Punishing with Pleasure

 

I'm pouring over a brief written by one of my interns when Brenda intercoms to let me know Juliette has arrived. The cadence of my heartbeat increases its tempo.

"Send her in."

She glows like a peony in summertime in her short, bright sweater dress. Pale gray stockings caress the toned curves of her legs. She looks really good in gray suede pumps. I’ve never seen her hair pulled back, but the chignon displays her long neck, inviting a nibble. The artsy gold blob earrings complete her professional look.

I scribble a last note on the brief, then rise and extend my arms in welcome. "Juliette."

"DePaul."  She evades embrace and clasps my hand.

My mouth twitches. I draw her into my body and wrap her in my arms. "We're back to your calling me Leo and shaking my hand?"

She pushes against my chest. "I'm here on business." 

My shoulders begin to loosen, responding to the warmth of her dusty green eyes. I bury my face in her neck and breathe in her scent. “Let’s mix a little pleasure with our business.”

Her chortle is deep and throaty as she pushes me back. "I talked to Tony earlier, so show me where to sign the lease, and give me a pen."

I force myself to let her go so I can walk around my desk and dig out her folder. I slide the lease toward her, setting a pen on top. She sets aside the pen and picks up the contract, peering through her lashes at me. "Should I have a lawyer advise me?"

This woman. She won’t let me greet her with a hug, but she’s okay with a flirt? Her coy, come-and-fetch-me look grabs at my gut. A little lower, actually. "Always. There's a clause allowing either party to terminate within thirty days of signing. No penalties. That should give you enough time to have your attorney look over the contract. Who do you use?"

"Crockett and Hayes."

"Good firm. I can fax a copy of this contract to them, if you like."

Juliette smiles and signs by the sticky arrows. When she hands back the document and pen, I exchange them for a set of big, gold keys in keeping with the Citadel's medieval theme.

"Congratulations." Except for the two spots of color high on her cheeks, I'd never know this moment had any particular importance to her or her business ambitions. She accepts the keys and lays them gently in her bag.

The prim ritual makes me grin. "How do you feel right now?"

Her chest expands with inhaled breath. "Terrific, DePaul. I feel good about how things are evolving with Events, and look forward to sharing space at the Citadel. Thank you."

"My pleasure. I like knowing you're close by and safe."

"Speaking of safety, the neighbors and I discussed security as you suggested, and I hired Mr. Dixon last night." She recounts the previous evening, including her concern for her neighbors.

"It was the right thing to do." One less thing for me to worry about.

"For now," she says. “Maybe they can keep the crabs away from my door. I found another there this morning. Two, actually, although one looked dead.”

“Is it mating season?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ve lived in that house for years now and have never had a crab on my doorstep, much less two. It’s eerie.”

“Tell Dixon.” I walk around the desk again, and pull her back into my arms. The soft pulsing of energy between us is as substantial as a third person.

 

*****

 

Leo lifts the glass lid and leans over the slow-cooker. "Pot roast! One of my favorites." Beef bubbles in tangy Carolina barbecue sauce mixed with smooth, sweet, pomegranate molasses. He inhales deeply and smacks his lips.

I whisk the beginnings of salad dressing in a Pyrex measuring cup. "I hope you like it. It's probably not what you’re used to—no onions or carrots." The microwave dings. "Will you get those, please?"

He opens the door to the high-pitched whistle and whine of sweet potatoes steaming in their jackets. "Mmm, more nuked vegetables." 

I laugh and hand him an oven mitt. "Potatoes aren’t vegetables. Cut them in half for me and scoop out the flesh, will you, please, Max?"

He throws me a sardonic look as he pulls on the mitt. "Max? As in Vein-ous?"

I grin and shrug.

He splits and scoops potatoes. "You can't bring yourself to use my first name, but a sex name is fine.” His eyebrows waggle at me. “Freudian."

I deftly supreme a Texas ruby-red grapefruit, capturing any juice run-off in the Pyrex vessel.  The naked sections go into a salad bowl already filled with bib lettuce, diced avocado and sliced black olives. "Don't read too much into it, Leo. Maybe I'm just trying to get you in the mood."

“Oh, Juliette, with you, I’m always in the mood.”

He laughs, but I don't trust the upturned curve on his sculpted lips as he calmly mashes the potatoes. Time apart hasn’t seemed to cool his ardor any. I toss butter in with the potatoes and sprinkle a little ground clove as he wields the masher. Leaving him to get everything combined and creamy, I finish up the grapefruit vinaigrette and pour it over the salad, scatter a handful of toasted pine nuts into the bowl, then pull out two cranberry-colored ceramic plates. We serve ourselves directly from the stove and go to the great room to eat before the fire.

