by Geneva Lee
I moaned a yes, barely able to find the word in my fervent state. I wanted to turn around—to kiss him—but I recognized the tone of his voice. Tonight he was in control, and my body knew that. It was what I wanted. I still refused to believe that I needed submission. It was a conscious choice to place myself completely in his hands. It was the only way it could be healthy for either of us. Still, knowing I would be at his mercy soon sent the sweetest pang echoing through me.
“If you will not speak, then you must show me,” he commanded. He released his hold on me and pressed his hands gently to my shoulders. There was no need for him to be rough—not yet.
I knelt, the cool hardness of the kitchen floor providing a jolt to my already frayed senses. Iciness traveled through my blood, spreading so rapidly that instead of shivering, I grew feverish.
Alexander circled me thoughtfully, pausing in front of me so that I could see the proof of his own arousal straining against his trousers. “We have guests?”
I nodded.
“Is that why you’re being quiet?” A smirk played at his shapely lips, and I thought about running my tongue across them. I imagined them pressed between my legs. “Then we’ll make a game of it. If Clara wants to be quiet, she will be. But I won’t make that easy for you.”
It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be quiet or that I was worried about waking the others, it was that something about Alexander demanded it this evening. His dominant side had overtaken him just as the submissive side he’d uncovered in me longed to surrender. Part of me fought against it, still wounded from the information he’d kept from me.
“A gentleman would take you upstairs and close the door. He would make love to you slowly so that your screams wouldn’t wake your friends.” He bent and tipped my chin up with his index finger. His gaze smoldered through me, melting the last of my inhibitions. “I’m not a gentleman.”
His words ignited me. Desire sought out each nerve ending until my skin sung with near-electric desire. Need sizzled and crackled across my flesh as if warning that even the slightest touch might spark an inferno.
His thumb glided over my lips and paused expectantly for them to part before plunging inside my mouth.
“Perfect lips,” he murmured appreciatively. “Do you like to have your mouth filled?”
I started to nod and changed my mind, unprepared to give in entirely even as I shifted on my knees, desperate to ignore the longing growing rapidly in my core. But my squirming was met with firm disapproval. Alexander drew back and shook his head. “Naughty poppet.”
He crooked his finger, beckoning me up, and I scrambled onto my feet.
“Strip,” he ordered.
I was powerless to resist the request, because in the end I couldn’t deny him. I didn’t want to resist him. I shimmied out of the boxer shorts and kicked them away, aware that I was now stark naked in my kitchen.
“Does it make you uncomfortable to know that your friends are upstairs? That any moment a guard could walk by to check the perimeter and see you like this?” His palm trailed across my bare abdomen, leaving a path of fire in its wake. “You may speak.”
“No,” I murmured.
“If you aren’t afraid, why are you whispering?” he asked, pausing to pluck a silk scarf from the collar of the coat I’d left strewn on the kitchen table.
“No,” I repeated in a clear, steady voice even as my knees nearly buckled. I considered what he was going to do.
Alexander wrapped the scarf around his hands and pulled it until the silk was as taut and stretched as my own desire. An ache grew into a painful pulse that thumped between my legs. I dipped under the weight of his darkening eyes, returning to my knees instinctively. Conscious thought fled, replaced only by the sensations crowding in my body, each begging to be freed.
“That’s better.” He took a few steps until he stood behind me and then the silk slipped over my eyes. The filmy fabric obscured my vision, transforming the room around me into a collection of hazy shapes.
“Show me your beautiful cunt.” His words were sharp, his voice more commanding with the scarf’s impediment.
I bent forward with caution, my movement controlled as Alexander gradually slackened his grip on the makeshift blindfold. The scarf drifted, passing over my mouth and gliding down until it loosely collared my neck as my palms met the cold floor. I shivered both from the added chill on my bare skin and from the agonizing promise of the moment.
“You’re cold.” Concern colored his voice, but he didn’t urge me up from the floor. “I’ll light a fire.”
