“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” He didn’t want me to be.
“Do you have your word?”
“Lilac.” My voice cracked with the shape of the memory. They were the flowers that brought me here and the scent he’d thought to gift me with after we’d fucked beneath its spell.
Silence. He cracked squeaking hinges, rattled a drawer. Then his weight sailed toward me, and something cold and smooth pressed into my cheek. I jumped. Whimpered in recognition.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Yes.” I winced under metallic caress. “A knife.” I couldn’t quite discern what kind–something heavy with a flat, wide blade–but I knew it. This was the heady cocktail of fear and desire he had used to seduce me in my dream.
How had he known? Or how had I?
“Clever girl.” I could hear him smiling now as he drew the tip to my chin. “Do you like it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not that it matters.” The edge was blunt enough as it traced lightly down my throat, coming to settle in the valley between my breasts. “All this gorgeous white skin…I love the way it looks in the candle light. Do you know what looks even prettier, baby?”
I shook my head just once.
“Pink and red. Colours for a little girl.” He swallowed. “And war paint for a slut like you.”
I wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up and suddenly felt very exposed.
The blade slid around and he eased up the scarf, rubbing the jagged edge along the underside of one breast. It scratched sweetly and I gave a small cry. It was a bread knife, I guessed now–not quite the dagger in my dream, but dripping with equal menace.
After all, the rough kiss of a blunt knife was notoriously worse than that of its cleaner counterparts.
He switched to the other breast, bringing the flat of the metal to push against my nipple. The pressure was release and relief, and I moaned again at the lick of steel through silk. My heart made a fist beneath it, pummelling for its own release like it had been buried alive.
Maybe it had.
The very tip scraped beneath my breastbone.
“On your knees,” he demanded.
It was more awkward than one might expect to fall down with bound wrists. I went on one knee first as if he were about to ordain me.
He teased my lips with the end of the knife. “Lick it.”
I flicked my tongue over it experimentally. It tasted bitter, and the serrated edge was prickly. A little more pressure and my flesh would split like a peach.
“Should I punish your mouth with this?” He pushed it slightly against my tongue and I froze–if I jerked, there would be a serious accident. “Or maybe this?”
The hilt sank right into my mouth, smooth and weighty in contrast. It thumped to the end of my throat and I groaned.
“Mmm.” He worked it back and forth for a moment, stopping just short of the blade striking my lips. I wished I could see the look on his face as I swallowed so obediently. Adrenaline swelled. I liked this.
What did that make me?
“I think you need something bigger, don’t you?”
I nodded, the metal heavy in its slow retreat. I tasted pre-come first and then moaned over the length of his cock.
Joseph gripped the knot of the blindfold and eased me back, taking a fistful of my hair. He pushed until my back arched and he could fuck down into me, his hips shoving in and out. Beneath him, I quivered in my dance for rain.
Breath hissed between his teeth and he started to swear softly. Tension braced his arms as he held me, his thrusts waned. He was close so soon, teetering before the little death...but not ready to fade.
Over and over, I swallowed on his cock just for the rippled suck it gave. I would tempt him toward the end if it choked me and it would never be punishment, not even in the sweetest sense. I could do this for all of my life and be happy–I wouldn’t cower in anticipation of a knife that was already there.
In one swift movement, he pulled out and pressed the blade at the base of my throat. Breath rushed from him like he’d been starved of air.
“Get up,” he said.
I raised myself on one knee again. Still drunk on the taste of him, I kept knocking my clit as I moved. If blood could sing, the bud would be stuffed with riot and rhythm, and all I craved was his touch against the wetness there. How long would he make me wait for it?
He stroked the knife-tip under my chin, and as I looked up, he claimed my mouth. I mewed shamelessly as he bit my bottom lip, and tugged at my bindings, desperate to hold him.
No such luck.
Joseph cleared his throat. “Sit on the bed.”
I obeyed, walking slowly backward until my calves hit the wooden frame. He untied my hands and brought them to my lap, the scarf still loose around them.
