Ice Queen (20 page)

The care lavished on his property, not as an absent landlord throwing around money but as a man who enjoyed living here, who desired and perhaps needed a 123

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sanctuary more than most, was obvious. She pictured him sitting on the bench she sank down on now, a book in hand, studying his orchids, opening up the top of the greenhouse to sift their soil in his hands or bending to examine the ones in the outdoor bed. It would all seem like a Cary Grant cliché except she’d already seen the shift of the waters, the flashes of temperament, wells of sorrow, glints of humor sparkling.

The bench was in the shadow of a life-sized bronze statue of Aphrodite as Sarah had noted, ruling in queenly serenity over a pool sprinkled with floating lilies and containing gold and silver koi. After a moment of study, Marguerite opened her note.

He’d scented the paper with orange peel fragrance and done the script in calligraphy.

The note had been sealed with a brown wax like chocolate. Lifting it to her nose, she confirmed that it smelled like chocolate. The stem of a tiny lavender wildflower had been captured in the wax, a flower from breakfast. She shook her head, thinking a man this practiced in seduction should be labeled a dangerous weapon to protect any woman within twenty yards of him.

I can see you from my office. Put your hand beneath your skirt and play with your pussy for
me. Distract me enough and you may have half a chance of scoring one game on me.

She glanced toward the house and saw that the gardenias to her right shielded her from the house’s first-level windows. So Tyler was on the second level. From the sun’s angle, she couldn’t see him. The light reflected against the glass, making them into mirrors.

One game? She was going to trounce him in straight sets, let punishing him on the courts be her outlet for the tension of the whole past week. A tension that strangely felt not so near at hand as she sat within his carefully cultivated gardens. His native orchids were graceful ladies within ten feet of her. With petals of so many shapes and colors, yellow, pink, purple, white, as delicate as thin paper, they fluttered from the wind stirred by the fountain of water that emerged from the platform under Aphrodite’s bare feet.

Putting her tennis racquet to the side, she tentatively opened her legs. She’d run her hands over her body before to titillate a sub and done some things for herself at home.

Just not…this.

Concentrating, she summoned an image. Tyler, standing in the kitchen in the loose cotton pants, low on his hips. The firm mouth, which she’d felt taking control of her clit before she’d been lost to dreams. His long-fingered hand lying next to his plate, his gold watch against his tanned skin.

Her fingers crept between her legs, stroked. Her clit responded eagerly, startling her. She widened her legs farther, just a bit. Even so, the short pleated skirt would now give a clear view to anyone approaching her.

Tyler at The Zone, his lips beneath her ear. His hands on her breasts, tugging the nipple chain ruthlessly. Her fingers played among petals of flesh that were getting slick with dew. She unfolded, straightening out on the bench, her head resting on the back as she imagined welcoming Tyler in between her thighs. Wrapping her legs around his 124

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muscular hips, clutching his neck, biting into his shoulder as he thrust into her. Just imagining it made her pussy ripple, weep and spasm for what she could not have. What she was denying herself. Her other hand moved up her stomach, over the tight fit of the sports bra to her right nipple. Found it aching for the pinch of her fingertips. She remembered his words about a woman’s breasts and thought he might be right. She was wanton, drunk on sun and the smell of flowers, her body dancing like the bronze statues, celebrating the feeling of life and desire surging through her.

Her position had moved her forward so the skirt was rucked up, her bare ass on the bench’s smooth surface. Feeling the hardness, she thought it was like the unyielding line of his jaw, his tough body as he demanded things from her she was terrified to give.

When she opened her eyes he was standing there, wearing just the shorts. A muscular god, as bronze and perfect as any of the artwork. But alive, so charged with energy that the electric static of it buzzed off her skin.

He’ll take me down to the ground now
, she thought, looking at his aroused features.

Fuck me whether I want him to or not. He won’t give a damn about the rules.
And she would let him, because her body would go where her heart could not. And it would shatter her.

She scrambled up, pulling the skirt down, her cheeks flushed. All of her flushed.

“Did I say stop?” He lifted a brow. She shook her head but didn’t move. “You asked to see my room,” he commented after a moment of silence.

