by Rea Thomas
She slumped against the pillows as he retreated to the living room again, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
Lisabeth waited for ten minutes, idly touching herself. She was tempted to masturbate herself to orgasm, regardless of Vikram’s desires. Important call or not, she was insulted by his disregard for her. They had terms in their damn agreement—terms that he was continually ignoring and amending.
Getting to her feet, Lisabeth dropped her shorts and panties to her ankles and kicked them aside, before stripping off her shirt. With fiery determination, she strode across the bedroom and flung open the living room door.
Vikram was sitting on the couch, bent forward and elbows on his knees. His dark head was lowered, and snapped up in surprise when she burst into the room—stark naked. The words he spoke slowed to a stutter until he regained composure and quirked an eyebrow, questioning her sanity.
Lisabeth knew she looked good—at least in his eyes. Desire had materialized in the room, spawning into an entity that seemed to have a pulse. Seemed to breathe.
She shook her long, dark curls free and crossed the plush threaded carpet, toward him. Although he continued to talk, presumably in Punjabi again, his eyes stayed firmly on her. She let him drink in the sight of her nakedness and hoped he recognized the determination that had seized control of her, like wicked possession. He was the proverbial apple and she wanted to bite.
Stepping in front of him, Lisabeth trailed her fingers through his thick, black hair and drew his head upward. The anonymous caller on the other end of his phone may or may not have been aware of the change in Vikram’s pitch. Lisabeth smiled, sinking to the coffee table before him.
His hand reached out to touch her, an instinct that he could not quell. Lisabeth swept her tongue over her lips, parting her thighs to him. Vikram’s eyes lowered to her pussy; the tender pink flesh was slick and shiny in the muted lamplight. He watched as she brought two fingers to her clit, delving into the sticky wetness of her arousal. His breathing took a hitch and he practically growled into the telephone, unable to look away.
Lisabeth tenderly caressed her wet lips, parting herself farther as she placed her feet against the couch cushions on either side of his legs. She felt bold and sexy, excited by the yearning that shrouded Vikram’s face. Lisabeth hoped she would pay dearly for her wicked stunt, later. In the meantime, she would garner as much gratification as she could out of mindlessly torturing him. She slipped two fingers deep into her pussy, rolling her thumb across her clit.
It felt deeply personal to masturbate in front of him, as though she were unveiling some hidden part of herself. Vikram seemed to think so too, for he was captivated as he watched the movement of her hands as she pleasured herself, pinching her hard, pink nipples with one hand, gently fucking herself with the other.
His fingers danced over her shin, upward over her knee while he spoke into the phone. Lisabeth’s pussy throbbed hotly when his touch disappeared at the top of her thigh and his hand covered hers, matching her strokes over her hard, needy clit.
Vikram’s voice was calm once more, lending no indication to the caller that he was pleasuring the woman reclining on his coffee table. Even in another language, he sounded cool and matter-of-fact. It was only the golden flash in his eyes that betrayed him. Lisabeth wanted him to be rattled, because she enjoyed having him at her mercy. Unfortunately it felt as though it had been mostly the other way around so far.
Removing her fingers, she sank to her knees on the carpet and began work on his buckle. Her movements were efficient, popping the button of his jeans within seconds. Vikram’s body went stiff, realizing her intent. Let’s see how composed you are in a second, Lisabeth thought smugly. She had been told that her mouth could do magnificent things—tricky, wicked, delicious things.
Lisabeth wrapped her fingers around the width of his hard cock, stroking slowly upward. Pleased when Vikram released a breathy hiss in response, she circled the silky tip with her thumb and felt her own arousal gather momentum at his obvious distraction. Lisabeth shuffled forward on her knees, bending her head to run her tongue over the length of him.
Vikram paused mid-sentence, drawing a lungful of air into his mouth. His lids fluttered shut over glinting irises, shuttering away the rapid demolition of his control. He reached for her hair, guiding her head upward with a none-too-gentle tug. Her whimper in protest was silenced by his cock filling her mouth, surrounding him in a hot, wet vacuum. She worked the base of him in a fist, testing the weighty flesh of his sac in her palm.
