Authors: Shanna Germain

Leather Bound (31 page)

BOOK: Leather Bound

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‘You wore the perfect dress,’ Davian said.

I hoped I would never stop reacting to his voice, the way just a word, even a simple word like
you
, had the power to make me wet. Or, in this case, wetter. Davian hadn’t touched the remote for the metal egg, but the very fact that I could feel its presence, heavy and thick, inside me was making it hard to focus on anything else. ‘And the perfect shoes.’

Wear heels, he’d said. At least six inches. So you feel like someone else, someone new, for the night.

Lily had volunteered to help me find a pair. She’d chosen these, with their patent-leather shine and eight-inch heels, the bottoms painted a dark red that matched my dress. I did feel like someone else. Someone taller, but also someone with a hell of a lot more confidence and legs that went on for ever.

‘Thank you,’ I said, my voice a whisper. The museum was oddly empty. We were the only ones in the long hallway. If you didn’t count all of the painted and framed faces staring at us from the walls.

‘Where is everyone?’ I asked.

‘What? I’m not enough for you? You need some more?’ A heated tease threaded his voice as he brushed his fingertips along the exposed curve of my thigh. Both sets of cheeks prickled with heat.

‘No.’ I hesitated, trying to get control over the flush that ran through my body. ‘I just, I meant …’ He still had the power to make me blush and stammer, and he used it every chance he got.

Davian left one hand on my hip and lifted my chin slowly with the other. Sometimes his eyes were that heated caramel of lust, but right now they were firmly golden, a gleam of power around the edges.

‘It’s OK,’ he said, his voice serious now. ‘I know you.’

‘You do,’ I said. There was comfort in that. And arousal. And something else that I was beginning to understand was something greater than myself. The way my heart moved when Davian so much as took my hand in his.

Davian didn’t say anything else, just kept my hip captured with one hand and my face with the other, watching me. I took a deep breath, feeling the egg shift and settle inside me as I did so. It didn’t help as much as I’d hoped.

Davian guided me a few steps backwards until I was leaning against the wall between two gilt-framed portraits. He pulled the remote from his pocket and toyed with it while he watched me.

Leaning in, he closed his teeth softly on the curve of my ear, his breath warm against my skin.

‘I know,’ he started … and he turned the vibrations on.

I didn’t hear anything else he said. My body liquefied around the solid object inside me, became a pool of heat and movement that shut off all thought. Davian’s mouth moved along my ear, tongue and teeth, soft shuddering nips that raised my soft pleasure into something stronger. When he revved the vibrations, I had to close my eyes and move inwards, toward that point of pleasure in the centre of my body. Every part of me narrowed in to that single spot, focusing on the sensation. Tingles of pleasure spread outward, bringing me so close to orgasm I could almost taste it, while keeping it just out of range.

‘Please,’ I tried to say. Dear God, please let me come, please stop dangling me on the edge. My body clenched with want, with need. Davian still didn’t release me from that place between pleasure and release. I could hear my own cries, whimpering requests for more, echoing in the empty space and I couldn’t do a thing to stop them.

He turned the vibrations off, and at the sudden loss of sensation I slid against the wall, my legs shaking, my feet uncertain in their heels. I hadn’t come, and I could tell by Davian’s expression that he’d purposely kept that prize from me. He’d put me right where he wanted me, sweating and trembling, still full of a lust that was a long way from satisfied.

He pocketed the remote, holding me against the wall with the press of his body, angling me so I could feel his erection, pulsed and straining, against me. The thought of his cock, the curve of its arousal, pushed my lust another notch higher. I grabbed his hip, pulling him against me, reaching for his mouth.

‘No,’ he said, plainly, his lips barely brushing mine before he pulled away.

I wanted to howl. Or slap him. Or maybe both. Really, I wanted him inside me in all the ways he could be. Tongue in my mouth. Cock in my aching pussy. Fingers in the clench of my ass. But I was quickly learning there was no amount of begging or whining or even seducing that would sway Davian from his path once he’d started down it.

He waited until my breaths were less gaspy, until I could ease my grip on his hip and start to stand on my own again.

