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The boots—black leather, eight eyelets, polished to a low sheen—fell from Ruth's hands and struck the living room rug with a quiet thump. Sabet glanced up from her book. Her attention had been drawn by the noise, but it was caught and held by the way Ruth looked as she stood, hands loose at her sides. Her eyes were shy and hungry, mouth slightly unconsciously open, a tautness to her pale legs as though she were standing just a little on tiptoe, her blue sundress hanging around her thighs.
Sabet marked her place in the book with a receipt and set it down on the side table. "What's this about, boo?" She could feel a smile curling her mouth despite herself. "Are you mad that I shined my boots myself this time?"
"No…" Ruth mumbled, with a sheepish giggle in the word. She was already blushing a bit at the play-ignorance of Sabet's question. "But I can do them next time if you want."
"Good, 'cause I'm really bad at it, they look terrible."
Ruth laughed for real this time and rubbed the back of her neck. She was looking down and away, still giggling nervously, her other hand curling slightly at her side. Sabet settled back in the armchair, sized things up, and pounced.
"Ruth."
Ruth looked up, expectant.
"Down."
With a whimper, she dropped to her knees. The expression on her face was as though she was getting everything she had always wanted.
"And come here."
There was a looseness and grace in Ruth's movements as she began to crawl. Sabet never saw her like that, moving with that much ease, except when they were alone together. It made her heart swell with joy. Ruth was closer now, palms and knees pink from the carpet chafing them, and her shoulders rose and fell in turn. They were places that Sabet suddenly realized she wanted to kiss. Finally, Ruth sat back on her haunches at Sabet's feet, and Sabet did lean down to kiss the tops of her shoulders, one and then the other, running her lower lip across the faint freckles there. Cool under her mouth.
She stroked her hand through Ruth's hair, tucking a piece behind her ear, letting both herself and Ruth settle into their places for a moment. Ruth's hands were resting on her folded knees and her head followed the strokes of Sabet's hand, seeking touch. The fan whirred silently overhead, sending a soft downdraft to stir the coiled locks of Sabet's hair around her face. The backs of her knees were beginning to sweat inside her jeans. That tended to happen when Ruth was close to her; warmth rose inside her body, awareness sharpened and focused; her mind drifted down from wherever it had been voyaging and brought her back into her skin, and into the closeness with Ruth. Ruth's pulse was ticking at her temple, so softly as to be almost imperceptible, under Sabet's fingertips.
After a minute or two, Sabet ran her hand slowly down along Ruth's jaw and turned her face upward. She looked into Ruth's eyes, assessing, examining the micro-emotions in her face that flitted across and away, trying to guess what Ruth might want, trying to put a finger on the nature of her own desire for control, which had arisen in her all at once, like a sheet snapping out and floating down over a stripped bed. Boots freshly shined, lips slightly parted, the whimper that had escaped Ruth's mouth as she knelt.
Catching a glimpse of the boots in question slumped across the room drew her back to think more concretely about what would be coming. What she could do: what she could make happen.
"You wanna get freaky today?"
Ruth nodded, then in response to Sabet's sharp pinch on her earlobe, revised her answer. "Y-yes. Yes, I do." She was never explicit in her speech if she could help it. Sabet was in the process of training her otherwise.
"Freaky how?"
This made Ruth look away again, grinning sheepishly. "Mean… you know… like how you are when you're wearing your boots."
"Mean, huh?" Sabet smirked. "So you want me to stomp on you? You want to suffer?"
Ruth's answering nod, lip-biting and hastily eager, made her laugh and scritch the soft hairs behind Ruth's ear. "Sounds good. But just let me know how you're doing, okay? Be a good girl for me."
"Yes, ma'am!" said Ruth flippantly, though the joke was undercut somewhat by her shiver at the phrase "good girl." There was no mistaking that look that Ruth had already begun to get, the softness in her eyelids, wrists turning outward in a gesture of acceptance.
