Master's Flame (30 page)

“I know. I’ll do the same if you hurt Valentina.” Jason smirked at him as he pulled away. “Just saying.”

Valentina watched both of them, and Michel had the distinct impression she’d understood every word of their conversation. “Have you been studying French?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“A little. We both have,” she said, sharing a smile with Sara. “Let’s hope both of you get to keep your balls for a very long while.”

Even after midnight had come and gone, and Sara and Jason retired for the night, the party continued. Fortunately, her Master didn’t seem inclined to watch the sun come up with the other revelers. After a few words with the party staff, he took Valentina’s hand and led her toward the stairs.

She loved the way he gripped her hand, demanding her attendance. It reminded her of that first time at Cirque du Monde headquarters, when he’d taken her hand and led her through the corridors to his office. He’d been the lofty Mr. Lemaitre to her then. Now he was Michel, and he loved her.

He stopped at the top of the stairs and faced her. He placed his palms on either side of her head, gazing down at her with a thoughtful, almost worried expression.

“Oh,” she said. “Please don’t change your mind again.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I want to do everything right this time. I want to think before I act. I want to do violently debased things to you but I want to be tender too. I’ll have to do both things to live with myself, and you’ll have to put up with it.”

Valentina desperately wanted both things. When he leaned in to kiss her, his fingers twisted in her hair so she felt the soft teasing of his lips as well as the sharp ache of his painful tugs. “Please, Master. Do whatever you want to me. I’m yours.”

He got that look at her words, that feral intensity in his eyes. Wild laughter carried up from the main room downstairs as guests stumbled in from the terraces. “Come on, then. Come to my room.”

He led her to a bedroom similar to the one in Paris, muted and cavernous, and mostly white and gray. He put the lights on low. There was a balcony to one side with glass doors that opened to the night sky. On the other side stood a monstrosity of a cage. It took up an entire corner, and unlike the sliding-panel bed-cages in Paris, this one was made with solid, immovable bars.

“For when you’re awful,” he said as she gawked at it. “Or when it amuses me to cage you. I don’t want you in there tonight, although you’re welcome to try it out. See if the view suits you.”

Valentina couldn’t resist. She crossed the tile floor and slipped inside the spacious cell. When she looked up, she saw the bars rose nearly to the ceiling. The floor felt hard and unforgiving beneath her feet. “This is scary,” she said. “It’s not so much a cage as a jail.”

He pushed the door shut with a resonating clank and leaned against it, gazing in at her. “Admit it. You love it. You’re wet as an ocean surrounded by these bars.”

“It’s not the bars making me wet, Master. It’s that you’re on the other side.”

He reached forward and pulled her close, so she was pressed against the iron between them, and kissed her until she was dazed. When he released her, she stared into his eyes. She never, ever wanted to forget this moment trapped in his cage. Not just trapped in his cage but trapped in his heart where she’d always hoped to be. She looked away when the emotion got too much, and took in the soaring, gleaming bare white walls of his kingdom.

He made a soft, amused sound. “You can draw on these walls all you like, scrawl all the words you wish. Sometimes they’ll be love words, and sometimes not, I suppose. No matter how much we love one another, we’ll have those times when you wish to kill me, and when I wish to put you in a cage and throw away the key.”

She smiled at his resigned tone. “I won’t ever wish to kill you, and I won’t draw all over your walls. Well, I don’t think so. I’ll try not to aggravate you too much. I know you prefer things to be calm and peaceful.”

“I did, yes. I’m afraid those days are over for me, but that’s okay. I needed a change in my life. I needed a spark to get my heart beating again.” His hands caught her elbows through the bars, his fingers tightening on her skin. “You aggravate me every day, but you inspire me too. Do you know what it means to inspire a man like me, Valentina?”

Months ago, in his office, she’d fallen to her knees at that question. She did the same now, sinking slowly to the floor.

