This is What I Want

Megan Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This is what I want.

Your hands make circles around my ankles. They shackle me for but a moment before your fingertips move upward over the edge of bone, the dip and hollow of muscle and flesh. Over my calves and the prickly surface of my knees, where they linger to stroke the soft, smooth underside. Those untouched places. Your fingers linger there, seeking creases.

Your thumbs move up the sun-warmed flesh of my thighs, which I part for you beneath summer’s bright golden light. Like the breeze that twitches the ends of my hair, your fingers drift along my skin, moving higher.

This is what I want. You. Touching me.

You take the time to trace the faint white line, the place where once my flesh parted beneath the edge of a razor wielded by an unsteady hand. You don’t ask about this scar. You ask nothing, say nothing. You have no voice but that which I grant you…and so far I haven’t given you permission to speak.

You kneel in front of me, and this is where I like you. How I like you. On your knees, my body aligned for your worship and your hands smoothing a constant upward path.

This is what I want—your breath on my skin. Your fingers parting me. Your mouth finding the sweet, small pearl of my clitoris. I want your tongue there, and the pressure of your lips. I want you to lick me as I stand over you, you upon your knees.

I want you to worship me.

* * *

“Hold that elevator!” Eve Grant called across the lobby, already knowing it was a futile request. The elevator was super slow and had a cranky habit of stalling, forcing the employees of Digiquest to trudge up and down the stairs. Nobody was willing to contribute to a breakdown by stopping the doors once they were closing, not even at five to nine and knowing she was only hollering because if she had to wait for the elevator or take the stairs, she would be late clocking in.

Almost nobody.

A hand appeared at the last second, sliding between the slow-closing door and the wall. The elevator door bounced against it before grudgingly sliding back open. Eve grabbed up her bag and ran. Her sprint wasn’t dignified or graceful, but she wasn’t about to let the chance pass.

“Thanks,” she said as she hopped into the elevator just before the door closed, finally. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

Lane DeMarco, six-foot-four of gorgeous and a half inch of fantastic, smiled at her. Eve automatically smiled in return. Lane’s smile was hard to resist.

Eve and Lane had been hired at the same time—she in customer service and he in I. T. They’d been through the battlefield of employee orientation together and two years of office picnics and holiday parties, but it hadn’t made them anything more than acquaintances. He was just the sort of guy who’d flirt enough to flatter but not freak out, the kind who’d smile and hold the elevator for someone. Anyone. It didn’t make her special or anything.

Lane lifted an insulated cup to his lips and sipped. Watching his throat work as he swallowed was bad enough, but when his tongue slid out along his lips to swipe away the creamy coffee, she had to look away.

“That smells good,” she said about the coffee, because the only thing worse than making inane conversation was standing in awkward silence.

Where were her words when she needed them? Why could she speak to strangers online, share with them her most intimate secrets, yet she couldn’t do more than mumble with Lane? Why was he so…unattainable?

Lane swirled the liquid in the cup and sipped again. “It’s called a Mocha Mint. I got it from the new place next door, The Beanery. Have you tried it?”

“No.” Her stomach rumbled, reminding her she’d run out of the house without breakfast. Again. She really needed to get up earlier if she was going to blog before work. “I’ll have to check it out.”

The elevator dinged. One more floor to go. It actually might have been faster to take the stairs…but then she’d have missed out on the exquisite torture of riding up with Lane.

The door opened on their floor. Lane hung back to allow Eve to exit first, depriving her of the chance to ogle his ass. Shit. Was he ogling hers? Eve glanced over her shoulder but found Lane’s gaze trained on her face. Was that better or worse? Worse, she decided, but not unexpected. Lane might be the star of most of her naughty online fantasies, but to him she was just another computer to fix.

As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “Are you still having that problem with your chat windows freezing up?”

“Oh, yeah.” She hadn’t forgotten about the support request she’d put in. Lane wasn’t the only I.T. guy on staff, but she’d been hoping he’d be the one to take the task.

“I’ll swing by in a bit to check it out, okay?”

She nodded and gave him a little wave as she watched him saunter away. Gah. He’s all that and a bag of chips.

In her pod Eve tossed her bag onto the spare chair and shook her mouse to wake the computer, then logged in quickly, barely making it before the clock clicked from 9:00 to 9:01 and made her officially late. Her queue was already five customers deep, the blinking cursor an impatient reminder her she was here to work, not fantasize about Lane DeMarco, no matter how tempting it was. Her fingers tapped away at the keys that would bring up the first customer from her queue. She had a minute or two of prewritten remarks to get through before she had to actually engage her mind.

