Playing Knotty (21 page)

Emma was so caught up in her audience that she nearly missed the sound of a package tearing open. Dimly, she wondered what she was hearing, since it couldn't be a condom. She didn't understand until she felt a smooth, cool film pressing against her, and fuck, that was a dental dam, and she had no time to prepare before she felt the slippery glide of Ian's tongue against her through the thin layer.

Her head snapped back up, straining for a view, but she couldn't see anything at all between her legs. She felt his breath against her, though, as he said, “Look at them watching you, Emma. I want you to keep watching.” She obeyed, turning her head to the side again as he dragged his tongue over her in a long, slow lick. The dam was so thin that she didn't even notice it after a minute; all she felt was Ian driving her fucking
insane
with his lips and tongue. When she tried to press closer, the bonds held her still. He took his time, lapping at her, brushing her clit with soft strokes that were not quite enough to get her over the edge. All the while, she stared into the audience, locking eyes with the people watching her fall apart, and goddamn, it was the hottest thing she'd ever experienced. She was trembling right on the edge, the gentle contact not enough, and she wanted to come exactly like this, tied down, Ian's head between her legs, his hair tickling the inside of her thighs.

Her breath was coming in harsh pants and whimpers, her orgasm barely out of reach, and he was keeping her there, making her ride the edge, and she would have done anything,
anything
to come.

“Please, God, please.” Everyone seemed to be hanging on the edge with her, leaning forward on their seats, silent and breathless, and they were going to see her come apart any moment, if Ian would only give her a little bit more . . .

Then his lips closed over her clit and he sucked hard. Emma didn't have time to think before she was coming, breathless, her screams silent and her body straining against her bonds. Ian didn't let up, kept the pressure on her clit as he pressed two fingers inside her, curling up to hit the spot that would have sent her through the ceiling if she hadn't been tied down. She was coming again, or maybe it was the same orgasm, one long unending climax, and she shook and shivered and sobbed and gave herself over to the pleasure while the world dissolved around her.

When she opened her eyes, she realized her hands were somehow free. The room was nearly empty, only Francine and Salome left, lingering near the door with their eyes on her. She must have blacked out. Shit, really? Did that actually happen? Emma drew her hands down to her chest, shivering, and felt the loops of rope falling free from her ankles and then her thighs. She felt too weak to move. Ian stepped into her line of sight, swiftly untying her waist as he looked down at her, concern in his eyes.

“You okay? You had me worried there.” He finished unwrapping her waist and set the rope aside, then put a hand behind her head and helped her sit up. “Easy, now. Not too fast.”

Emma looked over to the sitting area, but Francine and Salome had gone, closing the door behind them. She couldn't stop shivering.

“Come on. Slide down, nice and easy.” With one arm around her waist, Ian helped Emma down from the table. She realized he'd already removed her shoes. He half-carried her over to the couch. She lay down and he lay beside her, pulling a blanket over both of them, and they were cuddling. After a moment, her shivering subsided.

“Take as long as you need.” Ian stroked up and down her back. When she shifted, she could feel his erection against her stomach, and she stopped moving abruptly. He laughed, the motion vibrating his chest. “It's okay. This is about you right now. Don't worry about me.”

“I feel . . .” She tried to put her feelings into words but couldn't. “I don't know. I'm . . . I don't know.”

“It's all right. It was your first time doing something like this. Did it feel good?”

“
Fuck
yes,” she said automatically.

Ian chuckled. “Good. That's the goal.”

They lay there for another few minutes, holding each other, and it felt nice. Comfortable. Familiar. She kept expecting to feel embarrassed, but instead she felt completely relaxed, a deep-seated lassitude making her sleepy.

Finally, Emma propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at Ian. “I think I want to do it again.”

“What,
now
?” His eyebrows shot up.

She laughed, and the laughter felt like it shook something free inside her. “No. I mean . . . sometime. Sometime soon.”

Ian reached up and tucked one of Emma's curls back behind her ear. “I could arrange that.”

Emma moved again, adjusting her position, and she brushed Ian's erection again. His eyes fluttered closed and he bit his lip. “Could you . . . maybe not do that? It's only out of supreme effort that I'm not dry-humping the couch.”

Laughing, Emma slid down off his lap, heading for the basket near the table and grabbing a condom. “Fluid-free party, right?”

“You don't have to . . . oh,
shit,
Emma.” Ian's words left him as she deftly unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock. He was halfway through trying to sit up when she rolled the condom down onto him, and he fell back with a thump
.
A stroke or two over the condom, twisting her wrist at the tip, and she bent to swallow him down.

