by Orla Bailey
“Oh yes, kitten. Exactly like that. But squeeze a little harder.” His voice is rough and breathy.
I torment my body until I whimper. My nipples are super sensitive and I graze my full lower lip between my teeth and bite down hard, gasping in sweet agony when his fingers sink through my slick tissues. I writhe against his hand, widening my stance.
“Kitten, that’s beautiful. You’re beautiful and sexy. God, I want you so much.”
I rock on my heels falling back into the hard wall of his body. He hooks his thumbs in the sides of my panties and yanks them down to mid-thigh.
“Leave them there. Part your legs wider.” His hands on my inner thighs press outwards yet caress.
The wanton effect he has on me, is evident in the mirror. It does not lie. I’m tethered by my stretched panties, straining to give his hovering fingers greater access, searching for some relief at his hands.
He dips, dropping his centre of gravity and hauls me back against him. I’m off balance, only remaining upright due to the powerful arm clamped about my waist. His fingers part and delve into the sweetly receptive drizzle between my thighs.
“Oh you’re so ready, baby.” His fingers brush at me and I lift onto tiptoe to moderate the heady sensation coursing as he teases me.
“Don’t take over. Let me reach you.” He grinds out the words in my ear. “Watch. See how happy I can make you.”
My head spins out of control as much as my body as I keen softly over and over.
“I’m nearly there,” I warn him.
He sinks two fingers deep. I roll my head back against him turning it so he can plunge his tongue inside my hot open mouth. This double invasion overwhelms all my reason.
Our tongues spar between snatched breaths and I rise and descend rigidly on his fingers as he possesses my body. His thumb frets rhythmically until he beckons me on to my crisis.
“I can’t hold back.”
“Watch yourself as you orgasm.”
My hands drop limply to my sides and I try to focus on my reflection in the mirror. My pupils are dilated and I lean back against his strength, my tense thighs stretching my panties tighter as I try desperately to part my legs wider. My pelvis thrusts hard gathering friction against his stilled hand and my lips open on a haunting wail, just as Jack pinches my nipple hard.
At the peak I arch my breast fully into one of Jack’s hands, rubbing my core against his other in my depravity. I want to meld my body to his. I don’t seem human. I’m animal, yet divine. All agony and bliss. I make creature noises, acting completely by instinct and I watch him as he studies my fall hard, like some exultant wildlife naturalist observing this most shocking of primitive behaviour.
Only when my senses finally gather do I feel ashamed of the visceral relinquishment of pride and decency. I try to cover my body with my arms but Jack won’t let me. He holds me still against him making me watch myself descend from carnality in the mirror’s truth.
“You weren’t guarded or suspicious. You were completely lovely. Unrestrained and free. I had your trust. I want your trust, kitten. What wouldn’t I give you if you would trust me?”
I know he wants this but how can I trust a man who can’t decide between me and another woman? He’s more intense in this moment than I’ve ever seen him but this is a dilemma I can’t resolve.
“Hold me,” I ask, shaking and vulnerable.
I turn in his arms, trembling with dissipating energy and he folds himself around me, comforting me, kissing my temple. When he tilts my head back to look up at him he has a half-smile tugging at the corners of his lips but he’s looking in the mirror, not at me.
“What?”
“Just admiring you from every beautiful angle.”
I look over my shoulder to see what he sees. Still in high heels, with my panties round my thighs, I trace the curved valley of my spine down to the twin swells of pert buttocks.
I smile back shyly at him and he presses a firm kiss to my swollen lips. “You have such a sexy body, kitten. I can’t seem to get enough of you.” Jack hits the button again and the elevator lurches into life heading upwards to the apartment. “But we still have a problem.”
I arch my eyebrow at him. For once he doesn’t seem to notice. He takes my hand and forms it with his own onto one very stiff erection, easing himself into my hold and groaning in frustration.
