Mastered: Ten Tales of Sensual Surrender (40 page)

Maybe he’d do just that.

“Give me your suitcase, Natasha.”

Her breath caught and she immediately offered the handle to her luggage on wheels. Instantly. Without hesitation. Her response to his order was gratifying. Jesus, she was going to bring him to his knees. Just like that, he wanted to see her bound and suspended, trusting him with her entire being.

The picture of her submission appeared fully-formed in his mind and his chest tightened with an ache he’d only ever felt once before.

Shaking off the disturbing realization, he took the handle of her suitcase, brushing her hand as he did. Natasha jumped at the touch. Aiming to push her a little closer to the edge, he gripped her elbow and turned her toward the exit. “Tell me how you met Ty.”

“He didn’t tell you?” She walked beside him, periodically trying to jerk her elbow out of his grasp. Noah held firm, part of him enjoying the covert way she struggled.

“Pretend he didn’t.”

She didn’t answer initially. Noah figured she wasn’t going to, but then she tilted her head and a brilliant smile lit up her face, momentarily shutting down his senses, leaving him blind and deaf to everything except the open expression of adoration she harbored for
his
lover. He frowned, but she didn’t seem to notice, she was so caught up in the memory he’d prompted.

She must have realized she was daydreaming, because she shook herself and the smile turned rueful before she said, “It isn’t pretty.”

“You mean I may have to punish him? Then I insist. I like to punish Ty.” He chose his words with care, setting out to remind her exactly whose man she was talking about, but his efforts backlashed when her breath quickened. She opened and closed her mouth twice before looking away from him.

“Ty’s a grown man.” She stared straight ahead as they stepped onto the skywalk, temporarily off-balance with the conveyor belt under their feet.

“Complete with grown-man desires,” he murmured.

A muscle in her cheek twitched and her jaw worked. Noah imagined she was grinding her back teeth together, and had to suppress a satisfied smile.

A beat later, she shrugged. “We met years ago, when he decided to pick me out of a crowd of dozens of girls at a basketball conference. He stole a kiss. Just walked up and planted his lips on mine.”

He didn’t miss the subtle emphasis she placed on the word years, or the way she phrased her response. Natasha might be young and more inexperienced than most of the submissives Noah encountered, but she knew how to toss a verbal dart.

They stepped off the skywalk and he steered her toward the exit. “I’ll bet you were a heartbreaker as a girl.”

“Not really,” she said with a shake of her head. “I was a tomboy. He kissed me in front of my entire team. I had to punch him in order to save my reputation.”

They arrived at Noah’s car and he opened the trunk to put her luggage inside. Striding to the passenger door, he trapped her against the car. “Hitting’s not nice. Maybe it’s you I need to punish.”

He relished the way her eyes widened, their clear blue depths showing her shock and fear.

“What?”

“You heard me. Ty pushed his way into your life and did something out of bounds. Now, here you are doing the same thing, aren’t you?” He could smell her, the tantalizing scent of perfume and sweat.

Lines appeared on her forehead and she focused her gaze on the area of his throat exposed by the vee of his shirt. “Yes.”

“So what do you think, little girl?” Bracing his forearms on the roof of the car, he lowered his voice. “Do I have to take my paddle to your ass?” A shudder rolled through her, briefly pressing her breasts and belly against him.

“You like that idea.” He dropped his hand to shape the curve of her neck and rubbed his thumb over her racing pulse.

Her throat rose and fell as she swallowed. Turning her face away, she whispered, “You have no rights to me. I’m here for Ty. Not for you.”

Noah cupped her cheek. He knew he was pushing it, wanting to act on the thing between them. “Why him? He took that kiss. He didn’t ask, or build up to it. He walked up to you and demanded your response. You didn’t like that. Why do you think he wants you to do the same to him now?”

She drew a ragged breath. Pulling back, Noah tilted her face up and drank in her parted lips, the dazed gloss of her half-lidded eyes. He watched closely until she remembered she didn’t want this attraction and her face changed.

She jerked her chin, and when he held firm, she twisted, bringing her shoulder up as a shield between them.

