“Get up.”
The second I stood, Lukas hauled me against him and slammed his mouth down on mine. He crowded me back up against the bed as he thrust his tongue in, then out, mimicking the motion his cock had used earlier. I bit down on him, then sucked, and he caught the cheek of my ass in his hand, squeezing tight.
I responded by arching against him and wiggling against his still-rigid penis.
He spanked me, then pulled back. His mouth was wet as he said, “Turn around.”
Obediently, I did so and when I did, my gaze fell on what he’d tossed on the bed.
It was a bag. Several things had fallen out of the small duffel, and I shivered at the sight of the velvet whip. He reached past me and pulled something out. Seconds later, I discovered what it was – a cord to secure one of my wrists to the bed post. A second cord was withdrawn to tie my other wrist. Then he pulled out the whip. “Spread your legs, Stella.”
I was almost afraid to do so, but, knees shaking, I did as he asked. He caught my hips and tugged me back a half-step. There was enough give in the wrist restraints to allow it, and I wondered at it – right up until he lashed me the first time.
The whip curled around my side, the very tip kissing the underside of my breast.
“Ahhhh…” I cried, curling in on myself as much as I could, uncertain as of yet whether it was ecstasy I felt or something else.
“Be still.” Lukas’s voice came out as cool, almost dispassionate.
I struggled to comply as he plied the whip again and again, up and down my back, my thighs. Then…I shrieked as I felt the kiss of it between my thighs, the tip of it flicking against my swollen, engorged clit.
Erupting, I jerked against the restraints and fell forward, shuddering in a climax.
A hard arm came around my waist, and he steadied me as the orgasm rocked me.
The tugs on my wrists gave way as he freed me and guided me facedown onto the mattress. Something soft and gentle brushed over my back, and I shivered, every part of me electrified, oversensitized.
I moaned, lifting my hips seekingly.
“Do you want to be fucked, Stella?” he asked.
“Yes…please…Lukas, please,” I moaned.
Something prodded my entrance. It was uneven in some places, smooth in others. I wiggled, but he put a hand at the base of my spine, holding me in place.
“I told you there wouldn’t be an inch of you that wasn’t touched, tasted, or fucked,” he said against my ear.
Then, whatever it was, he thrust it deep, deep, deep.
I wailed as it set off another mini-orgasm.
It was still shaking me when Lukas flipped me over onto my back and shoved my thighs wide, hooking them over his shoulders as he dove for my pussy. He thrust the object inside me in as he flicked my clit with his tongue. Withdrew. He blew a puff of air on me. Thrust. He bit me. Withdrew. He sucked on me. Thrust. Another slow suck.
I could feel myself climbing up, up, up again, and I gasped, not certain if I could take so much sensation at once.
But he stopped and rose up, staring down at me with his hands braced on either side of my hips. He licked his lips, shuddering a little before he looked up and met my eyes. “I love the taste of you,” he said. Then he lowered his head back down.
It was slower this time, as if he wanted to make sure he did as he’d promised, tasted, touched, fucked me so thoroughly, no part of me went undiscovered by him. One hand roamed down my left thigh, gripping my ankle, then cupping my foot and tracing a pattern over my instep. He twisted the heavy, hard object he’d thrust up inside me, and bit my clitoris, then shifted his hand to my right knee, trailing it down, down, down, so he could toy with my right ankle, then my foot.
I was all but vibrating by the time he was done playing with me, so desperate and ready to come and he knew it. Each time I got close, he backed off. Frustrated and ready for him, I shoved my hands into his hair and arched up against his face. “Please!” I begged.
He tensed for a moment, then he caught my ass in his hands and hauled me to the very edge of the bed until I was half-dangling off. He flipped me and shoved me up onto my knees. “Get rid of this,” he muttered, pulling the long, thick ridge from my cunt before pressing his face to me like he was just going to eat me up.
I cried out, my hands fisted in the covers.
He spanked me, and I came so hard, I felt the wetness as it flowed from me. He growled and licked at me like he was dying of thirst, and when finally, the tremors ended and I would have sagged onto the bed, he held me up. One steely hand gripped my hip. The other…
I gasped as he probed the entrance of my ass.
“I’m fucking this ass tonight,” he said. His voice wasn’t so calm and dispassionate now. It was low and raspy, full of possessiveness and need, and just the sound of it was enough to make me quake.
Still, wariness flooded me at his words.
At this point, I was no stranger to anal play, but it seemed the gloves were off now. There was a rawness to his hunger that he’d never let me see before. And he wanted to have anal sex for the first time?
I was about to voice my reservations when he pushed against me – his fingers, not his cock, slick and wet with lubricant.
I pushed down instinctively as he’d instructed me to do and he grunted in approval. “You’re going to grab my cock just like that, baby. I can’t wait. Here…take this now.”
I gasped as he pulled his fingers from me, whimpered when something else pressed to my entrance – I thought it might have been whatever he’d fucked me with a few minutes ago. Something brushed my thigh, and I realized abruptly what it was. The whip – the whip’s handle. The velvet lashes of it were rubbing against my calves as he rotated it.
