MidnightInk-epub Page 13

  Jacques turned as if reading her mind and retrieved the camera, flipping a switch. He brought it to her and knelt next to the couch, turning the screen so she could see the images.

  Set against the white background, her skin complemented his darker tones. The top of the frame cut off at her shoulders, and in a few of the images, her chin dipped into view. But never her face. They weren’t perfectly in focus, and not all of them were on center, but they captured a moment when nothing more powerful than the love of a man bound her in pictures.

  “How? When did you set this up?” she asked, taking the camera and flipping through the shots herself.

  “Earlier today.” He kissed her shoulder and traced circles on her thigh.

  She handed the camera back to him and shook her head. There were no words.

  “I missed you,” Odalia said after a moment.

  “Mouton was very specific about giving you space.”

  “And when did you start listening to cops?” She chuckled. Of course he was. Mathieu was the only thing close to family she had.

  “Never. I just took some time to consider his suggestions.” He sat on the couch next to her.

  It was a pity she had both an injury and a new tattoo, but those were only on her legs.

  Odalia twisted, throwing one leg over his to straddle Jacques’ lap. The sound of the dungeon music rose, signaling the evening was in full swing and their time in the private boudoir was ticking down. All the private rooms had limits on how long they could be reserved for.

  “We should commemorate this, don’t you think?” She slid her palms up and down his chest.

  “My collar isn’t good enough for you?” He slipped his fingers under the leather and gave it a tug.

  “It’s plenty good, Sir, but it’s you I want.”

  Jacques regarded her for a moment, gaze heavy lidded. “Move.”

  She shifted so he could stand.

  “On your knees. Hands on the back of the couch.”

  Odalia obeyed but couldn’t resist a glance over her shoulder. Jacques pulled his play bag out from under a table and removed not one but two floggers. She grinned, liking where this was going.

  Play connected them, but it also released endorphins into her system that were natural painkillers and muscle relaxers, and even relieved migraines.

  He swung the two leather floggers, following a figure-eight pattern.

  She was going to like this.

  Odalia pulled her hair over her shoulder and braced herself on the back of the couch. She heard the leather whistle through the air, the pitch rising as he increased the speed. Her breath stuttered in her chest, and she dug her nails in, ready for the first lick.

  The sound stopped suddenly.

  Leather fell down her back, and she jumped, startled. She chuckled and let her head drop forward, surrendering herself to his ministrations. He was her Dominant now. Hers. And no one else’s.

  The leather gently slapped her bottom, and another swing went between her legs. She gasped and squirmed, clenching her muscles. Whistling again and smack! She grunted at the first true blow across her shoulders, followed in quick succession by more. The flogging was by no means as hard as the first he’d given her, but the idea of submitting to him, being under his control, gave tonight a sense of completion. This was right.

  Each lick of the leather on her skin brought the blood closer to the surface, heating her skin and releasing endorphins into her body. She yelped when he wrapped the tails around her side, tickling her breasts.

  “Don’t move.” He laughed and wrapped on the other side.

  Odalia squirmed in place.

  Jacques cracked his hand across her ass.

  “I said don’t move,” he taunted, amusement lacing his voice.

  He rubbed her bottom and up her back. She arched like a cat, luxuriating in his touch. He kissed a line down her spine. She heard the rustling of plastic and the unmistakable sound of latex on skin.

  Odalia bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. Jacques knelt behind her on the ground, his hands on her hips, and brushed a kiss over an angry red mark. Her heart fluttered. His gaze locked with hers, and no words needed to be spoken.

  They’d reached a level Odalia had never attained before. With anyone. Their souls felt laced together on an elemental level. When his heart beat, so did hers.

  Jacques stood and leaned over her, planting one hand on the couch while the other grasped her hair. She had a sneaking suspicion the man harbored a hair fetish, but she wouldn’t hold it against him. Unless he asked her to.

  She smiled and bent at his urging, offering her mouth for a kiss that was sweet.

