Vanessa’s lips curved up almost imperceptibly. “Here.” She held the whip out toward Mel, balancing it on her palms. “Hold it.”
Mel turned the riding crop over in her hands. She traced the weave of the handle with her fingertips then ran them up to the supple leather tip.
“What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful.” Mel couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like against her skin, somewhere fleshy and tender.
“Have you ever used one?” Vanessa asked. “Or had one used on you?”
“No,” Mel murmured.
“Have you ever wanted to?”
Mel hesitated. “I’ve thought about it. Once or twice.” Another lie.
Vanessa reached out and took the crop from Mel’s hands. “And when you think about it, do you see yourself as the one holding the whip? Or at the other end?”
“I don’t know.” The crop didn’t feel at home in Mel’s hands. But there was a niggling feeling at the back of her mind that prevented her from admitting the truth.
“Another way of looking at it is this,” Vanessa said. “Which do you prefer? Being in control? Or giving it to someone else?” She began to tap the whip against her palm. “Being in control means having all the power. But it also means responsibility. Giving up control means you get to let go completely. But it requires you to place yourself in someone else’s hands. To trust them. It can be terrifying.” She stilled the crop in her hands. “And it can be exhilarating.”
Mel didn’t respond. The sound of her own breath seemed deafening in the silence.
“I’ve said before that I’m good at reading people. And I think I know the role you’d like to play. I know your type, Melanie. Ambitious. Driven. Always striving for perfection. Never allowing the slightest lapse in self-control. It must be exhausting.” Vanessa ran her fingers along the shaft of the crop. “Don’t you ever want to just let go of all your problems and let someone else take the reins?”
“Sometimes…” Mel had never even admitted that to herself, let alone to someone else.
“This here? This is one way to do that. To escape it all, if only for a moment. To lose yourself so completely that everything falls away and all that is left is pure ecstasy. To surrender.” Vanessa leaned forward, her face barely an inch from Mel’s. “Does that tempt you?”
“Yes,” Mel whispered.
Vanessa brought her lips to Mel’s ear. “It’s more freeing than you could possibly imagine.”
A shiver went through Mel’s body. Vanessa’s eyes seemed to strip away all her defenses. And Vanessa’s face was so close to hers. Vanessa’s lips were so close…
What am I thinking? Mel dropped her empty glass to the table and stood up. “I should go.” Within seconds, she was out the door.
Chapter Four
Mel sat in the lecture hall, waiting for her professor to arrive. Class didn’t start for another five minutes. Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her head of all the thoughts swirling around inside it. Inevitably, her mind went back to the same thing: Vanessa.
Since that night in Vanessa’s room, Vanessa had come into The Lounge a few times while Mel was working. Mel didn’t go out of her way to speak to Vanessa. But somehow their paths kept crossing. And with every word that Vanessa spoke to her, with every glance they exchanged, the pull of Mel’s desire grew stronger.
Vanessa was all that Mel could think about. Vanessa’s hips, swaying in her tight, silky dress. Her voice, like velvet, in Mel’s ear. Her eyes, that seemed to see into the depths of Mel’s being, while revealing nothing of what lay behind Vanessa’s own.
And Vanessa’s words. Surrender. It wasn’t hard to figure out what she meant. Her dominant personality. The riding crop. Her talk of giving up control. It all pointed to one thing.
“Looks like you could use this.”
Mel opened her eyes. Her friend Jess stood beside her, holding a coffee in each hand.
She handed one to Mel and sat down. “Finish all the readings?”
“Yep.” Mel had stayed up ‘til 3:00 a.m. to get them done.
“How are you always so on top of everything? I barely got halfway through them before I fell asleep.” Jess groaned. “If I’m on call, I’m going to look like an idiot.”
Cold calling. Those two words filled every first-year law student with dread. During class, their professors would call upon a student and ask them probing questions about the cases being discussed. Preparation was essential. Professor Carr liked to assign a few random students to be ‘on call’ at the start of each lecture, so no one knew if they would be on call until class started. Because law school wasn’t stressful enough already.