Master

by Colette Gale

  The kiss was hot and brief, and she pulled away, her eyes half lidded so he couldn’t read what was there—but he saw her pulse pounding in her throat.

  “Enjoy the show,” she murmured near his ear, her voice low and warm, filtering over his skin as she retreated.

  Quick as a whip, he lashed out and grabbed her arm, yanking her back. He kept a cool lift to the side of his mouth, an unconcerned one, as he placed her hand over the bulge in his trousers. “I paid enough. . . . I expect a more satisfying performance than the one you gave earlier this evening.” Then he shoved her away before his hands touched her anywhere else.

  She barely stumbled, but her breasts jounced pleasantly, and there was a flash of something—annoyance, surprise . . . something—there in her eyes. But then Mercédès was standing with a knowing, coy smile back on those lips, and she turned her attention to her husband.

  Monte Cristo watched as she sashayed toward Morcerf . . . toward her husband . . . the man who looked as if he were half in shock and half drowning in lust. The man’s throat moved as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple convulsing as Mercédès lowered her fine, round ass onto his lap, her own legs turned primly to the side as if she were sitting sidesaddle on her mare, her knees facing Monte Cristo.

  She bent forward to kiss her husband in the same deep, sensual way she’d kissed him only moments before. He saw the dark red slide of tongue, the quirk at the corner of her lips, the little laugh she gave into her husband’s mouth, as though sharing a private joke.

  She wouldn’t be laughing if she were kissing him.

  Monte Cristo reached easily, deliberately, for his glass and realized it was empty. He closed his fingers over the diamond-cut crystal and continued to watch. The only thing he hadn’t investigated during the last decade was the state of Mercédès and Fernand’s intimate relationship. Those details were something he didn’t want—need—to know.

  Now, it appeared, he would see them firsthand.

  He lifted the bottle to pour a few fingers into his glass, as well as into Morcerf’s, as he watched the other man’s hands move up the smooth golden skin of her back, under that heavy, dark hair that smelled like lily of the valley. Mercédès had untied her husband’s neckcloth and pulled it away, and was now unfastening his shirtwaist as he played with her breasts.

  Monte Cristo watched placidly, sipping his brandy, as she tipped her head back so that her hair spilled straight down behind her, over Morcerf’s legs as he bent to suck on one of those dusky rose nipples. More lips and tongue, more sucking sounds, and a soft, little pleasure sigh from Mercédès.

  He shifted slightly in his chair, and she looked at him, boldly catching his gaze for a moment before her lids sank closed and she arched her breasts closer to her husband. Her hands were on his bare chest now, his shirt open to show pale skin and a heavy dark patch of hair striping the top of his torso.

  “Perhaps you could . . . hurry it along,” Monte Cristo said, finishing his drink and setting the glass on the table with a dull little clunk. He looked at Mercédès, whose eyes had opened again. “It is getting late. And I had expected something a bit more . . . interesting.”

  She arched one eyebrow at him, then turned back to her husband. “Perhaps we should invite the count to join us,” she said in a throaty voice. “Or do you think he wants merely to watch?”

  Morcerf, whose mouth had been full of nipple and areola, pulled back with one long draw, elongating her breast, and then released it with a small pop. Monte Cristo looked at the swollen, red, glistening flesh and tightened his fingers over the silk in his lap, damp and hot in his grip.

  “If there was something worth seeing, I would prefer to watch,” he replied, reaching for the bottle again.

  At that, Mercédès gestured toward the bed. “Come now, my dear count . . . surely you didn’t pay merely to watch. Then you could do this. . . .” She took Morcerf’s hands and closed them over her breasts, giving a faint little moan, a little arch, as his thumbs twitched over her nipples. “Or this . . .” Looking again at Monte Cristo, she removed one of her husband’s hands from her breast and directed it down between her legs. He saw the shift of movement of the other man’s arm as she slipped his fingers back and forth in that dark shadow between their bodies, then pulled them back up and brought them, glistening, back to her breast.

