Authors: Joely Sue Burkhart
“I don’t mean
sexual
service.” But his arm tightened about her shoulder, pressing her tighter against the side of his body. “Some Dominants love the sight of a bound submissive fetching useless things or performing small tasks.” Evidently her distaste was obvious because he chuckled. “I take it you aren’t into that kind of play.”
“Would you rather have me on my knees servicing you or trying to pick up a drink in my teeth because my hands are tied behind my back?”
“Hmmm,” he hummed against her hair. “Let me think about that.”
She elbowed him in the ribs hard enough that he grunted. “If you have to think about it, then I guess I won’t do either of them.”
“You won’t?” He slid his hand up her back to palm the back of her head. “Even if I tell you very nicely?”
She resisted his grip, stiffening her neck and shoulders. “I would rather you tell me meanly.”
“Would you, now.” His fingers tightened in her hair, making her eyes water. His arm weighed heavy on her shoulders. A simple flex of his arm forced her head into his lap. “You can use your hands to pass me my wine but from then on, all mouth, baby.”
Sliding to the floor, she reached behind her toward the coffee table, blindly feeling for his glass. He hadn’t released her hair, so she couldn’t turn her head. In fact, he held her tighter, closer, his fingers digging into her skull, making her pull her own hair to do as he’d ordered.
Which fired her blood and made her heart pound with anticipation. Phantom marks stung down her back, her skin remembering how just hours ago he’d put his mark on her body and then claimed her so forcefully. Her fingers dipped into the glass and she almost spilled it in her haste to begin. Finally, she retrieved the glass and lifted it, slowly rotating her shoulder and lifting her elbow to avoid spilling the red wine all over the carpet.
He took the glass from her and snagged her hand so he could lick the wine from her fingers. “Give me your other hand too.”
Rubbing her face against the growing bulge in his pants, she lifted her left hand. He gripped her wrists, straining her shoulders and making her work against his grip to get her mouth on him. She lipped the zipper into her teeth and tugged it down so she could feel the hard ridge of his erection encased in his silk boxers. Tugging her arms harder, he shifted beneath her, making it easier for her to work him free.
Maybe the wine had taken the edge off her need, but she thought it more likely that the scene with the crop earlier this afternoon had given her the self-control to hold him gently in her mouth. She was as tender and slow as he’d been last night, making delicious love to his cock. Even his release was a low, deep groan of pleasure. No frantic need, no sharp agony twisting their muscles into a frenzy.
She rubbed her face against his thigh, lulled by his pleasure and the steady stroking of his fingers through her hair. She watched him take a long drink, and then he lowered his glass, turning it so she could put her mouth in the same spot.
She didn’t make any move to return to the couch; it felt too good to wrap herself around his thigh. “Didn’t you say Léon wants to open his own restaurant?”
“Yes, and I’ve already convinced him to let me provide his financing for a share of the business. All he’s waiting for now is to finish college and save enough to purchase his building.”
“Do you think he’d be open to serving a fantastic dinner for our Dominants?”
“I’m sure he’d be thrilled. What are you thinking?”
“We set up a nice dining table and you three order complicated, fantastic food that he’ll prepare. Throughout the dinner, you could give each of us small tasks to perform, service, as you said. Then at the end, you can quiz us on what you ordered.”
“So I would ask you questions, or would all the Dominants quiz you?”
“It’ll be better if you all quiz each of us, but I know I’ll do poorly for everyone but you.” She rubbed her face against his thigh. “For some reason, I just can’t take my eyes off you.”
He drew her up into his lap. “Me neither, baby, but are you going to be able to let someone else win?”
Especially
her
, Kimberly, his ex-fiancée, who would certainly do well in this sort of challenge and look beautiful while doing it. Shiloh swallowed her jealousy. “This is the best way to let her and the other non-masochists save face. They win, and when the Dominants offer reward—which will really be punishment—they can bow out with whatever token reward you decide to offer.”
“My jeweler called today and said the prizes are ready.” He paused, giving her a heavy-lidded gaze that sent chills racing down her spine. “I had some work done on my collar so it would make more of a statement for the show.”