Indeed. A pressing matter that needs very firm handling.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack draws me, shackled and stumbling behind him into the bedroom to lower me backwards onto his bed. He tugs the panties down my thighs and I kick my legs to work them off. I lie back and enjoy watching Jack rip his clothing away.
“Like what you see?” His eyes are aflame.
I purr like a well-fed lioness and we both laugh. I love easy-going Jack. He’s so much fun to be with.
Indulging my eyes until he’s down to his well-filled underwear, I suddenly turn on my side to curl up into a ball, pulling the covers up to my chin. “I’m really tired, stud. It’s been a long day. I need sleep.”
Even his breathing stops. I fight to keep a straight face because I know he’s hurting. When I peek beneath my lashes I see confusion and a frustrated expression and can’t hold it in any longer. I burst out laughing.
He jumps on me as I scream with hilarity, struggling, while he pins me beneath him. “Nice one, kitten. Now it’s time to pay.”
He rolls over dragging me with him. No matter how much I squirm or tussle he gets the better of me. Before I know what’s happening he’s sitting upright with me lying face down over his knee. We both freeze.
I’m excited. I’m scared. I’m not sure why he’s doing this. It certainly isn’t to calm down a panic. More likely to start one. His hand strays firmly over the flesh of my behind.
“You have such a pretty rear end, baby. Round. Firm. Sweet.” He slaps it smartly.
“Ow. What was that for?” I arch my spine until the faint sting subsides.
“That one?” he says and I hear the devilment in his voice. “That was for the little stunt you just pulled. For a minute I really thought you were going to leave me hanging.” He slaps my other cheek.
Laughing, I try to put hands back to protect myself but he grabs both wrists in one hand and anchors them in the small of my back.
“I’m not allowed to say no?”
“You’re allowed to say no any time. Do you want to say no?”
“No.”
“Is that a stop right there, mister ‘no’ or a keep going, sir ‘no’?”
“Don’t you think you should have established that before you started?”
“Never heard of a free sample?” The humour is apparent in his tone as he reminds me of the exact same offer I made him way back in the boardroom. Jack never forgets a thing.
“Funny.” I try to sound indignant but actually it is funny and it’s hard to get on your high horse when you’re upside down naked over a man’s knee. I snigger. “Are you taking unfair advantage, Mr Keogh?”
“Would you let me?” he ponders. As he massages any hurt away in a very sensual manner, he confirms his position. “No mixed messages, Tabitha. Are you letting me?”
I’m so hot for him. Jack is powerful and when he controls me like this, it thrills me.
“I’m letting you,” I whisper.
“We can stop at any time. Just tell me and I’ll stop. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He spanks me gently until I glow. Both ends.
“That’s a very pretty colour. I’m partial to rose pink on a girl’s behind.” He soothes his hand over me again before delivering a more sensual spanking.
“Ow. It stings.”
“It’s meant to sting. It’s meant to feel good too. Does it feel good when I spank you, kitten?”
“God, yes.” I’m embarrassed to admit it but I’m horny as hell.
He slaps me again. “That one is for calling me stud.”
“You are a stud. Ow.” I laug
h.
“The last six are because you can only ask a man so much and no more.”
“Six?” I squeak; no idea what I’m getting them for.
“Six.” His voice is gruff and steady but there’s a timbre there, beneath the tone which tells me he’s really turned on by what we’re doing together. The weight of his body shifts with each impact and I feel the press of his desire against me. I count each one off in my head.
By the time he’s finished my backside smarts but I’m feeling relaxed and happy. I have no idea why it works that way.
“Are we done?” he asks me.
“Done,” I gasp. I struggle upright and he helps me to move however I want. I want to see what he’s done to me and twist to look back in the mirror.
“It’s pretty. You’re pretty.” He’s breathing hard, partly from exertion but mostly, I can tell, because he’s so turned on. I’ve never seen those Arctic blue eyes so storm-filled.
“You’re special to me, kitten.”
