At Her Command (Fantasy Heights) (5 page)

His hands cupped her face, turning her mouth up to his. They shouldn’t kiss, she thought. It would only add to the confused hormonal onslaught. Of course, it also dumped a few metric tons of fuel onto the fires burning inside. She opened her mouth to him, marveling at how good it felt. The kiss stole her focus from everything else, even the feel of his warm skin beneath her hands. His mouth wasn’t greedy or wanton. No, it was much more devastating than that. It was tender and provocative and intensely intimate. Way more personal than it ought to have been.

She wrenched herself away from him and took a step back. Immediately she was met with those dark eyes again. This time, they sparkled with a mixture of defiance and a clear admission of guilt.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help it,” he said. “Maybe we better just get down to business.”

Every instinct told her to get the hell out of that room before anything else could happen, but one tiny part of her brain still capable of logic told her that running away would be an even bigger mistake. Leaving this room still under the influence of all those chemicals would only make matters worse. Best to just get them both off, let things calm down, and then put a nice solid emotional wedge between them by asking about Marla and the blonde.

Plans now in place, she drew Thomas away from the door and used him as leverage to lower herself onto one of the bigger pillows. He shed the rest of his clothes before coming down on top of her in 69 position, burying his head between her legs and moaning against her as she took him deeply into her mouth.

She tickled at his balls and made a firm
O
with her lips, going straight to work on the tip of his penis. Meanwhile, he was forcing a very thick dildo into her pussy. She had to pause to let out a sound of relieved delight. He answered with a growl and a nip of her inner thigh.

The dildo filled her completely and left her quivering on the edge of orgasm. His legs quaked, too. Bobbing her head, she relentlessly stimulated the tip of his cock. While the fiery ache inside her cunt grew more focused, more pleasurable, she mewed a warning. She had very little power left against her body’s demands. Any second now, she would reach her limit of control.

She heard and felt his quickening, felt his body slip into the eager grasp of orgasm. She drew him farther inside, to the back of her throat, letting him pulse out his seed, swallowing him down.

Her own body took over then and the orgasm this time was deeper, stronger than ever before, as if he’d driven a corkscrew of pure pleasure straight up to her throat. It held her in such thrall for so long that by the time her lungs forced her to take a breath, she was seeing stars.

Thomas, sensing her return, eased himself from her grip and whispered out his approval. “Nice.” He twisted the dildo a little, pulling it out a bit, pressing it back in. Playing. When he snaked his tongue against her clit, she felt her whole body brace itself.

“Easy,” he soothed.

She murmured a nothing response, enjoying the lazy, sleepy relaxation pouring through her limbs while he eased the dildo out of her pussy. He lapped at her a couple times, but gently, affectionately. Nothing to get her stirred up again. Then he turned round to prop himself on a pillow beside her.

He folded his arms behind his head and crossed his ankles while she rolled onto her side to watch him. Now that he’d knocked the wind out of her with that orgasm, she suddenly felt much less annoyed, much less concerned about the ill-advised swipe he’d taken at intimacy.

So they were close. Was that really so bad? Was it such a crime to enjoy giving and receiving pleasure without wanting or demanding all the trappings that usually came with such a strong physical bond? It wasn’t as if they’d been recklessly intimate. If he’d been inside her, face to face, flesh to flesh and heart to heart, it would be different. But they had instinctively avoided any such position. That ought to be proof enough that they were no real emotional threat to one another.

Or maybe it proved nothing. Or quite the opposite. Maybe she had better warn him about Marla and the mystery blonde after all. If he already knew, and the blonde was the cause of the rift between him and Marla, then she wouldn’t be telling him anything he didn’t already know. If it came as news to him and the problem with Marla had nothing to do with the blonde, then he definitely needed to know Marla was attacking on a different front.

“Thomas, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“What? That I’m turning into a hypocrite?”

“No, I... Wait. How are you a hypocrite?”

“Never mind. Whatever you’re about to say, please just don’t. When you gotta warn me about it first, I know it’s personal, not business. And I’m sure it can’t be good.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to hear it.”

