No Holds Barred (6 page)

“Can’t move your legs too wide—
ummmm
—I knew you liked being restrained.”

“I didn’t realize it until you tied me up that night. How did you know that about me?”

“You were so controlled, even when you were being playful but then there was that delicious, deliberate barbarian just below the surface and I wanted to see if I could push a button that might surprise you. Everyone wants to be tested, even if they’re only testing themselves.”

“Was agreeing to spend the week with me a test, Ella?”

“I don’t want to be analyzed right now, Jake,” she said and he heard the soft whir again.

“What do you want, Ella? What button do you want to push?”
Do you want to know what it will take to push me away?
He took a deep breath and checked his anger. He knew she’d reach this point. He closed his eyes and imagined her teasing herself, letting him watch.

She hesitated and he heard her sharp intake of breath. “Put some more lube in your hand.”

Ella did the same, slicking a generous dollop down the vibrator. She’d bought it a week after she’d left him in his hotel room.

“What are you doing?” he asked, suspended inside the void that reached into his studio.

“Do you trust me?” she asked, passing a hand over her breasts, squeezing her nipples, imagining his mouth on them. She was so wet she probably didn’t need any lube but the effect of him listening, of imagining juicing up her toy would just add to the experience.

“Right this minute?
Yes.”

“Lift your hips,” she asked, flicking on the vibrator, holding it close to the intercom. “Do you hear that? I’m going to run this over every bare inch, every quivering nerve. Are your nerves quivering, Jake?”

“Even my eyelids are quivering. What do you want me to do?”

“Take all that lovely lube and work it into your balls, let it drip down over you. She waited a moment before she asked, “Is it dripping yet?”

“Yes,” he hissed. She could imagine his hips up in the air, straining at the knees, the lube coating his flesh, running cold into the crack of his wonderfully firm ass. Another hiss completed the picture for her.

“Can you put some more lube in your hand? It needs to be nice and slick.”

“Not until you put the tip of your vibrator inside you.” She revved the tiny motor once and fluttered it against her opening, biting her lip against the sharp pleasure.

“Can you hear it, Jake? Can you hear what you’re doing to me?” she ended on a moan, losing focus for a moment. “Of course you can and while I work it slowly inside me, I want you to massage all that lovely lube under your balls and down, let it roll down, follow it with your hand, work it into your ass while you pull on your cock. Tell me what it feels like.”

He was practically incoherent but she could hear the surprise in his voice, the wonder, the eagerness for the experience as she paced her rhythm, feeding off his excitement. She listened to him shout, the slurp of his hand. She closed her eyes, imagined what he looked like and sent herself over the edge.

She heard him flick the intercom off, the sharp disconnect pulling at something deep inside her. She’d urged him into a place she’d never asked anyone else to go. Maybe it had been a bad
choice,
maybe he was having second thoughts. No, she wasn’t going there. She wasn’t going to lose focus. This week was about being brave, about being
herself
, letting him see the real Ella. She closed her eyes and pictured what he must look like.

The door downstairs opened and closed. He didn’t turn on any lights. She told herself that he knew the house and didn’t need them. She could hear her heart beating in time with his slow deliberate footfall on the stairs leading to her. When he reached the top of the stairs the moon through the skylight threw an eerie cast over his shaded face and naked body like a character in a graphic novel and when he drew closer she could see his erection straining against his stomach. A shiver raced through her, excitement, fear, desire so deep it pulled her insides into a knot.

His jaw was clenched as if once again he was keeping the words tight behind his lips. She reached for him, barely had time to spread her legs before he slid inside, wrapping his arms around her, cushioning her head in his palms.

She closed her eyes and he gripped her tighter. “Don’t,” leeched from between his lips, a whispered plea and she snapped them back open. Longing, pure and simple etched lines along his face, fierce and beautiful at the same time, and her heart twisted.

“Jake…”

He kissed her, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, cutting off anything else she might say and lifted her closer. She kissed him back, met him thrust for thrust racing with him, with
herself
, the pressure building until her orgasm ripped through her and she felt his answering tremors, swallowing his shout as they both came, spiraling out of control at the same time. That had never happened with her before.

