Five Golden Rings (Facets of Passion) (9 page)

She breathed through the pain. It connected to her throbbing clit, joining in an unholy trinity of rapture when he clamped the other nipple. He added weights to those, too, Mayan-style medallions like he’d hung in her ears. Finally he slid the gold collar around her neck and attached the leash.

“Come with me, little Roo-pet, let’s take a walk.”

As if she had a choice. The medallion tangled between her thighs as she followed behind him, twisting her clit, and the swaying of the ones attached to her nipples sent her into distraction. Her mind spun, aroused beyond belief.

He stopped by the balustrade and dropped her leash. No torches tonight so the lights from below cast strange, harsh shadows across his face. Her urbane lawyer werewolf. She wanted to beg him to devour her.

Except she knew he would.

Now that she’d pushed him over the edge of restraint.

Unbuttoning his shirt, he raked his eyes over her, clearly enjoying the sight. He dropped it, then unbuckled his belt and suggestively slid it from the belt loops. Tension rippled through the lean muscles of his chest and the belt snaked out, licking her thigh. She gasped, then cried out when it stung her other thigh.

“Anything you want to say?” He taunted her. “No? Then bend yourself over that railing, ass high, legs spread.”

It wasn’t easy, but he helped, positioning her just as he wanted her, adjusting the medallions hanging from her nipples so they dangled over the edge, pulling mercilessly. She stared down at the lit pools and fountains below, another world than this keen-edged one. Miguel attached her ankle cuffs to rings at the foot of the wall, so at least she didn’t have to worry about tumbling over the edge.

That edge, at least.

Otherwise, she was in complete and utter freefall. No compromises.

The belt landed on her flesh, sudden as a snakebite. She screamed but lost breath immediately with the shock of the rapid ensuing blows. Even after a few days, Miguel seemed to know exactly how to drive her reactions, so that she dissolved into sobs, her tears falling freely, convulsing with the release of all the tensions and worries of their fight.

She swayed under the belt, offering herself to it and Miguel, mindless, soaring. When he plunged his condom-covered cock into her, it felt all of a piece. She split open, rent by him, by the splitting pain of the nipple clamps releasing and the instant climax that followed, the explosion of ten thousand suns of longing.

Blind with ecstasy and tears, she watched the medallions fall as if in slow motion, golden orbs winking and turning, disappearing into the fountains below.

January 2
Ninth Day of Christmas
Nine Ladies Dancing

After that session, which seemed to shatter them both on a profound level, Miguel released her from all her bonds and carried her into the bedroom. Putting her to bed, he curled up behind her and they fell instantly and deeply asleep.

But when she awoke in the middle of the night, desperate to pee, he wasn’t in the bed.

Probably just as well, because she whimpered at the sting of her bruised tissues and he likely would have felt guilty and they seriously did not need to go back down that spiral. She bundled herself into the guest-room robe, more for comfort than anything, and wandered through the place and out to the terrace. She found him there, drinking a glass of brandy and smoking a cigar, a shadow in the moonless night.

“Why are you awake?” he asked her. “It’s nearly four in the morning.”

“I could ask you the same.”

She sat in the chair opposite, surreptitiously tucking her feet under her to cushion her bruised bottom.

He grunted, but didn’t say more. The warm, tropical-scented night breeze rolled over them and it hit her that in only three days, she’d be flying back home to winter, to her similarly frozen life.

No compromises
, she reminded herself. Time to make changes.

“I lost because I cared too much.” Miguel stubbed out the cigar.

“What does that mean?”

He laughed without humor. “You know the jokes about lawyers. Everyone can think up half a dozen of them without blinking. They all boil down to one thing—lawyers can’t be emotional. The moment it’s anything more than chess moves...you’ve lost.”

“What happened, Miguel?”

She kept her voice soft and even, a contrast to the crazed bitterness in his.