“Fucking
hell.
”
Ian fisted his hand in her hair out of reflex as she sucked him down. Okay, the mint-flavored condom was a little weird, but the noises he was making were absolutely
criminal,
and she couldn't care about anything else. Ian didn't hold back, his hips rocking as Emma sucked and licked at his cock, and though he had a hand buried in her hair, he wasn't pulling her down onto him or guiding her. He let her set the pace. When she brought a hand up to cup his balls, reaching into his fly to roll them carefully in her hand, he let out a keening cry and came apart. His hand tightened in her hair out of reflex, his dick twitching in her mouth as she sucked him through his orgasm.

“Jesus Christ.” Ian stared up at the ceiling, dazed, and Emma couldn't help grinning as she sat back and took care of the condom. She didn't even mind the residual mint taste in her mouth, since he looked so blissed out.

They eventually picked themselves up off the couch to clean the room. “You want to stick around here?” Ian asked as he stuffed the last of the ropes into his bag.

“Nah, I think I'm ready to go.” As soon as she said it, she stopped. She'd just told someone her true feelings without worrying that he would be mad at her. She'd been doing that a lot more lately, and this time it hadn't occurred to her to do otherwise. “Huh.”

“What?”

Emma shrugged. “I was thinking: I wanted to leave, and I said so.”

Ian raised one eyebrow. “That's new for you?”

“Actually, yes.” Emma pulled her comfortable clothes out of her overnight bag and started changing, unclipping her stockings from the chemise and rolling them down her legs. She didn't even mind taking off her clothes in front of Ian. “I don't usually ask for what I want if I think it might be different from what someone else wants.” She continued undressing, realizing only after a few minutes that Ian wasn't moving, was watching her from his position kneeling in front of the open suitcase of ropes. “What?”

“You just go along with what other people ask you to do?” He seemed genuinely puzzled. “And your friends are okay with this?”

“My friends are generally why I do it.” She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

Ian pulled a pair of jeans out of his bag and began changing into them. “Why?”

How was she supposed to articulate it? “I guess I just want them to like me.” She found her black heels near the table and tossed them in the bag, replacing them with a pair of Chucks that she pulled on over some white cotton socks. “When I say it like that, it sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?”

“No, not stupid. But . . . confusing. Shouldn't your friends like you for who you are?” Ian unfastened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt. Before Emma could figure out how to answer his question, though, he nodded to the door. “Come on, let's head out.”

Crunching across the gravel on the way back to the car, Emma stared up at the stars, bright and clear away from the lights of the city. Boston glimmered across the bay, seeming impossibly far. Her night seemed like a dream. And as with a dream, she was worried it would all dissolve once they drove back into those lights, reality pushing back down around her again. She'd found a new Emma tonight, one who was sexy and worthy and desirable, one who didn't have to apologize for existing, for being who she was. As Ian started the car, she felt an irrational fear that, as they drove away from this magical place, new Emma would slip away.

Chapter 24

I
an let the silence
between them stretch out as they drove back along Route 1. Emma stared out the window, appearing to be lost in her own thoughts, twisting her fingers together. Their night had been hot, erotic, incredible, but more important, he felt like he'd seen a new side of Emma. Maybe this Emma wouldn't run away from whatever they had together. She must have felt the difference as well, because she spent the first ten minutes of their drive in contemplative silence.

“I tried really hard to reinvent myself when I went away to college.”

Ian looked over briefly, startled by her voice after the long silence. Emma continued staring out the window as she spoke.

“In business, if you don't get good at networking, you won't be successful, and I had never fit in before. I met Alina right away in college, and even though she was clearly popular, she liked me. She actually wanted to be my friend, and I had no idea why, but it seemed so important to keep that connection. So I rushed Theta Theta Phi. We stayed friends throughout all of college, she and I and Margot, but it's always been like . . .” She paused, and he waited for her to find the right words. “It's like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now they're so successful, and I'm barely getting by, and we barely have anything in common. And I'm worried that if I'm really myself with them, if I tell them what I'm thinking and just be who I am, that it won't . . . it won't be good enough. And that'll mean that”—she looked down at her hands, her fingers folding and unfolding in her lap—“that
I'm
not good enough.”

Ian wanted to comment, to offer his advice and suggestions. Would that be welcome? He wanted to fix things, but she might be sharing simply to have her thoughts heard. She might not want his opinions. So he stayed quiet, and after a minute, she kept talking.

