Afterlife




The pressure of his hold brought her in another step, her hips pressed against the inside of his thighs. She wasn’t breathing. He’d touched her last night, but denied her the ability to touch him all that much, except for lying on his chest at the end. Now her body burned with the need to touch and taste, but he hadn’t given her permission. She embraced this state of longing, satisfaction held out of reach by his will. It was painful, pleasurable—a rhythmic seesaw between both, almost like the slow drag of a tongue along the *oris, from the base to the ultrasensitive top, intensity building and receding, building and receding.

That was entirely the wrong kind of thought to be having right now, because her breath had caught in her throat, fingers twitching, thighs tensing. Everywhere he was touching her was coming alive, taking away her ability to think.

Reaching up under the shirt, he slid along her spine, making her arch into him. When he breathed against her jaw, it was flavored with a satisfied, very male half-chuckle. With no hesitation, he unclipped the bra so it loosened beneath the blouse.

“Unbutton your cuffs and take it off through the sleeves. Leave the shirt on.”

He left his hands resting low on her hips as she did it, but leaned against the stool’s backrest, watching the arch and stretch of her body as she complied. Opening the cuffs, she slid one strap down over her wrist, then the other, then pulled the whole thing through. He took it from her hand, lifted it to inhale the inside of one soft cup. Watching him do it made her breasts ache for the mere stroke of his breath. His gaze dropped to them and another of those tiny moans caught in her throat at the flare of desire in his eyes. He didn’t seem to mind her watching him now, but when his gaze shifted back to her face, she lowered her lashes on instinct.

“I like seeing a woman’s nipples through a thin blouse. Particularly yours. Kneel for me, Rachel.”

She remembered what he’d said about the lipstick, about how he wanted it marking his cock when she sucked him off. Her p-ssy was already wet, she could feel it, but now those internal muscles clenched, wanting him, wanting to service him that way.

She should have learned from last night he wasn’t predictable. Instead, once she was on her knees, he began to stroke her hair again, applying pressure so that she slid to one hip on the Berber carpet. Now leaning against the outside of his left leg, she dropped her head to his thigh as he petted her, slid his knuckles along her cheek, played his fingers through her hair, fondled and massaged.

“The drawing I’m working on has to be done in the next hour. You’ll stay right where you are until I’m done. No matter who comes in, or what occurs, you stay where you are. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but she got it out, and thankfully, he didn’t ask her to repeat herself.

“If the position gets uncomfortable, you tell me, and I’ll give you permission to shift. Until then, all you have to do is kneel at your Master’s feet, Rachel. That’s the only responsibility you have.”

She couldn’t bring herself to call him that, but every time he did, her reaction to it was obvious, in the way her p-ssy clenched on too much empty space and her skin tingled, from the tips of her breasts to the sensitive pulse points of her wrists. It was like the mere word cast a net over her, the rope of it caressing her everywhere, holding her to him.

The surface part of her mind was resisting, screaming that she couldn’t possibly do this, that she knew this wasn’t going to work, that she’d come here to bring an end to it and she was impossibly weak. But there was another part of her, quieter yet somehow stronger, that made her close her eyes and press her cheek into his thigh, enough that her lips could graze the stretch of his slacks over it. His hand continued to stroke her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair. When she did that, the grip tightened briefly, but he didn’t stop her from doing it.

She heard the scratch of his pencil, felt the minute shifts of his body and knew he’d begun to work on the drawing. She couldn’t help stealing glances at him, at once amazed and incredibly aroused by how focused he was on what he was doing, the set of his mouth, the quick shifts of his eyes over the drawing elements. Occasionally, he rumbled something, a calculation or other thought he was voicing aloud to himself, and he might erase or move to another part of the paper.

She made a discovery of her own, that her body could be in an astounding state of lassitude and intense awareness simultaneously. Her body literally throbbed, blood pounding against pulse points, everything in her so physically needy that it was like running out of oxygen. But she was also so incredibly still under his touch, content to stay this way until the end of time if needed. Because it pleased him.

Kneel at your Master’s feet. The only responsibility you have.

She knew humans had an incredible ability to rationalize bad decisions. If it had been an athletic event, she would have won a medal for sheer quantity long ago. However, so what if she chose to savor this one moment of her life? If she had to turn her back on it in the next few moments—

No, not if. She knew it was a foregone conclusion that she ultimately had to reject all this. But then, that was a few minutes from now, wasn’t it?

Even knowing how pathetic and flimsy that was, she couldn’t resist the chance to be here, quiet under his will, so aroused at how he was doing his work while at the same time exerting his Mastery over her… She wanted him to take her here, on his office carpet. She wanted him to open his slacks and let her suck him to climax. She wanted to fall asleep this way, tied up in all these delicious unrealized imaginings.

Though the way his hand was stroking through her hair suggested an absent-minded gesture, she could sense how attentive he was to her presence, to everything she was feeling. Those who thought men couldn’t multitask had never met Jon Forte. She had no doubt he could design the answer to free energy for the world while making her so aroused she might die from the feeling.

“Jon.”

At the familiar male voice, she came out of her reverie, her pulse jumping at the quick rap of knuckles on the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it push open.

It was Peter.





Chapter Eight



Jon flexed his hand on her nape, a reminder as she began to push herself away from his knee. A flutter of embarrassment and uncertainty went through her, the muscles under his touch going tense as wire. “I’m on the phone with Brad in Costa Rica,” Peter said without preamble. “They have an error code on the CNC. Brad’s thinking it may have been damaged by a power surge. His guys have traced the ladder logic to a certain point, but now they’re thinking we need to send over a factory expert to look at it. I was thinking I’d let him tell you what’s up first, just in case you have a different take on it.”

“Okay, put him on speaker.”

If there had been any discernible pause, anything she could call a surprised hesitation or shock at finding her here, she didn’t detect it in Peter’s voice. He also didn’t greet her, didn’t address her, didn’t acknowledge her separately. He was treating her as a slave doing her Master’s bidding.

She might not have been in any BDSM clubs until her ill-advised visit to Club More, but when she was at the peak of her crazed fever to integrate this in her life, she’d delved into hundreds of Internet scenarios that stoked her own desires. However, it wasn’t even that which told her Peter’s behavior was appropriate, expected. She just knew.

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