Beyond Shame (20 page)

She was having too much fun listening to Lex make satisfied little noises, and she liked the way Jasper growled when she challenged him. Ignoring the aching demands of her body, she paused only long enough to say, "I'm busy," before catching Lex's nipple again, this time with a wicked smile.

"Lex?"

She shivered and moaned, even arched her back before meeting Jasper's gaze. When she did, she twisted her hand in Noelle's hair and jerked her head to one side, forcing her mouth open.

It hurt, hurt in the good way that started as pain and dissolved somewhere between her brain and the juncture of her thighs, where her inner muscles squeezed tight on Jasper's fingers as her entire body seized for one long shudder.

Someday she'd ask if it was meant to be a reward, part of the game and something they enjoyed as much as she did. Someday when she wasn't floating on the illicit thrill of closing her eyes and parting her lips in newly earned obedience.

"You like that, don't you?" Lex's voice was thick with desire.

A rhetorical question. It had to be, because the words hadn't yet died in the air when Jasper drove his fingers deep into Noelle, all the way in, and rocked them inside her.

This time there was nothing to muffle the sound, not of her cries and not of metal slapping against leather as she tried to rear up. Lex hadn't left much slack in the chains, and Jasper's hand at her lower back kept her hips pinned.

No retreat, no leverage, nothing to do but twitch as his blunt fingertips massaged inside her, moving in a seeking pattern that made little sense until he brushed something that brought her thighs together as she whimpered and fought to rock away.

Noelle hadn't heard the door open, but Dallas's low chuckle drifted over her. "You got her over the bench and didn't bother tying her legs? Lexie love, get me the rope. The silk one."

"I don't know where it is," she said lazily.

"Liar." His reply was every bit as easy, but the hand he wove in Lex's hair made her grip on Noelle seem gentle by comparison. He fisted the strands and hauled her up from the bench with a roughness that made Noelle's heart pound as Lex's eyes clenched shut. Dallas licked the shell of her ear. "The silk rope, Lex. And maybe the pearls, too. You know which ones."

After an eternity, she nodded. "I know."

He released her hair and swatted her hip. "Go." Then he turned to Jasper—and Noelle. Her cheeks warmed under his amused, appreciative gaze, especially when he stepped forward to brush a fingertip down her jaw. "Do you like pearls, kitten?"

There had to be more to the question, unless Dallas's enjoyment of buying Lex jewelry extended to draping her in it while they had sex. But trying to determine what that
more
might be was impossible with Jasper's fingers so deep inside that she could barely draw breath. Her thighs ached from clenching together, but she couldn't make her body relax, not when every instinct conspired to protect her from the agonizing pleasure she craved.

Jasper whispered against the naked curve of her hip. "Settle down, honey, and answer him."

She shuddered and nodded. "Yes. I like pearls."

"Good." Dallas circled the bench and smoothed one work-roughened hand over her hip and down to the back of her thigh. "Can you get her knees apart, Jas? Or do you need a little help coaxing her to open up?"

"She'll open for me." Jasper eased his fingers free of her body to urge her legs wide again, and apparently he could do what she couldn't—demand her body's obedience.

Lex came back with strands of pearls and two lengths of silk rope. She wound the rope loosely around Dallas's neck and nuzzled his temple. "Are the pearls for her or me?"

"Maybe both." Dallas winked and tossed one of the ropes to Jasper before wrapping the other around Noelle's thigh. She shivered as much at the touch of his hands as the rope sliding over her skin. He looped it carefully around her leg, just above the knee, and threaded it through one of the iron rings. "Tell her what's special about the pearls, Lex."

She teased the end of one strand over Noelle's bare back. "If she tells me what Jasper did with his fingers that nearly flipped her off this bench."

Noelle didn't know how to describe it, didn't know the words, though they had to exist. Something that powerful must have a name, a name spoken in hoarse whispers and broken pleas. "He—he touched me. Someplace inside me."

"Your G-spot." Lex sounded sure as she rubbed a few of the pearls over Noelle's skin in rhythmic circles. "If he can do that with his fingers, imagine what he could do with these."

