Since I Saw You (28 page)

“Spread your thighs more. That’s right,” he muttered thickly when she slid her knees an inch outward in each direction. He lifted the flogger and began to land the tails gently on her ass. It didn’t hurt, but the sensation of the tails flicking against her skin and the soft whoosh and tapping sound they made when they made contact struck her as intensely erotic. “How many strokes do you think you deserve for working on a declared day of leisure?” she heard him say.

“Hard strokes?” she asked him shakily.

“Stinging ones. Yes,” he said, continuing to flick the tails against her ass.

She bit off a moan of arousal. Why was this such a turn-on? It shocked her, how much his dominance and her submission aroused her, and yes, even the mild bondage and “punishment.” In her vulnerable position with her thighs spread wide, she could feel how wet and swollen her sex was. Kam could see it, no doubt.

Heat flooded her face at the thought. She rolled her hot cheek on the pillow.

“Four?” she suggested.

The tails landed lower, flicking against her outer sex. The jolt of excitement that went through her was almost painful it was so sharp. Her pussy clenched tight. The tails landed again on her flushed, swollen sex, and this time she couldn’t stop moaning. She heard Kam’s low growl and knew he was witnessing her reaction, and that he liked it.

“Four it is, then,” he said.

She heard the tails whoosh through the air, her muscles tightening. They landed on her ass with a stinging caress. Almost immediately they were back, this time gently tapping at her exposed outer sex. She whimpered in excitement. Again, she heard the tails whoosh in the air. They landed on her ass with a sharp snap.

“Oh,” she muttered, wincing at the sting. Kam rubbed where he’d struck, soothing the burning flesh.

“Too much?” he asked.

“No,” she moaned. The fever came upon her again, this time wrought by the sharp sting and his gentle caress. He opened his large hand along her lower buttocks and pushed up the flesh. Lin realized with a rush of excitement that he was making a closer inspection of her pussy. The room flashed and thunder cracked loudly. “God you’re wet. Such a sweet, pink pussy,” she heard him mumble as if to himself.

“Kam,” she pleaded, but for what? The sting of the flogger? The end of this delicious agony? She wasn’t sure. She only knew she burned.

The tails whooshed in the air, and again she felt their sting. “Is that what you wanted?” he asked roughly from behind her, his hand rubbing her bottom, easing the prickling nerve endings.

“Yes. No. I want you. I want you inside me,” she cried out, not sure what she wanted because need flooded her in all directions.

“You’ll have it after one more stroke. You’ll have it good and hard,” he assured darkly. She tensed in anticipation when she heard the telltale sound of the tails flying.

They struck her ass, the resulting burn making her grit her teeth. Her muscles coiled tight with tension and arousal. Then the flogger dropped down onto the mattress just inches from her face. She stared at it, panting as she felt Kam grab her hips, adjusting her slightly. The bed was high, ideally suited for this position and his tall body.

“Oh!” She gasped at the sensation of the hard knob of his cock nudging her pussy, forcing her delicate tissues to part for it. He firmed his hold on her, his thumbs digging into her stinging buttocks. He drove his length into her with one hard thrust. Her squeal was nearly drowned out by a boom of thunder. She immediately began bobbing her bottom. It hurt a little, but her hunger far outweighed the slight discomfort of his complete possession. She needed more friction. She required it. He lifted his hand and spanked her.

“Stay still,” he demanded in a tight voice. “You’re a trial enough as it is without bouncing around like that.”

•   •   •

Kam hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but he’d never been strung so tight on a rack of need as he was at that moment. She’d surpassed his expectations yet again, her responsiveness stunning him. It was like she’d been fashioned from his fantasies, so sweet, so giving, so trusting.

He flexed his hips, thrusting into her clinging warmth.

So beautiful.

Her ass blushed pink, but her pussy was a luscious sexual confection, squeezing his cock, sucking at it as he drove into the soft, liquid center again and again. He knew he should stop staring at his cock moving like a well-oiled piston in and out of her—he was going to come faster for it—but the vision was too compellingly erotic. A red haze of lust edged his vision. His pelvis smacked against her buttocks in a hard-driving rhythm. He gathered her plump buttocks in his hands, pushing the flesh together, squeezing his thrusting cock even more.

