by Kris Pearson
“I’ll re-line that wall.”
“The whole thing?”
“Need to rip all the old stuff off anyway, to get at the pipes.”
She nodded slowly, imagining the room re-arranged.
“I can’t get onto it until Boxing Day, Meg. We’re always frantic at work pre-Christmas. But then we close down for two weeks. It gives the staff a decent break.”
“I bet you miss out on business?”
“Tough. They can wait.”
Samantha reached out and gripped his silk tie—monogrammed with his entwined initials—and led him to the four-poster in the center of the bedroom in the discreet hotel. The city noises barely intruded through the double glazing. And the walls and doors were thick.
“Trousers off,” she demanded. “If that’s your idea of customer service, you deserve to be punished.
Alex removed his suit jacket, hung it with care over a chair-back, and turned to face her again. His face showed no emotion at all, but she knew how excited he’d soon be.
“Trousers off,” she repeated. “Obey me. Hurry up. Leave the shirt for now.”
He unlaced his polished shoes and placed them beside his glossy Gucci briefcase. Peeled his fine Merino wool socks down and tucked them inside the shoes. Then reached to unbuckle his black leather belt.
Samantha waited. The obedience of such a powerful man was a real turn-on. She moved to the head of the bed, walking slowly because of the dauntingly high heels on her thigh-high boots. She took one of the pillows in her long-nailed fingers and positioned it halfway down the bed, then twirled her shiny riding crop, making it whistle through the scented air. “This will sting. But remember, you deserve the pain.”
She slapped it against the palm of her hand, again and again.
Alex slipped his belt buckle free. His eyes fastened on the whip, but his lips remained pressed together in an unreadable expression. Slowly he drew his zipper down.
“Faster!” she snapped. The dark pin striped fabric dropped to reveal white cotton briefs, and long well-muscled legs dusted with dark hair.
“Leave them on the floor,” she demanded, knowing that mistreating his expensive tailoring would cause him more grief than the little spanking she was about to administer.
He stepped out of his trousers.
“And those,” she insisted—prodding the front of his briefs with the leather tag on the end of her slender weapon.
His shirt tails concealed his groin as he bent to remove the snowy underpants. And then he straightened.
So. Resisting her authority. Not yet aroused, but very thick and dangerously dark. She slipped the whip under his cock, lifted, and released it with a sniff of disdain.
“Perhaps I’ll have the shirt off after all,” she sighed. “Leave the tie.”
She watched his manicured hands loosen the Windsor knot of the monogrammed silk, and then move from button to button until he shrugged the shirt away.
Under his conservative clothes he hid a tough athlete’s body. Samantha knew she’d have to work quite hard to hurt him adequately.
“Turn.”
He raised his chin and obeyed. But not before she noticed the definite stirring of his dark flesh.
“On the bed, face down. Hips up over the pillow.”
She waited until he positioned himself with his delicious bottom raised for its punishment. Then she ran the leather tag of the whip from his neck to the base of his spine.
Alex flinched. And parted his legs.
She set the smart little wand on his neck once more and dallied down his back...down to the cleft of his firm buttocks...until it rested on the plump exposed pouch that held his testicles. He was utterly still. Utterly at her mercy.
She lifted the whip and brought it down with a sharp little snap on his left buttock. He gave no sign he’d felt it. She struck again, harder, several times in succession. Again no reaction.
“Beg for mercy,” she whispered, raising her arm and putting more force behind the blow. Although she now saw a hot pink stain, Alex remained silent.
“Brave boy,” she whispered, trailing a finger over the little patch. His skin smelled of expensive soap. She had no trouble picturing him in the shower, fragrant suds sliding down his superb body in the sluicing water.
She hit quite hard again, right over the last blow. Surely that must be stinging him now? She touched the mark she’d made, smoothing her hand along his warm flesh, and enjoying the scent of him again.
