Page 64 of Prey It By Ear

Once he’s found the lighter, he walks around until he lights the last candle. That’s when he turns to see me on the bed and pauses, ogling me again with such open hunger that I can’t even muster a smartass comeback. Instead, I fold my arms under my chest and wait.

Climbing onto the bed, he prowls up the mattress with exaggerated slowness. “You know what I love most about you?” he says, his voice low and jagged. “It’s not the way you look, even though you are literally a goddess. It’s the way you never fake anything, ever. If you’re happy, you show it. If you’re sad, you show it. If you’re mad at me, you make a list, in color-coded Sharpie. Even when I’m off the deep end and bouncing like a rubber ball, you take me seriously, Baby Girl. No matter what, you never ever treat me like I’m a problem, which even my twin can’t say.”

“That’s because I know you’re always doing the best you can for the people you love. You have an enormous heart, Fitzgerald Khan, and even though sometimes you’re nutty, that’s what counts. Everything else is just whipped cream on the sundae, you know?”

He beams and then hooks his fingers under the waistband of my shorts to tug them down an inch. “The best massages are naked as a jaybird. Are you good with that? Remember the word?”

“Beetlejuice,” I say, and he pulls the shorts down in slow motion. His eyes never leave mine, not even when he has to pull them over my butt in two tugs. Tossing them over his shoulder, the tiger runs his hands up my thighs. I’m shivering, but not from cold.

This is gonna kill me; I can feel it in my bones.

Fitz bends over me, his hair falling in a cloud around my face, and bites the strap of my bra, dragging it down with his teeth. “I love you, Delores Drew,” he says softly. “And we’re gonna get rid of all these assholes so our family can live a tumultuous, yet extremely horny life wherever we land after you graduate. They will not win because you are the most important thing in the world to five stubborn jackasses who don’t get told ‘no’ very often.”

My lungs tighten with emotion. “You are a disaster on wheels, Fitzy, but I love you anyway. In fact, I probably love you more because of it.”

He frees the bra, tosses it aside, and then pours a thin line of oil onto my stomach. I hiss at the initial chill, but his hands are so warm and sure that the sensation turns into molten heat almost instantly. He rubs in slow, patient circles, then moves down to my thighs. “I’m going to keep you so relaxed you’ll forget what stress feels like,” he says. “Then the others can join us so we can make you scream until you pass out.”

I believe him. There’s no sarcasm left in my tank—just awe, and a kind of peace I haven’t felt since Rockland threw her fit the other day. He kisses my hip, then moves lower, his mouth and hands painting away every single ache. The sound I make isn’t even human, but I don’t care. Somewhere in the candle-lit haze, I feel myself floating, all the tension and pain draining away.

Fitz’s words echo in my ear, soft and certain. “Tonight is going to wipe away every bad thing from the day until you sleep like an adorable little bunny.”

How can I say no to that?

One More Time

Fitz

The first rule of aggressive relaxation therapy is not to let your prey anticipate the full extent of what’s coming, or she will deploy her own psychological warfare that bewitches your dick. Instead, ease her into the moment, build the tension, and then erase it one shiver at a time. Make her forget what stress feels like so by the time you’re ready for some rough riding, she’s sensitive enough to break her own record.

That’s the Or-gospel according to Fitz, and I’m sticking to it.

My bunny is face up on the bed, her skin already flushed from anticipation. The room is set to enhance the experience—candles in a perfect arc, giving everything a golden haze and making the sheets look like warm milk and honey. The massage oil is on the nightstand—it’s one of the flavored ones I found online, some cherry berry hybrid that exists to be poured on delicious girls and licked off with diligence. I intend to do just that, but not right away.

She’s naked except for her long rainbow hair, which has fallen in a riot across the pillow and is begging for me to tangle my hands in it. I start with her feet, because no body part is more abused than a ballerina’s. Her left one is swollen at the arch, and the nails look brutalized from rehearsal, so I make a big show of kneeling at the end of the bed and presenting my hands like I’m about to operate.

“Welcome to the opening day of Fitzy’s Foot Spa,” I say in my best infomercial voice, rolling her ankle in my palm and giving her a look that promises pleasure. “Tonight’s specialty is a deep-tissue foot whisperer experience. On a scale of ‘meh’ to ‘religious awakening’, please rate my service honestly. Note: there will be no refunds and no exchanges.”

Baby Girl tries to scowl at me, but the corners of her mouth are twitching up. “If you don’t make me see nirvana, I’m going full Karen on you, buddy,” she says before she yelps.

I continue pouring a slow line of oil straight onto her arch, regardless. The stuff is hot because I set it on the candle warmer, and the scent is so strong it nearly makes me drool. I start with both thumbs, working slow concentric circles into the meat of her foot. The skin gives under pressure, and the second I hit the knot under her toes, she moans so loud I have to look up to see if she’s okay.

Oh, she’s more than okay.

Her head is back, lips parted, and her hands do that thing where they grip the sheets because she refuses to let herself go completely limp. This lasts a solid three seconds before the right eye opens and her fingers twitch again. I keep up the pressure, letting my thumbs drag down her sole, then dig in with my knuckles just enough to make her leg jerk.

“There it is,” I say. “I think I heard your soul leaving your body for a second.”

She whimpers, flinging her arm over her eyes. “Motherfucker, Fitzy. I should have asked you for this much, much earlier. I had no idea.”

“Gifts from the universe come when we need them, Baby Girl,” I answer as I turn my attention to her toes. One by one, I work each one, kneading and rolling them gently. They’re smaller than average and callused, but when I scrape my nail along the pad of her big toe, she goes dead silent. Her whole body is vibrating, and it’s honestly the hottest thing I’ve seen all week.

I don’t even have a foot thing and this is making Captain One-Eye do the fucking Electric Slide in my pants.

“You liked that,” I chuckle softly. “But, if you don’t, say your word and I'll move on.”

She lifts her arm just enough to squint at me. “If you stop now, I’ll kill you,” she says. “With my good foot.”

“That’s my girl,” I say, then switch to her right foot and repeat the whole thing, slower and with more pressure. It’s a full five minutes before she stops trying to make jokes and just lies there, panting as I run my thumbs in long strokes up her instep to the ankle. When I rotate her foot, it clicks—a satisfying little pop—and her knee jerks as she makes a loud as hell noise I’m sure she didn’t intend to.