Page 63 of Tourist Season
It takes every last fraying thread of my self-control not to smile. If he was still touching me, surely he would feel the rush of my pulse as adrenaline surges in my veins.
I lean back. Spread my legs wider. “And put your face there instead so you can devour me,” I say.
I see the exact moment my words click together in his mind. With one blink, rejection turns to desperate hunger that burns even hotter than it did moments ago. He surges forward, his hands bracketing around my ass as he buries his face between my thighs.
And Nolan does exactly as I asked. He fucking devours me. He feasts as though he’s addicted to me. Like I’m the only thing that will keep him alive. He sucks on my clit hard until I buck in the swing and then he lavishes it with swirls of his tongue. He catches me between his teeth in a gentle bite and I yelp, fear and pleasure and just the slightest hint of pain an intoxicating mix that threatens to undo me.
“You know what I love?” he whispers as he pushes a finger into my pussy, curling it to stroke my inner walls. I let out a quivering moan. Another finger slides into my entrance, pumping in slow thrusts. “I love how much you get off on your fear of me. I giveyou a little whisper of it, maybe a little hint of pain, and you fucking soak my hand. When I slapped your ass and told you I would fuck you into oblivion, your pussy cinched so tight around my cock that I nearly came on the fucking spot.”
Nolan covers my clit with his mouth and works his fingers as his free hand withdraws the knife from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, the blade clicks free of the handle. He keeps his eyes on me as he touches the point to my outer thigh, dragging it gently over my skin, just hard enough to leave a mark. I whimper, my core clenching tight. And he laughs. Laughs right into my flesh as my arousal floods his hand.
“See?” he says, his face glistening in the moonlight as he withdraws his fingers to show them to me. They shine in the dim light. With a grin, he lays them on his waiting tongue and sucks the juices off. When he drags them free of his lips, he slides them back into my pussy to the sound of my shameless, shuddering moan. “Fucking delicious.”
This time when he buries his face between the apex of my thighs and groans with desire, I know he won’t stop until I’m falling apart. And he’s right. I am spellbound by the fear and the pain. With Nolan, I feel like I can reclaim them, like I can dictate the terms of what I’m willing to feel. He transforms terror and torture into alchemical pleasure.
It’s not the way he worships my clit, or slides his fingers in my pussy, or even drags the knife over my thigh that breaks me apart. It’s the realization that Nolan understands me in a way no one else can. And he’s taking care of me in a way that no one else ever will. He chases every second of my orgasm like he can see my epiphany unfurling like a night-blooming flower.
I’m shaking. Panting. My eyes are squeezed shut. My bicepsburn from holding on to the chains of the swing. The blood rushing through my head is so loud that it muffles the sounds around me. Even the shuffle of fabric as Nolan shifts between my thighs.
In a sudden flash of movement, he pulls me from the swing and flips me over, trapping both my wrists behind my back in one of his calloused hands. The thin rubber is braced across my waist and my bare knees rest on the cool mulch.
He hastily pushes my skirt up and plunges his cock into my pussy with a single stroke.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he hisses as I let out an agonized cry of pleasure. He pulls back and thrusts, burying his cock even deeper in my channel. I can already feel a fresh wave of pleasure rolling through me. “You might have been sent from hell to torment me, but you feel just like heaven.”
I’m completely at his mercy. And he fucks me with none.
I love every second of it.
He grips my wrists tight and digs the fingers of his other hand into my hip until it aches. He picks up a rhythm of long strokes and uses the momentum of the swing to drive into me. I rock away from him as he glides out to the crown of his cock. He pulls me back and slams to the hilt. The pace quickens and I hear the pained restraint in the curses and praise and promises he whispers in the night.
“I’m going to fucking ruin this perfect pussy,” he says as the swell of another orgasm threatens to crash over me. “Next time I fuck you, you’re going to look into my face and I’m going to watch you fall apart. And then I’m going to fuckingclaimyou, Harper Starling.”
I close my eyes, imagining everything he could mean with those words. Maybe he’ll make good on his fantasy to fuck me into the afterlife. Maybe he’ll slice my throat and fill me with cumas I shudder my dying breath. Or maybe he’ll choose a worse demise and take my heart instead. I’ve been trying to keep it safe in a cocoon of fear and promises. But he keeps pulling it apart. Shredding my defenses. One day, he might strip it right out of my chest, and I’m not sure that he’ll keep it safe if he does. That fate terrifies me more than any other.
“What if I claim you first?” I finally ask. My question breaks his cadence. He stalls, but only for a moment.
“You already have.”
His fingers dig into my hip and he picks up his rhythm and fucks me so hard I see flashes of light in the darkness of my closed eyes. I don’t just break apart. I shatter. I’m fragments and shards, mindless with pleasure. My core seems to coil tight with it, and Nolan suddenly roars behind me, slamming into me as he fills my pussy with his spend. I can feel him trembling as much as I am. I can hear his ragged exhalations, every breath as uneven as mine.
It takes a long moment for us both to recover. When he pulls away, he does it slowly, carefully. He wraps an arm beneath my chest and raises me off the swing with care, not letting me go until he’s sure I have my balance. And then he cleans me up as much as he’s able to with a section of my torn tights. He could be quick about it. Or he could leave me to do it myself. But he doesn’t. He takes his time, his touch gentle as he makes slow passes over my skin.
“I can take you home to get cleaned up properly,” he finally says as he balls the shredded tights and panties into a fist to place them in a nearby trash can.
“No,” I reply, and if it were a little brighter out, he’d be able to see the crimson heat that rises in my cheeks. “I’d still like to get that dinner. If you want.” And though I don’t say it, maybe I likethe thought of his cum smeared on my thighs. Of being marked. And the way his smile surfaces, maybe he’s thinking the same thing.
Nolan gives me a single nod. He reaches out a hand.
I slip my palm into his, and we walk toward the lights.
WINDWARDNolan
ITRIED TO CONVINCE MYSELFit wasn’t a date as we walked here, but I gave up before we even made it through the door.
Harper is luminous. She glows in the candlelight as we have dinner at Nightfog, a restaurant perched on the edge of the rocky shore. I turned on some of the Southern charm to score us a table on the busy covered patio that rests on stilts covered with barnacles. She seemed to like that, judging by the smile she tried to bite free of her lips. We share a starter of mussels in white wine and garlic sauce. She devours a plate of scallops and linguine. It should be harder than it is to talk to her, but in reality, it’s not hard at all. She asks genuine questions, not just superficial ones. When I tell her about the time Billy burnt his eyebrows off when he tried to make Bananas Foster, she asks me everything about his dream to be a world-class pastry chef. When I mention that my sister, Amelia, is finishing her PhD in nanorobotics, she wants to know the minute details about her field of research.
But no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to pry much from her. Sometimes, I notice a glimpse of a pause, a catch of her breath,as though she knows she shouldn’t show much of herself to the man who is supposed to be her enemy. She only talks about her earliest years or the most recent ones, leaving a black chasm in between. She tries to focus on things I’m already familiar with, like the soapbox racer or the corpse she’s been crafting for tomorrow’s gravity race. But Harper gives up nothing of the person she was just before she came to Cape Carnage. I came here thinking I needed every detail about the night she crashed into my life so I could find some kind of peace, but I’m starting to think that’s not what I want anymore. The woman I really want to know is the one sitting a candle away.
