Love Beat (22 page)

After a few minutes I open the door again and slip back out, pulling it to behind me without closing it. The men are tense, still poised to spring. I glance round at them and keep my voice low. “I’d like a moment with Cade.”

I pull him inside and close the door. We’re standing in a slim corridor leading into a small but elegant suite.

Cade glares down at me, consumed with rage and anxiety. “Where is she? What’s going on?”

I lean up and whisper close to his ear. “This has to be the most embarrassing few minutes of my life. We’re in a hotel room. What do you
think’s
going on?” I press my lips together, take hold of his arm and lead him forward.

As the room opens up before him, he stands stock-still then takes a deep breath. “Okay. Just tell me you’re all right, Sonja.”

The bedroom’s vast, the lighting low. There are other rooms beyond but here we’re surrounded by chaos. Bedding is piled on the floor, clothes strewn in all directions, draped over furniture, rumpled in heaps on the thick, pale carpet. On the bed, looking very pink and exceptionally pretty, Sonja is curled up, her face a mask of fear. She’s nestling against the protective arm of a furious Jake, clearly naked under the corner of sheet he’s grabbed from the floor to cover himself.

He leans forward, his blue eyes ablaze, and glares at Cade and me. “What the hell do you think’s going on, Fitzlean? Nothing much, thanks to you. Now fuck off and leave us alone.”

“And Sonja? You’re all right?” Cade refuses to leave until he’s sure, and Sonja’s too scared to say so. But slowly her shy blushes convince him.

Cade glances at me, and I blush too.

We’re back in the corridor and we’re preparing to go. The two lovers are clearly enchanted with each other. I find the sight of them together, their snatched encounter so cruelly interrupted, poignant and touching. As they clutch each other and steal yet another kiss, it’s also becoming painfully clear that Cade and I are very much
de trop.

I’m glad to see that Cade senses this too. Luckily he’s so relieved to find Sonja safe that he seems willing to forgive her moonlight flit and the considerable trouble she’s put him through. And thank goodness—a crinkle at the corner of his eyes tells me he’s even starting to see the funny side.

With luck, Jake will never know how close he came to sudden, violent death.

Cade tears his eyes away from mine and turns his attention back to the lovers. “Look, Sonja, take the rest of the week off. Stay here if you like. It’s on me. I’ll have a word with the manager. Anything else you need, just use the corporate card.”

Sonja leans up and kisses him on the cheek, her eyes shining. “Thank you so much, Mr. Fitzlean. I’m really sorry about the fake call. And—everything.”

Cade smiles briefly then glances at Jake. “Not as sorry as I am. We’ll miss you, Simmons. I was counting on you for tomorrow at least.”

“
Shit
, sorry. I forgot.” For the first time, Jake looks sheepish.

I frown, puzzled.
Tomorrow?
What’s going on?

When Cade speaks again, the mystery deepens. “We’ll manage. The film crew is still on site. I’ll ask them to do it. We’ll split the footage with your team. Have fun.”

Now he’s keen to get away. The mystery is solved, the danger past.

The lovers tell us everything—how Mel and Ben planned the diversion to cover their escape at Jake’s urgent request, because Sonja was scared of offending her stern employer. She knew he was too busy to spare her and dreaded being caught on camera. Flight seemed the only option.

The risk of getting fired, she proclaims hotly, is well worth it. She’d do it all over again.

When I think how easily Cade manages our own encounters, I feel deeply sorry for Sonja and Jake. I make a note to tackle Cade about his attitude to his staff the first chance I get. I’m also deeply relieved everything’s turned out well.

The flight back, after the high drama of our trip out, is relaxed and calm. I even doze for a while in the dull hum of the engines and the soft darkness of the cabin. Cade’s hand steals to my thigh and stays there, a warm, stirring reminder that our own lovemaking was also brutally interrupted.

He’s clearly impatient to get back to Beat Hall, even turning down the tempting offer of a suite for the night from the grateful manager.

My heart leaps. In the darkness of the cabin, I lean into his touch. We exchange a look from time to time, his heat fueling mine.

* * * *

When we arrive back at Beat Hall, the eastern horizon is already flushed with the new dawn. He mutters hasty thanks to his security team and the crew then hauls me down to our rooms, his hand clasping mine in a firm grip.

