Sonata (North Security 3)

“You said you wouldn’t touch me until I played the violin.”

“Tell me to stop.”

Please don’t stop. “I did play the piano, though.”

A short laugh. “Will we call this a reward? Or a punishment?”

“I don’t know.” The air feels thin now. My breath comes faster. The bodice that lifted and constrained my breasts now struggles to hold me.

“This is what I’d do,” Liam says, sounding casual. “If I could do anything to your body, without guilt, without regret, without worrying about damaging you, I would keep you tied up. So I could touch you whenever I wanted, however I wanted.”

The words make my thighs clench together.

He studies my breasts, the way they swell over the top of the red satin. I’m not a voluptuous woman, but I might be Venus from the concentration he gives them. His fingers feather over my breast, his thumb fanning my nipple through the bodice. Sparks of pleasure awaken every dormant impulse. The moment in Nantes was more battle than sensual dance. The bathroom on the train an illicit snapshot. This balcony extends a thousand years into the future. A thousand years into the past. There’s nothing else except endless decadence.

“I might have felt guilty for this,” he says, dipping two fingers between my skin and satin. They find my nipple in an indelicate movement, holding the nub between them. Squeeze. My breath catches. “You said not to feel any guilt. Right?”

“Right.” My voice trembles as he tugs down the dress, exposing my breasts to the night air. Anyone could see us. If they walked down the hallway. If they strolled along the darkening lawn.

He frames my breasts, making them look even smaller. The scarred and weather-tanned skin of his fingers, the coarse hair on the back of his hand, it contrasts sharply with pale smoothness. Thumb and forefinger grasp my nipple without the dress to limit him. He tugs hard enough to make me yelp. The sensation fires straight to my center, turning my sex liquid.

“No regrets,” he says, his voice almost regretful. As if he would like to feel bad about the small pain he caused me, but he simply cannot. It wouldn’t be polite at this point, his tone implies. Everything about his demeanor speaks of formality. Which makes the way he licks his thumb more ex

plicit.

The damp tip makes me shiver.

“What if someone—what if someone comes?”

A low laugh. “Are you worried you will? Or worried you won’t?”

My cheeks flush. “Someone else. If they see us…”

“You’re a performer,” he says, his tone musing. “They’ll see you performing.”

“Not like this.” My voice squeaks at the end, because he bends to flick my nipple with his tongue. Such a small gesture. Such a soft touch, but it feels sharp. A hundred knives couldn’t shock me more.

“No, you’d prefer to play the violin. Or would you? It’s an Amati they have in the music room. You wouldn’t know because you couldn’t even bring yourself to open the case.”

My cheeks warm. This man has seen me at my lowest. In an orphanage. Afraid. Alone. He’s never seen me unable to play the violin, though. Until now. “Alexander said I should do what I want.”

“Alexander wants to fuck you.”

I flinch at the crude words. Of course I’ve heard the word fuck before. You don’t grow up on a compound full of ex-military mercenaries without hearing your share of them. Liam doesn’t use them too often. Not around me, anyway. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know that, because every man in that ballroom wanted to fuck you. When you walked down the stairs, when you smiled at those old fuckers in tuxedos, they were thinking about how you’d look on your back, your legs spread wide for them.”

The words should be offensive. They are offensive, but a strange fever has taken hold of me. I find it exciting that so many men would want me. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it feels true. The dress has turned me into a siren. I’ve had admiration from grown men for my talent since I was a child. This is different. This is desire.

Liam bites down gently on my nipple, making me squirm. “I wouldn’t normally explain that, but it’s the same thing I thought about you.”

“Are you going to… you know?”

He smiles, though it’s not really with humor. It’s more like he’s mocking himself. “Am I going to fuck a young woman who can’t even bring herself to say the words? I wouldn’t have, but you don’t want me to feel guilt. You don’t want me to feel regret.”

He makes no move to lift my skirts or to open his pants. I’m standing in front of him like a sacrificial offering, my hands tied behind my back, my breasts bared, and all he does is touch. Each move is careful, pausing for… what? For me to say no? He thinks I’m going to give up. He thinks I’m going to cry off. God, he still thinks I’m going to leave. This whole thing is a challenge. Maybe I’m the one who issued it when I pretended to moan Alexander’s name. Anything less than completion won’t satisfy me now. Not only the kind he gave me by the ocean. He made me come but left himself unfinished. He left himself invulnerable.

“Does guilt own you that much?” I ask, taunting. “Does regret? You talk a good game.”