Thrill Seeker (31 page)

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.

Den led me towards the fire. Heat rose from the flames, warping the air above and making the balcony shimmer like a mirage. Still there from last time, several yards from the fire, stood the cluster of furniture representing a surreal, kinky half-home. The pine dining table was pushed aside and the birthing stool gleamed darkly, its polished oak seat cupping the fire’s glow, the rings for hands and head shining like heavy halos. The mattress, now stripped of bed linen, looked thin and dank on its platform of pallets. I could hardly believe I’d once contemplated spending the night on that thing.

‘Told you we’d be warm,’ said Den. ‘A cosy night in together. What do you reckon?’

The flames’ heat intensified as we neared, wood crackling in the fire’s belly, smoke pluming towards the cavernous domed ceiling. Once again, Den was ahead of me, his outlandish scenario surpassing all my expectations. But something wasn’t right. Stupid to leave a fire unattended. If Den were part of a community venture to restore the old building, he wouldn’t risk the theatre going up in flames while he lurked outdoors, tracking me, would he?

‘Are we alone?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Properly alone? We’re not being watched or anything?’

‘No,’ he said ‘Just me and you.’

I struggled to believe him, perhaps because those rows of empty velvet seats forever suggested an audience.

‘Are you going to tell me what to expect?’ I asked.

‘Where’s the fun in that?’ he said. ‘Just trust me. Here, let me take your coat. Will you be warm enough?’

I handed him my jacket and bag, knowing I ought to take this opportunity to insist we discuss scenes beforehand. But I didn’t tackle the issue, reluctant to spoil the mood,
and I thought instead I’d take one last chance on trusting him.

Carefully, he laid my belongings on the pine table. The opportunity to try and wheedle more out of him while he was in this unusually solicitous mood was too good to pass by.

‘I liked Ty,’ I ventured. ‘Your academic colleague.’

‘Yeah, we’re a good team, me and Ty. Go back many years. He’s one of the few people in my professional life I’m out to.’

I recalled the two men high-fiving each other above my body when I’d climaxed. ‘So do you do that kind of thing a lot?’ I asked. ‘The two of you and other women?’

Den rested his buttocks on the table’s edge, head tipped towards one shoulder. He seemed momentarily absorbed in assessing me, his smile small and calculating. At my side, the fire was a bank of heat. I turned, toasting my hands in front of the flames. Far away stood the decaying stage framed by cracked, big-bottomed cherubs, its collapsed canopy at an angle, the fallen green curtains spreading across the boards like pond moss.

‘We’ve had our share, yes,’ said Den. ‘Ty’s my partner in crime at sex parties.’

I rubbed my hands together, arms still outstretched. I was so innocent and square. ‘You go to sex parties?’

Den smiled, crossing to me. Gently, he drew my body to his, clutching my buttocks as he ground his hips, his groin rocking against mine. ‘Sometimes, yes. You want to come to the next one?’

Oh, he was inviting me to a sex party, as if we might have a future beyond tonight. I smiled up at him, uncertain. Firelight flickered across his face, throwing gold on the broad sweep of his pitted cheekbones and the temples of his stubble-dark
head. His narrow eyes were shadowed, chips of blue winking from the depths like forbidden treasure.

He had the keys to a world I knew nothing about. How might that fit with me and Baxter starting over? Could Baxter come along too? No, of course not. Did I even want to get back with Baxter. Stop it, Nats. Think about the tricky stuff tomorrow. Savour the moment for what it is.

I cupped Den’s buttocks, mirroring his stance, the two of us swaying in a crotch-centric smooch. ‘What, like an orgy?’ I said. ‘Maybe. Although I’m not sure. I like the fantasy. In reality, I dunno. I think two men at once might be my limit.’

Den chuckled. ‘But you liked two men?’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling, remembering. ‘Loved it. It was amazing. I loved it when Ty was fucking my mouth and you made me come.’

Den nudged my hair from my neck, pushing the curls over my shoulder. ‘So you liked being forced to take a big, black cock in your mouth.’

I frowned, thinking it was a peculiar thing to say. ‘I just liked the cock,’ I said. ‘Colour wasn’t relevant. But yeah, I’d be happy to have two men again. More than happy.’

His erection pressed against me through the bulge of his fly. ‘That’s good to know. Very good.’

I wondered if he were being kind to me to make amends for having behaved badly. Or did he think, after I’d expressed reservations, I needed to be won over with a conventional seduction? Well, not that conventional, admittedly.

‘I’m not ashamed of anything we’ve done,’ I said.

