Page 98 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Buffalo hide,” he says, already sounding like he’s relishing it. “Or the rubber one.”
Fuck. “I don’t like the rubber one.”
“I’ll be sure to use it then.”
Well, I walked right into that. I decide to switch tactics. “You could come home early,” I say. “I’d let you tie me up and flog me with the rubber flogger until I’m begging to come.”
I can hear the crooked smile in Auden’s voice when he answers. “An alluring proposition with two logical weaknesses. Firstly, you’re mine to tie up and torture any time I like, whether or not you let me. Secondly, you’re already begging me to come. I hardly need to go to any effort for that particular pleasure, do I now?”
“You’re so mean.”
“You told me you liked that.”
This entire conversation has me as worked up as I was fooling around with Saint this morning, and Auden isn’t even here. It’s just his voice, sultry and arrogant, coming all the way from London.
“Here’s what I’m going to do, darling brat. I’m going to give you a choice. You can come tonight—and tonight only—but each orgasm will have a price, determined by me and unknown to you until I make you pay it. But if you choose not to come, you’ll be rewarded—again, a thing of my choosing and unknown to you. Does that seem fair?”
I think about this.
“No.”
His laughter is abrupt and boyish and perfect, and I just miss him so fucking much, my chest hurts with it. “Are you sure you can’t come home anyway?” I say.
He must hear the loneliness in my voice. “I would if I could,” he says, his laughter changing into pure longing. “You know, it’s not too late for you to come out here . . . ”
“I know.” Every time Auden leaves for London, he asks me to come with him. To stay in his townhouse and eat at fancy restaurants and have lots of kinky sex. And every time he asks, I say no.
Because my work is at Thornchapel. Because Saint is at Thornchapel.
I’d feel wrong the entire time I was without both.
That doesn’t make it easier to be apart from Auden, though.
“Soon,” he assures me. “I’ll come home in two days, and leave all kinds of marks on that lovely body of yours.”
“And in the meantime, it’s up to me whether or not I want to risk whatever diabolical punishments you’re dreaming up?”
“Only if you’d like to come,” he says evilly.
Only Auden could make a liberty feel like a restraint, like a persecution.
“Are you going to have fun thinking about me deliberating over this?” I ask.
“Proserpina, we both know you’re going to deliberate for about three seconds before you find St. Sebastian and make him fuck you. You like orgasms and punishment too much. No, I’m going to be having fun anticipating exactly what I’m going to do to you, and how much you’re going to hate it and love it all at the same time.”
I’m breathless by now. “Or I could do it right here,” I whisper. “Right now. On the phone with you. I’m in a dress and I could just stick my fingers in my panties and come for you.”
His pause lets me know he likes that idea a lot. But he’s stronger than I am. “If you do it, I won’t be complicit,” he says, “no matter how tempting the reality of listening to you get yourself off would be. I want you to choose naughtiness all on your own.”
“All the better to punish me for?”
“Clever girl.”
I sigh. “Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“Fine, Sir.”
