BoardResolution (11 page)

And it went on and on. There was no pinnacle. She kept thinking she had hit it, and then she’d launch straight across to another peak, the tiny wheel at her anus, the busily stroking dildo and enthusiastically vibrating clit piece alternating their rhythm and patterns as Jon had said they would, giving her no relief, only merciless pleasure for the enjoyment of the men watching, all at the command of one man.

Look at me, Savannah.

Did he say it? Whisper it in her mind? She opened her eyes and met Matt’s dark gaze, raging with the fires of heaven and hell, with everything she could want from both and in between. Jon was right. At this moment, she had no rational thought. She utterly and totally wanted Matt’s Mastery. She wanted to be his. And if she could speak, she would have begged for it.

Tears slid down her face, her nose running from the excruciating pleasure of the multiple climaxes. When they finally began to lessen in intensity, she thought her stomach and buttocks would forever be in a state of clenched response, all muscles tight as stretched rubber bands from the onslaught of the orgasms. However, as the sensations drifted away, leaving her shuddering and sniffing helplessly, everything went limp with exhaustion. The place between her legs still pulsed, almost quivering with exertion.

“Her pussy is as full and juicy as the prettiest peach you’ve ever seen. Lucas?” Jon’s soft voice, not quite steady itself.

Oh…no…yes. Lucas’s mouth ever so gently closed over the distended area, and she let out a guttural, animal sound of near pain, exhausted pleasure. He licked her tenderly as Jon worked around him, eased out the dildo, which felt slick enough to be dripping. It was Lucas who held open her buttocks as the anal piece was removed. Through it all, she stared at Matt, her body heaving with gasping breaths.

When he rose, leaned toward her, her mind dragged her gaze where it wanted to go, to see the enormous erection straining against his slacks.

“Do you want my cock?” It was a throaty demand that she respond, his voice beyond civility, commanding her. Prying open her fingers, he took away the handkerchief, using it to wipe her nose and around the corners of her mouth. That tender cozening perversely seemed to underscore his right to impose his will upon her, rather than lessening the force of his demand. When he didn’t give back the handkerchief, she knew she was being told her choice to call an end to it all had been rescinded. “Answer me, Savannah. Do you want my cock?”

She nodded as much as she could.
Not just that.
All of you.
Everything.
But she couldn’t say it, even if the gag weren’t there. He caught the strap holding the gag, ripped it away, pulled the ball from her mouth in a rough move. She didn’t expect it, the way his hand gripped her jaw, her throat, in a hold just a step below bruising. No more than she expected to delight in the pleasure of the pain.

“Say it. Say it now.”

“Yes.” She was hoarse, her lips and throat dry.

“Lower her,” he ordered. “Leave her ass in the air so Jon can get her ready for Ben.
Just her head, to the level of my cock.
And spin her, so she can take me deep.”

Her eyes widened as Peter and Ben moved to either side of the table. Their arms went under her body and they tightened the straps that held her to the bench. Jon slipped the S-hooks of the suspending chains and they turned her and replaced the chains so she was facing the ceiling. The long narrow bench supporting her front simply held her torso straight as the chains were adjusted. Her head was lowered, lowered, lowered, Matt’s fiery gaze staying pinned on her even as the back of her skull touched the edge of the table, while her lower body went to approximately a forty-five degree angle above her, her legs still spread for Jon to do…whatever Matt had just told him to do. She couldn’t remember, not with Matt’s crotch this close to her face.

“I took her lower body down a little bit.”
Lucas this time.
“We don’t want all the blood to rush to her head and make her faint. She’s still pretty spun up.”

“Remember to move your foot if you feel faint. Mouth me. Let me know you want my cock in your mouth.”

She didn’t think, didn’t review any rules for this situation. Her mouth opened and closed over the fabric of his slacks, her lips pressing hard against the thick width of him, her tongue reaching out to lick and wet the straining cloth, as she made noises of animal hunger in her throat.

