Unholy Promises (11 page)

“What are you doing, Celia?” I ask, walking in behind her. She turns to me, mascara streaked, eyes red, nose puffy, and reaches for me. “We have to bring him back!”

“I’m not going to force him to stay.”

“You don’t care … this is what you’ve wanted all along!” She sobs against me and I pull her tighter. She doesn’t pull away, merely sobs harder. “Why can’t he just be happy with us?”

“Celia?” I pull back from her. “As long as I’ve known Thomas, he comes and he goes. He’ll be back.”

“This is different!” she insists, then her eyes go wide and her bottom lip pouts out.

“Why are you calling me Celia?”

“Because Kitten would be at the Club, watching me onstage right now, or she might be at work finishing things up so that she could at least join me for dinner at the Club, but Kitten would not be shanghaiing my pilot for a trip God knows where without asking my permission first.” I stroke her cheek, sadness filling my heart. “I really don’t think that you want to be Kitten as much as you want to belong to Lord Fyre.”

A tear slides over her cheek. “I do want to be Kitten. I want to belong to both of you.”

“Then start acting like Kitten!”

“I am Kitten!” Her lip quivers. “I had to try to stop him! Can’t you see how much I love him?”

I stand, running my hand through my hair, holding out my opposite hand for her to take. “Let’s talk about this at home.”

“What? No!” she screams. “I have to go! I have to find him! I have to bring him back before he ruins everything!”

I shake my head, “Not tonight, Kitten. We’re going home, and when we get there you are being punished.”

She pulls away, huddling in the corner of her chair, tucked tightly against the windowed wall, holding onto the arms of her chair with a death grip. “No! I’m not going home! I don’t want to go!”

She reminds me of an exhausted four-year-old who hasn’t had a nap, throwing a temper tantrum because she isn’t getting her way, making an unbidden image of a child with her eyes and smile make an appearance in my mind. Damn Jackie for her foolishness. Like I could bring a child into this fiasco right now even if I wanted to. I shake away the image and pick Kitten up, tossing her over my shoulder so that her head is down and her bottom is in the air. She kicks and screams, but I don’t put her down.

“Master! Please, please! Let me go get him! Don’t you care?”

I start down the stairs and my driver, seeing us coming, pulls the car closer. He climbs out and rushes around the side of the car to open the back door so that I can toss her into the back seat, following after her to restrain her and buckle her in. Our driver has seen it all by now, so he doesn’t even give us a second glance as he drives us back to the penthouse. I wish I was as detached and calm. Once, I was. Now? I care too damn much.

“What’s this really about?” I ask her.

She closes her eyes, shutting me out, and my heart breaks but not with sadness …

with fury—I regret ever sharing her with him. I regret letting him back into my heart as well. God, what have you done to us, Thomas?

You said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe.

I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

~ Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

Across the alley from her apartment, I hide on a rooftop. The helicopter ride took longer than I anticipated, but I am here, and she is here, confirmed when I spy her through my binoculars. She is with him, the red-haired co-worker from the party. Naked and riding him, she is wrapped in the throes of passion, and all I can do is stand here, watching. I want to be angry and jealous, seething, anything, but all I feel is that I walked away from the best and most important person my life.

I am being watched.

The feeling rips through me like a bullet, and as I duck deeper into the shadows, barely breathing, I realize, no, not watched, sought. She leans from the window, seeking who she felt watching. The streets are empty, she finds no one, and because of my greater need to find my brother, I can justify following her when she comes flying out, taking the concrete front steps two at a time. I don’t have to catch up to her, knowing instinctively where she is going—the hunted always go home for the holidays—and if my hunch is right, she still thinks of the warehouse as home. Knowing how she felt about her parents, about her brothers, still living in Sweden, her heart does not lie there … but is it with the man she knew as Luka? I pray so and not for the sake of my brother.

Was it planned for me to enter the warehouse through the hidden back door? No.

Was it wise?

Probably, most definitely, not, I decide as I stand next to the bed, watching her sleep.

