Playing the Game (14 page)

The scent of melon grew stronger. She startled back from a brush against her mouth.

Henry coaxed her with a hushed hum, and the touch came again. The wine glass, its rim smooth, tipped as she opened her mouth.

The cool rush of wine covered her tongue with a hint of honeyed sweetness and a finishing spike of citrus. Delicious, but she had no control. None at all. She wasn’t trying to shut out stimuli in a vain attempt to reach orgasm with a clumsy partner now, and she couldn’t choose to see him. Couldn’t open her eyes for a moment of reassurance. Her right hand rose on instinct, aiming for her face, for the padded darkness.

Henry’s hand encircled her wrist, squeezing once before his thumb stroked her pulse point.

“That’s no longer your decision to make, Alice.” His voice, soft but stern, chided her. “You recall you have a word to use if the experience is too overwhelming?”

She flushed. For a moment, she hadn’t remembered at all. His reminder calmed her, and her response was subdued. “Yes, Henry.”

“Good girl.” His mouth closed over her fingertips, one by one, in quick, sucking kisses while he held her wrist immobile. “Did you wish to use your word now, Alice?”

A vigorous shake of her head. Hell no.

“Good. I haven’t nearly finished enjoying you yet.”

His voice did things to her. Wriggly, giddy, shivery things. She couldn’t get enough of the low tone, or the confidence, or the promise of satisfaction.

He caressed her right ankle, and she fought not to startle at his touch. He shushed her, a whispering hum, as one hand curved around her calf before sliding back down.

“Your legs are lovely, Alice. Sleek and strong.” Her right shoe glided away, followed by the left. “There, that’s better, isn’t it? Shall we relax and listen to the music? Yes?”

She didn’t jump when his hand moved to the outside of her right arm. Nor when his fingers traced paths of their own design from the strap of her sleeveless sundress to her elbow and back again. It seemed natural that he should touch her thus. When his other hand lay against her spine, that, too, seemed natural and right, a press of heat below her shoulder blades.

The hand on her arm drifted into new territory. Fingers teased her collarbone until his hand lay flat below her neck, above the swell of her breasts, only his thumb in motion.

At his steady push, she leaned against the hand on her spine.

“I have you, Alice,” he murmured, not far from her right ear. “Lie back and listen, my dear.”

He guided her to the blanket, until she lay on her back, her head on a pillow, her legs curled to her left. His hands moved away.

A frisson of vulnerable awareness coursed through her. About to ask where he’d gone, she sensed him leaning close to her ear.

“Are you cold, my dear? I thought I saw you shiver. The night air is a bit chilly, hmm? Shall I warm you? No one is looking in our direction. They’ve eyes only for the stage and its musicians. Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in my arms.”

Rubbing soft circles on her right shoulder with the back of his hand, he trailed the touch downward to brush the outer curve of her breast.

She breathed deeply as her body shivered again.

“Yes, you’re much too cold, my dear. But we’ll fix that.” His tone, a mixture of teasing and solicitous, told her he knew quite well what he was doing to her. Temperature had nothing to do with it.

But his insistence conspired with the music and the blindfold to paint a picture on the padded blackness. One in which she lay in the park, surrounded by the hushed whispers of other attendees as the orchestra played and the air cooled with approaching night.

His left arm slipped beneath her, and his chest braced her back with warmth. His legs nestled in behind her own. The music concluded as his right hand grazed her hip.

“Mendelssohn next.” His mouth hovered at her ear, his every breath a vibration. “The Violin Concerto. A quick opening, stimulating, plaintive, passionate.”

The music began. His fingers danced along her side, and his lips fell upon her neck below her ear, moving in a slow counterpoint to the speed of the violin. His thorough, unhurried appreciation claimed her full attention.

But the press of his fingers against her inner thigh forced a sound from her mouth, a mixture of pleasure and alarm. The hem of her dress had risen without her notice. The tightening in her body illuminated exactly how arousing she found his voice and his touch.

He paused in his worship of her neckline.

“You’ll need to be much quieter than that, dearest, unless you wish an audience. I confess…” His fingers teased higher with tiny circles. “I myself find nothing troubling in the thought. Your beauty in ecstasy may rival the concert itself. Certainly a show worth witnessing.”

He stroked over her panties, his fingers outlining her lips.

Her mind chased the taunting familiarity of his touch as he varied the speed.

The violin. His fingers matched its rhythm. She wished she knew the piece, which stroke would come next. Her hips rocked steadily, a metronome for his variation.

His fingers slipped under the edge of her panties. She freed her sighing moan, the relief as he pushed into her with no resistance. Pushed until his palm lay flat against her sex, his fingers moving within her, his thumb circling her clitoris.

“Please,” she gasped. “Please, Henry.”

His thumb pressed.

Her hips jerked.

“You want to come here, Alice? In the middle of the park, with people all around us? With my hand between your legs? Is that what you want?” His voice, warm and knowing, told her she did.

“Yes, yes, please.”

He obliged her. His mouth returned to her neck, her throat, her collarbone, tasting and teasing. His fingers slicked over her clitoris, dancing in and out.

The blackness in her vision grew bright as tension squeezed her eyes shut, made her body rigid with need. When she came for him, her climax unraveled long and shuddering, her panting breaths becoming soft cries on every exhale. She shook as the music drifted into silence.

A new piece began. Henry rolled them and sat up. His hands took hold of her panties.

