Naughty Bits

by Lacy Danes

  “Under the circumstances?”

  “—I shall make an exception.” She wiped tears from her eyes. When was the last time she’d laughed so hard? Ages. Years.

  “You honor me, Your Highness.” Dante rolled onto his back, studying her painted ceiling as if it held the secrets of the night sky. His hands were cupped casually over his belly, his erection resting lightly on top of them. He turned his head and grinned. “Care to honor me again?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Philomena marveled at his aplomb. What would that be like? To be so aroused, and still calm. To enjoy the sensation for minutes at a time, even with another person watching. Her own body was creating a panic of awareness: the piercing tightness in her breasts, the slippery moisture between her legs, the throb that made it hard not to flex her private muscles and squirm…

  “What next?” She forced the whisper through her tight throat.

  “Next?” He rolled close, kissed her mouth softly, pushed up on one elbow and slung his leg over her. “Reach me the keys, so I can show you.”

  “Keys?”

  “I need my hands free, Mena, to do what comes next.”

  This kiss opened her. His tongue erased the boundaries between them; thick and wet, it reminded her of having his cock in her mouth and she couldn’t hold back the sound of the hungry yearning she felt.

  “Oh God, Mena. My hands. Now.”

  “No.” She shifted out from under him and sat up. “No.”

  Even handcuffed, he held so much power over her. Shaking, she pushed him flat on his back. She shifted to her knees, looked down into his wide blue eyes. “Twelve years I was married. I’ve never been the one to say how, when or where. I don’t need your hands. I need your cooperation.”

  She crawled over him, one knee to either side of his hips, one hand flat over his heart, his wrists chained, hands open, reaching…She took his cock firmly in her other hand, and stopped breathing as she notched him into her wet folds. She meant to go slowly, to give herself time; it felt so different than she remembered, so full, warm, harder, stiffer…

  But Dante had other ideas. He thrust quickly upward, crying out as if he were the invaded party, catching her wrists in his shackled hands.

  Trapping her. Trapping himself.

  “Oh, oh my.” Philomena tipped and rolled, locked in place above him.

  “Again,” he groaned.

  Panting, she tried to feel one thing separate from the rest, to repeat what he needed, to understand the sensations lighting her body on fire. She pushed back, sitting up straight, sending his cock higher inside.

  Dante’s head tipped back, exposing his throat and releasing a gasping, guttural “Oh, fuuuuck.”

  Philomena nearly laughed aloud—again. Happiness bubbled through her, making her lighter and lighter inside. She lifted her hips off her heels and slid down hard and fast, hoping she might be able to make him do it again.

  It worked. Three times in a row, in fact.

  Then all at once, they began to gasp together. Lift to meet each other. Separate with intent. It was the sweetest feeling she’d ever experienced. Her palms pressed solidly over the bones and flesh of his hips, she lifted and fell…“Dante,” she whispered. “Shouldn’t we move to the bed?”

  “Beds are for old, married people. Lovers prefer the carpet.”

  “They do?”

  “Or the wall, the closet, the carriage…”

  His words filled her mind with images as his body filled her with sensations. “But why?”

  “Lovers…need…quick…fierce.” Each of his words punctuated a thrust. “I’ll…teach you…Mena. Every…single…way.”

  “How?”

  His answer was startlingly swift. The muscles of his stomach tightened, his thighs flexed. He pushed forward with his chest, cradling her in the vee of his lifted torso and raised knees. The moment she’d adjusted her limbs for comfort, he pressed his advantage and carried her backward, flat onto the floor, rising on his splayed knees. Frustrated by his restraints, he pulled her into him, one side then the other, locking her tight to his body, her bottom wedged against the slant of his thighs, her knees wide on either side of his hips.

  Here again, the sensation of him changed. How many different ways could it feel? Now there was more than his thickness and heat. She felt the stroke of some sweet, sharp nerve inside. She felt the pinch of tears.

