Run To You (11 page)

Though I know he must be able to see it. The material feels nearly soaked through as it slides over my thighs. It’s almost a relief when it gets to the stocking-covered portion of my legs, so I can’t feel it. I don’t want to feel it.

But I don’t mind if he does.

Oh, God, I don’t mind that at all. I’m almost certain he’s doing something with that scrap of wet silk, and when he doesn’t fold them and put them on the chair I know for sure. He’s keeping them for himself, I think, and then it’s all I can do to stay on my feet. He has to steady me, which really only intensifies the sudden rush of arousal.

By the time he speaks I’m almost over the edge.

And then his words just push me over.

‘Put your hands on the bed,’ he says, in the exact same tone as everything else he’s done. It’s low and soothing, with just a hint of
if you would, madam?
And it’s followed by even more insanely awesome stuff. ‘That’s it, palms flat, arms straight.’

I never realised how good specifics could be until I met him. They were interesting earlier; now they’re downright exhilarating. They make me think of innocuous things like assuming the position, while the reality is me bent over the bed, in the lewdest way imaginable. He even asks me to spread my legs a little, just to complete the tableau.

Christ, I bet I look filthy. I bet he can see everything.
I
can almost see everything, and I’m facing the wrong way while inside my own skin. The image is just that strong – me with my stockings just skirting my upper thighs … the slippery seam between my legs, all soft and swollen and so obviously ready. The curve of my bare ass, the bend of my body …

I’d kill to know what he’s thinking.

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe it’s better if I don’t know. He’s reaching for something now, and although I told him what to choose I kind of don’t want to look. I have to close my eyes and pretend I’m somewhere else, doing some other thing that isn’t this. I’m on the island, I tell myself, and then it’s easier.

Yet still I flinch when he gets too close. The back of his hand just brushes my bare hip, and I skitter away – but once I have I’m not so sure. Was that his hand? It could have been something else. It could have been the Thing, I think.

And then I shiver all over.

Can he see that I’m shivering all over? He must be able to. He must be able to see the goose bumps up and down my arms, and even if he can’t I’m sure he saw that slight sway I did. It’s probably putting him off. That’s why he’s gone so still and quiet, in this already completely stifling room.

Or is it something else?

Maybe he likes a girl who cringes before him and his masterful ways, and that’s why he’s currently suffocating me with silence. He wants me to stew in my own juices until I go mad, but I’m not going to let that happen. I resolve to control myself in every single way possible, from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair.

And I’m almost successful. I stand my ground, which is definitely an improvement. But the tensing isn’t. I know what the tensing looks like. It looks like I’m bracing myself for a blow, quite obviously. My eyes scrunch shut and my fingers curl reflexively around a fistful of duvet. I can feel the muscles in my thighs snapping to attention, and all under his ever watchful gaze.

It’s no wonder he doesn’t bring the cane down. He must think I’m mad to want something and not want it all at the same time. Or is that the state he’s aiming for? Perhaps that’s why he’s waiting and waiting like this, hinting at a touch he never quite gives. And a blow he never quite strikes. He wants me to go mad before it happens, torn between wanting it and not. He wants me to sweat and shake and foam at the mouth, and it’s not as though he’ll have to work very hard for any of it.

I’m already sweating and shaking and foaming at the mouth. His hands now feel like fire every time they glance against my skin, and the burn is nearly too much to bear.

And then I feel it.

I feel something else … something that isn’t his hand. There’s no flaming fiery heat from this thing, as it draws so slowly along my side. It’s ice-cold and barely there, like he’s caressing me with an icicle – or maybe a knife he sometimes stores in the deep freeze.

Yes, yes. That’s what it reminds me of: the cold edge of a blade that doesn’t quite cut, just ever so slightly suggesting violence. In a second he’ll lift it, I’m sure, and then whoosh and crack … followed by the split of my skin. I even hold my breath for it, eyes so tightly squeezed shut I can feel tears forming in the corners. It’s here, I think, it’s coming, it’s now now now.

