I had never had that sardonic slash of a mouth against my sex. I had always been so aroused and hurried to release by his hands. We had never gotten around to that.
“Your mouth.”
He pushed himself up and brought his body over mine, one hand on either side of me. “I know, before I even begin, I will never recover from the taste. You will ruin me for food and drink until my death. Part your legs.”
I had guessed at Reed having a tendency towards a meaner kind of carnality. And I had concluded that, other than his sometimes teasing words while his fingers were at the work of my sex, he had withheld that part of himself, perhaps not wanting to disturb me. So, I said, as lightly as I could manage, “However you want me, you can have me, salt man.”
His eye closed, and I could tell he gritted his teeth. Then he relaxed his arms enough to press his body along mine, to place a kiss on my jaw, then on my collarbones and neck. In my ear, he asked, “Tell me, midwife, do you like a lover’s mouth on your breasts? For I have imagined that you do. Over and over again, I have imagined it. And I think I was right in this daydream. Even now, they prickle beneath me. Eager things, these tits.”
The close-lipped kisses he placed on my breasts were torturous. They were chaste, measured, almost entirely lacking in lust, like a buss on a cheek.
“Please,” I rasped out.
“Please what? I am using my mouth.”
“You are malicious and determined to rattle me,” I complained, my hands pushing against the bed of the wagon, my back in a greedy arch.
“I just need,” he said between more of his sedate attentions, “for you to explain what it is you want from my mouth.” And then he had the audacity to smile, right over my left nipple, the spread of his lips a cruel taunt.
I wanted a scrap of dignity. I had other aims than just his head between my legs, and I refused to surrender entirely. Placing a rough hand on the back of his head while his lips were still slightly parted from smiling, I guided my nipple into his mouth.
My own noise was drowned out by his half word, half groan. He spent time suckling at both of my breasts, long, drawn pulls, his tongue slow and curious. When I thought I would have to plead for his teeth, he gave me his bite and I felt a flood of heat in me, spreading from my belly to the rest of me.
“I cannot wait any longer,” Reed sighed against my breastbone. “I’ve been so patient for so long.” He sat up, kneeling between my spread thighs, his hands pushing them even farther apart. “The way the fires outside dance over this, the way the light hits how wet you are. Surely this is made by a god, this small, splendid, perfect enticement, this little, beautiful thing. How could you be anything but divine, withthisbetween your legs?”
If he wanted a reply, he did not wait for one. Instead he lowered himself, sliding his body down even farther, until his face was pressed right over me, his tongue hungry, almost hostile in its initial exploration. There was no rhythm to it, no pattern. He was simply a man in need of sustenance, lapping without thought, sating a long-neglected need.
Because I could not anticipate where or how he would next lick me with each stroke—sometimes right over the top of my sex, sometimes up the outside, sometimes inside—I could not get my bearings. His greed left me riven, unraveled, like a torn rag, the threads of me shredding. And when he finally did decide on a tattoo, acadence of his lips placed over that knot of flesh, when he suckled, his fingers joining his mouth’s efforts, in and out and in again, I came, easily, quickly, rocking up against him, my hands over my mouth, watching the glimmering light on the tarp above.
Reed did not stop until I begged for relief. My pleasure was slipping into pain it was so powerful. He lay back down next to me while I tried to get my heart and my lungs to calm.
“I am thankful we do not worship jealous gods,” he murmured into my temple, leaving a slick of myself against the side of my face. “Your sex is my idol now. How I would pray to it so devoutly if you were mine.”
“Reed,” I said, my voice thick with delirium. “I want you to break one of your two rules.” I had an aim tonight and I had not forgotten, no matter how blank my thoughts had just been. “Either kiss me or bed me.”
“I have resisted both for a long time. Why should I give in now?” He was not angry, but there was a strain in his question.
“Because I want it,” I replied. “Because I want your mouth on mine or your prick inside me. Choose.”
He waited a bit before saying, “Your want is as good a reason as any for breaking just the one rule.” And he placed himself over me again, held up by one hand next to my head. The other was at the front of his breeches, unlacing them and pulling himself out of them, his hardness settling against me.
“You want this?” he asked, his hand between us, readying our coupling.
“Please,” I said. “How many times do you need to be told that you are wanted before your restraint breaks?”
“It broke a long time ago. Everything after has been pretending.”
Our foreheads pressed together, our breath mingling, we began.
I had not coupled with anyone since Herschel, and those had been stolen quarters of an hour, him taking me from behind up against a wall in the stables of The Pale Horse. Reed’s hard prick inside me was more than I had been prepared for, and I was gratefulfor his having pleasured me first. Just as I was beginning to let myself take him, to let my hips loosen beneath his, he reached down to my right knee, his hand snaking behind it, and brought it up to bend against my side.
I gave out a pained cry, the last half of which I choked on, trying to remain silent even if his new depth felt like it was tearing at me from the inside.
“My gods,” he panted, halting in his movements, holding himself over me. “Oh my gods, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Robbie.” He put his mouth on mine softly, sweetly, thoughtlessly. Then he froze.
We looked at each other.
He had broken his other rule.
