Ice Queen (25 page)

“It’s not all about taking,” he said. “It’s about giving, too.” Her body arched helplessly against the weight of his, her hips suddenly moving of their own accord. Her head fought his hands as she tried to look away but he was having none of it. Her reaction swept over her face, that wondrous combination of panic at the lack of control and intense sensual pleasure that women felt so deeply.

Those silken limbs lifted and clamped over his hips now of their own volition. He gritted his teeth, trying to hold on one more minute, just one more minute…

She screamed, a tearing sound as poignant as a death cry. Her pussy spasmed around him, urging him to spill his seed into her.

“Touch you…” It was almost incoherent but he heard her in his heart and let her go so her arms could wind around him, her face bury into his shoulder and chest. Only then did he let go, closing his arms around her, driving into her again and again with ruthless tenderness, wanting her to be his. His.

She came for a long time, as if a dam had released in her body. Even after the initial deluge the water kept flowing, her mouth making soft cries against his skin with every wave and ripple. Her hands held him close, shaking, desperate. He kept stroking inside her as long as he could, long, dragging movements that made her shudder with every degree of friction in a way that he knew would have him hard again in no time.

But that was the problem. There was no time. He saw it as she laid her head back on the ground at last, looked up at him with eyes that were even now withdrawing from him, seeking escape. Her hands moved wistfully over his shoulders, the slope of his chest, taper of waist, buttocks. But then it seemed her mind reined them in, for she stilled, drew back. “Please…I need to breathe.” He complied, not calculating the mistake of breaking the connection she could not deny. She sat up, rose, not even lifting a self-conscious hand to her hair or to brush grass off herself. It reminded him of how she’d shut herself down right after the mugging, turning to walk to her car as if nothing untoward had just happened. He rolled to his feet, pulling on his jeans, ready to head her off.

“I can’t complete the weekend, Tyler. This has gone farther than I wanted it to go.”

“Damn it, Marguerite—”

“No, I’m not blaming you for what just happened. I asked you to cross the line. No matter how I asked for it, in what way, I did ask.” She shook her head and there was a quality in her eyes, a desperation he could not ignore. Not as a lover, a gentleman or as a friend. He thought himself at least two out of the three when it came to her.

“I’ve done what I was supposed to do and then some,” she said with quiet dignity.

“You can’t ask more of me. I’ve got nothing left to give. All right? Please just let me go.

We’re done.”

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She stood before him, a remote queen with his semen tricking down her thighs, mixing with her own climax, her eyes somewhat wild, dangerous, belying the even tone of her voice. He read body language well enough to know that this time she meant it.

She needed to go and would go unless he used an unacceptable level of force.

Apparently seeing in his face that he understood, she inclined her head.

“I’m going to go in and gather my things. I’ll meet you at the car if you want to see me off. If you don’t, I’ll understand.”

She turned and left him, her body moving a little less gracefully than usual, revealing the physical strain he’d put on her in the past two days.

For his own part, he felt as if he’d just witnessed a car collision where the passenger walked away apparently unscathed but with internal injuries she refused to have treated. He had to fight every primitive instinct he had to stop himself from going after her, grabbing her up and imprisoning her in his room until she learned to accept him.

Somehow, as criminal as that sounded, letting her go left him much more uneasy.

* * * * *

Marguerite did not look at herself in the mirror. At first. She gathered her things, put back on the trousers and masculine-style shirt she’d worn, which Sarah had been kind enough to press and bring up for her. When at last she used the mirror to arrange her hair and face, she didn’t focus on the expression of the woman reflected there, though she couldn’t help but notice the shadows under her eyes like bruises, the taut set of her mouth. She’d survived worse than this. She’d be fine. She applied a little makeup to cover the shadowing, brushed and braided her hair, put on lipstick and adjusted her slim belt around her waist. Shouldering her overnight bag, she took the stairs down to the main level. Through the window view she saw him leaning against her car. He also was dressed in the same clothes in which he’d started the weekend. As if they had just started. Or it had never happened.

But it had. The damp cloth she’d applied between her legs, stirring up his scent, the soreness and searing reaction when she pressed her fingers where his cock had penetrated her, told her that. Even now, seeing him, a knot formed in her throat, her body yearning, wanting him in a way she could not permit herself to want. And there was no way to make him understand it.

