The Pleasure Slave (23 page)

Diabolical and wicked, his eyes gleamed with delight, making the irises glow like crystal fire. “We will just have to see, will we not?” With that, he simply walked away.

D
UMBFOUNDED
, Julia stared after his retreating back. He’d vowed to seduce her yet had left her here alone. She didn’t understand. Was she supposed to get started without him?

Before she could work up a good panic, Tristan reappeared.

“Come here, Julia,” he said, and somehow managed to put all sorts of nuances into those words—as if he could lure her to bed with only his voice.

He was right.

In a trance, she went to him, craving the essence of his touch. Wanting the culmination of his passion.

“Fear nothing I do,” he said, moving behind her.

A wave of uncertainty drifted through her at such ominous words, but she nodded.

He wrapped a blindfold over her eyes. Darkness engulfed her. He tied the strings, careful not to tug her hair. Nervousness soon mingled with her desire, making her tremble.

“What are you doing?” she asked softly.

“Do you still trust me?”

“Yes.” Without a doubt.

“Then no questions.”

“No questions.” Julia drew in a deep breath, trying to break past the darkness. Only when she completely relaxed did she hear the deluge of rain splashing hypnotically outside. She smelled Tristan’s masculine scent a bit stronger. Felt his heat a bit deeper.

“Repeat after me,” he said. Ah, his voice was like rich brandy and smoky cigars, and so intoxicating she was drunk with arousal. “I am beautiful.”

“I am beautiful.”

“I am worthy.”

“I am worthy.”

“I am precious.”

“I am precious,” she whispered.

His praise, and her own avowal to the affirmative, seeped into her consciousness, and for the first time in her life, she believed them. She
was
beautiful. She
was
worthy. She
was
precious. Brian hadn’t been worthy of
her.

“Do you know what you do to me?” he breathed in her ear, then placed a lingering kiss on the back of her neck and she absorbed the warmth of him. “How you make me burn? If you do not, you soon will, for I plan to make you melt wherever I touch you. My fingers will be hot. They will scorch your skin as they explore every curve, every hollow…every luscious inch.”

The ardor of his promise mesmerized her, cast a spell of love and lust around the parameters of her mind.
This
was what she’d dreamed about all those many years she’d spent alone at night, hoping, wanting.

“Once we come together, sweet dragon, you’ll only want more,” he vowed. “So much more.”

Small, delicious tremors rocked her.

But he wasn’t finished.

Reaching around her, he palmed one of her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, feather soft. “I’ll touch you here.” His other hand slid down her stomach, stopping only when he reached the apex of her thighs, not truly connecting, yet she still felt the heat of him. “I’ll touch you here, as well. And everywhere in between.”

His breath stroked her neck, so silky, so arousing. Intense currents of passion sailed through her blood, consuming every crevice of her body. He untied the drawstring of her pants, and the thick material floated to her ankles. Every insecurity she’d ever harbored slid away, as well, and she was surprised that she didn’t want to cover herself. No, she wanted to take off more clothing.

He helped her step out of the pants. The air surrounding her was cool, but she felt hot. So hot. When she steadied, he dipped his fingers inside her panties, moving lower, lower still, until his hand rested over her curls.

She gasped. The contact was so intimate, so new. With gentle motions, he stroked the silky hair, soft, hard, soft. Her hips rocked slightly with his touch, urging him to go deeper.

“Do you want me to take you over the edge?” he asked.

Even whispering, he possessed the most sensual
voice; a deep, rich baritone that wrapped around her as surely as the blindfold over her eyes. Every time he spoke, his breath fanned her ear, sending images of tangled sheets and hot, sweaty skin through her mind.

“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “Only if you come with me.”

His fingers finally brushed her clitoris. She gasped. Her other senses remained heightened, acutely sensitive. Tristan’s rough, callused skin sent shivers of delight all the way to her toes as he stroked her.

He paused.

She waited eagerly, suspended in a time and place where only she and Tristan existed.

Then…his fingers began tormenting her again, still stroking, moving up and down the damp folds of flesh. Almost. Almost where she needed him most. A low, needy moan slipped past her lips. Nothing could have prepared her for this sensual onslaught to her senses, this consuming quest for pleasure. Nothing.

Again he paused.

Again she waited, growing desperate for more.

“Have you ever made love in a chair, Julia?”

Slowly she shook her head. “I’ve never made love to anyone. Anywhere.” Her voice was hoarse with longing.

“I am glad,” he said, kissing her neck again. His grip tightened as he spoke. “Your legs hook over the arms, opening the core of you. Then you take me inside so deeply you scream. And scream again. Over and over.”

Fantasies of her and Tristan in a chair, doing exactly
what he described, besieged her, causing her throat to constrict.
I have to have him in a chair.

“Tell me that you want me, little dragon. Say the words.”

“I want you,” she whispered. She wanted to kiss and lick his scars, to make them better and help him heal. She wanted to run her tongue over each of his tattoos and hear him gasp. “I want to make love with you so many times I’m not sure where my body ends and yours begins.”

Tristan whipped her around then. “Give me your mouth.” His tone was now raw, primal. He didn’t give her time to reply. His head swooped down, and his mouth ravaged hers. Welcoming his strength, his hardness, she met his tongue thrust for thrust, her hands kneading his back.

Always and forever,
she thought.

“Always,” he said, as if he’d heard her unspoken vow. He clutched her to him, his pulse drumming with a riot of sensation. With Julia in his arms, his past couldn’t affect him. He wouldn’t worry about another woman trying to steal him. He only cared about this moment. The feel of Julia’s skin skipped along his nerve endings, intense and consuming. The scent of her drove him to the brink of wildness. He wanted this woman to the exclusion of all else.

