Please (24 page)

Elizabeth gasped. Maintaining eye contact, Sebastian slid his mouth up and down her finger, sucking gently. There seemed to be a nerve running from her finger directly to her clitoris. Each time Sebastian increased the pressure of his mouth on her finger, she felt a throb between her legs.

Sebastian slid her finger deeper into his mouth. He clamped down on the base of it with his teeth, light enough not to break the skin, but hard enough to make her inhale sharply, a spike of adrenaline shooting into her bloodstream. A smile lifted the corners of his eyes and he released his teeth a fraction, scraping up the sides of her finger. He let her hand go and, eyes glinting with mischief, stuck out his tongue. On its pink tip dangled her wedding ring, its small but brilliant diamonds twinkling under the hall lights.

He spat it into his hand and tucked it into the front pocket of his jeans, saying, “You’re not going to need this.”

Her body was a thicket of nerves and desire, but her heart was torn. Her wedding ring,
painstakingly chosen by Steve from a jewelry shop in Iowa City with the help of both Chase and Emily in no less than three trips, was almost part of Elizabeth’s body. She felt more than naked without it. She felt exposed and vulnerable, a feeling both frightening and strangely freeing.

Sebastian was still looking at her through the space between the door and the frame, as if he was measuring her, assessing her.

“Well,” she said, tossing her hair, trying to appear bolder than she felt. “Are you going to let me in?”

He smiled, running a slow tongue over his teeth.
“Not yet,” he said, reaching through the space to grab the waist of her jeans, pulling her to him, fast and hard.

“
Get down on your knees,” he whispered, before letting her go

She took a step back, looked left and right, biting her lower lip, unsure.

Sebastian lowered his zipper, slowly, maintaining eye contact. She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes flicked down to his hard cock and back up again, a different look in her eyes. Lust. She held the doorframe and lowered herself to her knees, looking right and left again.

“
Hurry,” she said. But he didn’t. He slowly stepped closer, putting his fist between the door and the frame again, sliding his cock into the crack so just the head was on the other side. She looked up at him one last time, her eyes almost pleading with him to stop her. Then she wrapped her mouth around him.

He let out a deep groan, pushing himself into her. She sucked harder, wanting more of him, wanting to devour him. Then she heard the chime of the elevator.

Sebastian pulled out and shut the door to open the deadbolt. When he opened it again, she was on her feet. He pulled her into the room and slammed the door behind her, pushing her against it. Grabbing her hair with both hands, he kissed her, his tongue filling her mouth like his cock had moments before. She reached down for it, desperate to feel its hard smooth heat, but he stopped her, holding her wrists over her head as he kissed her and rubbed his naked cock against the skin of her stomach. She breathed in his distinctive fresh and earthy smell, detecting a sharp, sour scent on his breath. Alcohol. It was ten in the morning.

“
God, I want to rip off your clothes and fuck every part of you,” he whispered. Holding her wrists with one hand, he slid the other down the front of her jeans, slipping his middle finger up inside her. She writhed against him, rhythmically, feeling the crescendo building, her breaths coming shorter and sharper. Sebastian stopped, suddenly, dropping her arms and stepping away from her. His face was flushed and she could see the pulse pounding in his neck.

“
Delayed gratification, remember,” he said with a smirk, zipping his fly as he walked away from her. She leaned against the door, panting as she watched him sit on the sofa and pick up his drink from the glass coffee table. He held it out to her, offering.

She shook her head, realizing that she had never seen Sebastian drinking like this before. When they had gone out in New York, he had always ordered a drink, but he never seemed to finish it. And now, here he was before noon, sucking back scotch like it was orange juice. She pushed the thought out of her head
.

“
So,” she said, wracking her brain for a normal topic of conversation, “you were able to get out of shooting for a few days? What did you tell everyone?”

