A Lesson in Desire: Season of Desire Part 3 (Seasons Quartet) (7 page)

I gasp. I can’t help it.
Is Miles… kinky?

I’ve heard of people who like dressing up, spanking games, and all that bondage stuff, but it’s never appealed to me. I’ve only been able to imagine them as faintly embarrassing and a little humiliating, not a turn-on at all. But now, as I look at the pretty wrist cuffs with their shine of hard metal against the muted glow of the tinted leather, my heart starts to race.

What will he do with me?

The idea of Miles restraining me as he teaches me new lessons in pleasure is darkly exciting.

I promised to do as he says and take everything he wants to give me.

I’ve never surrendered myself like that before, and never wanted to. I’ve always fought hard for my own independence, resenting my father's control and running shy of any man who looks as though he want to do the same. But that’s how I ended up with Jacob, weak-willed and pathetic. Maybe my need to feel strong and in control of my destiny has been leading me in the wrong direction. The idea is an intriguing one.

My fingers are trembling very slightly as I put on the golden cuffs, buckling them snugly around each wrist. Then I slide on the dark nude peep-toe stilettos that came in the box. They are exactly my size.

I gaze at myself in the long mirror. The gown is beautiful, the fall of the fabric emphasising my curves, revealing my hips and the gleam of my legs. The leather and metal give a hint of a princess from a science-fiction fantasy, while the silk and heels add a dollop of Hollywood glamour. I feel intensely feminine and very sexy. I hope that Miles will like the result of his choice.

Miles.
My eyes fly to a clock on the chimney piece over the fireplace. It’s one minute to four o’clock.

I go back to the staircase and walk carefully downstairs, holding the delicate tulle of the dress out of the way of my heels as I go. In the sitting room, the fire is still burning, flames lapping at the logs. It is darker outside and the lamps glow even more golden, sending out pools of yellow light. I stand by the fireplace, looking around the beautiful room and wondering what will happen now.

Another clock chimes four times.

I hear the front door open.

He’s here.

Chapter Twelve

The door downstairs closes and a heavy tread approaches on the stairs. My breathing is coming faster but I try to control it. I stand by the fire, trying to adopt the stance of a model to show myself off to best advantage.

Miles walks into the room and stops as he sees me, his gaze intense beneath black brows. He looks gorgeous, more handsome than I remembered. There’s nothing of the bodyguard about him today; he is wearing a sharply cut charcoal grey coat, dark trousers and polished shoes, and looks as though he’s come from a smart gentleman’s club or a business meeting. His blue eyes shine in the lamplight, a bright blue against the sombre colours of his clothes. His expression is impassive as he looks me up and down. Then he nods slowly and smiles.

‘Hello, Winter. I’m glad to see you obeyed my instructions. It’s good to see you. Very good indeed.’

‘It’s good to see you too,’ I reply softly. ‘Tutor.’

He advances, unbuttoning his coat. His steely gaze softens as he takes in the sight of my body, hidden and yet revealed by the golden gown. ‘I hope you’ve come ready to learn.’

I nod. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Excellent.’ Miles takes off his coat, revealing a soft blue shirt beneath a grey cashmere jumper, and throws it over the back of a chair. He turns to look at me. He’s close to me and my skin is prickling with anticipation of his touch, my sex already tingling and alive to his presence. He stares deep into my eyes. ‘You’ve shown your commitment to my instruction. I’m impressed. You know, Winter, I wasn’t sure you’d take to this as wholeheartedly as you have. I thought you might be a dilettante, not prepared to see it through. You’ve surprised me.’

‘I hope I’ll go on doing that,’ I reply, dropping my gaze. I want him to see that I’m prepared to hand him control in return for the exquisite pleasure he can bring me and the erotic lessons he can teach me. When I look at him again, he’s observing me with a strange expression: tenderness mixed with a kind of surprise. As soon as he sees me watching him, his expression changes again, this time to that cool detachment I’ve seen previously.

Miles walks through the sitting room and dining room and into the kitchen. I turn to watch as he opens a huge fridge and removes a bottle of champagne. A moment later he’s returning with it, two glasses in his other hand. He puts them down on a side table, picks up a small remote and directs it towards some hidden equipment. At once, piano music fills the room, delicate and delightful.

