From Leather to Lace (15 page)

“I wanted to tell you that I am giving up the Dominatrix gig,” she said, smiling brightly.

For the first time Maxwell removed his sunglasses then stared fixedly at her. “Are you serious? Is this what you want? What do you plan to do?” His words tumbled over each other.

“I think I need a change and I
want
a change. This week I have barely tolerated being at work. You have no idea how relieved I was when you told me you booked all my sessions last night.”

“I only wished that I had thought to do it sooner,” he muttered.

“You’re not the only one who has been performing self-analysis. I’ve also done a lot of thinking and I’ve realised that it’s not what I want to do anymore, it’s time to move on. Also I’m starting to feel terribly guilty about lying to my parents for so long and keeping up a charade with most of my friends. Initially it was fun and exciting. Now it has become monotonous and I guess I have continued with it because it was harder not to. I might look at doing something with journalism—after all, that’s what my degree is in—I’m not sure, I haven’t thought it through a great deal yet.”

“I don’t want you to make this decision because of me, Sarah. It has to be something that you want to do for you.”

“I appreciate that and it is something that I am doing for me. It was never supposed to be a career, it was always something that I had only planned to do as a stopgap and it just lasted longer than I had anticipated.” She shrugged and smiled. “Also, I appreciate your sentiments on the matter,” she said quietly.

Maxwell stood and in one swift movement was sitting beside her. He lifted her onto his lap and pressed kisses into her hair. “Sarah, you don’t know how happy I am,” he breathed against her ear. “You can’t understand how crazy it made me thinking about what you did night after night.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea.” She giggled. “What we have is so much more important.”

He wrapped one hand in the hair at the nape of her neck, tugged her head back and kissed her deeply. She moaned into his mouth and wrapped both her arms around his neck, pressing his mouth harder into hers.

He pulled away from her slightly. “God, I’ve missed you. This has been the longest week of my life,” he breathed against her lips.

“Mmm, I agree,” she whispered as she nuzzled his neck then ran her teeth along the stubble of his jaw.

He groaned and stood up quickly, taking Sarah with him. He cupped her backside in both hands and hoisted her up. “Wrap your legs around me, sweetness,” he urged as he moved towards the hatch to take them below deck, his mouth continuing to caress hers. He walked deftly to the main cabin, where he lowered Sarah and himself to the bed using one arm to take their weight whilst keeping the other wrapped tightly around her.

He nuzzled her neck and ran a hand up her side before he slipped it beneath her bikini top to tease and thumb her nipple. She arched against him and pressed her breast harder into his hand as his knee pushed between her legs. He ground his hips against hers as he clutched her bottom with one hand and pulled her hard against him. She felt his erection throbbing and hot between her legs and wriggled and bucked beneath him, desperate for some friction to ease the ache that was flaring low in her belly. She pushed him up quickly and helped him pull his T-shirt off before she reached between them to unzip his shorts then freed him from the confines of his boxers. He hissed between clenched teeth as she wrapped her fingers around his length and stroked him hard. He pumped himself into her hand and pushed her back down on the bed.

“Baby, I’ll come too quickly if you keep doing that,” he rasped against her ear.

“I want you inside me,” she gasped.

He didn’t need any further prompting. They were both close, both desperate to be fulfilled by the other after over a week of nervous tension and abstinence.

“My pocket,” Maxwell ground out. Sarah dug in his pocket and pulled free a foil packet, which she swiftly ripped open before she rolled it down the length of him.

He quickly untied the knot of her sarong and wrenched her bikini bottoms to one side. “This is going to be hard and fast, baby—I hope you’re ready,” he growled before he plunged into her deeply, driving himself inside her to the hilt. Sarah gasped at the feel of him filling her and forced her hips up hard to meet his thrust.

She moaned loudly as he tore her bikini top off and fastened his mouth around an erect nipple, swirling his tongue around the taut bud before sucking it into his mouth. She opened her legs wider, wrapping them around his waist and forcing him deeper inside her with her heels, and digging her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders. The tendons in his neck were taut with the effort of his self-control as he plunged into her over and over again hard and fast.