“Let me touch
you,
” she said on a wispy catch of breath.

He knew what such boldness cost her, and he would have given her the world just then had she asked. “Let
you? Nay, Julia.” He licked the seam of her lips. “I
need
you to touch me.”

He guided her hand down the planes of his chest, his navel, and together they plunged past his underwear. He helped her wrap her palm around the ridged length of his arousal, showed her the way of it. A quick study, his Julia, she soon stroked up, down, up with exquisite accuracy.

“Yes, dragon,” he praised, then groaned. “Just like that.”

Holding him in her hands gave Julia a sense of feminine power that she could only revel in. Here was a man, a master of sensuality, who responded to her as if he could never get enough.

A heady thought, indeed.

In the next heartbeat, he lifted her shirt over her arms, baring her naked breasts for his view. Cool air kissed her heated skin, causing her nipples to pucker, ache.

She heard Tristan hiss in a breath, and he said, “You are the most ethereal creature I have ever beheld.”

“No, I—” she began out of habit, then stopped herself.

He rimmed the outer edge of her nipple with his tongue and his finger traced her navel. The rest of her words died a quick death. Julia’s body went up in flames. Needy for more, she arched her back, giving him better access. Tristan sucked the hardened peak into the hot wetness of his mouth. His hand trailed down her stomach. She quivered.

At last Tristan removed her final garment: her panties. Julia groaned, not in discomfort or embarrassment, which still surprised her, but in longing. Right now, this man belonged to her. Only her. To others he
might be a pleasure slave. But to her he was simply Tristan, a sensual man who branded her body as surely as he’d branded her heart.

He placed drugging kisses across her neck and collarbone, and the hair on his chest tickled her skin. For only a second, he pulled back and she heard a delicate rush of air as he removed his underwear. Then one of his arms anchored under her knees. The other braced her lower back. When he lifted her into his embrace, her world tilted and it felt as if she were floating on a cloud of air. She clasped her arms around his neck for support.

Tristan stilled for a moment, drinking in the sight of the woman who had consumed his thoughts since the moment he first saw her. She captivated him, took him to new levels of sensuality, and he had to command himself to slow down before things ended too quickly. This was Julia’s first time and, by Elliea, she would enjoy every hour of it.

Her breasts were full and lush, made for a man’s touch.
His touch.
Rosy peaks crowned her nipples, ready and waiting. Beckoning. Her legs were not long, but they climbed all the way to heaven. Soon they would wrap around his waist, squeezing and pulling him tightly into her sheath.

So powerful was that thought, he nearly sagged to his knees.

Hunger drove him to the living room as fast as his feet could manage. A roll of thunder exploded, following a burst of lightning. He never even paused as he carried Julia to a soft, padded reclining chair. He eased
down and adjusted her on his lap until her legs straddled his thighs and her knees rested on the chair’s arms.

He couldn’t stop kissing her. He wanted to consume every inch of her. His hands slowly moved downward, skimming the soft curve of her stomach. Then he reached around to caress the silky curve of her bottom. Her indrawn breath told him just how much she liked it.

Quickly losing his fragile hold on sanity, he once again explored her wet, feminine center, taunting her with fleeting caresses. She uttered a low, throaty moan. Her hips followed his touch, seeking whatever he would give her. He watched her face, watched the way her lips parted so uninhibitedly. The way she arched her back, silently demanding more.

“That’s it, little dragon. Move for me.”

“Tristan…” she began, only to draw in a breath when he laved his tongue over a waiting nipple. She was open for him, both mouth and body. This woman affected him as no other. Hearing his name on her lips was so more intense than actually making love with another. Julia somehow made him feel complete, whole, as if he’d been born merely to know her.

She moaned again as his naked skin rubbed hers, electric, consuming, intensifying the ache his fingers caused. Soon she was writhing, searching for release from the intense sensations all but bursting within her.

“I’m almost there,” she said. Everything inside her was coiling and poised for release. She was so close to the edge, so unbelievably close. “Don’t stop.” Her breath came in short, erratic pants. “Everywhere you
touch, heat ripples under my skin. I want you to never stop touching me. Promise?”

“With my entire being.” He groaned deep in his throat, the vibration touching her all the way to her toes.

He pressed just a bit harder, but it was enough. Her inner muscles tightened; fierce pleasure erupted with the force of an avalanche. “Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God!”

While her orgasm still hummed with life, he buried two fingers deep within her, stretching the walls of her femininity and making her ready for his invasion. His other hand gripped one side of her hips, pulling her up, helping her imitate the rhythm of sex. Once. Twice. He pushed his fingers deeper. Over and over pulling back, sinking in. Her need for him amazed her. Not just his touch, but
him.
His voice, his smile, his happiness.

Having deprived her body fulfillment for so long, it now demanded compensation.
I need more,
she thought. She craved all of him; she wanted him to experience release with her this time.

“By Elliea, Julia, I have never felt anything so hot,” he praised. “So cursed good, so tight.”

The tips of his fingers grew bolder, pushed deeper, teasing and taunting. Sensation eclipsed time. Fiery pleasure grew within her, the embers all but inextinguishable. Each movement she made served only one purpose. To gain deliverance from the sweet torment he continually inflicted.

“Come inside me, Tristan. I need you.”

He removed his fingers and stared up at her face. “I want to taste you first.”

Taste you first.
It took a moment for Julia’s passion-glazed mind to register what it was he actually wanted to do. When comprehension dawned, her sensual haze rescinded. She tore off the blindfold and tossed the black material to the floor. Panicked, she leaned back and drew her knees together.

“No.” She quickly shook her head. “I can’t let you do that.” The thought, though sensuous in the image it evoked, caused her all kinds of worry.