Masterpiece (The Masters of The Order Book 1) (13 page)

“Yeah,” Jerard said in a flat voice.

“Then do it. It’s what you want. It’s what Sarah wants. Shit, man, it’s what she needs. It’s your responsibility as her Dom to give it to her. If you really are what you say, you wouldn’t give a damn about my reaction. You would give your beautiful submissive what you both need. So tell me again, are you the Dom?”

“I am.” The voice was unsure.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I am.” Jerard started to shake.

“Then do it, damn it. She’s begging you for it. Do it!”

Eyes locked on Jacques, Jerard raised the handle between trembling fingers.

Jacques turned.

Thump! The toy hit the floor.

“I can’t.”

Instantly, Jacques was in Jerard’s face. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Tell me why you can’t do it.”

Jerard looked away without answering.

“Do you know what I think, Jerard? I think you’re not the Dom here. I think you’re doing this to please someone other than yourself. I can tolerate a lot of shit, but I will not tolerate a liar. The only reason I’m still in this room with you is because I don’t think you’re lying to me. I think you’re lying to yourself.”

Jerard’s eyes shot back to Jacques and he snapped, “No, I have to be this. I can’t be anything else. This is what she needs.”

“What who needs, Sarah or Julianne?” Jacques backed him into a corner and Jerard was furious. He pushed harder. “What? You think I don’t know how you feel about Julianne? You think you can’t have her love if you don’t become something she needs. Forget her. I swear to God, I will make sure you never see her again if you keep lying to yourself. Be honest, Jerard. Not for Julianne, for yourself.”

“I don’t understand what you want from me, Jacques.” Jerard’s eyes begged for relief from the pressure.

“If I wasn’t turned off, the idea of flogging Sarah turns you on?”

Jerard nodded.

“Then who are you trying to please here, your sub or your Master?”

Jerard turned and hid his face against an arm pressed to the wall. “I can’t do it. I don’t understand why not,” he practically wailed, “What’s happening to me, Jacques?”

Jacques circled the table and released Sarah. She seemed to understand what was happening and quickly got up, kissed him on the cheek and slipped away.

Jacques whispered in Jerard’s ear. “Guess what? I lied.”

Jerard looked at him as if he’d been slapped, then started away, completely closed off. Jacques grabbed Jerard’s hair and jerked his head back so Jerard was forced to look him in the eye. He leaned over and picked up the discarded flogger.

“Strip. I want you naked.”

“Please don’t do this, Jacques.”

Jacques only stared with impatience. Jerard began to undress.

“Kneel.”

Jerard dropped to his knees.

Jacques raised the leather high and brought it down over Jerard’s back in a swift, hard stoke. Again and again, until angry red marks covered the skin.

Jerard moaned louder with each strike and Jacques couldn’t miss his jutting erection. He fell forward onto all fours, his fingers clawing at the concrete floor as Jacques tormented his back with more heavy blows.

“Touch yourself, Jerard. Surrender to the pleasure I’m offering you.”

Jerard’s hands immediately circled his engorged penis. As Jacques whipped him, Jerard began to pump into his own grip. He screamed as hot jets spurted onto his abs.

“Are you the Dom now, Jerard?

“No.” Jerard looked horrified by the sticky release coating his skin. Speaking more to himself then to Jacques, he muttered, “I wanted to do it, but when you turned around, I couldn’t raise my arm. If Sarah pointed a gun at my head and told me to do it or die, I might actually choose to die.” His reaction clearly baffled him and he began to cry.

Jacques intended to show Jerard the truth of himself and stop right there, but he pushed too far and broke Jerard. He dropped the flogger and knelt down on the floor, pulling Jerard into the safety of his embrace. Jerard instinctively turned to huddle against him.

Stroking the reddened skin with a loving touch, Jacques rocked Jerard and said, “It’s called submission, my pet.” Emotions that he didn’t expect, or particularly want, swirled through him as he held the trembling man in his arms. “There is no shame in being who you are, Jerard. Shame comes when you try to pretend to be something you’re not.”

Jerard’s hands came to his face and he stared in wonderment. Acceptance filled his eyes. Jacques didn’t pull away when Jerard leaned forward to kiss him. Instead, he took his lips. There was no tenderness in the way he did it. He kissed Jerard hard, taking the last of what was held back with dominating force, surrendering himself to his own awakening desire for this complicated, tender young man.

*****

Air. I need air.

Julianne was too flustered to even bother with the handles and hit the glass door with both palms to shove her way out of the gallery. When she felt the rush of cool night air, she sucked a hard breath. Her skin crawled with a vicious, unfulfilled need. She was barely conscious of where she was going as she raced along the sidewalk, but she was painfully aware of Nicolai following at her heels.

She already teetered on the razor’s edge of sanity. If she touched that man under Nicolai’s control, she would have gone tumbling over the edge. God help her, she wanted to touch him. Wanted to touch Nicolai. Not just touch him. Devour him. She wanted to rip open that tailored shirt and run her cheek against his chest, bury her nose in the hollow of his neck and twine herself around him like a vine. But she had to stop herself.

She had to stop
this
.

What had begun as an innocent infatuation with an older man had grown into a full-blown addiction. Nicolai consumed her thoughts, consumed her fantasies, threatened to consume her and that simply could not happen.

All she could think to do was run. And he let her. All the way home, but stopped her right outside of the lights at the gate with a firm grip on the shoulder.

“Julianne, has something upset you?”

“No.” An obvious lie.

“Then why have we run all the way here in silence?” His lips curved into a teasing grin. “Did seeing a naked man shock you?”

Too quickly, she shot him a defiant, “Of course not.”

