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“What a pretty sight.”
It’s funny that it should be said to her, standing in nothing more than her lingerie before the bed, when Carol is the one who sits kneeling on the duvet, calm, a foot tucked under herself demurely and hands tied behind her back.
Therese thinks to say back I could say the same about you, because the rope is beautiful against Carol’s fair skin, winding its around her chest in a simple formation that accentuates her breasts, and Carol’s head is tilted and her eyes smiling in that way that means that they’re in this together, but Therese only takes a step forward, kneels on the bed in front of her just out of reach and drinks in the amused breath that comes from her.
It had started with a kiss earlier, and then they had lost things gradually—Therese’s top and the pins in her hair, brushed away as Carol’s fingers had slipped through it, and then Carol’s dress and stockings, Therese’s hands making their way from the top button of her dress and further down and then curving over her ass, skirting under a half-shed dress and reaching for the clasps of her garters, tongue preoccupied with licking a path along Carol’s collarbone.
The introduction of the rope had been something they’d discussed, a whispered admission from Therese one night that Carol had had to sweet-talk out of her, and so it had taken only a pause and a kiss, a payment for the request to hold still and wait, and Therese had gotten the rope, left it on the floor, and knelt before Carol, carpet soft on her knees as she’d reached up to slide the rest of the dress over the curve of Carol’s waist and past her hips and down her thighs, helped her step out of it and then let her sit at the edge of the bed, worked on working the silk stockings down thighs, a kiss following the roll of the material all the way down to her ankles and dampened panties following soon after.
It had been quite a length of rope to buy, one they’d hidden well or not so well at the hardware store among other purchases—a potted plant for the windowsill, a new can of paint for the kitchen, and a few hardwood samples because Carol had mentioned becoming bored of the flooring in the living room.
With the rope on the floor, in reach for when she needs it, Therese slips a thumb under the strap of her bra, smiles, knows if Carol had her hands free she’d already be reaching for her—as it is, the tip of Carol’s tongue almost imperceptibly appears to wet her lips, long ago kissed clean of lipstick, and arches just a breath forward as she exhales, as the bra strap slides down her shoulder, falls a little but not far because the band across her ribs holds almost everything else in place, and Therese looks down and to the side, teasing, as she reaches for the other strap, brushes it down her other arm as well.
Her attempts at first had been clumsy—the rope had gone slack and slipped and fallen, or the diagram of the knots had taken a few tries for her to wrap her head around it, and all the while they’d both been laughing, Carol kneeling in front of her, back towards her and looking over her shoulder occasionally, and finally Therese had used up the last few bits of length of rope to tie off the loops around Carol’s wrists, pressed a kiss to the crook where her neck met her shoulder and then slid off the bed.
“You’ve thought about this, haven’t you?” Carol says, somewhere in the middle between surprised and teasing, her first words since, and Therese reaches behind herself, finds the clasp with the tips of her fingers and puts her thumb against the edge of the strap, her forefinger against the eyelets, needs only the barest of pinching motions, fabric gathering under her fingers, before the tension is gone and the hooks are undone, before her bra falls away or tries to at least, the straps catching in the crooks of her elbows.
Her nipples peak from the mere brush of the silk against them and from Carol’s gaze on her too, pulling a hot ache from between her legs, and Therese swallows, drags the bra away and leaves it to drop off her fingertips and slip from the edge of the bed and centers herself with a deep intake of breath, knows there will be time enough for that later because this, too, excites her in a new way.
It had all started with one of Carol’s scarves, and now look where they are.
“I have, yes,” Therese admits, looks up through her lashes and watches it get a smile from Carol, the kind only Carol can give, sultry and enamored all at the same time.
Therese shifts back, slides off the bed once more, steps back. If there is one thing Carol cannot do right now, it’s touch. And so Therese lets her hands find herself—she cups her breasts first, closes her eyes and knows her mouth is open just a bit as she kneads slowly. She knows herself intimately, small and pale and jutting and sharp, Therese Belivet in toto, her own touch as of now boring and uninteresting, until just recently when in the place of her hands she can imagine Carol’s. And the motion draws a wordless, appreciative moan from Carol, because when Carol lets go, relaxed and turned on enough, she is not the loudest but she is the least ashamed of making her wants known vocally.
It’s alright, she can almost hear Carol tell her as she’s told her before, usually with a hand between her thighs and a kiss to her cheek, and even simply calling upon that memory Therese can feel embarrassment and inhibition slip away. In answer, she lets what starts as a breath and ends as a gasp escape her lips as she touches herself, knows Carol always savors that.
It’s part of it, making her wait. Therese opens her eyes, lets thumbs and forefingers of both hands tease hardened nipples, roll them slowly to peaks that with each twist have a frisson of pleasure run along the ridge of her spine, down to pool warm between her legs, and she can see Carol’s shoulder move just so, a tug against the restraints which hold her hands behind her back before she deceases. A reminder.
