by Marie Harte
“Wow. Did he say why he’d been gone?”
Landon shook his head. “Apparently things at home, and with the mistress, weren’t going well. His midlife crisis is now someone else’s problem.”
“Nice.” Gavin laughed. “I bet you tore him up.”
“Well, yeah.”
Zoe wouldn’t have wanted to be that guy, facing down a fire-breathing Landon. For all that they were clearly brothers, having similar facial features and mannerisms, Landon seemed the more aggressive of the two. Gavin was more laid-back. Then too, Zoe was partial to dark hair and gray eyes. And that smile on Gavin’s handsome face when he looked at her, like he was now.
“I bet Zoe can be just as tough in the office.” He nodded. “She’s a hard-ass.”
“Not really.” She preened at what she considered a compliment. “Well, there was that one admin assistant at one of the clinics who kept screwing up our training sessions by scheduling her people at all the wrong times. I don’t know if she just didn’t like me or was bad at her job, but she had a real attitude when we’d deal with each other. I tried to be nice. Then I just took her aside and had a conversation, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh? Catfight?”
“Relax, Gavin.” She huffed. “I chewed her out is all.”
Landon leaned back, grinning. “Bet that set her straight.”
“Well, I was professional until she called me a bitch and poked me in the chest.”
“Seriously?” Gavin blinked.
Zoe flushed. “She had some deluded notion that one of the doctors she had a crush on was lusting after me. Not the case at all, but she was too immature, and plain crazy, to see that. Soon as she touched me, I kind of went off on her.” Zoe smiled, feeling the mean. “No kind of about it. I told her to stop thinking with her head up her ass, that she had no shot with Dr. Hottie because he only liked eighteen-year-olds, and that she needed to grow up or get fired, because she clearly sucked at her job. I also might have told her to fix her appearance, because we’re a professional organization, and she dressed like a groupie at a rock concert. I don’t care who you are. No one needs to see that much cleavage.” Before they could say anything, she added, “Holly was maybe an A cup and trying way too hard.”
“Oh. Well then.” Gavin glanced at her. “You know, you could wear V-necks a lot more than you do.”
“Gavin.”
Landon laughed. “That’s what I’m always telling Ava, and she’s professional this, doctoral that.”
“I heard my name,” Ava called out. “Dinner.”
They chatted more about work nightmares, with Ava adding some of her own. Nothing client-related, because Landon was right. She took her job very seriously. But she told some funny stories about what she observed when out in town, putting a clinical spin on the incidents that Zoe found hilarious.
The time passed as Zoe truly enjoyed herself, feeling like she belonged at the table with her new friends. She and Ava made plans to do coffee the following week. She felt Gavin’s hand on hers on the table. He squeezed it, leaned in to give her a kiss, then asked if she wanted coffee while he cleared their plates.
“I can get that,” she tried, but he forestalled her.
“No, no. I can’t cook, but I can clean.” He talked over Landon’s harrumph. “Coffee with cream, right?”
“Yes, please. And two—”
“Packets of that sugar substitute crap. Right.”
Zoe watched him walk off, then turned to see Landon and Ava grinning at her. “What?”
“She domesticated him. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” Landon shook his head and held up a glass. “To Zoe, tamer of wild beasts.”
Ava chuckled and toasted her as well. “To Zoe, who can tolerate the brothers Donnigan. You deserve three sugars, in my opinion.”
Zoe blushed and laughed with them. Gavin returned with a tray of coffee cups and a carafe. “At your service.” He set down the tray with flourish and a bow. “And yes, Landon. My mistress has thoroughly domesticated her humble servant.”
Though the others thought him funny, she hadn’t missed that emphasis on mistress or the way his gaze deepened with sexual intimacy when he smiled at her.
And then it was time to go, and she had her wild beast all to herself in the privacy of her own home. What to do, what to do…
Chapter 12
Naked and bound, Gavin waited, breathless with anticipation, while Zoe puttered around in the other room. She’d made good on her promise to give him a mistress worthy of the title tonight.
Man, it had made him so damn happy to have her by his side with his brother and Ava. He’d never, ever considered bringing his other bed partners home to meet his family. Not that there had been that many over the years.
He’d had one girlfriend for a few months in San Diego. And then sexy and funny Ariel during his temporary active duty assignment to Hawaii a few years back. But when the operational tempo had increased, his energies had been spent on honing his skills with a weapon, on being with his team during those times he wasn’t flagged for special ops.
He’d only taken that last promotion because he had to, but inside, he’d always be Gunnery Sergeant Donnigan, platoon sergeant and all-around ball-breaker to a bunch of mouthy Marines. Melancholy darkened what should be a fantasy come true—Zoe-time with him naked and tied up.
He seriously had to stop dwelling on the past.
Except he couldn’t do that when he kept getting calls from those who’d lost the same loved ones he had. People who probably wanted what he didn’t have to give—happy stories of his pals and a glazed-over version of the truth. That the sad coincidence of being shot while deployed at the same time and in the same location as Mick and the guys had prevented him from being in that unlucky convoy.
