Playing with Fire

"I liked how she jumped," Erin said, finally. "Heather. How Heather jumped. It was -- the anticipation of it, maybe? I spent -- not a small amount of time deciding what to wear to this. And I was a little nervous to come, but excited, because part of me, well -- I mean to say, I got here and you two just, went for it, right out in the open, before things had really gotten going. She wanted people to watch, she was getting off on it. And I --" Erin cut off, flushed, and took the smallest step back. Oliver focused on her in that same steady, patient way. "I've never really thought about electricity like that. Well I mean, maybe I have. I -- I've seen it, and wondered about it. But I always thought of it as this extreme thing: tasers or cattle prods or real torture. You made her jump and gasp and squirm, but it didn't look like she was in too much pain. And the two of you being out in the open, relishing in people watching. That was...that was hot."

"I don't think most people even stop to consider tasers, or cattle prods, or real torture," he said, dryly. "But I suppose you're not into extreme things."

Her mind jumped to several, and her fluster deepened. "Well -- I. I guess that depends on your definition of extreme."

He chuckled, but let it go. "Did you imagine yourself there, up on that table, in front of all these people?"

"Yes. But just for a moment."

"Your outfit certainly caught my eye. And you're quite beautiful. I'm sure plenty of people in this room would have enjoyed watching you."

Erin's resolve slipped as she tried and failed to completely swallow down the effervescent giggle that scraped her throat. It didn't matter anymore -- the people, or Lucy, or the two women and the suspended silver ring. The only place she wanted to be was where he was. And she wanted -- deeply, desperately, breathlessly -- to close the gap: to feel his lips and swallow his sounds and quiet the current that seemed to prime every inch of her skin.

She knew he was going to touch her -- she could watch his hand as it slid toward her over the bar. Her focus travelled from his long, thin fingers, up to his wrist, and the definition in his forearm as it disappeared into his rolled-up sleeve. Their fingers barely apart, she flicked her eyes back up to his face and caught the tugging smile at the corner of his mouth. One of his eyebrows raised slightly, then the other, and he tipped his head, silently waiting.

"Yes," Erin said. It came out breathy, a shaking at the end, answering a question he hadn't even asked. Without thinking, she added, "Please."

Instead of touching her hand, he reached up and gently tucked her hair behind one ear, grazing its side as he went. Erin's eyes fluttered closed, and his fingertips brushed a path from her ear down along her jawline. There was barely any pressure when he lifted her chin with the side of his index finger, thumb pressing lightly against her lips, and said, "Please what, Erin?"

There were too many answers to offer just one: This, please. Him, please. More, please. Instead, the mewl that escaped her throat was swallowed by the music. He rolled his thumb over her bottom lip. Softly, slowly, he teased it around her mouth, tracing the outline of her lips.

Erin had completely forgotten where they were. The room, the bar, the quiet chatter and occasional applause of the crowd all faded back in. Her body jerked, the same way it did when she was dragged back to consciousness a moment from dreaming.

"Fuck," Erin managed, pursing her lips to kiss the pad of his thumb as he pushed it against her. Flustered, she stopped and started a few times before she managed: "Please kiss me."

He did. Side stepping in front of her, he reached around her head to lace his fingers through her hair and pulled her toward him.

His lips were soft and warm. Her mind raced, then went beautifully blank as his lips parted hers. Oliver kissed her the same way he'd built her up to the moment -- soft, slow kisses he drew out in length; teasing darts of his tongue against her; and nibbles, then one sharper bite, against her lower lip.

When he pulled away, she was out of breath, and he stroked the back of his fingers over her cheek, letting her come down. She shivered, and tilted his head and chuckled.

"What?" He said.

"I don't want to be here," Erin said, quietly, peering up at him. "Here, like at this venue."

"And why's that?"

"Because I want very much to take this somewhere more private and see what we might get up to."

"I see," he said, slowly, drawing his finger again down her cheek and over the side of her throat. He pulled his hand up again, pressing two of his fingers gently against her skin. "Can I ask you about that?"

She nodded, and moved to take a step back, but he stopped her, keeping his fingers where they were against her throat. "No," he said, with an amused little smile. "Part of the fun for me is getting to see if you can keep your pulse in check."