“Yes, that,” he said, sucking in a breath as her fingers worked at his fly. “It means that, of course.” She released his virile length, drawing it through the space between the bars. It was already rigidly, impressively hard. She began to lick and suck it, and worship it with passionate craving. He moaned as she opened wider, took him deeper. His fingers trembled against her scalp. “It also means I’m in love with you,
tesoro mio
, and I’m never letting you go.” His words broke off in a groan.

She caressed him, luxuriating in his size and his scent. The skirt of her dress pooled around her knees, red for love, red for passion. He began to work at her buttons through the bars, then stopped her so he could open the door of the cage and come inside. There was plenty of room for two. It was big enough for ten, which made her wonder what kind of parties they might have in their future, but for now, he alone seemed enough to fill the large space.

He shrugged out of his clothes, tossing them aside, and then ripped off her red silk dress with a couple of powerful tugs. She didn’t mind. This was Le Maître after all, the demanding Master in the cage with her, and she melted into white-hot desire. Her pussy went from wanting and aching to positively hurting. He grabbed her face in one large hand and kissed her so powerfully that her jaw ached.
Take me, take me, please...
His other hand squeezed her breast, then pinched her nipple in a punishing pressure. He backed her toward the bars, his cock prodding against her front. When she couldn’t back up any further, he hoisted her so her legs were draped over his arms, and then he drove into her, balls deep, with one hard thrust.

Valentina remembered this pleasure, and yet the power of it struck her anew. The heat and girth of him spread her open, a conquering sensation that made her legs jerk and tense. His heat contrasted with the coolness of the bars at her back, making her feel trapped in the most vulnerable and exciting way.
Violently debased things.
Was that what he’d said? This was debasement and yet so much more. He moved into her with barely leashed force, lifting her with each thrust. She clung to him as he kissed her and fucked her, had his way with her like an animal devouring its prey. Just as she was rising to a blinding climax, he pulled from her as abruptly as he’d begun. He turned her around and pressed her hands to the bars.

“Stay. Don’t move.”

She obeyed, opening and closing her fingers against the metal. She knew what was coming next. She’d been put in this position enough times. She heard the lubricant’s cap click open, heard the slippery sound of him applying it to his cock. Her arousal wasn’t dissipating, only growing sharper and stronger. When he came back and delivered a glancing blow to her ass cheeks, she almost went off right there.

“Master, please,” she cried.

“Hush.” He took her hips in his hands. “Who do you serve,
ma mignonne
?”

“You, Master. I serve you.”

“Show me.” His words were both harsh and soft as silk, soft as the dress he’d torn and left in a heap on the floor. “Show me how you serve me.”

She clutched the bars as he pressed his huge, lubed cock inside her asshole. It hurt, oh, it really hurt because it had been so long since he took her there, but it also felt like the most exciting terror on earth. As he drove deeper, he splayed his hand over her pussy, squeezing it in a possessive grasp.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Master. I’m yours.” And where she used to think,
I wish you loved me
, instead she thought,
I know you love me
. She could feel it in his breath and movements, in his trembling restraint. Submission had made this act bearable, now love gave it a richness and closeness like nothing else. She belonged to him and he belonged to her, and it was always meant to be that way.

His fingers found her clit and teased it until she bucked back against him. She closed her eyes and words danced in her imagination, black words on a white wall.
I belong to Le Maître
. No dates, no starting and ending. Just...forever.

He put his hand around her neck and found her racing pulse, then tilted her head back against his chest. “Forever,” he said. Was he picturing the words on the wall too? He would have stared at them also as he fucked her, as he pressed her nose against the letters. “Come for me,” he said as she hovered on the edge.

They orgasmed together in a shaking, bar-clattering climax, his lips pressed against her cheek. Any words on a wall were forgotten. There was only his power and his warmth, and his hands curved over top of hers on the bars.

*** *** ***

For weeks, Michel had fought himself, trying to resist her. Now he had her and he never intended to let her go. He took her to his bed and wrapped her in his arms, not because she preferred it, but because he did. He, this new Michel Lemaitre who had risen from the ashes of Valentina’s flames.

