Odalisque (12 page)

“If there’s ever an emergency, you’ll need a phone.”

“Deaf people use instant messaging now.” She had to spell out the word
instant messaging
twice, and once he got it, he looked sheepish. She hadn’t meant to make him feel stupid when he was trying so hard to help her. “It’s okay,” she signed. “Can you get me a smart phone?” He understood
smart phone
a lot quicker, before she even finished fingerspelling it. He nodded.

“Of course. I’ll bring one home for you tonight.” He’d reverted back to speaking, which was fine, since she was getting pretty used to reading his lips. When she wasn’t distracted by their perfect shape and dark berry color.

She gestured to his well-tailored suit. “I thought you were working today.”

“I was, but I wanted to come home and check on you. You were so groggy and tired this morning.”

She smiled. “I’m better now. I slept.”

“Did you eat breakfast? Or lunch?”

“Not yet.”

She could tell he only caught the
no
in her sign, and not the
yet
, because he got all fretful and started pulling her into the kitchen. She’d wanted to ask him if he played the piano, but he seemed stuck in caretaking mode right now, and she found it so sweet she didn’t have the heart to distract him from it.

He piled fruit and artisan bread and something called soysages on the counter in front of her. He explained that he didn’t eat meat, which Constance found vaguely arousing. She could take meat products or leave them, but vegetarianism just sounded so…healthful.

She turned down the soysages and bread and had some cereal instead. He made his own sandwich of cheese and sprouts and slices of red and yellow peppers and started to eat it, standing across the counter from her.

“Why don’t you sit down?” she signed.

“I have to run. I have a lot of work stuff on my mind. But when I get home later I’ll make dinner for you, and we can get to know each other a little more. Is that okay?”

Constance was confused. “Is what okay?”

“If we get to know each other.”

Constance watched as he flicked a stray bean sprout off the front of his shirt. “Why would that not be okay?” she signed, puzzled.

“Bastien said we should guard against forming an emotional attachment.”

Constance gazed at him, at his lips and broad shoulders and amber eyes. “Bastien means not falling in love,” she signed slowly. “But we can talk and get to know each other.” She thought a moment. “It’s not as fun to fuck a stranger.” She used the more obscene sign for
fuck
and noticed by his smile that he knew it.

“Sometimes it’s exciting to fuck a stranger,” he said.

Now she smiled and gave him a lascivious once-over from head to toe. “We can do what pleases you. Always.”

He lifted one eyebrow as he took the last bite of his sandwich. “It might be wiser not to make such open-ended offers to perverse gentlemen like myself.”

Constance made no answer, only stared at him. She was the one naked and exposed to his gaze, and yet she was the one molesting him with her eyes. He came around the counter and clasped her close, cupping her ass cheeks, which were still faintly bruised from the night before. Then he tilted her head up and gave her a look that made her very sorry she had her period at the moment.

“I’ll try to be home early,” he said.

*** *** ***

Constance wrote a little and then slept again. She didn’t dream. Her mind was quiet for the first time in a long time. She felt an unfamiliar sense of comfort and peace in her new situation. Either that, or Kai was having airborne sedatives piped into her odella along with the breezes of warm air from the furnace vents.

It was nearly March. Soon, she would be able to open the large picture window on the far wall and feel spring breezes against her skin. She might even ask Kai if he would help her move the bed over there. Why wouldn’t he? He was a wonderful owner. He seemed to want to do whatever would most make her happy.

Constance woke with her notebook still open on her bed. God forbid he would come in and start reading her stuff. He would laugh his ass off. She never showed it to anyone, as much as she felt compelled to continue writing. Why did she bother?

Well, why not? She could do as she liked with her life now. That was the whole point of becoming an odalisque. Well, aside from the endless sexual ecstasy. Just as she was daydreaming about such ecstasy, her owner stuck his head in the door. She smiled at him and pushed her notebook under her pillow.

Wow. There was something about a hot man in a business suit. She sat up a little straighter. Her hands formed the signs that were like second nature to her. “May I serve you?”