He took a deep breath and sighed it out, reaching over to swipe a stray curl behind her ear. He watched her face while she watched the gears turn behind his eyes, mulling something over.

When she was about to ask him what was wrong, he finally spoke.

“I’ll let you tell me whatever it is, on one condition.”

“Okay, what’s the condition?”

“That you take both Josh and I to that wedding.”

“What?” She sat up. “No! Why should I do that?”

“Hey, is it any less intrusive than letting you say whatever it is you’re about to say? Any less personal?”

Now she wished she’d never said anything. “How is me, telling you something for your own good, on par with you and Josh coming with me to that stupid wedding?”

Thomas shrugged a shoulder. “That’s the condition. You either meet it, or you don’t. You gotta be almost out of time to RSVP by now. Tick tock, tick tock.”

“Oh, my God. You are such an... Fine. Whatever, Thomas.”

She got up and left, storming through wardrobe and the shower. She reached the parking lot before she realized she should be thanking Thomas, not hating him. All along, he’d warned her to keep this place and everyone in it at arm’s length. She hadn’t listened. Not really, and he had only shoved her back to that safe distance where she belonged. Hadn’t she planned to do the same thing?

Standing beside her car, she sighed at herself, trying to get a grip on the temper he’d stirred up.

She jumped as a hand settled onto her shoulder.

Behind her, Josh sounded concerned. “Hey. What’s the matter?”

“Oh, hey. Hi. Nothing, I just... Ah, God, sometimes Thomas just makes me...”

“Makes you want to strangle him?”

At his wry, sympathetic look, she felt the temper morph into chagrin. “Yeah. I take it you know what I’m talking about.”

“Most people do. What happened?”

She debated for an entire three seconds before dumping the whole thing into Josh’s lap. Everything. The argument she’d overheard, the scars, Marla, Warnous, and Thomas’s deal that she had to take them to the wedding before she could tell him something so personal.

When she’d done, Josh grimaced, and scratched at his temple. “Okay, well, first of all, Thomas was right to shut you down. Second, he’s right about the wedding, too. You gotta take us.”

“Oh, come on. Not you, too?”

“Hey, he has a point. Those people, your family, hurt you bad enough to drive you away, and he and I both know already that you’d die before letting your ex and the step-wretch make a coward out of you.”

She snorted. “Step-wretch. Nice.”

“I’m just sayin’. Anyway, even if you weren’t... I would hate to see anyone walk into a hornet’s nest like that, alone and unprotected. And since you’re going anyway, might as well bring some armor, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Besides. I’d pay money to see the look on Thomas’s face when you call his bluff and tell him we’re going.”

“Jeez. I thought you two were friends.”

“We are,” Josh said. “Else I wouldn’t get in the middle of this thing. Just wait a day or two before you tell him. Let him stew a while. See if he caves first.”

Thomas, of course, did no such thing. More than a day had passed before Amanda realized that Josh, for all his seeming friendliness, had done a masterful job of not answering a single one of her real concerns. He hadn’t explained anything about Thomas’s old life or anything specific about Marla, Steph or the Warnouses. He’d simply distracted her with a shiny thing and left her otherwise in the dark.

A little stung by Thomas and Josh’s none-too-gentle snubs, she did what she thought best and steered clear of them both. The following day provided a glorious distraction. She was booked with her mystery client again, the same one she’d been with on the dance floor of
The Eastern Star
. This time, they met in a quiet room in the basement of the complex. She’d seen the room during her tour, intrigued by the restraints and apparatus she’d seen there and still had no idea what all of it was for. It had looked sort of like a weight room full of exercise equipment, but she would have no chance to examine it with this client. He wanted her blindfolded again to hide his identity. Their observer made sure her blindfold was securely in place before he guided her through the door. Gentle, sturdy and familiar hands received her.

To feel the care in them, the certainty, after the last twenty-four hours of the mental chaos brought on by Thomas and Josh, was heavenly. She let everything else go, noticing and absorbing every small pleasure: his warm palms against her skin, the shimmery, sparkling tingle of nerves as he guided her through unfamiliar territory. He steered her across the carpet, and then placed a cautious hand on one thigh.

