Women in Lust Read online

  “I already know what it says.” He crossed his arms.

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “What does it say?”

  Jamie didn’t actually have an answer, let alone a clever one, so he said, “That’s classified information.”

  “And my clearance level isn’t high enough, I suppose?” She batted her eyelashes.

  He shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Hm.” She looked over her shoulder with mock furtiveness. “Would you accept a bribe?” she asked in a stage whisper and brushed one of her legs against his under the table.

  It took Jamie a moment to process the question and conclude that she was definitely hitting on him. His blood all went south, leaving him dizzy. “Maybe we should discuss this matter somewhere more private, and warmer.”

  “Indeed. The birds have eyes,” she said as she got to her feet. He went with her as soon as he got his wits together enough to remember how his legs worked. When they got a few steps away from the table, a sparrow fluttered down from the roof to pick at their crumbs.

  She put her arm around his waist with her hand on his hip, and stopped him for kisses twice before they even made it to the dormitory building. It felt good to be wanted so enthusiastically, though he was kicking himself for not starting anything with her sooner.

  As the front door swung shut behind them, Lene stopped him again and leaned into him. He wobbled and braced his shoulder against the sheet of plywood that covered the broken front window. Something sharp jabbed his back near the shoulder blade. She snuggled up to him and kissed his neck and shoulders. Her movements dug the pointy thing into his back harder, and his brain predictably channeled the pain straight into lust.

  He concentrated hard to avoid making a sound. It was habit; experience had taught him that if he let a girlfriend know she was hurting him, she would stop, and it would be impossible to persuade her to start again. He tilted his head down to kiss her ravenously. She stood on her toes and her weight shifted. The point against his back broke the skin. He held her close and imagined that she’d done it on purpose.

  A moment later, she bounced away from him and launched herself up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He stepped away from the wall and looked back. Three pushpins were stuck into the wood, and a fourth was missing its plastic cap.

  “You coming?” Lene called from the second floor.

  “Yeah,” he said as he started up the stairs.

  Her footsteps moved along the hall to his room. How did she know where his room was?

  Jamie climbed the stairs slowly, brooding. It was ridiculous that at twenty years old he had to resort to getting his jollies from a defective pushpin. So far, without fail, girls called him weird and accused him of being obsessed if he so much as hinted at what he’d like in bed. He resented it. Most of all, though, he felt starved enough that he was ready to find out whether his feeling about Lene was intuition or wishful thinking.

  With determination, but without a plan, he walked down the hall to the room where she was waiting for him on the edge of his bed. She’d taken her sweater off, and the top two buttons of her shirt were undone. The implied invitation registered, but it didn’t count yet, in his mind. He meant to sit down next to her, but when he got close enough for her to reach, she wrapped both arms around him and tipped over backward, pulling him down on top of her. He caught himself with his elbows to avoid squashing her.

  “Hey, I want you to do me a favor,” he said, before he had a chance to lose his nerve.

  She said, “Hmm?” and then waited quietly while he tugged his shirt off. Her hands settled on his back again, cool against his skin. “Ooh, you’re warm.”

  “Bite me.” He offered her the inside of his left arm.

  She looked bemused, but caught a bit of skin between her teeth and toyed with it gently.

  In the pit of his stomach, a host of little demons readied a vat of despair in case he needed to wallow in it. “Like you mean it,” he added with forced optimism.

  That got her to apply a little more pressure. It felt slightly pinchy.

  “Harder?” He wanted her to make him scream.

  A little more pressure. The tiny increments were driving him crazy. He clenched his teeth, as though that could make her bite down harder.

  “Like you’re a vampire who’s been starving for a week,” he suggested.

  She let go. “Herbivore teeth. Not made to draw blood.”

  “I know, but it’ll hurt like hell,” he told her, desperately willing her to understand.

