Rough Surrender (17 page)

“For me? For Lars.” He reached one hand around the seat and took a tight hold of her bun of hair while shuffling the cudgel’s grip into a comfortable spot in his other hand.

“Oooh. Like it rough do we?” She pretended to try to escape but giggled again. “Yes, for you. Lars.”

He forced her to look downward then thumped her one. Unconscious in seconds, bundled onto the floor, and...they were off. He accelerated away.
That was as smooth as taking candy from a baby
.

* * * *

Mr. Meisner’s house was built of the pale local stone with alternate striping above the external arches as seemed the popular style–three stories of magnificence on the outside and splendor on the inside. Mawson had answered the front door then promptly disappeared down the hallway into the left wing of the house.

“Are there no other servants?” Faith asked, nervous at the seeming emptiness of the dwelling.

“None at the moment. The cook goes home at night, and Helen is currently staying at the hotel in the domestic quarters. Please,” he said warmly, gesturing toward the staircase leading upward. Twin man-high bronze ibises flanked the first step. An electric chandelier hung above. The balustrade was a carved version of an aquarium with lilies and weed, and small fish swimming up in metal and timber.

With the three days between the affair at the hotel and now, the idea of being alone in his house struck Faith as...dangerous somehow. Yet she was here. She hesitated, chewing a little of the inside of her cheek, fiddling with her silver clutch purse.

He came to her side and held out his hand. “Come, Faith. We’ll just talk, if you like. There’s a sitting room upstairs.”

“Just talk?” She screwed up her mouth a little in disbelief.

He searched her face. “If that is all you wish. There is no rush. I may be a man, but I have restraint. Your gift of command can be set aside for another day, if need be.”

As if this were a game he played? Yet if she set foot on those stairs and went upstairs, how likely that she’d give in if he asked her to go further? The more she thought on this the colder her feet seemed to grow. She’d let him do as he wished at the hotel and in the car. Why not now?

Apart from a liking for writing on her bottom, there was nothing he’d done that hadn’t been in some strange way, right.

She put her hand in his. Without force, without saying another word, he drew her up the stairs. Her dress whispered against his great coat when she ventured too near. The timber echoed under their shoes and somewhere a clock ticked off the hours. She smelled fresh flowers and wondered who had picked them.

At the top, the first room was indeed a sitting room where a small balcony looked out over the night sky through fretwork timber shutters. Mr. Meisner turned on an electric light that hung above in a filigree silver cradle. Sandalwood oil mingled with the scent of a tub of roses on the balcony.

From a decanter on a side table, Mr. Meisner poured cognac into two brandy glasses. “Be comfortable, please, Faith.” He indicated a cushion-strewn damask divan with curled ends that fairly invited one to sprawl upon it like some decadent princess.

Hmm
. Faith pursed her lips. There was a low table before it and nowhere else to sit. If she were genuine in talking and only talking, she’d not sit on the same piece of furniture as him. He’d only pull her in close anyway. She just knew it.
Darn it.

After heaving out a breath in defeat, she went to it and sat at one end.

After only a few seconds of contemplation, Mr. Meisner gave her one glass then sat at the other end of the divan. Amazed, she stared at him.

“If you want me to stay here, at this end, Faith. Put your feet up. On my lap.”

“Ugh. You’re starting already.”

“Please. It will help you to relax.”

And...and a,
please
? Whatever was the man up to? Begrudgingly, she lifted her feet and slid along enough that they reached his lap. Her dress gathered under her hip. “I’m sure they’re quite smelly, after walking about.”

“That’s what I like about you.” He smiled in a deadly way. “Your honesty. I happen to like feet, and I’m very good at massaging them.”

She rolled her eyes. What was this man not good at? Apart from finding airplane engines.

With his glass in one hand, he used the other hand to slide off her black shoes and drop them to the floor. “Are you finding Cairo to your liking, Miss Evard?” Without warning, he started to rub her foot, rolling each toe gently through her stockings, massaging the base and a little up the foot, then going deeper into muscles underneath.

It was good. Every sinew and muscle slowly dissolved into jelly. She snuggled her back into the cushions. “Oh, you were right. That is lovely, sir.” She let her eyelids droop. “Cairo?”

He met her gaze, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Yes, Cairo. Miss.”

“I didn’t say,
sir
, because– Oh, never mind. I have enjoyed what I’ve seen, but I still have no engine, and I’ve not seen the pyramids. You did promise to show me them, so I waited.” She squirmed as he slipped his thumb between two little toes.

“I want your stockings off so I can massage these properly.”

Though her inner voice was screaming,
nooo
, she paused only a moment or two before reaching down and unclipping the top of her stockings through the dress material. Between her hands and Mr. Meisner’s, her legs were soon bare. He’d been true to his word and hadn’t otherwise moved.

“Thank you.” Mr. Meisner took a swig of cognac, dipped his fingers in the glass then put those wet fingers on her toes and rubbed. The alcohol cooled her skin.

“What are you doing?”

“You said your feet were dirty. I’m cleaning them.”

“Uh-huh.” The slip of his fingers was having strange effects on her. Relaxing...but also erotic. The clamp on her clitoris abruptly sang back to life. She’d forgotten. Somehow, in all the tension, she’d just forgotten. And toes were just toes, except... She wet her lips...when they connected in a bewitching line to her female bits. Things were swelling, getting moist, her nipples peaked, and the effort needed to resist clenching her thighs together was growing rapidly.

Desperate for distraction, she noticed a painting on the wall of a cavalry officer who’d reined in before the monstrous presence of the sphinx. Beyond, stretched the desert.

“That, uh, painting is very well done.”