She lifted her hips to help, pulling in her legs as he directed until he’d slipped her underwear over her feet and off. She imagined him stuffing them in his pocket, though she couldn’t tell from his movements.

He settled her in his lap, draping her legs atop his own and encouraging her to relax and lay her head against his neck.

“You’ve drawn another gentleman’s attention with your enthusiasm, Alice.”

Surprise and panic jolted her forward, but his hand on her chest pressed her back.

“Shhh. I warned you what would happen if you couldn’t keep quiet, my dear. Shall we show him how wet and ready you are?”

He raised his knees, allowing her legs to fall on the outside of his own, and spread them. Her dress rode up her thighs. Her body lay back, cradled between his chest and his thighs, his erection firm and pressing against her ass through their clothes.

Her heart thumped as a rabbit’s must when danger is near. She was open, exposed, and blind. The music dulled her ability to hear much beyond her own breathing and his. She’d become utterly dependent on Henry. Her safety rested in his hands.

His left hand rubbed her chest, a soothing motion. His right made itself known between her legs, fingers spreading her lips open.

She sensed movement in front of her, and instinct urged her to close her legs, but his knees never wavered. Something stroked between her lips. Not fingers. Henry’s hadn’t moved, and hers worried at the blanket. She whimpered.

“You have a safeword, Alice,” Henry whispered in her ear. “If you cannot trust me, it’s time to stop.”

She took a deep breath through her nose, reaching for calm, and the woodsy scent of bodywash flooded her senses. Jay. Kneeling in front of her, in front of Henry, waiting for her decision.

“No. I trust you.” Her hips flexed forward, a slight motion hampered by Henry’s legs holding her back. “Don’t stop.”

She was filled, then, her first experience of Jay’s cock as he steadily pushed into her. Different from Henry, not as thick but equally welcome.

“Christ, that’s beautiful.”

Jay’s voice, a harsh rasp, and she wondered if he was watching himself slide in and out, his thrusts starting slowly but gaining speed.

Henry startled her, moving his fingers to massage her while Jay fucked her, putting direct pressure above her clit.

Jay’s rhythm wasn’t as attuned to her body, wasn’t guiding her along with it, but the disconnect didn’t matter. Henry’s fingers met her needs before she knew she had them, and his voice coaxed her higher.

“That’s it, Alice, my brave girl, trusting and giving, let go a little more for me, hmm? You’ll fall from a glorious height, and I’ll be right here to catch you.”

Her fingers clutched at the blanket beneath them.

Henry nuzzled her face. “Let go, Alice. There’s nothing you need to control here. I feel the struggle, the tension aching in you, the trembling need in your thighs. Show me what you’re holding back.”

Jay’s rhythm stuttered. He would come soon, she thought, before her mind stopped functioning altogether as Henry’s fingers found the perfect pressure. Her body attempted to surge away from his, held tightly in place and shaking uncontrollably as Jay groaned and thrust forward, pinning her body between theirs.

Exhausted satisfaction left her limp against Henry’s chest. She turned her face into his neck and nuzzled his skin. She couldn’t define his scent the way she could Jay’s, but it soothed her, the mix of dark leather and light citrus and everything else that said
Henry
to her nose.

Her hips shifted as Jay left her, and though she felt empty at the loss of him, Henry’s body against her back was a comfort. He didn’t seem inclined to move despite the erection prodding at her. He hadn’t come. He hadn’t come the other night, either. He claimed she bore no responsibility for his satisfaction, and maybe she didn’t, but leaving him unfulfilled still felt wrong.

He gave her pleasure, and she gave him nothing in return. Trust. Control. Was that all he wanted from her? Maybe putting on a show for Jay, knowing his lover was watching him with her, and seeing the same in return, aroused Henry more than her body did. Maybe that was why he wasn’t fucking her now, despite his erection, and why he wouldn’t come with her. She might be just a friend to him. A friend and now something of a student.

She sensed Jay moving closer.

His mouth touched hers in a brief kiss. “Thank you, Alice.”

His hair brushed her cheek, followed by the sound of another kiss near her ear but not against her skin. He was kissing Henry, and she was missing it.

Her fingers twitched, but she resisted the urge to reach for the blindfold. Henry had already warned her once.

She counted the seconds, listening to the soft sounds as they kissed.

Jay spoke. “Thank you, Henry.”

“You’re welcome, my boy. Now, if you would be so kind–”

“Washcloth, I know. Gotta look out for Alice’s comfort.”

Another kiss, this one to her cheek. The blanket rustled. Her sense of Jay disappeared altogether.

Henry lowered his legs, allowing hers to relax, though she couldn’t close them. He curved his arms around her, one at her hips and the other under her breasts, a tight clasp she welcomed as she giggled.

Henry rubbed his cheek against hers. “Share what’s brought your sweet laughter, my dear, and I’ll be certain to repeat the cause so I might enjoy the effect.” A small thrust of his hips reminded her she rested fully in his lap. Her movements undoubtedly teased him, even if it wasn’t her he wanted to fuck.

“It’s just, probably the two best nights of sex in my life, and…” She laughed again, not ashamed to admit it. He knew from his questionnaire how lackluster her previous sex partners had been. “It’s just I still haven’t even taken my dress off.”

He chuckled beside her ear, the sound deep and rich, and his arms squeezed her. The fabric slipped against her skin again, the oddity that had amused her.

“Aside from the lack of clothing removal, did you enjoy our game tonight?”

She nodded. The blindfold scratched against something. Henry’s cheek or hair, she assumed. “It felt…real.”