Lisabeth had never been a woman with a preoccupation for semen. When indulging in pornography she had never gone looking for cum-orientated videos, but there was something about Vikram that brought forth a lifetime of suppressed depravity. Suddenly, she wanted to taste him on her tongue, exploding inside her…on her skin. Her mind played scenarios in an endless stream—much like a porno, in fact. Lisabeth wanted to explore a thousand acts and techniques that had never existed in the days of fucking for necessity.
Vikram sighed in disappointment when she removed him from her mouth, leaning back to inspect the shimmer of her saliva on his shaft, mixing with the pearl of clear pre-cum that had leaked from the tip. Lisabeth traced its path with her eyes, then her tongue, tasting the headiness of him. Her lips sucked him as she would a ripe peach, while her eyes watched him through her lashes. She wished she could understand his conversation—if only to know whether he was still making sense.
She hoped not.
Vikram watched her with studious intent as she took his cock in her hand again, tracing the wet head over her hard nipple in a circle, and then the other. The slick fluid made her skin gleam—tasty morsels beckoning his mouth. Lisabeth pinched the peaks of her breasts, massaging his sticky essence into her flesh. The air was dense with the scent of their combined arousal, an unmistakable earthy, wood smell.
Lisabeth stretched her body, the tip of his cock running over her sternum, downward toward her bellybutton, leaving a wet, fluid trail. She pressed the tip of her finger to the teardrop of cum sluicing over him and brought it to her mouth, touching the moisture to her lips as though she were applying balm. Vikram went quiet, his lips parting as he watched her. The voice of the telephone caller echoed through the speaker and Vikram cleared his throat.
“Haan, haan,” he said quickly, breathlessly, trying to straighten himself. Lisabeth bent her head again, drawing wet circles on the hard planes of his stomach, dipping into the sloping valleys of his abdominals—she felt the muscles twitch and flex, quite certain Vikram’s body was infinitely more divine than any man’s she’d ever seen. He would not have achieved such fine physique from working out alone, Lisabeth decided as she pressed the tip of her tongue to his navel. His was the form of a man who had worked outdoors, sweating beneath the baking Indian sun.
Coarse, dark hair curled over his groin, as black as ink against his hazelnut-colored skin. Lisabeth peppered kisses across his stomach, fingers clasped over his hard thighs, ignoring the prompting of his hands against her head. His lips uttered an endless stream of Punjabi into the phone but his amber eyes said put my cock back in your mouth. Equally, he almost seemed to fear that she might. The restraint he had demonstrated was unraveling faster than a ball of yarn in the paws of a kitten.
Lisabeth’s lips parted over his cock, her eyes teasing as she watched him. She brought her tongue achingly close to his hard shaft, waiting for a painfully long time before licking at him as though she were a child with a Popsicle. Vikram’s fingers dug into the cushions of the sofa, his knuckles popping.
His hips rose toward her, thrusting him deep into her mouth. Lisabeth felt the smooth crown of his cock touch the back of her throat and tried to pull back, but his right hand was firmly entangled in her hair, cupping the back of her skull. She gargled a moan of protest, digging her nails into his thighs. Vikram was either too distracted by the suction of her mouth or he didn’t feel pain, for he did not react to the pierce of her nails.
Li
sabeth saw his stomach tighten, and the talking had stopped.
“Ek minute,” he said to the caller in a strangled, husky voice. The phone was tossed aside, somewhere in the general direction of the vacant cushion next to him as Vikram flung his head back. “Oh fuck, yeah…” he growled, reverting to English, pushing down on Lisabeth’s head until she thought she would choke.
Withdrawing his hands roughly from her head, she pulled his cock from her mouth with an audible pop. Her fingers pumped at his shaft, unrelenting even when he gave a stifled moan. Vikram froze, his hips elevated from the sofa, his black hair clinging damply to his forehead in unruly strands.
“Lisabeth…fuck…” A thread of thick, hot semen burst across her breasts, splattered over her skin in opaque, glittering drops. Lisabeth gasped in surprise—surprise at the sheer volume of sticky fluid dripping between her breasts.
