Lord and Master (9 page)

The Marchioness was beginning her speech below. ‘It's lovely to see so many familiar faces here tonight, as well as some new ones…'

Stefan raised his free hand to Luna's nape, lifting her rope of hair. She felt his lips and then his teeth against her neck and shivered.

‘I am fond of saying that Arborage is nothing but a pile of bricks and mortar without its people. It is the people who work here who make it what it is…'

‘Stellaluna,' Stefan exhaled against her jaw, and it was that that was her undoing. Her eyes closed and her head, suddenly heavy, slipped backward till it rested in the crook of his neck. In response, Stefan dropped her hair and pulled her abruptly back against him, one hand rising to encircle her breast.

There was a sound from the bottom of the stairs; muffled laughter mixed with drunken ‘ssshhhs'. Stefan's hand stilled on Luna's breast and, with difficulty, she lifted her head and listened. The noise was getting louder; they were within seconds of being discovered in what could only be described as a very compromising situation. Stefan uttered an oath and Luna quickly chose the better part of valour, squeezing past him to make her escape up the stairs, leaving him to greet the tipsy interlopers.

Five minutes later, having crossed from the east wing to the west and climbed the final set of stairs to her attic, Luna stood in the middle of her sitting room, studying her reflection in the darkened mirror visible in her bedroom. Her eyes looked huge and glacial in this light. The Ice Princess, as Florian had said. Only her gently heaving bosom and the slight sheen on her cheeks hinted at anything but arctic calmness.

Luna waited, counting the seconds. Nine, ten, eleven…Something had started on that staircase. She'd felt it and she'd known Stefan felt it. Twelve, thirteen…In the mirror she saw her hand go to her breast, to where he had held it. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…She heard him then, climbing her stairs. Seventeen, eighteen…Coming down the hall, toward her open door. Luna dropped her hand and turned to meet him. Nineteen, twenty…

There he was, in her doorway. He did not stop or ask permission, walking purposefully into the room.

They came together in a surge, Stefan's mouth lowering onto hers and their teeth briefly scraping together. His lips were harder, more demanding than she expected and his tongue as it joined with hers was insistent. For the second time that night, Luna's neck weakened and swayed backward, but this time Stefan's hand stayed it, holding it firmly in place while he continued to ravage her mouth. His other hand pressed first to her back, travelling down her spine to her waist before descending further still through the folds of her dress to grip her bottom, pulling her toward him.

Luna, meanwhile, slid her arms up under his tuxedo jacket, feeling the muscles in his back as she reached her hands up to his shoulders. She caught the rhythm of his tongue in her mouth and matched him stroke for stroke, rewarded by a shudder from Stefan. He pulled his mouth off of hers and they both briefly gasped for air, before laughing and locking lips again. Luna could hear herself breathing, felt her breasts against his chest and…God help her, his hardness against her stomach. What had started on that staircase had taken on a life of its own and would not stop, not now.

Soon both Stefan's hands were on her buttocks, and Luna felt a rush of warmth to her vulva as his hips strained against hers, a prelude of things to come. Impatient, she raised her own hands to his lapels and pushed his jacket down over his shoulders, their lips still locked together as he shrugged it onto the floor. Then came a flurry of disrobing; his tie, his cufflinks, and finally his shirt. Pushing him away from her, Luna stood back and admired her handiwork. She stretched her fingers toward his chest, his abdomen, feeling the muscles rippling underneath. Stefan momentarily allowed these liberties, but when her hand dipped lower he quickly grabbed her and spun her around, recreating their earlier pose on the staircase.

Only this time both his hands were on her breasts, first cupping them, then teasing them through the layers of fabric. Luna's nipples stiffened under his attention and she arched her back against him.

‘I want to see you,' he said. Luna raised her hands to her neck, but his were there first, finding and lowering the zipper. Her dress seemed to fall away of its own accord, landing on the floor with a slight rustle. And then Luna knew a moment's shyness. She had never, ever displayed herself for a man in undergarments like the ones she was wearing, and she felt exposed, suddenly.

