Dance of Desire (1001 Dark Nights)

  Only once he’s settling into the tub across from her does she realize that his nudity was also meant as a distraction. In his right hand, he holds several sheets of hotel stationary and a slender coffee table book he lifted from the living room. And a pen.

  In a neat pile, he sets all three items into the space between the window and the edge of the tub. Then, with a beaming smile, he slides them toward her with one arm. Before she has time to respond, he finds her wet, eager folds under the surface with one big toe and begins prodding at them gently but insistently.

  “What could possibly be in that head of yours that you think I’d be too afraid to try?” he asks.

  “Caleb…”

  “Alright, well, if it’ll make you feel safer, I’ll add some ground rules. For me, I mean.”

  “Go ahead,” she says.

  “No other people. Although I’ll be happy to play more than one role, if you like. Oh, and I won’t draw any blood. Not ’cause I’m judgmental but because I don’t trust myself to handle that kind of situation in a way that’ll keep you safe. I’m just not experienced in that manner is all, and I’m not confident I’d be able to keep you safe.”

  “Caleb Eckhart, what kind of girl do you think I am?” she asks, batting her eyelashes.

  “What I think, Amber Watson, is that with me, you’re allowed to be any kind of girl you want.”

  The expression on her face is the one he wanted to see because he smiles warm, sinks further down into the tub, his big toe finding and then gently grazing her nub.

  She picks up the pen, but the sight of the empty page terrifies her.

  “Maybe if it wasn’t the stationary for my mother’s hotel.”

  “Come on now,” he says gently, and just then his big toe finds her clit and begins rubbing lazy, gentle circles around it. “Just turn the paper over if it bothers you.”

  His voice is something between a growl and a purr. Between its lustful timber and the job he’s doing on her under the water, she can barely see straight enough to keep the pen steady.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asks.

  “My writing assignment or your big toe?”

  “Either? Both?”

  “Just promise me something.”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t want you doing it if it’s not something you want to do,” she says.

  He nods solemnly, but she can tell he’s sure there’s not a chance in hell he won’t want to do it, no matter what it is.

  “You promise me?” she asks.

  “I promise,” he says.

  “Okay,” she says. “Now quit it with your foot so I can concentrate.”

  He jerks his foot back so suddenly it sloshes the water in the tub, which causes both of them to crack up for several minutes. Once they manage to calm down, once she takes a deep breath and finds herself staring again at the blank, empty page, she finds the courage to say, “Why is this so important to you, Caleb?”

  “Because after what you went through with songbird, I don’t want you to be afraid to ask me for anything.”

  And just like that, she’s writing. She’s writing without regard for how he’ll react when he reads it. The fantasy isn’t really all that outlandish or kinky. Girlfriends of hers have shared far stranger ones with her over cocktails. But this one involves dark woods, woods as dark as the ones Caleb got lost in on that long ago night. True, it also involves being found. Hard. Still, it seems like a cruel trick of fate, the fact that her most private, unrealized sexual fantasy could trigger one of Caleb’s most painful memories. But maybe she’s overthinking it.

  By the time she’s done, she’s filled two pages with her hurried block printing.

  Her heart hammering, she slides the coffee table book and the pages back across the edge of the tub toward Caleb, who dabs his hands dry on a nearby towel and picks up the pages gently and carefully, as if they were made of old, thin parchment.

  She watches his face as he reads, watches the tense set of his jaw, the focus apparent in his dazzling blue eyes. Watches him suck in a deep breath through his nostrils when he gets to a certain line—she has no idea which one, but she’s got a few guesses. Is it stirring painful memories for him or something else?

  Look down and see, genius, she realizes.

  The head of his majestic, swollen cock just pierces the water’s surface.

  “Oh, Amber,” he growls, still reading. “Amber Louise Watson.”

  It’s been forever since anyone’s used her middle name. This must be serious.

  “What?” she asks.

  He sets the pages aside.

  “Get ready, baby,” he says. “We are so doing this!”

  13

  Are we really going to do this?

  Amber’s lost count of how many times she’s asked herself this question in the past thirty minutes. It would have made more sense to ask Caleb back when they were still plotting out the details. But she’s on her own now, making her way through the woods just below the cottage, bound for the spot Caleb marked on the map Nora left in their room.

  When she’d asked him how he’d ensure their privacy, he’d told her not to worry, that he’d take care of that part. That he’d take care of everything. All she had to do was trust him.

  They’d agreed on two safe words. Slow down was leaf; full stop was Chevron. But still, the thought of him asking Nora or—oh, dear Lord, no—her mother to keep one of the hiking trials clear just so the two of them could do some outdoor role-play leaves her flush with shame.

  The wrong kind of shame.

  Of course, he’d probably try some sort of cover story. But it wouldn’t matter, because neither Nora nor her mother would believe it for a second.

  Her flashlight beam bounces across the old, capped wellhead he marked on the map. Rustic benches sit on either side. A dense canopy of interlocking oak branches filters the night sky above. If she keeps walking, she’ll hit woods too dense to move through without a machete. Now she realizes why Caleb picked this particular location. It’s the dead end of a hiking trail, a long distance from the inn’s main building, but closer to their cottage if things go wrong.