"In—inside—" Instinct tried to pull her legs together again, but the ropes held snug, tied firmly to the base of the bench. She truly was helpless this time, her body spread wide and primed to explode, and all she could manage was a throaty, hungry moan.

Jasper leaned over her, his chest bare now and pressed to her back. "You want it, sweetheart?"

It would drive her beyond herself, fracture her world. She panted for breath, every gasp chafing her nipples against the supple leather, but before she could form a reply, Dallas stepped into view again and smiled. "Hardly a fair question when she can barely imagine what you're offering." Dallas lifted a second strand of pearls from Lex's grasp, letting it trail down to reveal several feet of round, shiny beads strung tightly together. "Why don't we show her, Lex?"

She toyed with the short hem of her skirt. "Right here?" She sat sideways on the unoccupied side of the bench. It left Noelle hovering over her, and Lex tilted her head back, rubbed her cheek against the leather.

Dallas laughed. "Naked. You want to give her a good view, don't you?" He didn't wait for an answer—Noelle was starting to notice that he never really seemed to expect one, as if he couldn't imagine a world where he wasn't obeyed—and tugged at her skirt as he winked at Noelle. "I heard you were watching pre-Flare porn before you got booted from the city. Do you like to watch people fuck, kitten?"

Like
was the perfect word for how she'd felt about those scratchy videos. Like. A pale, numb word for the sorts of pale, numb feelings she'd had in Eden. Safe feelings, without the ability to cut as deep as her passion for Jasper, but likewise unable to evoke a fraction of the tangled, wild sensations twisting her into knots.

"I liked the porn," she told him, wiggling to feel the ropes dig into her flesh. Sharp, raw...so good. "I think I could love watching
people
fuck."

Lex laughed, low and a little drunk, just like Noelle felt. "Dallas isn't going to fuck me, baby girl. Not the way you think of it."

"Lots of ways to fuck," Dallas countered. He caught Lex's hips and tipped her back on the wide seat, her hair spilling off the end as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her skirt. In the next moment, he slid her skirt and panties both down her legs, a smooth motion that left Lex sprawled naked—and Noelle wondering how much practice it took to get that good at stripping women to their skin.

Lex caught her breath and gripped the chain that bound Noelle, rattling it in the rings that anchored it. "There are those wide eyes again, Jas."

He chuckled, his breath blowing across the back of Noelle's neck. "I think that's what you like most, Lex."

Dallas made a rumbling sound, a laugh that didn't quite form but lingered in his chest instead. One broad hand closed around Lex's ankle, the one closest to the bench, and he dragged her leg up until Noelle could have craned her head and kissed the other woman's shin.

That didn't seem to be his intention, though. He checked where Lex's thigh brushed Noelle's arm and adjusted the angle a little before nodding to Jasper. "Right about here will give our girl a nice view."

Jasper wrapped one huge hand around Lex's calf, his thumb stroking over her skin, and dropped his other hand to Noelle's hip. "Watch," he whispered.

She barely had a choice, but that wasn't what drew her gaze to Dallas's hand as he tracked his fingers down Lex's leg to her pussy. He used the blunt tip of his middle finger to part her folds, teasing his way up to brush around her clit before working his way lower and deeper. As Lex arched off the bench with a shaky moan, Dallas spread her other thigh wide and buried his finger in her body with a satisfied growl. "She's already so fucking wet. You two get her running hot."

Lex opened her eyes and met Noelle's gaze. Then she jerked the chain harder and smiled. "She'll find out soon enough, won't she?"

"Why wait?" Dallas fixed his hypnotic stare on Noelle, and she felt as trapped by his eyes as she was by the chains and rope, by the bulk of Jasper's body pressing down on her.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him raising his hand, but she couldn't tear her gaze from his until he lifted his slick finger to her lips with a growled command. "Suck it."

Noelle almost hated herself for how quickly, how eagerly, she obeyed. Then again, all she did was part her lips and Dallas was there, plunging his finger deep, working it back and forth between her lips with an obscene thrusting rhythm that her hips tried to match. Her inner muscles clenched around nothing, intensifying the ache of being so empty.

She licked the oddly addictive taste of Lex off his finger with quick, obedient strokes, each one a silent plea he ignored, except to growl again. "If you're half this enthusiastic with a cock in your mouth, it's a fucking miracle Jas ever puts his pants on."

