by Miranda Lee
Violet stared at the bed and wondered how she would cope if he called it quits.
Not very well, she suspected. She loved Leo with all her heart and soul.
Maybe it would be better if she confessed her love for him right now.
Though, what would that achieve? If Leo didn’t love her back, a declaration of undying love would probably bring a swift end to their romantic getaway. Either that, or it would introduce a tension between them which wasn’t sexual. Violet firmly believed Leo was not the inveterate womaniser Joy thought he was. He was a decent man. A kind man. He would not want to use her body, knowing that her heart was breaking.
So don’t tell him, you fool! Don’t spoil these next few days. Take what you can get of him. Take a risk. And who knows? He might fall in love with you yet!
Violet scooped in a deeply gathering breath and let it out slowly. Yes, that was what she would do.
‘You’re tired,’ Leo said, coming up behind her and curving his hands over her shoulders. ‘And hungry, no doubt.’ He turned her round to face him. ‘I suggest you go have a long, hot shower whilst I order us breakfast. I know you ate on the plane but that was ages ago.’
Suddenly, tears pricked at the back of Violet’s eyes, bringing a spurt of panic. Lord, but she couldn’t cry in front of him! That would never do!
‘Off you go, then,’ he said. ‘Before I change my mind and take you to bed right here and now.’ So saying, he spun her away from him and gave her a none-too-gentle tap on her derriere.
‘Promises, promises,’ she said, throwing him a saucy look over her shoulder as she headed for the bathroom.
Yes, that was the way to act, she thought as she shut the door behind her. Playfully. Boldly.
Leo wouldn’t want to spend the next few days with some blushing ingénue. He wanted to be with a grown-up woman. She was no longer a virgin. No longer naive, either. She knew the score.
But she still cried in the shower, cried her heart out.
Finally, when she’d run out of tears, Violet turned off the water and reached for a towel.
No more tears, Violet, she vowed as she dried herself. And no more worrying about the future. Concentrate on enjoying the moment. You’re in Paris, girl, with a drop-dead gorgeous man who has money to burn and knows everything there is to know about sex. Don’t, for pity’s sake, waste a single second of your stay here on negative feelings. What was that famous expression? Seize the day!
Violet decided that that was going to be her motto from now on.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘COMFY?’ LEO ASKED in that gravelly, desire-thickened voice Violet had become so used to during the last five days.
‘Comfy’ was not quite how Violet felt at that moment. You didn’t think about comfort when your lover had just tied you naked to a bed, even if that bed had satin sheets and the cords used to bind your wrists to the bedposts were made of silk. All you could think about was what he was going to do to you.
Violet did have some idea—Leo had tied her to the bed yesterday as well—but on her back that time so that she could watch what he did in the overhead mirror. Today, she was lying on her front with satin pillows stuffed under her hips so that her bottom was raised provocatively. Her legs weren’t restrained in any way, though Leo had pushed them apart and ordered her, quite sternly, not to attempt to close them.
Violet could not believe how fast her heart was going.
‘You’re quite okay with this, Violet? You seem to have lost your voice all of a sudden.’
‘I’m fine,’ she choked out. ‘Stop torturing me and get on with it.’
His laugh was so sexy. He was so sexy. She couldn’t get enough of him. Couldn’t get enough of the erotic games he liked to play, either. This was how they had spent every afternoon, Leo’s suggestions having become bolder with each passing day.
‘You must learn patience, my love.’
Violet gasped as she felt something soft and tickly being trailed down her spine.
‘What’s that?’
‘The tassel on one of the other cords. You like, madam?’
Violet groaned as he ran the tassel down over her buttocks then back and forth between her legs, making her sex clench tightly and her head spin.
‘I think she likes it,’ he said.
He repeated the torture several times till she was panting with need.
‘Please, Leo,’ she begged at last.
