The sound of her sucking in a breath echoed against the stone walls.
“Would you like to know how I’m going to punish you?” He poured a glass from the first bottle and moved right up beside her.
Her head bobbed in a circular movement, a mixture of yes and no.
He leaned down, very close to her, and dipped his finger into the glass of wine before running it along her lips. Whispering in her ear, he said, “First I’m going to taste you.” He licked the sheen of wine off her lips. “Then I’ll drink from you.” He poured a tiny bit of wine between her parted lips and before she could swallow, he fixed his mouth to hers and drank the wine from her mouth. “Suck you.” He poured a little pool in the hollow at the base of her neck and bent to suck. Wine and flesh. So fucking delicious.
“And finally?” Luca caressed her cheek, drew his fingers down her throat, between her breasts, past her belly until his hand cupped the top of her mound. “I’m going to eat you.”
* * *
It was like Luca had attached electrodes to all her best bits—her nipples, her clit, her mouth, her ass—and sent thousands of volts of electricity through her, because her entire body went rigid with the shock of desire.
Never had she imagined she could feel this way. Not even close.
He dribbled wine—a delicious white—into her mouth, down her chin and throat and across her breasts.
“I’m starting with a chenin blanc. This is a new wine I purchased in town. Fresh.” He licked her neck and whispered, “Fruity.” He circled her breasts. “Exquisite.”
It was all made so much better by the fact she was blindfolded. And tied down. All she could do was lie there and feel. The pressure of his tongue, the warmth of his mouth, the abrasion from his teeth. The suction.
God.
She heard the glug-glug of more wine being poured—was it from a new bottle?—and then Luca moved up by her head. “Do you have any idea how hard you made me when I was chasing you?”
She shook her head.
He untied the cloth from the grate, directed her still-bound hands close to him and then placed them against his crotch. Oh! He was monstrous. Luca ground her hands against him before finally, with a groan, drawing them away. That was when he dipped her fingers into cool liquid and stuck them in his mouth. His tongue ran between her digits, lapping at her before sucking.
Hard.
His mouth was so warm and soft inside. She wanted more but instead he stopped. She made a sound of protest but he once again tied her hands to the grate above her head, anyway.
“I think I need to torture you a little more,” he whispered before dripping wine down her inner arm, catching the trail with his mouth. He poured some onto her breasts and sucked it off the sides, the place between...then right off the tips of her tight nipples.
She moaned in ecstasy when he chewed gently on those tips, like they’d been marinated.
“Do you have any idea how much I want you right now?”
“Luca,” she moaned.
He pressed a finger to her mouth. “Shh. This is a sauvignon blanc from this cellar. It’s fifteen years old, which some think is too old, but I think is perfect. Do you want a taste?”
She nodded, and he carefully spilled some wine into her mouth. It could have been vinegar and it still would have tasted amazing. But it wasn’t vinegar. It was the most heavenly wine she’d ever tasted.
Luca moved away again and Jasmine strained to hear what he was doing. Ahh, pouring more wine. How many bottles? She couldn’t remember. She’d been too taken by the fantasy of being lugged—kicking and screaming—down into a cellar by her shirtless savage.
The mere thought of the short-lived chase sent a fresh wave of blood to her clit, resulting in a heady throbbing sensation that made her writhe.
“This is one of the estate’s finest. A pinot noir. There used to be many pinot grapes in the region. Now they are rare.” He poured this wine on her stomach, and Jasmine could feel it pooling in the indent of her navel and spill over her sides. “Just like you.” He sipped from her skin.
He was getting so close to where she wanted him that, even with her limbs secured, Jasmine lifted her hips, forcing her midsection toward him.
“Ah...my little captive...”
Right. She was supposed to be fighting him. Well, it was her fucking fantasy. She could do whatever the hell she wanted, and right now she wanted to encourage him to suck the throbbing place between her legs that was in desperate need of release.
He slid damp fingers over her mound to the swollen flesh at the top. He pinched and she cried out. “Is this what you want Jasmine?”
She squirmed, feeling completely exposed with her legs pulled apart.
“You want me to touch you here? Pour wine over you? Suck it off you?”
She whispered, “Yes. Oh, God, yes.”
But did Luca grant her wish? Maybe he wasn’t a genie, after all. He poured wine on her thighs, on her belly, her knees and lapped it all up, but he avoided the place she wanted him most.
“Please, Luca,” she moaned.
“Please what?”
“Please touch me.”
“Like this?” He flicked his finger briefly across her clit and she moaned in frustration.
“Harder.”
“Like this?” He pressed down with his thumb, moving her clit around in firm circles.
“More. Please.” She was panting now. Panting because it felt so good, panting because she knew it would soon feel even better and panting because she couldn’t see and had no idea what he was going to do next.
Starting at the top of her mound, something thick and cool trickled down over her clit, between her folds, and Jasmine even felt slick coolness entering her.
