Sexy as Hell Box Set (73 page)

“One of the many things I love about you,” he said casually over his shoulder.

I tutted. What was he trying to do? Wear that bloody word out?

The bathroom, as it
happened, was the most lavish creation I’d ever seen. It was so much more than a place to wash; it was like a museum piece. A deep tub on bronze legs sat on a platform in the middle of the room. A screen, decorated with painted pictures of Venetian masks sat to the right of a window with mottled glass, offering privacy from the canal outside. The burgundy-and-cream striped curtains were luxurious and over-long, pooling on the marble tiled floor.

“
Mmm, this stuff smells great,” Victor said, pouring two mini bottles of bubble bath with a flamboyant sweep into the fast running water. He looked at me and grinned. “Go behind the screen if you’re shy, get undressed there.”

“I’m hardly shy, as you well know,” I said, taking off my shoes and setting them next to a chair that would have had pride of place in my
home, not resigned to a bathroom. It was probably a Chesterfield or the Italian equivalent, all embroidered with winged lions and the odd Gondola stitched in for good measure.

“I’ll be back in a second,” Victor said, striding past me. “Keep an eye on the water.”

I snapped open the buttons on my skinny jeans and stepped out of them, added them to the chair, then peeled off my top. I tested the water; it was piping hot, and suddenly I felt weary, not just physically but emotionally too. Today I’d told Victor more than I’d ever thought I’d tell anyone again about what had happened to me in the shed. Because with Geoffrey, well, he’d needed to know stuff, that was how he’d helped me so much, but Victor, I wasn’t telling him so he could help me, I was telling him so he could know me. Understand me. Stop loving me.

I removed my bra, kicked out of my knickers then sank into the water while the tap was still on full. I recalled this was the second time Victor had insisted I bathe. The previous
occasion had been after the session in the summerhouse, after I’d submitted to him for the first time. I’d been exhausted then, wrung out. A bath had been just the right thing, and then, of course, sleeping in his bed, in his arms.

“Here we go.” Victor came into the bathroom carrying a large silver tray.

He set it down on a leggy wooden table by the tub. On it was a bottle of champagne, two flutes and a bowl of strawberries.

“Just a little something to sip and nibble,” he said, bending to unlace his shoes. “I thought you might be peckish after that train ride
. Those sandwiches weren’t the best and…” He shrugged. “It wasn’t the most salubrious mode of transport. But it got us from A to B at short notice.”

“Is this a lesson in romance?” I asked, flicking off the water before the tub filled
too much.

“If you want it to be.” He grinned, a bit wickedly and
over-confident I thought, and then whipped off his top.

I should have
come up with a clever response but I didn’t. Victor’s body always had a brain-wiping effect on me. Not just his beautiful cock or his hot arse, but any part of his body. I adored his chest, sprinkled with just the right amount of hair, and the way his waist tapered in and showed off the most delectable set of oblique muscles that led temptingly to the waistband of his jeans.

Licking my lips and reaching blindly for a strawberry, I didn’t even pretend not to stare as he shoved off his trousers and boxers and revealed his semi-hard cock.

The strawberry was firm and sweet, the summery flavour bursting on my tongue. I chewed then swallowed and watched as Victor sank into the opposite end of the bath, the bubbly tide settling in an exact line across his nipples as he rested back.

“Ah, that’s good,” he said, beneath the water taking my right foot in his hand and shutting his eyes for a few seconds. “Just what I was ready for.”

I was trying to play it cool but inside I was a gut-rolling bundle of nerves. Zara looked like she might bolt at any moment. The moving train had been preferable to the hotel room—there she’d been hemmed in, could go nowhere; here, she only had to walk out of the door.

But I wouldn’t let that happen. I had a right to her for this weekend. Oh, not her body, not sex, but her, Zara, her soul. I’d bared mine on so many occasions. She’d struck cunning deals with me so that I would do so. But now it was my turn. I deserved a chance to see what she hid, the pain that was there and whether or not I stood a chance of healing it, or if not healing it, easing the discomfort. Perhaps if I did that, I would win her for good.

She leant forward in the bath—not moving her foot from my hand, though, just stretching to the side to snag hold of the champagne. The ice in the bucket rattled noisily as she pulled the heavy, dripping bottle upwards.

“Do you want me to open it?” I asked.

“No, I can manage.”

She set about ripping the foil and then popping the cork. It landed on the floor near the screen with a bounce and a tumble. I was glad it hadn’t hit the vase on the windowsill—some of the room decorations were centuries old in this hotel.

She poured two glasses then passed me one. Took a sip of her own.

“Not bad,” she said with a half shrug.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

Okay! It was a five-hundred-pound bottle of champagne and my absolute favourite, and a treat I’d given myself on my two previous visits to The Baglioni, both business. But I wouldn’t mention that, it might just be another reason for her to leave if she thought I was spending so much money on her.

But she was worth it. In fact, she was priceless. Never before had I been so drawn
to or so fascinated by another living soul.

“So,” I said, resting my drink down and taking her foot in both of my hands. “Is there anywhere in Venice you’d particularly like to visit tomorrow? The Doge Palace for example.” I began to rub and massage the sole of her foot, wondering at how tiny the slim bones felt beneath the skin. She was delicate, fragile. Was I the only one who had ever seen that quality in her?

“I don’t know what I want to see, do I? I’ve never been here before, unlike you, obviously.”

I didn’t rise to the bait. “Well, the palace is lovely, and it’s on St Marks Square, so we can see the two things at once; well, the main tourist attractions, that is. There are so many beautiful, out-of-the-way churches, galleries, shops and restaurants. Too many for one weekend that’s for sure, but we’ll have a wander, you can get a real feel for the place.”