“He wouldn’t be yours now if I’d understood how things were. How they would be, who
we
would be. If I’d understood, he would have been my first, and he wouldn’t have needed you.”

She tipped her chin, defiant, her eyes bright, beautiful, as she waited for him to bleed at the point of her knife.

Well, she’d be waiting a long damn time for that, but he had something else he could show her. He slid his hand to grip her ponytail. “You don’t know the first thing Ty needs. Lucky you, I believe in education.”

Without another word, he took her mouth with his.

* * *

Tasha’s body flashed cold, then hot, as a ripple of pleasure-pain spread out from her scalp, where Noah held her hair hard enough to prevent her forgetting his mastery while he licked past her lips.

Her pulse skittered as he used his free hand to grip her hand and raise it to his neck, a silent demand that she understood instantly. Understood and, inexplicably, wanted to obey. Instinct and reason waged war, and instinct won as she clasped her hands at his nape.She was dressed for West Coast autumn, not the first Mid-Atlantic cold snap, and her thin cotton sweater didn’t protect her at all from the cold, hard angles of the car door pressing against her back and hips, but that didn’t seem to matter. The heat of Noah’s skin spread through her as he pinned her in place with a knee between her thighs and the thick length of his erection against her belly. He trailed his free hand over the curve of her breast, shaping the weight with his palm, and she lost track of what she was fighting.

Moaning, she arched her back and rose on tip-toe, trying to direct his cock to a more satisfying location. Three seconds in his arms and she was already soft and wet. Ready for Noah, who she’d expected to hate, not desire. Confusion whipped through the back of her mind, but before she could grasp at the thought, Noah dropped his hand to her ass and lifted her. Her legs parted like they were operating independently of her brain and her knees lifted, grasping his hips, pulling him in.

The two-note beep of a car alarm reminded her they were in public, two or three layers of cotton the only thing standing between them and indecency. The knowledge should have cooled her down but instead, it made her hotter, and she was wedging her hands between their bodies, her fingers behind his belt buckle, when Noah tore his lips from hers and twisted her head so he could lick the sensitive hollow behind her ear.

She was shivering over the rasp of his stubble along her cheek when his warm breath fanned into her ear canal, sending a shudder of hunger through her entire body. And his voice--God.

His voice.

“Have you ever been naked in public, Natasha? Ever put your beautiful little body on display?” The low, rough words rasped along her nerve endings, dark with arousal and challenge.

Not trusting herself to speak coherently, she bit her lip and shook her head. Or tried to. Noah held her immobile, his forearm flexed against the side of her neck.

“Answer me with words.”

“No, Sir.” The immediacy with which she responded, not even stopping to think before obeying him--and using that word--set off all her inner alarms.

This time it was Noah’s turn to shudder. He sucked in a breath and his abs flexed against her hands, reminding her how close she was to touching his cock.

How close she was to asking him for so much more than permission to touch.

“You will be.” He punctuated his whispered promise by pressing his fingertips into her ass cheek and tilting her pelvis to meet his. The tight, confined thrust of hardness against her core scattered her thoughts all over again. Noah bucked between her legs, abs and thighs bunching as he ground the long ridge of his arousal against her, and the way he held her spread open left zero protection.

Her breath came in short, harsh bursts. Every muscle inside her tensed, trembling and seeking, straining toward Noah’s mastery. Footsteps and wheeled luggage somewhere in the parking garage reminded her they weren’t alone, and that made her more desperate. She squirmed against him, trying to gain leverage to push him away with her knees even as her arms pulled him closer. Her mind and body fought against each other, and her body was winning. She felt herself climbing higher and higher until he closed his teeth around a tender part of her neck and pushed her over the edge.

It didn’t matter that they were out in the open, that Noah was her enemy, not her lover. Reason didn’t matter. Somehow, Noah knew her body, and he used it as a weapon against her. She came hard, with frightening suddenness, and for a moment, guilt beat back the pleasure. But the moment was lost, and nobody existed except Noah.

As the shock softened, Noah’s hold on her hair gentled and his pumping hips slowed. She wished he would let her go and turn away, but he stayed with her, reminding her in unnecessary ways--because how could she forget?--that he was still there.

