Sapphire Read online

  Her breathing accelerated again as her vulnerability became clear. He adjusted the fall of her hair, caressed her exposed ribs and slid invasive hands over the curve of her ass, then down the outsides of her thighs. Her body moved under his touch of its own volition, something deep inside her warming at the possession. He knelt behind her and looped the black rope around her legs, wrapping her ankles, sealing her feet tightly together.

  The sensation overwhelmed her. She found herself yanking at the rope, tugging at her hands to get free.

  Kirliss sighed out a breath that drifted across the backs of her knees. “The only thing more stimulating than watching a beautiful woman struggle against my ropes is having it be you, my sweet M. I’ve waited for this a long time and it’s even better than I’d hoped for.”

  A long time? Taylor turned that over in the tumult of her mind. Behind his inscrutable face across the conference table, had he been cooking up the fantasy of her like this? She lost the thought to the glide of his hands up the taut curve of her thighs, under her skirt and over the globes of her naked bottom. Kirliss traced her hipbones, toying with the G-string barely clinging to her. He braced her hips and pressed up behind her so the ridge of his cock pressed through his jeans and into the cleft of her ass. He rocked her against him, feathering light touches over the soaking lace covering her sex. She dropped her head, panting with need, letting him and the ropes hold her up.

  Kirliss cupped her sex with one hand, his fingers sliding between the vee of her thighs, but not giving her enough pressure in the exact right spot. He brought his other hand up to weigh the fullness of her breast, massaging it with sensual strokes.

  “Lay your head back against my shoulder,” he murmured, and she obeyed with a sob of helpless desire. He nipped and licked the line of her neck, holding her tight as she writhed in his unrelenting grip. The blood beat hot in every vessel of her body, but it wasn’t enough. She groaned in frustration.

  “Music to my ears,” Kirliss growled against the flesh of her throat. “Now beg me.”

  Taylor tensed, tried to raise her head. His grip tightened to the verge of pain, her nipple trapped in a tormenting pinch.

  “Beg me,” he whispered in her ear, taking her earlobe between his lips and worrying at the tender flesh with his teeth. “Another approved phrase for you. Say ‘Please, fuck me, Mr. Kirliss.’”

  “No,” she gasped. “I won’t beg.”

  “Ah,” he sighed with dramatic disappointment and released her abruptly. “That is not one of the things you’re allowed to say.”

  Taylor swayed in the grip of the ropes and the unsatisfied desire riding her body. She blinked muzzily at Kirliss, who now stood in front of her, sipping at a glass of whiskey, watching her with predatory male lust.

  “You will beg, you know,” he informed her, “before we’re done tonight.” He set the glass down and stalked over to her. He stroked away the damp strands of hair from her face and brushed her cheekbones with gentle thumbs. He lowered those sensual lips to hers and murmured against them, “You are magnificent, M. An astoundingly gorgeous and passionate woman.”

  He kissed her, long and slow and sweet. His tongue swirled with hers, whiskey wafting through the breath they exchanged.

  “Delicious,” he said, licking her swollen lower lip. “And now, my darling Taylor—” his grin flashed white and wicked, “—I do believe it’s time to strip you.”

  Taylor felt his fingers work the silk tie at the back of her neck with a sort of terrified longing. She could no longer discern how she felt. The prospect of him stripping her, of being completely vulnerable to him, felt like an abyss opening beneath her. She teetered on the edge of it, unbalanced in her high heels. The silk started to come loose. One more layer of defense gone.

  “No,” she whispered.

  His hands stilled. One finger slipped under her chin to raise her face to his intent gaze. “No?”

  She stared at him, pulsing with anxiety and desire.

  “That’s not the word to say if you want this to stop. You know that, correct?”

  Taylor bit her lip and nodded. He brushed a tear from her cheek and kissed her, a gentle, sweet touch.

  “I know you need to say no, Taylor. You like to lead with no in all negotiations. I watched how you use denial to control the people around you. Start with no, then make concessions.”

  His words stirred her uneasily, her mother’s drunken advice drifting through her mind. Always tell them no, Molly. Then they’ll do anything for you when you finally say yes.