“Jesus Christ.” Matt unfastened his pants and shoved them and a pair of black jersey boxers down to his hard thighs. The organ was so close to her that she couldn’t see it clearly, but her nose brushed the heat, smelled the animal musk of him. He seized the chains holding her, pulled so her head tilted over the edge of the table and she was essentially upside down. He reached past her, took something Jon was offering, a lubricant of some kind, and rubbed it over the broad head.

“Open up, Savannah.”

She barely had her lips parted before he shoved into her mouth, stretching her lips as she’d imagined, as she’d craved. He seated himself deep, and then stopped, holding his cock against the back of her throat, moving it slightly, as if he were rubbing it against her. She gagged, and his fingers stroked her throat, soothing her, and then the gagging desire was gone, though he pushed in deeper, against her tonsils.

“Another of Jon’s many tools,” he growled.
“
Benzocaine
to coat the back of the throat, so you can take me deep.
You want to take me deep, don’t you?
In your throat, in your ass, in your pussy.
You want me everywhere.”

The tears were starting again, for the pleasure and truth were coming together, tearing her apart. She couldn’t see through them, in the literal or figurative sense, so she simply tilted her head more, giving
herself
up to this moment.

Matt withdrew slightly,
then
moved back in. She stroked him with her lips, just wanting to taste him, feel him. With no experience at all, she simply licked him with her tongue, sucked on him to get that taste, that scent in her mouth, her throat, her nose, where she could keep it. She imagined the earth of a humid jungle would smell like this, exotic and mysterious, brutal and honest. She even scored him with her teeth, tasting the meat of him.

She was vaguely aware of
Jon,
applying something soothing onto her clit, just inside her pussy lips and around her anus, something she supposed would keep her from getting raw before the next assault. But then another sensation
invaded,
something less pleasant. She fought against it, and the fighting made it worse.
Dizziness, black spots on her vision.
She kept on, furiously, desperately sucking on Matt, not wanting to lose the odd sense of comfort in the act of servicing him, but it was overtaking her, sweeping her body, turning her shudders into a sick trembling…

She wouldn’t wiggle her foot. That would be failure. And she needed this, didn’t want it to stop…

“Matt.” Peter’s sharp voice seemed to come from far away and she made a noise of wailing protest as Matt withdrew from her. Suddenly his arms were under her, lifting her, making the chains holding her upper
body go
slack, lay cool against her skin as he brought her head even and then slightly above the rest of her body. She opened her eyes, saw his face close above hers, the concern in his strong face.

“I should have known you wouldn’t ask for help when you should,” he muttered, his hands impossibly tender against her temples.

She wanted to say she was sorry for making him angry, but his lips were soft on hers, making it all right.
Making nothing necessary but to simply be.

Just like she had felt at her father’s funeral, if only for one moment.

It wasn’t an entirely unexpected thought to have right now. Matt had given her that one moment, just as he had made this night something far different than she anticipated.

Overwhelmed, she let herself spin comfortably down a gray tunnel, into that memory.

Chapter Four

Among all the offers of sympathies, the unwelcome press of strange hands and bodies near her—acquaintances, hangers-on, a few genuine friends of her father’s who had little to offer to her beyond their formal support as she stepped into her father’s corporate shoes—Matt had been close. She remembered the heat of his body near her throughout those long several days. The supporting touch of his hand, the only contact she had welcomed, at the small of her back.

After the funeral and memorial service, deep into the third or fourth hour of the never-ending wake at her father’s sprawling estate, she had escaped to her room for a few minutes. Burying her face into her pillow, she’d screamed, beating the mattress, wishing for tears that never came. Though she stayed in there a good thirty minutes, trying to compose herself, she’d been undisturbed. It was only when she took a deep steadying breath, checked her hair and makeup and stepped back out in the hallway, that she’d found out why.

Matt sat on the top stair, with a brandy loose in his hand and a plate of untouched funeral food.
Keeping watch.
Keeping them at bay, the barbarians away from the gate.

“I don’t need a watchdog, Kensington,” she said uncharitably, frightened of how relieved she was to see him there.

He lifted a shoulder, took in everything about her at one glance. “Humor me. It gives me an excuse to stay away from them.” He picked up a carrot from the plate, took a bite. “God, I hate these things.”

