Pretty Liar (The Pretty Trilogy #2) Page 19

  He cuts off my soliloquy with his mouth, pushing his chair back and tearing mine out from under the table by its arm. Sinking to his knees, he kisses me like I’ve never been kissed, like he’d steal my soul from my mouth if he could. Drawing me to his chest, he presses his mouth against my ear.

  ‘I love you, Kate. You have my heart, my body, and my soul.’

  Tears strain at my lids as I place my hand against his face. ‘Took you long enough, you idiot.’

  His expression isn’t as I’d anticipated—I’d expected a smile, a laugh even. Serious still, he lays one hand on my shoulder, his gaze travelling my face.

  ‘But how I live, it’s so fucked up. Sofia, my father—they’re just the tip of the iceberg. You don’t deserve—’

  I lay a finger across his mouth, halting his words. ‘But you’ll take care for me.’

  Kissing it, he places my hand back against my knee before tilting my chin. ‘Then you’ll trust me, trust me to do so?’ I nod and his voice takes on a curious sort of edge. ‘And you’ll trust me to take care of you? You won’t hide who you are from yourself? From me?’ My stomach twists because I know exactly what he means. ‘Look at me.’ His fingers still hold me as my reluctance to face this claws at my chest. ‘Have faith in me, Kate. In all ways. Tell me you trust.’

  ‘I do.’ My voice sounds small and I don’t like it. Why is this so difficult to say? I take a deep breath and level my gaze on his. ‘I love you, Kai, and I’ll want you to take care of me that way.’ Then I frown. ‘Sometimes.’

  His expression is a mixture of mirth and relief. ‘And sometimes you’ll want to tear off my head?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I laugh a little, my shoulders relaxing. ‘Just ‘cos I might let you push me around in the bedroom doesn’t mean I’m going to allow you to run my life.’

  ‘This is a bit of a revelation.’

  ‘Yep. I’ve decided I’m not going to make you push me into the briar patch,’ I say cheerfully and with a small shrug.

  ‘I see.’ The corner of his mouth lifts. Obviously he thinks I’m bat-shit crazy.

  ‘And this is a fairly rational conversation, you have to admit. I think we can safely say I’m no longer totally freaked out.’

  ‘No, less freaked out, definitely,’ he says, still half-smiling. What is he up to?

  I feel a little exhilarated, like I’ve just come clean, my mouth taking on a life of its own, running ahead without the services of my brain. ‘I’ll admit to feelings I’m not familiar with, responses I’d thought were impossible, but I definitely am a bit kinky. God, I feel like celebrating!’ The words hit the air in a whoosh as Kai’s hands slip from my shoulders and travel to my leather bound wrists.

  ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’

  My cheeks heat immediately, just from his tone of voice.

  ‘How do you do that? Look at me—I’m back to being embarrassed just talking about it. I just don’t get how I can . . . can get off being embarrassed and . . . stuff. In the moment, you know?’

  He inhales deeply, letting the air out slowly and it’s almost as if the words curl sensuously from his mouth. ‘Desire, lust, possession. The forbidden, sensations, psychology. It’s all of those things, and more, for some.’

  ‘For you?’

  ‘I want to own you a little. Love you a lot.’ Something inside me ignites at his low-spoken words, the cadence of his voice even, his eyes without guile. ‘I want you to feel like I could snap your will over my knee like a twig, and for you to trust in that moment that I won’t.’

  He wants to push me to breaking point? My breath halts, the hairs on my neck rising as the implications of his words roll around my head. All—okay, probably most—of my brain function suggests I get out of here while my libido still envisions a different end.

  Still on his knees, Kai closes his eyes, bowing his head in my lap. I want to wrap my fingers in his hair, bring him to me after he’s laid himself bare, but I’m frozen, rendered powerless by fear.

  Suddenly, he pushes himself upright and resumes his seat. Leaving me.

  I long to have the words in my vocabulary, but I’m terrified of what all this could mean. Is it not enough to have the courage to trust someone to love you enough not to break your heart, without worrying for your own mental health? The depth of feeling I have for Kai tells me I should fear this. It’s not some abstract possibility.

