Page 35 of Renegade Queen

‘Try something different. Lie back. Let me do the work.’

Let me do the work. What a blissfully calming concept.

Immediately she felt the worst of her tension dissolve and she knew that, if he let go of her wrists, she would keep them there. No need for pinning any more.

‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll try.’

‘Good girl.’

The words made her bristle as much as they melted her. When had anyone called her a good girl, since her parents, years ago? If anyone had dared they would have been blasted out of her presence with a whole circus of fleas in their ear.

But when Leonardo said it, that was different.

He released her wrists and lowered himself gently to her face, kissing it all over, from her hairline to her jawbone, then moving down to her throat. The kisses were soft, butterfly rain, gentle teases. She almost wanted to snap at him to get on with it, but she stopped herself. She was going to let him do the work.

When he pushed his tongue, slowly and luxuriously, into her mouth, it was worth the wait. A moan filled the empty spaces between their oral duellists and she raised her spine, without knowing she was doing it, inviting him further in.

He pushed his hips down, keeping her in position – an unspoken rebuke. His tongue made its mastery clear at the same time, pushing further. He moved one hand back up to her wrists in warning whilst his other lifted her top clear of her breasts.

Her moans continued and she had to work very hard not to make a move of her own when he began running his finger along the scalloped lacy edge of her bra. It was such an obviously teasing gesture she felt he was testing her. But what was the test? Did he want her to react, to try and force him to go further? Or did he want her to submit and allow him to torment her in this way?

She felt that the latter was what he really wanted, but she was not at all sure her passivity could last much longer if he kept it up.

He carried on the stroking, one fingertip thrilling along the lace, never digging deeper, never uncovering her nipple. It felt huge now, straining at its restraining cup, bursting through the patterned fabric – as did its twin on the other side.

If only he’d let her mouth free, she might beg. She wanted to beg. She thought that what he really wanted was to know that she ached to disobey him and yet continued to obey. That was the payoff for him.

It was perverted and strange but, by God, it was turning her on in a way she had never before experienced. She shimmied her hips in mute entreaty. He understood and chuckled into her helpless mouth. He plucked at the bra cup and brought his other hand down to deal with the other side.

He raised his head only to whisper, ‘Don’t you dare move,’ before plunging his tongue back into the place it seemed to consider home – inside her mouth, silencing her.

Now both his thumbs had breached the border of the brassiere and they rubbed at her soft slopes underneath the lace. They wouldn’t get close to her nipples, though, and she made a strangulated sound of frustration and tried to force them lower.

He removed his thumbs immediately and went back to pinning her wrists.

It was a punishment. She knew it, and she burned to protest, to demand of him whom he thought he was playing with, but still she kept herself in check.

She was more interested in what might happen next than in asserting herself. If this was a game, it was the most compelling – and arousing – one she had ever played.

He made her surrender to minutes more kissing whilst immobilised before he rewarded her with the return of his hands to her breasts.

‘Are you going to behave yourself now?’ he asked, his lips a millimetre from hers, his voice smoky as sin.

She didn

’t want to answer but, to her shame, she nodded and made a little ‘hm’ of acquiescence.

‘Didn’t catch that,’ he taunted, letting his thumbs hover close enough to her bra for the fabric to catch against his skin.

Oh God, just rip it in half and do what you want.

‘Yes,’ she mewled, turning her face from him.

He pushed his lips into the hollow under her ear, kissing and licking it, then took the lobe into his mouth and sucked. ‘Look at me,’ he whispered, once she was good and wriggly, and sure that her knickers couldn’t be any more soaked.

She could hardly bear to meet his eyes but somehow she did it.

‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I know what you want. Is it this?’