Crossing the Lines (28 page)

Jay laughed like a delighted child. “Twice! Twice in one night.” He fell to the bed, his laughter becoming a chortling snort. “God, Alice, I can’t even…”

“Easy, my boy.” Henry twitched his lips, a single break in his calm, steady voice. “You’ll make Alice believe you’re laughing at her expense.”

Jay’s laughter cut off. “No…no-no-no. Alice, you know I’m not, right? I’m just so fucking happy. You, this whole time, you were shocked. Like you couldn’t believe Henry wanted you from day one. Like you can’t believe I’d pick time with you over dates with random women who make my dick twitch. Being with you and Henry is off-the-charts better, trust me.”

The contract discussion lasted another hour before Henry insisted she demonstrate her flexibility. That discussion lasted much longer than an hour and featured much less conversation.

10

The awkward adjustment period Alice dreaded never materialized. No nagging voice urged her to give up indulging in a fantasy of a relationship and take life more seriously.

She tangled her life with the one Henry and Jay shared, her contract broader in scope but weighing no heavier on her than the original. Their Friday schedule unchanged, she submitted to Henry’s whims in those hours, bearing a responsibility to be obedient to him.

Her submission remained more casual than Jay’s. A choice. The contract additions had been less sexual and more personal. Emotional.

Henry expected her to attend dinner each night. She might make excused absences—a phrase that brought to mind school and doctors’ notes and made her laugh at the idea of requesting a note from her boss to present to Henry. “Please excuse Alice from dinner this evening, as she is needed for overtime on the McGinty project.”

But barring emergencies or the occasional desire for solitude, which any affected party might voice, Henry put dinner on the table at seven, and she wasn’t to treat the evening as playtime. He insisted she not think of sex as the only reason they brought her into their home.

So she arrived by seven, and she helped Jay set the table, and she listened as Henry explained the dishes and the techniques used in their preparation. Her new normal. As if they were a family of three.

She’d given up too much of their friendship in the last few months. Feared to intrude on their lives outside contract hours and missed out because of it.

Now she didn’t have to weigh whether they desired her presence or what signals she sent by knocking on their door on a Tuesday night to watch television with Jay or listen to music with Henry. She used her key on every night but Friday. On those nights, she knocked and waited on Henry’s pleasure.

She’d gained girlfriend privileges. Sitting on the counter and reeling Henry in for a kiss while the salmon baked. Tossing a pillow at Jay so he’d take the invitation to push her down on the couch and kiss her until Henry called them to the table.

Her boys walked her home. Never later than eleven o’clock, because Henry insisted she have a full night’s sleep during the week. The walk measured all of ten feet down the hall, okay, but they alternated nights and kissed her at her door.

The Alice subsection in Jay’s contract had probably gotten longer. He delivered precise good-night kisses. No lower body contact, no roaming hands. Jay’s tender kisses were the opposite of Henry’s.

The other night Henry had pinned her body to the door with his weight as he suckled and nipped at her neck. When she was panting and wet with desire, he’d growled in her ear.

“I want you thinking of me when you touch yourself tonight, Alice. Will you do that for me, sweet girl?”

She’d lacked breath for more than a whispered promise. “I would’ve thought of you anyway, Henry.”

He’d kissed her once more, firm, and stepped back. “Go inside, Alice. Go now.”

She’d imagined him standing outside listening. Her climax had been swift and sudden.

Their awkward adjustment period had passed. Unrecognizable from the inside. The wrongness she’d struggled with for almost nine months. In reconciling the friendship half of her life with the sexual arrangement half, she’d come close to fucking up both.

For once, her response wasn’t thank God for Henry—it was thank God for Jay.

He’d been open about his needs. Dropped hints for months that she meant more to Henry. Demanded she rely on Henry to fix things.

If she hadn’t been waiting in that bed when Henry arrived home, their contract renegotiation talk would’ve gone a hell of a lot differently. He would’ve worn a mask of politeness, she would’ve let insecurity best her and Jay would’ve been devastated by them both.

And she wouldn’t be in Henry’s bed now, enjoying the full attention of his tongue working between her legs.

Her arms lay behind her head, palms tucked beneath to elevate her view, at his direction. He’d wrapped his arms around her thighs, though at times one hand would slide upward, over her stomach, across her ribs, until his arm stretched out along her body and he stroked the fullness of her breast.

He’d bade her raise her feet until they crossed tailor-style atop his back. Then he’d begun his torment, with a full arsenal of weapons. His breath. His lips. His teeth. His tongue.

She hung suspended in pleasure, never certain whether he’d tug at her lips with his teeth or plunge his tongue into her or send a heated breath across her clitoris.

And the sounds. He wielded them as a weapon all their own. Not only flesh on flesh but also his appreciation of her. With his mouth full, his articulation suffered, but she had no complaints.

He hummed encouragement at every jump of her hips even as his arms halted her motion, kept her pinned and open for him. Made her submit to this pleasure, to the repeated climaxes he gave her. Their groans mingled in the heated bedroom air as he lapped at her sex.

Centered between the slopes of her breasts, down the length of her belly, he moved in exquisite harmony with her need. Every so often he’d lift his head. Tongue extended, flicking her clit, he locked his eyes to hers. Pleasure tore her free, incoherence and darkness and surrender an intoxicant carrying her away.

