THEY stayed at the B&B for two weeks, did nothing but sleep, eat, and gradually made love more and more as Tess’ strength improved. Sometimes, they went downstairs and socialized with the various resident guests. Pat and Henry amused them with stories of life and family, while Joyce fussed happily, bringing plates of George’s wonderful cooking or snacks, ‘just in case’.
There was an awkward moment one night where Tess had been on her own by the fire while Mac dealt with business on the phone. He talked most nights to Paul, who was temporarily in charge of Mac’s club.
Derek, the dashing Romeo, had come to introduce himself to her. Because he partied to the wee hours, he often slept till late afternoon before he headed out again. He’d made himself quite cozy on the opposite end of the sofa. Shamelessly, he flirted, joked, and made it very obvious he’d be willing to forgo his evening prowl if he could catch his current conquest in-house.
“If you’re lonely,” he’d purred seductively as his gray eyes danced with the thrill of chasing his prey, “I can be very entertaining company.”
She’d deflected, rejected, and flat out refused every single advance. On the verge of just standing and leaving the six-feet blond Romeo to his preening, Tess gave him a baleful glare. “Look, Derek, I’m sure you’re a fabulous lover who can make his sexual partner of the hour orgasm six times a round, but I’m not interested.”
He gave her a dirty laugh and winked. “I’d tell you I could do that just to have the pleasure of you in my bed, honey, but there’s no man alive that can do that.”
Her smile was sharp and satisfied. “My man set a personal record for me, Derek. You wouldn’t be able to match it, never mind break it. And he’ll likely beat you into a pulp if you don’t back off.”
“Personal record, eh? Care to share?”
She sighed, not particularly interested in divulging private information, but if it disposed of the prick before Mac came down to find her…“Twelve orgasms in five minutes.”
He goggled at her. “Bullshit.”
“Twelve in five,” Tess repeated, her tone as bored as she felt. “Feel free to ask him when he comes down.”
“Ask him what when he comes down?” Mac flopped down beside her, so damn stealthy she hadn’t even heard his approach. His arm draped over the tops of her shoulders and his fingers traced circles on her bare arm. Every hair on her body stood up and saluted his presence.
“She’s bullshitting, man.” Derek slowly turned a deep red color. It spread from his neck and chest to his face and ears. “She says she’s had twelve orgasms in five minutes. I say she’s a fucking liar.”
Mac’s fingers froze in place, and Tess didn’t need to see his face to know it was set like stone. She grabbed his hand to keep him seated. He had six inches and a fair bit of muscle over Derek. It would be very much a one-sided fight. “Mac, don’t. He’s not worth it.”
“No one calls you a liar.” His voice was a growl, an alpha male revved up to unleash hell on an unsuspecting foe. “He’s going to want to apologize to you. Immediately.”
“Or what?” Derek snapped back.
Mac’s eyebrow lifted. Time and patience counted down to zero. “Or I’ll make you apologize to her. You’ll just have that pretty boy nose broken and lose several teeth in the process.”
“Mac, come on. If it smooths things over, I’ll hold my hands up and say I lied,” she said desperately. She’d wound things up good and proper and shit was about to hit the fan.
“You’ll do no such thing, Tess. I don’t care if this dickless wonder believes you or not, you told the truth and he’s going to apologize to you for calling you a liar. Otherwise, he’s going to have a broken face.”
Derek scoffed and peeled his lips back in a sneer. “Stand up for the lying bitch. Obviously, she can’t open her mouth without fucking lying and needing her fancy man to cover her ass.”
Tess sighed and tried to sit on Mac so he couldn’t get up, but he just lifted her to one side and rose like Poseidon from the sea—strong, tall, and absolutely furious. He reached out, caught Derek by the shirt front, and lifted him effortlessly. Not only to his feet, but about six inches off the ground. He gave the smaller man a quick shake. “My patience is at an end, little man. You apologize now and walk away, or apologize after and crawl away.”
