Let It Snow (69 page)

“Let go of me,” she said.

“I’ll let go of you,” he said, and planted a trail of kisses along her jaw as he kneaded the swell of her ass. “And I’m going to follow you upstairs. You’re not going to run from me. You’re going to go straight to the room, and when I unlock the door, you’re going to sit on the bed and wait for further instructions.”

“Fuck you, Max.”

“I have one mind to tie you up and find a good flogger, but my hand will do just fine.”

“You have to be out of your mind. The moment you let go of me,” she squirmed against his hand, and there was no question her goal wasn’t to pull away, but increase their contact. She wanted the pleasure he could give her even if she didn’t want to concede it. “I’m sprinting down those stairs, going home, and powering off my phone. Don’t call me. Don’t come over. Don’t send letters. I don’t want you.”

Right
.

He freed his hand from her hose, yanked them down her thighs, and bent her over his left arm before she knew what was happening. He pressed his palm against her ass and its insignificant little panties, and leaned down to whisper, “Lie to me. Tell me again you don’t want me.”

“Fine. I don’t want you.” She writhed against his hand.

“Yeah?” He tucked his middle finger inside her panty elastic and swirled it in her surfeit of wetness. “I don’t know, Queen G. Seems like your motor’s running just fine. I bet if I spread your legs and spanked you hard right here in the stairwell, you’d be wet down to your knees. Your pussy would be throbbing for me. You’d want me to fuck you the way no one else can.”

“Try and see what happens.”

His hand came down three times on her cheeks. Her back arched, and what he could see of her face reddened. She made no complaint other than an inward draw of breath as his finger found her cleft again. He worked it in deep, stoking a furnace that squeezed him tight as drew him in farther. He nudged the string of her thong aside and pressed his thumb over her tighter hole while sliding a second finger into her pussy.

“Max—” Her legs shook, and he tightened his free hand around her belly and held her still.

“Feels so good, doesn’t it?”

The stairway door on the next floor up creaked open. Giselle tried to pull away, but his hold was too sure. “Answer my question. Doesn’t it feel good?” He scissored his fingers inside her, and wished he could taste it. He wanted her on her back with her legs around his neck. His tongue would undo her again and again—something she never allowed. A few licks here and there, sure. She didn’t like losing control, and what was an orgasm but a complete lack of it?

“Yes,” she conceded breathily as footsteps—what sounded like two sets of them—neared them.

He let his fingertips flutter over her G-spot, and at the start of her usual keen of pleasure, pushed his thumb into her ass.

“Max!”

A couple passed them on landing, trying and failing to look disinterested, but Max knew what they must have looked like with his hard cock straining against his snug pants and his fingers buried in a winsome goddess’s bottom. They probably looked like they couldn’t control themselves—like couldn’t make it to a room. Like strangers fucking for the first time.

Well, fine. He had no intention of hiding. G was beautiful.

And
his
.

He fucked her harder with his fingers and raised an eyebrow over the top of his mask, looking at the slow-moving couple on the stairs.

“I thought staff was off-limits,” the man said, and cast a longing glance at Giselle. If she saw it, she might have finally fought herself free and ran upstairs, but fortunately at the moment she had her face turned in the other direction. He could see the flush of burgundy in her cheek, though.

So pretty.

“There are some perks to being a VIP,” he said.

“Max…” she growled.

He pushed his thumb farther into her ass.

Her cheeks tightened. It’d been so long since she’d let him take her there. Too damn long. Hell. It’d been too damn long since she’d let him take her
anywhere
.

“How does one get to be a VIP?” the man asked.

His lady friend rolled her eyes.

Max winked at him. “You wouldn’t have the proper credentials.”

“Are you staff, too?” the man asked.

“Sure,” Max lied. He turned Giselle about twenty degrees counterclockwise so the couple could have a better view of what he was doing to her. She’d likely want to kill him later, but she wouldn’t be able to manage it if she were tied up. Besides, the wetness gushing onto his knuckles told him exactly what she thought of the unplanned exhibitionism.

