The Pleasures of Autumn (23 page)

She licked his balls, first one, then the other, and he forgot every ache that Hall had inflicted on him. His body was awash with pleasure, all centred on where her mouth was tormenting him.

She had been avoiding his cock, not even touching it. He lifted his hips. ‘Please.’ His voice was hoarse.

She smiled, a cat-got-the-cream smile, and blew. The puff of warm air was a torment. ‘More, please.’ He didn’t care if he was pleading; he needed her to keep going.

She brushed her hair back over his penis, then finally – thank you, god – she took it in her mouth. It was hot and wet and he yelled, unable to control himself. She took a firm grip on the base of it and licked the head.

‘Mmm, nice and wet already,’ she purred.

He couldn’t reply. Every single sense was focused on what she was doing. The only nerves in his body that still worked were in his cock.

Sinead licked and kissed her way around the head, lavishing it with attention and care. Every so often she took it deeper into her mouth and sucked, pulling ragged groans from him.

He lay back, desperately holding on to the bed, the pleasure she was giving him so sharp it was almost pain. He never wanted it to stop. Behind his eyelids, sparks flashed. His brain shut down and all he could feel was the lash of her tongue, the heat of her mouth and the edge of her teeth as she nibbled carefully along his length.

Her hands were moving too, he realized. They cupped his balls, and one thumb was pressing into that sensitive spot behind them. He lifted his hips to give her better access, and didn’t care that he was pressing on all his bruises. Nothing mattered except that she keep going.

She sucked more deeply, gripped him harder. He needed to touch her, hold her, but the tiny bit of sanity he had left told him that she wanted to control this. He gripped the sheet, not caring if he tore it.

His entire body consisted of his cock. There was nothing else. He babbled nonsense, unable to control his voice. His spine tightened, the juices forcing their way down to his balls. He resisted, wanting this to go on as long as possible, but his body had other plans.

She sucked harder, holding his balls firmly, and he exploded.

‘Ahhh!’ Jet after jet of cum shot from him, pulling his body rigid. His mind blanked as sensation overpowered his brain.

She kept sucking, milking him, demanding everything he could give her. Vaguely, he was aware that she was swallowing him, and he allowed himself a single astonished thought. Who would have guessed?

He quivered as his penis softened, and still she held it in her mouth. Tremors ran over his skin and he felt
everything around him, from the sheet underneath to the weight of the woman kneeling between his legs.

She looked up with an expression of triumph. ‘I own you now,’ she said.

He was too exhausted to argue. ‘Later,’ he told her and fell asleep again.

When he woke up again, he could tell it was late afternoon. He was stiff and sore and aching in places he didn’t remember being injured, but overriding all that was a remarkable sense of well-being. Even his bursting bladder couldn’t detract from the tiny aftershocks of pleasure that fizzed under his skin.

Sinead never ceased to surprise him. She hid a knockout body under the most boring clothes money could buy, and concealed a talent for seduction behind a spinster librarian’s manner.

Slowly, he sat up, creaking and wincing, but smiled when he made out the outline of a glass of water and two pain pills beside it. Andy must be back. It was time to get up and moving.

He just wished Sinead had been in his bed when he woke. After a blow job like that, the least she deserved was a lot of cuddling and pleasuring, which he would have been delighted to provide. When a man was lucky enough to find a woman who could blow his mind like that, he would be mad to let her out of his sight.

He made it to the bathroom under his own steam and cleaned himself up. Halfway through, he was struck by something that had been nagging him.

Why?

Why did Sinead hide herself like that? Okay, he could understand why she might dress older than her years in a profession that valued experience more than instinct. But she didn’t dress down, she disguised herself. When they had first met, he had noticed nothing except her sharp tongue. And he was a trained investigator.

He might not be in the market for a new bed-mate every night – he had resigned himself to the knowledge that very few women could cope with him and his profession – but he was still a man, with a Y chromosome and the usual amount of testosterone. He should have noticed Sinead as a woman. And he hadn’t.