I don’t think I’ve ever loved him more than in that moment. I straddle his thighs, lock my arms around his neck and glue my lips to his. He gathers me against him rising up off the bed while I hang on like a monkey.
“Boxers,” he gasps against my busy mouth, trying to lower his underwear as I cling on tight.
He sits back down and I adjust position on my knees until I can lower myself over him. He holds me immobile for a moment before letting me take control.
“God, baby, you’re so real, so incredible; it always feels like the first time.” He caresses me as I undulate over him, rhythmically.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else, Jack.”
“Then don’t be, kitten. Kiss me.”
I suckle his top lip between mine and then his lower. He groans inside my mouth and I swear, it’s the sexiest sound alive. I breathe against his throat, liking the quick pulse of life that tics against my lips.
His hand splayed at my lower back, drives me to arch and ease off. I sense the kick of him within me reacting to each changing stimulation of my teasing, sheathing heat. He wedges his hand between our bellies so I can work myself even harder against the heel of his hand and faint with the pleasure of his fingers.
“I’m close, kitten.” There’s a sand-paper quality to his voice. Rough grade. “Together?”
I nod, incapable of speech; anchoring myself to Jack’s solid strength; my entire body is under such an immense build-up of pressure I reach blindly, seeking, begging to flip that final switch of release. He falls backwards onto the bed, rolling me beneath him and takes me hard until I scream. He throws his head back on his spine, tenses and lets go. This powerful moment of transformation renders us completely spent. Exhausted. Happy.
I fall asleep with Jack inside me and rouse sometime later when he adjusts our position in bed wrapping me up in his arms and legs.
In the early hours he takes me again with sleepy tenderness before we rise and shower. Although I enjoy the closeness, I do wonder if all this exciting sex may be getting in the way of resolving the real issues between us. But Jack appears more content than I have ever known him and I can’t be the one to spoil things. Perhaps I’m loosening Amanda’s hold on him, orgasm by orgasm.
Or perhaps I’m fooling myself.
* *
Lenuta arrives and makes us breakfast. Every time she glances in my direction she makes me blush shyly. Jack notices the silent exchange which he can’t work out. Only she and I know we’re both thinking of the good man for the sex.
“I think my staff are becoming more loyal to you than they are to me,” Jack whispers out of her earshot. Luckily he seems more bemused by the fact, than annoyed.
“I can’t help it if people respond to my inner goodness,” I joke, trying and failing to appear like a saint due to the well-bedded look on my face and my languid air of sexual satisfaction.
“Well they’d better not respond to your inner minx. She’s all mine.” I get a warning glare.
He drives me to work before heading to Zee-Com and makes me promise to be waiting when he picks me up on his way home. Today, I wear his ring without reluctance and am content to agree to every wish. Our domestic scene of harmony and bliss may be complete fantasy but I’m becoming attached to it.
Before he departs we sit in the car and he stares at me. “Is there something you want to tell me, Tabitha?”
He knows me too well. Perhaps my new found enthusiasm for work shines through because I feel I’m finally taking charge for the first time in my life. Or perhaps I feel like a complete woman at last.
“I’m just happy.” It’s as close an explanation as I’m truly able to give.
Jack smiles softly. “I’m happy too.” He kisses me goodbye. “Six thirty. Be here. If I have to come find you again your backside might be sorry.”
I laugh and duck out of his reach. “Always with the promises.” I notice Blackstock studiously ignoring our antics out of the corner of my eye. “Thank you, Mr Blackstock.” I wave and go inside. I don’t dread this place any longer. Even Brent Tapper’s Range Rover, still parked insolently in my space, I see as a last desperate attempt to hold onto his waning power. One way or another, being with Jack has changed me for the better.
“Good morning, Libby.”
“Morning.” She looks up from her computer screen and waits apprehensively. I breeze past so she follows me into my office and shuts the door behind her.
“Sorry I abandoned you last night,” she says.