Seeing her hesitation, Stefan turned her toward him and bent down to kiss the tops of her breasts where the flesh peeked out above the black lace. First one, and then the other.

‘You are beautiful,' he said quietly, and kissed her again, close-mouthed. Then bit her lower lip gently, as Luna's moment of doubt burnt away. She raised her hands to the nape of his neck and bit him back, tugging his lower lip slightly between her teeth. At this Stefan growled and their hips came grinding back together.

‘Do you have protection?' he rasped between kisses, and it took her a moment to understand him, through the haze of her lust.

‘Yes,' she said, sliding her teeth along his throat. ‘But it's in the chest in the bathroom, and I don't go in there at night unless it's an emergency.'

Stefan drew his head back and looked at her, then laughed. ‘Luna, are you
afraid
of your bathroom?'

She pursed her lips at him and he held up his hands, kicking off his shoes as he headed down the hall. While he was gone, Luna removed her own shoes and stockings, then raised her hands to her hair, methodically removing hairpins.

Stefan bounded back into the room, breezily reporting, ‘No ghosts,' just as Luna finished unwinding her hair, which fell in a coil down her back. His expression darkened, all levity forgotten, as he walked straight to her and dug his fingers into her mane, spreading it onto her shoulders.

‘Bed now,' he demanded. ‘Unless you want me to take you right here and now.' He put his hands under her silk-clad buttocks, emitting a slight ‘mmm' at the feel of them, then reached down to her upper thighs and hoisted her against him. Luna wrapped her legs around him as he carried her to the bed and dropped her there. It was dark in the bedroom, but she watched as he removed his trousers and boxers, and again she marvelled at the sheer hardness of his body. His thighs, when he slid onto the bed next to her, were like stone. And then he was kissing her again and pressing one of his thighs between her legs, where his fingers fluttered around the edges of her knickers, brushing against her hairline. Crouching above her, he slid the knickers down her legs and threw them on the floor. He pressed his cock against her and she reached for it, running her fingertips lightly over its length. One stroke, two, before Stefan grabbed her hand away, pressing it to the bed. Dropping to his side next to her, he moved his own hand to her mons, gently probing till he found the slickness, the aching wetness of her labia.

‘Christ,' he said. ‘How lovely.' He plunged a finger into her, his thumb finding her clitoris. Soon she was writhing against his hand as he repeatedly pressed first one, then two fingers deep into her, each time just grazing her clitoris with his thumb. Teasing her. Readying her. Luna's lips parted in a sigh and he brought his own parted lips against hers, their tongues sliding together lusciously.

Still his cock rested heavy and hard against her thigh. Luna reached for it again and held it, and Stefan's fingers missed a beat inside her. She smiled in the darkness, revelling in her power. Sliding away from him, she climbed atop, then straddled him. Stefan's hands reached around her waist to the hem of her basque, searching for the hooks, but Luna pulled away, entwining her fingers with his and pressing his hands back against the pillow. She reached for the condom he'd left on the bedside table and met his eyes questioningly. He acquiesced, leaving his hands where she'd put them as she ripped open the condom and slowly rolled it over his length.

Lifting herself over him, she slowly, slowly took him inside her. Giving herself a moment, letting him fill her. Then she began to move on top of him. This, she thought fleetingly, was where all that early morning running finally came good: her thighs were up to the task of riding Stefan Lundgren. Resting a palm lightly on his abdomen, gratified yet again by its tightness, she flexed her knees and slid herself up the length of his shaft before plunging back down.

Stefan returned his hands to her waist, helping her find her rhythm, slow and steady. Eventually, his hands slid around to her buttocks and she hunched her back, tilting her pelvis slightly to take him in as deeply as possible.

