a figment of her imagination and he would disappear if she let go.
Just when she began to feel light-headed from lack of oxygen and the intensity of the sensations assaulting her, he released her, took a step back, and grasped the chain connecting her manacled wrists.
“Come, little one, this night is ours.”
Keeping a secure grip on the chain, thus keeping her at his side, they went down the hallway and into the large dining room which had been converted into a ballroom for the grand opening. They paused near the row of lace covered French doors which made up the back wall of the room. Retrieving a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, he handed it to Tessa before surveying the assembled, elaborately costumed guests.
Although Tessa found it difficult to pull her gaze from the incredibly handsome man at her side, but curious as to what Jessica was up to, she too glanced around the crowded room. Locating her friend wasn’t difficult. Leave it up to Jessica to improvise upon the role she was supposed to be playing. Instead of being one of many in a harem, Jess was acting like a queen holding court over her own male harem of willing subjects. Among the other guests, Tessa spotted Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Sampson and Delilah, Romeo and Juliet, and then there were the singles such as the cowboy, the cop, Madonna, and Marilyn Monroe, just to name a few.
He reached toward the table and snatched a full bottle of champagne. “We’re out of here.” He opened the French door nearest them and pulled her onto the deserted patio.
It was an unseasonably warm night for late October, with only a slight chill in the air. Despite the strapless top she was wearing, Tessa didn’t feel the cold, she felt warmed from the inside out. Even though he still had a hold on the chain between her bound wrists, it didn’t even occur to Tessa to question where they were going or what he had in mind as he continued across the balcony, down the steps, and onto the lawn. She would have followed him with or without the confining chain.
Instead of finding the prickly, damp, grass beneath her bare feet uncomfortable, she found the sensation stimulating, almost erotic. Everything about this night was erotic. He paused beside the splashing, dimly lit fountain on the back lawn.
Inside, the band switched to slow and romantic. The old song Stardust was unmistakable. He sat the bottle on the fountain’s concrete ledge, laced the chain behind his neck, and took her into his arms. On the lawn beneath stars which were so brilliant, Tessa felt as if she could reach up and touch them, they danced to the romantic melodies filtering from the mansion onto the lawn.
When the band stopped playing, no doubt time for a break, he gripped her waist and lifted
her to sit upon the ledge of the fountain. Popping the cork on the champagne bottle, his eyes never left hers as he tipped the bottle and took a drink then held the bottle to her lips. Tessa took a drink and still he held the bottle to her lips until champagne dripped from her mouth, down her neck and onto her chest. Only then did he set the bottle aside. Gripping her shoulders, he kissed the excess champagne from her lips. The night air had chilled the liquid upon her flesh, making his tongue seem almost hot by comparison. Her head dropped back, giving him easy access as his tongue licked the champagne from her neck, across the swell of her breasts, and into the cleavage between.
Tessa couldn’t restrain the moan which escaped her parted lips. His hands slid slowly down her arms to her waist, then upward. She held her breath, anticipating the feel of his hands upon her passion swollen breasts which were straining against the tight confines of the restrictive corset. Instead of touching her as she expected, his fingers toyed with the bow between her breasts. The bow which secured the ribbon that laced up the corset. Gently, too gently, too slowly, he tugged at the ends, and the bow came apart. He pulled the ribbon from the hooks one at a time until her top was loose enough he could pull it apart and expose her breasts to his gaze and to the night air. Her nipples, which had already hardened, became almost painfully so.
“You are so incredibly beautiful,” he whispered. At last he gave her the pleasure of feeling his hands upon her. His thumbs rubbed back and forth against her sensitized nipples.
“Oh God,” Tessa gasped helplessly as her insides coiled into knots of tension.
“I’m going to make love to you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” Tessa responded without reservation.
“If you don’t want this, if you have any doubts, tell me now. If I go any further, there will be no stopping.”
Tessa’s gave him a wordless response to his question. She draped the chain behind his neck, as he had done while they were dancing, and raised her lips to his. This kiss was even more intense than the one they had shared in the library, which didn’t seem possible. Tessa was lost in a mind numbing haze of passion, so caught up in the sensations he aroused within her she was incapable of refusing this man anything. He could take her here upon the fountain, on the damp grass, or against a tree, she didn’t care. She only knew she needed this man with every fiber of her being, and she needed him soon, or she was sure the heart thundering within her chest would explode from the exertion.
He scooped her up into his arms, picked up the champagne bottle, and carried her toward the mansion. Bypassing the French doors on the patio, he went through a side door and up a second staircase. Once they were inside a bedroom illuminated by only the fire in the fireplace and candles flickering within multi-faceted crystal containers, he closed the door with his foot.
He carried her across the room and slowly lowered her to her feet in front of a standing, full-length, oval mirror framed in a gleaming oak.
“Give me the key, and I’ll remove the manacles,” he offered.
“I don’t have it.”
He groaned deep in his throat, then favored her with a deliberately sinister grin. “It looks like you are at my mercy, to do with as I please.”
“Yes, I guess I am,” Tessa admitted.