“Now…back on the bed. Lie down.”
The sheets left chilly friction burns as I moved up the mattress. He tugged my hands by the scarf and secured them to the bed frame, and the knot was looser this time. He gave me space to move. The thought turned to a hot shiver as it slid down my spine.
“You should see yourself.” The voice was wrought, low. “A bound angel.”
“You could take off the blindfold and show me,” I whispered.
“Now where’s the fun in that?”
The bed balked with his weight then, and a knee fell at each hip as he straddled me. His breath showered down on my collar bone, so exposed beside the silk.
I waited for the blade.
It jerked roughly between my breasts, carving away the scarf in a few short strokes. I lay as still as I could with each gulp of air and panic, each throb of a heartbeat. It didn’t matter if he gave me any warning–I was never prepared.
He took a bare breast in his smooth palm, squeezing until the tissue balked. “Perfect,” he murmured. “I couldn’t mould anything better.”
God, it felt like he was trying.
He pressed my nipple between his finger and thumb and caressed it with the knife. I sighed a feeble protest–reluctance waning, delight distilled. His cock–solid as an unlit candle, hot as the flame that threatened the wick–brushed my pubic bone, and I tortured myself with thoughts of it venturing lower, down between the scarves to where it belonged.
“How long are you going to tease me?” I begged.
“This is teasing?” He pricked my nipple. I yelped. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s just a scratch.”
Now he graced my other breast with his attention, tracing the steel beneath it, scraping the underside as he urged the flesh up. We shared heat, this implement and I. Bounced off each other like a mirror stood between us.
Joseph walked his fingers down and spread a palm across my stomach.
“This, here,” he whispered. “Do you know how many women I’ve painted right across the belly?”
Beneath the silk blindfold and the fog of thrill, I conjured the image of him coming over me and Isobel, the thick, wet splash of it and the warm smell. “Not enough.”
He laughed again. “Good girl.” The knife twisted, brushing me, and the point began to sail down. “Never carved one, though.”
“Don’t!”
“Not like that, baby. Like this.” He laid a little of the knife against me and then I felt a graze, a heat permeating down, down, met by a warm sting. I cried out, though the shock was greater than the pain–it was just scratching, after all. Right? I had to stay still, be a good little canvas–what if he slipped?
The blade dragged over my skin in a strangely familiar pattern. Blood and goosebumps rushed up to follow, and the two cavorted like warring magnets. Between the sweet sting and the sour scrape, I swore he split me from the inside out. Left me open. Unstitched.
Finished, briefly satisfied, he sat back against my thighs and sighed. “Beautiful.”
“Am…am I bleeding?” I shuddered at the unexpected note of hope in my voice, and my belly smarted with each little spasm.
&nbs
p; “Mmm. Only a bit.” He chuckled. “It is only Monday.”
“What did you do?”
“Just a pretty picture. You’ll be a little sore.” His breath hit first and then he licked along the shallow wounds, tracing the letters of his name. An ache blossomed through the hurt and I twisted my hips to usher him where it throbbed. He followed too, easing himself down the bed until he nuzzled at the apex of the scarves.
“Please?” I whimpered.
He splayed my legs and the tight bindings bit into my hips. “Again.” He purred over my wet flesh.
“Please.”
“Mmm.” He sucked lightly at my inner lips and I was a bucking, moaning mess. “Not so fast.”
The blunt edge of the knife pressed right next to my clit, the other side grating on sticky silk. He inhaled and began to lick me against it, the flat of his tongue moulding over the blade. It seemed like he didn’t miss a millimetre, and I pleaded with him, urged him on in a ragged language of gasps.
All this, all of it...for me. He pushed me toward an orgasm he probably wouldn’t let me have. Nothing mattered; I soared with slow fever and somewhere below, he mapped the Braille labyrinth with his tongue. I knew the end would come.
Soon.