Sabet bit the tip of her forefinger, considering, and purposefully put some teeth into her smile. Plans were spinning through her mind in shocking and unusable profusion. Ruth's face, tear-tracked and snotty, contorted with sobs; Ruth wheezing for air with Sabet's forearm across her throat; Ruth's hands laced behind her head, pressing her face into the floor, held at knifepoint and sniveling the answers to Sabet's interrogation; Ruth's squishy ass and thighs, dappled red and blue with nailmarks and teethmarks and handprints and bootprints…
But all great plans have to start somewhere. She cocked her head at the boots on the floor and said, "So go fetch. No hands."
As Ruth turned to obey, she added, "And get naked first."
That was the task of a moment, Ruth wriggling out of the sundress and shucking off her underwear and sinking once more to her knees, looking both less and more at ease. Sabet shooed her across the room, meanwhile undoing the button on her own jeans, and with great pleasure watched Ruth's hips sway as she crawled. Her ass was the sweetest heart-shaped valentine. The zipper on Sabet's jeans stuck, and she ripped it down in irritation and began yanking at the waistband. Ruth was pulling the boots by the laces with her teeth, crawling backward so that Sabet got the view both ways, drag, drag, dropped them at Sabet's feet, sat back and looked up at her.
Sabet scratched behind her ear and cooed, "Good puppy," just to see what her face would look like. Ruth's cheeks and neck flamed red and she made a noise like "Nng," and squeezed her thighs together, and pierced Sabet with a look that was part glower, part helpless whimper. Sabet leered pleasantly at her and set her left foot on the top of Ruth's thigh to have her jeans pulled the rest of the way off. Her other foot she pushed into Ruth's sternum, balancing the pressure as Ruth stiffened her back to stay upright, and then let it scrape down Ruth's chest and fall into her lap. She was selfishly amused by the little games she could play with her, how little things could make Ruth change color, change behavior, melt in her hands.
As Ruth tugged on her boots and began lacing the left one, Sabet leaned down, elbows on knees, to bring her face close to Ruth's where she bent to her work. Other than a slight tensing of her shoulders, Ruth gave no sign that she noticed her. Her fingers snugged the laces busily back and forth, tightening evenly, pinching nowhere, laying them into diamonds flat and neat.
"Hey." Sabet's throat filled with excited heat as Ruth looked up. "You missed an eyelet."
And before Ruth could glance down to check her work, she flicked Ruth's cheek hard with the tip of her middle finger, then flicked it again close to her eye. Her reward was a choked-off yip, Ruth's hands clutching at her ankle as she flinched, and, of course, the look on her face. Sabet was in love with the lightning-quick way Ruth's expression changed: from pure shock at the first blow, to squirming ashamed arousal, to outrage as she realized Sabet's blatant lie, then to chin-lifted defiance. All in a few seconds. These changes in mood, legible to her only because of their long knowledge of one another, made Sabet's hands tremble with the sudden rush she felt. Today was going to be truly delightful.
She flicked Ruth's face one more time, treasuring again the bitten-off flinch and squeak, and said innocently, "Come on, babe, get moving. I thought you wanted to mess around."
Ruth, flushing bright red, bent again to the boot-laces and made quick work of the rest. With the last knot tightening, she released a deep breath that she had evidently been partially holding all this time.
Sabet rolled one ankle then the other, slow, and slowly stood up. The snug weight of her boots, black, shiny, flooded her with an unstoppable sense of strength and control. Every footfall was heavy with power. Her hand fell to Ruth's head and she drew her fingers once more through the silky black hair, then clenched her fist and twisted. Ruth let out a whine that filled her belly with pleasure. She dragged Ruth's head back to look her in the eye.
"Go get my cane." She pictured Ruth crawling toward her, the rattan clenched between her teeth, a string of saliva swinging from the center of her lower lip. "No hands."
* * * * *
Ruth's bangs were sticking to her forehead with sweat. She had her tongue out, lolling pink and vulnerable. She was softly whining, small half-second sounds repeated again and again, and her lower half was wiggling ever so slightly.
