My Lord

by Raine Miller

  BOOKS BY RAINE MILLER

  HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  The PASSION of DARIUS

  The UNDOING of a LIBERTINE

  The MUSE

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  CHERRY GIRL

  MY CAPTAIN

  FILTHY RICH

  FILTHY LIES

  HUSBAND MATERIAL

  THE BLACKSTONE AFFAIR

  NAKED, Book I

  ALL IN, Book II

  EYES WIDE OPEN, Book III

  RARE and PRECIOUS THINGS, Book IV

  Writing as Vivienne Wilmont

  LORD BLACKWOOD’S VIRGIN

  Writing as Brit DeMille

  CRUSHED, Vegas Crush 1

  LORD ROTHVALE'S KINK

  RAINE MILLER

  Copyright © 2019 Raine Miller Romance

  All rights reserved.

  Editing: Marion Archer

  IVAN

  Gabrielle knew how to suck cock. Well, she was spectacularly good at sucking mine. I didn’t like to think about how she’d learnt her skills, but I’d have to overlook that part if I wanted to keep her.

  And I did want to keep her.

  I knew it now. There had been hints as we’d begun this tryst, but now, I knew for certain that my dream girl did, in fact, exist. And she was naked in my arms after a supremely satisfying session of her mouth on my cock, an experience I couldn’t compare to anything similar I’d ever received in my life. She enjoyed doing it, too.

  After sex, she tended to be quiet, just content to let me kiss her and stroke my fingers over her flushed skin, so it surprised me when she hit me with words I didn’t want to hear.

  “Ivan…I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to employ me now that we’ve—because we have been together intimately—it’s not professional conduct—I really can’t.” She faltered and then trailed off, the disappointing silence rising between us.

  My sexy kitten wasn’t going to be easy on me it seemed.

  “But, just think for a second. Have you done anything with me so far that you didn’t enjoy, or didn’t give us both a great deal of pleasure?”

  “No.”

  “And you are a qualified conservator of paintings certified through the University of London?”

  “You know I am, Ivan.”

  “So tell me what I have a houseful of, Gabrielle, just moldering away into dust. Tell me, lovely thing, I want to hear you say it.”

  She shook her head at me in frustration, but I wasn’t having it.

  “No, Miss Hargreave, I want to hear you tell me.”

  She held onto my eyes, and I knew I’d won this small battle when her shoulders relaxed and she gave into the desires that were very hard to deny. I understood how it worked for her, as well as for me.

  “You have so many paintings.”

  I took her hand and kissed it, holding it pressed to my lips. “I have so many paintings, Gabrielle. And I only want you to have a look at them. Nobody else will do.”

  “But, it’s so unprofessional.” She was struggling with something that went beyond just having a sexual relationship with me while working here. There was more to her story I desperately wanted to know. I wanted to know her story just as much as I didn’t want her to learn about the sordidness of mine. She was so unspoiled, and knew nothing much about my life, or my past. It was part of the magical allure Gabrielle held over me.

  “Does the part about being unprofessional really matter? So we met each other under unusual circumstances. Yes, agreed. But now, we have discovered we like doing this, too.” I swept my hand down her body in a caress, coming to rest on the flesh of her arse. “This is a private job anyway. Therefore nobody gets to know what we do together in private. It’s just between you and me.”

  She let me kiss her, slowly and thoroughly. My tongue had a way of getting lost inside her anyway, and kissing her soothed me. When I was finally able to pull away, she had her hands buried in my hair again. I guess she had a thing for touching my hair, and I thought it was fucking hot. She could bury her hands in my hair when I was buried in her, as much and as often as she liked.

  I took her face with both hands and held her still. “I knew I had to get you back here somehow to show you that you were meant to come to Donadea. This place, the paintings hidden away here waiting—was fate for someone like you. I was determined, even after you left here the first time, I would find you and convince you to give me another try.”

