by BETH KERY
A woman moaned.
Genevieve froze. A man’s low voice penetrated the thick silence, his mellow tone belying the firmness of the command.
“Don’t strain for it. Let me give it to you.”
She recognized that voice.
She turned around, her breath caught on an inhalation. She hadn’t noticed the dim light at the end of the darkened hallway when she entered. Slowly, as though entranced, she walked toward the soft glow that spilled out of a partially opened door. Not the master bedroom, Genevieve thought. Not the same bedroom where she, her husband, and Sean had shared a carnal night of pleasure.
The night that had changed her life forever.
Genevieve’s heart slammed against her breastbone as she approached the room. She couldn’t have stopped herself from looking if she’d tried. It was as if she’d suddenly recalled with perfect clarity why her dirty little secret held so much power over her.
Because it was also exciting and forbidden. And at the core of that secret had been something neither time nor death nor harsh truths could diminish.
She peered into the room, her breath burning in her lungs.
The woman was naked and bound. Long blonde hair spilled down her back as she knelt on the floor. Her wrists had been restrained behind her back in a pair of leather cuffs.
Genevieve noticed all of this despite the fact that her attention was only for the man who stood before the kneeling woman. He wore a pair of faded jeans and a white collared shirt that had been unbuttoned, exposing an expanse of smooth skin gloving defined muscle.
The scar just above the waistline of his low-riding jeans was paler than the rest of his golden-hued skin. He’d been shot in Iraq, Genevieve knew; nearly died in an airless Army medical tent in the midst of the desert. When he’d finally regained consciousness in an Army base in Germany, they’d told him he’d won a medal for leading the successful rescue of a dozen soldiers being held hostage in a heavily guarded artillery station. He’d told them they could keep the medal and send him back to New Orleans for a reward.
They’d recruited him into the ranks of military intelligence instead. Sean always used to say he should have just accepted the medal and kept his damned mouth shut.
His nipples were copper-colored. Genevieve could easily see the erect, flat discs through the smattering of curly, light brown hair on his chest. As usual, his short, wavy hair was tousled. It fell on his forehead as he looked down at the woman with a fixed, intent expression as he slowly pushed his cock between her widely spread lips.
Genevieve stared, held captive by the erotic sight. It was as if her brain had frozen right along with her muscles. She felt, she realized dazedly. It had become warm and achy between her thighs, but she was unconnected to her sexual arousal . . . as though she observed her body’s response in the same bizarre, detached manner with which she watched the man she’d once loved with all her body and soul having sex with another woman.
Even though she throbbed in desire, Genevieve had gone numb. When the woman strained forward with her head, drawing several inches of thick, veined flesh between her lips, Sean grunted in dissatisfaction. He tightened his hold on the handful of blonde hair he grasped at the woman’s nape. Genevieve knew from experience the restraint of his hand would be gentle.
But firm.
The woman moaned in obvious protest when he withdrew his cock from her mouth. It made a popping noise as it cleared her lips. His penis fell at a downward angle, weighted by the heavy, tapered cockhead.
“I’m about to spontaneously combust down here, you bastard.” Her voice sounded gruff . . . desire-roughened. Genevieve could see that the crests of her small breasts were pointed and hard.
He wrapped a big hand around his erection and stroked himself, his manner casual. “Didn’t you say you were a trader at the Mercantile Exchange? Doesn’t that job require the characteristic of patience?”
The woman tried to duck forward to get at his cock, but his hand at the base of her neck held firm. “Damn you,” she hissed. She looked up at him, her expression both plaintive and irritated. He chuckled as he released her hair and stroked her jaw and cheek. The woman’s lips curved in shared humor. No one could resist Sean when he smiled.
“I’m going to have to do something about that itch you have, or you’re not going to play nice, are you, darlin’?” he teased with the soft New Orleans drawl that contrasted so sharply with all that hard muscle and brawn. Just the sound of his voice so close to her ear used to make Genevieve shiver . . . heat up her very core.
He helped the bound woman up from her kneeling position, his manner relaxed; his touch gentle.
Genevieve blinked, realizing her gaze had been glued to his glistening cock. It looked magnificent as it poked out from the fly of his jeans, a ready tool awaiting its master’s bidding.
It didn’t surprise her that he seemed so controlled. Not really.
Even when he’d allowed full expression of his wild, primitive nature on that New Year’s Eve three years ago, even when he’d lost himself in the depths of intense passion, Genevieve had guessed Sean wasn’t typically so expressive during lovemaking. He was usually so somber, so contained; his gaze alert, watchful. He lived like he was always ready for the other shoe to drop . . . like it was inevitable something was about to happen.
In Sean’s experience, that something was usually never good.
His steel blue eyes didn’t blaze with wild, inner fires like they had on that night so long ago when he’d looked down at Genevieve as he fucked her with long, powerful strokes. Genevieve hadn’t been able to move a fraction of an inch from Sean’s thorough possession of her body and spirit because Max had held her securely from behind.
Just like Sean had bid him to do.