  My mind is a riot of thoughts at his words: dominance, the forbidden, surrender. And I’m terrified, but not of Kai, not of the things he wants to do to me. But of myself; of the why and how I’ll allow him to do those things. For kicks.

  Back in his seat, his hand moves absently to the platter on the table, selecting a fig and passing it from hand to hand. The moon is reflected in the water of the pool, the light extending and highlighting his sculpted cheekbones, the graceful slope of his brow.

  But this isn’t about how beautiful he is, of how he makes me feel. This is about me, learning to be comfortable in my own skin. Learning to just be.

  This is part of the new Kate.

  Could I turn my back on her? On him? Could I return to living life as before?

  Before I’ve time to consider my answer, my heart speaks.

  ‘Kai, I do trust you. Please take care of me.’

  Twenty-Two

  He smiles then, and my heart swells with possibility. And resolve.

  ‘You want that?’ he asks, solemnly as his hand reaches out to cup my cheek.

  ‘I do,’ I whisper in response.

  ‘I can’t tell you what that means to me.’ His relief washes over me, cooling my skin. ‘I’d like to try something—now. Is that okay?’ He’s so lovely. And he loves me. And I love him. ‘Go into the dining room and wait for me there.’

  His words are quiet, but I’m not really listening. I’m too busy thinking about how he loves me. And I love him. And how we’re going to root like bunnies sometime real soon. And we’re going to go on holiday and probably never leave the hotel. And—

  ‘Don’t make me ask again.’

  Oh. Was that . . . a hint of command in his tone? ‘Dining—what, go now?’ When we’ve had such a lovely dinner? When I’m feeling all loved up?

  His head lifts slowly, his tone altering further. Lower, and with more force, he replies with an emphatic, ‘That’s correct.’

  I’m familiar with that tone. It’s the one that makes the tiny bundle of nerve endings housed in my knickers light up and dance like a loon. The same one responsible for this sudden, rising arousal, washing away the retort sat on the end of my tongue. I don’t know how this happens, or even why but I know I need Kai in my life. In my heart. And, right now, in the pulsing area between my thighs.

  I stand, pushing back my chair and silently head for the villa’s open doors, still not quite believing my feet are taking me there. Lost to the morass clouding my mind, the seductive forces of resistance and anticipation pound within as I step inside.

  The room has grown dark along with the evening, but soft light flickers against every surface as dozens of white candles light the room. Unsteady legs get me to the head of the table, ignoring the utilitarian benching running its length. I pull out the chair and perch against its edge, leaning back as I attempt to control my nerves. I’m tense. And turned on. I try to concentrate on the light cast by the candles, watching the small shadows dance against the walls. Music plays quietly in the background, Gotye, I think; soft words about messy hearts and consuming connections, as I wait. And wait.

  I can hear him in other rooms; sounds of movement, doing what I can’t guess. Sensations continue to layer and build inside; anticipation, apprehension and desire spin their heady best. Then it occurs to me that this might be the point, this waiting game, some kind of sadistic attention on his part. A prelude to an evening with Kai. One part apprehension, one part desire.

  I twist in the chair, bringing my legs from under the table. As I cross them at the knee, my thighs pressed together tightly. Is the action inadvert
ent or instinctual? A reaction to circumstances or a prelude?

  One shoe balances from the toes of my foot as I bounce it distractedly, like some kind of base metronome, when intuitively, I look up. My voyeur stands at the doorway, tie and jacket abandoned, a hand loosening the buttons at his collar. Pulling the shirt over his head, he surrenders it to the floor, standing on the threshold of this moment. The light from the hallway beyond accentuates the width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist as he begins to move.

  ‘My God, you’re beautiful.’ He murmurs this almost to himself as he reaches me, winding a wayward lock of my hair around his finger. I find I’m speechless, though not from his praise. It’s more like I daren’t open my mouth. I can’t trust what it might request, what it might beg for, as ferocious as I feel right now.

