by Miranda Lee
‘Since I met you, all the time.’
His smile was oh, so sexy. ‘I will take that as a compliment. And what do you think about?’
Her face flamed. ‘I can’t tell you that!’
‘But you must. Talking about sex with your lover is even more arousing than thinking about it. Have you ever had phone sex?’
‘Bandar, before I met you I’d hardly had sex at all.’
‘I still find that amazing. A girl as passionate as you are.’
‘My sarcastic tongue puts men off. That’s another thing I’d like you to teach me. How to flirt.’
‘Flirting is not something that can be taught. It will, however, come more naturally to you once you become confident in the bedroom. Your tongue will soften as your body softens. Come. Sit down on that sofa. I will get you a glass of wine and we will talk.’
‘Just talk?’ she choked out.
‘I might play with you a little,’ he said as he walked over to the wall unit and retrieved a half-bottle of wine from the small fridge.
‘Oh, no,’ she protested. ‘No, don’t do that. I couldn’t stand it.’ She plonked herself down on the sofa—a necessary move, given her legs had suddenly gone to jelly.
‘You would have to stand it if you were bound.’
Her heart took off at the thought. ‘You’re not going to do that, are you?’
‘No. Not today. But I want you to think about how it would feel to be bound naked to a bed, or a chair, or to whatever piece of furniture was suitable. Of course you would only do this with a lover you totally trusted,’ he went on as he opened the wine bottle and poured some into a glass.
‘But why would I do it at all?’ she asked, somewhat breathlessly. ‘I mean…why do you think I would like it?’
‘Try to imagine the scenario. Once bound, you are forcibly rendered into a state of delicious helplessness. You cannot stop your lover from touching you. Or from taking you. Or from forcing you to wait. Sometimes he will make you come and come till you have dissolved with desire. At another time, if he is sufficiently skilled, he can take you to the edge of a climax and keep you balanced there for hours. Which one of those scenarios do you prefer, Samantha?’ he said, sitting down next to her and holding the glass to her lips.
By now Samantha’s mouth felt like parchment and her head was in a total haze. When he tipped the glass, she gulped down a mouthful of the wine, her eyes never leaving his.
He took the glass away, then bent to kiss her.
‘Which one?’ he whispered against her lips.
‘Both,’ she returned with a shudder. ‘Both.’
Yes!Bandar thought triumphantly at her admission. She was his.
‘You will be my perfect little love-slave for the entire weekend,’ he purred as he held the wine glass to her lips once more.
She swallowed another mouthful, her eyes widening on him.
‘You won’t hurt me, will you?’
‘Never!’ he exclaimed, shocked that she would even think it. ‘If you give me your body, I will give it nothing but pleasure. But you must trust me implicitly.’
He kissed her between mouthfuls of wine till she looked dazed and he was so cruelly aroused he wondered how he would last till the following day himself. Yet his male ego demanded that he did. Hadn’t he claimed to her that a good lover was patient and skilled?
‘Don’t make me wait, Bandar,’ she suddenly whispered. ‘Take me to bed now. I promise to be your perfect little love-slave for the whole weekend in Sydney. But I can’t wait that long. I need you now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I…I have to have you inside me.’
He groaned. He could not help it. ‘You should not say such things to a man.’
‘You don’t understand. It’s like an addiction, this feeling. This longing. Tell me, will it ever go away?’
‘Do you want it to go away?’ he asked thickly as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her quickly towards the bedroom.
‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t think straight. I just want you to do it to me all the time.’
‘I will do my best,’ he said, thinking he wasn’t much better.
‘How long do we have before Cleo gets back?’ she asked hoarsely as he lowered her to the bed and began to undress her.
Not long enough, Bandar suspected. ‘About an hour and a half.’
‘Hurry, then, Bandar,’ she urged him. ‘Hurry.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOUknow, Samantha, I think Bandar likes you.’
Samantha took a moment to school her face into a perfectly bland mask before looking up from her coffee. ‘Oh, come now, Cleo, don’t be silly.’
After Cleo had returned from her shopping excursion into town, Bandar had obviously relayed their agreed story, and a worried Cleo had come bolting down to the cottage to see if there was anything seriously wrong. Samantha had allayed her friend’s fears by saying she was just having some women’s troubles and wanted to see her own lady doctor back in Sydney, claiming that she didn’t feel comfortable going to the old fuddy-duddy male doctor in the local town. She’d also added for good measure that it was high time she visited her family.
It had been Cleo who’d insisted on making them both some coffee, clearly because she wanted to sit down and have a good gossip. All Samantha wanted to do was be by herself.
‘I’m not being silly,’ Cleo insisted. ‘I know when a man is interested in a girl. He keeps asking me questions about you.’
Samantha frowned. ‘What kind of questions?’