“And now the other side,” she said, strolling around the bed, making him wait. She stood for some seconds admiring his spectacular build. The she raised the whip. It whistled down on his right cheek this time, making a mark to match the other. Still he uttered no complaint apart from a soft grunt.
She hit again, really hard. Saw his muscles tighten, and knew his teeth must be clenched to deny her the satisfaction of sound.
“Kneel,” she hissed. “Legs apart. Pillow your head on your hands.
Now he was truly exposed. And as long as a stallion. Samantha ran the tip of the whip down the length of his spine, batting him gently all the way down to his balls.
“I could hit you right here very hard,” she suggested, caressing his sac with the soft leather tab. “That would make you jump.” She hit very softly and watched his cock jerk. “But I wouldn’t be so cruel,” she murmured, moving up to his taut rump and delivering four more stinging slashes.
She trailed the whip over the smooth skin of his hip and underneath him, pushing at his prodigious length so it swung back and forth. She tried a gentle flick. Saw the muscles of his butt tighten. With pleasure or pain? She flicked again, playing with him like a cat with a succulent mouse. Then laid the whip on his neck, building the anticipation. Was he expecting her to hit him there?
He waited, the muscles of his beautiful shoulders tensed and ready. She lifted the whip and gave his balls another teasing tap. His cock jumped. She hit again, just a little harder. His breath whistled out.
A reaction! She drew the whip upward and snapped it down onto each cheek in turn, right over the burning hot patches where she’d already drawn the blood close to the surface.
“Mistress,” he ground out.
So he finally acknowledged her power over him? She angled the whip under him and gave his cock a final flick. “Stand up,” she said in a bored voice.
He rose, and Samantha grasped him by his silk tie. She led him like a horse, and pushed him so he leaned back against one of the posts of the decadent bed. Then she tugged the two ends of his tie around the sturdy timber and knotted them tightly.
She stepped away, regarding his hugely aroused body with amusement.
“Cruel enough?” she asked, slipping her coat on to conceal her dominatrix costume. She strode to the door and unlocked it. “Goodbye.”
Where the hell did that come from, Meg wondered? It seemed pretty rough punishment for bad customer service.
CHAPTER 39 – ANOTHER DINNER AT THE VINEYARD
“God, I feel shitty,” Liz complained, clutching her head, and giving no thought to the possibility of being hung over and dehydrated.
In fact she was only a little bruised, and had barely bled at all. She’d hit the back of her head against the mirror, but not hard. Ian had managed to support himself, at some personal cost, instead of falling onto the cushion of her body. Liz would never know it but his knees were scraped, his new trousers ripped, and one wrist slightly sprained.
“We’ll get you home to bed,” Nurse Mandy insisted, after the x-ray had shown no fractures.
“I’m not that bad,” Liz snapped.
“Shock,” Mandy said, wondering if she could work an incident very like this afternoon’s into her ‘Addy and Brad’ novel. (Would the editor think the names were confusingly similar? Should she change one right away?)
Bed? Like hell, Liz thought, already planning what to wear out to dinner. She had no intention of losing the chance of an evening out, and another man to parade in front of Paul
. “Maybe just a little lie-down,” she conceded, hoping this would get Mandy off her case. She’d stayed stonily silent about the scene in the powder room. Let them think what they bloody well liked!
She had her ‘little lie-down’ in the bath—after taking two pain-killers and turning her favorite old Santana ‘Supernatural’ album up quite loud. For once there were no children wanting ‘Rudolph’s Christmas Tunes’ instead.
By six-forty-five she was fragrant, pain-free and wearing, of all things, a dress. A summery black and white leaf patterned floaty thing. She’d bought it for Paul’s father’s sixty-fifth birthday party two years earlier, and never worn it since.
Although she’d offered to buy Al dinner at Pizza Hutt, he’d demurred and suggested they might do better than that. “My shout,” he’d insisted.
Liz was savvy enough to know jeans would not be appropriate.
