“You like that,” he murmured, eyes intent and focused on her.
She wanted to deny it, but words wouldn’t come. He continued on, delivering light little stinging blows to her pussy, while heat and electricity spiraled up inside her, tighter, hotter with every stroke. The buzz of a burgeoning orgasm tingled. God, from being spanked on her pussy! What was wrong with her! Her teeth sank deeper into her bottom lip as her body tensed. And yet, he took her higher. Higher.
And then he stopped.
Throbbing, aching, empty, she cried out with need.
He smiled at her.
He lifted the flogger and her pussy tightened in anticipation. But instead of hitting her there again, he delivered smarting little blows to her breasts. Another low cry escaped her as her nipples tightened painfully. A flush of pleasure radiated over her skin.
One breast. The other. Then back. He built an erotic rhythm that she sank into, lost in edgy pleasure.
“You need to come, don’t you, Tara?”
God, oh God, she did, she did. The thought entered her head, way back in the far recesses of her brain, that this was Joe, this was crazy, but she could not stop it. “Yes!”
He pushed her thighs wide apart, exposing her aching, wet pussy, and to her utter shock, he turned the handle of the flogger around in his hand and probed at her opening with the rounded end of it. Ah! God!
With a push it was inside her, filling her, and her hips lifted off the mattress, heels digging in, fingers curling.
“Oh Jesus!” she gasped. With one hand, he thrust the handle of the flogger into her, deep, over and over, picking up that rhythm again, and with the other hand he found her clit and rubbed. Tight little circles just where she needed them. Tension coiled in her, unbearable, straining, and then she shattered, sparks flying, intense, violent pleasure tearing through her.
She’d looked fucking amazing in that corset, pushing her tits up. He’d liked the little ivory ribbon threaded through the top edge of it and tied in a bow between her breasts. Tough black with a hint of softness. Sweet. She was the perfect size—for him anyway, since he didn’t find huge tits all that appealing, liking just enough to fill his hands—and shape, high and round and firm. When he’d seen the look of almost dazed fascination and arousal on her face, watching that scene, he’d known he could have her. She just needed to learn what was inside her.
Joe barely caught the basketball that slammed into him, thrown by Nick.
“Pay attention, buddy,” Nick called across the court. Nick had talked Joe into coming along to the center Saturday afternoon for a game with some of the kids. They’d played basketball together in college, but it had been awhile for Joe.
Joe dribbled the ball up the court, avoiding the kids, aimed for the basket and sunk it. He pumped a fist into the air as the kids on his team cheered. He grinned. But his mind wandered away again.
The debate about whether it had been a good idea to do that with Tara, considering who she was, kept ping-ponging in his head. Yeah, it could make things damn uncomfortable at work. On the other hand, this could make things better. Once he learned her triggers, gained her trust and her submission, it could only help.
Was there an ethical problem there?
Nah. It wasn’t like he would try to use his control over her for something unethical. He wasn’t going to steal from the company or make bad decisions. He was only trying to stop her from making him waste his time looking at useless information, excluding him from meetings he should be at and arguing with him over every damn thing. And if it helped her look inside herself and find out who she really was—hey, it was win-win.
He caught the ball, passed it to a lanky thirteen-year-old and jogged down the court, swiping a hand across his sweaty forehead. Christ, he was out of shape. He needed to get back into working out.
There was also still the fact that he could be putting at risk the only job he’d been able to find after months of pounding the pavement. Big risk—worth it?
He’d never been a reckless gambler. In the business world he liked to take calculated risks. Consider the pros and cons. Look at the issue rationally and logically. So he’d done that, there at Le Château, considered everything at lightning speed and made his decision. Now he had to live with it.
But he hadn’t quite taken into consideration the effect she was going to have on him. He was experienced and had shown many women their submissive nature, had pushed them past their boundaries—like a teacher. As he’d offered to be for Tara. And while he’d enjoyed it and had taken satisfaction from it, it had always felt…distant.
Not with Tara. It didn’t feel distant. It felt…personal. His body burned at the idea of teaching her about her sexuality, about the desires he knew haunted her. He ached to show her the kind of satisfaction she could find in submission in a way that made him almost…nervous.
And, lost in his thoughts, the elbow that hit him in the eye sent him stumbling to his knees on the court. Shit!
Chapter Nine
Tara spent the weekend shifting back and forth from heated arousal to scorching mortification. How could she have let Joe do that to her?
She’d known he might be there, but had gone anyway, thinking stupidly that she could avoid him. Resist him. Dammit.
She didn’t even go in to the office, which she usually did on weekends, in case he was there. She was so edgy, she actually sought out Sasha to talk to her.
Her sister was sitting in the den, flipping through a magazine, drinking a martini.
Tara eyed the nearly empty glass. “Drinking again?”
Sasha looked up and frowned. “Would you get off my back about the drinking?”
“Why are you drinking so much, Sasha?”
“I’m not!”
Whatever. Tara sighed and sat on the couch beside her. She picked up a thick Vogue magazine and flipped through glossy pages.
“Anything nice in here?” she murmured, knowing her sister would have picked out several outfits.
Sasha shrugged. “Not really.”
Tara lifted her head. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?”
Sasha wasn’t her usual cheerful self. She wasn’t interested in the clothes in the fashion magazines. She’d gone out with Baxter—Baxter the Bastard, as Tara called him in her head—when they’d supposedly broken up weeks ago. And she was drinking herself into a haze pretty much every night. But they didn’t exactly have a close relationship where they talked about stuff.
Grandpa walked in just then.
“Hello, girls.”
“Hi, Grandpa.” Sasha smiled up at him.
“Next weekend is the Santa Barbara Wildlife Federation party at the country club,” he said as he walked over to the bar. He smiled at Sasha as he poured himself a glass of Scotch. “Have you got something pretty to wear?”
“Of course!” Sasha fluttered her lashes at him. “I got a beautiful dress a couple of weeks ago when I was in New York.”
“Perfect. You always know how to impress everyone.”
Tara looked down at her hands. She wasn’t even going to the party and she certainly wasn’t going to impress anybody. Not her kind of thing at all—she’d been to too many where she’d just felt excluded, like she didn’t fit in. Nobody wanted to talk about olives. Some men liked talking business, but then their wives got annoyed and…it never was much fun.
She left Sasha and Grandpa talking about who was going to be at the party and went back to her room to wrestle with dark, heated memories of Joe flogging her to a peak of orgasmic ecstasy.