“Don’t be. He didn’t exactly give you much choice.”
“Are things alright?” She looks a little puzzled.
“Were you expecting me to come to work in tears or something?” I smile at her.
“Well, frankly, yes. He was pretty pissed with you when I saw him.”
“We ironed things out.” I chew on my cheek.
“That easy, huh?”
“One spanking and he forgave me.”
She stares at me stunned. “You’re joking, right?”
I laugh and she laughs back at me. “Right.” No point in giving Jack a more notorious reputation than he already has. Though I’m not sure if Libby believes me or not.
“The caterers have been. Everything’s laid out for the lunch meeting in the boardroom.”
“Great. Can you send Brent an official memo? Tell him to remove his car from the CEO’s parking space by 9am tomorrow morning or it will be towed.”
“You wouldn’t?” Libby’s eyes widen in mischievous delight.
“I would now. He hasn’t acted on any friendlier request to shift it so it’s time to bring out the big guns.” I look at her, pondering a few moves ahead. “Though I might just go ask him nicely one more time, to delay any bad feeling until after our meeting. I’m still willing to give him a fair chance. He’s been here a lot longer than I have. It can’t be easy.” Change never is and I should know.
“Can’t be easy for you either,” she sniffs emphatically. “I’ll draft the letter ready, in the meantime.” She clearly has little faith he’ll comply.
“Thanks, Libby.”
I head straight for Brent’s office. His door is slightly ajar and I can’t help hearing him on the phone referring to “that little bitch” in a vengeful tone of voice. I know immediately who he’s talking about. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
As he slams down the phone I withdraw discretely. I couldn’t have picked a worse time to try to be nice, it would seem. I watch as he storms from the building, crosses the car park, heaves himself into his Range Rover and drives off.
I wonder who it was he was discussing me with in such derogatory terms. The person he’s going to meet in twenty minutes, it would seem. I decide if this has anything to do with me or CaidCo, which clearly it does, then I’m quite within my rights to find out any way I can.
I enter his office and press last number redial.
“What is it, Brent, darling?”
I slam the phone down. My heart pounds in my chest, m
y breath instantly shallows. I’d know that schemer’s voice anywhere. What the hell is Brent Tapper doing talking to Amanda Devereaux? Why is he discussing me or arranging to meet her? And since when was she on first name terms with any CaidCo employee and has their direct line logged into her phone?
I stagger back to my office and sink into my chair, mind in turmoil. I can’t make sense of it. Whatever explanation I come up with worries me greatly. After yesterday’s showdown, Brent’s smart enough to realise his current position here is untenable so it appears he’s already gone straight to our biggest rival to seek new opportunities. Or revenge.
Which still doesn’t explain the cosy familiarity I heard in Amanda’s voice and if Brent isn’t being viciously vocal about resigning, that can only mean one thing. Business espionage. He said he would take my clients with him. Has he hatched a plan with Amanda, to boost Advance’s market share and stuff it to CaidCo and me at the same time? Probably.
The only thing I’m sure of is I don’t trust Brent and I don’t trust Amanda. Together, they’re trouble.
I can’t share my concerns with Jack because he has a close relationship with her and thinks my suspicions about her are irrational anyway. Besides, I don’t want to do anything to tip her off that I’m on to them. She’s an arch manipulator who loathes me. I’ll have to keep Brent on a very short rein from now on and that won’t be easy.
He still has friends here.
* * *
“That went well, I think.” I discuss the staff meeting with Libby later. “Perhaps a few uncooperative comments from some members of staff, which I expected.”
“Not having Brent there was a good thing. He did you a favour for once by staying away.”
“I guess someone will clue him up as to what he missed.”
“Although I can’t believe he didn’t grasp such a golden opportunity to make trouble for you, in front of everyone, Tabitha.”
“Ignoring my direct order to attend the meeting plays into my hands, actually. Either he gives me a very good explanation for why he wasn’t there or he has a second strike against him.”