Anthology - Behind the Mask Read online

  Big talk, Savannah. And every word he’s just spoken has made you even wetter between your legs. Had she lost her mind? What was the matter with her? And why did it bother her so much that he was offering a stock incentive? Was she seriously entertaining an ego in this outlandish situation?

  Tennyson Rule Six: The body and heart do what they please, but it is the mind’s choice to follow. So basically, it didn’t matter if her body was responding or not, her outrage could still be intact. Of course, she was aware that her attempt to use the rules of a lifetime to keep her head on straight was faltering miserably.

  “She’s very special.” His voice softened to a purr. “Don’t frighten her. Show her what it is to be desired and loved by more than one man, gentlemen. Take her beyond her wildest notions of desire. She’s waited a long time, and she deserves to have it done right.”

  Something within her trembled hard at the words, especially when his hand tightened on her hair, reminding her that he was convinced she belonged to him, then the grip loosened and he stroked his knuckles down the inside of her shoulder blade, a sensation she hadn’t thought could be so incredibly intimate. “She’s never felt a man’s all-consuming passion, so strong he’d kill just to be inside of her. This is the deal of a lifetime, gentlemen.” He paused for a significant moment. “Don’t let me down.”

  Then his touch left her and he walked away. She heard him, strained her ears to figure out where he was going, suddenly panicked at the idea that he was leaving the room altogether. Instead, she heard him move to the head of the table, take out his chair. A moment later, another man’s hands touched her.

  It made sense it would be Lucas, his CFO. Every breath in this room was like taking in the primal odor of a wolf’s den, and in a pack, dinner was served in pecking order.

  Savannah could barely breathe around the gag in her mouth. She had gone from active trembling to a vibration that kept her shivering as if from a flu, and it grew even more intense as Lucas touched her.

  It wasn’t that any of these men were strangers. It was just that Matt had always dominated her fantasies. In this situation, Lucas was an unknown quantity, the equivalent to a stranger emotionally.

  She knew it was Lucas, for several reasons. One was that scent. Lucas wore a light cologne fragrance that reminded her fantastically enough of Egyptian pharaohs. The heat of the desert, the power of kings. The kohl used to outline piercing eyes, aristocratic brows. Bodies inviting touch in their light robes, cuffs of beaten gold emphasizing powerful wrists and muscular biceps.

  She could visual him in reality well enough, but the image that came to mind was not of him in this conference room, in office clothing. Lucas was as tall as Matt, with a lean, athletic build developed from his primary extracurricular activity, cross-country bicycling. The pale gold of his hair spoke of the many hours out in the sun. He biked to work, a ten-mile trek, and one hot summer day she’d pulled into the parking deck for an early morning meeting at Kensington in time to see him parking the bike. He’d removed the helmet, and the hair that was a little long, just past his ears, had been casually pushed back, blond mixed with dark streaks from perspiration. He stripped off the short-sleeved skin-tight cycling shirt and started toweling off. She knew from casual inferences that he kept his change of office clothes in the building, but she had not known he performed this drying ritual first.

  She’d sat in the front seat of her car, two rows away in the shadows, ready to duck her head as if searching through her briefcase if he looked up and caught her watching, because she could not keep herself from her inexcusable ogling. Something about watching all the sculpted muscles of that body move in the simple act of removing sweat held her motionless, her body pulsing with a rhythm that she wanted to ignore. The rhythm of wanting.

  Two ladies from his office had passed by, one whistling and both engaging in some flirtatious banter with him. He’d grinned, held his shirt in front of him in mock horror as if protecting his modesty. She’d heard the other wunderkind ribbing him about the fact he shaved all his body hair. She liked the dark hair that curled at the base of Matt’s throat, intimating a nice pelt beneath his ironed shirts. However, watching Lucas towel off that smooth golden skin made her realize that women didn’t have to have just one preference. Just like chocolate, there were many favorites to appreciate.

  Savannah had wished she’d been settled enough to get out of her car, walk past him, make some friendly remark as they did, but all she’d thought of was how warm that skin would feel under her touch, what it would be like to be touched by those hands…

  Well, she was about to find out.

