by Thea Devine
“Whoa!” Brooke breathed. “She’s staying with him…already? No I’ll call you? I’m knee-deep in envy.”
“She said to just pack up the clothes, and she’ll get a service to clear out the furniture and things.”
“She’ll get a service?” Brooke said in disbelief. “Wow, Mr. Gotrocks must be a pushover. One day with him and she’s talking richspeak. Well, she doesn’t have much in the way of furniture. Did she say what we’re supposed to do with her clothes?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll pack everything in my big rollie suitcase. She sound okay?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Wow—that’s great. Can we do it this evening?”
Delia made a sound. “Like my calendar’s bursting.”
“It could be…” Brooke said slyly, knowing about all the ongoing offers and solicitations that Delia received at the restaurant.
“I’m so done talking to you. I’ll meet you at MJ’s around seven.”
She rang off, and Brooke went back to her endless arrangements of tours and timetables.
That night, she and Delia made short work of packing up for MJ.
“What if Baines shows up again?” Delia said worriedly, more than once.
“He’s a dead issue.”
“Bet he doesn’t think so.”
“MJ didn’t say if she’d gone back to work, did she? Because she’ll need her clothes.”
Delia straightened up, her eyes wide. “Yes, she did. She said she’s giving notice.”
“Holy…shit. She’s what?!”
“Harold doesn’t want her to work.”
“Oh, my God.” Brooke fell into a chair. “Is this a wet dream or what? I want to step in her stilettos right now. Management to mistress in one day?”
Delia continued packing and shot her a lancing look.
“What did I do wrong?”
Delia forbore telling her. And in fact, it was better that Brooke was so immersed in her distress over MJ’s good luck, because Delia was coming to that secret drawer that was full of MJ’s secrets.
“You want to look in the hall closet?” she asked Brooke, and Brooke obediently got up and rifled through the closet, pulling out coats and jackets and miscellaneous sweaters and shoes while Delia palmed all of MJ’s sex paraphernalia that she would never want Brooke to see.
What was she thinking, to ask them both to do this packing?
She tucked the leather bras, the cuffs, the thrall collars, the sex toys deep into the piles of clothing in the suitcase, then tucked everything Brooke brought to her on top and all around them.
There, your secrets are kept, MJ. I hope this guy will be good to you.
Then they locked up, carried the suitcase downstairs with some difficulty, and hailed a cab.
“No Baines sightings,” Brooke said with satisfaction.
But Delia wasn’t so sure he wasn’t lurking somewhere. And when she turned to take one last look at MJ’s building, she could have sworn she saw a man standing there, watching the cab pull away.
Wednesday, Brooke’s cell rang first thing in the morning.
“Nipples,” his voice said.
She nearly dropped the phone and grasped for composure. “Thane.”
“Don’t be coy. You’re damned glad I called.”
“Am I?” Son of a bitch.
“Have lunch with me.”
“I really don’t know that I should.”
“No games, Nipples. I know. Limo will pick you up at noon.”
He disconnected.
She shook her head. Limo will pick you up. I’ll send a car service.
I am the service, for God’s sake. I service well-heeled heels like Thane Bohansson.
What was she thinking? He’d called, and that’s what she’d longed for.
She rang Delia. “He called.”
“Ha,” Delia said.
“Do not say, ‘I told you so.’”
“Okay, he called. And?”
“Lunch today. Limo to come.”
“Oh, you’re the high flyer now. A limo as opposed to a pedestrian car service.”
“And not a limo service, either. His limo. Oh, God, I look like hell.”
“Then you’d better go and make sure you don’t look like hell.”
“Okay, details later.”
It was a quarter of twelve at that point. She didn’t have time for anything but a fast fix in the ladies’ room, damn him. And that uniform of a suit—no room for creativity there. Damn damn damn…
She had on fresh makeup, a sexy silk blouse, and sexier high-heeled pumps—all quick purchases in the hotel store—when the front desk called to say her car had arrived.