  “You were?” She seemed so surprised.

  “Oh yes, my lovely Miss Hargreave.”

  She offered her lips up to mine for a kiss, which thrilled me to accept from her. She was so sweet and generous. Her offer gave me the courage to tell her the rest of my plan. Because I was going to tell her. Telling and directing were actions devoted to my part in this. Her role would be different.

  “And Gabrielle, having you archive my paintings and enjoy each other in bed is not the only thing I am proposing here with you.”

  “What else are you proposing?” she asked carefully, the slight widening of her eyes a clue as to her own perceptiveness of what was really going on between us, and maybe even what I was going to say next.

  “I want you submissive when we fuck, Gabrielle. I want so badly to have that…with you.”

  GABRIELLE

  My heart dropped, as I froze against Ivan. He sensed me stiffening and held onto me a little tighter. Unable to move away or do anything much more than just stare at him, I memorized every feature of his face, the gorgeous green eyes; the mole on his upper left cheek, the natural part of his hair and the way it fell along the side of his face, the color of his lips and the shape of his jaw. All parts of him I was just beginning to know by heart.

  All of him beautiful to me to the point I almost couldn’t look away.

  His burning gaze held me anyway, just as much as his arms were doing. Ivan held onto me because he expected me to run away and freak out. He’d gotten to know me a little by now. I’d been doing that very thing just about every time we’d been in the same room together since our very first meeting. Ivan’s powers of deduction didn’t have to work overtime to figure me out. He also had no trouble trying to convince me to stay with him longer. He was a master at persuasion.

  I want you submissive when we fuck, Gabrielle.

  He’d said it as if this thing we had started was going to be continuing indefinitely. As much as it sounded wonderful to be with Ivan for longer than just a weekend of uninhibited sex and sensual freedom, my rational side told me I was a fool if I thought I could pull this off with him. There was no way I’d make it out unscathed. He would twist me up into all sorts of knots. I didn’t deserve any kind of relationship…

  I want so badly to have that…with you, Gabrielle.

  When he’d said that second part to me there was a definite yearning in his voice. I’d heard it clearly. I’d also sensed a loneliness in him. I think I picked up on it because feeling lonely was something I knew well. Could we fill those lonesome feelings for each other? Was it right for me to give in to the desire I felt with him? Or was I fooling myself?

  I’d guessed right about Ivan. He was a dominant even though I was certain he had mostly suppressed his natural inclinations whenever we’d been together thus far. I’d caught glimpses of the Dom behavior of course, but then, coming from him, it turned me on wildly because Ivan Everley pushed every one of my sexual buttons.

  I liked the things Ivan did far too much.

  He had guessed right about me, too. Ivan knew what I was. I couldn’t hide it from him any more than I could keep the urges buried any longer when I was with him like this.

  Ivan knew.

  “What are you asking me to—to do with you, Ivan?” I still had to ask. I
needed to hear him lay it all out on the line before us. I could feel my heart literally pounding in my chest as I waited for his response.

  “I think you know, Gabrielle.” He traced down the side of my face with his finger, and then down my jawbone, further still to my chin before slipping onto the side of my neck to rest it over my pulse point. He pressed in, his finger sinking into the flesh of my neck. “I can feel the blood pumping under my finger. Your pulse is racing. Your perfect skin is flushed. The idea of my suggestion turns you on.” He pressed his finger just a little harder. “Doesn’t it, Gabrielle?”

  Yes. I was in such deep trouble with this man.

  His green eyes bored into mine as the pressure of his finger held me frozen, totally under his spell, powerless to turn away from his embrace any more than I could deny the truth in his words. That’s all it took. Just one finger infused with the command of presence that Ivan Everley owned as certainly as he owned the handsome looks and the talented moves in the bedroom. Or art gallery store room. Or wedding reception dance floor. Or the interior of a sea plane.

