The Girlfriend (The Boss) (25 page)

“A reminder of who you are, when we’re together like this.” He lifted the collar and unfastened the clasp, which locked down seamlessly to create a perfect ring.

I held up my hair, my breath catching as he placed the collar around my throat. It was surprisingly heavy, and it warmed to my skin almost instantly. When he closed the clasp, I had a moment’s panic at the tight fit, but it didn’t obstruct my breathing or hurt. It was like wearing a choker. A very expensive, very sexually tilted, choker.

He sat up and kissed my jaw, just below my ear, and whispered, “Mine.”

I shivered. He had that so right. No matter what happened outside of our sex life, in the bedroom I was totally and completely his.

“Yours, Sir,” I breathed. The touch of the collar at my throat did something to me on a psychological level. I had submitted wholly to him long before this gift, but something about it made our relationship different. We were different. This was a commitment, but not a frightening one. I felt secure, our bond seemed more tangible, but it wasn’t stifling. I didn’t have to doubt the future or dwell on the past. I just had to enjoy the present.

“Where did you get something like this?” I asked, touching the collar.

“My friend from the club,” he said with the hint of a smile. “He left it in my coat at the coat check. He’s a master jeweler, does incredible work.”

I remembered Neil’s platinum vibrator, and I gasped. “He made your little backdoor friend, didn’t he?”

Neil didn’t answer me, but his half-smile told me all I needed to know. He patted my bottom to urge me to stand. “Get your coat. It’s almost midnight.”

He caught my hand and kissed it, and his hold lingered until I walked too far away.

I grabbed my white pea coat and wrapped it around myself, buttoning and belting it all the way. It felt so naughty, to be wearing underwear and nothing else beneath the wool, but to the casual observer it would seem I was merely wearing a short dress.

Neil had opened the doors to the balcony, and the noise of the city in celebration drifted through on the cold night air. He held out his arm to me and I went to him, standing in the comforting circle of his embrace to gaze out at our amazing view. Framed by the buildings on the avenue, the Eiffel Tower lit up the hazy winter night in garish alternating patterns of white, blue, and red that raced along the structure’s bizarre shape, visible even from across the river. Somewhere, a police siren was going off, and shrill car horns blared in the street. And into that perfect, beautiful, romantic moment, the most despairing thought attacked me.

This could be the last time I ever spent a New Year’s Eve with Neil.

The brutal reality of the entire trip hit me like a punch in the gut, as the lights on the tower slowly cut out, one by one, from the top down. I watched them with an increasing feeling of dread. It was over. Our wild Parisian fling would end, and we would have to return to the real world, where Neil had cancer and could be dying.

The final light went out, and the entire tower seemed to glitter with pops of illumination like flashbulbs. People cheered from their balconies, and the roar of the crowd assembled across the river reached out to us, making us a part of the celebration. When I turned in Neil’s arms and saw his grinning face, I felt guilty for my dark thoughts. He was happy. Well and truly happy.

He’d needed this. He’d needed this trip as a last, fleeting refuge from a reality in which he had no control. There would be time to break down when we got back to England. Tonight, I resolved I would banish any thought of death or worry from my head.

He smiled down at me, his hands stroking my back and pulling me tighter to him. “You know, Sophie, sometimes I look at you, and I can’t believe my luck.”

I was glad that he kissed me then, because I wasn’t sure I would be able to think of any response that would touch the simple romance of that statement. I kissed him back, opening my mouth under his as I rose up on my toes to reach him. I knew how he felt. None of this seemed real. A year ago, I had celebrated New Year’s Eve at a party in a SoHo loft, sipping champagne and listening to a boring guy try to talk me into bed by boasting about his master’s degree. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that the man I’d become convinced was a figment of my imagination would somehow come back into my life and sweep me off my feet.

Or that I would allow myself to get swept away like I did. I regretted none of it. If this was the time I had with Neil, if this was all the time we were going to have, I could let it be perfect without brutal self-examination.

He lifted his head, and I smiled at the smear of my lipstick on his mouth. His arms still locked around me, he lifted me off my feet and spun me around. “Let’s go inside. I want to give you a proper New Year’s kiss.”

