by BETH KERY
She clamped her eyelids shut, overwhelmed by the image of his dark head between her thighs. She keened in growing frustration as his tongue flicked over her moist skin yet again. Her toes curled.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmured.
“Put your mouth on me and make me come,” she begged through lips that felt swollen and overly sensitive.
His nostrils flared slightly at her bald plea. “Since your desire is in accordance with mine, I’m more than willing to grant your wish.”
He matter-of-factly bent her knees and spread her legs. He rolled back her hips, fully exposing her pussy. She yelped a moment later when he knelt before her, his knees bracketing her hips, and lifted her lower body off the bed, his hands open on her buttocks. She’d never get used to how easily he took her weight.
He sat on his haunches and brought her pussy slowly to his mouth, biceps bulging hard. The anticipation seemed to cut at her from the inside out.
She detonated a moment later as he whipped at her clitoris with the firm, wet lash of his tongue. He continued to eat her as she moaned and shuddered in orgasm, covering her outer sex with his lips and applying a firm suction that left her flying in the sexual stratosphere for an unprecedented length of time. He lifted his head after he’d worked a final shudder out of her. He lowered her and she sagged into the mattress, utterly wrung out. She noticed that his facial muscles were rigid and his lips gleaming with her juices.
“You’re delicious. I’m going to shave you sometime soon. Nothing is going to interfere with me getting my fill of this pussy.”
Her vagina contracted tightly at his stark, unrelenting tone.
“Yes, all right,” she whispered, even though she knew he hadn’t said it for her agreement. He seemed single-minded in his lust. She gasped when he lowered his head again, tilting it at an angle. He plunged his tongue into her slit and ladled out her juices, sucking them into his mouth. Oh God, it was a decadent, sybaritic delight to have him pleasure her with such skill, to feel his sexual hunger penetrate every pore of her being. She had never felt herself to be the object of such concentrated, burning desire in her entire life. She wanted to touch him so badly. Her palms itched with thwarted desire.
“I want to touch you. Why do you have to restrain me?” she asked in frustration as he continued to dip his tongue into her pussy.
He lifted his head. “It’s exciting, knowing that you’re at my mercy, that you’ll have no choice but to accept whatever I give you,” he said gruffly, rising to his knees and once again straddling her supine body.
“You mean like for punishment?”
“Not just that. For pleasure. You can’t escape any of it. No matter how intense it gets.”
“I don’t really like pain,” she said weakly. “I’m not a masochist.”
A small smile shaped his gorgeous mouth. His gaze flickered over her flushed breasts wearing the nipple chain. “You like small amounts of it. Nothing too harsh. Don’t worry, I’ve noticed. I’m getting used to what excites you. I look forward to finding out more.” When she didn’t reply because she was too busy absorbing the fact that he’d been reading her on their other times together, gauging her, he added, “You’ve become aroused when I’ve punished you before, or when I instructed you to punish yourself, haven’t you? And that hurt, didn’t it?”
“Not much. It stung—especially the paddle and the hairbrush—but I was more . . .”
“What?”
“Excited,” she whispered.
He nodded in understanding. “And you like the pinch on your nipples, don’t you?” he asked gruffly, touching a crest with his forefinger. Her nerves were so exquisitely sensitized she shuddered in pleasure even from that soft caress. “If things ever become too intense between us, though, all you have to do is say ‘End it.’ That’s all. And I will. But you must say that, specifically. If you scream for me to stop, or curse at me, or beg me, I will continue according to my aim. End it. That’s what you must say, and I will. No questions asked. Do you understand, Elise?” he asked sharply.
She swallowed and nodded her head. Her vagina had clamped tight when she thought of begging him to stop, and him continuing with whatever he was doing. Why was that? Perhaps because he’d also given her the power to truly stop him? It was like a secret key, a get out of jail free card she had forever at her disposal.
“I understand,” she whispered.
His gaze lingered on her lips even when she no longer spoke. “You have come to me and been honest about your desire. Now I’ll be honest about mine. You goaded me into taking you like an animal that night in the stables. But tonight, I’ll take my pleasure of you because you have offered yourself, and I have been burning alive from wanting you.” He caressed the underside of her bound arm, then her chest, finally cupping her breast. She choked off a moan when he gently tweaked at a sapphire. “I have been holding back, chaining myself. But tonight”—he glanced at her, his expression fierce—“I’ll feast on you and I won’t come away hungry, Elise. I will take you hard . . . maybe a little savagely.”
He studied her reaction, candlelight glinting in his eyes. His pants were still gathered beneath his cock. It jumped when he said those words. She clamped her thighs together, his rich voice echoing in her head: hard . . . maybe a little savagely.
“If you want me to stop at any time, remember what I told you to say?”
She nodded. He really had been holding himself back when it came to her. Tonight, she was going to be the recipient of all that trapped passion. She craved it, but how could she not be intimidated by being the target of all that raw, pent-up sexual power as well?
“Say the words I told you to speak if you want me to stop. I want to know you remember them,” he said grimly.
“End it,” she repeated. “But I won’t want you to. I want you to fuck me hard. I want you to use me for your pleasure, Lucien.”
