Falling by Stella Mira
Personal Advice
A week passes. Ceaseless days and sleepless nights. Kagome stares at the note he has given her, the sole thing his in her possession. It is smooth and unwrinkled, almost harmless, but the name written there, the man it belongs to, is far from that. Again, and again, she utters his name, tastes the perfection in it—raw vocalization, like the man himself. The sound glides on her palate, stretches and coils and twines, thrust so deep inside her, into the pith of her cells, that it becomes inseparable. The mere utterance evokes spasms, intrinsic, involuntary. A hitch of breath, ripples of heat, surging under tight skin, from her lips down to her nipples, low…and lower still. She moans, gasps, screams his name—in the dead of night, in the midst of slick sheets and release. It is not enough, never enough. Madness saturates her thighs, her fingers, spills in dips and crevices, suffuses all that she is, all that she wants to become—his, only his.
Kagome knows she will see him again in three weeks when he will reserve a table to entertain that client of his, and no sooner than that, but she is wrong. When he comes into her dressing room, an hour before her shift begins, as she is readying herself, shock prevents her from showing incriminating expressions. She neither welcomes nor turns him away…and he doesn’t wait to be invited. The door closes behind him, soundless under the drumming of her heart inside her ribcage. He stares at her, a glow of pyrite, illusions of gold—eyes cognizant of things he should have never been, of secrets she has given away too easily.
“Did you consider my proposal?”
Her fingers sprain, gripping the lapels of her robe, knuckles white, whiter than even the fabric itself. Thin-lipped, polished, her smile never reaches her eyes.
“My reply remains the same, Taishō-sama. I have never offered such services in the past—and I have no intention of doing so in the future. You were an exception.”
Perhaps it is the truth in her words, conviction enameled on red lips. Perhaps the lie, that allusive intonation—because he still is an exception, if only he asks. She cannot tell what provokes this reaction, but his eyes glare like metal, gold-edged. There is no other warning, only the cold of the wall against her cheek, the heat of his body on the contours of her back, pressure and tightness. A sound escapes her throat, half-moan, half-hiss, but she doesn’t struggle. Her arms are pulled and bound above her shoulders, wrists overlaying one another, trapped in his grip, coils of steel stretched under skin. His voice flows over the slope of her neck, permeates sensitized flesh and nerves, when he speaks.
“This is not an exception.”
Such an unfairly desirous voice it is, sentient. It fructifies submission, a sound meant to hypnotize, stimulate the senses. Kagome parts her lips to speak, though she has no voice of her own, but she is never given the chance. Fingertips snake beneath the silk of her robe, nails grazing along the inside of her thigh, raking the smooth skin, high…and higher. She shivers, cold becomes hot, the pads of his fingers glide over that ball of soft tissue, circling and rubbing and scraping. Soft flesh, soaking, drenching both of them as he teases her in all the right ways—but what he does is not right, is too decadent to be called merely that.
“Men come here for their lusts—” Slow intrusion, delving deep, a stroke of heat, slick as the flesh that pulses around it, and his voice lowers, near drowned under her gasp. “For this.”
Kagome arches, bends and strains against him, against the tether of his hold. Fire, his voice, languid motions—they curl and twist, surge and withdraw, in a maddening tempo that has her aching.
“Whether you give it or not makes no difference, so long as the promise remains in the air.”
A skein of words knots under her tongue, pools into her mouth, but she can’t untangle it—not a single word. His rhythm is so languorous, methodical, that the pleasure becomes pain, throbs with precipitance.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
His grip tightens, nails sinking into thin skin, and his pace regresses to even slower strokes. She hearkens to his demand then, regains her voice, murmurs and desperation.
“Yes—but I—”
The moment those words break their chains, emerge from her throat, he deprives her of speech once more, as if he merely wishes to ascertain her clarity, nothing more.
“Did you know that I’m also a shareholder of Moritaka Financial Group? Obtaining information on their clients is quite easy for me. Student loans, for example.”
Despite need swelling in her veins, and through the haze, realization embeds its talons into her desire. Again, she shivers, hot becomes cold, but the torment of his touch never stops. Willing enslavement. He gives as much pleasure as he does pain.
“Settling them is even easier.”
There is such baneful delectation subtly woven in his offer that she forgets to breathe—but it is not really an offer, she can tell. Struggling with respiration, teeth bite the insides of her cheeks, and copper floods her mouth. She swallows the torture alongside the ecstasy, forces her lips to move.
“I can…pay my own…debts.”
Something changes then, static electricity, vibrations against her spine, as if he is chuckling, but he is not fully capable of it, she suspects.
“In time, yes. With your current earnings though, it will take some time—two years, to be exact. That is…if you continue to work here with the same benefits, the same clientele.”
That if falls heavy on her skin, sears the nape of her neck, palpitates inside her with each thrust and brush of his fingers—but that pressure builds and tightens and seethes. She says nothing, only chases after that high, allows his voice to guide her there.
“One of the most basic rules in marketing is that you can never afford to lose a customer. If word spreads that you decided to bestow certain privileges upon a customer, offer services you never granted before, then expectations will arise. What do you think will happen when you will not meet those expectations?”
Kagome is cogent of the threat in his words, invidious insinuation, but she is close, so close, that she cares nothing for it. No—that is a lie. She cares for the way he vociferates it, lust composed into sound, as if the thought of it arouses him.
“I—don’t want—anyone el—”
A hiss, muscles gripping, on the verge of spilling over the edge, on the precipice of apotheosis. Her words die in her throat, never reaching completion…neither does she. He doesn’t grant her release, doesn’t give what she needs—merely the taste of it, of her insanity, slathered on his fingers as he withdraws them from the clasp of her body. Too slow, agonizing.
“Finish that sentence and you are done in this profession. Take this—” Wetness, denied pleasure, those same fingers dragging over the curve of her lips. “—as valuable advice.”
She hates him then, as much as she hates herself, her susceptibility, smeared on his fingers, on the angles of her jaw, as he tilts her neck back. A fingertip, rough and slick, his sole allowance, slipping past the seam of her mouth, sliding across her tongue. Her gaze locks on his features, on the liquor of his irises, on the kink of his lips, and she sees wisps of fire, curled satisfaction—yet it is another kind, not born of desire but sovereign. The flat of his tongue spreads that satisfaction over the arc of her cheekbone, sultry acid melting her skin.
“For free.”
~~~~~
Skye’s Weekly Challenge: Heartless
A/N: Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! I should have mentioned this from the start, but this story is clearly not romance. It was meant as a birthday gift, and the birthday girl requested obsession, so that is what she will have. Onwards! XD