by Vonna Harper
“Yes.”
“Good. Now relax. Float. Don’t rush.”
How strange it was to be told to float instead of having sex thrown at her. Maybe she should tell him, thank him, but as his slave, her role was to respond to his commands, not initiate conversation.
Without him telling her to, she lifted her pelvis and increased his access to her. His finger in her remained a quiet warmth, not so much an invasion as a welcome visitor. Much of the time her muscles remained slack and equally quiet, but occasionally and without warning, a spasm caused her to clench him. When that happened, he waited her out while whispering for her to relax, and when she’d done as he’d ordered, he rewarded her by sliding both fingers deeper in their respective caves.
“I’m going to leave you now,” he said, his voice like a breeze on a still pond. “I want you to wait a minute and then turn over onto your back. You can do that, can’t you?”
Leave? Where are you going? “Y—es.”
“Good.” His fingers made a slow retreat that nearly had her begging, and yet when she was empty, a strange peacefulness slid over her. She nearly boasted that she’d mastered the art of relaxation but settled for listening to her body’s messages. Sexually she was on alert; that was a given. But she could be patient.
And if he was gone too long, she might fall asleep.
How long had she been heeding her inner whispering? Although she couldn’t come up with the answer, she gathered her strength and rolled onto her back, not trying to take her towel with her. Somehow she’d wound up mostly sideways on the bed with her legs dangling over the edge. Instead of correcting things, she looked around. There weren’t any lights on, but Reeve must have gone into the bathroom because a sliver of light oozed out of it to define the bed and furniture. She loved expensive bedding, especially silk, but she was on the quilted covering so didn’t know what kind of sheets she’d find. Maybe, if she was here long enough, she’d learn.
What was ahead of them? Would she and Reeve be welcomed back to The Slavers? If not, how could she possibly find the women she was committed to help, and if the answer was yes, did Reeve have a plan?
The sound of bare feet on carpet freed her from unwanted thoughts. Reeve, naked, was coming out of the bathroom. Because he’d left the light on, he was backlit, a shadow among shadows. Twisting to the side a little, she watched his slow but sure approach.
Instead of climbing onto the bed next to her, he knelt on the floor between her dangling feet where she could no longer see him. Gripping her legs, he pulled her toward him until her buttocks were near the edge. With no pillow under her head, she stared at the ceiling.
And waited.
“Are you still relaxed? Easy in your skin?”
Because his breath slid over her belly, relaxed was hardly the label she’d put on herself. Still she nodded.
“I don’t think so, not entirely anyway.” That said, he spread his hands over her belly and pressed down so she felt sandwiched between him and the bed. Her searching fingers found his hair; she held on. “You’re tense.”
“You—know why.”
“Because your pussy is in front of me and you don’t know what I’m going to do?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Fuck me,” she said with her eyes closed, and her fingers threatening to cramp. “I need you to fuck me.”
“Can you be patient?”
“I’ll try, Master.”
“Then that’s what I want you to do, try. But I’m not going to make it easy for you because there are things I need and want.” With that, he spread her legs and slid into the V he’d made for himself. His fingers inched lower and lower on her mons, approaching what she had scant control over.
He was a butterfly, a faint breeze. By turn his fingers and breath teased her labia and danced over her clit. Then just as the touches eased her toward the edge, he pulled back, quieted. During those times, his fingertips put her in mind of a tiny feather. There was just enough contact that she couldn’t dismiss it.
He stirred, hands and breath on the move again, but now he’d left her sex and was concentrating on her inner thighs. His fingers walked over silken, living flesh while she tugged on his hair and tried to bury her nails in his shoulders. All the same time, she moved her hips and shoulders and stared at the ceiling and made keening sounds.
“Cover your breasts,” he ordered. “Make them feel good.”
They already did, but the moment she cupped them, they throbbed. Head thrashing, she fought the assault on her thighs by kneading and lightly pinching her breasts. A molten river flowed up from her legs to embrace her untouched cunt. She swam in dark heat, floated somewhere, drifted within inches of a climax only to pull back because once she’d fallen over the edge, she might stay there until insanity owned her.
Another change, fingers now under her buttocks. Lifting her so his mouth could close in on her pussy.
Reality tore through her with a firebrand’s strength. No matter how fiercely she squeezed her nipples, her mind remained locked on the tongue dancing over her labial lips and dipping into her for a drink of her flowing juices. He wasn’t immune; his grip on her ass and quick, deep breathing gave him away. But he wasn’t the one under assault, yet.
“Let me, let me—your turn,” she got out. “I want to—do you.”
“Not tonight.” He didn’t bother lifting his head. “Tonight’s about my learning everything I can about you.”
Hadn’t he already stripped her naked in every way there was? Maybe not, she amended as he went back to work. When he ran his tongue over her shaved mons and from there to her pussy, she dug into the sides of her breasts. He flicked, barely flicked her clit, and then went back to drinking of her offering. After another flick, he sucked a labial lip into his mouth, and she nearly drew blood on herself. Pain stood between her and experiencing everything he was doing to her so she released her breasts and covered the hands on her buttocks with her own.