  “We could all be moving together, dearest count . . . your skin to mine, your hands meshing with Fernand’s, our legs tangled . . . two hard cocks . . . hair and muscle and heat and wet.” Her low, mesmerizing voice curled in the air like smoke.

  Morcerf’s eyes were fastened on Mercédès as though he’d never seen her before. His breath was rasping loudly in the room, and Monte Cristo thought it likely that the man was going to blow his seed any moment.

  “I prefer to watch,” he said again, “if there is something worthwhile to see.” He made certain that his voice sounded dubious and that his fingers did not shake when he reached for his glass. This sip of brandy he held in his mouth, feeling it burn and settle, before he swallowed it, reveling in the warmth that followed. His head was feeling lighter, and he watched as Mercédès slid her lush body off her husband’s lap.

  And come toward him.

  As before, she bent down in a fluid motion, catching him a bit by surprise as her hands closed over the arms of his chair, covering one of his wrists with her small fingers. If he’d expected a coaxing, seductive kiss, he was disappointed, for it was just as savage and deep and bold as the first one. Her lips were soft and puffy and slick, and she used them to tease his, drawing them into her mouth, her tongue to slide over and around his, her teeth to nibble at his lower one as she pulled away. What was she trying to do?

  “Feel free to join us if you begin to feel left out,” she murmured near his ear. Then, giving him a burning cat smile, she moved away, removing her small hand from his wrist. “Fernand would be quite delighted.”

  Monte Cristo’s chest tightened, and blood rushed through his veins. He wasn’t wholly certain if it was from fury or that bloody kiss, and her taunting words and lithe, lush body. His fingers closed into the chair arm and he managed a cool smile. “I’ll take it under advisement . . . but for now, I see nothing worth . . . joining.”

  Mercédès’ smile did not slip. She turned away from him, giving him a proper view of her long, straight spine and the thick hair that brushed over skin that looked like a dusty peach, just above the sweet dimples of her ass and the flare of her hips.

  Things happened quickly after that, it seemed. One moment, she was standing there, teasing and flaunting herself at him, and the next, she and Morcerf had made their way to the bed. His clothing lay in a heap on the floor, and Monte Cristo noticed the man’s soft body, paler than Mercédès’ more golden skin yet not so pasty as the English. Dark hair grew in that patch on his chest, and in two smaller patches on the backs of his shoulders and over his legs. His cock was full and hard, though it didn’t look as if it were ready to burst at any moment.

  Monte Cristo couldn’t see well enough from where he sat; when the other two were on the bed, he saw only obliquely what was occurring. But, more important, he couldn’t be seen.

  He rose from his chair and ambled toward the bed in trousers tight in the crotch. As he approached, Mercédès slid next to her husband, sitting near his torso, planting her quim’s dark thatch on the pale blue coverlet as she rested against his bent, hairy leg. Her eyes were closed, and she had her hands braced on the blanket as Morcerf shifted to suck again on one of her breasts, moving a curtain of hair back over her shoulder.

  The other breast swayed beautifully, near Monte Cristo, near enough for him to touch. He gripped his glass and brought it to his lips for a sip, swallowed . . . and before he realized it, he was moving closer to the bed. Closing his free hand around the back of her head, shocking her into opening her eyes, he turned her toward him. Holding the back of her scalp, he ground a kiss against her lips, standing there with his legs pressed up against the bed an
d the brandy in his hand. As he kissed her, Monte Cristo felt the rhythm of Morcerf’s lips as he suckled on Mercédès like a newborn.

  “It’s getting more interesting,” he said, releasing her mouth suddenly enough that she jerked a little. “Good.”

  And he stepped back, holding her gaze, wanting her to remember that he was there. Watching.

  Watching.

  Then, suddenly, her hand snaked out and grabbed his shirt. She pulled, and Monte Cristo let her tug him forward so that his legs were against the bed again. “Leaving so soon?” she murmured, edging toward him on her knees, her fingers still curled in his shirt, hair tangling around her breasts.

  This time when she kissed him, she pressed her whole naked torso against his and covered his shoulders with her hands. Her breasts pressed through the fine lawn of his shirt, and Monte Cristo felt the sudden sharp rise of lust as he slipped his arms around her warm body and crushed her against him, closing his eyes and breathing her in.

