Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel (22 page)

The harrowing thing was how he was approaching it. Receptacle or not, she was sure he’d be making her come just as often. He wasn’t allowing her to detach from any of it. Making her climax over and over was part of claiming every ounce of her will and energy. Though she automatically strained against her bonds at the thought, it was knee-jerk resistance. She hadn’t used her safe word since he’d removed the gag, had she? Probably because she already knew he’d discarded that as useless, a message he’d sent with the gag. Her well-being was entirely in his hands.

He freed the collar from the strap, and shifted her into a cradled position in his arms so she could comfortably drink, holding the back of her head as she leaned against him. When she’d managed several healthy swallows, her tongue swiping the moisture across her lips, he laid her back down on her hip, reattached the collar. She could tell him he didn’t need to do that, but in truth it gave her a more complete sense of security. She couldn’t go anywhere without his say-so. He’d left her no easy way to fight.

“Yeah, I think we can do this now.” She made a surprised noise as he probed her rim with his fingers to test how lubricated she was. Another tearing sound as he rolled on a new condom, which she knew would also be pre-lubed, and he pressed his cock against her rim. “I’ll get even bigger inside you. Press against me and let me in, Celeste.”

She bit her lip as the sphincter muscles released. He sank into her, deep and full. Laying his palm on her stomach, he held them close together as he slid his other arm under her head again and captured her breast once more, tweaking the nipple, rolling it in strong fingers. She laid her head back against him.

“Tell me about that night,” he prodded.

“You’re making that difficult.”

“I know. I like hearing you try to focus when I’m getting you all hot and wet again. Talk, or I stop and go get the dragon tail.”

“Asshole.”

“Yeah. I can be mean as a snake when you need it, darlin’. Did he put that monster dick inside you?”

The segue was unexpected but thrilling as she detected the obvious edge in his voice, punctuated by a deeper thrust of his hips, a thickening of that shaft inside her. “Yes.”

“Yes. What?”

She let out a grunt of reaction as he was more forceful about it this time. “Yes, sir.”

“Your ass, your pussy, your mouth?”

“Ass…mouth. Not between my legs.”

“You cuss as good as any of my men. But you’re shy about saying pussy in the bedroom, darlin’, aren’t you?”

She flushed a little. “So?”

“So, it’s sweet. I like that about you.” He started a slow rocking rhythm that had her cunt clenching on empty space, jealous of the fullness in her ass. “So how did it happen? Tell me a story.”

The man was evil.
Christ.

While working business social news in New Orleans, she’d developed an intense dislike for the executive management team of Kensington and Associates. She hadn’t really analyzed the why of it too much. She’d given them the mocking name “Knights of the Board Room”, because she didn’t want to believe Matt and the other four men were what they presented on paper. Five outrageously handsome, irritatingly alpha dominant males who were not only extremely successful in business, but who were some of NOLA’s top philanthropists. They’d upgraded one of NOLA’s battered women’s shelters and provided aid and hands-on volunteer help during Katrina. Those were only two bullet points on a long list of charities who’d benefited from their time and money, most of them organizations dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable members of society.

But it didn’t stop there. The five men were reputed to be devastating to a woman’s senses, such that business rivals never sent women negotiators to meetings where they wanted to keep the upper hand. Though in truth, very few competitors outmatched Matt and his team regardless of gender. At the time, Celeste had ignored that, though. She’d been offended by everything they were and unwilling to turn the mirror on herself to find out why she took their existence so personally. Always on top of their world, successful, in control, with what she’d viewed as patronizing, overly protective behavior toward women.

Because of a tip from an irate business competitor, she’d suspected Matt and his team were into some “freaky S&M shit,” as she’d put it to Valerie, her roommate at that time. She’d decided to pursue a freelance scandal piece on the executive team. The lead she’d been given had brought her to Club Surreal, a place the men frequented.

She’d only been able to afford a three-visit guest membership. On her third visit, she’d been nursing her drink at the bar, feeling pissed off. She hadn’t witnessed them doing anything beyond viewing the public play, not enough to get her reluctant editor on board to skewer them as sexual deviants. Then she’d been approached by Ben O’Callahan.

