Page 12 of Ace of Swords

Her foot stayed pressed against me, until she stirred, just slightly. It wouldn’t have been perceivable to anyone else, but she was definitely making small strokes over my pants. I tried to ignore it, tried to convince myself it was unintentional and only in my horny imagination, but my cock disagreed and my peripheral vision went hazy. As I grew harder, she became bolder, running her foot to the top of my cock and drawing a circle around the head with her toe.

I let her go on for longer than I should have. I could feel my balls tightening, anticipating release, and I found it hard to hold still, desperately wanting to thrust up, to hold her still and rub myself against her until I came. It had to stop. We couldn’t take this further because I knew if she gave me the slightest opportunity, I would be all over, bending her over the arm of the settee, kissing and licking that beautiful neck, and burying my dick inside of her in an instant.

Her father is in the house.

In a desperate move I jumped up, trying to think of how to keep my dick in my pants. There—by her bed was the leather bound tarot book I'd seen her with earlier. “Tell me about this,” I said, snatching it up.

She put her feet together on the floor and smirked at me. “You want to talk about tarot now, Rolland?”

“Yes,” I countered, way too enthusiastically.

“Okay, bring it over. I’ll give you a crash course. I’ve got my deck of cards, too. I’ll do a reading for you. What do you say?”

I'd say that sounds better than someone walking in on you giving me a foot-job,I thought. “Sounds like a plan.”

We sat on the floor in front of the coffee table. Tatiana had me shuffle the cards a few times, and cut them into three piles. She had a look of concentration on her face as she explained that I was cleansing the cards, since she hadn’t picked them up in a while. I nodded in agreement, pretending that I was interested, but I was honestly just relieved to have some distance between us.

“I’m going to do a single card reading. You might think that’s pretty simple, like I couldn’t get much insight from a single card, but each card has layers of meaning and depends on your own experiences.”

I shrugged. “I don't know how one card varies from multiple ones.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “I can see you’re not impressed, Rolland. That’s okay. My dad thinks this is a total waste of time, too. Play along with me... unless you'd rather playwithme...” she trailed off and leaned over, rubbing her hand up my leg.

I gently moved her hand off my leg. “Flip the card. Let me see what the future holds.”

She sighed dramatically, then revealed a card. It was a simple illustration; on the left side was a hand emerging from a cloud. It clutched a double-edged sword carrying a golden crown surrounded by wreathes. The bottom of the card was a lifeless, mountainous landscape.

“The Ace of Swords,” she explained. “What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see this card?”

“I see the crown and I think about your dad. My boss. And that sword, I imagine him wielding it against some of my favorite body parts if he caught me upstairs in this room with you.”

“Wow. You’re a natural,” she deadpanned, titling her head toward me and feigning a serious expression. A strand of hair fell across her face, and my hands itched to tuck it behind her ear. “How about I tell you what I see?”

She really was kind of charming. I nodded.

“The suit of swords represents the mind and intellect. The sharp blade of the sword represents the power of your intellect. The mountains below, that’s the barren emotional life of an intellectual guy like you. But the ace is interesting.” She tapped it a few times. “Aces indicate a moment of breakthrough is in your future. The Ace of Swords encourages you to find truth, clarity. The sword has the ability to cut through deception. This card represents new possibilities, a breakthrough in the way you see a particular situation, or maybe a shift in perception.”

I stared at the card as she spoke. Despite my aversion to games of this nature, I was trying to make sense of her reading, trying to find something to say that wouldn’t make her feel foolish or dismissed.

“What card would best represent you?” I asked. Maybe this would be a way to learn something about her. She’d been so guarded.

“Easy,” she said without hesitation. “The Eight of Wands. It represents action, travel and change.” She looked through the deck for the card. When she found it, she held it out for me to take. It had eight wands flying through the air, with small buds on their ends. Snaking through the background was a river.

“That sounds like the perfect card for a recent college graduate,” I said.

“You’d think,” she said quietly, “but whenever I pull this card for myself it’s upside down. And the reversal of this card is stagnation, oppression, frustration.”

She was looking straight at me when she spoke, and the expression I’d noticed earlier when she was talking to Abigail was back. She was suddenly a lost and insecure girl. The vixen in the red silk robe vanished like a ghost. So when she reached out to take the card back, I took her hand. Maybe it was the champagne, or the tarot’s suggestion about shifting perceptions, or maybe it was just her beautiful eyes, but I wanted to touch her. I wanted toknowher.

“Why would you feel like that? Look around, you have everything,” I whispered.

“I don’t haveanything,” she said, raising her voice, tugging her hand from mine. “None of this ismine.This all belongs to my father.Ibelong to my father. You hear how he talks about me. How everyone does. ‘The jewel in his crown.’ I’ve lived here my entire life. Everything I’ve done has been with his permission. And I was good girl; I listened. I lived at home through college because it made him feel better. But I worked my ass off, I graduated, I found something I love and still...here I am. Stuck. All ambition, no power.”

“What do you love, Tatiana?” I probed.

“Sub-Saharan drought,” she replied.

I hadn’t been expecting that.

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