Of course she couldn't. The thought of being exposed like that: her reactions served up and accessible on demand, stripped of her decision to share or keep them private, made her lower belly clench, and her heart race. He noticed, and he grinned.

"Where does 'somewhere more private and seeing what we might get up to' mean, to you?"

She swallowed and closed her eyes to steady herself against a shuddered breath, and then steeled herself. Fuck it, she thought. She wasn't going to be able to hide her nervousness or excitement. She didn't want to. He'd undone her, in public, with nothing more than calm stares and the pad of two fingers. She didn't want to imagine what he could do if he could use both hands: she wanted to experience it.

"I want to go back to your place, and I want to talk a little bit about boundaries, and then, I'd like to, you know. Fuck." Erin said, trying to keep her voice steady, and doing a fairly decent job, even as her body betrayed her growing arousal.

He had that calm, amused smile on his face again. It infuriated her, his cool confidence in the face of her fluster. His hand trailed up again, and without losing the smile, he tweaked her ear, sharply. Erin let out one quick, surprised gasp.

"Let's go," he said.

Erin inhaled and nodded. Lucy would be fine without her. And in the car, her phone lit up with a text: 'Fuck yeah, girl! Get it. Be safe, use protection, send me your location. Let him know if he hurts you, I'll kill him.'

An hour later they were sitting in his living room, a glass of water each resting on the nearby coffee table. They had covered awkward small talk, and whether it would be okay if Erin slid closer to him on the couch. Oliver had asked her how she was feeling, what she wanted, and about her fantasies. Erin had blushed at those, demurring, until he'd reached out and tilted her chin up and tsked, telling her that they wouldn't be doing anything if she couldn't share.

"It doesn't have to be your deepest, darkest fantasy," he teased. "Just give me some idea of what makes you tick."

They had talked about their limits, signaling, and what they were willing to try on their first night together -- Erin jutted her chin in the direction of the black duffle bag Oliver had dropped just inside the door. "Not that. Not tonight. I don't care how hot it was at the party." -- when Oliver asked if Erin had wanted to come home with him so she might get to experience some of his collection.

"Oh, your collection?" Erin laughed, emphasizing the last word. "Of women?"

"Is that a hint you're into objectification? You didn't mention it earlier," he said. Erin glared at him through his laughter.

Half an hour later, Erin was standing in his bedroom. He had pulled her into the center of the room and had her stand there while he sat down on a bench at the foot of the bed, ankle crossed over his knee. Leaning back, he spun his finger in a circle and Erin turned, feeling heat rise up to her face.

"Look at me. You're a beautiful woman, Erin. But what am I going to do with you?"

She shivered, her mind spidering out into endless possibility. She had told him a lot, sitting on his couch. He was easy to talk to, and she'd felt relaxed enough to open up, even having just met him. But what was he going to do now? Tie her up and tease her, maybe. Find the most sensitive parts of her body with his fingers and his tongue and soft, deft paintbrushes, and press there until she arched and pulled and begged? Slap the wet, wanting spot between her legs -- gushing, she realized, even though he'd barely even touched her -- until she was so sensitive that featherlight touches made her cry out? She knew from the way he held himself that he could. She didn't need to have fucked him before to know his skill -- he'd proved that back at the bar, back when he'd made her breathless with long looks and mild tones and gentle, mocking smiles. Now they were alone, and all she could think about was him standing up and roughly grabbing her, throwing her over the bed and holding her hips down as he slammed into her from behind.

"Your nipples are hard," he said, mildly. In the dim light of the bedroom, she wondered how he could possibly have made them out against the black lace of her top. "What are you thinking about?"

She was thinking about him taking her apart, piece by piece, finding all of the cracks in her willpower and pressing until she crumbled. She was thinking about him pushing his fingers into her mouth. She was thinking about him training her shuddering, twitching form to be whatever thing he wanted.

"Um," she managed, breathy, hoping he would fill the silence and letting out a small, tinny squeak when he didn't. "I'm thinking about what might happen."

"And what do you think might happen?" Oliver asked.

"Well --" she felt small. Embarrassed. Standing at a blackboard, unprepared. "I was hoping you'd fuck me."

