Languid, she let him support her weight. He stroked her fire-warmed skin with long, sensuous caresses. Over her breasts and belly, her thighs. She sank into the waves of pleasure, held speared and still, otherwise cherished by his hands and mouth.
When his fingers brushed up her inner thighs and delved into the folds of her sex, she simply sighed and spread wider for him. Offering him whatever he cared to take.
He rolled her clit between two fingers and slid another into her passage, sliding and caressing her. Gone was the rough-edged need of before. Now she felt like a flower unfolding her petals in his arms. She rode rose-colored waves up and up. And when the climax overtook her, she turned her head on his shoulder, letting his delicious kiss bring her down again, petals deliciously melted.
His eyes glittered gold in the firelight. He seemed about to say something. Stopped himself.
Instead he lowered her back down and withdrew from her. She lay languid, drained and replete at once, drowsy in front of the fire. She blinked sleepily when Kirliss closed the glass doors to the fireplace and offered her a hand. He helped her to her feet and untied the ropes, letting them fall to the floor.
“Time for bed.” He dropped a kiss on her upraised lips.
“I—I wasn’t planning to stay.” Though she couldn’t remember why.
“That’s all right. I want you to.” He guided her out to the hall and toward a staircase. Realizing they were both naked still, she hesitated.
“No one else is here.” He tugged on her hand.
“Can’t I have a robe, at least?”
“Yes, it’s upstairs.”
She gave up and trailed along. It didn’t hurt that she had a fine view of his backside as they climbed the stairs. His cock still rode high and hard, so she wasn’t surprised when he gathered her into his arms at the head of the stairs.
Sliding his hands through her hair, he held and kissed her. Sweet. Almost romantic.
“I have to have you once more,” he whispered and she wondered why it sounded like he was asking a question. He led her into a massive master bedroom and showed her a very female adjoining bathroom and dressing room. “After, we’ll sleep. Do you want to clean up before or after?”
“Before.”
“Do you need your purse?”
For lipstick and credit cards? No. She shook her head.
“I’ll wait for you.”
The bathroom was a fantasy in pink marble. A single rose waited in a bud vase by the sink, white, with bloodred tips. Along with a toothbrush, still in the wrapper, and a basket of toiletries and cosmetics. She fingered the pack of makeup remover wipes and wondered if he’d picked the things out or…
She was too depleted to think. Maybe Kirliss was right and Taylor had shattered, taking all the thinking with her. Winding up her hair into an elastic band, she stepped into the hot shower, wincing at the sting on her bruises. The soap smelled of roses, of course. As did the lotion she smoothed over her skin after she dried herself with the thick towel she could have worn like a sari.
She almost did when she saw the short silk robe hanging on the back of the door. Deep blue, tissue thin and completely see-through. Still, she put it on and brushed out her hair without ever looking in the wall-long mirror.
If last night’s mirror on the yacht had shown her in disarray, she couldn’t bear to think how she looked now. Ravished. Sensual. A woman who let a man do whatever he liked to her.
It would be M in the mirror, she knew.
When she opened the door, the room was dark but for candlelight. Kirliss, wearing a black silk robe, came up to her.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms for a kiss, his skin hot and damp from his own shower. He must have felt some hesitation in her because a frown flicked across his brow. “Thinking again, already?”
“Some,” she admitted. “I’m wondering how—”
“Thinking is for daylight. Nighttime is for dreams. Now is for this.”
He took her mouth again, and her thoughts melted away, like the dreams he conjured. He backed up to the bed and sat, pulling her between his knees. Rose petals scattered across the white sheets.
“Romance, after all this?” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“With you, darling—” Kirliss tugged open the belt on her robe and parted it, “—nothing proceeds on the usual schedule.”
His mouth closed over her tender nipple, stopping her next question. Desire rose up, like warm molasses, sweet and thick. It had never let her go, so it was easy to give up to it once again.
Kirliss wound his fingers in her trailing hair and pulled her face down to kiss him. She obliged, liking the change in positions. With her hands free now, she could cup his face in her palms, as she’d longed to before. He’d shaved while he waited for her, so his skin felt smooth and soft, the scent of bay rum filling her senses. With her hair falling around them like a curtain, she kissed him, savoring his taste. He held her loosely, with hands draped over her hips, fingertips idly stroking her skin.
With a deep sigh of satisfaction, he stood and slipped the robe off her shoulders. She returned the favor, untying the black sash and parting the silk so she could run her hands over his lean and muscled chest. She trailed curious fingers over his flat pecs and down the trail of hair on his belly.
She glanced up through her eyelashes and saw him watching her, that unreadable look on his face. He responded in pleasure to her touch but wasn’t trying to control anything now. His cock twitched, still eagerly upthrust, and she wondered how he’d waited this long.
She wrapped her fingers around him and he groaned aloud, clenching his fists at his sides. Not so stoic and controlled, then. The skin of his cock was butter-soft, with corded iron beneath. She stroked him, teasing the swollen head with pointed fingernails.
“M…” he breathed.
“Yes, Mr. Kirliss?”
“Adam,” he said. “I’m Adam.”