‘Chopin,’ he says, and smiles at me, the eyebrow lifting slightly. ‘In case you didn’t know.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘All part of your lesson.’ He opens the bottle of champagne in two deft movements and pours us each a glass. He hands one to me, then lifts his glass to mine and says, ‘To you, Winter. You are an able and beautiful student.’

I lift my glass in return and smile. ‘Thank you.’
My God, I want him so badly.
But I know that this slow lead-in, with me in this incredible outfit, is all part of the fun.

We sip our champagne. The icy bubbling liquid fills my mouth with small serried explosions. It’s delicious. I look around the room and say, ‘Is this place yours?’

‘No.’ He smiles at me. ‘It belongs to a friend. I like it, but it’s not really my style.’

‘What is your style?’ I ask, and take another sip of the champagne.

Miles raises his eyebrow again. ‘I think we’ll leave that lesson for another time. Did you see my pointer on what we’d learn today?’

I nod. ‘Fire, water, earth and air. The four elements.’

‘That’s right – the elements that the ancient Greeks believed were the basis of everything in the world. Aristotle added a fifth – the quintessence, or fifth element – which he called
aether,
the heavenly substance that forms space and everything else they could'nt explain. The stars, for example.’ Miles lifts his glass to me. ‘I like to think of anything that adds to the joy of life as part of that heavenly substance.’

I take another drink. The crisp, biscuity liquid fires its volleys of bubbles over my tongue. ‘Then we should add champagne to it. I suppose you could say that it’s a little like drinking stars.’

He smiles. ‘Yes. I like that. We think the same way, Winter.’ His gaze travels appreciatively over me again. ‘You look like a heavenly body yourself, Winter, in that dress. Like the goddess you were named after.’

‘You chose well,’ I reply softly.

His gaze becomes intense suddenly and fires off an answering tumble of excited butterflies in my stomach. ‘I think we should begin.’ He puts his glass on the side table and says lazily, ‘So… where shall we start? Earth, air, water or… fire…?’ His eyelids drop a little, making his gaze more hooded. A rush of desire flows through me. I can feel my nipples hardening, my nerves awakening to a greater pitch of alertness.

Miles takes a step towards me and says, ‘I think fire first… Yes. Fire is the best way to start.’ He takes me by the hand and leads me towards the fireplace where the flames are still flickering around an almost consumed log. Leaning down, he picks up another and throws it into the molten orange heart of the fire, making sparks crackle and explode as fresh flames leap up around it. Miles moves to stand behind me, his body very near to mine. I can feel him achingly close, the soft cashmere of his jumper almost touching my bare shoulder blades. His mouth is close by my ear.

‘Watch the fire, Winter. Amazing, isn’t it? It’s fascinated mankind since we first discovered it, although the Greeks would have us believe that Prometheus stole fire from the gods, an act that earned him the peculiar torment of having his liver eaten by an eagle, only for it grow back so it could be eaten again the following day.’

The buzz of his voice in my ear is a torment too. I long to turn my face to his so that he can kiss me, or so that I can at least feel the touch of his lips on my cheek, but I daren’t move.

‘Heraclitus thought of the soul as a mixture of fire and water, the hot, dry fire being the noble part, the one that contains our passion, energy and drive. Appropriate to start here, then, where our passions are kindled.’

His mouth is tantalisingly close to my ear. I’m breathing faster, my breasts rising and falling rapidly under their light covering of golden tulle. I can feel the heat from the fire on my bare skin, and an answering warmth inside as my body prepares for pleasure.

‘Today, we can describe fire in a series of chemical equations, explaining everything about it: the light, colours, heat and growth of the flames. We know that it’s precious but also deadly. It provides heat and comfort but also it’s also searing, burning, destroying. Perhaps that’s why it symbolises passion so perfectly…’ His lips close around my earlobe and I gasp as I feel the light touch of his teeth on it. He sucks gently, his tongue caressing it. I sigh with the exquisite sensations he’s provoking in me just with the small sucks and licks on my ear.

I feel a movement at my waist and realise that he is deftly clipping my wrist cuffs to the golden hoops on my belt and that my arms are now tethered. My insides clench with surprise and a rapid whirl of excitement.

‘Can you feel the heat?’ he asks. His hands are on my flesh now, running along my arms. His fingertips trail over the skin on my hip. ‘Yes. You’re warm.’

