‘Finn –’ She rose up on her haunches, then knelt next to him. ‘What if you didn’t control her? What if just for tonight, just now while she has what she wants, you and me together, we let her have control. We let her do what she wants with us, what she needs.’
‘Jill, I don’t think that’s a–’
‘Sh!’ She placed two fingers against his lips and then kissed him. ‘It is a good idea. It’s the best idea ever.’ Even as she said it, in her mind’s eye, she could see her self-control binding her as clearly as Meinrad’s knots had bound her: right over left and under and through, left over right and under and through. All she needed to do was untie those knots. And for the first time she could see just how to do that. She undid them one at a time, right over left and under and through, feeling the expansion of herself with each loosening, left over right and under and through, until at last she stood, unbound, in bright sunlight, face to face with Eleanor. From somewhere a long way off, she heard Finn moan.
‘You love him.’ It wasn’t a question. Jill knew, just as she knew that for every knot she had untied new ones were already being set in place, and the depth of her binding was beyond anything of which Meinrad was capable.
‘You trust me to do this, to love with both of you?’ Eleanor said.
‘You love him,’ Jill repeated. ‘You’d never hurt him. Give him this gift.’
From far away, someone touched her arm, and she was back with Finn, and only a second had passed.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked again.
‘Very sure.’ The words were barely past her lips before the demon expanded inside her and beyond, taking her breath away, taking Finn’s breath away. Her heart pounded in her chest, and the world was suddenly wild and bright and tilting madly at strange new angles, as she straddled Finn, thrusting her hips forward until he could see the whole of her, still heavy from their lovemaking and now glistening with excitement that Eleanor made her feel in every single nerve ending of her body. Then she slid back, raking her open cleft down the length of him until she reached his erection. But then she lifted her bottom and slid still lower until she could take him into her mouth, deep into her throat, pulling, tugging, suckling, running her tongue over the sensitive underside. And it was also Eleanor’s tongue, infused with Eleanor’s power to heighten sensation. Finn arched his back as though it would break, sucking oxygen into empty lungs, crying out with some wild mix of pain and pleasure a hair’s-breadth away from being too much to bear. But he bore it, revelled in it, writhed in it, fingers curled tightly in Jill’s hair, muscles tense, joints stiff.
‘Finn, my Finn, my beautiful Finn –’ Surely it was Eleanor who spoke, and yet it felt like it came from a place in Jill’s heart she’d never dared look into before. ‘Finn, my Finn.’ But there had been no words, no real words. How could there be words when Finn’s penis was deep in her throat?
Sliding her mouth up the length of him, she pulled away, then rose on her knees and mounted him. He placed his hands on her hips and guided her deeper and deeper until all of him was sheathed inside her. Every inch of him was alive with Eleanor just beneath his skin, just beneath both their skins, drawing them together, drawing them deeper into each other, tightening their bonds like so many unseen knots.
When he began to thrust, it was as though she rode him from a high place, far away and yet at the same time nearer than the beating of his heart. And Eleanor was there all around them, everywhere. ‘I want to stay inside you for ever.’ The words were Finn’s, but the sentiment could have been anyone’s as they rolled and tumbled on the hardwood floor, slick with sweat, tight with passion. When they came, the explosion of lust blew the world apart and then collapsed back in on itself into gasping, writhing, trembling, weak, vulnerable flesh.
* * *
At some point they ate again then stumbled to the bed. Jill couldn’t remember how many times she had come, and through it all she felt Eleanor and Finn as though they were one, as though all three of them were one.
Resting her head against the strong steady beat of Finn’s heart, Jill tried to take in the events of the past few hours. Unable to, she placed a kiss on the rise and fall of his sternum and said, ‘She loves you, you know. Eleanor does.’
She felt him nod. ‘I know,’ he said. Then he lifted her chin so she could see his eyes shining dark in the waning moonlight filtering through her window. ‘That’s why she took you. For me.’
Before she could respond to his words with anything more than the skittering of her insides, he kissed her very softly. ‘Now go to sleep, Jill. We both have to work tomorrow, and we’ve got lots of time to talk about our little ménage.’