Some poor sap was having a dickens of a time figuring out how to get his wireless devices to talk to one another, a problem so common Eve had no trouble solving it. She finished the chat with the last of the scripted phrases and logged off. Immediately a new message window opened and she started all over. It was another easy chat with a simple solution. The faceless person on the other side of the Internet didn’t abuse emoticons or need the instructions repeated more than once, and Eve worked her way through the necessary steps without issue. Unfortunately, just before she inserted the text asking if she’d completed the chat to the customer’s satisfaction, the screen froze. She tried every key combination she knew and finally got it working again, but the customer had already logged off. Damn. It could mean a survey response of unsatisfactory for her, maybe, which wouldn’t look good on her performance statistics, but she didn’t have time to worry because the next window demanded her attention and she got back to work.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Four hours later her stomach still rumbled and she desperately needed a break.

She hadn’t even had time to do more than take a peek or two at her blog. The comments were coming in fast and furious but had to go unanswered, a fact that was killing her. She peeked again, satisfying herself with at least reading what people were saying before pushing away from the computer with a stretch. She headed to the restroom and then to the break room. The busy morning had kept her from pondering too much about what she’d write later tonight, but with the bathroom out of the way and a coffee and doughnut to fill the hole in her gut, Eve had time to think about what waited for her at home.

Most of the comments to her blog were one-liners or casual compliments. Praise for her writing or the ideas she’d presented. A fair number were from what she considered admirers—bloggers who got turned on by her entries and weren’t shy about telling her so. Every once in a while she even earned a “troll,” someone who commented with the sole purpose of insulting her or her readers and taunting them into a battle of words. Eve never engaged trolls, simply deleting their comments without reply.

Sometimes, though, she got something special. A fellow blogger, maybe, with similar tastes. Occasionally a particular comment turned into a spectacular dialogue and led her to places she hadn’t known she could go—or wanted to. Other times, someone new found her online persona and left a comment that led to another, and a friendship grew out of that small, random moment.

She sipped the bad coffee and nibbled the sugary doughnut on her way back to her pod. Her pulse leaped a little, thinking of what they’d said and what they’d say, how they’d react, her faceless admirers.

Her worshippers.

Some, she knew, like Puppetboy 1241, would rave about this morning’s post. He always loved the ones in which she demanded homage. He’d already offered, privately, to be her slave not only online but in real life, too.

Well, not hers, precisely. Not Eve’s. He wanted to be slave to Eris Apparent, the name she blogged under. It was a tempting offer and one she might have considered but for one small reason. A simple, silly and ridiculous reason, Eve thought as she rounded the corner into her pod. She stopped short at the sight of her computer screen, which she’d left open to her queue but was now back at the log-in screen, and the Mocha Mint cup, steam still curling lazily from the top, sitting on her desk. An unattainable reason.

Lane DeMarco.

* * *

This is what I want.

You, surrounded by books. They teeter in towers ready to topple with a glance, and you’ve settled in the midst of them like a king looking over stacks of gold. Papers in piles make whispering noises when you shuffle them. The room smells of ink and paper. Of intellect.

You’re bent over the desk, scribbling furiously. Your glasses have slipped down to the end of your nose, and I know you’ll push them up when you think of it, but for now your tongue is caught between your teeth as you concentrate. Your pen scratches on the paper, creating worlds with words.

You’re lost to everything.

Except me.

I make no noise but you lift your head anyway, as if you’ve scented me…and maybe you have. Among the smells of ink and paper, of dust, I carry the odor of roses, because that is how you imagined I would smell. I wear white, because that’s what you dreamed I would wear.

I’m the princess of every fairy tale you’ve ever read. The maiden in the tower, the sleeping beauty, the cinder-smudged waif waiting for her prince. I am your desire made flesh; my blood, the ink in your pen; my skin, the crumpled softness of your parchment.

You put down your pen. I glide to you on slippered feet, silent. There is room on your desk, when we make it. The sound of the books hitting the ground is very loud. Neither of us turns our head to see the destruction. All you want to see is me.

You reach for me. Your hands find all the places on my body you’ve spent long hours creating. You kiss me, soft and slow, and hold me as carefully as though I were built of glass.

I sigh, as you want me to, when you push me onto your desk and lift the silk of my skirt over my thighs. Your hands slide up my skin. Your mouth brushes the soft floss of my pubic curls and your thumbs part me to your gaze.

“You’re so beautiful.”

I have longed to hear your voice from your own mouth, to hear you say the words you’ve thus far only written. I like your voice. It’s low, deep. Rough like the rasp of a cat’s tongue. I shiver.

You kiss between my legs as sweetly as you did my mouth. I arch into your embrace when you slide your arms under my shoulders. Your mouth finds my throat. My fingers rake your back when you enter me; your cry of surprise urges one from my lips. You push into me, nevertheless, and fill me with heat and pleasure.

I was made to take pleasure from your touch, and I writhe under you as you thrust. I wrap my legs around your waist and hold you closer. Under my hands your shoulders tense.

Ecstasy fills me like water, overflowing. My body shakes. You hiss when I carve the evidence of my passion into your skin. You fuck me harder and we both surge into delight.

Later you stroke my hair as you murmur the litany of my many names. I am your princess, your waif, your creation. I am your desire made real.