He was the lawyer of the team. He’d challenged her to go behind closed doors in one of the private rooms and try a Dom/sub session with him. See what it really was all about. The carrot he’d held out had been the agreement to tape the session with her face masked and his revealed. She could have the tape and do what she desired with it. She’d have on tape a K&A executive beating a woman, restraining her, all the proof she’d need to run a scandalous article that would have all of NOLA buzzing. It would put her squarely at the top of the heap at the paper, because the story would make front-page news. Maybe national.

As she relayed the story to Leland, she hesitated over that part, but she wouldn’t let herself shrink from it. “At that time, I was no better than any of those reporters you love to hate. Just looking for the sensational angle, a way to rip someone else apart to make my career. I’m not proud of who I was then.”

“You learned from your mistakes. Got better. That takes character.” His fingers rolled her nipple again and she pushed up into his hand, which impaled her ass deeper on him. Her clit was spasming on open air. She was hot and bothered, just as he’d said, needing him to touch her there, but he wasn’t in a giving mood.

“What about the tape? Do you ever watch it?”

God, had she ever. Yet as the experience became further distant and nothing in her current life or attempted relationships matched it, watching it hurt and put her in an angry place, so she’d put it away. “Not in a while.”

He set his teeth to the sensitive skin under her ear, nipped it so she drew in a gasp. “One day, you’ll give me that tape, Celeste. I’ll watch it with you sitting at my feet, and you’ll show me every reaction you have to it.”

She shook her head, but he wasn’t in the mood to argue either. Instead he slid his hand down her front, threading his fingers into the small triangle of space her tied-together thighs provided. He dipped into the wetness in her pussy, pushed up to find her clit to circle and tease, worry that swollen bud.

She rocked against him, then moaned in protest as he withdrew from her ass, stripped the condom and tossed it. Leaning over her, he caught her face, made her look up at him. “Truth, Celeste. No one since the last physical? And never without protection?”

Her heart leaped eagerly as she deduced why he’d asked. She gave him the gift she wanted for herself as well. “And I’m protected from pregnancy. Can you…”

“Yeah. No one for me in the past couple years either.”

She liked hearing that, and it showed enough that his eyes glinted. “My sub has a possessive side.”

So did he, enough that it had things fluttering all up inside her chest. Hearing about another man having intimate knowledge of her body had changed the nature of his touch and his tone. Noticeably more caveman, in a very sexy, thrilling way. But while Ben had gotten inside and shone a mirror on her, making her face some hard truths and emotions, Leland was just inside her, period, every side of himself a mirror that reflected back and forth between them, so she couldn’t figure out how to separate herself from what he was doing to her.

He dropped back behind her and she let out a sound of bliss as he guided himself into her pussy, flesh to flesh. His cock made a slow, irrevocable invasion into a very tight space, thanks to the rope holding her legs closed. He wrapped his arms around her again, whispered against her ear. “Did you call him Master?”

“No, not like this. I did, as a joke…on a bet…” Then she lost the explanation, boiling it down to what was important. “No, Master. I didn’t. You’re the first.”

“Good answer. This one’s just for me, darlin’. To mark you as mine.” He let her feel the power of his body as he took what he wanted, thrusting into her pussy, hands holding her so securely she was little more than a helpless doll in his hands. He’d said this one was just for him, and he meant it, because at that angle, her clit was frustratingly out of reach. Her hands were tied to her thighs in a way she might be able to dip her fingers in between, place them against herself, but she wanted this to be all for him, too. She embraced that sense of being his. Pleasuring him as he denied her, made her wait and want to the point she perversely was ready to tear him apart to get to that peak. But he’d tied her, denying her that as well.

He came with a guttural noise, biting her neck again as he gripped her breast with a deliberately rougher touch, pinching the nipple hard enough to wrest a cry from her lips. She’d have bruises and bite marks tomorrow, and she’d get aroused from seeing them on her skin. Then he proved he wasn’t a selfish bastard, not entirely, because he slid his fingers up between her legs, laid them against her clit and started making feather-like movements that had her wiggling and straining.

“That’s it, darlin’. Show me how much you want it. Rub yourself against me, squeeze down on my cock.”