An irritated look crossed Sebastian
’s face. “Fuck everyone. Fuck Eric. Who does he think he is? I’m the star of his cheesy show. If I need a day or two off, they can shoot around me. What’s he going to do? Fire me?” He took a long swallow, looking at her over the rim of the glass, the fire that had ignited in his eyes mellowing to a smolder. “I don’t want to talk about work.” A beat. He looked her up and down. “You’re wearing the boots,” he observed.

She nodded. They were the boots he had bought her in New York. High, black, shiny patent leather with a stiletto heel. The same ones she had worn as she knelt in front of Brandon while Sebastian took her from behind. Her fee
t ached like hell.

“
You should have worn a skirt. I want to see your legs in them.” He looked at her levelly. There was no mistaking his tone. “Now.”

Elizabeth
’s pulse quickened. She strolled toward him, slowly, shedding her leather jacket and pulling her sweater over her head. She felt strangely nervous and giddy. She stopped about a foot away from him and unzipped her jeans, sliding her hands inside them, over her hips. Then she turned her back to him and bent at the waist, pushing her butt up and out as she slid her jeans down over her thighs and calves. She had been practicing this move in front of the mirror in her hotel rooms, so she knew she didn’t look as ridiculous as she felt.

“
Mm,” Sebastian’s voice was husky. He reached over to run a hand up the cool leather of the boot and the warm flesh of her thigh. “Now show me. Show me your cunt.”

It always gave Elizabeth a little frisson of excitement when he talked like this. She and Steve had an unofficial no-talking rule in the bedroom, as if they started talking dirty it would rapidly descend into farce. But Sebastian liked to talk, the dirtier the better.

Elizabeth’s panties slithered to the floor. She looked over her shoulder at Sebastian. His eyes were glazed with alcohol and lust.

“
Come here,” Sebastian ordered. But Elizabeth ignored him, striding into the bedroom instead. She sat on the tufted bench at the foot of the bed, leaning her elbows on it. Then she spread her legs and arched her back, letting her head drop behind her.

She heard Sebastian come into the room and lifted her head to see him towering over her.

He had stripped off his sweater and his pecs and rippling abs were on display. She could just see the tip of his erection over the waist of his jeans. The look on his face was pure lust. She felt a surge of moisture between her legs.

Sebastian slipped his hands under her buttocks and lifted her hips up, until she was practically standing on her shoulders. The blood rushed to her head and she almost started laughing when she felt his tongue plunging into her, stiff as a hard-on. He thrust his tongue into her, again and again, then ran it in tiny circles around her clitoris. She was about come or pass out, she wasn
’t sure which, when he bit her, hard.

“
Ow!” she yelled. He lowered her to the bed, the expression on his face shocked, either by what he had done or her reaction to it.

She curled into a ball on her side, her hands between her legs.
“That hurt,” she said, touching herself to see if there was any blood. There wasn’t.

He climbed on top of her, forcing her onto her back, pulling her arms out from between her legs and pinning them on either side of her head. He wore his puppy dog look, eyes large and liquid. Bending over her, he kissed her lips softly, almost chastely.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He looked like he meant it.

She smiled at him.
“That’s okay. But enough with the female circumcision, alright?”

He kissed her again, more urgently this time, lowering himself onto her.
“You just make me so crazy, Elizabeth. God, I love you,” he said, into her hair.

“
I know,” Elizabeth said. “Me too.” But even as the words left her lips, she knew that love was not the right word. She was addicted to Sebastian. It was as simple and brutal as that. She turned her head to the side, letting him suck her neck, feeling the warmth building between her legs again. That’s when she noticed the array on the mahogany bedside table. Two sets of handcuffs. A blindfold. An enormous, grotesquely life-like dildo. And curled, like a slim black snake, a whip.

Elizabeth inhaled sharply. Sebastian felt her tense and gripped her wrists with one hand, pushing them above her head.

“Sebastian,” Elizabeth said, her voice tinged with warning. He smiled at her sweetly and reached for the handcuffs. She heard them snap shut with an ominous click, connecting her wrists to the wrought iron headboard.