  Mercédès.

  He pulled away, dragging her with him to the bed, collapsing next to Morcerf, his arms still locked around her waist. Her breasts shifted between them as they fell, and her long legs slipped between his thighs, brushing against the swollen head of his cock beneath the tent of his trousers. He rolled her beneath him, trapping her head with his mouth on hers, smoothing over the silk of her cheek to the thrust of her chin, using teeth and tongue to taste and taunt, feeling the shift and slide of her curves, the warmth of her skin through his clothing.

  He touched the smooth swell of her hip, the tender part of her shoulders. He tasted the hot, musky salt in the folds of her neck, the brandy on her tongue, and smelled the spice and flowery scent near the curl of her ear.

  Her hair tangled around his fingers, under her body, between them, and he lifted himself away, off her and onto the bed again. No sooner had he moved to the side, slipping his hand down between her legs to feel the slick, full lips of her quim when the mattress dipped and another hand appeared, closing over one of her breasts.

  Monte Cristo felt a cold wave over him as he looked up and found Morcerf’s face close to his. The man’s eyes were glazed with lust, and his lips were full and wet.

  It reminded him why he was here.

  Monte Cristo pulled away, distaste spinning through him as he read the interest in the other man’s eyes, and saw that it wasn’t just for the woman between them, below them. “Perhaps you would like to watch,” he said.

  Morcerf looked as though he might argue, and Mercédès shifted beneath them, but Monte Cristo’s fingers were still at the heat of her sex. He smoothed them over the front of her, slipping in the wet there as he looked at her husband and said, “My turn. Watch.”

  The other man must have read his expression properly, for he shifted back on the bed, sitting up on his haunches, his cock straining straight between his thighs, his ballocks lifted tight and close in the shadow beneath it.

  Monte Cristo gave him a cool look and settled back away from Mercédès. “Now, my dear comtesse,” he said, looking down at her as he kept one hand on her chest, planted between her breasts. “We shall see how interesting things can get.”

  He couldn’t help but notice that one nipple was redder and longer than the other, and gleaming wet. It took all of his control to keep from bending forward and sucking the other one to match. Later.

  He scooted toward the edge of the bed, digging into his pockets to pull out the thin strips of silk he’d brought . . . for just such a purpose. He captured her wrists and stretched them above her head as she sprawled diagonally across the bed.

  Then he sat down and looked at her, surprised that she wasn’t struggling.

  But she was looking at Morcerf, as if he were the only one there, and Morcerf had his hand around the length of his cock.

  Monte Cristo’s mouth dry, his lips tight, he gave a tug on the silk around her wrists, and looped it around the heavy wooden bedpost, binding her there. The position lifted her breasts, sending her nipples pointing sharply into the air, the long, sleek curve of her arms nestled in the swath of dark hair.

  Mercédès glanced at him, and her eyes were half closed. “And so . . . who is to be first?” she asked and shifted, half rolling to one side so that her thighs clapped primly together. “The husband or the customer?”

  Bloody hell if there wasn’t a light of challenge in her eyes.

  Morcerf moved toward her, and Monte Cristo saw the glint of moisture at the head of his cock. He watched impassively as the man moved his wife so that she lay flat on her back again, his hands closing over her legs as he parted them. Sliding closer, hand on his erection as if steering it, he crouched over her and bent to suck on the other nipple, the neglected one. The dark red head of his cock brushed in the dark curls at her quim as her knees fell fully away.

  This was what he’d come for. He willed Mercédès to look at him, to turn toward him, so he could see her face . . . so she could see him watching, see that he didn’t care, that he enjoyed seeing this.

  Monte Cristo watched, stilling himself, hearing, feeling nothing but the rough pound of his heart as he saw the sweep of tongue, the demand of hands, the ready length steadying between long golden thighs. The muscles of his flaccid ass flexed as Morcerf shifted, his hand on her shoulder—

  “Wait.” His hand closed over Morcerf, pulling him away firmly. “I have a better idea.”