And when his silver-gray Audi purred up her driveway, she watched with pleasure as he unfolded from the beautiful car and approached her front door.
Yes, she thought, he’ll be excellent.
For he was taller than Paul, had a newer car than Paul, and wore his expensive clothes with ease and grace. Perhaps she should forego the bath towel idea? Keep him fully clad? Poke his money instead of his body in Paul’s face?
She opened the door and smiled.
Al’s Sicilian forebears called it The Thunderbolt…that swift gut-wrenching explosion of lust...the fierce need to possess absolutely and exclusively. In that instant it rampaged through him like a firestorm—sweeping away arguments and objections and commonsense. At forty-two, and for the first time ever, he was pitched into a hellish cauldron of desire and confusion.
“I’m Liz,” she said. “Hello.”
“Al,” he growled.
Instead of clasping her hand, he raised it to his lips.
“Smooth,” she said, turning away to secure the door.
He burned. She was tall, slender, gorgeous—and making fun of him.
She clipped down the steps in high unsafe sandals.
He wanted to support her.
She opened the car door before he could reach it.
He wished he’d been faster.
And she gave him a mischievous grin as he closed the door to protect his precious cargo.
“Well, this makes a change,” she said as he settled into his seat. “An almost-blind date.”
“You came highly recommended,” he said, cursing himself because he’d made her sound like a commodity for sale.
“It was nice of Meg to loan you to me.”
“Meg and I have an arrangement,” he muttered, wanting to clear the air with Liz, and start from a position of absolute honesty.
“Yes. A night out and then bed—twice a week, I hear.”
He cringed. “It sounds very bald, put like that.”
“But that’s the arrangement?”
“Well, yes.”
“Sensible,” she confirmed. “Everyone knows where they stand. We should all be so lucky.”
Al reversed out onto the road, attention diverted from Liz for a few moments.
“It’s not a long term thing,” he said. “Necessarily.”
“It seems to suit Meg.”
His gut clenched. “We’re just friends.”
“Twice a week.”
She’s sending me up, he thought, scrabbling around in his brain for any way to reassure her he wasn’t a cold hearted sex-fiend with a conscience as weak as water.
“We take it as it comes.”
“You take it as it comes,” he imagined Liz saying. For at that instant it became blindingly clear to him he’d been making rather cavalier use of Meg—even if the dining out pleased her well enough.
“Where are we going?” Liz asked as the big quiet car sliced through the suburbs.
“There’s a nice little winery out by the Tuki Tuki river. I’ve eaten there once or twice. It’s been good each time. Orlando’s.”
“You’ve taken Meg there. She said it was good.”
“Ah,” he said, caught out. “Maybe. Yes.”
“This is very kind of you.”
To buy you dinner? To pretend I’m your lover? Al was all at sea. He searched for any answer that wouldn’t make him sound a complete fool. “No trouble at all,” he managed. “You are,” he added without meaning to, “very lovely. How could anyone bear to leave you?”
Liz didn’t turn a hair. “I’m a real bitch when it suits me.”
“And when does it suit you?”
She didn’t speak for a moment and then it all poured out. “It suited me when I was left on my own for too long. When I was ignored and taken for granted. When the sex was lousy because he was too tired or too busy. When it was his fault and he pretended it was mine. When they were my kids, not ours. When it was never going to be okay, ever again.” She raised an eyebrow. “Funny how you can sometimes tell an absolute stranger the awful truth, isn’t it?”
“It happens.”
He had no intention of being an absolute stranger beyond this evening. He wanted to know everything about her...tell her everything about him in return.
Her eyes, he now saw, were neither blue nor green, but some bright sea-color in between. She’d bundled her hair up in a knot arrangement that looked on the point of unraveling. His fingers itched to pull it undone and spread the soft strands over the warm skin of her shoulders. He clenched his hands around the steering wheel to keep them under control, feeling more alive than he had in years.
They drove on in silence for a short time.