  Those strong, gentle hands were stroking her ass, lingering touches that told her he was examining her in detail from that angle. The pulse that had been jerking in her throat from trepidation settled uneasily back into the rapid cadence of arousal, the conflicting emotions keeping her body vacillating between need and nerves.

  “She smells exquisite,” Lucas observed. His finger traced up the back of her thigh, to the inside, and her muscles clenched, straining against the cuffs that made closing her legs impossible. “You’ve already made her pussy wet, Matt.” Male amusement entered his voice, teasing his boss. “Or maybe we’re responsible for that. I think I’d like a taste.”

  She felt his body shift, his warm breath slide down her spine. It filtered between the clench of her buttocks, the moist heat of his mouth coming closer, closer. A moment later, his warm, firm lips closed over her clit, his hair tickling the inside of her thighs. Her head jerked against the restraint, her eyes widening at the sensation. A moan came around the ball gag, and she’d not told her vocal cords to make any such noise.

  “Lick her slow and easy, Lucas. She’s never had a man do this to her. Let her find out how hard she’ll come under a lover’s slow touch.” Matt’s voice.

  “Screw the five percent,” Lucas murmured against her skin, making her shudder. “I’d rather eat this pussy as long as I want. She’s sweet, like honey.”

  His mouth lifted away and she could almost sense how his nostrils flared as he took a deeper breath, for she felt the shift of the rhythm of breath inside her thighs. She made a quiet whimper, a plea. Though she didn’t know for what.

  “Do you know how much my men care for you, Savannah?” Matt asked, his voice a calming stroke of reassurance. “After the negotiations we’ve had, the long hours we’ve spent here, sometimes until the morning sun struck the office windows? We know you’ve felt the synergy among all of us.”

  “It was something you did one night that made us start thinking of this.” Lucas picked up the thread from Matt. “At about two in the morning, long after we’d all shed our coats, loosened our ties, you got up, unbuttoned the one button of the pale green jacket you were wearing, and slipped out of it. Laid it with perfect precision over the chair. Every movement elegant, ladylike. But then, you put your hand to the small of your back, kneaded it, stretched it. You raised your other hand and let down your hair. Not a calculated move at all. You just pulled the clip free, ran your fingers through it to ease the pull on your scalp, kept up that kneading on your back. You rolled your shoulders, turned and came back to the table. You had no clue how riveted we all were, as aroused as if you’d just stripped. The human woman inside the inhuman armor revealed. An armor you’ve created solely from the core of strength inside yourself.”

  Stop it, she wanted to say, though she knew he wouldn’t listen, would never obey her commands the way her body was obeying the stimulation of his words.

  “On our playing field, you’re a knight who obeys the same code of honor we do.” Matt spoke now. “We’ve worked together five years, our two companies, and in the past two years, since your father died, we’ve worked even more closely together. Every man has grown to care for you, desires to protect you. Desires you, period. When we were talking about it early that morning, Lucas made the comment that, somewhere along the way, we’d decided you were ours.”

  “Like a siste
r, but definitely not.” Now there was a smile in Lucas’s voice, and she heard a chuckle from the others, those who’d yet to approach her, but if Matt’s words were heeded, would be doing so soon.

  “This is hard to explain, complicated,” Matt said. “But we suspect you don’t really have to hear the words, because your body already knows the truth, and your heart is close behind.”

  It was as if they knew she had a desperate need for a rational explanation of what was happening to her, but the explanation they were giving her was not the one she needed to keep her insides from breaking up into pieces.

  “You always come alone to us.” Matt observed softly. “You don’t want to share us. We think you consider us yours as well.”

  Lucas’s breath hovered just above her hips, making her lower belly clench with need. “That may be true, but there’s only one of us she’ll let all the way into her soul. There’s only one of us she’s in love with. And we all know it.”

