His Mistress by Blackmail

Her hand coming up to rest on his chest felt like the greatest benediction. And yet it triggered an even deeper hunger. Immediately he wanted more. Her hands, her mouth, her legs wrapped tight around him. He stayed put, staring into her stormy eyes, willing her to take him. Her other hand joined the first, the tentative exploration of his chest causing his stomach to clench tight.

A rough sound exploded from his throat. She inhaled sharply, but whatever she read in his face spurred her on. She trailed her fingers over his shoulders, then wrapped them around his neck.

‘Yes.’ An encouragement he couldn’t hold back.

She blinked, and her gaze dropped to where she was caressing him. He watched, curious and turned on and insanely absorbed by her courage and innocence. He wasn’t prepared for her to lean forward and press her lips against the pulse at his neck, the exact same way he had been dying to kiss hers a moment ago.

His knees threatened to buckle, the hands planted on the glass curling into tight fists. ‘You’re driving me insane, Sage.’

She made that inciting little sound again. Then repeated her campaign to annihilate him by nipping at the skin below his jaw with her teeth. His guttural groan brought a saucy smile to her face. His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you enjoying your power?’

Her answer was a shaky inhalation before one hand curled over his nape and fisted his hair. He met her kiss because he couldn’t not. Because his hunger had reached breaking point.

Their lips met in a crash of fire and desire. She opened for him and he ruthlessly claimed. The first touch of her tongue against his threatened to wipe him out. Unable and unwilling to resist touching her any more, he wrapped his hands around her waist, pinned her against the glass and gorged on her. They kissed like ravenous animals until the barest edge had been satisfied.

He traced her delicious frame, relearning curves he had explored many times in his imagination. He cupped her full breasts, his thumbs sweeping over her tight nipples. She jerked against him, a sweet groan squeezing through their lips to softly echo around the room. And because he craved it again, he repeated the action.

‘Oh.’ She sighed against his mouth.

‘God, you’re so responsive.’

‘Xandro...’

He dropped his forehead against hers. ‘Why does the way you say my name turn me on so much?’

Her eyes widened, a blush staining her cheeks at his charged words. He laughed under his breath. ‘Did I shock you?’

‘I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of an answer. You know exactly what you do.’

He laughed again then leaned down to taste her lips. And, just like that, desire erupted again, volcanic in its power and might. Satisfaction punched through him when she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and opened up to him. Banding his arms around her, he lifted her off her feet.

‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he commanded.

The journey to his bedroom took longer than anticipated, on account of needing to stop and kiss and caress her in an attempt to satisfy the hunger coursing through him. By the time he kicked the door shut behind them, he was poised on the edge of madness. It was why he tumbled them onto the bed, and reached up to tug the elastic band from her hair.

Thick, lustrous curls spilled in fiery waves onto his pillow. He slid his fingers through the vibrant strands, the act of finally exploring that part of her she’d kept restrained shockingly easing an ache he wasn’t even aware resided in him until that moment.

‘I’ve pictured you like this, your flaming hair spread over my white sheets, your beautiful body beneath mine. And now here you are.’ Fingers locked in her hair, he kissed her again.

With her legs still wrapped around him, he only needed to lower himself a fraction to settle his hardness between her thighs.

Despite the layers of clothing between them, her heat surrounded him, driving him another desperate inch to the edge of his endurance. With control fast waning, he tore himself away from her, sitting back on his heels. ‘I want you naked.’

Her breath stilled, the beginnings of apprehension flitting over her face. He captured her hands, kissing her knuckles before resting them on his thighs. ‘Nothing is going to happen here that you don’t want, pethi mou. But I fully intend to make you mine.’ He was aware that his voice contained an implacability that risked a resurgence of her stubbornness. But he also knew he would use every weapon in his arsenal to keep her exactly where she was.

He was so intent on plotting that he didn’t hear her response. The look on her face, however, indicated that his diabolical scheming might be unnecessary.

‘Say that again,’ he slurred thickly.

‘I want you, too.’

Simple words. And yet so powerful, so debilitating to his control that he froze for a stunned second before the promise of pleasure triggered frantic movement. He pulled his T-shirt over his head then disposed of hers. The blush staining her cheeks travelled lower with his avid scrutiny of her sun-kissed skin. Words of praise, unfamiliar words, far removed from those he normally bestowed on a lover, crowded his tongue.

He wasn’t sure why he withheld them. Perhaps he already felt too exposed now he’d realised that his reason for having Sage in his life in the first place, had shifted into something else. That the clanging need to retrieve the necklace no longer burned as fiercely.

He still wanted his ruby necklace back but, through Sage, he’d revived old memories of his mother and her love of music and dancing that had allayed his immediate anxiety over the missing jewellery.

That knowledge, along with the unfamiliar sensation of being on the edge of his self-control, had him more than rattled. So in silence he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her yoga pants and drew them down with less finesse than he usually employed. But when she lay almost bare before him, her sensational body framed against his sheets, he couldn’t hold back his words any longer. ‘You are breathtaking,’ he extolled in a voice he barely recognised as his own.