Harvest of Sighs

Chapter 8-1

Chapter Eight

Rebecca“We can stop whenever we need,” I tell her. And we will if she needs to, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved someone was coming up. And while yes, this is actually good practice for a baby sub—a little bit of Thornchapel in London, a little bit of our magic world to get her ready for the prying voyeurism of the club—truthfully, that’s not why I’m relieved.

I’m relieved because I’m a coward.

Delphine’s mouth is hot and searching against me when I push her face back to her work, and I try desperately to lose myself in the slick pleasure of her kiss before our visitor makes it up the stairs. I want every feeling I’ve had since Delphine uttered those terrible words to disappear, to shift into what they should be, which is satisfaction and pleasure and pride in my new submissive.

I’m almost there when Auden emerges from the stairwell, looking miserable and morose, the spattered rain on his shoulders matching the sudden plinking and plonking on the skylights above. He pauses when he sees us, Delphine on all fours and me with my hands in her hair and my legs stretched out as insouciantly as any man’s.

“Rain outside?” I say lightly, as if there isn’t a tongue in my p***y. As if he’s just popped in for a chat and interrupted nothing more important than me responding to emails.

Auden meets my eyes and I nod at him, answering his unspoken questions. It’s a sign of our friendship that he doesn’t ask the questions aloud—or maybe it’s just a testament to whatever it is that has him looking so pathetic.

He finally answers, his voice filling the space as Delphine stiffens in front of me. “It’s only spitting,” he says. “Nothing bad. May I come in?”

“Certainly,” I say graciously, untangling my fingers from Delphine’s hair to smooth a hand along her back. “Have a seat. I’m almost through here.”

Auden shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it over a low bench by the windows before taking a seat next to me. I’m a little surprised he doesn’t want to sit where he can see Delphine’s heart-shaped bottom—that’s where I’d prefer to sit, if I wasn’t exactly where I was—but when he sits down and tucks a bit of stray blond hair behind Delphine’s ear, I think I know why.

She flicks those honey-brown eyes over to him and he gives her an almost-smile.

“Hi, Pickles,” he says softly. And I feel her lips curve up against me as her body relaxes.

“Hi, Auden,” she replies. I tsk at her, and she corrects, “Sir.”

“May I watch?” he asks her, voice still soft. “I’d like to.”

She nods and closes her eyes, leaning her cheek against my thigh for a moment before she starts licking me again.

Yes, I know why Auden chose this spot. He sat here so he could set her at ease, and it worked. He’s a good Dominant. He has the things that can’t be taught, the instincts, the right amount of cruelty and the right amount of compassion, and he knows how to oscillate between the two. Knots can be explained, flogging can be learned, all of that can be tutored into a willing student. But balancing arrogance with care? Being fully capable of both? That’s a rare thing.

“She’s good at this,” Auden remarks, leaning forward to brush more hair off her face.

“She is,” I agree as I tilt my hips up. She follows my lead and kisses me lower once again, her delicate, rich girl tongue stroking into my center. Delph and I have only been properly f*****g for the last six weeks, and she’s still more eagerness than skill—but the eagerness is incredible, it’s fervent and wholehearted, and when she’s trying to please me, no matter what it is—kissing, tonguing, crawling, enduring—she does it with her entire self. Her body and her heart and her mind—every part of her is present and artless. Totally honest.

She’s like clear water, like a tropical ocean, where one thinks the brightly colored bottom is only a few inches beneath the surface, but truly it’s so far down that one could drown trying to touch it. All of her is here, all of her is visible, and yet she’s the opposite of accessible, the opposite of easy.

I think I could spend years diving down to touch the reality of her.

“Give me your fingers, pet,” I whisper to her, and she obeys, glancing at Auden from underneath her lashes. It is a little bit like Thornchapel right now, the three of us here with a cool summer rain pattering at the glass, and I look over at my oldest friend, to where he’s shifting restlessly next to me. An erection swells against the front of his gray tweed trousers, and he impatiently presses the heel of his palm against it, as if it’s being impolite.

I arch against Delphine’s fingers and against her clever tongue. “Getting close,” I say. My voice is hitching, and I can feel an orgasm coiled around her fingers inside me, gathering underneath her wet little kiss. Auden’s eyes on us are sultry and interested, and the hand on his erection has stopped trying to make it go away. He’s rubbing himself through his trousers now, slow strokes, and I reach over and pluck at the button holding his trousers closed. His eyelids flutter as my fingers brush over something thick and rigid.

“Make yourself at home, Sir Guest,” I say.

“I just—before I came here, Poe and I—” He shakes his head, even as his hips lift to chase my touch. “I shouldn’t need to again.”

We are all of us consumed by whatever we woke up in the thorn chapel—we are all of us so full of appetite that we are snarling with it. Shouldn’t seems so far away, like a rule meant for children in the schoolyard, for beginners and initiates, for people who haven’t kissed and bled in the woods.

“Who cares if you shouldn’t need to? It’s only us here.”

“You’re a bad influence,” he says, but he pops his button open and slides a hand inside. Immediately his head falls backward against the sofa. “Fuck.”