“Oh dear, oh dear.” Her hands locked tightly together in concern, Joyce hurried in. There was flour on her hands and on her nose. She must have been baking. “I can hear the ruckus from in the kitchen. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Joyce,” Mac said it kindly, but the fierceness of his green eyes never left Derek’s pale face. “This guy here feels it’s okay to offend Tess. We’re just having a discussion,” Mac shook him again, harder, “on when he would like to apologize.”
“Derek!” Joyce exclaimed, shocked. “I’ve told you about your behavior when you’re a guest in my home. Offending other guests is completely unacceptable. Apologize right this minute.”
“Hell I will,” he spat, and for some idiotic reason, decided this was the opportune time to take a swing at Mac’s face. The blow connected, fist to cheekbone, and the resulting crack of flesh on flesh, knuckles on bone, was horrible.
Mac’s head didn’t move. He accepted the blow without sound or reaction. Meanwhile, Derek must have thought he’d made the wrong decision as he went pale as glass.
“You made your choice. Beg your pardon, Joyce,” Mac said without too much inflection. His free hand bunched, rammed solidly into Derek’s belly, and the consequent oomph was enough to make Tess cringe in sympathy. He added another gut punch and then jabbed Derek in the face three times.
The muscles flexed in Mac’s arms. They fascinated her and, to her shame, turned her on. She wanted to nibble her way down those arms. “Mac, just leave him now.”
Blood spurted from Derek’s broken nose and his left eye had already started to swell and color up. He wheezed in a breath, choked slightly, and coughed up three broken teeth in a mouthful of blood.
“I’ll ask you again to apologize to Tess. She’s not a liar, and I won’t tolerate a snotty little bastard calling her one or using derogatory language in reference to her. Got me?” Another shake. “Do you understand me, boy?”
Derek’s hands clawed at Mac’s forearms as blood streamed from his nose and mouth. He squealed when Mac’s fist lifted again. “I understand! I’m sorry, I apologize!”
Mac’s head cocked with curiosity. “Not hearing a lot of sincerity, Derek. Maybe another good couple of punches will help you search your soul for what you really want to say.”
He started to babble, thrashed around like a fish on a line, dangled in the air with no way of escape, and waited for mercy that may or may not come. The apology that came next was ever so sincere and said in a voice that betrayed his terror.
Mac’s emerald eyes met hers. “What do you think, Tess? An adequate apology or not?”
“Yes. Put him down, Mac, please.”
Mac sighed heavily as though disappointed by her choice. Then he perked up. “Your lucky day, boy. The lady thinks that piss-poor apology will do. Frankly, I don’t, but what the lady wants, she gets.”
Derek dropped to the floor on his hands and knees, almost sobbing. He started to get to his feet and ended up with his face to the floor, Mac’s big foot pressed between the smaller man’s shoulder blades.
“You’re not a man, boy. Crawl your way to the door like the rabid, foul-mouthed dog you are.” Mac lifted an eyebrow and removed his foot. “You so much as look at Tess wrong, if so much as one sarcastic remark falls out of your mouth in her direction, it will be the end of your life as you know it. Understand, boy?”
Derek didn’t even lift his head or his eyes to meet Mac’s. He just nodded his head and sniffled.
“Good. Now get out of my sight before Tess’s wants aren’t enough to keep me from finishing the job.”
When she remembered that night a week later, it gave Tess the giggles. As awful as she felt about riling Derek up into his rage, whenever she saw him on his hands and knees in her mind’s eye with his teeth in hand and the sobs, she did have to marvel at Mac’s ability to take control of a situation and make it go his way.
Derek hadn’t spoken to her since, and if she came into a room where he was, or vice versa, he was out of there before ‘hello’ had a chance to be uttered from either side. And if Mac was in the vicinity…oh boy, Romeo was there and gone like a ghost.
“What’s gotten you so amused?” Fingers slipped over her belly, trailed up to tweak the sensitive peak of her breast. Tess arched, sighed. “Something I said, baby?”
“Something you did,” she responded. Her hand covered his as he manipulated her nipple and sent electric tingles on a race around her body. She urged him to pinch harder, to deepen the bite of discomfort.
