MasterofVelvet (16 page)

“Did I say that, Dan?” He looked all innocent. “I don’t
think I did.”

Dan shook his head. “Nope, can’t say I heard you say that.
Don’t think I said it either. Besides,” he continued, struggling to keep the
smirk off his face, “if we were going to say ‘bodyguards’, we wouldn’t say
’bodyguards’, we’d say ‘close protection officers’, wouldn’t we?”

Beth sighed. They really were like two little kids at times.

No, she decided. They were worse than two little kids.

* * * * *

After lunch, Dan made his excuses and left—he had
preparations to make for those of his employees who would be taking part in the
training exercise, potentially half a dozen all told. He would be returning
late, though, having been invited for dinner and an overnight stay.

Adam saw his friend off then went back into the house. To
say that what Dan had told him that morning was disturbing would be a vast
understatement. There was a very real threat to his safety, a threat that had
been a long time in the making and the signs were that it would become a
reality very soon.

Adam had never met the elder Underwood brother. He’d been in
hospital at the time of the funeral but his commanding officer had told him all
about Ewan’s angry outburst after the service at the perceived futility of his
younger brother’s death. The last part of his tirade had taken the form of a
violent, vehement promise to “get the bastard responsible”.

For Ewan to have found out that Adam was the officer
commanding on the mission, and have organized the bugging of his offices and
the sabotage of some of his business deals, it perhaps indicated that the man
was more resourceful than they’d given him credit for, and Adam’s gut feeling
was that it was only a matter of time before Underwood tracked him down to
Winterleigh.

And now the threat was so real that if Beth had still had
any family left he would have sent her to stay with them. But she didn’t and
from what she’d said on another occasion she had no intention of going to stay
with friends either. She was determined to stay with him and while his
instincts were all in favor, his common sense, now in agreement with Dan, was
sounding the alarm.

He should make her leave. He knew he should. She would be
safer away from him but there was that stubborn part of him that wanted to keep
her close so that he knew exactly where she was and he could protect her—with
his life if necessary.

“Adam.”

She was standing in the office doorway, looking so
heartbreakingly vulnerable and beautiful. Adam felt his body leap in response
at the sight of her. “Beth, there’s something I have to ask—“

“No. Don’t you dare tell me to leave, Adam Granger.” She was
visibly trembling. “I’m staying here with you because if anything happens to
you—he might as well do it to me too.”

A tight band wrapped itself round his heart. No, he would
never—never—allow that to happen. “Beth, my love, I have to keep you safe.”

She took a couple of steps toward him. “You think I’d want
to be safe without you? Don’t you know, Adam?”

He knew. Damn it, he knew with every last cell in his body
just how much this woman loved him and that he had less than a snowball’s
chance in hell of convincing her to seek sanctuary elsewhere until the danger
was over. Even if he tried as her Master to order her to go, his instincts told
him she’d defy him. He went to her.

“Please don’t make me leave you, Adam. I’m begging you.”

“Beth, let’s go to bed.”

He lifted her easily into his arms. Her arms went around his
neck. He felt her lips tender on his cheek, heard her quietly whispered words
of love. Anxious to feel the soft satin of her delicate skin next to his body,
he took the stairs two at a time, shouldering his way into the bedroom, slamming
the door shut with his foot. He set Beth gently on her feet by the bed,
exhorting her not to move while he closed the heavy chocolate velvet drapes and
put the lights on a dimmed setting.

Beth stood where he’d left her, hands clasped in front of
her, looking as sexy as hell in jeans that hugged her hips and a scarlet shirt
with long sleeves. The fit was snug over her breasts and there were enough
buttons left undone to display her cleavage. The stupidity of the male sex
dumbfounded him sometimes—he still hadn’t worked out how she’d remained
unattached so far but he thanked heaven that she had.