"Oh, come on," said Sabet. "You call that begging?" She stood sweating in the center of the room. Her cane hung loosely in her hand. "Get over here, and act like you want it this time. This is pathetic."
Ruth visibly caved at this, but what a good dog, she obeyed, the look on her face half fear, half grim determination as she took a few hesitant steps on hands and knees toward Sabet. She was deliberately avoiding eye contact. Sabet considered ordering her to look up, but there was something appealing too in the hangdog way she held her head. Red-bordered purplish stripes were visible across the curves of her ass and thighs. As Ruth approached her, Sabet began backing away, relishing the look on Ruth's face as she was forced to crawl even further.
"Come on, puppy. Come kiss it. Beg for it like a good dog."
Ruth lunged forward and finally made it to Sabet's feet, Sabet taking pity on her. She let Ruth lick the shaft of the cane for a few moments, staring with her mouth half-open at Ruth's tongue laving its length, up and down, passionate and romantic worship. The cane glistened with a thin coating of saliva. She was briefly tempted to abandon her objective and just pull Ruth's face between her legs, but as incredible as that sounded right now, she had no desire to spoil her own plans.
She tugged Ruth away from the cane. "Now, what do you say?"
Ruth swallowed and reddened, yanked out of the bright dream of the cane and suddenly aware of the scrutinizing eye on her. Haltingly, like she was struggling with herself, she brought her hands up before her naked chest; stuck out her tongue, her face ashamed, eyes big and tragic; and whined, and wiggled.
Sabet carelessly ruffled her hair. Always good to see a little effort. "There's a girl. Ass up."
Still flushed down to the collarbones, still whining under her breath, Ruth shuffled into position on all fours. She looked back up over her shoulder at Sabet, who glanced at her with a smile in between assessing the cane-marks made so far. "Well, aren't you excited." Ruth made an indistinct noise and looked away again. Funny girl; so shy. She chose the target of her next strike, whipped the cane a few times through the air to hear the whoosh and to see Ruth flinch at the sound; and she began.
As Sabet warmed anew to her work, the cracks of the cane echoed under the high ceilings, interspersed with Ruth's panting and her raw-throated wails as the strikes fell.
Sabet landed one right in the sweet spot at the crease under Ruth's ass, and was rewarded by the sweetest groan, deep in the chest, and by Ruth arching her back into the sensation. She landed the next one in the exact same spot, pleased with her accuracy. Even better was the harsh way Ruth's voice broke as she screamed.
"Aww, not as fun when it's one right after the other, huh?" Sabet pouted. "Poor puppy."
Ruth clenched the carpet in her fists, breathing through her nose. Her toes were flexing in her effort not to move, or not to speak, or not to scream too loud, or something. Whatever it was, she was doing beautifully at it. The overlapping stripes of the cane were beginning to radiate heat.
Sabet knelt by Ruth's side and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Quietly, she said, "Beg for me."
Ruth put out her tongue with a hopeless moan, and Sabet dragged her head down to lick the cane. They spent a quiet moment together like this, Ruth drooling uncontrollably, Sabet murmuring fond nothings to her and wrenching her head a little back and forth.
For the next few strokes she aimed at the lower part of Ruth's thighs, where the muscle lay close under the skin, not padded by much fat. There were sobs coming out of Ruth's mouth, and she thrashed and jerked between Sabet's hands: the immovable grip on her hair, and the slash and crack of the cane. Sabet could feel her heart painful in her chest, not the sensation of the individual heartbeats as much as a kind of burning, swollen intensely with adrenaline and with love.
She released Ruth's hair and stood up, and wiped her mouth with her palm to steady herself. Check in. Time to check in.
"Where are you?" She ran the tip of the cane up the bowed arc of Ruth's spine and lightly tapped the nape of her neck. "You can use your words."
Ruth's chest was heaving with the depth of her inhalation. Eventually she said, somewhat strained, "Good. I'm, I'm good."
"Oh, good," said Sabet, and laid on another stripe that made Ruth collapse forward onto one elbow and scream:
"Mother—fuck—!"
