She descended another flight of stairs, feeling a little unnerved despite her earlier show of confidence with Debbie. She glanced around uneasily, but there was no one to ask for assistance. Hadn’t Margie mentioned several house staff worked here aside from Mrs. Shaw? Perhaps they were all day employees?
Being unlike any house she’d ever been in, the Breakers defied intuitive navigation. There weren’t really hallways, Emma realized, only stairs that led from one cascading floor to another. So far she’d encountered a fantastical futuristic workout facility featuring a gym, racquetball court, an indoor lap pool, and a landscaped outdoor terrace. She could make out the steam rising on the large outdoor whirlpool through the glass doors as she tiptoed through the silent, sleek facility. There had been no washer or dryer in the locker room that she could find, but she had located a chute that appeared to be for soiled linen. She just needed to locate where that chute ended.
It certainly wasn’t on the next level, which opened to a stunning suite that featured a gleaming bar, a waterfall fountain, an elaborate entertainment center, and deep upholstered chairs and couches. She spotted yet another outdoor space through a wall made completely of glass panes. Several examples of graceful, sensual marble sculpture caught Emma’s eye in the room. One made her do a double take and draw nearer to study it. Heat rose in her cheeks when she recognized the sexual act being portrayed. She guiltily recalled her mundane task and resumed her mission.
The straps on the heavy laundry bag were starting to dig painfully into her shoulder. She arrived on another floor and hesitated. Unlike most of the spaces she’d seen, this one opened to a wide hallway that led to a partially open, carved wood door. A possibility, she thought, shifting the bag to her other shoulder and grimacing, although probably just wishful thinking on her part. She peered around the door and sagged in disappointment. No laundry facilities here or anything remotely potentially useful to her. Unlike the rest of the minimalist, airy décor in the mansion, this room was decorated in dark woods, leathers, and rich fabrics in shades of burgundy and dark green. A large Oriental carpet covered the wood floor. She started to back out of what appeared to be a luxurious, masculine office.
She halted.
A television monitor sat on the carved desk, a slight flickering in the turned black-and-white screen capturing her attention. She glanced around cautiously and eased into the room. An appealing scent tickled her nose: leather and the hint of men’s cologne—sandalwood and citrus. She leaned over the desk in order to fully view the screen. She saw the image of her patient, Cristina, her mouth a black, jagged slash against her white face, rising from a nightmare as she would from the depths of sucking water. Emma almost heard her scream, although the monitor was silent. Debbie’s shoulder and dark ponytail blocked the view of Cristina a moment later as she bent to assist. Margie’s voice echoed in Emma’s head.
He might have one of those screens set up in his bedroom or office or private plane, for all we know. He may be glorying in every second of his stepmother’s death.
Apparently not every second, Emma thought, frowning at the empty chair behind the desk. She glanced curiously around the office one more time. There was something odd in this scenario. She watched as Debbie settled Cristina and moved to the periphery of the screen. The stark fear and pain still lingered on Cristina’s sagging face.
“. . . how pleased I was when you called earlier. Why didn’t I hear from you sooner?”
Emma started in shock at the woman’s distant voice. For a confused second, she thought the sound came from the video feed.
“You called me,” a man replied. “And I was away. I told you that.”
Footsteps.
Adrenaline poured into Emma’s blood, making her limbs tingle. Someone was coming down the stairs from the upper level.
Her heart stalled. Shit. She was in a private suite. Not at the threshold, but in the middle of the room. The hospice staff had specifically been told to remain on Cristina’s floor. She imagined fumbling a lame excuse to two total strangers about why she was lurking about next to this desk.
My ass is so going to get fired!
Her heart resumed beating with an uncomfortable leap. Emma lurched with it, her gaze traveling wildly across the large office. There was a massive closed door that she considered entering, but what if that led her into deeper trouble?
“Of course,” she heard the woman say. “France and Italy this time. Isn’t that what you said at dinner?”
“You know I said France and Monaco,” the man replied, sounding too distracted or impatient to be sardonic at full strength. The woman’s laughter made hot blood flood into Emma’s brain and her skin prickle with a need to flee.
“I suppose you were on that floating playground of Niki’s with all of his floatable playthings?”
“I told you that Niki is here in the States, testing the new car and helping me with plans for the Grand Prix. Oh, I see,” he said coolly. “You did hear me. You’re just testing me.”
Any second now they’ll walk in and see me standing here like an idiot.
Emma transformed into a wild thing, her single objective not to get caught. Her gaze landed on a tall, regal armoire with drawers at the bottom and a large, deep cupboard at the top. She opened the door, wincing at the uncontrollable clicking sound, and carefully placed the knotted plastic laundry bag into the bottom. Fully in the clutch of fear and panic, she sat on the bottom of the cupboard and pulled her legs in, knees against her chest. The sleeves and legs of some sort of garments brushed across her face before she plunged into the depths of them. Using the latch at the bottom of the door, she swung it shut just in time.