‘
Josses!
' Stefan hissed, clamping his hands on her butt, holding her still. In the darkness, she could see the look on his face, almost of pain, and she exulted, squirming slightly, tensing the muscles in her vagina around him. Waiting. Then Stefan rested one hand in the cleft between her buttocks and, with the fingers of his other hand, parted her sex. She felt a pressure against her pubis and looked down to see that he'd pressed the palm of his hand against it. She shifted uncertainly, then began to ride him again. And then she saw, or rather felt, what he was doing. Each time she came down on him now, Stefan's palm moved against her, and after two or three strokes his fingers crept toward her backside, slowly insinuating themselves downwards. She heard herself gasp at the intrusion, and the blossoming sweetness in her clitoris, rubbing against his palm. Her legs briefly gave way as he expertly arched his wrist, grinding the heel of his palm in a circular motion against her. It was too much, too quick.

Summoning all her remaining self-control, Luna arched above him again and commenced fucking him for all she was worth. Fast and hard, anything to distract herself from his hands and his hips, now fucking her back. And then it was too late. Her brow furrowed, the sweetness spreading all the way from her clitoris to her forehead, and Luna surrendered herself, arching upwards one last time in silence. She was still pulsing around him when Stefan joined her, baring his teeth, fucking her to the last.

Some moments later she lifted herself off of him, expertly holding the condom in place at the base of his penis, then carefully removing it, knotting it and tossing it into the bin under her bedside table.

Stefan watched this with some amusement, lifting his hands to rest casually under his head. ‘Miss Gregory, do your administrative skills know no bounds?'

‘All part of the service.' She lay down next to him in the bed, not quite in the crook of his arm. Truth be told, she was a little amazed by what had just happened, and suddenly felt just a little slutty in her basque with her entire erogenous zone on display.

‘I assume,' she said, ‘that you will be missed downstairs if you don't get back.'

‘Hmm, probably.' Stefan glanced at her and caught her drift, grinning and swinging out of the bed. Heaven help her, slut that she was, she lifted herself up onto her elbows to watch his thoroughly magnificent ass departing the room, before collapsing back onto the bed. She heard him getting dressed in the sitting room and sat up, finally unhooking and removing her basque and putting on her robe. She walked into the sitting room, where he was just retying his bowtie in the small mirror next to her door. He looked entirely unruffled, not a hair out of place, whereas Luna felt the ravages of whisker burn around her mouth and a lingering, not unpleasant dampness down below.

She felt small, suddenly, in her terrycloth robe and bare feet. Small and uncertain. Stefan's eyes caught hers watching him in the mirror and he turned to her, swiftly taking her in his arms and planting a kiss on her lips.

‘That was a promising beginning, Luna,' he said, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. ‘I'm looking forward to continuing this.' She frowned slightly, wondering if this was the way he talked to his clients, and Stefan kissed her again.

‘We can't do this again here,' she said, mustering her best cool glance. ‘There's too much chance we'll be seen.'

‘Right, then, I'll see you at the Dower House tomorrow night at, say, eight?' He hadn't even missed a beat and Luna bridled at the presumption of him.

‘Well—' she began curtly. And then he was kissing her again, his tongue in her mouth. After a moment he broke off, pushing her robe off her shoulders until he'd revealed her left breast. Luna lifted her hands to his chest to push him away, but he grasped them in his own, lacing his fingers with hers and pulling them down to her side. Then he bent down and placed his mouth on her nipple, drawing it in and sucking it gently. The protests died on Luna's lips as she looked down at him, saw and felt his mouth moving on her. Her clitoris throbbed anew as he drew his mouth away and briefly nuzzled her breast.

‘Tomorrow,' he instructed. ‘At eight.' And then he walked away, leaving Luna trembling, her legs literally shaking beneath her.

Inevitably over the course of the following day, doubts started to set in. Luna woke up early on Sunday morning alone in her bed, and it was as if the previous evening hadn't happened. Yes, her lips were a little swollen when she studied them in the bathroom mirror. And she noticed that…other parts felt different too.

She quickly donned leggings and a hoodie and ran down the stairs to the garden.