My lips are dry and I lick them, my pulse racing at the touch of his fingers. I want those fingers all over my body, I want them to press inside me.

‘Fire is about volatility. Transformation.’ His voice is low, hypnotic. ‘Not all transformations are good: from untouched to burnt. From whole to destroyed. But others take us to places we never dreamed existed.’

Take me to those places, Miles.

I want to speak, but I can’t. The heat from the fire plays over my skin while Miles’s proximity is making my back burn and tingle. I’m aware of my wrists tethered to my belt.
Holy hell, what’s he going to do now?

‘Take off your shoes.’

I obey, stepping out of the stilettos and feeling the soft white rug beneath my feet. I’m about five inches shorter now, and Miles seems bigger and more powerful than ever. Suddenly his hands are on my shoulders and he’s pushing me gently downwards. I sink to my knees, my gaze fixed on the golden flames leaping in the fireplace. Now he’s beside me, taking me further back so that I’m lying on the soft white rug in front of the fireplace, my legs bent beneath me as if I’m offering myself in supplication to the fire. I can see him now, half-kneeling behind me, looking at my body with its golden drapery, my nipples already erect and pert against the silky fabric that covers my breasts. I stare up at him, longing for his touch, feeling at once intensely vulnerable and strangely in control. I want this. My body urgently needs him, and I’m offering it in all its vivid femininity.

Miles leans down and kisses me on the mouth, his tongue sliding between my lips. His face is inverted to mine, so his chin touches the side of my nose as he explores my mouth. The sensation of his tongue being upside down in my mouth is curious, the probing, exploring kisses provoking a strange excitement. He kisses me, reaches down and places his hand over my mound. I twitch with the sudden, unexpected touch so close to my core. He slides his hand down over the swelling sex with its delicate covering of golden mesh and presses it between my thighs. Then, gently but firmly, he moves my legs apart, first one thigh and then the other. Now I’m open to the heat of the fire and I can feel it playing over my sex, warming me where I’m already hot and needy.

He pulls away from my mouth, and looks down at my prone body, the wrists bound to my sides. ‘You look very beautiful,’ he murmurs. ‘Now… let’s learn a little more about fire.’

I feel a thrill that has a shimmer of something like fear inside it.

He goes on: ‘Fire is considered a masculine element, and in the pagan world, its tool is the candle.’ He reaches over to a candlestick on a low table by the fire and plucks the white stem of a candle from it. ‘Not surprising, really, when you consider how the candle carries and contains a flame.’ Miles put the candle lightly against my lips, drawing it over them so that I can feel the smooth waxy cylinder. I’m seized by the impulse to lick and kiss it, but I restrain myself. He runs the candle over my mouth, down my chin and neck to the base of my throat, then further to my right breast. Slowly he puts out one hand and draws the loose pleats of tulle away from that breast. I hear him draw in a breath as he exposes the full curve and I guess that he’s looking at the erect nipple that’s been straining at the cloth. He takes the candle and runs its circular edge around the sensitive area that surrounds my nipple, tickling me lightly with it. Now he pulls aside the fabric that covers the other breast and I’m entirely exposed to him. I can feel the heat from the fire flickering over my skin, and the nipples become even tighter and more erect. I long to touch Miles, or even touch myself, but my wrists are bound, there’s nothing I can do.

Miles gets up and goes to the fire, leaning over it so that his large form blocks it out. When he turns back, he is holding the candle upright so that the orange flame on its tip burns strongly, taking hold of the wick. He kneels down in front of me, between my open thighs, and I gaze at him. I’m utterly prone before him, my sex still covered with the mesh knickers and silk drapery but my breasts exposed, cupped by the fabric that’s tethered to the belt just below my wrists.

This is so exciting. But what is he going to do with that candle?

He’s staring at me intently, his eyes dark with lust. Then he says softly, ‘Like so many things, fire can bring pain… and pleasure.’ He brings the flickering candle up towards my chest. ‘You just have to know how to control it.’

The golden light jumps and sways before me. Beneath, a shimmering pool of molten wax is gathering. Miles moves the candle smoothly so that it is directly above my left breast. Then, slowly, he tips it so that a drop of the liquid wax trembles on the candle’s rim and then falls, landing exactly on my nipple.