“What, exactly, do you think you’ll accomplish by trying to trick me into revealing a lie?” the man asked with dark amusement, his voice just feet away now. A door closed briskly. Another ominous sound came—the snick of a lock.
They were in the same room now with Emma. Locked in. Her heart roared so loud in her ears, she was surprised the man—was it Michael Montand himself?—didn’t immediately throw open the cupboard and yank her out, shouting blistering accusations.
And dammit, she hadn’t yet fastened the cupboard door. She’d been afraid the clicking noise would betray her presence as they drew near. Her hand started to ache from holding the metal fastening, keeping the door closed all the way but not latched.
“I’m not trying to trip you up. How ridiculous. I just missed you, that’s all. France and Monaco? I would guess some uncivilized place. You look like a savage,” the woman said, her voice lowering to a purr. Emma fully recognized for the first time that she had a light, melodious French accent. In her mind’s eye, Emma imagined her entering the man’s arms. Touching him. “A beautiful savage. Do what you do to me. Turn me into a savage, too.”
“Why must you always overplay things, Astrid?”
Emma blinked her eyes open into the pitch black. Had she imagined his vaguely frustrated tone? Despite her near full-blown panic, she experienced a strong urge to laugh. It’d been precisely what Emma had been thinking she’d like to tell the fawning woman.
“Why are you so mean?” Astrid asked, attempting to sound unconcerned and sexily playful, and very nearly succeeding. Emma had the impression Astrid had some serious experience with flirting and seduction, yet was aware she was falling short in this instance.
“You didn’t call me because you want me to be nice.”
“No,” Astrid breathed after a pause. “You’re even meaner than me, Vanni. And we both know how bad I am.”
Vanni? Who is Vanni? The woman had pronounced it like Donny but with a V.
Was she not trapped in Montand’s suite then? Was she eavesdropping on one of his guests or a family member? Emma wondered wildly.
“Are you sure you want to do this again?” he asked soberly, ignoring Astrid’s provocative language. “I’ve told you what I can offer you. It’s the same I can offer any woman. It isn’t much.”
“You might change your mind someday.”
“Never.”
A pregnant pause followed his steely reply.
“Then the sex is enough. More than enough,” Astrid breathed. “Ah. I knew you’d missed me.”
Emma’s anxiety ratcheted up another notch when she heard a jingle of metal. A belt buckle being unfastened? She waited in dread. Was that the subtle sound of a zipper being lowered? Shit, shit, shit. How the hell had she gotten herself into this—her—hardworking, practical Emma Shore?
The man gave a low grunt. “I suppose if you must use your mouth for something . . .
He didn’t sound aroused. He seemed . . . what? Irritated? Or was that dark amusement tingeing his voice? Forgetting her anxiety for a second, she leaned her head out of the hanging garments and moved closer to the door. It bothered her that she couldn’t picture him. It suddenly struck her that in her brief tour of the Breakers, she’d never once seen personal or family photos. Perhaps he wasn’t family, though. Astrid’s outline was clear in her head, despite the fact that Emma had never seen her. It wasn’t her true appearance that gave her shape, but the character Emma had sketched however loosely by listening to her syrupy seduction. The man remained cast in deep shadow, however, despite the frantic working of her imagination to draw him. Was he old? Young? Stern? Bored? She wished he’d speak again to give her another clue.
Instead, only a tense, billowing silence pounded in her brain. Just when she thought she’d go crazy from the quiet, Emma began to hear Astrid’s moans. They were low, excited . . . muffled. There was no doubt about it. He was in her mouth. Her throat, if the occasional gagging sound was any evidence.
Another unwanted noise entered her awareness, a wet sucking sound. She could envision the movements of the woman’s head as she plunged back and forth on the man’s—Vanni’s—cock, her imagination fed by the cadence and volume of Astrid’s muted moans.
Against her will, her sex prickled with arousal.
Her cheeks scalding, Emma clamped her eyes shut as if doing so would shut off all her senses. She felt both guilty at her violation of the stranger’s privacy during an intimate moment, but also violated herself in some way. An intense longing welled up in her to throw open the doors and quit the place—and screw her job and her pride.
But she couldn’t burst in on that.
The minutes dragged by. The woman’s moans were growing louder and more excited. The man was right. She did talk too much. Or moan too much. Why didn’t she just shut up? She was the one giving him oral sex, not the other way around.
And why was he silent as the grave?
“Enough,” he said quietly, and again, Emma wondered at how he’d said her private thoughts out loud. The skin on her neck and forearms prickled with wariness and anticipation. Not knowing what would happen next—not seeing—was driving her mad.
Astrid’s soft gasps penetrated the panel of wood.
“Go into the bedroom and get undressed. Everything off,” he said.