“Ahhh….” I groaned, my spine arching as he slowly screwed the handle inside me, settling it deeper and more firmly in my ass than any of the toys he’d previously used.
He bent over me then, his lips almost touching my ear. “That’s the whip handle. I’ll have to buy a new one after this, but you needed to be fucked so badly. You got it soaking wet, Stella. You know that?”
He nudged it again as he spoke, sending a tremor of sensation through me.
“It’s almost as long as my cock and you took the whole damn thing.”
He straightened up, and I sensed him pulling away from the bed, circling around, and I looked up to see him standing at the side, staring down at me. The look in his eyes was molten.
He circled back, and I gasped when I felt the lashes of the whip flick against my clit, between the folds of my pussy. It was almost too much. He did it again and again, and I began to rock back, seeking the contact.
That was when he began to thrust the handle inside me, slowly at first, but then, harder, harder.
And he was no longer flicking my clit with the whip.
It was all about the thrust of the handle and me riding it.
“Stop,” he said, gripping my hip and bringing my movements to a halt. He withdrew the handle with almost surgical precision, leaving me aching and empty. “The first time you come like this, it’s going to be with you wrapped around my dick.”
I whimpered at his words, but went still. Fine tremors shook me, and they became more pronounced when he fit the head of his cock to my ass. He soothed me, stroking one hand along the curve of my butt. “You know how to make all of this stop.”
“I don’t want it to stop,” I rasped out.
And I didn’t. I was almost scared of what he was about to do, but I didn’t want it to stop.
“Good.”
With his hand now gripping my hip, he held me steady and began to slowly, slowly invade me. Pain threatened as I stretched to take him, but he didn’t relent. He did withdraw a bit, then began the process all over again. That was the way of it – he’d feed me more of his cock, then slowly withdraw just a little before rocking more of the way in. I barely had a chance to adjust to what I’d taken before he was giving me more, but before I real
ized it, I was rocking back to meet him, seeking more.
I groaned when I felt his hips press to my ass. “Good girl,” he said, rubbing my hip. “I knew you could take it all.”
He twisted his hips, pulling a whimper from me. He did it again, and I sagged, dropping my upper body flat to the mattress. He caught my wrists in one hand and secured them to the small of my back. Using that as his hold, he began to rock me back and forth on his cock. “I like watching you take me, Stella. You’re stretched so tight around me. Does it hurt?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know…” I moaned out my response, barely able to summon the breath to answer.
“Do I stop?”
“Please don’t!” I felt stuffed so full, so completely possessed and owned by him.
He laughed and slid one hand around and under me. He speared his fingers through my curls and they slid wetly across my slick folds as he sought out my clitoris.
Just that one light touch was like liquid lightning on my skin.
I tensed.
He flicked me.
I froze.
He did it again – and rolled his hips.
“Lukas…”
He did it again…and again…and again…
I lost it, tightening around him and coming so hard, black dots danced in front of my eyes.
He let go of my wrists and grabbed my hips, shoving me down to the mattress where he began to ride me with hard, fast, deep digs of his hips, his cock dragging over sensitive tissues and eliciting more cries from me as I rode my orgasm to the very end.
He ended up collapsing against me moments later, his arms shaking.
Crushed under his weight, I struggled to breathe, but it only lasted a moment before he rolled to his side and pulled me into the hard curve of his body.
We were a mess, a sticky, sweaty mess, and I never, ever wanted to move from this spot.
Lukas’s breath came out of him like a bellows, and I covered the hand resting on my belly with one of my own.
He surprised me by half turning his hand and twining our fingers.
“You can’t tell me this isn’t a better way to deal with all that…mess you carry inside you,” I said softly, unable to stay quiet.
He kissed my shoulder.
“This is a better way to deal with just about anything,” he agreed. Then he pulled me in even closer, a heavy sigh leaving him. “Stay with me?”
“Yes.”
32
I had no idea what woke me up. It could have been the pang in my belly telling me that I needed to hit the bathroom ASAP, or it could have just been the unusual quiet of the room. I always slept with a fan going.
But something woke me, and for a moment, disorientation washed over me. I knew immediately that I wasn’t in my room. The mattress was a little too soft, for one.
For another, there was an arm thrown over my waist, and a hard, firm body pressed against the back of mine.
That was another indicator.
Immediately, memory slammed into me, and I had to close my eyes for a minute just to take everything in. I wanted to roll over and look at Lukas in the dim light, but the pressure in my belly told me I really did need to go to the bathroom. I slid from the bed and stood there, shivering for a few seconds as I tried to get oriented.
I hated waking up in a strange room at night.
Spying a door across the room, I hurried over to it vaguely recalling the shower we’d taken in the middle of the night. I was almost positive this was the bathroom.
It was.
Longing panged inside me at the sight of the deep, sunken tub and my aching body whispered how nice it would be to run a bath and slide into it, but that wasn’t going to happen right now.
After taking care of business, I washed my hands and hurried back out into the bedroom. I spied his shirt on the floor and grabbed it, slipping my arms into the sleeves quickly then buttoning it up before slipping back under the covers and snuggling up next to Lukas.
