Ice Queen (21 page)

“Tea tree,” she managed. “Scented with—”

“Jasmine. Just the faintest whiff, like the call of the Grail to a knight’s heart.” Wooing a woman with poetry should have lost its effectiveness with the jaded cynicism that had infused the latter half of the twentieth century. But here in his garden with the willingly bound and pleasured Aphrodite looking over them, it was as if that time of bards had never left, the modern world merely a stray bit of garbage that had been pushed away to reveal the world Tyler had created for her.

His hand came to her face and she smelled the scent of her climax on his skin.

“Take my fingers into your mouth, Marguerite. Suck on them.” 128

Ice Queen

She did, tasting herself now, feeling him grow impossibly thicker and harder against her.

When he withdrew, she struggled to get some type of a grip on the situation. “You really are insufferable. You must know that.”

His eyes coursed over her hard nipples appreciatively, pressing against the thin stretch fabric of the sports bra. With the flat of his hand against her lower back, he lifted her so her clit was pressed against his arousal. She uttered a cry of pleasure as a hard aftershock tightened her body against him and he sandwiched her against the tree.

“You’ve got plenty more of me to suffer before Sunday, angel. Tell me you want me to fuck you. I want to hear it from those beautiful lips, those lips that have sucked my cock but not given me one free kiss. Let me inside you.” It would be so easy. She could claim it was just part of the weekend but he’d know it wasn’t. It was a line she just couldn’t cross. As long as kissing on the mouth and sex were not part of it, she could keep this in perspective, make it work. But all those rationales were drowned by the scream of her body for his.

“No.” She turned her head away, pressing into his shoulder. “No.” He put his forehead against her temple, let out a sigh that passed warm air over her cheek. “All right, then,” he said at last, quietly. She felt the tension of his body, a mirror of the conflict in her own. “Then we’ll just have to do something else.” He eased back from her, put her tennis racquet in her hand. “Since I’m going to whip your ass in tennis, I guess I’ll give you a chance to beat me to the court. And before you say I have the advantage in a foot race because you just had an orgasm, let me note my handicap is significantly larger.” He glanced down at himself, pointedly.

Marguerite told herself there was no way he could take her from intense passion to humor in the blink of an eye.

“That doesn’t look like much of a hardship to me,” she scoffed.

Putting both of her hands on his shoulders, she shoved, knocking him off balance with the unexpected move. Springing away from the tree, she dashed down the path, headed for the tennis courts.

“You little—” She was less than ten feet away when he recovered. She snorted, lengthened her strides.

Fun. Had she ever had fun with a lover? For that matter, had she ever had a lover?

Someone who flirted with her, listened to her, talked to her about himself, took her out to dinner, went driving with her? Went to a movie?

She redoubled her efforts, running from the desire as much as from him. Gauging the hedge before her, she leaped, rather than zigzagging to stay on the path as she was sure he expected. It was a smooth hurdler’s jump, a shortcut, one which she hoped wouldn’t encounter any prize flowerbeds. She was determined to win at least one competition with him. Two, because she was going to trounce him at tennis.

129

Joey W. Hill

The ankle held up, which pleased her after the strain at the oak tree. But a glance to the right showed her he was closing the distance, taking an opposite path, for he knew some of the cut-throughs she didn’t. He ran like a tiger in truth. Full out, fast, telling her that he’d be a tough opponent on the court if he could match skill with speed. It made her look forward to the match. It also made it hard to tear her gaze from the movement of the muscles of his upper body, bared by her request.

They burst out of the garden about twenty feet apart, her slightly ahead. She lengthened her stride, calling on high school track team experience and her daily exercise regimen. She was discovering that Tyler kept himself in shape. In a moment he had her by a length. She fought and got it back, but she couldn’t get ahead of him matching leg to longer leg. They hit the chain link fence surrounding the court together, both breathing hard, his eyes dancing. From his pleased reaction she suspected she had a matching expression.

“Come here.” He put his arm around her waist and drew her to him, brushing his lips over hers. Just a quick meeting of mouths, almost chaste, except the very light quality of the touch made heat pool in her lower body. She suspected her insides were starting to resemble the hot springs of an underground cavern.