Then she noticed the ficus tree in the front entranceway with the fairy lights. As Sarah had noted, the glass ornaments hanging from the branches were inexpensive trinkets, though quite pretty in the way they reflected the tiny lights. Thoughtfully, Marguerite plucked off one figurine that seemed to have the most replicas on the tree and stepped out onto the front porch.

He watched her approach with his serious, unsmiling regard, as if he saw everything she felt on the inside. Maybe if he did, he would understand that he needed to let it go at this.

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When she got almost to him, he reached out, took her empty hand.

“Stay with me,” he said, making it a soft demand, not a question as he drew her into his arms.

Marguerite pressed her forehead to his chest, closing her eyes tightly.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

She pulled back, opened her hand. Tyler looked down at the crystal image of a heron she’d taken off the tree.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “The long, graceful legs, the tiny head and slender neck, the silver tone of the glass. You look at it and you want to touch it. You can, lightly.” Her hand closed over it and his gaze snapped to her face as the glass cracked. “But that’s all you can do. Look at it, enjoy its appearance, its performance.” She opened her hand, revealed three pieces. “Do more than that and it shatters.” His brow drew together over the welling of blood where the glass had punctured her skin in two places, forming a pool in which the tiny pieces lay, turning them crimson. He turned her hand, made her drop the figure to the dirt and pressed the hem of his shirt into her palm.

“You’re not that fragile.”

“Yes, I am. I know what I can and can’t have to stay the person I need to be. But thank you for this weekend. You’re right. It was definitely enlightening.” She tried to force a rueful smile to her stiff lips, was unsuccessful under his shrewd regard.

“You’re determined to go, so I’ll let you go. For now.” He looked at her, hard. “I care very much for you, Marguerite, and I respect you tremendously. Do you understand that?”

She swallowed, looked away, then made a conscious effort to look back up at him.

“I want to believe that.”

“Then do, because it’s true,” he said bluntly. “You’ve made this a special weekend for me.” He put a hand under her chin, his thumb caressing her lips, his eyes very close to hers. “I’m going to keep doing my damnedest to win you over but I need you to hear something I’m going to say to you, understand it fully. Are you listening?” She nodded, just a twitch of movement under his touch.

“You are very important to me. It doesn’t matter if you never accept me or what lies between us. If you need me, I’m here for you. Tomorrow, ten years from now, it doesn’t matter. And you know me well enough to know I don’t make idle declarations of commitment.”

No one had ever offered to be her champion. Anything that came out of her lips at this moment would be an artificial gesture with no warmth, just something to cover the fragile condition of her psyche, her rising desire to just get away, to go, to drive, be in motion. She wouldn’t insult the gift of his words in that way. But not saying anything would be an insult on its own.

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“You don’t need to respond,” he said quietly, demonstrating his penchant for reading her thoughts. “The offer is there now and forever, whether or not you acknowledge it. But before you go, I’m going to ask you to do one more thing. It’s simple and if you do it, I’ll consider your mentoring requirement fulfilled.” She suspected his definition of simple and hers were very different, particularly since at the moment it felt like the ground had begun to shake beneath her feet.

“What…request?”

“I want you to ask me to kiss you and mean it, rather than me making you do it. If you do that, I’ll let you leave.”

There were times that a request could be more potent than a command. Apparently Tyler was intuitive enough to know that, damn him. She inclined her head, feeling like she made the gesture in slow motion, wrapped in air as thick as pillows.

“Tyler, please kiss me.” It came out as a whisper of sound.

Bringing his body close up against her, he put his hands on her waist. Moved them around to the vulnerable small of her back to press her breasts to his chest. His lips hovered over hers, his eyes golden lights flickering like the warmth of a welcoming fire, lulling her, hypnotizing her.

“Tyler.”

There was no question, just his name, and he seemed to understand that. He closed the distance, settling his lips on hers, the heat of his mouth seducing her to part her lips, welcome him in. Her body melted into his with a sigh that seemed to come from every nerve, every cell, saying this is where she wanted to be, where she wanted to belong.

The kiss might have gone on five minutes or five hours. She lost sense of time, wrapped up in the tenderness of it, so unsettling. It acknowledged the totality of her, of their experience together. Completely shattering the careful illusion she was building that there was nothing hugely personal about this weekend, nothing she couldn’t walk away from.

