Unlaced

by Jaci Burton

  The office was very sparse, but it didn’t feel impersonal. The fountain, bike, and picture were carefully chosen. He didn’t collect or display carelessly. There was a sofa, chair, and coffee table arrangement, minifridge and microwave. Printouts scattered across the table suggested it had been a late night for him. Had he gone home, or was that closet she spotted holding extra clothes?

  While he was on the phone, she had an advantage. He was apparently just going over a point of tax law with one of his offshore counterparts. He’d turned slightly toward her and was now taking a more thorough look. In a moment of abandon, the same feeling that had gripped her when she chose the clothing, she stepped into the narrow opening between him and the desk, took a seat on his knee, and began to tie his tie for him, sliding the silk strips through her fingers.

  It was worth the surprise on his face, even as it was a tremendous effort to keep her expression casually amused, while she performed what she realized quickly was a very domestic task. Something Savannah might do for Matt in the morning.

  She tied the tie, straightening his collar to adjust the accessory beneath it, so when she folded it back down, her nails were grazing his hair, the curves of his ears. She had no idea what he was saying to the offshore manager, because all she could think about was the taut muscle in his thigh, beneath her bottom. His fingers grazed her back, as if he intended a grip to keep her there. While she didn’t look into his face, she felt his regard as if he were branding her flesh, making it his.

  A quick tightening, an adjustment of the pin, and she was done, demonstrating she was as efficient with a tie as he was with a corset, a quid pro quo. Keeping control of herself, she rose and moved out of his reach, passing behind his chair. But as she did, she let her hand slide along the top, brushing his shoulders and across his neck with her long fingernails, raking lightly. He turned to follow her direction, but she pretended to ignore him, already moving on to look at the wall art. Black-and-white photos, a cyclist’s perspective of the environment in which he trained. Speed, blurring techniques, but also nature scenes, a bike poised on the edge of a canyon, as if the rider were contemplating making that leap, being limited by nothing, like the Bob Seger song title scrawled across the bottom in someone’s handwriting.

  Roll me away . . .

  She didn’t find evidence of a limousine liberal here. He obviously liked having the money to play, liked to work hard for that money, and so didn’t have guilt over the having of it. He also gave generously to others. After she’d checked homework, gotten everyone fed and tucked in, Nate fast asleep with stories of adventurous bears, she’d done some more searching and confirmed what she’d already heard about them. The K&A team were well known both for their corporate and individual giving. In fact, rumor was that they ran bets among themselves all the time for the most peculiar things, and whoever won got to donate the proceeds to the charity of his choice.

  She passed his weight training set, then reached the closet. As she opened the door, she knew she was in his line of sight, but she continued to ignore him.

  Several suits, which meant he could have been here all night. A four-drawer unit built into the closet was likely for toiletries, socks, underwear. What kind did he wear, and did she really dare to look, with him watching her? Her lips curved, satisfied, as she heard him correct himself on a fairly straightforward calculation. How do you like having your focus disrupted, Lucas?

  But as she reached out and fingered the suit, discarding the gauche, prurient idea of checking out his underwear preference, she did move a couple steps forward so she could inhale the cologne-and-Lucas smell that lingered on his clothes. It wafted over her like a caress all its own that tingled along her nerve endings.

  Her father had worn a suit to work, she remembered, before he’d disintegrated into a worthless drunk. She recalled how she’d seen her mother and father in the kitchen one night, right after he got home. Her mother had run her hands beneath the coat to link them around his waist, pressing her face into his shirt. He’d teasingly enclosed her in the extra folds of the coat before nudging her head up for a kiss. They’d been so young. She’d been so young. It was one of the few good memories she had of them. It made her wonder what it would be like to do that with Lucas. Slide into his embrace, be surrounded by the comforting smell of broadcloth and aftershave, all the trappings of a businessman in charge of his destiny, at the top of a castle with thirty-nine floors.

