He ran his hand through his hair like he was trying to finger-comb it.
Now, his hair stuck up in places and looked like black, snarled weeds.
“Sugar, let me help.” Maternal instincts strengthened her Texas accent. “You’re making it worse.”
He bent his head, which she didn’t really need because she was wearing Louboutin fuck-me shoes, because hell-yeah she was. She was giving off every do-me signal short of painting her arse red like a macaque in heat, hoping it inspired Arthur to do something to her like he’d done last night.
Actually, given that she was wearing a dark red dress over her butt, she kind of had painted her arse red like a macaque in heat.
Well, whatever worked.
She flicked his hair with her fingers, trying to get the soggy strands to lay right. Water dripped off the ends. “Did you even towel your hair?”
“I don’t know.” His low voice was flat like something was crushing it.
She led him to the kitchen and grabbed a clean towel out of a drawer. “How can you not know if you dried your hair?”
“I don’t remember.” He sounded distracted, and his head was turned away from her.
“You? Not remember?” Gen roughed up his hair with the towel, taking a lot of water out of the dark strands, and managed to drag his hair into a fair semblance of its usual style with her fingers. “That’s not like you.”
He straightened. “I have a lot on my mind.”
She tossed the towel into the bin beside a pantry. “More on your mind than when we left your huge earldom estate this morning and drove your fantastically expensive car to your penthouse apartment and its staff before your chauffeur takes us around tonight?”
Arthur looked away from her, frowning. “Well, when you put it that way—”
Gen stared at him. He sounded like he was trying to joke, but she was entirely unconvinced. “Arthur?”
“Hmmm?” he hummed, still turned away from her, toward the end of the kitchen and the windows that looked over London.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he assured her. His tone sounded a little more jovial, but a line creased the skin between his eyebrows. “Nothing at all. Let’s have a good time tonight, shall we?”
His hand touched her back at her waist over the thin silk of the dress, and his body went still.
Gen didn’t move, either.
Arthur’s hand trailed downward a few inches, caressing the small of her back over her tailbone.
He was feeling for a waistband.
And she wasn’t wearing one.
Gen waited while his fingers moved lower, over her hip and down the curve of her ass.
Beside her, she heard Arthur’s breathing deepen.
He flipped the hem of her skirt over his hand and reached under it, grabbing the bare flesh of her ass.
He growled deep in his throat.
Damn, that was sexy.
She said, “I wasn’t sure whether I—”
He palmed the heavy flesh of her ass, kneading it. “Don’t speak.”
Gen closed her lips.
He moved behind her, holding her waist with one hand and her ass in the other.
“Did you do this to please me?” he asked her, his fingers tight on her butt.
Okay, no talking, he had said. She nodded.
His hand on her waist slid up her ribs, and his fingers closed on her nipple.
Gen’s breath caught. She arched her back, pushing against both his hands.
Arthur whispered near her ear. “Did you think this would excite me?”
She nodded again, biting her lip.
His teeth raked the skin on her neck. He growled, “Good girl.”
Gen grabbed the counter for balance. She suspected she would need to hang on.
Arthur crowded up against her from behind and pressed her between her shoulder blades, bending her down. The granite countertop chilled her, and her nipples hardened fast.
Behind her, the soft fabric of his suit rubbed her bare butt, and his hard-on pressed between the cheeks of her ass.
She wasn’t sure what he was going to do to her, but she sure as hell wanted to find out.
He flipped her skirt up to her waist, and the air in the kitchen cooled the skin on her butt and thighs, but he still pushed against her. He held her down on the counter, her cheek pressed to the stone, and massaged her ass and thighs. His hand was so big that he grabbed handfuls of her flesh, stroking and kneading her.
His whisper, “Glorious,” was so soft that he might have been talking to himself.
Gen twisted a little, trying to see his face.
Arthur was looking down at her butt, smiling, taking a minute like he was enjoying the view. He must have felt her twisting under the hand on her back, still pushing her down on the counter, because he looked up.
He took a step back, and his hand left her back. “Turn around.”
Gen had learned better than to ask what he meant. She straightened, balancing on her high heels, and held onto the counter as she swiveled and leaned back.
He stepped forward again, almost crowding her but not quite because there was nothing behind her back. No wall. Plenty of escape. She took a deep breath.
His hands circled her waist, and he lifted her, easily, and sat her on the cold counter. Her bare butt chilled, and the cold even touched the lips of her pussy under her. Her legs hung down, and she was barely sitting on the very edge.
“Remember,” he said. “Amber, and red. If you say one of those, I’ll stop. I’ll stop everything because you’re in control.”
“Amber and red,” she agreed, her voice hoarse and almost silent in her throat.
She shifted, trying to get away from the cold stone pressing against her and chilling her clit, but Arthur placed his palm on her sternum right below her throat and pressed.
Gen reclined back to her elbows, the chilly stone walking cold up her spine.
“All the way,” he said.
She lay back, her shoulders and arms pressed against the granite slab.
He said, “Reach above your head and hold onto the other side.”
Her fingers stretched upward, and she found the other edge of the counter with her fingertips.
“Good girl,” he said. “Don’t let go.”
