The Pleasures of Autumn (30 page)

‘Sinead, Sinead,’ Niall’s voice anchored her, bringing her back to him. ‘Who is Roro?’

‘My sister.’

Released from the handcuffs, Sinead was conscious of his hands briskly rubbing her wrists. Niall lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom, setting her down on the cool quilt. Dazed, she watched as he picked up a pillow and placed it beneath her hips. What was he doing now?

Through her eyelashes, she watched as he unbuttoned his shirt and peeled off his jeans. Except for the bruises, he was perfect, as if one of the marble statues in the Louvre had come to life. Every inch of him was strongly muscled. Her mind might be confused, but her body knew exactly what it wanted. As if he had read her mind, he peeled off her panties.

The clank of metal told her he was at the damned bag again. She mentally added Hermione to her hit list along with her sister and Granny O’Sullivan. Surely Niall couldn’t do anything more to a defenceless woman?

Apparently he could. He fixed a leather strap to one ankle and then a second one. She tried to close her legs, but couldn’t. There was a long bar between the straps, holding her ankles apart.

‘It’s called a spreader bar. Like it?’ His voice rumbled with amusement.

‘No.’

Ignoring her response, he clipped her handcuffs to the bed.

‘Sinead, focus on me.’

Bossy Niall was back. One by one, he removed more items from his kit bag – a length of soft rope, a ball gag, which he considered and replaced in the bag, a leather paddle and another flogger – this one heavier than the last.

Sinead swallowed. He couldn’t use that on her.

‘Nervous? We haven’t gotten to the good stuff yet.’ He smiled as he removed a tube of lube and finally a velvet bag. He emptied the contents onto the bed.

The purple G-spot toy she recognized. The large wand looked like the muscle massager that some of the dancers used when their legs were aching. The small, dark toy puzzled her until she remembered their visit to the sex shop. It was a butt plug.

‘No,’ she shouted and tried to sit up. The handcuffs kept her in place.

‘Okay, we’ll keep that one in reserve for now.’ He dropped it into the bag and returned to stand at the end of the bed. Bending, he gripped the spreader bar and pushed it towards her. Sinead’s knees bent automatically. He continued to push until the bar rested inches below her hips. In this position, she was open, exposed to him. Nervousness and excitement churned in her gut.

‘Very pretty and very wet.’ Niall dropped a kiss on her mons. ‘Exactly the way I like my uptight museum curators.’

‘Somehow, I wouldn’t have thought that stuffy museum curators were high on your list.’

A long, slow lick the length of her pussy was his response. Niall raised his head ‘You’re not stuffy, just uptight, and I plan to fix that.’

‘Oh.’

‘But first, I have more questions.’

Sinead closed her eyes. Was he never satisfied? ‘Ask them, but I’ve told you everything.’ Except about Lottie, but that wasn’t something she was going to tell him. Not ever. If he found out that she had concealed Lottie, he would presume she had lied about everything else.

Another slow lick followed by a puff of warm breath against her clit. This was a deliberate seduction. Niall wouldn’t stop until he had extracted every piece of information he wanted.

‘What happened to your mother?’

She tensed and received a sharp tap on her thigh.

‘Eyes on me, Sinead. Focus on me and tell me the truth this time.’

‘She died just after my dad left us.’

It had taken her years to discover the truth about her mother. Her grandmother had managed to build a wall around her past when they took her in. They meant well, but …

His touch changed to soft reassuring strokes, tender caresses that both soothed and inflamed her. Oh, he was good, better than good.

‘So everybody went away?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Within twenty-four hours she had lost everyone she cared for.

‘But you were a brave girl and you worked hard, maybe too hard, trying not to think about them?’

Sinead swallowed the lump in her throat. She couldn’t explain why she was so driven to win, any more than she could explain Lottie. When she was on stage, the scared
part of her switched off and she was free. She craved success and approval, but Lottie could destroy everything she had built.