Lin screamed. He paused, concern fracturing his rabid lust. Was he hurting her? But then he felt the walls of her pussy convulse around him. She was coming. He lost all vestiges of control then, his arm muscles flexing painfully as he crashed her ass against his pelvis, serving her pussy to his raging cock . . .

. . . to his raging need. It was so great, only Lin could quench it.

Climax slammed into him, the spike of pleasure ruthless. He lost the ability to think as he tightened in a rictus of bliss. Something seemed to rip loose inside him. Then he was pouring himself into Lin, giving himself in a way he never had before, giving himself in a way he hadn’t known was possible until that moment.

K
am came back to himself to the sound of rain pounding on the windows. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes and leaned up slightly. He’d been slumped over Lin, trying to recover from his thunderous climax. He straightened, recognizing she was vulnerable, restrained as she was with his upper body weight on her. She moaned softly when he stood and regretfully withdrew from her body.

“You were keeping me warm,” she murmured, her voice a throaty, sexy murmur, a result of her screaming while she sucked his cock so deep, no doubt. He unhooked her cuffs and took one of her hands, guiding her. She came off the bed, elegant and fleet in her movements even in a state of satiation. He pulled back the covers and nodded for her to get into the bed first. He came down next to her on his back and pulled the bedding around them. She curled up next to him, her head on his chest. He removed the clip from her hair and stroked the silky tendrils. For several languorous minutes they remained like that, listening to the rain pounding against the windowpane and the rumbling thunder, their bodies slowing. It was sublime. Kam breathed Lin’s scent and the fragrance of their combined arousal. She snuggled closer to him, and he was overwhelmed with tenderness for her. Like his former blinding need, it was unexpected and sharp as a newly forged blade. He stroked her naked shoulder, his lips moving in her hair. She felt so small next to him, so feminine, her body seeming to pulse with vibrancy and life.

“Are you warm now,
ma petite minette
?” he rasped.

“Yes. I feel so good,” she said so softly he barely heard her above the crash of the rain on the windows.

He ran a hand along the curve of her hip. “I’ll say you do.”

He felt her smile against his skin. “Did you ever have a kitten?”

“What?” he asked in puzzlement, pausing in stroking her.

“You always call me your little kitten,” she murmured. “I just thought . . . from the way you always say it so fondly . . .”

He resumed stroking her, her words making him thoughtful. “How well do you know French?” he asked.

“Not very. I understand it better than I can speak it.”

“They are terms of endearment,
mon petit chaton
,
ma petite minette.
Not that I used them regularly. Ever, really,” he mused. “It’s just that you remind me of a kitten; you’re small and sleek and graceful.” He cupped her hip and she snuggled closer. “And you curl up to me like one.”

She laughed softly. He smiled at the sound. “It’s because your body is like a furnace. So you never actually had one?” she added lazily.

He went still. She lifted her head and peered at his face when he didn’t respond immediately.

“I had one. Once. A long time ago, when I was a boy,” he said slowly. “I’d actually forgotten about it until just now.”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, and she touched his chest, as if to steady him. “I was young. Eight or so, I think.”

He saw her elegant throat convulse as she swallowed. “What happened?” she whispered, and she could tell by the dread that tinged her voice that she’d caught a hint of his disquietude at the unexpected memory that her innocent question had dislodged.

“Nothing. I had just forgotten I ever had a kitten until now.”

“A kitten? Not a cat?” she asked, studying him. “Kam?” she prodded gently when he didn’t reply. It suddenly struck him that she looked worried, and he wished he had censored himself better. Still, he’d said it now.

“Aurore is in the country,” he said thickly after a moment. “There are a lot of outbuildings . . . barns, and gardening sheds. Several cats used to live in them, and the gardener allowed it because they helped control the rodents. One of them had a litter one spring, and I kept one of them for my own. A shiny little brown one. I called her
Chocolat. My mother wouldn’t let me keep her in our quarters at first, saying we didn’t have the money to feed her, but then Chocolat worked her wiles on her, and my mother grew fond of her as well. She was very warm hearted by nature, and she loved animals.”

“You get that from her,” Lin murmured.

He nodded before resuming. “During that summer, that kitten went everywhere with me . . . except for inside the big house,” he added darkly. He fell into silence, his fingers still running through Lin’s hair.

“Gaines didn’t like cats?” she whispered.