You already have. The lone thought broke through my clouded head, but I didn’t speak. I was high on him, drunk on my own submission. Without thinking, I crawled forward, tugging gently against the scarf. Alexander sucked in a breath behind me, but he didn’t move, forcing me to a halt as my neck strained against the fabric. I waited as he stepped to my side before resuming my progress toward the hearth in the living room. I’d never felt so blatantly sexual, even with Alexander. I was his to control—to consume. Each movement forward—each press of a palm to the floor, each slide of my knee—fueled my wantonness. I’d submitted to him before but he had always taken the reins. Tonight I’d literally handed them over to him.
“Stop here,” he said as we crossed onto the plush Oriental rug situated in front of the hearth. He dropped the scarf entirely. It fluttered to the floor beneath me, but I didn’t move even as he lit a match and stoked a small flame into a roaring fire. Its warmth licked across my face, searing down my shoulders, and enveloping my body physically in the heat already in my blood. I remained on all fours, sensing Alexander’s enjoyment of the pose.
“Do you feel the fire?” he asked, his fingers closing over his belt buckle. “It’s turning your skin such a lovely rosy color. It makes me think of other things that turn your skin pink.”
I tensed with delirious expectation as he drew his belt free of his trousers. It clattered to the floor, followed by his tie. My eyes were glued to him as he unfastened each button of his shirt with slow precision until it hung open, revealing the dips and ridges of his abdomen. I wanted him to take it off so I could see every chiseled groove of his upper body and the scars that I’d grown to love, but I didn’t dare speak. In the firelight, his blue eyes were as dark as the inky black hair that he ran his fingers through as he studied me. His hand shifted to rub the slight stubble that peppered his jaw after the long day. I pressed my thighs tightly together as I imagined how it would feel against them, but with my ass in the air it did nothing to allay the resulting twinge of want.
“You’ve been so patient,” he told me with approbation. The praise in his voice reached inside me and soothed an anguish I didn’t know I carried. “That will be rewarded, but first I want to see how much you can endure. Can you handle that, poppet? The pleasure without the release? I want you to contain it—to hold on. To beg. But to not let go until I say.”
I whimpered, knowing he could take me to the brink and hold me over the edge without letting me fall. He’d done it before but never to this extent. Usually he wanted me to succumb to the clawing, relentless orgasms he unleashed from me. This was new.
And it was exactly what I wanted—to relinquish my body while remaining in control.
He wet his lip with his tongue as he undid his fly and moved out of view. I stared into the flickering blaze, my eyes clenching shut as he softly kicked my bare feet open and stepped between them. His body grazed against my swollen sex as he sank to his knees, his hands gripping my hips then traveling to the soft roundness of my bottom before the hot suction of his mouth closed over me. I swallowed back a groan, my teeth sinking into my lower lip as I concentrated on staying in one piece. His tongue flicked and swirled, dipping into my hole and then settling over the bundle of nerves twitching at my core, making abstinence feel like an impossible feat. The sharp nip of teeth on my engorged clit broke my focus and I cried, dangerously close to coming.
He drew back, smacking my ass w
ith disapproval.
I sucked at the air, my chest heaving as I struggled to center myself.
“Feel it,” he urged. “Feel how close you are to satisfaction. Enjoy it. But don’t let go.”
“Please.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
“No, poppet,” he refused, rubbing my back in soothing circles. “You can hold out longer. I won’t be happy until you’re begging like it’s your very life at stake. In fact, perhaps you need a moment to collect yourself. Turn around.”
I did as he demanded, turning my trembling sex toward the hearth and its heat. My head tilted, gazing up at him hopefully, as I moved closer and pressed a soft kiss through his trousers to the rigid outline of his cock. He smiled, reaching down to free it from the confines of his pants and I wasted no time. I wanted him to feel half as turned on as I did. I wanted to torture him—just a little. My mouth closed over his crown and I relaxed, taking in his shaft until it bumped the back of my throat. A guttural sound rumbled from him as I stroked his length with my tongue.
