by AM Hartnett
Grace shook her head. ‘No, I’m done putting on a show for the next little while. You, Jacques Taureau, you’re going to touch me while I watch.’
The rumble of his laughter resonated around her as she ran her fingers along her slick crack. She used her toe to swivel herself towards the computer screen. With the other hand she hit ESC and grasped the mouse.
‘Do you have a favourite?’ she asked once she had opened the directory.
Taureau came up behind her and bent low. Chin propped on her shoulder, he placed his hand over hers and guided her to the first file on the list.
‘This one,’ he murmured against her ear. After a couple of clicks he maximised the video screen and the action began.
She bit her lip as he draped his arms down her torso. Two fingers rubbed through the wet folds on either side of her clit and sent a hot pulse through her as two people came on-screen.
It was the video he had spoken of, the culmination of a week’s worth of flirting with the young man from IT who had come to do some upgrades on her computer.
‘Do you want sound?’ Taureau whispered, sliding his fingers down to stretch her open.
Grace tilted her head into the crook of his neck. ‘No, I want to hear what you have to say. Tell me, when you first saw this, how long before you got hard?’
‘Instantly,’ he said, and slipped his other hand beneath her shirt.
She wondered what he did that made his hands so rough, this man whose sanctuary was wires and cables and plasma. He wasn’t gentle with her. He grunted as he thrust his fingers into her, at the same time tugging her nipple so hard she felt the bite through her whole body.
On-screen, Other Grace slipped off her shoes and hiked her skirt up to her waist, then laughed as the IT man hurried to unbuckle himself.
She couldn’t remember what she’d said to him, but Taureau knew, and murmured against her.
‘Steady now,’ he said as Other Grace moved her lips and hopped onto the edge of Caroway’s conference table. ‘I like eager, but you’ve got to warm me up first.’
Grace chuckled. ‘I have to do the same thing for everyone under the age of thirty. They all want to get right to the fucking.’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ Taureau joked, dragging his fingers back to her clit. ‘I wouldn’t dream of giving you mine until I had you squirming for it, like you are now.’
She pressed down on the balls of her feet, rocking in tune with the motion over her clit. ‘Why this one? Aside from it being the first?’
‘Just watch.’
It got harder by the second to focus on the screen, but as he pushed and pulled his fingers through the juicy flesh his wicked narration filled her head with the tale of his arousal.
‘He can barely believe his luck,’ he said. ‘Here is this beautiful woman opening her legs for him, inviting him to taste how badly she wants to be fucked. He’s got no finesse – see how she just gives him a word and he drops down on one knee like he’s just so grateful he’d lick the mud from her boots if she told him. She knows it, too. You can see it on her face. She’s got that smirk on her mouth as she pushes on the back of his head. You know what she’s saying to him?’
‘Nothing.’ Grace’s breath hitched on the end of the word. With every pulse his touch drew from her, he wiped her clean of thought and left behind only feverish sensation.
‘No, she’s saying so much without opening her mouth. She’s telling him that if he doesn’t give her what she wants, he won’t get what he wants. If he’s patient, if he treats her right, she’ll treat him right.’
He withdrew from her and spun the chair around to face him. Grace reached out to yank down those tented pajama bottoms but he caught her wrists and bound them in one hand as he reached out and tapped the keyboard. The grainy voice of Other Grace exploded all around, urging the IT man.
Taureau dropped to his knees and released her hands. She grasped the arms of the chair to anchor herself as he pushed her legs apart and leaned forward.
‘Oh, yes,’ she hissed through her teeth as he licked along her wet slit. ‘Whatever you want. You get whatever you want if you give me that tongue.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and gave herself over to him. Through pleasure that at times was too much, she just held on and let him devour her.
Unlike Other Grace, whose gasped words were laced with command, Grace’s words were her desperation given life as Taureau tongued her. This act was no incentive for him. She wouldn’t let him do anything, wouldn’t dole out permission to fuck her on the condition that he make her come again.
Not with Taureau. Even though he was on his knees, even though his tongue lashed her, the onus seemed to be on her to come, to give herself over to his whim and be as wet and ready for a fuck as he demanded.
‘Here,’ she whispered, and grasped the rubberised arms of the chair as the circling motion of his tongue around her clit flooded her. She held on, calling out to him through the thick euphoria that surrounded her.
‘Good boy, now give me that hard cock and make me come again.’ That doppelgänger on the screen issued her edict and moaned as her lover filled her with the length of his dick.
Here, on the other side of the looking glass, Grace became captive. Taureau rose to his feet and wound his hand in her hair as he moved into position. His tongue invaded her mouth, giving her a taste of what he had done to her, while he drove his cock into her.
He became a solid wall of flesh, contorted over her as he grunted through every rough thrust. It seemed to go on for ever. There was nothing else to do but take it and love it, just as she had the night before. His fist twisted on top of her head, holding her in place while he grasped the chair with the other hand for leverage. Every thrust jolted her, stamped on her being that when she was with him he would consume her.