  She suppressed the urge to bury her face in the suits, hug them to her like some cliché movie heroine, but of course, every woman she’d ever known had that impulse, to smell her man’s clothes, wear his shirt. The man she loved. Or was falling in love with.

  It was a cold shower reminder she was playing a dangerous game, because her heart was involved in this, ridiculously more than it should be. Play games for a couple days she could do, but she couldn’t go places like that. Too many competing responsibilities.

  Closing the door with a snap on that nonsense, she moved on to the fountain, delighted to find koi with long white and orange whiskers. Three of them, swimming lazily over shells and rocks that might have come from a variety of his travels. At the bottom, a small metal treasure chest opened and closed, revealing plastic pearls, uncut gems, and gold doubloons that spilled out on the skeleton lying beneath the weight of the trunk. She wondered if that was to remind him money wasn’t everything.

  As she leaned over to take a closer look at the fish, she knew the tight skirt would be inching up, up until he glimpsed the lace at the top of her thigh-high, the strain of the fabric over her hips. Settling one hand on the rock ledge, her pink nails tapping the stone, she reached forward with the other to try and coax the koi to nibble at her fingertips. One of her shoes left her heel as she stretched forward. She stifled a chuckle when Lucas asked the caller to repeat himself.

  A moment later, she drew in an exhilarated and startled breath as his hand slid around her waist, the other catching her hair as he turned her in his arms, holding her over the water, his knee braced on the wall just inside her thigh.

  When he’d turned her, she of course had to catch on to his shoulders, though his hand went to the center of her back, holding her securely.

  He was still on the phone, the headset having made it possible for him to cross the carpeted office on silent feet. Now, as she heard the tinny distant voice of the caller, he tilted her head back with a thumb, denying her hungry, parted lips to kiss her throat just below the line of her jaw. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, feeling the hard biceps flex against her forearms.

  When he lifted his head, his gray eyes were molten steel, his mouth wet. This close to the water, her face had been misted by the light spray of the fountain, though it did little to subdue the heat he’d stirred. She realized his courteous hold on her hair was to keep it from trailing in the water. So careful with her, even as he wrecked her defenses with ruthless abandon.

  “That’ll work, Joel,” he said. “I’ve got a visitor. I’ll get back to you later on the rest.”

  Then he dragged his mouth lower, nuzzling beneath the pearl and cashmere collar around her throat, and clamped his lips there. Suckled, hard.

  High-voltage lightning speared down her belly, straight to her pussy, her nipples becoming aching points. Somehow, she now had the stretched-out leg wrapped behind his calf in automatic reflex. He gripped her hair harder, curling his other arm around her back, hand braced between her shoulder blades.

  When he lifted his face, her breath was shallow, quick. He examined her neck, then nudged the fabric back in place, hiding it. “I think you’ll carry that mark awhile.”

  “A mark of ownership?” While she tried for a mocking tone, her voice quivered at the look in his eyes.

  “As you like.” Cocking his head, he gave her a leisurely perusal. Because he’d taken all her weight and balance, she realized she was in this position as long as he wanted her there, unless she wanted to attempt an ignominious wiggle that could land her in the p
ool with the koi. So she relaxed, as much as was possible, trying not to be impressed that he seemed to have no difficulty bearing her weight like this.

  “Do you think you could use all this manly strength to let me up?”

  “In good time. Good morning.” He flexed his fingers against her back, stroking the line of the corset. “This one is new.”

  “Mr. Adler, I know you’re not making a comment about what’s under my sweater. That would be sexual harassment.”

  “A simple fashion statement only, Ms. Moira. Being a sensitive male of the modern age, I’m capable of discussing women’s clothing choices. And crying.”

  Cassandra challenged any woman to stay unaffected by the sexy humor in his gaze. His voice lowered, taking on a husky note. “But if I’m already in trouble, I’ll risk it all by saying I can’t decide which part of you it enhances the most. The curvy ass, which I very much liked having on my thigh, or your tits, sitting up so high over that absurdly tiny waist that they jiggle with every breath you take.”

