His Little Tart (13 page)

He’d given her plenty of pleasure, and she wanted nothing more than for him to take his from her. She didn’t need any more. But in spite of that, when he grabbed her hips and thrust into her, his balls bouncing against her clit with each moment, she felt the pressure rising in her again, and her own need became more urgent. Her muscles started to cooperate with her again, and she rocked back onto him when he pushed forward.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Don’t come yet.”

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His words had the opposite effect on her, pushing her closer. She half wanted to come to find out what he would do to her, how hard he would spank her for disobeying. But as much as the thought of being under his control made her aroused and of being spanked made her ache, she wanted to obey him even more. She struggled to hold on as his thrusting sped up. Each time he filled her rocked her to her core, and she loved it. She wanted to feel everything, even if she was sore later, and she was sure she would be.

“Now.” He pressed down on her clit, and she didn’t know if it was the touch or his command that set her off, but all of a sudden, her pussy was squeezing around his cock uncontrollably. He swelled and pulsed inside her, his grunt of pleasure providing the baritone to her soprano moan. Still he kept thrusting, as if he hadn’t fucked in ages and needed to empty his balls into her completely. She’d never felt like she had a lover give her quite so much all of himself, and her pussy didn’t stop quivering until he was through.

“Oh, you beautiful fucking tart,” he murmured, and she thought she heard a trace of haze in his voice.

“Need to roll over and go to sleep?” She regretted it the moment she said it. In her experience, that was what men did right after coming, whether she had or not. But this was his second time today, and she’d lost count of her own.

“Don’t need to.” He chuckled. “But I want to. And you’re not going anywhere either.” He pulled out of her and tossed the condom into the wastebasket a second later.

Then he lay down on his bed and pulled her on top of him and closed his eyes.

She watched him for a while, and then finally closed her eyes to grab some sleep herself.

AIDAN WOKE UP knowing he’d made a mistake. The last thing he should have done was sleep with her if he didn’t want to create any kind of bond. She’d wanted a

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man to take charge, and he’d enjoyed being that for her, but now he had to open his hands and let her fly and be free.

She looked so peaceful there he didn’t want to move, lest she wake up. So he sat still, trying to figure out how he was going to tell her good-bye. He could have been more clear at the beginning that it was just a weekend thing, but he hadn’t known it was even going to be a weekend. He’d hoped she’d come back, but he’d expected that she wouldn’t. And at the beginning, how was he supposed to know to tell her it would just be a weekend when she’d insisted it was going to be only an hour? Yet it seemed so natural now, the way it had developed. It seemed like there should be something more, and there couldn’t be. He sighed.

Hopefully, she wasn’t expecting more. He had a plane to catch and wouldn’t be stateside again for at least three months.

Every time he looked at her peaceful face, smelled the fresh citrus scent of her hair, or listened to the soft whisper of her breathing, he felt guilty as hell. It was like torture, with her right next to him. And yet, he wanted every last minute of that torture he could get.

She’d find another dom somewhere, if she wanted to. She’d need the support of a good community, and she could find that here at Bondage Ranch. She was local, and he wasn’t. She belonged, and he didn’t. His plane didn’t leave BWI until late Sunday night, but he’d leave early and give her a chance to make some connections. It wasn’t what he wanted to do. But it was what he should do.

Her eyelids fluttered open. “Mornin’,” she said sleepily.

“Good morning, sweet tart.”

She giggled.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” she asked.

“I’ve got a plane to catch.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

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“Oh.” He saw her face crumple like he’d punched her in the stomach. She pushed herself away, and then the light reappeared in her eyes. “Where to?”

“London.”

She looked like he’d punched her again. But she didn’t give up. “When will you be back?”

“Might be in the area three months from now; not sure yet.”

She could have turned away, but she didn’t. She looked straight into his eyes. “So that’s it, huh? Sir.”

The way she’d said Sir felt like a knife, and he suspected she intended it as such.

She crossed her arm in front of her breasts, which didn’t really hide anything to speak of. He was more than able to fill in the missing details from memory. He’d disciplined subs before for trying to hide their bodies from him. He would have loved to turn her over his knee and spank her bottom until it turned a pretty shade of pink right now, for that or any other excuse. But he’d lost the right, and he knew it.

He wanted it back, but even if he didn’t have a plane to catch that morning, he still couldn’t stay long. He was missing out on a few more lovely hours with her.

She stood up, looking around as if for her clothes. He was glad the guy he was rooming with had found someplace else to sleep for the night; he didn’t think she’d appreciate the presence of another man right now. He’d left his bag in the dungeon, and her dress had been lying on top of it when he left.

“I’ll get you something to wear.” He got up and pulled on his pants.

“Thank you, Sir.” This time, she said the last word without any sarcasm at all.

If anything, that only hurt more.

When he returned, she was in the bed again, sitting up but with the sheets pulled to cover everything below her shoulders. It had taken him a few minutes to find his bag—someone had pushed it to the side, naturally. But he handed her her dress, her bra, and her panties. He wanted to tell her to come out and show him her body. He

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didn’t want to let her have her underwear back. She didn’t need to wear a bra, and he definitely preferred her without her knickers.

“I’ve got a business to run,” she told him, the shift of subject taking him by surprise. “It keeps me very busy. I don’t have any time for relationships, really. That’s what I’ve been telling my accountant, who thinks he wants to marry me.”

“Oh, so there’s another man?” Jealousy flared in him.

She hesitated for a second. Long enough to know she was lying. “Yes.”

He thought of letting it slide. It was a convenient lie, for both of them, at the moment. But his instinct was to always insist on the truth, especially from a sub.

