Into Her Fire (Fantasy Heights) (6 page)

She slipped her hands between them to feel the erection surging behind his lace-up pants. He wore a costume similar to one of Thomas’s pirate getups. Black velvety material, soft and supple against her palms.

When he lowered his head still further to tuck his face into her neck, she began to suspect that Josh, for all his control and experience, was suffering an attack of nerves.

Feeling mean about it, she let out a quiet, sympathetic laugh. “Are you nervous?”

After a forgivable delay, he nodded against her.

She smiled and raised a hand to rest it on the back of his head. “Josh, you’ll be wearing a mask. No one will recognize you, and once we get started, you’ll forget anyone’s watching.”

He lifted his head. “Easy for you to say. You’re used to this.”

“Just remember this is only the appetizer. We have all night together to do whatever you want.”

His expression veered toward wry but she kissed him again. Once he seemed more relaxed, she helped him on with his mask before leaving him to take the stage. No apparatus tonight. Instead, a padded black cube awaited in the middle of the room. The color helped it blend into the background. She took her place there as a strip of footlights came to life, lending a coppery aura to the set. The lights made it more difficult to see outside the glass, but she wouldn’t have much time at first to see what was happening. All she knew from the notes was that Derek, Nicole, Lily and whoever she’d brought to the resort would be together tonight under the watchful eyes of Eric and Max, Thomas’s usual observer.

Josh came out to join her soon after and, dressed all in black as well, didn’t blend so easily. Maybe it was because she liked him that everything about him stood out, from the wave in his streaky blond hair to the breadth of his chest and shoulders, and the curve of his mouth.

From his hand dangled two long white cords. Amanda felt a charge of adrenaline at the thought of what was coming. The restraints tonight were not just for show. She would be bound and helpless again, and the notes said Josh was not supposed to undress her until after the restraints were in place.

She hadn’t quite figured out how that would work, but Josh knew what to do. He tied her wrists first, leaving a long length of cord free for later. Next he secured her ankles before helping her stand up.

She wished he wasn’t wearing the mask. She couldn’t see those dark, dark eyes while he unbuttoned her blouse, tugged her shirttails free, and slid the shoulders down her arms. The shirt hung there, half on, half off. Bra straps followed. Dissatisfied, Josh unclasped her bra and pulled until the straps were tangled with her shirtsleeves around her forearms.

Content now that her breasts were exposed, he went for her skirt hem again, easing it up over her hips where it stayed without any help.

When it came time to lower her panties, Josh lost some of his nerve again. He kissed her first, and Amanda understood why he hesitated. He would have to go backstage for a time after this part. He wasn’t the sort of man who would, by choice, leave her disheveled, exposed and vulnerable, unable to cover herself. The group had requested she stay that way, seated on the cube watching them prepare for their own pursuits.

Josh helped her into position and walked away, leaving her to focus on the shapes outside the shadowbox. It took a while before any of them solidified into recognizable form. Once they did, she shifted on the cube, feeling a powerful wave of envious desire. Derek and Lily lay side by side on a wide padded table, both of them nude and bound. Lily’s knees were spread wide and the agreed-upon dildo protruded from her pussy. Nicole was on her knees above Lily, drawing a small, peachy nipple into her mouth.

Nearby, Tony Prosper stood facing a semi-familiar man Amanda recognized as Lily’s husband, Brandon Briggs. His presence didn’t surprise her as much as seeing both men here at once. Lily’s bodyguard on the same set as her husband. Undressing one another.

Amanda hadn’t seen that one coming, but it made for an interesting few minutes. She watched the tall, gaunt Brandon and the stockier Tony touch and kiss and shed clothes.

Derek caught her attention, and Amanda let a smile creep into her eyes for him. He returned the secret greeting. If not for the promise of Josh in a few minutes, she would wish she were out there right now, free to climb onto Derek and reacquaint herself with his finer points.

Of course that made her think about Ridley’s complaint and veering off script. Watching the festivities, Amanda didn’t see much control or order to what was happening. Tony had Brandon undressed finally, and he’d lubed up his hands. Nicole crawled forward to ride Lily’s tongue at the same time Tony turned Brandon around to face Amanda’s direction.