“Yes. A copy of a great painting.” He lifted his head to look but those fingers of his kept circling and massaging and now, every so often, his hand drifted higher to her ankle. “That’s Napoleon. His army came here. There’s a rumor that they shot off the sphinx’s nose, though some say it’s a myth.”

“
Mmm
. I’d heard that.” Her whole lower body had warmed, and all from her foot and toes being rubbed.
My goodness
. She wriggled her bottom slightly on the divan. Mr. Meisner’s eyes locked on hers–intense, calculating, hot. Still watching, he lowered his mouth and raised her foot until the two met then closed his mouth over three of her little toes and suckled. Warm tongue. Cold alcohol. A shockwave rippled upward.

“I thought we were talking,” she said breathlessly. Mr. Meisner lifted his mouth from her and she had the distinct notion she’d just awakened some dreaded creature like a dragon from mythology–something that ate women for dinner and afterward devoured their bones.

“We were.” His voice, she thought, was distinctly lower. If the drop into baritone depths was on purpose, it worked.

She shivered and didn’t dare move. But– “I said no sex.”

“I never agreed to that.”

Hadn’t he? She couldn’t remember and truthfully, didn’t want to.

“If you have anything to say before I undress you, now is your last chance.”

If
... Her courageous self scurried away and hid somewhere in the corners of her mind.

Eyes narrowed, he reached and gripped her outside leg below the knee, hauled her toward him along the divan, the dress bunching up and baring her to the top of her parted thighs. So fast, she’d not protested and now he had her leg across his lap, her knee jammed against his shoulder and her naked pussy right there where he could touch her, see her. Using the back of his fingernails, he trailed his hand up her thigh, secured the chain attached to the clamp in his grasp then pulled until she felt the strain on her clitoris and the pulse of her blood.

“Any more questions before I start? Because once I do, I will be in control of you, of your body.” He twitched the chain. “I know how to make women’s bodies sing, Faith, but in case you do want me to stop, I’ll give you a word to say. Not ‘no,’ because I’ve found in the throes of passion some say that when they don’t mean it.”

“What word,” she said softly, looking up from where she lay against the damask, sure that her eyes were round as saucers. Between his grip on the little clitoris chain and how her legs were splayed around him, she already felt ensorcelled. Whatever magic Mr. Meisner wielded, it worked on her entirely too well.

“Let’s try ‘sphinx.’ It seems appropriate.”

Then he stood and got her to do so as well, drew her dress over her head. Undid her corset and removed it. Undressed her, divested her of jewelry and let down her hair so as to gather it into a ponytail, explaining that the pins might be dangerous if they got in the way of a flogger.

Flogger?

He put his hand at the base of her neck and caressed her collarbone while she considered rolling the word,
sphinx
, off her tongue.

“You’re perfectly safe, Faith,” he said, clipping a black leather cuff about each wrist. “I’ll only hurt you as much as you want me to.”

Well then. The breath hitched in her throat. That was all right. Wasn’t it? She swallowed past a lump, raised her wrists to look at them. The night had turned...interesting.

Chapter 17

“Hands behind your back.”

More than anything, those words signaled the beginning to him, where he had true control. The way she obeyed, electrified him–turning to present her hands together at her back so they nestled there above the swell of her buttocks.

There was no hurry. He savored this, running his fingers through hers before clipping together the cuffs.

“Turn around, Faith.”

His obedient little woman turned to face him...eyes like little gray pools...plump breasts where he could caress them. With one hand across her back so she wouldn’t fall, he bent and kissed her, soft yet possessive. Then he angled his arm so he could play with her bottom, pressed harder with the kiss until her body arched and she moaned into his mouth. He slipped a finger into the crevice down there. Letting her know he could do whatever he wished.

When he was done with kissing her, she was swaying, mouth parted, those lips swollen from his kiss. This was the same woman who had sparred with him over payment at the cafe, who had raced his car faster than he could, who flew in the air where he would never dare.

Every time he tamed this little vixen the pleasure seemed greater. The puzzle was learning how to keep her from running. Seeing her like this–owning her again–delighted him. He’d solve this, reach the heart of this beautiful enigma. He had to, for the sake of his own sanity.

He cupped each breast, rolling the nipples between finger and thumb until they hardened into little buttons and stood up.

“I think these want me to do something to them.” Then he went down on his knee and nudged the underside of a breast, pointing it up at his mouth, took the tip carefully between his teeth, and licked, once. The groan as she rocked on her feet sizzled straight to his cock.

“Don’t bite,” she said in a harsh whisper.

“I won’t, darling, but these do.”

From his shirt pocket he took the nipple clamps, delighting in the flare of curiosity and worry that evoked in her. Playing his tongue over both nipples for a little longer made sure they were as tight and aroused as they could be. Miniscule bumps arose on her aureoles and she strained forward into his mouth. He sank back on his heel.

“Now, have patience. These’ll hurt at first, but they’ll make everything feel that much nicer.”

He waited until she focused those gorgeous eyes on him, before he put the first clamp on, held her steady when she hissed and flinched.

“Are you mad, Mr. Meisner? That hurts a lot.”

“Wait, as I said. Do you trust me, or not?”

She shut her eyes a second. “Yes, I guess I do.”

“Guess? Be certain.” He flicked the silver fox weight on the clamp, sending it swinging in a little arc.

“I...do. What is that?” She looked down.

“A fox. I thought them appropriate for you.”

“Oh. I’m a fox, am I?”

“A vixen. With teeth, who tries to bite me back far too often.” She scowled down at him and he gave her bottom a hearty slap. “No more of that.” Having released the pressure a little on the clamp, he did the same on the other side then readjusted the grip on the nub between her legs. After all this time her clit was sticking up from her labia, pink, engorged and pretty.

Once a long chain was linked through the nipple clamps as well as the clit, he stood and tugged lightly. “Follow.”