Page 65 of Under Her Protection

Her hands, which had not been shaking, were not shaking now, and she was not going to let them begin.

"Strip." Vivienne ordered her and Leo was only too happy to obey.

She stripped. Jacket on the chair. Shoulder rig on top of the jacket, because weapons were not, in her book, for the floor. Black shirt on the chair. Belt. Boots off, not thrown. Trousers. Black bra, black briefs, gone. She stood at the foot of the bed in the small lamp light with nothing on and looked down at the length of Vivienne on the linen.

Vivienne's eyes ran over her body appraisingly.

Not in any hurry.

Leo's pulse jumped at her throat, which Vivienne caught, and which Vivienne did not remark on.

"Bedside drawer," Vivienne said. "The left."

Leo opened it.

In the drawer, under a folded silk scarf and beside a book she did not register, was a small black leather case. She took it out and opened it. Inside was a leather harness, well made, soft with use, and a silicone dildo, large, weighted, the colour of dark skin, its base fitted to the harness. The harness had been cared for. The harness had been worn but it didn’t bother Leo. So long as things were clean.

She closed the case on a breath.

“I want you to wear it and fuck me,” Vivienne said.

"You are sure?”

"Leo,” she breathed and her eyes were heavy with lust.

“Fuck me. Do not be gentle.”

Leo put it on.

The harness settled on her hips and buckled tight, and the weight of the silicone at the front of her was a weight she had worn before but not recently. She adjusted the straps. She gave the shaft one slow downward pressure to check the ring. She came up to the side of the bed in the small light and stood and looked at Vivienne, who was watching her with her eyes glittering with want.

"Come here,” Vivienne’s voice was full of seduction.

Leo obeyed.

She went up onto the linen, one knee, then the other, between Vivienne's knees, and lowered herself down onto her on her forearms, and Vivienne's hands came up, unhurried, and took her face in both of them, and Vivienne kissed her.

It was the first kiss of the night.

It was not like the kiss at the door of the living room. It was not the kiss at the wall. Vivienne kissed her slow, with her mouth open, with her hand in Leo's loose hair, with her other hand flat on the back of Leo's shoulder, and Leo took it, and gave it back, and did not hurry. They had been three feet from a bullet tonight. Leo was not, in any world, going to hurry this.

When Vivienne let her mouth go, her legs parted further and she said, low, at Leo's ear, “I need you inside me.”

"Tell me if it is too much."

"Leo."

"Tell me."

"I will."

She braced on one elbow and reached down and guided the shaft and eased into Vivienne.

Vivienne was wet as she entered her. Very wet. Leo went slow because slow was, tonight, the only speed her hands were willing to give, and she watched Vivienne's face as she went, and Vivienne's blue-grey eyes stayed open, and Vivienne's hand stayed flat on the back of her shoulder, and Vivienne's breath came in through her teeth when Leo was all the way in, and Vivienne said "yes" once, and held it there.

“Are you ready?” Leo asked.

Vivienne nodded.