Lord and Master (14 page)

He dropped her hand and ran his hands through his hair. ‘I am not a jealous man. I've seen enough jealous men to know I never want to be one. Yet I find I am…possessive of you.' He placed his hands on his knees, as if he was afraid to touch her.

Luna was at a loss. She didn't like jealous men either, and she'd had absolutely no idea about Stefan's feelings the previous night. But she knew what it was to hear tender words and to wish they were for her, and her alone. There were many things she could say to him, about how her own feelings for him also surprised her, and that the reason the waiter had been attracted to her that night – for he had been, she knew it – was, paradoxically, because of Stefan. Kayla had been right to say she was glowing. Stefan had made her so, and had thus rendered her more attractive to other men.

But, as Stefan had said, Luna was reserved. These things were hard for her to say. She pushed his knees apart with her hands and stood closer to him, pressing against the arm of the sofa. She reached for his cheek, careful to use her right hand.

‘But this,' she paused, running her hand down his cheek, then moving it to her chest, then suspending it between them, her fingers wavering slightly. ‘This is for you. Only you.' Her words sounded both overly revelatory and insufficient, to her ears. But they seemed to have the desired effect on Stefan, who visibly shook off his mood.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘This is serious talk to end a girls' night out. What would Nancy say?'

‘She'd say you were killing my buzz.' Luna screwed up her mouth, trying not to smile.

‘What can I do to make it up to you?'

‘You could make out with me on your father's sofa,' she suggested.

‘I could,
absolute
I could.' He took her hand and laced her fingers with his, then stood and pulled her with him onto the sofa. She loved these moments, just before he kissed her, the anticipation building in her. Stefan put his arm around her and she put her hand to his collar, reaching her fingers inside and stretching them toward that lovely bit of nape where his hair was shortest. He brought his mouth to hers but didn't kiss her, rubbing her nose with his instead, eyes half closed. Then he kissed her briefly, softly. And again. And again. No tongues, no teeth.

Warming to his task, he continued in this way, changing only the angle of his head against hers. She found herself enthralled by him, awaiting each kiss, receiving it, then waiting for the next. Her breathing adapted to accommodate it, her chest stilling each time his mouth pressed against hers, then rising anew when his lips withdrew. And it was the slowest, sweetest thing on earth, kissing Stefan Lundgren like this. Eventually she pulled her knees up on the sofa and curled herself into him, chest aching with some unspecific emotion.

He brought his free hand to her ribs, feeling them rise and fall, and she did the same to his. He reached up to the side of her breast and his lips stilled on hers, his hand exploring, then pausing speculatively. Luna drew her lips away from his. ‘Conclusive proof,' she murmured, ‘that I wasn't on the pull tonight.' Wriggling away from him, she lifted her thermal shirt to reveal a black sports bra underneath. ‘See?' she said winsomely. ‘Knowing that I wasn't going to be seeing you, I wore utilitarian underwear.'

‘I'm gratified, Luna. And very much looking forward to getting your underwear off.'

‘I need a wee,' she announced. He grinned and pointed toward his bedroom down the hall.

His en suite bathroom was everything she could have hoped for: walk-in shower; massive steel bath; shiny, slightly iridescent tiles; and stainless steel taps that appeared to turn on at the slightest brush of her fingers. She heard him enter the bedroom while she was on the toilet and shouted, ‘Do you have a spare toothbrush?'

‘Use mine,' he replied, so she did, retrieving the toothpaste and brush from his shaving kit. She picked up a bar of dark green soap and sniffed it – it smelled fantastic and she was sure it was another Swedish import. She washed her hands, scrubbing somewhat ineffectually at the writing on her left hand, then opened the bathroom door while she was brushing her teeth. Stefan came in and at first it felt…weird, him standing there weeing while she spat her toothpaste into the sink. But then she reminded herself that he was Scandinavian, after all, and besides, she liked the way the waistband of his briefs peeked out from his trousers, the way he flexed his buttocks while he weed. She reached out her hand to run it along one of them, and he said simply, ‘This is
not
something you should do when a man is taking a piss. All kinds of potential consequences.'