Only it isn’t. I hold my breath for so long I start to see spots, but no blow falls. No sharp sting comes after it. That sharp suggestion of a knife’s edge disappears, as though it was never there at all. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t. Everything’s so tense and taut I could have imagined it. I could be imagining all of this. Maybe I’m bent over in my bedroom, dreaming of a man with a face like granite and a teasing hand like the side of a knife, and in a moment I’ll wake up.

Is it OK if I want to wake up? This is far too much for me – I was wrong, I was wrong. I’m not a secret masochist at all. I’m something else, though I’ve no idea what. And I keep on having no idea until the sensation suddenly shifts, from cold metal to something far softer, and finer.

At which point, I start to understand. It’s easy to, when every muscle in your body suddenly relaxes as one. Relief like running water floods through me, so sweet I could weep. This is what I want, I think at him. This is exactly what I want.

But he already knows. He probably knew all along. Why else would he raise the stakes so high, then let them drop just as I’m dying for them to? Just as I’m crying for them to? I bet he saw the shake in my pointing finger, and decided then.

He’s not going to cane me.

He’s going to
tease
me until I go
insane
.

But if so, he has to know: I’m halfway there already. All he has to do is whisper that silk scarf over my skin, and I squirm and twist like a creature caught on a hook. I need more of it, I need more. Or am I trying to get less? I don’t know – but I do know that he doesn’t care either way.

‘Stay still, Alissa,’ he says, and somehow it’s better than every sweet nothing I’ve ever received. His voice is as firm and smooth as a newly planed surface, with just a hint of that insanely good accent around the edges.

It’s no surprise that I struggle to obey. But it is a surprise that I want to. Oh, I want to be firm and resolute; I want him to be impressed by my ability to be both. And the more I fail the keener this need gets, until I’m mired in it. I’m up to my neck. My body trembles with the effort of resisting, even as it strains to give in. Move towards the feather-light stroke of that scarf, my body demands.

But when I do he simply whispers the silk away – like some secret message. Stay still, and I will be rewarded. Move, and I’ll get nothing.

Though following this set of rules is easier said than done. I manage to remain motionless for a full thirty seconds, as he dances it over my side – so deft and sure it’s like being stroked by a third, achingly soft hand. Then he just barely lets its trailing end ease down, over the curve of my right breast …

And suddenly I’m a mess. I fumble towards it without even meaning to, too greedy for more. The very tip of the scarf almost catches my stiff little nipple, and I just can’t help myself. I react instinctively, like a flower seeking the sun – only violently. Oh, God, I jerk and stutter towards him so violently, oh, Jesus can’t he see how much I need it?

If he can he doesn’t care.

He does the same thing again on my left side – only this time it’s worse. This time he gets so close to that one swollen bud I can almost taste the sensation. It clogs the back of my throat with sounds I don’t want to let out, and warms through my insides in so intense a way I hardly realise he’s stopped.

And then it hits me in a rush, and oh, the absence of that sweet feeling is brutal. A space opens up inside me where it was supposed to go. I actually attempt to claw it back with both hands, though rationally I know the duvet isn’t going to make anything happen. If anything, me tearing at it like an animal is only going to make things worse.

He’s laughing at me now.

He’s laughing, but I find I don’t mind as much as I should. I can’t mind. I’m too preoccupied with the other sound he’s making – the one that nearly makes me turn around and grab him.

He’s taking a couple of steps backwards. I know he is, despite the soft carpeting and my position and this insanity I seem to be suffering under. I can hear it as keenly as I would a giant’s footfalls on a stone floor. It’s almost like the coming of my impending doom, though I know that’s kind of the wrong way around.

He isn’t coming
towards
me.

He’s moving
away
.

And I have to do something about that. I have to lift a hand or make a protesting noise or just anything, anything to make him keep doing this. But, of course, the second I make a real move, that smooth voice comes out again, like he’s pulling a gun.

‘Remember what I said. Hands on the bed at all times, please.’

I think the ‘please’ is the most upsetting part. It’s completely sincere, but there’s something about the clipped, cool nature of it. Something that reminds me of that student-and-professor feeling I had when I first saw the cane. It’s a ‘please’ that expects no refusal, polite in its own way but so definite you can’t really refuse.