But still he would not give her what she so desperately wanted. Instead, he tossed the tassel aside and replaced it with his fingers, alternately invading then abandoning her body with a knowingness that refused her release whilst at the same time aroused her to a level of frustration previously unknown to her. This was nothing like he’d done to her yesterday when he’d given her climax after climax, first with his fingers, then his mouth, then himself. This was something else entirely. This was sheer torture!
‘Be back soon, my sweet,’ he said suddenly. ‘Don’t go away, now.’
When a stunned Violet realised he’d actually left the room, she called out to him. But he didn’t answer her. By the time he returned several minutes later she was close to weeping.
When she swore at him instead, he laughed, then climbed back onto the bed behind her. He still took his time entering her, his penetration shallow at first, then deeper and deeper. When Violet started wriggling her hips, he took a firm grip of them and lifted her bottom even higher, enabling him to go deeper still. By this time Violet was beside herself, her muscles clenching and unclenching in a desperate attempt to find satisfaction.
‘Impatient wench,’ Leo growled, his grip on her tightening as he started thrusting back and forth into her with considerable force, his sudden, savage power tipping them both over the edge within seconds.
Violet made a high keening sound as she splintered apart whilst Leo roared his release, his body shuddering and shaking as his seed pumped into her. Afterwards he collapsed across her back, his hands covering hers, his face nuzzling into her hair.
‘You’re incredible, my darling,’ he said. ‘Simply incredible.’
Violet was too shattered to say a single word.
It took some time for Leo’s ragged breathing to calm, after which he sighed a deeply sated sigh then levered himself off her, reaching up to untie her wrists before pulling a quilt over them both. Soon, he was sound asleep next to her, his breathing now slow and steady.
This was part of their daily routine, sleeping after sex in the afternoon before rising to shower and dress for dinner every evening. Up till today, Violet had had no trouble falling into a post-coital slumber. Now, despite having just experienced the most electrifying climax of her life, she found she could not relax.
Finally, she rolled over onto her back and just lay there, staring up at her reflection in the mirror. The light through the window was rapidly fading, the bedside clock showing it was almost six o’clock. The temperature would have dropped outside no doubt, but not inside, where the air-conditioning kept the suite at a very comfortable twenty-five degrees. Hence no need for clothes, if they so desired.
Leo often desired her to be naked for him, and not always when they were in bed. He liked to look at her, he said. It had taken Violet a couple of days to be able to walk around the apartment in the nude without feeling embarrassed, but gradually she’d discovered that it turned her on to be on the end of Leo’s very hot gaze.
Not that she needed to be naked to be turned on. If truth be told, ever since she’d arrived in Paris she’d been in a state of constant arousal. Nothing distracted her from her hunger for Leo’s body—not the fabulous sightseeing every morning or even the magnificent five-course dinners Leo treated her to every evening. None of it meant anything to her.
She didn’t really give a damn about visiting the Eiffel Tower, or the Louvre, or even Versailles. She told Leo she did, but her mind was never on the sightseeing. It was always projecting ahead to the moment when they would return to the hotel and Leo could once
again make love to her. Which he did. Every afternoon. For hours on end.
Come now, Violet, the voice of cold hard reason suddenly piped up. What he does to you every afternoon is not making love. It’s just sex, sweetheart. Hard-core sex, at that. Let’s not pretend.
Violet sighed. Okay, so it probably was just sex in the afternoons. There were still times, however, when it felt like making love. Like when they came home after dinner each evening. Leo always made love to her before they went to sleep. That always felt like making love, rather than sex. Perhaps because it was late at night with the lights off, or at least dimmed so that she couldn’t see their reflections in the mirror above. It was much easier to pretend deeper feelings in the intimacy of darkness, when Leo’s love-making was less...imaginative and more straightforward.
Their daily afternoon sex-fest was always anything but straightforward, Leo having introduced her to a variety of positions and foreplays which were hardly the stuff romantic dreams were made of. And that was even before he had advanced to the tying-up business, which admittedly she enjoyed very much. She enjoyed everything he did to her; no point in denying it. But did couples in love do stuff like that?