“The short answer? Our pretty private island will soon be another piece of the Miramoto empire. And I can’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And yet your sorry changes nothing. Do you want to be the one to tell my grandmother that her wastrel cousin sold us out? I really doubt it. Go enjoy your vacation, Tilda. Have a nice life.”

“So that’s it?”

“You and me? Yes. I’m done here. There’s no reason for me to stay. Back to normal life for both of us.”

Though it stung, she shrugged that off. “Don’t think I don’t know that you’re working your same tricks on me—cornering me into leaving. You don’t have to do it. We agreed all along that this would be a time-limited arrangement.”

“Then what?” He sounded tired.

“What happened to the guy who won at all costs?”

“Sometimes the costs are too high.”

“So you could have won, had you been willing to pay the price.”

“You don’t understand law, Tilda.”

“Don’t patronize me with your macho bullshit,” she snapped. Even in the dark, she saw the surprise in his face. “I may not know law, but I know sales. Everyone has a price. What it really comes down to is what you’re willing to pay.”

“My uncle bought the shares. I’ve tried everything. He can sell the property against the objections of the entire family and I can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Believe me, I’ve tried every damn thing.”

“Then buy him off.”

“He doesn’t deserve it!”

“Who cares?” She threw up her hands, her sore breasts protesting. “How precious is that island—to you, to your grandmother? When you had me bent over the couch, did you hesitate to do what you wanted to me?”

“That’s different.”

“I don’t think it is. Either you want something enough to pay the price or you don’t.”

“And your job is to make people want it enough. I see what you’re doing—making me want it.”

“You’re wrong. It serves no one to sell them something they don’t truly want.” She unfolded herself from the chair and stood. “My job is finding the right price. It’s like the song, right? All those gifts upon gifts, until it becomes ridiculous. Who wants all that stuff? No, the precious part is the true love. I saw how you looked at that place. It means a great deal to me that you wanted to share it. I even understand why it felt to you like it would be sullied by sex. It’s sacred to you.”

He snorted and she shrugged. “Yeah, speech over.” She walked over and held out a hand to him, shaking it as they had that first night on the plane to Cozumel. “Thank you for everything—for gifts beyond price.”

He turned her hand over and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm, then closed her fingers over it.

Then looked up at her, dark eyes shadowed.

“I think I underestimated you.”

“Thinking I’m uncomplicated isn’t a bad thing. It just isn’t all of who I am.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Aren’t you?”

He sighed. “Would you do something for me?”

“Almost certainly.”

He laughed at her equivocation. “Stay the rest of the night. I need to think and it...helps to know you’re in there, sleeping. Does that sound crazy?”

She cupped his cheek and kissed him on the forehead. “No. It sounds eminently sane.”

* * *

When she awoke to the hot sun of midmorning, Miguel sat on the side of the bed, holding a cup of coffee and a plate with fruit and a chocolate croissant. She blinked sleepily at him.

“Hi.”

“Good morning, Roo.” He looked disheveled, dark bags under his eyes.

She sat up, noticing that, even in his wrung-out state, his gaze fastened on her naked breasts when the sheet fell away. Taking the plate and mug, she sipped the coffee gratefully and eyed him.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Besides the hour I crashed after that insane sex session?” He shook his head ruefully. “Not a wink.”

“That’s rough.”

“You sound like you’ve been there.”

She set the breakfast aside and took his hands in hers. “More than once. When I have a problem that demands solving, it’s like my brain can’t rest until I take some kind of action.”

“I thought my problem was over.”

“But it’s not, is it? Maybe it can’t be until you’ve truly tried everything.”

He laced his fingers with hers. “How did I miss how savvy you are?”

She grinned. “Too busy driving me insane with your Twelve Days of Kink?”

He smiled back, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m offering you one more apology. I need to beg off on the last three days.”

“Going home after all?”

“No. You were right. I’m beginning to suspect you always are.”

She blew him a kiss and he chuckled. Then shook his head like a dog shedding water, in that exotic way of his.

“I’m going to find out how much I’m willing to pay.”

