Page 38 of Burn

Accepting that challenge, Poet swaggered toward me. My gaze traveled from his naughty countenance and stumbled across the red ribbons in his grip. So he’d gone outside for them, yet not only that. I registered another item among the scarlet bands. Something tapered, not long enough to be a rod, nor small enough to be a candle.

My heart skipped another beat. Nervousness and temptation sizzled across my flesh. “What is that?”

Poet’s mouth merely tipped sideways. Instead of responding, he halted at the footboard and set the objects on the trunk fronting the bed. “I’d like you to keep those sumptuous legs spread and that edible pussy open for me.” Plucking one of the ribbons, he stretched it horizontally. “Unfortunately you insist on flouting my rules,” he said while contemplating the rain-dampened cord. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again, shall we?” Patiently, he linked the fabric around my ankle, knotted the band over the footboard post, and tugged.

I gasped, my muscles tensing while he moved to the opposite ankle, splaying me wider. Casually, the jester stalked to the headboard and performed the same actions, fastening me with more ribbons to the posts. My chest rose and fell, but I did not tell him to stop, for I trusted this man with my soul.

Poet returned to the end of the mattress, where he leaned forward and bracketed his palms on either side of my scissored calves. “Comfortable, sweeting?”

My nerves fluttered. It was all I could do to nod.

“Excellent. Though you will tell me if you’re displeased. Do so, and I’ll unbind you the second you request it. Until then, do you promise to behave like a well-mannered princess?”

Another antsy smile threatened to break through. I licked my lips for his benefit. “Only if you promise to accommodate your lady’s every whim.”

“As you wish. I’m going to make you feel everything you’ve been longing for.” Then his impish expression darkened. “Eyes closed, Your Highness.”

My insides flipped. This reminded me of a night in Spring, when he’d brushed a feathery item over my skin, rallying my body to life and shocking me with stimulation. A cloth had concealed my vision back then, but tonight, the jester simply relied on my compliance.

Dutifully, I let my eyelids drift shut. Instinctively, I stretched my limbs outward, exposing my wet folds to his gaze.

An intake of breath sifted through the bedroom. “Ruthless, indeed.” His timbre husked, “Wider, love.”

I complied, fanning my limbs apart. To which he murmured, “Fucking perfection.”

Desire pooled low in my stomach. “It’s brazen to see myself as flawless. I’ve been taught to consider it the height of frivolity.”

“Perhaps, but that doesn’t change what I see.”

“I would much rather be humble than perfect. It is the Autumn way.”

“And yet, you enjoyed the compliment. Little liar, for I see it in the blush coloring your lovely tits and the shift in your breathing.”

“That is lust, not ego.”

“Aye,” he intoned, so that I felt his gaze on my cunt. “I see that too.”

After a moment, I shook my head and admitted, “And I like how you see me.”

Because however much I stood by what I’d said, Poet defined perfection in a less conventional, unpardonable way, and he knew how to make such endearments attractive. I sensed it in his voice, how he characterized perfection not as someone without faults but simply a person who was true. And how that someone captivated him.

I did not need to be perfect for this world, nor for this man. Rather, he made me feel real, honest, and exposed—and more radiant because of it. With him, I did not need to pretend or resist, much less fear the unknown.

And so, I opened my body. “I trust you.”

A gritty noise escaped Poet’s mouth, seeming to come from a deeply entrenched place. The bed sank under his weight as he positioned himself between the gap in my thighs, his proximity a heady experience, as if the room had grown humid.

Perspiration beaded in my palms. In my mind’s eye, I saw him kneeling—wet, naked, and erect.

Butterflies fluttered through me, expectation scattering to the very edges of my psyche. Poet remained still, perhaps observing me. His quiet attention seemed to amplify everything my body did, every way it reacted. It magnified the sound of my gulp and intensified the pulse in my clit. Restlessness mounted as I waited, unaware of where he would touch me first, what he would do with that long apparatus.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he scolded when I squirmed, the motions pulling on the ribbons. Leaning over, his fingers caressed my wrists, relaxing them.

My muscles uncoiled from his touch, then loosened fully as those hands wandered down my forearms, then continued to my biceps and shoulders. His digits branded me with heat, torching a path to my breasts and nipples, followed by my ribs and navel. I sighed and gave in to the scattering of sensations, my skin yielding to his ministrations.

“There we go,” he encouraged. “So pliant.”

Nonetheless, this man knew the extent of his skills and used them to the fullest. His pace slowed, delaying every so often, drawing out the moment just before reaching the next sensitive area.

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