Page 46 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

I drop my head back and stare at the ceiling, knee bouncing in the quiet room, the distant sound of crashing waves metronomic in my peripheral awareness.

Lillith really does make me feel like a rookie sometimes. I’m a bit of a fuckboy. I feel that this has been well established. But it bears repeating because I have been to strip clubs. I have been to dungeons. I have been to orgies and swinger parties and rope socials.

None of those prior experiences have wound me up the way waiting for Lillith to change into lingerie is. It certainly hasn’t helped my patience that she folded into submission so sweetly for me when I gave her instructions. It was graceful. Almost elegant. Easy as breathing.

I close my eyes and heave out an exhale remembering it. The wet, malleable curve of her lower lip—the taste of her tongue—the shift of her throat as she swallowed against my grasp around her neck. There is something just so compelling about such a lovely woman begging to be told how to please me. Buying lingerie just to put it on. For me. Just to drive me out of my mind.

It feels powerful. It feels like greed. It feels like security.

My eyes are still closed when I hear the sound of Lillith closing the curtains over the windows. I lift my head, finding her almost too clothed. The dress she’s wearing hugs the slope of her waist. The skirt flows all the way to the floor, hiding her shapely legs. Her sleeves hang past her hands, something I found adorable when I met her at the show, but now it only makes me want to discipline her.

I prop my chin on my folded hand, watching her see to each window—feeling the tension in my brow grow as she makes me wait. When she finally comes to stand in front of me, she won’t look at me, which only makes my frustration grow.

“What’s this shyness all of a sudden?”

She still doesn’t meet my gaze, but I see the moment her lower lip disappears between her teeth. It’s the same moment I start a steady, impatient tapping of my foot.

“I—” she whispers.

“—Lillith, you look at me when you’re speaking to me,” I say. “And you speak loud enough that I can hear you.”

She looks at me through her lashes, the angle of her face still at a downward tilt. She hugs herself around her middle, her finger twisting the lace of her dress bodice around a manicured fingertip.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” she tells me. “It all sounded exciting until I got the clothes on, and now I’m terrified I’m going to look stupid. I can’t really dance—not like a stripper or a burlesque performer.”

“Should I talk you through it?” I ask.

“Would it even be appealing to watch a show when you know the spoilers ahead of time?”

“Would I have offered it if it didn’t appeal to me, Lillith?”

The angle of her head shifts again. This time she’s looking at me sideways.

“What did I tell you before I sent you off to change?” I say. “What did I tell you about your house?”

Her pink tongue appears to wet that maddening lower lip of hers. “That it’s my house, but you’re in charge.”

One nod. That’s all it takes to release the spool of tension from her high shoulders. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I fuss with the settings until I’m connected to her speaker. I scroll through my playlists until I find the one I put on when I want a nice, slow fuck. The one I use when I want to watch a woman writhe and beg beneath me as I drag each thrust as long as I can while I hold her hips down to hold her still.

I toss my phone aside after turning on ‘do not disturb’ and recline again. I heave out a sigh, tilted.

“The dress. It’s covering too much.”

“It’s... a skirt. And a top.”

“Hm,” I say, rubbing my chin in thought. “Let me see your legs.”

She pulls up her skirt and I put a single hand up. “Slowly, sweetheart. Don’t overthink it. You know how sexy you are. You know your assets.”

She processes that for a moment, her grey eyes flickering before lighting up.

Pride curls inside of me when her toes find a perch on her coffee table. I have to take a deep breath as she smooths her palm over the curve of her upper thigh, her well-shaped calf. She catches the hem of the skirt between her middle fingers then pulls it up slowly.

I feel like a lech from the Victorian era with the way I thirst after the glimpse of her ankle. My mouth goes dry as the hem travels up to her knee, then her upper thigh. Her pale skin, robed in shiny black nylon. The curve of her ass appears only briefly before it vanishes behind a cascade of black gossamer.

When I look up at her face, she’s smiling. Mischief clear in the way her eyes crinkle.

“I thought you said you were an ass man,” she says.