Master

by Colette Gale

  Locked on her gaze, he moved his hand . . . gently skimming her flesh, sending shivers scattering over the low swell of her belly . . . and down to the rise of her mons, to the delicate thatch of hair curling there. He watched her, and she couldn’t close her eyes, she couldn’t look away. Deep in there, behind the flat wall of his gaze, beneath the darkness and the torment, Mercédès saw Edmond. A hint of him, the man she knew . . .

  He slipped his fingers down over the front of her sex, just brushing against the tips of the wiry, sensitive hair, creating little shivers along the insides of her thighs. She let her eyes slide closed as he fingered through the tangles, lifting them and sliding through the wetness spilling from her quim.

  “Open your eyes,” he said softly, slipping a finger deep inside.

  Pleasure rushed through her at the sudden movement, and Mercédès shifted her hips in response as she opened her eyes.

  “There . . . now . . . there.” Satisfaction gleamed in his face, and he pulled out and then slid his fingers back in again, deeper, fuller, brushing against her pip as he did so. She arched gently, pushing against him, letting the pleasure spread through her.

  Then he pulled his hand away, and moved down between her legs, spreading them with one easy movement. She allowed her knees to fall to the sides and felt the firm grip on her thighs, just above her knees, as he positioned himself between them.

  The first touch of his tongue nearly sent her off the bed. It was so light and tentative on her swollen, ready pip, so quick and so needed, that she gave a little cry, jerking her hips there in front of him.

  Dios mio.

  That first stroke was fleeting, but then the tip of his tongue came back and teased her again with a soft flick, and another one, and another . . . and then as she began to gather up, to ready herself for the next, for the one that would send her ready body over . . . he moved away, kissing along the inside of her thigh with feathery kisses, light shifts of the tongue, gentle sucking.

  Mercédès closed her eyes, her breathing faster, her nipples tighter, her pip pounding, exposed and ready. Of course. He wanted her to ask for it. To beg.

  She felt Monte Cristo lift his face, and opened her eyes to look down at his dark ones just beyond the gentle swell of her belly. Their gazes met as he burrowed his nose back into the thrush of hair surrounding her sex, using his lips to gently nibble on her swollen labia, his chin and jaw brushing teasingly against her pip.

  He seemed to be gauging her, and she let her eyes sink closed as the pleasure built again, slowly . . . inexorably . . . as he ate at her, sucked and licked, and snaked his tongue deep into her, dragging it out slowly, jaggedly, under her needy sex. An orgasm rose, then fell back, rose and nearly peaked . . . and each time, he seemed to sense the tightening of her body, the readiness and gathering of it, and just before she spilled over into the sweet release, he moved away, stopped the rhythm and the touch and let her slide back down on a ragged little moan.

  Mercédès twitched and cried against him, beneath the easy touch of his hands against her knees as every aspect of her being centered there between her legs. Her breathing had become louder and more ragged, every exhale edged with soft little sighs . . . and she heard him too, heard and felt the change of his breath there against her sex.

  She wanted to reach for him, to touch the man before her and to sense his own response, to know if he was near and wanted her too . . . but her arms were bound, and her fingers could only curl helplessly against the bedpost. She dared say nothing, for fear the words would turn to pleading . . . and so she battled with herself, and with him, determined that he would break first. That he would take what he wanted from her before she gave in to her desperate need.

  Then he stopped, easing away and leaving her legs spread and cold, her quim open and wet and ready. She opened her eyes when the bed shifted and his weight moved, just in time to see Monte Cristo move around to the opposite side of the bed from where her hands were bound. She followed him, and her gaze brushed over Fernand, who stood at the side there, his hand furiously working his cock as he stared blankly into space. She focused her attention on her repulsive husband’s slack jaw and glassy eyes for a moment as a way to pull herself out of the pleasure that blanketed her, ebbing now but waiting to be reawakened.

  Which surely Monte Cristo meant to do in some other manner.