Does all his staff know about us?
I suppose they must. The thought makes me tingle.

In our rooms he kicks the door shut and pulls me into his arms, fastening his mouth on mine like a man starved.

All at once we’re tearing off our clothes, ripping at zips, peeling off trousers and somehow I’m pinned down on the bed, my arms hauled over my head and lashed to the bedposts with soft cotton rope which appears as if by magic from a slim drawer in the side table.

He straddles me, leaning back on his thighs. In the low lighting his eyes glitter, black with lust.

“If you had anything to do with that episode, you’re going to be extremely sorry.”

I open my mouth to laugh a protest but he surprises me by fastening a hand over my lips. “Quiet. I need your mouth.”

He leans over me, shifting slightly from time to time to adjust his angle. He watches breathless as I fellate him gently, deeply touched that he wants this so much.

As I lick him, yawning open my throat to swallow him then pulling back to lick along his length, tasting his silky, salty heat with lustful sweeps of my tongue, I marvel that such a simple caress can arouse him so far and so fast.

It arouses me, too. My excitement builds as I suck, at the thought of how it will feel—how it always feels—when he finally plunges inside me. He leans back to tease my splayed cleft with his fingers.

“Your mouth’s good. But your tail’s better.”

He grasps me by the ankles and flips me over, pushing me up onto my knees. With my arms still tethered, I lean on my elbows as my hands cross over and hear him growl low in his throat as I rear up with my backside high in the air. I felt his breath on my skin, hot and fierce on my tender patches, where his paddle and his whip have made their mark.

“You’re so beautiful, Tunis. Your ass is fantastic like this—marked as
mine.
Open your legs. Wider.”

I hear the rip of foil then with a grunt he slides inside, hardly giving me time to brace as he thrusts again and again. He fondles my breasts then squeezes hard, first one then the other, gripping my nipples painfully. I gasp and instantly he murmurs close to my ear. “No noise, or we’ll finish this in the dungeon.”

He squeezes again and I shriek as he gives both my nipples a playful tweak with his fingers and thumbs. Instantly he pulls free and stretches out next to me, a slow smile spreading over his face. His erection, high and proud and still sheathed in the condom, beats against my hip. “What did I just say?”

I stare at him, dumbfounded.

Surely he can’t mean…
“Not…the dungeon?
Now
?”

He smiles, fondling my breasts with his hand, and tweaks me again, making me cry out. With a swift movement he wrenches the condom away, hurls it across the room then reaches up to unfasten my wrists. “Check. Get up.”

Chapter Seventeen

He wants me in the dungeon at this hour? What happened to sleep?

As I kneel beside the bed, he drapes a towel over my shoulders. “Our week’s nearly over and we’ve still got some ground to cover. You asked for training, and you’re going to get it. We’ll cut the formalities that normally start your session. Just kiss the tip.”

This is scary. He was surely only seconds from orgasm. How can he hold off like this? His erection’s still fierce and purple, glossy with my saliva. I swirl my tongue eagerly around the head then touch my lips to its tiny opening in a loving, reverent kiss.

I know how much he loves this. Maybe it’ll lure him back to bed.

No such luck. He draws in a deep, ragged breath then signals me to get to my feet and follow him downstairs.

As the events of the past few hours flash through my mind, I feel distinctly jaded. I could really use a nice cozy orgasm followed by sleep, the deeper the better.

But Cade Fitzlean doesn’t do nice and cozy.

Or sleep, apparently.

I bleat a feeble protest. “It’s nearly dawn already. Can’t we just go to bed?
Ow
.” I get a sharp slap on my rump.

“You forget your manners, sub. You speak when I give you permission.”

The dungeon is just as we left it, the rails of gleaming equipment still undisturbed. The items he’d selected before the hoax raid hours ago are still laid out in a neat row on the bench. The sight of them makes me shiver.

This time he ignores them and positions me in the central beam of the main spotlight, pulling a rack of chains fixed to the ceiling down to head level. “I’m going to suspend you by the arms and one foot. As a former dancer, you should be able to hold a position with one leg high in the air. Safeword if you have to. After that, I’ll gag you and you’ll have to signal. Remember what it is?”

