A Lesson in Thorns

by Sierra Simone

  Then there are those noises that seem torn from the very heart of him—quiet and urgent and meant only for me.

  Then there’s the taste—scotch like myself, and underneath it, mint.

  And then there’s the sight, because when I dare to peek through my lashes at his face, I see him already watching me with winter-summer eyes.

  And it’s as our eyes meet that he truly invades my mouth. His tongue flutters past my own in a touch so erotic that I whimper into him. He angles my head farther back, tilting my mouth to where he wants it, and then for a heady instant, I forget everything, everything. There’s only this, only this intimate touch, only this kiss like he wants to kiss my very dreams out of me. There’s only him, and only me, and only Thornchapel around us—

  A shattering crash breaks us apart, our kiss ending abruptly as everyone jumps to their feet. Only Auden’s hand still on my arm is a testament to what we were just doing, to how lost I was only a second ago. That and my lips, which buzz and tingle from the memory of his.

  Well, okay, those two things and the heat gathering wet and low in my cunt, because he kissed me the way someone kisses the person they’re about to fuck. And my body is screaming at its abandonment, protesting its loss.

  I press my thighs together under my skirt to try to soothe away the ache.

  “It sounded like glass,” Becket says, surveying the tables and our drinks.

  “It was glass,” Rebecca says. “I’m sure of it.”

  Saint has already gone to the library doors to look over the windowed corridor connecting the library to the hall. He disappears, and then there’s the sound of tinkling glass and something clunky dragging across the flagstones. He trots back in, sleet caught in his black hair and across his wide shoulders.

  “A pane shattered in one of the windows,” he confirms, ruffling his hair to knock out the ice. “I found a big square of chipboard to lean against it, that should keep the worst of the sleet out for now. I’ll tell my uncle, and he can take care of it when they come back Monday—but in the meantime, everyone should be careful walking through there.”

  Auden’s hand on my arm doesn’t move, but his entire focus is on Saint. “Thank you,” he says politely. Maybe even a little gratefully, as if he hadn’t thought Saint capable of enough courtesy to put a board over a broken window.

  Saint just nods.

  “Well, I don’t think anyone is going to beat the glass-shattering kiss, but there are still more turns to go,” Delphine the Kissing Czar declares. “It’s Rebecca’s turn now.”

  Auden squeezes my arm and lets go.

  “That was nice,” I say, trying to keep a grip on all the feelings threatening to quaver through my voice. “Thank you.”

  Auden doesn’t answer verbally, but he gives me a pained smile. No dimples, only the asymmetrical tilt to his upper lip. His eyes are no longer windows, but doors and mysteries and gates that I’ll never unlock.

  That privilege belongs to someone else.

  I get settled right as Rebecca spins the bottle. Saint’s sat on the floor too, and I can see the leftover sleet still in his hair, sparkling in the light like a strange frozen crown. I’m so intrigued by it that I don’t notice when the bottle lands on me. Again.

  The room breaks into laughter.

  “This is Poe’s lucky night!” Delphine chirps, and strangely, she almost sounds like she’s forcing her cheer this time. More so than when her fiancé’s erection was pressing against my stomach and he was sighing into my mouth.

  Rebecca stands and walks over to me, extending a hand, which I take. When I’m on my feet, she leans in and whispers, “Are you up for a little kink?”

  Oh God, yes, yes, that sounds like the absolute best idea after that wrenching, confusing kiss. I’m wet and flushed and horny, and I’ve drunk enough to be brave, and I’m sober enough to consent.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m yours.”

  Hot approval flashes through her dark eyes. “That’s what I like to hear,” she replies in a voice a little huskier than normal. And to everyone else she says, “I told you I was going to play my way. I’m going to make Poe earn her kiss.”

  I can tell by the way Delphine tilts her head that she has no idea what Rebecca means, but a new interest thrums through the others, a new kind of silence. This was already a dangerous game, but Rebecca’s just raised the stakes.