Laughing, she headed into his darkened bedroom and quickly stripped off her sports bra, leggings and boy shorts. Then she launched herself into his bed, which was massive, but thankfully close to the ground. By the time Stefan emerged from the bathroom, she was sitting chastely under the covers. He slid in next to her and again she marvelled at just how hard his thighs were. This was the first time they'd been in bed together like this, pressed together, just holding each other, and she marvelled, too, at the newness of it, her breasts against his chest, her knee between his legs.

Wriggling against him, she said, ‘This is really, really nice,' and she heard his chest rumble slightly, felt his arms tighten around her. When his mouth came down on hers this time, their lips parted by mutual assent and their tongues invaded each other's mouths immediately. But again, there was no urgency. She lost track of how long this kiss lasted, let her focus shrink down to just their mouths, meshed together. When, eventually, they came apart, they lay and looked at each other for a while, Stefan idly wrapping her braid around his hand while Luna explored his chest. Which was just right: a slight sprinkling of hair, no more, and muscular but not too muscular.

‘What would you like me to do for you, Luna?' he asked. ‘I'm in the mood to cater to your needs tonight.'

Luna looked at him and, suddenly a bit shy, hid her face in his neck and said, ‘I'd like you to come first.'

Stefan's hand stilled on her braid and he was silent. Luna worked up her courage and lifted her head, propping it on her elbow.

‘Is that okay?' she asked.

‘Just this once, I am willing to make this sacrifice for you,' Stefan said. His chest began to move under her hand and she realised he was laughing. She smacked him in the arm and made to get out of the bed, but he grappled her back, climbing on top of her.

‘I just want,' she began, then covered her eyes with her hands. ‘I just want to enjoy you enjoying me. Okay?'

And he was immediately all seriousness, kissing her beneath her hands and extending his body over hers. He lowered his mouth to her breast and licked it, then sucked it, and Luna savoured the opportunity to at last place her hands on his head and cradle it to her. After a moment he dragged himself away from her nipple and returned his mouth to hers, nudging her knees apart and resting himself in between them. Luna brought her hips up to his and his cock pressed into the hollow beside the curve of her stomach. She lightly stroked her hands along his buttocks, then clasped them more firmly, feeling the shape and strength of them, encouraging them into her.

As ever with him, she felt her sex begin to prickle, then throb. She took his hand and led it to her, whispering, ‘Feel how I am for you.' With her other hand, she reached for his cock, squeezing it and manipulating the velvety skin along its shaft. ‘Please,' she said.

Stefan exhaled and pulled himself off her, rolling onto his back. ‘Christ,' he clenched. He rolled to the bedside cabinet and found a condom, fumbling with it till she took it from him and ripped it open with her teeth. She slowly rolled it over his length, and then, completely on a whim, bent down and rubbed her cheek against his balls, opening her mouth and taking them in.

Stefan groaned and dug his fingers into her hair, his hips pumping involuntarily. She sucked him gently into her mouth, once, twice, then decided he'd had enough. She lay back down on the bed and drew him to her, and he was inside her immediately, hands on the pillow beside her head, back extended like a bow ready to fire. Luna lifted her legs till her knees were over his arms and her feet almost touched the headboard and he plunged deep, deep into her.

‘Luna,' he exhaled, eyes still on her but closing.

‘Not yet,' she said, and reached her hands through her open thighs and down his back, stilling his buttocks. ‘Slow,' she said. ‘Slow.' And he obeyed her, shuddering and straining. ‘Feel me. Feel me around you. This is only for you,' she said.

He stilled, then half withdrew. And then he was undone. Nothing on earth she could have said would stop his hips thrusting into hers, driving into her until his orgasm came up from behind and overtook him.

She was dozing, her arms still around him when he finally pulled out of her some minutes later and headed to the loo. By the time he got back, Luna was fast asleep.

