by Joey W. Hill
“You’re my salvation, angel.” His grip tightened. “I loved her. But she never got into my soul as deeply as you did the first time I touched you.”
It took a moment for her to register the significance of that statement. When she did, she couldn’t speak. “I felt lonely without you this morning,” he continued. “That’s the main reason I followed you out here.”
“I didn’t want to go, thinking you might have to leave and I wouldn’t see you until Friday night.” She shook her head. “What are we going to do about that? The whole desolate-without-each-other thing.”
“That’s easy. Marry me.”
Her eyes widened in shock. She didn’t ask if he was serious, since she could well see by his expression that he was.
“A reasonable engagement, followed by a marriage ceremony, as quiet or elaborate as you like, anything you want. You want big and opulent, we’ll do it, or something small and lovely, maybe at my house.”
“Tyler.” She simply couldn’t think of anything to say or do to such a proposition. “I barely know you… Okay, yes we know each other.” She rolled her eyes at his raised brow. “But I don’t even know… Do you shave up or down, are you a morning or night person? Do you spend your spare time watching reality TV?”
“Would that be a deal breaker?”
“Absolutely.” She threw up her hands, tried to struggle away, but he held her securely. “You’re moving too fast.”
“That’s why I said engaged.”
“What if I want to get married in an airplane? Jumping out of an airplane?”
He lifted a shoulder and rose. “I said I’d do anything for you, angel.” Closing his hand over hers, he captured her in his gaze. “It’s soon, if we’re thinking of time, but I love you, Marguerite. That’s not going to stop today, tomorrow, or in a thousand years from now. And I think you need to know that.”
“I need to think about this.”
“Think as long as you need. I shave upward, I’m a night person and no, I don’t watch garbage that insults the hard work and struggles of talented scriptwriters. You think of any other questions, you let me know. Now, let me tell you about this deli nearby that I think we should check out for lunch…”
She resisted the urge to scream as he closed his arms around her in a hug, lifting her off her feet. With his face pressed hard against her hair, he held on to her in a way she knew made it impossible for her to refuse him anything.
In that, they were entirely too alike.
Chapter Twelve
A couple busy hours finishing up the day at Tea Leaves kept her from dwelling too much on all the revelations from the airport. But the scent of Tyler in her room as she packed for the weekend and changed clothes brought it all back, along with other distracting thoughts. If she knew him, he was figuring sexual deprivation would force her to capitulate much more quickly to his absurd offer of marriage. He was relentless. It almost made her smile.
As Marguerite drove up to the gate of Tyler’s “city house” late Friday afternoon, she noted it had many of the same qualities as his Gulf home. Acreage, privacy and lovely, tended grounds that suggested Robert either had a twin or divided his attention between both places. The house had a Caribbean flare, with tall front columns, wide vistas of windows and charming touches like the center fountain in the front drive. Sculptures of two children frolicking in the water reminded her of their puddle stomping, the laughter that had bubbled out of her, his playful grin.
He was sitting on the front steps in khakis and an open-collared white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, his back comfortably leaned up against a column.
She got out, shouldered her overnight bag with a casualness she was far from feeling when he looked at her out of those half-lidded, direct tiger eyes.
“How much money do you have?” she asked waspishly.
“You after me for my money now?”
“I have never been after you, Tyler Winterman. You’ve chased me from the beginning. Shamelessly and tiresomely.”
“Really? That embarrassing, am I?”
“Like a slavering hound.” She walked up to him, making the mental correction that he was more like a bloodhound. He tilted his head, surveying her from the tips of her sandals, her bare knees, the hem of her sleeveless linen sundress, up to her breasts and face, lingering on the hair she’d caught in a banana clip and which spilled over one shoulder.
“You look like a beautiful island sprite.” He ran his hands up her calves, under the skirt. Before she could back away, he had a firm grip on her thighs. “Drop the bag and come down here. Give Fido a break and let me drool on you a bit.”
She knew there was nothing joking about the underlying command as his strength pulled her inexorably forward. She only had a moment to drop the bag before he had her stepping over him. Bringing her down to straddle his lap, his hands comfortable under the short skirt, he found the front of her thin panties with his thumbs while his fingers took a firm grip on her bare cheeks. He looked at her eye to eye as she felt the delicious pressure of his cock.
“Did you miss me?”
“A little. When I was bored and had nothing else to think about.”
He caught the back of her head with one hand and took a nip at her bottom lip, made them part, his breath stroking her face. “Liar. Your cunt was wet for me all the way here. Your panties are soaked.”
“I was thinking about someone else.”
“Mm-hmm.” He covered her mouth with his, plunged deep. His hand held her nape while his other slid farther into that wet area, fingering her, making her shudder. “Tell me his name then. Say who you’re thinking about, who’s getting your pussy so slick. Say it.”
“Tyler,” she whispered softly in his mouth. He made a satisfied growl, moving his grip to her waist and pulling her further onto him, his fingers digging into her hips.