‘A promising beginning,' he'd said. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She'd rolled out some of her best moves for him last night and that was all he had to say? It didn't help that, for her, the sex had been pretty incredible. Better than ‘promising', that's for sure, she told herself as she ran toward the farm shop. And she knew that
he
knew that she'd enjoyed it, which was galling when his assessment was one step above ‘needs more work'.

But he'd enjoyed it too, she could tell. Or thought she could tell. Luna grimaced and ran a little faster, her breath puffing out in clouds in front of her. What if he'd thought it was only…average? He'd slept with a lot of women, after all; probably some pretty inventive ones who'd put her little
look, I can go on top
routine to shame. Luna bit her lip, tucked her arms into her sides and kept running.

By the time the skies darkened later that day, she'd pretty much convinced herself that going to the Dower House was a mistake. She wished she was at least wearing her work clothes, her chainmail, but she didn't think she could come up with a reasonable excuse for donning her Ferragamos and black pencil skirt on a Sunday night. So she pulled on some jeans and a pair of soft suede boots, along with a grey t-shirt paired with matching cardigan. Her lone piece of armour was her hair, which she wound up into a sloppy bun on top of her head.

She made sure to get to the Dower House fashionably late, but not insultingly so. 8.15. If she'd been less nervous, Luna would have been excited to see more of the interior. The house dated from the Jacobean era and attracted almost as much attention from English Heritage as Arborage itself, but a cover story in
Past and Future
magazine about an archaeological dig they'd had in the house's yard was about as close as she'd gotten to it up till now. It was comparatively small, built by a previous marquess for his wife after he'd installed his mistress at Arborage.

Stefan came to the heavy engraved oak door wearing black skinny jeans and a cable-knit jumper. Barefooted, she noted.
Lush
was the first and only word that sprung to Luna's mind. He was simply lush.

‘Come in, come in,' he said, sounding suspiciously hearty to Luna's ears. ‘I was just finishing my dinner. Have you eaten?'

Luna had, but she followed him through the beamed front room to the kitchen, fully and expensively kitted out by Smallbone of Devizes. There was a plate of half-finished pasta on the central island, and an open bottle of Amarone.

‘Wine?' Stefan asked.

‘Yes please.' Luna eyed him warily as he retrieved a wine glass and poured her a generous portion, topping up his own.

‘Cheers,' he said, clinking her glass.

‘
Skål
,' she replied.

Stefan motioned to the bar stools and Luna sat opposite him at the island, sipping her wine. All very polite.

‘Good day?' he enquired.

‘Yes, you?' Luna took a gulp of her wine.

‘It's better now,' he said, suddenly reaching behind her head and pulling her toward him for a kiss. Really, he had the nicest mouth, just the right amount of firm to her soft. Satisfied that he hadn't brought her to the Dower House just to cut her loose, Luna returned the kiss, reaching her hand up to his recently shaved cheek. Then sat back in her chair, took a sip of her wine and remarked tartly, ‘Well, that was…promising.'

Stefan chuckled and wagged his finger at her. ‘Ah, I knew it, I knew that would eat at you, little perfectionist.'

Luna tried to unleash the cold stare, but his expression was so comical she couldn't manage it, instead emitting a very unladylike snort of laughter. After that, she relaxed a little. Together they finished the bottle of wine and then shared a tiramisu. They talked about the party, Luna asking Stefan what Florian had wanted with him.

‘Hmm, I suspect it was a bit of a charm offensive.' Stefan shrugged his shoulders slightly, not volunteering more, so Luna didn't pursue it. Finishing off the last spoonful of tiramisu, he added with a strangely sexy full mouth, ‘He was very complimentary about you, by the way.'

Luna was floored. ‘No, he wasn't.'

‘He was,' Stefan insisted, licking a bit of cream off his finger. ‘But in such a way that I was afraid for a moment I was going to have to defend your honour.'

Luna looked at him quizzically, then twigged. ‘Ah, yes, he had a conversation with my chest earlier in the night.'

‘And a lovely chest it is. But I liked not so much the way he talked about it.'