"Specific," he said, standing. In two strides he'd crossed the room and gripped her hair in his fist, pulling her into him. She gasped against his mouth as he kissed her, hard, his lips parting hers, tongue searching against her lower lip and then probing inside her mouth. Oliver bit her lower lip and she whimpered; whining as his free hand trailed down her body -- down over the center of her bralette, to her stomach, over her belly button -- to graze the skin just above her skirt.

"Is this what you want?" He chuckled at the way her body prickled and arched against him, her hands coming up to his hair and his shoulders, tugging him closer.

"Put your hands behind your back," he said, softly, kissing her lips and then the corner of her mouth, down against her jaw and further until he was kissing her neck. She released him with some reluctance, her hands coming up behind her, gripping her opposite elbows as he nipped the sensitive skin just under her ear, landing another sharp bite against her earlobe a moment later.

"Stay. Don't move." He stepped back from her and she inhaled against his sudden absence. She could feel the air on her skin -- the hardness of her nipples pressing against the bralette, the warmth between her thighs as she watched him walk across the room and into his closet. He rummaged, emerging with a box that he set on his bed.

"I want you to see what's in store for you tonight," he said, and even with his back to her she could hear the smile in his voice. He made a show of opening the box and looking through its contents, sometimes pausing and clicking his tongue or else nodding his head. She had half a mind to break the position and move to shove him, try to make him pick up where he'd left off. But she didn't know him well, yet: didn't know how strict he was, or if he might punish her for her impatience by making her wait longer. So, she waited, impatient, attempting to calm the heat still growing in her body despite her long, slow inhales.

He beckoned her over and began to pull items from the box with agonizing slowness. First came candles -- three long sticks in red, purple, and black -- that he set upon the duvet. Next came two small ping-pong sized balls, that he weighed in one palm. Three different vibrators -- an egg-shaped one, a rabbit, a wand. Next, he took out clamps, and clothespins, taking the time to arrange them in neat little rows on the bed while she watched. Something long and tapered, with a flared head and base, that Erin was sure was meant to go into her ass. He lifted out a riding crop with a long, wooden core and a wide leather flap. Finally, he set out a small, steel contraption made of two metal bars with four steel arcs between them; Erin hadn't ever seen something like it before.

Oliver arranged the toys in a semicircle on the duvet, before returning the box to the closet. When he returned, he draped the backs of his fingers over Erin's cheek and gently took hold of her jaw, guiding her eyes up to his.

"What do you think?"

Erin's tongue darted out between her lips to wet them. Her mouth was so dry, her body so tightly wound from arousal and anticipation, that she had to swallow once, hard, before she could speak.

"You know, Oliver," she said, trying to make her voice sound as calm and mild as his. "You only get to break me once."

His eyes widened, surprised, in a way that she hoped meant he'd underestimated her. Then they darkened, and her pulse raced. "Break you? That doesn't seem very nice."

"Maybe I don't want you to be nice," Erin said, heat in her cheeks, voice hoarse.

He smiled, coolly, in a way that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Then I'd better take my time and really get the most out of it, hadn't I? Strip."

There was a part of Erin that really wanted to draw it out and pretend she wasn't eager; but her whole body buzzed with need and the anticipation of the night. She couldn't get out of her clothes fast enough, chest rising in shallow breaths as she let down the zipper of her skirt and rolled her panties down her legs. He held his hand out, expectantly, and her face turned scarlet as she dropped the cotton garment into his palm. The bralette came last, shimmied over her head and dropped on the floor with her skirt.

Oliver rubbed the wet gusset of her panties between his fingers, smiling. "Well," he said, "I suppose I don't need to ask if you're excited."

He stepped up to her, balling the panties in one hand and using his other to run his fingers lightly over her skin -- her neck, down across her collarbone and the curve of her shoulder, further down her ribs to her hip. "How do you feel?"

"Excited. Nervous." Breathless, still, her thoughts screaming at him to stop checking in and just fuck her already.

"Safe?"

"Yes."

"You remember how to signal if you can't talk?"

She nodded.

"Show me."

She did. He smiled.

