When she was a few inches away from the mirror she felt his hands grip her shoulders in a movement of restraint, and obediently she stood quite still, but there was nothing passive about her feelings. She felt as though her entire body was buzzing beneath the skin, tiny tremors tingling with such heightened anticipation that she knew the moment he touched her intimately she’d explode into a shattering climax.
‘Some jewellery I think,’ he murmured to himself, and she watched in the mirror as he reached over her to clip on a pair of gold tear-shaped earrings with a huge pearl at the base of each one. Finally he walked in front of her, momentarily obscuring her reflection, and carefully daubed her with perfume from a tiny cut-glass bottle. She didn’t recognise the scent but it had fruity overtones, reminding her of apricots, and beneath that the indisputably sexy hint of musk.
‘Do you know it?’ asked Tarquin, allowing himself the luxury of placing one final drop on the thin skin at the back of each of her knees, a touch that made her toes curl in delight.
‘No, I don’t,’ she admitted.
‘It’s Trésor. The moment I met you I knew that this was your perfume. When it was launched they used the slogan, For the woman who seeks a successful life rather than success. Under the circumstances I feel that most appropriate!’
Suddenly the swift, heart-stopping smile crossed his face and Kristina, who was already in such a state of arousal that she was almost beside herself with lust, knew that under normal circumstances she’d now take his hand and lead him straight to the bed, rubbing her aching pubic area against his thigh as a preliminary to their love-making. But tonight she couldn’t; tonight she had to wait for him to decide what they would do next, and the strain was unbearable.
He moved behind her once more and together they stared into the mirror. Kristina could never remember seeing her eyes so bright, and her dark hair was damp and curly, giving her a look of wild sexual abandonment despite the fact that she hadn’t been given the opportunity to be either wild or abandoned.
Tarquin studied her calmly and seriously, as he might a painting or ornament that he was considering buying, she thought with a swift surge of indignation, and then he nodded to himself with satisfaction and lightly clapped his hands.
To her astonishment two young men, entirely nude and with copper-coloured skin and strong chest and thigh muscles, hurried out from behind the silk screen at the head of the bed. She wondered how long they’d been waiting there. Tarquin uttered no word of instruction, but they clearly knew what was expected of them and knelt down side-by-side on their hands and knees between Kristina and the mirror.
‘Turn and face me,’ said Tarquin in her ear. She twisted round, and before she had a chance to say a word he’d grasped her by the waist and was carefully lowering her backwards over the men’s backs until they were bearing her full weight. She bent her knees and her toes gripped the pile of the carpet as much in fear as for support, while at the same time her head fell back and she looked upwards to see her own face reflected in the mirror.
She realised that the kaftan had opened wide, leaving her entire body utterly exposed to the tall, impassive man waiting to make love to her for the first time. Her breasts felt almost painfully hard and without thinking she moved her hands to caress them. Tarquin moved with the speed of lightning and she felt her hands gripped in his. ‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘You touch yourself only when I say.’
‘But they ache,’ she complained.
‘It’s all part of the pleasure,’ he assured her. Kristina wasn’t sure he was right. Then, so lightly that she might almost have imagined it, he trailed the tip of one of his fingers over the rigid little peaks of her nipples and she heard her breathing quicken as a muffled moan escaped from her lips.
‘You may make noises now,’ he conceded. ‘My only order is that you do not climax until I give my permission. It would be a pity to rush things at this stage.’
‘But how can I …? I’m so ready to come!’ explained Kristina, all inhibitions gone as she tried to explain the way her body felt. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself.’
‘I’ll help you, as it’s your first time,’ he murmured, and then she felt his mouth on her tightly stretched stomach and she jerked upwards at the surge of electricity that coursed through her. He waited a moment for the involuntary spasm to pass and then started to kiss and lick her belly button until the scorching tendrils of pleasure started to build into a heaviness deep inside her, centred somewhere behind her pubic bone and she knew that her climax was approaching.
Tarquin saw her toes start to curl and immediately stopped what he was doing. He lifted his head and Kristina groaned aloud as the delicious sensations slowly ebbed away again, leaving only the ache of thwarted need.
She heard him move, and looking up at her reflection saw that her eyes were wide and frantic, her mouth tight with the sexual tensions wracking her body. When she felt the point of his tongue gently insert itself between the toes of her left foot she cried out with shock, and as his tongue moved firmly up over the tendons of her foot and then in tiny circles around the sensitive ankle bone she began to squirm against the naked backs of the men beneath her.
She could hear herself making strange beseeching noises as the pleasure snaked upwards until it felt as though his tongue was actually lapping much higher, on her inner thighs where the swirls of excitement were making themselves felt, and all at once her abdominal muscles drew in on themselves prior to the sexual release she craved so urgently.
Again Tarquin was alerted by her body’s movements and the tiny gutteral sounds that were issuing from her throat. Once more he stopped, and lazily he let one hand trail up the centre of her body and then round each of the tiny breasts that so aroused him, but he avoided the straining nipples and surrounding tissue.
