‘If we can’t talk about what you to do me, or what I’d like you to do to me, absolutely.’
‘I’m glad you’re respecting my boundaries.’ She chuckles softly.
‘For now, at least.’
‘Moving on! So, wrists. My older sister lives in Sydney, and she told me that Aussies use the wordwristyfor something very particular. I bet you can’t guess what it is.’
I bet I can. In fact, I know I can, after spending some time in Australia following university. It seems posh boys are a hit with Aussie chicks, or sheilas, depending on the age bracket they fall into. You might say I’ve experienced both of these.Wristies and age brackets.
‘I’m not sure what that can mean,’ I answer pensively. ‘Something to do with an adornment? Perhaps a bracelet?’
I’d like to adorn her. With strings and strings of pearls, with a strength of desire I’ve never known. Leaving her draped across the desk this afternoon when all I wanted to do was taste her was torturous. I wanted to bury myself in her. Hear her cry my name. But since I’ve learned of her news—our news—the desire to have her is almost overwhelming. Yet here I sit playing games.
‘Nope. Have another guess.’
‘How about you demonstrate instead.’
With a sharp intake of breath, she turns her head. ‘You know, don’t you?’
‘If I say yes, would you like me to clutch my pearls with one hand and show you with the other instead? I quite like the idea of a Miranda-centric audience.’
‘Oh, you are the worst!’ It sounds more like a compliment than an admonishment as the sound of her tinkling laughter fills the car.
‘Left here,’ I murmur, then she smiles a tiny smile as she flicks the blinker again. ‘We’re almost home.’
Miranda parks at the front of the house once I’ve assured her, her car won’t get a parking ticket in the resident’s only parking zone, and I take her hand and lead her up the old stone steps.
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she says as I push the door wide, gesturing she step inside first.
‘It’s a bit of a mausoleum and far too big for one man.’ I rush on, hearing my own words as a tiny idea plants itself in my head. An idea for a time other than now. ‘But I bought it at a good time. And it’s close to the gallery, of course.’
‘Ah, yes.’ In the entrance hall, she trails her fingers over the table that sits in the middle of the black and white tiled floor, almost as though she’s remembering. Fuck knows I can barely pass the thing without getting hard. ‘I need to come and look at your etchings sometime.’ She says this so mildly, with such inconsequence, yet it sounds like a taunt as she places her bag next to the copper bowl, her fingertips touching that, too.
‘This is pretty.’
‘Not as pretty as you.’ I find myself behind her, my mouth pressed to her neck as she tilts it to give me better access. ‘Miranda.’ Her name is a whispered plea because I want to take her hand and lead her to my bed. I want to spread her pale, silky thighs wide and torture her with my tongue, just to hear her cry my name again and again.
What is it about my name on her lips that makes me want to balance my cock there? Balanced on her plump bottom lip, her eyes wide but not quite guileless.
‘God, I want you,’ I murmur as she presses herself back against me, her soft flesh yielding to my hard. She turns her head then, giving me her profile, those bee-stung lips curled in a secret half smile. A temptation too much to ignore. So I don’t, pressing a kiss at the corner of her mouth. ‘Tell me to stop.’
A soft sigh. A whisper of temptation. My hand pressed unconsciously to her flat stomach.
‘I thought we came here to talk.’ Her response is a quiet murmur but not quite innocent, and as I turn her in my arms, her eyes are dark with want.
‘We can, and we will. But right now, I have a much better plan for my mouth.’
* * *
You don’t even know her, my mind whispers.It’s just those hovering endorphins making you feel these things.
Miranda lies naked beneath me, her tresses fanned out on the pillow, her eyes dark and trusting in the dim light. Her hands lie palm up on the pillow above her head, the pulse in her wrists fluttering against my fingertips as I hold them there.
‘Not yet, darling. Don’t fall yet.’ My fingers dance across one taut nipple, a whispering touch met by a stuttering sigh as I soak in the sight of her beauty, bathed in moonlight.
‘But I’m so close,’ she almost weeps.
‘I know.’ Despite the note of compassion in my tone, there’s no real sympathy, not as she balances on the knife’s edge I’ve held her for this past while.
