Calm Before the Storm

He stood there, just inside the doorway, his eyes pinning me in place. He searched my face trying to read my mood and my level of anxiety, which was building with every second. He knew that I was not about to take the first step, but that I would take my cue from him. My heart caught in my throat when he turned, releasing me from his magnetic stare. It was only when I realized that he had turned and closed and locked the door that my pulse began to quicken again.

Glancing at the clock readout on the cable box I noticed that he was 30 minutes early. I had not finished getting dressed and I was in a black silk kimono style robe that was tied at the waist. My makeup was half finished and I thought that I looked like hell. He did not seem to notice my state of unpreparedness, or maybe he was counting on it and that was why he was this early.

Part of me wanted him to leave right now and never come back. Part of me wanted him to leave and give me the 30 minutes that he had promised me to pull myself together. And part of me wanted him to stay, wanted to see where this would go, and wanted to see what was in his mind. I was still trying to figure out what his intention was when he faced me again and I was again ensnared in that gaze that could transfix anything with a pulse.

"Hi", he purred, and his voice drifted across my senses like silk. I could feel myself begin to melt, and I tried to shake off the sensation of being outside of my own skin. It was disconcerting to think that he already had this much control over me. Heaven help me if we ever got to the point where we did more than just kiss. I could feel him staring at the vein on the side of my neck where he could watch my pulse throb wildly with the building anticipation, and I had a momentary thought that maybe he was a vampire. I shook off that thought rather quickly when he smiled a dazzling smile and showed off a perfect row of straight white teeth with not a single sharp one in sight.

I opened my mouth to try to tell him that I was not ready yet and that I needed more time to finish getting ready, but I never got the words out. I made the mistake of licking my dry lips before speaking and before I realized what was happening he was across the room and was kissing me fiercely - invading my mouth with his hungry tongue, and I felt myself go limp. After a few seconds, the neurons started firing again and I started kissing him back, our tongues dancing along each other and my toes curling from the raw sensuality of his kiss. It was almost as if he had been thinking about kissing me again since the last time that he had kissed me, and in fact, those thoughts had been in the back of my head for a great deal of the time that we had been apart as well. Although I was not going to advertise that fact to him.

I felt his hand come down to rest on my hips, and then found myself sinking to the sofa that was behind me. He followed me down, and then spun me so that I was straddling his lap. He trailed kisses along my jaw and along the side of my neck, nipping softly at my ear and then soothing with a soft lick. I could only imagine what else he had in mind, because he was definitely interested in finding all of my sensitive spots. My mind drifted to the prowess of his tongue and started imagining what it would feel like elsewhere, and my body reacted to my thoughts. I could feel a warmth rise up in my core, and my legs clenched on either side of his.

One of his hands slid down to my hip and started rubbing slow, soothing circles there before trailing gently around the front and continuing their exploration south. Because I was straddling him, I was wide open to his touch, which the sudden knowledge of made me blush like a schoolgirl, which irritated me because I was a grown woman, and then I started to get angry with myself that as a grown woman I was sitting in my living room allowing a virtual stranger to kiss the living daylights out of me and explore intimate areas of my body that had not been touched in love or ever for the intention of pleasure in several years.

He could feel me tighten and could seem to read my thoughts because he stopped kissing me and whispered into my ear, "It's alright, just relax, let go, and let me take care of you. You need to be taken care of and I want to be the one to do that so just let me. Just think about how it feels and how good it feels and I will make sure not to hurt you. I promise." I just nodded dumbly and sank back and leaned back a little bit, giving him even more access to the area that he wanted to explore.

The instant that he tenderly slid the pads of his fingers over my sensitive flesh I moaned. His eyes darkened with wicked desire as he found the wetness that betrayed my growing arousal. He seemed to delight in the knowledge that he had that effect on me, and I was not going to deny him that sense of pride.

Things were going so well, and then he reached for one of my breasts to play with a nipple and I winced and yelped. He looked down in surprise, his fingers stilling, and then he looked in my eyes, questioningly. As he went to untie the sash holding the robe closed, I shut my eyes tight as my face burned with shame and fear. He gently pulled apart my robe, exposing my chest to him, and sat still for a moment in shocked silence. It was as if he could not quite comprehend what he was seeing. The bruises on my breasts and the bruises from the broken ribs painted a garish pattern of purple and green across my skin like some sort of abstract painting.

Standing me up, he spun me around to see if there was additional bruising on my back, only to find that my back had taken more of the brunt of my last beating than my chest had. He cursed, spun me around and buried his face in my hair. I could feel him shaking, and I was not sure whether it was with anger, or disgust, or fury, or some other unnamed emotion that I did not understand yet. I just hoped that he would not leave because of it, and yet part of me wished for just that - that he would see the broken, bruised, and beaten monster that nobody wanted and decide that he needed to keep his distance as well.

I don't know how long we sat like that, his face buried in my hair, rocking softly like I was a child, but after a while I could feel myself calming down and could tell that he had calmed down a little as well.