by Jodi Redford
There was a far-too-tantalizing suggestion. Before he could give it dangerous consideration, Madam Love abandoned Avi’s side and strode toward him, her eyes sparkling. “You’re intending to play sub? Most unexpected…and delightful. Or should I say delicious?” She paused and swatted his left ass cheek. “Hmm, yes. I think that’s entirely accurate.”
He sent Avi a desperate look, but the unhelpful little troublemaker only returned it with a grin and raised eyebrows.
Madam Love stepped aside and stroked her chin. “You’re overdressed for this occasion.”
He gritted his teeth. “No way in hell I’m stripping down here.”
The woman made a tsking sound and glanced to Avi. “He’s not the least obedient.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
He glared at Avi. “Just remember one thing—payback is a bitch.”
She gave an exaggerated shudder that was in direct opposition to the wickedness of her expression. “I can’t wait, big boy.”
Fuck, forget about being the death of him. She was going to inflict nothing less than complete annihilation, and likely love the hell out of every second of his downfall.
Madam Love crooked her finger, and Avi immediately trotted to the woman. “My dear, perhaps he needs to be reminded who’s boss.”
Avi bit her lip, her sultry gaze eating him alive. His body instinctively reacted with a hot flush of desire that steamed him from the inside out. There wasn’t a centimeter of his skin free of sweat. Despite the intent in her eyes, Avi hesitated, her arms lax at her sides.
“Don’t doubt yourself.” The Madam stroked Avi’s cheek reassuringly. “You hold total power over him. Seize the reins, and he will be putty in your hands, all too ready to mold to your bidding.”
A world of longing resided in Avi’s gaze. He could feel himself being drawn into that bewitching epicenter where her heart lured him to infinite, unattainable treasure. Beyond the beckoning doors lay a paradise he couldn’t claim. Her hands finally made their move, sliding reverently along his forearms, her nails discovering every damn nerve ending that reduced him to a quivering mass of sensation. He equally resisted and hungered for her touch.
Heart pounding, he willed himself to break loose of her contact, and instead groaned when her fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his jeans. She caressed the fine line of hair that disappeared into his briefs, and he sucked in a sharp breath, his lower abdomen jumping beneath her roving fingertips. “Avi, don’t.”
“Shh.” Ignoring his weak protest, she rerouted course and eased his T-shirt up along his belly. He automatically raised his arms, aiding her task, before realizing he was contributing to his own destruction. She tossed his shirt aside and hummed in pleasure. “You have the most beautiful body, Jer. I could absolutely eat you up.” Without warning, she licked his nipple, her devilish tongue curling around the stiffening nub.
“Goddamn it, Avi.” He went to push her away but somehow ended up grabbing two handfuls of her luscious ass instead. Even his traitorous hands had a mind of their own.
She wiggled against his hold, granting him a few paltry seconds to bask in the illicit act of squeezing and massaging the soft flesh that occupied his raunchiest fantasies. Before he could properly get his fill of her, she untangled herself from his grip. “You’re being exceptionally naughty, Jer. I’m the one in charge here, remember?”
“This should keep him in his place.”
He and Avi glanced toward Madam Love. Her grin suitably devilish, she held aloft a pair of leather wrist restraints.
Avi chuckled. “Has anyone told you you’re an excellent wingwoman?”
“A time or two.” The woman approached Jerrick.
He gave a fierce shake of his head. “Don’t even try it, blondie.”
Madam Love ruffled his hair affectionately. “Oh, stop your fussing. This is for your own good. Wouldn’t be surprised if you beg me to sell you a set of these to use later at home.”
That’s what he was afraid of. “I mean it. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if—” He grunted when the woman slapped his arms behind him and clicked the cuffs in place. He was no damn weakling. No way in hell she should have accomplished that feat so effortlessly. Before he could give voice to his bewilderment, a black silk blindfold was whisked in place over his eyes. He instinctively stiffened. In more ways than one. Desperately attempting to tune out the persistent throbbing in his cock, he swallowed past the dryness in his throat. “I don’t like this.” The assertion sounded unconvincing, even to him.