He clenched his fingers around the taut material binding his wrists to the posts on Zoe’s bed and forced himself to relax. God, talk about the wrong time to lose it. Seconds away from being Zoe’s sexual plaything, and he had almost ruined it by getting all self-pitying and sad.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, ignoring the subtle breeze through an open window that made him shiver. Lying naked on the bed, tied up and waiting, should have been more fun than this.
“Well, well, falling asleep so soon, boy?”
Her voice sparked him to awareness. He blinked and, across the candlelit room, saw Zoe in some sexy-as-hell bustier. It had black lines crisscrossing under her breasts, emphasizing her round globes, skimming down her tight abs in red silk and flaring out over her belly, giving tantalizing hints of panties he was dying to see. Over her thighs, a matching pair of black garters with little red bows. Garters.
His cock rose in salute. All thought fled, his blood rushing to that other, more important part of him. He could cry later, he told himself, having a difficult time thinking about anything but burying himself inside her.
“I’m so disappointed, Gavin.”
“No, no. Call me boy. Or bad boy.” He chuckled at her frown. “I mean, whatever you want, Mistress.”
“Thanks so much for letting me be in charge of your fantasy,” she said drily. “Now shut up and listen.”
“Oh yes, Mistress.” He bit his lip to keep from laughing when she planted her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“You’ve been a very bad boy. But I think it’s probably because you’re so stressed. I think a massage would calm you right down.”
He said nothing, not wanting to ruin the moment. Fuck all, Zoe was a queen. She wore her black hair down, the wavy mass flowing over her toned shoulders, kissing the tops of her breasts. The bustier left little to the imagination, and he could see her nipples poking past the thin red material cupping her breasts.
She’d put on some kind of shiny gloss, making her lips look bloodred and slick. He was dying to see them wrappe
d around his cock. But he feared that if she put them there, he’d come way too fast.
He spread his thighs wider, instinctively readying himself to thrust up so when she settled her hot pussy over him, they’d have the perfect fit.
Zoe smiled and trailed a finger from his ankle up his leg to his hip. And damn, but that light touch made him even harder. Anticipation and her naughty smile would give him wet dreams for weeks, months, years.
She stroked back the way she’d come, moving to the other side of the bed, where she did the same to his right side. When she got to his hip, she again stopped. But this time she turned and flaunted her ass at him, so that he could see—
“Oh fuck. No panties?”
She turned back around and spread her legs, and he saw her wet and slick, mostly shaved. A mouthwatering treat. She had to sit over his face. And soon.
“Did I tell you to speak?” She smacked his thigh, very close to his cock.
He jerked and felt a spurt of moisture leave him.
“Oh, so big, baby.” She feathered a breath over his cockhead, and he moaned. But she didn’t kiss him or touch him there. Instead, his sadist of a girlfriend caressed his legs, paying special attention to the insides of his thighs, always coming close but not close enough to his groin.
She turned and slid her hands up his belly to his chest, running her short fingernails over his body, tugging his chest hair, then raking over his nipples until he was panting.
“Zoe, please.”
“That’s mistress to you.” She wore a cruel smile, getting off on their play, yet a special joy remained in her eyes. A care that went deeper than just a need for sex.
He could see it and knew it because he felt the same. This should have just been a hot fuck between two consenting adults. Instead, it was an intimate interlude between a woman who cared enough to give her lover his fantasy and a man falling deeper under her magical spell. They shared an emotional connection that continued to grow.
Zoe leaned down, finally following her hands with her mouth.
He groaned and swore when she trailed kisses across his body, licking his nipples, then biting them.
“Come on,” he urged. “More.”
She moaned and continued to kiss him, dragging her breasts over his body as she leaned across him. It seemed to take forever before she kissed his mouth, while continuing to stroke his arms, from his shoulders to his wrists tied up in spandex.
He felt like a man possessed, kissing her with desperation. Sliding his tongue in and out, needing to do the same with his cock. He arched his head off the bed until she cupped his head, easing the strain on his neck.
When she pulled away to kiss toward his ear, he begged her to come back. “Come on, baby. Kiss me again,” he growled. “Mouth fuck me with that tongue.”
She gave a low laugh, one that vibrated to his core. Then she nipped his earlobe and whispered, “How about if I take a seat on the bed. Would you like that?”
He bowed off the bed, humping the air. “Fuck, yes. Right over me. Put yourself on me. I’m so hard.”
She laughed again, then tongued his ear, playing along his erogenous zones until he feared spontaneously combusting. “You’re so easy.”
“Yeah. Really easy,” he agreed. “Super easy. Come on. I’m hurting.”
“Not enough.” She moved back, and he watched without blinking as she slowly crept onto the bed, first one knee, then the next. She was on her knees, straddling his waist, too far away for him to penetrate. The silky feel of her thigh-high stockings aroused him anew. “How about a treat?”
He nodded, and she blew his mind.
She peeled away the fabric covering her breasts, then tossed the material to the floor. Black webs of elastic still framed her, but now only accenting how naked her breasts were.
“Oh, Jesus.” He was living a nightmare, dying of sexual starvation while his fantasy made flesh wore an outfit meant for torture of the best kind.
