The Trap Springs

The lamplight made her look like a painting. One of those Dutch ones. All golden shadow and barely contained trembling. I let her stand there a moment longer, giving her time to reconsider. She didn't move. 

Good.

She stood there with her pulse visible in her throat, her breath coming a little too fast, her hands flexing at her sides like they wanted permission to land somewhere. I didn't give it to them. Not yet. Instead I let my smile settle, let her feel the weight of what she'd just walked into.

Poor thing. She had no idea she'd been walking toward this room since the moment I first saw her unpack her notebooks three days ago. All that nervous energy wrapped in corduroy and earnest hope. I'd known then. Some women announce themselves like weather systems; she arrived like a question she didn't know she was asking.

Now the door was closed and she stood in my room looking like someone who had just realized the water was deeper than expected.

Delicious.

"Come here," I'd said, and she had. Obedient already. But now she'd stopped, three feet away, her breath a little too quick, her hands flexing at her sides like they wanted permission to land somewhere.

I didn't give it to them. Not yet.

Instead, I stayed where I was, leaning against the dresser, letting the silk do its work. I'd chosen this nightgown the way a general chooses terrain. The fabric caught the warm light and released it in ways that suggested more than it revealed. Every time I shifted, it whispered against my skin, and I watched her eyes flicker down and then determinedly back up.

Such discipline. Such futile, endearing discipline.

"You're nervous," I observed.

"I'm not." Her voice came out rougher than she intended. I could hear the want scraping against the edges of it.

"Liar." I smiled. "Your pulse is visible in your throat."

Her hand flew up to touch the spot, and I laughed, low and warm. The sound made her shiver. Good. I wanted her off balance. I wanted her to feel the ground shifting beneath her feet with every word I spoke.

"Why are you laughing?" she asked, and there was the faintest edge to it now. A flare of pride beneath the wanting.

Better. So much better. I don't enjoy prey that doesn't have teeth.

"Because you're adorable when you're pretending you're not affected." I pushed off from the dresser and took a single step toward her. Just one. The space between us compressed like a held breath. "And because I've been thinking about this moment since Tuesday."

"Tuesday?"

"The workshop. When you read that passage about longing." I let my gaze drift down her body, unhurried, appreciative. "You weren't reading about a character. You were confessing something. I could hear it in the catch of your voice."

The flush that crept up her neck was exquisite. She hadn't known. She'd thought her performance was flawless, her walls intact. But I'd been watching. I'm always watching.

"I didn't—" she started.

"You did." I took another step. Now I could smell her, something clean and green beneath the faint panic of arousal. "You wrote about a woman who wanted to be seen. Who was terrified of being seen. Who stood at thresholds she was desperate to cross."

Her breath caught. I could see the moment she understood: I'd read her. Page by careful page.

"So here's the threshold," I said softly. "And here you are, standing in my room with the door closed behind you."

My fingers hovered at her jaw, close enough that she could feel the warmth of my hand. The almost-contact seemed to undo her more than actual touching would have. Her eyelids fluttered. A small sound escaped her throat.

"The question is," I murmured, "do you want to stay on the threshold? Or do you want to find out what happens when you finally step through?"

She was trembling now. Her eyes had gone dark, pupils wide, and there was something in her expression that made satisfaction curl warm and slow through my chest. She was afraid. She was hungry. She was standing at the edge of herself, looking down.

This was the moment I lived for. Not the act itself, but the architecture that preceded it. The careful construction of want until it became a living thing, until she couldn't tell anymore where her desire ended and my design began.

"Tell me what you want," I said.

She swallowed. Her voice came out like a confession whispered in a church. "You. I want—"

"Specificity, darling." I let my fingers finally graze her jaw, the lightest possible touch. She gasped like I'd burned her. "What do you want me to do to you?"

The words seemed to short-circuit something in her. She opened her mouth, closed it. I could see her struggling against years of polite restraint, against every voice that had ever told her wanting was weakness, that asking was shameful, that good girls didn't burn quite this openly.

I waited. Patience is my greatest tool.

"I want you to kiss me," she finally managed, the words tumbling out like they'd been locked away for years. "I want you to stop teasing and actually—"

She'd asked for an end to teasing, and I was a woman of my word. I caught her mouth with mine and swallowed the small sound of shock she made, my hand sliding from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers threading into her hair. She tasted like wine and want and the salt of a woman who'd been working herself up for hours.

Her hands finally found their landing places on my waist, my hip, clutching at the silk like she was afraid I'd vanish. I smiled against her mouth.

Oh, I wasn't going anywhere.

I walked her backward until her shoulders hit the wall. Pinned her there with my body, my thigh pressing between hers. The sound she made then, half moan and half surrender, echoed through me like a note perfectly struck.

I pulled back just enough to look at her. Lips swollen, eyes glassy, chest heaving. She looked wrecked already, and we'd barely begun.

"More," she whispered.

I traced my thumb across her lower lip. Felt it tremble beneath my touch.

"Say please."

Her eyes flashed, that spark of pride again. For a moment I thought she might resist. But then something in her softened, yielded, and the word came out like prayer.

"Please."

I rewarded her with my mouth on her throat, teeth grazing the pulse point I'd teased her about earlier. Her head fell back against the wall. Her fingers dug into my hips.

"Good girl," I murmured against her skin.

The shudder that ran through her at those words was everything I'd hoped for.

This was going to be a very long night.

And I intended to savor every single moment of it.