A finger traced across her flesh and she watched in amazement as he lifted it to his mouth.
With a sigh he closed his eyes and licked his fingertip, tasting the remnants of the virgin cocktail and whatever alchemy it had worked in tandem with Sara's skin.
Then, the lights of his eyes blazed as he opened them, pinning her once more in his intensity.
"Now, turn around," he said.
Without even considering it, Sara turned and just as quickly felt the heat of his body radiating upon her back. She trembled as she thought of his eyes taking in every contour of her silhouette.
"Don't think it has gone unnoticed. For almost two months, you have come to perch like a little bird at the bar and peer at me through the mirror. As if I would not notice...as if you thought you were safe.
"You were wrong."
With hands that gripped like iron manacles, he seized her wrists from behind and pressed himself against her.
Sara gasped and said, "Please don't hurt me."
And from very close, the touch of his lips against her ear, he said, "Then, don't disappoint me."
With no warning, the scents of a pine forest rose in Sara's nostrils. It was a rich odor, full of life, full of desire. Yet, somehow, it spoke of darkness and violence lying in wait as if nature itself had suddenly invaded the manager's office.
What in the hell is this?
He spoke again and his voice had taken on a rougher sound, deeper, heavy with arousal.
"The taste of your desire has been distracting me every day for weeks, the scent of you filling my thoughts. What is about to happen will hurt...yes, it will. But you have asked me for it each and every day.
"Acquiesce and your pleasure will know no bounds. Or, with a single word, deny me and go back to whatever life it is you lead."
His words carried such weight in them. Even spoken in that rough, low tone, Sara felt them caress her body like iron hands shrouded in velvet.
Without understanding how she had come to a decision, Sara replied, "I...accept."
There was no response. Only silence from the man holding her wrists, his body tight against her back. Then, low on her body, just above her bottom, she felt his length pressing against her. It was like a branding iron and her breath quickened as she felt him growing thicker, harder.
"The scent of you...I must taste it. I must know it...."
His voice was a low growl. Suddenly, his hands released her wrists and Sara felt the blood rushing in, her fingertips tingling.
Then, without warning, a white handkerchief obscured her vision. Cool and soft, it was certainly of silk and she did not move as he drew it tight and tied it behind her head.
She could see nothing.
"Now, don't move...not a single step, or this is over." His whisper curled around her and Sara held her breath as she felt his hands drop to the zipper of her skirt.
Then, it was falling away and strong hands drifted across her bottom. She heard an intake of breath, then he murmured, "So delectable...."
A finger slipped under the edge of her panties. They were nothing more than simple white cotton, relatively sheer. She had never intended for anyone to actually see them, let alone the man breathing deeply just behind her.
His finger traced its way along one cheek, moving slowly, lusciously. Then, he continued to follow the line of white fabric, slipping along until he arrived at Sara's inner thigh.
She gasped. Sara knew her underwear was soaked through, her core aching with desire from the very instant that her rescue had turned to something else. Something that she never dared dream of when thinking of the gorgeous man from her lunch hour.
But, admit it...you've wanted him from the very first moment you saw him. Like a schoolgirl, he has become your obsession.
Then he stroked across her apex and his touch was an arc of electricity, igniting her senses like a wildfire.
She felt him as much as heard him drop down behind her and came close to crying out when she felt his tongue slipping along the inside of her thigh. He started low, almost at her knee, then lifted up in a single, long lapping motion.
Without hesitation, he continued ever higher to her center, there where she had become heavy and dripping wet. Her panty was still in place as he brought himself into her folds, nuzzling at her through the thin fabric.
His every touch threatened to tip her over, to turn her into an unthinking mass of flesh, all reason near to disappearing. Yet, as he moved under her, she could not help but think that he was holding himself back, that savagery was close at hand.
He settled his mouth in to her crotch, pulling at her panties with his teeth, then she felt them being tugged to one side.
The next thing that happened truly took her by surprise. Instead of his strong fingers coming to explore her folds, Sara felt something almost indescribable. Something cold and wet that pushed at her, shifting her nether lips. Something that snuffled and made her startle with surprise.
What..!
Then she remembered his words. This moment, so exquisite, so close to carrying her to the edge would cease if she took even a single step.
Don't move....
She forced herself to hold still, even while her legs trembled with muscles tightening in hard.
Sara heard him draw a breath, then his tongue found her once more as he buried himself deep into her cleft.
His hands went to her bottom, cupping them, kneading them.
She was panting as his mouth worked at her, as his hands rolled her flesh in their palms.
Unable to help herself, Sara's hips flexed in counterpoint to the tongue that plied its way through her cleft. Then, his hands began to tighten their hold while he continued lapping at her.
His grip continued to contract until Sara was sure that his fingers were sinking deep in to the flesh of her buttocks. Despite the heat blazing between her legs, she hissed as his fingers squeezed even more.
There will be pain....