  I couldn’t help the shudder that overtook me. The awareness of the strength of my attraction to him, to his wildly unexpected proposal, was very unnerving.

  But it was also very tempting too.

  His response was to bring his lips closer and say, “Don’t overthink. I know that’s what you’re doing.” The press of his lips was as gentle as his kiss, firm but settling. With his tongue licking into me, he breathed, “Trust me, Gabrielle. Just trust me and say yes.”

  Damn, he was good.

  How in the hell could I resist when I was naked in his bed with his lips on me promising more pleasure than I’d known in years? An impossible feat for a woman much stronger than me I am sure. I knew I wasn’t ready to give an all-encompassing yes to his proposal, but I could give him an answer to his question.

  “Yes, it turns me on, but how did you know, Ivan?” I managed to ask. I wanted to see if I had a sign painted on my forehead. Was it also flashing neon? Sexually submissive in the sack, this girl right here!

  My question stopped the kisses as he stared down at me. The intense look I was beginning to recognize was back. The rest of his fingers moved forward to take my neck in a possessive hold. “I didn’t for certain, but I dearly hoped it was true. There were little clues you gave me during our first encounter at The Gallery, though. And I couldn’t get you out of my head after that night. I thought about you for days and days. I wanted to see you again, but you disappeared and all I had to go on was Maria wearing the green dress.” His fingers left my neck, sliding down my arm to take my hand. He clasped it firmly and drew my arm up over my head with a sharp tug. My other arm got the same treatment until he had both wrists in his grip and me pinned below him. “I want you in that green dress for me again, too, because I definitely need a do-over of that night with you, Gabrielle.”

  “All right,” I agreed quickly. His masterful dominance had me panting now and remembering all too well how he’d made me feel when he looked me over admiringly the first time—just as he was doing right now. Ivan knew how to make it feel so, so good.

  “The way you surrendered to me when I touched you, the sounds coming out of your mouth when you came.” He stared intently at my lips before dragging his tongue over them slowly. “How you gracefully dropped to your knees prepared to suck me off like you wanted to do it.”

  “I did want to,” I whispered, feeling myself flush with heat as he retold our first encounter.

  “I know. I knew it then.” His eyes flickered down at me so beautifully green and deep as he studied me. “God, you’re so…bloody sexy.”

  “You are too,” I said shyly, “and I still can’t believe what I did with you—a total stranger.” And even now whenever I recalled what I’d done with Ivan at The Gallery that night I was filled with shame at my weakness. Why did he affect me so? One look, one touch, one command and I turned to putty in his hands. It had to be uniquely him I was certain.

  “But that’s why it happened the way it did with us. Don’t you see?” He pressed yet another erection into the side of my hip, and I had to give him props for stamina. The man was the human embodiment of the Energizer bunny—better make that jackrabbit because he was totally, one hundred percent male. And he just kept going and going— “You felt comfortable with me that night…and we clicked, Gabrielle.”

  I nodded at him and enjoyed my view. Admiring his handsomeness, loving the weight of his lower body pressing into mine, the firm dominance he used with such ease. We clicked all right. Major clicking happened, that’s for sure. I basically fell into his arms and let him do whatever he wanted to me in that storeroom. Something I’d never allowed any other stranger to do within moments of being introduced. Ha! We were never even introduced. He thought I was Maria-the-Escort, and I got a kinky alter ego name from him. Mr. Ivanhoe. Embarrassment filled me yet again as I remembered. I’d been living such a guarded existence in regards to men and dating since I’d come to London, that I had truly forgotten what it felt like to be desired intimately.

  Ivan brought those feelings back for me while making it all feel so damn good; his offer was nearly impossible to turn down.

  “Just like you feel comfortable right now being restrained by my hands, wondering what I’ll do next. You want me to do more and you’ll surrender to that, too. Ivan continued watching me, the penetrating gleam in his eyes that appeared during sex only made me hotter.