She wouldn’t. She might fall off the counter and crush Arthur.
Gen rolled her head up to see what he was doing.
He lifted her legs, laying her knees over his shoulders, and kissed the inside of her calf.
When he looked up at her, looking first directly between her legs and then over her stomach and boobs to where she was peering at him, his grin turned absolutely devilish. He nipped the inside of her knee with his teeth, almost hurting her, but not quite.
Gen laid her head back and closed her eyes. She had gone commando on purpose. Cause, effect.
The heat from Arthur’s mouth moved up the inside of her leg, a hot trail of his lips sucking at her skin. His cheek felt like satin on her thigh.
Damn, he was moving so slowly.
The anticipation was cruel to the point that she wanted to cry. His tongue was so hot, and the inside of his mouth so wet, that she squirmed, trying to scoot down to him, but she couldn’t. Her arms were extended as far as they could go over her head to the other side of the counter, and she didn’t want to slither off and be a sex-stunned heap on the floor.
Past her knee, far up the inside of her thigh where her leg bulged out a little, he paused, sucking, until pain snaked into her skin.
Oh, man. He’d left a bruise on her, a hickey on the inside of her thigh.
The thought of him marking her with his mouth turned her on more, and Gen moaned.
His cool fingers touched her folds, parting her, and he ran his tongue across her pussy, side to side.
Pleasure slid through her body.
He did it again, and again, each easy brush a glide of bliss that melted her.
Her fingertips loose
ned on the edge of the countertop above her, but she held on, just enough.
He licked her slower, more deeply, sucking on her quivering skin until she was panting, waiting for every new sensation.
And it was new. It was all so new.
His tongue worked inside her as he sucked on her clit, a slowly rising storm of sensation that overtook Gen, engulfed her, and swallowed her in darkness and pleasure.
ELEVATOR
They got into the elevator, and both of them turned and faced the doors, parallel, not looking at each other. Very British.
In the elevator, Gen fidgeted for a moment, her thighs still damp from Arthur’s mouth, and she finally asked him, “What would you have done if you were training me to be a real submissive?”
The elevator whirred around them and began to drop.
“Depends on where we were in training,” Arthur said, also looking at the elevator doors. “If it were the first few weeks, probably the same.”
“Oh.” Gen stared at the numbers flickering above the doors as the elevator descended. “What if it wasn’t the first few weeks?”
His voice deepened. “If it were still the first few months, I would have found something that vibrates and pressed it into you until you came. One has to improvise, you know.”
“Oh. Sure. Improvise.” Her body was becoming sensitive again, just thinking about him shoving something buzzing against her clit. She pressed her legs together. “And if we were further into the training than that?”
Arthur turned toward her and clamped one arm around her waist, dragging her against his body. The cinnamon and cloves of his cologne drifted from his suit, and Gen inhaled his scent.
He whispered, “Sometimes, exactly one of those two things. Other times, if I were in other moods, I would have found the kitchen twine and bound your hands behind your back. Then, I would have searched the cabinets for olive oil, bent you over the counter, and pounded your ass, pulling back on your wrists where I had tied you and rubbing your clit until you came so hard that people walking dogs in Hyde Park would have heard you scream my name.”
Okay, that was a lot to think about.
A whole lot to think about.
Gen swallowed hard. “When you say my ass—”
“Anal,” he growled, his breath hot on her neck. “I’d shove my cock in your tight, luscious ass and pound you until you came. Any guy can lick a woman to an orgasm. That’s practically cheating.”
It hadn’t felt like he was cheating.
Arthur’s eyes were blue-hot steel when he said, “But anal is a rare skill. Shocking a woman with how hard she can come with my dick in her ass, how much she’ll scream, how she will lose control and beg for more, is simply fantastic.”
Gen’s words swelled in her throat, and she wasn’t sure what to say. She sputtered, “Um, okay.”
His intense gaze pinned her as hard as his arm around her waist. “Why do you ask?”
She was sober, and this was not in the heat of the moment. What she said now counted.
Fear rose up. Terror choked her. Memories assailed her and spun her down a black hole.
Gen took a deep breath. She grabbed the lapels of his suit in her fists and said, “I want to know. I want to know what I might be getting myself into.”
Arthur growled deeper in his throat, the words “Good girl,” just barely recognizable in his gravelly voice. His arm around her waist tightened, pinning her body against his. His lips found hers, and he kissed her hard, shoving his tongue between her lips.
He slapped a button on the control panel.
The elevator bobbed to a stop under her feet, and she staggered in her high heels. It rose toward his apartment.
Arthur leaned back against the wall of the elevator, dragging her along with him and pulling her arms up around his neck, and he swung his hand under her skirt again.
Gen looked down as the lump of his hand ran over her hip and around to the front, dipping into her cleft. He found every sensitive part of her, his fingers inside her, rubbing the stripe of sensation in there. His thumb pressed on her clit where she was already swollen from just listening to him describe what he might do to her and raw from his tongue minutes ago. A few thrusts of his long fingers up into her and his rough thumb pushing on her clit made her clench so fast that she gasped.
A few more, and she was whimpering, her core tightening into a knot that wouldn’t release.