Sebastian stared at her like a hunter closing in on its prey. Elizabeth felt a thrill of fear mingled with excitement. She had that edge
-of-the-cliff feeling again, like she was standing on a precipice with Sebastian by her side, urging her to jump.

As if he sensed her ambivalence, he touched a finger to her lips to quiet her.
“Don’t worry. You are going to like this.”

Just then they heard a tinkling chime. It was the doorbell.

“Oh, good,” he said, his eyes narrowing, his mouth curving in a dangerous smile. “They’re here.”

*

Elizabeth lay on the smooth cotton sheets, staring at her still-booted toes and feeling slightly ridiculous. Sebastian had snaked off the bed and closed the door that divided the bedroom from the sitting room behind him with a wink, ignoring Elizabeth’s hoarsely whispered, “
Who’s
here?”

He had been talking with them now for over fifteen minutes. Seventeen and a half
, according to the clock on the bedside table that didn’t hold the collection of sex toys. They were women. That was all Elizabeth knew. And Sebastian was pulling his flirtatious routine with them. She could tell by the sound of their laughter, prolonged and wicked.

Who were they, and what were they doing here, she wondered? More to the point, what was she, mother, wife, somewhat respected professional, doing in a swanky hotel room chained up like
a victim of the inquisition while her lover exchanged cocktail banter with some other women? The buzz she had felt in Sebastian’s presence had worn off and now all she felt was trapped, humiliated and cold.

Elizabeth flipped over onto her stomach, trying to kick and wriggle some of the bedspread on top of her. Then she heard the bedroom door open.

“Well, well, well,” a female voice said. She felt long-nailed fingertips sliding up the back of her leg. She twisted her neck, looking over her shoulder to see who was touching her.

“
Hello, honey-girl,” the woman said, her fingertips now gliding over her buttocks and onto the small of her back, smiling knowingly, her voice a lilting combination of West Indies and west Birmingham. Long silky black hair hung down past her brown bare shoulders, and she was dressed entirely in skin-sucking black PVC, from bustier to thigh-high boots. She had one of those enviably ageless faces and could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five.

Elizabeth stared, speechless
, as she was joined by another woman, fair as the first was dark, her hair as obviously fake as the birthday-balloon breasts straining against her white-leather tube dress. She wrapped her pale arm around the first woman’s shoulders and gave her a long, lingering kiss.

“
Hello, darlink,” she said, nuzzling her friend but smiling at Elizabeth. “Are you ready to play?”

The dark woman
’s full red lips split into a wide grin, revealing a sizable gap between her front teeth. “Look, lovey,” she gestured with one inch-long red talon to the bedside table. “They’ve brought toys.”

She picked up the enormous dildo and, eyes glued to Elizabeth
’s, caressed it suggestively.

Elizabeth felt her cheeks burning and her pulse racing.
“Sebastian!” she yelled.

The two women laughed, the black woman
’s a throaty chuckle, the blond’s a high whinny, as Sebastian came up behind them, looping his arms around their waists. He was sniffing, and his nose and the skin around his eyes was strangely pink. He smiled down at her, his eyes lit with an inner fire.

“
What?” he asked, his face a caricature of innocence.

The blond had started stroking him through his jeans, while the dark woman had put down the dildo and was sucking on his earlobe.

“I need to talk to you,” Elizabeth hissed, sure her face must be the color of the lipstick marks the black woman was leaving on Sebastian’s skin. “Alone!”

A smirk twisted momentarily on Sebastian
’s face before he replaced it with a neutral stare.

“
Ladies, ladies,” he said softly, disengaging himself from their eager hands and lips. “Give us a sec?” He nodded his head in the direction of the sitting room. Pouting comically, the women withdrew. “Help yourself to the goods,” he called after them. He absentmindedly sniffed, smearing traces of white powder off his nose, before turning his attention to Elizabeth.