He presses his thumb into it, not hard, but enough to remind me that it is his mark.
"Does it hurt?" he asks.
"Yes," I say.
"A little."
He bends forward, lips to the bruise, and kisses it with the carefulness of someone handling a lit fuse.
I feel the heat of his mouth, the roughness of stubble, and then the blunt scrape of his teeth.
He bites down, gentle, then not gentle at all.
I gasp, a sound that is more surprise than pain.
He pulls back, eyes searching my face for something I refuse to show.
I grab his wrist, twist it away from my throat, and pull him forward so our bodies collide.
There is nothing delicate about the way he pushes me back into the chair, nothing ambiguous about the intent.
He kneels between my legs, hands braced on the arms of the chair, and stares at me with a hunger that is not romantic but transactional.
I hook my ankles behind his back, and he laughs, low and approving.
He drags the gown off my shoulders, exposing the rest of me to the lamp and to him, and fora second, I see myself in the reflection of the window—head thrown back, mouth open, hair loose and wild, eyes burning with something that looks like victory.
He slides his hands up my thighs, spreading them apart, and buries his face between them.
The first touch is cold, the tip of his nose like ice, but his tongue is hot and sure.
He licks a slow stripe from the crease of my thigh to the center of me, and then circles, again and again, each orbit tighter and more insistent.
I arch into him, fingers gripping the coarse linen of his shirt, and when I come, it is with a violence that surprises us both.
My back slams into the chair, and I bite down on my own hand to keep from screaming.
He does not stop.
He licks and bites and sucks until I am raw, until I am shaking, and only then does he pull away.
His mouth is slick with me, and he wipes it with the back of his hand, smiling the way a cat smiles after the kill.
I pull him up by the shirtfront, yanking him level with my face.
I taste myself on his lips, the salt and the bitter edge of sweat and hunger.
I bite his lower lip, and he responds by cradling two fingers into me, the gesture as much a threat as a caress.
I ride his hand, grinding against him, and when I come again it is quieter, but no less total.
He lifts me from the chair, one arm around my waist, the other still inside me.
He walks us to the chaise lounge by the window, lays me down with a carelessness that feels like trust.
He unbuttons his own pants with his free hand, the zipper catching in his haste.
I reach up, help him, and slide the fabric down his hips.