The instant the words escaped, Ruth jerked upright and slapped a hand over her mouth, as though she could somehow grab them and swallow them back down her throat if she only moved fast enough. Sabet looked down at her, letting the transgression sink in, not even bothering to try and hide the grin that was spreading over her face. Ruth's eyes were huge and scared.
Sabet sucked air in through her teeth, and said evenly, "I didn't say you could use your words to be vulgar, you nasty little bitch," and hit Ruth across the face with the back of her free hand.
Ruth was whimpering, holding her hand to her cheek and looking up at her with a kind of stunned horror. Between Ruth's fingers Sabet could see the red mark rising on her face.
"So," she said. "You wanna be a bad dog." As though thinking aloud, pondering her options. Of course there was only one option here, there had only been one from the very beginning, but Ruth was always so considerate in giving her the perfect justification. "What do you think bad dogs deserve?"
She could see Ruth's shoulders hunch together as she whined. Could practically see her start to drip, to draw her legs together to try and squeeze the ache away. Sabet smiled and moved to stand behind her. She slid her free hand around Ruth's throat, and Ruth's back straightened abruptly against her knees, her breathing quick and shallow.
Gently, Sabet began to choke her. She said, "I think you know what bad dogs get, Ruthie."
Ruth nodded like an involuntary spasm. Her nervous swallow made her larynx struggle under Sabet's hand. Sabet squeezed a little tighter to feel the way Ruth's pulse accelerated, grew heavy and thick, her blood forcing its way past the pressure of Sabet's fingertips close up under her jaw.
She stepped back (Ruth sucked in a deep breath) and planted her boot between Ruth's shoulders. Milking it just for a second; Ruth's back trembling with tension. Finally she spat, "Get on the fucking ground," and shoved.
Ruth fell forward onto her elbows and knees with a grunt, then scrambled to get the rest of the way down, panting and fearful in her haste. Sabet touched the tip of the cane to her temple. "Hold still. I wanna step on your face first."
Ruth moaned and curled her knees toward her chest, and turned her cheek up toward Sabet, eyes squeezed shut. Sabet could smell in the air how wet she was.
"I know, puppy," she crooned. "I know. You can't help it."
The toe of her boot was square on Ruth's cheekbone, sinking down with a slow pressure, muffling Ruth's noises that made her sound like she was passing out from sexual pleasure.
If Sabet could have, she would have taken those few moments and frozen them in amber to fondle and cherish forever: the low and anguished sounds coming from under her boot; the weight, actually quite slight, that she was rocking into her toe; the warm throb swelling at the core of her as she looked down the length of her leg at Ruth sprawled on the floor.
Gradually, Sabet released the pressure on her face and prodded her in the ribs with the cane. "You're done now. Say thank you like a good dog."
Of course Ruth whined at that. It was so easy, pushing her buttons; but after all, the simplest pleasures are arguably the best. Ruth's eyes weren't quite rolling back in her head, as she began to lick the sole of Sabet's boot, but it was a close thing. Her mouth was wet and helpless and open against the tread. A red pattern of diamonds was indented somewhat on her left cheek.
Sabet pushed her boot hard into Ruth's mouth for one last little second, making her gurgle speechlessly around the toe, and reluctantly pulled away. As she strode toward the armchair to set her cane down, she spoke without turning around. "Get into pushup position. On your toes."
Ruth's audible inhale across the room made Sabet smile to herself.
* * * * *
"Come on. Four. You're not doing great so far."
Keeping count was unnecessary, really; Sabet knew that Ruth was intimately aware of exactly how many pushups she had managed to do so far. Ruth was at the bottom of her fifth one, elbows tucked neatly to her sides, struggling to rise against the weight of Sabet's boot pushing down at the center of her back. Counting, not so important. The heckling, though—crucial. In Sabet's observations, it made Ruth try so much harder. Plus, it made Sabet want to roll on the ground and hug herself, and also jerk off for two hours straight, so obviously that was a yes.
