A Good Today
And it's kind of like my bedtime ritual now. First I take a long shower, just letting the water run over me until it's cold while scrubbing away the blood and dirt and sweat-stink off my body, the white of the soap foam, which smells like lemon verbena, a contrast to what I usually call white, my skin, which is really pinky-beigey-orange with light brown and a few red flecks. I towel off just to the point where I'm not dripping, run a comb through my hair...I bought the Mary-Kate and Ashley detangler because it smells like heaven and works like a dream...and then, wrapped in one oversized towel, dark purple because I bought it while out of my head with my first paycheck, I pad down the hallway, humming a happy tune.
Don't know how she gets in. Don't really want to know. I think she stole a key; if I change the locks, she'll probably punish me, and fuck if that's not enough to send a shiver down my spine. But I can hear the music playing, see the way the lights are down, and I take a deep breath, because then I can smell her perfume.
"Were we good today?" Lilah asks, and I'm standing there and god and fuck I could just die. She never looks the same twice. One day she arrived in full work regalia, short skirt and a long jacket; the next day, a trench-coat, a pair of garters, and five-inch heels. Tonight, she's clearly been out to the opera. Maybe Wes's already had his turn, but she's too coiffed to have fucked him.
Yay.
Strapless black velvet dress, strappy sandals kicked to the side, opera-length gloves, a choker of stones so red they look black now. White silk shawl on the floor, carelessly huddled in a lump. Glass of champagne bubbling in one hand, light reflecting through it. God, I'm crazy about her. I'm so crazy I would do anything to have her. Crawl over broken glass. Fuck myself on one of her pumps.
Anything.
"I asked you a question," she says in that aged-whiskey voice, reminding me that good behavior is a requirement, not an option.
"I behaved myself," I say, sounding young and fluttery and my heart's shivering in my chest. She looks at me, pinning my hand to the towel I'm about to cast off, while she takes a long drink of champagne.
"I see," she says, beckoning with one satin-clad finger. I walk closer. "You're blushing."
"Because I forgot," I say, gulping. She lifts an eyebrow, a perfectly practiced gesture that still sends butterflies right to my knees. "I was thinking about how good you looked and I forgot you asked me a question. I'm...I'm very sorry."
Lilah, my God, I can't stop looking at her, how her lips part as she considers, barely wetting her lips, what to do with me. I think she's almost amused by how seriously I take her questions. Was I good? Did I do what she wanted me to do? But she doesn't know how much I ache whenever she touches me with those hands, those eyes, those lips, that ache that connects my heart, my gut, and my cunt in one fell swoop. Does she? That the thought of her telling me to get on my knees is enough to send shivers to my toes like a fucking romance novel heroine?
"Come here, Dawn," she says, putting the champagne down. "Lose the towel. Slowly."
I nervously (how many nights have we done this since I joined the law firm in Hell? A dozen? Two dozen?) put my hands right at the tops of my breasts and part the material. Let it open slowly, the v of bare flesh spreading wider as I expose all of myself for her. Try not to whimper when she smiles.
She crooks that finger at me again, and step by step, naked and with one hand nervously at my throat while the other dangles uselessly, I get closer. Keep expecting her to tell me to kneel. Now. Now. Now. Close enough for our toes to bump into each other, but she hasn't told me to stop moving.
"I can't come any more here-r," I say, breasts rising and falling with the unmistakeable ache of an adrenaline rush. Fight or flight, hit or miss, kiss or kill...
"Then maybe, baby," she says, in a voice that's warm and rich with amusement and affection, "you should sit down."
"But," I say, my knees weakening already. "Your dress?"
"Sit. Down," she orders. I sink, I fall, I'm shivering a thousand miles an hour, but I'm sitting in Lilah's lap and she's drawing the alphabet on my shoulder, up my shoulder, pushing the wet curtain of hair aside so she can draw on the back of my neck, and I could purr, fucking purr like the happy pussy I am.
"You're so nervous," she says, inches from my ear, her other hand resting on my thigh. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Everyone's afraid of you," I answer without thinking. Shit. No. Not what I meant. She's going to leave now, leave me aching and wet and burning so that I've gone from red-hot to white-hot flame. But she doesn't move an inch, and the smell of her perfume, her lipstick, her champagne is around me, heady and hot and searing.
"Didn't ask about everyone," Lilah corrects me gently, hand creeping up my thigh. "Are you afraid of me, senorita?"
"A little," I whisper, acid burning in my throat. "I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you and you'll leave."
She chuckles, the sort of chuckle I expect from Wesley, and then she kisses me. Behind the ear. On my jaw. On the cheek, and all the while, she's slowly parting my legs with her one gloved hand. "My poor..." a light swirl of tongue on my earlobe, "Sweet..." my head tilted closer, impossible for me to turn away and hide the blush, "Dawn."
I can never believe it's Lilah kissing me when she does, mouth warm and smooth, carefully teasing against mine, tongue flickering until I'm so keyed up and needy that I practically drag it into my own mouth, and she has me almost straddling her thigh, naked in her lap, kissing me, tasting sweet and tangy and almost like a lemon drop.
