Ice Queen (22 page)

He still hadn’t moved. She sauntered slowly back to the line, bent one more time, this time to retie her shoe. The flexibility she’d earned from yoga served her now as she brought her chest practically to her kneecap, suggesting the sexual possibilities. This time she heard a muttered oath, coupled with a chuckle.

She’d never indulged or enjoyed the art of flirting but her blood was high from the competition, everything charged up and ready to do battle on this more playful field. It was obvious from the fit of those wonderful shorts that he was aroused. And yet he just 133

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watched from that fence. Letting her display herself to him as if he’d commanded it rather than her choosing to tease him.

The startling thought sobered her. She straightened, taking the line. Cleared her voice. “First point of the tie breaker.”

He nodded, came to his line. “Marguerite?”

“Yes?”

“Every time you go after a ball from here forward, you’ll bend to pick it up and do it as you just did so I can see your cunt fully. You understand me?”

“I don’t intend to be chasing any balls on this side.” He showed his teeth. “Serve.”

She sent a serve down the outside line to his forearm. Spinning on the balls of his feet, he delivered a cross court back that skimmed just over the net at a tight angle impossible to reach in time. “My serve. Let me have the balls, angel.”

“I have two.” When she started to bounce them across, he shook his head.

“I want that one in the corner,” he explained. “You’ll spread your legs wide when you go down for it. Then bring them all up here to the net and hand them to me.” His gaze was unreadable. As she turned she felt moisture trickle down her thigh.

And unless she wanted to lie to herself, she knew it wasn’t perspiration making her thighs slick.

She got to the ball in the corner, bent all the way down, spreading her feet apart as he required, displaying herself for him, feeling his gaze like a lick of heat in her pussy.

Rising, she turned and approached the net, trying to make her strides matter-of-fact.

She had a difficult time meeting his eyes, for the first time not because of her habitual avoidance of it but because his intensity was overwhelming her.

“Marguerite, you know the rules. Look at me.”

She brought her chin up, dragged her gaze to his face. Setting his racquet down, he propped it against the netting. He put both hands to her neckline, ignoring the balls she carried in both hands. She realized he was holding something in his other hand. “Don’t move,” he warned.

It was a small pocketknife, precisely sharp. As she stood there, motionless at his command, he etched a cut in the fabric of the sports bra. All the way around one nipple, then back to the other and under, so that an oblong piece of fabric fell loose. The garment still supported her but now the compressed inside curves of her breasts and her jutting nipples were visible.

“The next two points are mine, I believe.” He took the balls and brushed the soft plush of them over her exposed breasts. Marguerite bit her lip, holding back a breath of reaction but his sharp eyes caught it. He made the pass again, even more slowly, so that she swayed into the touch.

“The next two
serves
are yours,” she managed. “Not necessarily the next two points.”

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His gaze went down. “Trust me, angel. Those two points are all mine.” She sniffed, despite the flush of heat that spread over her skin beneath his gaze.

“Juvenile. I’m not intimidated by you. You shouldn’t be able to play tennis worth a damn at this point.” She shifted her gaze deliberately to the shorts. “Men don’t multitask.”

“Angel, men can multitask. When it’s important.” He smiled that infuriating smile and she pivoted on her foot, went back to the line, her flesh wobbling erotically as she moved into position, turned. When he served, she knew her nipples, her breasts, would be on display for him. As all of her was, as was appropriate for sub training, which she’d somehow forgotten all about for the past hour or so. The cuff of her sock was getting damp from the flow of arousal down her leg.

He served, hard. She went after it, just tipped it over the net, out of necessity rather than a plan. He put on a burst of speed, scooped it up, lobbed high as she was trying to come to the net. She backpeddled to the back line, got to it, swung, brought it back to him at the net, trying to get it past him, but she hadn’t had enough time to position it.

He slammed it down the sideline on the opposite side of the court from her.