‘Believe me, Florian isn't a fan of anything but my breasts,' Luna replied. She smiled conspiratorially at Stefan. ‘My second week on the job, he came in insisting he needed to use the Marchioness's office. She wasn't there at the time, but…'

‘You didn't let him.'

‘Well, no. It's her office, after all. It has her private things in it. I offered him the conference room, but he wouldn't have it. In the end I had to physically stand in front of her door to stop him going in. And he's never forgotten it. “The Marchioness's terrier”…'

After a moment, she added, ‘He said I was an Ice Princess last night. A frigid Ice Princess.'

Stefan laughed and she almost laughed with him. Almost. But then an entirely unexpected feeling of something akin to wistfulness welled up in her. She looked down at her hands, and Stefan sobered. ‘And why do you care what a man like him thinks?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't.'

‘My cousin doesn't know you. He doesn't know you at all.' He leaned forward and kissed her; a simple, uncomplicated, close-mouthed kiss. ‘Come.'

He led her up to the master bedroom, where the poor, dejected Jacobean Marchioness had eked out her married life in exile. There was a mahogany four-poster bed in the room and a table with a vase of late-blooming Arborage roses, a bit like a Damask rose, with relatively few petals and prominent stamens. A token, Luna was sure, from one of the cleaning girls, who she'd heard had discovered a newfound love of tidying for their new guest.

A single small lamp on the bedside table illuminated the bed, the mattress of which sat so high that she was worried Stefan might need to give her a leg up. He swiftly resolved this concern by picking her up and apparently effortlessly setting her on the bed. Then he bent to unzip her left boot, dropping it on the floor before moving to the right.

‘So,' he began conversationally, peeling off her socks. ‘As I said, we had a promising start last night. But I couldn't help but notice, Luna, that you appear to have a few control issues.'

Luna made a slight noise of protest and he held up a hand. ‘Not that I have a problem with that.' He reached to her waist and unbuttoned her jeans, quickly scooching them down her thighs. ‘There are times when I will be very happy to cater to your issues.'

Tugging gently on the hem of her cardigan and beginning to undo the buttons, he continued, ‘But you see, Stellaluna, I have a few of my own.' As if by magic, Luna's cardigan was on the floor – somehow Stefan had breached the space–time continuum and removed it without her even noticing. ‘Arms up,' he instructed, pulling her t-shirt over her head.

‘I hope you'll find it will give you pleasure, meeting my needs…' Stefan stood between her legs and slid his hands along her thighs, his eyelids hooded. She felt her own eyelids, heavy in anticipation, mirror his.

‘Take down your hair, Luna.'

Her hand rose toward her head, till Luna temporarily regained control of her faculties and froze it in mid-flight. Her nostrils flared. She wasn't a puppet to dance to his tune.

‘Please, take it down,' he repeated, his voice gentle but his expression unyielding.

Please was all it took. Luna complied, untwining her bun and dropping it, letting her hair fall in a twist against her neck that trailed down to her stomach. Stefan grasped it and pulled it forward, twining it around his hand till she was forced to lower her head to his.

‘Do you trust me, Luna?' he murmured.

She looked him in the eye for an instant, then lowered her eyes.

‘No,' he correctly surmised. ‘Not yet.' He appeared to think for a moment, then turned and extracted two roses from the vase on the table. Hopping up onto the bed with her, still, she noticed with some annoyance, wearing all his own clothes, he deposited the roses on the tapestry bedspread and turned to Luna, straddling her just as she had done him the night before. Again he tugged on the coil of her hair, forcing her to sit up against him while he removed her bra. Then he pressed her back onto the bed and admired her.

‘If I ever catch my cousin looking at these again, I promise you I will do him an injury,' he assured her. He lifted first her left arm and then her right, positioning them palms up on the pillow above her head. He ran his finger down the soft inside of her right arm to the side of her breast, causing Luna to shudder.

‘Comfortable?' he asked, and Luna nodded mutely, her mouth dry.