Jasper bit the back of her shoulder. "Tell him about the last time you sucked my dick."

The last time had been the first time, the only time, and it was only natural that the realization led to the fantasy of Jasper circling the bench to thrust his cock into her mouth, into her throat, though she still hadn't learned how to take him that deep without choking and
God
, right now she wouldn't care.

Dallas slid his finger free with a soft
pop
and caught her chin. "What happened last time you sucked him off?"

It was getting easier to say the things she never could have imagined before, even if her voice wavered and cracked at the most embarrassing moments. "He came on my face. And my neck. And my—my breasts."

Laughing, Dallas released her and reached for the string of beads. "I guess that's another way to get a pearl necklace. These look gorgeous wrapped around Lex's throat and tits, but not as good as they're about to."

He echoed Lex's earlier movements, rubbing a few of the smooth spheres against the woman's skin, low on her abdomen. She trembled under his touch and locked her fingers around his arm, her nails digging into his skin. "Please, Dallas."

Quiet but needy, close to begging.

Noelle knew how she felt.

But Lex's torment was nearly at an end. Dallas used one hand to part her folds—
No
, corrected Ace's voice, mocking even in Noelle's imagination,
her pussy lips
—and used one finger to nudge a long loop of pearls inside her body, the soft click of the beads knocking together undercut by Lex's harsh groan.

She twisted, thrusting her hips toward him. "More."

Noelle held her breath as he repeated the process again and again, pumping his finger in and bringing another few inches of the long strand with him each time. "This is what we'll do, Noelle," he said in a hoarse voice, speaking over Lex's whimpers. "Everything Jasper wants to do to you, I'll do to Lex first. And if you want it, you wrap your tongue around the dirty words and you beg him to give it to you."

Noelle whimpered, too, shifting her hips as much as she could. "I want it. I want that."

"Uh-uh." Dallas rocked two fingers into Lex and flexed his wrist, doing something to the pearls inside her that made her entire body jerk. "Tell her you want the details, Jas."

Jasper straightened and moved his hand from her hip. For the longest moment, he didn't touch her at all—and then his hand fell heavy around the front of her throat. "Say it, sweetheart."

Before Noelle could speak, Lex sucked in a breath and released it with a curse. "Fuck.
Fuck.
" The chain rattled again as she dug her teeth into her lower lip and struggled against both men's restraining hands.

Lex's pleasure turned her own arousal sharp enough to cut. Noelle squeezed her eyes shut and forced out the words, each one slicing through her self-consciousness until the plea tumbled from her lips. "I want the pearls in my pussy. Please, Jas, please let me have them, please let me come."

Instead, his touch vanished again.

Noelle bit off a panicked moan as her heart slammed into her throat. He'd lied, he'd lied and he was going to leave her like this, begging and wanting and always empty, always starving—

Dallas caught her chin and lifted her head. "Easy, love. He went to get something. We've got you."

Jasper stared at her as he walked back to the bench, a small bottle in one hand. "She doesn't trust me yet," he muttered.

"I do," Noelle protested weakly, but Dallas pressed his thumb over her lips before she could say anything else.

"Don't lie," he told her softly. "It's not just something you do, it's something we earn. Let us earn it tonight, kitten." He used his grip on her chin to turn her face toward Jasper. "Look at him. Look him square in the eyes. Don't think about forever, think about tonight. Can you trust him to take care of you tonight?"

Still ashamed by her weakness, she nonetheless lifted her gaze to Jasper's. His eyes were dark, endless, and there was a wariness there alongside the hunger. Even lashed to a bench, physically helpless, she had the power to hurt him. Not only with words, but with something as visceral and silent as a moment of fear.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. The next words were harder, because she had to say them knowing that a wrong one might end the night, like it had before. She had to take the step over the edge of the cliff, blind and willing to shatter if he stepped away and let her fall. "I promise to trust you."

The words rolled over him, relaxing a little of the tightness in his eyes. "Maybe you shouldn't yet, since I'm not giving you what you asked for." When he stepped behind her, his slippery fingers skated over her pussy but didn't linger. He touched her ass instead, probing between her cheeks. "Not exactly."