His arm immediately came back around me, and he mumbled a sleepy, “Good morning.”
I stared at him in the dim morning light. Before I could stop it, a smile spread across my face.
“What is it?” He sounded grumpy and tired.
“Nothing,” I said, but there was a note of wonder in my voice. The lines that perpetually grooved his cheeks were gone. The deep furrow that was almost always between his eyebrows was gone as well. He looked ten years younger. Lighter, somehow. It was as if a weight had fallen off his shoulders in the middle of the night.
Lifting a hand, I pressed it to his cheek. Stubble that had grown in the middle of the night rasped against my palm.
He covered my hand with his and turned his mouth toward my palm, pressing a kiss to it. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he pulled me on top of him and rubbed his lips against mine.
“I need to brush my teeth,” I said.
“I’m not complaining.” He rolled on top of me and slid his thigh between mine. I opened for him and he sank inside me, sweet and easy.
It was a slow, easy coming together, unlike any we had ever had before.
His lips met mine in a kiss so lazy and sweet, my heart felt like it was going to explode in my chest, while pleasure built inside me with every breath.
When it was over, he pulled me on top of him and threaded a hand through my hair. I kissed one flat male nipple and murmured, “What was the thank you for?”
“For telling me. For caring enough to find out.” He brushed my hair back, and I looked up to find him watching me, head propped up on his forearm. “Something tells me you were reluctant to say anything.”
“I was.” Heaving out a sigh, I admitted, “I knew I was digging around in your personal business, and I know how private you are, but I couldn’t let it go. Once Gilbert said you weren’t his son…well, I knew you’d want to have answers.”
“You’re right. If I’d had any idea myself, I would have done the digging myself ages ago.” His mouth twisted. “Gilbert has a lot to answer for.”
I bit my lip, a mental debate waging inside me. In the end, I spoke up. “He’s a miserable, angry old man. There’s nothing you can really do that would make him more miserable than he’s made himself. He’ll never have anybody who truly cares about him.” Brushing my finger across Lukas’s lower lip, I said quietly, “I think, in the end, he’s done himself more damage than you can. Why don’t you let it go? Don’t let him draw you back in that ugly, angry world of his.”
Mouth tight, Lukas met my eyes. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Will you try?”
“For you.” He pulled me in close again and kissed my temple.
We lay in silence for a while. He stroked a hand down my spine and said, “I’m not going into the office today. There’s something I want you to help me with. I don’t have any right to ask but maybe a fresh set of eyes would make a difference.”
Pushing up onto my elbow, I met his gaze. “What is it?”
“I’ve got the books, files, documents, receipts, a lot of stuff here that I want to go over. I’ve missed something, and I’m determined to figure out who has been stealing from the company.” His eyes flashed hot. “And who set you up. With you gone, they’ll either stop or come up with a better way to hide everything, so I have to get it figured out now. I want you to help me look at everything.”
“I don’t know how much good I’ll be. Accounting is not exactly my forte.”
He shrugged. “Numbers are my area and I’m missing it. Maybe it’s not in the numbers but something else.”
“If you want me to try, I’ll look.” Teasingly, I said, “Since you’re the boss, do you have to call in?”
He grinned. “I’ll let my assistant know I won’t be in. Everybody else...” He shrugged. “Let them worry. Somebody there is guilty.”
33
It made a sickening sort of sense. I had to admit. Nearly three hours later I was fin
ally able to see the pattern that Lukas and the accounting team had picked up on. Withdrawals from petty cash would be made out to my name and receipts would be close to the amount withdrawn, but the money was spent at extravagant restaurants. Something told me that there was more money going into the thief’s pocket, because the cash tips left were beyond generous.
And that happened on more than one occasion. It got to the point where it was almost blatant and there were extravagant meals where one client’s name appeared several times over.
“Is there a client by the name of Tad Fikes?” I asked. “A big one.”
Lukas sat across the floor from me with his back braced against the bed. The remains of breakfast lay littered among all the papers. We had a mess to clean up. Neither one of us had shown much interest in taking care of any of it at this point though. From time to time, I found myself nibbling on a leftover piece of toast or another slice of bacon.
“Not that I know of, but I don’t know all the accounts,” Lukas replied, his eyes still on the stack of papers in front of him. His gaze moved to mine after he flipped over another page. “I know the name though. I saw it too. According to everything I found, you’re the only one who has had contact with them.”
“Well, I need to take better notes then. It would at least be helpful to know what kind of business they’re in, what we do for them that entitles them five hundred dollar meal tickets, along with wine that costs about two hundred bucks a bottle.” I rolled my eyes and fought to keep my voice light, despite the fact that anger burned in me. Whoever was doing this, they sure as hell didn’t give a flying fuck what it did to my name.
Lukas shot me a grin. It surprised me, but he had been doing that off and on all morning. It was almost like the depressing task before us didn’t faze him at all. But maybe it was just depressing to me. He might have found it exciting for all I knew. Trying to track down whoever was stealing from him might appeal to him. I could see that. To me, all the numbers and names were running together. And something else was bothering me. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it.