She came in a bare instant, a shudder of sensation that she was fairly sure he kept less intense from the last time because he wanted her reaching and wanting more.

The night was only half over, after all.

Regardless, that climax left her weak as dishwater, and she suspected he was feeling some of the effects as well, if his satisfied grunt mixed with a groan were any indication. He removed the tether holding the collar, unwound the ropes around her. This time she stayed where he put her. When he withdrew from her cunt and turned her, he let her sprawl over his chest, his arm securely around her back.

“Good girl,” he murmured, giving her that tiny thrill. She didn’t question why it felt so good to hear those words, the inner child bullshit psychobabble. She was too tired to be intellectual, too easy with the moment to analyze, too sated and mindless to promise herself to do it later. Time began and ended in this room. He stroked her, turning on his hip so he put both arms around her, held her close inside that cavern formed by his body, surrounding her with heat.

“We’re going to that wedding together,” he said at last. His voice rumbled through his chest like distant thunder, vibrating against her cheek.

“Maybe.” She smiled as his arms tightened and he tapped her ass, a warning and a promise.

“I still owe you…twice?” She was shy about saying that, too—giving head, blow job, no real romantic way to put it—but it unfolded in her mind in graphic detail. Her on her knees, lips wrapped around his cock as he held her hair and thrust in with singular male demand. She wanted his rougher side. Not right now, when she had zero energy, but later. Definitely.

“Not yet, darlin’. You still have a lot of shit boiling up in you. I’m not going to risk getting bitten. You’re not going to get out of having to wear a ring gag for that. Do it the hard way first so you’ll know what’s waiting for you if you misbehave in the future. I’ve got one with a nice big ring to fit my cock. It’ll make your jaw ache. Maybe keep you blissfully silent for a day or two.”

She tried to kick at him, wiggle away, but it was halfhearted and he held her secure, chuckling so she didn’t know if he was kidding or not, about any of it. He proved he wasn’t near as depleted as she’d expected, because he rolled her to her back, pressed her down into the mattress as he kissed her with leisurely thoroughness, moving his hips so he stroked his cock against her clit and pussy in slow circles, giving her simple pleasure in their aftermath and a hint of future plans. As his tongue swept into her mouth, his lips moving on hers with a firm demand that made everything whirl away, even her immediate resistance, her arms slid around him. She held on as if she’d slide off the curved side of the world if he wasn’t holding her.

She lifted her legs, twined them around his hips, rubbed her heels over his muscular ass and upper thighs. As he drew out the kiss, her fingers curved, short nails biting into his shoulders, and then she let out a breathy sigh as he broke the kiss to curl his hands in her hair, turn her cheek to the pillow as he nuzzled her throat, nipped and kissed, suckled that sensitive area.

“Can’t get enough of you,” he muttered.

The feeling was mutual. She wanted to touch and taste, and he hadn’t let her do much of either. Not that she was complaining about the things he did to her, but it was like smelling cake fresh out of the oven without ever being given the chance to taste it.

She ran her fingers up his arms, learning the shape of his biceps, the slope of forearm, inhaling his scent up close and personal, turning her head to rub her cheek against his arm. He moved down to her breasts, began to explore them with his mouth, closing over a nipple to suckle. She hummed with pleasure. Her hand moved to his neck, his head, fingers sliding over his short-cropped hair, learning the texture and feel of him. He had a sexual confidence that showed he knew how to arouse a woman, over and over, take her to peak, satisfy her. But he also had the hunger of a demanding Dom, and she responded to it, lifting her whole body to his touch, his desires.

Her fears and worries were so far away, in another world entirely. He must have sensed it as well, because as his cock started to revive once more, he lifted his head, gazed down at her with lust and calculation.

“Fuck it, I’ll live dangerously,” he decided. He shifted off of her, but he didn’t put her on the floor on her knees as expected. Instead, he rolled to his back, his head toward the foot of the bed, and put his hand on her hip, shifting her over and onto him. The first time she went down on him he intended to have his mouth between her legs as well. She tried to help, but it was mainly his strength that moved them both into the right position, her stretched out on top of him, him guiding her knees past his shoulders until his mouth grazed her cunt, his arms banding hard around her hips and ass.