If I had to guess, more likely, she passed out. Her breathing pattern hinted at it and the bottle of ouzo clutched in her fist confirms it. Panic surges quickly when I see the small pill box, former contents strewn across the velvet comforter, but as I quickly calculate how many could fit if packed full … there are not nearly enough missing to cause her death. She merely swallowed two or three. I pick one up to read the initials on the side by the flicker of a bedside candle. Vicodin.

Stupid girl, mixing painkillers and alcohol…

Her color is high, breathing normal for one having consumed a massive amount of ouzo. I check her pulse anyway—slow and steady. Her hand jerks and I catch the falling bottle just in time, carefully settling it onto the nightstand. If I were a smart man, I’d leave now. I wouldn’t stroke her cheek, I definitely wouldn’t lift her hair to my nose to inhale her scent. Spinning a strand of spun gold around my finger, I caress the silkiness, knowing I am playing with fire and longing desperately to be burned.

I am a lost man; I know it is so, as I allow my fingertips to travel of their own accord, following the elegant line of her jaw, her neck, her collarbone.

Unbearable softness. Self-torture.

Years recede to nothingness as my control slips and I am transported … my hand sliding beneath the silk robe to rub over the silky curve of her bare shoulder, causing the fabric to fall open, revealing her perfect breasts. Facing my own insanity, I couldn’t stop myself now if I wanted to, the pull back to the past is too great, the need, the desire too strong. Closing my eyes against the screaming rational side of my brain, I enjoy the rush, the remembrance of what it was like to own her. Squeezing the soft, round, utter perfectness of her breast, I remember the time she was mine to do with what I would.

Catching her nipples between thumbs and knuckles, I pinch and pull, longing for her response and I am not disappointed. A soft moan escapes her lips and it is more than I can bear.

I want to rip my clothes off, it would be worth being tried as a traitor to spend one more night in her arms. Would it be worth being tracked, hunted … by her?

The answer is no. Having Eva become my hunter would be worse than death. I turn quickly, my rational mind winning.

“Luka?” Her soft whisper startles me. Turning, I see her eyes mere slits against the candlelight. Blindly, she reaches—calling out for me—and I can’t turn away.

“You’re home. I’m so glad you’re home. I had the worst dream. I’m so glad…”

“I’m here, Eva.”

“I’m glad, Master.” She pulls me down to her lips.

It is a soft, wet kiss, her lips relaxing beneath mine as I take full possession of her mouth, devouring her, forcing my tongue inside her mouth, doing my best to fuck her mouth with my tongue, but she won’t allow it, latching and pulling on my tongue, like an infant sucking on a breast. I resist, but she forces me to stay, mouths joined, her sucking, hard, harder, finally releasing my tongue so that I can get my own revenge. I offer a similar experience to her top lip, pulling, sucking, nipping. Then, not to be left out, her bottom lip. I am not as gentle with her bottom lip, sucking hard until she moans. I release her lips, only to pull her chin into my mouth, biting the tender skin, feeling her hard jaw bone between my teeth.

“Oh God, Master, I need you like this, just like this. But I’m so tired.”

“I know, Evie, I’ll do all the work tonight, you just enjoy yourself.”

“I promised you a massage, Master, I was going to start at your feet. I bought oil earlier, your favorite, lavender blended with rose and myrrh. I want to give you a massage Master, I like it when your toes wiggle and you growl at me to rub your thighs,”

she explains in a sleepy voice, eyes closed, sleep-talking. I should be ashamed that I am so close to taking advantage. “You want me to think that you are in a hurry for me to get to your dick, but I’ve figured out the truth of it.”

“Have you, Evie?” I push against her, trying to hold back, kissing and nipping my way around her neck as she remembers the past. I mentally chastise myself for being a rogue, silently promising myself that I won’t let things progress too far. After all, I’ve been living as a Master Dominant, surely I can control this…

“Your feet are ticklish,” she accuses and I bite down hard on her neck to change the subject. Her pulse throbs beneath my tongue as I hold her still with my teeth, sucking hard against her jugular vein as I lift her by her neck until she is arching and moaning loudly.

“Master, oh God, Master.” She sighs against me.

I pinch a nipple cruelly, rolling it hard between the knuckles of my thumb and finger.

I pin her legs and hold her, arching and squirming. She cannot pull away, I’m not willing to let go.