  “Crude,” she responded with a sniff. “Women don’t appreciate that.”

  “Not until they’re good and hot. You walked in here soaked for me, and your nipples are already hard. Aren’t they? Tell the truth, or I’ll find out for myself.”

  “Just because my body has an involuntary attraction to you, which you know damn well any woman with a pulse would, doesn’t mean anything,” she said loftily.

  “Like you and Ben flirting?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did you go check out his office this morning? Smell his suits?”

  The flush in her cheeks was gratifying, but her words gnawed at Lucas’s gut. As hardcore evidence went, he knew he didn’t have much to justify a deeper attraction. While another man would understand that it was different when sex gnawed at him like this, a woman would just think he couldn’t keep his hormones under wraps. She didn’t realize that sex at this level for a man was the need to possess, to claim. To keep.

  This was beyond hunger. This was evisceration, begun when he heard the first note of her voice as she came down the hall. Then, put this outfit on top of it . . . Jesus, she was trying to kill him.

  Down, boy. All in time. You have a plan. Stick with it.

  Easing her to her feet, he covered his reluctance to release her by straightening his cuffs. “So, if it’s just sex, I assume you’re still willing to take my dare.”

  “As long as there’s no interference with—”

  “Business. We settled that yesterday. However, ultimately, I think that depends on you. Your infamous control, that is.”

  She narrowed her eyes as he continued. “This meeting will be a couple hours of Ben droning on with a Japanese lawyer about worker standards and listening to the appropriate report from the Japanese team on the other side.”

  When Cass shrugged her shoulders, it felt as if they were weighed down by the ropes of tension drawing taut in her stomach. “I know that. Are you proposing to liven it up?” Her alarm mounted at his expression. “You’re joking.”

  He moved to the door, closed it. “Go over to my desk. Put your hands on it and spread your legs.”

  She told herself she hadn’t heard him correctly, though the way the corset’s boning constricted over the trembling of her lower belly told her there was at least one part of her anatomy that had heard him, loud and clear. “No.”

  Lucas left the door, but while she tensed, he simply passed her, giving her a tantalizing whiff of cologne and male heat, before going behind his desk. He removed a blue velvet box from his desk drawer, a box with a white satin ribbon around it. The color of surrender, she thought.

  “You know what I remember about that day in the forest, Cass?” His voice was doing insane things to her nerve endings, stroking them, arousing them, making her want to go to him, do anything he said. She forced herself to hold her ground, latching on to an absurd anchor. A children’s book she and Nate had read together, of all things. The young peasant heroine had overcome overwhelming trials and tribulations to rescue her brother from an evil witch. But that witch had a donut-hole-sized wart on the end of her nose and a harsh cackle, not the patrician features and velvet voice of a golden Egyptian prince.

  “I remember how you put your hand under the pack cords. It was uncomfortable, the way they cut into your flesh. You don’t mind a little pain. It all increased your excitement. The moment I restrained your hands yesterday, you went from hot and wet to full flood, trembling on the edge of climax. You crave dominance, but you don’t think you can allow it in your life and protect what you’re responsible for protecting. Or honor what you’ve made of yourself. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  Lifting his gaze from the box, he locked it with hers. “The strongest women in the world have the hardest time surrendering. They don’t realize when they do it with the right man, the one who cherishes them, it’s the most beautiful gift she could ever give him. Her trust. Trust me, Cass, and do as I say.”

  The last thing she wanted to do was capitulate to this, whatever this was. Yet it hadn’t stopped her from goading the situation with her provocative walk around his office. He got her so charged up. If she put a hand over where his mouth had been on her throat, she was sure she’d feel a resulting contraction between her legs. Her body trembled in reaction to her thoughts, and she could tell his shrewd eyes saw it, the way he’d already seen so much. Somehow, she managed to raise her chin anyway. “The answer is still no.”

