PerpetualPleasure

by Dita Parker

  Whatever Lucie was or wasn’t had kept him up at night and bothered him during the day all fucking week. It didn’t matter his mind was already cluttered with the work waiting for him back on the west coast, the upcoming Scottish Games, worry over Boyd’s ailing health and his brother and sister-in-law thrashing between hope and despair as they dealt with secondary infertility.

  The enigma Lucie was, the challenge she posed, the combination of strength and vulnerability he sensed in her and found appealing to no end pierced through the work and the worry and left him wondering. Left him absolutely obsessed to meet her again, talk to her some more and finish what they’d started at his great-uncle’s.

  Mac pulled beneath the portico and climbed out to open the door for her.

  He offered her the car key.

  “Thank you kindly.”

  God he’d missed that voice. That smoky, luxurious voice and that hot little mouth. He wanted that sweet mouth all over him. But not before he’d tasted all of her.

  Mac followed her up the sweeping stairs. Lucie opened the door, prodding him inside before switching on the center hall lights. Heels clicking on the well-worn parquet floor, she moved to throw her purse on a sideboard leaving him staring down the corridor.

  A row of doors, some shut, some open, lay on both sides of the long hall that led to double doors at the far end. He would have bet those doors opened to a garden and the river, that fields had once grown where the forest now stood, and that the house was originally a plantation home.

  “You live here alone?” he asked.

  Without looking back at him, Lucie started down the hall. “This house belonged to my parents. It’s mine now.”

  Several thoughts assailed him at once as he followed her. In true Savannahian form, the rooms they passed weren’t done in any particular style. They mixed up a range of different periods he couldn’t name but which screamed refinement without a hint of pretension.

  It wasn’t a museum, it was a home, her home, yet he couldn’t help but notice the heavy stillness that surrounded him, everything. It was the feel of an empty house. Thoroughly lived in, maybe, but somehow desolate.

  “You must have an army of housekeepers and groundkeepers and whatever else people like you have to keep this baby up and running.”

  “People like me?” Lucie glanced at him over her shoulder.

  “Old Southern money.”

  “My father won the lot at cards,” she said, her stare as level as her tone.

  Mac gave a low whistle. “That must have been some game.” And she’d evaded his original question. If anything, she raised others with her clipped, cryptic answers. Her father had won the lot? Did she mean “house”, because the building must have sat where it lay for a couple of centuries.

  Lucie led him through a wide, arched doorway into an eclectic sitting room of tall mirrors, drawn heavy draperies and a huge chandelier that looked like a frozen waterfall. If it hadn’t been for the shades of gold and crimson shimmering on the walls and carpets, the massive leather and mahogany furniture would have made the room oppressive.

  “Scotch?” she asked.

  “Bourbon, please. If you have any.” He took the seat she motioned at.

  Moving to the bar set up on a heavily carved sideboard, Lucie asked, “How long are you planning on staying in town?”

  Interesting. Did she really want to know or was she only making conversation? “That depends,” he said.

  She turned to face him. “On…”

  “The circumstances,” he stymied, nodding at the bourbon she offered.

  “Which are?” She offered him the glass and sat in a chesterfield across him, pulling her dark-denim-clad legs underneath her.

  “Complicated.” And getting more intriguing by the second, Mac thought as he watched her take a healthy sip of the fiery liquid and swallow greedily before she shot him a heated glance and downed the bourbon in one gulp.

  She looked more confident and collected than she had back at the club, and as sexy and enticing as ever. She didn’t question him further or volunteer any information as to what she was thinking or feeling, her stare making him uneasy in its intensity.

  Before MacCale could dwell on what exactly made him so restive about her expression, Lucie had set aside the glass, gotten up, walked over to where he sat and straddled his lap without saying a word.

  Following her lead, Mac threw back the shot, put away the glass and cupped her bottom to knead her softly.

  Lucie put her mouth close to his and gave his lower lip a tentative lick. “Now that we have the nightcap covered, would you like to follow me upstairs and have that late-night snack?”