A husky laugh fell from Madam Love. “Oh, but you will, you handsome liar.” Giving his ass another smack, she tugged on the taut band of the restraints, forcing him to take several shuffling steps.
Something nudged the backs of his knees. He had only a moment to decipher the source of the object before firm hands pressed into his shoulders, coaxing him down. His butt hit a cushioned surface. The spanking bench? “This is a fucking bad idea.”
“I think someone protests too much.” Kissing his perspiration-soaked forehead, Madam Love buckled his bound wrists to the padded bar behind him. “I’ll leave you two to continue this adventure alone. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
Her announcement and its accompanying evil chuckle worked double-time at increasing his agitation. Without the buffer of her presence, his defenses held no prayer of withstanding the devastating allure of Avi. “You’re staying right here, you damnable woman.”
“I have a business to run.”
“Goddamn it.” A stream of unflattering epithets fell from him. Judging from Madam Love’s silence, she either didn’t care or had vacated the room.
He got his confirmation a second later when Avi brushed her fingertips over his pecs. “She’s not here, Jer. And I confess to being confused.” She nipped his earlobe, her soft lips and breath making him shiver. “I thought I’m your special, despicable, she-devil tormentress.”
“Trust me, I’m beginning to suspect that the two of you are diabolical twins separated at birth.”
“Then you think I’m capable of pulling off this dominatrix cover?”
He didn’t need to see her face to detect the hope quivering in her voice. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s a foolhardy idea.”
“Why? I can make a believer out of them.” Her lips trailed from his ear and kissed a path toward his jaw. He closed his eyes behind the blindfold, his mouth instinctively seeking hers when she ventured past his chin. Rather than comply with his mute request for her lips, she continued her exploration of soft kisses on his opposite cheek. “I can make a believer out of you.”
“Avi—”
She stalled the remaining words on his tongue, roping them into submission with her fingers flicking open the top button of his fly. “You’re so big, I can’t even get my hand inside.”
What did she bloody expect? All these sweet kisses and touches were playing havoc with him. Damn miracle he fit in his briefs at all. “Good. Your hand doesn’t need to be anywhere near my cock.”
“I don’t think it agrees with you. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s dying to come out and say hello.”
Of course it did, blasted thing.
Avi slid her hands to either side of his waist and rucked his jeans past his hips a few inches, easing the pressure against his engorged shaft. The comfort was short-lived. An entirely new brand of tension took its place when she peeled his briefs down and grasped his cock in her hot, eager little hands. The meager amount of oxygen he claimed possession of became trapped in his lungs. She stroked him with fingers that felt far from virginal, leaching his brain of all coherent thought.
“You feel incredible in my hands, Jer. Hard and velvety. Slippery.”
The excitement in her voice provided an additional erotic caress along his nerve endings. He opened his mouth, fully intending to insist she cease this madness, but his shaky groan ghosted free instead. She kissed him then, fully on the mouth, her tongue a sensuous invitation. He gre
edily gorged on her lips, his teeth desperately scraping their delicate softness as he attempted to swallow her whole. She pulled back, leaving him straining toward her futilely, harsh breaths ripping from him.
Her hands departed in the wake of her kisses, and he waffled between frustration and relief. She was quiet long enough he began to grow wary.
“Damn it, Avi. What are you up to?” He wanted to demand she tuck his cock back in his pants and release him, but admitting his concern at being vulnerable and exposed was less preferable than actually enduring it.
“Just getting something.”
Were there more terrifying words to spill from a woman’s mouth in a moment like this? Recalling the rack of dildos, he instinctively clenched his butt cheeks. He didn’t care if it made him a pussy, he’d damn well scream a bloody fit if she so much as tried to get one of those things near his ass.