* * *

Her latest blog entry had been live for only a few minutes before the first comment came. The rush of it swept through Eve all the way to her toes. There was nothing quite like the thrill of almost-instant feedback.

You’re brilliant.

“Thanks, Puppetboy,” she murmured, leaning back in her chair. It wasn’t the first time he’d said so.

Depeche Mode crooned at Eve from her speakers and she adjusted the volume as she refreshed her browser to reveal three more comments. Her e-mail program dinged at the same time, alerting her. She smiled, savoring it. She’d make poor Puppet wait for a reply while she read the others.

Eva had started blogging two years ago during a messy breakup with the man she’d been certain she was going to marry. Not because she was madly in love with him, though she had been, once upon a time. No, she’d been certain she would marry Brad because he loved her.

Or at least he had, once upon a time.

For Eve, the standard, once-a-week missionary position had ceased to satisfy, but Brad had been threatened by her suggestion they explore what he called “that kinky shit.” She’d long felt he didn’t really listen to her, but time and time again he’d proved it when she’d tried to interest him in something beyond the plain vanilla sex life they had.

She couldn’t pinpoint when she knew she no longer loved him, nor could she determine exactly the moment he stopped loving her. It would have made things so much easier if she could have. But no, convinced of the other’s esteem, both had struggled in the relationship for too long, until finally they not only no longer loved each other, she was pretty sure they’d hated each other. Because someone who cares about another person doesn’t try to hurt them over and over again just for fun, which was what it felt like Brad had been doing to her, and a person who loves another doesn’t shut that person out completely, the way she’d done to him.

Her first blog had served as a way to relieve some of the anxiety of the breakup, which had turned ugly not only emotionally but financially. When Brad discovered what he considered a betrayal of their intimate life, it had turned ugly physically as well.

He’d only hit her once, mostly by accident because she got between him and the computer he was intent on smashing, but once was more than enough. Eve had kicked him in the nuts and told him to get the fuck out of her house and her life. She hadn’t heard from him since, and if there were times when her bed seemed vastly empty, there were more times when she considered the silence that greeted her every night the purest sort of blessing.

The experience with Brad had taught Eve the wisdom of using a different name online, however, and she’d chosen Eris Apparent as sort of a whim. The goddess of chaos had seemed a perfect namesake for the turmoil in her life at the time.

Her second blog wasn’t about her real life at all, but rather the life she imagined for herself. To her surprise, for Brad had done his best to convince her she was an anomaly, she was far from the only person blogging about sex. She’d discovered an entire community where she could, for the first time, be herself.

Or someone else.

Eris liked what Eve liked, but Eris was the one with the guts to put it out there for the world to see. Eris was the one who came up with the flirty, sexy responses or snappy comebacks. She was everything Eve was inside but hadn’t yet managed to bring to the surface. And also, frankly, Eris was Eve’s shield, saying and living the sorts of virtual experiences Eve was afraid to tackle in reality.

Three more replies materialized, all from regular readers. She granted Puppetboy some mercy and gave him a command or two she knew would send him into a frenzy of gratitude. Hell, truthfully, knowing that somewhere he was refreshing his browser as often as she was, hanging on her every word, was a huge turn-on. For Puppetboy, she was a goddess.

She traded a few back-and-forths with fellow sex blogger Lavender_whiskey, mostly good-natured taunts about the alternate uses for men’s ties. Lavender wrote more often about submission while Eve’s fantasies tended more toward being in charge, but both of them wrote about what they wanted.

She hadn’t done ninety percent of what she wrote about, but that didn’t matter. That was the point of fantasy, after all. It didn’t have to be practical. She’d grown to think of Eris as almost a different person. Someone bolder. Someone worshipped.

Loved.

She was getting ready to sign off for the night when one last comment came through. She didn’t recognize the username, Tell_me, but there was nothing unusual about that. Through the wonder and glory of blog lists, Technorati and search engines, Eris’s blog got hundreds of hits a day.

I like what you want.

Tired and ready for sleep, she debated not bothering to reply, but it had become a point of pride with her that all comments, aside from the obvious flames, got an answer. She hated blogs that grandstanded and poked, demanding attention, but gave none in return. If you were going to blog-hop and pimp yourself, you should be prepared to reply to someone who took the time to leave a comment.

Thanks for stopping by, she typed. It was a mild answer, neither encouraging nor insulting.

It was past time for bed. She’d spent hours online, chatting and commenting and living her life as someone different, but her real life paid the bills, and her real life body needed sleep. The ping of her e-mail stopped her in the doorway, and like any true addict, Eve gave in and checked “just one more time.” It was Tell_me again.

Do you really not care who I am? I think you do.

She paused, fingers on the keyboard, debating. Was this a troll, or a sincere question? Readers like Puppetboy never dared question her entries, but constant praise meant nothing without occasional criticism to temper it. And the use of I…

Eve hesitated. She wrote a sex blog. She didn’t cyberfuck strangers.

What makes you think I mean you?

Two minutes passed with agonizing slowness while she waited for the answer.

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