  Whoa. Okay. Someone was in a hurry.

  She gave him a firmer lick that had him tightening his hold on her. Hands going to her hips, Mac pressed her mound against his crotch and went for her mouth. She quickly retreated but he didn’t relinquish his hold, only tortured them both a little with the bulge he ground against her. She could no doubt feel it, even through the rough fabric of her jeans.

  “Upstairs. Now,” Lucie breathed. She was definitely feeling it.

  “Hold on tight, honey.” Lucie wrapped her legs around him as Mac stood and balanced her in his arms. She hailed him to the narrow staircase at the back end of the entrance hall, up a flight and down yet another corridor lined with a string of rooms he didn’t have time to inspect.

  Her bedroom was the only room that interested him at the moment. The mistress of the house plain fascinated him.

  “Stop. We’re here. No, the other side.”

  Still firmly in his arms, Lucie reached out to open the door. Mac stepped inside and closed the door behind them with his foot, Lucie reaching over his shoulder to snap on the lights.

  The room was more comfortable and personal than anything he’d seen downstairs, dominated by a monster of a canopied four-poster bed at one end and a stately mantel at the other. The room still managed to fit both a dressing table filled with feminine paraphernalia and a writing desk overflowing with books, papers and figurines, and two doors that led to a bathroom and who knew what other secret lair.

  Laying her gently on the antique bed, Mac shook his head in confusion. For seven long days he had tried to keep his head on straight. For seven endless nights he had tried to jack off the tension caused by having to wait on her in vain. The workouts in preparation for the Scottish Games had obviously done nothing to quench the need raging in him.

  Women had come on to him at Smoke and Mirrors, some flirting, some making open and outrageous suggestions, but he hadn’t wanted to follow them home. He hadn’t wanted them.

  The only woman he had made love to slow and easy then taken like an animal in heat and every damn variation to the theme was Lucie. The dreams had been feverish and the longing hell. But none of that mattered now. No dream matched this, nothing came close to the real thing, nothing could be as good as being with her in the flesh, minutes away from skin to skin.

  He shook his head again and saw uncertainty enter her eyes. That vulnerability called to him, called as loudly as her body did, the combination making him crazy to know her, to make her expose more than just her desirable body to him.

  She had called him obsessed. Well, color him lost because that’s what he felt looking down at her to see her looking up at him.

  “Tell me you want me,” she said, her intense gaze almost hypnotic.

  His eyes eating her up, Mac ground out a gravelly answer. “I want you, Lucie. More than it’s sane for a man to want a woman. More than I’ve ever craved anyone. More than I could ever imagine wanting a woman in my life.”

  His words setting her in motion, Lucie tugged at the hem of her tube top and pulled it off to let her breasts bounce free. MacCale drew a strangled breath. She toed off her shoes, baring her feet, and lay down to open her jeans, one devilishly slow button at a time.

  She was enjoying herself, Mac realized, reveling in how lost he was as he watched her every move.

&
nbsp; The fly now open wide, she asked, “Want to help me out here?”

  MacCale’s hands were on her in a heartbeat. He took hold of the waistband of her jeans and pulled them off along with her panties with far less finesse than he had gone for.

  “I want you naked.” She propped herself on her elbows, looking mighty pleased with the state he was in.

  Mac drew a slow breath. It came out in a heated rush. She sure knew how to tease. Could she take measure for measure?

  At his leisure, he started to undress, peeling off item after item while Lucie watched.

  “Better turn down the bed.” Her eyes lifted to his and locked for the briefest moment before she let her gaze wander to his chest and down the dark trail of curls over his abs to the length of his cock jutting impatiently.

  Her eyes never made it back to his. They speared right past him before falling to the Oriental carpet so worn the pattern had faded from existence.

  “Better turn down the bed.”

  “Yes. You already said that.”

  She let out a breath, half sigh, half self-deprecating laugh, before scuttling off the bed, all strong, shapely limbs and curvy ass, and a rack to make an ass-loving man rethink his preferences.

