Her teeth found the grooves in her lower lip as she considered it. After a moment, she nodded.
“What’s the command, then?”
“It is a simple one. Wordless.” I touched beneath her chin with my knuckles, turning her face up towards mine once more. There was defiance in her eyes still, but a willingness to yield when it was necessary for survival, too. I knew that look well. I saw it in my own eyes nearly every time I looked in a mirror. “I will look into your eyes, as I am doing now, then I will lower my gaze down your body, until I am staring at the floor. When you see me do so, you will drop to your knees, fold your hands, and bow your head. Do you understand?”
She looked as though she hated me for it, but she nodded, nonetheless. “I do.”
“Then let us practice.” I moved my eyes down her body as I had told her I would. It was difficult not to let my gaze linger—on the mounds of her breasts beneath the split in the shirt she wore, or the way that shirt’s hem brushed the tops of her thighs, for that matter—but as I forced myself to look lower, Atlanta dropped to her knees and bowed her head, just as I had told her.
“Good.” I placed my hand on the top of her head, marveling at the way her hair was pink right down to its roots. I had never seen anything like it in a human—though, to be fair, I had not seen so many humans before. “Very good.”
Behind us, the door opened. I heard it, though somewhat distantly. Though I knew it was the servant I had sent for the ice, I felt a certain amount of disdain for their presence, nonetheless.
It was an intoxicating thing, having Atlanta kneel for me like this. Even more intoxicating, knowing how easy it would have been to push her further. To demand that she touch me, perhaps, if only to see how far the lengths of her obedience would go.
Were it not for the intrusion of the servant, I could have relished this moment. I could have closed my eyes and savored it, let it stretch on into infinity, where all the possibilities for what might happen next could live on in perfect, exquisite tension.
Instead, when the servant appeared at my elbow with a small bowl of ice, I took it from him and pointed him back toward the door.
“Out,” I ordered. My eyes did not stray from Atlanta, though.
I was not sure that I was capable of looking away.
When the door closed again and we were alone once more, I lowered myself to my knees as well. Her eyes sought mine in confusion. I could sense her thoughts, almost as though her mind was open to me. When she looked at me like this, those green eyes communicating wordlessly with mine, she was like a well-loved book to me, a favorite novel I could peruse with ease.
“Your lip,” I explained as I plucked a piece of ice from the bowl. I held it carefully between the talons of one hand and moved the fingers of my other hand to her mouth. I pulled her lower lip down—gently, for I did not wish to make the bleeding worse.
It was like peeling apart a rose, forcing it into full bloom.
She drew in a sharp breath as I pressed the ice to her lip. The way her shoulders eased back only a moment after told me that it was not hurting her, though. Likely, with the way the dark pink blush of her lips was swollen from the blow she had been dealt, it felt good.
“Better?” I asked, making sure.
She nodded slightly, unable to speak in anything more than a little hum. “Mmhmm.”
It was hard to tell what it was about that sound. The knowledge that it was the sound she might make if I were to take her to bed with me, maybe. Maybe just greed on my part—confirmation that I had given her some small pleasure in caring for her in this way.
I held the ice there for only a moment longer. My cock was swelling, and fast. My heart was quickening, even when I tried to slow it.
My pulse did not wish to slow. My cock did not wish to retreat.
It was unlike me to lose control, but I lost it anyway, and I lost it gladly. When I pulled the ice away, my lips moved to hers in its place. A kiss—cold and wet from where the ice had melted against her lips, hot and pleasurable as my mouth warmed hers. The kiss was chaste, but not unwelcome, apparently. My lips shifted against hers slightly, a question, and hers shifted back against mine, an answer:
Yes.
It lasted for maybe a few seconds, maybe for a full minute. I was too lost in the sensation to pull away until she broke it off first.
“You’re—”
“Yes?” I asked. Expectantly. Eager.
She blinked at me twice, the very picture of innocence, then scowled as she managed to remember herself. I envied her for that. I had forgotten myself completely, and I did not know how to find myself again