The knife dragged down a little and I lay very still while he toyed with my lips. It left for a second and then I squealed at the thrust, terrified he forced the blade inside me, but it was the round, heavy hilt. Relief grew in the shape of gliding pleasure, my muscles contracting as it slid in and out.
“Bastard,” I hissed.
“Thank you.” His voice grated through teeth. I realized then that he held the blade in his palm.
He penetrated me very slowly. Maybe he feared losing control, or that the knife might take on a life of its own. I begged him to be rougher and my cries were ignored, and I was so wet that I barely felt it.
“You’re becoming insolent,” he muttered. “I should teach you a lesson.”
The hilt fell from my pussy and I heard him suck on it, humming at the taste. Then he spread me further and placed the sharp edge beside my clit. The squeals that spilled from my lips were foreign; Charlotte’s voice. Even she kicked her heels on the very edge of our limits.
“You deserve it.” His mouth was back over the full bud, licking as firmly and painstakingly as before. I couldn’t roll my hips against him or I’d charge into the blade, slicing myself wide open, but when his tongue dug beneath the hood, stroking me so close to the knife, I cried once more because I feared the hurt anyway.
How long could I lie still like this? The call to ride the waves was all consuming. If I gave in, if I threw myself upon them, the warm gush I craved would be scarlet. And if he carried on, if he made me do this…what control did I have then?
“Joe,” I pleaded. “I’m going to…please, don’t make me…”
“Do it.”
“No, I can’t, I can’t!” The fear rose in my voice and the sound of it made me tremble. “Don’t make me, please–”
He twisted two fingers and they sank into me deeply, pressing up beneath my clit. I bucked my hips involuntarily and was rewarded with a blunt graze.
I sobbed as I shook on the edge, and just as I was petrified I might go over, the word, the word he wanted, rushed out of me to fill the air.
He drew away, murmuring as he nuzzled up along my body. “Shh, shh…it’s all right.” He cupped my face as he silenced me with a kiss. When he pulled back, the blindfold went with him and I shook beneath his shadowy green eyes.
His cock nudged between the scarves now, bore down along the mash of wet silk and lips. I moaned as he entered, relief, retribution and a new form of torture all at the same time. He took shallow strokes before he splayed my legs back and then forgot all mercy, charging until I took him fully and he sank to the very end.
My heart hurt from the constant pounding, my belly stung and my bound wrists burned with cool friction, yet the energy poured in a velvet rush. I had purged something. I felt hot, jittery and…fresh.
He took his teeth to my neck as he fucked me, biting along the hollows the knife hadn’t reached. Red welts swelled in the warmth of his mouth, and I tipped my head back further. I was ritual sacrifice. He was tooth and fist.
He hooked his fingers under the scarves at my hips and yanked them tight. They parted my lips, exposing me further and letting him strike me in all the places I craved. I wouldn’t hold on much longer but it was safe, now. I could climb and climb and it didn’t matter where I ventured or how far I fell.
God, I fell.
Down, down, from a floating precipice to the smack of a hard fuck. There were no tears but I sobbed again, seared with the heat of a convulsing world and the wet mess of contractions that piled up inside me like traffic. The blindfold flashed before my eyes. Knives and flowers. Light and dark. I had never, ever come like this, not from the pressure of such a brutal pounding. It echoed everywhere.
He slowed inside me as I came down, nuzzling my chin up and kissing me deeply. “Give me that,” he whispered, pulling out. “I don’t care how you do it, but I want that.”
I still mewed softly as he untied my hands. He kissed my raspberry-stained wrists and then worked out the knots at my hips, leaving me free and naked after what seemed like hours. I sat up on my elbows and reached for a discarded scarf.
“Here,” I whispered, gesturing to the edge of the bed. He obeyed, and I slid down to kneel at his feet. His stomach twitched, muscles rippling beneath the faint spatter of blood. My wound had imprinted, the letters he'd carved visible: Joseph on Joseph. A mirror made flesh. As I bent forward, I licked the underside of his cock and it shot up against his belly with a jerk. No use in teasing him–it had all been as much for him as for me.
