The Muse (17 page)

Kate waited until she was fully dressed to raise a final objection. “This is cruel and unusual, you know. I’m honestly not sure what it will do to my writing process. Like…really.”

Erato stood and walked to the door, patting Kate’s sore bottom one final time as she passed. “I have complete faith in you.”

Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Kate grimaced at the faint echo of pleasure that radiated from her wet center. She wanted so badly to coax the sensation to the front, to bring herself to the peak—

“And Kate?” The sternness in Erato’s voice snapped her out of her fantasy, fast. “Touch yourself and the goal gets bumped up another three thousand words. I’m not kidding.” After a beat, authoritarian Erato melted away, replaced by the sweet, sexy muse she’d come to love. “Now write! I’ll make fruit salad.”

With that, Erato swept out of the room as confidently as she’d come in, taking a piece of Kate’s pride with her. Resigned, Kate returned to her office chair and sat down cautiously, all too aware of how deliciously sore she was. It took every ounce of her self-control not to clench her thighs together and rock subtly on the chair,
anything
for a little thrill. Only her fear of Erato’s omnipotence—and a sense that her muse’s creativity knew no bounds when it came to discipline—stopped her.

Kate inhaled deeply and stared at the monitor, willing her mind back to where it had been when Olive’s first text came in.
Distracting, indeed.

The next four days passed in a blur. Kate wrote all day long, stopping only to eat, visit the restroom, and take an occasional nap. Although Erato tried to convince her to take more frequent breaks, even attempting to get her to go for a walk in the local park, Kate maintained a laser focus on her goal. Nothing was more important than the next thirteen thousand words of her writing career.

She was able to knock out another two thousand words after recovering from her spanking, followed by another thirty-four hundred the next day. Day three of Operation: Olive floated by like a fever dream, and when Erato finally dragged her to bed at the end of it, she was thrilled to discover that she’d logged an astounding five thousand words. The fourth day was distressingly unproductive, as she spent most of her morning paying her monthly bills and answering important emails, but she still managed to write eleven hundred words by the time she forced herself to call it a night.

That meant she had only fifteen hundred words to go. A mere fifteen hundred, and she would be set free. She would have permission to contact Olive. She just hoped that Olive hadn’t lost interest in meeting up.

Unfortunately, the chapter in which she would finally reach her goal started out with what she hoped would be a smoking-hot—albeit very secretive, and therefore hurried—sex scene between Rose and Molly in Rose’s office. Molly had just dropped by Rose’s workplace at the end of the day for an unannounced visit, armed with a plan to appeal to Rose’s sense of propriety and get her to agree to make theirs a strictly professional relationship. She knows perfectly well that Rose’s mother would flip out about a romance between them and doesn’t want to hurt an old woman she’s come to care about. What Molly didn’t anticipate when planning this breakup, however, was the sexy, tailored suit that Rose wore so well—the one that weakened her resolve the moment she walked into her office.

So that meant that right now, on the morning of day five of her thirteen-thousand-word goal sexless writing marathon, Rose was
just
about to pull Molly in for a passionate kiss that Kate was almost certain would end with Molly laid out across the desk. There would be licking, sucking, fingering. As she considered all the wonderful possibilities, Kate gripped the edge of her desk and prepared for the challenge ahead.

Writing sex made Kate want to fuck. It was always difficult to propel herself mentally to the place she needed to be in order to craft a love scene and
not
walk away from her laptop to take care of business. Today was a million times worse than usual. She hadn’t had an orgasm for over four days. Her whole body was coiled tight, and although her mind had remained surprisingly sharp despite her preoccupation with sexual release, the task of imagining all the different ways her beautiful heroines could bring each other pleasure was torturous.

She had no choice but to power through this and just write. A truly talented author would use her frustration—and the increasingly lascivious thoughts it triggered—to her advantage. If she could make her readers feel even
half
as turned on as she did, she’d consider the scene a masterpiece.