He looked confused. “I thought you were off limits right now?”

“I can’t receive. But...I can give.”

His mouth fell open a little. “Oh, wow. Really? I thought I was in for a three-day dry spell.” He was already moving toward her, his hands at the fastenings of his pants.

She looked up at him, laughing. “Three days is not exactly a dry spell,” she signed.

He gazed back at her with a rakish smile. “And oral sex is not exactly giving. There’s some receiving involved too.” He made an obscene gesture, one long, bronze finger poking through the circle of his opposite hand. “Is this an official sign for anything?”

Constance was overcome by a fit of giggles that transformed into full-out laughing at the look of mock disappointment on his face. His expression changed then, and he leaned down to kiss her. He pulled away and ran gentle fingertips down one cheek. “Constance. I wish you could hear what you sound like when you laugh. Or can you? Can you hear it? Inside your head?”

It was a stupid question, but he didn’t know. “I can’t hear things like you hear them. I pretty much can’t hear anything.” She exaggerated the sign for
anything
into a sweeping dismissal, feeling peevish all of a sudden.

He was still looking at her with that awful, sympathetic look. “Your laugh sounds so pretty. Like bells.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what bells sound like.” She dropped her hands to her lap. She was tired of signing. Tired of trying to communicate with him while he watched her with patient forbearance. She reached for his fly and signed again, “May I serve you?”

For a moment he continued to stroke her face, then ran his hand up to touch her hair. She looked back at him, hoping he wouldn’t say anything else.
Please, please, just let me do what I’m here for.
Finally he drew her forward, down to her knees. He unbuttoned his shirt as she freed his half-rigid cock from the front of his boxers.

Constance sat back on her knees for a second, taking him in. His cock was thick--even at half mast--and vein-y. The head jutted out toward her, part of a growing, pulsing sculpture. Soon enough she would internalize everything about the shape and scent of him. She would memorize every ridge and vein she explored with her tongue. She would learn which spots made him groan and which movements made him buck in her mouth.

His open shirttails rested against his hips, framing the view, and his hands hung open at each side. His hands, my God. She wanted to kiss them. She wanted to nibble and suck his long, curved fingers as much as his cock. His stance was dominant enough to bring an ache to life between her legs. It was as if time stood still, and she watched herself in this tableau from somewhere across the room, kneeling before him in all his masculine glory. Her subservience flooded her psyche like a drug.

You are a sick, sick puppy, Constance.

She reached out to touch him, to feel the velvet texture of his skin, the heat of his arousal. She brought his cock to her lips and set about memorizing the things he liked best. She hadn’t had him this way since the very first evening she’d met him, when Bastien had brought him to her room under the eaves, and she had looked up to see an Indian god. Tall, formidable, and effortlessly sensual, even when he was serious and reserved.

Constance looked up at him now as she slid her tongue from the base to the tip of his cock. He stared back down at her, her immovable Master, and thought about...what? How she felt? How she looked? How she gazed at him like a wanton slut? She moaned softly and he seemed to jump against her mouth. He was fully hard now, hard like stone, like marble.

She teased him for a long while, tracing, sucking, caressing him with her tongue. He stood still, hands open, shirt drawn apart. She reached up to place her palm against his hard, flat abs, against his waist, pulling him closer. She fought not to gag as she drew him all the way deep in her throat. His living flesh stole her breath. This was the epitome of submission and while it made her feel vulnerable, it also made her feel powerful. She reached down to finger herself, helpless to control the impulse. She was drooling all over him, giving a sloppy, reckless blowjob. She would definitely have his boxers wet, but she didn’t think he’d care.

Then some resonance changed, and his body tensed under her fingers. She knew he was reaching the height of his arc. She hoped he would climax in her mouth. She wanted to taste him and savor him, and get to know the flavor of him. When she’d gone down on him at the Maison, he’d been wearing a condom, and she’d been left with nothing but the bitterness of latex in her mouth.
Oh, Kai. Kai...
She gazed up at him just a moment. He gritted his teeth and stared back at her from under sultry lids. Constance increased the pace and pressure of the blowjob, and his hands moved from his sides, coming to rest on her head.

