Assassin's Kiss (5 page)

Esther’s breath came in shallow gasps even before the assassin came to stand behind her, his low groan of approval speaking volumes as his hands snaked around to cup her breasts from behind. It was no use. However hard she fought, this had been inevitable since she first saw him. She could tell herself that her only hope of leaving here was to give him what he wanted – but in truth, she wanted just this as badly as he did.

She threw her head back as his hands roamed all over her breasts, stroking and coaxing her painfully heightened arousal to a dizzying peak. A throaty moan rose from the back of her throat, and he lowered his head towards hers as he captured each nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

Esther stared down at the deeply erotic sight of him touching her so intimately, powerless to resist the compulsion to arch into his hands when his mouth grazed her throat before drifting higher towards her ear, pushing her sleep-tousled hair aside to speak to her. “I mean it,” he said hoarsely. “I fully intend to tie you to this chair and have my way with you, Esther.”

This was her last chance to turn back, to tell him to stop – but she had never needed anyone more than she needed him now. “Then why have you not yet done so, sir?”

But instead of following through upon his tantalising threat, to her searing frustration the assassin pulled back to slowly circle around the chair and come to face her once more. “You are an enigma, sweetheart,” he said slowly. “But I see it now, I think.”

Her skin was on fire everywhere he had touched it. Barely able to even think clearly now with her mingled frustration and arousal raging through her veins, she yearned to reach out and pull him back towards her, but she still did not dare – and it seemed he finally understood.

Leaning in closer, he touched her face with the back of his hand and let his thumb brush across the bow of her lips, holding her gaze all the while as her lips instinctively parted beneath his touch. With no more than a ghost of a smile, he knelt down before her so she had no choice but to look directly into his eyes. “Esther?” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Esther could not even speak to answer him, but they did not need words. Aflame with anticipation, she let her head roll to the side as the assassin quietly spoke again.

 “Esther, I see now that you both want and need me to order you into my arms. If I do, you can pretend to yourself you did not want this anywhere near as much as I know you do. Tell me, am I right?”

He was, unerringly so. Though it should have terrified her to realise how transparent her innermost thoughts were to him when her life rested upon the web of secrecy she had built up over the years, she let him take the kiss she offered up in lieu of a spoken answer. He cupped her face between his hands as their lips met, this kiss the polar opposite of the frenzied one he had stolen from her just a few minutes before. This time he seemed content to let the kiss develop slowly, tenderly coaxing the truth from her lips as they moulded to his every command. Her eyes drifted closed and she let the moment surround her, driving away anything that was not him. The assassin and his kiss were all she knew, and when he gently pulled away again she did not even try to conceal the lust that drove her so fiercely and inescapably into his arms.

He gazed at her for a few moments longer before he slowly nodded his head, a slow-burning smile pulling back the corners of his lips as he toyed with a lock of her hair. “I shall take that as a yes, sweetheart. So, shall I tell you what else I have realised about you?”

Her answer was written all over her face.

His smile widened. “You belong to me, sweetheart.”

Esther swallowed hard, fighting to find her voice once more. “I...I...”

He silenced her stammered protest with one finger against her lips. “Trying to deny it is pointless. It is wonderfully clear to me now that the thought of submitting to my control arouses you, Esther. I can read the desperation in your eyes, sweetheart, and the deep flush of your skin tells me that I can do anything with you I want to do. You are mine for the taking, and I swear to you now that what you and I will share will make every man before me fade into oblivion.”

That fiercely spoken, scintillating promise achieved what moments before had seemed impossible and made her crave everything he had to offer all the more. As he pushed himself up to stand again, he reached for an untied cravat left on the breakfast table and lifted one brow, seeming to dare her to tell him to stop. Esther only held her hands behind her back, ready and willing for him to tie her to the chair just as he had threatened he would.

The assassin exhaled as he deftly bound her hands together, winding the cravat through the wooden struts of the chair to make any escape impossible. “No turning back now, sweetheart,” he said under his breath. “I am taking charge of this now I know what you need – and what you need is
me
.”

She could deny it, but what was the use? They both knew the truth. As he moved back around to stand in front of her, she met his intent stare and finally gave him the words she knew he had been waiting for. “Yes, I do,” she said quietly. “I need you, and I can deprive myself no longer.”

Triumph blazed in his dark eyes. His white shirt hung open against his tautly muscular chest, a temptation she yearned to touch – but that would come. She knew it would. For the first time since they had met she slowly began to relax, convinced that nothing could ever be as right as this.

When her eyes travelled towards the shape of his cock straining against his breeches he breathed in sharply. “I do not think I can delay this much longer, Esther.”

“Then do not do so! But there is something you should know first.”

“And what is that?”

She bit on her lip as the assassin took a step back and reached for the buckle of his belt. “I am not used to this kind of submission, sir.”

“I know,” he said, wrong-footing her once more. “Fleetwood and those who came before him, they preferred you to take the lead in bed. I do not doubt that you excelled in it, sweetheart, but that is not how you and I will be. It isn’t what you need.”

Esther could barely even breathe, let alone speak, but this verbal dance was thrilling her beyond all comprehension. The assassin was far more than merely a hired knife. His mind was just as sharp as the blade embedded into his wrist, and he fascinated her. He seemed to intuitively sense everything she felt in a way no one before him was able to. “And what do you imagine I need, sir?”

He laughed quietly as he let his rock hard cock spring free from his trousers without as much as an ounce of shame. “I
know
what you need. You want and need someone who can take you in hand, Esther, in every way. I am that man – but first, there is something else I must take in hand.”