Stefan lifted one of the roses to his mouth, ripping his teeth into the stem just underneath the flower itself and discarding the stem. Then, delicately, he placed the remaining flower in Luna's right hand.

‘I'd like to try a little…exercise with you. You don't fully trust me yet, so I think restraints are out of the question – though someday we will try them, I'm sure.' Stefan smiled wolfishly and lifted the second stem to his mouth, baring his teeth.

‘But, Luna, tonight I require you to be fully at my disposal. I want no interference from you, so let's treat this as a game.' He placed the second rose in her left palm. ‘Do you think you can keep your hands very still, no matter what I do to you?'

Luna wriggled a little under him, closing her fingers slightly on the roses. ‘Ah-ah,' he warned her. ‘That's what I mean. The object of the game is for both these flowers to remain on your palms, just as they are, completely uncrushed and unmoving, until the game is finished. Can you do that, Luna?'

She nodded at him. If this was as kinky as it was going to get, maybe she didn't have that much of a problem with Stefan's control issues.

‘Good girl,' he said. ‘Let's start.' He climbed off her and knelt beside her, pulling off the Brazilian knickers she'd rather hoped would get more of a viewing tonight. He trailed his fingertips up the top of her foot to her knee, wandering to her inner thigh, and briefly grazed the hair at her apex, lingering at her bikini line, where she squirmed slightly, ticklish at his touch. He lifted an eyebrow at this, like he was taking internal notes.

Placing his hand flat on her stomach, he ran it along the curves of her waist and her slightly protruding hip bone, smiling slightly. Then he ran both hands up her ribs, pausing to feel them moving up and down as if assessing her heart rate, before covering her breasts.

‘These may be the most perfect breasts I have ever seen,' he said wonderingly, brushing her pink nipples with his fingertips. Again, had Luna been the blushing type, she'd have blushed under his scrutiny. Instead, she looked at his hands on her breasts, then looked away, suddenly feeling very naked.

Sensing her discomfort, Stefan reached his hands up to her face and into her scalp, rubbing it gently as he loosened her hair. He placed his hands against her temples and leaned closer to her, the bridge of his nose sliding against hers.

‘You are embarrassed, I think,' he whispered against her mouth. ‘Close your eyes, Luna.' And when she failed to immediately comply, her eyes meeting his with something between disquiet and pleading, he brought his palms over her forehead and down over her eyes, shutting them for her. ‘Trust me a little,' she felt his lips say against hers. She opened her mouth and he didn't disappoint, immediately covering it with his own, his tongue filling her mouth.

It was then that she realised that his little game would be more difficult than she'd anticipated. For she wanted nothing more than to bring her hands down to his head, to angle it so she could fully reciprocate his kiss. Seconds later he ended the kiss and his teeth ran briefly along her neck. Then nothing, for just long enough that she almost opened her eyes. Till she felt the slightest whisper of a touch on her right nipple, felt it pucker and tighten in response as his fingers grew more bold, manipulating the nipple, chafing it gently. Another whisper over her left nipple and she exhaled at the surprise of it, the pleasure of his hands on her and nothing else but darkness. Followed by his mouth, sucking first one, then the other nipple till her fingers twitched, aching to hold his head to her and guide it from breast to breast.

Her hips were moving involuntarily now, and warm wetness was flowing from within her. She felt him shift on the bed again, felt his lips against hers, his jumper rubbing against her nipples, now exquisitely sensitive. She arched her back, remembering just in time to keep her palms flat. Then he removed himself again, for just long enough that she wondered if the spell had broken and she should open her eyes.

Then her knees were being drawn apart and her sex entirely covered by his hand, warm as ever, pressing against her. Drawing her up and down, moulding her, slowly becoming slick with her wetness. The fact that she could neither see nor touch him suddenly became part of the pleasure. The way he touched her, the boldness and certainty of it, was a source of constant surprise and growing arousal; the fact that he seemed to instinctively know when this first, non-specific foray wasn't enough for her, and responded by parting her begging labia. All of this, combined with her utter prostration beneath him, magnified her yearning.