Finally, when he felt that Kristina could cope no longer, he gripped her upper thighs with his hands and pressed his mouth against her vulva. She felt the pressure on her clitoris and moaned. She could feel sweat running down her forehead and into her hair and tried desperately to stop herself from coming too soon, but now that he was actually stimulating the clitoris, even indirectly, she didn’t think she could handle the situation much longer. Her body’s demands were more insistent than the rules of the society and she felt her sex lips opening to allow him better access to her most sensitive tissue.
As she opened, as the wonderful feminine scent of her filled his nostrils, Tarquin too decided to end the game and with the tip of his tongue he drew a circle round the visibly swollen bud while at the same time he released one of her legs in order to insert two fingers of one hand into her vagina.
At the exact moment that he allowed his tongue to at last touch the side of the shaft of the clitoris he also hooked his fingers up and slowly massaged the little bump that he could feel on the top vaginal wall. Kristina now had the exquisite sensation of her two most sensitive places being stimulated at the same time.
The combination of the deep throbbing excitement caused by the manipulation of her G spot and the searing red-hot pleasure of the cunning use of Tarquin’s tongue against her clitoral shaft sent Kristina into a paroxysm of pleasure that was so intense she almost lost consciousness.
She gave a wild cry as Tarquin lifted his head briefly and whispered, ‘Now you may come.’ Then, as his tongue returned to its amazingly skilled sexual torture she at last gave herself over to her body’s insistent clamouring and her legs clamped around the sides of Tarquin’s head while her belly convulsed in glorious spasms of flooding liquid pleasure that seemed to go on and on for ever.
When the last tremors had died away, and the last uncontrolled muscle spasm ended, Kristina glanced up at her face in the mirror. Her lips were parted, flushed and moist, and her cheeks were equally flushed but for the first time in many weeks she looked relaxed, as though all the tensions and pressures of everyday life had been drained away by the incredible sensuality of the entire evening.
She start
ed to sit up, only to feel a hand pressing on the middle of her chest. ‘Stay there a little longer. I want to touch your breasts,’ said Tarquin.
‘I don’t like them touched after I’ve come,’ retorted Kristina, entirely forgetting that she was still wearing the bracelet.
‘What you do or do not like is secondary to what I like,’ Tarquin reminded her. ‘Or do you wish to remove the bracelet?’
‘No, of course not!’ she said quickly, terrified that the chance of another night like this might be lost to her.
‘Then do as I say.’
Her breasts felt comfortable now, the nipples soft and relaxed. Kristina didn’t want them touched. She always liked to be left alone once she and Ben had both reached their climaxes, and now this man was forcing her to allow him to do something she actively didn’t wish to do.
No, not forcing, she reminded herself. She could remove the bracelet and leave now, with the memory of their loveplay still fresh in her mind, but she wanted more. She wanted to have him inside her, making love to her properly. If that was going to happen then she had to follow the rules and so, reluctantly, she lay where she was and waited for his fingers to touch her breasts.
Tarquin knelt between Kristina’s loosely spread thighs and leant forward over her body. Lowering his head he licked along the undersides of the globes and then drew his tongue upwards towards the nipples, moving from one breast to the other and gradually increasing the pressure of his tongue.
At first Kristina wanted to move away, to stop the irritatingly insistent caress, but slowly she found that her breasts were responding and when his tongue swirled around each of the nipples in turn she was surprised to find that they were definitely responding. Tarquin could see that they were, and he smiled to himself as the little tips stood out more proudly from the soft breast tissue.
When the nipples were at last fully erect he grasped the left one between his thumb and forefinger and then very lightly, using the other three fingers, he scored tiny marks across the surface of her breast.
Kristina drew in her breath sharply. The sensation was entirely new to her, a strange mixture of sharpness and sweetness that made her shiver with desire for more. Tarquin then repeated the process with her right nipple only this time the score marks were fractionally heavier and Kristina moaned with excitement.
Listening to her and watching her body’s responses, Tarquin was greatly encouraged. This, he was sure, was a woman who would be willing to enjoy all the things he enjoyed, who would learn through the rules of the society more about herself than she could otherwise have ever hoped for, and her learning process would give him incredible excitement and hopefully a sharp desire that had been lacking for some time. With her he would cease to be jaded and his sexuality would again recapture some of the freshness of its early days.
Just watching her lying helpless and moaning beneath him drove him half-mad with desire. He wanted to take her now, to enter her moist welcoming softness and allow himself the same blissful release that she’d known, but just as the waiting had made it better for her, so it would for him. In any case, sending her away without having allowed either of them what they both wanted most would be an aphrodisiac in itself. So too would be the knowledge that Kristina, a woman who was used to being in total control, was being forced to accept rules that were, ultimately, designed for her own greater satisfaction.
She was quivering all over now, her body once more aroused and he allowed himself the luxury of one last move before ending the evening. Using the tips of his fingernails again, he daubed a light path through the valley between her breasts, across her waist and then down the middle of her hard, aching belly and by the time he reached the top of her pubic hair she was shuddering from head to foot. Gently he lowered his head and kissed her softly at the very base of her stomach before taking hold of her arms and pulling her upright.