“The vegetables?”

“No. When I die, I’m going to have a fast cremation and leave instructions for Lucas to throw a street party in my honor for a few thousand drunken revelers who have no idea who I am and couldn’t care less. They’ll toast my memory because I bought the drinks, and the people who love me won’t be put through a dog and pony show.”

“Nobody loves you, Kensington.”

He smiled. “You do.” He patted the step beside him.
“At least the food’s good.
Come have a taste.”

She found herself quite willingly moving toward him. “Is Morris Johnson still downstairs?”

“Of course.
He and his executive staff.
Trying to schmooze up to the CEO of Bank of America and eating as much free food as he can get his hands on.”

“If we slip a laxative into his crab dip, I’ll bet we get a great interest rate on our next six-month cash loan from
BoA
.”

“How diabolical, Miss Tennyson. Remind me not to eat anything you’ve provided next time we’re having an important meeting.”

“I thought that’s why you employ Ben.
To be your official royal taster.”

“Cute.”

She lowered herself beside him, in the small space his large frame and splayed knees allowed, but it felt good, not crowded. She absorbed his warmth with a welcome shiver.

“Cold?”

“A little.
It was overcast at the graveside.”

“I’m sure Geoffrey arranged it. He did like the appropriate setting for all occasions. Here.”

“I can go get a sweater.” Her words died as he shrugged out of his coat, bringing a whiff of his cologne to her delicate nostrils, and laid it around her shoulders.

“There.”

Suddenly, she was struggling not to weep. Why did she want to weep now, when she felt nothing in her room except rage? She made a snort that sounded suspiciously to her own ears like a sniffle. “I guess if we were in high school, you’d ask me to go steady now. Give me a broken coin and we’d each wear half.”

A corner of his mouth lifted in a smile, and he reached over, tugged free a tendril of her hair trapped under the collar. “I was on the wrestling team. You’re the football quarterback type. You’d have turned up your nose at the likes of me.”

“Wrestling?”

“Absolutely.
You know how punishing football is on the adolescent bone structure? At least, that’s what my mother told me, over and over again,
ad
nauseum
, when I whined to sign up. We compromised with wrestling.”

“Matt Kensington, whining?”
She leaned back against the opposite wall, which made her knee brush his. The contact felt right, so she didn’t take it away and he didn’t seem to notice.

“Like the proverbial girl. But something tells me you never whined.”

She gave a half laugh and some of the coldness returned. She crossed her arms over her breasts, gripped the edges of the jacket closer to her, letting go of the ball of tissue in her hand so it fell into her lap. The coat smelled of him. She pictured a closet of such suits, all smelling like this, and her falling into them, holding on in the quiet, tranquil darkness of his closet.

“Geoffrey didn’t believe in it. He taught me that if you want something, you strategize how to get it. You never beg. And if you fail, you accept the failure, analyze it, go back and win what you lost back.”

He nudged her knee with his own. “What’s that in your lap?”

“Just a tissue…” She looked down at his puzzled expression and instead of the tissue, she saw a tiny rag doll, little bigger than the length of her hand. She’d left it on her bed earlier, hadn’t realized until this moment that was what she had clutched in her hand as she screamed into her pillow, and apparently had held onto when she left the room. “Oh.” She lifted a shoulder, tried for a casual look, even as her hand settled protectively over it under his shrewd gaze. “At my father’s corporate Christmas party, one of his business associates brought a little gift for me as the ‘lady of the house’. When I was six,” she added, at the twinkle in Matt’s eyes. Her eyes could not linger on his face, so she looked back down, fingered the doll. “He knew nothing about me of course, was just trying to win favor with my father.”

He had no clue that fawning on Geoffrey’s child meant nothing to Geoffrey.

“But I liked it.”
Extraordinarily liked it.
Kept it with her that night, slept with it hidden under her covers where her father couldn’t see. But Geoffrey had known. “One night, I was tired over something, and I whined, I guess as children can do, and he punished me by taking it away. I found it in his closet when I was looking for a suit for him…for this.”