  She’s here. She’s got everything she needs—the blanket, the box of condoms, the flashlight, and the T-shirt they’ve already tested out on her wrists. She can turn the shirt into a makeshift pair of cotton handcuffs, easy to escape if she gets cold feet, just tight enough to give the illusion she’s actually restrained.

  She spreads the blanket out in front of her, parallel to one side of the bench and its curved metal armrest.

  This is the part of the script about which she’s the most nervous.

  Once she turns the flashlight beam off, she’s got ten minutes.

  Once she turns the flashlight beam off, she’s committed.

  Unless, of course, she decides to use one of her safe words once they’ve started. But the ten things she has to do before the scenario starts—that’s what they’ve agreed to call it, apparently. The scenario!—those have to be perfect! Otherwise, the whole thing will turn into either a colossal joke or a huge embarrassment. Or both.

  God save me, she prays silently. Save me from feeling like an idiot. The other stuff? I might be beyond hope in that regard.

  She kills the flashlight.

  She slides out of her panties and kicks them to one side.

  She drops to her knees on the blanket, and then, just as she practiced back in the cabin, she laces the T-shirt around the bench’s armrest until she’s tied it loosely around her hands. She tugs gently with both wrists until the cotton’s tight enough to give the illusion she’s handcuffed.

  Then she waits.

  She waits as the cool night air kisses the cheeks of her ass and everything in between.

  She waits as the fear—of wildlife, of discovery, of mortification—turns into a feeling of exhilaration. A feeling of taking all of the rules and limitations and lectures she’s endured all her life, all the finger-wagging nonsense abut what goo
d girls are and what good girls have to do, and blowing them into the air like they were nothing but a handful of sand.

  Footsteps approach, cracking twigs. Fast at first, then slower. Then Caleb lets out a long, slow whistle.

  “Well, well, well, well, wellllll,” Caleb says. Only for now, he’s not Caleb. He’s just some random cowboy who emerged from the dark woods to find her half naked and tied to a bench. And he’s playing up the accent too, just like she asked. “What have we here? Lord!”

  “Sir, could you untie me please?” she asks.

  Her voice sounds like someone else’s. She’s speaking words she’s imagined countless times while pleasuring herself with a showerhead or her fingers, all while her husband slept in the other room. Or lied to her about staying late at work so he could bang his mistress.

  “Untie you?” he asks, feigning shock. “Are you tied up, ma’am? Is that what you are?” He reaches down and tugs at the makeshift handcuffs. Pretends as if they’re locked in place. “Well, you most certainly are, aren’t you? Now how in the heck did a pretty little thing like you get tied up out here in these dark woods?”

  “It was my husband…”

  “Your husband did this?”

  “Yes and then he left me here. We were playing a game and he freaked out and he left me.”

  “A game, huh? What kind of game? The kind of game where you gotta turn this pretty ass to the woods?” A light touch. Feather light. Torture light. Just a graze of his finger from the very top of the crack of her ass up into the small of her back.

  Oh, God, he’s good at this. He’s. So. Damn. Good. At—

  “And, uh, whose idea was this little game?” he asks.

  “Mine,” she answers, sounding as sheepish as she can. Which isn’t all that hard. Because she’s in this, gripped by it. Feeling the boundaries between the scene and reality blur into a kind of blinding heat.

  “I see. So it wasn’t your husband’s idea?”

  “No. He said he was into it, but he freaked out. And he called me all kinds of names and ran away.”

  “Really?” There’s concern in his voice now, and a bit of protective anger. “What kind of names?”

  “He said I was disgusting. He called me a filthy, dirty whore.”

  “And then he just left you?”

  “Yes, sir. He just left me.”

  “With no way to get free,” he says as if he’s realizing the implications of this for the first time. The implications for him.

  She hasn’t looked at him once since he crouched down next to her. She knows if she looks at him, her juices will start to flow. And it’s way too soon for her to do or say or look at the things that will induce a moist inclination toward surrender. That’s his job. If he follows the script. If he plays his part.

  So far, he’s doing an Oscar-worthy job.

  “Sir,” she whispers. “Please. If you could just untie me so I can get home to my husband.”

  “So why are you in such a rush to get home to your husband when he called you all those rotten names and left you out here in the woods all by yourself?”

  “I just… Please, sir.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what, sir?”

  “Well, it just doesn’t make much sense, is all.”

  “What doesn’t make sense, sir?”

  He traces several fingers along the crack of her ass, then down, ever so lightly across her mound. A quick, furtive, stolen motion that still manages to touch the most intimate part of her. “When you find a pretty little pussy like this out in the woods, you don’t just take it straight home,” he growls.

  Home run, she thinks. Home fucking run. They’ve been improvising the rest of the dialogue but this is the exact line she wrote out for him earlier that night, the line that’s electrified her fantasies for years. A line that makes her feel both degraded and celebrated, captured and set free. And his tone, his delivery. Both were perfect! But all she says is, “Sir, please. You have to take me home.”

