Page 88 of A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel 1)
All of those things?
There’s a short, sharp flick on my ass that I know without looking came from Rebecca. “Focus,” she orders, and I try to forget Auden and get down to the business at hand instead.
I’ve never done this before, obviously, but my motto for everything from college to drinking is that you can’t go wrong with enthusiasm, so I simply dip my mouth to her and begin.
My lips brush across her curls—they’re soft and fine, damp and clinging to her flesh—and I kiss my way through them, feeling her quiver as I do. There’s a scent to them, disturbed by my wandering mouth the same way petals release their scent when you rub them, but it’s not floral. It’s sweet and a little earthy and unlike anything I’ve ever smelled. I run the tip of my nose along the top curve of her, breathing her in.
It’s an aphrodisiac, because as soon as I do, as soon as my lungs are full of Delphine, my body pulses with heat, responding in kind by slicking my pussy even more, and my mouth waters, it actually waters for the taste of her. I part my lips and let my open mouth slide down, my tongue dipping over her clit and down to her waiting hole.
Delphine cries out—a good cry, I think—given the approvi
ng noise Rebecca makes and the rewarding swat I get on my ass for it.
So I follow her cries, I follow the curl of her toes on my back and the quavering of her belly, and the eventual desperate tugs of her fingers in my hair. I trace my tongue along the inner folds and the rim of her vagina, and lap up the tart-sweet taste of her body, and then I move up and suckle her clit until she thrashes in Becket’s lap. I learn what makes her moan and what makes her sigh, and when to do what to create the perfect balance of tension and languor. I alternate between balancing on my elbows so that I can stroke the sensitive skin of her inner thighs and sliding my hands underneath her so I can cup and fondle the generous curves of her ass and angle her pussy up to my mouth.
Both drive her wild, make her writhe and make her skin glisten with the fine, misty sweat of good sex, and then Rebecca leans down and brushes her hair from her damp forehead.
“Do you want Poe’s fingers?” she asks softly. “They might make you come, if she puts them inside you.”
For the first time since I crawled between her legs, I feel the wrong kind of tension steal over Delphine. Her thighs stop quivering and go stiff; her belly freezes along with her breath. All from the idea of my fingers inside her.
“I—I don’t—” her voice is panicked, distant-sounding, as if she’s getting smaller and smaller inside of herself. “I don’t think I can—”
“Shhh,” Rebecca soothes, moving closer and dropping kisses on Delphine’s forehead. “Shhh now. This is for you, this little slut is all yours to use however you like. You don’t have to have anything you don’t want, ever, ever. Not while I’m here, not ever again.”
I look up just in time to see the look Delphine gives Rebecca and the look Rebecca gives her right back. A look full of fierce determination and utter trust, made hot and sparkling by the light of the fire.
How can these be the same two women who fight literally all the fucking time?
That’s the power of kink, I guess, or maybe even ritual space. The outside world and the past don’t have to exist here: there’s no logic but the here-logic, the now-logic, and nothing else matters.
Rebecca keeps her eyes on Delphine as she reaches over and flicks my arm. The message is so clear she doesn’t even need to speak it aloud. Back to work, little slut.
I return my hands to Delphine’s thighs so I can gentle her and soothe her as I lick and suck. So that she can feel cherished and treasured as my tongue and lips—and yes, even the careful tugs and scrapes of my teeth—coax her tighter and tighter and higher and higher.
She comes with a long, low moan that pulls deep strings in my belly, her thighs closing around my ears and her hands shoving into my hair and holding me fast to her, as if I would move away when she’s contracting so sexily against my mouth, when she’s giving me more and more of the tart-sweet taste of her.
After Delphine gradually comes down, her body relaxing into a stretch of satisfaction, Rebecca urges me back to where I was. I nestle between Auden and Saint, who are near-identical pillars of male torment right now, hard and flushed-faced.
“Do you want fingers?” Rebecca asks, leaning down so that only I can hear the question.
“Yes,” I whisper eagerly.
“Do you know if you still have a hymen?” she asks, still very quietly. “Her fingers may hurt, if you do. There might be blood.”
I can actually feel my eyes light up as she says this, and then she rolls her eyes.
“I forgot who I was talking to,” she mutters to herself. “Fingers and hurt it is.”
I lay my head back onto the blankets, closing my eyes and taking a few deep breaths. I don’t know what to expect or how to feel, but I do know the way I felt with Auden’s hand in my panties was enough to push me to the brink. I’m not even sure how I’ll handle anything more.
Warm fingertips brush hair away from my forehead, and I open my eyes to see that Saint has moved to his side next to me, leaning on one elbow and searching my face while he carefully caresses any tickling hairs away from my skin.
“Are you ready?” he asks. “Are you okay?”
“I am,” I say. “Are you?”
He takes a moment to answer, and in that moment, the fire jumps, and I see his coffee-hued eyes steeped with shameful lust. “I am. I’m more than okay.”
