The Billionaire's Christmas Bargain: Billionaires in Bondage, Book 3

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  “And if I don’t, you’ll what, punish me?”

  “Not the way you think. I’m not in a Mistress-sub relationship with you. I’m not going to commit to breaking your bad habits or teaching you a thing or two, only to have you bail on me and find some other Mistress to play with. My punishment will be much simpler: I won’t indulge your curiosity again. Ever.”

  So if he didn’t do what she wanted…she wouldn’t talk to him again. “I can live with that.”

  “All right. That’s our scene, then. I’ll describe a fantasy for you that you can play in your mind anytime you want, that will hopefully remove or at least lessen the unwanted memory you mentioned. In exchange, you’re going to use it and hopefully not be a grouch tomorrow because for once, you’ll be pleasantly relaxed and satisfied.”

  “Don’t you mean a humbug?”

  She laughed softly. “Are you giving me your safeword already?”

  “No,” he said quickly, risking a quick glance at her. Her eyes gleamed like emeralds, her hair glinting with sparkles of fire in the weak December sunlight that still managed to make his eyes water. Her lips were full and soft, curved with genuine laughter. Nothing snide or cruel in her face. Though he’d heard enough to know she could be hard when she chose. She was so unlike anyone he’d ever known. Laughing and light, but serious and knowledgeable for her age. Younger than him, but more open and accepting than anyone he’d ever met. In that way, she did remind him of Maxwell, although she looked nothing like him. He looked more like the man than his own niece.

  “If this gets to be too much for you, say your safeword. I won’t make you keep your promise then, all right? Once you’re ready to go outside the house again, I’d love to re-create a positive, sexy scene in your limo to replace that old memory you hate so much.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath, trying to relax, but his muscles were all keyed up. Faint tremors shook him from being so tight, so alert, for so long. When was the last time he’d actually relaxed without plotting his aunt’s demise? Let alone actually slept. Dozing in a chair didn’t count.

  “Close your eyes,” she whispered. “I won’t touch you. I give you my word. I’m going to build a scene in your mind. That’s all. A mini movie that you can pull out later and watch again. It’ll be all yours, Harvey. Are you ready?”

  He rolled his neck and shoulders, settling back in the chair. Too bad he hadn’t selected his father’s old leather recliner in front of the window. It would have been much more comfortable. “Yes.”

  “Picture this room in your mind. Floor-to-ceiling shelves, filled with books of all kinds. Old leather bindings, some red, some brown. Some have gold letters. See the titles if you want. Run your fingers over the spines. Smell the leather. When the fireplace is lit, it’s warm in here. Maybe a bit of smoke, enough to make you think of a campfire in the wilderness. The flames dance and sway, calling your name, flickering with your breath. The fire’s low, a gentle, soothing heat. Do you feel it on your face?”

  Her voice cast a spell on him, throwing him back in time. When he was younger, his parents were alive, and he hadn’t screwed up so badly. He remembered that picnic dinner in front of the fire, with candles lighting the dark room. Snow piled up against the windows, the wind howling outside, but this room was warm and cozy and safe. Mom and Dad were here, with Maxwell. The years pulled back like a scab, but a blissful weight slid off his shoulders. He could actually breathe without feeling that continuous dragging weight of grief.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “It’s only you and me. I’m here beside you, watching the fire. But I’m a little chilly. I throw another log on the fire and use the poker to move it. The flames are hungry. They’re already gobbling up that new piece of wood. It’s hotter in here. Your face is flushed and damp. So hot. You unbutton your shirt, but it’s still too hot. You look over at me, and I’m pulling my sweater over my head.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut tighter, just in case she really was stripping off her clothes. But then he remembered that she wasn’t wearing a sweater. She had on that scandalous maid uniform. He still couldn’t believe stuffy old Maxwell let his niece wear such a thing.

  “The fire is so pretty. I stretch out on the rug and bask in the heat and the dancing light. I kick off my shoes. Tug my jeans down. I’m not cold any longer, not with the fire blazing. Certainly not with you looking at me, dressed only in my bra and panties. Do you like my panties, Harvey?”