It was a free-for-all out there. Or at least that’s how it appeared, and this time, nothing could be blamed on Derek. He was still tied down while Nicole did her own thing with Lily. Tony began to stroke Brandon’s cock with one hand, doing something with the other that made Brandon’s mouth open and his eyes slide shut.

When he opened them again, he sought her out. He had the sensually dazed look of someone far out of his depth, a little frightened, perhaps, but unable to resist the temptations swarming around him. And his gaze kept dropping to her legs. Taking it as a request, she very slowly, very deliberately parted her knees. Brandon took a few steps closer, making Tony follow along.

She stayed as she was, watching first Tony and Brandon, then Lily and Nicole, then back to Derek. When he wasn’t looking at her, he kept his eyes on Brandon, showing the most interest when Tony sent the older man to the edge of the chaise to rest there on his hands and knees. Tony lubed and plugged Brandon in preparation for what would come later.

Amanda was glad to see Josh again by the time he returned. Outside the glass, everyone’s attention shifted onto the shadowbox. Josh helped her to stand once more. He picked up the long, loose end of her wrist restraints. He threaded it under the cord binding her ankles and began to pull. The cord pulled her wrists down, forcing her to bend at the waist until her hands were level with her feet.

Josh tied her off. Stranded with her bottom in the air, she was more glad than ever that Josh had agreed to play this role. Anyone else, and she might have balked. She was utterly defenseless this way. Too much struggle, she would lose her balance, and over she would go.

Her panties were still around her shins but Josh left them there, only pushing the skirt a bit higher before he began to stroke over her slit, petting. His fingers got wet.

Moments later the scalding-hot tip of his cock was invading her pussy, bit by bit. He kept his hands busy grasping at her buttocks one minute, dealing light spankings the next. Rubbing a knuckle against her anus now and then, and generally making her want to pound back against him, but in that position, he was in near complete control.

Knowing they were free to finish as they pleased, she tried to keep the escalation in check. Except Josh knew how to make her not just come, but come with extreme force. He bent his knees, transforming his legs into a solid, curved surface for her to lean against while he sank his cock in deep and pressed the pad of his thumb against her anus.

A charged heat swelled in her pussy. She accidentally jerked back against the restraints. He caught her and held her steady, and she would have started to laugh at her own clumsiness, had she been able to breathe. Such a deep, powerful pressure was beginning to build that all she could do was try to hold still, focus on it, and ride the crest of pleasure.

The orgasm claimed her hard and fast. Josh tumbled straight after her, pulsing and thrusting until they were both quaking and panting and nerveless. Before pulling out, he reached down to undo the slipknot securing her wrists to her ankles. He then loosed the cord holding her ankles together. Now that she could move her feet and keep her balance, Josh helped her upright. He slipped his hands between her elbows and her sides, cupping her breasts, holding her steady until she was in command of her breath and limbs once more.

They left the shadowbox together and after a quick shower, Amanda met up with him once more in the main hallway. Josh took hold of her hand and they headed for the Palace in an easy, amicable silence she knew couldn’t last.

Josh
knew it too. He gave her hand a gentle shake. “We need to talk tonight.”

She nodded. “I’ve been rehearsing for a week what I’d say once we were alone together. And mostly I’m just sorry about Kay. And I hope you can understand that I didn’t go poking around out of idle curiosity.”

“I know you didn’t. Thomas told me Fiona forced the issue. I’m sorry you had to find out that way, myself.”

By unspoken agreement, they left the subject alone until they reached their room, ordered dinner, and carried drinks onto the patio to watch another colorful sunset.

Comfortable on a deck chaise, she worked her way toward a question that had been on her mind a lot. “Fiona wanted me to find out what happened back then, and uncover Thomas’s part in it. Why would she and her boss or whoever do that?”

“Jennifer—that’s Fiona’s boss’s name, by the way—is either really interested in you, or really wants to scare you off. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’m leaning toward the former.”

Great. Wasn’t that exactly what the Whisperer had said?
They have plans for you. All of them.
“Should I be worried about this?”

“Not necessarily, though I think it’s time someone taught you Fantasy Heights History 101.”