He went to her slowly, savoring the moment. First he
released the silken sheen of her hair from the ponytail, threading his fingers
through it to encourage the waves to find freedom. He watched her face as he
let his palm almost touch her cheek, saw how she wanted to turn that cheek to
seek his caress.

Adam stepped closer, framed her face with his hands and
tilted her head to receive his kiss. Her hands rested briefly at his waist then
went around him in an embrace so tight that he could feel the hard peaks of her
nipples through two layers of fabric.

Beth loved him so much that she wanted her body to merge and
become one with his. Perhaps that way she could keep him safe.

She couldn’t ignore the quiet desperation lurking within her
heart now that she knew there was someone out there wanting to—what? Kill Adam?
Kidnap him? She pushed the thoughts away. The trouble was they pushed right
back. Her mind ached as much as her heart from all the worry.

“What are you thinking, Beth?” He lifted her chin to look
into her eyes. “Tell me.”

“I want it to be over,” she said simply. “I want him to
leave us alone—leave you alone. You don’t deserve this.”

“I don’t deserve you.” The intensity of the look in his dark
eyes imprisoned her breath, froze it in her lungs.

“Adam, I belong here with you, to you. I couldn’t imagine
being anywhere else with anyone else.” She glanced toward the bed. “In this
room you’re my Dom, you own me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Outside
this room you’re the man I love and want to be with for the rest of my life.
‘Deserving’ doesn’t come into it in either case.” She moistened suddenly dry
lips, wondering how he would react to what was going through her mind. She
doubted he’d object.

“Sir,” she chose the word carefully, “please may I undress
you?”

The darkness in his eyes disappeared, replaced by the hot
flame of need and complete understanding of her need for formality. “My sweet
sub may do whatever she desires with me.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

She began with his shirt slowly, taking her time, pressing a
tender kiss to his skin for each button that she unfastened. When the garment
was hanging open she pushed it back, exposing the masculine contours of his impressive
chest. Closing her eyes she nuzzled into him, inhaling the warm, male scent of
him.

With the lightest touch she explored the textures of his
body, the crisp hair adorning his pectorals, the smooth skin in the area of his
collarbone, the brown nipples small and already hard. When her tongue flicked
over the sensitive flesh his body jerked in reaction and he grunted but said
nothing.

Beth suckled hungrily on each nipple, aware of two things—the
growing wetness between her legs and the extraordinary self-control of the man
she loved. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides under the onslaught
of her mouth yet he betrayed nothing.

It was quite simple really, she thought with a hidden smile.
She adored everything about this man. The way he smelled, so masculine,
appealing to her most basic feminine desires. His intellect, his strength of
mind and character, his powerful body and his dark, brooding good looks. And
above all his courage, such a fundamental part of him.

She moved behind him, her left hand trailing across his
stomach with its clearly defined abs. The shirt was starting to annoy her. It
had to go so she grasped the collar with both hands and drew it down his back
and arms, tossing it aside with impatience.

Her heart constricted for a moment at the sight of the scars
on his back and what they represented—especially now that she knew the whole
story, that he’d got them while trying to save the life of one of his men
without a thought for his own safety.

She put her arms around his waist and rested her head
against his back for a few moments—not liking the way he flinched at the first
contact but feeling some relief when he visibly relaxed. He relaxed more when
she began to litter his scars with light, loving kisses, his head dropping to
assume an almost submissive posture.

“Master.” Though she’d thought it many times this was the
first time she’d called him by that title. “I love you so much it hurts,” she
whispered, her voice aching with honesty. “You’re beautiful and I’m hungry for
you all the time. Every moment away from you is a moment I hate. It’s a moment
I’ll never get back and get to spend with you again. All I have to do is look
at you, think about you and I want you. No, don’t move, please,” she requested,
when he would have turned around.

“This time is for you, Sir. Please let me please you.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Beth froze. She must have misheard. Two words and she was
momentarily stunned into silence. When he’d said she could do what she wanted
with him she had never even imagined that something like that might be going
through his mind—something so diametrically opposed to her way of thinking.