  ‘I’ve never felt like this.’ His gaze doesn’t move from the hair wound tightly around his finger. ‘It’s addictive, this need to see you before me, to know that the images I have in my head, the things I’ve planned, are about to be realised. You can’t know how that makes me feel.’ Releasing the now curled lock, he pauses to admire the indentations across his finger. ‘This symbiosis, this give . . . and take.’ Rubbing it now against the flesh of my lips, he feeds it into my mouth. I moan softly as the digit pushes inside, drawing it in further as I fellate—suck hard—craving him, staring into his cognac-coloured gaze. His retreating finger drags wetly against my lip before he pulls gently on my hand until I stand.

  Breath caresses my face, his hands loosening the belt from my waist, opening the clasps at my shoulders. The fabric scarce has time to fall before he grasps my waist, lifting me onto the table, and seating me at the edge.

  In the chair now, his hands rest against my thighs. Long, elegant fingers, caramel against the milk of my skin. He begins to stroke along the length, his movements almost rhythmic, teasing the very edge of the silk of my underwear. Time passes—seconds, minutes—his breath deep and even as he strokes my legs. His attentions are almost hypnotic, my breathing falling into a rhythm with his. I wonder what he’s thinking of, where his mind has wandered off to. This deep existential place I have no knowledge of.

  As his head rises with languor, voracious eyes eliminate my thoughts.

  ‘I love spending time with you.’ The corner of his mouth lifts with the hint of a smile. ‘The small moments. Your hand in mine, your wit and the way you pull that God awful face when you’ve done something ridiculous. But this I need.’ He inhales deeply, hands tightening on my skin. ‘These times, when I’m between your thighs. The slow and the easy, the hard and the rough.’ Grasping my hands, he lays them against my legs, his fingers resting against the leather of the cuffs. ‘Contorting your body and twisting your mind.’ Then his head rises, his gaze hitting mine hard and head on. ‘I like complicated, sweetheart, and complicated makes you come.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do, know you do. I need you to believe, and to trust me.’

  ‘I do.’

  Inhaling deeply, he pauses as though testing, or weighing, my response. Then, reaching behind him, he pulls something from the back pocket of his pants. Maybe the hardwiring of my brain has malfunctioned because what I see is some kind of small whip. A flogger? But my synapses can’t be firing correctly—an error in the transportation of signals? A molecular machinery breakdown?

  He lifts the thing between us and my heart sinks.

  ‘A . . . whip?’ I whisper the word as it bounces off the walls of my mind.

  ‘Fouet d’enfant,’ he replies softly.

  Balancing the weight across his open palm, it seems almost like an offering. Its gleaming silver handle lies across his palm, jet black tendrils falling benignly from the end, the soft leather echoing that against my arms. There’s no denying its elegance, even if it is absolutely intimidating. I reach out and touch the suede-like strands, and still shudder.

  ‘Wait,’ I whisper, holding up my hand. ‘A what d’enfant?’ I manage to mangle the pronunciation, shaking my head. ‘A child’s what?’

  He rolls his eyes, an incongruous moment to add to the bizarre around me right now. ‘A child’s whip,’—adding quickly—‘but no, not like that.’ Trailing the suede across my knee, he whispers, ‘Feel how soft.’

  And it is, but whips aren’t meant to tickle. They’re meant to punish. To hurt. I try not to imagine how it would feel used in force, almost able to see the muscles of his forearm flexing, my mind anticipating how an arm as strong as his could wield such a thing. And God help me, I’m turned on.

  ‘But punishment . . . I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘Enfant. Like a child. I’d like to play.’

  I swear my heart jumps, jarred by his words, his anomalous words hanging in the air, rude and uninvited, the word child as incongruous as the thing he holds in his hand.

  He moves suddenly, bringing the tails across my thigh with a deft backwards flick of his wrist. My eyes shoot wide with shock and I inhale sharply, instinctively, to deal with the pain. There’s a resounding thud, a delicious impact shooting straight to my clit, but no real sting.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I whisper, almost in awe, running my fingers against my slightly pinked thigh. Is it trepidation, or wonder, that weighs heavy in my tone?

  He smiles then, all teeth and wolf and I realise I’ve already acquiesced.

  Dropping the thing against the table, it clatters and bounces against the wood as he pulls me into his arms. Hard kisses cover my mouth, his hands holding me possessively against him. His kiss deepens, our tongues sliding in synchrony, his hand spanning the back of my neck where he holds me, cradling me firmly as we kiss.

