Folly (27 page)

‘Emma, what are you thinking about?' he asked.

Well, I certainly wasn't going to tell him the truth, so I decided to go with something else. A bit of misdirection never hurt any mistress who was trying to cover up the fact she was falling hard for one of her clients.

‘I was wondering if I should ask you a personal question,' I said.

‘Of course you can.'

‘And will you answer it?'

‘I hope I'll be able to. It depends how personal it is.'

He took a sip of his wine just as I asked him, ‘What is your opinion on cock restraint devices?' And with that, he just about spluttered his mouthful all over the starched white tablecloth.

He coughed, laughed, and shook his head.

‘That came straight out of left field. In fact, it was hilarious. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. One thing I've learned with you is to be ready for surprises.'

‘Well, are you prepared to answer? Because I would like to know your preferences with regards to them. If you have a preference at all.'

‘Um …,' he said, and then pretended to be fascinated by the menu as the waiter made his way over.

‘I'll have the halloumi ravioli, please,' I said.

‘Springbok carpaccio for me, please.' He continued, in a lower voice, ‘My opinion of them? Harsh, humiliating devices. Cruel, but occasionally necessary.'

I'd looked them up on the Internet a couple of weeks ago. It had been an eyebrow-raising experience, and to be honest, they'd rather freaked me out. Once I'd asked the question, I was hoping he'd say that they weren't on his list of acceptable items, although knowing Simon as I did, I'd assumed my hoping would be in vain. At least he'd said ‘occasionally'. So it wasn't like he wanted to go around wearing one 24/7.

‘Necessary, you say?'

‘Definitely. Especially for those slaves who end up routinely causing offence because they can't control their desires.'

What about mistresses who can't control their emotions, I wondered, and caught my breath as his foot found mine under the table and began rubbing against it.

‘Metal or leather?'

‘Leather.'

I was relieved to hear that. The leather restraint looked like a long slim corset, tightened by laces, but the metal one, made up of rings of varying size, looked far more like a torture device and definitely more complicated to apply. If ‘apply' was the correct terminology to use in this case.

And that wasn't even the most disturbing gadget I'd found in the online catalogue. One of the more expensive male chastity devices had been a veritable symphony of metal rings and studs and straps. It had a health warning that stated that it should be used for a maximum of twenty minutes, and it required seven padlocks.

Seven!

This to be operated by a woman who was perfectly capable of losing her keys while walking from the car to the front door. Any slave who was unlucky enough to be locked into this contraption by me would end up slowly but surely turning gangrenous as I scoured the area feverishly for the missing key ring.

I wasn't even going to ask Simon if he was interested in wearing that specific gadget. A plain leather cock restrictor was stretching my own limits far enough.

‘Why do you enjoy domination?' I asked him, another personal question I'd been wanting to voice for some time.

I put my wineglass down and, in the process, moved my right hand nearer to his left. Our fingers brushed, then twined together.

‘Emma, the best way I can explain it is that it's part of who I am.'

‘In what sense?'

His thumb was caressing my palm, the touch flooding my body with a delicious rush of heat.

‘I've never been afraid of extremes. Of testing my limits. Or of pain, as you know.' His lips curved into a wry smile. ‘Dom–sub play brings an element of adventure into sex. An element of danger, which I love, because submitting is not always easy.'

‘It's not?'

‘It requires trust, and it can take some courage, too, especially when you're a person who spends his working day in charge. Calling the shots, making the decisions, shouldering the responsibility.' His fingers stroked lightly over the back of my hand. ‘Surrendering that authority to another person can be psychologically difficult, and it takes a strong partner to make me submit. But doing it offers me balance, in a very sexual and somehow forbidden way. I find that exciting. Addictive.'

I find you addictive, I wanted to say.