While she shivered and clung, trying to sort through her jumbled emotions, he soothed the sting of a bite mark with his tongue and cooled the damp spot with his breath.

“I’m in control here, Natasha, and I don’t surrender it lightly. Remember that when you’re aiming your luscious mouth at my lover. Remember this.” He pulsed against her one more time, triggering a new wave of aftershocks, and didn’t let her go until she sagged limp in his arms.

When he lowered her feet to the ground, the chill of cold concrete under her one bare foot barely registered. Noah drew her away from the car door and imprisoned her against his chest, his forearm hard below her shoulder blades, as he opened the door and installed her into the passenger seat. After she was settled, he scooped her errant shoe from beneath the car and bent to slide it over her foot.

His words finally registered and took on meaning as he walked to the driver’s side and slide into the seat. Noah jabbed the key into the ignition and fired the engine, staring straight ahead as if she no longer existed for him.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” she whispered.

He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “Doesn’t it?”

Tasha shivered. She turned her face away from the stark, white outline of his knuckles.

Noah reached out and cupped her chin, pulling her head back around to hold her gaze. His lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “Ty is mine, Natasha. You want to touch him, fuck him, get on your knees and lick his impressive dick? You’ll have to beg me for permission.”

Tasha opened her mouth and closed it, at a loss for words. Leaving her to stew in her head, Noah backed from the space and left the garage.

Silence filled the car as Noah negotiated traffic and Tasha desperately tried to gather her scattered thoughts. She shot him a sidelong glance. Noah was aware that Ty wasn’t happy. Oh, he didn’t say it. But Tasha wasn’t stupid, and Noah wasn’t as unreadable as he thought.

After he merged into traffic, she drew a deep breath and said, “You might think you know what Ty needs, but
I
know he’s not happy. If I can give him what he needs, then I’m going to give it to him.” Her voice shook. She couldn’t seem to completely suppress her fear. Noah didn’t strike her as the reasonable type. He seemed downright fucking dangerous in more ways than one.

“Do you think I don’t know every change, every nuance of his emotions? I’m his Dominant. I don’t get to be oblivious.” He didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. Tasha thought he was finished, was mounting her next attack, when he said, “I’ve brought submissives to Ty. They were temporary and never touched what is between us. But you? I can’t compete with you. I won’t.”

The stark bitterness in his tone stole some of her anger, made her feel small and terrible. “Noah, I never meant to…” What could she say? She
had
meant to come between them. She didn’t want just any Dom. She wanted Ty.

“You’re not taking the next flight back to California, are you?”

She shook her head, committed heart and soul to this course. “I’m sorry, Noah.”

“I am too, Natasha. More than you can know.”

Chapter Two

Ty tried to focus on the traffic as he navigated through Baltimore’s busy downtown, but knowing Tasha was waiting for him made it damn hard to keep his head in the present. Noah was always ribbing him about his driving, the way he barely acknowledge the rules of the road as his mind worked through problems. He couldn’t retrain his brain, though. He’d tried. Something about the muscle memory of his hands on the wheel and his feet on the gas unlocked his inner problem solver. Whenever he got stuck on something like lining up the perfect angle for a photo or figuring out how to address a difficult situation with Noah, he knew the open road would see him through.

Noah.

At a traffic light, Ty scrubbed his hands over his face and blew out a long breath. In the seven years since Ty had met the tall, quietly powerful man he called Master, so many things had changed. Noah nurtured and grew the submissive half of Ty’s deepest self, but Noah’s commitment didn’t stop when the knots came untied.

Like Ty, Noah was an artist. Noah’s strong hands and creative vision could do mind-blowing things with leather. Noah had built a career out of a basement workshop, designing everything from vanilla accessories to steampunk costuming and fetish gear. His client base spanned North America, including Canada, and the waiting list for a Noah Dreyfus original was three years long.

Ty’s media was photography, and he hadn’t experienced success to the same degree Noah had achieved. From time to time, Ty thought about giving it up and putting his business degree to use. Noah, being the man and Master he was, talked Ty down from that ledge every time.