They’d made love, said the word “relationship”. She couldn’t help feeling sensual delight in the easy banter, the passion of newfound romance, the wild addictive quality it had. She’d never experienced anything like it before, knew she couldn’t trust or absorb it this fast, but he took over as he seemed to know how to do with her, leaving her with no footing and no anchor but him.
He pushed the skirt up to her waist, baring her lower body to the sunlight. Finding her bra strap, he unhooked it, his hands coming around to capture her breasts beneath the loosened cups. When he surged up, working his mouth down the side of her throat, the upward pressure on her breasts made them all the more visible to him in the scooped neck. He was going to have sex with her right here on his front porch. While the winding drive and high brick fence hid them from public view, it still added to her arousal to feel his desire to take her here, wherever he wished, on his territory.
She didn’t push him away as his mouth descended, took hold of her nipple through the cotton, suckled as he squeezed her buttocks. Her hips moved on him, wanting. Wanting him now.
“Please…”
“Please what?” He nipped her sharply.
She gasped, tightening her hands on his shoulders. “Please, Master. Take me here. On the stairs. I need you. Now.”
Tyler realized he hadn’t meant to make the demand, but her immediate response punched him low in the gut as he saw she hadn’t expected herself to respond as naturally as she had. Or as immediately.
“Soon.” He cradled her face, kissed her mouth hard again. “I’ll fuck you, angel, make love to you, make you scream when you come. But first I have a gift for you. I’ve been counting the minutes until you got here so I could give it to you.”
He refastened her bra for her, lifted her off him and straightened her skirt, as if unaware of her mutinous look. As he got to his feet, Marguerite deliberately trailed her fingers over him, a light scrape of her nails on his turgid cock, straining against his pants. Catching her hand, he pulled her to him. “Behave,” he reproved. But he gave her a tender kiss on her nose that surprised her, though it barely distracted her from the throb
of her body.
What had happened to her infamous control? But she knew. A sub didn’t have to have control around her Master. Only within his demands. She was quite literally a switch when she was with him, all of her compulsions commensurate with a submissive’s behavior, as strong in her as the Mistress when she stood over a different type of man.
“So how was your day? What did you do?”
He opened the door for her, guided her in with a hand at the small of her back. Behaving like the perfect gentleman while she had to clench her fingers into fists to keep from slapping him. Or jumping him.
“We had a large afternoon crowd,” she said at last. “Chloe tried her hand at a poppy seed cake that was gone in no time.”
“I assume you brought me a piece.”
“With paying customers willing to put down six dollars a slice? You’re going to have charm her into baking you one. On her own time.”
Her tone was cool and Tyler knew she was getting back at him. He grinned, recognizing the challenging light in her eye. The sexy pout of those soft lips had his lust rising to the point he had to stifle a groan.
“Mercenary.”
“Fiscally responsible,” she returned. He saw he’d restored her good humor with his teasing. He squeezed her hand.
“I love it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Really smile.”
She raised her hand to her lips, startled. It amazed him that she wasn’t aware of it, that she needed tactile experience to believe it. He touched her face, hurting for her and loving her at once. To keep it from becoming too serious, he curled a lock of her hair around his fingers. “And what if I have to offer Chloe sexual favors to wrest a cake out of her?”
Marguerite raised a brow. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
“Are you jealous at the thought?”
She considered it. “I don’t… I guess I haven’t gotten as far as to think I have the right to be possessive with you.”
Raising her hand, he kissed it and bit her knuckles with sharp pressure, watching her eyes focus on the mark of his teeth into her skin, pain offered as a pleasure. “You have every right to be possessive. Because I sure as hell consider you mine.”
“Well, there goes the affair I’d planned with half the men in the neighborhood. Tyler…”
“I’ll ease up,” he promised. “Come on out to the back. Your present is there.”
“Where are Mac and Violet?”
“Out back as well. I have a pool here, too. They’re taking a swim before dinner.”
He took her down the hallway, past an opulent dining room set for seven, through the sunroom and out a covered walkway flanked by blooming gardenia bushes. The walkway led to the enclosed pool area which currently had all the windows open to allow the fresh air.
As they stepped in, a man was coming out of the pool. She registered that there were three other people in there with him, but could not immediately focus on anyone else as her senses were abruptly inundated with him. He was the type of submissive that always called to her. In his late twenties, with green eyes like sea glass, his streaked chestnut hair to mid-shoulders, his lips soft, curved pleasantly. The upper torso was well-muscled, a lean, taut body. He was completely naked, obvious as he walked up the steps at the shallow end, hand on the rail, water sluicing down his flat stomach over the groin area and long thighs.
“Marguerite.” Tyler nodded as the man approached. “This is Roland. It’s his pleasure to serve you this weekend in whatever manner you wish. He works at True Blue, but volunteered to spend the weekend with us because he enjoys the company of strong Mistresses.” He looked into her amazed face. “I give him to you, as your Master. You have my permission to enjoy him fully in my company.”
She met his gaze. “Not alone.”
He shook his head. “I am possessive,” he reminded her, his gaze sweeping over her. “And I love watching you as a Mistress.”