"Five. Come on, where's that feisty spirit?"
Ruth growled at her over her shoulder, presumably without enough energy to actually raise her head.
Sabet leaned down, resting her elbow on her knee and transferring a little more load onto Ruth's back, and said cheerfully, "What was that, puppy? Got something to say?"
Ruth shook her head furiously and sank down, jaw clenched, fingers flexed and digging into the floor like a set of claws. Sabet leaned in a little more, cackling to herself, biting her knuckles from sheer glee, and watched a bead of sweat roll down Ruth's cheek as she forced her way up, up, up, against the black weight of the boot.
“There you go! Six! Good dog!” Pause for effect. “Nine more.”
Ruth dropped her head with a despairing exhale. Sabet didn't even know if Ruth could do that many pushups by herself, let alone with someone else unhelpfully shoving her down, but she dearly loved to see Ruth exhaust herself, and fail, and maybe cry. She shoved her hand past the waistband of her underwear and spread herself with index and pinky finger.
She was already wet as fuck, sloppy and hot to the touch, and her clit was hard and rolling under the hood and made her shudder as she slicked her middle two fingers across it. Through her leg, she could feel Ruth trembling with exertion under the sole of her boot. She ground the toe into the gap under Ruth's shoulderblade and rasped, "Keep going."
Ruth moaned piteously in response, making Sabet's fingers move faster. But she did it, lowering her body laboriously until her elbows were at right angles, then quaking with the force needed to raise herself back up. Each pushup she did seemed like it would be the last one, like there was no possible way she could do another, but she kept doing them, slow as death, coming back to the starting position like she was trapped in hell. Sabet wasn't even keeping count anymore, she was just watching the way Ruth's head hung between her shoulders, the way her triceps and lats bulged and shifted with each tiny effort, the deep ragged heaves of each breath, going anaerobic with pain. She could tell that Ruth was almost at the end of her tether. It was almost, almost time.
Sabet slowed the roll of her fingers on her clit, savoring the moment she could feel coming, gloating over it like a prize; and with a vicious, ugly joy, drove her boot down twice as hard. Ruth's quivering arms buckled and she hit the floor with a thump. Her breath was forced out in wheezes, thick with tears. The skin of her back tugged and twisted under the vulcanized rubber as Sabet ground her heel again and again into the knotted muscles.
Like victory, Sabet felt like a battle flag snapping in the wind, like a wolf with a slavering mouth full of fangs, so good she wanted to scream, to crush Ruth to death in her tender embrace, to grind her into ashes on the ground. There was no part of her that was not burning. She whipped off her shirt and flung the bundle into the corner of the room, and dropped to a crouch over Ruth. The heat steaming out of Ruth's exhausted muscles she could feel with every inch of her skin, every nerve webbing the surface of her body. She wished she could plunge her hand under Ruth's ribcage and feel the pulsation of her living heart.
She ran her nails across the reddened skin, shoulder to knee, softly skimming raw spots and rising welts. Ruth was twitching under her touch, letting out little whimpers, little sighs. Slowly, Sabet put her tongue out and licked one of the stripes across the back of her thigh. It was hot and swollen compared to the skin around it. She sucked in a kiss, slowly, listening with her whole attention to the delicate, overwhelmed noises Ruth was making. Then she sucked a little harder and put some teeth into it. Ruth let out the longest shuddering exhale, and her hips shifted under Sabet's mouth, unevenly, as though she were trying to wedge something under them.
Sabet felt a sudden wave of irrational possessiveness break through her. She released the bite and shoved one thigh to the side, forcing Ruth to open her legs. Ruth's fingers, who knows how she still had the energy to move, were beginning to circle her clit.
"Hey! Bad dog!"
She pulled Ruth's wrist away and slapped her cunt hard, making Ruth yelp and jerk violently. Her knees were pressed together, she was panting, spluttering incoherent noises.