  She looked into his eyes. He wished he could read her expression, but for several long seconds, all he could see was his own reflection. He held his breath and his heartbeat filled his chest. “Are you okay?” he asked when he couldn’t take the silence anymore.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He couldn’t tell if she meant it. “Then talk to me. Say something.”

  “I’ve never had any inclination in that direction.”

  He rolled off of her and flopped on his back. “Story of my life.” He didn’t care if he sounded bitter. What was so hard about hurting a guy? You’d think he was asking for someone to bite the head off a kitten.

  “I know, but it’ll hurt like hell,” Jamie said. He was staring at Lene too intently for someone just asking for a simple favor. Just fantastic—she finally had him half naked in bed after daydreaming about him for months, and he was springing a fetish on her that she didn’t understand. It was like one of those moments in a movie where something goes wrong and the grand swell of music grinds to a halt.

  Lene ran through a few choice swear words in her head, but kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to say something rash and hurt his feelings before she had time to process the information.

  “Are you okay?” he prompted.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then talk to me. Say something.”

  She tried to think of the most neutral way to say it. “I’ve never had any inclination in that direction.”

  He rolled off of her and flopped on his back dramatically enough to bounce. “Story of my life,” he grumbled.

  So much for not saying the wrong thing. She turned onto her side and propped her head on her hand. “I’m not saying I won’t do it.” Mom used to say, You don’t know you don’t like something unless you’ve tried it. Granted, the advice was dispensed in the context of casseroles and green vegetables, but it generalized well. One bite was the least she could do.

  “Oh.” His face relaxed.

  “But you threw me a little.” She stroked his short dark hair.

  “And tell me if I’m wrong, but the way you were looking at me, I got the feeling that you wanted more than one little thing.”

  He closed his eyes. “Sorry. I thought you might like to bite, but really, it’s just that I like pain with sex. Or messing around or whatever it is that we’re doing. There never seems to be a good time to mention this.”

  “So you’re a masochist,” she said.

  He winced, squeezing his eyes shut tighter for a moment. “Technically, but I hate the word. The guy it’s named after was an asshole to his wife and wrote a really bad book.”

  “I didn’t know.” She let her hand slide down from his hair to his chest, and finally hooked a finger through one of his belt loops. He might ask for odd things, but that didn’t interfere with her desire to tear the rest of his clothes off and run her hands and her tongue all over his beautiful mocha skin. “So give me some idea of the scale here. Do you want a little nibble here and there or…”

  “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  “I was taking that for granted. I just want to know what you want so I can see if I’m comfortable with it.” She was starting to feel annoyed with him. If she was going to be a good sport and humor him, making it simple and explaining exactly what he wanted was the least he could do.

  “Anything short of permanent damage is all good. At least I think it is. I haven’t had much chance to find
out.” He bit his lip.

  Lene suspected that he was wrong. She thought of three probable exceptions in as many seconds: Hundreds of paper cuts. Being stung by a Portuguese man o’ war. A bad hangover. “That’s awfully open ended. Don’t people usually spell it out a little more?” She tugged on his belt loop and inched a little closer. She had a few specific ideas about what she wanted, at least.

  “I’m not people, and this isn’t usually. I don’t have a laundry list of kinks.”

  “This is surreal enough already, I’m not a telepath, and you’re being about as helpful as a hookah-smoking caterpillar.”

  His response was a flippant, “Bite me.”

  In a moment of pique, she actually did feel like hurting him, so she found the faint imprint of her teeth on the inside of his upper arm and bit fiercely. The visceral jolt inside her when he drew a short, sharp breath and tensed up startled her. His eyes were open when she looked up. “That good?” She halfway expected him to say no.

  He pulled her on top of him and wrapped her in a full-body hug. “Very,” he whispered. His skin was warm and soft against her cheek. He seemed so happy about her biting him that her irritation vanished like a snowflake in a mug of hot chocolate.