  Rebecca quickly appraises the scene and what she has to work with—honestly, not much, unless she wants to whale on my ass with a book, which I’d only object to for the sake of the books. Their fragile leather bindings wouldn’t do well with the repeated blows, I think.

  Rebecca seems to make up her mind about something. “Okay, your safeword is Thornchapel. I want you to lay over Auden’s lap—”

  “What?” I blurt out at the same time Auden goes, “Rebecca—”

  Rebecca points a finger at all of us. “I didn’t finish. Poe, I want you to lay over Auden’s lap so that he can hold down your legs—and press down on your upper back to keep you from squirming, if need be.”

  It’s easy to see why she chose Auden—he’s the only one situated in the middle of a sofa. Delphine is sitting on the arm of the same sofa, Becket’s in a chair, Saint’s on the floor. It’s not like there’s a handy coil of rope on the floor for restraints. Auden and I look at each other, and I think we feel the same mutual panic—like we both realize what we shared during our kiss is best left alone, best kept in a box somewhere without air or light. Something best starved and not fed.

  And I fail to see how me wriggling in his lap as Rebecca dominates me is not going to feed it.

  But the Kissing Czar is suddenly delighted by this turn of events. Maybe it’s the novelty? Maybe she has a secret fetish for seeing Auden with other people, like a compersion thing? Who knows, but she’s up and tugging me over to the sofa before I have time to figure it out.

  “Auden, move back a little so she has plenty of room,” Delphine chides, and then moves some throw pillows out of my way so I can lie down. I look at Auden one last time, and he’s searching my face.

  “Is this okay with you?” he asks.

  “Is it okay with you?”

  He closes his eyes once, briefly and with torment.

  “Yes,” he admits.

  And I think I might die at that one word.

  “Then yes, it’s okay with me,” I say. “I’m not safe-ing out.” That last part is meant for Rebecca.

  She nods with that preternaturally knowledgeable look most Dominants have. “I know. Now get up there.”

  I’ve draped myself over Auden’s lap in so many waking and sleeping dreams that it almost feels familiar, like I’m remembering it instead of doing it, but I know that’s not right. I know this is the first time because every detail is so painfully crisp, like this moment is reaching into my mind and etching itself there. There’s the heat of the fire tickling my shoeless feet, the cooler air of the cavernous library against my face. There’s the sound of sleet on the glass, of someone else in the room shifting to get comfortable, the almost-silent exhales from Auden as he tries to control his breathing.

  I adjust myself so that my upper body is supported by my elbows, with my head hanging down, and so that my pelvis is squarely over Auden’s lap.

  There’s an unmistakable length of male arousal under my hip.

  I try to move, because it must be uncomfortable for him to have my weight pinning it like this, but once I start squirming, he seizes my thigh and spreads a hand at the small of my back.

  “Be still,” he begs quietly. “For the love of God, be still.”

  I go still.

  I’m not sure if anyone else heard that little exchange, but Rebecca’s voice is careful when she says, “Is everyone ready? Auden, you can hold her steady?”

  “Yes,” he and I answer at the same time.

  “Excellent. Poe, I’m going to spank you and that’s how you’ll earn your kiss from me. Do you want my hand over the skirt or under?”

/>   Auden shudders underneath me, and I feel his cock swell even bigger.

  I know how he feels. My cunt is swollen too, and wet, needing to come. I try not to grind the front of my pussy against his thigh, and mostly succeed.

  “Under my skirt,” I say.

  “Bare-arsed?”

  “If everyone is okay with it,” I whisper. “I like the sting.”

  “Of course you do,” Rebecca says soothingly. And then to the rest of the room, “Is everyone okay with this? You can safe out too, if you’d like.”

  There’s no answer from the others—no verbal answer, at least. I can’t see anyone’s face except Saint’s, and even then, I’d have to turn my head to look at him, which I’m too cowardly to do now. Not because I’m embarrassed that I’m about to be spanked in front of a little crowd of onlookers—that’s essentially just another Saturday night for me. But I’m embarrassed that he must have seen how much I liked kissing Auden; I’m embarrassed that he might be able to guess how much I like being over Auden’s lap just now.