And given her spectacularly talented mouth, she should have had men lining up around the block to go out with her. Yet his investigation had turned up nothing. There were no boyfriends and she hadn’t had a date in months.

There were odd blanks in her profile too – evenings and weekends when she was off the grid. If she really was an old maid, he would have assumed she was at home, watching television. Or more likely, reading some obscure book about the history of jewels. God knew, she had enough of them in her apartment. But the woman who had seduced him so skilfully did not sit at home every night.

‘So what time are we leaving?’ Andy was asking. He was holding the invitation in his hand.

‘We’ll have to drive there, so about eight, I think.’ Sinead cupped a bowl of coffee in her hand and took a sip. She caught a glimpse of him at the door and smiled. ‘Niall, you’re up.’

‘Got any more coffee?’ he asked. ‘And some food? I’m starving.’

She jumped up to get him some. ‘We’re planning what we’ll do at the fetish party tonight.’

‘Yeah, I don’t fancy the loincloth, I’m thinking that leather outfit would do me,’ Andy said.

Niall held up his hand. ‘We’re not going there. It’s too dangerous and there is no point.’

Before Sinead could protest, Andy handed him a sheet of paper. ‘Before you decide that, you might want to take a look at the guest list.’

Niall read the thirty names on it and blinked. It read like a
Who’s Who
of European politics, business, academia and science. And one name in particular made him whistle. Vadim Gorev, one of the biggest names in the Russian Mafia. If there was anyone who could dispose of a $50 million jewel, this was the man.

‘Andy, I think you deserve a raise.’

‘Yeah, boss, I keep telling you that.’

Sinead looked from one to the other. ‘What’s going on? Are we going?’

Doubt niggled at him. Finding a ‘missing’ sister was one thing, but throwing Vadim into the mix was something entirely different. Sinead looked so innocent, but he knew she was hiding something. If he wanted to get the stone back, he would have to let her go to the party. But he would be there, watching her for the entire weekend.

Niall looked from Andy to Sinead. ‘We’re going. I’m going with you.’

‘Dude, have you looked at yourself?’ Andy gestured at
the mirror over the mantelpiece. ‘You look like a train wreck.’

Niall managed a smile at the choice of words, and grimaced. That hurt. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’re not going to win a beauty contest. Have you forgotten what this is about? We’re there to find Sinead’s sister.’

‘What are you going to do if you find her?’ Andy asked.

Sinead looked at him in surprise. ‘Get the ruby back, of course, and then bring her home to meet my family.’ It was too obvious to need saying.

From the grim expression on their faces, the men did not agree. ‘Sinead, it’s not that simple,’ Niall said. ‘She stole a valuable jewel and framed you for the theft. We can’t just let her go.’

‘But –’ She looked from one to the other. ‘She must have had a good reason. She’s my sister. She wouldn’t try to hurt me.’

‘She already has,’ Niall said.

Sinead stood her ground. ‘It’s a mistake. You’ll see. I want you to promise me you won’t do anything to her without my permission. After all, you’re working for me.’

Andy hooted with laughter, while Niall gave a reluctant nod. ‘We’ll consult with you. Fair enough?’

She nodded. ‘And what happens if she is not there?’

‘That’s more tricky. We’ll have to try to pass you off as her, and see if we can find out where she lives or what she does for a living.’

Andy handed Niall a mirror. ‘Have you looked at yourself, boss? You’ll never pass as a slave. I think I should do it.’

The mirror showed him that Andy was right. His face
was covered with bruises, his right eye was turning black and there was a cut under it. Hall had fists like anvils.

Sinead gasped. ‘Your back!’

He twisted around and saw that it was a mass of livid cuts and purple bruises.

‘No way are you going out in a loincloth, dude,’ Andy said. ‘You’ll scare the ladies there. Now me, I’ll be like the flower that attracts all the bees.’

‘I hope they sting you to death,’ Sinead snapped.