‘About your background. Your family.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Nothing much. Just the bare facts about your mum dying when you were born, and how you’d been brought up in a family of blokes.’
‘I see,’ Samantha said. Which she did. That was how Bandar had found out about her brothers. And probably quite a bit more. Cleo never stopped at just the bare facts.
‘He was very concerned about you the other night. Which reminds me, did you like my soup?’
‘It was lovely.’ Samantha had found it out on the front lawn the following morning, and had it for breakfast. ‘Thank you. You’re a kind person, Cleo.’
‘I try to be.’
‘Not many people are these days. It’s become a selfish world.’
‘Bandar’s a kind man.’
‘You think so?’ Samantha wouldn’t have put kindness at the forefront of Bandar’s virtues. His kindnesses usually had an ulterior motive.
‘Look what he did for Martha Higgins.’
‘Who on earth is Martha Higgins?’
‘The woman who owns Valleyview Farm. Bandar didn’t need to pay her all that money for those mares. Norm was speaking to Trevor, and he said they weren’t worth near that much.’
‘How on earth did Trevor find out what Bandar paid for them? Did Bandar tell him?’
‘Heavens, no. Trevor heard on the grapevine. You know what it’s like up here, love. Can’t keep a secret in the country. So I asked Bandar about it, and he said that Ali had told him about Martha’s circumstances and he thought she might need a helping hand.’
‘He can afford it,’ Samantha said, thinking how easy it was for a billionaire to impress people. Bandar only had to start throwing a few million around and everyone thought he was the ant’s pants.
‘Lots of other wealthy people can afford charitable gestures, too,’ Cleo pointed out. ‘But they still wouldn’t have done what Bandar did. He didn’t have to offer you a lift to Sydney either, madam. Stop being so critical of the man. Truly, Samantha, there I was, thinking you liked him.’
‘I do like him,’ she admitted. ‘But that doesn’t mean I have to kiss his backside for giving me a ride.’
Cleo laughed. ‘Can’t imagine you kissingany man’s backside.’
Samantha smiled a brittle smile. Oh, Cleo. If only you knew. I’ve already kissed every part of his body! I can’t get enough of him, and it’s beginning to worry me. What I imagined would b
e a bold but positive experience is rapidly becoming a dangerous obsession. I’ve already become his love-slave. No, not his love-slave. Love has nothing to do with what he’s doing to me. More his sex-slave.
‘Are you excited about going in Ali’s helicopter?’ Cleo asked.
Samantha had been trying desperately not to think about tomorrow. Because whenever she did she started thinking about what was going to happen, and then other things started happening.
Bandar had been so right when he’d said thinking about sex was one of the best kinds of foreplay. Every time her mind went in that direction her nipples would go hard and she’d get a tight, crampy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She had it now.
Samantha knew she would toss and turn all night.
‘You wouldn’t happen to have some sleeping tablets, would you, Cleo?’
‘Oh, dear, you really mustn’t be feeling well if you want one of those. But, yes, I do have some. Got a script when I was having a bout of insomnia last year. The menopause can do that to you,’ she added, and pulled a face. ‘What we women have to put up with. Men sure are the lucky ones. But, as they say, it’s a man’s world.’
Samantha couldn’t have agreed more. Even more so if the man was handsome and rich and used to getting everything he wanted. For some weird and wonderful reason Bandar wantedher at the moment. Maybe he just couldn’t go too long without sex. Or maybe he fancied himself as an erotic tutor. She could see that such a role would appeal to a man who liked the kind of sex that Bandar obviously liked.
The trouble was, she liked the same thing. She’d revelled in his masterful display in the bedroom this afternoon. He’d made mad, passionate love to her at first, face to face, satisfying her need to have him inside her. Afterwards he’d carried her into the shower, where he’d washed her all over, then carried her back to the bed and made love to her with his mouth till she’d been reduced to total mush. Finally, he’d demanded she do the same to him.
Samantha had read about oral sex. But she had never imagined herself doing it. Or liking it so much.
But she could not imagine doing it to any other man. That was the part which was beginning to trouble her. The fact that she couldn’t see herself evenwanting any other man. Not after Bandar.
Samantha hoped this was just because he was such an amazing lover and not anything deeper. The last thing she needed was to fall irrevocably in love with her erotic tutor.
‘I suppose you wouldn’t want to come up for dinner tonight, would you?’ Cleo suggested. ‘I’m sure Bandar wouldn’t mind.’
Actually, Samantha was pretty sure hewould mind. He’d stated quite firmly when they’d parted this afternoon that they should not see each other till the helicopter flight the next day.
‘You know, I sometimes think that man is lonely,’ Cleo added.