His thumb brushed across the pliant head of his cock, and despite herself Esther’s tongue darted out between parted lips. She wanted this dangerous man so very much that nothing else mattered any more, and to see the physical proof that he wanted her just as much thrilled her beyond all comprehension. She shivered in delight, and for a brief moment his dark eyes softened.

“Do you see now what you are doing to me, Esther?”

His low voice was utterly compelling. She could hear nothing but him, and she stared transfixed at his reddening face as he took another slow step closer. His fist closed around the shaft of his cock, and it slowly began to pump up and down as she let loose a low sigh, lost to the onslaught of lust that had so clearly consumed them both. His breath grew shallow when their eyes locked, and despite the fact that she was bound to the chair with nothing to touch her bare skin but the wood she sat upon, she sensed her own arousal begin to spiral rapidly out of control.

As the assassin’s face contorted and his fist tightened around his cock, Esther arched against the chair and began to slowly rock her hips back and forth, deliberately mimicking all they knew was soon to come. He cursed under his breath, clearly losing his hold on his self-control as he moved so close to her that he straddled her parted thighs, his cock now mere inches away from her breasts. She yearned to reach out and touch him, to send him hurtling towards the same explosive climax he had given her last night – but it seemed he was in no need of her help.

For a moment she sensed a torrent of unspoken words hovering on his lips, but then a loud groan flew from them instead and he jerked his head from side to side. She cried out, urging him on without words as she saw him tense in front of her, and the desperation she could not even try to conceal sent him flying over the edge.

With one more frenzied curse, he thrust his hips towards her breasts and let his orgasm erupt, leaving her transfixed and breathless as he spilled his seed all over her breasts, the sound of her name the only coherent one amongst the harsh groans that accompanied his release. Thrilling in the effect she had upon him, she yearned both to touch him and call out his name in return, but she could do neither of those things. All she could do with stare up at him, willing him without words to take the kiss she craved – and the moment his powerful climax began to recede, without warning he seized hold of her head and let his mouth slam down onto hers.

Esther eagerly matched the furious passion with which the assassin was kissing her, but his mouth assaulted hers for no more than a few moments before he pulled back to look into her wide eyes, his hands still tight around her face even he roughly spoke.

“Now that is out of the way, sweetheart, I hope I shall be able to find some shred of control once more when I carry you off to my bed. Before that, though...”

She shuddered, barely able even to find the composure to answer him. “What?”

“Well, I seem to recall promising you a taste of the same delight I just experienced whilst I have you bound and so deliciously helpless.”

The dark, menacing spark in his eyes should have terrified her, but nothing had ever felt as right as surrendering to him. Her pulse quickened, and she bit down on her lower lip as he slowly let loose of her face only to transfer his mouth to the side of her throat. Gently tugging the soft skin he found there to brand her with the mark of his kiss, he lingered there until she gave up a desperate cry, laden with lust and a longing that only he could fulfil.

“Patience, Esther,” the assassin breathed, the scent of him so near to her driving her crazy, the feel of his breath on her bare skin sending a rush of damp heat to her cunt. “It will come, I promise, but first I want to revel in your surrender. You cannot and will not stop me now, and perhaps now you realise just how aroused that makes me!”

His hand snaked across to brush against Esther’s cum-covered breasts, grazing against each painfully taut nipple in turn as she began to fight for breath, overwhelmed by the dizzying heights her arousal was soaring towards. Still groping at her breasts with one hand, he eased himself down to kneel before her again and slowly ran his tongue over his lips just as she had before him, then gently wiped her breasts clean with his shirt before he trailed a line of torturously delicate kisses across the top of them.

Glorious though it was, she needed far more from him, and after denying herself all night she could do so no longer. It had been torture sleeping beside him and taking no more of what he had to offer, but now there could be no more holding back. Shamelessly pushing her breasts up against his mouth, she gave herself over to the rush of desire that compelled her and let him see just how badly she needed him.

Their bodies did not need words to speak to each other. Laughing under his breath, the assassin obliged by wrapping his tongue around first one nipple, then the other, biting down softly until her desperate cry of delight echoed around the parlour room, then squeezing her breasts again before seeking further.

Without asking permission he kissed his way down the curve of her stomach as his hands came to rest upon her thighs, gently but insistently forcing them apart. Esther breathed in sharply, but there was nothing left to hide from him. Her eyes heavy-lidded, she sighed in supplication as he swiftly glanced up at her once more, seeming to search her face before he nodded slowly then eased himself forward, guiding her hips towards the edge of the seat until she could feel his warm breath on her swollen clit.

The world slowed around them, contracting until there was nothing but the two of them, caught up in the spell of lust they had woven together. Her heart was beating wildly out of time, and he shook his head as if to clear before he drew a shallow breath and then delivered the gentlest of kisses to her clit. She whimpered, so wholly unused to the sensations now crashing through her body that she could barely even breathe. None of her previous lovers saw her pleasure as anything but a prelude to their own, but the assassin seemed to revel in it, determined to bind her to him ever more tightly with this inexplicable lust they shared for each other.

He groaned quietly, his hands so tight around her thighs they would surely leave bruises behind as he began to tease her with his devilishly skilled tongue, darting out and wrapping around her clit to wrench her closer to her building climax with every passing moment. She was so painfully aroused that she knew it would not take long at all to reach, but though her body craved it, she never wanted this to end. Only the breathtaking awareness of where this would surely lead made her relax and willingly accept the urgings of her body to submit to the clenching, delicious ache in her core.