Honestly, the situation between us was at once puzzling and frustrating … and as erotic as anything I'd ever experienced. Here we were, our ankles rubbing against each other's and our fingers touching, our gazes locked, discussing matters that were extremely intimate and highly personal. Anyone watching would assume we were lovers, and yet, despite the fact we'd each had incredible orgasms together, we were not, in any sense of the word, lovers. Hell, we'd never even kissed.

One thing was for sure – nobody in the restaurant would be able to guess at the truth.

I was still fretting over the complexities of our situation two hours later when, replete with gourmet food and a few glasses of wine, Simon and I walked back to his place along streets that were a little colder and a lot quieter than they had been on our way there.

Once we were inside, I took off my jacket and he hung it up and then we walked straight through to his bedroom. He closed the door and dimmed the lights before returning to stand facing me. He stroked his fingers through my hair and cupped his hands around my face.

‘Emma, you are so damn beautiful,' he whispered.

There it was again. ‘Emma.'

I had no idea what the use of my name implied. Were we exploring a fantasy, or weren't we? And if we weren't, then who was in control?

I stood, longing to touch him like a lover but not brave enough to dare, while he unzipped my blouse and slipped it off my shoulders and then bent his head to the filmy cups of my bra, kissing each breast in turn before expertly unhooking its clasp.

As he removed the rest of my clothing, carefully, folding each item and placing it on the arm of the chair, I found I was starting to breathe hard, and not from sheer terror either – not this time.

‘Take your clothes off,' I told him.

I was as turned on as I could see he already was. The anticipation of the power play, and the pleasure he would give me to follow, was a heady sensation.

I could become used to these erotic games.

Even so, it was a bizarre scenario – the two of us standing facing each other, naked, both lustful and aroused – and yet the rules dictated there was an invisible barrier of servitude and control between us.

Without this blockade in place, there would be no fantasy, because I could simply push him backwards, down onto the enormous double bed, kneel astride him and ride him to orgasm. The problem was that I wanted to do that so badly I felt as if I was about to explode. Fuck the fantasy, damn it.

Discipline. That was what the turn-on was all about, I told myself. Denying ourselves the pleasure – me for a little while, and Simon for exactly as long as I felt like making him suffer. That might even be all night. After all, he had angered me. And in more ways than one.

I was angry at him for having got me embroiled in this complicated situation. For having the power to turn me into a melting puddle of lust, and for having the self-control to delay his own satisfaction until he'd pleasured me.

I was angry at him for having responded to my advertisement and paying for my services, and by doing so, placing our relationship on this impossible footing. Now, despite the power I had over him during our sessions, he had me completely disempowered the rest of the time. We had never kissed. I couldn't phone him. I couldn't ask him what was wrong when he was troubled and distracted. And, worst of all, I was dispensable. He'd said as much to my face. I was a temporary diversion, useful to him only while he was recovering from the hurt of his break-up with Paula, and until he chose to seek another, more suitable partner.

Why the hell could he not have met me years ago in the Black Sun?

Suddenly I understood the advantages of the cock restrictor.

That was what I needed, in order to gain some distance from the temptation that was Simon Nel. Instead of his cock jutting out towards me, hard and hungry, it would remain small, meek and soft. Firmly tamed within its tight girdle of leather, it would dangle down helplessly between his legs.

For now, though, I was going to have to do without that useful tool. I would have to channel my anger and frustration into enforcing cold and firm control over him, allowing him no leeway.

I was going to make him kneel on the Persian carpet at the foot of his bed. I was going to blindfold him and fasten his hands behind his back.

Then, after a suitable pause in the proceedings, I would work on him with my tweezers, plucking out body hairs at random, moving around him silently with him unable to see me or predict which part of his body the next biting pain would come from.

Then I was going to force him to put on my underwear, and make up his face with lipstick and blusher to further humiliate him. When all that was done it would be easier to pretend that I was being attended to by a real ladies' maid, and not by a horny male who had me in his sexual thrall.