His erection was flush against her thigh. His hips rocked and teased his cock with the softness of her skin. She cupped him with her free hand, rubbed the smooth crown with the pad of her thumb, and was rewarded with silky droplets. He moaned. His mouth lowered to the breast their joined hands had plumped.
She bit her lip as he suckled fiercely with hints of teeth and tongue. “Harder, Mac. Be a beast.”
His fine head lifted from her breast, his mouth curved to one side as his gorgeous eyes focused on her. “Are you feeling strong enough to handle it?” he murmured quietly, as he took their linked hands on a journey down to the junction of her thighs. “You were very sick, Tess. Three weeks isn’t that much time to recover.”
Tess grabbed hold of his face, studied every inch of it. She loved that face, knew it well now, and could see both concern for her wellbeing and sheer lust at the thought of having free rein with her body. “I’m fit and healthy. We’ve been making love for nearly two weeks now, Mac. As much as I enjoy making love with you, we both need to cut the ropes and just…be beasts.”
“Making love,” he argued with a smile and brushed his lips over the valley between her breasts in demonstration, “is slow and gentle, easy on the body. Sex, especially the kind we indulge in, is rough and heavy and takes its toll on this very sexy, very fragile body.” Two fingers slipped inside her.
The noise Tess made was somewhere between a scoff and a very happy moan. She shuffled her legs wider, the better to give him access. “Fragile, my ass. I can take what you give, Mac. Stop treating me like I’m delicate.”
“Your ass is fragile. You are delicate.”
Now, she growled. Pissed off he didn’t seem to be able to get it into his thick, wonderful head she wasn’t some crystal figurine, she shifted, sat, and swung her leg over his hips to straddle him. Grateful he was already hard, she completed the maneuver with a savage downward thrust of her hips. Her head fell back as she rejoiced in the sensation of utter fullness. Her back bowed with the sheer intensity of pleasure spearing through her body. Through the haze of shuddering ecstasy, the grip of his hands on her hips was like an anchor for her to hold onto. His guttural groan was music to her ears.
His eyes were shadowed and turned the darkest of green, a sign she’d learned to interpret as him on the edge of control. One wrong—or right—move, and the beast would be released. Tess really wanted Mac to lose control right now. With a smirk, she leaned forward slowly and ran her hands up his body from his taut six-pack stomach to the incredibly defined pectoral muscles in his chest.
“Not many links left in the chain tying the beast down,” she murmured coyly, walking her fingers up his chest to where the pulse hammered in his throat, matching the beat of the pulse in his cock. She rose, dropped back down, and whimpered in delight.
“Tess.” Beneath her, his big body quivered in an effort to hold control. A fine mist of sweat sheened every spring-tight muscle, a testament to how desperate he was to keep his body in check, to keep himself from snapping the last links and driving into her.
Not for long, buddy, Tess thought wickedly, and latched her mouth over his nipple, sucked fiercely, and tormented him with tongue and teeth as he so loved to torment her.
Tess lifted again and took her own time as she drew away from his body before she slammed back down and took him to the root. His hand cracked over her buttock, which forced her hips to hunch down another half-inch. Tess cried out. Mac roared.
“Naughty, wicked, sexy woman,” he snarled at her and rolled until she was beneath him. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. Tess claimed his mouth with calculated aggression and watched the last link clatter away to leave behind the green eyes of a man possessed by his own raging lust.
One strong arm hooked under her knee, dragged it up so it was level with her shoulder. Tess grunted uncomfortably as her inner muscles tightened even more round his erection with the movement, but she’d gotten her wish.
Mac was off the chain and on a rampage.
“Fuck me, Mac. Fuck me hard and fast, make me come.” She moaned and taunted him with twisty grinds of her hips against his. “I want to feel you come inside me, Mac. Need to feel you fill me.”
“Temptress,” he growled against her throat, seconds before his teeth clamped onto sensitive flesh, captured the rapid pulse, and marked her. He shuddered when she scraped her nails down his back and bit harder.