  He could see it so clearly. Her skin, those full, delicious curves outlined in firelight, the heat. Not just from the fire, but her. He could almost feel her body heat against his. Her skin. He hadn’t felt a woman against him in years. “The red ones.”

  “Yes, the red lace thong and the matching bra that’s made of lace, so sheer you can see my nipples through the material. They’re hard, aching, needing to be touched. I can’t help but push the lace out of the way and roll my aching nipples between my fingers. Soft, gentle touches are nice, but I really like a good, firm pinch, a tug, a twist. So good. I like to wear nipple clamps too. That first clamp feels incredible, sending a surge of need and want straight to my pussy. The pressure builds, higher than the blazing fireplace. I’m aching. So wet. I can’t stand it. What are you doing while I’m pinching my nipples?”

  It’d been so long since he’d sported wood that it took a moment for his brain to register the heavy ache in his groin as something good, not a new pain to catalog. A new scar to despise. Without touching him with anything but her sultry voice, she’d managed to give him an erection. A massive one, evidently, because his pants were miserably tight. “I want to unzip my pants. They’re too tight.”

  “Good, that’s good. So I’m lying on the rug, pinching my nipples and moaning because it feels so good. And you unzip your pants, pulling out the most gorgeous cock I’ve ever seen. I bet you’re big and thick, aren’t you, Harvey?”

  He didn’t know how to answer. Women had been happy enough with his size in the past. Hadn’t they? He really couldn’t remember. All he could think about was Kelsey lying in front of the fireplace, her hair falling loose and free, her fingers dancing over her skin. Or maybe his hands. Would he have the courage to trace the swells of her breasts and pinch her nipples? Would he dare push his fingers into the thin slip of lace over her crotch to see if she was wet?

  “I am, Harvey. I’m so wet.”

  Did he say that out loud? He couldn’t remember. His chest heaved and sweat trickled down his spine.

  “I’m not shaved. Does that bother you? Or do you like the tickle of my pubic hair on your face?”

  His brain leaped to that image. Her legs spread wide, the pink lips of her sex open and moist, soft beneath his mouth. He could almost taste the salty heat of her pussy. Feel her fingers tangled in his hair. Hear her low, desperate cries. Her skin would smell so good, spicy and sweet. Her scent made him ravenous. Like he’d walked into the kitchen and found hot cookies fresh from the oven.

  “Because I want you to taste me. I pull your face in and hold you close, wrapping my legs around your shoulders. Your tongue feels so good. You know what I like, how hard to suck. It doesn’t take you long to push me over the edge.” Her voice roughened, as if she really was on the edge of a climax. “Oh God, it feels so good. I’m shaking, crying, the climax doesn’t seem to end. You’re so hard, but you can’t come. You’re dying to come. Why can’t you come, Harvey?”

  He couldn’t answer. He was as hard as she said, panting on the very edge of release.

  “Your tongue keeps tormenting me, pushing me higher and I come again.” She gave a ragged moan that drew an echoing sound from his throat. God, he’d never been so turned on, yet so frustrated at the same time. Sweat trickled down his chest and his cock ached so bad he had to get relief. She hadn’t said he couldn’t touch himself. Had she? Did it matter?

 
; Somehow, it did.

  “I fist my hand in your hair and jerk your head up so you look into my face.” Her breathing was as loud and rapid as his now. “You’re waiting, poised, dying to hear me give you the word. Dying for me to give you permission. Come, Harvey. Come for me.”

  Someone cried out. It took him a second to realize it was him. He shuddered, the first climax in months, maybe years, scouring his brain.

  Panting, he forced his eyes open. He sprawled in the uncomfortable chair, his head lolling over his shoulder. Every muscle relaxed. It was incredible. For one blissful moment, nothing in his body hurt. Not even his heart.

  “Harvey.” Her low voice rolled over him, laden with satisfaction and something else. Like she wanted to lean close and whisper a secret into his ear. “How do you feel?”