The pattern of her uneven breaths marked her return, along with the indisputable proof that whatever she’d fetched had sparked her excitement. And would likely result in him suffering cardiac arrest. He steeled himself for the worst.
A ticklish sensation swirled at the base of his cock, and he reflexively flinched before letting his head fall back with an ungraceful thud as the feathery stroke painted the underside of his dick. “W-what is that?”
“A peacockian feather.” She made a lazy, sweeping gesture over the straining head of his shaft, tormenting him. “Hmm, who knew it’d be this much fun, teasing one cock with another?” Her wicked giggle threatened to do him in. When she tickled his balls, he strained against his bindings, a blue streak of curses tumbling forth. She nibbled his jaw. “I’ve dreamed similar scenarios to this one, but it was always you wielding the feather.”
His overheated flesh sizzled anew at her admission. “I tickled your clit with a feather?”
Her breath grew wispy. “Yes. It makes me wet just thinking about it.”
Even though he knew it would be the death of him, the demand edged past his teeth anyway. “Let me feel.”
“Your hands are bound.”
“Then release me or find another way to show me what that dream feather does to you.”
She fell into a deep silence. For the longest moment he convinced himself she wouldn’t yield to either of his suggestions. Then he detected the distinct rustle of her clothing. His pulse thudded at the captivating possibility that she stood before him naked. More than anything, he despised the encumbrance of the blindfold. He shifted his head, fruitlessly attempting to loosen the knot. “Take this thing off me.”
“No, it’s more thrilling this way.” She settled on his lap and started her torturous swishing of the feather again.
The anguished noise that escaped him sounded foreign to his own ears, as if some wild animal had crept into the room when he wasn’t looking and set up space in his body. “Avi, stop.”
She didn’t comply and instead soothed him with two fingers upon his lips. Her feminine musk filled his sinuses, making him punch drunk. She’d found a way to show him. The feral creature inhabiting him reappeared, and he lustily lapped at her fingers before sucking them into his mouth. She squirmed, her feather strokes on his cock and balls growing restless.
He nipped the pads of her fingers and let them slide free of his mouth. “Paint your nipples with your wetness.”
“But—”
“Do it.” He nuzzled her palm. “Please.”
“I should make you beg harder than that.”
He almost wept like a babe when her hand drifted from his face and the slick sound of her fingers slipping along her labia tantalized his ears. “My punishment is not getting to see you stroke yourself.”
“You like to watch me do that?”
There was no point in lying when the ramrod stiffness of his cock clearly ratted him out. “More than you could imagine.”
“Poor, Jer. I feel quite evil depriving you the sight. However will I make it up to you?”
“Your tits in my mouth would be an excellent start.”
“What a positively crude thing to say.”
“You know you love it.”
She sighed. “I do. I love everything about you. But you already know that.”
He tensed.
“It’s okay. I’m not looking to spoil the moment with silly professions of love that you don’t want to hear.”
He swallowed against the remorse congesting his windpipe. “Avi…”
“No more talk. I have a better use for your mouth.”
There was no way in hell his sweet girl just said that. It was so dirty. Profane. Fucking fantastic. She made it even better by dragging her nipple in a teasing glide over his lips. Groaning, he captured it between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. She tasted of sunshine and her own sex. Ravenous for her, he suctioned his mouth over the whole of her nipple and drew on the turgid nub with strong pulls of his tongue. Her fingers raked over his scalp, creating a magnificent sting that he felt all the way to his testicles. The unrelenting feather dance along his cock spurred him to new heights. No way in hell he’d last much longer, but he wouldn’t come without her.
He treated her nipples to the same lush devotion he would her clit. There were some women who could climax this way, and he aimed to discover if Avi was one. He could have cheated and used his sex magic, but that felt as much an affront to his skills as using it to pick a lock. Flattening his tongue, he licked a slow lap around her puckered areola before once again worshipping her nipple with a deep, sensuous suckle. Her breath snared in her throat, and her hand drifted to his nape, fingers trembling. The feather fluttered on his cockhead the same instant she surged against him, shaking uncontrollably. With his mouth full of her soft breast, he pitched into a dazzling free fall of ecstasy with her. Her hand replaced the feather, squeezing jets of slippery come from him. He could only imagine the mess he was making of their bellies.
