Love Dares You to Care

Paulina had helped me pick the music. I wanted something instrumental that started slow and then got faster toward the end, something with lots of drums, preferably, and that wasn't too long. We'd found the perfect thing on a soundtrack album she had, which she said James had worked on in Japan under another name, but which the deeply devoted fans had found out about. The song used Japanese taiko drums, beginning with the small ones, played lightly, and ending with the huge ones, sounding like thunder. That matched my interpretation of the glass crest as Hokusai's great wave.

My other two "Muses" were waiting at the bottom of the stairs to the flat. We adjusted each other's masks and they giggled a little as Michel opened the door to check on us.

"Ready?"

"As we'll ever be," I said, swallowing hard. The butterflies were gone now, replaced by a lump in my stomach, but at least I was calm. It was time to go through with it and then see what would happen.

Michel signaled someone inside the cafe, the lights went down, and we entered through the ArtiWorks front door, the first tappings and beats of the music beginning.

The other two had flowers in their hands, and they scattered them into the audience as we made our way to the cleared area that was our stage at the foot of the huge red and white glass sculpture. This was the first time I had seen the art lit properly, with some of the lights glowing from underneath it, including one tiny LED right at the tip of the phallic part. Intense.

We moved through the steps we had rehearsed, holding hands and dancing in a circle the way the Muses are sometimes shown in paintings, and then the other two faded off to the sides as I shed my gown and one of them took it with her. Maybe fairy wings wouldn't have been bad after all, I thought, since it was like I was emerging from a chrysalis.

The music got faster and I began to spin in place, the petal pieces of my skirt flaring up to expose the bottom of the bodysuit, then a quick run to stage left, then back to stage right, a leg lift and scissor kick at each. Now I was the wave, the water, and what I did with one little toe rippled through my body to break like a wave out one arm or the other or up my spine, throwing my head back. The dance was as sensual as I could make it.

I moved toward the glass then, repeating many of the same motions I had done at the edge of the audience, but now my arms unfurled between the stalactites of red glass hanging down like teeth. Peter had cut himself on one of these pieces, some of them sheared and broken. I was careful not to touch the edges. Bleeding would definitely put a damper on my plan.

I then focused my movements on the phallic piece. Unlike the jagged parts, it was utterly smooth, and I ran my palm in a circle over the bulbous end, both as part of the sensuality of the dance and to check that it was as smooth as it looked. It was. I rubbed against it with one hip, then the other, then did a long slide into a crouch, running my pubic bone down the nearly waist-high shaft, then back up again, teasing it the way I would had it been a cock, teasing the audience the same way. I was teasing myself, too, making myself wet and aroused. I ground my clit against the hard tip, my hips moving in an obscene circle. I heard a gasp over the sound of the drums growing louder. Almost time.

As the music came to a crescendo, the drums thundering and the cymbals crashing, I turned around. The angle of the phallic part was such that it would work better from behind. I slid my feet into the shoes, unsnapping the crotch of the bodysuit with one hand and easing the glass tip into me with the other. Let the audience think I was miming it; I wasn't. The sculpture had mounted me. My mouth fell open and fresh sweat broke out across my face as I pushed myself back, forcing it deeper. It was large enough to be a challenge, large enough that some of those watching would probably be certain I was faking taking it in. Wouldn't they?

I pushed back once more, an involuntary sound breaking from my throat as the final cymbal crashed and I flung my arms forward into my final pose. The lights went black and the audience erupted into applause.

I held the pose, my chest heaving and my heart pounding, as the lights gradually came up inside the sculpture, only enough so that a stagehand in coveralls and heavy gloves could help me free of the art. I eased myself off of the glass inside me, and then he took me by my hands. I tried to step out of the shoes, avoiding the spiky "teeth" jutting up, but he picked me up and carried me free of the sculpture, around the espresso bar, and into the back room. I clung to his neck, my heart in my throat, hardly daring to hope that the reason his arms felt so familiar was something other than my wishful thinking.