  I’m hot, heated all over by this need, by his embrace. And I’m excited, just a touch of panic tainting the edge. Kai’s hands slip to my shoulders as he rests his frame against mine, the momentum of his body pushing me back against the wood.

  ‘Duet, not duel,’ he whispers hotly before he stands.

  Lying flat against the surface, I watch the low light flickering across his face, picking out the fire and amber in his eyes, casting the rest into shade.

  He looks fiendish. And capable of just about anything.

  ‘Arms at the top of the table,’ he murmurs. ‘I’m going to tie you now.’

  My heart thuds once in my ears. I have no verbal response, only physical. My body trembles as though in shock, while between my legs comes a slick, throbbing need. I oblige almost immediately, raising and stretching my arms. I do so instinctively, almost outside of myself, the moment abstract, dangerous and erotic. And it feels different somehow, different than the chair or the scarves on my bed. Maybe it’s the intricate leather encasing my arms, like a collar or a bind.

  Or maybe it’s the whip.

  But the implication is clear; I’m giving myself to him, and it’s large, this leap of faith, larger than anything that has come before. I’m allowing him to bind me. I’m submitting. I feel strangely rational and hedonistically terrified. God, I should’ve drunk more wine.

  He walks around the table, towards my head. ‘Move closer to this end,’ he instructs in a low tone.

  I shimmy up the table as he takes my leather bound wrists in his hands. Flicking the leather at the inner wrist reveals a small, silver D-ring sewn into the side. I twist my head but can’t quite see as I hear the tiniest of clicks. Metal clips to metal before he lays my contrivance-bound wrists down.

  ‘How does that feel?’ The words are almost solicitously murmured from behind my head.

  My hands lie in his against opposite corners of the table. I stifle the giggle building in my throat, a reaction to my sense of the bizarre. How does it feel being tied to a table?

  ‘Fine. Really, I feel fine.’ My tone is so bland we could be talking about the weather.

  ‘I think you can do better than that.’ Kai’s tone requires that I do better than that.

  ‘It’s okay. Not uncomfortable,’ I counter, chast
ised.

  He lifts my head, sliding a cushion underneath. ‘Discomfort is the last thing I have in mind for you.’ Sarcasm, maybe? That’s not like him. Nonetheless, the cushion is a welcome addition.

  He kisses my forehead before walking to the opposite end of the table, taking my ankles in his hands, he pulls. The skin of my upper back drags against the wood and I gasp as it burns.

  ‘This, kitten, is a bit of a pervertable.’ He makes no mention of my intake of breath, his hand falling to my shoe covered foot.

  I glare down the length of my body at him, offended that he hasn’t offered any kind of concern. ‘A pervert-table?’ My tone is resentful, but I’m not really sure I heard him right. I’m too busy being pissed off that he hasn’t asked if it hurt.

  He laughs darkly. ‘That smart mouth will get you into trouble. I could find something to fill it, if you like?’ I shake my head quickly. ‘To pervert,’ he continues quietly, ‘to move away from what is right or proper. To put to incorrect use.’ He taps the table to emphasize the point, the cadence of his voice lowering. ‘To use for other than the nature for which it was intended.’ Lifting a foot, he draws his finger along the point of my heel. ‘Convention to fuck.’ He bends to the bench pushed under the table. ‘This, however, is not a pervertable.’

  In his closed fist, he grasps a bar; fairly innocuous, maybe a foot or so in length. Not so innocuous are the two leather cuffs dangling from each end, silver coloured buckles gleaming in the light.

  I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but I know in an instant what it is. Maybe not a pervertable, but definitely perverse. I feel a sudden inexplicable flare in the pit of my gut.

  ‘Designed as intended,’ he drawls, balancing the bar across his palm. ‘Have I your attention now?’ I shake my head, not willing to give him the satisfaction when he laughs softly. ‘Sweetheart, you can’t deny it. It’s written in the colour of your face.’

  Bending forward, he draws my underwear down my legs, and removing my shoes, swiftly fastens a cuff to my held ankle, lowering it to the table with care. Repeating his actions, he widens the space between my legs.