She didn't really care what he was reading, all in all. It was nice just to lie in the anonymous dark, beyond the thrown light of his lamp, watching him. He'd taken the tie off his hair, so it spilled over his shoulders, enhancing the chiseled features. His attractive mouth had a firm set to it when at rest, his eyes focused. His long fingers stroked the pages as they turned them. Her gaze slid down the creases of the sheet, how it outlined his legs. His groin area was hidden behind the prop of the book on his upper thighs.
"Will the lamp bother you?" His voice was quiet, in case she was already asleep. She could pretend she was.
"No." She could hear the thickness in her voice. He was so close, right across the hall. It wasn't sex she wanted. God, no. Just the thought of him touching her like that made her quake. But he wasn't a stuffed animal. She wasn't going to humiliate him or herself by treating him like one. Come curl around me, make me feel like that hug did.
Plus that hug had produced far more than cuddly feelings. She'd wanted to keep sliding her hands down his back until she tucked her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans. She wanted to touch without being touched. She wanted to have all the control, none of the obligations. She was sure that wasn't what being a Domme was, but the control issue was part of it, wasn't it?
He spoke again. "May I ask...what you're thinking?"
She could be completely honest, without repercussions. And she was here in the dark, where he couldn't see her face. "Earlier today...I thought about you reading to Lyda."
"One of those erotic novels she likes to torture me with?"
So maybe Lyda had actually done what she imagined, taunting him at a distance. Things curled low in her belly. "Yes."
He was staring into the darkness of her bedroom. Setting aside his book, he turned on his hip, propping his head on his hand. When he did, the sheet moved with him, getting trapped between his thighs, sliding down a little lower. She gulped as it became apparent he wasn't wearing anything beneath it, the upper curve of one buttock haloed by the lamp behind him. If she was standing behind him, she could let her fingers slide along that curve, up over his tattoos.
"I imagined you--" She stopped, cleared her throat. "I imagined her in a short negligee, nothing else. Lying on her bed, touching herself while you read to her. She had you sitting in a chair across the room. She wasn't letting you touch her."
"She'd tell me to keep my eyes on the page, and punish me once a day for every time I stole a glance at her. Which means I'd probably be punished for a month." His lips curved, but his eyes remained serious.
"How does she punish you?"
"Various ways. What were you going to say, at the first?" He prompted her. "'I imagined you...'"
She didn't say anything, and he shifted to his back. She bit her lip as he stretched out an arm, his upper body arching as he turned off the lamp, putting them both in darkness. She could see his silhouette from the street lamps outside his window. He turned back on his hip toward her. "What do you want, Gen? Anything."
His voice was encouraging, but also male and intent. Lust pulsed on the air currents between them.
"I want you to bring yourself to climax while I watch. I don't want you to look at me while you do it. Pretend I'm not here."
"All right. Do you want the light on?"
"Yes. The lamp's a three way. Could you turn it on to the dimmest setting?" Things needed to stay hazy, dreamlike. Else she might chicken out. "And...I want to see all of you."
She bit her lip, almost saying he didn't need to do that, but he was complying. He switched the light on the dim setting, then pushed the sheet to the side, adjusting his legs over it. Her gaze coursed over the arches of his feet, over light sprinkles of brown hair on calves and the long lengths of his thighs, then paused over his testicles and the cock rising above them, a thick stalk curving over sectioned stomach muscles. He had his thighs spread so she could see all of it. Propped up on the pillows, he rested one hand on his thigh, the other curled over his head.
Liquid heat pooled in the folds of flesh between her thighs. She wanted to tuck her fingers down there, give herself that pressure, but even though she was in darkness, she was too self-conscious for that. Right now.
"I've been with a Dominant for so long, off and on, I don't really do this by myself without permission anymore. But I think I remember how it's done." Another of his charming, self-deprecating looks. He grasped his cock, gave himself a firm stroke. Her breath caught in her throat, a contraction of hard need between her thighs.
"I wish I could see you," he said. "Are you...will you tell me if you're wet?" His voice was husky, telling her--as if his cock didn't--that he wasn't detached in the least.
"Yes. I am."
A muscle flexed in his jaw and he stroked himself some more. She wrapped her arms around her pillow, shifting so she was staring a straight line to him, her breasts full and aching against the pressure of the cushion.
"
Tell me what you're imagining." She whispered it, but he heard her.
"You...naked. Sitting on my legs, just staring down at me doing this. You're breathing fast, shallow, so your breasts are quivering a little...bit." He gave a groan, tightening his hand on himself. "Your thighs are spread so I can see your pussy all wet, and I want to taste it. Want to just...fucking bury myself between your legs..."
She'd expected him to talk about Lyda. "Where is Lyda?"
"She's watching. She's always watching... And when I put my face between your legs, she's there, behind me...fuck..."
Would she be wearing one of those strap-ons that allowed a woman to fuck a man? Gen imagined Noah between her legs while Lyda thrust into him, her silver eyes holding Gen's gaze, making her feel as if Lyda was thrusting into her even as she had the dual pleasure of feeling Noah's tongue penetrating her own folds.