Page 92 of Salt Kiss
She shrieks and arches against me, writhing.
“Don’t want to—leave a bruise—” I pant above her. “He might see if I do. Slapping is better.”
She nods, her hair moving on the mat, stray locks crackling with static electricity. “Again,” she gasps. “Do it again.”
I slap her breast again, harder, hard enough to make her sob. Her breath hitches against my lips, and my eyes go to her mouth, so soft and pink below mine. That upper lip with its shallow philtrum. Those corners that naturally tug down into a pout.
I want to kiss her. I’m going to kiss her. I’m going to slick my tongue against hers and taste that soft mouth for myself, and I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’ve never done this part, and it’s pure instinct to pump my hips, to slide one arm behind her back to hold her tight and thrust and thrust, to lean down and—
She rolls her face to the side before I can put my mouth to hers, but her hands are still fisting in my shirt and she’s closing her eyes and sayingmore more more, and I’m hurt that she won’t kiss me, and I’m so—shit—I’m so close, and I slap her tit again, hard as I dare, and her back comes off the mat as she comes with a silent scream, her mouth open and her eyes wide and unseeing.
Her thighs are tight around my waist, and I canfeelthe pulse of her cunt on my cock, feel everything get a little bit wetter through our clothes, and then she reaches up, still desperately trying to fuck herself against me, and pulls my hair so hard I see stars.
The pain shoots down my spine, hot, needed, and for a moment, Mark is there with me, in the torment, in the dirty need that follows. With a gasp, I erupt, wrapping both arms around her head and fucking my way through the pleasure like a knight fucking a princess he knows he’ll never get to touch again.
Warmth spreads between our hips: my spend, slick inside my compression shorts, pumped out with hard, grunting thrusts against her. Again and again.
Until slowly, inevitably, I’m empty. Empty on top of a flushed and sweaty Isolde.
I unwind my arms, feeling dizzy, feeling outside of myself, my arms shaking as I lift myself up to check on her. Her eyes are round when she stares up at me, her cheeks scarlet, as is what I can see of her left breast. She’s breathing in slow, shaking breaths that she’s obviously trying to bring under control, and her throat is working over and over again to swallow. From the waistband of her bike shorts to her backside is a giant wet spot, slick enough to let me know that most of it is semen.
I settle back on my heels, my hands falling by my side. I go from euphoric to horrified in an instant.
“Fuck,” I mumble. “Fuck.”
Thirty-One
Isolde doesn’t comeout of her room for two days.
I knock on our shared door, which is now locked; I call the room’s phone from mine. I ask the butler delivering her meals to let her know I’m here if she needs me—which doesn’t earn me the skeptical expression it should, since Isolde’s told everyone she’s not feeling well, and he seems to assume I’m just being a considerate fellow passenger.
“Isolde,” I say through our adjoining door on the second day. “I’m sorry I didn’t... I’m just—”
My head falls against the door. “I’m sorry.”
I should have done so much more after I pushed myself to my knees in the dojo and realized what we’d done. I should have made sure she was okay; I should have apologized for the whole episode the minute I found my voice. But instead, I’d knelt there, frozen with guilt, while she’d scrambled, wild-eyed, to her feet and then fled. And I didn’t even try to follow her. I’d just stayed there on the mats, shorts wet, heart pounding, ashamed and wanting more and strangely alive with all of it. Pulsing, tingling, rushing.
It reminded me of being at Morois House, of being Mark’s, being so thoroughly inside my own skin that the world itself seemed sharper and brighter.
But there was no untangling that feeling from how I’d gotten there. From what I’d done to get there.
And so now Isolde doesn’t answer me through the door, and I don’t blame her.
We cheated on Mark. There’s no getting around that.
But she also deserves to know about Strassburg and about Isabella Beroul and about me. She deserves to know so that she doesn’t feel like she was the first to break the trust between them.
I close my eyes and think about the semen all over her shorts. Her wide eyes and her pert breast slapped red. Despite everything, blood surges to my groin.
I want to do it again.
I want to do it again and do more. I want to feel her naked pussy. I want to kiss it. I want to kissher, kiss that soft mouth, see if she tastes like she smells, like honey and earth. I want to sift her hair through my fingers and run my nose over her neck. I want to hear her tell me more about ancient pastoralism in that rich girl voice; I want her to feed me more of those low, heartbreaking observations about myself.
And ah God, I feel it, I feel it, that curse of mine, twisting its vines around my ankles and up through the spokes of my ribs, seeking out my heart, my central nervous system, my brain.
No—fuck. No.
I’ll beat it back. Falling in love with Mark was one thing, but his bride too? Being in love with a husband and wife both?
