“You have no idea how to use this, do you?” I asked.
“Not the knobs, no.”
I turned the machine on. Jonathan picked me up by the waist and put me on top of it. The dryer shook and rattled under me.
“Lean back,” he said, “and spread those knees for me.” He slid a finger under the crotch of my panties. I drew in a breath. His fingers moved from my entrance to my clit. “You’re wet.” He slid his fingers in me. They were cold.
“God, yes.”
He pushed my knees farther apart with his free hand. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want you.”
“You want me, what?”
I wanted his c**k in me. I wanted to come. I wanted him to do whatever he wanted to make me scream and beg for him. I looked at him, his perfect skin mottled with goose bumps, his ni**les hard with cold, hair still wet. For the first time, I noticed the blue tinge around his lips. “I want you to dry off. You look hypothermic.”
I snapped a towel off the line and put it over his head, leaning forward to dry his hair. He let me, drawing me closer as I caressed his head more slowly and gently as he got drier. I hopped off the dryer and ran the towel all over him, chest to back to glorious butt to muscular legs and the tops of his perfect feet. Wrapping the towel around his shoulders, I kissed him.
“I feel better already,” he said.
“You need something warm to drink. I have tea.”
“You? Tea?”
“You can pick a flavor. Come on.”
He picked me up as if he was carrying me over a threshold, brought me to the kitchen, naked but for my underpants, and deposited me on the counter. I leaned to the shelf and got my teapot, then leaned the other way and filled it. I gave it to him, and he put it on the stove.
“The tea’s on the shelf above,” I said. “I have some assortment thingie in the back.”
“Assortment thingie. Let me see.” He found the box and brought it back, but he didn’t open it. I put my legs around his hips, drawing him to me. He stroked my eyebrow with his thumb. “I’m sorry. I was cruel last night. I said terrible things.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And I blocked you. I knew it would hurt you, and I did it anyway. What you sent made me question my actions. I wasn’t ready to question them. I thought I’d done the right thing, protecting you from me. I’m still not convinced otherwise.”
“Does that mean you’re going to leave me again? Because Darren’s going to shit if you do.”
“Fuck Darren.”
“Don’t leave me to protect me, Jonathan. I’m a grown woman, and I’m perfectly capable of ruining my life without your help.”
“Yes, Mistress.” A smile stretched across his face as he chose a black tea and held out the box for me.
“Not kidding.” I snapped out a chamomile. “I mean it. I had to hold my shit together for a meeting the next day, and it was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“But you did it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’m proud of you.” He put his hand on my cheek, and we kissed until the teapot whistled. He shrugged his towel tighter and poured the steaming water into two cups, dropping in the teabags.
“I called Margie,” I said, crossing my legs and waiting for my tea to cool. “She’s getting an entertainment lawyer from her firm to work with me. I’m sorry if that was wrong.”
“It’s fine. She likes you. You’re the eighth sister she never had.”
I cleared my throat. “And you know that thing? That collector’s party?”
He glanced up at me, head bent toward his tea. “The Collector’s Board at L.A. Mod. Of course.”
“Carnival is a donor, so they’re sending Eddie. They want me to go with him. It’s part of presenting me as an artist.” I saw him tense, changing the angle of the towel draped on his shoulders. “It’s business.”
“Absolutely not.”
I was silent as I stared at him over the rim of my cup.
“Monica?”
“Jonathan.”
“He wants to f**k you.”
“I don’t think you’re actually threatened by Eddie Milpas.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll tell you what. You’ll go with me.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh, Jonathan, I’d so much rather go with you.”
“I want you to be warned it’s all Jessica’s crowd. They’re nasty. They’re bored and rich. If you’re with me, you’re a target for their boredom.”
“I don’t care.”
He put his face to mine. I smelled the tea on his breath. “They’ll whisper about you.”
“Fuck them.”
“We found the whole audio on her phone, and we posted it online. It’s gone crazy. Everyone knows.”
I got closer, put my nose next to his, and whispered, “What part of ‘fuck them’ was unclear?”
“That’s my goddess.” He pressed his face to mine, his mouth open only enough to move them in time with me, giving me a kiss made purely of lips and skin. There was sex in the kiss, but only the wafting hint of his breathing. Then he slipped his tongue between my lips, and my spine tingled as if some unholy spirit used my vertebrae as piano keys.
I groaned. My mouth accepted his darting tongue, the command of his lips. I arched when his hand slipped down to my breast, grazing the back of his hand against my hard nipple.
“Take me,” I whispered into his mouth.
“I’ll do as I like,” he said into mine, and I felt the force of his words in the pressure between my legs. The personality change that accompanied play was so stark that the first utterance in his stern, serious voice, made my cleft quiver like a plucked string. “Hands behind you on the counter. One on top of the other.”
I did it. He put his hand at the small of my back and pressed upward until I was arched and facing the ceiling.
“You need to go back to Bordelle.” He pulled my knees apart roughly. “This cotton shit is unworthy.” Opening two drawers, he placed my feet on the edges so my legs stayed open. I heard the clink of silverware. “This thing,” he said before I heard the soft crunch of fabric being cut. He’d sheared my panties with a steak knife. “It offends me.”
“Yes, sir.”
He ran his hand over me. I couldn’t see what he was doing. I felt his dry skin awaken nerve endings, grazing over my br**sts, belly, thighs. Even the slightest pressure sent shards of pain at the black-and-blue base of my rib cage and the soft meat between my legs, a punctuation for the pleasure of his touch.