  The feel of his cock against her quickened her pulse. She dug her fingers into the cushions and sighed as he thrust. Almost two days was too long to wait.

  She lowered to her elbows, resting her face against the cushions, and pushed her hips back to meet him. They groaned as one.

  “Better every fucking time,” he rumbled.

  “Mmm hmm.” Words were beyond her. The world was sounds, smells, colors and emotions.

  Jacques thrust hard, rocking her forward into the couch. His hand on her hair remained firm without jerking. Each slide of his flesh against hers sent shudders of pleasure coursing through her body. She moaned, working with him, setting up a steady, driving rhythm.

  He gripped her hip tight enough that she might even be left with bruises, but she loved every second of it, especially how this thing between them drove him as crazy as it did her.

  “Oh, God,” she muttered and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Odalia’s body rushed toward the edge, and there was no holding her back. Jacques thrust harder, and she shot over the edge, the euphoria coiling and coalescing around her, as if she were in a free fall. Jacques went still behind her, groaning as he joined her in bliss.

  She sucked in deep lungfuls of air and slumped against the couch, completely spent and boneless.

  Jacques eased out of her and helped her to lie down while he cleaned them both up. She smiled as he discarded wet wipes in the garbage across the room. He could make tea, beat her ass and deliver orgasms that curled her toes.

  “What’s that smile for?” He grabbed a blanket from his bag and wrapped them up in it, her head cradled on his chest.

  “I’m happy,” she said.

  “I’m glad.” He kissed her forehead. “Happy New Year.”

  “Laissez les bons,” she kissed his cheek, “temps rouler.”

  “Why don’t we go to your place and watch the countdown with Creature?” Jacques suggested.

  Her heart swelled twice as big. She added liking her dog to the list and grinned.

  Yes, it was going to be a very good beginning to a new year.

  About Sidney Bristol

  It can never be said that Sidney Bristol has had a ‘normal’ life. She is a recovering roller derby queen, former missionary, and tattoo addict. She grew up in a motor-home on the US highways (with an occasional jaunt into Canada and Mexico), traveling the rodeo circuit with her parents. Sidney has lived abroad in both Russia and Thailand, working with children and teenagers. She now lives in Texas where she splits her time between a job she loves, writing, reading and belly dancing.

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  Not So Over Eli

  Copyright 2013 Robin L. Rotham

  Cover Art by Scott Carpenter

  Chapter One

  “You look too damn pretty to go poking holes in, ma cherie amour.”

  Bart’s throaty rumble against her neck made Rhonda shiver. Between her nerves, the fake fingernails, and the sight of a sexy man molesting her in the hotel mirror, she was having a hell of a time getting her delicate silver necklace fastened. What was she thinking when she asked for acr
ylic nails yesterday? She had to be back on shift in less than a week and there was no place for long nails in a fire station.

  “I love you too, honey,” she said with a wry grin, “but could you please lay off the Stevie Wonder while we’re in New Orleans? Someone might take offense at your accent and I’ll have a hard time defending you in these heels.”

  Bart slapped her ass and she jumped. “Better watch out, little girl, or you’re not getting laid tonight.”

  She snorted. “Like you’d punish yourself that way.”

  Finally closing the tiny clasp, she turned and twined her arms around his big, strong firefighter’s neck, smirking into his heavy-lidded blue eyes. In her four-inch heels, she was nearly as tall as Bart and all the fun parts lined up perfectly.

  “You know me too well,” he murmured before he pressed his lips to hers. He kissed her as if this were their last time together, investigating her mouth with a little more urgency than usual and taking her breath away when he scraped her tongue between his teeth.

  Very much afraid this might actually be their last time together, Rhonda let him get away with the delaying tactic, inhaling his sweet, heavy breaths and clutching at his neatly combed blond hair. When his hands slid down from her waist to the hem of her black leather skirt, she squirmed to help him tug it up over her hips. He cupped her bare ass cheeks with his big, hard palms, squeezing them roughly, grinding her hips against his, and she moaned as she flattened herself against him. Though they’d made love this morning, before their flight from Chicago, she could feel the hardness of his cock through his slacks and her panties, and she wanted him inside her. Now.