The friction of his pubic hair bumping her clit trapped her in what seemed like an unending series of orgasms. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take as the inner walls of her sex shuddered around him. She held onto the chair and cried out, sure he would fuck her to death.
At last he groaned, a long nasal sound that drowned out the pornographic sounds of Other Grace, and went to the hilt. His cock jumped and he nearly suffocated her with his girth as he spurted into her.
Her exhilaration became a heavy burden in the aftermath. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her face against his shoulder. It struck her as almost funny that as they melted together, Grace crushed beneath him and Taureau perched awkwardly on the edge of the seat, Other Grace was still cheerleading her lover on.
She almost laughed. She would have laughed, if she hadn’t opened her eyes and seen what she had missed moments before.
A name on one of the disc cases on the wall. There it was, so innocent and tucked away, sandwiched between a Lisa and a Diana.
Bette.
‘I can’t breathe,’ she said, pushing against Taureau. He withdrew, still gasping for air.
With years’ experience of staying cool under pressure, Grace managed to push the sick feeling aside as she pulled her panties and shorts back up, then turned her attention to Taureau as he did the same with his pajamas. She smiled and stopped the video.
‘I didn’t do it until I saw you,’ he said, surprising her with his candour.
‘Sit in here and jerk off? I never would have suggested such a thing.’
‘I mean watch as long as I did. Once I saw you, I just couldn’t stop.’
She glanced at him and found the same uncertainty on his face that had been there this morning. It stripped away years, leaving her with a sense that she was glimpsing the man-child buried under the stunted man she knew and the cocky drug addict who had preceded him.
She held her breath as he raised his hand and stroked along the scar beneath his eye.
‘I don’t like to be touched,’ he said, so low his words were barely audible.
‘I understand.’
‘But I won’t grab you again like I did t
his morning. I don’t want to frighten you. I’m not that person.’
There she was, thoroughly fucked, with both their juices still leaking into her panties, standing in a room with a man she couldn’t figure out, with the ghost of the woman who had done this to him peering over his shoulder, and Grace felt tears prickle behind her eyes.
‘Jacques,’ she said quietly as she got to her feet. She took his hand and just held it by her side. ‘Is there something you want to do with me today, aside from the obvious?’
He pressed his lips together and turned to the little square window behind his gaming nook, his expression thoughtful. She was worried for a moment that he was going to ask her to play a bloody game with him, and she probably would have done, for no other reason than because he had asked, but then he squeezed her fingers.
‘Are you scared of motorcycles?’
Chapter Eleven
‘You seem to be doing well,’ Caroway said with a hint of annoyance, and Grace could understand why. She’d emailed her temporary replacement about this teleconference, but Wendy had scheduled it for tomorrow instead of today. As a result, Caroway had to hoof it across town from the lunch he had been taking, his bladder no doubt bursting from the three beers he’d had with his long lunch, and begin the meeting out of breath.
‘I’m kept busy,’ she acknowledged, which wasn’t entirely a lie.
Her role as Taureau’s assistant didn’t take more than a few hours a day. The rest of her time was spent exploring Mont Carmel, either alone or with him, or tangling with him in some sordid game that left her weak.
She’d never been one for naps, but after coming to this place Grace found herself lost if she couldn’t simply collapse into sleep once they had finished with each other. She didn’t know whether the heaviness that was always with her now was exhaustion or satisfaction, but she expected it was the latter.
‘Gentlemen, if you’ll just give me another minute,’ she began, but stopped as she heard Taureau coming up the stairs. ‘Actually, I think you’ll be starting any second now.’
She double-checked the voice recorder on the computer as Taureau shuffled in. The scent of coffee filled the room and she breathed it in when he slid his cup onto the desk. She didn’t know how long this meeting was going to go on for, but she’d be grateful for a couple of hours to herself to take a thermos, a book and her headphones outside while Taureau worked. She’d have work to do when the meeting was over, after Taureau had edited the soundfile himself.
She knew the ruse of having an assistant was just that: he didn’t need her there. She tried not to think about it too much. If she dwelt on her purpose here, she would evoke his callous words: Do you want me to treat you like some sort of whore?
In bed, yes, but out of bed there was more to it than that, and so she’d accepted her few hours of work a day and enjoyed what she now thought of as her working vacation.
‘Caroway?’ Taureau grumbled. ‘Patton? Stewart?’
Grace nudged him, ‘Everyone is here.’
‘Then start talking.’
She touched him on the shoulder to signal she was leaving, but as she moved away she found herself trapped in Taureau’s grip as he took his seat. He dragged her with him, onto his lap, and refused to relinquish his grip as she squirmed.
‘Let go,’ she mouthed through a twisted grin. His mouth remained in a firm line, but she saw a glint of mischief in his eyes. He held her with his arm braced across her ribcage.
Clipped masculine voices went fuzzy in the background as Taureau had his way and rubbed the heel of his palm against the thin barrier of her yoga pants.
‘You’re too quick for me,’ he whispered, ‘I was going to catch you sooner, strap you down in my bed and make you wait. I had to improvise.’ He lifted his knee beneath her and loosened his grip. ‘Hit mute and get me the bag I left in the hall.’