I lift two crossed fingers, my agreed safe signal for when I’m gagged. I thought he was kidding when he told me I’d need one. Silly me.

He clamps the cuffs on my wrists and fastens them to the chains, hauling them high over my head with a tug on the ropes at the wall.

“Now your foot. Go on tiptoe.” He catches my arched foot as I raise my leg, running his fingers lovingly over my instep and my neatly pointed toes. He lifts my foot to his lips in a fond kiss before stretching my leg at the angle he wants, my arched foot pointing upward.

In dance this pose is simply a dramatic peak in a graceful sequence but here I’m chained into it, exposed and vulnerable, poised in the air like an insect trapped in amber.

He tests the cuffs and anxiously scans my face. “Okay?”

I nod, eyes wide. Heat sparked by dread burns again.
What’s he going to do
? Deep down I can think of only one possible answer, one possible reason he wants me splayed wide like this.

He frowns. “What’s wrong? Are you afraid?”

I nod again, glad I’m forbidden to speak. I might give too much away. It’s not just fear.
It’s excitement.

He runs his hand up the inside of my leg, closing his fingers lovingly over my slit. I hold my breath as he slides his fingers up inside me, lingering in my soft, moist creases, now slick at his touch.

I see his eyes gleam. “Wet already? We haven’t started yet.” He kisses my cheek, his expression unbearably tender. “Don’t be afraid. Sex happens down here”—he flexes his fingers inside me, making me moan—“and up here.” He kisses my forehead. He gestures to the rails, bristling with implements. “All the rest is just theater. Maybe that’s why you find it so affecting.” He eyes me hungrily. “Ready?” He works his fingers deeper.

I’m forbidden to speak, but an eloquent trickle runs down the inside of one tense, quivering thigh.

His eyes flicker as his voice lowers to a velvety murmur. “I thought so. Now the gag. Open.”

He holds it up in front of my face, a fearsome studded strap in black leather, with a soft plastic ball about halfway along. Like a pet collar, it has a sturdy buckle at one end. He slips the soft ball behind my teeth where it springs back into shape in my mouth.

It looked small but it feels huge.

His calm smile is making me nervous. Like some trapped animal, I’m intensely aware of his mood. I can sense his growing excitement. It’s very disturbing, and on some deeply primitive level,
hot.

“Delicious. If I were feeling especially strict, I might tweak your lip and make you drool—intensely humiliating. But since you’re pretty wet already somewhere else, I’ll spare your blushes for now.” He buckles the strap at the back of my head then stands back to admire the effect. “Beautiful. You look hot enough to eat.”

He starts to drop kisses on my straining muscles. He soothes my quivering skin with soft touches of his lips and long, sensuous sweeps of his hands along my waist, down my wide, splayed thighs and over my breasts. He smiles fondly as I mew helplessly into the gag.

I watch with growing alarm as he strolls over to the rail of bushy floggers hanging by the wall and slowly runs his long fingers over them, a master craftsman assessing his tools, weighing up the possibilities for maximum pleasure.

He finally makes his choice and unhooks a large black flogger, the long strands evil and businesslike.

“Now let’s see how fast you can come.”

He gives the whip a few expert flicks of his wrist as he turns back toward me. The strands swish through the air in a brisk figure of eight and make a terrifying hiss before he moves around behind me, out of sight.

A trickle of sweat crawls down my back as I close my eyes. I feel a rush of air as the strands swish around me again then land on my back with a muffled slap. They slide sensuously off my skin, agonizingly slow, snaking round my legs and my quivering arms.

The whip falls again and again, on my breasts, my arms, my back and my legs.

I wait for the sting, the awful pain that a whip that size must surely have, but it never comes. Either his touch is deliberately light—I’ve taken a lot of punishment this week—or the whip is
soft.
It must be suede.

At each blow I flinch, but I receive only endless shocks of sensual pleasure. Soon I’m tingling all over, the softness unbearably repeated, the strokes never ending. The blows grow harsher, but now the hissing strands have lost any power to sting as my skin glows all over, craving each new contact, tingling and burning from the constant stimulation.

But the blows speed up along my inner thighs and now I guess what’s coming. Why else would he want my legs forced open into a tempting, vertical line?