  “Bart,” she whispered against his lips.

  In reply, he backed up to the tall king-size bed, pulling her with him. Breaking away from her mouth, he sat on the cushy mattress and shoved her top up over her breasts so he could rub his face against her belly. When he licked a trail of sleek, wet heat around her navel, her breath hitched and she moaned again.

  “God, Bart!”

  “You sure you want a piercing here, babe?” he asked before drawing another circle just inside the rim with his tongue. “It’s pretty sensitive, and a piercing’s a lot different than a tat.”

  “I’m sure,” she gasped.

  Her tummy was really sensitive, especially around her navel, but she’d never liked it—no matter how often or how hard she worked out, she could never get rid of that soft, rounded look. Bart said it was sexy and feminine, but for a girl who’d always wanted flat, rock-hard abs like her brothers’, it was a source of endless discontent. She’d finally made up her mind that if she couldn’t have abs of granite, she might as well play up the feminine angle with jewelry. What better time and place to do it than the holidays in New Orleans?

  And if the piercer she’d made an appointment with just happened to be her fiancé’s old flame and the only man he’d ever been attracted to…?

  Well, then they’d find out if Bart really was as over Elijah Bell as he claimed.

  Still tonguing her navel, he slipped his fingers between her thighs and under her black lace thong, skimming them gently over the already-slick swells of her outer lips.

  Rhonda shifted anxiously, spreading her feet a little further as he continued to tantalize her with light brushes of his fingertips. “Hurry up.”

  The tickly puff of air from Bart’s chuckle made her stomach muscles twitch.

  “So impatient,” he chided, grinning up at her. “You’re in the Big Easy, Ronnie. Relax and enjoy.”

  “I’m trying, but you’re making it really hard.”

  It was Bart’s turn to snort. “Baby, you made it hard before I even sat down here, so you can suffer a little, too, while I play with my favorite pussy.”

  She smiled. They’d only been in Louisiana a few hours and already Bart was starting to sound like a native. Hard to believe he’d spent less than two years here in college. He must really have an ear for accents.

  Ogre that he was, he did make her suffer through long, breathless moments of suspense before he finally worked his fingertips in enough to graze her clit, which throbbed with every beat of her heart. Her legs trembled, and she locked her knees, grasping his shoulders to stay upright.

  Swallowing hard, she whispered, “Please.”

  Normally she wouldn’t cave this soon but she was already wound too tight to endure even a hint of edging.

  “I should leave you like this, little schemer,” Bart growled, setting her clit on fire with a scrape of his fingernail.

  “No!” she whimpered, leaning into him in desperate demand.

  He nipped the upper edge of her navel, where she intended to get it pierced. “It’s what you deserve.”

  “I know, but please don’t. I can’t take it tonight.”

  “There are plenty of reputable piercers in Chicago, too,” he said in a seductive tone. “We could forget dinner and a piercing and stay in, do nothing but wreck this bed and order room service for the next four days.”

  Rhonda’s breath caught at the imagery and she squeezed her eyes shut, unbearably tempted. God, she loved him so much, and it would be so easy to do what he wanted and just pretend Eli Bell never existed. She wanted nothing more than to be Bart’s wife, his one and only love.

  But Eli did exist, and he was a) Bart’s former lover, b) sex on a stick and c) just a few blocks away at this very moment. Bart had told her about him not long after he proposed back in April, claiming she deserved to know he’d been with a man before she married him.

  His tight-jawed confession had left Rhonda speechless. She’d always known Bart Rigger—Tank, to his high school friends—was far more complex than the swaggering, flirty, former-jock image he projected, and though he’d settled down a lot in the last couple of years, there was still something edgy about him, something lurking just beneath that rough-and-tumble surface that she hadn’t managed to draw out yet. But never once had she suspected Bart might be anything but hetero. She couldn’t have been more surprised if one of her testosterone-fueled brothers had outed himself on the Soldier Field Jumbotron.