“But—”
“I’m not in the mood to be the audience tonight for your usual lingerie fashion show. We all know you’re beautiful, Astrid. I’ll join you in a few seconds,” he said more quietly after a pause, as if he’d regretted his sharp interruption and weary sarcasm.
Astrid didn’t respond. Was she miffed? If she was, she didn’t voice it. Something hinted to Emma that restraint wasn’t typical for her. Vanni was supremely confident, but Astrid seemed almost as used to getting what she wanted. Her behavior wasn’t the norm, or at least not completely so. She was holding her temper.
For him.
The sound of a door opening breached her awareness. So . . . the large office was attached to his bedroom suite? Emma leaned as close to the door as she could. What is he doing out there? The sooner he joined his bedmate and they got down to it, she’d be able to escape this ludicrous situation. She didn’t think she’d even be able to confess this fiasco to Amanda or Colin, it was so humiliating, and she told her sister and her boyfriend almost everything.
Yet she’d never had something so incendiary to tell.
A moment later, she heard a slight squeak on the wood floor and footsteps. His stride was long. Fluid. Unhurried.
“Come over here. I’m going to bind you onto the sliding track, then use the flogger on you,” he said.
Emma’s mouth dropped open.
“Anything you say.” Astrid’s reply was only diffident on the surface. Beneath it, there was a dripping greed and hunger that shocked Emma to the core.
Oh no. What kind of twisted, kinky scenario was this? And why didn’t that degenerate Vanni shut the goddamn bedroom door?
Yet she didn’t want him to. And that made this whole situation even more incendiary than she could measure.
She heard something that sounded like heavy metal being moved and arranged on the floor. Emma’s muscles grew so tight, they began to ache dully. Her hand screamed in acute pain, however, protesting from holding the catch on the door so tautly. She longed to let go. Curiosity was a sharp internal prod. Did she dare to peek out and ascertain the couple’s location in the bedroom? They could be yards away by now.
The sound of leather against flesh was the next thing that penetrated Emma’s tense misery. Oh Jesus. They were close. Much closer than she’d imagined. It was almost as if they’d barely moved away from the door. Emma bit her lip in rising agony. Another cracking sound. In the pause that followed, she heard Astrid moan.
“Oh, that feels so good. Yes, give it to me.”
“Quiet,” he demanded. Again, the sharp sound of a lash striking flesh. Another. Astrid cried out sharply.
Emma couldn’t take this anymore. She knew about S and M. Almost everybody did in this day and age. It’d become almost a cliché in modern society. References to it usually earned a smirk or eye roll from Emma.
But sitting here, experiencing the sounds of a woman willingly being flogged with the intent of sexual arousal, hearing the taut crack of leather against bare skin and Astrid’s moans, feeling the inexplicable tension and electricity in the air . . .
. . . none of it felt remotely funny.
What was worse and far more humiliating? A thick, warm sensation had settled in her sex. What was wrong with her? She and Colin had shared a satisfactory sex life for the past two years, but intimacy with Colin had never inspired this intense, undeniable, uncomfortable arousal.
It was humiliating, what he was doing to her. Wasn’t it? Given Astrid’s obvious excitement, it was a little hard to label it.
She began to ease the door open, telling herself that she needed to look if she wanted to escape. She paused when the lashing sounds ceased as well.
“Oh God, Vanni. C’est si bon,” Astrid said shakily. Emma swallowed thickly. He was touching her. Pleasuring her, somehow. It certainly sounded that way.
“I told you to stay quiet,” he said, his patient tone in these circumstances confusing Emma.
Again, the crisp smack. The sound was starting to tear at her, leaving a resulting throb in her flesh. It was unbearable. At all costs, she needed to get out of here. Holding her breath and sending up a prayer, she eased open the cupboard door a tiny fraction of an inch. Cool air brushed against her hot face.
She paused, frozen for a moment in horror. She could see them. Or a slice of them, anyway. Not really them. The woman. She was right there, maybe fifteen feet away. Emma moved her head, holding her breath, trying to get a more complete picture through the cracked armoire door. Astrid was naked and on her hands and knees, kneeling and bound with black rope to a sort of T-bar. The bar rose from a metal rack that sat on the carpet. Astrid’s hair was long and dark—nearly black, lustrous and curled in loose waves. It her position, it hung over her face. Her naked body was voluptuous, the sun-kissed, golden skin gleaming and flawless in the soft lamplight. She clearly sunbathed topless. Her bottom was pale next to her gilded skin, but there was no evidence of a tan line around her breasts. A dozen or so black leather tails landed on a curved buttock, making Emma jump. Astrid cried out sharply. It all looked so alien . . . so deliberate. Astrid’s almost palpable arousal confused Emma even further.