"I waited forever for you," I whisper as she starts sucking on my neck. "I think I crave you. Like other people crave cigarettes, or their next hit of heroin."
She bites down on my shoulder, and I moan from the shot of sheer lust that hits me like a wave. I'm being so good if she's being this good to me, her hands all over me, the satin getting slick and slippery from my sweat and the leftover water from the shower. So good, because she's got me open, she's got one hand stroking my thighs, my hip, my ass, and the other supporting us as that mouth devours my collarbone, and there's a mark on my neck and oh god, I don't care.
I feel so good, throbbing and shivering and aching, and Lilah is doing this to me. She's even humming as her tongue snakes over my throat as she moves up to kiss me again.
"You're so sweet," she says, drawing my hair across my face gently, pulling me around so we're face to face. "I always love the way you smell, how warm you get when I have you like this. Even like how you're a little afraid, because you start to shimmy and..."
That laugh tickles as my hips roll forward and she lifts one breast to her teeth, to suck on the nipple, graze it lightly with gleaming incisors, and I have to touch her, try to ease down the top of the gown, but she pushes my hands away.
"Not tonight, baby," she says, pulling me closer, pinning me so I can't get away. "Tonight, I want to see you. Just you."
Lilah has me so hot I could explode if she touched my clit even once and when she stands us up, I'm moaning again, clinging to her bonelessly, one arm slung around her next as we lower down against the rug. I got the rug in Istanbul, in a little stall next to a man who sold roast goat and green apples, and the smell comes to me even as Lilah starts kissing down my throat again.
"My girl's gonna be so pretty when she comes," she teases me, gripping my hips. "All shivery and shaky. Do you want me to make you come?"
My mouth is so dry that it hurts to say the words. "Yes, please," I plead. "Please fuck me, Lilah."
Her eyes gleam possessively, like the pleasure for her is in how much I give up without being asked. Maybe it is, but she's so happy when I give and I have so much to give her. So much I want to give her, naked and being slowly spread on a carpet I bought in Istanbul before I shot a man in the head three times for her.
Her tongue against my stomach as she slowly slides one finger between my legs is as hot as spilled blood, spiraling out greedily as she tests at that opening, that emptiness as the very center of me. I sob out something incoherent, my whole skin singing with heat and want and the way Lilah reduces me to nothing, each swirl bringing that head closer and closer to me.
She hasn't taken off her gloves, and I'm gushing over them, I'm so turned on already as she works one finger inside, in and out, a rhythm so slow I can hear my heart beat twice for every thrust.
"Oh, God," I cry, I pray, and Lilah, she doesn't speed up. She reaches a hip and nuzzles it, nuzzles and starts to bite while my back arches up. "Oh, God, Lilah..."
I'm going to have rashes from the way I'm writhing against the carpet, and Lilah coaxes my knees up, my legs right over her shoulders and I'm trying not to kick against her bare back but it's her tongue, licking and sucking against me and I'm burning. I'm going to melt into the carpet and my hands scrabble over my stomach, over my breasts and knead.
"Oh, oh, oh, oh," I can hear myself say, but it's like I'm not there, because all that's there is Lilah's tongue and my clit and her fingers plunging deeper into me. Three fingers, knuckle-deep, and it's sore because of the material but it's a good hurt. Trying not to kick, but my hips keep thrusting up, matching that in and out that's grounding me and sending me higher and tighter at the same time.
"Lilah, please, please, I'm good, I'll always be good for you, keep doing this to me, oh..." and my eyes keep fluttering closed, one hand on my throat now, stroking. Can feel her everywhere, so good like this, would do anything. Would die to keep feeling this, squeezing around her fingers, thrusting against her. Just like this.
And there's just one moment where her tongue hits my clit dead center and the sparkle-ache-zoom of electricity that follows sets it all off like a chain reaction, me coming and coming and screaming as she keeps at me relentlessly, til I'm tossing my head back and forth, gasping and choking from how hard I'm squeezing her and how my whole body feels like it's been attached to a machine. A crazy machine where it hurts to come like this, and she slows down. Stops, and I and I flutter and flop like something unromantic, practically dead.
"Are you okay?" she asks, easing off the gloves and smiling a crooked smile at me. "Lord God, girl, you come like you're about to have a heart attack."
"I could die happy right now," I say breathlessly. "Just like this, the way you're smiling at me."
She kisses me on the forehead, and I can smell myself now, soap and pussy and skin. It doesn't smell bad when it's mingled with her and I smile.
"You're better than I deserve," Lilah says, touching my cheek with so much love that me, my heart, it just practically explodes. "You know that?"
"Can't help it," I say, putting my arms around her waist. "I just like being with you. I'll always want to do what you say."
That funny dark flicker comes into her eye, the one I hate. The one that says she's angry at herself, that she thinks she's using me, and I don't feel used, she's the one I want, the one who makes it so good, and when she helps me up, she's only my boss again.
"Sleep well, Dawn," Lilah says, brushing the hair out of my face. "Okay?"
I nod, but my heart's not in it. "Night," I say, arms around myself. And when she leaves? "I love you."