you can lock.’
‘My apartment, maybe?’ Few people come there. I step inside my office and shut the door. ‘How’s that?’
No response mentally, but Dom’s breath sharpens. “Law-rah, you… you did it. You… disappeared.”
But far from excited for me, he sounds disappointed.
“Good. Now you won’t know what’s coming.” I trail my nails over his chest again, trying to keep myself mentally in my office. It’s like reading one text while reciting another: it'll take practice.
Although, I was enjoying the ripple of feelings from him as I stroked his chest. It's too tempting to listen in, to feel what I'm doing to him.
I mentally step out of the playroom, and Dom's lips quirk, showing a flash of incisor. ‘There you are.’
‘Yes.’ My heart beats faster. Too fast. Dom really is in deeper than any other partner. My stomach twists. No one has ever been this close to me, or knows so much about me.
It's too much.
I stagger back. “I don't want this. Get out of my head.”
Dom frowns. “Find the room you used, step inside it.”
“I, I can't.”
“Law-rah, slow your thoughts. Take a deep breath.” There's an edge to his voice. “We can't upset the calm of the mind-sync, Law-rah.”
Jagged red edges close in. I can't breathe.
‘Danger, need help.’ Nevare.
‘She is with me, I will help her, don't do anything, Nevare,’ Dom says.
My phone gives a jaunty ring. I push against Dom to stand and pull it out of my pockets with trembling fingers.
Morgan.
The red edges ebb back, shoved away by Dom. ‘Law-rah, stay calm.’
“I am fucking calm,” I mutter as I answer. “Morgan, good morning.”
“Good afternoon, you mean.”
I glance at my watch. Two minutes after twelve. “Apologies. I’m still knee deep in the enquiry you asked me to field—”
“That was for in-between other pieces of work. What’s the latest on John's thinking?”
I close my eyes. “It's Saturday.”
“I’m well aware of that. John’s mobile is off.”
I gather together my patience. “He said he needed to think about which witnesses to call first. Presumably, that’s what he’s doing today.”
“Why don’t you know exactly?”
I dig my nails into my palm. How Morgan expects me to know what John’s thinking boggles my mind. I’m not psychic.
Ish.
‘Not psychic. Maybe a sensitive,’ Nevare muses before Dom whisks him away.
Ignoring the intrusion, I say, “We’ll find out more on Monday.”
“You've been helping him, Lisa. You should know his strategy inside and out.”
My brain finally kicks into gear. “Wait, his strategy? I'm the one who set out our game plan.”
“He has to execute it, so it's his.”
Lava flows through my veins. No you don't, you fucker.
‘I’m a psychic. I can blast him from here,’ Nevare offers. ‘Scramble his brain waves. Make him bleed from all orifices. Turn all his internal systems… dark.’
A shiver races up my spine. “Absolutely not,” I yell.
“What the fuck? Lisa? What did you just shout at me?”
Dom pulls Nevare away, but the powerful psychic bats his Base back, surging up the bond toward me.
My hands tingle, radiating down to my elbows, skin prickling in waves. Life-ending power at my literal fingertips. It surges in my right hand, my fist spasming around my phone.
Dom orders, ‘Stop it right now. She's a female, do not interfere with her work.’
‘But there's an enemy. We must defend.’
Morgan’s tinny voice rages from my hip. Is this real life? How is it all fucking up so badly?