“You’re not supposed to do that,” she complained but she didn’t move back. Her hands had somehow settled on his chest and his heart hammering beneath her touch.

Her finger was so close to a flat nipple she itched to tease it. Pinch, scrape her nails across it.

He kept his hands on her hips and laughed. She thought that there were few sounds quite as sexy as a man’s laughter infused with such sensual promise. He drew two Velcro straps from his pocket, making her tense but then he surprised her by using them to pull her hair up in a ponytail, double wrapping it firmly.

“I have other uses planned for those but I don’t want you claiming your hair got in your way.” His fingers drifted down over the scallops of her ears, rested on the sides of her neck. He held her that way, his expression becoming serious as he studied her for several moments.

“You would look beautiful in my collar, Marguerite. Naked except for that.” She raised a brow, trying not to show how his hands resting there unsettled her, though all her senses had gone on high alert. “Maybe you would, too.”

“You’d have to get it on me, angel.” His gaze lowered to her throat. “A double helix of seed pearls, every third or fourth set of pearls interrupted by a silver icicle. The main pendant would be stylized, the impression of an angel’s head and wings, the wings serrated delicately like the icicles. When you turn your head, the icicles would make tiny pricks into your delicate skin, sensitizing it and keeping it aware of my claim when you moved.”

She brought her gaze deliberately to his throat, determined not to appear ruffled by the detailed description, the intent heat of his eyes. The paralyzing sensation of his 130

Ice Queen

touch. Though she just had to hope he’d think her voice was breathless from the run only.

“For you, I’m seeing one of those chokers with long sharp prongs on the inside. The kind the pet stores sell for overenthusiastic Labradors.” His eyes sparkled, appreciating her. “Just so long as it’s not one of those pink vinyl collars with rhinestones for poodles. Ready to get your ass kicked?”

“The only way you’re winning this match is if you make it a command.
Master
.” She added it sweetly.

Grinning, he held open the gate and she preceded him onto the court. “Bullshit.

You wouldn’t obey me anyway.” He inserted the edge of the tennis racquet under her skirt, flipping it up as she propped up her tennis shoe on the bench to tighten the laces.

Narrowing her eyes at him, she adjusted her hips so she was out of range from where he leaned negligently on the fence. “Of course, if I did order you to lose and then let you win, I could punish you for disobeying. Then we’d both win.” He shifted closer, let his racquet drift up her calf, turned it so it got caught between her thighs when she tried to move.

“That gorgeous ass of yours was lifting to meet my hand when I stopped, Marguerite.” His voice was soft, his eyes drifting over the pulse in her throat, reminding her too clearly of what his hand had felt like there.

“Distraction is not going to work,” she said, trying for a haughty tone. She held out her hand. “Balls.”

She winced at his burst of laughter. “And why do you get the serve advantage?” he demanded.

“Because I’m a guest and according to your housekeeper you’re a gentleman.

Though I’ve seen no proof of it.”

With a wicked look, he laid the tennis balls in her hand. “Warm up?” she asked.

“Sure. Let’s take about five minutes.”

Though Tyler was certain he was warmer than he’d ever been, every organ and muscle of his body revved for action. And she was making it far, far worse. Having brought her to climax several times now, he saw no sign that her response was in any way sated. It was as if her body was starved for sexual fulfillment, while his cock was staying in a state of painful rigidity. He had worked it down during their banter but the Florida heat and their impromptu race had already dampened the skin beneath the sports bra. He could see her nipples peaking hard and aroused against the stretch fabric. And when they started volleying for the warm-up, each spin on her toe or jog to return a ball gave him a flash of bare pussy or ass that was going to have him calling paramedics.

No, doctor, I’m not on Viagra, but I’ve had a nonstop hard-on for forty-eight hours, thanks
to my angel
.

131

Joey W. Hill

His angel. It wasn’t just the scars on her back, so obviously designed to mock one.

Her profile as she looked over her shoulder, her white spill of hair. Her elegant bearing.

It made it so obvious, the likeness to myth, art and imagination.

The night the mugger had attacked her, he’d seen her fight with all the fury of an avenging warrior. Then there had been her forgiveness, offered along with the money and the advice that likely wouldn’t be heeded, because that was the kind of world they lived in.