The hand she’d settled uneasily on his chest went up to the open collar of his shirt, feeling his pulse fiercely beating in his throat, the muscles along his jaw shifting as his tongue caressed hers, her mouth, her lips. As her fingers tightened on the back of his neck, the power of his grip increased and a noise escaped her, betraying her desire and longing in that one soft cry. She pulled away.

“Marguerite—”

She shook her head, moved around the back of the car, tossed her bag in the second seat and tucked herself in behind the steering wheel. He stayed where he was though she could feel it emanating from him, all he could and would offer to her. Just like the night at the club. Things that could destroy her and she wouldn’t care. But she cared about him, so she turned over the ignition and sped away, not allowing herself one look back.

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“Mr. Winterman.” Sarah had appeared at his elbow. Tyler wasn’t sure how long she’d been there. He’d been sitting in the lounger at the pool house since Marguerite left, staring at the pool cleaner making its way back and forth. Apparently he’d been watching it for a long while, because it was full dark. Sarah’s face was like a ghost’s, the pool lights the only illumination.

“I thought I mentioned—”

“That you didn’t want to be disturbed. You didn’t want any calls. Yes, you certainly did. But this is the third time Miss Sieman— Mrs. Nighthorse has called. She indicated that if I didn’t make you answer she was going to have me arrested for obstruction of an official police investigation.”

Tyler lifted a brow, took the phone from her hand. “Pay no attention to her, Sarah.

We’re outside her jurisdiction and she’s just being a pain in the ass.” He raised the phone to his ear.

“Didn’t you say I was your best friend about twenty-four hours ago?” Violet sounded amused.

“I was feeling sentimental and foolish.”

“I’m crushed. What are you doing?”

“Working on a very important production plan for a script I’m investing in.”

“That’s funny. Sarah said you’ve been supervising the pool cleaner for the past three hours. Since that’s that little bug thing that automatically runs around the pool sucking up algae, I assumed you might have time to talk to me.” Tyler glared at Sarah. “You’re fired. All women are a pain in the ass. Tell Robert I’m switching sides. He’s looking pretty good in his garden shorts.” Sarah smiled and left him with a pat to his shoulder.

“She calls me Mr. Winterman but she treats me like her son. I’m probably less than ten years younger than she is.”

“She called me Mrs. Nighthorse.” He could almost see Violet’s silly grin.

“You’re being a goofy newlywed again. Why are you pestering me?”

“Cop sense. I thought the weekend might be going a little rough, so I wanted to check in. Sarah said Marguerite left early.”

“Yeah, well.” He watched the pool cleaner make another lap. “I can see the road but there’s a force field there I can’t get through. And the couple of times I bullied through it, the road changed, went all dark. I feel like I’m missing something. She won’t let me in her head, Vi. I got into her body, so to speak.” 158

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“So to speak, or actually speak?”

“Briefly, yes. The latter. But I push to a certain point and everything shuts down. I haven’t figured out the key. If I’d had more time…”

“You expected to get an invitation into a woman’s soul in the course of a weekend?”

“At least a foot in the door.”

“Cocky bastard. Tyler, from everything you’ve told me, there’s nothing easy about Marguerite Perruquet. Maybe—and yes, I know you don’t want to hear it—you’re barking up the wrong tree. You could be wrong. She may not be a switch. And if she isn’t, you guys don’t suit.”

“Damn it, that doesn’t matter. That’s not the issue.” Rising, he went to the end of the pool house seeking air, the salt laden breeze off the Gulf. “I just…”

“You want her.” Violet filled in the lingering silence, surprise and understanding in her voice. “You want her so much that being away from her hurts.”

“Yes. And if that can happen in a weekend, then I don’t think it was unreasonable to think I could get further with her in the same space of time.”

“This has been building a while for you and you know it. You’ve had longer off the starting block than she has. And if you can’t have her?”

“You don’t feel like this if it’s not meant to be.”

“It is if she doesn’t want it. I know how strong a Master you are, Tyler. Don’t push this into dangerous waters.”

He stopped, his hand on the door latch. He wanted to deny it but the brief wrestle in the garden flashed through his head. “You warning me as a friend or a cop?”

“Both. The cop who’s your friend.”

