Breaking Joseph Page 15

  Slut, she wrote. I’m jealous. Have five for me! X

  Joseph was a surprisingly good dancer. He didn’t spend much time on the floor–he kept drifting off to network–but he never seemed to forget where I was. When he reappeared he would scoop me up and press me against him, stealing my rhythm and crafting it as his own.

  Kenji and Elise had evidently had practice, because they chucked each other about like professionals.

  “Americans,” Joseph groaned during their enthusiastic salsa. “I do not know that guy.”

  Lessons from Ronnie, perhaps.

  As I laughed over his shoulder, I caught sight of Poppy and Isobel on a corner table. They shared a bottle of wine and were deep in discussion, heads bowed. I supposed they now had a mutual hatred of me and Joseph in common.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Joseph nudged my chin up.

  “Nothing. Nothing.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed him. It wasn’t really appropriate, and though I expected him to pull away, his mouth lingered on mine.

  “I think it’s time to get you home, Miss Vaughn,” he mumbled.

  They were the sweetest words I’d heard all evening. “Please.”

  “I’ll have the car brought around.”

  We left for Joseph’s apartment with Kenji and Elise following for drinks. On the back seat, he cupped my face, and we spent the ten-minute journey inhaling each other in words, breath, skin. I felt like I was sixteen all over again, but Sarah wasn’t arriving. She wasn’t even invited to the party.

  He attempted to pull my skirt up, but it was too long to do so discreetly. Then he tried peeling my bodice down and I slapped his hands away, giggling.

  “Why did we invite people back again?” he said.

  I toyed with his cock through his trousers. “You won’t regret it, Joe.”

  “I won’t? What have you got planned?” He eyed me suspiciously. “I’m not about to swap any car keys with Ken.”

  “You were just telling the whole smoking area how much you like to watch.”

  “Christ, Leila. I don’t want to see you with one of my friends.” The disgust that creased his face was comical. “I think we need to make some rules in that regard.”

  “Rules? How very boring.” I tugged his mouth down to mine with a handful of hair. “I haven’t arranged any swinging, Joe. Don’t worry.”

  “Invite Sadie and Abi. Then you can swing however you like.”

  “I could lay them out on the coffee table.” I smirked. “Get the rolling pin.”

  His cock twitched beneath my fingers, and he growled. “Should have booked the fucking limo. I thought they were crass, but the privacy in here leaves a lot to be desired. Ugh…”

  Back at his apartment, we switched on the glowing up-lights and put a piano piece on in the background. He and Kenji cracked open a bottle of whiskey while Elise and I mixed pretty cocktails from his well-stocked liquor cabinet. Since we’d left the ballroom, my paranoia had evaporated, so I went easy on the alcohol–just didn’t need it to relax.

  “Finally!” Joseph held his iPhone aloft. “They’ve accepted the offer. It’s all going through!”

  “No more negotiations?” Elise looked deflated. “I was looking forward to those. We were almost at the point where we could get sarcastic.”

  I wrapped my arms around Joseph’s waist. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.” He smiled down at me. “Fun, though.”

  “You have a weird idea of fun,” Kenji complained. His phone call connected and he shuffled off. “Hi. Deacon? Great news. We’re good to go here…”

  “I guess this means no ring shopping until the weekend.” Elise sloshed her drink about as she waved her unadorned hand. Pithy juice licked the edge of her glass.

  “Are you having a diamond?” Joseph asked innocently. “I hear anything else these days is vulgar.”

  At his mockery of Isobel’s “taste” in jewellery, I kicked him in the shin and he twisted me round, pinning me against the kitchen island. We wrestled, whooping with laughter as he attempted to bend me for a spanking, and it was only when it went silent that we glanced back. Elise and Kenji watched with chewed lips and raised brows.

  “Sorry.” I cleared my throat.

  “I’ve seen much worse.” Kenji started laughing and Elise whacked him in the gut. She shot me a knowing look as he coughed and spluttered, her eyes darting toward the couch. Joseph patted him on the back with a little too much pressure and poor Ken continued to choke.

