Delilah Dawson - Wicked After Midnight

I took what I wanted, ferociously, unapologetically, and he loved it. His hands clenched my hips, grabbed my ass, helped me move, grinding with me in time with the orchestra’s waltz. I had always liked long hair, but the curves of his skull under my hands had a sensual quality, an intimacy, that I found interesting. I ran a finger along his earrings and captured his jaw to hold him while I changed angles. He lifted me a little, and my hands fell onto his broad shoulders, onto a tuxedo jacket that hid too much of his body for my taste. I tried to pull it off, but he grabbed my hands, one on each side.

He spoke directly into my panting mouth. “Time is short, bébé . Use your imagination. For now.”

When he loosed me, I grabbed the back bench behind his head to steady myself. He used a thumb to flick one breast over the edge of my corset, his lips tightening over the taut nipple. I went still as he sucked, his teeth lightly scraping as he lifted the other breast from the corset, too. I couldn’t breathe as he toyed with one, suckled the other, licked them with wide strokes of his tongue. While his hands and mouth were busy, I reached to the front of my skirt and yanked the ribbons that held it in place. The knot came undone, and the grand skirt billowed away like a magnolia falling to the ground.

Vale whistled low against my chest, making me shiver. His hands ran down the corset and over the skimpy, lacy undershorts.

“Damn, bébé . I like your dark magic.”

“That’s not magic. That’s my ass.”

He gripped both cheeks, kneading for a moment before jerking me close against him, just a few layers of cloth between us.

It was entirely too much of a barrier for my taste, and my hands went straight for his buttons. He caught my fingers, brought them to his face, and ran my fingertips over his lips.

“Kiss me, bébé .”

I took him in another messy kiss, and he reached between us, the sound of crisp suiting and metal buttons shushed in the quiet dark. I knew he was free when he sighed, one hand moving back and forth briefly. I sat down again, savoring the feeling of his body pressing against the ruffles and right over the place he’d once licked me into ecstasy. His fingers ran up the insides of my thighs, dipping with familiar intimacy under the lace edge to stroke me.

“ Mon dieu, bébé . So hot and wet. So ready.”

“ Je le sais. ”

I sat up a little on my knees, and he obliged by pulling the bloomers as far aside as he could and guiding me back down. The press of him, right there, right against me, was maddeningly delicious, and I rubbed, just a little, enjoying the suspense and inevitability of what was to come. With his hands firm on my hips and my fingers gripping the back of the bench to either side of his face, he turned to kiss the inside of my wrist. Our eyes caught, and it was like falling, and ever so gently, I eased down, taking him inch by hot, delicious inch inside me.

I held his gaze, savoring it, reveling in the warmth in his eyes and the way his lips were parted, just a little, as if he would stop breathing if he closed his mouth. I had to kiss him, and I did, and he kissed me back, and then we were moving together with slow, hard rhythm, as steady as the gallop of his bludmare across the wildness of the moors.

He hadn’t been lying; it was big. And it was wonderful.

I moved in slow circles, swirling up and down, my muscles contracting and pushing and yearning to take everything he had. He moved with me, against me, rocking me, holding me down and holding me up and running his hands up and down every inch of my body. His lips found my nipples, his tongue found my throat, his hands slipped like feathers over my bare shoulders and down to the tender insides of my elbows and wrists, down to my hands, weaving his fingers with mine and squeezing briefly before moving on.

After the night on the trapeze, I could only conclude that like any good thief, he knew my tells, knew how to read my sighs and groans and growls and twitches. His hands ran up my legs to the place where we joined under my loose bloomers, his finger finding the same bud he’d caressed with his tongue. He flicked it gently, perfectly, pinching and pressing in time with his thrusts. Mostly dressed, totally alone, still I felt the hot thrum of the crowd outside, the beat of the orchestra’s drums in my bones, and the wickedly distinct possibility that at any moment, someone might lift the flap of red velvet and see exactly how cheaply the star of Paradis sold herself.

That only made it hotter.

I’d ridden his horse, and now I rode him, head thrown back and hair coming undone down my arched back. I was getting so close, could hear the little mewls and whimpers escaping me with each breath.

“ Viens, bébé . Viens .”

As if I’d been waiting for his permission to fall to pieces, I tensed and cried out as everything inside me hit the grand crescendo, as sweet and high as a violin’s string drawn out and vibrating, echoing and dancing with the stars in time with the drumbeat of my heart. He kept moving, pounding a primordial rhythm, and as my own release ebbed, I focused on him, clenching my muscles around him. I didn’t even realize my teeth were scraping his throat until I felt his hand on my jaw, firm with warning. I took his mouth instead, plunging my tongue to crash against his, moving and twirling with the powerful grace of an acrobat, pulling him with me into oblivion. He followed willingly, shuddering into me, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist and his mouth open against my lips. He made the most delicious noise, this low, ragged growl that I felt deep in my belly with his last forceful thrusts.

His eyes fluttered open and met mine, and I was instantly shy, despite the fact that he was still inside me. Or maybe because of it.

“I told you you’d get your turn, bébé .”

In response, I tightened my muscles and felt him start to go hard again. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped down.

“You are going to kill me, little tiger. Or get me killed. Hurry, now. Get dressed. Before we are found.”

He gently lifted me, and I blushed and lurched to my bare feet, holding the untied skirt around my hips. I felt a breeze on my bare legs, a cold dribble down my thigh. As he buttoned his pants and tried to dab off the stains with a silk handkerchief, I blushed all the harder. He offered a tasseled velvet pillow to me, and I only hesitated a moment before sopping up the mess with the velvet and tossing it, stain down, back onto the bench. Hitching up the mess of my skirts, I fumbled with what went where, how to get the skirt back on and smoothed down as if it had never been touched. In that moment, struggling in the darkness, waiting to be discovered, I felt a strange sort of shame. And then the Bludman in my heart rose up and said fuck the shame. I turned to face Vale, the cloud of skirts in one hand.

“One day, we’re going to do that, and then you’re going to hold me in the crook of your arm while I sleep.”

His eyes went soft, his fingers curling and uncurling on his thighs as if he ached to hold me, right then. He’d already slipped his white gloves back on, and his hands looked alien, too white for having touched my body so recently. “I will do that, yes. There is nothing I want more.”

“This meant something.”

“It did, bébé .”

“We’re going to find Cherie.”

“We are.”

“But first, I have to go out there and find the prince, because that’s my job.”

His eyes went dark and flat. “But you’re mine.”

I bared my teeth at that word. “Not to control. Not to own.”

“That’s not what I meant, bébé . When will you see that it’s a different sort of possession?”