By the time he was carrying me up the narrow stairs into the flat, I knew it was James. He set me on my feet when we reached the sitting room, kissing me as if his life depended on it. I sank my fingers into his hair, which was black today, and kissed him back. He threw off the gloves and fitted his hands around the curve of my ass, grinding me against the erection inside his coveralls. The portrait of Paulina and Michel that Damon had painted looked down on us like a pair of benevolent saints.

"My bedroom is upstairs," I said.

"Take me there." His voice was husky, barely controlled. I had a feeling if I didn't hurry, he might change his mind and take me right there on the carpet of the sitting room.

I ran quickly up the stairs and he chased me, the work boots he was wearing thumping on the steps.

He caught up to me at the door of the room and we tumbled together onto the bed, knocking the phone onto the floor. He was struggling to kiss me again, while I was trying to get his coveralls open. His tongue plunged into my mouth as my hand made it inside and wrapped around his thick shaft.

I heard the sound of Velcro ripping as he shed most of the coveralls like a snake, baring himself down to his waist. I kept stroking him, milking a clear droplet of fluid at the tip.

He took my hands then and flattened them against the bed above my head with his own, pushing his way between my knees.

I gasped against his mouth as I felt the hot tip of his cock rubbing the slick inside of my thigh.

"Any demands this time?" he whispered, sliding it closer and closer to my center with each rock of his hips, until the head was gliding over my clit again and again.

"None," I answered. "None but you."

He continued to rock his hips, smearing my wetness up and down his shaft. "Do you have any idea what you do to me, Karina?" he breathed.

"Didn't I just prove that I do?"

His answer was a growl, and the first few inches of him plunged into me. My breath caught, though, as he cruelly jerked it back again, leaving me empty. "You-!"

"Shhhh," he whispered. "You've brought me to this point. You've set the demon loose. From here, I'm in control. Your only choice is surrender."

"Yes, God yes. I surrender!"

"Good, good." He buried his nose behind my ear and pushed my knees toward my shoulders, spreading me wide. He ran his cock slowly up and down my wet seam again, and I held as still as I could to let him. But I wanted to wrap my legs around him and pull him in!

He gave me the tip again, a few short, quick thrusts and pulled out, his head bent and watching the place where his cock tormented me. Then he put it in and thrust to the hilt, making me cry out, punishing me with the thrust and giving me everything I wanted at the same time.

He held still, pressing against me, all the way inside me, and looked into my eyes. "It would be very cruel of you to stop me now."

"I was going to say the same thing to you."

"So long as we understand each other."

"I understand that you're going to fuck the living daylights out of me." I couldn't catch my breath, so my words came out less suave than I was trying for. "Do you want me to beg? Is that it?"

"That won't be necessary," he murmured, brushing his cheek against mine and nuzzling my neck, one last tender moment before he clamped his hands atop my shoulders and thrust hard into me again. I was glad I had stretched both inside and out in training for the dance. Instead of pain, I felt only a deep electric pleasure, again and again as he settled into a rhythm of pulling free and then plunging into me again, his penetrations rough but regular.

It was everything I'd remembered from that perfect night before it had gone un-perfect, and everything I imagined tonight could be. I dug my hands into the futon, pressing my head back against it, trying to meet the force of his fucking.

When I realized I was growing close, I nearly hyperventilated, begging him silently in my mind to keep going, just like that, squeezing as hard as I could inside, trying to get more friction, more force, more of everything. He shifted position then, pushing himself upward so my face was against his breastbone as his cock ran roughly through my lower lips as he drove it downward, smacking my clit on each thrust. I cried out, an animal cry, as my whole lower body seemed to melt into pleasure, this orgasm boiling over and flowing like heat from my center.

As soon as the waves of pleasure began to ebb, he took one of my legs in his arms, turning me almost on my side, my other leg crooked. This angle was much harder to take, his cock burying itself in me sideways and feeling huge for it. But he was right. I would not ask him to stop. I had most certainly wanted this and I surrendered to it, to whatever he needed of me, whatever he could take from me. I cried out in both pain and ecstasy, abandoning myself to the unstoppable force that was James's desire.

