25 - TERRIBLE BEAUTY #2
He kissed her through the lace once, very softly.
Then he hooked two fingers into the panties at her hip and drew them down her thighs as far as they would go, which wasn't all the way, because her legs were spread and bound at the ankles.
The lace caught at the curve of her hip and hung there. He left it.
He stood up. Undid his belt without looking down. Slid his pants down with the boxers underneath and stepped out of them. He was already hard.
He stepped close to her. Lifted her right thigh under the knee, sliding his arm under it to take her weight. The bound ankle stayed cuffed but the angle opened her completely. His other hand found her, fingers sliding through wetness I could see from where I stood.
Janice's eyes didn't leave mine. She licked her lips.
He took himself in hand. Pressed against her. Pushed in slowly.
Janice made a sound I'd never heard from her. A low private exhale, between a sigh and a moan.
He moved inside her, slow. Held her thigh up with one arm, gripped her hip with the other. The bound arms above her head, the bound ankles below her. Janice spread on the cross and looked at me, only at me, the whole time.
The heat in my body had gone past managing. I hadn't moved my arms from my sides. I felt the pulse that had answered the first push of him into her like a counter-rhythm. My nipples were so hard against the silk it almost hurt.
Janice held my eyes while James found a rhythm.
She held them while his pace shifted from slow to less slow, while her breasts moved with each thrust and the lace at her hip slipped a little farther down her thigh and the muscles in her bound forearms flexed against the leather without trying to pull free.
She held them when she came.
She didn't look away even then. Her face changed, opened, gave way, went somewhere private, but her eyes stayed on mine the whole time her body shook against the cross and the small high sound left her that I'd carry around in my head for weeks, and the cuffs creaked once at her wrists, and James said that's it, baby, that's it, and held himself inside her while she clenched around him and came down.
She came down looking at me.
Her chest was heaving. Her cheeks were flushed deep. Her mouth was slightly parted and her eyes were so wide and dark I felt them.
She didn't look away from me until James moved, gently, to lower her thigh.
He didn't finish. He pulled out of her slowly.
Kissed the inside of her bound wrist. Murmured something to her I couldn't hear.
Then he reached up and unbuckled the wrist cuffs, one then the other, catching her gently as her arms came down.
He knelt and undid the ankle cuffs the same way.
He picked up the towel and folded it around her shoulders like a robe and gathered her, naked and still trembling, against his chest.
He looked over the top of her head at me.
Thank you, the look said. You did very well.
I hadn't known I'd been the one doing anything.
She walked over to me with the towel still draped over her shoulders. She looked thoroughly well taken care of, hair a little wild.
"That was wonderful," she said. "Thank you, Lacey."
I tried to speak. The sound that came out wasn't quite a word.
She laughed, soft, and stepped close, and pulled me into a hug. She smelled like sex, warm, musky, and close, and her arms were familiar and somehow different at the same time. The towel was the only thing between her bare chest and mine.
"Yes, honey," she said quietly, near my ear. "That was for you." A breath. "It was very much for me too. But yes. I wanted you to see how good it can be." She pulled back, hands staying on my shoulders, her eyes moving across my face with a careful attention that went past friendship. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I nodded. "Just processing."
"Good." Her hands on my shoulders were warm. "You looked beautiful watching, you know. You have no idea how beautiful."
"I feel a little overwhelmed," I said.
She smiled, soft. "That's right. First time I did something like that with someone watching, I felt exposed. Like every nerve was live. And like I was finally being seen for real." A pause. "That feeling, you get to keep."
"I loved it," I whispered. "All of it."
Her smile widened. "Could you see yourself doing that?"
I shivered, involuntarily. The cross was still visible over her shoulder, the wood dark in the amber light, the cuffs hanging quiet now. "I don't know," I said. "I've never been with a woman, but the idea—"
I stopped.
The look on Janice's face was delight, pure and wide-eyed, mouth slightly open.
I replayed what I'd just said. Blood went to my face so fast the room swam.
My hands flew up. "God."
Janice laughed, bright, and reached out and tucked the same strand of hair behind my ear again.
Her fingers brushed my cheek. "Don't be shy.
Not here. Not with me." Her voice was warm and easy, but her eyes were very steady on mine, and she let the moment breathe before she went on.
"Lacey. You're a completely normal, healthy, curious woman.
Whatever just came out of your mouth is fine.
Better than fine." She held my gaze. "I could definitely imagine you taking James's place. "
She held my gaze one beat longer.
Then she smiled. "Come on. Let's get out of here. We need to get you home. You told me you have a busy Sunday."
I nodded. "Right. The board meeting Monday." The furthest thing from my mind tonight.
James walked us to the door, hand light at the small of Janice's back, and kissed her once at the threshold without checking his watch or asking about next time. He nodded at me. Take care of her, the nod said. Of Janice, or of me. I didn't pick.
Janice went for the Jeep. I stood on the sidewalk in the cool air with the bass gone muffled behind the door. I hadn't thought about Ricardo once.
She drove the first few blocks without saying anything, one loose hand on the wheel, and she looked the way she'd looked walking back from the cross, lit from somewhere I couldn't find the source of.
"Can I ask you something?" I said.
"You can ask me anything."
"Women." I kept my eyes on the windshield. "What's it like being with them, for you? Is it different than with men?"
She smiled. I caught it in the dash light. "Some. I like people. I like what happens when I touch them and I know exactly what they're feeling." A beat, and her voice dropped. "With women I get to be the one who runs it. I like that more than I should."
More than I should.
"Run it how?"
She glanced at me. "You sure you want the answer? You've always stopped me before when I tried to describe it."
"Yes."
She exhaled like she'd been waiting a long time.
"I take them right up to it. Then I stop.
Then again. Until asking nicely isn't enough anymore and they have to ask me for it properly.
" She turned back to the road, easy again, the crack sealed over.
"I like them to be all mine for a while.
" She turned to me. "I like to feel like I own them, and they know it. "
I didn't say anything. The throb in my clit was almost painful.
Oddly for Janice, she didn't say anything more. Just let me sit with that. She'd said it after an hour of holding my eyes across a room while another man was inside her.
Janice pulled up to the curb and put the Jeep in park.
"We fly out Wednesday, I'll drive us to the airport. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to it!"
I looked at her a moment before I answered. She was flushed, watching my face with that attention I was only now learning to read. I would be on the cruise with Janice, and this feeling she planted, in the same cabin.
"Yes, I can't wait either!" I said. I left in a small hurry, the pressure needing immediate attention. I didn't even make it to the bedroom before my fingers started working.