A laptop and phone are sitting on the low table in front of the chairs arranged in a small sitting area. Malone stops in front of the one she was obviously using and turns to me. “I’m sitting in on a meeting with a new team giving their first report. My presence is more to lend additional heft to their manager, so it will be tedious.”
I manage to clamp my mouth shut before I press her for more information. She hasn’t asked a question, and she’s already proven to be a Domme who won’t put up with her submissive edging past the lines. Not that I’m hers, but the label applies for the next thirteen days.
She lifts an elegant brow. “Well? You’re wasting time.” When I still hesitate, Malone sighs. “With your experience, I didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you.” She motions to the front of her slacks. “Keep me entertained, Aurora.”
Oh.
Oh.
I hit my knees, the soft rug cushioning me, and go for the front of her slacks. Even as I tell myself this is solely for the scene, I know I’m a goddamn liar. I want my mouth on her again, want to taste her, want to feel her come all over my face. I unfasten her pants and ease them down her legs, taking a little longer than strictly necessary. She’s built lean, but Malone is strong. Her legs show the same strength as her arms, muscle readily apparent with each move she makes. She steps out of the pants and waits while I fold them neatly before she sinks onto the chair and casually throws a leg over one of the arms. “Be quiet.”
“Yes, Mistress.” I move to kneel in the space she created for me. I should…
But there’s no room for should, not when she’s so pretty and pink and right there waiting for me. I dip my head down and kiss one inner thigh and then the other, easing my way up her legs. Malone makes an impatient noise but doesn’t stop me. Instead, I hear her picking up her phone.
When she speaks, it’s coldly professional. “Yes, I’m here. Bring on the team and do what you need to do. You’re taking lead on this one, Marshall.”
I slide my hands up her hips, pushing her shirt higher. She reaches down without looking and stops me before it reaches much past her navel. A severe look tells me that this is all the territory I have to work with. I bite down on the disappointment I have no business feeling. Why should I be annoyed that I don’t get access to her breasts when her pussy is right here and waiting?
Maybe I’m just annoyed at everything Malone does.
Or, more accurately, I’m annoyed at myself for wanting her despite everything she’s done. And I do want her. I’m honest enough with myself to admit that. I dip down and kiss her pussy, doing what I always do—channeling my frustration and anger into lust. It’s so much easier to manage this way, to smile and orgasm and cry out the emotions I’m not comfortable showing to the world. When I’m in a scene, no one expects me to display perfect control. The carefully orchestrated shattering is the point.
I want Malone to shatter. I want to be the one to cause it.
She tastes exactly like I remember, a truth that should have been blurred by time and many partners, but it’s there all the same. Every moment of that night is seared into my memory. I’m not the same person I was then, but it doesn’t change the way one lick takes me back.
That night I was sure she saw into the very heart of me. Saw all my scars and trauma. Saw my desires. Saw everything. She pulled it out piece by piece, breaking me down until I was an exposed nerve for her to strum at her leisure.
I could have survived that. Other Dominants have brought me close to that point over the years, though no one quite so skillfully. No, it was how she held me afterward that fucked with my head. It’s the only time in nearly ten years of knowing her that she wasn’t icy and distant. She felt warm and soft and all too human.
She felt like mine.
I shove the memory away and focus on the task at hand. Malone says something about annual review reports, and her voice isn’t even breathy. She could be sitting at a desk in the middle of a crowded office, rather than in her bedroom with my mouth on her pussy. I look up at her and push two fingers into her. She doesn’t bother to so much as glance at me. She simply reaches down, grabs a fistful of my hair, and guides me back to her clit.
What a magnificent bitch.
As irritating as I find her control, it feels like she threw a gauntlet at my feet that I’m only too happy to pick up. I toy with her clit as I carefully explore her with my fingers, looking for her G-spot. It doesn’t take long to find it, and her legs go tense as I stroke my fingertips against it.
Got you. I keep up that motion as I focus on her clit. There may be time for teasing and playing later, but I’m on a mission right now. I want her to come and crack that perfect iciness she presents to the world. I want her hot and fiery and on the edge of control. I want to be the one to cause it.
Her fingers tense in my hair, so I keep doing that motion with my tongue, teasing her higher and higher. I look up her body to find her cheeks have gone pink and her lips are parted. She’s not making a single sound, but the evidence of how close she is to orgasm is written in her expression, in her legs tensing on either side of my face, on her harsh grip in my hair.
She moves the phone away from her face and hits the mute button. “Stop playing around and make me come.”
It’s so tempting to reach between my thighs with my free hand, but I already know she won’t grant permission. She might even stop me from making her come, which is something I desperately want to avoid. I suck her clit into my mouth and work her with my tongue, and she moans a little and orgasms hard, clamping around my fingers.
Malone’s grip in my hair softens, and she trails her fingers down my temple. Her expression isn’t exactly warm, but it’s not as distant as normal. “Don’t stop. This call will go on a while yet.”
I lick my lips, tasting her there. “Yes, Mistress.”
9
Malone
What am I going to do about Aurora?