She was tempted to tell him that now was not the time, but her curiosity was too great. She twitched her finger over the touchpad and rendered the men oblivious to what was going on at the other side of the conversation. Her scalp tingled with the awareness of his stare as she ventured into the hall. Just beyond the door was a small carry-on. The contents were light and shifted as she carried it back into the room.
Grace leaned back against the desk and gripped the edge as he shoved his sleeves up. She was sure it was unintentional, but the sight of those thick forearms and large paws as he unzipped the bag and pulled it open made her want to sink her teeth into him.
‘Bring that over here,’ he said, nodding to the chair on the other side of the desk as he drew a pair of restraint cuffs from inside the bag.
‘You don’t really plan on fucking me while they’re talking about how much your competition lost this year, are you?’
He passed her the cuffs. ‘Get rid of those clothes.’
Grace rolled her eyes and strolled towards the chair. With a chuckle, she cast over her shoulder, ‘Yes, Mr Taureau.’
She left the black nylon in a tangle on the seat and dragged the chair across the floor to face his, then quickly discarded her clothes. As soon as her bra hit the floor, Taureau rose.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked as he studied the chair.
‘I’m thinking,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know what part of you I want available to me the most: your mouth or your pussy?’
‘Do I get a vote?’
‘No.’ He picked up the restraint and dangled it between them. ‘I’ll have things both ways. Lie down across the seat.’
‘This is vaguely familiar,’ she joked as she did what he asked. A couple of days earlier he had done something similar across the seat of his bike at the end of some remote trail overlooking the ocean. Now she tucked her hands under the seat of the chair. As excited as she was while he leaned down and cuffed her, that feeling was nothing compared to the second act when he loosened his rope.
As the executives of Taureau-Werner prattled on and on, Taureau wound the cord around her thighs and the legs of the chair in a figure-eight. She was far from comfortable with her tits squashed against the hard seat and the edge digging into her hipbones, but the exposure more than made up for her discomfort.
He reached into the bag one last time and withdrew a roll of red bondage tape. ‘I could leave it all up to you to keep the volume down, but I know from experience there’s no keeping that mouth of yours shut unless I fill it with something.’
Grace tried to push up, but in her position she could do little more than wiggle her head around. Taureau stopped in front of her and unwound a long strip, and she turned her face away. ‘You can’t. I’ll never keep quiet if you fuck me.’
‘Who said I was going to fuck you?’
He stopped her next words with the tape over her mouth. She felt like she was being packed up to be couriered off as he wound the tape around and around her head. By the time he’d finished, she’d resigned herself to this latest whim and breathed as best she could.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. ‘Now there are three men on the other end of that line, men who have never seen you with a hair out of place and who have no idea how little it takes to get you wet and open. I’m going to turn the mic back on and you’re going to be a good girl and wait.’
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. It was one thing to be laid out like this and used immediately, but to have to wait? He could be a cruel and calculating lover when he wanted to be.
He crooked his finger beneath her chin and tilted her head so she could see his face. The devil in his eyes, he pressed his other finger to his lips.
Grace hung her head and watched his socked feet thump upon the hardwood floor as he moved to her rear.
‘Ted, give me a breakdown of what’s going on with …’
For ten minutes, Grace shifted on that hard seat and watched the wiggling of his toes on the floor. As the ache in her torso grew, the heat between her legs became unbearable. The conversation went on and on, a boring back-and-forth that might as w
ell have been in Greek for all Grace heard. She was focused on his presence behind her, and she knew his gaze remained upon her the entire time.
‘Give it another two months.’ His chair creaked as he got to his feet and placed his hand on her ass. ‘East Coast.’
Grace tensed as he wriggled two fingers into her. It was her old boss who spoke now as Taureau thrust to the knuckle. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath to keep in the whimper that tickled up her throat, and wondered if the wet sounds of his fingers pumping her were as audible on the other end as they were in the room.
A slight rattle alerted her to his return to the bag, and seconds later his fingers were joined by something on her clit that made her toes curl. One of her favourites, a plain little shaft with the most heavenly nubs on the end. As the rough pads of his fingers curled against her G spot, Taureau rubbed the prickly end around her swollen nub.
She shook her head and wiggled her lower half as starbursts appeared in front of her eyes. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hold her breath another minute. She huffed through her nose and pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth as a moan moved up her nasal cavity.
‘I don’t think we should give up on the idea of an inter-provincial airline so soon,’ said Caroway while Taureau picked up the pace of fingers and vibe. ‘In fact, I’d recommend expanding the service during the peak tourist season. Charlottetown to Sydney, Sydney to Montreal, and don’t forget St Pierre …’
It happened. The hard ball in her chest cracked and relief flooded her as a sound gushed out of her flared nostrils. With that released, Grace hung her head and fought the need to explode with the pleasure he gave her, but it just kept coming.
Taureau didn’t cease and the fuzzy conversation in her ears didn’t waver. Grace realised he had turned off the mic again. It was a liberating revelation that ran through her whole body. She bucked against her restraints, shaking the chair so furiously she brought Taureau to his feet.