Kate closed her eyes, fingers on the keyboard, and placed herself in Molly’s shoes. She was the point-of-view character in this chapter, so her perspective needed to dominate. Molly was there to end their sexual entanglement for good. She was determined, though weakened by the sight of Rose in business attire. The confident, powerful image Rose projects reminds Molly of the first night they met, when Rose rescued her from that blind date.

Confident. Powerful. Those qualities had attracted Molly to Rose in the first place. It made sense that those qualities should govern during this scene in which Rose easily persuades her not to end their sexual relationship. Kate had a flash of two women—one in a tailored business suit, the other in a light, flowing dress—locked in a heated embrace. Rose would initiate the kiss and escalate the encounter to the next level. They’d kiss, and then Rose would pull away to lock the office door.

Satisfied that she now had a little direction, Kate opened her eyes and began to type. She rocked almost imperceptibly against her chair as she did, enjoying the light friction on her clit. After testing the waters over the past few days, she’d concluded that this level of self-stimulation was permissible, bless Erato’s vicious heart. The words poured out of her steadily, coming together like magic to create one of the most passionate kisses she’d ever written. Aroused by her own imagery, she had to stop and breathe with her characters when Rose finally broke away to secure the office door. She gave them—and herself—a moment of respite via an exchange of dialogue. Molly asks what Rose is doing. Rose: “Reminding you how good we are together.”

Kate stopped typing and checked her word count. Only five hundred and two! Surely she’d managed twice that. How the hell did Erato expect her to churn out another thousand at the end of such a grueling stretch of abstinence? Annoyed, she took a drink of water, then a bite of tangerine, and tried to slow the rapid-fire fantasies burning through her brain. Rose could do
so
many things to Molly on a big wooden desk. First she should really decide if Molly would end up on her back, seated on the edge, or simply bent over the surface. And would Rose use her mouth, her fingers, or something else to make Molly come? If
she
were Rose, she’d fuck Molly
so hard
. If she were Molly, frankly, she’d
want
to be fucked hard. She’d take it any way it was given to her.

That probably all went without saying.
Fuck,
her clit hurt. If she didn’t come soon, she might embarrass herself.

Closing her eyes again, she imagined Olive sitting on her desk in place of her laptop, legs spread, skirt pushed up over her hips. If she had the woman she wanted here with her right now, what would
she
do?

Taste her.
Kate groaned as she imagined pulling Olive’s panties to the side to expose her wetness. Though she’d like to think she’d take time to tease Olive thoroughly, in her current state, she wouldn’t. She’d
devour
that pussy. That was most likely true for Rose, too. They were in her office, at her workplace. End of the day or not, Rose wouldn’t draw things out. No, she’d dive right in and feast.

Shuddering at the visceral image of going down on a woman planted firmly at the forefront of her mind, Kate wrote Rose guiding Molly over to the desk and helping her sit on the edge. After she wrote the part where Rose pushed Molly’s skirt up over her hips, then yanked her panties out of the way, she had to stop, plant her hands on the surface of her desk, and gasp for air. She had no idea if this scene would read back later nearly as smoking hot as it felt to her now, but she expected a lot of excited readers if it did.

Another word-count check revealed that eight hundred and fifty remained. Obviously she’d have to forge ahead into the thick of the action, even if thinking clearly was becoming more difficult. With a determined shake of her head, Kate hunkered down to decide how the rest of this coupling should play out. She could simply write a few more sentences detailing Rose’s oral technique and Molly’s quiet, enthusiastic pleasure, but if she had Olive in this position, no way would she stop at simply going down on her. Not with the woman she craved spread open right there in front of her. No, she’d slide at least one finger into Olive, maybe two. Maybe even sneak another down to tease her ass. If Olive were here, she’d want to possess her completely.

Swept away by the vivid imagery playing out in her mental movie theater, Kate fought not to forget the importance of realism in her love scenes. She didn’t want to describe something that real human beings would have a difficult time doing—and enjoying—lest she yank savvy readers out of the erotic mood she’d labored to create. As she’d never actually performed oral sex on a woman while seated at her desk, let alone simultaneously fingered her pussy and touched her ass, she wasn’t totally certain it was feasible.