At last he drew a deep breath. “Your situation sounds embarrassingly familiar. The husband too busy, the wife taken for granted.”
“You?”
He nodded without taking his concentration off the road. How accusing were her lovely eyes? “I’d be better at it the second time around,” he assured her, easing his collar away from his throat.
“You’ve someone in mind? Meg?”
“No, not Meg,” he said, too fast. “Speaking hypothetically. In case, in the future, someone turns up.”
He slowed and steered the car onto a tree lined country road. “Just a couple more minutes now. Hungry?”
“Not too bad,” Liz said, replete after the huge lunch she’d put away earlier that day. “Not desperate. I think you’re mad to consider marrying again. Whatever for? I certainly won’t risk it a second time. I’ve already got my kids, and you can get sex anywhere.”
Al’s mind exploded with sudden scenes of her having sex ‘anywhere’. The floor? The bath? The beach?
“Sex maybe, but not love.”
“A man wanting lurve...now there’s a surprise,” she needled. “Some men’ll say anything to get you into bed.” She thought back to Neill Farrell and the horrendous situation he’d pitched Romy into. “Who needs them?” she scoffed.
“Untrustworthy bastards, are we?”
“Most of you.”
“But not all of us?”
“You count yourself among the good guys? Even after admitting you took your wife for granted, and left her to cope pretty much on her own until she couldn’t stand it?”
His lips thinned in a humorless grimace. “You pull no punches.”
“Well—if it’s the truth?” Her sea-green eyes challenged his.
“Is there nothing in your own life you’d do differently if you had the chance?” he demanded.
“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. Of course I wouldn’t live it the same. Wouldn’t have married Paul, that’s for sure. I would have waited longer to have the children so I could see what a loser he was. And got out before they were hurt.”
“I thought he was a lawyer? Successful?”
“Oh yeah, moneywise. That’s different though.”
“So money doesn’t do it for you?”
“Money on its own? No way.”
“So money plus what?”
Liz remained quiet until Al brought the big car to a halt outside the restaurant.
“Money...plus...equal sharing,” she said. “I don’t mean...um...” She shook her head and started again. “Not wanting to know every detail of his life; not wanting a new car myself just because he has one, or expecting a new kitchen because he’s bought a boat...but...time together. Equal efforts for the children. Giving me as much consideration as his precious bloody clients. It didn’t happen. It was never going to. I would have traded a picnic by the river for this anytime,” she said, lifting her right hand up and flashing an exotic black pearl ring at him. “I doubt he chose it himself. Probably sent his secretary out on Christmas Eve with instructions to spend a thousand bucks on something pretty for me.”
“You don’t know that for sure?”
“I had to get it re-sized,” she said. “It was massive. He didn’t care enough to take one of my other rings into town with him and get something to fit me.”
Al nodded, thinking of the times he’d asked his secretary to order flowers for Diana when business got in the way of family life.
“I can manage dinner by the river, if not your picnic,” he said, unsnapping his seatbelt and pushing the Audi’s door open.
She laughed at that, as he’d hoped she would. And by the time she’d located her little bag on the floor, he’d opened her door and extended a hand to help her out.
“I’m not your grandmother,” she said tartly, although she accompanied the comment with a smile as she rose unaided, and preceded him inside.
She’s no push-over, Al reminded himself once they were seated. “Red or white?”
“Whatever you’re having. I had far too much at lunchtime. I won’t drink a lot more.”
“Ah, the famous Christmas lunch.” He remembered Meg mentioning it. “How did it go?”
“Great start, followed by total disaster. Featuring me,” she added.
Al stayed silent, waiting for her to elaborate. “A bloody man again,” she sighed. “You can’t trust them. Two men really. The first one totally shattered my best friend’s life this morning. And the second one tried to grope me.”
Al’s new-found possessiveness rampaged through six feet plus of very fit male body, ready to leap to her defense. He straightened in his seat.