Max may have been his boss. He may have been Genevieve’s husband. But in the bedroom that night, it’d been Sean who was the undisputed master.
Hold her tight. Don’t let her move. She’s all mine.
No, none of that feral passion was here tonight. Sean seemed focused but calm as he led the woman over to an upholstered chair. He unhooked the leather cuffs from her wrists before he turned her around and seated her like a cordial gentleman. Genevieve stepped across the threshold of the room, still in the shadow of the door. She didn’t want to lose sight of him as he walked behind the woman and the chair.
He drew the woman’s wrists behind her head and bent her elbows, forcing her hands to fall behind the chair. He refastened the cuffs. The woman’s sleek torso stretched. Her back arched, sending her small breasts into further pronouncement.
Genevieve bit off a soft moan when he reached down and gently tweaked a distended nipple. The woman’s thighs clamped together and she squirmed in the chair.
“None of that now,” he chastised softly. He came around the chair and leaned over her lap, pushing her legs wide and draping her thighs over the corners of the seat.
The woman pressed down with her pelvis, trying to get friction on her spread pussy. For a second, Sean’s head lingered near the junction of the woman’s thighs. The blonde tensed expectantly. Genevieve felt like a heavy stone dropped in her gut. She started to back out of the room, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but in that time and place.
But then he stood. Genevieve let out a shaky breath of relief, careful not to make herself heard. A distant, screaming voice shouted for her to leave. To escape. If Sean had glanced over to the door as he walked over to a bedside table, he would have seen her standing there like a stunned deer in headlights. The horrible thought couldn’t galvanize her into action, though. It was like she was stuck in an emotion-filled, carnal dream.
An exciting, tortuous nightmare.
The woman cried out when he pulled out a flesh-colored dildo from the bedside table.
“No. I want your cock.”
“You�
�ll get it if you ever learn a measure of patience, darlin’,” he murmured as he walked back toward the woman. She’d heard him call other females “darlin’” before, and it never sounded insulting. Instead, his low, resonant voice and New Orleans accent made it into a tender endearment.
Dawlin’.
Strangely, Sean had never called Genevieve that.
His penis was still erect and bobbing in the air before him. He set down the dildo on the arm of the chair, ignoring the woman’s sound of disgust when he tucked his cock back into his underwear and fastened the first few buttons over the pronounced bulge.
He leaned over the arm of the chair and calmly, efficiently inserted the rubber dildo into her spread slit. The woman bucked her hips back and forth when he fully sheathed the sex toy. She whimpered in rising excitement and desperation.
Sean left the dildo inside her and sat down on the cushioned arm of the chair, his long, jean-clad legs bracing him. He placed one arm along the back of the chair, his pose casual but also effectively preventing the woman from lowering her restrained wrists.
He began to caress her perspiration-damp torso. His hand looked big and masculine spread over the female’s delicate, heaving rib cage. He caressed her ribs, belly, and waist languorously while the woman panted and moaned and flexed her hips against the penetrating dildo with increasing franticness. He played with her breasts, gently squeezing and stimulating the hard, small nipples until the woman growled in frustration.
“Make me come,” she begged. “Please.”
Her arousal felt tangible to Genevieve; as if she shared in it.
The female’s hips bucked against the inserted dildo. When her bottom slid forward in the seat as she tried to stimulate herself, Sean’s hand finally dropped, holding the base of the sex toy in place, giving her the resistance she required.
“That’s right. Fuck yourself,” he murmured as he watched her brace her feet on the floor, making her hips rise off the seat. She began to thrust her slit up and down on the rubber shaft.
“God damn it. Why are you making me work for it?” the woman squealed as she pumped wildly.
“You want something different?”
“I want to get it . . . hard,” the woman spat out as she thrashed against the dildo. “Well, since you asked so sweetly.” He stood and grabbed her splayed thighs, pushing them back firmly until the woman’s pelvis rolled back. He pinned her spread knees to the back of the chair with a forearm. He leaned over the side of the chair, his profile to Genevieve. With his other hand, he began plunging the dildo into the woman’s pussy, giving her the hard fuck she’d asked for. The blonde keened and thrashed her hips in wild excitement.
He slid the dildo all the way into her and turned the rectangular base until it hit the woman’s exposed clit. His fingers pressed and circled, vibrating the hard rubber against the sensitive tissues.
The woman shook in orgasm. When her screams of passion quieted, he let go of her restrained legs. He leaned down and inserted an erect nipple into his mouth, his cheeks hollowing out as he supplied a firm suction. He vibrated the base of the dildo against her clit even more stringently than before.
The blonde woman cried out in agonized pleasure as her orgasm notched back up again to its original potent blast. Genevieve must have whimpered in mixed misery and arousal, because suddenly Sean’s head whipped around.
The woman continued to keen and moan while she gushed in climax, and Sean pinned Genevieve with his stare. His fierce, blue-eyed gaze hit her like a bolt of electricity. Her muscles jerked, the harsh movement awakening her from her trance.