  The other man looked as though he might argue, but Monte Cristo gave him a steady look, and Morcerf eased back reluctantly. “You can have this”—he made a dismissive gesture at Mercédès—“anytime. I’ll take mine while you watch.”

  This, he decided, would be better. To make her moan and cry and scream in front of her husband.

  To make her beg.

  TEN

  Battle of Wills

  Later that same night

  Paris

  When Fernand moved away from where he’d been poised between her legs, Mercédès felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had him inside her before, of course... but she much preferred not to, if she could help it.

  And the last thing she’d wanted was to have to pretend to enjoy it, for the benefit of their guest.

  For a moment there, she thought she might have miscalculated the look in Monte Cristo’s eyes, and the irregularity of his breathing, and that he would have actually let it happen. But he hadn’t.

  And now . . . Fernand had moved away, out of her vision, and Monte Cristo turned his attention back to her.

  The expression on his face sent a cool shiver down her spine, and for a moment, she was afraid. He looked dark and . . . in her state of half arousal and determination to manipulate this activity, the only word she could think of was “tortured.” He looked dark and tortured: his cheeks hollowed by shadow, his mouth tight and firm, his eyes hooded and intense . . . yet flat. Expressionless in their intensity.

  Or perhaps . . . intent on torturing. Her.

  Mercédès swallowed with difficulty. All moisture had evaporated from her throat, and her lungs felt tight, pressured. Her heart shook her body with the force of its pounding, and a twinge of apprehension mixed with anticipation twisted in her belly.

  Her arms, bound above her head, weren’t stretched uncomfortably, nor was the silk binding tight. Her legs were still free, and she thought for a moment, as Monte Cristo leaned toward her, that he’d done that purposely . . . to give her a false sense of freedom.

  His hands—warm, large, sure—came down onto the sides of her torso as he bent over her, gently gripping her hips as though to hold her still, his dark head blocking out the lamplight behind him. He moved too slowly, deliberately, as though to prolong her waiting—as if he knew she wondered whether he’d suddenly ravish her, or if his intent was to coax and tease as he’d done before.

  Unlike the other kisses between them tonight, this one was softer, gentler. His lips fairly worshipped hers—in a way they hadn’t since . . . She lost her thoughts, let hers
elf spill into the sensation of slow, sensual movements . . . their mouths molding together and apart, slipping to the side with a subtle swipe of tongue over hers. She felt herself beginning to breathe into his mouth, against him, felt his fingers tighten on her flesh and the rise of response flourish in her belly and roll to her ready quim below.

  “Like that, do you?” he asked against her mouth, his lips a hot, soft breath away. “Good. I look forward to hearing you beg for more.”

  He pulled back suddenly, in contrast to the manner in which he’d approached, and his hands began to move over her body with deliberate purpose.

  He thought to make her beg.

  The first time she’d truly pleaded with a man, cried and debased herself, had also been the last time she’d done so.

  She’d learned what hell begging could wrought. What power and control it gave.

  No. Monte Cristo was bound to be disappointed if he thought he could take her to those depths again.

  When his hands smoothed up to cover both of her breasts, his torso, still clad in its fine lawn shirt, brushed over her skin, and Mercédès merely closed her eyes. She parted her lips, letting the pleasure of his mouth on her nipple puff out in a soft exhalation that wasn’t feigned.

  She shifted her hips, brushing them against his leg, bent next to her on the bed as he gently sucked her nipple far into his mouth, deeply, drawing in her whole areola. It was hot and slick and sensual, sending low, undulating waves of pleasure with each rhythmic draw. Long and slow and steady . . . She felt her breath begin to rise, and her other nipple tighten beneath the pad of his finger.

  That finger circled around in tiny motions, teasing the very topmost, sensitive tip as her areola shrank and tightened beneath. The dualing sensations of slick tongue and teasing finger made her belly flip and twist, and sharp pangs of desire spiral down to her sex, which was already sensitive and swollen, burgeoning with need. He pulled away, his white shirt pale against rich, tanned skin and dark hair, his lips full and parted, his eyes bold and driven.