“I did. I wanted…” She didn’t want Sarah in trouble, so she made herself say it. “I wanted to know more about who you are, Tyler.” He seemed to consider that, inclined his head. “Then I’m flattered.”

“Your room. You don’t usually sleep with your subs.”

“No.”

“Why?”
And why me
?

His attention moved briefly to the fountain, again that odd evasion. “Last night was different. I usually don’t sleep easy, angel. It’s more courteous to let the lady in question have a good night’s sleep. How about you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t sleep with anyone.”
Until you.
For she’d wanted him there last night, clutched to her in her dreams as she’d been unable to do with her restrained arms.

His gaze lowered. “Lift the front of your skirt.” As she obeyed, he walked toward her, taking his time, appraising her. When he reached her, he put one hand at her bare waist, his other moving between her legs. Her free hand caught onto his shoulder as a ripple of reaction unbalanced her, her lips parting in surprise at how strong the instant surge of arousal was. Already somewhat slippery just from the act of having his hand on her hip, knowing she was bare beneath the clothes, his touch brought forth enough liquid heat that he made a guttural noise of 125

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approval. No matter what the terms of this weekend, at the moment, she felt like she belonged to Tyler Winterman. Underneath his much too knowledgeable attention, his sure fingers, the sense of powerful sexual male was too all-encompassing to deny. Her instincts overwhelmed rationality. And with the sun warming her back, his hands caressing between her legs, she couldn’t find it in her to panic or rebel.

“I don’t mind you looking in my room. But I didn’t tell you to stop touching yourself. You should have waited for my permission.”

“I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t.

Taking his hand away, he guided her to the edge of the garden, ducking under the waterfall of blossoms of a weeping cherry, a curtain of white touched with pink. “Put your hands on the trunk, your back facing me.” At her hesitation, he reached out, touched her cheek. “I’m going to spank you. Just as a reminder of whose Will you obey.

With my hand. I will never use anything else to strike you, and your beautiful ass will be the only place I do so.”

“I didn’t ask for that restriction.”

“No, you didn’t. But pain isn’t my way of Mastery over women.” His gaze coursed over her, the sternness in his voice modulated by a devastating tenderness. “And just the suggestion of it has you trembling.”

“I am not.” Her voice broke.

He took her arm, turned her toward the tree. “Palms on the trunk, angel. Let’s check off another box on that sheet of yours.” She obeyed at that, reluctantly, her breath catching in her throat, caught on something there she couldn’t swallow past. Her fingers dug into the rough bark. He was subjecting her to the easiest type of punishment to take. He could have taunted her for being apprehensive about something that was nowhere near as severe as what she’d doled out to her own subs, but he didn’t. Partly because they both knew it wasn’t about pain. He knew the very act was pushing enough of her panic buttons.

His hands slid down her back, pushing her forward. His other palm on her stomach beneath the skirt brought her out so her arms had to stretch to keep her palms flat on the tree as he directed.

“Lift on your toes, Marguerite. High as you can get.” She did and felt air as he lifted the back panel of the skirt. He tucked the edge in her waistband, getting it out of the way. Moving his palm on her belly so his two fingers were low enough that they rested on her clit, he massaged her there as she quivered on her toes, her legs spread open. Her body was beginning to ripple with overwhelming desire even as the coldness in the pit of her belly dug its claws into her vital organs.

The flat of his hand struck the bare curve of her buttock, the most fleshy part so it wobbled, sending frissons of sensation across the whole area. It didn’t really hurt but of course that wasn’t what she had feared about it. He did it again and changed sides, striking her across both buttocks.

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The icy ball dissipated under the clever manipulation of his fingers on her clit as he did his spanking. The strain on her back tendons increased as she tried to stay up on her toes for him. Urgent arousal unsated from this morning was grasping her, a need to come all over those fingers that somehow knew her body. She wanted to take the hand striking her, suck and bite at the flesh that was creating a stinging sensation across hers.