“That was a pretty good one,” I teased, laughing as we moved back into the sitting room. He turned off the lamp in the corner and caught the overhead chandelier’s switch on our way to the bedroom.

“But that was only your mouth,” he said, pulling my hand to his lips briefly, before raising my arm up over my head and walking me in a little twirl. “I can think of at least sixty other places on your body I haven’t kissed tonight.”

He stopped at the door. “I forgot the champagne. You, get in that bed and wait for me. Leave that gorgeous thing on.”

“I’m not sure I can drink champagne in this.” I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to continue to breathe in it.

While he went to the dining room, I looked at myself in the mirror. Six months ago, if anyone had asked me if I would let a boyfriend put a collar on me, I would have snapped back that I was not a dog. I had learned so much about my sexuality and what turned me on... and Neil continued to be an excellent teacher. The glint of the diamonds at my throat didn’t just remind me that I belonged to him. It was a reminder of how much he belonged to me, too. He was
my
Sir, and he got his pleasure from my submission.

“You’re not in bed,” Neil scolded when he came back. “What are we going to do about that?”

“Something dirty, probably?” I guessed with a half-smile.

“Get up there on your hands and knees,” he ordered me, and went over to our luggage.

I wondered what naughty implement was in there that he hadn’t shown me yet. The collar was an unusual weight around my neck. It might have been neat to wear the glass plug at the same time, to feel the pull of the dual weights at opposite ends of my body. I shifted on my knees, enjoying the rush of the blood pounding to my clit at my filthy imaginings.

“What are you doing?” I looked over from my place on the bed, quivering with growing need.

Neil sat in the chair, still fully dressed, holding the glass nail file from my cosmetic bag. “Filing my nails.”

“Uh...” I wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

“Or would you like them to be rough and snagged when I put my fingers in your cunt?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I shivered at the promise in the question. “No, Sir.”

“Then you can wait one moment while I get ready.” He nodded toward the bedside table. “Get yourself ready, as well.”

I looked over to the wand-style vibrator still plugged into the wall. He expected me to use that instrument of torture on myself?

“Lie on the bed and spread your legs. I want to watch you.” He kept casually filing his nails. There was an odd sexiness in the way he made even a manicure seem highly masculine.

I took the vibrator in my hand and turned on the switch. It roared to life; how did people use these without making their hands numb? I took a deep breath and pressed the tennis-ball sized head against my vulva.

“Spread yourself around it,” he told me, and I did as he asked. “You should see yourself, Sophie. You have no idea what the sight of you, like this, does to me. Your cunt wet and glistening, my collar around your neck... knowing you belong to me.”

“Only to you, Sir,” I said with a gasp as I did as he asked. I squealed at the intensity of the heavy vibration.

“Should you come without my permission, Sophie?”

I knew the answer.

“I don’t want you to come until I’m fucking you.”

Like I couldn’t come a second time?
I wanted to snap, but I knew how much better it could be if I waited. Bone-shatteringly better.

“Are you done with your fucking manicure yet?” I snapped, writhing against the duvet. The whole point of his careful grooming was to drive me insane with wanting. It was working.

“Excuse me?” He tossed the nail file aside and strode over to the bed. My heart pounded faster with every step he took toward me, until he was right beside me, gripping my jaw painfully.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” I whimpered.

“Pets are usually more docile when they’re collared,” he scolded.

“Dogs maybe, Sir.” I couldn’t help myself. I wanted him to be as wild and rough with me as he’d been the night before.

“Bitches?” he asked, shoving my face to the side as he released me. “Don’t bait me, Sophie. I have plans for you tonight. Stay there. Do not move. Do not come. If you do, I’ll punish you. And not in a way you would enjoy.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what I wouldn’t like. He’d once wound me up so badly that I’d had a near breakdown. I was stronger now, and I had a feeling he would have no problem getting me close to orgasm without letting me come, then leaving me stranded for a while.

“Yes, Sir.” I obediently moved the wand down my body and settled it against my vulva, gasping again at the sudden arc of tension it created. I felt like a line had been drawn through me, from my head to my feet, and pulled up at the navel.