  “You’re not even married yet and you’re a beaten husband.” Joseph grimaced.

  “Oh, fuck you, Chairman. You’re pussy whipped already. You can hardly talk.” Ken ducked as Joe threw a punch at him and the pair of them careered into the island headfirst.

  “They’ve had one drink and turned into Neanderthals,” Elise said.

  “I say we leave them to it.”

  “Good show,” she quipped.

  “You start taking the pee out of my accent and I am not helping you at all!”

  “But I like your accent! It’s pretty.” Her plum-stained lips curved over white teeth, and her tone softened. “Like you.”

  I took her hand and led her to the couch.

  We shifted about, sipping drinks and getting comfortable against the scatter cushions. In the kitchen area, the men finally gave up their mock bullfighting and cracked open beers.

  “So.” Her voice wavered with that awkward little shiver.

  I took a deep breath and laid my hand on her knee. Her dress was as long as mine but spun in gauzy chiffon, light beneath my fingers for the tugging up. I saw her pupils dilate as I found her bare skin, as I stroked with the tips of my nails.

  Joseph told Ken you liked girls, she had said. And you know what Ken has always wanted.

  “What are you waiting for?” I whispered.

  Her cheeks were smudged in cherry; her lips had begun to part and they were a teasing reminder of pink elsewhere.

  I think it’s what I want too. Does that sound weird?

  I leaned in and planted a kiss against her collarbone. She stiffened and inhaled as if I’d just shot her with a few thousand volts.

  “Close your eyes, baby,” I said.

  She tipped back her head and sighed.

  I played my hands up over her belly and came to rest on the firm cups of her breasts. I swore she arched against them as I licked her jaw.

  When she’d asked me to perform like this, she’d been so coy. Now, her mouth was warm and plump, her movements unsure to begin with, and desire frothed in Charlotte’s veins like a well-shaken soda. Did Elise know she was really having a threesome? Beneath her dress, her nipples grew stiff and I found myself circling them, pulling gently and delighting in her little gasps.

  He’s compromising for me, but I don’t want him to. Don’t think we have to. I want to try it, to see what it’s like…

  It was only then that I realized we were in silence. Joe and Kenji stood bolt upright against the kitchen wall, watching us with eyes like alien moons. Elise blinked at me questioningly and then turned to look, too. Had she forgotten who she was performing for? Unabashed, she beamed at Kenji between our kisses.

  And Elise was a good kisser. Her shy manner had power there, turned a pause into a moan-inducing tease. I could feel my clit puckering in my knickers as she rubbed my inner thighs–maybe the same happened to her. Oh. When she’d proposed this little game, all I’d expected was a bit of hesitant make out. A grope here and there. This enthusiasm, coy and sweet as it was, painted her with unexplored depth in my eyes. New skin. Fresh meat.

  I pulled away, breathing against her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah…are you?”

  “This is fun.” I grinned at her, biting my lip.

  “I feel a little dizzy. I don’t know if I’m nervous or if I’m…you know…”

  “Do you want me to check?”

  She didn’t reply. Just closed her eyes again. I drew her s
kirt up over her ample thighs and found them already parted. Her breath leaped as my fingers walked over her mound and teased her thong upward, fleshy petals blooming around the fabric. I watched the boys’ stoic expressions as I caressed her pussy, and was torn between hogging the view or putting it better on display.

  She was sticky and wet.

  Elise mewed softly before pulling my hand away. We’d reached her boundary, gone as far as she wanted to go. Kenji shook his head at her, his shoulders braced in possessive alert. He picked up his phone and muttered quietly into the receiver about a cab. Joseph rolled his eyes at me in a mixture of pride and amusement, and I peered back at him with a playful smile.

  Elise brought my hand back to her breasts, and her mouth back to mine. The shyness had dissipated now that she knew his limits, her limits, and she no longer cared for her voyeur’s agenda. I wasn’t just an experiment, but tested, proven and published for all to see.

  “I wish they weren’t watching.” She gasped.

  I played with the top of her bodice, her breasts firmly caught beneath it. “Told you it was fun.”