She had no idea.
Admittedly, he hadn’t done anything seriously kinky, things she’d read about in books and which had alarmed her at the time. Violet wasn’t so sure she would be alarmed now. Maybe she’d enjoy Leo inserting phallic-shaped objects into her and spanking her at the same time. Her breathing quickened just thinking about it.
Maybe she was becoming a sex addict! Maybe that was why she couldn’t relax, because she wanted more. But more of what? More imaginative sex, or just more of Leo?
Violet sighed as her gaze ran over him. What she would not give to be with him for ever.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? He’d had every chance during the last five days to bring up the subject of where their relationship was going, but he hadn’t. Not that he hadn’t talked to her. He had; non-stop sometimes. But it was always about what they were doing and seeing that day, never about the future.
Of course, she hadn’t broached the subject either. Partly because she didn’t think it was her place, but mostly because she didn’t want to come across as desperate. If he wanted to keep on seeing her he would eventually say so. Tonight, possibly. After all, she had to fly home in less than twenty-four hours.
Emotion welled up inside Violet when she thought of getting on that plane tomorrow afternoon and never seeing Leo again. Suddenly, any sexual frustration she was feeling was totally washed away by the most crashing wave of despair. Tears flooded her eyes, her chin then her shoulders beginning to shake as sobs threatened.
Immediately, Leo stirred beside her, mumbling something as he started returning to consciousness. Panic sent Violet leaping from the bed and racing into the en suite bathroom, where she locked the door then sat down on the side of the claw-footed bath, burying her face in her hands to muffle the sounds of her weeping.
A couple of minutes later, she heard the rattle of the brass door-knob being tried, followed by a rather impatient knock.
‘Violet,’ Leo called out sharply. ‘Why is this door locked?’
Violet forced herself to calm down and stop crying. ‘I...I’ve got a tummy ache,’ she replied, her voice husky.
‘Oh. Poor darling. Is there anything I can get you?’
Violet winced at his calling her ‘darling’. He always called her that now. But it didn’t mean anything. He probably called all his women darling whilst he was tying them up and shagging them silly.
‘No, no, I’ll be fine. It’s nothing serious. I’ll be out shortly.’
But she wasn’t out shortly. Instead, she showered alone, not leaving the bathroom for a good half-hour, wrapped rather defensively in one of the blue towelling robes the hotel provided. She found Leo sitting naked and cross legged in the middle of the largest of the brocade sofas, sipping a glass of red wine from one of the complimentary decanters. For some reason, his nakedness bothered her, which was perverse, given she’d been desperate for more sex earlier.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked.
‘Much,’ she said.
‘Want a glass of wine?’
‘No. Not just now.’
‘Your stomach still upset?’
‘No. It’s fine.’
‘Do you still want to go out to eat tonight? We could always get room service.’
Violet suppressed a shudder as she thought of how that would play out. He’d probably sit there eating in the nude, maybe even suggest she do the same. Then afterwards, it would be back to that decadent bed with her even more hopelessly turned on and unable to say no to whatever he wanted. Already she wanted to say yes to his suggestion. Already she was quivering deep inside.
Just say yes, the devil’s voice whispered in her ear. It might be your last night with him. Make the most of it.
Violet gritted her teeth before somehow finding the courage to resist temptation. ‘Actually, I was hoping we might go to the restaurant downstairs tonight. It does look splendid. We haven’t been there yet, and it’s my last night here, after all.’
‘God, don’t remind me. It’s all gone so damned quickly.’
‘Yes, it has,’ she agreed, and turned her back on him before he could see the distress in her face. ‘I’m going to make myself some tea,’ she said as she walked over to the elegant sideboard which housed the tea-making facilities.
‘In that case, I’ll go shower and shave,’ Leo said in a somewhat disgruntled tone.