I was going to order my maid to carefully shave every last bit of unwanted hair from my body – underarms, legs, and bikini area. And finally I was going to demand oral sex. When his skilled fingers and tongue had taken me to another gasping orgasm, I was going to inflict the harshest punishment of all by forbidding him to come. Instead, I was going to curl up in his large and comfortable bed and go to sleep.

My dreams would be all the more restful when I thought of him beside me, his erection unwilling to subside, his balls tight and throbbing with frustration.

I smiled at Simon. I had a feeling it was not a nice expression.

‘Listen carefully,' I told him, ‘to what tonight is going to involve.'

Chapter 30

L
ater that night, or perhaps early in the morning, I woke to feel Simon in bed with me. His body was cupped behind my own. His breath moved through my hair, and his knees were nestled in the crook of mine.

His nearness was tantalising. I drank in the feeling of his presence so close. The heat from his body radiating through mine. The rhythm of his breathing in sync with my own.

I don't know at what moment I realised he might not be asleep. Perhaps it was at the same moment he discovered I wasn't either.

‘You awake?' I breathed, just as he smoothed his hand over my hip.

‘Yes.'

‘What's the time?'

‘It's …' I felt him stretching round to take a look at his phone. ‘It's half-past five. We should try to go back to sleep.'

‘Yes, we should,' I said.

But I couldn't. Instead I lingered in a state of drowsiness, dreamy and relaxed and growing ever more aroused as his hand explored the curve of my buttocks before caressing the soft skin of my inner thigh.

‘Emma,' he murmured, his breath warm on my neck. ‘Your body feels so beautiful. My God, your bum is sexy.'

He trailed kisses across my shoulder and gently bit the nape of my neck. Now he was touching my breast, his hand warm against my skin, his fingers closing around my stiffening nipple and squeezing with a pressure so exquisite it left me dizzy. I could feel his cock pressing against my back, hard and hot, and I needed it; needed it to satisfy the aching want he'd caused.

His fingers stroked between my legs, over the flesh he'd shaven so carefully last night and which was now slick and smooth, and he groaned as he felt the wetness there.

‘Oh, Emma …'

He slid a finger partway into me, teasing me, moving it in the ways he knew were divinely pleasurable but sliding it out even as I pressed my hips back towards him, my body begging for more, for him to fill me. I think I must have made a noise, of frustration or desire, because he caught his breath again.

‘I need you.' His voice was ragged. His finger circled lightly over my clitoris before entering me once again, pushing deeper this time, the action echoing the hunger I could hear in his words. ‘You've been driving me crazy. I want to make love to you. I want you so badly.'

I couldn't remember taking a breath since we'd agreed we should go back to sleep, but my heart was making up for it, drumming audibly as it sent the blood storming through my veins.

I couldn't speak. Didn't dare to say I needed him too, that every fibre of my being was longing for his most intimate touch; that I was desperate to feel him inside me. Instead I reached behind and down, and for the very first time my fingers closed around his hardness. He let out a sharp gasp.

I ran my fingers down his erect shaft, squeezing and caressing, feeling its length and delighting in knowing that, from his groaning responses, I was setting him on fire. I guided his cock between my legs, feeling the incredible, erotic sensation of his warm hardness gliding over my drenched outer lips.

We were so close … so close. I don't think either of us dared to draw breath at that moment. The head of his cock was parting me, pushing at me. I needed him inside me now; I could deny myself no longer. I wanted him in his warmth and nakedness, skin on skin, feeling him filling me up, as intimate as we could ever be. In that single intense moment of lust, I did not know or care about anything else. Just one movement from him he would be there, devoured by my hunger, allowing me to possess him and to be possessed. I knew in that instant there was no saying no, no going back.

‘Oh, Emma,' he breathed.

And I felt him finally penetrate me, first with a voluptuous slowness, easing inside, then moving deeper with every measured stroke. I moaned softly, greedy for more of the utterly sensual fullness he was giving me as he angled his hips, burying himself to the hilt inside me.