Just as he had done, I folded the scarf lengthways. Then I brought it beneath his cock and crossed it at the top. I still smiled as I jerked the cross tight and he yelped, falling back on his hands.
Holding the scarf ends in my fists, I stroked his cock up and down. I was careful not to pass his head until the third or fourth go and when I did, he began to groan. He looked damson purple, even in the dim light–a new shade in our pantheon of paint for whores.
With the swipe of a large hand, he shoved me down to lick him. I sank further, taking each of his balls in my mouth and sucking lightly, and his voice wavered in a tone I’d never heard before. This man would shudder, would fall.
I bit my lip as I stared up at him, still working the scarf back and forth. “All over me,” I whispered
“Is that so?” Those eyes were dimming, the lids rolling closed.
“Everywhere. Shut up and come for me.” I gave the ends another tug and his cockhead bulged.
He laughed when he broke, laughed and swore as if he’d cheated death itself. He rocked and spurted over me, streaks of syrup coating my cheeks and stinging the grazes on my stomach.
Then he practically fell off the bed, pinning me and kissing me with savage grace.
“You, Miss Vaughn, are a very, very good lawyer.”
“A good…lawyer,” I repeated, still getting my breath.
“Mmm. I’m telling you so that when you hear me say it in a board room, or a restaurant…you’ll know what I really mean is that you’re the most lush little thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.” He glanced at the knife-hilt hanging off the bedside table. “Among other things.”
“I think I do know you,” I said softly. “Just not in any way I imagined.”
“You’re like me.” He kissed me again and I nodded as far as he’d let me.
“I’m like you.”
Even in the buzz and the afterglow, I couldn’t help remembering what everyone thought Joseph was like. What were we, a pair of werewolves rutting under a full moon and tearing out the throats of those in our way?
“It’s a good thing,” he said, as if he saw the image flicker in my mind.
It hadn’t exactly felt like a bad one. I turned my hand before me, checking for telltale claws and hai
r.
He rolled onto his side and I came up on my elbows, gazing down at my scratched stomach. His name stretched from hip to hip in looped calligraphy and it rippled with each breath. There was something grimly beautiful about it. The marks were raw pink and chalk white but at the p, a ruby winked between the lines; he’d almost lost control toward the end. I pressed a finger to it. Though the skin was sensitive and slightly raised, I had no great pain.
How long would it last?
“It’ll clear up in a week or so,” he said, his fingers joining mine.
Stop reading my mind, Mr Merchant. It’s unsettling. “Shame,” I breathed.
“If you’re a good girl, I’ll give you another one.” He patted me on the head as he rose, padding out into the living area.
Pain ebbed as I climbed onto the bed and my belly scraped over the sheets. I buried myself beneath them and stretched out; it was still syrupy warm.
Joseph returned with a bottle of Champagne and a black velour tub tied with ribbon. He sat up on the bed with his knees bent and legs spread, and I crawled over to sit between them. Gold frothed into flutes on the bedside table while I dug into the box of truffles.
“Didn’t have you pinned as a chocolate man.” I giggled.
“There weren’t any accountants in the mini bar.” He dipped his finger in the Champagne and made me suck it off. “Good?”
“A little dry, actually.”
“Ungrateful bitch.”
I fell against his chest and laughed up at him. “I’m pretty sure I showed you how grateful I was.”
He smoothed my hair, gazing back at me. “How many men have you done that for?”
“What, the outfit?”
“Any of it.”
Now, I paused. “The scarves…a couple of clients. And the rest…um.” That knife grew bigger every time I looked at it. Menacing. “How many girls have you used one of those with?”
“One. A long time ago.” He wrestled the chocolate box from me. “And that time, I think, was a mistake.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She didn’t want it for the reasons you did.” He pulled my hair gently. “Not that I presume to know yours, of course.”
Breaking Leila Page 28