‘Better?’ he asked.

Was I? I could barely stand, my heart was hammering lust notes in my chest and I was pretty sure even the portraits had tried to cover their ears at my moans of want. There was a metal egg of potential pleasure tucked inside me that was getting heavier even as I was getting wetter. And I wasn’t sure I could walk in these heels any more.

Still I said, ‘Yes,’ and I knew it to be true.

‘Now then, if you’re ready, shall we go join the others?’

I slipped my arm in his. I
was
ready.

* * *

Inside the elevator, Davian reached into his pocket and my body tensed in the anticipation of vibrations. None came. He cast a sideways glance at me, dark eyes laughing, then pulled a key card from his pocket and slipped it into a vertical opening. He reached up and pushed his thumb against a button that I hadn’t noticed before. Positioned above the regular floor buttons, it edges were barely visible where it separated from the metal. No light gave it away. No number. It was like finding a fingerhold in a rock crevice. You could look for a hundred years and not find it, unless you already knew exactly where to look.

I was getting used to seeing the world in a new light. Once, I might have considered myself to be observant, at least when I didn’t have my head in a book. But now I realised that most of us were blind to the world, walking through it so filled with our own expectations that we couldn’t see the things that were in front of us. And of course, that was something that the Keyhole Club took full advantage of. Assuming most of the world would never see anything more than we needed or wanted to see. What else was I missing every day? I wondered. What world moved beneath us and above us that I was still oblivious to? I couldn’t wait to find out.

Davian curled his fingers around the back of my neck, drawing me forward. He didn’t kiss me, as I’d expected. Instead he dropped his forehead softly to mine and kept my gaze tight with his. He exhaled softly, a gesture that seemed oddly intimate, considering the things we’d done together, but somehow it calmed my mind for a moment, allowed me to stop the vibrations of my body. I leaned against him for a long moment. This was just lust and being overwhelmed. It didn’t mean anything that his breath against my lips calmed me, quieted me, prepared me for whatever came next.

Leaving his forehead against mine, his eyes closing just slightly as if in anticipation of what was coming, Davian pushed a second button, and we rushed to the top floor in a way that my body wasn’t prepared for.

The weight of arousal was something I thought I’d carried my whole life, but it seemed that the deeper I got into this … experience, whatever it was, the heavier it got. Not that it was a burden. More that my lust was solidifying its gravity in my life. It was something I was getting used to, and coming to enjoy. But there were moments, like now, flying up who knew how many storeys in an elevator to a party with the man I loved and lusted after, when I felt like I was in someone else’s story, a story that I never wanted to leave.

I was grateful for Davian’s presence, for the press of his forehead to mine, the curl of his hand at the back of my neck, and the soft breaths that allowed me to close my eyes and remember that this was exactly where I belonged.

When the elevator dinged, I hadn’t even realise we’d stopped.

* * *

I suppose there comes a moment in every woman’s life when she chooses, or is pushed, to become different from what she was. Those of us who are lucky enough to have friends who know us well may get that chance when we least expect it.

As the elevator doors opened, my gaze fell on all the people who were part of the Keyhole Club. Some I knew and some I didn’t yet. But the people who stood out the most were those who were part of my life, the ones who’d helped shape me and move me into this new place. Kyle, looking stunning as he always did, his arm around his new girlfriend. Lily, who was caught up in Kitty’s embrace, her booming laughter echoing across the room. Stefan, who was holding court with Jay in the corner. Others who’d played a part, small or large, in this adventure that was my life.

The only person missing was Conrad. I knew Davian felt it too, from the way he took my hand, tightening his fingers around mine.

Often in my life I’d wanted to be someone else. One of my literary heroines, one of those fierce, smart women who faced her inner fears and did and said all of the right things. It took me a long time to realise that I was just like those women. Sometimes I screwed up and sometimes things seemed impossible, but the way to the happy ending is never easy. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be a very good story, would it?

Bound by love and lust and a leather-wrapped book, Davian and I stepped from the elevator, hand in hand.

Hello, happy ending.

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