  He managed to make a ragged sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh.

  She laughed again, but it was the good laugh. Sweet, light honey that soothed instead of shamed. “Good. That was my goal. You’ve been wound so tight, for so long, that you’d forgotten how to relax.”

  He stayed put, letting his breathing even out before he tried to get up. Strange. He would have expected to be embarrassed. After all, he’d just climaxed because a woman he’d only known a day told him a sexy story. Maybe he’d feel stupid later, but right now, the golden haze was too good to worry. “So that’s what you do for your clients?”

  “I try. Some really do want to see me masturbating using a variety of toys. Some want to see my breasts. But the majority really just want me to tell them how they’re going to come. I’ve made that my specialty.”

  “So what’s the difference?”

  Her head tipped sideways. “Between that, and what it would be like to be my dedicated sub?”

  He lifted his head and straightened so he could focus on her. “Yeah. That was my original question.”

  “That scene was for you. It was your fantasy. Your pleasure. In the end, my client has to be so happy he wants to come back, right? So I make sure each one is as relaxed and satisfied as you are right now.”

  She stood, and his heart skipped a step, but she didn’t approach him. He wasn’t sure if it was relief, or regret, that she hadn’t touched him. He’d had a weird feeling that she’d plop down in his lap and kiss him. Must be the endorphins messing with his brain.

  “If I played a scene with my sub, it’d be about my pleasure. Not necessarily sex, because most scenes don’t even need sex to provide a satisfying power exchange. I want to give an order, and have it fulfilled. Not because the sub knows I’m going to help him climax before we’re done. But because he’s mine. His greatest desire is to give me exactly what I want. Even if that means I lock his aching cock in a chastity cage and refuse him release for a month, while making him eat me out morning and night.”

  His eyes flared and he opened his mouth, but he couldn’t think of anything to say but “Wow.”

  She headed for the door, but paused and looked back over her shoulder with a sexy smirk. “Yeah, I know. I’d tell you more but I don’t want to give you nightmares.”

  “Wouldn’t be a nightmare,” he muttered. Shocked at his own rambling thought, he checked to see if she’d heard, but she kept walking out the door. Where had that crazy idea come from? “Not enough blood to my brain. That’s all.”

  The lie rang hollowly in his head.

  Chapter Ten

  Lying sucked ass.

  Determined to make herself as useful as possible—while working off some of her self-directed anger—Kelsey grabbed a dust mop and vigorously wiped down every wood floor she came across. In a house this old and this large, there was a ton of wooden flooring. With each swipe of the mop back and forth across the floor, she replayed the scene in the library. Over and over and over.

  And felt worse with each passing moment.

  She was used to making men come. That was her job, after all. But they sought her out with that intent. They were clear in what they wanted and why. This time, her client had paid for her services for someone else, who had absolutely no idea who she was and why she was here.

  High up on the third floor of the house in a quiet, dark hallway, she paused her work and leaned against the wall. She’d worked up a sweat and her breathing was faster than normal. Her back and arms burned from the exercise. But she still couldn’t forget the way he’d closed his eyes and trusted her to lead him through a good fantasy. Not the horrible memory of his friend’s mom raping him in the backseat of her limo. Yes, it’d been rape in her opinion. He hadn’t known what was happening until it was too late. Most fifteen-year-old boys might have leaped at the chance to bag a MILF but the lack of full and knowledgeable consent really bothered her. How could a kid that age really consent to a woman in her thirties or even forties? It was disgraceful.

  About as disgraceful as pretending to be a maid and luring the master of the house into a lurid fantasy.

  Would he have been so willing to close his eyes and trust her if he’d known that Gordon had hired her for the deliberate purpose of finding out if he might be into BDSM? Without his knowledge?

  Plus the sheer depth of Harvey’s issues was daunting. He was probably still suffering from PTSD after the accident. He’d certainly avoided the grief of losing both of his parents and his own guilt, whether real or assumed, in their death. He was agoraphobic, physically scarred from the accident, and likely still dealing with pain and changes to his abilities. Not to mention old past trauma that he’d never dealt with. Whether he was submissive seemed trivial in the face of all his issues and needs.