  I wish I could tell him that this doesn’t change anything about us, that I haven’t picked Auden’s side over his, that I still want to be friends. That if he’s suspected that I like him, that I want him, he’s not wrong.

  I wish I could tell him I’m just as confused. Just as lost.

  But I’m a coward, so I don’t look and I don’t tell him. And then the moment is gone anyway, because Rebecca flips up the skirt of my dress and pulls down the thick tights I’m wearing to my upper thighs. She does the same with my panties, and I have a moment of panic when I realize that if someone looked at just the right angle, they’d undoubtedly be able to see my pussy. They’d be able to see how wet and swollen I am, how much I want to be touched.

  I shiver as her fingers leave my skin after they finish baring my flesh. There’s nothing between me and the others now, except maybe the lace of my panties and the tights where they stretch along the crease between my thighs and my cheeks. Though I haven’t known Rebecca long as an adult, she strikes me as the kind of person who would take care to make sure I wasn’t unduly exposed beyond what we agreed. On the other hand, she also strikes me as the kind of person to leave me in torment about whether she was unduly exposing me or not.

  I can’t tell.

  And I can’t tell who can see what, but I do know that it’s a forcefully erotic idea. That if they wanted, my friends could see my cunt. Maybe they could pet it, maybe they could lean down and kiss it to make it feel better.

  I could almost cry with how much I want that.

  The size of the room and the broken window in the hallway make drafts unavoidable, and so there’s a tantalizing play of cool and warm air over my skin. There’s no forgetting that my bottom is shamefully bare while the rest of me is not.

  A hand touches me, giving one of my cheeks a fond squeeze. “How many spanks do you think? To earn my kiss?”

  This is a trick question, I know it is. Too low a number, and I’ll be given more spanks for my impudence, too high and she’ll say, “Ahhh, a pain-slut then? How about we double that amount so you’ll enjoy it more?” Or something to that effect.

  Of course, the problem is that if a Dominant has decided there’s no right answer, then there’s really no right answer. It’s just easier to pick a number and get on with the consequences of being wrong. And consequences are half the fun anyway.

  “Fifteen,” I say, feeling like it’s a nice middle amount, not too low and not too high.

  “Fifteen,” Rebecca repeats. “As in five plus ten?”

  Oh boy. “Yes?”

  “Even Delphine could do fifteen,” Rebecca says, and it’s a testament to the spell she’s slowly casting around the room that Delphine doesn’t erupt in protest. “And I’d like to think my kisses are a little more valuable than that. We’ll do thirty . . . plus five more for your cheek in suggesting fifteen.”

  Thirty-five will probably hurt her hand as much as it hurts my ass, but I’m not foolish enough to say anything about it. Thirty-five spankings for a single kiss is bad enough—I’d hate to see what she’d cook up if I actually mouthed off.

  The first one comes with no warning, crackling across my skin like a firework, pleasant and pretty.

  “One,” I say.

  The second comes a bit harder, right on the same spot. The crackling comes again, the firework-bite of it sparking a little deeper this time.

  “Two,” I say, turning my head a little so I can see the sapphire-blue of Rebecca’s jumpsuit. She’s standing with her legs just on the outside of Auden’s, leaning over me the slightest bit, and I’m suddenly very grateful as strikes three and four come that she doesn’t have anything more rigid than her hand, and that we’re in such an improvised position. If I were bent over one of those tables, and she could really put her shoulder and back into each swat, I have no doubt that I’d already be whimpering.

  As it is, I keep my cool until number ten. And when number ten lands right on the tender strip of flesh between my ass and upper thighs, I finally let out a muffled noise.

  “What was that, Poe?” Rebecca asks pleasantly.

  “Nothing!”

  “Hmm.”