Even aroused, she was sure she could focus as well as he could. But despite that he won point after point, making it up to 6-0 so he was serving for match point. She was breathing heavily, not so much from physical exertion, though there was that. Her thoughts were whirling. His gaze locked with hers between every point, the heat building, so that with each volley the air seemed to get thicker between them. As if with each point he was somehow backing her into a corner. He single faulted on each of the tie-breaking point serves so she had to go and bend for the ball as he had commanded.

But he hadn’t single faulted once during any other game he’d served during the set.

And, emphasizing that the strategy was deliberate, he delivered a sizzling second serve each time.

He wasn’t going to win this match. All she had to do was get eight consecutive points. He had managed six, why couldn’t she manage seven? She rolled on the balls of her feet, bounced to keep herself ready, knowing it would also create a highly distracting effect for his focus. Or spur him further toward a direction she could feel coming like an impending storm. Perspiration rolled between her breasts. She moistened her lips. Watching. Waiting.

Tyler threw the ball up high. It came down and he served. The ball hit with a hard
plock
.

She never moved. Never had the opportunity to move. It aced her perfectly, landed in the outside corner of the serve area and banged against the gate with a resounding clang.

He dropped his racquet. “Point, set, match. Come here, Marguerite.” She wasn’t afraid of him. She was afraid of herself. She bolted, dropping her own racquet, not even sure where she was headed. She knew she wasn’t leaving, just delaying the inevitable, what her own body was screaming—no, begging—for.

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He caught her in the garden. Just like the tennis match at the end, this time there was no equally matched contest. He had the strength, speed and intent of a predator and she was the prey, thoughts jumbled by panic. The moment he touched her, seized her around the waist and brought her to the ground, her body reacted, screamed one word.
Yes.

They tumbled. When they stopped, she was on her back and he was lying on top of her, that long, hard body interposed between her thighs, his intent pressed firmly against her.

“No…” It was a bare whisper.

“You’ve lost the right to no, Marguerite,” he growled. His fingers curved into her scalp, holding her head still and making her stare up into the truth.

“One word from you, relaxing the rules of the weekend and I’d have taken you in a heartbeat. You couldn’t do that, so you cheated. You know that political correctness means nothing to a Master like me. I take my cues from your actions, not your lips, listening for an entirely different set of signals, like this.” His hand dropped, probing the wetness between her legs. “It’ll be the last time you force my hand so you don’t have to go through the formality of submitting. No more cheating.”

“No.” She tried to fight him but he had her firmly pinned and the movements just dragged her hard nipples across his hair-roughened chest, arousing her and inflaming him further.

His hand moved around and cupped her ass under the skirt, her sweat-dampened buttocks. It felt so good she couldn’t stop herself from arching her back, offering herself up in an invitation he wasn’t requesting. He was taking, just as he had said. His mouth came down on her nipple, suckling urgently. She cried out, she who always chose to take her pleasure in silence. Her whole body was screaming, out of control, so why not her voice? His other fingers dipped back into her pussy, found it wet and moved to find the track down her thigh where her arousal had run again and again during their match. Then his lubricated finger entered her backside, making her twist and moan as he suckled, pressed himself firmly against her. It was rough, frightening. She didn’t know if she was enjoying it or being shattered into fragments. She didn’t allow herself this type of pleasure, but he hadn’t asked for her permission. And her body trembled, her mind shying from the realization that she hadn’t wanted him to.

“When was the last time a man fucked you?” He demanded the answer in a whisper against her ear. “Fucked your ass and that sweet pussy with his cock?” His fingers teased both openings so that she could barely get out a word of response.

“Not…in a…oh, God. In…a…long time. Please don’t. I can’t take this.” Her hands were up at her face, covering it, her fingers in claws. Tyler felt her quaking, fighting. Catching her wrists, he brought them down, loosened the Velcro straps from her hair and used them to strap one wrist to each of her thighs, holding her arms immobile at her sides. He’d intended to use them later in one of his shade gardens. Have her lie on a blanket bound this way while he sprinkled rose petals on her 136

Ice Queen

naked body, kissed her, read a book, just enjoying having her laid out before him, accessible to his hand and tongue. But his body had only one thing in mind now.