“We’re just part of the floor show. We’re here to titillate and spur the imagination,” Max said, and he increased the speed of his fingers in her pussy.

Her strained moan spurred him on.

“You’ll probably want to go back to your room and fuck like rabbits.”

“Oh, well I don’t actually know her,” the man said.

The woman huffed and put her hands on her hips. “And you won’t
be
knowing me at the rate you’re going.” She turned to Max. “We were going down to the black rooms. This guy fancies himself to be a Dom.”

“Ah, I see.” Max pulled his fingers free from Giselle.

She gasped, and then growled. Poor thing deprived of an orgasm.
Better get used to it until you submit, sweetheart. Payback’s a bitch.

He smoothed her skirt down and righted her.

“I happen to be something of a Dom myself,” he said. He suspected his grin was predatory, but who the fuck cared? He didn’t know these people, but they might prove to be useful. “Perhaps we could give you a demonstration. Queen G loves to show off.”

She turned on him, brows furrowed and a warning of death in her dark eyes.

He clucked his tongue, tipped her head back, and kissed her hard. Her lips barred him access at first, but he kept probing the crease with his tongue, and she opened. Whimpered. Melted against him.

As always.

Why the
fuck
did she keep fighting him?

He pulled back, keeping one arm wrapped around her waist. “I’m going to wash my hands, then we’re going to go downstairs and show our guests how to take full advantage of the black rooms.”

The man nudged his guest with his elbow. “See, stick with me and you’re guaranteed to have a good time.”

“Seems more like if I stick with him” —she crooked a thumb toward Max—“I’ll have a better time.”

“Sorry,” Max said. “Me and G are a package deal, and only I get to touch her.”

“Damn,” the man muttered.

Giselle rolled her eyes, but made no objections. She’d helped him put novice subs through their paces before, and this was no different, really. He knew that in those instances, she compartmentalized and pretended the play wasn’t about them. It was just a demonstration. To Max, it was taking all he could get at the time. Well, he wasn’t going to settle for scraps anymore. She could give him more. She could give him
everything
, and he was going to make her want to. They could get to the bottom of her enduring recalcitrance later. Right now, though, it was time to play.

She didn’t think when they played. Just trusted. She obviously needed a reminder that he’d earned it.

Giselle cringed as Max led her and their little entourage down to the garden level. When it came to him, having sex with him had always been easier than having deep conversations with him. Maybe that wasn’t the whole truth. Sharing secrets had been easy when they were kids—stupid fourteen-year-olds who didn’t know shit about shit. But, truth got harder after that first time they’d taken of their clothes. They’d been eighteen-year-old virgins and Max was about to move away to college. His parents were gone that weekend, and what started as awkward groping on the living room sofa turned into a desperate, noisy fuck on a narrow twin bed. She remembered that it hurt, but then that some weird-as-hell euphoria had settled in. It didn’t matter that Max’s thrusts were inexpert, because every time he put his lips to her ear and whispered her name, she melted a little more.

She’d been out of her fucking mind ever since. And of course, Max kept getting better. More confident. More dominant. And Giselle? Well, most of the time, she felt like she got left behind. She talked a good game, sure, but really, she was still that teenager fumbling on a sofa, and needed to be told what to do.

“Ah, I see you changed your mind,” came a cultured, Southern baritone voice Giselle had hoped not to hear again for at least a week. She rolled her eyes behind Max and tried to make herself small. Max was a big man at over six feet tall and packed with muscle, but she was no dwarf.

Henri Beaudelaire leaned sideways and fixed her in his gaze.

Shit.

“Well, I wasn’t going to,” Max said, “but we happened upon this couple who was interested in learning about the black rooms G and I were going to show them some of the more premium features.”

Mr. Beaudelaire nodded, extended a hand to each guest, and shook theirs. “Welcome to my hotel. Is this your first time attending a Den event?”

Both nodded.

Mr. Beaudelaire raised one of those dark eyebrows and looked the couple up and down. “And going straight to the black rooms? I guess that saying really is true. We mustn’t judge books by their covers.”