Hmm. Less than a week ago I’d only heard stories of this man, and now I've let him infiltrate my house, my bed…my work. How exactly did that happen so fast? And why this constant concern? Always before, sex was sex, period. Compartmentalized from the rest of my life. The way I like it.

If I were smart, I’d let him go. He occupies too much of my mind. But whenever I think about ending things, I get a sour feeling in my gut. Candidly, my body’s not finished with his. When he pushes into me—

He sits beside me on the sofa and pours more wine for each of us. "You look like you've seen a ghost. What is it?"

I gulp. "Just realizing what a week we're facing." Really? That’s the best you can do, Juliette?

He swallows a mouthful of pot roast. "Tony's holding up pretty well.  How's Cleo?"

"She's fine, too, I think, reveling in the drama. However, immediately afterwards, Elizabeth is going on vacation."

He chuckles. "Worn out by Cleo?"

"She calls Elizabeth several times a day."

"That would do it." Leo shakes his head. "Tony's life was so quiet and orderly."

"Oh. Well…"

"Yeah."

Tony is never going to see quiet and orderly again in this lifetime. Not tied to Cleo. The only time she’s quiet is when she's sleeping. And she’s not orderly even then, bedclothes tossed or sliding every which way. But I figure he's old enough to know what he's up against. Experienced enough? I doubt James Bond is that experienced. 

I snort, then hastily clear my throat. "I've seen them together a few times. He seems to keep a lid on things.”

His dimple melts me as he grins. "She runs him ragged. It's wonderful." 

Unbound hair falls softly on his shoulders. Friendly lines crease the sides of his mouth. In the candlelight, his eyes take on the warm sheen of topaz. The man sitting next to me is as satisfying as the meal we're sharing. How could I consider letting him go yet?

Maybe it’s just the Chateauneuf-du-Pape making him look so tasty. I take another sip of the wine he brought, and its smoothness slides down my throat. Nighttime, firelight, a dimple, hair of a Renaissance prince, and eyes like jewels. Heady combination. I want to feel his evening scruff against my skin.

"Tell me about your family, Juliette."

That hijacks my sensual reverie as abruptly as a record scratch. It also kills my appetite.

I slide my plate onto the bookcase. “My family? Nothing to linger over. Both parents dead, one from complications with pneumonia, the other from natural causes. No siblings."

Leo’s brow furrows. "Both parents dead so young?"

I shrug. "They weren't all that young. I arrived late in their marriage. Mother was in her 40s and I was born two weeks after Dad's fiftieth birthday."

He absorbs this information with a lawyer's impassivity. "Your mom was the pneumonia?"

A bird—or maybe a bat—clunks into the window, startling me. "Weak lungs runs in her family.  Asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, that sort of thing."

"Uncles, cousins, grandparents?"

I drag a throw around my shoulders. "No. Mom had an older brother, but he was killed in Vietnam. Dad’s sister was a nun. She died in a convent. Of course, both sets of grandparents were gone before I was born. Coming from a family of your size, this must be incomprehensible. Do you have lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins?"

He studies his wine glass.

"Tell me, Leo. It doesn't bother me to hear about other people's families. It's sort of the 'can't miss what you never had' syndrome."

He sighs. "It's not that. I guess I'm trying to decide how I want to define family. See, my family is scattered all over the globe." He huffs. "I haven't begun to meet them all, and never will, I'm sure. That means they don't really exist for me. They're relations, but does that make them family?” 

"Well, they're blood."

"If family is defined as shared blood or DNA, then I guess they’re family." He gathers his thoughts while chewing. "Every day I deal with people who share blood but can't stand each other. People who pay me to obliterate the ties they have with each other."

Every plane of his face is taut and sharp, the stubble on his jaw shadowed.

"It hurts me to think of them as family with each other. Hurts. So I think of them as relations instead. To me, relations and family are different. My family consists of my parents and brothers."

My voice is a whisper. "And eventually, their wives and children.”

"Yes, hopefully their wives and children. And I have a couple of close friends I think of as family. Family is a fluid concept for me, more than just blood."

A candle sputters, burning low. I snuff it out.

The man's job is crushing his spirit. My first impulse is to ask him about that, but I'm not sure I want to know this much about his hopes, dreams, and fears, much less delve into them. That's girlfriend territory. Relationship stuff.

"Finished with your plate?"

"For now. It was really good, Juliette.” He scrubs a hand down his face, as if banishing his darker concerns. “Thanks for dinner."

I stand. "It was my pleasure."

He joins me in the kitchen. "I got carried away about family, sorry." I point to the slow-cooker, and he lifts out the ceramic liner and carries it to the refrigerator.