She willed herself still, stopping herself from twisting away from the dual vises that gripped her cheeks. And, his long tongue continued sliding through her, exploring her.
The agony burning her bottom came to mingle with the agony of pleasure that rolled through her. Sara arched back as that marvelous tongue teased and stroked her folds.
"Oh my God!" she panted and then, unable to contain herself any longer, Sara jerked hard at the hips as the first lash of an orgasm careened through her core. She knew she could not move, that she was not permitted, but still her body had its way with her as that long tongue slipped forward and across her apex. The hard kernel that had risen there felt like it was burning as much as her bottom while his tongue stroked across it again and again, daring her to lose control, tempting her to step away from the delicious onslaught that would not let her go.
She did not move, but shuddered in place as her climax rolled through her body in heavy waves. Gooseflesh broke across her skin and she took a deep, shuddering breath that caught in her throat as his hands released her cheeks at last. The absence of them was almost worse than before, a prickling sensation of deeply bruised flesh coming alive.
Sara felt him rise to his feet. Then, his hands undid the knotted handkerchief before he leaned in, close enough to touch, and said into her ear, "Be careful of the powers you invoke...lest your words fall upon ears not quite as deaf as we might imagine them."
Once again, his words made no sense to her. It was as if he spoke in riddles, expecting those around him to understand while they rushed to obey the incomprehensible.
What if he's crazy? she thought.
Except that she knew if he was, she was just as unbalanced. There was nothing sane about going, unquestioning, behind closed doors with a complete stranger and then letting him do...things to her. With his mouth.
Oh, that talented tongue.
Sara still had not dared to move and listened as she heard him moving behind her. Then, he said, "Ok...I didn't find anything you can wear to cover up th
at stained shirt. Get dressed."
She bent down, turning as she did it to pick up her skirt, and she saw him buttoning the topmost button of his shirt. In that brief glimpse of the bare skin just below his throat, she saw something dark, something tribal . Something hinting at intricate patterns that embellished his magnificent form.
Sara decided then that she would do whatever it took to see the rest of that tattoo and discover just how low it went upon his body. She would map its every contour and learn the taste of the man before her.
If only there would be a next time....
A quiet knock came at the door and the white shirted man strode over, opening it to find a cardboard box containing his paperwork with his briefcase just beside it.
Moving quickly, not wanting to make him wait, Sara drew her skirt up, then shrugged on her stained shirt.
Bright amber eyes locked once more on to her own. As intense as ever, his gaze was unwavering, as if he was considering her worth...weighing advantage against disadvantage.
She looked away from him, suddenly feeling foolish over her idea that he was her rescuer. No knight would ever come to her aid. Not now, not ever.
"You will be late getting back to work, I think," he said, "Is your office far from here?"
Surprised, she replied, "No, it's just around the block."
"Fine. We'll go to mine first." It was not a question. It was a statement.
Together, they went back down the stairwell, but instead of turning back to make their way through the dining room and bar, he led her through the kitchen doors.
There were men shouting orders at young, harried people. The sounds of stainless steel utensils and knives rang in all directions and steam billowed as pots bubbled and reductions simmered.
No one seemed to notice them as they passed through the tumult and it came to Sara that she had never actually seen him come through the front door of the restaurant. Almost always, he was already seated in his booth when she arrived, or was coming back from the men's washroom. Or, at least, what she had always assumed was the men's room.
No, these people know him. He comes and goes through here every day, in fact.
At the back of the kitchen, they came to yet another door and this one opened to the exterior world, leaving the noise and odors of cooking behind them. It was a back alley and he turned quickly, marching along without looking to see if Sara was keeping up.
What am I doing? Trailing after him like a stray puppy?
As they drew to the alley's end, she saw a homeless man slumped against the brick wall of a building. His clothing was cleaner than most homeless people's, but the haggard eyes that met her own danced with the light of the unbalanced. He cocked his head, nodding to her, and she realized that the man was far younger than she had first taken him for. Her own age, maybe, and that beneath the grime of his hard life, a handsome, if overly thin, face framed steel grey eyes that were as cold as the white shirted man's were fiery.
She twisted her head as she struggled to keep up the pace the white shirted man had set, her curiosity forcing her to look back over her shoulder at the homeless man.
Except that he was no longer there. All she had was the afterimage in her mind's eye of his face and the strange look he gave her. A look that belied certain insanity, an air of crazed zeal.
As she hurried along, she smiled a small, secret smile. If she had thought him a dirty, homeless man, at least he did not have tomato juice splashed across what passed for his shirt.
That was when she saw it. The alley emptied out into the crowded streets that she had come to know so well these past two months. And, there before them both, loomed the building that towered over everything else, in more ways than one.
Abraxis Industries. A modern bastion of world finance and industry. Its glass plated walls reached to the sky and within countless men and women bent all their will to the task of keeping the enterprise among the lofty heights of the world's foremost companies.