It was too soon. She couldn’t come again.
She thought she couldn’t.
Something nudged her asshole.
“Say yes,” Arthur commanded her.
Gen held onto the lapels of his suit, almost crying with the tension. “Yes.”
A deep burn crept inside her ass as he slid a finger in there, too. He was stroking against more nerves, penetrating her more deeply, more completely than she had thought possible. He ground into her, his fingers rubbing hard, driving her until she couldn’t bear it and couldn’t stop it if she had tried.
Gen cried out and fell against him, holding onto his suit with her eyes closed. The inescapable pressure drove her over the edge, rippling waves down to her knees and up to her head.
Her legs gave out, and she fell, driving his fingers farther into her and sending deeper waves running through her body. Her body throbbed with her release, tightening around his hand and pulsing on his thick fingers.
She bit back the cry, trying not to scream. “Arthur!”
In her ear, he whispered, “Like that, only louder.”
PARTY
In yet another elevator, riding up to the party after the car ride, Gen’s thighs were damp from Arthur’s mouth and her reaction. The hickey on the inside of her leg stung, and she swallowed hard, trying not to look thoroughly turned on by it.
She fretted, “I must look freshly fucked.”
“No,” Arthur replied, looking straight ahead. His voice dropped to that deep, sexy register, “But that can be arranged.”
Gen was snickering as the doors opened to another genteel, perfectly appointed little hallway, where a huge vase stuffed with fresh flowers stood on a marble end table.
Time to be British.
Gen schooled her expression and held onto Arthur’s elbow as they walked into the small party, a gathering of a few dozen people at yet another penthouse overlooking yet another park.
Seriously, the rich people sucked up all the best real estate. Gen’s garden had a view of her neighbor’s weedy patch and rusted-out window air conditioner.
Arthur raised his hand as he walked into the thick of the party. “Raleigh! It’s been simply eons!”
Gen followed Arthur over to a distinguished-looking mature gentleman, meaning that he had more gray hair than wrinkles and was still whip-lean. She readied her How-do-you-do’s.
The man brightened when he saw Arthur and then beckoned him over. “Lord Severn, we must speak.”
Arthur shook the man’s hand.
Good thing he’d gone back into his penthouse apartment and washed his hands.
“First, may I introduce my very good friend,” Arthur said with warm overtones that indicated so much more, “Genevieve Ward. Gen, this is Lord Raleigh Gage, Baron Sandys, of Ombersley in the County of Worcester. He’s also a High Court Judge.”
All of Arthur’s polishing up lessons dove right out the penthouse windows. “I—A pleasure to meet you, my lord.”
“How do you do,” the Right Honorable and Learned Judge, Lord Gage the Baron and what-all else, said to Gen. He turned to Arthur. “I was dearly hoping we would happen to meet tonight.”
“You could have called if it was urgent,” Arthur said.
“It is better if it were discussed in passing,” the judge said.
Even Gen knew that meant that the Judge shouldn’t be saying this at all, but the upper classes talk amongst themselves at parties. Can’t be helped.
The Judge glanced at Gen and said to Arthur, “Perhaps there is some place more private where we can talk.”
“It’s quite all right,” Arthur told him, sliding his arm around Gen’s waist. She leaned against his side. “Gen is my barrister for the case.”
“I was wondering who you’d get after poor old Horace Lindsey died.” He bobbled as if he was riding over a rough road. His expression clenched to a dismayed frown. “Your barrister is here with you?”
Arthur said, “Mention it to Octavia Hawkes. She’ll explain.”
“But m’learned friend is right here. We can’t speak.”
“Go ahead,” Arthur said. “She’s not a problem.”
Gen shrugged and told them both, “I won’t say anything.”
“All right, if you insist.” He shook off his discomforting thought and leaned in to tell Arthur, “Judge Howard has had to recuse herself from your case due to conflicts of interest.”
Arthur grinned far too innocently. “Oh, that’s too bad. Lady Howard was most friendly to our case.”
Oh, God. Arthur had slept with the judge.
“Gossip of your friendliness with Judge Howard did make the rounds rather speedily,” Lord Gage said, his tone as dry as a brut zéro champagne made without the pinch of sugar.
Where had Gen picked up snotty references like that? She would just assume that it was osmosis from Arthur, somehow.
The judge leaned in, his thin form bent in a sharp angle. “Judge Sackville was assigned to your case this evening.”
Gen had no idea who that was, so she plastered an amused smile on her face and prepared to wait it out.
Beside Gen, Arthur stepped back as if shoved. “Knox Sackville?”
“Yes.”
Arthur touched the side of his face at his temple like a migraine was forming there. “Are you certain?”
“Positive,” the judge grated out.
Gen dipped her eyebrows and frowned at whatever it was that she didn’t know.
Arthur muttered, “Fuck it all,” and he straightened. “Thank you, Raleigh. We’ll manage.”
Gen held his elbow as Arthur walked her over to the open bar. Inside his sleeve, Arthur’s bicep jumped.
He asked, “White wine?” with a lightness that Gen recognized as completely fake.
“Tell me who Knox Sackville is,” she told him.
Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1 Page 35