Half my instincts want to continue to put her in her place, to prove that she doesn’t have the same pull on me that she seems to on every other Dominant she comes across. The rest of me wants to stop fucking around and take what’s mine for the next two weeks.
The rest of the call is as uneventful as I expect it to be. Marshall has things well in hand, he just needs a little confidence to fully step into his new position while working with a team he’s unfamiliar with. He’s got all the necessary skills and experience, but he’s still a bit green. He’ll figure it out.
I hang up and set my phone aside. That was the last obligation of the day. I purposefully lightened my schedule during this time because I didn’t want to be distracted—not from work, not from play. There are still things that can’t be shifted around, so that’s what I’ll spend my mornings doing. Aurora is a nocturnal creature like all the other Underworld residents, so it works well.
I dig my hand into her hair again, enjoying the way the indigo tresses feel against my palm, and pull her off me. “That’s enough.”
“But—” She catches herself quickly, losing some of the bliss that’s filtered into her expression over the last twenty minutes. If I let her, she’ll retreat from me again. It’s the smart thing to do, to allow that distance, but I find myself reluctant to let it happen. “Come here.” I guide her up even as I lean down.
I shouldn’t do it. It’s a mistake, and I already know it’s a mistake, but I can’t seem to help myself. I kiss Aurora. Her lips part in shock, and I use the opportunity to trace her bottom lip with my tongue. She has some of the most perfect lips I’ve ever seen, shaped as if a sculptor molded the ideal mouth. Something I’ve tried and failed not to notice over the years.
Aurora’s hands land on my thighs, and then she’s kissing me back. Here, she’s just as fierce as I know she can be, subtly fighting me for control. For dominance. A heady feeling rises in me, a flicker of something I’ve worked hard to keep locked down. This woman makes me want to fight and stab and scream. To annihilate everything in my immediat
e vicinity until she has no choice but to admit that she’s mine.
That’s enough.
It takes every ounce of my fraying control to break the kiss. Even then, I only gain an inch between our lips; our panting breath mingling in that tiny space a reminder of how easy it would be to just keep kissing her. To throw out any plan of scening or dominance and submission and simply sink into this woman until the hours tick away and we lose all track of time and ourselves.
It can’t happen. Losing control, any kind of control, is unacceptable. That’s what happened to my sister and now look at the situation back home. Two nieces and our brother in danger. The trust of our people wavering. An old enemy threatening everything our family has spent generations working toward. Aurora is hardly the Paine brothers, but there are thousands of people in my territory who depend on my keeping the status quo. Allowing myself to become wrapped up in her might not endanger everything I’ve worked so hard for, but I don’t know that for sure.
Because I can’t guarantee it to be true, I create more space between us. It’s not quite the boon I need it to be. Not when Aurora is clutching my thighs as if she’s fighting the pull of me as much as I’m fighting the pull of her. Her eyes are a little too wide, and her lips are parted with each harsh breath that escapes.
I don’t make a conscious decision to reach down and begin unbuttoning her nightshirt. My body simply takes over. With each button, a larger slice of her light-brown skin is revealed. The curves of her breasts, the smooth skin of her stomach, and finally her pussy. I sit back and study her. A stalling technique to keep myself from falling on her like a starving creature. It barely works.
“Why did you say yes, Aurora?”
She blinks those big brown eyes at me. “What?”
“You dislike me intensely. You have for years. Why say yes to this assignation?” I don’t know if I care. She agreed and that paved the way to the outcome I desire. But the way she hesitates now has curiosity flaring in response. “Answer the question.”
She meets my gaze for a long moment before pointedly dropping her gaze. “I was angry for a long time after that scene with you when I first started. I want you to want me, and then I will walk away and leave you wanting something you can no longer have.”
Shock and something like admiration course through me. “Do you think your pussy is so amazing that I’ll never get over fucking you?”
She flashes a look at me, and there’s no evidence of the innocent woman she’s played for nearly a decade. No, it’s all fire and fury and no small amount of lust. “I am more than my pussy, Malone. There’s a reason every single Dominant in the Underworld favors me; the same reason you’ve avoided me for nearly a decade.”
The statement is an arrow of truth I have no defense against, spearing through my carefully placed defenses. She’s not wrong. No matter what I’ve told myself—or pointedly not told myself—I’ve never treated another submissive the way I’ve treated Aurora. Still, I lean forward until our faces are almost within kissing distance. “Do you think to make me fall in love with you?”
“You wouldn’t be the first.”
That surprises a laugh out of me. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t be.” I sit back. “But it will never happen, so put whatever petty revenge schemes you’re considering out of your head. This is two weeks of simple lust. Nothing more.”
“Yes, Mistress,” she answers sweetly.
Why the hell am I irritated by how easily she agrees with me? I push the nightshirt off her shoulders and snap my fingers. “Up.”
Aurora rises gracefully to stand naked before me. The woman really is a work of art, all long lines and soft curves and the pretty bars piercing her brown nipples. I palm her breasts and coast my thumbs over the jewelry, enjoying the way she inhales sharply. “How long have you had these?”
“A few months.”
