Strangers of the Night

  “Someone you trusted,” she whispered.

  The muscles beneath her lips jumped and tensed. “...yes.”

  She looked up at him as she took his shaft in her fist and brought the head of his cock to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “We all have scars.”

  Willa took him inside her mouth then. His moan encouraged her to take him deeper, as deep as she could. His cock nudged the back of her throat before she released him, adding a brief extra bit of suction on the head. He was already slippery with sweet precome.

  When she pressed her teeth to his sensitive flesh, Phoenix cried out, but not in protest. He fucked against the scrape of her teeth. One hand went to her hair to urge her on. Gripping his shaft hard, Willa looked up at him. Warning without words. He understood her at once, taking away his hand. Holding them at his sides, muscles bunched and taut with the strain he was obviously feeling in not touching her.

  Again, she pressed him inside her mouth and gave him the edge of her teeth. Her hands ran up the insides of his thighs, finding heat and the sweet spots she knew just how and where to pinch. Lightly, enough to make him jump but not to leave a mark. She let his cock slide free of her mouth, slick with her saliva.

  “You should tell me to stop,” she said.

  Phoenix looked down at her with glazed eyes. “I don’t want you to stop.”

  An electric jolt sparked through her. Every nerve. Every muscle. Right to the center of her. Her cunt clenched, clit throbbing. Her head fell back a little, lips parting on a sigh.

  “Get on the bed,” she said. He did obediently, on his back. She watched him for a second, then tapped his foot. “Wider.”

  He spread himself for her, showing her everything. The small red spot from where she’d pinched him sent another thrill through her. She stood, shedding her clothes swiftly, not a striptease even though he watched her as though she were putting on the sexiest of shows. Naked, she moved up the bed between his legs, running her hands up and over him to rest on his hip bones.

  She had been with men who proclaimed they wanted to obey, and a lot of them meant it, at least as long as she was asking them to do what they wanted to do. She’d been with men who’d said they wanted her to hurt them, but only so long as she did it in the way they wanted her to. Most of the time it didn’t matter. She met with them for a night, never more than two, and she did what she wanted to them and got what she needed, and never much cared if she’d left them unsatisfied.

  There was something different about this man. The way he responded to the simple commands and to the small but precise pains she’d deliberately inflicted. It made her want to hurt him, but it also made her want to please him.

  When she climbed over him to straddle his face, Phoenix was already waiting with his mouth open, tongue out. His hands cupped her ass, bringing her closer. She cried out from that first slow, exploratory lick and put her hands on the wall. Fingers curling. She rocked her hips into his kiss.

  For long minutes, the only sounds were the softness of his tongue on her and Willa’s murmured instructions to him of exactly where she needed it. Phoenix’s rising hum of arousal. The room had not been warm when they entered it but she was hot now, straining and tense with desire that rose and teased and softened under his expert caresses. Sweat slicked beneath her thighs on his chest, and sometimes she could not stop herself from squeezing her thighs against his head, from grinding on his mouth before she relaxed and allowed him to keep working her flesh.

  There were many times when she took this sort of pleasure hard and fast, fierce. When she’d used a man’s mouth and tongue to get off by orchestrating every motion, fingers in his hair to tug his head where she wanted and needed it. Now, although it was taking her a very long time to reach the pinnacle, she felt no desperation to get there. No lingering feeling that she needed to finish soon or he would be bored or give up on making her come, or that she needed to finish quickly so they could get to his part of the pleasure.

  Willa rode him leisurely, making it clear when she wanted or needed something different but also when he was doing it exactly right. She let him set the pace. Slow, slow, then speeding up with flickering strokes of his tongue. Dipping lower to slide in her folds and sample her sweetness, something that made her cry out and press her forehead to the wall as her body jumped under the sudden sensations.

  Then, finally, there it was. No going back. Nothing stopping this rising crash of pleasure that overtook her and made her shake. A wordless stream of sounds slipped from her mouth. Her eyes had been closed while she concentrated, but now she looked down between her thighs to watch him bring her to orgasm.

  He looked at her in that last moment when even though her eyes were open, she was not quite seeing the real world. She lost herself in his gaze, her hand going gently to his bright hair but not to tug or yank or move him. Her touch was reverent, recognizing this moment between them even as she lost the ability to focus on anything else.

  Ecstasy burst inside her. She cried out again, something more like his name this time. Shuddering, she let the climax rocket through her. Phoenix pressed his lips against her, feeling the ripples of aftershocks. After another moment or so, Willa rolled off him and onto the pillow beside him. She felt light-headed and drained, empty, almost aching in the aftermath of the explosion of desire.

  Now he would roll on top of her, she thought, knowing she would allow it. She wanted it, even, to feel the thickness of his cock inside her still-throbbing cunt. It would be a different kind of pleasure, one she was willing to grant him since he’d been so, so fucking good with his mouth.

  Phoenix did not roll on top of her. He turned his face to look at her. She looked at him. They studied each other in silence, until she propped herself on her elbow to look into his eyes.

  “What do you want?” she asked quietly.