  Or fuck me. Right here. Right now. I can’t wait.

  “Tell you what, little lady. I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “Okay,” she manages.

  “You’re gonna let me put my hands all over this body of yours. And if that pussy of yours stays dry, or if those cute little nipples stay soft under my fingertips, I’ll take you home to your husband. But if you’re a dirty slut just like your husband says, and you get all hot just from the feel of my touch, well, then, honey, I’m going to fuck you right out here in these woods. Does that sound like a deal?”

  “Yes, sir. On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can’t touch my…”

  “Your what, honey?”

  “My clit, sir.”

  “Okay. Sounds fair. I won’t touch your pretty clit, but I’ll touch the rest of you. Every last inch of you. Does that sound fair?”

  “Yes, sir. But only with your fingers.”

  “Well, alright, then,” he says, lips to her ear. “Sounds like a deal. Let’s get started.”

  He sinks down onto the blanket behind her, the denim of his jeans scratching the skin of her ass. He reaches around her and under her T-shirt, cups her bare breasts as if the sheer weight of them were a pleasure in and of itself. Grazes her nipples with his fingers.

  “Bet you want to lose, don’t you, little lady?” he rasps into her ear. “Maybe if I win, I won’t fuck you out here. Maybe I’ll take you back to my cabin. With my buddies.”

  “Buddies?”

  “Yeah. Maybe I’ll take you back to my cabin and me and my buddies will take turns on you.”

  Yeah, uhm, I didn’t write a word about your buddies.

  “Leaf.”

  “Maybe I’ll take you back to my cabin and make my buddies watch while I have my way with you.”

  Much better.

  “Whatever you say, sir.”

  “That’s right. If I win, you do whatever I say. That’s the deal.”

  He bends forward so he can dip one hand all the way down to her mound. He keeps his word, avoiding her clit, running his fingers gently down her folds instead.

  “I don’t know, honey,” he drawls. “Feeling pretty hot down here.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah. Sure is. Now we made a deal, isn’t that right, honey?”

  He’s using his palm now, rubbing it across her folds, back and forth, stopping just shy of her swollen, aching nub. Teasing it so well she’s aching for him to touch it.

  “Yes, sir. We made a deal.”

  “So if I free these hands of yours, you’re not gonna try to run away on me now, are you?”

  “No, sir. I’m not going to try to run.”

  “Good.” He rips the T-shirt away from the bench’s armrest. “Because I’m going to have to examine you up close now to see how you’re responding to my little test here.”

  Suddenly she’s on her back and he’s lying on the blanket beside her. He’s pulled her T-shirt up and over her breasts. Now she feels even more exposed to the night, to him. And this time, when his fingers pass over her folds, there’s no ignoring the wetness there, even though she’d like him to. Even thought she’d love to draw out this teasing for another hour. Hours, even.

  “Oh,” he says with a start. “Oh, my. You’ve got a wet pussy here, girl.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes, ma’am. A nice, hot, wet pussy. For the life of me, I just can’t figure out how a man would leave a pussy this hot and wet all the way out here in these woods. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. Because now it’s all mine. Ain’t that right, little lady?”

  His desire for her, real and authentic and unscripted, makes his voice shake. She stares up at him for the first time since they started. He’s got his Stetson on and his light leather jacket and his Levi’s. Being practically stark naked and under his control while he’s still fully dressed only makes her hotter and wetter.

  “And since we had a deal,??
? he says as he tugs her T-shirt up over her head. “It looks like it’s time to pay up.”

  He fingers the box of condoms she dropped on the blanket when she first got there.

  “I’ve got your husband to thank for a lot of things, don’t I?” he says, then tears the condom wrapper open with his teeth.

  “How about you stop talking about my husband and take what’s yours?”

  “Yeah,” he says, sliding out of his jacket and unbuttoning his plaid shirt. “Well, he was right about one thing.”

  He unbuttons his jeans, frees his cock, slides the condom on with one hand. His tone is calm and collected but his speed is all horny, desperate teenager. The combination of the two makes her feel as if she’s the one who's got him under control, not the other way around.

  “You really are a filthy little girl,” he growls.

  He closes one hand gently around her throat. With the other, he drags the head of his cock back and forth over her folds, then in a slow circle over her clit.

  He’s free to touch it now that she lost.

  Won. I won. I so won.

  “But right now, you’re my filthy little girl.”

  Slowly, he pushes inside her. As he drives himself deeper, his lips hover inches above hers. There’s wonder in his expression, the joy at being inside of her for the first time. Not inside the character she was playing seconds before. Inside of her. Amber Watson.

  He’s so big. So much bigger than any man she’s been with. But he’s taking his time, thank God. Kissing her neck the way he did in her front hallway the night before. Palming her breasts the way he did in the motel room that morning. It’s like his desire demands that he tend to every inch of her in any way he can. Stroking, teasing, tasting, gazing.

  He’s also dropping the role, becoming himself once again now that they’re joined in a way they’ve never been before.