  Kirliss rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m changing the rules. You can say anything you please now. Let all those voices saying no speak out so you can release them. Scream it out if you need to. I won’t stop. I’m going to strip you. I’m going to punish you and I’m going to ravish every inch of your gorgeous body. But the moment I hear sapphire, I’ll stop. It can be for a breath, for the evening or forever. Tell me you understand that.”

  He held her face and Taylor’s heart swelled at the tender concern in his eyes. Inch by inch she seemed to be melting, indeed. Something about him she couldn’t resist. Illogically, she trusted him. She wanted him, wanted this.

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he whispered back and kissed her.

  His hands returned to the knotted silk at the nape of her neck, but his gaze riveted hers. Slowly he drew the silk away, his eyes dropping as he bared her breasts. Her nipples stood out, pink and tight, the globes of her breasts pulled high by her stretched position.

  “Oh, yes,” he breathed.

  Taylor trembled under the hot look in his face. Kirliss reached for the wrap tie at her waist, clever fingers releasing it in no time. His tawny gaze flicked to hers and, with a startling snap, he whipped the dress from her body.

  She hung there naked but for the tiny lace panties, thigh highs, heels and rope. Funny how the rope felt like something she wore.

  “Sometimes I might dress you only in rope,” he murmured, echoing her thoughts in an uncanny way. “You wear it so well.”

  Kirliss walked behind her and kissed that same spot at the small of her back. Taylor caught a sharp breath. He hooked his thumbs into the strings of her panties, sliding them down her thighs and following their path with hot nips, licks and kisses. He left them draped around the rope binding her feet.

  “There’s something to be said for panties around the ankles, don’t you think?” Kirliss came around to fetch his whiskey glass. He sat in the leather chair by the fire, sipping it and studying her. Taylor forced herself to be still under the relentless scrutiny. “I love that you wax, too. It makes you so much more naked. I’m almost sorry I can’t order you to do it for me, but you’re so careful about every aspect of yourself, I knew you likely would. I watched you in those meetings, with your hair and makeup so perfectly done, in your tailored suits, and thought about what was underneath.”

  Taylor squirmed. All those times, he’d been speculating about her Brazilian. Free of the light clutch of the panties, her juices slicked her inner thighs. She pressed her legs together, trying for comfort, hoping to relieve the aching pressure there.

  Kirliss set the glass down and slipped off his leather shoes and black socks, tossing them aside. He stood and unbuttoned the cuffs of the black silk shirt, then the buttons down the front. Riveted, Taylor watched him shrug out of the shirt. His lean muscles rippled under his tanned skin. She wanted to dig her nails and teeth into him, devour him with all the ferocious hunger he’d stoked in her. Shirtless, wearing only the black jeans and his jeweled belt, he smiled at her and stroked the leather strap suggestively.

  Taylor’s eyes flew to his and she realized she was yanking on the ropes like a mad thing.

  “I’ve stripped you, Taylor. Recall what comes next.” Kirliss came to her with languid steps. He reached up to encircle her wrists with sensuous fingers, never releasing her gaze. His hands ran over her stretched arms, touching every bit of skin, down over her s
houlders, thumbs stroking the open hollow of her armpits. Her blood rushed up to her skin, to every spot he touched, rising like fire to the whiff of gasoline. She pushed herself into his hands, unthinking, longing for more.

  His hands closed over her straining breasts, rubbing and stimulating the already aroused tissues. He stroked her back, ribs, waist and belly while she undulated under his touch. His fingers lingered, tantalizing and slow, just over her sensitive mound, while his other hand stroked the round curve of her bottom, toying with the cleft there.

  The primal urge to spread her legs for him seized her and she groaned with it. Her hip bones strained as her muscles fought to open her up while the ties bound her closed. She turned away from his fierce study of her, pressing her face into her upraised arm, unable to fight the relentless torment.

  Kirliss slid a hand between her buttocks while he caressed the upper cleft of her sex.

  “Is this the punishment?” She gasped.