  I’m punished for that particular lie with several fast swats to the same place, so fast I can barely keep up with counting and breathing at the same time. When she’s done, we’re at seventeen, and my ass is rocking in the air, that senseless rock of trying to move away from the sting. I’m mostly only sensible of the burning along my ass, but I can feel Auden grow more and more restless underneath me, his cock like an iron bar against my hip and his thighs locked rigid and tight under my own. It seems like he’s lost control of his hands, however, because the one on my thigh has started kneading the flesh there ever so slightly, and the hand that was spread at the small of my back has now moved up to my nape and is playing with my hair.

  “You can push her down if you like,” Rebecca says to Auden. “I bet she’ll even like it.”

  Ohhhh, I do, I do like it. Auden’s hand is warm and rough, and more certain than I’ve felt it yet tonight, as if he’s discovering a natural aptitude for pinning librarians down by their necks.

  And the sound he makes when the change in position forces my ass higher arrows right through me. It’s a low, satisfied groan, it’s the groan of someone who can’t help himself. I squeeze my eyes closed, as if that will stop up my ears, as if that will save me from the intoxicating presence that is Auden Guest.

  Rebecca goes again, and I count through the thudding breathlessness she’s created, I count even as I try to wriggle away and Auden has to hold me even tighter. Until she gets to number twenty-five and lays one so hard on my sit-spot that I give a little scream and try to arch away. Auden’s holding me too well, and so all I accomplish is rucking down my tights and revealing my cunt for real.

  There’s an audible reaction the moment it happens, a caress of cool air on my wet folds, and I realize that all the wiggling around has finally accomplished what I fantasized about earlier. I try to squirm back down, but I can’t seem to find a modest angle, and I’m stopped anyway—by another five, vicious spanks from Rebecca.

  “Thirty,” I manage, my eyes wet. My throat and chest are all knotted up with the pain, and I’m hovering in that space where I can’t take another spank and also I could take thirty more. Nothing matters and everything matters. Everything hurts, and everything is just starting to feel good.

  I feel as much as hear when Auden drops his head back against the couch, as if hearing my shaken voice as well as seeing my naked ass at the same time is too much to handle, and that’s when Rebecca says, in a voice so intentionally denuded of emotion that I wonder if this was her goal all along, “My hand hurts, Auden. Maybe you could do the last five?”

  Auden’s hand on my thigh tightens, then relaxes, then tightens again. “Pardon,” he says. His voice is calm, but I can tell the lie—under me, his cock is rock-hard and throbbing, and his chest is heaving like he’s just
run a race. “But you’d like me to what?”

  “It’s only five,” Rebecca explains. “And there’s not much you need to know. Just stay away from her kidneys and her spine and you’ll be fine.”

  I hear Delphine shift on the arm of the sofa. “Auden, I don’t mind if you do,” she says, and there’s an odd mix of relief and fascination in her tone. “I really don’t, darling.”

  Even with Delphine’s sanction, I still expect Auden to protest more—but he doesn’t. “Very well,” he says, sounding resigned. “Ready to count, Poe?”

  I almost want to shake my head. My ass is screaming, and I’m very, very aware that Auden has a much better angle for spanking than Rebecca did. And a fresh hand. And no idea what the hell he’s doing.

  On the other hand, do I want Auden to spank me? Do I want to be exactly here, thrown over his lap with my skirt flipped up and my backside ready for his punishments? Yes, yes, of fucking course I want this; I’ve only been fantasizing about exactly this moment since I arrived at Thornchapel a week ago.

  And anyway, it’s only five. I can do five of anything, right?

  So I nod.

  Without another word of warning, he connects the flat of his palm against my rump, and somehow he makes one swat feel like ten, like twenty. I cry out from the impact, the air gone from my lungs, and before I can even finish whispering thirty-one, he’s at the other side, right on the abused skin of my upper thighs. I cry out again, a couple tears dropping out of my eyes and clinging to my eyelashes. Through the tears, I can see that Saint has moved closer. He looks entranced by the scene, his gaze caroming up to Auden, then down to where his hand cracks across my ass again, and then to my face. And I wish I could speak, I wish I had the air in my lungs to say that for me this moment is as beautiful as it is sordid, that the tears beading on my eyelashes feel good, that the breathless knot in my chest is actually loosening far more painful knots in my mind.