Questions whirled and shrieked in her mind like hurricane gusts.
Did you give her your collar? Did she please you like I do? Are you ever going to love me like you loved her?
He trailed his fingers across her throat, light and soft. “It’ll look fantastic on your throat.”
“I know it’s just for the show.” The narrowing of his gaze made her bite her lip. “I mean, you don’t have to—”
He surged up out of the couch, his hands brutal on her hips as he held her against him. Without a word, he strode to his bedroom, set her on her feet, and began removing her clothes. He wasn’t angry, but the grim set of his mouth and his silence unnerved her. “What about Andy?”
“What about him?”
Victor shoved his pants down his thighs and her heartbeat sped into the fast lane and kept right on going. She climbed into bed and hoped that he didn’t plan to simply cuddle and go to sleep. “What if he’s the spy?”
“I’ll give him enough rope to hang himself once and for all.” Victor turned off the overhead light but left the bedside lamp on. He stretched out beside her, propped up on his elbow so he could look down into her face. “Remember today when you put that rope around your neck and handed it to me?”
She nodded, searching his face for clues to what he was thinking. Shadows chased across his eyes, darkening his face, the grim face of the Master, but he wasn’t giving pain or making demands. Nor was he trying so painfully hard to be the tender, gentle lover from last night.
“You trusted me. Even with a noose around your neck.”
“You wouldn’t have hurt me,” she protested. “Even if we were doing a real scene instead of the show, I knew you wouldn’t risk my life or try to scare me like that.”
“There’s no way in hell Kimberly would have done that. She didn’t have that trust in me, because she knew I was hiding. She knew there was darkness below the surface, and she had no way of knowing exactly how deeply it went.” He wrapped his palm around her throat, letting her feel the strength in his hand even though he didn’t hurt her. “Ask the question that’s tearing you up inside, baby.”
“You asked her to marry you. Did you give her your collar too?”
“She was a good submissive: obedient, kind, graceful, beautiful with a gentle soul. Everyone at the club liked her, except Mal, but in this, I ignored her instincts despite the ten years of friendship. I had already hit thirty and realized my life was slipping through my fingers. I wanted to get married. I wanted to give Mama the grandbabies she’s been hounding me about, and Kimberly was the kind of woman I thought she’d approve of.
“I was a fool, Shiloh. I thought I was being mature and responsible, while day by day, I died a little bit more inside. I hated what I was becoming and I didn’t know how to stop it. Desperate and frantic, even if I couldn’t show it, I took Kimberly home with me to the family ranch, and Mama was barely civil to her. Incensed, I told Kimberly we were leaving and had the argument with Mama that Mal had been trying to tell me for months.”
Shiloh stroked her fingers over his lips. “What did she say?”
“She told me if I was stupid enough to marry a dishrag, then I deserved to drown in my own misery.” He let out a self-depreciating laugh that tore at her heart. She tightened her arms around his neck, trying to pull him down for a kiss, but he wasn’t finished yet. “I couldn’t be a Master as long as I was with her. I couldn’t show her what I really was. I couldn’t ask her to respect me, because I didn’t respect myself. I couldn’t ask her to trust me, because I didn’t trust myself.”
He tightened his fingers on Shiloh’s throat hard enough she could feel her pulse reverberating against his palm. “How could I give her my collar when I couldn’t give her the Master? You trust me even though I haven’t completely found my way back to trusting myself, and that’s why I’ll give you my collar, if you choose to wear it.”
He couldn’t seem to breathe while waiting for her response. He wasn’t even sure that his heart was beating. Eyes large and wet in the faint light, she drew him closer, rolling toward him and hooking her heel behind his knee. That was an invitation he could not resist, so he pushed inside her, melding their bodies together as closely as he could. He held her, skin to skin, heart to heart, breathing in perfect synchronization.
Kissing his shoulder, his neck, his ear, she finally whispered, “I’ll wear your collar. Proudly.”
His heart exploded into a frantic flurry of joyous determination. It was all he could do not to drag her to the jeweler’s and bang on the door until he opened the shop and let Victor have his collar so he could lock it on her neck.