  He brushed her cheek with his lips. “There are many forms of punishment, yes.”

  Dividing the cleft of her ass from behind with one hand, Kirliss also dipped into her wet sex from the front.

  Taylor cried out and his mouth seized hers in a deep, penetrating kiss. Her hips bucked as his nimble fingers worked her. She fell into his rhythm, helplessly riding the wave. She gave herself over to it. Just as the night before, twenty-four hours and eons ago, her body rose to climax at his insistent touch.

  Except this time he stopped.

  Sobbing an inarticulate protest, Taylor followed his hand’s withdrawal with pumping hips.

  Kirliss clucked his tongue, nuzzling her cheek. One hand pressed soothingly on the small of her back while he stroked her swollen labia together with the other. Taylor shuddered into his embrace, leaning into him for comfort. Part of her noted the irony, since he’d caused her torment in the first place. But that part was a distant, quiet voice. Most of her screamed with wordless need.

  “What does the M stand for?” Kirliss asked softly, as if he’d never asked before.

  Taylor pulled back her head, meeting his intent gaze. He held her close, his bare chest brushing her nipple, his skin hot against hers while he stroked the slick lips of her sex.

  “It’s just a silly name I don’t like. It’s stupid.” She almost wished she’d just told him right off. It wasn’t as though the name meant anything, and now they had this whole charge around it, and when—if—she told him, he’d just laugh.

  Kirliss dipped his head and kissed her, soft and luscious, wrapping himself around her body, slipping his tongue into her. She opened to him, luxuriating in his taste.

  “It’s a measure of trust,” he said against her mouth. “I need you to trust me.”

  Taylor laughed. He had her tied up in his living room, stripped, helpless, lit up like a work of art, and he wanted her trust.

  “You laugh, but you don’t trust me, Taylor. Letting me do this to you is only the first gate.”

  With a startling thrust, he parted the lips of her sex again and pressed rough fingers into her. She cried out, her body convulsing. But it wasn’t enough. She ground herself against his hand, pleading. He slid his hand down her inner thigh, massaging the muscle, the ridge of his index finger barely brushing her sensitive and swollen sex.

  “Beg me,” he whispered. “Beg me to make you come.”

  “I won’t.” Taylor thrashed her head back and forth, aware that, even as she denied him, she clutched his hand between her thighs in desperate longing.

  “You will.” Kirliss wound the fingers of his other hand in her long trailing hair and pulled her head back, making her arch her neck. He licked up her throat and she moaned at the touch. “You just need a little more incentive.”

  He let go of her and stepped away, leaving her alone. Blearily, she raised her head while he dried his hands on a towel. His naked chest gleamed with sweat and he stared at her with feral hunger. Deliberately he licked his lips and dropped his hands to the jeweled belt buckle. His lean fingers, which had so deftly worked her body, slipped the sleek leather through the metal, snaking through the loops of his jeans with a hiss.

  Kirliss palmed the buckle, leaving the leather strap free to dangle. He snapped it lightly against his leg.

  Taylor stilled, her eyes glued to the belt. Her senses roared. Now was the moment. He’d whip her with the belt. She’d lose all control, weep, most likely. And she couldn’t stop him. That deep, dark part of her thrilled to it. Wanted it.

  “Please!”

  “Please, what, Taylor?” Kirliss circled her, leisurely studying her every twitch.

  She clamped her lips together, unable to begin to explain how she felt.

  He stopped in front of her again and she stared at the sheen of the black leather belt. She couldn’t tear her eyes from it.

  “The wonderful thing about a belt—if you get one of good leather—is you have it with you wherever you go. That way you can always remind your woman of how things stand between you.”

  “What?” She tried to sound mean, but her voice shook. “That you can bully her?”

  “No.” He stepped closer and stroked her outer thigh with the cool leather, then slipped long fingers into her sex, stroking her to the edge of desperation in a moment, then withdrawing. “To remind her of what passes between you in the darkest, most intimate moments. Both the sweet and the sharp.”

  He snapped the tip of the belt against her thigh, and Taylor hissed at the sting. It went straight to her sex, hot, impossibly arousing.