Kai didn’t grab her. She probably would have been alarmed if he’d grabbed her and jammed his cock deep. No, she only felt his fingers tangling in her curls and clenching slightly. Soon after, with a buck of his hips, he spurted cum into her throat, onto her tongue. She tasted the sweet salty essence of him and loved it from the start.

She loved him.

No.
No.
Of course she didn’t love him like
that
. She just loved the color of his skin, his beautiful eyes, his muscles and his cock still pressed firm and hot in her mouth. She felt some vibration under her fingers. Perhaps some groan or exhalation. He wished she could hear herself laugh.

She wished she could hear him come. Just once.

She felt almost mournful as he slipped away from her. Unthinking, again she slid her hand down between her legs. She was wet, her clit perky and swollen under her fingertips. When Constance looked up at him, Kai was buttoning his shirt and giving her an assessing look. She hoped he wasn’t wondering about the absence of blood. She didn’t want to have to explain the concept of a menstrual cup to him in sign language. Much less draw a diagram, for God’s sake.

But no. He was probably smart enough to have already figured that out. He was giving her a different kind of assessing look. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip.

“You like that?” he asked. “It turns you on, serving me this way?”

How could he doubt it? She curled her fingers away from her tingling clit to make one very simple and heartfelt sign. “Yes.”

“Masturbate for me then.” The predatory look on his face excited her. “Is that permissible? Can I make you do that at this time of the month?” His lips pursed in a half-smile. “Is that giving or receiving?”

She made a naughty looking sign. “Both.”

He chuckled, but she was still, feeling pinned by his direct gaze.

“Lie down on your back. Spread your legs so I can watch.”

Constance lay back right where she was, her shoulders on the soft deep pile carpet. Her legs tensed as she spread them slowly and braced her heels on the floor. He watched her from his full height, imperious now. Her Master.

“Masturbate and make yourself come.”

It was hard to be one hundred percent sure of his words from this angle, but she knew without a doubt what he wanted her to do. Her gaze never left his face. His lips moved slightly, but she didn’t think he was talking.

His eyes were her whole world.

She parted her slick pussy lips with eager fingers, stroking over her clit. Her hips rose of their own volition as the swarm of heat and desire in her center seemed to spread out to her whole pelvis. Her nipples tightened with a delicious ache. She imagined Kai pinching them, biting them. She stared up and remembered him hurting her and fucking her. Taking her. Her fingers moved faster, rubbing and pressing, seeking release for the hot lust that had overtaken her as she’d sucked her Master’s cock.

She wanted to draw this out, this glorious torment under his scrutiny. He was breathing even faster than before. She could see his chest rising and falling, and felt blood pumping in her ears like a drumbeat.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
She closed her eyes, ready to fall over the edge.

But then she felt him moving, felt his presence beside her. She opened her eyes and stared up into amber pools edged with blue-gray. Dark brows, and full lips parted over straight teeth. He was crouching beside her, and their gazes locked just as a shattering orgasm contracted within her. Her hands flew off her clit. The sensation was too much. She clutched at his arm and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the column of his neck. His five-o’clock-shadow stubble rubbed against her hand. He was pressing her fingers to his face. For a moment he wore a look of pure animal violence.

Constance curled up on her side, needing to look away. He released her. If he said anything before he left the room, she didn’t see. She only remembered, like imprinting, the feel of his rough cheek scratching against her palm.

Kai took an hour, a full hour, to calm down. Odalisque. Fucking hell. She had some kind of superpower to turn him into a mindless maniac. So brazenly sexual. So unashamed. So submissive to his will. She’d touched herself like nothing fucking mattered but making herself come. If he hadn’t left--if he hadn’t stood up and marched his ass out of the fucking room--he would have fallen on her until the saffron-colored shag carpet was running with red. Human sacrifice.