When she woke, she was alone in Stefan's bed. She looked at the bedside clock – 9:17, went to the darkened windows and tried to figure out how to open the shades, but they were the weird, integral kind where you needed a remote control, which she couldn't find. So she went to the loo and brushed her teeth, examining her face in the mirror. Not too bad, not too bad. She rooted through Stefan's shaving bag, finding a surprising number of male grooming products including some moisturiser, which she dabbed under her eyes and wiped with a tissue to remove the smudges of mascara that had formed overnight.

Quickly rifling through his drawers, she put on a white t-shirt which pretty much protected her modesty. She walked into the living room and saw his tablet and laptop set up on the coffee table, as well as copies of the
Guardian
and the
Times
. There was also a hardback notebook full of his notes, in a mixture of Swedish and English.

She went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of his good Swedish water, and wandered to the hallway on the other side of the living room, opening the door there to find another en suite bedroom. Sören's, she assumed. It was significantly homier than Stefan's, which was spartan to the point of bare. She saw photos on the wall, including one of the two of them on a skiing trip and another of a young Sören asleep in bed holding baby Stefan. She smiled at that and would have liked to take a closer look, but she felt she'd intruded enough, so she closed the door and went back to the living room.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the window, looking down at people walking across the Millennium Bridge when the lift opened to reveal Stefan, dressed in sweatpants and hoodie, plus an armband holding his iPod. He was carrying a bag of shopping and smiled at the sight of her.

‘Good morning,' he said, depositing the bag on the coffee table and bending down to kiss her.

‘Good afternoon, more like,' Luna said, somewhat embarrassed by how late she'd slept. ‘How long have you been up?'

‘Since around five. You were sleeping like the dead—no snoring—so I let you be. I wasn't sure what you'd want for breakfast so I got a little of everything. Shall I make us some coffee?'

‘Lovely.'

He went to the kitchen and pulled out a cafetière, and Luna went and sat on the sofa.

‘So, you're a morning person
and
night owl,' she observed.

‘I think by nature I'm a night person, but over the years I've trained myself to make do with less sleep.' He filled a kettle with water and put it on the hob to heat, then measured some coffee into the cafetière. ‘There aren't enough hours in the day otherwise.'

She looked at his laptop and notebook and wondered how much time he'd spent working that morning before going on his run. It struck her, then, that Stefan must have had to make other sacrifices, vastly more than just lost sleep, to be where he was in his career by the age of twenty-eight.

‘How many people work in your London office?' she asked.

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Eight. Although I use a number of contractors, too.'

‘And in Stockholm?'

‘Eleven.'

He began unloading the rest of the shopping, including several paper-wrapped parcels. He held up a bunch of bananas to her enquiringly, and she nodded, so he tore one off and threw it to her.

‘Do you like being a boss?' she asked, peeling the banana.

He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think so. I have very good staff and I ask a lot of them, but I think I reward them appropriately.'

She smiled and bit into her banana. Very measured, very Stefan, that answer.

‘I guess the question is, do your
employees
think you're a good boss,' she said, taking another bite and licking her fingers.

‘My employees think I'm fantastic,' he asserted confidently, adding lightly, ‘They tell me so all the time.'

Luna laughed, putting the back of her hand to her mouth to avoid banana splatter. While he laid smoked salmon onto a plate, she walked into the kitchen and enquired, ‘Bin?' He nodded to a cabinet next to the fridge and she disposed of her peel, popping the last piece of banana into her mouth.

She leaned back against the workspace, watching him unwrap the paper parcels to reveal bagels and assorted pastries. The kettle whistled and he turned off the hob, then filled the cafetière. Luna's mouth salivated slightly at the aroma of the coffee; she realised she was very hungry.

‘Have you always wanted to run your own business?' she asked.

