MasterStroke (9 page)

“The world should also know how glad I am to see you, Sandrine. You look so much better than the roses, though.”

Was he serious?
He looked sincere, his eyes bright and sparkling, his mouth twisted in that boyish grin.
You would have looked so cute as a child
, she thought.

“Thank you, Jack. Even if you don’t mean it.”

He feigned shock, a hand on his heart.

“That’s cruel. Of course, I mean it. You’re the most beautiful thing that’s happened to my day so far. I wasn’t expecting to see you and now here we are. The least you can do is accept the compliment as it was intended.”

It did feel good to see him. The strange events of the morning faded as soon as he walked in the door. She felt safe in his company. Although he was nowhere near as big as the Russians, Sandrine had the impression that he would have protected her had he been there. There were elements to Jack that she could only guess but she had no doubt that should she need him, he would be more than up to the challenge.

Even if he had to fight for her? It was a strange thing to pop into her head. Maybe she was overcome with the headlong rush of their relationship, if indeed it could be called that, and maybe she was reading a little too much into things too quickly; it was not something she had a lot of experience with so she almost rejected the idea immediately.

However, she knew without really knowing why that Jack could be intensely loyal and protective. Whether he would be loyal to her was another matter, she reminded herself.
Damn, why do you over-intellectualise things? Why can’t you just enjoy it for what it is?

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she had temporarily zoned out.

“Sorry,” she said. “What did you say?”

“I was asking about the men who were in here. What did they look like?”

“Tall, very tall, more than six feet and very solidly built. They all looked the same. Short blond hair, buzz cuts, blue eyes, clean shaven. One had a scar above one eye. Another, the one who did all the talking, wore a square silver ring with a black stone. That was about all that distinguished them from each other really.”

Jack was listening but he’d gone somewhere else, his gaze settled on the far wall.

“Do you know them?” she asked. The thought had just occurred to her, as crazy as it may seem.

“No, of course not,” he said, a little too quickly. “They’re of a sort. Identical to some of the Russians I came across in Moscow recently. But it still doesn’t sound good. The Russian mafia has moved in big time along the Eastern Seaboard. I hope Marcus isn’t into anything shady. I wouldn’t like to think you’re in any danger.”

“Me, too,” she exclaimed, then immediately rejected the idea. “No, in all the time I’ve been here, there’s never been anything unusual and I know pretty much all of Marcus’ dealings.”

“Can’t figure out what else it could be. Maybe it’s a shakedown of some kind. Or else it really is business. Think they could have been collectors?”

“Doubt it. It just didn’t seem right. There’s something going on. Oh, and I forgot, it may have been that one of the men broke into the storeroom. It’s usually kept locked but, after they left, I found the door open.”

They walked through the store and Jack examined the door.

“No forced entry. It looks OK. Maybe you just forgot to lock it.”

“It’s possible, just not probable,” Sandrine said, a little uncertain. Beyond was an area as big as the shop. Marcus’ office was in one corner, there were benches and counters for sorting books and packing, the large walk-in safe along one wall and the heavy oak doors that led to the rear laneway.

Jack tested the doors. They were solid, having been built as part of the church, with no give at all and Sandrine remarked that they were very rarely used and had secure locks.

“That’s a very big safe. Anything of value in it?”

“Not really. Quite a few rare first editions and items being held for regular customers plus some things we’re waiting to sell for a deceased estate. Marcus is sending some items from his current trip and they will be stored in there but they haven’t arrived yet.”

“What sort of things?”

“No idea. He didn’t tell me. First thing I heard about it was in an email I received this morning.”

“When will they arrive?”

“Sorry to be vague but I really don’t know. Marcus mentioned they were coming by courier so I assume it’s the usual courier company we deal with in Europe. He said they’d be here in a couple of days.”

They walked back into the shop, Sandrine locking the door after them.

“It’s probably nothing but you were right to be concerned. If they come back, please give me a call and I’ll come over immediately. Now, how about a sandwich?”