  “What you feel is real. Never deny that.”

  She wanted to argue. She couldn’t. She wanted this with near desperation.

  “Now, you agreed to some rules and you broke them. I’d be letting you down if I didn’t provide a bit of…payback for it. You’d expect that, wouldn’t you, Taylor? Break the rules and pay the price?”

  Her head spinning, she felt like she was going to scream. Or cry.

  Kirliss brushed a tear from her cheek; his hand smelled of sex. “Do you need to say anything to me?”

  Taylor shook her head. She wouldn’t say it. Sapphire. She’d come this far and would not back down now.

  “Give in to it, darling. No one expects you to fight so hard. Let go.” He captured her breast and fondled it with heartbreaking tenderness. “I’m right here with you the whole time.”

  Taylor sniffed and nodded. Ironic that she wept before the pain. The tears ran down her face and onto her chest, feeling oddly similar to the slick moisture running down her thighs. She’d become a fountain of need.

  Kirliss moved behind her. He gathered her hair with exquisite gentleness and draped it over her shoulder, so it trailed over her breast, teasing her turgid nipple. Taylor clutched the ring, her body shaking with tension, waiting for the first blow. Dreading it, and dreading also that he might not do it.

  “Are you ready?”

  Taylor didn’t answer. She didn’t think he really required an answer to that one.

  “Say, ‘yes, please, Mr. Kirliss.’”

  Of course. Making her complicit. Making her beg. She couldn’t request that he punish her, could she? She should just say that word and walk out of here. Go home and use her vibrator. For about seventeen days in a row.

  To hell with him, she wouldn’t let him leave her unsatisfied, after all she’d gone through. She’d always been the one to do whatever it took. She might beg for climax before much longer. But she wasn’t going to ask for punishment. No one else had ever expected her to fight so hard, it was true. Not her worthless mother, not her absent father. But she did. She expected it of herself, no matter how much the dark side of her wanted this.

  “No.” Her voice was loud and defiant.

  “No?” Kirliss sounded amused, to her relief. He wouldn’t let her stop him. He reached up under the fall of her hair and took her breast in his hand, thumbing the nipple and making her squirm. He pressed his naked chest against her sweaty back, nipping her uncovered earlobe with his teet
h. The leather belt tapped against her stocking-clad calf. “Say it. ‘Yes, please.’”

  Taylor sagged into the pleasure that arrowed through her. She rocked her naked ass against the impatient ridge of his erection. He groaned his approval.

  “No.”

  He squeezed her nipple, tight, then painfully tight. “Say it.”

  She gasped out a hysterical laugh. “I won’t!”

  “Why not?” he said in her ear, soft and seductive now. He licked the tender spot behind her lobe. His hand, gentle now, rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, stretching it rhythmically. “It’s just a few little words.”

  “I can’t.” She heard the break in her voice. “Please don’t ask me to. I just…can’t.”

  “But you’ll let me punish you anyway.”

  She was quiet a moment, aware of the leather tapping against her calf, aware that she longed for the sting of his belt as much as she wanted his hands on her skin and his cock inside her. But something wouldn’t let her ask for it.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “I can’t ask you to punish me. I need you to take that choice away.” Something in her uncurled at her confession. Let go.

  “Can’t you?” Kirliss released her breast to run his hand over her flat belly. “I’m willing to give you a bye on this for now. We can work on it over time. I’ll untie you and require you to stand still while I whip you. In the mornings, I could bend you over a kitchen chair perhaps, while I pull up the tight skirt of that little blue suit you wear, yank down your panties and strap you a few times, making you ask me for every one. Just enough to sting, not enough to mess up your makeup. So that when you sit in your chair at work, your flesh will sting and you’ll think of me.”

  Taylor shuddered at the image he created. The belt tapped against her calf and she leaned against his naked chest, wishing he would touch her. If she begged him to make her come now, would he?

  His finger slipped just inside her labia once more, pressing against the rising flesh of her clit, massaging lightly but never going past the hood. Never quite touching the sweet spot. Taylor moaned. The man was diabolical.