‘But what a way to go.’

Niall scowled at both of them. ‘I am going. Andy, you can drive us. And get me some more of those pills. I’ll get through this and crash later.’

Andy opened his mouth to argue and then shut it without saying anything.

Sinead’s eyes were narrowed. ‘You are impossible, both of you. I feel like going on my own.’

‘No!’ both men said at once.

‘Oh, very well. But Andy’s right, you can’t wear the loincloth. We’ll have to find you something else.’ She groped in her bag and found her phone. ‘Hey Clara? L – Listen, Sinead here. We need a new costume for tonight.’

Damn. She had almost said Lottie. Sinead held Niall’s eyes while she said, ‘Turns out my date is not as pretty from the back as I had thought. We need something that covers his back completely, but we still need to make him look like a slave. He’s going to be very servile tonight.’

She listened to whatever Clara was saying, occasionally commenting. ‘Okay, that sounds great. I’ll send someone to pick it up.’

She disconnected the call, an evil laugh in her eyes. ‘Oh, you are going to love this.’

Niall closed his eyes. He had a feeling she was going to torture him. And in the meantime, he needed to track down Hall and find out what the bastard was up to.

While Niall was on the laptop chasing down a lead to Hall, Sinead permitted herself the luxury of a bath. It had been a while since her last public appearance and she needed the works if she was wearing that skimpy costume.

As she lounged in the warm water, memories of their earlier encounter flooded her head. What had come over her? She had almost let Lottie out of the box. Now, each time Niall looked at her, there was heat in his eyes that he didn’t bother to disguise.

‘You cannot do this,’ she told the steam-clouded mirror.

Great. Now she was talking to herself. A relationship with Niall would be impossible. She couldn’t possibly keep a secret like Lottie. And it looked like Lottie would have to come out of retirement until she found another job. It was lucky she hadn’t sold her costumes and stage props.

She slopped a wet flannel over her arms, letting the soapy water dribble across her skin. She was falling for Niall and that was way out of her comfort zone. Her only long-term relationship had been with Gabriel, and that had been friendship and fun rather than passion. He knew the score. Keep it light. No promises and no tears when it was over. She could never surrender her heart to a man.

Falling in love was a big no-no. She needed to control her relationships, and she was never going to leave herself vulnerable to another person who might leave her. She’d already lost too many people. Sinead shut the lid on that memory. She was not going there. No falling in love. And definitely no falling in love with Niall.

‘Sinead, have you fallen asleep in there? Andy is back.’

‘Ten minutes,’ she replied. She climbed out of the bath and oiled her damp skin. As she grabbed a robe from the back of the door, raised voices carried through from the sitting room: Andy’s laughter and Niall’s clipped tone. Oh dear. He had obviously seen his costume. She hurried outside.

‘I am not going to a party dressed like Russell fucking Crowe. You can take it back and get me something else.’

‘Clara says it’s Spartacus and that all the women will –’

Sinead clapped her hands to get their attention. ‘Boys, please. Stop fighting.’

‘You.’ She addressed her remarks to Niall in the sternest voice she could manage. ‘The party starts in less than two hours. The store is closed. There will be no other costume.’

‘And you.’ She rounded on Andy. ‘Stop laughing at him. God knows he’s bad enough.’

Sinead picked up the new costume. Clara had done a fine job. The strips of leather were stitched together and studded to form a tunic that would cover the damage to his back. The gladiator-style skirt would barely come to mid-thigh on him. Andy was right. Even with the cuts and bruises, the women would melt when they saw him coming. Digging into the tissue-lined box, she found two
leather arm braces. They would barely go round his forearm, but they would cover some of the bruising there. As for the rest of the injuries, he would have to be content with looking dangerous.

A smaller box revealed a sheer stole to match her costume and a metal headdress that looked vaguely Roman. Clara had thought of everything. They were no longer going as Samson and Delilah but as a Roman lady and her gladiator, one of her favourite fantasies.