‘Sinead,’ his voice dragged her back to him.

‘Yes.’

‘Poor baby,’ he murmured against her heated core.

The vibrations of his voice added another layer of awareness. It was too much. More kisses, more licks, the exquisite pleasure of his mouth on her clit, sucking, licking, tormenting. Without warning, the sensory overload of the past hours tumbled her over the edge of a precipice, into a fast and furious orgasm. Breathless and helpless she lay on the quilt, shaking as she rode the last waves of pleasure until they ebbed away.

‘See how good it can be when you tell the truth? That’s all I want from you, Sinead. Nothing more.’

He pumped his finger slowly into her and her muscles tightened around him, straining to push her over the edge again.

‘I can’t,’ she protested. ‘It’s too much.’

Niall silenced her with a kiss, taking her mouth with a slow passion that built to a relentless demand. She squeezed her inner muscles around his fingers and he laughed.

‘I’ll say when it’s too much. Trust me.’

Removing his fingers, he returned his attention to Hermione’s toys.

His wicked smile should have warned her. He plugged in the large white massager and switched it on, rolling it against her inner thighs. She tried to close her legs against the insistent vibration but she couldn’t. Each
pass brought it closer to her clit, but it never quite got there.

‘Please.’ She didn’t care that she was begging. He had to let her come.

The rounded head of the wand brushed her clit and pinpricks of electricity shot along her nerves. She was close. So close.

He took the wand away, moving it down her legs and along her abdomen. Everywhere but where she needed it so badly. She arched her hips and clenched her inner muscles around the toy, but it wasn’t enough. ‘Let me come. Please, Niall.’

‘You’re sure you want to?’

‘Yes. God damn you. Yes.’

His next kiss was soft against her mouth. She raised her head from the pillow demanding more. Thrusting her tongue against his, roughly taking his mouth, biting at his jaw, raking him with her teeth.

‘Kitten’s got her claws out.’ He pulled away from her, but the flare of heat in his eyes was unmistakeable. She wanted him. Needed him. Why didn’t he just –

He placed the wand against her and turned up the intensity. Sinead didn’t bother to disguise her moans of pleasure. Helpless, she was swept up by a tsunami racing for shore. ‘Oh, Niall. Oh god. Oh, Niall.’

Everything stopped. The machine was silenced and she could hear nothing but her own ragged breaths and her pulsing blood ringing in her ears.

‘Where is the stone?’ his voice was calm, matter of fact. He might have been asking her about the weather.

‘Please,’ she wailed, thrashing as wildly as her bindings would permit.

‘Tell me where it is?’ His seductive murmur came against her ear and she turned her face to him.

‘I don’t know. I tell you I don’t know.’

Niall moved away. He switched on the wand again and drew lazy circles with it against her abdomen, venturing close to her throbbing flesh but never close enough to give her the satisfaction that her demanding body required. Mindless with need, she raised her hips, begging him to give her some relief. Urgency built, this time more quickly than before.

She clung to the pinnacle again, pleading for the tiny shift that would take her over. Her body was slick with sweat. She could smell the perfume of her own arousal. She would die if he didn’t let her come.

‘Where is the stone?’ Niall asked again and this time she couldn’t refuse.

‘Roisin has it.’

The sharp vibrating intensity of electricity came directly into contact with her clit and she screamed as the wave of pleasure crashed to shore, obliterating everything in its path. Every nerve in her body was wracked by a flood of sensation that reduced her to a mindless, quivering heap. Pins and needles raced along each limb. Even her mouth numbed. Floating, she was aware of Niall unfastening the straps around her ankles and his hands massaging the muscles of her legs before rolling her onto her front.

He placed a cushion beneath her hips and positioned himself between her still-trembling thighs. He fisted a
handful of her hair and with a single thrust he sheathed himself in her slick core.