They fell asleep still entwined. Ella woke briefly when he slid out of her sometime during the night and dragged her against him, mumbled something against her neck. She wanted to respond but she couldn’t form a coherent sentence so she smiled against his palm, kissing the warm center. He settled, held her tighter and in that moment Ella knew she never wanted to be anywhere else.

She waited for the panic to set in, the sign that she should run before he woke up. When it didn’t come, she was almost uncomfortable. W
hy
? The question flitted around the edges of her consciousness as drifted into sleep.

Chapter Five

Jake’s studio was half as big as his house with windows all around. The white plastered walls were lined with wooden shelves full of books, bins of paint, brushes, antique cameras and cozy artistic paraphernalia that just missed being clutter by a blink. A tapestry chaise, the fabric soft shades of turquoise, brick and gold sat at an angle in the center of the room. Beneath it a faded, threadbare rug covered a square of the paint-spattered wood floor. An easel and an overstuffed chair were placed off to the side in full view of the chaise.

Ella felt a trickle of anticipation when she saw the chaise, her first flicker of panic when Jack told her he wanted to sketch her reclining nude on it.

“You do realize that I wouldn’t pose this way for anyone else?” she asked, surprised her voice held steady as he slipped his dark robe off her bare shoulders and down her arms, leaving her naked.

“You’d better fucking not,” he growled possessively, sending another spike of anticipation through her. She chuckled to cover her nervousness while Jake arranged her arms over her head as if they were suspended by invisible tethers, rearranged the line of her hip tilting it forward. Frowning, he sat back on his haunches before adjusting the angle and planting a kiss on the smooth curve of her belly.

“I don’t suppose you’re the airbrush kind of make-them-look-good-so-they-pay-you-a-bundle–so-you-can-make-commissions-from-all-their-friends kind of artist?” she quipped, anything but brave at the moment, which was what she’d convinced herself this was.

“You’re not paying me,” he grinned. “And FYI, airbrushing is for photographers,” he said, peeling out of his jeans and slipping a condom out of the pocket. He sat down naked in the overstuffed chair with a sketch pad propped on his knee and laid the condom on the arm of the chair. He was so nonchalant that she forgot her own nervousness.

“Painted many ‘portraits’ have you?”

“None and I’ve never shown any nudes. You’re my first. Stop moving your sexy mouth, I’m trying to get your lips right without closing my eyes.”

“You’re very talented if you can sketch with your eyes closed. Are you sure you don’t do portraits? What do you mean you’ve never shown any nudes and I’m your first?”

“I took a class in college but nudes were a problem.”

“Wouldn’t they let you get naked to sketch them?”

“Modeling is very boring. I’m trying to be entertaining.” He sighed theatrically. “You really do have to shut up. Think about sex. Think about your darkest fantasy, something you’ve always been afraid to tell anyone else.”

She started to tell him she didn’t have any but closed her mouth when he glared at her.

“Be brutally honest with yourself.”

Something she’d be afraid to tell anyone else.
Brutally honest.
Darkest fantasy.

Okay. She’d always had a threesome fantasy but she’d never trusted one man with that secret let alone two.
Oh what the hell.
She closed her eyes, smiled and imagined herself in a toga, a purple color as deep as an eggplant, the silk caressing her as she walked under a moonlit sky through her courtyard on her way to the private bathhouse.

Two men waited for her, one tall, muscular and blond, the other slim, darker, agile. They were lolling in the shallow end of the heated pool of water, candlelight reflecting where the moon couldn’t reach.

“I’m finished with your mouth. Tell me what’s put the smile on your face,” he asked in a voice gone velvety and dark.

She could feel her face heat and she opened her eyes. “I was just about to step into my own private tiled bath where two gladiators are waiting to fulfill my every wish.”

He arched a dark golden brow and continued sketching while he smiled back at her. “Two? And what are these two doing?” he asked in that same dark voice that always sent a lick of heat streaking through her.