  Fascinated and a little worried, she’d listened quietly as he told her it had happened during his second year at LSU in Baton Rouge, when he was sharing an apartment with Eli’s older brother Josh. Eli had come to live with them after Hurricane Katrina closed down the University of New Orleans, where he was an engineering student, and they “fooled around” until Bart realized he could never be what Eli wanted. At the end of the year, Bart had transferred to the University of Illinois and they hadn’t had any contact since. That was it. End of story.

  Except it was obvious to Rhonda that it wasn’t the end of the story. The timing of his confession, right on the heels of his proposal, was a dead giveaway. Bart wouldn’t have brought it up almost ten years later if he weren’t still conflicted about it. She’d tried to get him to tell her more, like what Eli wanted him to be and exactly what “fooling around” entailed, but he’d refused to elaborate beyond “something I couldn’t be” and “we used condoms”.

  Whether Bart consciously realized it or not, there was unfinished business between the two of them, and the guilty evasion in his eyes every time she mentioned Eli’s name only reinforced her conviction. The fact that he was still trying to get out of seeing Eli pretty much clinched it for her, but she had to see them together to know for sure. If Bart had unresolved feelings for the man, well then…

  Rhonda sighed. She was taking a huge gamble by throwing them together again, but there was no way she could marry him with that hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles. Whatever was left between Bart and Eli needed to be settled, once and for all.

  But she wasn’t giving him up without playing every last card she had.

  Opening her eyes, she swept her hands back through his hair and leaned down to kiss him. Then she stepped out of his embrace.

  “We’re going out,” she said firmly as she straightened her clothes.

  They could both suf
fer tonight.

  ***

  Two hours later, they left the cozy little restaurant and strolled down Canal Street, holding each other’s hands. The well-lit sidewalk still glistened from the thundershower that had passed through a half hour earlier, and the damp evening breeze was redolent with rain, Cajun spices, cigarette smoke, and a sour hint of something Bart didn’t want to examine too closely with his stomach in such an uproar. Every once in a while lightning flickered in the distance, silhouetting the area’s taller buildings and the fluttering fronds of palm trees.

  As they passed a bar, a crowd of laughing patrons spilled out, accompanied by the wail of bluesy jazz. Bart pulled Rhonda out of the way as the group headed into the middle of the street to board an approaching streetcar. The central business district was more crowded than he would have expected at this hour. But of course it was the holiday season, and at least everyone was in a jubilant mood despite the uncertain weather.

  Everyone except them.

  Their intimate dinner for two had been quiet, and he’d had to force himself to finish his alligator sausage jambalaya. If he hadn’t, Rhonda would have been all over him, grilling him about Eli again. The woman had a nose for his personal demons, and once she caught a whiff of one, she went after it with more tenacity than a hound after a fox.

  He had to admit both her nose and her tenaciousness had worked in his favor so far. Because of Rhonda’s support and encouragement, he finally had the career he really wanted. When they met, he was working at his father’s investment company in downtown Chicago, which was about as exciting as a near-beer and nowhere near as fulfilling. Now he was a firefighter and a paramedic, like her, and he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It was what he was meant for.

  But seeing Eli again…

  He shuddered. Dammit, why hadn’t he just let that sleeping dog lie? Their…thing—fling, experiment, whatever you wanted to call it—ended years before he ever met Rhonda, and it wasn’t like he was afraid he’d give her some disease because of it. They’d both gotten tested when he moved in with her so they could dispense with the condoms. And right now he was happier and more at ease—more himself—than he’d ever been in his life. If Eli’s memory cast a shadow on his contentment every once in a while, that was just life, right? Everyone had broken relationships in their pasts, regrets and things they wished they’d done differently, but there was no changing what was done—you just had to accept it and move on.