  “Okay. Let me try again.” She turned her head and nipped at his other arm. His hands pressed harder against her back and he squirmed under her. She clamped her teeth down slowly, taking time to taste his reaction and hers. At first, he relaxed a little bit and stroked her back, making little contented sounds, but gradually shifted to a more conventional response to pain. When he arched his back, squeezed her and tightened his throat to keep from yelling, a rush of elation poured into her body through the heart. It would have taken her breath away if he hadn’t already been squeezing her so hard she could barely breathe.

  When she let go, they both took a few seconds to catch up on oxygen. Lene wondered what neurotransmitters and hormones went into the experience. It felt too good to be straight-up epinephrine. She cut that train of thought off sharply, with a promise to deconstruct later. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Is that good?” he asked, with an audible smile. He slid his hands down her back to her bum and made sure she knew just how good it was for him by grinding against her.

  “Ah…yeah, I think so.” A few bites later, she was sure of it. Impulses to cover him with kisses or marks from her teeth whirled around her brain until she couldn’t tell one from the other. The guilt and pity that she’d been expecting never materialized. Feeling him struggle with himself to hold still for her and keep quiet made her hungrier. It was an irresistible dare, challenging her to break that control.

  Lene scooted down and found a place on his side under his rib cage that looked vulnerable. She nuzzled the spot and kissed it. He gripped her shoulder with nervous fingers. She chomped down with abandon. He yelped and threw her off the bed. She knocked over a couple of packed cardboard moving boxes on her way down, mashing one of them significantly with her head.

  Jamie scrambled to the edge of the bed and looked down at her, wide-eyed. “Sorry! You all right?”

  She lay on her back on the rug with her arms out at her sides, grinning like an idiot. She could feel the place where her head collided with the box, but it wasn’t serious. “Yep. You?”

  “Just reflexes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Lene peeled herself off the floor and stood. “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to hurt you a lot more.”

  He laughed. “Well, that was quick. I thought you said you never had any inclination in this direction.”

  “That was over five minutes ago. Ancient history. Why are we still wearing clothes?”

  Jamie shrugged and lay back down. She unbuttoned her shirt the rest of the way. He unfastened his belt, raised his hips a little, and slid it out of the belt loops. He offered it to her. She took it, and understood why he’d been vague; this would have gone over poorly five minutes ago.

  He kicked his shoes onto the floor. “If you’ve had enough concussions for one day, there’s duct tape in the box we just dented.”

  She yanked the box, marked MISC, opened it without a second thought and rummaged carelessly through the clutter of toiletries and desk supplies for a few seconds until she came up with tape. Presumably he’d forgive her for spilling all his paperclips. When she turned around, he was unbuttoning his jeans, a pleasure that she wanted for herself. He hesitated when he saw her slight frown.

  Lene came back to bed wearing the roll of duct tape as a bracelet. She set down the belt and pushed his hands up over his head, pinning them at the wrists, possessive. He looked absurdly sexy wearing the bruises she’d given him, and ready for more. “Are you sure you’re up for anything short of permanent damage? Once I get you taped up, I want to take a lot of liberties with you.”

  He hesitated before he said yes. She heard the timber of fear in his voice, and her heart beat faster. Although she still didn’t entirely believe him, she believed that his yes covered anything she was likely to actually do. “Good. Hold still a sec.” She found the end of the tape, unrolled a long strip and tore it off with her teeth.

  Instead of holding still, he reached around and unhooked her bra while she was busy with the tape, and cupped her breasts with his hands. When she looked down at him and raised her eyebrows, he said, “I thought I’d take a couple liberties with you while I can.” He pinched her nipples lightly, then placed his hands back where she’d left them. That was the last coherent thing he said for some time.

  Lene rolled Jamie onto his back again, with his cooperation. She was getting efficient with the tape, and quickly had his feet secured to the footboard, keeping his legs apart. His arms ached from being bound in the same position for however many minutes or hours it had been.

  “Anything I need to know before I gag you?” she asked, holding up a small strip of tape.