  Then Mercédès’ legs were being pulled; Monte Cristo dragged them over the bed so that she lay sideways across it, her arms long and stretched, her hips settled on the edge of the mattress and her feet nearly flat on the floor. He stood between her knees, still fully clothed in contrast to her nakedness, and began to unfasten his trousers.

  His face was just as unreadable as ever, and a shock of dark hair obstructed one eye, but she swore his sure fingers fumbled clumsily with the ties and buttons at his waist. . . . Surely, it didn’t take that long to pull them away . . . and she felt rather than heard his relief when the purple erection surged free, raging there in the dark opening of his trousers. Mercédès felt a sudden rush of desire shoot down to her quim, and she gave a soft little moan.

  “Ah,” he said, the sound low and knowing. And a little raw. A little breathless.

  He moved between her legs, grasping her hips to raise them as he poised there. She closed her eyes, ready, wanting, feeling her quim dripping and needy.

  When he fitted himself to her, when he slid deeply inside, her breath caught and she was overwhelmed with need and pleasure and fulfillment, and she held her breath, ready for the onslaught . . . for the rise and spill of climax.

  But he didn’t move. He merely held her there, held her hips immobile with those strong fingers, breathing against her, throbbing and full—so damned long and full and familiar—inside her, close to her . . . but not close enough.

  Not close enough.

  Mercédès caught herself on a soft sob, tried to shift just so that he’d rub against her aching tickler and send her over . . . but he didn’t move.

  She opened her eyes to see that his were closed, his face like stone, the shadows of his cheeks deep and dark. He didn’t breathe, and there, suddenly, in the amazing silence that gripped the chamber, came a deep, expressive grunt from the side.

  Her gaze flew to Fernand just in time to see his head thrown back and the spurt of his release whip from the end of the cock he flogged mercilessly with his hand.

  Mercédès felt her own body tighten in reaction to such a display of pleasure, and she shifted again, more urgently. More desperately. Please.

  Monte Cristo opened his eyes, looked down at her, and smiled, hard and knowing. “Is there something you want, madam la comtesse?”

  She looked away, her gaze flickering to Fernand, and she felt the cock inside her shift . . . just the slightest, easiest bit . . . and her whole body seized up, ready . . . and then fell back. She gathered up her resolve, her determination to snap his control. “Perhaps if you don’t wish to . . . finish things, my husband should take over.”

  Monte Cristo’s fingers convulsed against her, ever so slightly, but his expression remained dark and calm. “I think,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Fernand, who’d collapsed into a chair, “he has finished for the night. But . . . I am in no hurry.”

  Mercédès tightened herself around him and watched his face react. Subtle, but the surprise was there. “It’s too bad you feel the need to have me restrained,” she said, keeping her voice steady with effort. She felt as if she were to lose control, lose her focus, for one moment, one instant, she would also lose this battle. “Do you not trust yourself at my hands?”

  In response, he pulled back and gave a sudden, savage thrust inside her, and she gasped at the beauty of it. Dios. More, oh Dios mio, please . . .

  Mercédès bit back her cry and looked at him, and saw the same struggle on his face. Good . . . oh, thank God.

  She shifted insistently, nearly throwing off his hold—she only needed one, maybe two strokes and she’d be there . . . Please.
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  “No, you don’t,” he breathed, pushing her hips into the mattress even more firmly, allowing her no room to move. “Ask for it . . . beg me.”

  “No,” she gritted between her teeth, tightening her vagina around him again and giving a little flex of her buttocks to shift her hips. “Coward.”

  He laughed, harsh and short, and gave another sharp, hard thrust. Mercédès cried out and thrashed her head to one side, biting her lip at the surge inside. She wouldn’t. He couldn’t last much longer.

  She arched her back, lifting her breasts slightly, focused on the throb between her legs. He was close. . . . she felt him filling inside her even more.

  “Come with me, Comtesse,” he said in a long, tense voice. “Beg.”

  “No,” she said again.

  He took a sudden, sharp breath and ground himself against her, pushing deeper. She sighed softly, erotically, and looked up at him. Desire blazed in his face now, as if he could no longer control it.

