Page 27 of Salt in the Wound
And this was casual conversation. I couldn’t even imagine what kind information Mark actually held close and secure.
As they talked, Mark’s hand on my leg kept circling, drifting until he was stroking the inside of my knee. Electricity skittered up my thigh—something like ticklishness, like a thrill, but that left warmth in its wake too. His fingers never went any higher than my lower thigh, but it was like the more they stayed there, the more I began to wonder why. During our emailed exchanges over hard and soft limits, I’d said Mark could touch my vulva for the purposes of public display, of performance, and also my backside and breasts. I’d even agreed to full nudity in public, although I had mentioned that I might need time to work up to it.
I’d told myself that I’d agreed to so much because I needed to do more than sell our story to the denizens of Lyonesse; I’d need to eventually win over Mark’s allegiance too. His respect, if not his affection. Only then could I count on accessing everything my uncle wanted from Lyonesse.
But the honest truth was that going through that list, limit by limit, was like the first day with a new weapon at the karate school. It was a promise—so many promises, in fact, beckoning me to test myself against them. Promises that were already things I’d longed for under a different context.
Rewards.Punishments.
It would all be different, of course, pain for my future husband rather than for God’s love, but it called to me nonetheless.
So anyway, I had anticipated him doing more tonight than stroking my knee. The inside of my knee, over and over, slow, slow caresses that made my nipples pull taut under my dress. My clit surged, swelling in abrupt kicks, and I began to invent half-delirious fantasies with my clit at the center of them.
Stroked over my panties. Played with while his free hand pulled the crotch of my panties aside.
Fantasies where he’d told me beforehand to wear nothing underneath my dress and then spent the night petting my wet, exposed sex in plain view.
I closed my eyes. What was happening to me? Six months ago, I couldn’t believe my father would allow a man like Mark at a party, and now here I was silently keening to be treated like a whore.
Was it Mark? Did he make me want this somehow?
Or had I always been this way?
My knees had parted even more somehow, the hem of my dress falling down my thighs. Anyone could see my panties now, if they wanted, but I didn’t care. I wanted Mark to know he could touch me more. If he wanted. If he thought it would be good for our illusion.
Not because I felt my clit like a beating heart between my legs. Not because I was panting softly against his chest while he continued to stroke my leg and talk to the others like nothing was happening.
It wasn’t until the DJ on the dance floor put up the countdown to midnight and Mark shifted underneath me that I realized my bottom had been nestled against a thick erection, long enough to make me swallow.
I had left oral, vaginal, and anal sex blank on the question of my limits, not markingyesorno, marking nothing at all. Sayingyeswould feel too much like saying goodbye to another Isolde, to an Isolde without a honeysuckle ring on her finger. But sayingnowas foolish; to marry Mark and not use every tool I could to win his trust was worse than a half-sacrifice. It would be a wasted one.
And now here I was in his lap, his hard cock pressed against me.
If Ihadmarked yes, he would be able to turn me in his lap, unbutton his pants, and—
The countdown got to ten, and Mark stood with me in his arms, setting me on my feet in front of him. Another man was rushing toward our nook, tall and suited with a flag pin in the lapel—and familiar somehow, although the moving lights of the dance floor below made it hard to get a good look at his face. He reached the quiet guest in the shadows just as the building exploded with cheers andHappy New Years and the guest yanked him down to his mouth and kissed him passionately.
I looked back up to Mark, who was staring at me with something I couldn’t decipher written on his face. He pressed his thumb to my lower lip until my mouth opened for him, and then with a flash of his eyes, he leaned down and slotted his mouth against mine, leaving his thumb between us.
His lips were warm and firm, his breath minty and cool, and something about that thumb was so demanding, almost callous, and I should hate that, I should hate that—
I licked the tip of it, tasting clean skin and a hint of whiskey, and he drew in a sharp breath. And then, like I’d broken through some wall of control, his other hand dug into my hair to hold me still and he pressed his tongue into my mouth.
Our tongues grazed, flickered, fused, and I was panting against him, my hands coming up to fist in the lapels of his jacket to hold myself upright, because my knees were going soft.
My first kiss.
Mark seemed to want every secret my mouth had ever held and searched them out relentlessly. His tongue was stroking and seeking and wicked. His hand in my hair was implacable, and his thumb was still holding my mouth open for him to use.
He pulled my hair the tiniest bit and it was pain and it was ownership, and for a bare, sharp second, everything in the entire world made sense.
And then he dropped his hands and stepped back, licking his lips. I was pleased to see the fast heave of his chest, the wary look in his eyes.
He was doubting himself now. I’d surprised him.
Perhaps I could play this game with him after all.
Perhaps I could win.