“They’re standing at a carved stone table dressed only in loincloths. They’re waiting for me to lie down. The darker of the two unclasps the jeweled brooch that holds my toga up and lets the fabric fall over the belt at my hips. He caresses my breasts, sucking my nipples into his mouth one after the other.”

“And the other one?”

“His large blond companion has already slipped his loincloth off while the other releases my belt and I step out of my toga. He lifts me onto the table. His friend is now holding a small jar. He tips it over me, dribbles rose-scented oil between my breasts, onto my stomach,
massages
it into my skin while I watch his companion disrobe. I want him to touch himself, but the blond gladiator only smiles and dribbles oil from another jar onto my feet, up over my legs, my thighs. They’re working in tandem, smoothing toward my pussy, their hands almost meeting. I’ve been anticipating this all day and I’m almost writhing off the table.”

“Do they say anything?”

“No. They can use everything but their voices to lure me into an orgasm and the winner decides what happens next.”

Jake frowned. “But if they’re working together how do you know?”

“I get the deciding vote.”

“
Ummmm
,” he rumbled deep in his throat and she felt her pussy throb as she watched him, hand flying over the sketch pad on his lap, knees up.

“I wish I could draw worth a damn, I would immortalize every inch of you.” She sighed, tempted by his unfurling erection. Her fingers itched to wrap around the mouthwatering column of silky taut skin.

“Where are their fingers?”

“They arrange themselves so that I can watch but no one is really touching me. I feel like I’m on fire but I’m not allowed to speak or give directions. My large blond companion is parting me, his partner is blowing on my clit and I lift my head to watch. My clit is so sensitized, quivering. My bare lips are starting to flush when my tormentors smile. The dark-haired one flicks my swollen nub with the tip of his tongue, just a teasing swipe but it’s enough to make me squirm.”

Jake spread his legs slightly and she could see his erection grow, his balls lift as his hand raced furiously over the paper, flipping over a page to begin another. He was so intense, so driven that she almost lost her place in the fantasy until he looked up and blinked. He looked like a different person until he licked his lips and she saw a glimpse of desire that she didn’t think she’d ever grow tired of seeing.

“They’re getting restless now, competitive. My blond warrior leans over and nudges the other out of the way and sucks my clit into his mouth. His darker companion thrusts two thick fingers into me. They’ve done this before, so perfectly that my body remembers the pleasure, riding out the waves curling through me with each tug and slide. I come screaming and tell them it was a tie. They both win. I ask them what they want. They smile and tell me I know.”

“And do you?”

“It’s my fantasy, I’m the prize. They want what I want, both of them penetrating me, filling me up, taking me to that place where nothing is forbidden.” She was rewarded with his harsh intake of breath, exciting her more. “First they have to prepare me, working me with their clever oily fingers until I’m ready to scream, ready to come just from that pressure alone.

“The blond gladiator lifts me until I’m astride him and I slide onto to his erection. He’s so ready he’s grasping my hips, guiding me. He pulls me down, kisses me. I get lost in the kiss, the bliss of his penetration, the anticipation of what’s coming. The smaller, darker gladiator hovers behind me, teasing me with his fingers, stretching me until I can take his slender cock. He eases into me slowly, letting me become accustomed to the sublime feeling of being totally filled. And then there are hands and mouths and that furious edge that happens when an orgasm is just out of reach. Until they find the rhythm that catches us all. Thrusting and sliding, until like dominoes we each come, clutching one another, riding out the fading thrill, our whispers and shouts mingling as we end up in a sweaty heap of spent bodies.”

She sighed, stretching, not caring if she ruined the pose. “Then of course we spend the rest of the night bathing each other in the heated pool, finding reasons to hold our breath under water.”

He stopped sketching, his eyes narrowed and her heart did a scared little flip that she’d finally gone too far.

“Why hasn’t anyone ever locked you in a tower before and turned you into their love slave?”

“Probably because I’ve never told anyone the things I’ve told you,” she said softly, her heart careening into a different rhythm, thrumming in her ears.