Now he was the
ouroboros
twisted into a circle. Like the
ouroboros
, he must regenerate and reinvent himself. For so long, he’d been alone. He’d studied others from a self-erected pedestal and taken from those who enticed him—with their agreement of course. Otherwise, he’d kept to himself. But he could not, would not stay away from Valentina any longer. He was powerless to change the fact that she was his mate, his soul pairing. His legacy, perhaps. Eventually, certainly, his wife.

She shifted back against him and smiled in sleep, her hand flexing in his. He gazed down at her blazing red hair and thought that she even slept with energy. God help him, she was a wild thing. He didn’t want to crush that wildness, but if they were to survive together, she would have to be somewhat tamed. In some things, he would let her be wild, and in others, he would require her submission. He envisioned a benevolent dictatorship, his orders balanced out by his hopeless fascination with her creativity and moods. Perhaps she believed she loved him more than he loved her. She was mistaken.

He stretched in his bed, pulling her closer. He wanted to wake her up and take her again but there was tomorrow still, and the next day. They had all the time in the world now. He had time to stretch out beside her and sleep, then wake to tumble and play with her. They could have breakfast together. Lunch, dinner. They could do that tomorrow, next week, next month. Forever. He would move her things into his Paris home,
all
her things, no matter how much mess they made, and they would be together as they were meant to be. He would give her spaces to live in all his houses. They would become
their
houses, his and hers, with cages and playrooms for the times they couldn’t go to the Citadel, and well-lit studios for her art. Then, at night, she would sleep in his bed where she belonged.

All of this was clear as day in his head. Even the challenges were clear to him. Controlling her would be like bottling lightning. In reality, his life with her would sometimes be miserable. There would be fights and misunderstandings. But misunderstandings could be straightened out, and fights...fights could be arousing too. He opened his hand against the curve of her hip, slid his palm forward and down to rest on the heat of her mons. Even in sleep she responded to him, arching against his fingers. Mere seconds of touching and holding her, and he was painfully hard. A small shift, a readjustment, and he slid inside her pussy.

She opened her legs wider, drowsy and pliable. Her wet, hot sheath embraced him and pleasure mixed with an encompassing feeling of connection. He had felt love for her from the very beginning, had only hurt her and denied her because of his history, and his cowardice. Her stubborn bravery had saved them, fire and flame made real.

He opened his mouth against her ear, nibbled at her lobe as her hair tickled him. So soft, all of her so soft and bendy. She was waking up now, moving her hips to meet him thrust for thrust. She still held his hand. Without guile, she brought it to her lips and mouthed his fingers, closing her teeth on one fingertip. He was bitten, literally and figuratively. His cock surged, his balls teeming at the caress. He wondered what kind of caresses he might train her to do over a lifetime of mastery. So many pleasures to discover. He made her come, once, then again, fucking and playing with her until his own orgasm emptied him out. Replete, warm inside her, he fell into a slumber something like death.

He remembered nothing after that, until he came awake to the feel of her fingers brushing back his hair and tracing across his brow. She lay within his arms, her eyes sleep-tinged and puffy. She was as beautiful drowsy as she was awake.

“Michel,” she said softly, her Italian lilt infusing his name with such novel tones. “Michel, I can still feel you inside me.”

“Get used to it.” He gave her a rough grope as she wiggled against him. When he pulled her closer she closed her eyes, drifting, humming a little. What on earth was she humming? And why?

He studied the woman in his arms and had the unsettling thought that he would never really know her, this
La Vampa
. If he was to represent her artistically, he would produce his own heart and set it on fire, followed by his brain and then his cock, in that order. Complete destruction.

And that was okay with him, really. Mystery and love, and fire. If this was to be his entire life, he couldn’t be happier about it. He put his face beside hers and let her contented little hum resonate deep inside him, just like her laughter, and her wild, endearing love.

Michel stared at the painting propped against the easel. It looked different than it had looked last week, or last month, or even last year when she’d shown it to him for the first time. Different...and still unfinished.