‘Yes, always,' he responded immediately, then wiped his hands on his sweatpants, took a good look at her standing there in his t-shirt, and reached his arm out to hook her by the waist, pulling her towards him. ‘You are full of questions this morning, Miss Gregory.' He kissed her, simultaneously lifting the shirt up to clasp her naked bum. Luna responded by insinuating her fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants, running her hands around his hips to his own bottom, looking at the plate of pastries over his shoulder.

‘Did you get any cream cheese?' she asked.

Later, when they'd eaten and Stefan had done a bit more work on his laptop while Luna read the papers, she sighed and said, ‘I'd really better get home. Can you take me to fetch my bike, or do you need to keep working?'

‘I can take you.'

Putting down the paper, she stood and asked, ‘Is it okay if I take a quick shower first?'

‘Of course.' Stefan furrowed his brow at her slightly. ‘You know, you don't need to ask me these things…'

She cleared her throat and nodded, not quite meeting his eyes, then started off towards his bedroom.

‘Oh and, Luna?' She turned back to see him typing something on his laptop. Without looking up, he said, ‘You owe me a debt from last night.'

‘Um,' she began, slightly confused.

‘You said you wanted me to come
first,
which rather implies…' He was still typing and she was willing to bet, master of multitasking that he was, that he was having this conversation at the same time as he was firing off instructions to his staff, or signing off on a deal to take over the world. The beginnings of a smile were playing around his lips, however.

‘Hmm, see, I didn't view that as a legally binding agreement,' she replied. ‘Besides, you look like you're busy there.' And with that she turned on her heel and continued towards his bedroom, grinning to herself.

It took her a few minutes to work out the various taps and thermostatic valves in his walk-in shower, but eventually she got it running and stepped in, careful to twist her braid around her head so it wouldn't get wet. She found more of his green Swedish soap in the soap dish and had just started washing her face when he entered the shower behind her, resting his hands on her hips as she lathered her face. When she'd finished, she tipped her face up toward the stream of water and he came to stand in front of her, running his fingers over her eyes to get rid of every last trace of soap. She opened her eyes and rubbed the water out of them, smiling up at him.

‘Hello,' she said.

‘Hello.' He bent down and kissed her, moving his hands down to her waist.

Momentarily, he pulled back and studied her, remarking, ‘You look like a proper Swedish girl with your hair like that.' Laughing, she kissed him back, raising her arms up around his neck, enjoying the feeling of her soapy breasts against his chest. She grabbed the soap and instructed, ‘Arms up,' before commencing to give him a thorough washing, whilst simultaneously manoeuvring her body around his, pressing a breast here, sliding a knee there. She watched, engrossed, as he hardened. This was the first time she'd seen his penis in the light of day, and she found she couldn't take her eyes off it; the way it first twitched, then swelled, then lifted. She knew a moment's thrill that this was for her.

She put her arms around his waist and rocked onto her tiptoes and back, sliding herself along him, abrading him as the steam in the shower billowed around them. He lowered his mouth to hers again and water streamed between them as he parted her lips with his tongue.

‘Mmm,' she sighed into his mouth, sucking his tongue slightly.

Eventually, with one hand cupping one of her buttocks and the other one of her breasts, Stefan drew his lips away from hers and said raggedly, ‘There isn't enough room in this shower for what I have in mind. Just let me wash my hair…'

He reached for the shampoo, turning away from her and wetting his head. She watched him work up a lather, before allowing her eyes to wander lower. Pressing herself into his back, she reached one hand around him and gently grasped his balls, manipulating them between her fingers.

‘Luna,' Stefan said warningly, then spat out a mouth full of lather.

She reached her other hand to his shaft and gripped it once, twice, then began to slowly stroke it, all the while continuing to play with his testes. Stefan put his head under the stream and suds rolled down his back between them. He made to turn around, but Luna pressed herself against him abruptly, her hand tightening on his shaft.

‘Stay where you are,' she instructed. Exhaling, he placed both hands against the tile wall and submitted himself to her ministrations. She increased the pace of her hand along his shaft, whilst at the same time swaying her pelvis into his butt. She heard his breathing coming in gasps, felt his balls begin to tighten under her fingers and, heaven help her, felt herself becoming aroused by his arousal.