“I know I probably shouldn't care. I should maybe let the friendships go, especially if we don't have much in common anymore. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, to be honest. How maybe I should sever ties. I've made friends with Bethany, and I feel like I can be myself with her, and it feels so different from these other friendships.” She stretched her legs out in the footwell and rubbed her hands over her thighs, back and forth in nervous strokes. “Except . . . I want to prove to myself that I'm the kind of person who can have friends like Alina and Margot. They're socially successful, perfectly composed . . . they're everything I want to be. And I thought if I hung out with them enough, I could be more like them, but all it's done is remind me of the ways I'm not. But ending the friendships now would be like giving up. Like, what did I waste the last few years on if I just end it? I guess that's why some people stay in bad relationships, like they've invested all this time and so they don't want to give up, and it probably sounds stupid. Do you have any water?” she asked abruptly.

“Backseat. Can you reach it?”

Emma unbuckled and turned, reaching through the gap between their seats to snag a water bottle. Then she settled back into her seat and refastened the seat belt. “Thanks.” She was silent for a moment, drinking from the bottle. He thought that this might be the most he'd ever heard her talk at one time, and definitely with the most openness. She'd always danced around her feelings, hinted at things, maybe given a few direct statements, but no long, honest speeches. He remained quiet, one hand idly resting on the gearshift as she put the cap back on the bottle and tucked it into the footwell.

“I guess it would be easier if I didn't genuinely like them.” Emma turned to look at Ian. “But I
do
like them. Margot is funny and completely unpredictable, and Alina is really sweet, or at least she can be. Even when I'm critical of them, it's like . . . it's like I'm critical of myself.” She turned to face forward again, a tiny line between her eyebrows as she considered. “I don't know. God, I feel like such a head case. I never go off like this. I don't think I've ever said this shit out loud before. I don't know what's gotten into me. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was drunk, but I didn't have anything to drink. I don't even think there was alcohol served at that party.”

“There wasn't.” Ian didn't look away from the road. “And this sort of thing is common after a scene. For some people, bondage is freeing.” He snorted. “That sounds stupid. I mean, bondage reveals who people are. It lets them be themselves. It's hard to hide who you are when someone's taking down your defenses like that.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Emma picked up the water bottle and had another sip, then offered it to Ian, who had some as well. The water was room-temperature but refreshing to his dry throat. He hadn't realized he was thirsty until she'd offered him a drink. In a way, it was like how he was feeling about Emma. Since she hadn't seemed to want anything serious with him, he'd been forcing himself to accept what they had. She was a great workshop model, engaged, compliant, and good-natured. As a sexual partner, they had great chemistry. No issues there. But now that he had gotten a taste of the real her, not just the physical part but listening to her talk, he realized she might be exactly what he needed.

“I wish you weren't so critical of yourself.” Ian handed the bottle back to Emma, his eyes on the road ahead, curling into the darkness.

“I'm getting better.”

“I know. It's good to see. It's hard to listen to you put yourself down,” he said. Emma looked out the window and didn't respond. After another stretch of silence, Ian tentatively asked, “Do you want advice about this?”

Emma stayed quiet. He waited, rubbing his thumb over the gearshift. Finally, she said, “Okay.”

“I think you should be yourself around your friends. Maybe they'll surprise you. Either way, it's probably better to know. I think you'll feel better if you just take that step.”

Emma's laugh surprised him. He glanced over, puzzled. “Did I make a joke I didn't know about?”

“No, it's just . . . déjà vu.” She grinned.

“A glitch in the matrix.” He nodded.

He didn't have to look at her to know that she was looking skyward and shaking her head. “It's déjà vu because I said the exact same thing to Bethany a couple of weeks ago.”

“Maybe I'm a psychic.”

“Felt like that tonight sometimes.” Emma folded her hands in her lap.

Ian couldn't help smiling at that ego boost. “You had fun, really?”

“Yeah. It was better than I expected.” She paused. “Fucking awesome, actually.”

“I'm glad.”

The silence that fell then was companionable rather than tense; it held as he pulled up in front of Emma's building and put the car in park. “I had a lot of fun tonight, Emma.” He turned in his seat to face her. She looked radiant even in her jeans and sweatshirt, her expression soft and relaxed.

Reaching out, she rested her hand on his. “Will you stay the night?”

Ian met her gaze. This wasn't just sex, he knew. It was something more, something forged between them that night, something big and real and a bit frightening. But instead of asking what she thought it all meant, he turned his hand palm-up under hers and squeezed. “I'd like that.”