He leaned down and kissed her gently. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” was the only response she was capable of giving. It was a response he rewarded with another gentle kiss before he stepped behind her and removed his shirt.
His hands went to the knot holding her mask in place, and she stiffened instinctively.
“I know who you are, Tessa. I would know you anywhere,” he informed her then removed the blindfold type mask. “I want to watch your face, your eyes, when I touch you.” He was quiet, waiting to see if, unmasked, her inhibitions would take over. They didn’t. Tessa held her ground.
With a sigh of satisfaction, he reached around her, gripped her wrists, and pulled her arms up and back until the chain was once again draped behind his neck, the position of her arms forcing her breasts forward.
“Don’t move,” he instructed. His hands went to her waist where he released the button on her skirt and let it fall to the floor, leaving her standing before him and the mirror in only a partially unlaced corset and a skimpy pair of bikini panties. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against his chest. “Keep your eyes opened, Tessa. I want you to watch what I do to you. I want you to see how beautiful you are.”
Tessa did as she was told. She watched as his hands completed the task of unlacing the corset, and it too joined her skirt upon the floor. She watched as his hands covered and caressed her breasts, watched as his thumbs and forefingers teased and tugged at her nipples until he had her moaning and gasping for breath.
Then his hands moved lower, caressing the flesh of her rib cage, her flat stomach, and into the sides of her bikini panties, and began sliding them down her hips.
“Don’t move,” he reminded her as he nipped gently at the nape of her neck, kissed down her spine, until the final barrier was at her ankles. And still she stood as instructed, her arms raised, bent at the elbow, the chain cool against her spine where the flesh had been heated by his lips. He tugged at her panties, indicating that she step free. As he rose slowly behind her, his hands slid up her calves and up the ins
ides of her thighs until he stood with his arms around her, his thumbs barely touching the dark curls between her legs.
His tongue slid across her shoulder and up the side of her neck, then his heated gaze caught and held hers within the mirror. Exerting pressure on her thighs, he forced her to widen her stance to give him easier access. Tessa gasped as one hand covered her, then moaned as a finger slipped inside. Her legs nearly gave out, forcing him to move his other arm across her chest to hold her upright.
“You are so tight. So hot and wet for me. Watch yourself as I make you come,” he whispered in her ear. Although still clothed to the waist, he pressed his erection between her buttocks, forcing her to squirm back against him. The hand at her chest closed over her breast. The hand between her legs inserted a second finger into her and began to move. Her breathing became ragged as Tessa felt herself climb toward the first orgasm of her life.
“Oh yes, that’s it,” he crooned against her ear. “Don’t struggle for it. Just relax ,and let me take you there.”
Tessa didn’t recognize herself as the gasping woman wantonly arching herself against the hand between her spread legs.
“Now, Tessa. Let it go. Come for me, now,” he ordered. He pressed into her from behind, his hand squeezed her breast, and he pushed his fingers into her as hard and as deep as they would go.
And she did. He kept with her, drawing it out until she slumped back against him, spent.
Grasping her wrists, he lowered her arms then picked her up and carried her to the bed, sitting her gently on the edge. Standing before her, he removed his boots and his socks. Then his hands went to his belt, unfastening it slowly as she watched. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband and pushed down britches and undershorts in one steady glide. Rising, he stood confident and erect before her startled gaze. She knew a man wasn’t thought of as beautiful, but to her eyes he was. Just as she had known he would be. She just hadn’t expected him to be so . . . large. Remembering how painful her last experience had been, Tessa was unable to disguise the uncertainty in her eyes.
“Trust me not to hurt you,” he assured her as he moved closer. “Touch me,” he coaxed.
Tessa reached out, and he grasped the chain, guiding her hands until they closed around the hot, hard flesh of his erection. His soft moan excited her all over again and gave her the confidence to explore him further. She slid one hand up the length of him and the other downward to cup him in her palm. With the tip of her finger, she spread the moisture beading the tip and exerted a little pressure with both hands. He gasped and thrust instinctively in her hands. Realizing she affected him as strongly as he affected her was a heady sensation. She was no longer uneasy. She was hot again, and she wanted, needed more.
Doing something she had never imagined she would willing do with any man, Tessa leaned
forward and took him between her lips. Using her lips and tongue, she took him as deep as she could comfortably take him. His fingers slid into her hair and guided her movements.
“Oh, God,” he gasped, his breathing becoming as ragged as hers had been. Noting the quivering in his thighs, Tessa recognized the power she possessed for the first time. Emboldened, she doubled her efforts, determined to do for him what he had done for her.
“Stop, Tessa,” he ordered. When she didn’t obey immediately, he used her hair for leverage and pulled her away from him. That he was struggling for control was obvious in the tautness of his muscles, his erratic breathing, and the muscle twitching in his clenched jaw.
Gripping her by the waist, he moved her up onto the bed until her head was on the pillows. Grasping both wrists in one hand, he lifted her arms and slipped the chain over one of the wooded spindles on the headboard.
Moving between her legs, he forced them apart with his knees. His hands went to her breasts, no longer gentle but strong and forceful without being painful. His head swooped downward, his lips grazing but barely touching hers. She turned her head seeking contact, but he eluded her.