“Adam.”
He shrugged out of the robe and pressed her down on the bed, the rose petals tickling her back, their scent rising up around them. He braced himself over her, his black hair blending into the shadows behind him, his eyes catching the golden flames, settling himself between her thighs.
His skin moved against hers in intimate contact. How was it possible she felt more exposed now?
Eyes holding hers captive, he slid into her, breathing out a sigh of satisfaction as he buried himself. Her breath blended with his as she took him in, the pleasure shimmering and warm. Their lips brushed, then deepened into each other.
He stroked, almost lazily, and she hummed back the sweetness of it.
He dropped his head to her shoulder, laying himself full-length against her. She wrapped arms and legs around him in a dream of pleasure.
“M?” he whispered in her ear, moving slowly inside her.
“Hmm?”
“What’s the M for, darling? Tell me.”
“It’s silly.”
“Tell me, darling.”
Her eyes were closed and all she could feel was him, in her, around her.
“Molly,” she breathed.
“Molly,” he murmured back and pushed deeply into her.
She gasped. “It’s dumb, I know.”
“No,” he said, lifting his head and kissing her. “It’s lovely and sweet and feminine, like you.”
She turned her head, pressing her face into the nook between his throat and shoulder. He moved into her, her hips following the slow waltz. The climax took her by storm, surprising in its sudden intensity, shredding her mind and heart so she felt scattered like so many rose petals on his bed.
Taylor awoke to bright sunlight and stretched, languid and replete. Sore. Everything rushed back. In humiliating, painful detail. She rolled her head on the pillow to see that she slept alone. She sat up and scoped out the room, the huge windows looking out over the ocean and nothing else.
The blue robe lay draped over the white duvet at the foot of the
bed.
Oh, and dear Lord, did she ache everywhere.
A hot shower loosened her up. Taking her time, Taylor played with the various shampoos, conditioners and body washes in the fantasy shower. A little bench even let her sit to shave her legs. She wasn’t in any hurry to confront Adam.
She combed out her hair with the hand-carved sandalwood comb in her toiletry basket and left it loose to dry. Normally she didn’t put on makeup on Saturdays, but today she felt she needed the shield it provided. She applied a light coat of the high-end cosmetics provided and felt more herself.
Unfortunately, she had nothing to put on but the revealing robe. She cast an appraising eye at Adam’s closet and thought about raiding it, but that seemed overly familiar. Ha. As if anything between them could be overly familiar after everything he’d done to her last night, which she’d finally begged for. Still, she shrugged into the robe and padded barefoot downstairs.
She found him in the breakfast nook, surrounded by bay windows that opened onto a wide deck and the ocean beyond. He wore that black robe and sipped coffee while reading the business section. He looked tousled and sedate, neither a sated predator nor the fierce lover from last night.
He glanced up, though she thought she hadn’t made a sound, and surveyed her.
“Good morning. Would you care for coffee, Taylor?”
“I can get it for myself if you’ll point me in the right direction.”
“Cups are in the cabinet by the sink, carafe is on the counter.”
She found a heavy ceramic mug, filled it with coffee and nothing else and drifted back to the breakfast nook. Cuddling the mug in her hands, she surveyed the seating options.
“Care to join me?”
With a sigh, she sat as opposite him as she could manage. “What I’d like is to find something to wear and get home.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Just like that?”
“I have things to do.”
He set down the newspaper and sat back, bringing his coffee with him. Giving her a considering look, he shook his head as if to clear it. “I debated, you know, whether it would be better to be there when you awoke or if you’d prefer to wake alone. Clearly I made the wrong choice.”
“No, you were right. I was glad to have some time alone to clean up.”
“And to build your walls again.”
Taylor set down her mug in irritation. “We had sex. That doesn’t mean that you’re my boyfriend or that we’re going to live happily ever after.”
“Is that what it was?” He raised an eyebrow, his voice silky smooth and dangerous.
“Okay, it was really kinky sex, and now I’m battered, bruised and I feel like something that washed up on the beach.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
She contemplated how satisfying it would be to hurl her mug at him. Instead, she stood. “Fine. Amuse yourself at my expense. I’ll raid your closet and call a cab. You can just put my clutch by the door.”
“Taylor, you barely have a mark on you. Don’t you think I would have checked?”
She gaped at him. “While I was…”
“You’re a sound sleeper.” He got up and came over to her. When she flinched back from his hands, he tucked them in the pockets of his robe, his face serious. “I made very sure, before, during and after, not to injure you in any way. And to check you afterwards. I’ve had the best training and I take that very seriously.”
“Well, I do ache.” She sounded churlish even to herself.
“I’d maybe believe you minded the residual of last night if you didn’t look more radiantly gorgeous this morning than ever.”
Damn him for seeing how good she really did feel. Despite a few aches, she felt more alive, more relaxed and sated than she ever remembered feeling.
Adam touched her cheek and she startled.
“If I had a do-over,” he said quietly, sliding his hand into her hair, “I’d have stayed in bed to watch you sleep, like I wanted to.”