"Good girl," he said, quietly. Out of pure impulse to push back and vocally object to the reality that two words could send such a shiver up her spine, Erin opened her mouth to speak; but before she could start, he reached up and casually popped her panties into her mouth.

"Hold," he said. Automatically, she closed her teeth together around the scrap of fabric, the taste of herself sour and tangy against her tongue.

Oliver tangled his hand into her brown hair and tugged her head back to expose her neck. "You're so eager," he murmured against her skin. "You met a strange man at a kink party, let him bring you home, stripped for him, and now you're gagged and sucking your own wetness off those little cotton panties you wore tonight. You did that all eagerly. Knowing how I approached you at the party. Knowing that I would take my time. Knowing that I'd bring you back here and make you squirm and writhe and ache."

He turned her body around and held her back against his chest. Her head lolled against his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed as his hands explored. With light touches he dragged his fingers around her breasts, down her stomach, over her hips. His hands guided her legs apart, fingers trailing on her inner thighs, closer and closer to where she wanted him before he glided them out again. She groaned, pushing against him, arching into the hardness in his pants, breathing fast and shallow through her nose.

"I want you to pick a few things off the bed," he said, a rough edge to his voice as his hands came down to grab and still her hips. Through a haze of arousal, Erin realized that she had been rocking them back against him, arching and tucking, grinding her pussy on nothing while his fingers teased the skin of her inner thighs. She bit back a whine, wanting to grab his hands and thrust them between her legs. But then he was stepping back from her, leaving her slightly dazed and unsteady. She blinked several times before stepping toward the bed.

Her eyes trailed over the various toys and implements that Oliver had laid out, and for the first time, Erin became aware of how her mouth must have looked -- distended and stuffed with her own panties. This should have embarrassed her, but working her tongue against her own taste, she felt a growing ache between her legs.

It wasn't long before she had made her choices, and pulled them forward for him to see. The plug, the egg vibrator, the crop, and the small, strange silver contraption that reminded her of a cookie cutter. He smiled, picking up the last one and weighing it in his hand. "Interesting. Do you know what this is?"

Erin shook her head, and he laughed. "Well, you'll find out soon enough."

He disappeared into another room and emerged again with a towel that he laid out on the floor, along with a small bottle of lube and Erin's chosen items. He gestured for her to join him, and she sank down to her knees. He reached forward and took her panties from her mouth, tossing them aside.

"I'm not going to restrain you tonight, Erin. Restraints give you an out, don't you think? You get to pretend you're helpless to what's happening to you. But I don't think that's very interesting." He pushed her torso back, until she was lying on the ground, with him kneeling between her spread legs. Erin tossed her arms over her face, and he dragged them from her, telling her gently to put them over her head.

"If you move, you'll be punished. If you try to get away, you'll be punished. If you come without permission, you'll be punished." He trailed his hands softly up her body, then suddenly grasped both of her nipples and tweaked them. Erin yelped and twisted to one side. He chuckled.

"Ah, ah, ah," Oliver said, slapping her breast with his open palm. "What did I just say?"

Erin felt the flash of heat on her breast, and put herself back into position, arms over her head. Oliver slowly ran his hands over her thighs and her hips, coaxing her back from the pain until she shivered and arched up toward him, offering herself to his touch.

"Keep this still, too," he said, his palm pressing down on her hips. As he began to trail his fingers on either side of her lips, she realized just how exposed she was. How obscene she must have looked, with her legs spread around him, pussy pulsing and gushing under his gaze. Her nipples were hard pebbles against her chest, sensitized from the pain. It was the most stimulation he'd given them all night, and she wanted to bring her hands down to gently play with them until the lingering sting drained away to pleasure. Keeping her body still meant focusing -- she hadn't realized just how strong the urge to rock her hips was until she had to actively avoid it. She hadn't realized just how much freedom and pleasure there was in pushing down and grinding against someone's fingers. She longed for it, now that it was out of her grasp.

With one hand, he spread her pussy, dipping down into her wetness -- God, she was so fucking wet -- before gently sliding them up and down, up and down along the sides of her clit, barely grazing it with each pass. The other gently started to tease and play with a nipple. A little, breathless moan escaped her lips. His touch was gentle enough that she felt herself relax, thinking about how good it would feel if she could just arch her chest into his hand.