He moved his touch up to her neck, caressing her, murmured in her ear so only she could hear him. “As your Master, I’d like to see you top him. Indulge yourself as you desire and let’s see how it goes. I never shared Nina with another man, wouldn’t countenance it. But this is different. I know the compulsion that drives you to be a Mistress, just as I know that your soul is mine. As mine is yours,” he added quietly.
Marguerite reflected that it felt odd to be here as Mistress and slave both, primarily because it did not feel odd at all. Her mind was swirling with ideas already. Only this time, it was with the things she would do to bring Roland pleasure while Tyler watched. She imagined his eyes on her as she moved her hands over another man’s flesh, as her fingers closed over Roland’s even now thickening cock.
Tyler wrapped his hands in her hair, drew her head back to suckle her throat as she studied her gift. Reaching out to Roland, she drew him to her, desire sweeping her hard at the feel of one man possessing her while she sought to possess another herself. Roland stepped closer, his green eyes respectful but avid. She could feel his desire to serve, to be commanded, emanating off him like heat.
She’d heard wives lament their husband’s inability to pick out just the right gift, even when signs and clues were practically mapped out in front of them. Tyler had known exactly what she most appreciated. The beautiful purity of Roland’s features, the eyes that had that seeking quality, the quality a Mistress cherished. While she could tell this man did not have as many personal demons as the type of submissive she usually chose, the very fact he seemed more balanced complemented the social tone of this weekend. As always, Tyler had chosen thoughtfully.
When Tyler released her, she remained very cognizant of his whereabouts as he withdrew to take a seat in one of the pool side chairs, his hands on the arms, long legs stretched out before him. She ran a hand down Roland’s chest and his eyes lowered, acknowledging her acceptance, submitting to her authority. She felt the surge of power and stillness at once, a drug she always harvested for such interactions, but now there was a new ingredient, one that made heat climb up inside her and set her imagination on fire.
“Roland, the first thing I want to do is take my afternoon tea. You will be my table. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mistress. It would be my honor.”
“I’m not very graceful. I may spill a drop or two, here or there.” She moved around him, trailing her fingertips along his back, down to the upper curve of his buttocks. And wondrous buttocks they were. “Can you be still and not upset my cup? I’d like to use my fine china, but if I must I will use a plastic set.”
“I’ll not move a muscle, Mistress,” he promised.
“Oh, I’d like to see your muscles move. I’d like them to hold a plug while I take my tea. Vibrate deep inside you, massage you until you’re fit to burst. Can you come without upsetting my tea?”
“I won’t come.” He smiled, confident, but his eyes were shifting, thinking. Not as certain. “Unless Mistress commands it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
As she circled Roland, she examined her immediate surroundings. There was a comfortable wicker arrangement near the pool, wingback seats with deep cushions, a style of chair where it would be comfortable to perch, ladylike, while she enjoyed tea on her “table”. She suspected that the chairs were for Tyler’s female guests, while the nearby loungers would attract the more sprawling nature of the males. With his propensity and preference for being outside near his gardens, she could well imagine him there, one long leg braced on the ground on either side of the lounger as he studied a script or did paperwork.
She remembered then that there were three others in the pool and got the second shock of the evening when she turned to make the appropriate courtesies. Violet was sitting on the edge of the pool, Mac still in the water, his arms crossed and propped on the edge. Her foot and calf rested on his shoulder as they watched the goings-on.
The other person in the pool was Leila.
The surge of emotion she felt at
the sight of her, naked like Roland as befitted a submissive’s status, gave her an answer to Tyler’s earlier question. She could feel jealousy. Why on earth was she here? Certainly he wasn’t going to entertain himself with Leila while she exercised her Mistress craving on Roland. While she recognized it logically as a double standard, emotionally it wasn’t. Tyler was acting as her Master, facilitating her interaction with Roland, a submissive. Roland was like the other subs she’d taken. Two hours of play, no commitment beyond that. Tyler and Leila had a history, a genuine bond of affection based in sex and shared experiences. And as Leila came out of the end of the pool to take a seat near Violet, Marguerite further observed that no woman should be that well-endowed.
Did that mean he preferred women with bigger breasts? Come to think of it, many of the women he’d chosen as submissives had been blessed in that regard.
Stop it. She was appalled at herself and gathered her dignity up with both hands. She wasn’t like any of the women he’d chosen in the past. Any more than he was like the men she’d chosen. But they’d chosen each other.
Marguerite forced her attention back to Roland. “Move the center table to the side of the sofa,” she ordered. When he complied, his muscles shifted along his back, buttocks flexing as he turned.
“Now on all fours,” she said softly. “Where the table was.”
He moved to obey, those same well-toned muscles rippling in his thighs and across his obliques as he knelt before her, then went to all fours. He surprised her by making an unexpected dip, brushing her foot with his lips.
“It is an honor to serve you, Mistress. Your reputation precedes you.”
She moved to the sofa, bade him lift up and put a cushion under his knees and another under his hands, leveling the surface appropriately and giving him comfort for a prolonged position.
