Chapter 2: The Edge of Ecstasy
Her fingernails dug into my forearm, not to pull me away, but to hold on, to feel something solid as the air thinned in her throat. The veins stood out on the back of my hand. Her body bucked against mine, a series of sharp, involuntary convulsions that milked my cock deep inside her. A high, thin wheeze escaped her lips. Then her whole body shuddered, a wave of clenching, pulsing heat that triggered my own release. I came in hot, blinding spurts, my hips grinding against her as the room seemed to tilt. I let go of her throat.
She gasped, a raw, sucking sound, and slumped forward against the vanity, her forehead pressing against the cool, cracked glass. Our breaths filled the silence, ragged and loud. The flickering light painted the sweat on her spine in streaks of gold and blood.
She stayed there for a long moment, her breathing a rough scrape in the quiet room. I took a step back, my own legs unsteady, and the cooling come dripped down my thigh. The metallic scent in the air wasn’t just sweat anymore; it was the iron tang of blood from where her nails had broken my skin.
“Fuck,” she finally whispered, the word cracking.
She turned her head, her cheek still against the glass, and looked at my reflection. Her eyes were wide, the pupils swallowing the blue, and a faint, blotchy red was blooming around her throat. I saw my own face there too—a stranger, hollow-eyed and satisfied. A laugh bubbled up in my chest, sharp and humorless.
“You’re a fucking animal,” she said, but her voice held no accusation, only a kind of awe.
She pushed herself upright, wincing slightly. The memories always came like this, flashing behind my eyes in the aftershock. They were clearer than the peeling wallpaper, more real than the ache in my limbs.
I had picked her up at that stupid gallery opening, her laughter cutting through the din. In the taxi, she climbed onto me, her mouth hungry, her legs locking around my waist as if she’d known me for years. We stumbled into the first bedroom we found in my apartment, the one with the neutral beige walls and the too-stiff duvet. I left the door open wide, a wedge of hallway light falling across the floor because I needed to see her.
We undressed quickly, a frantic but graceful shedding of layers. She shrugged out of her silk blouse, unhooked her bra, and her breasts were perfect, high and pale. I caught her hands at the waistband of her lace panties. “Stop,” I said, my voice thick. “Leave them.”
They were black, a delicate pattern against her skin, revealing just a shadow of her. It drove me mad. “I want to savor this,” I whispered into the curve of her ear, tasting the salt on her skin. “I want to taste you.”
Margot giggled, a light, nervous sound, but I was dead serious. I laid her back on the bed, following her down, covering her with my weight. My kisses trailed from her lips, down the column of her throat, over the swell of her breast, along the flat plane of her stomach. She smelled like roses and anticipation, a clean, floral heat that made my cock swell against my zipper.
My teeth grazed the soft skin of her inner thigh, a playful threat. She jerked, a sharp intake of breath. “I can’t wait to eat your pussy, Margot,” I murmured against her.
The sound she made then was a low, wanting moan that traveled straight to my groin. Her head was thrown back, eyes closed, lost. I hooked my thumbs into the sides of her panties and slid them down, slow. She was already wet, glistening in the low light from the hall. I tugged them the rest of the way off and settled between her legs.
My tongue found her clit first, a flat, slow stroke that made her gasp. Her fingers tangled in my hair, not guiding, just holding on. I licked into her, savoring the sharp, musky taste of her, lapping at her like a man starved. Her hips lifted, seeking more pressure.
“You want me to fuck this pretty pussy of yours?” I asked, pulling back just enough to speak, my lips wet with her.
“Yes,” she hissed, arching off the bed.
My cock was leaking, a bead of precum soaking into my boxers. “But can you go gentle on me?” she asked, her voice suddenly small.
The request was so at odds with the fierceness of her body under mine.