The next thing she knew, she was flying blindly down the hallway. She heard him call out to her, his voice sounding flat with incredulity. He called out again, this time sounding closer . . . too near for her to make it all the way to the front door without him overtaking her.
She thought she might shatter into a million pieces if Sean put his hands on her at that moment. She fumbled for the master bedroom door and rushed inside.
“Genny. What the hell—” His exclamation was cut off when Genevieve slammed the door and swiftly turned the lock. The handle jerked. His hand thumped on the door. She pressed her back against the wood, straining to
hear in the taut silence that followed.
“Genny.”
She clamped her burning eyes shut at the softly uttered plea. It must be a hollow-core door, because she could actually hear him quite well. It sounded like he’d spoken with his forehead pressed against the crack between the door and frame. They were only inches apart—
“You picked a hell of a time to come waltzing back into my life,” he said, his low voice vibrating with emotion.
“I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Obviously.”
She licked her tear-spattered lips. For the first time, she realized her face was soaked. She must have been crying for a while now . . . maybe since she’d first heard Sean’s easy drawl resounding from the depths of the penthouse.
“Go away, Sean.” Her heart thundered in her ears in the pause that followed. The door gave slightly, as though he’d just pushed himself off it.
“I was here first.”
“You can go straight to hell second, boy.”
His chuckle sounded appreciative . . . amused.
Sad.
“Just give me a minute to tell her good-bye.” For a second, she thought he’d walked away, but then his deep voice penetrated the crack of the door again.
“Are you okay? Did something happen?”
She stared at the enormous king-sized bed in front of her—the bed where the three of them had become drunk on pleasure three years ago. Did something happen? She’d say it had.
Genevieve had been forever changed on the night Max had offered his young wife to his super-sharp, right-hand man . . . the night she’d burned beneath Sean’s touch.
“I’m fine,” she said blankly, her eyes glued to the bed as vivid memories played before her mind’s eye . . . memories brought to the forefront by being in the room where it’d all happened.
“Yeah, right,” she heard him reply wryly.
“Will you just leave me alone?”
“That’s likely.”
This time, she sensed for certain that he’d walked away. A minute later she still hadn’t moved. They passed within feet of her.
“You’re acting very rudely,” the woman accused petulantly as she moved down the hallway.
“Yeah, I’ve been told I have a problem with that,” Sean replied evenly.
“Is there someone here? Who were you talking to?”
But then their voices faded. She heard the front door open and shut, and knew Sean was escorting the female out of the tight Sauren-Kennedy Solutions security. He’d get her a cab. He may have grown up poor, friendless, and fatherless, one of the “conduct disordered” terrors of the mean streets of New Orleans, but Sean’s manners were impeccable.
Genevieve still hadn’t moved when he returned a few minutes later. She stood stock-still, her back against the door like she thought she was on the penthouse’s window ledge with the city looming below her toes. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the handle turn. He spoke softly again near the crack in the closed door.
“You’d better open up, girl. You don’t really think that excuse of a lock is gonna keep me from you, do you?”
Her pulse threatened to leap right off her neck. She’d never heard him call another female gull, his drawl softening the “r” until it was only barely audible.
The sound of it on his tongue had always felt like a caress.
She spun around and flipped the lock. Her gaze remained fixed on the carpet as she stormed past him. She grabbed the bag she’d dropped in the foyer and reached for the handle on the front door. His hand rose behind her, sh
utting the door with a precise snap.
“What happened?”
“What makes you think something happened?” she asked irritably. She was hyperaware of him just inches away, leaning down over her. Heat resonated off his body.
“Don’t, Genny. Haven’t you punished me enough by avoiding me all this time? You know I’d never have wanted you to see what you just saw. Not in a million years.”
Her soughing breath was the only thing that broke the silence that followed. Her chin dropped to her chest. She did know it. She may have her doubts about him, but she knew instinctively Sean Kennedy would never purposefully hurt her. The havoc he’d wreaked unintentionally on her life was another matter altogether. “The house in Lake Forest burned down,” she whispered. “It’s . . . gone. Everything.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and spun her around. His tall shadow loomed over her. She blinked in disorientation when he switched on the crystal chandelier. He stared. The color washed out of his face.
“Come ’ere,” he growled, taking her hand. Genevieve stumbled after him into the living room. A bar lined the north wall. He slid one of the suspended goblets from the rack and grabbed an open bottle of wine. The crimson liquid splashed into the bowl of the glass.
“Drink it,” he ordered, all traces of his accent absent from the terse command. Genevieve hesitated before she glanced into his glittering eyes. She took the glass, draining half the wine in her first swallow. He pried the trembling goblet from her clawlike grip.
He guided her over to the sofa and pulled her down next to him.
“Were you in the house?”
She shook her head as she released her hands from his warm grasp.
“I was working late on Oak Street. I drove home at around nine. I’ve been watching them try to put the fire out all night.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
She just stared at the carpet sightlessly. He didn’t seem to expect her to answer once he’d considered his impulsive question.