I know that, of course. I clocked her the second she got them done, flaunting the new additions with a carefully crafted underbust corset and sheer bra. “Have you changed out the jewelry?”
“No… Not yet.”
“Mmm.” I lean forward to suck first one nipple and then the other. She shouldn’t taste so damn sweet everywhere I put my mouth, but nothing about Aurora follows the rules. No matter what she pretends.
She starts to reach for me, but I grab her wrists and guide them to the small of her back without stopping what I’m doing. I use one hand to press them there and skate my other down her stomach to cup her pussy. She jerks but widens her stance to allow me better access. I expect her to be turned on, but something about finding her soaked, about knowing that she got this ramped up because she was eating me out, frays my control even more.
I need—
Damn it, what am I doing?
I jerk back, barely managing to recover and catch her shoulders when she sways. “The playroom. Now.” Confining our scenes to that room is the only way to go. Honestly, I should have simply taken out an exclusive contract with her in the Underworld and gone there every night instead of bringing her into my home. That’s the smart, logical thing to do.
But a deep, wild part of me wants her here, available to me at all times. Surrounded by my things. Possessed by me completely.
I pull my pants back on and follow her into the playroom. Distance. I just need a bit of distance. “You’ve pleased me.”
Aurora stops in the middle of the room and bows her head, the very picture of an obedient submissive. In her way, she’s frantically trying to put more distance between us, too. Again, that irrational irritation rises.
I stalk to the far corner of the room and snap my fingers. I don’t need to look to know Aurora follows. I motion at the sex machine. It’s a custom piece that was built by a friend of a friend, a leather bench-like creation designed to be knelt on. Once the submissive is fastened in place, the portion holding the knees and shins stays immobile while the center part rocks. It’s meant to create a delicious grinding motion with the dildo, and the curved section at the front rubs against the clit with every stroke. “Climb on.”
Aurora hesitates. “Is this a reward or a punishment?”
I could leave her in suspense, but I’m not kind enough to do that. “A little of both.” I grab a bottle of lube and spread it over the dildo. “Now, Aurora.”
She moves slowly, perching one knee in place. I fist the dildo and hold her hip with my other hand, guiding it into her. Her hiss of surprise brings me more joy that I have right to. She wiggles a little as I move around the machine, fastening her legs in place with padded leather buckles. I double-check the restraints. “Too tight?”
“No, Mistress.” Her voice has already gone a little breathy.
I take her hips and guide her to rock a bit. “And this?”
“It feels perfect.”
I catch her chin. “Tell me your safe word, Aurora.”
“Thorn.” She licks her lips.
“Good girl.” I force myself to release her. “You may come as many times as you like.”
Her eyes go wide. She’s experienced enough to know this really is both a punishment and a reward. How many times will she orgasm before it’s too much? Will I stop the machine before she reaches that point? I can see the anticipation and trepidation curling through her, and she looks down at the device.
“One last thing.” I retrieve a pair of cuffs and fasten her hands behind her and then clip the cuffs to the hook at the back of the seat. It’s not a tight enough connection to bend her uncomfortably, but it will keep her completely at the machine’s mercy.
I move to the overstuffed chair a few feet away and sink into it. A click of the remote, and the machine begins to rock slowly. Aurora makes a muffled sound of surprise, her gaze flying to me. I smile and pick up the book I left on the side table this morning for solely this purpose. It’s one I’ve reread many times, its spine cracked and bent, and I open it and begin to read.
Or at least I try.
The first time Aurora comes, her breath hissin
g out, her curse choked, I lose all concentration. She’s just as beautiful like this as she is in every other instance, and I can’t help but watch from the corner of my eye. I slow the machine to give her a second to recover and then change the mode to a different pattern, winding her up again.
A reward and a punishment. As many orgasms as she can take, but she’s deprived of my touch, my attention. A special kind of torture for a little brat like Aurora.
By the fourth time she comes, her skin has a sheen of sweat, and there are tear tracks down her pretty face. “Mistress, please.”
I make a show of putting my book aside and focusing on her. “Please, what?” She clamps her mouth shut as if she didn’t mean to let those words loose. I raise my brows. “If there’s nothing else…” I click the remote, increasing the tempo.
“Oh, gods.” Aurora’s breath sobs out. “Please don’t make me come like this again.”
There it is.
I have to concentrate to rise slowly, to not rush to her side and do exactly what I’ve been fantasizing about for far too long. She broke first. It’s important to not give over any power in response.
I sift my fingers through her hair and give it a tug. “What do you need? Speak plainly.”
She doesn’t want to. I can see it written across her face. But the seat keeps rocking against her clit, grinding that cock inside her, and she shudders. “Touch me. I need…” She gulps. “I need you. Please, Malone.”
My name on her lips in that agonized tone of voice completely unravels me. I turn the machine off and unstrap her in quick movements. I unfasten the cuffs from the seat but leave them on her wrists. Her legs won’t work properly after being in the position for so long, so I lift her and carry her to the chair I just occupied. “Your arms.”
“They’re fine. I can stay cuffed like this for a long time.”
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