  Phoenix closed his eyes. “I want you to hurt me.”

  * * *

  She was like something out of a dream...or one of those movies he looked up on the internet when the night was late and his cock was hard without anyone around to help him relieve it.

  Phoenix could not ever recall being the target of such a seduction. Women liked him. Men, too. He’d never had any trouble getting laid, and he’d never had to nudge anyone toward it.

  “Please,” he added when she made no move toward him. He could still taste her and swept his lower lip with his tongue to get every drop of her flavor. His cock was still so hard it cast a shadow. A silver string of precome had left a puddle on his belly.

  Willa sat up. “That’s what you want? Really?”

  “Yes.” He wanted to touch himself. He could come within a minute or so, the way he felt right now, but he wanted something more than an orgasm at the moment.

  She straddled his hips in a second. The flash of her hand cracked across his face, rocking his head. Fuck, yes, that was it. The bright flare of pain sent an answering shock of pleasure straight to the base of his cock. Something deep inside him pulsed and throbbed. She smacked him again, then grabbed his chin to force him to look at her.

  “You want that?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  Her gaze never leaving his, her lips pressed together, Willa dug her knuckles into his sides. Harder. Harder. She ground them between his ribs until he bucked and writhed and gasped out a plea; it was not for her stop, but she did. He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes, but now he opened them.

  She was looking at him with something like wonder.

  “This,” she breathed, raking her nails over his belly and his thighs so that her fingers slipped between his legs and she dug her nails into the soft skin there.

  He arched, groaning. “Yes, yes, yes...”

  She began to work him, then. Pinching fingers. Scratching nails. When she bent to take a mouthful of his flesh between her teeth and bite
him, just above the hip on the opposite side of the flames, his cock leaped. The throb of orgasm swelled inside him, but he didn’t spill. He muttered her name.

  “Oh my god,” she breathed over the marks of her teeth. Her voice shook. She licked the pain, then kissed it. “Oh my god, Phoenix...”

  Gripping his cock in her fist, she spit on it to wet him. Again, he almost came, but the clutch of her fingers was too tight. She smiled when she stroked him, and he lost himself in the wickedness of her glee.

  She worked his cock, up and down, sometimes twisting around the head while he bucked. She shifted, kneeling at his side so that she could keep stroking him as she used the other hand to dig her nails again into all the places she was discovering made him leap.

  “You want to come?” she asked him.

  It was hard to find the words, but he managed. “Yes.”

  “Please?”

  “Yes, please...fuck!”

  Without letting up the steady stroking, she also slapped his face again. Again. The crack of her hand on him was bright and shining—the truth was that she was not actually hitting him hard enough to do more than sting. He could take so much more, and yet something in the deliberate way she held back from using full force was as erotic as anything had ever been.

  She bent to kiss him—the first time her mouth had been on his. Her hand kept up the steady pace. He was thrusting, aching, writhing. Her other hand went to the back of his neck to dig her nails into him there. He gave her his tongue, and she bit it.

  It sent him over the edge. He jetted into her fist, incredibly feeling every spurt. His orgasm boiled out of him, wrenching every drop from his balls and spilling into her hand. Onto his belly. She had not let go of his tongue with her teeth, and the pain sent wave after wave of pleasure shuddering through him until, at last, he was spent and she sat back with his softening cock in her fist.

  “So pretty,” she said, and Phoenix thought if love were a thing he might ever have found it possible to feel, he’d have fallen into it right then.

  Chapter 5

  The orgasm he’d given her had left her sated and weak, but what had just happened had coiled her up inside again, tight. Not so much that she needed another climax, Willa thought, although she would not have refused one. It was something else, a feeling that pricked her like the painted thorns on the wall behind the bed would have if they’d been real.

  She’d gone to the bathroom and brought back a warm damp cloth for him, pleased and amused that he’d allowed it without protest. She thought it was more that he hadn’t managed to rouse himself enough to get up rather than any expectation on his part, but it satisfied her to take care of him that way, after what he’d allowed her to do.

  She thought he would sleep and she would leave, but Phoenix had not yet closed his eyes. They weren’t cuddling, but she sat with one hand on his chest, feeling the slowing beat of his heart. She caressed him, touching the scarlet marks her nails had left.

  “You’ll bruise here,” she said quietly, touching him in one spot. Lower, to the place where she’d bitten him. “There, too.”

  “That’s all right.”

  She ran her hands over him some more, not trying to arouse him. Exploring. Marveling. At the light touch of her hand on his side, Phoenix shuddered. Willa stroked his tattoo. She generally had no opinion one way or another about ink, but it was obvious whoever had done this piece was a true artist. The design was simple but elegant, not cartoonish. The shading magnificent. It looked like real fire.

  At this angle, she couldn’t see the scar, but she let her fingers drift around his back to touch the edge of it. “Was this...?”

  He closed his eyes, remembering. “It wasn’t meant to cut so deep. She didn’t want to. I thought I knew what I was doing. It was bad. There was a lot of blood.”

  “Look at me.”