  She tugged off the ornate quilt as if willing herself to do it.

  The uneasiness he had felt downstairs made a comeback. “Lucie?”

  Slowly, she turned around to face him.

  “What’s your pleasure, Mac? Sexual maneuvers in the dark or with the lights on?” The odd mood still clung to her even if her voice dripped seduction.

  “You on me with the lights on, honey. Right now,” he grated.

  Lucie padded to him, gripped his hand and ushered him next to the bed. “I have a confession to make. I’m really bad at taking orders, but the pushy you does make me horny. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable.”

  He sat carefully then stretched out on the bed.

  She leaned over him, her hands frisking the muscles in his thighs and hips but steering clear of his dick. “I have to say you look better than any bedding I’ve ever had. Warm. Welcoming. Smoking hot.”

  MacCale’s breathing turned labored as she climbed over him and positioned her mound above his cock. Watching him hungrily, smiling at him invitingly, she put a palm over her sex and squeezed lightly. MacCale’s eyes shot between her face and her mound as she parted the bare pink folds with her fingers, exposing slick flesh.

  “Ah fuck, Lucie, I could die happy just watching you touch yourself. But I’d rather do it myself.” MacCale extended his arms to take hold of her hips only to have her grab his wrists and shove his arms to his side.

  “No touching. Not yet.”

  He growled in horny frustration. “Do you know what you’re doing to me, woman?”

  Her smile turn wicked as she kept her pussy lips open and let him drink in the sight of the juices glistening at her opening. He had to fight back a groan as she fingered her clit for a moment before pushing the tip of her middle finger beyond the juicy entrance. The digit reappeared, wet with cream she spread on the tiny bud, flicking back and forth, rotating her hips and lowering them closer to his shaft with every round she made.

  And then she was on him, pussy lips parted and gliding along his cock. She wasn’t taking him in, just sliding up and down his length, coating him with her juices, making him want to howl with the need to be inside her.

  “Mac, look at me,” Lucie whispered, grounding against his shaft. “And listen close. I want you to slip that thick cock inside my pussy. Fill me up,” she purred.

  “You’ll have to break me in gently ’cause it’s been a while. Can you handle that? Give it to me one thick inch at a time? It’s going to feel so good. Like a wet…hot…tight pussy should. And when you’re done, all done, your cock buried deep inside my body, so deep I’ve never taken a man like that because let’s face it, you’re a big boy…I want you to fuck me. I want you to forget about slow, forget about nice and easy and ride me hard. You don’t have to wait, warm me up or sweet talk me into it. All you have to do is take me.”

  She was really pushing it, MacCale thought wryly. Pushing him and the femme fatale act to the outer limits. Did men really go for that? If she thought that was all he had in mind, she had another think coming.

  He tore his eyes away from the most erotic sight he had seen in a very long time to witness her eyes boring into his. What he heard in her voice and saw in her sultry smile never made it to her eyes. Her gaze was too intense, too focused, too damn…

  Controlled. She was in it with her body, but she wasn’t giving him everything and that wouldn’t do. She could be the paradigm of analytical thinking but not while in bed with him. He deserved better. And so did she.

  He had warned her. She really should have listened.

  Chapter Three

  “Whatever it is you’re doing, stop.” MacCale’s voice was uncut ice sliding over Lucie’s heated body.

  His damn intuition. Could he not give it a rest even during sex?

  Lucie stopped moving over him. “I don’t know what you mean,” she purred, all innocence. He couldn’t ruin this. She wouldn’t let him.

  Lowering herself to rest against his chest, she rotated her hips against him. She felt his hips jerk, his cock hot and thick as he pressed closer to her.

  MacCale growled, a sound so close to a roar Lucie shivered with the knowledge of what would come next. He was losing it. She was about to win the fight.

  Pulling her to him, Mac rolled her to her back. His hand gripped her face, his eyes on hers. But it wasn’t an abandoned expression Lucie saw, it was pure plain hurt mixed with a generous dose of anger.

