Emma Holly (25 page)

Impulse had her touching his knee. "You know what I feel is more than the game."

His gaze had dropped to follow his finger beneath the slippery strap of her camisole. The tease made the tips of her breasts tighten. Reluctantly, he looked up. "It's always more than the game. People can't help being human."

"Does it always feel like this?"

"No," he admitted, catching his breath when she slid her hand up his thigh. He was hard already. A long, firm ridge met the press of her palm. She wanted him to say more than
no
, but he bent to kiss her instead, the roughness of his mouth, the slightly less-controlled passion a pleasant contrast to B.G.

"Would you like to do this here?" he asked once he had her pulse tripping. "Or would you prefer I take you somewhere else?"

Your room
, she wanted to say, but his earlier silence made it impossible. "Here's good," she said, "or anywhere there won't be ghosts."

The words slipped out unthinkingly. Eric looked startled.

"I thought I heard one," she explained. "When I was lost in the hall with the big stag head."

His hands molded soothingly over her shoulders. He appeared to be deciding what to say. "We've had guests get spooked before," he said carefully. "Mosswood can be an intimidating place, but it's always turned out to be a squirrel or something sneaking in from outside."

"That's what I was hoping." She didn't mention it must have been a giant squirrel with petticoats. She couldn't confess that to Eric, though she suspected she'd have told B.G. He wouldn't have talked to her as if the wrong response would shatter her fragile grip on reality.

"Maybe I should distract you?" Eric suggested. "Take your mind off your fears?"

He seemed a bit too eager to get her off the topic of ghosts. Not liking it much herself, she slid her arms around his neck willingly. Her mood improved the moment he pulled her close. His kiss was delicious.

The problem was, as their clinch grew enthusiastic, she felt as if she'd time-traveled back to high school and was being forced to act like the goody two-shoes she never was, squirming in her little panties without any hope of relief.

Eric was better at this delayed gratification stuff than she was, but soon even he needed more than groping her through her clothes. "I want to take this off," he panted, tugging the hem of her camisole.

Charity was too breathless to do more than nod and lift her arms. She let him peel it off, followed by the tap pants. Then, with two spots of color blazing in his cheeks, he held out the evening gloves. She could tell the thought of seeing her in them pushed a few buttons. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

"Put these on first, please. The cuffs need to go on top."

Licks of fire danced along her skin. She wanted to be tied again, wanted him to do anything and everything he could think of—not that she intended to give in without bargaining.

"Take off your belt," she said, "and open your pants. I want to see how much you like watching me pull these on."

He stared at her, then did as she asked in jerky motions. The belt buckle clanked and was tossed away.

Reaching into his tight white briefs, he settled his heavy erection onto the waistband, his balls bulging impressively behind the cloth. The forward thrust of his shaft was aggressive, even just sitting there.

Watching it, she was reminded of the techno-lunk with his foreskin caught on his glans. The memory sent more heat cascading to her sex. Without being told, Eric unbuttoned his shirt as well. His six-pack was worth an ogle, but even better was the way his muscles flicked like a horse's at the touch of her eyes.

"You are so hot," she said, unable to hold back a grin. "I could just eat you up."

His lungs worked faster as she turned the donning of the gloves into a reverse strip-tease, first the left hand and then the right. Their hems reached above her elbows—a smooth, form-fitting clasp. One by one, she pushed the fingers snug.

Naked except for this, she wondered if she looked like a lady now. Looking like one was all she could hope for, but with Eric's reaction as a reward, she figured it would do.

"Good," he said, a smoky breath of sound. "Now you're ready for the rub. Sit on your heels and flatten your hands on your thighs."

"I'd rather touch you. I'd rather hold your cock in my glove."

His erection jumped, but he shook his head. "Later," he said. "First I'm going to prepare you."

As she accommodated his request, she had the sense that they could happily exchange orders like this all night, shifting control back and forth, getting more excited as they went along. Her nipples tingled as he opened the jar of ointment, then grew hot when he smoothed it around. Their circles plumped beneath the mint-infused emollient. The scent was too distinctive not to recognize.

"This is what B.G. used on you."

"Yes," he said. Her reminder had his pupils expanding until no more than a ring of iris remained—the blue that sweetened his gray. "It won't numb you out. It's safe to use on other things."

He dipped his finger into the jar, then dragged a line of heat from her breastbone to her navel. There he circled, wet his lips, and asked permission with his eyes.

He wanted to rub her between her legs.

"Yes," she said. "Go ahead."

He took the hood of her clitoris between his finger and thumb, working in the ointment. After all their teasing, the direct stimulation came as a shock. "There," he said, "that should make you feel nice and hot."

It made her feel nice and crazy, the minty stuff sensitizing every nerve the sexual hot button had.

Suddenly she understood how men could think of their penises as separate from themselves.

"That's enough," she gasped when his gentle rubbing threatened to get too good. Her pussy was so wet she felt ready to overflow. To her relief, he lightened his touch, now only drawing the pad of one finger around her outer labia.

"You're beautiful," he said, his erection too stiff to do more than vibrate. "All flushed and peeping out."

"I'll bet," she panted. "I feel twice as big as normal."

He kissed her as gently as B.G. would have, reaching behind her for the pink velvet cuffs.

"Wait," she said, stealing his line. "Let me touch you."

He shook his head.

"Yes," she insisted, stroking the glove down his face. "I won't be able to once you tie me up."

"I'm in charge."