“This is my dessert wine. The grapes were picked by hand. It is made only for the family.” He licked the spot just above her clit. “Very rare.” Now he sucked her clit into his mouth. “And it’s never tasted better.”
With strong hands on her thighs, Luca finally bent his head to her—oh, she wished she could see. He started off gently, just making passes with his tongue. But that didn’t last long. Thank God. His fingers dug into her flesh as his mouth consumed her. Licking, sucking, penetrating...
Jasmine raised her head from the bedding as if to watch. She couldn’t see but her imagination filled in the blanks. Luca’s thick, dark hair, bobbing between her thighs. The veins on his hands popping with the strain of holding her. A different angle now, as he moved to flick her clit with his tongue, raising his gaze to catch hers, a wicked smile in his eyes as he tortured her with his mouth.
Oh!
His mouth became brutal. Licking and biting, nipping at her folds and holding them between his teeth as he slipped a finger inside of her. Jasmine felt an orgasm building along her buttocks and spine; it was a deep one, but for some reason, she wanted to stave it off. This was all too good. It couldn’t end yet.
“Come for me Jasmine. I need you to come.” Luca growled as he plunged more than one finger inside of her.
“No,” she moaned, rolling her head from side to side. “Not yet.”
“Yes.” He slammed his fingers inside, wriggling them back and forth against her walls. “Right now.”
Despite Jasmine’s efforts to keep her orgasm at bay, her body had other ideas. Contractions starting from the backs of her knees joined forces with the mounting pressure at the base of her spine, tightening her abdomen and her ass, and pulling on her innards as if to bring everything inside her body together, only to blow them apart again.
But they didn’t blow...not yet.
She cried out with the massive orgasm that was lurking so close to the surface. “Luca!” She screamed his name over and over again.
He grunted and stopped what he was doing.
No!
But then the ties
on her legs were loosened and she could move, not that she wanted to. Then her hands were released from the grate and he tore off the other ties that had bound her hands together.
The blindfold remained.
He pulled her off the table onto her feet, turned her around and pushed down on her back, bending her over. “I need to be inside of you,” he grunted.
And then he was. So fucking deep.
That’s all it took for her to shatter.
Jasmine could barely support herself as her body disintegrated with pleasure while Luca drove into her from behind, again and again, harder and harder, deeper and deeper. And just when she thought she was coming down from her orgasmic rapture, Luca cried out, held her hips flush against his and erupted inside of her.
Jasmine came all over again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LUCA COULDN’T REMEMBER enjoying a day so much. After the cellar, they took the opened wine bottles to the kitchen and cooked a meal together while finishing off a couple of the vintages. During dinner, he’d inquired about any other fantasies she might have hidden deep inside of that deceivingly innocent exterior.
“Well, there is this one where we’re in a public place...a museum or something.”
“Really?” He leaned close to kiss her neck. “You never cease to surprise.”
Now they sat in the living room, a fire crackling in the fireplace to foil the dampness of the evening. There was no television, at least not a working one, and they cuddled on the couch while Luca read out loud from a book of short stories. The one he’d chosen was called, La Vénus d’Ille. He would read a passage in French—Jasmine had insisted, said his reading in French was turning her on—and then would translate it for her.
It was an old story about a bronze statue of Venus that was cursed, came to life and eventually killed a young man who was about to be wed by taking his wife’s place in the marital bed. It ended with the statue being melted down into a bell, which then cursed the village with poor crops.
Jasmine sat up at the end of the story, a frown marring her features. “What kind of story is that?”
“A classic French tale.”
“But it’s so tragic.”
“Not all stories have happy endings.” Luca closed the book and put it down on the table.
Jasmine took his hand and threaded her fingers though his. “They should.” She turned her head to him.
“Don’t tell me you believe in happy endings.”
“Of course I do.”
He was about to say something about the fact that her engagement had not had a happy ending, but decided not to. Instead, he cupped her chin and kissed her. There was something so endearing about her optimism. Even if it was misguided.
“Luca,” she said, after they broke apart. Her eyes were large and full of something that wasn’t lust. For once. What was it? Curiosity? Concern?
Shit.
“I’ve told you all about me. I’ve even told you some of my darkest fantasies...” She rubbed his fingers. “But I still don’t know anything about you.”
She was right. He’d barely told her anything. Not about who he really was, not about why he was hiding out. He hadn’t even come clean about how he’d met her. Why? Because he was still afraid she would expose him?
He wasn’t afraid anymore.
“What do you want to know?”
Jasmine chewed on her bottom lip. “How about we start with this place. Who’s is it, really?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know where everything is. You know all about the wine stored in the cellar. You know about the boats and the old cars in the garage and—”
“You’re right,” he interrupted. “This house belonged to my mother. When she and my father married, she kept this as our summer house. Every summer, I came here with her while my father worked.”
“Where are your parents now?”
“Dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She squeezed his hand. “When did they die?”
“My father died about a year ago.” He glanced around at the walls of his mother’s house as if they were listening, too. “My mother died when I was sixteen. It was a car accident.” He turned his gaze back to Jasmine. “I was driving.”
He’d never told anyone before. It was strange how easily it came out.
“Oh, Luca. I’m so sorry.”
He caught the hand that was about to stroke his cheek and held it aloft. “My father never forgave me. At least, I don’t think he did. I never had the chance to ask.”
“Luca...”
From somewhere down the hall, a telephone rang. It was such an out-of-place sound, both he and Jasmine jumped, as if it wasn’t an everyday noise but a message from ghosts of his past.
Luca pushed off the couch and strode down the hall to where he’d left his phone in the bedroom. The call went to voice mail but he recognized the number. François.
Luca immediately called him back and heard the relief in François’s voice.
“Good news,” François said. “You can come out of hiding.”
“What’s going on?”
“Prices are up and we’ve pushed the date of the sale of the Legrand Goût des Rubis to tomorrow. I need you in Paris for the press conference. Show the board you can handle it and I think we can sway favor your way.”
“Press conference? Wait, how do you know I’m not in Paris?”
“Luca, I’ve known you all my life. There’s only one place you’d go after the paparazzi fiasco last week.”
Of course François would know where he was. He’d worked for the family for decades.
“So,” François hedged. “What did you do about the woman?”
Luca glanced toward the door. “She’s still here, with me.”
He could hear the disapproval dripping through the silence on the line. Finally, François said, “Press conference is at eleven tomorrow morning. You need to get rid of her by then.”
“Get rid of her? What do you mean?”
“Take her to the police station. There’s one a few blocks from the hotel where we’re holding the conference. Let her figure it out from there. She is not your responsibility, Luca. You can’t risk another scandal, not tomorrow of all days. Do you understand?”
“Of course,” Luca said, though he wasn’t exactly sure how Jasmine was a scandal.
He hung up the phone and stood in the dim silence of the room for a moment. This was good news. He should feel elated. He could return to his normal life, a week earlier than expected, no less. Yet it all came with a strange heaviness.
This week had been...un-fucking-believable. Jasmine was un-fucking-believable. But it wasn’t real. It was just like he’d tried to explain to her not twenty minutes ago. Real life had no happily-ever-afters. Life was nothing more than a combination of events: some happy, some sad, most in-between. And then?
It all ended.
While this last week had been one of the happiest he’d ever experienced, like everything in life, it had to end.
* * *
He was taking her back to Paris. Just like that. After the most monumental day of her life...it was all coming to an end.
After the phone call, Luca had returned and proceeded to explain that he needed to return to Paris and that it was time she return to her life, too. Their “fairy tale” existence—if sex several times a day was a fairy tale—had come to an end. Then he’d taken her hand, led her to the bedroom and made love to her.
One last time.
Sometime in the night he’d gotten up and slept in the other bedroom, leaving her alone.
“What did you expect, Jazz?” she whispered to herself as she reached across the empty side of the bed. “Did you really think he’d invite you to stay? Did you think this was anything more than a holiday tryst?”
> Yes.
It was true. Last night, before the phone call, Luca had finally opened up to her. For a brief moment, she’d entertained ideas about sharing a life with him. God, she was such a hopeless romantic. She’d been living in a fantasy world, and even if this fantasy world was so much better than any she’d been able to construct in her imagination, it didn’t change the fact that it wasn’t real and never had been.
After barely sleeping, Jasmine decided to get up once the sun peeked through the drapes. Time to face the day she’d secretly hoped would never come. She showered and made her way to the kitchen to start the coffee. There was an old stovetop espresso maker—a moka pot?—that made the best coffee.
She gazed around at the kitchen. Old cabinetry, an old gas stove that was finicky, a refrigerator that was barely larger than a bar-sized one she had at home.
Home?
Where the hell was her home?
She had none.
She’d lived with Parker for two years of their three-year relationship, and while his penthouse apartment was ultramodern, with all the conveniences she could ask for, she felt more at home here in this outdated kitchen than she ever had in Chicago.
“That must be the sex talking,” she muttered as she turned on another burner to fry up some eggs. Luca was right. It was time she stopped avoiding her life and face what had happened back in Chicago. It was time she found herself.
The hard part was, she’d never felt more like herself than she did right here.
A noise from the hall had her turning around. Luca stood in the doorway of the kitchen. At least...she thought it was Luca.
“Your beard. You shaved it.”
“Yes.”
But it was more than his clean-shaven face that made him appear different. His black curls had been slicked back in a way she’d never seen before. He wore clean jeans and a button-down shirt that had been pressed. There was almost nothing about this man that resembled the sexy brute who had pursued her—and captured her—yesterday.
Nothing except his eyes.
Pleasure Games Page 14