He circled his other arm around her waist. She put her hands up to his chest, to hold him off, but the feel of him under her hands only reminded her of last night.
“I’d have you wake up in my arms, so you’d start your day with this.” He dropped a soft kiss on her mouth and she melted a little, her strange irritation fading away.
“Sweet, sweet, Molly,” he murmured against her mouth.
She went rigid.
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, pushing away.
He let her go. “She’s part of who you are.”
“No, she’s a part of who I was.” Taylor tightened the ridiculous robe around herself. “That’s an important distinction. Molly was a stupid, helpless little girl. Now I’m grown up. People change, Kirliss. There’s nothing wrong with being a strong person.” She stalked over to retrieve her coffee.
“Then why didn’t you legally change your name?”
Why hadn’t she? She’d worn pigtails back then. Back when her mom helped her get ready for school, she’d pull Molly’s hair into fluffy red poofs on the sides of her head, or braid them, tying them off with ribbons that matched her outfit. On the playground, the boys would yell “Oh golly, Molly!” when she walked by. “Molly Lollipop” was another perennial favorite. Silly kid jokes. Why they’d stung so much, she couldn’t say.
Later, her mom was so rarely home in the mornings, or still in bed sweating out the hangover with whatever guy she’d brought home instead of going home with, that Molly would just brush it. That was worse, red stuff standing around her head like a Brillo pad.
“Little Orphan Molly” hit just a bit too close to home.
So, by the time Taylor was thirteen, she’d saved enough money from babysitting to pay for a salon consult. The stylist told her to grow her hair long, to tame the curl. She learned how to condition it, make it relax. She learned how to cook decent food for herself. Her mother had been only too happy to turn over grocery shopping to her responsible daughter. By the time Taylor entered high school, no one knew who foolish, dumpy Molly was.
She shrugged, deliberately nonchalant. “Why bother? You’re the only one who finds it interesting. I have no idea why.”
He leaned against the counter, studying her. “It’s a crack in the shields.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You already got into my panties, you can let it go now.”
“You’re one of the sharpest women I ever met, Taylor. I know you’ve heard me say that’s not all I want.”
She laughed and went to wash out her mug. “What? Should I be calling my BFF now and cooing over what ring you might give me?”
She glanced over her shoulder to see that his face had hardened. She dried the mug carefully and replaced it in the cabinet.
“Leaving no trace of your presence behind? You probably wiped out the bathroom sink too.”
As a matter of fact, she had.
“Don’t worry, darling.” She patted his cheek. “We’ll always have the library.”
He seized her wrist. The thrill, stronger now that she knew where he could take it, how she could come apart, tore through her, but she kept her face impassive.
“Stay with me today,” he nearly growled.
“Is that an order?” She kept her voice light. “Will I be tied up?”
“Do you want to be?” He tugged her closer, close enough that her peaked nipples grazed his chest through the thin silk. Her heart tripped a beat. He nuzzled her cheek when she turned her face away, like a beast sniffing her scent. “You can always ask me to, you know.”
“What I want,” she gritted out, “are some actual clothes so I can go home and get on with my day.”
“Your day seems be going quite nicely to me.” Not releasing her wrist, he fondled her breast through the silk. Her sex clenched, suddenly hot and wet. He backed her up to the table, so the sharp edge bit into the bottom of her tender buttocks. He released her wrist and tugged open her robe, feasting his eyes on her naked body. “And you haven’t had breakfast
yet.”
He edged her up onto the table, spreading her thighs and moving between them.
“It’s nearly noon.” She tried to sound tart, but it came out as a pleasured gasp when he bent his dark head to suckle her breasts. The need rose up, edgy and greedy, as if she hadn’t been thoroughly sated the night before.
“Brunch, then.” He threaded his arms under her back inside the robe, holding her so her spine arched and thrust her swelling breasts up to the morning light.
She clung to his shoulders, glad to be able to sink her nails in as he sent the blinding sensations racing through her. He lifted his head, gave her a wicked grin and plunged into her.
Her body clenched, delirious with the fine-pointed pleasure. She let her head fall back and wrapped her legs around his hips, riding the clean masculine strength, his penetration filling her more than the wild arousal of the night had allowed.
He draped her over the newspapers, peeling her nails from his shoulders, taking her wrists in his hands and pinning them over her head. His robe had come apart to show a tanned slice of his chest as he pumped into her, eyes brown-shadowed in the midday light boring into her.
“This isn’t nothing between us, Taylor.” He punctuated the words with thrusts that shattered her reason. “I won’t let you make it be.”
With a feral sound, he came, pounding her groin, mercilessly driving her up and over, so that she lay dazed and wilted when he withdrew. She gazed up at the bright sunshine, not quite sure what had just happened.
Aware that she was still lying there, thighs spread and most of her naked to the world, she leveraged herself up to find Adam returning to her with a soft cloth, his face set in that inscrutable mode.
She took it from him and scooted off the table, hoping her legs would hold. He took her elbow to steady her.
“Let me make you breakfast.” He said it like an apology.
Taylor studied him. He looked unaccountably boyish now, not much like the feral man who’d just fucked her senseless on the breakfast table.
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