  “More, more. Oh, please…”

  “More like this? How beautiful you are, my Mena, my queen.” Talking while tilting his hips the smallest amount, just enough, Dante pressed inside. He opened her with his body and his words. “Look at me here, on my knees for you. Still wearing your chains. You’re safe with me, yes you are, my queen….” His words wove a spell. “Let go.”

  He bent forward and, with his teeth, caught the tiny blue ribbons that held her silk chemise closed. Tugging, tearing at her last covering, and always tilting, tipping, rocking her inside.

  She hadn’t wanted to be naked in front of him. She’d chosen to keep that thin garment, mindful as a queen of every layer of meaning. A warning flared through her oversensitized body.

  “Stop. Wait.” She squirmed and her own motions shrugged the fabric from her shoulders, exposing her. “Oh no, don’t. I’m too…”

  “You’re beautiful. Let me see. Please.”

  He locked her wrists in the circle of his fingers—held them tight as any handcuffs. He never stopped moving, stroking her, asking for something she didn’t know how to give.

  “Mena, look at me, on my knees. Begging. Do you feel me begging?” He straightened his thighs, pulling her up into him. His shoulders relaxed, his eyes closed and he thrust, hard.

  And did not stop.

  She answered with a sound that mingled exclamation and warning. It was different again—the sweet and sharp punctuated by crashing violence. She arched her feet, digging her toes into the soft carpet, and still was rocked with each powerful thrust.

  “Let go.” His voice was deep, clear, his words a command. “Let go. Now.”

  No one could resist. No one.

  She went in all directions, with a heart-stopping disintegration, disappearing inside and suddenly beginning again, all at once, all together.

  “Yes!” he shouted, chest thrust forward, head back, fingers sprung open releasing her, snapping the chain between his cuffed hands.

  The next moments were disorderly.

  Philomena heard his footsteps, then the jingle and clink of keys and metal falling on the nearby chest of drawers. A rustle of linens preceded the soft warmth of a blanket falling around her, a pillow being tucked beneath her head.

  He slipped in behind her, pulling her bottom into the warm nest of his body.

  “Can we try the wall or the closet next?” she whispered, fighting to hear his answer before sleep.

  “Another time, my queen. Rest.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Yes?”

  “I know we have never encountered one another before in the palace.” She covered his hand where it lay against her belly. “But should you ever by chance come upon me, at court perhaps or even in some state procession, will you turn away? Quickly. Don’t speak to me. Don’t even look.”

  She felt him pull back, cold air slipping between them. “Why?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “I will be another man’s queen. I’m afraid I will not remember my duty, should I ever see you again.”

  With a sigh, the distance between them closed. “Fear not, my queen. Fear not.”

  Philomena melted into his warmth and let herself go again…this time into deep, restful sleep.

  “Poor queen,” Dev murmured.

  The rain pattered softly now, on the roof. He pulled Maeve in close, rocking his hips steadily against the pillow of her ass, nestling his cock along the damp warmth of her cleft. He could come like this, spooning, her voice creating pictures in his mind. The longer the story, the harder it was to re
sist.

  “Only if we end it there,” she answered breathily.

  “There’s more then?” He flicked a finger casually, and grinned when she squeaked.

  “Would you like more?”

  He thrust and withdrew, slowly. Letting them both enjoy the wait. “Always.”

  The next day was diabolically beautiful. The sun shone. The birds sang.

  The queen wept.

  Discipline supported her. She bathed, dressed and sat for her hair exactly as always. Exactly as if it did not matter.

  The moment she swept into the church, in a sigh of lacy silk, the organist stopped. The audience rustled to its feet. Philomena’s eyes filled with tears and blurred the particulars of the faces around her. Her people.

  One foot in front of the next.

  Duty.

  As she stepped up onto the dais, the king she would marry took her elbow. She nearly resisted.

  And then she nearly fainted.

  His smile dripped wicked satisfaction. His voice was pitched for her alone. “It is quite frightening how well your lord chamberlain knows you.”

  “Dante?”

  “King Western Border to you, my dear.” He pulled her closer to whisper in her ear. “Tonight, we use the bed. And you wear the handcuffs.”