“Adam?” The question was in her voice.

He continued to look straight ahead, almost standing to
attention. “I love you, Beth. I’ve never allowed a sub to top me before. I
don’t know if it will ever happen again but for once I want to be your slave. I
need to be your slave.”

Beth felt like her knees would give way. “Adam…I can’t. You
can’t. I have no clue where to start. I don’t have your training. I’d have no
idea what I was doing. What if I hurt you?”

“You won’t, Mistress.”

“Adam, you don’t mean this—you can’t! It’s not what you
are!”

His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath and when he
spoke his voice was husky with need. “It’s what I need, Mistress. Whatever you
do to me I can take it. But it has to be you.”

“Why? Why do you want this, Adam? Help me to understand.”

At that he turned, looking briefly into her eyes with an
expression of such pain that her breath caught in her throat. She watched him
kneel in front of her, head bowed, hands resting palms uppermost on his thighs.
“I need to forget, Mistress,” he said quietly. “Just for a while. Help me to
forget.”

Forget what?

Her heart broke for him in that instant. Hesitantly she
reached out, wondering if she should touch him, try to reassure him. When her
hand rested lightly on his shoulder she felt the way he shuddered, a quiver of
movement that made everything shift into focus even if she still didn’t
understand what was going on.

“Then you will remember that I am your Mistress,” her voice
shook as she spoke, her mouth saying things her mind refused to take
responsibility for, “and you will refer to me as such until you are permitted
to do otherwise. While you’re my slave you will keep your eyes lowered unless I
allow you to do otherwise. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“And your safeword is garnet. It will bring a complete halt
to whatever is going on. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Tell me your safeword.”

“Garnet, Mistress.”

A strange feeling writhed in her belly like nothing she’d
ever felt before. Hearing her strong, masterful lover call her by that title
was turning her on in a completely different way but at the same time she was
starting to feel the enormous weight of responsibility carried by every
Dominant.

That Adam was expressing a desire to submit to her did not
diminish him in her eyes. If anything it made her love and respect him even
more.

“Stand up, Adam. Remove your boots and socks.”

God, he looked so gorgeous standing there in just jeans, his
torso and feet bare. Alpha male through and through yet he was surrendering
control to her.

“Hands at your side, Adam.”

Beth’s level of arousal went soaring off the scale. Even in
submission he was a magnificent male animal. His back straight, his eyes
lowered respectfully, his naked chest—all combining to create an all-consuming
hunger within her.

A noble warrior enslaved. Strength and energy radiated from
him, all held in check, only to be released at her command.

She placed her left forefinger on his breastbone, only the
nail making contact with his skin. To his credit he didn’t move a muscle as she
began to draw a line straight down the center of his chest to his abs, dipping
briefly into his navel and stopping at the fastening of his jeans. His erection
beneath the zip was unmistakable.

Her hand laid over the ridge of his cock, Beth felt it surge
demandingly against her fingers. “You want to come, don’t you Adam?”

“Only when it pleases you to permit it, Mistress.”

She slipped her fingers into the top of his jeans,
unfastened the button and slowly drew the zip down. It was apparent almost
immediately that he had gone commando and as she peeled away the faded denim
his erection sprang free.

Beth continued to push the worn fabric down his legs,
admiring their unmoving muscular strength as she went. When the fabric bunched
at his ankles, she ordered him to lift first one foot and then the other so
that she could remove the jeans completely and toss them to one side.

His cock was at eye level, a work of art in mortal flesh,
balls heavy and solid at its base. Beth leaned forward, inhaling the musky
scent of him and then, very precisely, she licked the underside of his cock,
one slow stroke from the base to the tip.

His hands became fists again as a guttural growl of arousal
escaped his lips.

Beth stood up and backed away from him. What was she going
to do with him? She’d never looked at the Dominant side of the equation with a
view to assuming that role herself, so she had no real idea how a Top was
supposed to behave. She’d just have to wing it.

