Page 31 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Almost, pet,” she says. “Just a moment longer.”
But before she finishes, there’s a creak and a slam—the door downstairs—and then footsteps on the staircase, shoes thudding on solid, new wood. Instinct seizes me, and I start to jerk away, but Rebecca holds me close.
“Shh, shh,” she soothes. “I know
who it is.”
I lift my eyes to hers, and she strokes my hair back from my face. “Only one other person has a key,” she assures me. “And when we’re at the club, lots of people will be watching us. Think of this as . . . practice.”
Practice. Yes. I will be watched and shared—I want to be watched and shared. We agreed on all this.
“What’s your safeword, pet?” she asks, her hands still stroking at my hair.
I take a breath before I say it, and my breath is full of her—the woman I love who doesn’t love me. I force the knife-thoughts down, away, and try to remember who I am. The sunny, happy girl who’s left red lipstick on her Mistress’s cunt.
I answer.
“Grege 1947.”
Chapter Eight
Rebecca
“We can stop whenever we need,” I tell her. And we will if she needs to, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved someone was coming up. And while yes, this is actually good practice for a baby sub—a little bit of Thornchapel in London, a little bit of our magic world to get her ready for the prying voyeurism of the club—truthfully, that’s not why I’m relieved.
I’m relieved because I’m a coward.
Delphine’s mouth is hot and searching against me when I push her face back to her work, and I try desperately to lose myself in the slick pleasure of her kiss before our visitor makes it up the stairs. I want every feeling I’ve had since Delphine uttered those terrible words to disappear, to shift into what they should be, which is satisfaction and pleasure and pride in my new submissive.
I’m almost there when Auden emerges from the stairwell, looking miserable and morose, the spattered rain on his shoulders matching the sudden plinking and plonking on the skylights above. He pauses when he sees us, Delphine on all fours and me with my hands in her hair and my legs stretched out as insouciantly as any man’s.
“Rain outside?” I say lightly, as if there isn’t a tongue in my pussy. As if he’s just popped in for a chat and interrupted nothing more important than me responding to emails.
Auden meets my eyes and I nod at him, answering his unspoken questions. It’s a sign of our friendship that he doesn’t ask the questions aloud—or maybe it’s just a testament to whatever it is that has him looking so pathetic.
He finally answers, his voice filling the space as Delphine stiffens in front of me. “It’s only spitting,” he says. “Nothing bad. May I come in?”
“Certainly,” I say graciously, untangling my fingers from Delphine’s hair to smooth a hand along her back. “Have a seat. I’m almost through here.”
Auden shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it over a low bench by the windows before taking a seat next to me. I’m a little surprised he doesn’t want to sit where he can see Delphine’s heart-shaped bottom—that’s where I’d prefer to sit, if I wasn’t exactly where I was—but when he sits down and tucks a bit of stray blond hair behind Delphine’s ear, I think I know why.
She flicks those honey-brown eyes over to him and he gives her an almost-smile.
“Hi, Pickles,” he says softly. And I feel her lips curve up against me as her body relaxes.
“Hi, Auden,” she replies. I tsk at her, and she corrects, “Sir.”
“May I watch?” he asks her, voice still soft. “I’d like to.”
She nods and closes her eyes, leaning her cheek against my thigh for a moment before she starts licking me again.
Yes, I know why Auden chose this spot. He sat here so he could set her at ease, and it worked. He’s a good Dominant. He has the things that can’t be taught, the instincts, the right amount of cruelty and the right amount of compassion, and he knows how to oscillate between the two. Knots can be explained, flogging can be learned, all of that can be tutored into a willing student. But balancing arrogance with care? Being fully capable of both? That’s a rare thing.
“She’s good at this,” Auden remarks, leaning forward to brush more hair off her face.
“She is,” I agree as I tilt my hips up. She follows my lead and kisses me lower once again, her delicate, rich girl tongue stroking into my center. Delph and I have only been properly fucking for the last six weeks, and she’s still more eagerness than skill—but the eagerness is incredible, it’s fervent and wholehearted, and when she’s trying to please me, no matter what it is—kissing, tonguing, crawling, enduring—she does it with her entire self. Her body and her heart and her mind—every part of her is present and artless. Totally honest.
She’s like clear water, like a tropical ocean, where one thinks the brightly colored bottom is only a few inches beneath the surface, but truly it’s so far down that one could drown trying to touch it. All of her is here, all of her is visible, and yet she’s the opposite of accessible, the opposite of easy.