  “He doesn’t look pleased,” she whispered, nodding to Kenji.

  “Oh, he is. He just doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

  “Sure he’ll think of something.” She pawed at the cutout panels on my dress, her nails tickling the flesh beneath. “You…you’re so soft here.”

  “Oh?” I trailed my tongue down to replace my fingers and licked along the swell of her cleavage. “You’re pretty soft too.” I reached her nipple and bit gently through her dress. “Not here though. Here you’re…stiff.”

  I wanted to dispense with the clothes and suck her there, usher that seductive tone into her voice–the one that made me shiver. When I’d agreed to help her reward her fiancé, I never thought about my own feelings, of what a tease it would turn out to be, and neither, I think, had she. Playing in front of a partner was one thing, but longing to be alone together was quite another.

  “Lise.” Kenji stood over us and cleared his throat loudly. “The car is here.”

  “Car? Oh.” She eased my head away. “Suppose I’d better go.”

  She kissed me goodbye then, made a point of sucking my bottom lip. I moaned against her mouth and I swear I heard Kenji panting. When I glanced up, he wouldn’t return my smile.

  I tidied Elise’s hair. One kitten grooming another. Such cool, smooth tresses–what would it be like to have them trail down my belly and settle against my inner thigh? They’d tickle, light and feathery, and when her mouth hit–ah.

  The moment she rose, I tightened in mourning and whimpered under my breath.

  “Catch you tomorrow, Leila.” She smiled over her shoulder.

  I’d never seen Kenji drag her away so fast.

  The door slammed. Piano music crept back into my ears. I felt Joseph’s scrutiny before I realized what it was, and then my blood turned prickly with longing. I’d hardly go unsatisfied tonight. Arms crossed, back straight, a beer bottle dangling from one hand: hello, lover. As I approached him, a very lazy, naughty grin stretched my mouth. Such sweet tension, now we were alone. In the past two weeks, we’d made gluttons of each other, never tiring of the push-and-pull of flesh, of talk. If anything, my desire for him had solidified. I wanted him with something more than abandon–conviction.

  Now, this other emotion blossomed and it gave depth to my desire. I wanted to know every inch of him, to be his living map and his willing canvas. I’d never thought of love as a want to submit, and yet there I was, surrendered before I’d even touched him, and something other than my pulse uttered the command.

  A beat, and then…he grabbed me around the waist and crushed me to his chest.

  I stood on tiptoe to kiss him, but he jerked his head away. Those dubious green eyes obliged me nothing.

  “Are you punishing me?” I asked.

  “You didn’t ask permission.” He spread his palm over my cheek and ran it into my hair. “That was improper.”

  “I see. Well. Maybe you can have Sadie send out some memos on what is proper, Mr Merchant.”

  He wound my hair into his fist and eased my head back, my jaw coming into line with his. “I’m not in the habit of giving you the answers.” He smiled faintly. “Am I?”

  “I’m not so good at finding them, either.”

  “I’ll give you a clue.” He nipped at my chin. “They’re in the bedroom.”

  “An awfully improper place to keep them, don’t you think?” I gasped as his teeth found my earlobe.

  “Little heretic. Shut up.” His knee came up and parted my thighs. “Now–bedroom. I think it might please the Gods of Propriety if you lose the dress on the way.”

  I laughed as I eased down a strap. “That’s a bit of a contradiction.”

  “You want to talk contradictions? You’ve been alone with me for five whole minutes and you’ve still got your clothes on. Blasphemy.” He held my arms above my head and peeled the dress from my breasts. “Better already.”

  I turned, shimmying out of the black silk as I strode toward his room. In the doorway, I paused to slip my knickers off and flicked them aside. When I reached his bed, it was instinctive to mount it on all fours, and the stretch as I arched felt euphoric.

  His sheets were cold against my bare hands and knees, and a breeze swept over my jutting ass as he closed the door behind him. A shiver claimed me, as if the silence grew claws and grasped its way up the duvet for a taste. Its tongue was sleek velvet, chilled and rough on the inside of my thigh. Only my gasp scared it away.

  Joseph knelt to open a drawer. “Everything I am about to do…you have asked for.”