Carol herself looks like a goddess—there are her curls and the grey eyes that watch her, and the movement of her throat as she swallows back words for now, the little hollow at the bottom of her throat that Therese loves to rest her nose against on any other day, head tucked comfortably under Carol’s chin. There are her slim, sharp shoulders, bearing a bruised but healing love bite from Monday where Therese had paid the arch of her shoulder too much attention, and then rope that runs over her breastbone, doubled up and doubled up again so that it’s four thick which meets in a knot between her breasts and then runs under them, like a present minus the bow. It had been a simple but sturdy design to try out on her first attempt.
It brings a certain inevitable amount of attention to Carol’s breasts, and Therese lets go of herself, lets her hands slide from her own breasts and down over her ribs and stomach and to her hips because she’d rather be touching Carol than herself. And it’s clear from the way Carol sits, still with a foot tucked under herself but shifting fruitlessly now and then because, tilted to the right and holding her weight there, she can’t grind down on anything more substantial than their down duvet under her, not even the heel of her own foot.
“How long?” Carol asks, casual as she meets her eyes, because apart from genuine curiosity the coaxing back-and-forth is part of it, too.
Therese lets her thumbs slide between the warm skin of her hips and the fabric of her panties, hook under the elastic and drag them down slowly over thighs and knees, until they fall around her ankles and she straightens, steps out and away from them. With them gone the slick wetness has nowhere else to go, and she feels it slip between her thighs when she moves, feels another deep pull in her cunt at the thought.
“Long enough,” Therese denies her, standing at the foot of the bed, watches as Carol hides a smile too at her sass, lets her bottom lip catch between her teeth instead, biting lightly though the motion doing little to hold back the groan.
When she’d suggested it it had been vague and unplanned, a half-thought out daydream in which she’d been the one to be on that end of the rope. Carol had paused and thought and then agreed and Therese had felt as if she’d won the lottery, fallen asleep to dreams that were suddenly much more fleshed out now, with Carol’s consent—but the next morning Carol had walked by and then stopped and leaned closed before leaving for work, asked so when are you going to tie me up, my little big shot? and Therese had felt the soapy coffee mug she’d been washing slip from her hands, only just managed to catch it before it fell in the sink and saved it from shattering.
“Makes me wonder what else goes on in there,” Carol says with the tilt of her chin as Therese kneels on the bed and crawls forward to her and reaches up with one hand, the other braced against the bed—she lets her hand slip along Carol’s jaw, cradling, and leans in for a kiss, feels Carol tilt up to meet her or as if to point to Therese, to her thoughts, to bring home her point with a simple but poignant movement, like she always does.
The kiss turns from one into many, deep and satisfying because she could kiss Carol a thousand times over and never be tired, never be bored. There is the scent of her and the taste of her she craves midday at work, when there’s still so much time to pass before she can leave. There is, in a kiss, how Carol will let her nose touch hers briefly in a gentle nuzzle, or some days nip at her lip teasingly. And there are some days when they kiss and the hand in her hair grips and tugs playfully or others where they cradle Therese to her like porcelain.
Carol’s tongue licks into her mouth, confident, and Therese lets her, needs her, meets her, hears a soft, high noise come from herself that should be embarrassing but isn’t because the pull between her legs is no longer a pull but a hot, insistent heartbeat that she can’t disobey, and the upper hand tilts quick and easy in favor of Carol like the movement of a compass needle getting its bearing, and so Therese pulls back, breath a shallow pant as she lets her hand fall away from Carol’s jaw to rest in her own lap.
Therese composes herself, Carol smiling the whole time, and hopes she sounds coy as she reaches up, tucks her hair behind her ears and replies, “Wouldn’t you like to know?"
There is a pause and it may be because Carol is watching her, at the way her arm and her breast has moved with the motion and thinking about what she’d like to do once Therese begins undoing knots, or it may be because Carol is Carol and seems to know always exactly what she’s doing, or at least to what end she’d like things to come to.
“Oh, I intend to find out,” Carol says, and Therese feels a fierce warm blush rise, knows her cheeks must be pink because Carol says it dark and slow and with a look like she wants to eat her up for dessert.
She’s not sure why this except that it can be argued probably that it’s artistic, creative. New. As they’d grown to know each other, their repertoire had expanded slowly, each little addition building on something prior, and with Carol game for it, she’d stopped giving it any thought.
And now if she were to ask she’s sure there is a whole universe of things that Carol would like to try with her, things that aren’t yet known but that she looks forward to anyhow, and Therese edges closer, almost in Carol’s lap, and slips a hand behind her, to hold her steady at the small of her back with one hand and the other braced against the bed, uses her body to press and urge Carol down onto the duvet, supported every moment of it until Carol’s shoulders take her weight and she’s lying on her back, curls spread out against the duvet as Carol looks up at her.
“Is that alright?” Therese asks, shifts enough above her to let Carol twist her hips and reposition herself from her previous position, to feel her legs unfold and then come to rest, feet braced against the bed and knees now bracketing Therese’s hips.
“Perfect, darling,” Carol says, and Therese can’t help but notice that this time it is Carol’s turn to be breathless.
Therese kisses her once more, lets out a little breath of laughter as Carol tries to deepen it again and pulls back once more, slinks a little lower and settles against Carol’s body, stomach to Carol’s hips, finally lets herself bow her head and take a nipple that has been peaked and ignored for much too long into her mouth.