“Lie down, Adam.”

He obeyed her immediately. In the absence of detailed
instructions he lay with his arms at his sides, hands flat on the bed, his legs
straight, feet about eighteen inches apart.

Think, Beth!

The toy box. Adam had moved some of the toys from the
playroom into the bedroom—perhaps there’d be something in there that would
inspire her. She really didn’t want to have to resort to something like the
flogger—that just felt completely wrong. Not only that, she hadn’t been trained
in the use of such implements so she was really afraid of doing something wrong
in spite of what he’d said.

A quick rummage revealed wrist and ankle cuffs—a good start.
To go with the ankle restraints, there was an adjustable spreader bar. That
would put him in an open, vulnerable position, enabling her to make the most of
the control she had over him. What to do with his arms?

Beth didn’t want him spread-eagled, displayed as a living
adaptation of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Legs yes but she had a different vision
for his arms. Another search of the box uncovered a shorter spreader bar—using
that with the wrist cuffs, his arms would be stretched more vertically than
horizontally. If she could just work out a way to anchor the spreader bars in
place…

A hot image flashed across her imagination. She found
exactly what she needed and a few moments later Adam was in exactly the
position she’d imagined, with pillows and cushions supporting his body where
necessary.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Does anything hurt? Tell me
if it does.”

His control was absolute until she asked those questions,
her voice tender with concern. His eyes flicked over her face, briefly making
contact with hers, and what she saw there could only be pure devotion. Then the
contact ended and he averted his gaze.

“Forgive me, Mistress. I’m all right.”

Still fully dressed, apart from having kicked off her boots,
Beth sat on the bed by his legs. She felt his thigh muscle tense under her hand
as she started a slow, deliberate, tactile exploration of his glorious nudity.

“So Adam,” she began, aware that she was trying to buy time
to organize her thoughts and develop some sort of plan, “you said you need to
submit to me. What do you need from me to help you to fulfill that desire?”

He swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple bobbed visibly. “I’m
yours, Mistress. Now. Forever. Please…use me for your pleasure.”

It gave her pleasure simply to look at him, to gorge her
eyes on the magnificent male restrained for her enjoyment. She went to kiss his
mouth but stopped halfway, paused a moment or two and then caged his body
beneath hers, one hand on either side of his head, braced for support while her
knees were on either side of his hips.

From that position she could look down on him, her gaze
burning with longing and desire as she slowly lowered her head to kiss his
lips, catching the lower between her teeth, sucking on it as she had done his
nipples and relishing his suppressed moan of arousal.

She invaded his mouth with her tongue, coaxing a response
from every corner of his soul, light and dark. When he began to demand a
response back she withdrew her mouth from his and began to press hot, wet
kisses along his jawline and down his throat, working her way toward his chest.

With the tip of her tongue, she began to delineate the
ridges of muscle. He tasted of salt and sweat and delicious, virile male and
when she’d worked her way down to his navel, she licked a direct line straight
up the center of his body, to devour his mouth with a punishing kiss.

“Now…what of your pleasure, Adam?”

When she saw the droplet of moisture trickle from the corner
of his eye she wished she hadn’t asked the question. Damn it, what was going on
in his mind? “It’s all right, my love—you’re safe here, with me. Nothing can
hurt you here.”

With great calmness and sense of purpose, she leaned down
and kissed his lips again. She heard the clink of chains as he moved, kissing
her back.

“No, Mistress.” His voice was a harsh whisper. “Hurt me.
Please, I need you to hurt me.”

His hoarse plea sent her eyes back to his beloved face even
as she drew back almost in horror at what he’d said.

She’d never seen such haunted bleakness before. Wherever he
was, it wasn’t here, it wasn’t now—he was drowning in some past horror, letting
it overwhelm him and consume him. Even as she watched he sank deeper, going
further and further away from her.