“Killing me. You’re killing me.”
“Not going to happen, Saree. I don’t want you dead.” He stopped, licked, then licked again, on the space between her cunt and ass this time.
“Don’t don’t don’t.”
“Quiet. Quiet.” He mouthed her other outer lip. “Tell me what you’re feeling. That’s all. An explanation.”
Oh shit, his teeth brushing her clit. “Killing,” she blurted even though he was gone before she could get the word out. “You’re killing me.”
“That, or bringing you to life?”
Another teeth stroke. Another lift of her buttocks off the bed and rapid breathing as if she were in labor. “Life. Oh shit, life!”
Much as she wanted to know what he was thinking and feeling, she couldn’t form the necessary words to ask. A core requirement in what she did for a living called for her to climax for the camera. For their part, those whose job it was to make that happen practically manhandled her clit. In contrast to relentless mechanical or human assaults on her most sensitive organ, Reeve was gentle. She jumped every time he breathed on or touched her clit, but for the first time in so long she couldn’t remember, her trigger wasn’t being overloaded.
Was it possible? He understood that she didn’t want an explosion wrenched out of her?
That instead she needed to be handled as if her sexuality was a fragile thing?
Digging her elbows into the bed, she pushed herself closer to him. Much more and she’d be in danger of falling off, but that was all right because he was there to protect and stop her. Losing herself in the wonder of having turned her body and maybe more over to the man she should fear most in life, she stroked her sides, breasts, belly. He continued to feather her sex with kisses, to lightly stroke her inner thighs and the join between pelvis and leg. He knew how to keep the pressure firm so he wasn’t tickling her, and yet his fingers felt like silk running over her flesh. She whimpered and called out sounds without meaning.
And sometimes
she laced her fingers through his and they held hands before one or the other retreated from what might be the most intimate gesture of all.
His hands now rested on her belly, holding her in place, pushing down with pressure that demanded acknowledgment. “What?” she whispered.
“If you could fuck any way you want, what would be your first choice?”
“I love it all.”
“But when the choice is yours, what is it?”
The answer, to her surprise, came easily. “Man on top. Nothing fancy. Basic missionary, that’s it, basic and uncomplicated.”
“With or without ropes?”
“Without.” She didn’t have to think before saying the word. “Sex. Just sex.”
Silent again, he pushed her back onto the bed. He kept pushing until now her head was near the edge. “What—”
“Hush, slave. Don’t speak, just experience.”
Of course. After all, this was moment by moment, breath by breath, nothing choreographed or planned. She’d never imagined his hands could be so gentle or that she’d trust him this much. He knew her ticklish spots, the places with a direct connection to her pussy, even areas that needed nothing more than a light pressure. He circled an ear with his fingernail, covered the pulse at her temple, and held it there for a long time as if checking her heart rate. Then he rested his thumb in the hollow of her throat, gently reminding her that greater pressure would cut off her ability to breathe, and still she trusted him.
The insides of her elbows, back of her knees, chin, hip bones, wrists and between her fingers, armpits, the ladder of her ribs—all those places and more absorbed his touch. As he worked her, she ping-ponged between sensations, always off balance and yet accepting. Wondering. Questioning. Rocking her hips from side to side and grinding her buttocks into the coverlet. Lifting her ass off the bed and him sliding a couple of pillows under her.
Although he’d crawled onto the bed and positioned himself between her splayed legs, her head was so far back that her view of him was now limited to the shoulders up. He became not just big but huge, massive, and masterful.
“Missionary did you say?” Sliding closer, he positioned his cock at her entrance. “Why?”
Hurry, please! “I don’t know.”
There he was, tall and strong and over her, his hands gripping her hips and lifting her up. Mouth hanging open, she let herself melt from the waist down. Her fingers found his forearms, and she raked the tanned flesh.
Then his silken cock head kissed her core. “Oh God, God,” she whispered.
He gathered himself, pushed even farther forward, the movement sleek and controlled. Instead of the raging waterfall of need she expected, she kept on melting, drifting off into nothing behind her now-closed eyes.
“Damn. Damn.” His voice was as low and slow as hers had been. “You’re killing me.”
She was boneless, nerveless, stripped of all muscle. He was in her. With every breath she took, her body absorbed even more of him. Her pussy was both her power and weakness, master and slave. And much as she wanted to ask if he felt the same—whether there were times when he feared the power of what lay between a woman’s legs—it would have to wait.
Filling up, expanding, legs starting to tremble, knees bent and feet pushing into the bedding, head sliding yet closer to the edge. When she opened her eyes, she saw only the ceiling and the lighting fixture hanging from it. It seemed to be moving but maybe the movement came from her. And him.
There. Suddenly so deep into her that his balls pressed against her. She was gripping his wrists, no longer scratching, hoping she hadn’t drawn blood. If she relaxed her hold, she might slide onto the floor—if his hold on her hips didn’t keep her in place and they weren’t anchored to each other.