“Don’t move a muscle,” he commanded. Again his lips barely grazed hers, then returned tempting and teasing until she found herself straining to make contact despite her bonds and his instructions not to move. His tongue snaked out to trace the outline of her lips, then the seam between. Her lips parted to admit his, but he pulled away. Every time he leaned forward to tease her with his lips, his erection brushed against the place where she suddenly needed him desperately. She instinctively arched upward in an attempt to encourage him to enter her.
He slid further down the bed, focusing on her breasts. At first he teased her nipples with his tongue, occasionally pulling her gently into the hot wetness of his mouth to suckle gently. She didn’t want gentle and slow. He was driving her crazy. In this he let her have her way. He nipped at her nipple with his teeth, the sensation just on the pleasure side of pain, and she went wild beneath him.
“You like that, don’t you?” he taunted, redoubling his efforts on her breasts. He squeezed and caressed one breast while he sucked forcefully on the other. Tessa’s womb began to clench and unclench within her.
“Please,” she gasped. “I can’t take any more.”
“Yes, you can,” he insisted. To prove his point, he slid further down on the bed until he looked up at her from between her legs. His tongue snaked out and flicked at the sensitized bud, and Tessa jerked as if an electrical current had been shot through her. Showing no mercy, his lips closed around the bud which he alternately suckled gently and flicked with his tongue.
Tessa’s climb toward climax was rapid and intense. Just when she reached the peak ready to fall, he pulled back, leaving her suspended.
Moving up the bed, he positioned himself before leaning down and kissing her gently. “You’re wonderful,” he whispered as he pressed barely a couple of inches into her. Watching her response, he paused to give her body time to adjust to his size.
It wasn’t nearly enough for Tessa. She had come this far, and she wanted it all. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she pulled him in deeper then gasped at the uncomfortable sensation of fullness stretching her insides.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he cautioned. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just relax, and let me take care of you.”
She tried to do as he instructed, but the full sensation was rapidly giving way to another climb toward orgasm. Again she arched into him and attempted to pull him in deeper with her legs. He didn’t resist her a second time, thrusting forward forcefully he buried himself to the hilt inside her. It only took two thrusts, and she was there, screaming with the intensity of her orgasm.
He held himself rigid until the last spasms of her orgasm passed and she lay relaxed and sated beneath him. Only then did he begin a slow, steady rhythm within her. Tessa’s eyes snapped opened, her expression one of surprise.
“This time, we make love,” he informed her, then proceeded to do exactly that.
Tessa had no idea when he removed the chain from the headboard, in fact, he had somehow removed the manacles altogether which gave her the freedom to touch and caress him, just as he caressed her heated flesh. They made love and drank champagne from the bottle and from each other’s flesh and made love again, until she slipped into a sated, contented sleep in his arms.
Tessa turned in her sleep and woke to the sensation of something tickling her nose. Opening her eyes, she found a single daisy lying upon the pillow beside her. Before she’d fallen asleep, she had somehow known he would be gone when she woke.
Rising from the bed, Tessa quickly dressed and surveyed her disheveled appearance within the oval standing mirror. Her long dark hair which had taken Jessica so long to style into a rumpled, windblown look, now appeared naturally so from hours of lovemaking. In her left hand she held the manacles and in her right she held the blindfold styled mask and realized how symbolic they both seemed at this moment.
Jessica had been right. It was ironic that she’d had to come to a masquerade ball dressed as The Captive, to make her understand that most of her l
ife she had been a subservient, willing captive to other people’s expectations of her, without taking into consideration her own wants, needs, and desires. As The Captive, she hadn’t been playing a role at all, she’d seen herself clearly for the first time. From early childhood, she had believed that to be loved and accepted she had to be what others expected rather than to be who she really was. The problem was, she had played the role so long she no longer knew where Ms. Prim and Proper ended and the real Tessa Brandt began.
Her Phantom Lover had removed her shackles both literally and figuratively. As a result of this one fantasy interlude, Tessa knew she could no longer settle for the complacent, safe existence she had been living. It wouldn’t be like the sarcastic retort she had tossed at her friend earlier, she didn’t become Cinderella at the stroke of midnight with her life magically changed
forever. She was realistic enough to know it would take time. Though remembering the uninhibited passion she had shared, Tessa certainly felt like a somewhat wanton version of Cinderella at this moment. She had never felt so free nor so alive.
With a defiant toss of her head, Tessa stuffed both the manacles and the mask into her handbag, stuck the daisy into her hair, and went in search of her friend.
She found Jessica in the library pacing up and down in front of a desk, the phone glued to her ear as if she was determined not to hang up until someone picked up at the other end. When Tessa entered the room, Jess dropped the receiver onto the cradle. “Where the hell have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been frantic. When I didn’t see you in the ballroom, I figured you got cold feet and split. I’ve phoned your house every half hour for the past three hours.”
“I’ve been here all the time,” Tessa remarked casually.
“I looked everywhere for you, short of peeking in every closed bedroom d . . . door?” Jessica concluded then gasped, “Oh, my God, you got lucky!”
The Phantom Lover Page 2