Dark Attraction: The Corde Noire Series (23 page)

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In his office, Sebastian was on his computer, looking over a report on ship building expenditures for the year. He was running the calculations in his head, trying to determine where he could cut some costs when she sauntered in.

The way she walked, the swell of her small, pert breasts, was eating him alive. He was used to his subs walking around naked, and liked having their bodies accessible for his pleasure, but when she walked around naked he became distracted. Every part of him wanted her … he wanted to sink so deep inside her that he would never come out, but he couldn’t do that. He had to remain distant, he had to play his part; otherwise, he was a failure as a Dom.

“Are you coming to bed?” she asked in a voice he was beginning to equate with cream. It was smooth, sweet, and very tempting.

Banging his hand down on the space bar of his keyboard, he clenched his left fist. “In a while. I have some things I need to go over.”

She came up to his desk. Her beautiful eyes gleaned the computer screen. “What is that?”

He was attuned to how she rested her slim hip against the corner of his desk. Visions of throwing her over his desk and fucking her came to mind.

“Our cost report for the ships built for our fleet so far this year.” He unclenched his left hand. “We’re running over.”

Her eyes studied the page and her head angled to the side, seemingly lost in her thoughts. He wanted to chuckle at the intense look on her face. Like she would know how to read a cost analysis report.

“Why are your shipping costs for material so high?”

He frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

She pointed to the third column on the spreadsheet. “Look at your expenditures last year for shipping of supplies. Your numbers are double what they were. Yet, your supply costs have only gone up less than ten percent. Where are the extra shipping increases coming from?”

He was staring at her, transfixed. Could she be getting outside help? “Is my father talking to you? Is that where this is coming from?”

“I told you he doesn’t talk to me.” She leaned over to the screen, her left breast coming close to his mouth. “You need to see a breakdown of those costs. Whether it’s fuel or an increase in what you’re being charged to ship. Do you transport supplies on your ships?”

His eyes returned to his computer screen. “We did, but with the drop in steel production last year, we were contracting out for transport to keep our ships on the seas.”

“So now you’re back to using your ships again?”

He nodded. “Yeah, since March.”

She pointed to another column on the screen. “Which is about a month after your expenditures went up.”

Sebastian sat back in his chair, thinking. He was stunned she had picked up on an error others had missed. “I’ll have to call Alan Merchant in the morning. He’s my head of shipping and receiving division.”

“But it’s Saturday. I thought with it being the weekend we could—”

“I have to see to my business this weekend, Sam.” 

Sam stood back from the desk. “You might want to suggest an audit of accounts for his division.”

Sebastian could not believe he was having such a conversation with her. “Where did you learn about expenditures, reviewing costs, even suggesting I have a dirty division chair?”

Sam scratched her chin. “I did the books for my father’s church in high school and into college. I had to do profit and loss expenditure reports and collections forecasts twice a year. We also had a problem with high expenditures from one of our church leaders. Came to find out he was funding his numerous affairs with church funds.”

“Why were you doing the books?”

Her eyes went to his desk. “My mother usually did the books but got sick when I was fourteen.”

“What was wrong with her?”

Sam sighed and then opened the bottom drawer of his desk. She removed the bottle of scotch and set it next to his keyboard. “She started with wine when I was seven. By the time I was thirteen, she was on this stuff.” She thumbed the bottle. “For my fourteenth birthday, she crashed her car into a tree and spent four months in detox. My father told everyone she had suffered a brain injury. It was what my sister and I were instructed to tell our neighbors, our family, and our congregation. Or at least, that was the story when I left.”    

“Does she still drink?”

Sam shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t spoken to anyone in my family since my father kicked me out after the rape … well, when he thought I had been raped.”

Sebastian felt even more like an asshole than he did after walking out on her in the kitchen earlier. He knew being a Dom meant he had to be hard, but somehow being tough with Sam was like eating glass … his insides were being slowly shredded.

“Perhaps you should get in touch with them. Let them know you’re okay.”

“I’m far from okay … Master.” She turned away.

After she’d left the room, Sebastian picked up the bottle of scotch. Unscrewing the cap, he took a long sip. In all the years he had been making women submit to his will, he had never felt like a monster. It had been a fun and sexy game. Even with Kimberly, he had not suffered such torment. She had left scars, but she had never brought him to his knees … not like Sam. Drawing another deep pull of the scotch, he thought of her quick mind, bright eyes, and sexy little ass. The pain in his chest swelled.  

“Fuck.” He slammed the bottle on the desk.

The faint sound of a man’s chuckle carried through the air. Sebastian crashed back in his chair. He had never heard anything like that before. He’d suspected his father haunted the penthouse, but never had any indication it was true … until now.