  “Okay, then.” When he came around the desk, she wondered if she should bolt or hold her ground. Then he startled her by dropping to one knee, so close it brushed the outside of her leg as he ran his hands down her calves, his palms whispering over the nylon silk of her sheer stockings. He set the box beside him. “Stay still for me.”

  As she tried to think of a way to respond, her eyes full of his broad shoulders, the crown of his head almost level with her breasts, his hands glided back up her legs, past her knees, along the outside of her thighs and right under the hem of the skirt. She bit her lip at the welcome heat of his hands, all the more unsettling because they moved with swift precision up to her hips, his thumbs hooking into the thong panties beneath the molded edge of the corset and bringing them back down over the lace thigh high.

  Black satin, a simple design, no embellishment. As he ran them down to her ankles, his thumb stroked over the wet crotch panel. He looked up into her face. “Step out of them.”

  Cassandra let him guide her hand to his shoulder, nudge her into lifting one foot, then the other. She should be saying no, refusing him. When he slid the panties into his coat pocket, she wondered if he’d ever give them back. Or if she wanted to imagine him with them, like the handkerchief.

  “Men like to sniff women’s clothing as well,” he informed her. “Just different items.”

  Then he untied the ribbon on the box and lifted out what also appeared to be some form of thong, only this one appeared to be of latex.

  “Keep holding my shoulder.”

  “Lucas, I can dress—”

  “I’m doing this part. Hold my shoulder so you don’t break your neck on those killer heels, and hush for a minute. Your only responsibility is to let your mind go wherever I want to take it.”

  She might have pretended affront if she hadn’t just allowed him to remove her underwear. Stepping into the new garment, she had to press her lips together hard as he slid them up the same track again, barely able to stifle an aroused gasp as he adjusted them in the crease of her buttocks with shocking intimacy, fingers brushing her rim, then over her clit, making her hips jerk.

  He rose, taking her hand from his shoulder but holding it against his chest. When she curled her fingers into the soft linen, she felt the shape of the man beneath. “What you’re wearing is a type of vibrator. There’s a bullet against your clit. It has an adjustment that can drive you to climax in a matter of seconds, as well as multiple other speeds to keep you wet, building you up slowly for a deeper, more sat
isfying release, depending on how patient I am.” His forefinger stroked hers, just a slow glide from the nail, up over the knuckles, back to the hand again. Amazingly, her pussy was reacting to just that motion, throbbing in rhythm with his finger’s movements. “There are also sensors in the back strap. It will feel like my fingers are teasing your rim, adding to the sensations.”

  His gaze lifted. “Knowing your propensity for form-fitting clothing, I didn’t bring the nipple teasers. They cover your nipples, and through a combination of oil, heat, and tiny electrodes, simulate a man’s mouth, suckling you. I’d love to see you wearing them under this sweater, nothing else, and then take them away when your nipples are large and erect, pushing against the fabric. When you walked toward me, your breasts would move with that firm little quiver from every slight movement, your thighs rubbing the lips of your cunt together. I’d have you so worked up, you’d come, just from that walk. But I’d make you keep walking while you came, and if your knees gave out, I’d catch you.”

  As he kept up that torturous, teasing stroke of her one finger, she thought she was going to come just from that, the seduction of his words.

  “So you’re going to turn this on during the meeting.” She was proud of her ability to say it in a reasonable tone, even if her attempt at incredulity sounded to her own ears a bit breathless.

  “Yes. Different amps, different times. It’s silent.” He took a small ear wig out of the box and settled it in the shell of her ear, sweeping her hair forward to cover it. “And I know you’re too proud, but this is where the taking care of you part comes in, when you submit to a Master. If you can’t stop yourself from coming, if you’re afraid you’ll reveal what you’re experiencing to the others, just shake your head at me and I’ll stop.”