  Although understanding the core of his needs would definitely help in his full recovery.

  “Argh!” She pushed away from the wall and grabbed the mop.

  “I know,” Gordon said, startling her. She hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs. “He does that to me too.”

  Squaring her shoulders, she met his gaze and braced for his reaction. “I just made him come without touching him and I feel like crap for lying about why I’m here.”

  Gordon’s eyes flared and he choked back a laugh. “So that’s why he changed his clothes again. Twice in two days is a new record, I think.”

  “We need to tell him why I’m here before things get out of hand.”

  “Not yet,” Gordon said quickly. He stepped closer and laid a hand on her arm. “He needs more time.”

  “I can’t keep lying to him.”

  “I know. Believe me, I don’t like hiding this from him either, but it’s our only shot. Have you seen enough to point him down the path to finding his own Domme?”

  “He’s interested and curious, but submissive? I don’t know yet. He was thrown off guard by my little demonstration, but it’s been long enough for him that it wouldn’t take much, you know? I can’t use that one scene to tell you he’s definitely submissive and he needs to be learning more about the lifestyle.” Kelsey sighed. “He’ll forgive you for just about anything, but he’s had enough bad experiences with women. I don’t want to be yet another memory that haunts him.”

  Gordon’s eyes narrowed. “What bad experiences?”

  “He didn’t tell you about Mrs. Willingham?”

  “Who?”

  “He was fifteen. The woman was the mother of a friend of his at school.”

  Gordon shook his head. “I vaguely remember the Willinghams but they moved ages ago. What happened?”

  “I don’t want to betray his confidence, but the experience still haunts him.”

  “So you’re afraid he’ll hate you forever because you misled him a few days?” Gordon laughed. “If anything, he’ll be pissed at me, not you.”

  “But he loves you.” Gordon’s laughter faded and he looked at her with a more calculated focus. Maybe she’d had a tiny bit of wistfulness in her voice, because no one but Mom had ever loved her. But she sure didn’t need Gordon g
etting ideas about her and Harvey. He looked at her now as if he were moving her from one square on the board to another, another pawn at his disposal if that made Harvey happy. That pissed her off, because no one played with her or used her. No one. “A submissive can form a very strong attachment to his first Mistress. You ought to know that.”

  She’d managed to knock him off balance a little. He straightened and tugged on his sleeve, his fingers running over the gold cufflinks on his perfectly pressed white linen dress shirt. “Me? Why would you say that?”

  “She gave those cufflinks to you.” She nodded at his hands and he quickly folded his hands together to still his movements. “I’m not sure who she was, but I’m guessing you had a thing for Mrs. Caine.”

  Gordon bowed his head, a tower collapsing in on itself. All his defenses came down and his shoulders shook. Kelsey stepped closer and laid her hand on his shoulder soothingly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Not at all.” He pulled out a monogrammed kerchief and wiped his eyes. She only caught a glimpse of it, but she was pretty sure it was a fancy C. “It’s just…” His voice broke and he cleared his throat. “Losing them was like losing half my soul, but I couldn’t grieve. I had to take care of Harvey. He needed me more than ever, and if I fell apart, who was going to keep him from giving up entirely? You’re wrong though.”

  He laughed self-consciously and rubbed his thumb over the embroidery. “I had a thing for Mr. Caine, at least initially. Over the years, it became something much more.”

  Oh wow. Suddenly Kelsey could hear soap opera music playing in her head. This was way more complicated than she’d even begun to imagine. Gordon and Mr. Caine… Harvey’s father? And if Melissa had been the dominant… “She became your Domme too.”

  Gordon nodded. “And then much more over the years. I loved them both. Harvey never suspected a thing to my knowledge. We were very discreet.” He sucked in a deep, shaking breath. “She was my first and only Domme, so I do get what you’re saying.”