Mewling sounds rolled out of her, not the harsh, hungry cries that had wrenched free when her clit was under assault, but soft and low and sleepy. That was her, that contented woman with the blood running into her brain and her body still drifting?
He started moving, not thrusting yet but something soft and sleepy, a kind of quest, questions being asked maybe. Yes, she responded by tightening her pelvic floor muscles. Yes, I want you here.
Why, he seemed to ask during a long, slow push. Why do you want me?
I don’t know. The intensity of what we’ve shared, yes. But more than that. Closeness. Barriers breached. Intimacy sought.
There, stronger but still building, a promise and threat of what he was capable of. Wise in the way of the male body and maybe mind, she knew he’d crossed over a line. He might speak. He might even say words that reached her heart, but he was all about himself now, primitive and demanding.
She wanted demanding and primitive—primitive was essential. And yet she continued to float, to ooze, to simply be. Even as she rolled her head from side to side and the pressure on her shoulders built, she remained disconnected from fucking and being fucked. It didn’t matter how many objects and organs had filled her because it had never been like this, her turning herself without reservation over to a man and trusting him to put her back together when he was done.
A warm and languid twitching rolled over and into and through her cunt. Fascinated, she gathered up what brain fragments she could find and molded them into the semblance of a question. The twitching came from deep inside, from a place beyond where Reeve’s cock reached and yet was dependent on it. She could distinguish between a climax triggered by her clit and one her G-spot lay claim to, but this was neither of those. Similar. Incredible. All-consuming. And yet different.
It built, warmed, and spread, burning her throat and stealing her muscles. She wasn’t floating so much as flying now, gasping at the quick assent. Then as she pondered whether she might be turning inside out, the deep shivers smoothed. And in their wake came something familiar, her clit overloading and spraying electricity over everything.
She knew this electricity, its quick and delicious heat. Mindful of how quickly it could come and go, she mounted it, pressed her body tight around it, rode it. Her nails dove into his wrists as if she were trying to draw the blood out of him.
“Killing me,” he snapped. “Killing me.”
No, it was he who’d laid wreck to the old her.
19
“Official cause of death—broken neck.”
“From being thrown out of a vehicle?”
“No. According to the autopsy, she was already dead when they dumped her along the side of the freeway. Going by the bruising, someone did it with his hands.”
Reeve had heard and seen a lot of things in his life that would make most people sick so he’d anticipated something like this, but it still hit him hard.
“You needed to know that,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Looks can be deceptive. As long as they know what they’re doing, a pampered CEO could have the strength for—”
“I get it. You’re warning me not to trust anyone, which I’ve already figured out.”
“I’m sure you have. Reeve, you’re not going to want me to spell it out, but I’m going to anyway. It’s different for you this time. You’re personally involved.”
I can deal with it, he wanted to say but didn’t. He’d placed his call to The Clan headquarters because they needed to know that The Slavers wanted to see him and Saree again, tonight. The conversation with agent B was supposed to be about plans and logistics, not him being psychoanalyzed.
“Are you listening to me?” B asked. “She’s gotten under your skin.”
“Call it an unavoidable by-product of the working conditions. As we speak, I’m forwarding the e-mail that came to her in-box to you. Maybe the computer geeks can trace it, maybe they can’t. What matters is that we’re not going back to Segun’s. Whoever wrote the e-mail called Segun a transfer site and said they’re looking forward to showing off their private quarters.”
“Wait. Yeah. It just came in.” B paused. “This is it. I know it is.” He sounded excited. “You’re going to be walking in the
front door tonight.”
“That’s what I got out of it. And we both know what that means.”
“Yeah. Time to spring the trap.”
“But how?” Despite his best efforts, his thoughts went to the woman watching TV in the living room. “I don’t know where they’re taking us. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made us wear blindfolds. You can’t spring a trap if you don’t know where the prey is.”
“We’ll track you.”
“How?”
“GPS.”
Holding onto his temper, Reeve pointed out a simple fact. Although the geeks at The Clan had perfected a GPS tracking device that was no bigger than a AA battery, given how thoroughly he’d been patted down before going into Segun, it would be found. And although he wanted Saree dressed tonight, she too would be searched. “Bottom line,” he said, “I’m not taking her there unless I know you’re going to be busting in the doors before the night’s over, and you can’t promise that. I’m not risking her neck, got it?”
“You can’t pull the plug at this date, you can’t! Do that and you’re through here.”
Eyes closed, Reeve shook his head. So years of giving The Clan everything he had to give didn’t count for crap. The only thing that mattered to those who ran the organization was shutting down The Slavers. In exchange for once again risking his life, he’d be allowed to remain part of the only sense of belonging he’d known since his father’s rampage. And if he rebelled, he’d be cast aside—unless someone decided he had too much insider knowledge and needed to be silenced.
Like he didn’t already know that.
“If I didn’t have the balls for this, I wouldn’t have signed up for the gig,” he pointed out. “And you wouldn’t have selected me if you couldn’t trust me. I’m a pro. As such, I’m making sure all bases are covered, number one being that Saree and I get out of there alive. I wouldn’t be any use to you if that wasn’t my priority, and you know it.”