Possession.

“Tyler—”

“Master,” he snapped. She shook her head, in denial or sensual thrashing he could not tell. Returning to the tight rim of her ass, he worked her there, sensing the release of inhibitions. Her hips were rocking up, her pussy so wet the bare smooth lips he had shaved were glistening. He took a condom out of his pocket, leaning on his hip, which put him close to her bound hand. Her fingers seized it, scraping him, crushing the package in the ball of her fist.

“No.” Tears were squeezing out her eyes. “Nothing between us. Please.” Her eyes closed and her body went still, waiting.

He’d been prepared for another refusal. Her words stunned him to the core.

When she’d run, the instinct of the wolf had kicked in and he’d chased, determined to run her to ground. But the tears and the sudden frozen rigidity of her body told him she was moving into the mode she’d been in at the beginning. Her body wanted this so much it was screaming for it but her mind was going to force her to endure it only, rather than embrace it. To make it easier to walk away.

Her eyes opened when he released the straps. He caught her wrists in gentle hands.

Sitting on his heels, he lifted her, brought her up so she was sitting astride him, his arms curled around her waist and hips. He stroked the long line of her spine, slick with the damp perspiration collected there. Her hands were still in nervous balls, resting uneasily on his shoulders. Pressing his face between her breasts, he kissed the valley there. Nuzzled her with his tongue, playfully brushed the pale curves with his jaw. The fists unfolded, rested on his shoulders. He unzipped the skirt, took it up her waist and over her rib cage, gathering up the hem of the tattered sports bra.

“Lift your arms, angel.”

He removed all her clothes. When he worked off her shoes and socks, he made her lean against his shoulder, held her around the waist with one arm while he took them off, then returned her to the same position. Now she was clasped in his arms in simple, pure nudity. He went back to nuzzling her breasts. “Touch me, Marguerite. Touch me the way you’d like to.”

It felt…different to be sitting on him this way, clasped in his arms, in his lap. He was cruising up over the curve of her breasts, his touch and his kisses so achingly tender that she was torn between a heavy wave of lust and helpless immobility that kept her almost limp in his embrace. A moment ago, she’d steeled herself for the moment she could no longer resist, but for some reason he’d withdrawn, taken her to this devastating point instead.

One of her hands moved to the side of his head, her thumb brushing his ear, the soft ends of his hair just over it. She registered bone structure, the roughness of his jaw.

Though clean-shaven, she felt the prick of the five o’clock shadow to come. Under her 137

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other hand she felt muscle, more sleek skin, damp like her own from the sweat of the match. Her head fell back as he began to work his way up her jugular. Her hips moved, a stroke of need against his hard cock. His fingers tangled in her hair, and though she felt his desire to sink his hands in, pull and hold her head back, her throat exposed to him, he didn’t. His touch remained insistent but gentle as he turned every nerve ending from fear and resistance into arousal. The fear was slipping away from her, beyond where she could reach for it to shield herself.

“Are you protected from pregnancy, angel?” His voice was soft. “There are certain choices that I’ll never take from you.”

She wouldn’t survive this, she knew. The demons that were going to be unleashed from their lovemaking would surround her, take her over. Not today, not even tomorrow, but the moment she left they would be waiting at the end of Tyler’s driveway. Could she survive hell again?

“Tyler…”

Perhaps it was the way she said it, in a voice that might have been the wind itself.

Regardless, he raised his mouth from her. “Yes, angel?”

“You’re right, I teased you.” She swallowed, made herself meet his shrewd gaze.

“And maybe everything you just said is true…but I’m asking you.”
Begging you
. But she couldn’t say that. “I’m not ready for this. I know…it would be easy to keep going…”

I can’t say no to you. I need you to say it.
But she definitely wasn’t going to say that out loud.

He studied her for a long minute. “Do you like the way this feels?” He indicated their position, with her so securely cradled in his arms, straddling his lap.