“Good.”

“I want you to know.” His eyes searched her face, some of that intensity he got during sex burning in his gaze. Even now, it made her warm, lighting the embers in her belly. “Sacrificing these last three days with you is part of that price. It costs me to give that up. You’ve been the only thing to redeem this whole terrible episode. And I know I’ve treated you badly.”

“You haven’t. Besides, you have an excellent method of making it up to me when you’re a jerk.”

He blew out a breath and laughed. “I’ve never really done this. Gotten to know a woman who submitted to me. It never seemed...part of it all.”

“I think I figured that out. And it’s okay—that was never part of the deal. In many ways it was good for me, too, not doing the relationship song and dance.”

“What will you do now?”

“That depends on you.”

“I really have to—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “Go. Fly and be free. But I want something in return. I have a counter-offer.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. Amused and a little wary.

“I want four more notes. Whatever you planned for these final days.”

“Without me?” He seemed taken aback by the concept.

“I’ll improvise where I need to, but yes. I want to finish this out, for myself.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “All right.”

She climbed out of bed and pulled on the decidedly wrinkled Marilyn dress. “You can send them to my suite.”

Standing with her, he took her hands in his, brown thumbs rubbing over her skin. “I suppose this is goodbye.”

“Yes. Thank you for everything, Miguel. You changed me, too.”

He cocked his head. “Is that what you think happened between us?”

“I do. Chemical reaction in the hottest of crucibles.” She smiled when he continued to look dubious. “Well, that’s what it was for me. Good luck. I hope it all works out for you.”

“Thank you. To both Roo and Tilda.”

“We’re the same person,” she whispered, as if confiding a secret.

“I know that now.” He kissed her and walked her to the elevator.

As the doors started to close she called out. “Oh, Miguel? I totally would have been into a little titty torture.”

The bark of his laugh was cut off by the airlock seal of the cool silver.

* * *

The four notes arrived that afternoon, each neatly labeled with Miguel’s elegant cursive script, with a fifth note, unsealed, instructing her to wait for each day to open them.

Demanding, even from a distance.

Feeling her lips curve with affection for his domineering ways, she opened the first note with anticipation.

Dearest Roo
,

I
sit here writing this note
,
knowing that you are not far away from me
,
and yet already I miss you.
But we have said our goodbyes and a plane is waiting for me.
You know I like to follow the rules.

For today
,
I
planned to take you to see the Flamenco dancers.
The women who do it in the traditional style are so beautiful—and passionate.
But that was my second plan.
When we first met
,
that night I wrote out my list
,
anticipating all the dirty
,
nasty games I would play with you.
You were so sexy and so game that you truly fired my imagination.

So I planned to take you to the strip club
,
to watch the ladies dancing
,
and perhaps persuade you to take a turn on the stage.
I
bought a mask and a dress for you to wear
,
with underwear to strip down to.

You are right—always
,
yes?
—
and I changed my mind.
That seemed too slutty for you.
I
began to think of introducing you to my grandmother and I crossed that off the list and changed it to Flamenco dancers.

Now my mind is muddled and I don’t know which is right.
Perhaps it’s best that you explore for yourself
,
without my expectations.
My driver will meet you in the usual place at 7.
You tell him which you’d like to do.
He’ll stay with you
,
to look after you.

Have fun.
I’m sorry to miss it.

Miguel

With the notes came a box. He’d sent everything to her—the clamps, the gold rings, the vibrator. The mask and dress.

So she went to the strip club and watched the ladies dancing, wearing her mask and the barely there dress. Their young bodies moved in sleek, strong and sexy movements, the room dim, like a den of exotic sex.

Would she have stripped on the stage, had Miguel told her to? She never did use her safe word.

Perhaps not. But she would have stripped for him, back on his private deck, with the torches lighting her. She studied the way the girls moved and thought about how she would have danced for him, enjoying the burn of the fantasy.

Instead she went back to the resort and danced to the marimba music with strangers.