‘Time for you to return home, Kristina. It’s very late.’ He pulled her up to her feet and the two men who’d been bearing her weight in stolid silence for so long stood too and then slipped silently away out through the main door.
Dazed and shaking, Kristina’s head rested against Tarquin’s chest for a moment and she was shocked to realise that he was still fully clothed. Suddenly she felt that she had to touch his skin, had to feel his bare flesh just as he’d been feeling hers and she reached up to unfasten his shirt buttons but he quickly stopped her. ‘Time to go,’ he repeated calmly.
She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay there. Wanted him to continue playing with her body the way he’d just been playing with it. She longed for the feel of his nails on her, of his mouth kissing her between her thighs as he had done earlier, and her trembling body betrayed her need.
‘I thought you preferred to be left alone after a climax,’ he reminded her as he handed over her clothes and removed her kaftan.
‘I thought I did, now I’m not so sure,’ she muttered, pulling on her hold-ups and slipping into the satin body before Tarquin helped her on with the coat-dress.
‘Next time we will try other things,’ he whispered as he bent his mouth to her ear. Then he ran his fingers through her hair in a gesture that was almost possessive, before stepping away from her and holding out his hand.
Kristina stared at him, unable to believe he wanted to shake hands after the extraordinary experience he’d just given her. ‘The bracelet,’ he said with a half-smile. ‘It has to stay here.’
She felt very silly. ‘Yes, of course. I quite forgot! Here.’
As she handed it back to him their fingers touched, and she was able to look him in the eyes as an equal. She saw something stir behind his usual sombre gaze, a flicker of something that could have been surprise or excitement, but she knew that it was something far more intriguing than the indifference he usually portrayed.
‘Lydia will call a cab for you,’ he promised, after he’d taken her back down into the hall. Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into one of the downstairs rooms without another word.
Kristina felt a sharp pang of disappointment as he vanished from her sight. Sensual and satisfying as the evening had been, she’d expected it to end in a different way, never in her wildest dreams imagining that she’d leave his house without them making love. The promise that he’d made about doing other things the next time was reassuring in its way; at least he intended to call her again, but she still wished that he’d allowed things to progress more tonight.
And yet, she admitted to herself, the fact that he hadn’t; the fact that she still had that moment to look forward to, to anticipate at her leisure as she waited for his call, would add to the sexual tension and possibly increase the pleasure of their second meeting.
As a psychologist he’d no doubt worked it all out, she thought, as Lydia telephoned for a cab, and no doubt he was as intent on increasing his own pleasure as hers. She just hoped he didn’t play the waiting game for too long as she was desperate to see his naked body and feel him inside her.
At the sound of a car drawing up outside, Lydia gave her a smile and opened the front door to allow her out. The cab driver turned his head. ‘Where to?’
Kristina opened her mouth to reply, and realised that her mind had gone totally blank. She felt most peculiar, light-headed and unreal, and for a few seconds she thought she wouldn’t be able to answer him. Then just as suddenly as she’d forgotten, the memory flooded back again. Quickly she gave him the directions, ignoring his raised eyebrows.
When she finally got back and started to unlock her front door it was gone midnight. The entire evening’s experience had totally disorientated her and she felt as though she was being forced back into a world that she didn’t like very much. She wasn’t the only one who was unhappy.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Ben from the lounge doorway. ‘I thought you said you’d be back by eleven at the latest?’
‘I didn’t say anything of the kind. I had no idea when I’d be back.’
He frowned. ‘O
f course you did. Lucretia always has to catch the last train from King’s Cross, and that leaves at five minutes past eleven. What happened?’
‘For heaven’s sake,’ snapped Kristina, her thoughts still back in St John’s Wood and her body yearning for the touch of Tarquin’s fingers and tongue on her burning skin. ‘I’m not twelve you know. I can look after myself.’
‘But where have you been?’ persisted Ben.
‘Seeing a lover!’ snapped Kristina.
Ben laughed. ‘Oh, well that’s all right then! Did Lucretia watch or join in?’
Stop it, thought Kristina to herself. Just stop talking now, before you say something you’ll regret. ‘Joined in, naturally,’ she said lightly. ‘Look, I’m really tired. I’ll take a shower and then go to bed. Sorry if I worried you, but she decided to stay in London overnight so there wasn’t the usual rush.’
Ben seemed to accept this quite happily, and a few minutes later Kristina was standing beneath the hot spray, running her hands slowly over the red marks that covered the surface of her breasts. She wondered how long it would be before Tarquin called again.
Chapter Four
‘I THOUGHT WE might go to the cinema tonight,’ suggested Ben as he and Kristina drank their early morning coffee and Ben munched on a slice of toast. ‘That new French film looks good.’
‘I’m not in the mood for that,’ retorted Kristina. ‘Why don’t we try something different? How about an exotic film, one of those Indian love stories that go on for hours?’
Ben laughed. ‘Since when were you interested in Indian love stories? We might as well go to Pocahontas!’
The Bracelet Page 6