His words were soft, but her response was even more so. "
We're
in charge. Together we make it better for each other. Come on, Eric." She rose on her knees to lick the lobe of his ear, drawing a tiny shiver from his shoulders. "Let me rub this satin up and down your prick."

He laughed at the word, then eased back. "Do it lightly," he said: his compromise.

"Very," she agreed.

"And slowly."

"As slowly as I can."

She clasped him quivering in her hand, then did the one impersonation she could pull off. "You're so big, Mr. President," she said girlishly. "I think I might need two hands."

"Jeez," he said, recognizing her Marilyn voice.

That's it
, she thought.
That's the button that explains his fascination for these gloves
.

"Could I kiss you?" she lisped, delighted with the success of her guess. "I know it's disrespectful, you being such an important man, but I'd really like to taste that little bead of cum."

A shudder was her only answer. She bent, her breasts brushing his thighs, the very tip of her tongue curling out. The crown of him was smooth as silk.

"Oh, God," he breathed, the words shaking.

"Yes, Mr. President?"

He put his hands behind her head. "Suck the tip," he said. "Just that. Hold the rest of me with your gloves."

She did it, the gentlest, slowest blow job she'd ever given, one that wasn't supposed to end in climax.

Even so, she couldn't draw it out very long. Each time she stroked him, he jerked. He seemed to like the brush of the gloves as much as that of her tongue. After far too few minutes, she sat up to let both their excitement ease. He was really breathing hard now, his hair clinging to his face with sweat. She pushed a lock of it back.

"I've been meaning to ask you," she said. "About B.G. He seems to have totally Olympic sexual control.

So I'm wondering, this morning, how did you make him come first?"

Eric blinked rapidly. "How?"

Her question had been idle, designed to keep the tension between them going. When he failed to answer immediately, she wanted the secret for real. She slid her warm, satin-covered palms inside his open shirt.

The fabric rasped enticingly on his hair.

"Yes," she said, the pleasure of touching him zinging straight to her sex. "I'd be curious to hear your method for defeating the great genius."

Eric
hesitated.

"You don't have to tell me," she said, her grin fading. "I understand if it's too private."

He covered her hands where they pressed his chest. The gloves—where they weren't damp from his sweat—were deliciously slippery. "No," he said. "It's fine."

She smiled and bit her lip at the same time. "Your heart's beating faster. This story must be good."

"I… threatened him. Told him you and I would join forces to overpower him. I, uh, believe I made some mention of you using a dildo on him."

Her fingers had unconsciously drawn up, like a cat preparing to knead a sleeping spot. "And he liked that idea?"

"Apparently."

His voice was threadier than he expected. If she'd thought his pulse had quickened before, it was slamming now. His head was actually light.

She looked down at her gloves, her lashes dark and glamorous, then up at him. "We should do it," she said decisively.

"What?" The word might have been dragged out of him.

"We should team up to overpower him. Don't act so shocked," she added as he sucked a breath. "You know this idea has done more than cross your mind."

To prove it, she dropped one hand to cup his balls. The pressure, light though it was, was enough to provoke a curse.

"He might not like it," he said, reaching for reason. "People sometimes have fantasies they don't really want to play out."

Charity smiled as she trailed two fingers up his under-ridge. "I suspect we'll be able to tell if he's enjoying himself. Be a sport, Eric. It isn't good for anyone to have his way all the time. I think your buddy needs to give up being the boss for once."

Eric shuddered as her fingers plucked at his quivering tip. Too sensitized to be played with, he pulled her hand away by the wrist. He couldn't believe he was considering going along. His body could believe, though. His erection felt overfull, and his skin hummed from scalp to toe.

Do it
, ordered his libido.
You'll be sorry if you don't
.

"We'd have to give him a safeword."

"Sure. 'The crow flies at midnight.' "

He had to laugh. "That's not a safeword."

"Whatever," she said with a flippant shrug, her beautiful, naked shoulders going up and down. "You have to admit it'd be hard
to
say by accident."

Eric wasn't ready to admit anything… except that he couldn't walk away from this chance.

"We're
coming in," Eric said into the speakerphone outside B.G.'s door.

B.G. thought this a peculiar method for requesting entry. He exited the file that contained the last security report, shut his laptop, and stared for a moment at the entrance to his suite. He was willing to swear Charity was honest. Their background check on her had been thorough. In no way, shape, or form could she be a candidate for intrigue. She possessed neither the experience nor the contacts.

The solution with the highest degree of probability was one he didn't especially want to face, in part because it meant his judgment was not as good as he believed. If his suspicions were true, he'd yet to figure out how the trick had been managed. But that was for his team to discover. If he tried to investigate the matter directly, he'd simply alert the person to the fact that the jig was up.

In spite of knowing his team was qualified to handle such situations, he remained off-kilter. He'd been so ever since Eric broke the news of his sister's call, as if the atoms he was made of were trying to form new orbits. His long hot shower—usually a cure-all—had not helped. He found it highly disconcerting to have to set aside their play for an unsuspected and, for now, inexplicable threat.

B.G. hadn't lied to Eric. His research thus far was useless. Nonetheless, if someone had discovered his secret project, he'd have to shut down, for no other reason than to prevent less-skilled hands from doing inadvertent harm. This was a remedy he was reluctant to enact. He hated the thought of walking away from a challenge. Better to think the Feds were being paranoid. It had happened before, after all—especially when the scientist in question didn't fit their mold for how trustworthy citizens behaved. To the men in suits' way of thinking, people like B.G. would always bear watching.

"B.G.," Eric's voice said more insistently. "Open up."