When he returned, he had the leather cuffs. “Give me your wrists.”

I held them out, steadying the vibrator with my thighs. I was nearing a peak, and with my hands in his as he bound my wrists, I couldn’t move it away.

“I’m so close,” I gasped. “Turn it off!”

“You won’t come,” he said, totally unconcerned by my distress.

“I can’t help it!” I twisted and kicked.

“You won’t, because I didn’t tell you that you could.” He reached out and traced the line of the collar. “Have I ever asked you to do anything impossible?”

“No, Sir.” I held my breath. I hung suspended on the edge, but I didn’t go over. My body strained. Sweat stood out from every pore. I breathed like someone doing Lamaze. I tried to think about anything but the damned vibrations.

He closed the second cuff around my wrist and buckled it, then reached down and pulled the wand away.

“Fuck,” I panted, pulling at the cuffs in frustration.

“Watch your language, or I’ll wash your mouth out,” he warned.

I frowned. “With soap?”

“No.”

He stripped off his shirt and took his time folding it. He did the same with his pants and boxers. Because he’s a jerk.

When he was naked, he came to the bed and settled between my legs, but he didn’t enter me. The head of his cock brushed me, and I lifted my hips. He didn’t have a condom on, so I knew he wasn’t going to fuck me, and that only frustrated me further.

“There is nothing I dislike more than a bratty sub,” he said in a mocking tone. Then he trailed his tongue along my jaw and down my throat, over the collar.

One big hand cupped beneath my thigh and lifted my leg to fit around his back. His cock lay against my slit, rubbing over my clitoris with the slightest motion.

“You’re very wet,” he murmured, his lips drifting down.

“You made me that way, Sir,” I whimpered, twisting my bound hands together.

“Good answer.” He moved down the bed so he could take my nipple into his mouth. It felt good, but his cock pressed against me had felt better, and I mewled in disappointment.

“It will get there, have no fear.” There was a smile in his voice as he mumbled around my puckered skin.

I closed my eyes, then immediately opened them again. I wanted to see him. I wanted to see what he was doing to me, to see him taking pleasure from me. I had to remember every moment. His teeth closed around me, and I lifted my pelvis with the leverage afforded me by my leg crooked around his back. My skin was hot, perspiration rising wherever we touched. A trickle of sweat ran along my side under the corset, and the boning began to chafe.

“Wait,” I panted, pushing at his shoulders. “I’m too hot.”

He sat up and pulled me with him. “Then we should cool you off, I think.”

I got to my feet and he stood behind me, trailing one finger down a seam. “First, we’ll take this off.” As soon as the knotted laces released, I breathed deep in relief.

“Better?” he asked, still loosening the tension.

“Much.”

He came to stand in front of me and made a dismayed noise as he opened the hook-and-eye closures to reveal my sweaty, chafed skin. He bent to kiss one raw, red imprint left beneath my breast. “I had no idea you were so uncomfortable.”

“I wasn’t, until I started getting all fired up.” I sighed as he dropped to his knees, his mouth drifting lower, over my belly.

“Now we should see to that, I suppose.” He skimmed a hand between my thighs, up and up, until his fingers nudged my folds. He tilted his wrist, and the tip of his thumb parted me, then slid back to enter me for one brief moment that offered no relief at all.

As I gaped down at him, torn between desire and irritation, he sucked the pad of that thumb between his lips, savoring my taste.

Then he got to his feet and retrieved the champagne bottle.

“What’s that for?” I asked, slightly unsteady on my feet.

“It’s for you. It’s cold, you’re hot,” he shrugged. “I thought you could use a drink.”

“Oh.” I knew better than to trust him. I really did. But I still reached for the bottle with my bound hands.

“No, no.” He pulled it back. “Hands down, please.”

I made a face, but I did as I was told.

He pressed the smooth rim of the bottle against my lips, and I opened them. Carefully, he poured a thin stream of champagne into my mouth, then pulled the bottle away so I could swallow.

“Thank you, Sir,” I said gratefully, licking my bottom lip.

He traced a finger over the path my tongue had just made. It distracted me enough that I didn’t see what he was doing with the bottle, and the first touch of cold glass on my nipple shocked me.