  There was a creak and a rustle. A sharp crack split the air.

  I watched with wide eyes as the flogger settled at his side. The leather shone like the skin of a panther, moon dusted in the near dark, and the polished handle sat comfortably in his palm.

  “Do you get that out for all the girls?” I asked.

  He titled his head. “I think I told you to shut up.”

  I had administered the soft lick of a nine tails to many clients and knew the saccharine power of twisting it aloft. I had been bitten and spanked, kissed by a blade, not whipped. Never whipped. Glancing over my shoulder at his broad silhouette, so tall and serene at the end of the bed, I grew nervous at how merciless he might be.

  “Are you afraid?”

  He must have heard my breath quickening, noticed the quiver of my thighs.

  “A little.” I switched from knee to knee. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Always.”

  “It’s what you want. Why you’re here. Shall we purge a little more of whatever it is you run from?” He flicked the whips lightly across my buttocks. “Tell me: do you want to forget why you started running, or to remember where it is you were trying to get to?”

  “I’m not running.” Charlotte was. Maybe.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Another flick. Harder this time, making me jump.

  “You love it when I hurt you because you think you deserve it.” Something scathing crept into his voice, though I wasn’t sure if he sympathized or mocked. “I’m your Opus Dei. You splay yourself out on an altar, but I never asked for a sacrifice, Leila.”

  “I know.” I swallowed.

  “I’m a man, not a fucking religion.”

  The flogger fell over my flesh again and again. Sharp and crackling, whistling and whispering. Nine hissing snakes. I mewed at first, a wounded little whine. Then the tickle turned to hot pain and I gripped the sheets with trembling fists. He wasn’t breaking the skin–he didn’t need to. Each strip of leather bore teeth that were hungry, and I knew my backside was a lattice and a harbinger’s feast.

  “Is that enough?” He panted.

  I ground my teeth. It was the frustration that sought to flay me, not the pain–though that simmered steadily, like pins and needles with salt rubbed in. “I don’t know. How will I know?”

  Cool fingers stroked my inn
er thighs lovingly. “Remember your word?”

  I nodded. Lilac. The flowers that reminded me of home, and of him. Is that where I was going? Were they still two separate things?

  “Well then.”

  The fingers walked upward, spread my soaked lips, eased inside. Flexed. I moaned as I arched on them.

  Now the whip landed around my pussy, painting my thighs in scarlet. Heat that spread outward now shot back inside like an electrical charge. Contradiction swung like a pendulum in his hands; he soothed my aching spot with one and lashed me with the other. I went from bracing myself for the tearing heat of each new blow to giving up, sinking back against him, trying to take his entire fist, and far from wanting to break with my word, I was resigned to the suffering, indulging in it.

  So he tried harder.

  I swear I heard my skin split before I felt it. The gush of wind that preceded was reassuringly light, but it brought a searing shock, and as the first little rivulets of blood wept from the lash lines, I stifled a scream.

  I only uttered the word as an afterthought, panicking as I felt the next sweep of air; then his arm stiffened, his fingers slid from me and though the nine tails landed like the wings of a butterfly, it was a razorblade on my open wounds.

  I sagged forward on my arms, gasping. I couldn’t quite believe he’d done it. “Is it bad?” I croaked.

  “A little. It looks worse than it is, I think…but then I’m not a doctor.”

  “Feels…bad.”

  “Are you okay?”

  The sheets began to rustle as my hands trembled again. “I don’t know, Joe.”

  “I can’t cure you, sweetheart. You want me to use this–” He brought the flogger up. “But you know full well that I don’t need it to hurt you.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it.” I tried to rise, but fell back to the bed as my wound twisted and stung.

  “How can I not?” He laid the whip on the floor and took my hips, easing me back. When I yelped, he bent to whisper instead. “I think about you all the time.” They were the gravelly words of a prayer.

  Slowly, I turned on my knees and came to sit in front of him on the bed. He helped me up, his hands steadying, and then I stood before him: naked and bleeding, I was more of a sacrifice now than I’d ever been on my hands and knees.