“It wasn’t just that. I never showed him that I cared about anything,” Kam said. “As a kid, I learned that lesson fast enough. Don’t show your weak spots. He’ll use them against you. Even my mother . . .” he trailed off, thick regret flooding him. “I never let him know how much she meant to me. I was afraid he’d terminate her employment as a maid and laundress and send her away when he was in one of his tempers over some imagined error he believed I’d made in my work. I led him to believe that I didn’t care that much for her, that I looked down on her . . . that I considered her a simple commoner. I never told her I did that,” Kam admitted, the truth burning his throat. He’d never told anyone about the ugly fiction he’d enacted.

“Your mother knew you loved her. You let Gaines believe that for a reason, a good one. Of course you would learn early on how to keep things that mattered to you off his radar. He was a sick, twisted man. You were smart and resourceful for protecting your mother that way, especially when you were so young with no one to guide you. Never think otherwise,” Lin stated fiercely.

He believed her, but guilt was often not a rational emotion. “Your father did something to the kitten. Didn’t he?” Lin asked in a hushed voice after a pause.

“That fall was the first time I went to attend school in the town. Gaines allowed it, but he didn’t like it. It was inconvenient for him, to have to do some of the manual labor I usually did for him, assisting him in his workshop. On the first day of school, he grew restless when I didn’t immediately report to work in the big house and went looking for me. I’d rushed home so that I had time to see Chocolat. I’d left her that morning with her brothers and sisters and her mother in the barn. She visited them often enough, and her mother continued to treat her as one of her own. Gaines found me there with the kitten. He ordered me to the workshop. After I left, he asked the gardener to round up the stray cats in the barn and drown them. He said they were infected with disease.”

He felt Lin shudder next to him. He blinked away the toxic memory and focused on Lin’s face. The sadness he saw her in her dark eyes pierced him. He brushed her cheek with his thumb.

“It was a long, long time ago,” he said.

“I’m sorry I made you remember.”

“I’m not,” he said steadfastly before he pulled her higher in his arms and laid her back on the mattress. He came down over her, seeking the sweet benediction of her mouth.

•   •   •

They spent the entire day in bed, talking and touching and making love. The acute fury of the storm abated, but clouds remained hovering over the city. Rain occasionally pattered on the windowpanes, adding to the sense of delightful relaxation and intimacy.

“You better watch out,” Lin told him as she trailed kisses down the side of his rib cage later that afternoon. “This playing hooky business could definitely become my new addiction.”

“Then my plan is working,” he assured her, cradling the side of her head and praising her gently in French when her mouth lowered still.

Kam got up as dusk fell to take out Angus. Lin rose to call to have food delivered. When the Thai carryout arrived, however, they returned to bed, feasting naked amongst the rumpled bedclothes. Afterward, they roused from lazing about to luxuriate in the large bathtub.

“Where are you going tomorrow?” Kam asked her later when they returned to bed after their sensual soak, Lin’s muscles rubbery with the relaxation that came from repeated lovemaking and hot water.

“I have a series of meetings on Tuesday in San Francisco,” she said, cuddling closer to him. She really hated the idea of leaving Chicago at that moment . . . of putting distance between her and Kam.

“Do you travel a lot for work?”

She hummed an affirmative, stroking his muscular upper arm. “Usually three or four times a month.”

“Do you like it? Traveling?”

“Not as much as I did when I was younger, but I’m used to it. It’s not too bad,” she said, her eyelids drooping under the weight of drowsiness. Still, she’d begun to wonder about something all afternoon and couldn’t resist voicing it now. “Kam?”

“Hmmm?”

“I know that I said I didn’t want Ian or anyone to know about this . . .
us
. But if I hadn’t said that, would you have been okay with him and Lucien and everyone knowing?”

“Yeah,” he said, stroking her shoulder. Her eyes blinked open wider at his firm answer. “I hate faking things.”

Of course he would, Lin realized. He’d grown to despise lying and façades from an early age.

“Why would I want to hide the fact that we’re involved from anyone?” Kam asked bluntly.

“I don’t know. I was just wondering if it would make you . . . you know. Uncomfortable.”

“No,” he said, and she heard the thread of familiar steel in his voice. “It’s you that’s uncomfortable with people knowing.”

“I’m not,” she whispered. His stroking hand on her spine paused. She lifted her head and met his stare. “Not anymore,” she said emphatically.