Chapter Twelve

“You are so very beautiful, Sandrine,” Jack breathed as he moved in close behind her, his lips grazing her neck, kissing so softly it felt like the ghost of a breeze on a warm summer’s day. He pulled her against his urgent hardness, the throbbing living thing eliciting a hungry sigh from her.

Crazily, she recalled the Oscar Wilde line: “I can resist everything but temptation”. Of all the things that could have popped into her head at this time, it was certainly one of the most bizarre but it pointed to the turmoil that had been roiling within her from the moment she first set eyes on Jack.

She knew he was sexy and warm and just so incredibly good looking but he was also dangerous in very many ways. At the top of the list, he was a danger to her state of mind; she wasn’t used to being in this position, with her emotions as well as her libido in overdrive.

She always appreciated sexy men from afar but it was a different matter when they got too close. They made her uncomfortable, without ever really knowing why; for this reason, she’d long held a distrust of people – men and women – who were too attractive. It wasn’t logical but she tended to assume that such people were superficial and shallow and maybe just a little dumb, that they survived not on intelligence and talent but on their good looks alone.

It’s possible that, over time, Jack may well help to modify such an opinion but it had been built up over a lifetime and pointed to a deeper problem, that she felt she wasn’t attractive enough for a man like him. When she’d first raised this doubt with Mariel, she had heard her friend out with a suitably serious expression then burst into incredulous laughter.

“Sandrine, darling, you can’t really be serious,” Mariel had spluttered disbelievingly. “You’re so pretty and very, very sexy. No wonder Jack is attracted to you.”

Typical of Mariel, she thought, she’s just being loyal.
You should talk. You’re outgoing and vibrant and men fall for you all the time. I’m just not like that.

Mariel dragged Sandrine reluctantly to a mirror and had her stand in front of it.

“What do you see?” she had asked.

Mousy
is what she thought.

“I’m not like you,” she said instead.

“Obviously. You’re completely different. And that’s what Jack likes about you. Otherwise he’d be swooning over me instead.”

They both laughed but Sandrine’s doubts weren’t assuaged.

“I’d kill to look like you, sweetie. Such a beautiful little package. Small, slim, reddish-blonde hair, great tits, great ass. You’re funny and smart and super intelligent. If I was gay, I’d never leave you alone.”

“Mariel, you’re terrible. And don’t pretend you’ve never been with a woman.”

“OK, one or two. But it was just a phase I was going through, a momentary fixation. I could never seriously give up cock. They’re just too gorgeous for words and so many variations. They make me feel so good.”

Sandrine looked at the differences between them. Mariel towered over her. With her glossy dark hair and lush figure, Sandrine felt like a wallflower in her presence.

“I’d love to have your breasts, Mariel. You have such a beautiful body.”

“Far too full,” Mariel angled herself so the vast expanse of her cleavage, all alabaster exuberance, was on full display. “You take these puppies out for a walk and there’s always somebody who wants to pat them. Seriously though, yours are just the right size. You’ll be 55 and they’ll still be perky and perfectly positioned. I’ll need to marry a structural engineer just to keep them in the same general area.

“Face it, babs. Nobody is ever happy with who they are but you should be much more confident. Jack obviously finds you very attractive. Don’t do anything to screw that up. Don’t ask why. Just go with it. It’s about time you started having some fun.”

As pep talks went, every word was true. Deep down inside, Sandrine knew that. She also recognised that she had a major problem with confidence. She was proud of her body, it gave her so much pleasure. She knew she was intelligent and bright and well-educated but she also didn’t like taking chances, preferring to be in complete control at all times, even when she took lovers. It was on her terms and her terms alone. And that is where the problem with Jack originated.

She was being swept away on a turbulent sea of conflicting emotions. There was the intense physical attraction to Jack, that was disquieting enough. From the moment she set eyes on him, she wanted him. The feelings he generated inside her were unprecedented. Whenever she was in his company, even when she merely thought about him, she became so highly aroused that logic just went out the window.