He was gorgeous, looming above me, his face suffused with passion and need, his muscles taut. He was a force of nature plowing into me.

He forced himself to slow, though, to draw it out, lifting my leg as if he could get his cock to go even deeper.

"On your stomach," he whispered, as if he couldn't quite catch his breath.

I rolled over, wondering if this meant he was going to avail himself of the tighter hole there. But no, he continued to plunge his cock into my core, tickling my anus with a slick finger but not penetrating me.

He looked around then. I saw over my shoulder that his gaze came to rest on the dildo case. "You brought it with you?"

"Of course I did," I said.

"Stay still. Don't move." He disengaged himself from me and went to the case and opened it.

I was expecting him to take out a glass dildo to torment me with, but instead he held up the string of pearls he'd once used. I'd nearly sold them to get the money together for the plane ticket, before Martindale had explained that he'd buy it. I was glad I hadn't.

James wrapped the pearls around his cock, crisscrossing it and holding them in place so that his turgid flesh bulged under the beads when he closed the clasp with a click.

"On your back," he said.

I complied hurriedly.

"Spread yourself. Show me you're ready for this. Show me you want this."

I reached between my legs and showed him everything. "Please, James."

"Look me in the eyes, Karina. Look at me while I do this."

He held my gaze as he rubbed his cock, now ribbed by the string of pearls, up and down along my slick seam and over my clit.

Then the head of his cock pressed inward, right into my center, stretching me as he slowly increased the pressure, as he forced his way inside bit by bit.

I couldn't keep my hands where they were. I had to grab on to him, one shoulder, one arm, holding my breath as he pushed in. I know the pearls couldn't have made him that much larger, but he felt huge, and as he began to fuck me with short jerks of his hips, I felt my arousal spike again. I was going to come if he kept that up.

He seemed to know it, continuing to stare into my eyes as he brought me closer and closer, his own lips trembling in a snarl of lust, holding himself back to keep control of me, too.

"Touch your clit," he rasped.

"I don't think I'll need to-"

"That wasn't a question!" His whisper was urgent.

"Yes, James!" I reached down with two fingers and massaged my clit, rocking my hips and driving his cock deeper into me. "Oh God!" It wasn't painful, but I could feel I was being stretched. "Oh God, I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," he whispered into my ear. "Now, I want you to come again. Touch yourself, Karina. Show me that passion. Show me the wanton desire that makes you do what you did tonight."

He held himself still while I lifted my hips and forced myself up and down on his pearl-wrapped shaft. I closed my eyes then, losing myself in that sensation, my fingers sliding in time with the pump of my hips until I began to cry out, a deep wail of satisfaction coming from deep in my core. Oh God, I felt it in the soles of my feet and in the blood pumping through all my veins.

He could not hold back. I slid my palms down the toned plane of his bare back and over his buttocks and marveled at the feeling of his muscles bunching each time he thrust. He lost control then, fucking me wildly, and I heard a sound like raindrops, as the string of pearls broke and they were scattered onto the wooden floor.

He pulled free suddenly, scattering more pearls, and I sat partway up. He was already spurting onto me, shuddering and gasping, painting my thighs with his come. Was he afraid I had gone off the Pill?

He collapsed forward onto his hands, shaking all over, his head hanging.

"James? Are you all right?"

He cleared his throat and sat back, blinking. Then his eyes focused on me and his expression hardened. "Was that what you wanted, Karina?"

"What are you talking about? What I want is you."

He made a dismissive noise and tried to climb off the bed. His legs were wobbly, and the coveralls were bunched around his ankles, tucked into his still fully laced work boots, which ruined that plan. Good. I grabbed hold of the sleeve of the coveralls. "Uh-uh," I said. "You're not running off this time."