  He shook his head no. He was dimly aware of a number of things that would be smart to say, but he didn’t feel like talking.

  She covered his mouth and kissed him through the tape, then drew back and regarded him with a satisfied smile. Her fingernails left pink trails of heat as she dragged them from his collarbone to his thigh.

  Pain didn’t have the same edge it did when they’d started. He basked in it instead of struggling to get away and tried to ask her for more with his eyes.

  Lene obliged him for a minute, raking fire up and down his body, but then caught sight of something and paused. She touched her finger to his forearm, and showed him the drop of blood on her fingertip. He closed his eyes and shuddered. She drew her wet finger across his cheek slowly.

  “I didn’t mean to do that, but if you could see yourself right now…” She sighed and turned his head to the side, with his bloody cheek facing up. “You look lovely in red.”

  It felt right. After all she’d put him through, after he’d buried his face in the pillow and yelled until his throat hurt along with everything else, it would have been odd if he hadn’t bled. He opened his eyes a sliver when she stood up from the bed.

  She crouched over the open moving box rummaging through his things again, and came back holding a fresh razor blade.

  He stared. That was one of the things he’d thought vaguely of asking her not to do, and now he couldn’t. She was going to cut him, and there was nothing he could do or say to stop her. Once that sank in, he accepted it. He’d be still so she wouldn’t cut too deep by mistake.

  Lene set the razor blade down carefully on his chest. She straddled him and unzipped her pants. “I’m thinking about what I’m going to do to you in a minute.” She slid a hand under her purple underwear and touched herself quietly for a minute, watching him—mostly his face.

  It excited him to know that she was getting off on the idea of making him bleed for her, and having his hands bound was frustrating. He tried to rub against her, but she didn’t allow it much—just enough to drive him even more crazy.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then
relaxed with a shiver and withdrew her hand.

  Jamie was still very much aware of the razor blade sitting on his chest, waiting.

  But first, she decided to go down on him. Her hand and her mouth were both so warm and friendly after all that teasing. She put her whole body into it, rubbing against his leg and rolling her shoulders in time with her tongue until he knew it was going to put him over the edge if she didn’t stop. Girls liked a little warning, didn’t they? He tried his best to communicate in muffled squeaks. She intensified her efforts, and he had no choice but to come, even if it meant she’d pick up the razor blade that much sooner, or possibly because of it. Gravity took a holiday, and the world dissolved into pure white bliss.

  Awash with tingly satisfaction, he couldn’t have moved even if his limbs were free. Lene kissed him repeatedly, moving up his stomach and chest until she got to the razor blade. She paused dramatically, picked it up and turned it over in her fingers.

  He stopped breathing. Don’t do it. Not now.

  She tossed the blade back into the box it had come out of and grinned. “Psych.”

  The late afternoon sun angled through the window, illuminating dust motes and casting a bright golden square against the back of the door. Jamie and Lene lounged against a pile of pillows, sheets, bits of tape, and jumbled clothes, after-glowing.

  “I’m afraid this may be habit forming,” she said.

  Jamie used his toes to retrieve the blanket from the floor. “Thank god.” His voice was strained. He shivered and pulled the blanket over both of them. “It feels like I lost my virginity all over again.”

  Lene snuggled up to him to warm him up. “I don’t know how to explain what I feel like, but it’s really good.” It was sort of true. She was madly in love, and no longer able to convince herself otherwise. The idea of saying so aloud just then terrified her and would probably scare him off, too.

  They cuddled quietly for a minute before Lene realized from the change in his breathing that Jamie had fallen asleep. She eased out of the bed an inch at a time to avoid waking him, and put her shirt back on. While she brushed the tangles out of her hair with her fingers, she inspected his face one more time to make sure she hadn’t left any handprints. No bruises were coming up on his cheek—pretty good for not having a clue what she was doing. She resisted the urge to kiss his face. There was no need to wake him yet.