• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I ended up blushing, which I hated. “No,” I said, and it sounded whiny even to me.

He could have said a half-dozen things that would have made it worse, but he had mercy on me. “You get it off the same way you get it on.” He slid his left arm through the front of all those straps, then raised his arm up his chest, along side his neck, and did something with his shoulder that I couldn’t see from where I was standing. The straps just peeled down, and suddenly he was nude from the waist up, with the straps hanging around him like the petals of a black leather flower. “The straps come off completely, but it takes time to reattach them, so you’ll have to come tonight if you want to see the whole show.” He smiled gently, to take some of the sting out of my embarrassment. I wasn’t sure why I was embarrassed, unless it was because Ronnie was there, or I was worried about having to come across soon. Who knew, pick one.

“Your shoulder,” Ronnie said, in a strained voice, “didn’t that hurt what you did to your shoulder?”

He shook his head, sending all that shining auburn hair flying. “No, I’m double-jointed.”

Ronnie was having trouble with her face, like the expression that was wanting to come there wasn’t one she was willing to have. “How double-jointed are you?”

“Ronnie,” I said.

She shrugged and gave me a look like, Sue me, I couldn’t help it. “Well, you won’t tell me. You just told me today that he’s moved from food to boyfriend.”

“Ronnie,” I said again, a little more urgently.

She made a face. “Sorry, sorry, I’m not myself today. I’m babbling more, like you usually do.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” I said.

“You do babble when you’re nervous or horny,” Gregory said.

“Stop helping me, Gregory.”

He shrugged, which looked odd on the leopardman shoulders, not bad, just odd. “Sorry.”

“Do you want me to answer her question?” Nathaniel asked, in a careful voice.

“Answer the question, don’t answer the question, I don’t care.”

He cocked his head to one side, the expression on his face clearly said that he knew that wasn’t true. He was right, I’d have preferred him to not answer the question. He’d given me the opportunity to be his master and tell him not to answer, but I’d blown it. I’d abdicated the throne he seemed to want me to take, and if you’re not in charge, you can’t control what happens.

He walked over toward Ronnie, and he made sure he swayed that luscious ass at me as he moved. Sometimes I wondered if Nathaniel knew how beautiful he was, then he’d do something that let me know he knew exactly what he looked like. Like now.

Heat crept up my face just watching him walk, and I finally decided why the embarrassment. I’d promised to mark him, but what he wanted was intercourse, and watching him move across the room like an ad for a wet dream made me all squirmy and uncomfortable, like being a teenager again and having “those feelings” for the first time, and having no one to talk to about them, because good girls weren’t supposed to have feelings like that.

He flicked his head and sent all that hair spilling over Ronnie, and away, like a curtain that she’d walked through, except she was sitting still. It looked as if he’d slapped her instead of teased. He stood up very straight, very tall, beside her chair and clasped his hands behind his back. “To answer your question, I,” he began to raise his arms backward, “am,” his arms went to the middle of his back, and kept on moving upward, “very,” until his straining clasped fingers were even with his shoulder blades, “very,” his arms rotated all the way up so they pointed at the ceiling, “double-jointed.” Then he slowly put his arms back down, but it wasn’t Ronnie he was looking at when he finished.

I didn’t blush, I paled. I felt trapped. Trapped by what? That was the ten-thousand-dollar question. Even to myself, I wasn’t sure I had an answer.

They left to repair Nathaniel’s costume. The silence in the kitchen after they left was deep, long, and uncomfortable. At least for me. I didn’t look at Ronnie, because I was trying to think of something to say. I shouldn’t have worried,