She leaned down to kiss his mouth. His arms slowly closed tight around her.

•   •   •

The next morning, she awoke before dawn, knowing she would have to get up very soon and reenter her normal life, and dreading it. These had been stolen moments with Kam. She was sad they were over. For a while, anyway.

She studied his face as he slept when the pale light of dawn peeked around the closed curtains. The vast, swelling feeling she experienced in her chest cavity amazed her . . . humbled her.

Maybe it was best she was going to be away for a few days. Something had happened to her this weekend. Something earth-shattering. Game changing. She had been a fool to ever think she’d been in love before. She’d never begun to fall until she’d seen Kam, never even knew what the words meant. Her feelings for Ian seemed like a shallow, weak facsimile now, a child’s idealistic fantasy.

Kam’s eyes were open when she came out of the bathroom several minutes later after washing and dressing.

“What time is your flight?” he asked, his deep, rough voice in the hushed room caressing her sensitive skin. She walked to him and sat at the edge of the bed. He ran his knuckles over her forearm, and Lin wished nothing more than to be back in his arms at that moment. It felt all wrong to be leaving him, even if it was for just two nights.

“It’s not until one o’clock, but I need to get into the office this morning.”

“Some caveman kept you from catching up on work this weekend,” he said with a small smile. “I have something I want to give you before you go to the airport.”

“You don’t have to give me anything else, Kam.”

“It’s related to the Gersbach demo on Wednesday. I would have given it to you earlier, but it’s not ready until this morning. If I have it delivered to Noble by say . . . ten o’clock, will I get it to you in time?”

“Yes, plenty of time,” she said warmly, touching his whiskered cheek. He grasped her wrist and pulled her down to him, his hand opening at the back of her head. “Thank you for this weekend,” she whispered against his lips a moment later.

“I expect more of your weekends.”

She swallowed thickly, a tingling sensation going through her as she carefully studied his sober expression.

“You’ll have them then” she whispered. She started to get up to go, but Kam paused her with a touch on her hip.

“When you get back, there’s something important I need to discuss with you,” he told her pointedly.

•   •   •

At ten fifteen that morning, Maria tapped on the door of her office.

“The limo will be here at ten forty-five to take you to the airport. And this just arrived.”

“Thank you, Maria,” Lin said, watching the admin place a pale gray box on her desk. Curious, she broke the tape seal and opened the lid. Inside were two identical jewelry boxes, one of black velvet, the other of red leather. Her heart started to throb in her chest as she opened one of them. She lifted out a message from Kam.

Yours is the perfect wrist for the first prototype of a Reardon watch. Jarvis Cooper, the jeweler from E, put it together for me this weekend. I thought you might like to get used to what it can do while you’re out of town. A tutorial will lead you through the instructions when you turn on the device, but call me if you have any questions about how it works.

Just call me period, or I’ll call you.

Kam

Lin smiled and set aside the papers, giving an
ooh
of amazement when she saw the specialized timepiece. It was silver and thin, the face of the “watch” a miniature display screen. She pushed a button and activated the device. Immediately the screen lit up.
Welcome, Lin, hope you are having a good time.
She smiled at the greeting and tapped the screen when prompted. When she hit the display that gave the time several minutes later, she realized she’d lost herself in playing with the fascinating device. She’d continue to work with it on the way to the airport.

She removed the Klinf watch that she wore, strapping on Kam’s in its place. Unlike most watches, the device went at her inner wrist. Jarvis Cooper, the jeweler, had given the mechanism a trendy, attractive black leather strap—not all that dissimilar from her cuffs. In fact, Lin realized with a small smile, there was a telling platinum loop sewn into the leather. The watchband could be used as a restraint. Despite that prurient purpose, it was a very chic piece. The buckle was a stylized letter
R,
which was made of platinum and worn at the outer wrist, where the face of a traditional watch went. It was really quite eye-catching, Lin decided with a thrill. She loved it. She ran her finger over the
R
in dawning amazement. A thrill of excitement coursed through her.

Kam was going to start his own company in the near future. He was ready
now
. She’d been suspecting it all along. That’s what this whole trip to Chicago had been about. He was trying to wet his feet, get experience with the business world. Not because he planned to sell his patent to a different watchmaker, but because he planned to begin his own business.