Sabet seized Ruth's throat, cutting off a high-pitched whimper in the middle. She was shocked by the snarl that came out of her own mouth. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Ruth just looked up at her from the corner of one eye, mouth mutely open, eyebrows crumpled with need and fear, rocking her hips against the fading sensation of the slap. Knowing her, she had probably been pushed closer to coming by being called a bad dog than anything else.
Sabet pulled her underwear off one-handed, clumsy, probably stretching the leg holes as she tugged them over her boots. Who cared. Even just thinking about this, about any of this, was making the heat between her legs almost painful. She really, really wanted to fucking destroy Ruth. She wanted, a little bit, to mutilate her, to make her suffer, fuck, just to, to lick the tears off her face. To spit in her mouth and make her swallow it. God, anything. She bundled the underwear in one hand and shoved it into Ruth's mouth, slick side down, stifling the moan that rose as soon as Ruth felt the wet cloth against her lips.
"I don't want to hear it. Now get your ass up. Knees open, for god's sake."
With stiff, ungainly movements, Ruth drew her knees partway toward her chest to bring her hips toward the ceiling. Her belly was shivering with fatigue. Sabet brought her boot around and kicked Ruth's knee open a little more.
"This is mine." She dug her fingers hard into the raised welts on the back of Ruth's thigh and slapped her cunt again, and again and again. "Mine—" feeling the squish of wetness giving way under her hand as Ruth cried out into the gag— "don't you fucking touch it." And a final slap, snapping her wrist to make it really sting.
Ruth let out a tortured whine. She was close, Sabet could tell, and just a few more slaps like that would push her over the edge. To be honest, she would have been surprised if Ruth hadn't tried to make herself come, after all that, but that still didn't mean that kind of bullshit would be tolerated. Now she had lost her chance. Sabet pushed down with her wet hand on Ruth's sacrum, letting her drop her hips, and trailed her hand down the cleft of her ass. She was consumed by an aggressive urge to jerk Ruth around, make her sweat, with the promise of an orgasm receding dimly in the distance.
She slid an easy three fingers into Ruth, working them slowly, and hunkered down to bring their faces whisper-close. There were tears in Ruth's eyes, making the lashes cling together. "Now you don't get to come today. Pleased with yourself?"
Ruth rapidly shook her head. Her breath was coming harsh through her teeth, clenched on the cloth, at the thrust of Sabet's fingers inside her.
"No?" Sabet asked, feeling a somewhat manic smile spreading on her face. "Aw, poor little bitch. Poor puppy."
She dragged her hooked fingers against Ruth's front wall as she slowly withdrew them, relishing the muffled cries and thrashing this produced. She really was trying so hard to be good; Sabet could feel her clenching around the last inch or so, could see her teeth gritted miserably in a desperate attempt not to fall over the edge. Her noises of deprivation were indescribably perfect, making Sabet's ears hot, making her feel a little crazy.
The wetness trickling down her fingers she tasted, then smeared across Ruth's face and shoved into her mouth alongside the saliva-soaked underwear. She was ecstatic at the effect this had: Ruth's eyes fluttering partially white, her mouth indiscriminately accepting whatever was pushed inside, squirming feverishly at every touch. She was totally gone. Sabet licked a streak of come off her cheek and tenderly bit at the place she had just licked. Time to wrap this up.
She bit her way down, little nips under the jaw and the side of the neck, and finally latched into the thick muscle of Ruth's trapezius. At the same time, she threw one of her legs over Ruth's thigh to grind against her own hand. Close; getting closer. Her bite was lowish on the shoulder and felt so satisfying that she groaned as she sank her teeth deeper. The skin bruising cell by cell, the resistant springy muscle beneath. The bone buried deep at the core. Gently, so it wouldn't hurt Ruth too terribly much, she shook her head from side to side like a dog tearing a mouthful off a carcass.
Ruth was gasping in pain underneath her, struggling not to fight even despite her exhaustion, struggling to be good. The force of Ruth's body tense and heaving against hers and the biteful of Ruth she had were going to make her come any second now. She could feel her clit pulsing in her palm, slicking perfectly back and forth in the V of her thumb and the heel of her hand pressed together. One small, watchful part of her brain monitored Ruth's agonized noises for any drastic change, but the rest was given completely over to pleasure and to the knowledge that Ruth was suffering on her behalf.