“If that’s what you want.” She drained her glass, set it aside.

“Of course that’s what I want. Venice is stunning, magical, like a maze of alleys and canals, but
rarely with a dead end. Each one pops you out somewhere as charming as the last.”

She was quiet, her gaze cast downwards as though she studied the bubbles clinging to the rise of her breasts. I couldn’t see her nipples, the
fragrant froth was too dense, but just a glance in that direction stiffened my cock, not to full hardness, but certainly heading there. But I wouldn’t be male if I didn’t have a rock-on. Zara was delectable, physically perfect. Well, for me she was.

“I want you to enjoy it, be happy, here with me,” I said quietly.

“I am.” She’d spoken quickly and then appeared a little surprised with herself. “I think.”

I smiled. “Good, I’ll take that as an answer.” I tweaked her toes, nipping and pulling, just a little.

She yanked her foot away with a splash. “I’m ticklish, you know.” She frowned.

I laughed and reached for my drink. “I do now.” After taking a sip, I spread my arms. “Come here. Turn around and let me hold you.” I
’d tried to keep the plea from my voice. I wasn’t sure if I’d succeeded. I’d been wanting to hold her, properly, for hours, ever since she’d told me what she had.

It seemed it didn’t matter if I’d sounded needy, because with a bit of a splosh and a small tsunami that breached the side of the bath, Zara turned. I stretched my legs wide, and she slotted between them and nestled her back against my chest.

I adjusted my cock, though there wasn’t much I could do about the fact that it was jutting into her, so I didn’t try to hide it. But I was a big boy, I didn’t have to use the erection—sometimes my cock asked but the answer had to be no. Just a fact of life.

Wrapping my arms around her beneath the water, I was careful not to grope her breasts or slip my fingers near her pussy. This was about being connected, close, not sex. Well, not for now at least.

“How do you feel?” I whispered into her ear. Perhaps she’d be more open if she didn’t have to look at me. She’d turned her head on the train, and that had been when I’d got the most out of her.

“I feel relaxed,” she said. “I didn’t think I would, in this posh place, but I do,
like this, with you.”

“Me too. I like feeling your skin
touching mine. Though it probably wouldn’t matter if we were in a cheap hotel in Skegness, I’d still be happy if I was holding you.”

“I think you’re more than happy.” She wriggled slightly, pressing her back into my cock.

I held in a groan. “Mind of its own,” I said. “Hot woman, naked and cuddled into me, what do you expect?”

“I’d expect you to do something about it. Didn’t you learn anything from your lessons with me?”

I breathed in the slightly spiced scent of her hair, resting my lips over her ear. “Perhaps this is me teaching you something.”

“About what? Bathing?” She gave a sharp little laugh.

“About being close to someone, without the sex.”

“I like the sex.”

“Me too. Well, with you anyway.”

“You d
idn’t have to say that.”

“
It’s the truth.”

She rubbed her hand along my forearm, beneath the water, leant her head back heavier into the space between my shoulder and jawline. “Victor, you’re expecting too much from me.”

“I’m expecting nothing but for you to be here.”

“But that’s not true, not really. You want me to open up about my past, you want me to say I’m happy, that there
’s a future for us, that we can be an ordinary couple.” She paused. “But I’ll never be ordinary.”

“I know that, how could you be?”

“What do you mean?” She stopped stroking my arm.

“After what happened. In that shed.”

She tensed.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. But we only have a weekend. Or rather, that’s all I have, to help you. Unless, of course, you want to say otherwise, which is something I’d be amenable to.” I kissed her hair, pressed my lips hard onto her. If I could have reached her mouth, that’s how I would have kissed her, to show her how much I wanted her for a longer amount of time. “I’d be happy to make this an on-going arrangement between us. I just want you to remember that this weekend, it doesn’t have to be a goodbye at the end of it, not this time. We could go back to London, as us, Zara and Victor, a couple, together.”

I didn’t think she was going to respond and then, “And who would be the dominant one?” She’d asked in a gentle voice, like she really wasn’t sure.

“I want to look after you, care for you and protect you. Does that make me the dominant one or just a man who loves his woman and wants to keep her safe from the big bad world?”

She said nothing, but she did stroke my arm again beneath the water, pushing the hairs the wrong way and then smoothing them back down.

“But in the bedroom,” she said. “What do you want in there?”

A whole pile of answers stocked up on my tongue, but I held them in. I needed to answer this carefully—it was important to Zara, more important than for most. After a few moments of sifting through my thoughts, I spoke. “I want pleasure of the extreme variety. Zara, don’t get me wrong, you’re a complete turn on when you boss me around, show me new things.”

Fuck, my cock was
swelling further just with me thinking about some of the sinfully luscious things she’d introduced me to. I clenched my anus, shifting myself on the base of the bath. Oh, yes, she’d done some truly wicked things to me that I’d be happy to do again.

“And I’d like more of that,
” I continued, “but I also like to control you, have you as mine without question, none of your cheek, none of your sharp tongue. I like it when you call me Sir, when you bend over my knee, let me take you to places so full of pleasure you need me to hold you together as you split apart.”

I stared at the window and let my words find a home. A shaft of light from the setting sun glinted through the uneven glass, dust motes dancing in its wake, and for a moment I envied those tiny flecks of dust for the uncomplicated role they had to play in the world.

“Victor, I’m a Domme,” Zara said eventually. “How can we ever work when you’re a switch?”

“But you’re a switch, too, can’t you see that?”

She turned suddenly, splashing as she went onto her knees, her breasts, with small, soft pink nipples, rising from the water. “I switched for you because it was a lesson you needed not because I wanted to.”