“When she can look me in the eye and say she doesn’t want me the same way I want her, then I’ll let her go. You should be goddamned proud of me. I let her go today.”

Let her go after I messed with her head, left her raw
.
Yeah, I’m goddamned proud of myself,
come to think of it
.

“I wouldn’t force my attentions on an unwilling woman, Violet.”

“I know that. I do. I’m just saying that if she’s afraid of her own feelings, she may lash out at you in a variety of ways. And remember I’m in a unique position to have seen that firsthand.”

“She’s nothing like that.” Though he had an immediate vision of the fork in the table, the coarse obscenities that would spill from her elegant lips when she was cornered.

“I hope not. And I trust your judgment but you seem a little messed up on this one.”

The one. The only one.
He yanked at the door. Snarled.

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“What?”

“The damn door won’t open.” He yanked again and the French door shuddered. “It must be the latch. It must be—” He closed his eyes, counted. “Never mind.” Violet started laughing. “You pulled when you should have pushed, didn’t you?

Good grief, you are messed up right now.”

“Shut up, you little pest.” Tyler stopped, his hand still on the doorknob, though he’d stepped outside. “That’s it, Violet. That’s the key.”

“What?”

But he wasn’t paying attention. Instead he was listening to the message exploding in his head with the resounding roar of a cannon, a message his gut was saying was right. It shattered the afternoon of foggy frustration and circular arguments he’d been conducting with himself and gave him hope. And possibly a path back into his angel’s soul.

“I’ve got an idea.”

* * * * *

Marguerite trolled the dark shadows of The Zone on an exceptionally crowded Saturday night. She usually didn’t come here on weekends when it was filled with unknown faces and so much noise. But she wanted the press of bodies, the anonymity, the ability to move like a predator among unsuspecting prey to look for the one who would ease her ache this evening, her frustration.

Her life had been simple, everything on an even keel. So why did she miss him so keenly? Why was every breath difficult, a form of pain that was pleasurable?

“Mistress.”

The respectful voice, a familiar one, drew her out of her thoughts. She was passing Brendan, and as she did so, he went to one knee as he always did, bowing his head. On impulse, she let her fingers trail over his bare shoulder, the soft hair just above his ear.

His lips brushed her wrist.

She shuddered, remembering Tyler’s lips there, his propensity for using the sexual gesture to gauge her pulse, which was nearly always spiking from the moment he touched her.

Several steps past Brendan, intuition pricked the bubble of her absorption.

Normally she would have kept going, not acknowledging him further. Instead she turned and looked back.

He was getting to his feet and it was obviously a painful process, his body hunched, his mouth tight and strained. While the brand would still be healing and tender, his awkward movements exceeded what she would have expected in that regard.

A man stood beside him, not offering to help him up, just watching him with a bored, annoyed look. She recognized him as Tim, Brendan’s live-in lover, the one who also enjoyed subbing to a Mistress. Once Brendan gained his feet, Tim said something 160

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to him, slapped him on the back with cruel playfulness. Brendan cringed at the contact but nodded. Tim sauntered out toward the bar area.

She pivoted, came back. “No.” She caught his wrist when he began to kneel again.

“Stay standing. What’s the matter, Brendan? What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, Mistress. Just an injury. Hiking.” But she was watching his lowered eyes, the way they darted away, the clutch of his fingers pressing against his thigh. He wore a cotton T-shirt tonight, sleeveless and snug along his well-defined upper body but typically he went shirtless, making himself accessible to the touch of the Mistresses who desired to engage him.

She curled her fingers in the shirt at his waist and raised startled eyes when his hand clamped down on her wrist, trying to stop her. Brendan flushed. “My apologies, lady. I just…please…”

“Let go of me.”

He released her instantly. With a hard, even look, she finished what she started.

Raising the hem of the shirt, she worked it up as she stepped around him. He wore a pair of loose jeans that rode low on his hips, again a different choice for him at The Zone, but it was obvious now why he was wearing them.

The brand was infected, the scab torn off, the red edges raw. The center mark, the fleur-de-lis, seeped fluid.

“Please forgive me, Mistress.”

Marguerite studied it for a moment and the bowed head of the man who stood still under her touch. She sensed the attention of those immediately around them, a small oasis of tense silence amid a world of noise, flashing light and high energy pulsing in the air.

“Who did this to you, Brendan?”