‘Come for me,' she whispered into his ear, and that was all it took. His forehead came to rest on the tiles and his thighs shuddered as his groans echoed through the room.

Leaving him semi-prone against the shower wall, Luna stepped out onto the bath mat and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around herself. She sat down on the toilet and unwound her braid. Eventually, Stefan lifted his head off the shower wall and turned towards her.

‘Really, Luna, that was very naughty,' he said shakily.

‘So you say,' she replied, standing and leaning close to the thick glass partition that separated the shower from the rest of the room. ‘But do you know what
I
say?' Beat. ‘Two nil.'

Stefan frowned. ‘Wh—?'

Luna continued, adopting her best sports commentator voice, ‘And tonight Sweden goes down to yet another humiliating defeat by England…'

Finally taking her meaning, Stefan assumed a look of mock outrage. ‘That really isn't called for.'

‘I for one wouldn't like to be sitting in the Sweden changing rooms right now, where questions are doubtless being asked about whether the manager is up to the job,' Luna concluded, expression purposefully serious, the slightest bit amazed at herself that she'd dared to take the piss out of him.

‘Right,' Stefan said. And turned off the water. Luna stopped in mid-self-congratulation and looked at him, water dripping down his torso. He started to move and she made an immediate break for it, bursting out of the bathroom door and legging it down the hall toward the living room. She could hear Stefan hot on her heels and laughed, ‘You're getting your floor all wet!' And suddenly he was upon her, quickly grabbing her around the waist and carrying her to the sky blue rug, where he tackled her to the ground. Still laughing and protesting, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!' she scooted herself away from him on her heels and elbows, only to have him stalk toward her on all fours, working his way up between her legs. He kissed the inside of her thigh, and nuzzled the hair at her apex. Then he hooked an arm under her right leg, lifting it up and over his shoulder until her lower leg rested on his back. And did the same for her left. Using his fingers, he parted her labia and bent his mouth to her.

‘Aaahhh,' Luna sighed, her toes curling above Stefan's back. God, she loved how he did this, how he never toyed with her, never dawdled, but instead immediately devoted himself to warming her with his mouth and worshipping her with his tongue. He made her feel that this, the most intimate thing she could imagine a man doing to her, almost painfully intimate, was his pleasure rather than hers. His tongue explored her clitoris in a way that couldn't be replicated by fingers, gently probing, softly entreating her to greater feeling. As he continued, she swore she could feel each and every slow stroke moving millimetre by millimetre. It was…delicate…exquisite…so, ah she could feel it all…

She came with a rising moan so rapturous it sounded alien to her ears. She was literally pulsing, lifting, trying to control the movement of her hips lest she throw him off her. And then it was too much and she had to push his head away from her, still gasping her pleasure.

Stefan kissed the inside of her thigh again and said, ‘God, I love doing that. I love the way you are when I do that.'

Later, as he drove her to pick up her motorbike, Luna checked her mobile to find no less than nine texts from the previous night. As well as a few completely illegible ones from Jem and several saucy ones from Nancy, there was one from Kayla:
Please sir, can I have some more?
Luna snorted at this and Stefan looked over at her enquiringly.

‘No, I'm not going to read you my friends' texts about you,' she said. ‘It'll just give you a big head.'

‘I'm relieved I met their approval. I imagine they can make life…difficult for boyfriends they don't like.'

And there it was. The B word. Of course, it had been an off the cuff remark, Luna knew. It didn't mean that he thought
he
was her boyfriend. Eager to change the subject, she said, ‘I assume you're pretty busy this week.'

He sighed. ‘Yes. I have to be in Berlin on Monday and Tuesday, and the rest of the week will be devoted to Friday's presentation.'

‘Okay,' Luna nodded, then remembered, ‘oh, and seriously, you don't have to come to Kayla's premiere on Friday night.'