Rolling back from her desk about a foot, she tried to imagine Olive sitting there in front of her. The height seemed okay for oral sex. Maybe. She bent slightly, as though performing cunnilingus on a make-believe friend, then raised her hand and extended two fingers. She moved them back and forth in the air, leaning down to where she
thought
Molly’s pussy would be located. Could Rose even pull this off? All of a sudden, she wasn’t sure this scene would work the way she’d wanted.

Kate growled in frustration. Eight hundred and fifty
fucking
words left, and she lacked the mental clarity to even choreograph a simple sex scene. She brought her hands to her face and released another enraged noise, pissed off that she was even dealing with this. Why the hell was she letting Erato deny her sexual release? For that matter, why allow her “muse” to dictate
anything
about her life and habits? She was a grown-ass woman, which meant she could masturbate if she wanted to, damn it. While she freely admitted that the denial thing had apparently worked for her for the first twelve thousand one hundred and fifty words of Erato’s insane homework assignment, now that she was so close to her goal—and attempting to depict her characters getting laid—it just wasn’t working for her anymore.

The quiet knock on her office door barely surprised her. By this point, she was well accustomed to the way Erato always seemed to appear whenever Kate needed her most—and, sometimes, when she wanted her the least. Shoving down her anger at Erato’s extreme motivational techniques, she said, “Come in.”

Erato set Kate’s pulse racing by walking into the room wearing a light, flowing dress that matched her cerulean eyes. The style and cut were very much like the dress she’d imagined Molly wearing to Rose’s office, and immediately, Kate focused on Erato’s thighs. How would it feel to shove that dress up and expose her panties? To push them aside and see how shiny and pink and ready Erato was at the thought of her lips and tongue? She glanced at the surface of her desk, then Erato, trying to judge the realness of her scene now that she had an actual, live female body in the room. If only Erato could help her out and just—

“You seem frustrated. Do you need anything from me?”

Kate frowned. If she asked Erato for help with choreography, would she be accused of trying to circumvent the rules of their current arrangement? Given that she didn’t plan to ask to be touched, she didn’t think so. Still, she was frightened to incur another punishment, especially if it meant that the finish line would be moved back even farther.

Erato offered a sympathetic smile. “My darling, you’ve been doing so well. Honestly, you’re moving faster than I expected—and I couldn’t be happier with your progress. So please don’t be afraid to ask whatever you want to ask. I promise that, at the worst, I’ll say no.”

Fleetingly, Kate wondered what would happen if she asked for an orgasm to help her finish this scene. Just a tiny one, to get by. If the worst Erato would do was say no…but Kate shook off the idea with a determined sigh. Her pride demanded that she ride out the rest of her sentence in silence. She would
not
beg. Not for this. Being taken over Erato’s knee had stripped away far too much of her dignity; not pleading for a reprieve was one way she could protect what was left. Pivoting back to her original plan, Kate said, “I’m having a hard time picturing the mechanics of this sex scene I’m writing, and I’m worried it might involve contortions that will distract readers who are better than me at evaluating these kinds of logistics.”

“Just to reassure you, I’ve never read anything you’ve written that wasn’t entirely possible, given the right people and situation. That tells me you’re just fine with logistics.” Moving closer, Erato trailed her fingers along the side of Kate’s neck, making her shiver. “That said, never hesitate to ask me for help blocking a love scene. I know how important it is to get these details right, and believe me, assisting with choreography is one of my favorite parts of the job.” She clapped her hands and gazed around Kate’s workspace expectantly. “Now where do you want me?”

Kate supposed that she shouldn’t be
too
surprised by Erato’s easy acquiescence. Before the texting drama and their disagreements about Olive’s potential distraction level, Erato had fulfilled her every need with unprecedented eagerness. Using Erato as a living model for this crazy-making erotic scene—even if it
felt
opportunistic to her—met a legitimate writing need. It might honestly help her complete this last stretch of writing, and Erato obviously knew that. Otherwise she wouldn’t have agreed.