It was where she worked each day crunching endless numbers in data entry, mind numbing work broken only by her midday break to descend to the restaurant's bar and tell herself foolish stories about the white shirted man she had found there.
Sara ran two steps forward to overtake the man, saying, "Wait. This is where I work."
He only shrugged without looking at her and said, "Me, too."
Seizing her once more by the arm, it felt almost as though he lifted her off her feet as he walked so resolutely to the building that would mean shame and embarrassment for Sara once she returned to her cubicle and the department manager saw the state of her attire. Impeccable dress was required and the draconian rules of Sara’s manager with her lined, humorless face would brook no insult.
Sara's temp position was more precarious than any other in the department. For the least infraction, she could be fired summarily for whatever reason the woman deemed contrary to office protocol.
She tried to pull back, about to explain that she would lose her job for going back in there in such a state.
Who are you kidding? You're probably already fired, coming in this late from lunch.
Suddenly, instead of mounting the stairs that constituted a grand terrace leading to revolving doors that would mean her doom, the white shirted man pulled her along to skirt the sides of the building, far from the front entranceway.
A simple, nondescript door at the end of a short sidewalk appeared to be his objective. Built into the wall was a digital ID card reader and from a back pocket, he retrieved a blank, white card that he slipped into the receptacle.
A faint click as he withdrew the card signaled that the door had been unlocked electronically and plunging headlong, the two of them entered the dark entrails of the building. For one of them it all appeared routine, for the other, it meant the terror of uncertainty as she was led from all that she had known until then.
~~~
They crossed a mostly empty parking garage level. Sara saw only a few vehicles, most of them foreign looking to her eyes, all of them luxurious without the least sign of dust on them.
In very short order, they came to an elevator with no obvious buttons to push. Instead the white plastic card did its trick once again, and the doors slid smoothly open to reveal a stark interior of glass and stainless steel.
As they stepped inside, Sara could not help but feel that she had walked into an isolation booth.
She watched as he pressed a series of numbers on a keypad next to the usual elevator buttons. Then appeared an almost seamlessly incorporated drawer that slid out and upon which he carefully placed his fingers. She heard a small beep accompanied by a green light as he withdrew his hand and the device disappeared from view.
What the hell is with all this security? I mean, what's next, retinal scans followed by rectal exams?
Sara was already having trouble not believing that she had somehow fallen into a movie. A film about a handsome stranger and his mysterious life, only the casting for his love interest was all wrong.
Except that she was living each moment, not watching it on the big screen.
Her stomach fluttered with that thought and then did it again as the elevator smoothly went into motion. She felt the familiar sensation of any elevator, but this one continued to accelerate for far longer than the elevator she usually took each day.
In time, the elevator slowed to a halt and the doors slid open, not into a corridor but directly into an office.
Or, at least, a receptionist's office.
A beautiful blond was seated at a desk and looked up mildly. Her eyes turned hard as she took in Sara with a quick glance that flicked down to the red stain and back up again.
The white shirted man nodded at her and said, "Giselle, une chemise pour la mademoiselle. De préférence celle en soie et perles."
The blond seated at her desk cast an appraising look at Sara and nodded, saying, "Oui, Monsieur. Tout de suite."
He took Sara by the arm once more and steered her to a comf
ortable looking chair across from the receptionist.
Sara sat, wincing slightly as she did, then looked up at him.
The stranger was looking into the distance, beyond her, beyond the boundaries of the office, his face pensive.
Then, in a low voice he said, "Look...about earlier. I'm not sure what to say about that, except that I'd like to make amends. Giselle will bring you a clean shirt in a few minutes and you can go back to work, if that is what you want.
"I should be able to make the arrangements...you won't be fired."
Then his gorgeous amber eyes held her for the first time since the events in the restaurant manager's office. His stunning eyes held her in all their intensity as he said, "But, I would prefer that you stay. I need to see about a few things. It shouldn't take long, so I'm asking you to wait here for me.
"Will you do that? Will you wait for me?"
I have been waiting all my life for you, she thought then bit back such ridiculous sentiments.
"If you're sure," she said, "I can wait...if you really want me to."
He watched her, almost not blinking, before nodding slowly.
"Good. That's good," he replied and began to turn away.
He came back to face her, his visage as focused as ever upon her and continued, "You know...I can't promise that you won't have regrets about me. On the contrary, I can promise you that you will. But, you must know that you will have my full attention very soon, whether you like it or not."
That he spoke to her this way in the presence of the other woman, the one he had named Giselle, felt like a victory to Sara. He saw her and only her in that moment as all else fell away.
Then a smile broke upon his lips, lifting up the corners of his mouth and drawing into lovely lines that reached to what must have been childhood dimples in his cheeks. It was as though he was illuminated from within as he smiled for her and Sara felt her heart break just a little.
Of course, she would wait.
~~~
Within half an hour of his leaving her, she heard the woman named Giselle take a call.
Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel (A Paranormal Alpha Werewolf Romance) Page 2