They were locked together. Their position forced her sex to grip his cock to the point she held him captive. Tess knew he wasn’t a man to be deterred from his goal, at least not when in this frame of mind.
He yanked his cock free from her body and made her moan with the friction. The inward thrust was brutal and devastated her internal muscles with the power and ferocity of an alpha male claiming his mate.
His face pressed between her breasts, his tongue running along the valley toward her throat, and then up and along to her mouth, which he conquered with savage dominance. His tongue thrust and parried against hers, mimicking the primal act they created below.
Pain and pleasure twined so completely into one they were indistinguishable from one another. They fueled each other, which drove Tess to sensual heights she’d never known were possible. Between the pair of them, they were lost to the madness of each other, lost in each other, and the feeling was simply divine.
“Going to come,” Mac muttered gutturally against her lips. His body worked like a stallion, it plunged and hammered, as muscles strained toward the ultimate release. “Want to feel you go over first.”
Her hands linked around his neck. “Together. We go over together.”
It didn’t take long, only moments before her body stiffened beneath him. Her sex erupted with spasms and pulled his cock to the very heart of her as his body went rigid, ejaculating in hard, pulsing jerks.
His cry of release was haunted, powerful.
Hearts pounded against each other, sweat stuck them together wherever they pressed skin to skin, breath ragged and fierce. They lay like that for what might have been hours, hands stroking over slick skin in comfort and satisfaction.
“I think you just have a thing about challenging me,” Mac said with an amused chuckle. He shifted, rolled so she sprawled limp on top of him. Her low moan of protest made him chuckle. “Anybody home, baby?”
“Lights off,” Tess muttered.
He sighed contentedly, and her body rose and fell on his chest in time with the rhythm. She smiled and pressed her lips to his nipple. His arms came around her, as his hands stroked and soothed. “You ready to come home yet, Tess?”
She’d waited for the question for days. Now, he’d finally said the words, every pre-thought answer seemed to disappear. Tess hadn’t resolved the issues that had made her run from home in the first place.
“I don’t know, Mac.”
His hands never hesitated. “Tell me what the problem is?”
With the amount of talking they’d done in the past weeks, this was one subject they’d both avoided. She had not wanted to bring it up and ruin the time they’d spent together. They’d come to know each other so much better in such a short time.
But he wouldn’t let it go now that he’d asked the question. She knew him well enough to understand he was essentially a dog with a bone. He would rag and shake it until it gave him exactly what he wanted from it.
Tess laid her head on his chest and listened to his heart beat steadily away. It relaxed her and, combined with the glide of his hands down her back, almost slipped her into sleep.
Then he pinched her ass.
“Hey, ow!”
“I’ll spank it next time. I asked you a question, baby.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll tell you.” She rubbed her ass and sulked. She’d have much preferred the spanking. “I wanted some time apart so that I could try and teach myself not to be so submissive.”
“Eh?” He sounded genuinely puzzled by that revelation.
“I’m too submissive. Every time we try something new, I disregard self-preservation and go past my limits so that I don’t disappoint you. I’m so inexperienced or, at least, I was. It makes me feel like I don’t deserve you because I’m pretty much useless in the bedroom and you…well, you’re Master. You’re so much inside me, not physically, although you are inside me that way a lot. I mean emotionally.
“It feels like because you’re part of me that way, if I deny you my body, I’m not only punishing you in a physical way, but the part of me that’s locked with that internal part of you.” Tess stopped, frowned. That was close to rambling territory and she wasn’t sure it had come out in the manner she needed to express it. “I wanted some time to explore who I am away from you, so I could come home to you on equal ground. I don’t want you to think I’m an easy pushover, even though I am.”
“Baby, you’re not a pushover. And I hate to tell you this, but you are who you are, and I love you for it. Your nature is to be submissive, it’s not a flaw.” He kissed the top of her head. “You drive me crazy when you get these wild thoughts in your head. If anything, it’s me who doesn’t deserve you. You offered me your virginity, gave me innocence and trust and acceptance.”
“Mac, you destroy me.”