He hadn’t given her time to get too panic-stricken over it, springing it on her as he did, but he’d also taken the time to explain and reassure her in an odd way. And now, what she never would have expected, the stinging slaps were arousing a reaction of genuine, strong lust with the most shameless desire to lift her hips up further to his touch. It happened to her subs of course but she’d not expected it in herself. The bark bit into her fingers as she curled into it.

He stopped, rubbed his hand in slow circles, kneading her buttock, his fingers tracing her wet labia and clit. “Don’t come, angel. You don’t have permission to come.”

“What if I do anyway…” A breath rasped out of her as he pinched her gently. “By accident?”

“I’ll just have to tie you back down on the bed like I did last night and tease you for hours, not letting you come until you’re screaming for it. Do you want to come for me?” She could not answer such a question. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t a game or just a weekend, that the control of a lifetime was slipping away before her eyes. Before his eyes.

His fingers sank deep into her and she moaned. “You’ll answer me, Marguerite.” His thumb passed over her clit and she couldn’t help it. The shudders started coming from deep within her, a place she couldn’t control.

“I’m sorry…I can’t…” Her voice rose in desperation.

“Come for me. Now.” One of his other fingers pressed against the rim of her anus, penetrated, just the tip.

She held on to the tree, her fingers scrabbling for purchase as her hips wantonly rocked against the pumping of his fingers, the working of her clit. It wasn’t enough. She wanted him inside her. Her nipples ached for his mouth against the restriction of the sports bra. The pleated edges of the skirt whispered against her thighs in front as he kept it pushed up her back, exposing her to him.

Her legs were quivering at the exertion of staying on her toes. When the hardest wave hit, her balance went, the ankle weakened from the mugger’s attack giving way.

In an instant he had her around the waist, his body hard against hers, his hand still insinuated between them to draw out her climax. She writhed and cried out, feeling the heat of his body, the massive size of his cock against her ass and wanted it. Just wanted it. She bit her tongue to keep from saying so and tasted blood in her mouth.

When the reaction finally ebbed to the point some sanity returned, he had her leaning full against the tree, his body pressed against hers, holding her up. Guiding her, he moved her back to the bench, eased her to a sitting position. It was then she raised her disoriented gaze to Aphrodite and noticed an important detail she’d missed.

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The beautifully sculpted goddess was wearing a collar, connected with delicately wrought chains sculpted in the metal to manacles around her wrists. Her fingers twined in the strands of her hair and played over her sex. Not hiding it as Marguerite had assumed at first glance, but stimulating herself.

What she’d thought at a distance was simply a reproduction of Greek statuary was an original interpretation. Her mouth was open as if gasping her pleasure, her lips in a pleased smile. Marguerite recognized the style.

“The artist for The Zone must be a personal friend,” she said, trying to regain some sense of herself.

“He is. And can you imagine anything more explosive to a man’s fantasies than to have the honor of mastering a Goddess, bringing her pleasure, bringing her ecstasy after ecstasy until she might willingly become yours forever?”

“I think you better watch out for lightning strikes. You might make that particular Goddess angry.”

He went on to one knee by her, pushing her legs apart and putting his hands on her waist, drawing her to the edge of the bench so her throbbing center pressed against his hard abdomen. “Put your arms around my shoulders.” He tightened his hold so she had no option but the one that offered itself, to lay her head on his shoulder as he held her in the close embrace that shattered her, made tears rise in her throat. He kissed the side of her head, his lips gentle on her hair. “I worship this particular Goddess. There’s nothing she could ask that I wouldn’t do for her. I’d be devoted to her forever, never worshipping any other.”

“Tyler—” She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped him more fiercely with her arms, though she told herself not to do so. There was the urge to do the same with her legs, hold on to him with both the fervency of a lover and the neediness of a child. “Please don’t do this to me. You know this is just the false intimacy of sex, the way it makes you believe things you shouldn’t.”

“But it’s never affected you that way before, has it?” He rubbed his cheek against her. Sitting back on his heels, he rose, drawing her to her feet. Backed her into the tree again and kept her close enough that she was still leaning into him, so she wasn’t completely bereft of his presence. “You smell like… What is that?”