  He did with obvious reluctance but responded to the quiet command in her voice. He sat up when she gestured and put his back against the wall while she knelt between his legs. Willa studied him. She’d come next door in the hopes of getting laid, because over time she’d learned that satisfying her body could sometimes—although not always—lead to quiet in her mind. The scene with Brady in the library had left her restless and out of sorts, so she’d sought the comfort of a seduction.

  “Tell me about what happened,” she said.

  At first Phoenix shook his head. She would have let it go. After all, it wasn’t like she owned him. He was not required to obey her, not that Willa had any idea of what it would’ve been like if any of those untruths had been fact. She’d had lots of sex with men who got off on pain, because she’d learned she got off on giving it. She’d never actually been in a relationship with one. It had been a long, long time since she’d been in a relationship at all. She was just about to get up and start getting dressed when he spoke.

  “I didn’t love her,” he said. “Maybe that’s why it went wrong.”

  Curious, Willa leaned a little closer. “Did she love you?”

  “She said she did. I didn’t believe her. I should have.” He shrugged, looking away. “She said she would do anything for me. She meant more than just fucking me, I’m sure, but that was all I had for her. She said it would be enough.”

  “It’s not usually enough,” Willa said.

  Phoenix gave a low laugh. “Not for most people.”

  “So, she said she wanted you enough to settle for sex. And then what?”

  “I told her what I wanted. What I needed. At first she thought I was joking. I mean, who would think—”

  “That a guy like you would want a woman to hurt him? That he’d get off on it?” Willa shook her head.

  Phoenix nodded with a smile and leaned his head back against the wall. He lifted one hand over his head to touch the painted wall behind him, tracing a line of briars with his fingers even though he couldn’t possibly see them to know where they were. “Yet there are so many people who get off on hurting others.”

  She wondered for a moment if he was digging at her, but decided he was not. In the short time she’d known him, he’d proven to be rough yet charming, and roguish. Something of a storyteller. She thought of his proclamations about being able to get people to do what he wanted. She hadn’t seen him be deliberately nasty without provocation.

  “So...she did it?”

  “Yes. Not very well,” he said, again without sounding mean. “She didn’t like it. She didn’t really, in her heart, want to hurt me. Because she loved me.”

  “Sometimes,” Willa said in a low voice, “you hurt someone specifically because you do love them.”

  Phoenix didn’t answer for a moment. His pale eyes narrowed as he looked at her. Something passed between them, a tension, something dark that didn’t linger but left a stain behind.

  “I was frustrated by her, and I was cruel. I put the knife in her hand. I told her to use it on me. She didn’t want to, but I made her. I made her,” he repeated with a curl of his lip. “I pushed her too hard, and she cut too deep.”

  Willa again traced the line of the tattoo covering the scar. “How bad was it?”

  “I nearly died.”

  “Oh.” She frowned and let her fingers curl around the back. “Why didn’t you cover the whole thing?”

  “I left a small piece of it to remind me what would happen if I pushed someone too hard who loved me too much again. What I would have to live with.”

  She nodded at that. It made sense. “Scars are memories. Reminders of what we’ve lived through.”

  “Something tells me you have scars, Willa, even if they’re not anywhere I can see them.”

  Now it was her turn to leave without saying anything. She owed him no more of herself than she’d already given, but Phoenix had told her his story. She supposed there wasn’t anything so bad abou
t sharing hers.

  “Brady and I were a couple in high school,” she said. “On and off. He was possessive. Obsessive. I went away to school, and he followed me there. We broke up again. He wouldn’t let it go.”

  Phoenix frowned. “He hurt you?”

  “Nothing that left marks. Nothing that showed, especially if you weren’t inclined to believe a good boy from a nice family could ever possibly be a nasty son of a bitch who thought taking what he wanted was always okay. I was working at a bar in the next town to help pay off college, before I got the librarian job. He’d show up. Wait in his car to be sure I wasn’t going home with someone else. He said he loved me,” Willa said. “He said he would do anything to be with me.”

  “Did you ask him to let you hurt him?” The question might’ve been snotty or patronizing, but Phoenix only sounded curious.

  “No. I didn’t know, then, that I liked it. That came after.” Willa closed her eyes for a moment or so, thinking about the paths that had led her to this place. This room, this man. This life. “He got out of hand.”

  “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  “There was nobody to tell, really. Everyone in this town had known us both forever. As a couple. Even when we broke it off, there were people who were just waiting for us to get back together. And he wasn’t doing anything I could report,” Willa said. “He wasn’t hitting me. He wasn’t threatening my life. He was just making me miserable. Finally, he said he would kill himself if I didn’t get back with him.”

  “Shit.”

  “I did not get back with him,” Willa said. “He tried to hang himself, but didn’t manage it. Everyone knew why he did it. The sympathy was mostly for him.”

  “Fuck.” Phoenix waved a hand. “Why stay? Why didn’t you move away from here? Get away from that asshole forever.”

  “My parents were here. My sister. And I carried a huge burden of guilt for a long time,” Willa said. “Thinking it was somehow my fault.”