Page 16 of Season of Gifts

She bent over his back, letting her camisole drag against his skin, and whispered into his ear.“Or stir things up, hmm?”

She slid her hand across his hipbone and down the vee of muscle in front, pausing agonizingly close to his cock.Holding her hand so close was like warming herself at a fire.Finally his pleading whimper erupted, and she granted him one slow stroke, sucking a breath between her teeth as he throbbed in her palm.“Things do seem to be going up.”Releasing him, she stepped back, rolling with the answering throb low in her belly.“But let’s give flogging a try.”

“Thank you, Mistress Alice.”A thick, happy hum permeated his tone.

With a silent sigh of relief, she tweaked his stance.Nothing was wrong with it, but the tweaks gave her an excuse to touch him, to run her hands over his sleek muscles as he rippled and squirmed.Jay needed more verbal praise than touch—she was the touch-fiend—but their play was about meeting both of their needs.“Just like that, mm-hmm.Such a joy to play with, so beautifully attentive you are.”

She kept up the low-toned appreciation, cultivating the sense of sacred space, and narrated as she fetched the flogger from the dresser.Was she talking too much?Letting nerves get the better of her?She would have to ask Jay later whether he’d liked it.Or ask Henry to grade her next week, but if she got less than a perfect grade, she’d be mortified by the failure, which was ridiculous—she wanted to improve, but suggestions for improvement would confirm her unfitness for the job.

Standing behind Jay, flogger poised, she idly rubbed his hip and breathed slow and deep.Touching him helped slow her thoughts.His breath moved faster, anticipating.She dangled the falls over him.This was her paintbrush.Henry had painted Jay’s back in oil on canvas, and that beautiful image hung now in the space between their bedroom and playroom.She would paint Jay with her flogger, pinking the pale flesh missed by summer’s kiss, the fading tan as he switched to long pants and long sleeves to protect him from winter’s chilly embrace.

Swishwent the falls across his shoulders in long brushstrokes.Back and forth, slowly, sweeping lower, she meditated on nothing but the sound and the movement.This moment was theirs, together, peaceful, building, the tiny hitches in Jay’s breath and the shivers undulating his body.She carried on down his back, to the curving dip above his ass and those inviting open thighs.

Thwap!

She slapped the outside of his thigh with the flogger.He uttered a satisfying grunt.

Thwap!

Again, the opposite side, and Jay rolled his hips into the swing.

“So eager,” she murmured.Two more, faster, catching the underside of his ass, and he thrust back as he whimpered for more.“I like a man who isn’t afraid to show me how he feels.”

The rhythm came naturally.She wasn’t intending to surprise him with erratic strikes or shock him with painful stings.Building tension he could release, that was her goal.She followed a figure-eight pattern, sometimes higher across his ass, sometimes lower on his thighs.Evenly distributed, a perfectly humming machine with the results immediate and easily identified: blush pink deepening under her strokes; Jay’s hardened cock bobbing against his stomach, drizzling his excitement below; Jay rocking and swaying like she was fucking him, seeking more of her, whining and panting and pleading—

She tossed the flogger aside and climbed onto the bed, onto Jay, all fours over him, and took his cock in her hand.“That’s right, you deserve so much, Jay.All good things.”She wrapped her other arm diagonally under his chest, clasping the joint between his neck and shoulder.Held tight as she stroked him.“This space is exceptional.This space isus.”

When her hand slowed, he thrust into her fist faster, keeping the pace.With her thighs clenched around his hips, she went along for the ride.Wild, bucking.Fuck, she’d need a hand for herself, and she didn’t have one to give.“Keep going, stud.Fuck, keep going, don’t stop.Come for me, Jay.Come for me.”

He jerked beneath her with a spiraling moan, wet heat coating her hand in his final thrusts.Shaking, he panted, his hands still planted on the bed and his feet on the floor.She rolled off his back onto the mattress, tipping with her legs in the air.She should be getting the massage oil.Fuck that plan.Her fingers fumbled at her waist.“Get these off me, stud.I need your mouth on me.Hurry.”

He brushed her hands aside in half a second and yanked her clothes down her legs and free of her kicking feet.Pushing her back, he buried his face between her thighs.His tongue swept her clit, and she nearly came off the bed as he groaned.He wrapped his arms around her legs and held her wide for him.

She should’ve ordered that.Or rolled over, sat on his face.Been more dominant.But fuck, that flicking tongue wasn’t to be interrupted.Anything that might make him move or stop could just fuck right the hell off.

Back arching, she clenched the blanket.Behind her, on the wall, a dizzying array of origami flowers in a dozen colors.All Jay’s work.Such good—

“—work, yes yes, right there, you’re so fucking beautiful, stud.My Jay, my husband, mine—”

A shriek ended the babbling in her ears as heat flashed through her.

Shaking with the aftershocks, she dragged at his shoulders.“C’mere, c’mere, on top, let me wrap my arms around you.”

He crawled up her body, his mouth wet and his eyes gleaming.“You give fantastic rewards, Alice.And wail like a whole orchestra.”

Giddy, giggling, she pulled him into a kiss, crossing her ankles above his ass.“Sometimes I surprise myself.”

Arms around his shoulders, she cuddled him to her chest.Beyond the open door, Henry stood at the crest of the stairs.Had he seen her letting Jay take control?Her still-racing heart fluttered.If she was doing dominance wrong, he would tell her, wouldn’t he?

Or he would wait for her to ask.But the answer might not be the one she wanted to hear.

Jay planted a kiss at the curve of her breast.“Alice?You okay?”

Her muscles had stiffened.She tried to send them a message to relax.“Yup, all good here.Bet we’re getting close to dinner soon, though.I think a quick cleanup is in order.”

Jay started the disentangling process.When she looked again, Henry was gone.

Chapter nine

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