The deskman gave her a look that spoke volumes as she left the lobby.
Oh, Lord, she’d have to run that obstacle course when she returned. The car was waiting with the chauffeur ready to open her door.
Lunch-hour traffic was insane, which only heightened her apprehension. They drove uptown to the East seventies and down an elegant tree-lined street with end-to-end brownstones. At the corner was an elegant, modern apartment building with a circular drive.
“The chauffeur turned into it and said, “Mr. Thane is expecting you. Apartment 10G.”
She felt shaky as she pressed the button in the elevator, utterly bewildered about why he had summoned her. He wouldn’t live here; that would be insane.
The hall was carpeted and painted in a soft rose color, with wall sconces providing just enough mute light so she could see that apartment 10G was at the far end.
The door was open and she walked into a flood of sunlight in a long, wide living room. The kitchen, which was open to the little foyer where she stood, was neat and compact and efficient, and to her right was a hallway.
She peeked into the kitchen, which had a dishwasher, a microwave, a refrigerator, a stove, and more counter space and cabinets than she would have guessed. Down the hall was a spacious bedroom with a big closet. Farther down there was a bathroom and a stacked laundry, and a larger second bedroom with a futon already set up, and a private bath.
Thane Bohansson was standing by the window, waiting to pounce.
“About damned time,” he said, grabbing her and kissing her. “This is your place now. Our place.”
“What?!”
“I want your nipples that bad. You owe me that photograph of them, by the way.”
She felt shell-shocked. The place was bare, freshly painted, sparkling and new, quite wonderful in the realm of New York City apartments.
This was mistress territory. This was the luxury apartment provided by the lover who wanted his sex convenient and on his terms. This was the goal of her Mistress Club.
But so fast? This quick?
Why not? Was she not gorgeous, intelligent, firm, flexible, and fuckable?
“My decorator will take care of furnishing it; it’ll be ready Friday.”
She stared at him.
He took her palm and dropped in the keys. “You’ll move in next week. Anything you don’t like, change. Keep working or not, but be ready to accommodate me whenever I want to fuck you. That means lunch, after hours, before breakfast. I can give you Tuesdays and Thursdays, and plan for me to stay overnight.”
She couldn’t quite catch her breath; it was all too overwhelming.
“I’d rather you didn’t work,” he went on. “Then I could take my time when I feel like a fuck—like now.”
Oh, Lord, how fast this was going! She couldn’t grasp it all, she could barely breathe.
“I set up a little checking account for you. The bank’s around the corner, across the street. You’ll sign the cards, everything’s done. I’ll send up groceries once a week. That’s it. I’ll see you next Tuesday, five o’clock sharp. And there’s the main disadvantage of your working: We could be fucking all day, instead of a couple of hours. Think about it, Nipples.”
“I will,” she whispered. All day? She swallowed hard. “I’ll be here.”
> “Move in Monday. Maybe I can squeeze into you before breakfast.”
The door closed. Her knees were so weak that she had to sit down.
I’m a mistress.
She felt heart-stopping panic. I’m a mistress.
And I still don’t know if I want it to be him.
“Of course you’re going to move in there,” Delia told her. “Don’t get nuts. You’re getting everything for what we routinely give away. A well-heeled, well-endowed penis is handing it to you, and you’re quibbling about his looks?”
“I know, I know. But—what if there’s someone better out there?”
“Better looking, you mean?” Delia asked. “Don’t be an ass, Brooke. Just do it and see what happens. You said the sex obliterates every hesitation, once you get started.”
“Yeah. In the dark.”
Delia was helping her pack. It was Saturday and they hadn’t heard from MJ since she’d called Delia last Sunday, but they knew the apartment had been emptied and was now for rent. That was pretty final.
MJ’s sudden disappearance was pretty final, come to that. She hadn’t known where she was going to be living, so they had no way to find her.