This observation struck a raw nerve with Samantha. Because it confirmed what she already knew. Of course Bandar was lonely out here in Australia. He’d had to leave his three girlfriends behind in London, hadn’t he? Necessitating his having to find a substitute for his suddenly empty bed. Namely,her .
She was just a fill-in. An amusement to alleviate his boredom.
But knowing the truth about Bandar didn’t make it any easier for her to resist him. Or to risk disobeying him.
‘Thanks for the offer, Cleo, but I think I’d better not eat too much today. Not if I have to go in that helicopter tomorrow. I’ll just have some Vegemite toast for tea. But I’ll follow you back up to the house right now and get that sleeping tablet.’ She stood up immediately.
Cleo got to her feet rather reluctantly.
‘Will Bandar be there?’ Samantha asked as both women walked out to their respective vehicles.
‘Nope. He’s out riding that mad stallion of his again. He said he’d have to ride him again tomorrow morning to make sure he behaves over the weekend. Ray told Norm that he’s a right handful, that one. They’ve tried him in a bigger paddock, but he’s still full of beans. Ray says he’s one of those stallions who doesn’t settle properly unless he’s going to the breeding barn every day.’
Like his owner, came the rueful thought.
‘He’ll be right soon, then,’ Samantha said drily. ‘He’s got a full book for the season. Come late August he’ll be popping off to the barn several times a day for weeks on end.’
‘You know, the way those stallions can keep going like that truly amazes me,’ Cleo said as she pulled open her car door. ‘Horses are obviously a lot different to humans. In my experience, most men are oncers. Once a month,’ she added with a slightly raucous laugh. ‘But maybe that’s just my poor Norm. I dare say a stud like Bandar can do a bit better than that. See you up at the house, love,’ she said, and was off.
Samantha grimaced as she climbed in behind her wheel and turned on the engine.
Cleo was understating things. Bandar could do alot better than once a month; once an hour was more like it. No way was he going to wait till they arrived in Sydney before the sex started again. It would begin in the helicopter. She knew it would. He’d already told her what she was to wear for the flight down. And what not to wear.
She would obey him, of course. That was what sex-slaves did.
They obeyed their masters.
A skirt, he’d ordered. And no underwear. None at all. Not a stitch.
She trembled at the thought.
She could hardly wait!
If Bandar had had a whip he might have given the horse under him a sharp crack. He wanted the stallion to gallop faster. And faster still.
Just as well he didn’t have one, Bandar realised, because Smoking Gun had never liked the whip.
He knew it was his own emotions getting the better of him. He was trying to rid himself ofhis testosterone, not the horse’s.
The situation with Samantha was getting out of hand. The more he had the girl, the more he wanted her. He kept having to fight for control of his body. Twice this afternoon he’d lost the battle.
He had lost control, and Bandar did not like that.
Hence his mad ride around the racetrack this afternoon. But it didn’t seem to be working.
He had to stay away from her for a while.
He would attend to himself,by himself, in the shower. Tonight and tomorrow morning. The thought was distasteful, but necessary.
By the time Samantha joined him on that helicopter tomorrow Bandar aimed to have his wayward flesh under control. For how could he enjoy controlling her if he could not control himself?
And that was the name of the game this weekend, wasn’t it? He was the master and she was his eager little love-slave.
His mind filled with the images of all he was planning to show her and do to her.
His groan sounded tortured. But it was a torture born of promised pleasure. His, and hers. Oh, yes, she would enjoy herself this weekend.
He would make sure of that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOUlook beautiful,’ he complimented her as soon as they were alone in the helicopter.
Not as beautiful as you, Samantha wanted to say. But she was having trouble finding her tongue at that moment.
He was dressed in a black suit—not a business suit, or a tuxedo. Far more casual than that. The jacket was single-breasted, with only one button, the trousers loosely but elegantly cut, their waistband slung low on his hips. He’d teamed the suit with a pale grey rollneck which highlighted his dark colouring. The rings were back on his fingers, but not the gold chain he usually wore around his neck. His hair looked longer than on the day they’d first met, falling in glossy waves almost to his shoulders.
She could not take her eyes off him.
He seemed to be similarly taken with her appearance.
Samantha had to confess that she looked her very best, which was only to be expected since her preparations for this weekend had taken her several hours last night and all this morning.
Her hair. Her face. Her body. They had all been prim
ped and preened over, plucked and perfumed, till she was as perfect as she could be. Her nails were painted, her bikini line ruthlessly waxed to almost nothing, her skin moisturised and her make-up immaculate.
Her clothes had presented a small problem, since her wardrobe consisted mainly of jeans. She’d bought a couple of skirts and dresses for her Gold Coast getaway, but they were all resort-wear, chosen for the warmer climate of Queensland: light, flowery things which didn’t have the sophistication she was looking for.