He wouldn’t speak, leading her to suspect she would recognize his voice if she heard it. Still he managed to guide her legs apart, instructing her to step over a padded bar. One of his hands stayed on her hip, holding her in place while with the other, he lifted the bar between her legs, up to mid-thigh. The bar locked into position with the clank of a metal bolt shooting home.

She wasn’t sure what was going on exactly, but she was up for anything. Last time, she’d enjoyed this client. He was gentle and intimate and if he wanted to introduce her to some new and fun apparatus, she had zero qualms. Her excitement rose even higher as her mystery man claimed her mouth, tentative at first, testing. She met him with nothing but hunger, encouraging him to do as he liked. And he did, lavishing his hands on her breasts, igniting the flesh there before migrating lower. One hand cupped her mound, the other stole down between her buttocks and making very clear his intention to take her anally. He wiggled his fingertip against her anus and she flexed for him, inviting him in, awash in anxious aches already.

She rocked against his finger, and felt him shake his head before taking his mouth away. His hands followed, and she listened to a strange series of clicks and whirrs as he did something to the bar just ahead of her.

Finished, he took her mouth again. When his hands returned, this time he used the fingers of one hand to spread her buttocks apart. The other hand held a butt plug dripping with lubricant. He pressed and held it against her.

Her mouth opened on a gasp of anticipatory pleasure. He kissed her more deeply than ever as she urged her body to relax against the plug, signaling him to push harder, sinking it farther into her tight, resistant hole. With that padded bar between her legs she could hardly move. She had to cling to him to keep her balance while he wrought excruciating pleasure, slowly, surely driving the plug deeper and deeper into her ass. The glorious sting of it consumed nearly all her attention. She barely noticed the tight grip she worked on the tip of his cock until he gasped and tensed.

“Sorry.”

His low laugh was no more than a whisper as he released the plug now firmly stuck in place. He tugged her a couple of steps forward. She gasped anew as she felt something soft and rubbery press against her pussy. She realized he’d put her on what Steph had called the saddle horn. The padded bar had attachments. He’d fitted a dildo on the bar that would both fill and trap her while he carried out whatever plans he had in mind.

Once again she moaned out pleased encouragement and he reached down to play in the stray lubricant, smearing her pussy and the dildo attachment liberally before slipping her onto it. The dildo wasn’t horribly thick. She was grateful for that, nearly overcome with the sensation of fullness between his attachment and the plug.

Now impaled and thoroughly buzzed with her own pleasure chemicals, she was very anxious to please. When his hands guided her to grind the attachment for him, she put on a good, incendiary show. She moved her hips, bending her knees, driving the attachment deep while fingering her breasts, squeezing her nipples, immersed in sexual delight.

Meanwhile, her mystery master appeared from behind, stopping her midway to getting herself off. He lowered the padded bar. His hands were shaking, under scant control by then, and she felt an all new tremor of excitement take hold. She followed his guidance in haste, stepping back over the bar once more, clinging to him as he gently pried the butt plug out and lowered her to her knees.

Even given time to stretch first, it was still a team effort to get the tip of his cock inside her ass. He ended up flat on his back with her squatting over him, impaling herself on his rock-hard shaft. She lost count of how many times she was driven to orgasm before he came, and she was nigh on exhausted once they lingered over a goodbye kiss.

She really wished she knew who he was. He almost had to be someone she knew, or else why wouldn’t he speak? And he couldn’t be Josh or Thomas. She knew the smell and taste of them almost as well as she knew the sight and sound.

The next day she still hadn’t garnered a decent clue to his identity, but realized she had much bigger issues to worry about when Beverly called to remind her about that night’s gig. Someone had booked the throne-room fantasy: Gwen, the same client who’d been there for the trial run. Just as Thomas had predicted, their roles had swapped. Gwen would take over as queen, leaving Amanda the servant role. They would all collide on set at eight that evening.

She hadn’t seen Thomas since their afternoon in the Moroccan room. The time had come to call his bluff. Ravenous butterflies chewed away in her belly as Kara rushed her through wardrobe. Her hair had been knotted into a loose chignon, and the soft blue flannel dress hid a white silk cami and pantaloons.