  His thumb followed the valley of her spine, and he wouldn’t stop telling her things her mind couldn’t digest, a combination of disorienting sensations. “I wanted to lay you down on the sofa that night,” Lucas said, his voice a rumbling purr. “Rub your back, your shoulders, until the tension went out of them, until my touch put you to sleep. I imagined you’d look like a princess lying there, your fist tucked up under your chin, your golden curls falling around your face. When you finally slept, your legs would draw up, and you’d turn on your side. There would be a gleam of dim light on your stockings, and I’d reach up under the skirt…” His hand slid down her flank, over her buttock, to the top of the thigh-high. “…and ease them off, for your comfort.”

  His hands did just that, his fingers insinuating themselves under the lace top of the left stocking, taking it down the contours of her thigh, the back of her knee, working it gently past the hold of the cuffs at thigh and ankle. The nylon whispered over the sole of her foot. He removed the other the same way, with painstaking, breathtaking slowness. Then, barrier gone, Lucas set his lips to her calf.

  She had brashly told Matt she’d have sex with him. But this wasn’t sex. This was seduction. Matt had locked her into some strange dream. She was beyond wondering whether he really would release her if she asked him to do so. All she knew was the slow rub and heat of Lucas’s mouth on her calf. Oh God, the back of her knee. Nibbling kisses, each one like a tiny massage, arousing sensual response and emotional pain that held her in a strangling grip. Tears were moving down her face, and she didn’t know why, couldn’t stop them, and she hoped the mask would absorb them so the men wouldn’t see them roll beyond it, down her chin.

  Lucas’s large, fine-boned hand was on her other thigh. He slid his hands into the cuffs holding her spread open and made an adjustment that spread her even further apart, so she choked around the gag at the sensation of increased vulnerability. His hair brushed her leg, that soft, straight hair.

  “What do you put here?” He tilted his head, just the tip of his nose brushing that sensitive pocket of bone formed between the juncture of her thigh and her pussy. The heat of his breath tickled the fine hairs of her mound, and arousal made her feel as if there were a shimmer of electrons on her skin. The room became warmer, it seemed. “It smells like baby powder, Matt,” he said quietly. “Like she trims her pussy with a razor and soothes her skin with baby powder. And some lavender here. Maybe lotion. I love the way women put different fragrances on themselves.” He rubbed his nose against her clit deliberately, shooting sparks of sensation straight into her womb. His mouth was so close, so close to her. She’d never had a man…do that to her, but she’d watched the movie The Big Easy on one of her “off” nights. Savannah remembered Ellen Barkin’s sensuous expressions in the scene that implied Dennis Quaid’s Cajun character was doing what Lucas’ proximity suggested. She’d sat, still and motionless in the study, her pillow hugged up to her body, wondering if the scene accurately reflected what a man’s skillful mouth could do between a woman’s thighs.

  “Like a flower garden,” he said dreamily. “Something different every time you inhale.”

  Without warning or hesitation, he put his mouth fully over her, his tongue delving deep within her. She surged forward, shocked by the heat of his lips and tongue, but of course with the bindings, she could go nowhere.

  She could see nothing, and she found she wanted the anchor of Matt’s eyes, something to focus her, his reaction to Lucas’s servicing her with his mouth. Something that would help her keep resistance and basic lust to the forefront, but with her ability to speak removed, her eyes blinded by the mask, she could only face the reality of Lucas’s miraculous mouth and what it was unleashing within her.

  He sucked on her clit, made appreciative, wet noises against her, and her hips responded, lifting and rising the infinitesimal amount permitted by the restraints, creating glorious friction, and she strengthened her efforts, following instinct to drive it to a pinnacle.

  “None of that now.” It was Matt’s voice, Matt’s hand now on her back. A more erotic stimulation she couldn’t have anticipated, to have one man’s mouth between her legs and another’s hands upon her. He did something with the waist strap and suddenly Lucas adjusted his position. Motors hummed, and her knees left the table fully, perhaps a couple inches, so she couldn’t move in a rhythm, only sit, helplessly squirming and gasping against the gag as Lucas’s mouth returned, his tongue delving deep within her pussy again, thrusting, rolling her clit, licking.

  “I can smell her, now,” Jon spoke from the end of the table.

  “Same here.” Peter responded directly in front of her. “She’s got a sweet pussy, just as you said, Lucas.”

  “I want her to come, Matt,” Lucas said, lifting his mouth from her just a fraction.

