I move my lips an inch further up the inside of her leg, pressing them again to her skin, this time sampling her taste with a flicker of my tongue, the tang of salt dissolving against my tastebuds.
“What does it feel like? To always have those appreciative eyes on you. To know wherever you walk, someone will store away a visual of your glorious arse.”
“Prickles,” she whispers, her voice almost lost in the distance between her lips and my ear. “It’s awful. Like tiny pinpricks all across my back.”
My mouth curves into a smile as I place another kiss on the inside of her thigh, moving ever higher. “What do you have against pins?”
She gives a startled laugh, clutching the edge of the vanity hard with her fingers. Like she’s afraid she’ll go spinning off. Afraid she’ll fall.
Her hands might still be clenched but the muscles of her legs are softening. I reach another inch higher, bestow my kiss, and then I reach the injury and press my tongue flat against the wound.
A hand clutches in my hair as Esme gives a soft sigh. I rest there, letting the senses flow over me, the smell of her, the feel of her, the taste of her. The sight of her unexpected gift to me. The small sounds catching in her throat.
“What does this do for you?” My gaze moves up to meet hers and our eyes lock together like magnets, the friction increasing when I try to look away. “Does it feel good when you carve these lines in your flesh?”
Her gaze floats in the middle distance, and I think for a moment she won’t answer. Then she licks her lips, softly saying, “It lets my bad thoughts escape.”
Even while I’m mesmerised by her chosen method of release, regret nibbles at me again. A dull sorrow that I let things get this far. That in my attempt to make her talk and spill her secrets, I caused more harm than I knew.
And if I’d known what I was doing to her earlier, would I have stopped?
I push the thought away while clenching my hand around her leg, curling my fingertips over the top, a move that triggers a shiver from Esme that works into the bones of my hand in the most delicious way.
“What bad thoughts did you have today?”
A gasp catches in the back of her throat as I turn back to the wound, licking it clean of blood, exposing the damage. I see a ladder of similar injuries, the others long healed. Some marks are deep, made of many thin lines and I understand she’s made them over and over, cutting along the scar tissue instead of creating a fresh wound.
“People are going to see me.”
I tug her forward, sliding her so the apex of her spread legs is right at the edge of the counter. “I’m on that clip as well. People see me, too.”
She barks out a thin laugh. “It’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right, it’s not. No one’s checking out my arse.” Except the moment I say that, she does. “Almost no one. What else?”
Esme lifts away the hand from my hair, rubbing her knuckles against the underside of her chin. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Not for me.”
Tears glisten as they cling to the edge of her lashes. I adjust my head, inhaling the scent of her, her arousal. “Tell me what else is bothering you. What do you need to go away?”
“My bully turned up out of the blue.”
I blow out a soft breath, my warm exhalation fluttering her trimmed curls. “And how does that make you feel?”
“Powerless.”
I rub the tip of my nose along her pussy, slipping my tongue between her folds in long smooth strokes, licking her like she’s the sweetest tasting ice cream cone in the world, twirling around her clit for the benefit of hearing the sharp intake of breath.
Then I withdraw to ask, “Does he make you feel like your stomach’s always clenched and your skin buzzes like it’s had an electric shock?” When I glance upward her eyes are wary. “Because that’s how I feel every time you’re near. What else?”
“If my parents find out you’re here, they might make me come home.”
I think of the enormous house set on the edge of the lake. A property so large it has its own stretch of forest. So large it has its own private jetty to service the boat that no one ever sails. “And what’s so bad about home?”
Her eyes widen as they stare down at me, so vulnerable I’m scared to move in case I frighten her away. Then her posture softens, her body swaying gently towards me. “You’re not there.”
The feeling I had the night of Tarryn’s party recurs. There isn’t a single thing about this girl that I don’t enjoy, even when I’m filled with hatred. A hatred that has never seemed so far away.