Her haziness lifted in minute increments. He’d stopped. Her legs had slipped from his back to the bed. She hugged his rib cage with her calves. He lay with his head near her hip, his nose nudging at the short golden curls above her sex.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, my dear.”

“That you’re sinfully good at that.”

“Particularly for one who doesn’t practice often, hmm?”

Embarrassment heated her face. He’d grasped her thoughts with exactitude. He’d only been with her and Jay in the last nine months. Jay had been his primary partner for years. He’d indulged with women at the club and in hotel rooms, and those seemingly rarely. Lacking the necessary partner, he couldn’t have practiced this skill often.

He kissed her stomach, a line along the cradle from hip to hip.

If only he’d kiss her harder. Leave a ring of tiny bruising reminders like a belly chain of hickeys. Marks proving she belonged to him, that she allowed his ownership and he claimed it with pride.

“I was quite enthusiastically bisexual before I began devoting so much attention to Jay, my dear. I don’t expect I’ve forgotten the basic idea…or lost the taste for it.” He lifted his head and smirked at her, his eyes laughing and dark.

“The basic idea? I’m sure you’ve taken an advanced course.” Of course, her experience of receiving oral sex was limited to Henry and Jay. Somehow she’d always picked guys who wanted to get straight to their pleasure and skip right over hers. Not anymore.

“Mmm. I did train rather extensively.”

“Tongue exercises?”

He tickled her ribs as she twisted and giggled.

“One of the ways a dominant may learn to handle submissives is to assume their role in the games.” He reached for a condom packet on the bed. She curled her toes with anticipation. “I learned to please women before I learned to dominate them, my dear.”

“You were a submissive?” Henry, open and vulnerable, naked and kneeling at his master’s feet? Impossible.

“Part time, for two years, yes. I don’t make a particularly good submissive.” He pushed her legs to her chest and covered her body with his own. “But understanding those desires is important.” His voice slipped into silky seduction. “You understand them, don’t you, Alice?”

Hips rotating, he slid his cock forward to brush her sex.

“You know the eager grip of anticipation.” He lowered his arms, resting more of his weight on her legs. “The helpless vulnerability of being pinned and spread open.”

He thrust his hips and drove into her. Desperation and desire urged her to meet his thrust with her own, but he’d immobilized her.

“The need for more, and the satisfaction when you receive it.” He raised up on his arms, allowing her legs freedom to move. “Grip me, Alice. Hold tightly.”

She spread her thighs and wrapped her legs around Henry’s back as he lowered his head and sucked at her breasts. He spoke between kisses.

“You enjoy knowing you need ask for nothing—that you, in fact, often
cannot
ask—but that I will provide precisely what you require. Because I know
you
.”

He nipped his way to her neck, and she rolled her hips against him. He still hadn’t thrust. Unmoving inside her, he remained a constant presence and a promise.

“Your body tells me what you want.” He dragged his hips back, and she lifted hers, chasing his cock. “Patience, Alice.”

His shallow, teasing thrust wasn’t even so deep as his tongue had been. Her hips stirred upward again in reply, but he merely pulled farther away.

“Be still, dearest. Wait. Feel. Anticipate.”

He teased her again, and this time she managed to hold herself still.

“Good girl.” A deep thrust, and she moaned. He pulled back. “Imagine the sensation. You know what but not when. You remember how it feels, don’t you?”

He thrust hard, three times, leaving her panting. Need spiraled up in her.

“You feel the emptiness, the waiting, and you remember the fullness you crave.”

Thrust. Again. His mouth on hers, swallowing her moans.

“And I give you what you crave, don’t I, Alice?” Teasing, seductive, he whispered in her ear.

Thighs trembling, she clutched him, her body pining for his.

“Please.” Strained and breathy, her voice sounded unlike her. But he made it happen effortlessly. “Henry, please.”

“Yes,
please
. That is precisely what I intend to do, Alice. Please you.” He moved his hips in a teasing circle, and she fought to keep herself still. “My good girl. You needn’t chase after anything. I’ll bring it right to you, if only you listen to your body and wait.”

Frustration burned in her at his shallow thrusts. But he leaned his weight forward over her, and every stroke pressed hard against her clitoris. No matter how much oxygen she sucked in, her breaths fell short of her body’s need.

“Hen—Hen—”

“I know, dearest.” Even Henry strained now, his voice rough and low. “I know you. Let me know you. Let me wring the last drop of pleasure from you.”

Another swivel of his hips and a true thrust, hard and deep, filling her as she began quaking around him. His breath washed hot over her ear. “Let me in, Alice.”

And she was gone. Pleasure rolled through her, grounding his final thrusts as he groaned in her ear.

Her legs dropped to the bed.

He rolled their bodies to leave her sprawled atop him. The position wasn’t as nice as being sprawled beneath him, shielded from the world by the breadth of his shoulders and the press of his hips, but it had its own joys. When she shifted just so, his heartbeat thrummed beneath her ear. Her torso rose and fell with his breathing, long and deep as he recovered his calm.

Eventually he tipped her to the sheets and left the bed, returning sans condom with a washcloth in hand. Sitting beside her left hip, he leaned across her. With one hand planted alongside her right hip, he dangled the washcloth in the other.

She yearned for the words. He pursed his lips in a knowing smile.

“Spread your legs for me, Alice.” He spoke in a tender tone utterly distinct from the one he used when he wanted her to open for his pleasure. Both tones made her shiver.