Ruth's wet, sobbing moans hit her like fists in the gut over and over; fuck, what a good girl, and her teeth squeezed a little tighter into the flesh, Ruth's moans became squeals, terror-stricken panting through the nose, Sabet's hips grinding forcefully into the back of Ruth's thigh where the cane-marks were raw and purple, remembering the crack of each clean strike—jesus fuck—cries, sobbing, tongue out and begging—Ruth's sweat in her eyes, whining—heat blooming and spreading like raw-purple—blooming—
* * * * *
—God.
Sabet slackened against Ruth's back, still palming her clit slowly, her bite gently, gently loosening from around Ruth's shoulder. At the relief from pain Ruth slackened too, gulping for air. Her head dropped to the floor.
Sabet started licking the place where she had bitten, the tip of her tongue feeling out the deep indentations her teeth had left, swirling over the skin in the middle where she had broken a few capillaries by sucking. She could hear Ruth breathing slower and steadier at this; still a little choked, wet; but it was slower; slower.
Her fingertips trailed up and down Ruth's side. Her lips explored the curve of Ruth's shoulder. They breathed together.
After a hazy amount of time, Sabet pressed a final kiss on the bite mark. She kissed her way up the side of Ruth's neck, softly, to the place under her ear where her pulse beat heavy with blood, and murmured, "Are you alive?"
Unexpectedly, Ruth laughed, and the shock of her joy made Sabet burst into laughter too. They squeezed hands and Sabet buried her face in Ruth's shoulder, giggling like a fool. A few moments later, she shook one hand free from Ruth's and reached up to pull loose the crumpled, sodden underwear. Ruth's jaw worked and opened in a stretch as the fabric was drawn free.
She said, "Yeah… yes. I'm alive." Her voice was weary and happy.
"I'm so glad." Sabet kissed the sore edge of her mouth. She could feel Ruth smile beneath her kiss. With her thumb she wiped away the tears in the corners of Ruth's eyes, and kissed there too.
This seemed like such a good idea that she kissed Ruth's cheekbone, then the edge of Ruth's ear, then started kissing back down her throat, taking her time with it this round, licking the sweat off her skin in long, slow figure-eights. Ruth's hips were beginning to rock under hers already, and Sabet laughed into the crook of her neck.
"I almost forgot."
She slid her hand between Ruth's thighs and, extremely gently, rolled the ball of her thumb down the swollen shaft of Ruth's clit. Ruth cried out, her whole body contracted inward, but Sabet instantly whipped her hand away.
"Oh ho ho! That was a close one." She giggled. "Man, you are close."
Ruth was breathing shallowly, looking back at her with the most adorable desperation on her face. Moving carefully, Sabet stroked the backs of her wet knuckles across her clit again, and Ruth almost howled.
"Ohh, you are in trouble, little puppy." She kissed her once more under the ear and moved down to kneel between her legs, pulling Ruth onto her back. "Gonna be good for me?" She smacked the inside of Ruth's thigh, and Ruth let it fall open, baring herself to Sabet's fingers.
"God," Ruth gulped, "please don't—"
"Please don't what, Ruthie? Don't let you come?"
Ruth moaned, and Sabet gave her an angelic smile. "Don't worry, I wasn't planning on it."
She made eye contact with Ruth as she slid her first two fingers inside, to the hilt, watching Ruth’s pupils dilate and lose focus in her need. She lightly brought her thumb to rest atop Ruth's throbbing clit. Its movement was actually minutely visible. Ruth was mewling pathetically, holding herself rigid, presumably because she might accidentally move against Sabet’s hand and make herself come. Sweet girl.
"Now," said Sabet, taking a dramatic, delighted second to pause; to feel the throb, throb under the pad of her thumb. "Do you remember how to beg?"