“Being without you destroys me. We are on equal ground, Tess. Even when I try and put my foot down on certain matters, you usually end up defying me one way or another. That’s not submission, that’s having a mind of your own and exerting it. It’s challenging, and it’s arousing, even as it infuriates.” His hand slid up, cupped the nape of her neck, and squeezed in warning. “And still I love you. Always.”
He made her feel warm and loved and so special…and so much like a bloody idiot she could have cried. Why did she always blow her issues and problems into such mountainous, insurmountable complications when one short chat with Mac turned them into inconsequential gnats to be squashed?
It was ridiculous, it really was. And Tess always came out looking like an idiot. Somehow, it reassured her he never pointed that out and made her feel like a fool. It would have been so much worse if he made a big dramatic issue out of it, because she wouldn’t be able to deny it.
“Always,” she agreed and nuzzled against his firm, warm chest like a puppy seeking the heat of its mother. “All right. I give up. Let’s go home, Mac. It’s been too long.”
“My thoughts exactly, baby.”
* * * *
They arrived home after a long and tearful goodbye to Joyce and George and the friends they’d made at the B&B. They’d had to promise to go back soon before Joyce would let them leave. Bless her, she’d stood on the little lane as Mac drove them away, waving her heart out as she sobbed into a handkerchief.
George, the kind and clever man he was, had packed them a picnic basket for the ride and so they wouldn’t have to go to the bother of cooking once they returned home and unpacked. Such thoughtful and kind people. To go home without them made Mac yearn for what George and Joyce had. Perhaps, in fifty years’ time, he would look back at this moment and see it as the first milestone in a long and happy journey with the woman he loved.
Mac held her hand under his on the gearstick, their fingers linked, for the entire journey home. The warmth of her skin beneath his was heaven and sent a pulse of desire on a mad dash through his blood. When Tess smiled at him nearly all the way home, her body angled in her seat so she didn’t have to twist her head to watch him, Mac knew he would never get this woman out of his system. He could never let her go.
They were heading back to a world of possibilities. They were in love. How far would their love take them? Marriage, children? Forever love, happily ever after love. There were numerous sexual routes for them to explore, some he knew fascinated Tess and others appealed to Mac’s adventurous side. A whole house full of rooms that were employed in a sinful sex club. How many fantasies could they play out in there?
“Which room are we going to play in first?” Tess asked Mac, breaking the silence with a huskiness in her voice that suggested she needed an immediate seeing to.
He sent her a sidelong glance. He was more than willing to oblige with whatever his woman had in mind. “Which would you like to play in first? I think the lady should have first choice.”
Tess grinned. “There are so many options. However will I decide?”
“Well, we could work through them floor by floor, alphabetically, numerically…or we could just pick one via eenie-meenie-minie-mo.”
“How logical of you, Mr. McAllister.”
“I try,” he said, just a bit flirtatiously. “The ultimate decision is up to you, Tess.”
“Something to think about, isn’t it?” she replied in the same flirtatious manner. By the way her eyes lit with eagerness, he guessed she already had a room in mind, but Mac decided to let her have her secret. Let him wonder and fantasize. “Have you a favorite?”
“Of course. But I’m not going to influence your decision. You have to decide which room you want to go in, what role you’d like to play. I’m quite looking forward to the surprise of what you’ll pick.”
“You’re not even going to give me a clue?” Tess asked with feigned horror. He smiled when her fingers flexed restlessly under his. “What if I offered you a little…persuasion to loosen your tongue?”
He hoped she could read the hot and heavy lust in his expression; it mirrored what flooded his system. “What kind of persuasion?”
Her tongue darted out suggestively, ran along her top lip before her teeth bit gently into her lower one. She gave him a wicked little eyebrow wiggle and grinned when the muscle in his jaw ticked.
“Say it,” he growled. “Say the word, Tess.”
“Fellatio?” she replied innocently, sending every drop of blood into his lap. “Or does Master prefer the term blowjob?”
