Page 68

"Laszlo."

"I've been extremely well behaved today, considering." A shadow of a smile, fast gone. "Spread your legs."

I do. For research purposes.

He pushes my dress up to my hips, and the look on his face at the sight of the soaked silk between my thighs is nearly pain. Then he hooks two fingers into my underwear and drags it down my legs so slowly, it's insulting. Over my knees. Over one heel, then the other. And then he folds it. He actually folds it into a neat square, edges matched, and slides it into his inside pocket like a pocket handkerchief.

"That's the second pair this month," I say. "I'm going to start invoicing you."

"Send it to my accountant." He sinks to his knees on my mother's bathmat and hooks my thighs over his shoulders. "He's stopped asking questions."

Then his mouth is on my folds and whatever I was about to say leaves me entirely.

He doesn't tease me this time. He licks into me slow and deep and filthy, drags the flat of his tongue up to my clit and circles it exactly how my body likes, first try, like he's got the schematics, and my fingers bury themselves in his immaculate hair and wreck it. He groans when I pull, and the vibration nearly ends me on the spot. Then his fingers join in, two of them sliding into me, curling, finding the spot Charles never once located in four years, and hoarse sounds fill my mother's bathroom.

It's too fast and I can't stop it. I don't want to. All that tension today, it all comes down to this, to his mouth, and my body isn't interested in my dignity. My heels press into his back. My thighs start to shake around his ears. The heat coils tight and low and I'm climbing, climbing… and he feels it, the bastard. He feels me getting close and keeps me right there, just under, one stroke of his tongue short of the edge, until I'm shaking and swearing. I'd beg too if I had the words left.

And then, right when I'm one lick away, when everything in me is pulled to breaking, Laszlo stops.

He doesn't even pretend it wasn't on purpose. He pulls his mouth off me, rests his cheek against the inside of my knee, and waits.

"Don't you dare stop."

"Problem?" He presses one unhurried kiss to my inner thigh.

"Finish what you started, husband."

"I finish everything I start. Ask anyone."

His mouth returns. He takes me right back up, sucking my clit until my heels dig into his back and my hips are riding his face with no dignity whatsoever. This time I try to be clever. I hold still. I bite my lip. I keep my breathing level.

He stops right when I’m just about to climax. Son of a bitch, he must sense it.

"Right there," he says against my thigh, his mouth shining with me. "That's where I'm keeping you tonight. On the edge, so your greedy pussy will soak your mama’s chair."

"I fucking hate you."

"You're dripping down my chin, ma macabre. Turn around."

"What?"

"Hands and knees. On the counter. Your mother has excellent taste in marble. Face the mirror."

And God forgive me, I do it. I climb onto my mother's counter on all fours, my dress shoved up around my waist, bare from the hips down, and in the mirror I watch him take a slow look at what's his.

"Look at yourself," he says gruffly, and in the mirror I can see him straining against his pants. “I see you invited Julien. You knew I wouldn’t object, since it came from you. You’re making me go back on my word. You must pay for that too.”

Then his hands spread me open. His mouth is on me from behind, and my arms nearly buckle. It's worse like this. Deeper. Filthier. He lifts away for a beat and spits, warm against my other entrance, and I whimper out loud when he starts licking me there, his fingers easing into my pussy at the same time. And my whole body shakes.

Then he returns to my pussy, one hand gripping my hip hard enough to bruise while with the fingers of the other he works my clit in slow, merciless circles. I can see everything in the mirror. My wrecked face. My knuckles white on the marble. His dark head moving behind me. He drives me up to the edge and abandons me there. Drives me up, and abandons me. Every time I clench around nothing he pulls away and waits, patient and unbothered, until the wave dies down and leaves me hanging. Then he starts the whole climb again.

By the fourth time I'm almost there and he's torn it away from me. There are tears running down my face and I don't even care.

By the fifth I've lost every scrap of pride. My forehead drops to the cold marble and I hear myself say it out loud, hating how broken it sounds.

"Please."

"Again."