Josh spent the remainder of sunset and all of dinner giving her an abbreviated history lesson. Fantasy Heights hadn’t always been Fantasy Heights. The company had started life in a boarding-house-turned-brothel nearly two centuries ago. Three sisters had run the place together and their three equal shares had been passed down through the generations to varying degrees until this latest generation. Steph, the most direct descendent, held fifty-two percent of the voting stock. Steph’s cousin, Jennifer Grove, held twenty-four percent and Josh had inherited his twenty-four percent from Kay.

“Kay was Steph’s second cousin,” Josh explained. “They hated each other almost as much as Steph and Jennifer.”

Josh did not elaborate on Kay and Steph’s difficulties, but he made the friction between Steph and Jennifer very easy to understand. Jennifer had multiple economics degrees. She made business decisions based on logic, whatever would serve the bottom line best over the long term. Steph, with no business background whatsoever and a tendency to let emotions make her decisions, did not ingratiate herself to Jennifer or the Accord.

“She’s made some incredibly stupid decisions of late,” Josh said. “Stupider than usual. First she gets it into her head that Robert Warnous could be a headliner, and then she starts sleeping with him. To top it off, she told Warnous that Thomas is a Fed. When she realized she shouldn’t have done that, she led Thomas to believe Marla had done it.”

Amanda felt her face go slack, and a hollow tunnel open in her gut. She had never given the fact Warnous knew about Thomas a second thought. She ought to have. For her, The Thomas Disclosure had been a big deal, a major confidentiality issue. Steph had told Warnous about Thomas with no such protection in place. Very risky, and that didn’t even touch the fact that Steph had betrayed a close friend’s confidence.

It reminded her of what she’d heard during the auditions, that Josh and Steph had words, and Josh had been so angry that he’d gone all quiet and polite. Amanda would bet her entire salary that Steph telling Warnous about Thomas was the core of that argument.

Josh, who’d been watching her fit the pieces together, showed that she was spot on. “I’ve known Steph a long time. Thirty years, almost, and I’ve stuck with her through a lot of her self-induced drama. But no more. The fact that she told Warnous about Thomas was the last straw. You should have seen him, Amanda, when he found out. He trusted her.”

Oh, lord. Thomas, not the most trusting soul to begin with, must have felt that one like a punch to the gut. She wondered how much it contributed to what happened that night in Haynes House.

“But it was worse than that. All along, Thomas has combatted his own people, defending Steph’s decision to keep you here despite everything Steph skipped in the hiring protocols. So not only did he have to worry about why Steph broke the rules to hire you, but he was also forced into a position to cover her ass.”

Finally, she thought. That explained exactly what her mystery client had meant about Thomas putting himself in serious hot water for her. The nerve of Steph was appalling.

Josh said, “So that’s the end of the troika. Steph’s finally gone too far, and I don’t know what will happen now. Sometimes I wish Kay had changed her will and left the shares to Jennifer. I hate playing peacekeeper all the time.”

He then went on to explain the Accord. About seventy years ago, the company acquired the estate where the resort now stood. At the time, the property had been an unofficial diplomatic neutral territory along the lines of Camp David. With the property acquisition came access to a new and extremely powerful tier of clients. Naturally, not twenty years passed before a situation developed so potentially explosive that it had taken the combined efforts of law enforcement and several allied Mafia families to prevent multiple international incidents.

Once the crisis had been averted, the company had changed their business plan, going into fantasy fulfillment. All the parties involved decided their interests were better served by continuing the cooperation.

“More like no one was willing to concede the territory,” Josh said. “The important thing to keep in mind is that we need the Accord. We need to keep the members happy. Fantasy Heights is, for all intents and purposes, still a brothel. Without both the Feds and the Families’ protection, we’d be easy pickings for anyone who wanted to cause us problems.”

Amanda pondered that for a moment, while Josh explained the Accord consisted of three representatives: one from Fantasy Heights, one from the Justice Department, and one from an organized crime syndicate. Presently, the Fantasy Heights seat was held by Steph. A man named Wade Fraser sat for the Justice Department. Representing the syndicate was none other than Mercury Milazzo.