Shaking his head, he refused to believe the noise was real. He chalked up his lapse in judgment to Sam’s influence. It was just another sign that she was breaking him down.

“I need to end this before I lose my mind.”        

Sebastian and Sam soon fell into a routine. In the morning, she would bathe him in the shower, prepare breakfast, and wait naked by the door as he headed off to work.

In the evening when he returned, she would be waiting, ready to see to his pleasure. Some nights he would walk past her, opting to eat dinner before she did her duty. Other times, he had not even finished shutting the door when he was unzipping his pants and pulling out his cock.

Sam took each day in stride. She knew she was getting better at blow jobs. Implementing techniques she’d discovered on the Internet, Sam got the impression Sebastian approved.

What she did find distressing was the way he had stopped paying attention to her. He seemed preoccupied with work and was always on his computer. During the day, when he was gone, she would check the level of scotch in his desk drawer. He was drinking steadily at night—a sure sign that he had a lot on his mind. 

When the next weekend rolled around, her hoped-for plans to spend time together were shot down by an emergency meeting at his office. Alan Merchant, the division head of shipping and receiving, had a mistress who liked to take expensive trips to Europe. Sam couldn’t help but grin when Sebastian told her about the audit’s findings. People were pretty predictable.

Bored with the books in his library, and feeling lonely on a Sunday afternoon, Sam went to the bedroom and dug out her old cell phone from her purse, intent on calling Piper. It had been two weeks since she had spoken to her friend, and Sam knew she would be worried.

Unfortunately, the battery on her phone was dead, and Sam thought it would take forever to charge. Thinking it better for expediency—and assuming her Dom would never find out about it—she dialed Piper’s number on the iPhone Sebastian had given her.

It took two rings for Piper to answer. “Hello?”

“Piper, it’s me … Sam.”

“Sam? Where in the hell have you been?”

Sam smiled, uplifted by her friend’s concern. “I’ve been so busy with him that I’ve never had time to call.”

“Oh my God. So tell me, how is it? Is he possessive? Or is he one of those show you off kind of Doms? How’s the sex? Damn, I envy you, getting to put your hands on that ass every night. I would come for a week.”

Sam laughed at her friend’s exuberance. “We spend all our time at home. I have to walk around the house naked … one of his rules. Yes, the sex is good, when we have it. Lately, he has been—”

“What do you mean ‘when we have it’?” Piper interrupted. “He’s not fucking you like a freight train every night?”

Sam played with the pen Sebastian kept on his bedside table. “We do … other things.”

“Please tell me he is a master of oral sex.”

Master.
Sam thought of the change in him. In the blink of an eye, he had turned from Sir to Master. She yearned to tell Piper everything, desperately wanting to vent her frustrations, but Sam worried Piper would insist she leave Sebastian. 

“Yeah,” Sam said, deciding to lie to her friend. “He’s a master of oral sex.”

*     *     *

Riding up in the elevator, Sebastian refrained from texting Sam that he was coming home early. He wanted to surprise her. There was still enough left of the afternoon for them to do something together; perhaps a late lunch or a walk in the French Quarter. She had been very good for the past week and earned a day out in the city.

Eyeing the pond outside the elevator doors, he made a mental note to tell Sam to stop feeding the fish twice a day.

“Damned fish are getting fat.”

He chuckled as he punched in his code. Only Sam would overfeed his fish while at the same time starving him. Her cooking skills had not improved. Short of chicken salad and an attempt at meatballs, her dinners had been pretty hard to swallow. But he hadn’t told her that. He didn’t want to discourage her.

In his living room, he removed the blazer he had slipped on over his T-shirt and tossed it to the sofa. He was halfway up the steps when he heard her voice. She was talking to someone. He paused and listened as his possessive instincts kicked in. Who was she talking to? Creeping up the steps, he was determined to find out.

At his bedroom door, he heard her giggling. He loved that giggle. Not like a little girl, but also not like a woman. She was a perplexing mix of both, probably why he found her so fascinating. Standing outside of the ajar door, he listened to her conversation.

“I don’t know how to describe it. I like being around him. Sometimes we talk about normal things and it’s like we’re a couple. Then there are days he hardly speaks to me.”

She sounded as if she was moving around the bedroom.

“Why are you asking me that, Piper? I don’t know the answer.”

Piper? He relaxed and rested his hand on the door frame. She was only talking to one of her girlfriends.            

“No, I haven’t found that site yet. Hold on. I have to get to his computer,” came from the other side of the door right before she pulled it open.