She was so many things, always surprising him, like now. Definitely an athlete, she didn’t play like a girl. Her return strokes were powerful, controlled, the lean muscles of her upper body showing that Marguerite Perruquet took care of herself very well. He wondered where she worked out and had a very disturbing image of her doing bench and shoulder presses. It made him miss a relatively easy cross court. Thank God it was only a warm-up.

“You ready?” she called out. Her color was up and there was a light, challenging curve on those lips that never did seem comfortable with a full smile. As he suspected, the simple physical exertion without the emotional pummeling that seemed to go hand in hand with sexual expression for her was doing her good. It would make her more relaxed for what he had planned for her later.

“Ready,” he responded.

“First set, first game, first point, love-love.” She threw the ball up and her body poised, frozen in a split second of motion, arm pointed up toward the ball, racquet back, back arched, the line of her throat perfect. If he could have frozen the moment, she would have been Athena with her bow and arrows, her sleek hunting hounds clustered around her bare calves. He was beginning to wonder if she had any moment, any movement, that wasn’t sheer aesthetic perfection.

Once at his dentist’s office, there’d been a woman sharing the waiting room with him. She’d been fascinated by the Siamese fighting fish gliding lazily in an aquarium there.

“You seem very interested in him,” he’d said.

“Because he’s always beautiful,” the woman had responded instantly. “The way he moves, sudden charging bursts or gliding like this. And all the marvelous colors of his body. He knows he’s beautiful. He’s so comfortable with it, he’s as near perfection as one of God’s creatures can be.”

That woman had been Leila, the first time he’d met her. Her words now filled his mind as Marguerite’s presence filled his eyes and heart, giving him a strangely tranquil moment where he realized he could easily spend eternity just watching her.

When the ball sizzled just inside the center line, he didn’t even make it to the balls of his feet.

Marguerite gave him a look of pure feline satisfaction and moved to the left side.

“Fifteen-love. This is going to be too easy.”

132

Ice Queen

He bared his teeth at her, took a ready stance. “That’s what you think, angel. Just building your confidence.”

Her eyes gleamed in response as she served the second point.

The sun climbed into the sky as they worked their way through the first set. She had great ball placement control and strength behind her strokes. So did he. He could knock her back with lobs but quickly realized she was deadly at the net, never flinching to throw herself out to return a ball and drop it over. She was faster on her feet but he had more power. As a result, the intention of two of three best sets diminished for them both as they fought for every point of the first set, never holding more than a one game lead until they were up 6-5, with him leading. Then she won the game point, taking them to a tie-breaker.

It was marvelously arousing, Marguerite thought. She’d never experienced a demand on her senses from two such equally strong compulsions. Determined to win, she was nevertheless undeniably affected by the way his body moved, the thigh muscles bunching, stretching as he pivoted and charged. His bare chest glistening with heat and the ripple—and ripple was exactly right term for it—of shoulder, oblique and biceps muscles when he drove a shot down the line.

While their focus was absolute when the ball was in play, they baited each other verbally between points, the sexual tension never abating. She started making a habit of bending to pick up a ball rather than using the side of her foot and racquet to pull it up into the air. It wasn’t exactly to distract him, because she liked the idea that she was holding her own against his best game. But she did want to see if she
could
distract him.

She wanted him to ache the way she was aching, seeing his body move, sweat, stretch.

At one point, while he was retrieving one of her balls, she bent to flex her calf, to stretch out her hamstrings, something often done during a tough game, only this time she did it with slow deliberation, at a very slight angle to Tyler, so he had an unimpeded view of her ass and pussy. Then she straightened, strolled to the sidelines and got a drink of water from the cooler. When she glanced at him, she found he was leaning on the back fence in the shade of the screen cloth, his gaze as predatory as a hawk’s. His body still, waiting. Feeling inexplicably wicked, wanting to taunt, she pulled the sports bra up, exposing her breasts and poured the remainder of the icy water over them, cooling her down with gasping pleasure in the humidity. She slicked the water over the curves, her nipples now puckered from the cold. When she lowered the band back below her breasts, the fabric stuck, transparent, the dark areolas clearly visible.