  “I’ll never beg you for anything,” she said in a strong voice, using every bit of control to make it so. Forcing away the sensations that pounded through her, that twisted and dug and curled and promised.

  “Never?” he said, and began to move in short, little strokes, barely shifting inside her, holding her in such a way that he came near, but didn’t touch, her pip. Teasing. “Oh, you . . . will . . . ,” he promised on a low breath.

  “Oh . . . ,” she cried. It rose again, her lust, burgeoning and billowing like a sail filling with wind, and Mercédès tossed her head to the side, biting her lip as he moved, holding her there, keeping her from matching him, from that pressure, that lovely pressure that would send her over. She focused, willed herself to live there, between her legs, where everything rose and rose and grew and surged and—

  “Oh . . . no . . . you . . . don’t . . . ,” he gasped, pulling himself out in a sudden, desperate movement, leaving her swelled tight and shiny and needy. Oh, Dios . . . needy. She cried out, then bit her lip again to keep the pleas from erupting, tears leaking from her eyes as she rolled her face away.

  Please.

  He climbed on the bed next to her, his cock dark and rosy, slick and rampant with her juices, and she licked her lips, caught her breath, squeezed back the need, swallowed desperately . . . and drew in one long, steadying draft of air. Control.

  “Come here, Count. Let me taste you and give you release.” She licked her dry lips again, suggestively, dropping her gaze to that beautiful cock.

  With a growl of rage, he moved quickly, his hand closing over his own thick, surging length and with two sharp movements, he finished, spilling thick white seed over her torso.

  He gasped something as he came. She couldn’t hear him, not really . . . but it sounded like her name.

  Mercédès.

  He left her there, tied to the bed, her sex glistening and plump between her splayed legs, his leavings sticky on her skin. He made Fernand go with him, and there she stayed, unsatisfied and needy, until Charlotte found her the next morning.

  Yet, despite her thrumming, exhausted body, and the unseemly position in which she was found, Mercédès was complacent.

  Monte Cristo had not succeeded in his desire for revenge. For in the end, it was he who’d given in.

  ELEVEN

  Behind the Iron Gate

  One week later

  Paris

  Maximilien Morrel’s fingers curled around the iron grate as he pressed his eye against it. “Val-entine, my love,” he murmured, wishing his fingers were long enough to touch her soft blond hair. “Are you well?”

  She was, of course, sitting on her favorite bench, which had been angled more closely to the gate since the last time they’d met—but was still too far for him to reach. Her cheek curved with pleasure, and her thick lashes swept down, and as always, Maximilien was struck by her humble beauty. “I have missed you, my own love.”

  “And I you. But how are you? How is your grandfather?”

  “He has given his blessing to our marriage,” she said, suddenly turning her face directly to his so that he could see the full beauty of her smile. It took his breath away. “In eighteen months, we shall be wed, with his blessings.”

  Maximilien had never felt so full, so joyous, in all his life. “It is so? Oh, Valentine! I am the happiest man alive! And what of your father, Monsieur Villefort?”

  Her expression checked, and her happiness faded a bit. “He is not so well. He isn’t ill, but . . . of course with the three deaths in our house, and then the breaking off of my engagement to Franz d’Epinay . . . but surely you heard of that.”

  He nodded, feeling the cold, rough iron against his forehead and wishing with all of his might that it was her silky flesh that pressed against him, and not the bars between them. “The news has trickled out that your grandpère Monsieur Noirtier was the man who killed d’Epinay’s father in a duel, many years ago during the Napoleonic uprising.”

  “Yes, it is true. And of course d’Epinay could not marry me after that—and as sorry as I am for him, truly, Maximilien, I must thank my grandfather for divulging this fact. But my father is devastated that such a profitable marriage has been canceled.”

  Maximilien couldn’t help but feel a twinge of unease, for he knew Valentine’s marriage to him would not be nearly as advantageous as her father would want. But Valentine was Monsieur Noirtier’s heir, and if he gave permission, all would be well. All would be well! He would have her for his own.