He glanced around the small bedroom. Since escape seemed impossible at that moment, he relented. "Here. Clean yourself up." He could reach the bath towel that was hanging on the doorknob to the closet. He used one corner of it himself and then handed it to me. I wiped myself up and then sat up cross-legged on the bed, the petals of the skirt making me look almost respectable. He shifted until he was sitting beside me, some space between us, the coveralls pulled around his waist. Loose pearls rolled across the bedsheets.

I was starting to get my breath back. "Where did you watch the performance from?"

He looked at me with guarded eyes. "Michel hinted that there was something in store regarding the art. I told him I had always planned it as an interactive exhibit, but I didn't expect it would ever be used the way I intended." He looked away, his cheeks flushed.

"Let me guess. I came pretty close to what you had in mind."

He nodded, then put a hand across his eyes. "We should go back to the gallery now."

"You're crazy if you think I'm going to let you go anywhere before I get some answers, James." I reached toward his chest, where the chips of glass sewn into my bodysuit had left red scratches on his skin. He let me touch him and didn't protest. I took a deep breath, trying to keep my cool. I was not going to fall apart merely because my dream reunion wasn't going perfectly. Not yet, anyway. "You at least owe me a decent explanation about what happened between us."

"Is that what you want? Closure?" He tried to shift away from me on the bed, but I held fast to that sleeve with both hands. "Now that you've moved on, what does it matter?"

So much for staying calm. I felt my eyes go hot and prickly with tears as I shouted, "Closure! Are you kidding? I want you, James. You! What the fuck do you mean, moved on? I haven't moved on at all! I've spent this entire summer trying to track you down!" I wanted to hit him, but I didn't dare let go.

He made a dismissive tch sound. "It certainly looked to me like you'd moved on when you let Damon and the men at the club have their way with you."

"You're a fucking idiot! You don't know anything about it!" I threw a shoe at him I was so angry. It was one thing if he didn't want me anymore. It was entirely another thing to blame me for things that weren't true. He deflected the shoe and it struck the door. "The only reason I was at that damned club was to look for you!"

He gave me a cold glare. "And what made you think I'd be there?"

"I'm not stupid, James! When I realized the society Damon was talking about was the same one you'd mentioned to me, the same one that hosts the balls in New York, I grabbed at the lead. You had completely disappeared. I had to pursue any connection I could find!"

He stared at me, his expression moving from angry to puzzled to annoyed. His voice was still skeptical. "Damon wouldn't have known about New York. And you didn't know about the society."

"I wouldn't have known about the society except Renault got drunk and ranted about how he'd been barred from it," I hissed.

His eyes widened and his mouth softened. "You turned him in? You did it?"

"Yes...I did."

He looked proud for a moment, a caring expression flickering across his face as one of his hands settled on the back of mine. "We...we clearly have a lot to talk about."

"That's what I've been saying!" Inside I felt a pang of relief, as I started to believe that he wasn't about to flee the scene. I still didn't let go of the sleeve in my hands, though. "I have so many questions. And you owe me answers." A spike of anger made me ball my fists. "In fact, you'd owe me those answers even if I had slept with Damon George or anyone else at that damned club."

"I'm still not convinced you didn't." His eyes flared with anger.

"Did you forget I was wearing a chastity belt when you saw me there?" I couldn't help it. I raised my voice. "That was my dictum. No sex. You can ask Damon. You can ask Vanette! The belt was her idea to keep me safe from club members who might forget and get carried away!"

James got to his feet in front of me and jerked his head toward the door. "He's down there, you know. Mooning over that painting of you." His jaw clenched.

"Imagine that, a man who couldn't have me turning me into a muse!" I smacked him in the thigh with both hands, letting go of the sleeve and pushing him back.

He went pale as he stumbled back a step. He pulled the coveralls up the rest of the way and fastened them, keeping his eyes off of me.

"Tell me you don't love me. Tell me you have nothing more to say to me. If it's true, go on and say it."

"It's not that I don't love you..." He trailed off, struggling to find words.

"It's that you don't trust me," I spat.