She has no qualms about Carol’s body, enjoys it the way it is and couldn’t fathom a change. It’s only a passing diversion that the ropes accentuate her chest, and Therese slips two fingers between Carol’s skin and the rope, crooks her fingers and tugs away and pulls it tighter to see what happens, has to stop herself from moaning and biting down on tender flesh as Carol pushes up against her, the back of her head braced against the duvet and shoulders lifting up, pulling away to feel it harder and letting out a slow moan from somewhere deep.
She smiles at the reaction she’s managed to draw out and Carol’s nipple slips wet from between her lips, Therese sitting up a bit and catching Carol’s eyes and seeing that Carol looks like she’s sliding quickly towards undone, pale brows furrowed. Her hips press up into her, but Therese ignores the motion. The both of them know she’ll get there in due time.
“You know,” Therese hints, and cups Carol’s breasts with her hands, kneads and watches Carol tilt her head back again in pleasure. She hadn’t imagined Carol wanting to try, to like it, to tremble under her with a heady look on her face, and now diagrams she’d found and leafed through and thought of briefly and then put to rest as impossible come to mind again, and Therese gives the ropes another slow, meaningful tug, says, “There are lots of other places rope can go.”
“Christ, Therese,” Carol says, high and close to a sob already, and now her hips are really pressing up, back arching prettily, eyes closed and shoulders pressed against the bed and breath stuttering as words spill from her lips, pleas like touch me and please and Therese.
It’s cruel to keep them both waiting because that throb is still there, insistent, so Therese bows her head again, lets her hands slip from Carol’s breasts down to the dip of her waist and stay there, holding Carol to her as she kisses her way down her stomach, to the dip of her navel where she lets her tongue swirl once, twice, and then noses her way over silvery flashes of stretchmarks and presses a final kiss just above curling wisps of blonde down.
Therese slides and lies flat against the bed before her and slips a hand under a thigh, urges Carol to raise her leg with a little help, lets one settle on her shoulder and mirrors the motion with the other, pushes herself forward into just the right position with the dig of her elbow in the bed.
Therese finds Carol wet for her as she always does—not a brag but merely a fact, and she can say the same for her with Carol—opens her mouth and lets the flat of her tongue run the length of Carol’s cunt, groans at the taste of her which fills her mouth and her nose and every single thought she’s having right now, feels Carol try to grind down in her grasp and holds on tighter.
She can think of only a few times, Carol more awake then asleep but still drowsy, when they come to the mutual understanding that Carol wants nothing more than to lie back, to close her eyes, to relax and grip the sheets and do nothing more than come completely undone under Therese’s tongue. But those times are few and far between, rare to the point of being able to be counted on one hand and usually, Therese knows, because they've worn each other out the night before.
But right now, even with her hands still tied behind her back, there is Carol’s leg slipping from her grasp and crooking and a heel digging into her back carefully, urging her closer as Carol arches up, and Therese thinks in amusement and gratitude and love that of course Carol cannot keep herself off of her, no matter if her hands or lips or tongue can’t reach her, cannot keep herself from partaking in whatever they chose to do with eagerness and enjoyment and unbridled passion.
Therese gives one of Carol’s thighs a squeeze, a promise of no more teasing, and her lips find Carol’s clit, that little pearl that she could spend hours and hours licking and kissing, when it gets Carol to keen like that.
And how lucky she is to be the one to make Carol tremble, to make Carol call out, to make Carol grow slicker and slicker, breath a familiar quick and panting pace, until Therese lets go, slides one hand up to rest against her stomach to hold her still because it wouldn’t do to fumble now, picks up her pace and quickens her strokes and adds stronger but still-gentle pressure with each lave of her tongue, keeps it up despite the burn until Carol finally comes, goes taught and pushes against her grasp and arches hard and holds it before sinking down slow with a groan of something that sounds like god damn it.
It still surprises her, that it’s something she can do. It’s no surprise that Carol can make her come, but for her to make Carol feel the same way is harder to comprehend sometimes, star-struck. How lucky she is, Therese knows, watching Carol get ready in the morning, watching Carol speak to her friends, watching Carol with Rindy on their rare visitations, that Carol had tugged on the belt of her robe so long ago and kissed her.
Therese pulls back a bit, lets Carol’s legs slip from her shoulders and slinks back up her body, licks her lips before kissing her, keeping her weight off of Carol, because there will always be time for more orgasms later. They have done a great many things together now and she knows Carol, knows that Carol takes her martini dry and eats the olive off the toothpick, that Carol loves the second Sunday in May most of all, and that after the first orgasm she should let Carol catch her breath.
“Do you want me to untie—” she starts to ask, but Carol stops her before she can finish.
“Not yet,” Carol says, sounding half-surprised, and it takes a second before she laughs. Even lying down, even with Therese on top of her, she can manage to move her head, to almost flick a curl away from her face, to look at her in a way that reminds Therese of the wetness that fairly threatens to drip down her own thighs and say teasingly, “Wait your turn.”
And so Therese does, brings her to another orgasm or two before they both lose count, and is rewarded for it.