‘No?’ He feigned surprise. ‘Then I’ll have to try harder.’

I grinned.

‘So.’ He slid his hands higher, caressing my back through my layers of clothes. ‘How might I do that? How might I
shame you?’ One hand stole higher and he wound a fist in my hair. Slowly, he forced back my head, exposing my neck and making my spine arch. My pulse thumped and I clung to him, gazing up at the vast chandelier.

‘By stripping you naked and making you beg for my cock?’ he said. ‘By spreading you over that table and fucking your arse? Or would you like that too much? Maybe I need to whip and spank you till you’re red raw and screaming. An incoherent wreck who’s too broken to beg for mercy.’ He gave a little tug of my hair. I was motionless, suspended in his embrace, balanced on his forearm. ‘Would that shame you?’ he asked. ‘Or do I need to take you to a place you profess to dislike? Say, to a sex party or a gangbang?’

I whimpered, my desire surging and shrinking at the prospect of being forced to do something I might hate and regret.

Den laughed. ‘See? I reckon you’d enjoy it. Imagine the scenario. I take you to a party and invite all my friends to fuck you.’ He released my hair. With steady, unrushed fingers, he unfastened the top button of my jeans. He eased down the zip. In the silence, the fire crackled and popped. Slowly, he raised my top and ran his hand over my bared belly, edging higher to fondle my breasts. I was still bowed backwards in his arm, holding on to his neck, dissolving, my bones turning to nothing, my cunt expanding to hot, tender thickness.

I wished I could resist him. He nudged my bra up, underwire and lace frothing above the swell of my naked, pink-tipped flesh. His cool, controlled hands cupped and massaged. My breasts were all sinew and sensation, shifting and rippling in response to his knowing fingers. Again and again, I moaned. My sounds seemed far off, as if they weren’t made by me at all.

‘Yeah, I think you’d like having a dozen or so men queuing up to fuck you.’ His voice was low and intimate, rough like gravel and old records. ‘And I’d stand guard, watching, making sure you treated them well and didn’t complain. Would that make you ashamed, Natalie?’ He thumbed circles around one nipple then squeezed its crinkled point, eyes fixed on my face. My throat made another noise that didn’t belong to me. I couldn’t look at him. I was bombed out on pleasure, drifting away with his words. ‘Would it, Natalie? All those strangers using you like a whore? Let’s see, shall we?’

Whore. He pronounced the word so elegantly. With excruciating slowness, his fingers slid past my open jeans and into my knickers, down past my pubes. He found my wetness and I groaned heavily, unable to stop the sound. He glided through my folds and I was as wet as a hundred rivers. I closed my eyes. I was fleshless, juices pouring over him. I cried out again as his fingers slipped effortlessly inside me, plugging the damn.

‘I think that’s my answer,’ whispered Den. ‘You’re sodden.’ He stirred his fingers. My fluids clicked, a small, sloppy sound like a faint echo of the spitting fire. His thumb brushed my clit and moved across the bud, ticking left, right, left like a metronome. ‘All those men,’ he murmured, and though my eyes were closed and I was floating away, I knew he was scrutinising every flicker on my face.

‘Now stand up properly.’ Briskly, he withdrew his hand and nudged me upright. Someone had filleted me. My bones were gone. I could barely stand. With a couple of hard tugs, Den shoved my jeans and underwear down to my ankles where they rucked inelegantly around my boots. I swayed, dizzy, shackled by denim, my smeared arousal cooling on my inner thighs.

‘Get undressed,’ said Den, his tone now brusque and stern.

The instruction seemed too complicated, its execution requiring a stamina I feared I lacked. Undress? Where to begin? I wobbled on one leg then the other as I removed my boots. Slowly, I stripped. With a feeble throw, I aimed my clothes at the skanky mattress, removing everything except my socks, sporty-looking grey and blue knee-highs, because the floor was rough and cold. As I undressed, Den rummaged in the holdall I recognised from last time. Equipment clinked inside the bag. All those exciting possessions reminded me of his experience. He selected a bunch of black leather cuffs, again familiar to me, and heaped them on the pine table.

I edged closer to the fire, trembling and rubbing at my bare arms.

‘Cute socks.’ Den rested his butt on the table’s edge, folding his arms. ‘Now I want you in the stool, legs spread. Move it nearer the fire if you’re cold.’

