Can someone please explain this whole lip-biting craze to me? It seems to be on every page of every book at the moment. And I hate it with a passion, probably because of the stupid Fifty Shades of Awfulness.

What does it even represent? Is it meant to be flirting, suppressed lust, dirty thoughts or something else? Does anyone even do it in real life?  I know I don’t. Although, I do chew my lips to shreds when being fucked hard in doggy and I have to keep things quiet. But I guess that’s different.

Then there is this annoying lip twitching when I’m excited, anxious, angry or all at the same time. Like now. Standing in his kitchen casually drinking wine as if we have known each other for years - oblivious to the weird electrostatic air between us.

My fingers repetitively tap the delicate glass before I hiss into his face, “I fucking hate you.”

Unstoppable fury pours out of me and I’m not even sure why. It shocks both of us how animate and rageful I become.

It doesn’t matter what is this between us and what is going to happen tonight; I know that in a few months, he will be history. Who’s going to ignore or ghost the other one has zero importance. But I know it will happen. We are not a good match. Yet, he has this effect on me I cannot wrap my head around.

I’m angry at myself because I know I’ll let him do things to me that I will regret one day.

Also, because he is a dick.

And yet, I’m here drinking his cheap wine. And his even trashier words.

“No, you don’t.” He places his drink on the worktop with such force that some of the red liquid spills onto the white stardust quartz pattern.

“Oh yes, I do. I do hate you,” I counter, trying to stay cool but I’m pretty sure my heartbeat is at least 250.

“Why are you being so childish?” he asks absentmindedly. I watch him grab a sponge from the side of the sink, soak up the spilt wine then run water on it before squeezing it hard. Damned if I understand why that turns me on but it does.

But, “Childish? Really?” ‘Little shit’... Now ‘childish’. He certainly is good at one thing: making me tick. Whether that is one of those kitchen clocks with the cute songbirds or a timer on a nuke, I’m not sure.

“Just relax, sit down, breathe. It’s fine.” He patronisingly pushes me backwards towards the barstool behind me.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” I blurt out, brushing his still wet hand off my shoulder. I do sit down anyway, but I voice my annoyance. “Let me make one thing clear, Andrew, or whatever the fuck is your name, I make the rules here.”

He smirks at the ‘whatever’ part, clearly enjoying that he’s riling me up with that. He knows my real name, he knows my weaknesses, he knows too much about me.

“So, when I do this...” He throws his hands around my neck sliding his thumbs up along my windpipe with just enough force to demonstrate his strength but without actually cutting off my airflow.

I peel his strong fingers off with ease. He’s testing me. This might actually work.

“It is - because I let you,” I reply with a Cheshire cat grin.

Stepping towards me, he’s in my face, so near that my eyes can’t even focus on him. His closeness is intimidating, yet I wallow in it. I love how his voice fills up the heavy air between us. His fresh masculine scent overwhelms my nostrils and despite all our differences, our bodies fuse and unite with chemicals stronger than my self-discipline.

“But you will let me, you will let me do anything... once I break through this stupid hard shell of yours...” he whispers into my ear, sending shivers through my whole body.

I try to push him away but his heavy arms lock me in a forced embrace.

Fuck. See? Asshole. Why do I have to go for his type all the time? The inconsiderate, controlling ones? Because they are made of the same fucked-up dark material you are!

“So, are you going to be a good girl and do as you’re told?”

He slides his hands up on my chest, briefly pausing on my breasts while he studies my expression closely. Then they are around my neck once again and this time he’s squeezing me like he squeezed that sponge a minute ago - and I drip just the same.

Doesn’t matter what my reluctant mind tells me, I need this, my body needs this. I get a right kick out of his demonstration of physical power over me. Nothing is more intoxicating than playing with someone who could easily break me, yet willing to stay within the lines I draw.

“Never,” I reply with a little cheeky grin.

Now he laughs at me while still holding me by my neck loosely. His fiendish chuckle takes me places like I always knew it would.

He releases his death-grip over me and takes a step back.

“Ok, for the sake of whatever...” he muses looking up to the ceiling, “let’s say we’re playing it your way. Tell me what to do. Tell me what you want me to do.”

He takes a seat on the other barstool as if he was waiting for some sort of demonstration. My eyes focus on his thick muscular thighs as he places his feet on the footrest. The yearning to be trapped between those sculptured legs is making my mouth dry.

I take a few sips of wine before I haul in my sizeable toy bag from the hall and one by one empty the contents onto the counter in front of him: paddles, floggers, canes, restraints.

 “You need to learn to use these. Every single one of them is a whole different world.”

“I know most of these,” he tells me with a bored expression.

“Yes, but you don’t know me, you don’t know what they do to me.”

“True. You are pretty smart for a mindless little fucktoy.” I watch his wolfish smirk turn into an all-teeth-baring Joker grin.