On a vicious curse, Mac released her hand and fought with the zip of his trousers as he drove. He kept his eyes on the road and managed to undo both the zipper, the button, and yanked at the jeans until they were low enough for his erection to spring free from the confines. The blatant admiration in her eyes as his cock stood straight and proud nearly made him come then and there. So many advantages to going commando…
The rest of the trip home was certainly eventful, and very relaxing for Mac. Tess wasn’t feeling so bad herself if the smug expression on her face was anything to go by. Nothing gave Mac more pleasure than Tess when she embraced her potential and enjoyed herself in the process.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or spank you.” Mac brought her hand to his lips and kissed it lavishly. How the hell they hadn’t crashed when he'd come, he didn’t know, but they were still safely on the road.
“Why not both? Thank me, spank me, and round it all off with a lovely hard bang.”
“Temptress and nymphomaniac rolled into one. I’ll see to you,” he promised. “I’ve some business crap to see to first. Nearly three weeks away means there were some things Paul couldn’t handle. But, perhaps, I could keep you occupied for a couple hours while I get the business side sorted out.” He cocked an eyebrow and smiled wickedly. “Yes, I’m pretty sure I can keep you occupied for at least that long.”
The scent of her arousal filled the car. Mac’s smile turned into a primal grin. His girl had no idea what he had in mind for her. “I’m game.”
* * * *
She had to question her sanity. Not an hour after they arrived back home, Tess sat naked in Mac’s office. He’d spent ten minutes screwing a pair of hanging restraints into the ceiling, restraints that now adorned her wrists as she sat in one of the office chairs.
Her hands were taut above her head with arms stretched tight. Her ankles were cuffed to the legs of the chair. There was a ball gag between her teeth and a pair of nipple rings hung prettily from her breasts.
Both her orifices were full, after Mac had given her a serious lecture on safe words and gestures and the fact she must not hesitate to use them. The lecture had been followed by a serious and in-depth discussion on Tess’ hard limits.
The butt plug he’d presented her with hadn’t alarmed her, thank God, and had entered her rear with some lubricant and gentle persuasion from Mac. And, if she could be honest with herself, more than a few encouraging moans.
The vibrator that currently sat dormant in her vagina was a little more worrisome, its length and girth not dissimilar to Mac’s cock. Between the pair of toys, Tess balanced on the border between constant orgasm and being stuffed past the comfort zone.
Mac spoke on the phone, the receiver tucked between his ear and shoulder, and he worked on the computer at the same time. Every so often, he’d hit the button on the remote control next to his keyboard.
Those green eyes locked on hers every time he pressed that damn button and sent the vibrator in her pussy purring to life. He watched as her body arched with the shock of it, as her pelvis rocked on the seat to urge the tormentor deeper. And, just as the orgasm sprang into action, he cut the power and left her moaning pitifully around the ball gag, unable to bring herself to peak.
How he could continue to talk on the phone about alcohol orders and shipments of quality peanuts so unaffectedly while she writhed and rocked, Tess didn’t know. His damned self-control knew no bounds sometimes.
She glared at him several times and willed him to let her come, just once to take the edge off the craving.
He sent the vibrator back into action and she jerked in surprise. She hadn’t even seen his hand shift to the remote this time. Over the rush of blood pounding through her ears, she thought she heard the ping of the elevator. Concern filled her, only to fade away as the orgasm drew closer and quickly.
“Mac, there is a client downstairs…” Paul stood in the doorway, his eyes glued to Tess’ naked body as she wriggled around in the chair. His face turned a bright shade of tomato red. “Holy shit. Fuck, boss, I’m sorry!”
“She makes a pretty picture, doesn’t she?” Mac asked absently and set down the receiver after he finished his call. He swiveled his desk chair around to face Paul and grinned. “Don’t mind Tess, Paul, she’s going to have more on her mind than a bit of embarrassment in just a moment.”
Paul just stood frozen, as if unable to look away.
The thrumming instrument in her pussy finally hit the spot as she bounced around in the chair. With a desperate cry, she rammed her hips down, and climaxed in front of her lover and his employee.