She pushed against his chest, and he willingly rolled to his back so she could ride him at her pace. God, she was gorgeous, her eyes shining, her heart in her eyes. “I want to be yours, V. I want to do everything you’ve ever dreamed about, even the darkest most secret things you’ve never told anybody. That’s why I called the blog
V’s Gift
: I wanted to gift myself to you, body and heart and soul. Own me, take me, use me. I’m yours.”
Despite the warmth flooding his heart and tightening his throat, he kept his hand on her neck so she wouldn’t forget the trust she’d put in him. “Tell me what you wrote in that blog. You said you saw me, and you had to go into the ladies’ restroom. What did you do?”
“I went into the stall farthest from the door,” she whispered, her breathing ragged. “And I looked beneath the doors to make sure no one else was in there. I thought I’d just take a few minutes to breathe and calm myself down, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“What did you think about, baby? All the things I wanted to do to you? All the things you’d let me do?”
“I kept thinking that maybe someday you’d just look at me, snap your fingers and order me to follow you. And I would, Victor. I’d follow you anywhere. I’d do anything you told me to do.”
“What if I told you to come into my office, lock the door and remove your clothes?”
“I’ll do it, as long as you let me open your pants.”
If she hadn’t sucked him dry earlier, he would’ve come right then at her words. He fought down the urge to simply throw his head back and pour into her. “So there in that bathroom stall, did you pull down your panties or simply slip your fingers inside?”
She shuddered with a soft little cry. “I pulled them down.”
He drew her down closer, changing the angle so she could grind harder against him. “How wet were you?”
“Sopping,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I wondered if you really were as Dominant as I suspected. And I was afraid.”
“Of what, baby?”
“That you wouldn’t like me, because I needed too much.”
He let out a laughing groan that hopefully conveyed exactly how much he was liking her. “What do you need, baby?”
“You,” she whispered against his mouth. “Hard, mean, tender, gentle, you. I want all of you, but especially the horrible stuff you don’t want me to see, because I have horrible stuff too.”
He’d meant to embarrass her—a mild punishment—by making her tell him all the dirty things she’d written on her blog, but she turned him inside out, just as she’d done last night. Was there anything she’d ever try to hide from him? Or would she blurt out her most secret thoughts and fears without a single hesitation if he asked?
Sliding his hand down her throat, he tugged firmly on her nipple, pinching and rolling her breast. Hard, too hard, unless she truly liked pain, and damn, did she ever. She threw her head back, her neck and chest flooding with a fresh wave of color as she climaxed.
He didn’t try to delay his own release. How could he, when he wanted her so badly? When he wanted to reward her for her trust, generous spirit, and her tolerance for the very pain he needed to give?
Breathing hard, he untangled from her embrace enough to turn out the light and then cuddled her close. With her face buried against his neck, she whispered, “I’m falling in love with you.”
That quickly, she turned him inside out all over again. He wanted her love, he wanted her trust, but the thought scared the shit out of him. If she loved him, she might let him go further than she was comfortable with, just as Kimberly had done. Then he’d horrify her, scare her, hurt her too much, and he’d lose her. Losing Kimberly had been a blow to his pride.
Losing Shiloh would rip his heart out of his chest and leave him gasping his last breath on the floor.
He clutched her hard against him, listening to her breathe, feeling her heart beat against his chest. If he could hold her like this—and not bring out the crop—then he could keep her forever. Stomach churning, he laid there, sweating, agonizing, for hours, unable to sleep, because he knew the truth.
She wanted his crop. As much as he did. And it was inevitable that someday he’d cross the line.
Chapter Fifteen
The phones were ringing off the hook. Shiloh had Victor and Mal cornered in his office, trying to plot out the best way to attack the afternoon’s taping, but his secretary kept interrupting every five minutes with another Very Important Phone Call.
The smug bastard took every single one. Kicked back in his chair with his boots propped on his desk, he listened to every shocked complaint, giggled congratulations, and lawsuit threat with a smile on his face that grew wider with every call.
Shiloh gave a disgusted sigh and set the script aside again until he was done. “Why is he so happy with all the complaints?”