“So you have seen a man naked before?” he said, the amusement in his voice clear and mortifying.

“Of course,” she lied again. “There are plenty of men at school.”

“Mere boys,” he said dismissively, but his voice lost its earlier note of humor.

“You are not the only man in my life, Nicolai,” she challenged.

“And you have seen all of the others naked, I suppose?” He was mocking her again.

The truth of the jibe added insult to injury and she snapped, “Don’t underestimate me, Nicolai. I'm not as innocent as everyone thinks I am.” She turned her back to him in a hard motion.

He grabbed her shoulders and whipped her around so fast she would have toppled if he didn't have her arms in an iron grip. Shaking her hard, he forced her to look into his face. His eyes flashed with some emotion, like anger, but he spoke in a level tone.

“What are you telling me, Julianne? That I shouldn't adore your innocence? That I shouldn't worship you for it? You would rather I treat you like a common whore, throw you to the ground and fuck you in the dirt?”

She shook her head. “
Bien sûr que non
.”

“Of course not, my Beauty,” he repeated, loosening his grip, but didn’t let her go. One hand slid into her hair. The other dropped along the curve of her lower back to press their bodies together. Firm fingers tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck. His lips brushed against the sensitive skin as he spoke, the warm breath sending a fine tremor through her.

“Yet you lie to me. Why?” Nicolai prodded with a silken voice that seduced as thoroughly as their seductive posture.

Is this real? Mon Dieu, it is, but it can't be.

She squeezed her eyes shut trying to resist Nicolai, but she was fighting a losing battle. She didn’t want to resist him. She just wanted him. The real Nicolai felt fantastic. So much better than the fantasy. And his scent was mouthwatering. She swallowed hard, fighting the overwhelming urge to taste those ruby lips.

The steel vice of his embrace tightened in silent reminder that he was waiting for an answer.

“There is only you, Nicolai, only you,” she managed with a quivering voice.

He tugged her hair, arching her neck farther as the hand on her back spread over her bottom. His hips swiveled in a slow, scorching circle to press the hard length of his arousal against her belly. “Any you want to please me?”

“
Oui
.”

Nicolai tilted her head up. His lips hovered over her mouth. “Then tell me. Why do you lie?” He brushed them, so very lightly against hers. Lingering there. Tempting her. Almost a kiss, but not quite.

Her chin rose to bring her parted lips against his and Nicolai eased back, just enough to deny her. Withholding his kiss until she gave what he wanted. But if she told the truth…

His hand cupped her bottom, the fingers slipping between her legs to probe closer to her core. His palm thrust up, forcing her onto her toes, and his erection pressed into the mound of her sex.

The resistance shattered. She felt too much. Wanted too much. Lusted too much to hold back. The truth of her pent up desire slammed to the surface with enough force to shake her whole body. Nicolai had stripped her of her ability to suppress it any longer.

She wanted his kiss.

No, she needed his kiss.

And she would give him anything he wanted to get it.

Julianne softened against the hard press of Nicolai’s body and let the confession slip out. “I've never seen a naked man. I've never even tasted a man’s lips. I am a naïve child. I lie because I don’t want you to know that I could never please a man like you.”

Exposing her insecurity caused tears to seep from the corners of her pinched eyelids and stream back over her temples into her hair. She waited for the rejection.

The rejection that did not come.

“Julianne, my Beauty.” Nicolai spoke her name like a benediction. “You are so wrong. Your purity is sacred to me. Let me show you how much you please me.”

The world seemed to come to a complete stop, everything momentarily frozen, only to begin again in slow motion. Nicolai arched over her, bending her body into his with a graceful dip as he took her mouth and drew her into a passionate kiss. His tongue breached her lips, sliding into her with reverent yet possessive sweeps. She moaned into his mouth and he sank deeper, revealing the depth of his emotion and unleashing a passion so long denied.

There seemed to be no end to the kiss or the wonder that came with it. The rasp of those soft lips. The drag and thrust of that velvet tongue. The suction that pulled untouched places deep within her body. Her smaller female body that Nicolai trapped against his larger one, making her understand the completion that only a man could give.

Her body burned, the way he’d made her burn that day in the studio. This time, there was no pain. Only searing pleasure. His grip became more savage as skilled hands roamed her curves, claiming, squeezing, molding the skin and muscle as if to….
create.

Nicolai was destroying the girl and creating the woman.

Breathe into me, Nicolai. Bring me alive. Create me.

The Colonel’s voice shattered the moment. “Julianne, is that you?” he called into the darkness.

No, no. Not now
. She broke the seal of Nicolai’s lips. “
Oui, Père, c’est moi
,” she squeaked. “I’ll be right there.”

Gulping the air, she stared, dumbfounded, at the beautiful man holding her. Embarrassed, she released the tight fists she couldn’t remember twining in his hair and searched those intense blue eyes for validation of what she thought just passed between them.

I will be your first lover
. She could see the invitation dancing in his eyes as they shimmered in the darkness with the promise of more.

So much more.

“Give yourself to me, Beauty. I will guide you,” Nicolai whispered in a rough, deep voice as he released her and backed away.

She lurched forward, her body rebelling violently as the night air replaced his heat. She wanted to throw herself back into his arms. She had no idea that one kiss could lead to such a grinding need for more. That one kiss could show her that every moment with Nicolai led inexorably to this moment. That one kiss could make her understand that this man embodied every dream she’d ever dared to dream for herself.

If he wanted her, she was his to take.

For the first time, she told him the truth. “I am yours, Nicolai.”

The ghost of an affirming nod was his only reply as he disappeared into the darkness.