“You are so fucking beautiful with my cock in your mouth—eyes wide and innocent. It makes me want to do all sorts of depraved things to you.”
My moan vibrated across the velvet marble of his dick, and he responded to the sensation by grabbing a handful of my hair and driving into my mouth with furious abandon.
“Do you want me to come?” he growled. I hollowed my cheeks in response and his head fell back as my lips plunged swiftly over him, sucking him as hard as I physically could. Alexander’s body froze for a split second and I relaxed my throat in anticipation of his climax. But instead he pulled abruptly out of my mouth, his fist jerking his shaft roughly as he released in hot spurts across my bare breasts.
He’d never marked me like this, and I sat back, astonished, on my heels, staring at the milky cum dribbling over my nipples.
“Up. Now,” he commanded through gritted teeth. His erection wagged, undiminished, as he gripped my elbow and hauled me to my feet. He practically dragged me to the corner of the room, turning me at the hips and shoving my knees onto the bench of the grand piano that had sat here untouched since we’d moved in. I narrowly caught myself, my fingers splaying across the keys and sending a jarring cacophony of notes into the air. Somewhere it registered that we were no longer being quiet, but I couldn’t care less. There was only him. Only his touch. Only his skin and his palm as he lightly spanked me.
“That wasn’t very patient of you.” His accusation was followed by a playful smack. He massaged away the sting before another landed on the opposite cheek. “I wanted to come with you, poppet. Now I’ll have to make you come twice.”
Yes, please.
He read my mind. His forearm hooked around my waist, drawing my hips lower, so that my ass hung over the edge of the bench. Alexander lowered to one knee behind me and positioned his wide crest at my entrance, and then he waited.
“Please,” I whimpered.
But he didn’t move.
“I need to feel you. I need you to fuck me, X.”
He remained motionless and I wiggled my hips, trying to lower myself onto him. His arm tightened, restricting my movement.
I gasped, gulping for air that I couldn’t catch as frustration and arousal warred inside me. Want had taken me past rationality, and I struggled against him, bucking and howling as tears spilled down my cheeks. A litany of pleas streamed from me, coupled with sobs that rolled violently through my limbs. Alexander’s lips lowered to the curve of my neck as he restrained my writhing figure, and he kissed the spot softly. The simple act electrified me, and I screamed.
But he didn’t try to silence me—instead he slammed into me, burying himself as deeply as possible with one swift thrust. I was impaled on his cock and his hands shot out, seizing my wrists and pinning them behind my back. My head fell forward, meeting with the cool ivory as he pounded against my cervix, turning my sobs into cries and shrieks that exploded from the very center of my being. My orgasm ripped through me. My muscles splintered and the ball of tension in my core burst as I shattered over him. He’d wrecked me—destroyed me—and I dissolved into his embrace, folding into him as he rocked me slowly to a gentle encore.
By the time he gathered me in his arms, covering me with his shirt, and carried me upstairs, my eyes were heavy and my body exhausted. His scent clung to the stiff cotton and I breathed it in, allowing it to lull me closer to my dreams. He nudged open the bedroom door and was two steps inside when a worried voice called my name.
“Clara! Are you okay?” Edward’s sleepy voice called in our direction.
Alexander paused and stuck his head into the hallway, while keeping my spent, languid body safely out of sight.
“Never mind,” Edward said with amusement. “Hurricane Alexander is home.”
“Good night.” Alexander kicked the door closed behind us and took me to bed.
Edward tapped on the spotless glass case. “What do you think of this?”
“Too ostentatious,” I said decidedly. The thick yellow gold ring featured large square diamonds circling the band. Whoever wore that ring would be hard to miss—not exactly what seemed important to someone like Edward’s boyfriend. “I can’t imagine David wearing that.”
“Neither can I.” Edward released a long sigh and shook his head. “Remind me that this isn’t the most important decision of my life.”
