Chapter 10: The Senator's Taste
The phantom ache from Julianna’s sofa had faded to a memory, but its lesson had calcified into a new kind of skeleton inside me. It straightened my spine as I stood before the heavy oak door of Richard Ashford’s private study. I didn’t knock. I turned the brass handle and entered, a slow, silent invasion.
The room was a temple to his own importance. Mahogany bookshelves groaned under the weight of unread leather-bound volumes. A globe stood in one corner, a relic. The air was thick with the peat-smoke scent of his expensive Scotch and the cloying notes of his cologne. He was standing by the fireplace, a glass in hand, and he started when the door clicked shut behind me.
“Evelyn,” he said, his voice too loud in the hushed space. “I wasn’t sure…”
“That I’d come?” I finished, walking deeper into the room. I wore a simple black dress, knee-length, with a high neckline. The power was in the absence, now. In what wasn’t offered. “We had an appointment.”
“Yes, of course.” He set his glass down on the mantelpiece with a nervous clink. His eyes drank me in, that familiar, hungry scan. But there was a new tremor in his hands, a vulnerability that made him look his age. The distinguished senator was just a man, waiting for a crumb.
I went to the high-backed leather armchair, the throne of his domain, and let my fingers trail over its cool surface. I didn’t sit. I turned to face him.
“Kneel,” I said.
The word hung between us, stark and absolute. He blinked, as if he’d misheard. His jaw worked silently.
“Now, Richard.”
A shudder ran through him. It wasn’t resistance; it was the collapse of a final, internal barrier. The man who commanded committees, who shook hands with presidents, slowly lowered himself to the Persian rug. His knees hit the floor with a soft thud. He looked up at me from that position, his silver-haired head tilted back, his powerful frame rendered supplicant. The hunger in his eyes had been joined by something else: a raw, devotional awe.
I didn’t speak. Let the silence stretch. Let him feel the cool air on his skin, the unforgiving pressure of the floor against his bones. My own pulse was a steady, quiet drum. I reached under the hem of my dress, hooked my thumbs into the sides of my plain black underwear, and slid them down my legs. I stepped out of them, picked them up, and dropped them carelessly onto the seat of his armchair. A flag planted on conquered ground.
I moved to the sofa, a smaller, softer piece facing his kneeling form. I sat on the very edge, the leather cool through the thin fabric of my dress. Then, slowly, I let my knees fall apart.
The dim, golden light from the chandelier fell directly into the shadowed space I exposed. I was bare, slick already from anticipation, from the memory of the lesson and the sight of his submission.
“Come here,” I instructed, my voice low and even.
He shuffled forward on his knees, a clumsy, eager movement.His breathing was ragged. When he was close enough for me to feel the heat radiating from his body, I placed a hand on his head, not a caress, but a placement, guiding him.
“Taste,” I whispered.
He needed no further urging. A low, animal sound broke from his throat as he buried his face between my legs. His tongue was frantic, a hot, wet point of contact that lashed against my clit with none of Julianna’s calculated precision. This was worship and panic combined. He groaned into me, his hands coming up to grip my thighs, his fingers digging into my flesh as he tried to pull me closer, to devour me.
It was messy.Obscene. The sound of his eager, sloppy mouth working at me filled the dignified study. I leaned back on my hands, let my head loll back, and watched the ceiling. Sensation built, a quick, straightforward heat sparked by his desperate enthusiasm. My hips lifted, meeting his thrusting tongue. The coil began to wind, tighter, faster. His tongue flicked and circled, his stubble scraping my inner thighs. He was lost in it, a man drowning.
I felt the precipice approach, that white-hot line.My breathing hitched. My fingers tangled in his hair, not pushing him away, but holding him there, letting him think he was winning.
“Yes,” I moaned, a single, strategic concession.
He redoubled his efforts, his tongue driving into me now, fucking me with it, then returning to suck hard on my clit. Pleasure, sharp and undeniable, gathered like a storm. I was seconds away. The muscles in my stomach tightened. A choked cry built in my throat.
I opened my eyes. Looked down at the top of his head, at the distinguished silver hair now mussed by my grip. I saw not a senator, but a slave at his task.And I stopped him.
My hand in his hair became a fist. I yanked his head back, hard.
He came away with a gasp, his lips glistening wet, his face flushed and confused. “Wha—?”
“I said taste,” I stated, my voice steady, cold as the room’s marble fireplace. “I didn’t say make me come.”
The frustration that contorted his face was a mirror of my own from the night before. His eyes were wild, pleading. “Evelyn, please… I can feel you’re so close. Let me… just let me finish.”
I stood up in one smooth motion, letting my dress fall back into place. The denial was a physical pain for him; I could see it in the clench of his jaw, in the way his hands gripped his own knees. The front of his trousers was visibly strained.
“That was your reward,” I said, looking down at him. “For your obedience in kneeling. For understanding your place.” I walked to the armchair, picked up my underwear, and tucked them into my purse. “You don’t get to finish me, Richard. You haven’t earned that yet.”
“What do I need to do?” The question was torn from him, stripped of all pride. He was still on his knees.
I stopped at the door, hand on the knob. I turned back, letting him see the chill in my hazel eyes, the phantom’s empty gaze. “You’ll know when the opportunity presents itself. Until then, you’ll remember the taste. And you’ll remember the ache.”
I left him there, on the floor of his own study. As I closed the door, I heard a single, strangled sound—a sob, or a curse, choked back into the silence.The phantom had visited. It had allowed a sacrament. And it had left the altar empty, the worshipper starving.
The city air outside was a shock. I leaned against the cool stone of the building, letting the tremor finally course through me. It wasn’t fear. It was power, pure and addictive.I had done it. I had wielded the starvation. And as I hailed a cab, the ghost of his frantic tongue still echoing on my skin, I understood the sadistic thrill Julianna lived for. It was better than any climax. It was the sound of a breaking man, and the knowledge that you alone held the glue.