I’ve left sanity and return completely to the man I was with her. Master.

It’s been so long since I’ve been called Master. In San Francisco, I am Fyre, Lord Fyre, Sir, even Mister, but I’ve allowed no one to call me Master. I have and always will be her Master only. Even as I think it, I know we are doomed. I cannot go back to my life without her. What have I done?

Her gasp brings me back to the present.

I release her nipple, knowing it will be bruised and angry-looking in the morning, similarly I know her neck is marked. My mark, ownership, I am reclaiming Evie.

“You are mine, Evie,” I demand.

“Yes, Master.”

“Who do you belong to?” I press a knuckle into her ribs, making her squirm in pleasure-pain. “No one else has claim to you, Evie. Only me. You are mine, now and forever.” I press into a lower rib and she screams out, hips hunching against my thigh.

“Say it!”

“You, Master,” she promises breathily, her arching hips demand release, and I stall her motion mid-hunch, pressing my thumb deep into her ribcage. Her screamed protest is music to my ears. She falls back into the mattress. God, she is out of it, her eyes are glazed, and I wonder again just how many Vicodin she swallowed. I catch her hand as she tries to touch herself, not allowing her to find the release she needs.

“Not yet,” I whisper, pushing her hand farther away.

“Master,” she pleads. I know how desperate she must be. Eva is one of those rare, wonderful women who can reach orgasm solely by having her breasts played with. I have given her just enough to set her on fire, but not enough to climax. I lick her right nipple, sucking softly, drawing deep. A sob forms in her throat. I will not give her the rhythm she needs to climax. Slowly, I rise over her, promising, “You will come when I say that you may.”

“Yes, Master.” She pouts, then presses a kiss to my shoulder, just before she latches down, teeth burying painfully into my pectoral muscle. I take the pain, surprised again by the minx in my bed. Even drunk, barely lucid, she knows what buttons to push, and I never realized just how well she learned me, until this moment.

“God, Evie.” I spasm against her, thinking she may have just broken skin.

“Master me,” she demands between gritted teeth, still clamping skin and muscle between her teeth, and I am lost to her, manipulated coldheartedly into granting her desire; but I don’t care. It’s been too long and I need her as much as she seems to need me.

My fingers find her soft wet folds. God, she is so fucking wet.

Pressing my middle finger into her vagina, I fuck her slowly with just that one finger, letting her arch and moan beneath me, but granting her no quarter. Slowly, softly, gently, I play with her folds, spreading her wetness. She will pay for the teeth imprint welling with blood in orgasms, and I make a pact with myself that I will not release her until she has paid in full with at least ten orgasms this night. I push my finger inside her again, and she moans with the relief the sensation brings. Remembering, I begin the stroke I know will push her over the edge. Stroking harder, deeper, faster, until she is panting, begging for release. I push her harder, not giving her the words she longs to hear, pushing her over the edge with the rhythm I learned so long ago. She screams with the intensity of the first.

“Did you ask permission to do that, Little One?” I demand as her screams turn to pants. Not expecting an answer, I pound my fingers into her harder, stretching her, filling her with a second finger. And then I press in a third. With my free hand, I push against her soft belly, until I am certain I have found her sweet spot, then crush her G-spot between the heel of my palm and my fingers, working their terror on the inside. She cannot stop the next orgasm or the one that immediately follows it, screaming with pleasure, not asking permission to come.

“You are such a bad girl, Evie, you know I’m going to have to punish you now,” I promise as she lays on her side recovering. So tired, still drugged, she doesn’t resist when I push her onto her stomach. Pulling my leather belt from my slacks, I secure her wrists, wrapping the leather around and around, almost to her elbows before I buckle it tight.

With her head to the side, she breathes heavily, still laboring post-orgasm, as I pull the small jewelry box off the nightstand and withdraw a pair of shiny C-clamps attached by a twelve-inch chain.

Pulling her up onto her knees, I kiss her temple before attaching the first clamp to her nipple. I clamp it down slowly, restricting the blood flow to her nipple, letting her feel the changing sensation as a slight pinch changes to outright pain. Her quick intake of breath signals the moment it becomes too painful to bear.