Delia made a sound. “Well, MJ’s with someone, and you didn’t see her quibbling about him. She’s reaping all those rewards you’re turning up your nose at.”
“And maybe hers is Prince Charming rather than the frog,” Brooke said.
Delia looked disgusted with her. “By the way, what are you doing with this place?”
“I’m going to keep it—maybe sublet it if I can, unless you want to move here?”
Delia gave it some thought. “Tell you what, I’ll stay at least until next weekend, because who knows what will happen after my interview with Vanessa.”
“Right. Because your Prince Charming is going to walk right through that spa door.”
Delia shook her head. “You’d better reread that Mistress Code, girl. Thane might be a frog, but he’s also Prince Charming—for now.”
MJ was purring with contentment. Harold had set her up in the sweetest little one-bedroom apartment in the Village. It had an efficient little kitchen looking into the long living room, a balcony, a nice-sized bedroom that accommodated a queen-sized bed, a little den, and a luxurious bathroom where she could soak to her heart’s content when Harold was done having sex with her.
It was all perfect. She didn’t have to go anywhere, do anything. All she had to do was keep herself perfumed, stroking soft, pliant, naked, and ready for Harold. She didn’t even, technically, need clothes. He provided everything. Everything. All the forbidden, luscious, constricting, and cutout undergarments that she had ever coveted.
She had a thrall collar encrusted with gold. The leather corset she wore was strewn with gold studs. The bondage straps were decorated with diamonds. All for him and the delicacy with which he dominated her.
He could give her three days, Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. She understood. He had a family, a wife, a job. Sometimes he snuck in early in the morning and made her submit to his demands. Sometimes he sat like a potentate in a special chair that he’d found for her living room. It had a cutout seat so his big balls could dangle freely and she could easily burrow between his legs to feast on them. It had stirrups for her where she hooked her heels to spread herself to give him utter control of her sex. It had restraints to keep her hands from interfering with anything he wanted to do to her.
He was gentle and firm with her both. She liked it best when he just held her down and pleasured her, but the covert implements were her secret excitement, her forbidden need, and he catered to that desire in her, too.
He liked inserting things into her, too, soft flexible eggs, objects that vibrated and penetrated front and back. He liked her blowing him off while he did her by vibrator, and he especially liked coming on her body.
“This is why I need you ready for me all the time,” he whispered as they lay on the bed one morning after a furious bout of coupling. He pushed against her bottom, rock hard again and nudging into her crease. He began sliding his shaft between her buttocks, using it like her cleft.
She moved to keep rhythm with him; a minute later, he spurted into her crease.
“Crap. A teaspoon of milk; what good’s that? MJ! Make me hard again.”
“Yes, Harold.”
She loved making him hard. She tried to be inventive about it, too. He had the biggest, hardest, pumpingest shaft she’d ever had, and she loved playing with it. She couldn’t guarantee that would increase his semen production after so many hours of sex, but she knew that was what he wanted: a hot deluge erupting like a geyser, a monument to his virility. And he’d want to see it—he wouldn’t want it pouring into her mysterious, dark womanhood.
The trick was to concentrate on his luscious balls, sucking them until they got tight and hard, and only then paying attention to his bull of a penis.
That was the secret with Harold: paying attention. Giving him what he wanted, then gratefully taking his reward for pleasuring him thoroughly. She loved the way he bullheaded his way into her in his purely male, take-possession way. She loved everything he did to her. She loved everything he gave her.
She was getting and giving in huge measure, because Harold was huge, in all ways. And how lucky was she to have found him almost on her doorstep at the Mistress Club?
I am a mistress, she thought as she climbed between his legs and delicately spread them apart. I’ve got everything Brooke ever said we wanted. I’m getting all the sex a woman could want and all the perks: my own apartment, I don’t have to work, and I own a bull of a man who pleasures me exactly the way I want to be pleasured.
It was a stunning thought.