  She shook her head. No. No… But hadn’t she just wanted that? But no, not like this, not when everything was up to them.

  “I think she’s refusing you, Lucas.” Matt’s cool voice came from the end of the table again. “Make her come in the next two minutes. Despite her best attempts to resist. Mouth only.”

  “Done,” Lucas said softly, and moved in to close the deal.

  She expected him to redouble his physical effort, had tensed and braced herself against it, and so was surprised when there was a pause, the noise of wheels. He’d taken a seat in a chair, pulled it up between her legs. The fine hair over his temples brushed the inside of her thighs as he moved in close again.

  “You know…” He administered a tiny lick on her clit that made her shudder. “Eating pussy is my very favorite thing to do with a woman. I love the smell, the taste, the feel of her thighs as she sits on my face. I love squeezing her ass in my hands as I shove her hard against me, taking away her choice, pushing her into that pleasurable abyss. I love to listen to her scream as she falls. I love knowing when she falls to the bottom, it will be my arms there to catch her. We’ll be here to catch you,” he whispered huskily. “All of us. Stop being so afraid. Don’t you know how much you mean to Matt, to all of us?”

  She made a noise of forceful and furious protest against the gag.

  “Didn’t sound flattering, Lucas.” Ben spoke this time.

  “One minute,” Jon warned.

  “More than I need, though nowhere close to how much I want.”

  Lucas put his mouth over her clit, sucking her back into the heat and wet. He began to lick her, strong, sure strokes, not too fast, pushing up against the volatile area, starting at the bottom, pushing up on it again, scoring her lightly with his teeth. That bite and push again, as if pressuring that tight bud of flesh was like nudging a switch.

  Things were happening inside her, things that defied description. A spiral of reaction that had strings drawing taut everywhere, her whole body starting to hold itself tight as if in some form of self-imposed paralysis. Her breath darted in and out through her nose, her teeth sinking into the ball. Something gathered, gathered, just out of reach. No, she couldn’t reach for it…couldn’t stop
herself from lunging for it…

  “Come for him, Savannah.” Matt snapped out the order. “Now. At my command.”

  The orgasm exploded from somewhere between Lucas’s mouth and her pussy and erupted through her. Going over that pinnacle, her brain reversed its will. Instead of freezing her in place, now she was wriggling gracelessly, helplessly. In her suspended restraints, screaming against the gag, she made words that could only be heard in her own mind, shocking her.

  Touch me…touch me… Never stop.

  She wanted Matt. But he could not hear her wish with the gag, and what little mind she continued to control told her to be glad.

  It wasn’t just about the battle of wills. If she threw open the door to her heart, he could deny her. Leave her with her wishes echoing against the walls, empty and desolate, like a house where everything was gone, leaving only the harsh regret of memory. Like a child being told that little girls who ran to their Daddy to get hugs wouldn’t amount to anything except a takeover acquisition for some man.

  She felt suddenly like the men in the room were all weapons turned against her, the sword of Eden, turning in every direction, shining upon her weakness, her every shortcoming.

  With so little sexual experience, she didn’t know if this was normal, this flood of overpowering emotions that made her feel completely adrift on an unfamiliar ocean. Flailing, she tried to pull herself out of that darkness, onto the far more rational thought that this was similar to eating too much chocolate, or taking one too many Valium to help her sleep. Those things made her body no longer in her control, subject to macabre dreams or frenetic nervous energy she could not rein in. It was a physical, chemical reaction. It said nothing about herself, who she was or what she truly wanted.

  Lucas kept his nose and mouth pressed hard against her pussy, continuing to eat her out. Running his tongue over her clit, he dipped into the well between her legs, making a noise of pleasure at the taste of her come on those sensuous lips. His hair brushed her thighs, the planes of his face touching her as he continued the soft nibbles through the hard aftershocks. She bleated at each touch like a lost sheep, a sheep who in this moment had no doubt who the shepherd was who held her fate. She wanted to see Matt with the fervor of a dying wish, and her hand clutched into fists to keep from dropping that kerchief, from begging with her body what her mouth was thankfully prevented from saying.