But what about what I said about the plane? That might not have been a lie, but it was hardly the truth.

“Tell me about him.”

She blinked and didn’t respond right away. From the rustling under the covers, he guessed she was getting her panties on.

“I can turn my back, if it makes it easier.”

“That would be nice—oh, screw it, you saw everything already anyway.” She flung off the covers. He watched as she got her bra and Alex’s dress back on.

“You were going to tell me about your accountant.”

“He thinks I should give up the whole bakery business and be his little woman.

And maybe he’s right. I don’t seem to be making a go of it, but dammit, I’m going to keep trying.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. What a waste that would be. Constance’s confections were among the best he’d ever had. He ruled out the possibility of bias—he’d barely known her when he’d been sampling at her table. “You should,” he said, heartfelt. “You’ll break through eventually. You have enormous talent.”

“Hmm.”

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“Do you love him?” It was an awkward question, and he hated to ask it. He never would have tried to seduce her if he thought her heart belonged to someone else. Yet he was pretty sure of the answer, given the way she talked about him.

“No.”

He sighed. He was relieved, and not only because he hadn’t stepped across one of his own personal lines of ethics. He didn’t want her to be taken by any other man. And yet he couldn’t claim her for himself.

Or can I?

He was crazy to even think about it. It wasn’t only that she was busy with work, or that he wasn’t going to be around. She’d just begun to explore what she wanted from BDSM. He didn’t often think he’d settle down, but if he did, he assumed it would be with an experienced sub who could negotiate clearly. Constance was a novice, unsure of where her own limits were. So why was he even considering staking a claim?

Because she’s enthusiastic and she’s got a smart mouth and she’s a challenge. Because she’s her own woman, but deep down, she likes to yield. Because whatever drove her to learn to make the best desserts I’ve ever had is the kind of passion I want to have at my side.

He shook his head. “Come on. I’ll show you around, introduce you to some people. You may think you don’t have any time, but I think you’ll be back.”

“To see you?” The way she said it, he wasn’t sure if she was mocking him, or if she was asking seriously. Why did the question knot his gut so badly?

“To explore your sexuality,” he made himself say.

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The list of Web sites and clubs Constance had gotten from Laera were still tucked away at the bottom of her underwear drawer. She’d looked at a few of the Web sites and had even planned to go to a club. But she had settled for a night in front of the television instead. She didn’t have time to get involved, and she really wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of girl. Nor did she want to play with a stranger.

Business was up, but her expenses were rising too. Try as she might, she couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t making more of a profit. Every time she tried to analyze an individual job, calculating out cost of materials and so forth, it seemed like she was doing fine. But at the end of the month, she barely had enough to get by. She’d raised prices, hoping that would fix the problem, worried it might drive away customers. To her surprise, it had done neither. The whole thing made her head hurt and left her almost too stressed to sleep at night.

That was when she thought of Aidan.

He’d awakened something in her. The one thing guaranteed to take her mind off her business troubles was the vision of him holding her down. Or up against a tree. Or grabbing her hair and pulling her head back for a soul-melting kiss. Night after night, she would slide her hand between her legs, and nothing got her off faster than the thought of him having his way with her. It had become such a regular ritual that it was what she looked forward to at the end of yet another fourteen-hour day. Which, as far as Constance was concerned, was totally lame. Looking forward to real sex that way would have been bad enough, but she really didn’t want masturbation to be the high point of her day. All the numbers and Web sites she’d been given didn’t help. What she wanted was a way to contact Aidan.

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She thought—once—of going over to Ben’s and trying to seduce him. She’d be using him; he couldn’t give her what she needed. He was quiet and steady, but he was also anything but a dominant man. Thinking of him put her right out of a sexy mood.

And she wasn’t at all sure she could get past his sex-is-for-marriage Puritanism. Hell, she probably shouldn’t, even if she could. She wanted to respect his point of view, and she definitely didn’t want to marry him.

So she was left with her fingers and the vibrator she’d bought a few weeks back.

She was thinking of buying another. One of the Web sites Laera had given her had sex toys in lots of shapes and sizes. Not that she could afford them.

She was taking off her uniform at the end of a long day—she’d made three wedding cakes—when the phone rang. Ben, probably. Or her mother. She didn’t really want to talk to either one. She always told her mom that business was going great, so that at least one of them wouldn’t be trying to nag her into giving it up, but the lie had put distance between them that Constance didn’t know how to close. She glanced at the caller ID and didn’t recognize the number.

Probably a telemarketer. But on the off chance that it was a customer, although they usually didn’t call so late, she picked it up. “Constance’s Confections,” she said.

“Hi, Constance.” It was a woman’s voice, but she couldn’t place it. “I have a job for you that I think you might like. Do you think you could bring some snacks for a party of, oh, ten or so, next Friday night?”

“Um, sure.” She had to cater a party earlier that day, but she could work the night too. Hopefully the woman would identify herself before she had to ask, but Constance thought she’d recognize her if she’d been a recent customer. “I’ve raised my rates a little.” It got easier to say each time, especially since she’d found people didn’t balk at paying more.

“Yes, I noticed on your Web site. I’ll pay your rates. Good for you!”

That reaction she didn’t get very often. Customers might be willing to pay more, but they rarely wanted to. “Um, who is this?”

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“One more question, dear. Would you like me to invite Aidan?”

Aidan. Her heart started pounding, and her palms felt sweaty around the phone.

She gripped it tighter. She couldn’t afford to buy a new one if she dropped it. The name did help her place the voice, however. “Ms. Allison?”