She dropped the cell phone when she saw him. His eyes went to his iPhone on the floor. The phone he had expressly told her only to use to talk to him.

“What are you doing home early?”

He picked up the phone from the floor. “She’ll have to call you back, Piper,” he said, and then ended the call.

He held up the phone to her. “I told you this was to be used only with me, no one else.”

Sam pointed to her phone charging by their bed. “Mine was dead.”

“Sam, why did you disobey me?” He shut the door.

She backed into the bed. “I didn’t disobey you. I wanted to call my friend before you got home. I haven’t talked to her since I moved in with you, and I knew she would be worried. If I waited for my phone to charge—”

He threw the phone on the bed. “I have to punish you for this.”

The fear in her eyes distressed him. “No. No more spankings.”

She made a move to dart past him, but he caught her in his arms. “You’re not being compliant, Sam.”

She was kicking when he picked her up off the floor and dropped her on the bed. Sam was scrambling to get away from him, but Sebastian held her ankles. Flipping her over on her stomach, he climbed on her back, pinning her to the bed. She was beating her fists against the comforter, crying out for him to stop.

Ignoring her pleas, he raised his hand, about to slap her right butt cheek … and then he froze.

He couldn’t do it. Sebastian couldn’t spank her for disobeying him. The idea of causing her pain cut him in two.

What in the hell is wrong with me?

Anger rushed through him. He needed to carry out the necessary punishment. Instead of spanking her, he would have to do something else.

Sebastian dropped his hand to her right butt cheek and caressed her soft skin. She was still struggling, but when his fingers slipped between her legs, she stilled.

“I’m not going to spank you, but by the time I’m finished, you’re going to wish I had.” 

He pinched her clit, and then slid one finger into her. She grunted as he pushed inside. She was tight from fear, but he would change that. Stroking steadily, she began to relax. Sebastian noted her breathing and waited for her skin to flush before he stopped. She moaned as he pulled out. When he eased two fingers into her, her insides clenched. That was good; she was getting excited.

The next time he stopped thrusting his fingers into her, he could feel her tense. He waited again for her to calm, and then Sebastian worked three fingers into her, tucking his ring and index finger over his middle finger. The pyramid shape of his hand slowly eased her open.

Sam was accepting him, rocking with his penetrations. She was getting wetter, letting him ease into her. Sensing she was ready for more, he folded his pinkie and thumb in and eased his whole hand into her. Whimpering, Sam curled her knees into her abdomen. He kept inching in, keeping up a steady rhythm so he could open her up for more.

Her breath was coming faster as her ass rose higher off the bed.

Delighted that she was accepting his whole hand, he ran his tongue between her butt cheeks.

“We’re going to work on this next.” He bit her left butt cheek.

He pushed his hand further and Sam bucked, moaning.

“Do you like this, Sam?”

When she didn’t answer, he stopped moving his hand.

She shuddered. “Oh, God, yes.”

He resumed his gentle motion. “This is fisting, baby. I’m told by women it’s the deep pressure that’s stimulating.” He opened his fingers ever so slightly. “Is that true?”

She rocked her head back, gasping. 

Sebastian concentrated on keeping his hand tight, thrusting slowly, and very gradually bringing her to orgasm. She was expanding, allowing him to move deeper. Keeping up the steady rocking, he took her right to the edge of orgasm. Panting as her skin broke out in light sweat, she trembled, preparing for her release.

He yanked his hand from her. Her cry tempted him, but he had to teach her a lesson.

“Please, it hurts,” she begged in a raspy breath. “Make me come.”

“Yes, I’m told it hurts a great deal.” He wiped his wet hand on her ass. “You’re so engorged from being fisted, you ache to come. But you’re not going to come, Sam. I will not allow it.”

Standing from the bed, he went to his closet and retrieved one of his ties. Returning to her side, he took her hands and secured them to a post on the side of his headboard.

“To make sure you don’t touch yourself while I’m gone.”

When he stood from the bed, her watery blue eyes glared at him. “Where are you going?”

“To get us some dinner.” At the door he paused, but never glanced back at her. “Don’t ever disobey me again, Sam. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” she almost hissed.

Walking out of the bedroom, he dashed down the hall to his office and closed the door. Resting his hands on the door frame, he squeezed it until his knuckles turned white. After he pushed away, Sebastian went to his desk. The bottle of scotch he kept in the bottom drawer was nearly empty.

Examining the last dregs of the deep amber liquid, he sighed. It would seem he would have to make another stop on the way home from picking up dinner.

Slapping the bottle on top of the desk, he trudged to the door, anxious to walk off the mounting frustration settling into the deepest reaches of his being.