I really am Harold’s mistress…she bent her head between his legs, her lips and tongue just grazing his saggy balls…and I’m mistress of Harold right now.
Chapter Fourteen
Delia decided to channel her inner Grace Kelly for her follow-up visit to Maîtrise and wore a white silk halter top draped with necklaces, a narrow taupe skirt that kissed her knees, cinched with a wide suede belt, brown suede open-toed shoes, a taupe envelope pocketbook tucked under her arm, pearl button earrings, and a slubbed silk topper thrown over her shoulders.
Her blonde hair was spiky with gel, and her makeup was more intense than usual, emphasizing her ingenuous blue eyes by rimming them with kohl.
“What do you think?” she asked Brooke, who was packing the final few things she would need when she moved to the apartment the next day.
“I think you need an escort.”
“I’m trying to find an escort,” Delia said. “Do I look approachable?”
Brooke grinned. “Every woman looks approachable when she’s naked.”
With that, Delia went out to catch a cab to Maîtrise.
It wasn’t long before she was entering the living room. Vanessa entered from the door on the far side of the room with her hands outstretched.
“I’m so pleased to offer you membership in Maîtrise,” Vanessa said. “You’ll be such an asset. Shall we go to my office?”
There, she went into the logistics of the club’s confidentiality statement.
Delia signed.
Vanessa gave her the questionnaire. “Take your time, Delia.”
“Thank you.” It was what she expected, the answers obvious, as Brooke had described.
“Well, then. It’s time to show you your dressing room. Here’s the key.”
At that moment, the door opened and a tall, vital man burst in. He was dressed impeccably in an expensive hand-tailored suit, and his accessories were perfectly matched. “Vanessa!”
“Sonny, what’s the problem?”
“I…” He looked at Delia and his voice caught.
“This is Delia. Delia, this is Sonny Hanes.”
Delia stood and held out her hand. “I’m so pleased,” she murmured as he took her hand and held it in his warm bear grip.
“Delia.” His voice
was warm, gravelly, and rather shell-shocked. He turned to Vanessa. “Forget everything. Convince Delia to have lunch with me.”
Vanessa raised her eyebrows. “Really, Sonny. You know better than anyone that we don’t—”
“Let Delia decide. She can always come back later.”
Vanessa sighed. “Delia, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Sonny Hanes, a prominent businessman in the city, who would be delighted to take you to lunch if you’d like to go out with him.”
Delia stared into his dark eyes. He had such a strong face and such a masculine presence. He was obviously a man who knew what he wanted and how to go about getting it. He would be a terror in business, she thought, and equally demanding in bed.
Here was a challenge, right at the start. What harm could lunch do?
“I’d be delighted,” she said, smiling up at him. God, he was tall.
“Good. Let’s go, now.”
Out on the street, Sonny asked her, “Where would you like to eat?” He hailed a cab, gave the driver an address, and helped her in. “Anywhere you want to go. Or if you wouldn’t mind, maybe you’d like to have lunch at my apartment.”
Whoa, stud man, Delia thought. Talk about starting off at a gallop.
“I’ll call my man.”
His man? She looked at him consideringly.
He looked at her chest, at the satin slide of material that draped over her already stiff nipples, and then he looked at her. “Which would you prefer—a lot of pretty talk or straight shooting?”
“That depends on what you want to shoot, Mr. Hanes.”
“I want to shoot my wad all over your nipples. Call me Sonny.”
She swallowed. “That’s pretty up front.”
“Are you kidding? My up-front ejaculated the minute I walked in the door and saw you.”
“Sonny,” she said chidingly. That really was too much!
“Feel me.” He grabbed her hand and slid it between his legs. His penis was hot and hard, and the fabric was wet just below the zipper.
He was obviously a client of Maîtrise, obviously well-off, and obviously instantly intrigued with her. She just as easily could have met him in the lounge as in Vanessa’s office, and she didn’t have to get naked to see he wanted to have sex with her.