  “What do I mean? I mean I didn’t come here to play games and I didn’t come here to be played.”

  Cold washed over Lucie again as she took in what he meant. MacCale had felt everything she wasn’t feeling, and he resented it, resented her for it.

  But he still wanted her, she could tell.

  “You came here to have sex, Mac. And I agreed to it. That’s all I agreed to. You still want to fuck and so do I so what’s the problem?”

  He sat up to straddle her thighs, balancing himself so as not to crush her, his erection as strong as ever. Lucie badly wanted to touch him, feel him in her hand. As if he’d read her thoughts, he took hold of her wrists, pinning them in one hand. His eyes darted around for a moment before he grabbed a pillow and peeled off a pillowcase with his free hand.

  He wrapped her hands inside the pillowcase. “The problem, my lovely, is that I don’t want games.” He leaned over the edge of the bed and managed another dexterous trick by freeing his belt from his slacks with just one hand. “All I want is you, Lucie. That’s all I want.” And as what he had in mind dawned on Lucie, he had the belt secured around her cushioned hands and tied to the bedpost.

  Lucie trembled with anger. He was turning the tables on her again. She trembled with fear, the situation spiraling out of her control and spinning her headlong into the unknown.

  It was all wrong, and so exciting she would rather die than admit to it.

  “And what is this but games?”

  “No, loveliest Lucie.” He smoothed his hands down her arms and to her breasts. He fondled the globes gently, flicked over her nipples as Lucie fought not to arch and meet him. “This is payback for you trying them on me.”

  He picked his shirt off the floor and fitted the long sleeves over her eyes, blinding her, enraging her, arousing her further.

  Tied down, under his command, her strength and resolution seemed to desert her. He had asked if she knew what she did to him. He had no idea how ferociously he could hurt her. How much unbridled passion could harm her if let free. She needed to get a handle on her emotions and some semblance of control over him, and she couldn’t do that, not bound and blindfolded.

  “I can’t do this, Mac. Not like this,” she pleaded.

  “And I won’t be used. You want cock, get yourself a dildo. You want my cock, you better
treat me like a man and not a sex toy.”

  “This isn’t sex,” she whispered.

  “Oh honey, it’s the best sex you’ve never had. You want to fuck? You got yourself a deal. You want to be taken? No problem. But there’s something you forgot. Big boys aren’t easily sated, remember? If you want the main course, you’re going to have to give me an appetizer.”

  His hands descended to her belly, stroked her stomach and waist softly before his weight lifted. Moving around in the bed, he opened her legs wide.

  “If you don’t want this, tell me now. If it’s pleasure you’re after, just settle down, relax, and let me give it to you.”

  She felt the press of his palms on her thighs as he climbed them, dipped to the sensitive inner flesh and stopped short of her pussy.

  “I’m going to touch you, honey, light and easy.”

  Lucie swallowed down a moan at the rasp in his voice, then another as his hand cupped her mound. He held the hand in place, pressed against her. Heat emanated from the large palm, the base resting on her entrance, his fingers just above her clit. She wanted to writhe, force closer contact when he initiated none, only letting her feel the hot heaviness of his hand on her.

  “Mac?” she whispered.

  He said nothing. He cupped her harder instead, pumped his palm over her, the base grinding against her entrance.

  Staring into the darkness of the blindfold, Lucie froze as the tips of his fingers moved to her clit. Lust overrode confusion. Arousal dampened all fear. The last remnants of resistance fell by the wayside as Mac began to circle the swelling nub.

  Two digits flanked the hood and milked her, drawing a gasp every time he pinched her clit between his fingers, an involuntary jolt of pleasure running through her each time the pressure eased.

  “You’re very sensitive. Or it has been a while. It’s okay. I can work my way around it for a while and still make it good for you, honey, I promise.”

  She bet he could. That was the problem. “You don’t have to,” she wheezed.