His eyes flashed and a small snarl shaped his mouth. He opened her legs wide and took his cock into his hand.
“Then you will have your wish, ma chère.”
Read more of Elise and Lucien’s red-hot romance in
Part VII of WHEN I’M WITH YOU
WHEN I NEED YOU
Available from InterMix on April 16, 2013
Keep reading for a taste of Beth Kery’s popular novel
from the One Night of Passion series
EXPOSED TO YOU
Available now from Berkley Heat
If someone had told her when her alarm clock went off that morning that in a few hours she’d be calmly given the odds of her continued survival, Joy would have rolled her eyes and laughed her fears into the corners of her consciousness.
If someone had warned her that later that afternoon she’d be going down on a gorgeous stranger, she’d have told that person they were certifiably insane.
Wilkie shouted her name as she raced through the din of the makeup room. A photo shoot for movie posters and other promotional materials was scheduled today. The special effects makeup department was roaring in high gear. Wilkie James looked too busy to chat, so Joy merely slowed her rapid pace. Her friend held an airbrush and was staring intently at a female’s right breast as he turned it pale green, his shaggy, dark brown hair just inches away from a nipple.
“He’s in his lab, angsting for your talent. ‘I need Joy,’ he keeps moaning,” Wilkie imitated, adding a tremble to Seth Hightower’s gruff baritone for comic effect. “He’s been trying to reach you for hours. Where’ve you been, beautiful?”
“Don’t I have a life, or was that all my imagination?” Joy asked, grinning.
“You may have had a life before we began production on Maritime, but that’s all just a dream now, honey,” Wilkie drawled as he moved to the left breast, and his model yawned widely.
That’s all just a dream now.
Numb her.
The drama and excitement of a Hollywood film set wasn’t Joy’s typical work world. As an art teacher for gifted high school students and a painter, she preferred the atmosphere of the classroom or her quiet, sunlit studio at home. Even the clamor and bustle of a Hollywood makeup department couldn’t fully penetrate her dread, however.
Not today.
She felt as if she were moving through a dream . . . something like the brilliant, surreal underwater world film director Joshua Cabot was creating for United Studios’s latest blockbuster, Maritime.
She willfully ignored the uncomfortable pounding in her chest and flung open the door to Seth Hightower’s office-studio. She needed to see the familiar, loved, bold-featured face of her uncle; he was the only true family member she still possessed. Seth glanced around at the sound of her tool kit rolling over the threshold behind her.
“There you are!”
“I didn’t get the messages until a half an hour ago. I was at the doctor. I came as quickly as I could.”
Seth looked contrite. “I know. Ignore me. I’m in a bear of a mood.”
Joy smiled. Her uncle was a bear of a man in stature, perhaps, but hardly in temperament. At least not with Joy, he wasn’t. He tossed a few tubes of paint and glue into his kit before he straightened, swept down on her from his great height and gave her a quick, affectionate kiss, his shoulder-length dark hair flicking against her cheek. “You’re not even officially part of my staff and I snap at you like an intern. Your mother would have my hide.” Seth focused on her face, his brows drawing together in a V shape, giving him an expression that anyone besides Joy would have found intimidating. “I know you had to take off school a few days last week. Is that why you were at the doctor? How’s the cough?”
“Better,” Joy said as she glanced around the meticulously organized room. As the makeup department head, Seth claimed the right to privacy. His office-studio was like the still eye of a storm. “I don’t have pneumonia,” she reported honestly. “What’s the emergency?”
“It’s coming at me from all directions. Our leading lady decided to drink some Coke spiked with vodka without a straw. The latex is lifting around her mouth,” Seth said, referring to the actress’s prosthetic mask. “She’s throwing a fit and holing up in her trailer, refusing to let anyone touch her up but me. Meantime, I’m running behind on the tattoos.”
Joy gave her uncle a humorous glance of sympathy. “There’s a cost to being the best.”
“Anybody on my staff could reglue Ellie, you know that. She’s just throwing her weight around by asking for me personally.”
“She must think you’re the best at a few things.”
“As if I’d ever give that little shrew the chance to find out,” Seth muttered with a disgusted, distracted air. Joy’s heart went out to him. This had to be one of the most hectic days of his life. “Anyway, that only leaves you who can do the last tattoo—”
Seth paused when someone rapped and the door opened several inches. Her breath caught at what she saw.
Joy had helped Seth with projects for Hightower Special Effects on several occasions, and she’d assisted him with the illustrations for his initial proposal to win the contract from United Studios and director John Cabot for Maritime. As such, she was used to Seth’s fantastical art concept for the film. She wasn’t so immune, however, that she didn’t stare in wonder at the bizarrely beautiful head of the part man, part exotic sea creature that appeared around the edge of the door.
Her uncle was going to have an Academy Award sitting on his mantel for sure, she thought with a mixture of admiration and pride.
“Hey, Tommy told me I should stop by,” the walking piece of art said.