Grunting over that indisputable truth, he continued licking and kissing her nipples for as long as she’d allow him. He still grumbled in protest when she extracted herself from his mouth. A moment later she ran a cloth along his stomach, gently cleaning him of his sexual excess. The magnitude of what they’d done settled over him like a horsehair blanket, leaving him at a loss for words. And an abundance of uncertainties over what the hell to do next. They’d crossed a hazardous line in their partnership. There was no fooling himself that this had merely been training for their cover. Their lusty sex play was no fucking act. He knew it, and he had a bad feeling Avi did too.
She freed him of the wrist restraints, and he shoved the blindfold from his eyes. He drank in her naked form, unable to tear his gaze from her smooth, pale skin and rosy nipples. Breasts that still bore the visible burn from his beard bristles. At least she’d wiped his seed from her. Witnessing his come marking her likely would have resulted in him bending her over the bench and sealing his claim with a proper fucking.
She offered him a tremulous smile. “So, do I get the job?”
This is going to backfire on you. Despite knowing that with every fiber of his being, he gave a resigned nod. “But no more training.”
He wouldn’t fucking survive it.
Chapter Thirteen
Hammond had done all of the tedious work prior to Jerrick’s arrival, which meant minimal time twiddling his thumbs while Hammond input the phony aliases into Tul’dea’s central mainframe.
A grunt fell from Hammond. “You must be running low on aliases to resort to the name Bill.”
“It’s short for Billiam.”
“Billiam? Shit, that’s even dopier.”
Jerrick stacked his arms over his chest and glared at his contact. “Funny, I don’t remember paying for your opinion.”
“You’re a crankier bastard than usual today. Which makes no sense if you ask me. Anyone who gets to be the boy toy of Mistress Scarlett should be the happiest son of a bitch on the planet.” There was no mistaking the ripe humor underscoring Hammond’s dry pronouncement.
&
nbsp; “Trust me, I’m smiling inside.” Until he remembered the erotic interlude he and Avi had shared at Lover’s Knot the night before. A memory that’d refused to grant his mind a moment’s rest the last twelve-plus hours.
“I would be too.” Hammond enlarged Avily’s photo ID and gave an appreciative whistle. “In fact, I’d gladly beg for a good spanking if she was the one delivering it.”
You and me both. And therein lay the problem. This was only a cover. Granted, one he and Avi had to make damn believable. And so far, they were doing a bang-up job of it. Yesterday, touching the woman who owned his every waking thought and desire, coming with her…he’d acknowledged the disturbing truth. He hungered for their relationship to be real. Everything within him desperately clung to the fantasy that she was his, that he could hold her, love her, until the last breath escaped his body.
He was literally handing all control over to Avi. If she stripped him of his defenses, his willpower, then what? He’d have nothing to fight his overwhelming need for her.
“You planning to sit here staring vacantly at me all day?”
Jerrick snapped from his stressful thoughts and blinked at Hammond. “What?”
“I know my looks are hypnotizing, but I’m already spoken for.”
Jerrick grunted. “She must have the patience of a saint.”
“No more so than me, waiting for you to deliver that damn promised Ginnish.”
“It’s in the mail.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get your charming ass outta here.”
Heeding Hammond’s surly demand, Jerrick collected his paperwork and saluted a goodbye before heading for the exit. He checked the time on his com. Less than twenty minutes before he was due to meet Avi for lunch. He’d talked her into the convenient, neutral location of the Twisted Thorn.
Realistically, any place that didn’t come with the tempting accompaniment of a nice soft bed was win-win in his book. He just prayed he’d be able to sit next to her without dwelling on the sinful taste of her pussy-flavored nipples.
Yeah, like that was going to fucking happen.