"No need to apologize, Leo. It's an important topic to you. I suspect you're passionate about it in court, too?"

One side of his mouth pulls up in a self-deprecating grin. "It can be effective.” Then his smile turns winsome. "You evoke my passion, too."

His voice is as deep and resonant as a cello. My body quickens even while my mind registers his earnestness. He reaches for me and buries his face in my neck. His man-smell engulfs me, musky like the dark, warm spice in our meal. I brush back the silken strands of chestnut hair that slide over my face in his embrace. He hums with pleasure at the touch and nuzzles deeper. His breath caresses me on a sigh, his shoulders and back relax with my continued stroking through his hair. How will the intensity of his mood play out in the bedroom? Could make for a powerful session. As long as he’s not looking for a girlfriend experience to go along with it.

Leo cups my neck with one hand and uses a thumb to lift my chin and tilt my head back. His gaze roves from my lips up to my eyes. My lips part in expectation. His eyes spark and nostrils flare. He sets his jaw, then lowers his head to rest lips against mine. I expect hard hunger, but his lips are soft and warm. The unexpected sensation invades my senses more than an outright assault, and I sever the connection.

He allows me to break the kiss, but the hand still cupping the back of my neck keeps me from retreating too far. I search his eyes, trying to gauge his mood, and he waits for me to complete my inspection, regarding me calmly. When he lowers his head again to my lips, I brace myself.

"How about a movie?" he breathes against my mouth. 

I blink. A movie?

My lips feel his curve into a small smile and he brushes my cheek with the fingertips of his free hand. My senses are so confused, confounded by the softness of his hands and mouth contrasted with the hardness pressing against my lower body. I understand the demands of the one, and am enthralled by the call of the other.

"Come on, Juliette." His voice is a whisper, and his stubble scrapes across my cheek on his way to my ear. "Let's curl up on the sofa and watch a movie together so I can hold you close for a while."

It's an intimacy I don't allow, and shouldn't consider with Leo, but I can't deny that its allure is bewitching.

Dinner followed by a movie is public and impersonal. A nice way to be with a man until I decide whether or not I want to have sex with him. But to sit at home with Leo holding me and fondling me for a couple of hours? That's definitely outside the scope of purely physical. Unless…

I take Leo by the hand. "Come on, I have an idea."

He follows me upstairs into the guest room. "No movie?"

"Waaait." I pick up the remote and press a button. The artwork above the corner fireplace raises, leaving the frame still attached to the wall, surrounding a flat screen television instead of a painting.

"Clever. What are we watching?"

"I have an idea about that, too." I kick off my heels and climb onto the bed. Leo removes his shoes and waits for me to settle, his eyes following every move. When he joins me, he lies flat on his back and scoops me to drape across him, one of my legs over his. He plumps a pillow behind his head.

I reach across him to another remote, press another button, and the head of the bed rises, like in a hospital. He snuggles himself into a comfortable sitting position.  "Nice. You didn't show me that before." I grin as he manhandles my body into the position he wants, one leg hiked up over his again.

"I thought this would be more comfortable for movie-viewing than downstairs on the sofa.”

His big hand glides up the stocking covering my leg. When he discovers the lace top of my thigh-highs, he lights up like a little boy on Christmas morning. "Oh, Juliette. I need a better look." 

He sits up, drags me to my knees, and slides both hands along my thighs to push up my sweater dress. The hiss of his indrawn breath tells me he likes the sheer silvery gray thong. But I don’t think he cares the underwear’s specially designed to avoid panty lines. He flings up my arms and peels the dress over my head, revealing a matching silvery gray bra. 

His voice is gruff. "I think I'm about to have a fucking heart attack."

Judging by the heat in Leo's eyes, I'm thinking we might get to skip the effing movie. He traces the upper edge of my thong with one forefinger. "You have the softest skin." 

His hand slides around and palms a tush cheek while his other forefinger slides down over the placket covering more than a dozen little hooks and eyes holding my bra closed. He nuzzles my breast through the chiffon, then sucks the nipple into his mouth. The wet warm suction tugs an invisible drawstring that cinches my nether-regions, making them ache. I gasp and shudder and thrust my fingers into his hair to hold his head in place. He unhooks my bra and removes it, then wraps his arms around my back as he continues to torment my breasts.

My breathing is shallow and fast. "Your clothes. Take them off.” 

Shaking hands unbutton his shirt. He pulls away to drop it and his pants on the floor, then, still in his underwear, he climbs back on the bed, where we face each other, on our knees, hands on each other's waists, raking over each other with steamy gazes.

He closes his eyes, then licks his lips and swallows. "The movie.”