  “I have heard of another betrothal being broken in the last days,” he said, hoping to ease the sadness in her face. “Come here, please, Valentine. . . .Let me touch you, and I will tell you that you are not the only one whose father’s hopes have been dashed.”

  To his relief, she smiled again, those plump pink lips curving daintily, so delicious he was overwhelmed with the urge to taste them. But he had to settle for the tips of her fingers, tucked beneath his, through the small holes of the gate.

  “Tell me, Maximilien. I love to hear your voice, and it has been so difficult this last week without hearing it. Things are so . . . strange . . . in my house, since those three deaths. I . . . the doctor . . . the last time he was here, he looked at me so strangely. As if he believed it could be I who did such a horrible thing as to kill my own grandparents!” Her last words caught on a sob, but she swallowed it back and looked through the grate at him.

  “Oh, dear Valentine . . . no one who knows you could ever consider that you would harm anyone, let alone those you love. Please do not worry on it. All will be well, and we will be married in less than two years, and we will no longer have this terrible gate between us!”

  “Thank you, Maximilien. . . . Now tell me the gossip so I have something else to think on.”

  He pressed a kiss to the tip of one of her sweet fingers, and as he nibbled on it, unable to let her pull it away, he spoke. “My dear friend Albert de Morcerf was intending to marry Eugénie Danglars, daughter of the bank baron. But earlier this week, Danglars told Count Morcerf that there would be no wedding between their children, and refused to tell him why. Albert, who didn’t want to marry Eugénie in any case, told me that Danglars only said to his father, ‘Be glad that I refuse to give you the reason.’ ”

  He swiped his tongue gently into the webbing between her fingers, and she responded by giving a delicious little shiver. “Maximilien,” she sighed, leaning against the iron grate. Little parts of her body and gown seeped through the diamond-shaped holes, and Maximilien pushed himself up to the grate, likewise also pressing himself against it.

  “Kiss me, darling . . . please . . . ,” he said, finding a place where his mouth would fit at level with hers.

  “Maximilien . . . ,” she sighed, and as well as they were able, they kissed. Lips and tongue, cold iron bars between them, danced, receded, and thrashed together again.

  He felt through the grate, his fingers brushing against and then curling around the silk of her gown where it fit to her waist, and he felt
. . . he swore he did . . . the give of her gentle flesh beneath it. “Oh, Valentine,” he sighed against her lips, against the cold iron, trying to bring her body even closer into the gate with the tips of his fingers. “So sweet . . . so sweet, you are. . . .”

  She pulled away, and their noses bumped between the iron diamonds. They looked at each other, and he felt as though he might drown in her deep blue eyes. They shone with love and hope and, not for the first time, Maximilien wished he’d brought a saw to cut through the bloody bars between them.

  “Tell me more,” she whispered, her breath soft and sweet with mint.

  He traced the silk hollows of her cheeks with fingers from both hands and said, “Danglars is said to have moved quickly and betrothed Eugénie to a young man named Andrea Cavalcanti, a poor young man who had been separated from his father since birth, only to find that he is a prince of Italy. The Count of Monte Cristo was the one who reunited him with his father.”

  “How kind of the count,” said Valentine, but for the first time, Maximilien sensed a bit of hesitation in her voice.

  “Monte Cristo is a good man,” he told her. “He has already promised me that if we need any help, he will move heaven and earth to see that we are together.”

  To his surprise, she reached through the bars and touched his face. Maximilien sighed and let his forehead clunk against the gate, feeling the light, sensual touch as she brushed over his cheeks and jaw, then moved to another hole and, with one finger, traced over his lips, still plump from kissing her.

  “It is just that . . . he seemed so friendly with my stepmother, Heloise,” she said, then gave a lovely little gasp as he opened his mouth and her finger slipped in. “When he . . . visited . . . several weeks ago. And . . . well, I know she does not like me much, and would prefer that Father pay more attention to their son, and it seems . . .” She caught her breath as he flicked his tongue around and between her two fingers, just as he dreamed about doing to her quim.