Maybe I was wrong.
Though I want to voice my questions about the pieces falling into place in my mind as I examine the details of the image, Jack steers me away from the sketch and toward my true prize, my desired destination.
The cold steel door.
My pulse pounds in anticipation. I don’t want to just see the meticulously preserved aftermath of his efforts. I want to see where Jack comes undone, to stand in the room where the angel of death bursts through his thin restraints.
I stand next to the locked latch handle and face Jack, my eyebrows hiking as he regards me for a long moment before approaching, withdrawing a key from his pocket. He barely looks at the latch as he unlocks it, keeping his eyes on me instead. With a deep breath of hesitation, he opens the door and holds it open for me to step into the rush of cold air.
Five concrete stairs descend into the square room, the walls lined floor-to-ceiling with white PVC panels. It’s much like a medical suite, with stainless-steel shelves and counters and tables with wheels. An IV pole stands in one corner of the room. There’s a row of medication vials on one shelf, a tray of syringes waiting next to them. There are scalpels and rib shears and toothed forceps laid out on one of the mobile tables. The faint scent of bleach lingers in the air. A pop of blue catches my eye, a vase of poppies resting on the counter near the deep, stainless-steel sink.
And in the center of the room, a gurney with thin black padding and restraints dangling from the swing-down side rails.
I drain my Tequila in a single shot before turning to face Jack. He stands unmoving at the bottom step, one hand gripping his glass a little too tight for his nonchalant stance, his other hand turning the lighter in his pocket.
“So,” I say, my breath fogging as I set my glass down on a counter and saunter closer, running a finger over the mattress of the gurney as I slowly approach him. “This is where the magic happens.”
Suspicion folds through Jack’s eyes as I stop close enough to feel his body heat through my clothes. But the cold air still burrows in, and the instant a little chill shivers through my body, his gaze slices over me—lips, throat, breasts, back to lips again. It remains on my mouth as though fused there, even when I pull his drink from his hand. “Why do I get the feeling I should be fearing for my life?” he asks.
I keep hold of Jack’s glass as I rest my other palm on his chest, capturing the beat of his heart before following the wall of muscle that tapers toward his clavicle. It doesn’t escape my notice that his pulse is faster than its usual steady rhythm, the beat quickening as my touch flows up his jugular to rest at the back of his neck.
“You said to spare you, for just a little while,” I reply as I pull him down until his lips meet mine. “It’s been long enough.”
I press a kiss to Jack’s lips that deepens with every breath that passes between us. My tongue demands to taste the Scotch that lingers on his. A little nip to Jack’s lips shreds a layer of his restraint and he pushes me back toward the center of the room. One of his hands grips my hip with bruising force while the other dives beneath the hem of my shirt to follow the lines of my ribs, his thumb tracing the underside of my breast with a slow sweep across the lace. It passes back over my peaked nipple and he groans, breaking the kiss to bite into the cold flesh of my neck.
“You put an idea into my head, Dr. Sorensen. And once it was there, I couldn’t get rid of it,” I say, my voice husky with desire as Jack’s lips and teeth trace a path up my jugular.
“And what’s that, lille mejer?” he whispers between urgent kisses.
My palm follows the hard length of his erection as I smile at his responding groan. A stronger bite sinks into my skin when I cup his cock through his pants with a firm grip.
The sound of scraping metal fills the cold air with a promise as I release the latch on Jack’s belt buckle. “The cold room on campus. Do you remember what you said before the meeting about Mason?”
“Do you think I would forget?”
I shake my head and Jack grips my jaw, keeping me locked in place as he devours me with a desperate kiss. My desire matches his, my need for him ferocious, twisting my core with a demanding ache. But I force it down. I break away with a hand to Jack’s rioting heart, and when he looks at me with a crease in his brows as though questioning if he did something wrong, I give him a wicked smile in reply.
“You know,” I say, keeping my hand on Jack’s chest as his breaths saw beneath my palm, “It took me far too long to put it all together.” I raise one finger around the metal glass in a request for a moment’s reprieve as I knock back the rest of his Scotch. The look in Jack’s eyes is one of trepidation, and I torture him for a little longer than necessary before explaining my meaning. “The cold. The kiss when I baited you about getting hot. The piercings.”
Jack’s eyes are lethal with need.
I don’t look away as I raise the cold metal to my lips and tilt my head back until a shard of ice slips onto my tongue. When I lower the glass, I make a show of pulling the ice chip through my pursed lips, holding it up between us like a prize. Then I set the glass down on a table within reach and grasp the waistband of Jack’s pants and briefs, tugging him closer.
“Are you going to be sweet to me, Jack?” I ask, my wide eyes the picture of virtue as I press up against his chest, driving the hand still gripping his clothing down with agonizing slowness to free his erection. Jack grasps my elbow and steadies me as I lower my knees to the unforgiving concrete.
“Not a fucking chance, petal.”
The innocence of my expression lifts like a mask of fog, burning away to reveal the wicked creature lying beneath.
“Thank fuck for that,” I say, gripping his erection. I run the shard of ice across one of the studs closest to the base of his cock before skating the Prince Albert piercing across the length of my tongue, relishing the bead of salty precum gathered at the head. Jack’s breathing grows ragged as the ice moves across the titanium in slow circles, from one stud to the next, cooling them down to what I hope is the edge between pleasure and pain. He pulls off his shirt, his expression almost agonized, like he’s burning and desperate for the embrace of cold air. But if he’s suffering, I’m not here to offer mercy. I caress the crown of his cock with gentle, teasing licks, tracing his piercing before taking it between my teeth with a gentle tug that has Jack hissing with desire.
“Jesus…fuck…” Jack tilts his head back as his hands tangle into my hair, his eyes closing as he sinks into the pleasure of the warring sensations, the cold ice battling my warm lips as I tighten them around the crown. I dance the tip of my tongue along the Prince Albert and he groans, his grip on my strands tightening. My motion slows until he meets my eyes and I pull away to place the melting ice on my tongue, holding his erection by the base as I lick each rung of his Jacob’s ladder. When Jack is shuddering and his eyes are little more than a thin slash of silver around his blown pupils, I crunch the shard of ice and grab another from the glass on the table.
“I once promised myself I’d make you suffer,” I whisper as I drag the ice up one side of titanium studs and down the other. “This wasn’t what I first had in mind, but I have to admit, Dr. Sorensen, I like this much better.”
I take my time with Jack, rolling the ice across the Prince Albert, sucking on the other studs, raking my nails across his balls, pressing my lips to them, drawing them into my mouth. Sometimes, he hisses my name like a curse. Others, a stream of Danish passes from his lips on an unsteady breath. Din skide gudinde. Du dræber mig…
When he’s been well and truly tortured, I take the head of his cock past my lips and suck, closing my eyes as I moan into his flesh.