  Ivan reached his free hand into my borrowed smoking jacket tumbled on the bed beside us and drew out the silk-fringed belt. He dragged the dangling edge over my nipples, making me arch into the tingling sensation. “I want to use this, Gabrielle. I’d like to have your gorgeous body tied to my bed while I fuck you this time. Knowing you’re going nowhere until I release you. Until I am done taking pleasure from the sight of you spread out and shaking from the orgasms I’m going to give you. Until you’ve had as much as you can take and my cock has worked itself out to the point of fucking exhaustion,” he said, watching me carefully, his body tense and tight looming above me.

  I shuddered hard and it was a completely involuntary action on my part. His simple words rendered me helpless when he started in with the directing. And he knew it, too, because he smiled darkly at my shuddering.

  “Do you consent?”

  “Yes,” I whimpered, falling under the spell he’d cast on me with complete ease, letting him take control in this. Instinctively I knew he would do me good.

  Green eyes blazed down at me with lust at my answer, and he wasted no time putting me into position. “You’ll tell me what you need, Gabrielle?” he asked firmly while working on binding my hands together with the silk belt, testing the tautness before securing the silk to the headboard of his bed. “I’ll hear you, whatever that may be.” He deliberately brought his hands down to find my nipples, rolling them between his fingers, applying pressure until I felt the burn of sweet pain shoot through me and straight down to in between my legs. “If it’s to back off, or if it’s to give you more.” Ivan studied me intently to judge my response, for this was indeed a test.

  I shuddered out a moan and arched my back, letting the rush of pleasure roll through as he eased off from pinching the nipples and switched to caressing my cupped breasts in each of his hands. “Yes, I’ll tell you,” I managed to gasp.

  The green of his eyes seemed to flare once more at my agreement, the unmistakable gleam of triumph easy to see. I had pleased him very much, and the knowledge that I had done so switched on something inside me from which there could be no going back. This was a precipice and I’d just committed to going over the edge.

  “And you want this with me, Gabrielle? You understand what your agreement means?”

  I nodded slowly but deliberately, my heart surely on its way to flying out of my chest at the question, forcing me to acknowledge this thing we were starting together. We weren’t just hooking up for sex anymore. Things had mor
phed into something new. There was so much more to this than a few fabulous orgasms for the both of us.

  An exchange of power was a great deal more.

  The potential of what it might mean for me to head back into territory that had been influential in a disastrous relationship which had left me emotionally devastated and adrift in my life. The BDSM hadn’t been the reason for my messed up history with Kent, but it’d definitely been a contributing factor in the poor decisions I’d made with him…and tragic for others, I thought shamefully.

  I truly didn’t know if I was capable of delving into another D/s relationship.

  The circumstances were totally different with Ivan though. He was single. Yeah, a single guy who orders up an escort when he wants a date. Ugh. I didn’t like those thoughts swimming around in my head, but I couldn’t judge Ivan any more harshly than what I’d been party to with Kent. My deeds had been far worse.

  Could I do this with him?

  You want to.

  I knew then that I’d made my decision, and I was about to find out.

  The idea scared me as much as it excited me. No, that probably wasn’t true. It excited me more.

  He leaned back on his knees after he finished binding me, a satisfied expression creeping over his face. I wondered what he was thinking even though I had a fairly good idea. He finally had me where he’d wanted me since that first time we’d been together. Ivan had me tied to his bed and I’d be there until he was good and ready to let me go. That sexual desert I’d been in? Well, the drought was very much o-ver. As in: Girl, you’d better brace yourself for some rain cuz some big black storm clouds are headin’ your way.

  “You look so fucking sexy-beautiful right now, here, like this.” He stared, his expression hard but not unaffected. He was affected all right. His cock was erect and ready to go again. Thank God, because I might die if he didn’t touch me soon. I could say the same about him. Ivan was sexy-beautiful. Especially like this—hard and pulsing and about to start in on me.