“Thank you.” I try to confuse him with an angelic smile.

“You are sweet.” He pulls me in – a fleeting kiss tickles my jawline. “When you’re not being a little bratty shit.”

I know what the calculating sly fox is doing – I remember him asking me a few weeks ago whether I liked praises.

“Who doesn’t?” I had replied with feigned naivety. I knew he was mapping me with ease. Yet, I’m now here, falling for it big time. Smouldering embers in the most hidden places inside me flare up, sending flames to every single part of my body.

“You are overusing ‘little shit’ now,” I smart-mouth back because... because that’s what I do. “You need to find something new.” I theatrically roll my eyes to poke him a bit more.

“Do I?” he questions, letting it hang in the air while he picks up a paddle from the row of toys. “I think, I might let this do the talking instead,” he states nonchalantly testing it on his palm with a couple of rough whacks.

“Open your legs,” he orders me in the same harsh voice.

Because I don’t obey, he strokes my inner thigh and forces my legs apart. “I love these fishnets,” he comments taking his time to smooth my most sensitive areas with his feather-like fingertips. “Suits the cheap, filthy tramp you are.”

Before I could voice my mock irritation, he barks at me, “I said open those legs,” driving his message home, he swats my leg with my long magenta paddle.

I jump with surprise letting out a snorting kind of noise. He forcefully pins my right leg down against the seat as he whacks me harder.

“Fuck!” I cry out in pain while secretly loving the burning sting and the iron force he’s holding me down with.

“Nice. I like the sound this one makes. And the sound you make.”

I want to head-dive into the waves of those words and lounge in the pool of them on a flamingo float with a pineapple drink holder.

“Thank you.” It’s not the previous sweet ‘thank you’, this is a cheeky ‘give me more’ version.

“Where’s your favourite place on your body to use this one? And do not lie to me.”

I swallow hard. Both Sam and M have used it on my face before and I loved it. But do I want him to know that?

As if sensing my turmoil, he adds,“The truth, kitty!”

“My face.”

“Nice.” He strokes my left cheek with the soft leather.” I drench his kitchen stool.

“I will really enjoy that,” he thrills into my ear. “But we need to build up to that, obviously.”

Not really, I’m good. Anytime. I’m there. I mean here, to be used and... What???  Damn, he is good. I just knew. Somehow I knew. It must be a kink radar or something. I heard of the gaydar, but never of a kink radar. But I must have one. One that tells me that even though we are so vastly different, this can still work.

“What about this?” He holds up my bamboo sticks spanker with curiosity.

A fuzzy memory of M bruising my backside with it flashes through my mind. “Probably, my butt.”

He reads the heavenly expression on my face before he reminds me, “Remember, not where it has been used before but where you crave it.”

“Inner thigh.”

“Good girl.” The praise I’ve heard millions of times but the one that never gets old.

“But, how about... A little further up...” He rolls my skirt onto my hips and taps my pussy with the instrument of torture tenderly. Three gentle taps, to the rhythm of an imaginary metronome.

“No, please, no, not that,” I beg with a nervous wail. It has been done, once, accidentally - and with force. Not something I’m keen to repeat.

“Fuck, you have no idea what it does to me when you tell me - in that voice - not to do something.”

I whimper like a lost puppy in heavy rain and thunder.

“But you will try, right?”

My clit shrinks to the size of a needle pin and shivers with an ache so deep that my mind falls into it like a bottomless well. I lie in my cushiony subspace while I watch my body react to his words, his threats.

My heart is pounding against my chest so heavily that as I look down to avoid his gaze, I can see my heartbeat drumming in an erratic rhythm. My breath is caught in my lungs circling inside without the familiar and calming rise and fall of my bust.

“Fuck, you are a mess, aren’t you?” he heaves, blowing a suffocating, feverish gush of air towards me.

My bottom lip drops mechanically but no sound leaves my mouth. My breathing suddenly returns in a violently ragged rhythm. My pulse now throbs in every cell of my body. I grip the metal frame of the barstool to keep myself from slipping off into whatever abyss lays below.

“Are you a mess, little one? Answer me!” The base of his thumb cuts into my jugular mercilessly, making it very difficult to do so.  

“Yes. I’m a fucking mess.” My voice is alien, squeaky, distorting the whole sentence into just one warbled syllable. Previously only my husband could bring that pitch out of me. And more recently, M. Only once or twice.

“Yeah, you are.” His anaconda-like fingers are around my throat again, just holding me there, on the edge of the starless night.

“A pathetic shivering mess. I bet I could do anything to you now. Is that right?”

Something deep inside me answers his question. Maybe it is one of the forgotten, fragile voices. One of the smarter ones

“No.”

“That will change. Soon. Till then, let’s keep on pretending that we’re playing this by your rules. Take these knickers off so I can see what it does to you.”

 ***