I exhale audibly, drooping more than relaxing, thwarted in my desire to possess this man's glorious body. His forehead rests against mine, willing us to dial things back.

My hands are grasping flat pads of muscle they'd like to explore more fully, and he wants to watch a movie? What’s going on?

I sigh. 

All right, then, back to my first plan. I pick up the remote and search for the movie I want.

"Let’s get comfortable." I lie down on my side. Leo relaxes onto his back again but pulls me into him rather than draping me over half his body like before. 

The control’s in my hand, pointed at the TV. "Ready?"

He stares up at the screen. "Do it." 

The opening credits flash, and Leo stiffens. When the title 9 ½ Weeks appears, he groans.

"You little wretch." His laughter makes me want to curl into him and climb up his long, hard torso. He turns narrowed eyes to me, but I manage to stare at the television screen. He nods once, with a knowing smile, and settles in to watch the film. 

I can't shake the notion that there's something faintly sinister about Leo's smile. I'm on tenterhooks, libido stretched taut. I don't have long to wait. Leo's hand begins to stroke circles on my back. I watch the screen, his hand a slight distraction, nothing more.

Mickey Rourke, cock-sure of himself, saunters into view, and my awareness heightens. Leo's soothing tickles now feel more like a massage, heating up my skin. Mickey's eyes smolder, and my body simmers. Leo's strokes broaden to include my entire back and part of my bottom, where his hand slips under the wide stretchy band of my thong to caress the valley between my cheeks with a light touch of a fingertip. My pelvis flexes against his hip.

His hand encompasses my entire bottom, kneading it, driving me closer against him. The contact of his hip against my clit makes me gasp. I am drowning in desire for this man calmly watching the screen. His twitching cock, big and hard as a can of Monster and lying at an odd angle inside his boxer briefs, is the only evidence I have of Leo's awareness.

Without looking, he grasps my thong with thumb and two fingers and tugs it slowly and deliberately, drawing it tighter between my legs so that it pulls at my clit. I rub my pelvis along his thigh again. It dredges the damp chiffon even tighter, doubly arousing sensitive tissue. Squirming against him gives me the pressure that I need, pulling on my thong gives me the stimulation that I crave. I’m building to a crashing climax, just from his manipulating my panties to rock my privates.

He bunches the thin tail of the thong in his palm so that his fingers slide over my slit and anus with every slow pull. Clit, slit, and anus are relentlessly teased and tormented. My pride won't let me beg him to stop watching the movie and take me, suck me off, rub me out, impale me, so I endure the maddening, slow, inexorable build-up. I suppress my moans of frustration and need, focusing instead on the repetitive scrape and juicy tickling to drag me closer and closer to the goal. My body shudders with a yearning so deep it almost blinds me, yet all I receive is the same, sensual seesaw. 

I'm used to frenzied power taking me over the top instead of this slow burn, so I'm relieved when a gut-wrenching orgasm finally rolls through me and radiates bliss, in, over, and through every square inch of my beleaguered body.

Convulsions crescendo then ebb. I pant softly, face buried in Leo's side, languorously coming down from the scrabbling desire of before. I'm overheated and deliciously limp. 

Leo's position hasn't changed; he's still calmly watching the film. 

But his briefs no longer completely contain his cock, which is seeping strings of pre-cum onto his belly. And his cheeks are flushed.

In spite of my stupor, I lick my lips and reach out to cup his swollen flesh.

He captures my wrist and stops me. "Watch the movie.”

I blink. 

My mouth opens to protest, and he silences me with a hard kiss that leaves me breathless and shaken. "Watch the movie.”

I glance toward the screen, about to dismiss it, when I notice Mickey doing some wicked things to Kim's body. The film shows a lot, and my imagination fills in the rest. I look back at Leo. He's wearing a very knowing look on an unsmiling face.

With a little shove, he pushes me back against the bed and rolls on top of me for another hard kiss. Before I can panic, his tongue slips between my lips, and our kiss turns lush and deep. I relax into the seductive warmth and passion, fighting an urge to dislodge his body off mine. I needn't have worried; Leo scooches down, dragging off my thong, then settles with his head between my legs. He glances back at the screen, takes in the tableau, then replicates the scene with his mouth on my sex. He makes me come, pulling orgasms out of me, one after another, until the movie is over and the ending credits roll.

I'm a quivering mass of overstimulated nerves by the time he picks me up and carries me across the house. He deposits me on the bed.

Through my sex-drugged fog I rouse sufficiently to say, "But I wanted to have you inside me."

As he leaves my room, he tosses back, "And I wanted to watch a movie with you."

"So I guess we're even?"

He's far enough away I barely hear his reply. "We'll see."