Losing control, that was what she feared most of all. Was she falling in love? Quite possibly, she didn’t really know. She was very much in lust, that was obvious. At what point did one become the other? She had no idea because nothing like this had ever happened before. She wanted so much – to have Jack as a lover and friend and confidant and…..what more? She didn’t know. She was fumbling in uncharted territory and she was scared that, once there, she’d never be able to return.

She was secure in her own life, her own world, and she didn’t want to leave it behind. But being with Jack felt so right.

The evening she spent with him at his apartment, when they’d played out the bondage game, was the most exciting she ever remembered. She was frightened by how easily she adopted the submissive role. Blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back, by the way she gave herself over to his demands, and the ease with which her body defied her mind, the tension building to such a shattering orgasm, it was all so alien. It wasn’t her. It had never been her. Was this signalling the emergence of a completely new Sandrine, someone who yearned for a different kind of relationship?

She knew all about bondage and discipline, having read
Venus In Furs
and
The Story Of O
and a range of erotic literature from de Sade to Henry Miller to Emmanuelle Arsan. But that was fiction, imaginary musings on human sexuality, pornography painted as high art.

It was no more than intellectual curiosity that drew her to such works. She never found them the least bit stimulating. As it played out with Jack, however, the fantasy become reality and it proved to be intensely, vibrantly exciting. And satisfying in ways she never could have imagined.

After he had brought her so skilfully to that amazing release, when she was propelled into a place of such vivid emotions and feelings, she had been totally drained of energy. She’d remained in that place, buoyed by the all-encompassing explosions within her, drifting off on a feeling of total serenity, slipping into an undisturbed sleep.

It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before and that was why she was so disoriented when she awoke. Her mind had rebelled, when she’d returned to her own bed and had such a hideous nightmare. It was a shock to her system in so many ways.

Then, gradually, she’d begun to yearn for another experience just like the first. She wanted more, to find out where Jack could take her. He had unlocked something, aspects of a personality perhaps best left unexplored, but she wasn’t willing to turn back yet. Maybe just one more time, she promised herself. Just to see whether it could be as good again. Surely one more time can’t hurt.

You only live once
, she’d decided. Mariel would be pleased. Not that Sandrine would be telling her just yet. She wasn’t ready to let anybody know what she was doing. It would be too humiliating if things didn’t work out.

Chapter Thirteen

For the last few days, having made up her mind, Sandrine had been on edge. At work, there would be times she would suddenly realise she’d been daydreaming, coming back to reality with a start, and find herself soaking wet with desire. All it took was a lingering thought of Jack’s mouth or his hands or the steel-edged harshness of his voice telling her not to move. At home, she masturbated often, her eyes closed, head thrust back as she recalled the taunt of his kisses on her thighs and the way the torture seemed to go on forever before his lips closed over her clit. Every time she touched herself she would be slick and hot and she could stand no more than a few seconds of a single finger probing inside her, matching the slow circling explorations of her other hand on her clit, before she exploded.

She thought of Jack so many times she wondered if she may soon grow jaded, whether he would lose the ability to intoxicate her. Yet whenever she did, she was overcome with a horniness that made her tingle longingly and a warm caramel flow spread through her stomach.

There was one thing she wanted above all else. She wanted, needed, his cock. She wanted to see it and feel its strength and hardness, she wanted to stroke it, wrapping her fingers tightly around it. She wanted to examine it up close, smell it, watch it throb and pulse, then bring it to her mouth, kiss it lightly until he started to moan, teasing him as much as he had teased her.

Sandrine was uncertain what it looked like but she knew it was large. What she didn’t know was, for her, one of the more crucial aspects and that was whether he was circumcised or not. She certainly hoped so. From a purely aesthetic point of view, she wanted him to be circumcised.

She preferred a cut cock. It held a primal beauty for her and stirred such deep passions. There were few things as perfect as an erect penis, long and thick and full of lust, the shaft ribbed with veins, the head capped and gently moulded. It could be such a marvellous entity, engorged with promise.