The Table

The snow fell in thick silent sheets beyond the leaded glass. Each flake caught the firelight before disappearing into the white drifts piling against the castle walls. The world outside was frozen, dead, erased. But inside this great hall, everything burned.

Hundreds of candles filled the space. Tall tapers on iron stands. Fat pillars clustered on stone ledges. Votives lining the length of the banquet table in flickering rows. The chandelier overhead was a massive thing, an antique of wrought iron and crystal, suspended by a thick chain anchored in the vaulted stone ceiling. Its dozens of candles threw dancing light across every surface, turning the air itself to gold.

And you lay beneath all of it. Spread across the banquet table like an offering laid out for a starving god.

I stood at the edge of the table and looked down at you. Just looked. Your bare skin gleamed in the candlelight, every curve and plane and hollow painted in amber and shadow. Your chest rose and fell with quickened breath. Your eyes watched me with a mixture of want and uncertainty that made my blood run hot.

"You are," I said slowly, letting my gaze drag from your face down the length of your body, "the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

Your throat moved as you swallowed. Your fingers curled against the dark wood beside your hips.

I reached for your ankle and wrapped my hand around it, firm and sure. Then I pulled. One smooth, deliberate motion, dragging you down the length of the table until your ass met the edge. Your legs fell open around my hips, and I stepped between them, the hem of my black shirt brushing the inside of your thigh.

You inhaled sharply.

I placed both hands on your knees and pressed them open wider. Wider. Until you were fully exposed to me, to the warm air, to the candlelight glistening on the slick heat between your thighs.

"Keep them open," I murmured.

Your hands gripped the edges of the table.

I lowered myself to my knees.

The first taste was slow. One long, flat stroke of my tongue from entrance to clit, unhurried, thorough, as though I were learning you by heart. Your back arched off the table, and a sound left you. Not a word, just a raw, broken exhale that echoed off the stone walls.

I pressed my mouth against you more fully, sealing my lips over your swollen clit and sucking gently while my tongue circled in slow, relentless patterns. You tasted like salt and heat and something uniquely you, and I groaned against your flesh because the taste of you alone was enough to make me ache.

Your hips rolled toward my mouth, seeking more pressure, more depth. I answered by sliding two fingers inside you. Slow. Deliberate. Curling upward against the front wall of your cunt while my tongue worked your clit in firm, rhythmic strokes.

"Oh God."

Your voice cracked on the words. Your thighs trembled on either side of my head. I could feel you clenching around my fingers, already close, already building, and I pulled back just enough to whisper against your wet, swollen flesh.

"Not yet."

A frustrated sound tore from your throat. Your fingers found my hair and pulled. Hard. Trying to drag me back. I smiled against your thigh and pressed a kiss to the trembling inside of it.

"I said not yet."

I withdrew my fingers slowly, dragging them through your slick folds, and rose to my feet. You lay before me, chest heaving, skin flushed, your cunt glistening and desperate. Your eyes were glazed, wild, furious with need.

"Please," you whispered.

I touched your face. Traced my thumb along your lower lip. You parted your lips and took it in, sucking the taste of yourself from my skin, and the sight of it, your mouth around my thumb, your eyes locked on mine, sent a bolt of liquid heat straight through my core.

"So greedy," I murmured. "So hungry."

I withdrew my thumb and reached for the nearest candle. A tall taper in a heavy iron holder. The flame swayed. The wax had pooled deep and hot, a small lake of molten crimson at the top.

"Hold still," I said.

Your eyes widened. Your breath caught. But you didn't move. You didn't pull away. Your pupils blew wide, black swallowing color, and your lips parted on a shaky exhale.

I tilted the candle.