Giselle suppressed a snort. She’d bet good money that neither could endure what Max was capable of doling out. It was true that a person couldn’t always tell who was into kink by another person’s outward appearance, but these two were about as clean-cut as they came. The man was wearing lace-up Oxfords and the woman’s cardigan had tinsel woven into the knit.

Max was going to scare those two right back to Omaha or whatever small-town haven they’d come from.

She grinned.

“And how are you?” Mr. Beaudelaire asked Giselle. “Are you recovering well?”

She nodded. It was a wonder how not being fired could lift one’s spirits and clear the mind.

“Yes, I’m much better.”

“Confession makes the heart lighter, doesn’t it?” Max said through clenched teeth.

She gave him a grin in return that showed far too many of her own teeth, and
hopefully
just enough malice to intimidate him. Not that she’d ever managed to do
that
.

“Will I see you at the ball?” Mr. Beaudelaire asked.

Whether he was speaking to Max or Giselle, she didn’t know, but she knew what her answer would have been.

“I might be able to rustle up something to wear,” Max said.

She rolled her eyes. He could go alone.

“Fantastic.” Mr. Beaudelaire nodded to the guests and indicated an open black room. “I’m certain you’ll enjoy the facilities. Do let me know if I may be of service.” He bowed gallantly, turned on the heel of his smart white loafers, and strode toward the atrium. Not too many men could pull off the all-white look and still look serious, but the man would probably be just as formidable in a burlap sack and a polka dot bow tie.

The woman in the tinsel sweater sighed as Mr. Beaudelaire walked past. Giselle couldn’t help but to grin. Henri Beaudelaire was attractive in the way tigers and arctic wolves were attractive. He was nice to look at from a distance, but Giselle wouldn’t want to get too close. He was probably the type to leave a nasty bite. She’d worked at the hotel long enough that she no longer saw him as an attractive, single man. To her, he was just the person whose signature was scrawled on her paychecks.

Max gestured to the room. “After you,” he said to their guests.

They walked slowly, eyes wide as they approached the doorway, and Giselle turned to Max.

“I could just leave your bossy ass right here. Since I seem to have the night off, I can go home and watch television. Eat rum raisin ice cream. Put on my sweats. Be alone.”

He nodded. “You could. Yes. You’re lacking one thing, though.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

“What’s that?”

“Permission.”

“I don’t need permission. I’ve already gotten it from the one person I needed it from.” She pointed in the direction of the departing hotel owner.

“You need
my
permission.”

“I’m not playing this game with you, Max. I’m not your sub. You seem to keep forgetting that. I may put on a good show when necessary, but that’s it.”

He hooked his hand around her neck and drew her closer. “I’d say right now, a good show is necessary, don’t you?” he whispered hoarsely. “Those two squares are expecting an education, and I think we should give them one.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Since when did you become the ambassador to kink? I think you’re just making excuses. You know I won’t say no to you during a demonstration.”

“Mmm, excuses.” He scoffed. “That’s funny as hell coming from a woman who doles those out like beads during Mardi Gras.” His hand skimmed down her spine and settled at the small of her back.

Instinctively, she arched against him, inviting his touch.

Dammit
. She closed her eyes against his searching stare.

“If you’ll recall, mere minutes ago when I had my fingers in your cunt, you were doing more than just helping me put on a demonstration, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,
Max-i-mus
.” She enunciated his club name with a little sass and opened her eyes only to roll them at him.

“Sure, honey.” He nodded. “If I’d pushed you down to the floor and fucked you there in the south stairwell, you wouldn’t have cared who saw us. There could have been an audience of ten, and nothing would have mattered but my attention on you. Isn’t that right?”

Yes, it was right. She craved his attention. She wanted him to dominate her and make her forget
everything
except what mattered, but she’d conditioned herself to not accept what he offered. She’d been fighting the compulsion to just
give
herself to him for years, and it wasn’t just about sex, but comfort, too.

She fretted about him. Missed him when he was gone.

Loved
him. Always had.

And he could
break
her. In her mind, it wasn’t an issue of
if
he’d leave her, but
when
. She didn’t want everything about him tangled up in her, because when he left, she’d break.