  Thank heavens her veil disguised the shocking, meltingly hot blush that kissed her body.

  But he felt it. She knew he did.

  “Your Highness.”

  “Absolutely, Your Highness,” she agreed.

  “Happy after all,” he cooed in her ear.

  “I like a happy ending, don’t you?”

  He rolled over her, crushing her flat beneath him and reaching over the side of the bed until he found the slippery silk of a discarded stocking. Her giggle was hard to hear around the mouthful of pillow. “Very. Allow me to demonstrate my appreciation for your creativity.”

  Dev grabbed one of her hands and knotted the material around her wrist. He flipped her onto her back, wrapping the stocking around the spindle of the bed frame in one smooth motion. Her arm stretched over her head. He grabbed her other wrist and looped the loose end of her stocking around it.

  She cocked an eyebrow as she watched him go about the business of tying her to the bed. “That stocking is Donna Karan.”

  “Oh?”

  “Silk.”

  “Never looked better on you,” he said, letting his eyes feast on the sight of her. “Handy, too.”

  “You’re cheating. In my story, the king was the helpless one.”

  “The king never cheats.” He nipped the tip of her breast, and sucked it hard, exactly the way Dante had kissed his queen. “The king makes the rules. Tonight, we pick up where your story left off.”

  Letting Go

  SARAH MCCARTY

  THE CAR PULLED UP IN FRONT OF THE DARK CABIN. The white glow of the moon reflecting off newly fallen snow highlighted the isolation of the log home set at the foot of the mountain. It was perfect. Remote. Comfortable. And it was theirs for the weekend. No work. No pets. Nothing to distract them from each other.

  The uncharacteristic shyness that had been plaguing her the entire four-hour trip came back in spades as Marc switched off the car’s engine. Which was absolutely ridiculous. They’d planned this weekend for a month. Nothing was going to happen here that either of them hadn’t eagerly anticipated, but now that it was time for the planning to give birth to fantasy, she was shy to the point of blushing. She, the woman who never blushed, never embarrassed. Never lost control.

  Becky pretended an interest in the scenery as the driver’s side door opened. Marc’s gaze slid over her like a touch, poking at her insecurities, asking silent questions she didn’t want to answer. Anticipation and nerves fluttered in her stomach in a queasy combination. She made her expression blank to hide her discomfort.

  Marc sighed. The door creaked open. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”

  She kept her voice just as balanced as her expression. “Yes, we do.” Because she was so sick of not being who she wanted to be with him.

  “Then why the cold shoulder?”

  That got her looking at him. He thought she was brushing him off? She took a subtle steadying breath, inhaling the scent of the outdoors…and Marc. Both were clean, crisp and intangibly tied together in her mind, maybe because they’d met on a weekend kayak excursion, but more than likely because the man was as elemental as the forest around them.

  She unclenched fists she didn’t know she’d been clenching. Good grief! No wonder he was asking questions. She looked more ready to go into battle than indulge in a romantic weekend. Becky shook her head at her own idiocy, her hair swishing around her shoulders with the movement. She brushed a strand away from her mouth. “Believe it or not, I’m nervous.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t try to make eye contact again, which was good. If she’d looked at him, pride would have demanded she lie. “Because I’m afraid I might not live up to your expectations.”

  The back of his fingers brushed down the side of her cheek. His low chuckle still sent a shiver down her spine the way it had the first time she’d heard it. Not for the first time she wondered what attracted him to her. He was as sexy and as uninhibited as a man could get, and she had more inhibitions than…well, than anyone needed.

  “Baby, we’ve been married for two years—do you really think I don’t know what you’re capable of?”

  She looked at him then, taking in the amusement and understanding in his gaze. He was so sure this wasn’t going to be a disaster. “Neither of us knows that.”

  His smile was a slow, sexy stretch of the lips she’d seen many times before. Masculine. Knowing. And confident. He was always so confident. “I know.”

