Trading Tides Read Online Free Page A

heavy to fly. Sucking my bottom lip between my teeth, I closed my eyes. He was still watching, and I was still his .
    I pushed my fingers under the hem of my shirt, pulled it up over my stomach and held my breath. My hair crackled with dry winter air static. The shirt fell to the ground. In the one suspended moment that it blinded me, I slipped a rung deeper into his gravitational pull. My breath came slower now, more audibly, and the tingling between my legs intensified.
    "Come closer, pet," he whispered. I could hardly hear it, even though I'd turned the volume up to max, but while I was undressing for him, the headset was in the way. I took a step closer to the camera, then another. My face, my shoulders, the swell of my breasts filled the frame.
    "Close your eyes."
    I nodded, memorized his face one last time and then let my world go dark. I sucked in a loud breath; there was a breeze that ran through the apartment; somewhere below me, a door was slammed. I listened hard for each change in the crackle of the speakers, waited, swayed on the spot as the wine swirled in my head.
    "Imagine I'm coming up behind you," he whispered, and something like relief, like need, like longing shot through my system. "Reach into your hair and pull it up... yes, like that. I want to kiss the back of your neck, run my fingers down your spine. Can you feel my breath on your shoulder?"
    I nodded without thinking. Of course I couldn't and yet, I could, too. It was warm and smelled of wine; it ran up my neck and promised lips and teeth that would fall on my skin at any moment.
    "Good." He was silent while my breath picked up, while goose bumps rose on my skin. "Take your free hand and brush your bra strap off your shoulder. That's where I want to kiss you. Bite you. Can you feel it?"
    "Yes, Sir." It was the brush of my own fingers, I think, or the memory of it, the aftershock of touch that was magnified by the darkness in which I held myself. That was the rational explanation, but I could only half believe it. The rest of me was sure, somehow, in some metaphysical way, that he really did stand behind me. Not Paul's physical body, of course, but still Paul—in thought, like a ghost. He couldn't touch, not directly, but he was there and I could feel him. He drove my heartbeat, labored my breath.
    "Take it off for me now. Drop it on the floor. Don't open your eyes."
    The bra left my fingertips. I heard the flutter of lace as it hit the carpet. The breeze hardened my nipples, and I think the first hesitant whimpers invaded my breath.
    "Are you thinking of me?"
    I nodded again. "Yes, Sir."
    "Tell me about it."
    I hesitated, not sure what he wanted to hear. My mouth opened once but then I closed it again, realizing I was about to repeat only what he had told me.
    "In your imagination, pet, what happens next? What do I do to you?"
    Swaying again, I licked my lips once. The answer to this was easier, almost shockingly so. I'd done little else the last few weeks: thinking of him, imagining what he would do, how he would kiss me, hold me, how he would hurt me.  
    He was with me in my morning shower, in the bathroom stall at work and the small bistro at lunch. He rode the tube home with me and took off my work clothes. He ate with me, read with me, slept with me. Imagining what he would do to me had become my peaceful place; it was where my mind slipped off to whenever I didn't force it to think of other things.
    "Your hand, you hold me by the back of my neck," I whispered; then I realized that the microphone had to pick up my voice, and stepped closer to the laptop, tried to raise my voice a little. "You push me against the wall; my cheek rubs over the wallpaper. You pull up my skirt, find me... find me wet."
    "I always find you wet." He was smiling, I could tell by his voice. It was raspy and wanting, and I smiled, too, because more than ever, he was with me now.
    "Show me. Get rid of that skirt and show me."
    This time I lost my balance, staggered out