Violet sighed with relief when he departed the room. She did actually make herself a mug of tea, taking it out onto the balcony, which had the best view of the city. Paris certainly sparkled at night, she thought as she sat there, sipping. She could understand why people called it the city of love. It was a very romantic setting with the river running through it, crossed by the most beautiful bridges. Then there were the parks and the gardens, all wonderful places to stroll hand in hand with one’s lover.
Leo had told her the other day it was his favourite city outside of London.
‘You’ll have to come to London one day, Violet,’ he’d also said. Not a direct invitation to come and see him, just the city.
She stayed sitting out on the balcony, even after she’d drunk the tea, and despite the temperature dropping. Violet didn’t mind the cold, always having hated the hot, humid weather back home in Brisbane. Sydney’s weather was better; at least they had a winter. But she’d always fantasised about living in a place where it actually snowed. She’d never seen snow. Never touched it. Never played in it. Never skied down it.
‘What on earth are you doing out there, Violet?’ Leo said from just behind her. ‘You’ll freeze to death. And you’ve left the doors open. Come inside at once.’
Yes, master, she thought with a spurt of savage rebellion. But she still stood up and came inside, Leo shutting the French doors behind her. He was wearing the larger of the blue robes, she noted, thankful that he wasn’t strutting around in his birthday suit.
Of course, he had every reason to strut. Leo had a magnificent body for a forty-year-old. Not overly muscular but fit and lean with a wonderful shape. Broad shoulders, slim hips, tight butt and a six-pack stomach which years of obsessive rowing had produced. As for the rest of him, what could she say? Obviously he was more than adequate in that department. And he knew it!
‘I suppose I should start getting ready for dinner,’ she said. ‘I take longer than you.’
A lot longer. Violet had learnt during the last three months that good grooming took ages. Men only needed to shower and shave then throw on their clothes. Women—ones who wanted to turn heads, anyway—had so much more to attend to. Aside from hair and make-up, they had to dress correctly for the occasion. Then there was the jewellery and perfume, all designed to compliment, enhance and, yes, turn heads.
Tonight, Violet wanted to turn Leo’s head. It was her last-ditch stand. Her last throw of the dice. If
he didn’t say the things she wanted to hear tonight then it was over for her. Violet refused to waste the rest of her life running after a man who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—love her back. And she would tell him so. There would be no more hiding her feelings. No more pretending.
It would be extremely difficult, but Violet aimed to confront Leo with her love for him. Then the ball would be totally in his court.
‘The time for fun and games is over, Leo,’ she muttered under her breath as she strode purposefully into the bedroom to select her clothes for the night ahead.
Leo frowned when Violet shut the bedroom door behind her. That was the second time in the last hour that she’d shut a door on him. The logical side of his brain said it meant nothing, but the emotional side reacted very differently. He didn’t like the feeling that she was shutting him out suddenly, that she was angry with him for some reason.
He tried to work out what he’d done earlier which might have upset her, his frown deepening as he recalled what they’d got up to in bed. She hadn’t seemed to mind his tying her up again. In fact, she’d revelled in every erotically charged moment. Violet was a highly sexed girl, ready and willing to try out anything he suggested. He’d loved showing her that sex did not always have to be in the missionary position.
He’d especially loved it when she’d been happy to try some mild bondage. Most women did seem to like that. Violet certainly had, if you went by the number of times she’d come yesterday. Today had been different, of course. He’d only let her come the once. But her reaction showed it had been worth it. Delayed gratification was always way more intense.
Leo concluded their activities this afternoon were unlikely to be the problem. Which meant there was something else bothering Violet.
What was it, then?
The answer, when it came to him, had been staring him in the face. This was their last day together. Tomorrow, they would both be jetting back to their respective homes which were thousands of miles apart. Violet wasn’t angry with him personally. She was angry with fate for putting them at different ends of the earth.