She moved to his side, giving him no way to shove up into her. But she did lean over his mouth. “Who wants a treat?”
This sexual dynamo who’d taken over Zoe’s body had him so aroused he threatened to burst. Gavin latched onto her breast, sucking and licking, needing to get her as stimulated as he was. She moved away, but before he could complain, she gave him her other breast, and he laved it with the same attention.
Soon Zoe moaned, and he couldn’t stop gyrating his hips, needing to thrust inside her something fierce. Zoe eased up, and he swore she’d finally sink over him.
But she did him one better.
“Zoe, please,” he begged, not too proud to do whatever he had to for a hard fuck. He’d gone past the point of desperation what felt like forever ago.
“You’ve been such a good boy; you deserve a reward,” she said in a husky voice, her eyes pinpricks of lust. Then she crawled up his body and settled over his face, slowly lowering until he latched onto her clit and sucked.
Gavin had always loved oral. Getting or receiving, though he preferred giving it. He loved the taste of a woman in passion. But Zoe was like an eternity of dessert. All his favorite things in one glorious woman. She was so wet, as aroused as he’d been by their play. And knowing she was getting off on it made it that much more difficult to resist coming. He’d never thought he could without someone touching his cock, but he might be able to right now.
He moaned and licked, shoving his tongue inside her, stroking and taking. Giving back the pleasure magnified by her sexuality. Living out his own private fantasy, better than anything he’d ever been through or could imagine.
“Oh Gavin. I’m coming, oh God,” she whispered as she rode his mouth.
He’d have given anything to be inside her at that moment, but when she cried out and came over his lips, he lapped her up like the sweetest cream.
She didn’t sink over him at all. Instead, she immediately straightened while she quivered, not giving him that last bit of her pleasure.
“Come back,” he managed, his voice thick.
“Oh, wow. That was amazing.” She left the bed, damn her, and smiled down at him.
“You have got to be kidding me.” He could feel himself seconds from losing it.
“Now, now. Be a good boy, Gavin, or you won’t get your next treat.”
“I’m so getting you back after this.”
“Well then. Maybe I won’t untie you after all.” She tried to look mean, but her lips quirked. That Zoe half smile he’d gotten used to seeing at the gym.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he lied.
“Yes, you are.” She moved back on the bed, so slowly it was like time moved backward. She kept a close eye on him. “Well, you do look repentant, I guess.”
“Mistress, now,” he growled, arching up, seeking her heat as she straddled him once more.
“Mistress, hmm? You remembered my name.” She positioned him at her entrance and waited, the tip of his cock surrounded by wet warmth. Heaven and hell in the same breath.
Staring up at her unbound breasts tipped with berry-red nipples, at her parted lips, those slumberous blue eyes gazing down at him with more than lust, he closed his eyes and committed the experience to memory. God, he never wanted to forget tonight. Ever.
She shocked the hell out of him by slamming down, taking him all the way in.
“Fuck!”
She rose and bore down just once more, and he came like a geyser.
“Yes, yes,” he yelled as she remained over him, taking every fucking cell of desperation, frustration, and longing while he released into bliss. He came forever, letting it all go, and felt groggy when she finally leaned down to kiss him.
He tasted her on his lips and wondered if she liked it. He sure the hell did.
“Oh, baby. You’re so big inside me,” she murmured. “I like it.”
“Zoe. Zoe
,” he whispered while she kissed him all over his face. Soft, tender presses of her lips while she cared for him.
He didn’t want her to leave, but she moved off him anyway. She hurried away but returned moments later with a washcloth. She gently wiped his cock, his thighs, then tossed the cloth to the floor. Then she snuggled up to him in the bed.
“Wow. That was amazing.” He opened his eyes to check out her outfit again. “And what you’re wearing? Never, ever get rid of it. I’m thinking of framing it, minus those nipple covers of course. It’ll go on my wall. Right above my bed.”
“Gavin.” She laughed. “You liked it.”
“Liked it? Seriously? I loved it. I almost came just from looking at you. You are one seriously sexy woman.”
“Thanks.” She ran a hand over his chest, up his still-bound arms. She’d given him plenty of slack. “So it wasn’t too much?”
“Ask me that again, and I’ll spank you.”
She grinned, and his heart dropped to her feet.
“So, I have to know. Is this standard for you? I mean, should I feel special or what? Because kink makes the world go round, and I’m all for it. But did you just do this for me, or is it something you’re into?” He moved his hands. “And while you’re answering that, could you untie me?”
She leaned on her elbow to regard him. “I bought this last week, thinking maybe you and I might put it to use. I like to think of myself as a sensual person, but I’ve never been much into fantasy play or sex, to be honest. It can feel good, but then I’m busy with my life at work, at home, my flowers. I haven’t dwelled on it too much, at least not lately.” She shrugged and turned pink, yet she didn’t look away. “But with you, I wanted to try something else. All that mistress talk. And you turn me on.”
“Have I told you how much I love your bluntness?”
She caressed his arm, lingering over his biceps with a touch that started turning him on again, though he didn’t think that was her intention. “I’m fascinated with your body. I love touching you.”
