Anger at me.
“I’ll fix this.”
I rub my thumb across her cheek again and Em snaps, trying to bite it. “I was already fixing it, you arsehole.”
I disentangle myself and fetch the tape, unable to listen to her talk like that for another second. She tries to jerk away as I fasten it across her mouth, cutting off her scream for help. I crisscross it with another length, the width not adequate for the task at hand. Then another, for good luck and because Em has proved far more industrious than I thought.
“You’re scared,” I say in my most patient voice. The one that talks my mother down when she’s besieged by a half dozen apparitions, all taunting her into doing things that are the complete opposite of what she should.
I feel like my whole life was in training for this. I know how to harden my heart against her cries, against her pleading, against the panicked expression in her eyes.
“It’s okay to be scared but this will pass, and everything will be better, you’ll see.”
I lie down, Em thrashing and trying to scream, through her taped mouth, her flaring nostrils. Hell, it looks likes she wants to scream through her wild eyes.
“I saved your life, Em. And if I need to, I’ll save it tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. On and on, all the way to the end. You can take your easy exit the same day you dance on my grave, not a moment earlier.”
I pull her back into her rightful place, snug within my arms, soothing her to calmness. Long minutes stretch out as I wait for her to settle, wait for her to stop resisting me and revert to how things have been.
Her mouth saying one thing, her body saying quite another.
It takes time but Em now owns all the time I have so it’s not an imposition. She softens as I stroke her, watching the play of colour across her skin. Actual colour, not just the invisible aura that seems to surround her and no one else.
A flow of reds and pinks and purple so violently deep it’s close to black. I watch them dance on her skin, mixing and matching and forming completely new shades as the colours spin into one another, joining to create something new.
They’re a story. I grasp that eventually. They’re telling me the story of how Em feels, what she needs, where I can lay my hands on her so she begins the long journey towards healing.
I watch them and they relate a tale I’ve seen before. Between the tape and the cuffs, it’s freeing. I’m finally able to react to the messages from her body rather than the far-less-encouraging words that usually flow from her mouth.
According to her body, everything is A-OK. Her hips buck towards mine as I run my hands over the smooth skin of her stomach. The glare in her eyes doesn’t matter. There’s a deeper truth hidden there. The daze of lust. I know it because I’m so used to seeing it reflected in my own whenever she’s around.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whisper, ignoring the broadcast from her eyes that declares I’m hurting her already.
She’s just scared. That’s understandable.
She won’t remember how to be afraid by the time I finish with her.
I straddle Em, rolling the sweatshirt I gave her until it bunches across her collarbone. Her breasts are magnificent, and blood rushes southward as I lean forward to take one nipple in my mouth, the other covered by my palm.
Her body is so sweet. Her skin so responsive to my touch that every inch of her might as well be designated as an erogenous zone. When I release her nipple from my mouth, I see it flush with vibrant pink, rosy sparkles that shower across her naval, mixing in with the deep teal swirls that rise from her hip bones and tell me to direct my attention there.
I use my touch to paint her a thousand different colours. Lost in their ever-changing pattern. The world’s best and brightest kaleidoscope.
My lips kiss every part of her I can find, cursing myself for bundling her in so many layers of bulky clothing. I want to flip her over and run my tongue along the length of her spine, rim her sweet little arsehole, graze my teeth over her perineum, and watch as her hips pump back and forth, the longing dripping from her juicy cunt.
I want to do that, but the cuff chain isn’t long enough to twist her over, not without pulling at the tender skin of her wrists. And she’s buried in that cardigan. I’ll never get sufficient access.
I lean up to the headboard, stroking the side of her face when it twists in alarm, my crotch getting dangerously close to her mouth. Her taped mouth. I couldn’t shove myself in there even if I were the kind of boy to do that type of thing, which I’m not.
I wait until the pretty girls beg to suck me off, line up before me, mouths open and tongues flicking at the air for the privilege.
Something they’ve always done until this one. This annoying one. This special one. This frustrating me to the point of insanity one.
When I unlock the cuff from her left wrist, she jumps, but I manhandle her arm out from the sleeves of her topmost layers before refastening her in place, moving to the right. Once freed her from the garments, I leave the cuff off her left wrist, fixing the end to the bedpost instead.
She immediately tries to push me away, but that’s not a problem. Exhausted by her earlier efforts, she’s now so weak it’s like fighting off a toddler. She might get an occasional hit but it’s not a genuine contest. She’ll succumb to me, it’s just a matter of how much force.
As if plucking that thought from my mind, Em relaxes, stops fighting. I check that she’s all right, place my head between her gorgeous tits and listen to the steady thump of her heart. Her pulse rate isn’t elevated, and I take that as a win. Whatever else is going on, she’s not frightened enough to trigger an adrenaline dump.
