Page 52 of Up In Flames

The next three weeks fly by. I’ve never been so happy in my entire life, which is saying something, since I’ve usually been happy. Each day feels like a gift. When I arrive home after my shifts, some of which stretch into the next day because there’s a slew of forest fires being set, there’s a skip in my step. Normally, I spend most nights in the MFD dorms, little cubicles where we can shut our eyes before the next emergency. But with Nina and Mr. Mittens to get home to, I don’t want to miss a minute.

Today, I stopped by the flower shop on the way home, so when I plunge through the door with my bouquet of pink roses, I’m whistling. Nina hates whistling, so I’m expecting her to throw her hands on her hips as she scowls and berates me… all the better to let me kiss her into submission and good humor.

Instead, I stop short. The cellophane-wrapped bouquet tumbles from my fingers to the floor, just adjacent to where Nina rests upon her knees. She’s just at the edge of the Persian rug, dressed in a white lace camisole set through which I can see the bud of her pink nipples and the slightest edge of her matching lower lips.

My breath hitches in my lungs. Yes, she still looks like an angel to me. Slap on a pair of feathered wings, and I’d be the one falling to my knees. But there’s deviltry in her eyes—and that’s going to send me to my knees even faster.

“Jelly Bean, what are you wearing? What are you doing?”

She gazes up at me from beneath her fringe of blond hair, blue eyes glittering like pure sapphires with the reflection of the overhead lights. Licking her lips before biting the bottom one, she says, “You like?”

A growl works its way up my throat. I’m sweaty and covered in soot from a day spent putting out a warehouse fire. I didn’t take time to shower at the MFD because I wanted to buy her flowers, and I was anxious to get home, but right now I’m regretting being employed at all.

“I like.” I manage to close and lock the door behind me without turning my gaze away from her. “But you didn’t answer the question, Jelly Bean. What’s this about?” An uneasy edge tamps down on the wave of lust rocketing through me. I’m fairly certain that I’ve been satisfying Nina’s needs. I’m normally attentive to the women I fuck. With her, I’m laser-focused. But is the outfit and posture a sign that she requires more?

Briefly, her head hangs before she raises it again. “I thought, um, that we could visit your Red Room?”

Understanding falls through me like a brick. This is her way of telling me she’s ready. I should have guessed it right away, because she’s certainly dressed for the occasion, but sometimes I’m dense.

I cross to her in two steps, landing too close, so she’s forced to look up my body. If she wants to play at submission, she’s come to a master. I’ve had lots of practice with domination, and it’s the little things, the subtle actions, that inspire the results we both want.

Sure enough, her gaze latches onto my dick that’s painfully tenting my jeans. Her throat bobs as she swallows. Behind her half-closed lids, her eyes dart up to my face, testing my reactions.

“We talked about this, Jelly Bean. Are you sure you’re ready?”

I keep the room locked, not because I’m afraid of what she’ll see, but because I don’t want her to feel like she has to provide the type of sex that usually goes on there.

“I know. But I want to see it.”

“See it or experience it? Is this curiosity or desire?” I ask, bending to take her chin in my fingers and drag it upward so her lovely throat stretches, open and vulnerable.

“Both.” Her voice is only a whisper. There’s a tremble of apprehension in it. And arousal. I can scent her need on the air.

I run my thumb over her lower lip before I slip it inside onto her tongue. Like a good girl, she sucks on it, sending shooting sparks down to my dick. “Such a good girl.”

A flush of pink sweeps over her face, but her eyes glisten.

I take a single step back before I gesture down the hallway, meaning she should lead me. If she wants in, it’s going to be her choice all the way.

“Really?” she asks, scrambling to her feet.

“So long as you’re okay with my taking you hard, sweaty, and dirty once we cross that threshold, then yes. Really.”

“I thought you might… um, well, object?”

I shake my head. “To treating you like a plaything? To bending you to my will? To testing your limits?”

It’s true that I’ve been respectful with her, even in our most heated encounters, but there’s something about a Red Room that changes the essential dynamics between lovers. The space is about sex, pleasure, and sometimes pain: dirty, hot, demented fucking, every kink welcome, vanilla need not apply. There’s not typically a lot of room for devotion.

Though that won’t be true with her. That could never be true with her.

Nina bites her lower lip before she asks, “No virgin-whore thing where you’re going to look at me differently afterward?”

“Nope.”

She wants this. It’s evident in her outfit, posture, and questions. She’s considered this move carefully, as well as what it might mean for our relationship. And her nervousness is revealed in the way she shimmies from one foot to the other.

“Er, you’re not going to shower first?”