I was cold, yes. It was November and I was naked in a derelict building. But the prospect of sitting in the birthing stool, presumably cuffed and powerless, sent a charge of heat through my limbs. With wry aloofness, Den observed as I repositioned the stool. My body was useless for anything except sex, making the stool heavy and unwieldy. A remnant of practical thinking told me the fire’s heat needed to catch me at the front rather than down one side. Flames shimmered in the antique’s varnished depths as I dragged the object into place. Obeying instructions, I perched on the narrow seat, glad to take the weight off my wobbly legs. The wood’s cracks and crevices imprinted hard ripples on my flesh while the slender strip of the back-rest pressed against my spine.

‘Good girl,’ said Den, his tender approval getting me right in the groin. ‘Now then, you can see how this functions.’ He took the bundle of black cuffs and strode towards me. ‘I fasten your ankles to the chair legs, your wrists to the handholds and I collar your neck to the head-rest. OK?’

I nodded, my arousal swelling as he began cuffing me with brisk efficiency, using chains and clips to link the leather manacles to the stool’s legs and hoops. The ornate balcony curving around the arena gleamed to my right, patches of orange firelight shimmering on the supporting columns. Dark shadows hid in distant corners, light sources I couldn’t identify glowing softly here and there. I felt submerged but the waters around me were rose, amber and gold.

‘You OK?’ asked Den. ‘Warm enough?’

‘I’m good, yes.’ My tongue was thick, my throat dry.

He walked away, out of sight, then returned, Liam’s bridle hanging from his fingers, a brown leather net tangled with brass. The pulse between my thighs beat harder. ‘Did you enjoy being the model for this?’

‘Yes.’ My voice was husky. ‘Till I found out I was doing it for you.’

He smiled. ‘But wearing it turned you on?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like that,’ he said. ‘Devising ways to turn you on, even when I’m not there.’

I said nothing. This was neither the time nor the place to discuss the past. Besides, I wasn’t sure I had the mental capacity to conduct a conversation.

‘Now, let’s check this out.’ Den lowered the strappy cage over my face, the dark, earthy scent of leather filling my nostrils. ‘The advantage is, we know it’s a perfect fit.’

I couldn’t argue with that. I stayed silent as Den fiddled
with straps and buckles, adjusting the webbed half-hood. When he was done, leather bands lay against my forehead and framed my eyes, trammels running either side of my nose when I glanced down. The two straps of the claw gag dangled from the bridle’s bit-rings on each cheek. No need to alter their length.

Den stretched my mouth, deftly popping one brass claw around the corner of my lips. He did the same on the other side. My mouth was fixed wide, the metal hooks cold on my inner cheeks and my face, the gag’s rounded tips knocking against my teeth with every movement. Immediately, the harness felt right on me, all the necessary tensions aligning to encase my head while pulling my lips into an ugly, embarrassing rictus. The horribleness of the device made my blood rush and my senses swim. It was such a cunning, contradictory piece of kit, gagging me by forcing my mouth open – more of a non-gag than a gag.

Den stepped back to admire his design. ‘Delightful. Absolutely exquisite.’ His eyes ran up and down my body, taking in my leather-cocooned face, my bound limbs, spread thighs and faux hockey socks.

‘Look at her,’ he said as if to himself. ‘A sweet submissive and she’s all mine.’ He ran a hand down my neck, over the bump of the leather collar, then down between the valley of my breasts. He tapped the underswell of one breast then, with a sharp, sideways cuff, swiped my flesh. I groaned, pressing my head back against the ringed head-rest of the stool.

‘You can’t help loving it, can you?’ he murmured. His hand trailed further down my body and his fingers toyed with my pubes. I was so wet I was leaking onto the concrete floor. Den crouched in the vee of my thighs and peeled my puffy lips apart. He reached forward and lapped at my slit.
Just that single stroke of his tongue had me moaning deeply, the sound rushing from my pinned-open mouth.

He looked up at me, grinning. My need was torture. I stared back, trying to beg for more with my eyes. He kept on smiling until, after an apparent eternity, he slid a couple of fingers inside me. I groaned, arousal sinking to my groin. Den’s eyes never left my face. ‘What I really want,’ he said, his elbow driving slowly back and forth, ‘is some help here. You have a lot of appetite, Ms Lovell. I’m not sure one man is enough to satisfy you.’

My heart raced, his words spiking the fog of my lust with alarm. Did he have someone in mind? Was Ty around? I wished now we’d had that conversation about the need for him to stop springing surprises on me. This was absolutely the last time I’d invest so much trust in him. His actions in our last two encounters had been seriously borderline. The abduction, the balcony fucking, the pain. And then summoning Ty without my agreement. But being on those limits thrilled me and he hadn’t breached them, not quite. He seemed to know how far he could push me. But nudging was a game of chance. Supposing this turned out to be third time unlucky?