I inclined my head thoughtfully, my fingers twisting my own ruby engagement ring. “Asking him to marry you certainly is.”
“But not the ring,” Edward clarified.
“You could probably give him a rubber band and he would be thrilled,” I agreed. “He wants to be asked.”
“God, I hope you’re right.” Edward pointed to another band, which the saleswoman swiftly retrieved for his inspection.
“Hey, no cold feet.” I bumped his shoulder with my own, trying to cheer him up. “Don’t get angsty unless he says no.”
“And if he says yes?” Edward asked, turning the ring over in his palm before slipping it onto his own finger.
“That’s a whole different matter.”
“How are your feet?” he asked.
“Toasty warm,” I assured him, before adding, “most of the time.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“I wear thick socks.”
His lips pressed into a thin line before he turned his attention back to the task at hand. “Thanks for coming along with me on this. The tabloids would have a field day if someone snapped a photo of me here alone.”
Here was Hammond’s—London’s premier private jeweler, located in posh Belgravia. I’d never heard of the shop until today. I’d assumed Edward was actually referring to Harrods, the famous department store nearby. Instead I’d found myself in a tiny shop tucked back in an unassuming line of stores. As it catered to a very exclusive clientele, the Royal family included, the only thing on the sign was the store’s name and the year of its establishment: 1875. The well-appointed interior full of luxurious leather chairs and plush imported rugs made it a surprisingly welcoming space—that was until I saw a price tag.
No wonder the shop was the Royal family’s jeweler. Each piece cost a king’s ransom.
“I am the perfect alibi.” I leaned closer to the glass, my breath fogging the pristine surface. “I need to buy a wedding band myself.”
“I don’t think you can give Alexander a rubber band.” Edward smirked as he teased me.
“Probably not.” At least not with the whole world dissecting every decision we’d made about the wedding. I sighed, struggling to convince myself that public expectations didn’t matter. The fact was that they did. The closer I grew to Edward, the more I longed to see the rest of the family stop merely tolerating one another and actually love each other. I wasn’t about to admit that to Alexander though.
“This one,” Edward said triumphantly, pushing his glasses on top of his head so he could inspect it more closely.
My purse vibra
ted and I nodded encouragingly while I dug my phone out.
“Very nice choice,” the girl behind the counter opined. “That’s brushed 14-Karat white gold and of course these”—she pointed to two thin yellow gold rings on both edges—“are also 14 Karat.”
The number on the screen was unfamiliar but I recognized the area code. Oxford. I silenced the call with trembling fingers and dropped my phone back into my bag.
“Are you okay?” Edward asked.
“Yeah,” I lied, pretending to look at the jewelry case. I stepped away as they discussed price and tried to turn off the sudden onslaught of fears the phone call had provoked. Running my fingers along the glass, I paused as a simple band caught my eye.
“May I show you something?” A man in an expensive tailored suit stepped from the shadow of the back room. He was striking—classically handsome, save for a nose that looked as if it had been broken a few times. And judging from the salt and pepper in his hair, he was close to my father’s age. I nodded and gestured to the ring that I had just spotted.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. It’s a pleasure to have you in my shop, Miss Bishop.”
I started, caught off guard by the fact that he knew me. Then I remembered that I was no longer an anonymous woman. He reached out and grasped my hand, drawing it to his lips. Charming, handsome, and he owned a jewelry store—he was a triple threat. I couldn’t help but wonder if Belle’s Aunt Jane was seeing anyone yet.
“Mr. Hammond, I presume.”
“Please call me Jack.” Despite the warmth of his greeting, there was a coldness behind his flinty eyes that sent a chill running down my spine.
“Then you must call me Clara.” I started to pull my hand away but his grip on it tightened.
“Such a lovely ring. My father made it for Albert.”
I raised an eyebrow. Alexander’s father wasn’t the type to be on a first name basis with his jeweler. I smiled politely. “I’m very attached to it.”