Vikram went limp against the sofa, withdrawing his half-erect shaft from her loosened fingers with a relieved sigh. Next to him, his BlackBerry began to ring again—likely his perplexed friend calling back. He ignored it, sucking deep breaths into his lungs.
Lisabeth stood, forcing him to look at her pale skin branded by him. She thought she saw possession in his eyes, as if the alpha male in him was proud at having marked his territory so effectively. She gathered a drop on her finger, bringing it to her lips and sucking it off as she might sticky caramel or melted chocolate.
“You are…” He shook his head, just barely finding his voice again. “You are really something.”
It was not clear whether he had complimented or insulted her, but Lisabeth didn’t care. She had made him lose control—had forced him to end the telephone call on her terms. It was an emphatic win, she decided.
“Answer the phone, Vikram,” she said, turning away. “It’s so rude of you to ignore your calls.” When she sashayed back toward the bedroom, she felt his eyes on her backside and smiled happily.
“Lisabeth?”
She stopped, but did not turn.
“Your mouth is good for so much more than just telling lies.” There was a beat of silence and then the ringing stopped. “Haan,” he said, and Lisabeth walked on.
Chapter Eleven
Vikram fucked her twice more before sunrise. He explored every inch of her body with the same unyielding precision he would afford his work. Lisabeth was tired and achy as she slid from the crumpled sheets, wishing the darkness had not departed so soon—not least because she was exhausted and in desperate need of a few extra hours of sleep. To boot, the hot pulse of desire was throbbing again between her thighs as she glimpsed Vikram’s lithe and naked body, somehow even darker in contrast to the striking white linen thrown messily across his thighs.
Lisabeth stood by the bathroom door for a few moments, permitting herself the luxury of memorizing his beautiful form—the long, thick limbs, dark skin, coarse hair, tight muscles…his semi-erect cock. Especially his cock, for she was leaving in ten minutes, silently absconding into the sunrise, never to experience the nirvana of sex with Vikram Singh again. It was a magnificently depressing thought and one that turned down the corners of Lisabeth’s mouth. She had almost decided to abandon her plans, and her identity.
Turning away, she stepped into the bathroom and eased the door shut, praying he wouldn’t wake up in the meantime.
* * * * *
Vikram reached across the cool sheets for her warm, malleable and now familiar body. Even in foggy half-wakefulness, he was already thinking about having her. His libido had never been so insatiable before, thirsting for her encouraging moans, wet, willing flesh and the welcome torrent of his orgasm. After her devilish blowjob last night, he had fucked her mercilessly for hours—and now he was ready again.
His eyes snapped open, blinded by the sunlight streaming into the bedroom and across the empty sheets next to him. Panic seized his chest in an iron grip, his heart beating with painful thuds in his rib cage as he leapt to his feet.
Treacherous little bitch, he thought, almost tripping over the fallen sheets tangling at his ankles. Vikram fumbled inelegantly, kicking himself free before tearing through the bedroom toward the living room.
Empty.
He forced open the bathroom door with such frantic gusto that the handle smashed loudly against the white tile, fracturing the ceramic with a hairline crack.
“Shit,” he cursed, slamming his fist against the wall. “Maanchod!”
She had tricked him, lulled him into post-coital exhaustion and had flitted off to only God knew where. How could he have been so damn foolish? Lisabeth Baker had deceit written all over her beautiful, wicked face.
He saw his murderous reflection in the mirror and thought he might shatter the glass with a well-aimed punch. Vikram did not recognize himself as he met his own eyes with a sense of despair and shame. Years of being impervious and shrewd had taught him nothing. He was no better than the thousands of men he had silently reproached for being ensnared by cunning women. A mixture of manic fear and white-hot rage tore through him, playing havoc with his vital organs.
Vikram’s fingers tore through his hair as he turned back to the bedroom, certain of his demise. Even if he disappeared, men like Nikolai Volkov didn’t forget about their personal vendettas. Business was business to men like the Russian.
He froze, his eyes dropping to the purple, velvet-cushioned ottoman at the bottom of the bed—the same ottoman that had been witness to an incredible amount of action last night as he had stretched Lisabeth over it, her firm, pert bottom raised, and taken her from behind. He took a step forward, hardly daring to believe that he had misjudged her, but there it was, wrapped in the slightly crumpled linen—Krishna’s flute.
