Chapter 117: Deja Vu
His tongue worked slowly, methodically, a soft counterpoint to the violent thunder of his own heartbeat. The taste was complex, layered—her own sharp, familiar musk woven through with the tang of latex, the salt of another man’s sweat, and something darkly earthy that was purely, definitively, not him. He cleaned the inner curves of her thighs, the delicate folds now softened and spent, every stroke of his tongue a simultaneous baptism and desecration.
Margot sighed, a long, shuddering exhalation. Her fingers trailed through his hair, not guiding, just resting, feeling the motions of his jaw. “Good,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Very thorough, Blue.”
When he finally leaned back, his knees aching on the hard floor, she looked down at him. A slow, cat-like smile spread across her face. She smoothed her dress down. “Upstairs now. On your feet.”
She turned and climbed the stairs, her heels clicking a deliberate rhythm on the wood. He followed, the discarded thong still clutched in his hand, a damp flag of surrender.
The master bedroom was a pool of warmth and shadow. The fire had been built up again, casting dancing light across the cream linens of the four-poster. The large mirror above the fireplace reflected the room in fragments—the bed, the armoire, the nude calendar on the antique desk by the window, its current page showing a masked figure with shoulders like a bull.
“Come here,” she said, standing by the bed. She reached for the buckle at the back of his hood. The leather loosened, and she lifted it from his head. The cool air felt startling on his face. He blinked, his vision adjusting. Her eyes were on his, reading the storm she’d orchestrated there—confusion, hurt, a desperate, gnawing arousal.
She didn’t comment. Instead, she brought her fingers to his lips. They glistened. “All clean?” she asked, her voice a low tease.
He nodded, unable to speak.
“Good.” Her hands went to the side zip of her dress. She drew it down slowly, the sound loud in the quiet room. The emerald velvet sighed to the floor, pooling around her ankles like spilled ink. She stood before him in just her stockings, garters, and heels, her body flushed and magnificent in the firelight. The evidence of her evening was no longer just a taste in his mouth; it was a map written on her skin—a faint red mark on one breast, the slight blush of abrasion on her hips.
“He had very strong hands,” she said casually, turning to sit on the edge of the bed. She began undoing the clips of her stockings. “An arborist. All that hauling rope and climbing trees.” She rolled the first stocking down, her calf tightening. “He liked to talk. Told me all about different types of bark while he had me bent over the Chesterfield in his conservatory.”
Rupert felt a fresh, hot twist in his gut. The image was hyper-specific, cruel and vivid. The conservatory. A Chesterfield. Bark.
She stood again, stepping out of her heels and the last of her clothing. Completely naked now, she walked to him and began to fumble with the lock on the chastity device. Her hair smelled of night air and cigar smoke. “He was fascinated by the cage,” she whispered, her breath warm against his neck as she worked. “Asked a lot of questions. I told him it kept you honest. He said he could see why it was necessary.”
The lock clicked open. She peeled the device away, and the sudden freedom was a shock, a raw, aching vulnerability. He gasped.
“Shhh,” she soothed, leading him to the bed. She pushed him onto his back and climbed over him, straddling his hips. Her weight was a profound comfort. She leaned down, her curls falling around their faces, a private tent in the firelight. “But this,” she said, her hand closing around him, guiding him to her entrance, which was still slick and gloriously loose from her earlier use. “This is mine. Only ever mine.”
She sank down onto him in one slow, devastating motion. They both cried out—her a sigh of reclamation, him a guttural shout of sheer, overwhelming sensation. She was impossibly hot, soft, and open, a heated glove milking him instantly.
She began to move, a rolling, lazy rhythm. “He fucked me for an hour, maybe more,” she breathed, her eyes locked on his. “Solid. Relentless. I came so many times I lost count.” She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, her pace increasing. “But he doesn’t know me. Not like you do.”
Her words were a balm and a brand.
“He doesn’t know that I moan in the back of my throat when I’m really close,” she whispered, punctuating each phrase with a deep, grinding roll of her hips. “He doesn’t know… about the tiny freckle… just here.” She brushed a spot low on her own ribs. “Or that I need to be kissed… right after… or I feel untethered.”
She was driving them both now, a rising urgency in her movements. The fire cracked and popped. In the mirror, Rupert could see the arc of her back, the powerful flex of her thighs, the desperate grip of his own hands on her hips.
“He’s just a beautiful, anonymous cock, Rupert,” she gasped, using his real name, anchoring him. “But you… you are my husband. And this… this is my home.”
Her words shattered the last of his resistance. A sound tore from him, raw and broken, as his control vaporized. He surged up into her, his release hitting him like a tidal wave, pulling him under into a pure, white nothingness where there was no calendar, no anonymous bulls, no chores—only Margot, clenching around him, crying out his name into the crook of his neck as she followed him over the edge.
For a long time, the only sounds were the fire and their ragged breathing. She collapsed onto him, her skin slick against his. He held her, feeling the frantic gallop of her heart slowly begin to decelerate against his own.
Eventually, she stirred, propping her chin on his chest. Her eyes were soft, the mischief temporarily banked. “You okay?”
He swallowed, his throat dry. “I don’t know.”
“That’s fair.” She traced a circle on his sternum. “July is going to be interesting. A whole week of black stars on the calendar. The Women’s Institute picnic is on the Tuesday. I’ll need you to tidy the garden shed that day.”
She said it so matter-of-factly, a domestic note woven seamlessly into the tapestry of their new, strange reality. Rupert stared at the canopy above them, feeling wrecked and owned and, for the first time in years, completely, terrifyingly awake. The heat of her still surrounded him, and in the mirror across the room, he saw their tangled reflection: a bound man, set free.