He pulled out of her and pushed her breasts together before sucking both her nipples into his mouth and teasing the taut buds with his tongue and teeth. She cried out and pumped her hips up, desperate to have him inside her once more. He quickly pulled her bikini down her legs and discarded it.

“Turn over,” he demanded urgently as he whipped her onto her stomach, and, grabbing her hips, pulled her backside in the air. He clutched both her breasts as he entered her hard from behind, plunging his thick, hard cock so deeply that she cried out as he filled her. He stilled and wrapped one arm around her waist, cupping her to him.

“It’s deep this way,” he murmured in her ear as he started to drive in and out of her. Sarah matched his pace, pushing back hard to meet his thrusts. She was so close, she could feel the pressure building and her muscles tightening. The ripples of pleasure at her core were starting to crest to waves as she frantically pumped against him.

He nipped her ear as he trailed one hand down her belly until he reached the swollen nub between her thighs and pressed it with his thumb. “Come on, baby,” he insisted urgently.

“Oh, God,” she cried out, bucking hard against him as the dam broke and massive waves of pleasure crashed through her. Her internal muscles tightened and clenched around him as he thrust into her. His muscles went rigid and he curled his body over hers, clutching her tightly to him before he climaxed loudly, shouting her name as he did so.

Maxwell held her close to him for a moment, waiting for their breathing to slow before lowering them both to the bed. He lay next to her, his head resting on one arm. Sarah turned onto her back and gazed up at him as he smoothed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her reverently on the lips.

“Has it really been only a week since we did that? It seems like so much longer,” she murmured breathlessly.

He chuckled, running his thumb over her bottom lip. “It does seem like much longer,” he agreed. “I can’t believe you are going to belong to me completely.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow but before she could respond to his comment he continued.

“I’ve told you I don’t like to share, baby. I’m aware this makes me sound like a chauvinistic bastard but it’s the way I am. I couldn’t change that part of my nature even if I wanted to. I don’t mind what you do as long as it doesn’t include prancing around in front of other men wearing those sexy Dominatrix outfits—I want those reserved for me,” he stated emphatically.

Sarah couldn’t blame him. After all, it had been that exact issue that had destroyed her two previous relationships and if the situations were reversed she knew she would feel exactly the same way.

“God, the emotions that went through me when Roxy first told me you were a Dominatrix. My mind couldn’t reconcile the woman I had met with what I imagined a Dominatrix to look like. I had to see you in action for myself and when you first walked into that dungeon you took my breath away—though I was quick to hide it. You looked fabulous, sexy and formidable, so different to when I first met you looking lovely and demure. You were like two different women. After that first session I knew I had to have you.”

“You know, you hid it surprisingly well at the party, Maxwell. I wouldn’t have been able to act so calmly in that situation—pretending that the previous evening hadn’t even occurred.”

“I wouldn’t be the successful businessman that I am if I couldn’t pull off a decent poker face.” He smiled as he stroked his finger down her cheek. “I remember when you first arrived at my house for the party. I had been waiting for you. You looked so beautiful, so different—like a chameleon,” he said softly. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you—you utterly captivated me.” His caress feathered from her cheek to her neck before reaching her right breast where he ran his finger in slow circles around her nipple. Sarah’s breath hitched as his touch sent sparks of electricity shooting through her.

“Now here you are with me,” he continued, “transformed, gone from leather to lace,” he said huskily as he continued his lazy caress.

“Gone from leather to lace for you,” she whispered as she pulled his head down to hers so they could once more lose themselves in each other.

Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:

The Dark Side: Darkening

Ashe Barker

Excerpt

Chapter One

Don’t you just love Beethoven?