She had, despite incredible odds against it, kept her side of the bargain.
Vikram did not move for thirty seconds, confused by the conflict of his emotions.
Now his heart had slowed, he felt deeply bereft at her absence. He was rid of her. Rid of the woman he had never wanted to entangle himself with in the first place, and yet instead of feeling liberated, Vikram felt something close to lonely. Not even the glimmering brilliance of the golden flute’s gemstones could brighten his spirits as he unwrapped the cloth and ran his fingers over the millennia-old instrument. Instead he thought of the titillating stroke of Lisabeth’s hands, back in that hotel room in Chennai—that first moment when he had been struck by a fierce bolt of longing.
He saw a slip of folded hotel stationery, the corner of which was tucked beneath a tasseled cushion. Lisabeth’s hurried handwriting was devoid of romantic endearments and said only:
Vikram,
See you in Avalon?
Lisabeth
He stared blankly at the words, thinking, Is this it? That’s her parting words? Nothing more than a nonsensical, arbitrary sentence? Then, as the meaning of her cryptic message dawned on him, Vikram’s heart began to beat a little faster, once again. He had been right! Lisabeth would never have departed Mumbai in any kind of clean-cut, fair-game way. Her instinctively devious mind must have been plotting all night long—probably while he was enjoying her body.
Well, perhaps not. She had seemed distracted then too, and even she could not have been such a good actress. No, suddenly her shifty behavior when he had returned to the bedroom last night made sense. He glanced at his backpack, certain beyond a doubt that every word and photograph contained within the brown envelope had been memorized by Lisabeth’s brilliant mind.
He traced a thumb over her handwritten words, surprised at how his heart leapt with something close to pleasure. Maybe I will get to fuck her again, one day, Vikram thought. He was sure of one thing though—he would at least see her again, and soon.
“Sure, baby,” he said aloud, folding the note in half. “See you in Avalon.”
Chapter Twelve
Five weeks later
Tuscany, Italy
Luca Notte was a cheating scoundrel.
In the week that Vikram had been following him, the fifty-five
-year-old had wined and dined a range of beauties. He did not discriminate between race or age, although he appeared to prefer the younger flesh, heaving bosoms and pert backsides, long legs in miniskirts. Blonde, brunette, redhead—it hardly seemed to matter. The only thing Vikram knew for certain about these women was that none of them were his wife, Tabitha.
In fact, two days ago Tabitha had departed on the family’s private Learjet to the south of France where she intended to shop and luxuriate on their yacht in the Riviera with their two daughters—two gorgeous, raven-haired daughters whom Vikram wanted to fuck, if only to piss on Luca Notte’s picnic.
Maybe he’d even do them together, in the same bed. What man didn’t have a secret sisters fantasy? The two girls were so alike that they were practically twins, and Vikram had enjoyed the spells of covert surveillance in which their open bedroom windows offered him glimpses of their nubile bodies.
He’d been almost bereft when they had trundled from their home to the waiting limousine, Louis Vuitton cases in tow. Still, he had recovered quickly when Luca started entertaining his posse of willing fuck buddies at home. The redhead with tits like a porn star had been a highlight, one that had made his time in the lavender field an uncomfortable one.
It was a nightly occurrence, regular as clockwork. All Vikram had to do was lie and wait, and if he was honest with himself, he had somewhat delayed entering Notte’s house in search of the sword. The building had been crawling with business acquaintances all week and it was still too risky. Besides, his action-starved libido needed the nightly shows—not enough that he was tempted to woo the local ladies into his bed, yet.
The patio doors swung open and the sounds of late-night jazz drifted through the air, down over the lush gardens to the property line and into the lavender fields beyond. The picture was just right—a classic Italian villa, red-tiled roof, wide sweeping arches, a terrace dripping in dainty wisteria, and two perfectly spherical topiary trees flanked the tall, French doors. The only thing missing from the movie-set scene was a gorgeous woman, hair fluttering in the tepid, lavender-scented breeze.