  She clung to that confidence as his hand skimmed her neck, her shoulder, then her thigh. A pat on her knee followed by a quick squeeze and then he was out of the car, leaving her alone with her hopes, fears and that borrowed bravado. Crisp night air swept in on his exit and she jumped as the door thudded shut.

  She shook her head at her own cowardice. They’d devoted this weekend to obliterating the inhibitions between them. Inhibitions neither wanted. Becky slung her purse over her shoulder, watching in the rearview mirror as Marc walked around the back, a tall muscular silhouette cast in moonlight. Cowering in the car wasn’t an impressive start on her side.

  She yanked the latch and shoved the door open. Snow crunched beneath her feet as she stood and stretched. The night sky expanded before her, a satiny carpet of black speckled with shining stars and dotted with glowing planets. She took a deep breath of the frigid air, shivering as it bit into her lungs.

  A cloud wafted across the moonlit sky. She released her breath, watching the frozen vapor rise until it seemed to meld with that wispy traveler, becoming more than what it was, and yet still less than it would be. For a minute more, she watched the cloud skate along, free and unfettered, and then smiled as, with absolute certainty, she knew everything was going to be all right. There was nothing she and he couldn’t do. Nothing they couldn’t accomplish. Not together. Together, they were like that cloud. More than what they had been before, yet ever growing with boundless potential. She just had to stop being afraid to let go.

  Anticipation skittered through her veins as she walked around the back of the car. The view here was as interesting as the night sky, seeing as Marc was stretched forward, retrieving a suitcase. The man had the body of a runner, roped with lean, hard muscle. She slid her hands up the side of his thighs, smiling as taut muscle flexed under her touch, gliding them up over his narrow hips, under his jacket, around his waist.

  He jumped at the chill of her hands and then relaxed into her hug, settling his palms over hers, pressing them into his abdomen. As always, he communicated so much with a touch, his thoughts as clear as if he’d spoken. She pressed her cheek against the smooth leather of his jacket.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered. And because she couldn’t resist, adde
d, “And I swear, I’m not going to be like this all weekend.”

  “Sweetheart, a few nerves aren’t going to send me running scared.”

  “Even if I babble occasionally?”

  He turned in her arms, his hands dropping to the hollow of her spine. “I’ve never seen you babble. Might be cute to witness.”

  She tilted her head. With a foot difference in their heights, she had to lean back a bit before she could see his expression. “Trust me, it’s not a pretty picture.”

  That half amused, half indulgent smile was still on his face. His head bent. Just before his mouth met hers, he whispered, “I’ll chance it.”

  If there was ever proof that the man got her, it was right there in his kiss. He didn’t just take what he wanted like she expected, but rather he seduced, his mouth rubbing against hers in a subtle coaxing that sapped the anxiety right out of her and replaced it with a warm willingness. Willingness to trust him, to do what he wanted, to be what he wanted. What she wanted.

  She opened her mouth and stretched up on her toes, accepting the thrust of his tongue, the natural dominance in his hold, tilting her head to give him more, letting him lead her past the point where caution said stop. Spreading her legs for the insertion of his thigh between, she checked her impulse to control the need to rub against him, following her instinct and his lead rather than her head. With her next breath she inhaled his groan of satisfaction.

  “That’s it. Just let it happen.”

  His grip moved to her hips, lifting her up against the thrust of his cock, pressing down as she worked her hips in an effort to get closer, to his heat, his cock, to him….

  Too soon he was sliding her down his body, setting her feet on the ground, separating their lips.

  “Hold that thought.”

  She didn’t want to hold anything but him. The press of his thumb at the corner of her mouth sent a shock wave of need through her. Everything she ever dreaded seeing in a man’s eyes was there in Marc’s: amusement, satisfaction and, worst of all, a complacent grin that said he knew exactly how weak she was when it came to him. But her inward flinch never got a running start because there was no malice in that grin, just a bone deep satisfaction that was as arousing as it was comforting because it said more than anything else that at least one of them knew what they were doing. And it was completely natural that it was him.