Read Beyond Shame for Free Online Page B

hand at her back increased. "Go in, Noelle. Or do you want to stand here for a minute and see if what you can imagine is filthier?"
    She felt hollowed out and hungry. This was the curiosity that had led her to make friends with the wrong girls at school, the interest that had brought her to a dark room with a young man who'd pretended to know what he was doing. He'd fumbled under her dress with clumsy fingers for twenty minutes without getting her as hot as Jasper's voice tickling over her ear.
    Maybe he thought she wanted to run, that she was as cowardly as she was ignorant. Stubbornness forced her forward, obeying that heavy pressure at the small of her back. "I can't imagine much, unless you're going to give me ideas."
    Before he could answer, Lex stuck her head through the doorway. "You're late, honey. I was about to start without you."
    "Start?" Start what ? She looked back at Jasper for an answer.
    He raised an eyebrow. "Tonight?"
    Lex grinned slowly. "Unless there's some reason she shouldn't." She reached out and grasped a flounce of lace, pulling Noelle forward. "I'll show you the secret to keeping all these bastards on their knees. Jas can watch."
    He caught her dress too, his hand twisting tight in the fabric. "You don't have to do anything but watch, either. Remember that."
    Noelle imagined them tugging on her dress until it ripped in two. It was oddly thrilling, being trapped between them, Jasper's hard body at her back, Lex's softness a match for her own. She could imagine kissing Lex like the girls in the movies had kissed, while Jasper's hands roved her body, fingers stroking, teasing, taking...
    Torn, she looked at him again. "Do you mind?"
    He leaned in and touched his tongue to the corner of her mouth. "Go. Let her show you a few tricks. You can try them out on me."
    She licked the spot he had and was disappointed she couldn't taste him on her skin. Soon. Turning, she smiled at Lex. "What sorts of things are you going to teach me?"
    "The best kind." Lex folded Noelle's arm over her shoulders and pulled her through the door, past the woman with the chains on her nipples. "This is Dallas's party room."
    The walls were lined with sofas, the center of the room strewn with cushions. Between and over nearly every surface were people—some talking quietly, laughing, while others groaned and gasped as their bodies moved together. It was impossible to tell where most began or ended. Noelle only saw miles and miles of skin, and none of the shame that always hung in the air back in Eden.
    They were fucking , all of them, and no one seemed the slightest bit ashamed.
    There was no safe place to rest her gaze, and she couldn't decide what she wanted to stare at first. "Our party was...not like this."
    Lex laughed and kissed her cheek. "This is more fun. Come on."
    A raised platform at the far end of the room held a couch. Dallas sat—no, sprawled out on it, his arms stretched across the back of the sofa, his gaze burning hot as Lex led her up the stairs. "All she's missing are the pigtails. Well played, Lex."
    "I'm not that devious, sweetheart. She picked it out." Lex leaned close to Noelle's ear. "See that look? He's thinking about you on your knees, with your pretty pink tongue on his cock."
    Noelle thought Dallas spent more time stuck on Lex, but when the leader did turn those steel-silver eyes on her, she wanted to fall to her knees in deference to the unchecked power there. How Lex managed to snap at him and seem so casual, Noelle couldn't begin to imagine.
    Dallas smiled, as if he could read every thought as it flickered through her mind. "What do you think, Lexie my love? Still shy or just adorably submissive?"
    Lex's hand slid into Noelle's hair and tightened, jerking her head back. Noelle gasped, first because of the sharp pull, the should-have-been-pain that left her senses a jumble, and then because Lex's mouth was on her throat, the woman's tongue raspy and a little rough.
    Lex eased away. "I suspect a bit of