“Perfect timing,” Seth mumbled. He pointed at an illustration and some scribbled notes on the table. “Here’s what I need, Joy. You’re the only one I trust to do it. Go ahead and touch him up after you finish the tattoo. I won’t have time before the photo shoot. Wish me luck,” he said, glancing at both of them.
“Luck. You’ll need it,” the marine man said, his lips twitching subtly.
Seth snorted in agreement and rolled his kit behind him toward the door. The man, who was probably one of dozens of extras, stepped into the room so that Seth could pass. Joy noticed distractedly that her uncle and the aqua-colored male were nearly the same height—an oddity, as her uncle was usually the tallest man in the room. The two men nodded to each other before Seth shut the door behind him. Joy lifted her kit to the table and began to extract her paints, brushes and tattoo pens.
“Give me just a minute, and I’ll be right with you,” she said as she checked Seth’s notes and began to mix her colors.
He didn’t respond, but Joy was too focused on her preparation to mind. Actors and extras reacted to prosthetic and makeup application across a spectrum that ran from stoicism to whining to outright acting out. Hours and hours of sitting or standing motionless were often required while an artist created his magic. Maritime was a particular challenge. Over a hundred actors and extras required waterproof prosthetics and full-body makeup in order to transform them into exotic sea creatures. Only dozens might be required to be in full makeup and costume during a given day of shooting, but Cabot had decided he wanted the entire cast in full regalia to give the grand scope of the movie for the photo shoot.
Joy was working up a sweat as she mixed her paints. She walked over to the unit air conditioner and turned it on high, the sound of the fan muting the cacophony of voices, music and movement just feet away from Seth’s office-studio.
“So you’re Seth’s niece?”
She paused in the action of removing her hoodie. His deep, resonant voice had taken her by surprise. She met his gaze for the first time and blinked. His eyes were a clear aquamarine. The elaborate foam latex prosthetic he wore on the upper half of his face and the sublime makeup application only added to their brilliance. His gaze struck her as startlingly alert. Compared to this man, other people’s stares were those of sleepwalkers.
She had the strangest sensation seeing his eyes peering through the elaborate costume he wore, as if she’d caught a glimpse of his soul through the beautiful artifice. Seth’s makeup, which subtly alluded to the emerging humanity of the sea creature, only added to the impression. The body paints included brilliant blues and greens, but flesh colors rippled and swirled over chiseled muscle and bone as well, creating a stunning living landscape. He was beyond beautiful, the subtle shadowing wrought by the air- and paintbrushes highlighting every ridge and smooth, hard plane of his long body.
His gaze flickered downward.
She became aware that she was holding both sides of her cotton hoodie wide open in preparation to remove it. Her breasts felt tight suddenly, straining against the fabric of her bra and a thin layer of her cotton tank top. Her nipples beaded, as if he’d reached out and brushed a finger over the sensitive flesh instead of just glancing at her.
She blushed, her reaction surprising her. Joy was an artist, and she’d long ago grown accustomed to partial and full nudity. She didn’t work full-time in the movie industry, but she’d had sufficient experience, thanks to Seth. Gorgeous models and want-to-be actors were the norm in Hollywood, as commonly found as a cornstalk on a July day in Indiana.
She whipped off her hoodie and tossed it on the table.
“Yes. I’m Joy.” She nodded to a spot in front of the table and reached for a chair, all brisk business.
“You’re the art teacher.”
She met his stare and was once again snared.
“Seth told me,” he said quietly, shapely blue-and-white tinted lips b
arely moving.
“We better get started or you’ll miss the shoot,” she murmured, discomfited for some reason by the idea of Seth sharing even the smallest details of her life with this stranger.
He walked to the spot she’d indicated. Joy sat and rolled her chair directly in front of him, her face situated in front of his abdomen. Without another word, she picked up a tattoo marker and began to outline the design in Seth’s illustration on her human canvas. Seth had altered the tattoo art somewhat from his original proposal. The brilliant starburst through rippling water was bolder and much more intricate than his original design. Joy liked the change.
She never looked at his face once while she worked, but she was highly aware of him. Her knuckles brushed occasionally against warm, dense flesh. Her nose was just inches from his body. The alcohol base from the body paint filtered into her nose. Beneath it, she smelled the musk of his skin like a subtle, living thread twining through the chemical artifice. The fragrance was potent somehow, sending a loud, clear message of male virility to some ancient part of her brain.
Only a stretchy, seaweed-like boxer-brief costume covered his genitals. Joy couldn’t help but be conscious of the fact that her chin was mere inches from the fullness behind the flimsy material. She worked steadily, but a dull, pleasurable ache began to grow at her core.
A light glaze of perspiration had dampened her brow and upper lip by the time she leaned back. She glanced up at him, a calm—entirely fake—expression plastered on her face.
“You’ll have to lower your briefs enough for me to make the transition look natural,” she said.
The air conditioner made a loud, chugging sound and then resumed its typical hum. She saw his throat convulse. Was he as uncomfortable with this situation as she was? He held her stare with those striking eyes and moved his hands, folding down the seaweed brief and exposing the stretch of skin just above his genitals.
She lifted her tattoo pen and paused.