Well, I do. I always have, since I was tiny. I’m just drifting along nicely to his Symphony Number 3 in E-flat major and contemplating the heroic doings of Napoleon Bonaparte—apparently Beethoven’s inspiration for this particular symphony—as my mobile starts trilling. Definitely need to choose a new ringtone sometime soon—this din could be mistaken for a budgie caught in a car door. What could I have been thinking, choosing that? Napoleon never had ringtones to contend with. Neither did Ludwig van. And I don’t appreciate the interruption.

It’s not even seven o’clock in the evening yet, and I am curled up in bed. I am surrounded by archaeology textbooks although I’m not in the mood for serious reading, and I do have Ludwig for company. But still—in bed by seven and trying to teach myself about the mysteries of ancient Egypt out of sheer boredom is just pathetic. I so need to get a life.

The phone has somehow disappeared under the duvet. I know it’s there somewhere because the budgie’s still screaming its silly head off. It gets louder after a few rings. God, what overpaid nerdy whiz-kid thought that little gimmick up? A pushy phone—that’s all I need. I get enough nagging from my mother. ‘
I just want what’s best for you, dear…’

“Sod ringtones.” Now I know I’m losing it, because I’m actually talking to myself. I suppose the real danger sign is if I start answering. An uncomfortable thought. I shudder as I shove it brutally aside.
I’m fine, absolutely fine. Now
.

On that thought, I finally get my hands on the screeching HTC spawn of Lucifer and drag it out to face the light, punch the passcode into the keypad and answer.

“Hello, Eva Byrne…?” Always that expectant little pause, my name turned into a question as though I might not after all be me. Wishful thinking.

“Eva…? Evangelica, is it…? Ange, is that you? It’s Natasha…” A little pause, no doubt to give me time to remember who Natasha might be. It doesn’t work—my mind’s a complete blank. And no one I know calls me Ange. Or Evangelica—unless it’s my mother in a very bad mood.

“…from the agency.”

Right,
that
Natasha. The snooty bitch with fuck-me heels and killer red talons glued onto her fingernails who looked at me like I was a lesser life form when I called in at the Little Maestros musical tuition agency a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for some alternative way of making a living, and if I could find something I actually liked doing, so much the better. I love music, and I quite like teaching, so I dropped off my CV and qualifications with a few agencies, just in case they might have some temp work going somewhere. Natasha looked a fraction more respectful when she spotted my first class honours degree in music from King’s College, London, but rather spoilt the effect by asking me for proof of identity. Obviously she thought I’d stolen the degree certificate.

On reflection, I think her suspicions were aroused by my skinny black jeans, No Fear grey hoodie and psychedelic Converse trainers, topped off by a mop of wavy—or should that just be plain frizzy—red hair falling to the middle of my back. I’m not your archetypal music teacher.

My unruly hair is a constant nuisance, the bane of my life. It bounces, frizzes and waves everywhere, and short of shaving it off I have never found a way of controlling it. When I was a child my mother tried everything to get it into some semblance of order, and brushing it every morning became a war of attrition. The hair was winning, hands down, until eventually my mother had one of her Hiroshima moments where she takes decisive, drastic and usually disproportionate action. She marched me along to The Cutting Shop down on Stamford Hill High Street and had the lot chopped off. It curled more than ever in defiance after the vicious assault, but at least it would fit under a hat. 

At five-four in heels and looking about sixteen—I am twenty-two, but like to tell myself I have worn well—I guess I didn’t fit the image of a serious violin teacher as I perched in a trendy little black leather bucket chair in front of Natasha’s pristine white desk, while she sneered down her aristocratic nose at me and suggested I was an impostor.

I wasn’t especially desperate to impress Natasha the super-bitch—other agencies are available—so she was treated to my scruffy, sullen teenager look. Maybe my unpromising first impression was why it took her so long to get back to me. Oh, well—I need the work so I’d better make an effort now. If humble and well-mannered is called for, that’s what I’ll do.

“Ah—hello, Natasha, how are you?” Always polite, that’s me, whatever the provocation. It’s my mother’s influence.

“There’s a job come up you might be interested in.” She pauses to let this sink in, make sure I’m listening. “Music tutor to an eight-year-old girl. She’s learning the violin.”