Page 50 of Honey Cut
I drag my eyes back up to Mark, who’s looking at me expectantly. I haven’t answered him yet.
“Yes, sir,” I manage to say.
He nods, autocratic even when nude, and then lifts his hand. “My watch, then.”
Ah, shit.
“It’s in my pocket, sir. I can bring it back once I’m finished taking Isolde upstairs.”
Mark is already shaking his head. “No need.” And he steps closer and reaches into the pocket of my suit trousers, his fingers warm even through the pocket lining. His fingertips graze my erection as he searches for what he wants, and I lift my chin and stare straight ahead, as neutrally as I can. My cock, though, twitches at the attention. Reminds me that the man I’m hopelessly obsessed with is naked in front of me, that his well-used wife is in my arms, and that I’m about to carry her somewhere secluded.
If Mark notices, he doesn’t say anything. Just takes his watch and clasps it around his wrist like he’s already robed in Tom Ford and not like we can see the lingering wet on his shaft.
“There is water and also some fruit up there for her,” Mark tells me. “If she gets stubborn about eating, tell her I’ll take it out on her delectable ass later.”
“I heard that,” mumbles Isolde. She’s still deep in subspace.
I try to shake off the unhappy clench in my chest when I think about being there too, about how it felt. Covered in wax or binder clip imprints or semen, dizzy and untethered by anything that wasn’t him.
I’ll never know that feeling again—not with Mark, at least. And I don’t know that I could bear ever giving that part of myself to someone else.
“Yes, sir,” I say, and I start taking Isolde out of the wings and properly backstage to one of the elevator banks. I hear Mark ask Sedge for the tuxedo as we leave.
* * *
Mark’s apartmentis just how I remember it—contemporary and elegant, with dashes of Morois House. Wide wood planks, dog-eared books, and copper pots, botanical prints hanging on the walls. When I open the door and carry Isolde inside, I see that it’s warmly lit, as always, with pendants and sconces and scattered lamps, an utter contrast to the hall with its sweeping lights and strobes.
The last time I was in here, Mark asked me to go fetch his bride. He sat on the table with a bloody shoulder, and the sun was bright on his blond hair, and with such effortless, casual sadism, he told me to get Isolde. To bring her here so he could marry her and fuck her and do all the things that he would no longer do to me.
It can’t be the cruelest thing I’ve asked of you.
It’s fitting that the first time I walk back in, it’s with Isolde in my arms. Tattered wedding gown and all.
I see the water and fruit right away: a bucket filled with ice and glass bottles and a platter of berries, cut oranges, and small clusters of pomegranate seeds.
I set Isolde carefully on the wooden counter of the kitchen island and make sure she can sit up on her own. She can, although her eyes are dilated and her cheeks are still flushed. She could be drunk, she’s that well beaten and fucked.
I miss that feeling so much I could cry.
I bring her a bottle of water and make her sip, and then I offer her the platter of fruit.
“Not hungry,” she murmurs.
“It’s for your blood sugar.” I take a blackberry and hold it to her mouth.
Her eyes lift to mine, a shock of turquoise, and then she parts her lips. Her tongue darts out, pink and soft—the sight of it nearly as good as a proper lick on my skin—and then she nibbles it from my fingers. Berry juice stains the inside of her lips, dark and sweet, and then I watch her throat undulate as she swallows. With her wide pupils and ragged dress, she could be a character from a fairy tale, the unlucky mortal who ate the fruit under the hill and now can never leave.
It’s so unlike her, unlike her normal sangfroid, and it’s so fucking erotic to see her so unraveled, so delirious. Even when I fucked her senseless on the yacht, I don’t know that I ever saw her this undone.
Mark did this. This is Mark’s doing, and my masculine ego is stung that he could do it and I could not, and my stupid infatuated heart knows exactlywhyhe could do this, exactly what she’s feeling right now.
I know better than most: he’s just like that somehow.
Wordlessly, I get another berry and feed it to her, breathing deep against the tickling of her lips and teeth and tongue against my fingertips. Just weeks ago, I had my tongue in that sweet, berry-stained mouth. I had my cock there. I’d pushed until her lips were stretched around me, and I’d slid against that velvet heat until my seed was spurting down her throat.
I feed her a strawberry slice next, and she sticks out her tongue for it, like she’s receiving a communion wafer. Or like Mark has ordered her to show him what he’s given her, like a good girl.
With a trembling hand, I find the ripped silk of her bodice and try to cover her breast. She catches my hand with hers, pressing my palm to the taut curve. I can feel her stiff nipple against my palm.