I almost don’t know where to look as I crest over the edge—whether to look at Auden’s hand moving inside his trousers or the gorgeous submissive between my legs, or even at the reflection of the three of us in the window, all splayed legs and arching throats.

But Delphine looks up at me just as the climax hits, and it’s her eyes I see as I come. It’s her honest gaze shimmering like clear water all the way to the honey-sweet bottom. It’s her faith and trust and—and f**k, love—f**k—

My hips twist and push as the first wave shudders through my cunt and up my belly, and Delphine responds in kind, more fingers, sucking harder, eyes warm and eager as she makes me come and come and come. Next to me, Auden’s freed his c**k, which is pulsing in his grip and releasing onto his jumper with long jets of seed. Together, we are lost, lost, arching and pushing through the pleasure, and it feels like I’ve been coming forever, like there’s only ever been these waves, each one more deliciously harsh than the last, like there’s only ever going to be more; I’m set adrift on a sea of seizing, rippling sensation and I never have to leave, I never have to work or compete or shield myself ever again.

Here is a small swath of vivid, vital heaven.

Delphine’s eyes—those pretty, too-revealing eyes—keep me anchored to her as the climax gradually abates and I’m Rebecca in real life once again. Although I’m a much happier Rebecca now, after an orgasm from a beautiful submissive. My beautiful submissive.

We’ll be able to do this every night—this and so much more.

She’s mine now.

“Well done,” I whisper to her, brushing her hair away from her face. At my touch, she sighs and leans her head against my thigh, closing her eyes. “Such a good girl. Such a good girl.”

She practically purrs.

Next to me, Auden is a rumpled ode to indecency, his s*x exposed and pushing between the placket of his trousers. His charcoal jumper is spattered with his pleasure, and his long legs are still stretched out in front of him. He’s an immodest sprawl of muscled limbs and silk and wool—and the c**k jutting up from it all only adds to the impression that he’s some kind of insatiable, deviant aristocrat. But he looks very forlorn for a boy who just came all over himself, and I remember how unhappy he looked when he came upstairs, as wet and sad as a puppy caught in the rain.

“Would you like to change?” I ask Delphine. She’s still in her jacket and heels, and as much as I love seeing her with her skirt hiked up and her blouse gaping down to expose the swells of her t**s, she’ll be more comfortable in cozy clothes.

And she’ll be less tempting. Because if she’s on all fours in those shoes and that skirt for another minute . . .

Delphine is already nodding against my thigh, and she gives it a quick kiss—and my cunt, which is a liberty she gets her hair pulled for—and then rises up to her knees and then to her feet. Auden and I are treated to the view of her soft thighs and her lavender silk covered cunt before she manages to tug her skirt back down. Auden’s c**k gives a lazy stir at the sight of it, and her first instinct is to look over to me, as if to make sure it’s okay that he’s aroused by her.

I’m not jealous of the history between the two of them—and I’m more than comfortable sharing her with Auden for s*x—but I can’t lie to myself. That little flick of her eyes to me, that checking to make sure her Mistress approves . . . it’s deeply pleasing. She’s mine.

She said she loves you.

Panic spikes through my ribs with the memory of it. Panic and shame and—no. I refuse to acknowledge any other feelings. They are not invited. They are not welcome. And they don’t mean anything anyway—they’re just the chemical signatures of a limbic system that doesn’t know any better.

“Dress quickly and come back,” I tell her, my voice a little more steely than I’d like. I try to soften it. “Lean down a second, pet.”

She obeys, her hair swinging down like a veil and hiding her face from everything in the world but me. I use a thumb to wipe at a small smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. She’s all smudgy and disheveled from having her mouth thoroughly f****d, but of course, since she’s Delphine, it looks enchanting. She could post a picture of herself exactly like this, and people would be heart-emojiing and wanking off to it in equal numbers.

She catches my thumb in her mouth and gives it a hard suck.

“Careful,” I tell her, even as my c**t throbs in response. There’s something about her mouth, about the way her lips are always slightly parted that gets me so hot anyway. And with those full lips wrapped around my thumb, smeared with the same lipstick that’s still on my cunt—

I lean forward and give her a swat on the arse as I pull my thumb free. “Go change before you get yourself into trouble,” I command, knowing full well that trouble is exactly what she wants.

And me too, if I’m honest. I would very much like for her to be in trouble.

But we have a guest—literally a Guest, looking more woeful than anyone tucking a satisfied c**k away has a right to—and we also have the rest of the night. The week. The year.

Maybe longer.

She said she loves you.

Delphine gets her bag and scampers off as Auden tugs his jumper off and drops it onto the floor. He’s wearing a white and gray tattersall shirt underneath, and he rolls up the sleeves to the elbow, exposing finely muscled forearms. He has the look of someone concentrating on a very small, very unimportant task so that he doesn’t have to think about anything else.

And as I rearrange my knickers and romper and force myself not to watch the reflected glint of Delphine’s hair as she gathers her things and disappears into the bathroom, I think I know how he feels.

She said she loves you.