“Wh-What?”

“You keep trying to dodge my questions or lie to me and you will displease me greatly.” The edge to her voice was ice and she didn’t hesitate to cut with it.

“Yes, Mistress. You shouldn’t concern yourself. I was careless, didn’t follow your instructions as I should have.”

“On your knees, now.”

When he dropped with a painful grunt, she seized a handful of his hair, jerking his head back. Not harming him but putting his mind as well as his body off balance as he tried to hold his weight upright and not fall into her legs.

“You would have followed my instructions to the letter. So once more, Brendan.

Who did this to you?” She enunciated each word precisely, clipping it off with sharp teeth. “You’re going to say it, because maybe if you say it, you’ll realize someone who loves you wouldn’t have done this.”

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felt possessiveness sweep over her. She recalled the rage she’d seen in Tyler’s eyes the night he pulled the mugger off her. More than just a good man’s anger at another man’s violence against a woman. The fury of an alpha toward someone who had taken liberties with something that was his to protect.

“Tim, Mistress.” His voice was low, broken. “It wasn’t… I asked him to help me clean it in the tub. He didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident.”

“Look at me.”

She never asked her subs to look at her, but taking a page out of Tyler’s book she made Brendan do it now, tightening her grip on his hair, making him see the anger of a Mistress. The reflection of the truth she was forcing from him.

“Tell me what happened. You can’t accidentally pull off a brand scab like this. And if you lie to me once more, I will never look at you again.” Pain lanced through his face. It was remarkable how just seeing it made the same feeling go through her vitals. “Brendan.”

“He… We sometimes play at home, Mistress. Soft bondage, to practice for our times here. We both enjoy being a slave, so we take turns with one another. I knew he thought I didn’t deserve the honor you’d given me but I didn’t think… He handcuffed me, bent me over the tub. I thought he was going to do…something else…and he did…but…” The words tumbled out and then stopped. Though Brendan did not look away from her, his eyes were nearly watering with the effort to face her expression.

“He ripped off the scab while fucking your ass,” she said coldly. “While you were bound and couldn’t defend yourself.”

“He said I should enjoy it, because I could pretend it was you, like when you branded me while inside of me. Only…” He shook his head. “He doesn’t mean it, Mistress. He’s just troubled. Tim gets so confused about who he is, what he wants. He cried, said he was sorry later.”

“Well, that makes it all better, then.” If she could have snarled, she would have. She eased her grip on his hair but left her hand on him, keeping him still. “Have you had someone look at that?”

“I tried to clean it myself but perhaps I haven’t done a very good job.” The misery on his face told her he’d been too emotionally wound up to give it any attention at all. She put her touch under his elbow, pressured him to his feet.

“Go to the first aid area right now and have Jeremy treat that. He’ll tell you how you need to care for it.” Even with the situation roiling her, she could not stay immune to the anguish in his eyes. She cupped his jaw. “If you care for it as he says, it should heal just fine. It will keep its shape. If he says you need to go to a minor emergency center, you go. Either way, you’ll go home and get some rest. You don’t need to be here.

You’re in no shape to serve a Mistress tonight.”
Not emotionally or physically
. She didn’t add that, not wanting to twist the knife he had hilt-deep in himself already.

“I’ve let you down, Mistress.”

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“Yes, you have. But I’ll make you a deal. Next time that son of a bitch tries to hurt you, you knock him on his ass, hurt him right back and I will
consider
forgiving you.” When Brendan looked at her, for just a moment there was something different there, something familiar, something that made her want to bring him into her arms, hold him to her heart, keep him safe forever. She viciously suppressed it. She couldn’t keep track of all the ways she was fucked up tonight. Knowing she should follow her own advice and go home, Marguerite stepped back, forced her normal reserve to return to her expression. “Follow my commands, Brendan. Go to Jeremy.” He nodded, moved past her. Even in pain he observed etiquette, making sure his back was not turned to her until he was a proper number of paces away.

Marguerite stood there several moments thinking while the life of The Zone moved on around her. She was not approached. No Dom here tonight was a person who knew her well and subs did not approach a Mistress, particularly one with her presence, though she felt many staying just within summoning distance, hoping. Lifting her gaze, she saw Tim returning with a couple of longnecks. When he saw her, he immediately lowered his long lashes. Showing deference, respect.