‘Mine.’ His possessive grunt almost sent her over the edge again. It was too much, too soon. Her traitorous body told her differently. She arched back into his pistoning hips. She could die right here now from sheer pleasure.

Niall’s body curved over hers, his mouth finding her neck, his teeth biting down on her tender flesh, marking her as his. She had never wanted anyone as much. Never known what it was to crave, to hunger for another’s touch, until him.

‘Yes,’ she cried out as he withdrew almost completely and slammed home again. With disbelief, she felt another orgasm building. She couldn’t come again, not after everything that had happened this afternoon.

His harsh thrusts increased in momentum. She revelled in the edge of pain that each one brought. He pounded into her, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He couldn’t last much longer. Like tinder beneath a match, her senses caught alight in a blaze of pleasure that coursed through her blood, reaching every screaming nerve ending.

‘Niall. Niall. Niall,’ she breathed his name like a mantra each time he slammed home.

His hand in her hair only served to remind her that she was his. She was helpless and she didn’t care. She wanted this, gloried in his rough possession. Fireworks exploded behind her eyelids and she fell into another vortex of pleasure.

Yelling her name, Niall followed her home.

When she came to, he was still covering her like a warm
male blanket. She inhaled the scent of his musky arousal and licked at the sweat on the arm that lay unmoving on the pillow beside her face. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him. She never wanted to be anywhere else, except in his arms.

‘Love you,’ she whispered as her eyes drifted closed.

What the fuck? Niall’s eyes, which had been drifting closed, opened abruptly. What had she just said?

Sinead had just said that she loved him.

He allowed the knowledge to fill his head. She loved him. She loved him.

Until he heard the words, he hadn’t realized how much he had longed for them. It seemed an age, even though it was only a couple of days, since he had realized that Sinead was his perfect mate.

He didn’t believe in that ‘Eyes meeting across a room’ or soul mate nonsense. But every so often, two people just balanced each other so well that it seemed they belonged together.

Look at his friend Flynn and his fiancée Summer. On the surface, total opposites: the silent Ranger with the ability to blend into the shadows and the socialite who was the heart of every party. But when they were together, you could see the bond between them. They weren’t at all alike, but they balanced each other. Of course, they still had some royal rows, but you could see them looking forward to the making up even when they were fighting.

Seeing them together filled Niall with envy. They had
what he had always wanted, and had resigned himself to never having. He had resigned himself to being alone.

He grinned into the darkness. Well, not entirely alone. His size and appearance always attracted women. Hell, it wasn’t his fault that so many civilians were out of condition. All of the Rangers looked good in comparison, and they all carried themselves with a quiet confidence that attracted women. The trouble was, none of them were women who were in for the long haul.

They wanted someone to protect and care for them. That came naturally to Niall, but he had never been into the Daddy Dom thing. He wanted an equal, and had never found one.

Until now. Until Sinead.

She was as focused as he was. As good at getting her own way. She was used to being the smartest person in the room and took it for granted that she was always right. He must challenge her to a game of chess sometime. Maybe strip chess, just to make it interesting.

He’d like to see Sinead starting off all schoolmarm prissiness and stripping down to reveal that knockout body.

Niall loved the idea that he was the only one who knew what was under those god-awful clothes. He scowled. Apart from that little French bollix. He ignored the fact that he had admired Bertrand’s fortitude until he discovered he had been Sinead’s lover. She was twenty-seven. Of course she’d had lovers. He had no right to object. But something inside him snarled at the idea of any other man seeing her the way he had.

He just hoped Bertrand had a tiny dick and was a lousy lover.

Niall wanted to be Sinead’s lover. He wanted to stand beside her and say, ‘This is my woman.’ He wanted to show her off, to watch her turn other men into putty.

The trouble was that he didn’t trust her. Oh yeah, he burned for her. He wanted to make love to her, to drive her wild with passion. He wanted to lavish pleasure on her. He wanted to torture her until she begged him to fuck her until she saw stars.