And, dear God, I want to clutch it to me. I want to write poems in its name. Ode to a please, I’ll call it, and everyone will understand. They’ll get why I obey him so quickly, palms flat again before I’ve even had a chance to think.

I don’t want to think. I just want him to do all of this all over again – and he does. After a moment of my patient waiting, he comes in for another pass.

Only this one is so much sweeter than all the others. This one is my reward for following orders. It has real substance and real weight to it, heavy with the hint of his actual fingertips. They just hover by my side, close enough that I can sense a presence but not close enough for me to be sure.

The heat could be emanating from something else. He might have found another toy to tease me with, more diabolical than the items I’ve already seen. This one has the power to make me bite my lip and wriggle around, too tense to look. And when I do, I’m not sure what to think. There’s nothing new in his hands – he’s just threading the scarf beneath my body, the way someone might do if they wanted to dress me with it. He’s going to create a sort of makeshift bra, I think, then I almost laugh.

Until I realise that’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s letting the material bow beneath my breasts, the ends clasped tight on either side of my body. And as soon as I understand this, I understand what the intention is. He’s going to raise the scarf until it’s touching my most sensitive places – or else he’s going to tease me until I beg him to.

And I suspect he won’t have to wait long for the latter. My arms are already shaking with the need to bend, because bending them will give me what I want. I’ll get to feel that bright length of silk against my breasts, if I just lean down a little.

But I can’t, I can’t. He’ll take it away if I do. I know he will. I have to be patient, and wait for him to do it his way – even if his way is absolute agony. He raises that material slowly, so slowly, inch by excruciating inch, drawing out the tension until I’m a plucked string. Until I’m moaning and rocking and oh, God, I can feel my own wetness sliding down the insides of my thighs. I can feel my clit like a second heart.

And then the silk just barely grazes my tight nipples. Just barely – nothing much, when you break it down. It isn’t as firm as a fingertip, or as insistent and slippery as someone’s lips. It’s probably the same thing I feel every day when I pull on a sweater or hook my bra together.

So it’s a shock when the sensation hits. It almost swallows me whole, intense enough to qualify as an orgasm but without the crescendo. I get one thick burst, and then nothing. No peak. And more importantly: no relief.

I can’t sink into bliss just yet, apparently.

He’s got more of this torture to carry out.

He lets the silk drop the second I cry out, then just as I’m sobbing with frustration I feel him start to lift it again. I feel it inching closer and closer, almost touching but not quite, before finally, oh, finally, oh, thank Christ … he actually allows it to touch me. He brings it up tight to my too sensitive breasts – so tight it’s a kind of shock. I expected a softer touch, and suddenly he’s giving me full-on fondling.

And he follows it with something even more startling. I’m sure he’s about to stop it there, but instead he slides the material back and forth – the way someone might if they were positioning a ribbon around a gift they wanted to wrap. He’s going to tie me together in a second, which I suppose is a rather unpleasant idea to have.

But it’s also an idea that sends me insane. I think of myself all neatly bound – with that silk for ever rubbing over my stiff nipples – and I say his name. I say his name even though I’ve hardly said it before, and I don’t stop there. I rub myself back and forth against the silk, other words bubbling up to follow that first verboten one.

‘Yes, please,’ I say, ‘yes, yes, go on.’

So he does the opposite. He drops the material as abruptly as he brought it up, cruel enough to almost make me shout. I turn my head, all this sudden rage and frustration forming a kind of bottleneck in my throat. I can actually feel something thick and heavy forcing its way up, ready to kill him for his coldness and his calm and his endless rules.

Only to have the feeling die as quickly as it came.

Of course it dies. I can see his face now, and his body language, and neither of them inspire anger. They inspire a sharp dart of lust – and maybe some other complicated emotions – but not anger. How could it possibly be anger?

He isn’t aloof, like I thought he’d be. He’s not some cold, implacable statue. His shoulders are going up and down with each breath he takes, the way mine are. His lips are parted, showing teeth. And oh, his eyes … they’re like dark fire. They burn right through me, destroying any words I might have wanted to say. I was planning on something like ‘Just fuck me, you fucking fucker,’ but I end up with a kind of dying whimper.