Panic rose up and would have choked her but Beth fought it
down. Now was not the time for that. She needed to pull Adam back, get him out
of the claws of whatever held him in a vise-like grip.

“Adam!”

There was a flicker of response at the sound of his name and
it gave Beth hope that he might not be lost to whatever was happening in his
mind. Over and over she said his name, shouted it, whispered it. She cajoled
him, she remonstrated with him, she seduced him—and in between using his name
as if it were a talisman she told him she loved him.

And gradually she watched him come back to her. Their eyes
connected again and a moment later his eyelids descended, as if he just
couldn’t face her.

His respiration, calming now, was still shallow. Beth
stroked his hair back from his face. What was she to do? He needed something
from her, but what?

Beth knew she was avoiding the issue—he’d already told her.

He needed pain.

Bracing her hands on his rib cage, she positioned herself
precisely over his cock then lowered herself so that the rough material of her
jeans came into contact with his sensitive, aroused flesh. He moaned, his hips
rising to meet her.

“Remember your safeword, Adam, and use it if you want this
to stop.” She began to move, a gentle riding motion that would rub his cock and
increase his arousal—an arousal she was determined should not culminate in orgasm
just yet.

She felt him straining beneath her, trying to fuck her
through her jeans. Acting purely on instinct, she pinched and twisted his
nipples to get his attention. She got it.

“Do not try to fuck me, Adam.” Her voice was stern. “You are
not allowed to fuck me, you are not allowed to come. Not yet.”

She unfastened her shirt, opening it up to show him that she
was naked beneath it and relishing the fire that fought the haunted look in his
eyes. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.

Hungry for the man beneath her, she lay down on top of him,
loving the heat of his skin next to hers. Wanting him was like a fever, burning
her up—she could eat him alive. Her mouth branded him everywhere—everywhere
except on his mouth, knowing as she did just how much he wanted that connection
again. His cock was straining against her pussy even though it was still
shielded by her clothing.

Beth reached for his hands, twining her fingers with his, in
full knowledge that the action would offer her breasts to his mouth. As her
slave he would not be allowed to draw her nipple into his mouth—he ordered him
to resist the temptation.

“What do you want, Adam?” She breathed close to his cheek.
“What do you need?”

He closed his eyes. The expressions crossing his handsome
face made her heart ache for him. “You, Mistress,” he admitted. “I need you.”

Beth needed him too. “In what way?”

Tears filled her eyes at the pain that had him turning away
from her. No, not pain—torment. That was it. Enough was enough. She couldn’t
let it go on. She couldn’t hurt him. She just couldn’t.

“Garnet.” She would say the word, even if he would not. “I
can’t—“

“No!” His eyes were almost wild.

“I can’t do this to you, Adam!” She was desperate to release
him from his bonds.

“Beth, please—take it back! Take it back!”

He was clearly as desperate to keep this going as she was to
end it. She searched his face and all she could see was anguish and need. She
hated herself for what she was about to say.

“I take it back.”

Her head dropped beside his. Plunged into misery, she was
barely aware of him resting his cheek against hers.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

Beth took a deep breath, steeling herself for whatever lay
ahead. Whatever it was, however he wanted her to hurt him, it was something the
man she loved needed so much that it drove him to go against everything that he
was.

She didn’t want to ask the question. She was so afraid of
what he was going to say but she needed to know, so that that was all she did.
Just enough to satisfy his needs. “What do you need, Adam? Tell me exactly what
you need.”

“Please, Mistress, I…I need you to fuck me.”

Her eyes wet with tears, Beth turned her head away so that
he couldn’t see. Things were going from bad to worse. First, pain—now… She
couldn’t do that to him but if it was what he needed—what he thought he needed—how
could she not? She wanted to question his assertion, to make him stop and
think, but her instincts were telling her that he’d thought about this more
than once and now he needed to turn thought into reality.