Curiosity nudged her. She craned to see the man holding the flogger. He must have been kneeling behind the bound woman, but the door to the bedroom suite blocked her view of him. The flogger fell again, lashing voluptuous flesh. This time, Emma made out the masculine hand and forearm holding the leather handle so surely. The leather tails landed again, the sharp sound twining with Astrid’s loud moan. Emma didn’t think it was a harsh lashing, although Astrid’s bottom was taking on a rosy hue.
Vanni paused, resting the hand that held the flogger on the top of a buttock. Emma saw his other hand moving, rubbing the other cheek, as if soothing the sting. She bit her lip hard. The vision had sent a sharp spike of forbidden arousal through her, shocking her. The large, masculine hand moved, caressing hips and ribs. She saw Astrid visibly tremble in pleasure beneath his touch. His hand caressed the pinkened buttocks again and then lowered between Astrid’s legs. Astrid made a muffled sound in her throat. She opened her mouth.
“Control yourself,” he warned quietly. “You know it pleases me more than your hysterics.”
Astrid bit off a moan. Burning to know what Astrid was experiencing in these bizarre circumstances, Emma moved her view in the small opening of the door. Astrid had turned her head, causing her hair to spill from her face. Emma had never seen a more exquisite woman aside from her sister, Amanda. But it wasn’t just her physical beauty that struck Emma. Her face radiated pure ecstasy. What in the world was Vanni doing to her to evoke that much pleasure? Her eyes were clamped shut. Her dark pink lips opened as if in slow motion. She began to keen, the piercing sound startling Emma. Her hips began to jerk back and forth in a frantic rhythm, her generous breasts bouncing at the motion.
“Fuck me, Vanni. Fuck me with your beautiful cock.”
The flogger fell, harder this time. It struck again and again. Emma strangled a whimper. Astrid forced herself into immobility, but the radiant glow on her face only seemed to grow stronger.
The flogger continued to fall, as if in retaliation for Astrid’s lack of control.
Emma couldn’t take this anymore. She drew her arm across her midsection and replaced one hand with the other, relieving the tension in the aching muscles. She pulled the door shut and buried her hot cheeks against her upper arm, praying for it to be over, when she was free from this wretched moment . . . this excruciating tension. Her sex had grown achy and hot. She longed to touch herself to alleviate the pressure, but the knowledge that she was aroused in these circumstances was horrifying enough without adding to her transgressions. It wasn’t just shameful arousal that she experienced, however, but a wild desire to flee, to escape this untenable situation.
She’d never felt so helpless in her life.
The sound of the flogger ceased every once in a while, and Astrid’s wild moans of arousal grew louder and more desperate, piercing Emma’s unarmored consciousness relentlessly. She no longer needed to see them to be inflicted by their actions. He was touching her during those moments, building her pleasure.
She hated them. She hated him for forcing her to endure this, although she knew in some distant part of her brain that it was no one’s fault but her own.
Worst of all, she wanted to see more. She longed to see him.
“Please, please . . . fuck me,” Astrid pleaded wildly.
Emma lifted her head cautiously when the lashing ceased, rugged cotton fabric brushing her cheek, afraid to breathe in the taut silence that followed. She heard a sound like a piece of metal being moved . . . a clamp released.
“Oh yes. Yes,” Astrid moaned wildly a moment later.
“This isn’t for you,” he growled. He sounded annoyed. Intimidating, but also . . . resigned?
Why?
Emma felt like she’d burst from boiling emotion she couldn’t quite name. Her mouth had gone dry. Her throat hurt, perhaps from holding in a silent scream of frustration and excitement for so long now.
Astrid moaned loudly, but it was his rough, more restrained groan that made her head jerk up like someone had called out to her—Emma—specifically. The garments rustled at her abrupt motion. There was a slight jingle as metal hangers shifted on the rack, but Emma was too anxious—too focused—to be alarmed.
What was happening? What was he doing? It was growing so hot in the cupboard. Her throat felt parched and achy.
A strange sound began to enter her ears . . . a sound like . . . what? Moving, gliding metal? She heard Astrid’s familiar moans, louder now. She immediately recognized the other sound: skin slapping against skin in a taut, primitive rhythm. Heat rushed through her, the product of the strange marriage of humiliation and arousal she experienced. She didn’t give herself permission to move. Suddenly the door was cracked again and she was peering through the opening.
She stared for several seconds, bewildered as to what she was seeing. Astrid’s bound, naked body jerked back and forth on the metal track in a hard, pistonlike rhythm, the action completely out of her control. The lewd slapping sound Emma had recognized rung in the air, impossible to ignore . . .
. . . the sound of hard, ruthless fucking.
When understanding finally dawned, Emma bit her lip until she felt pain.
The deliberateness of what was happening, the precision, the sheer lewdness was shocking. Astrid still was on the metal rack in a position that was almost on all fours. Her knees perched on a padded bench, her wrists restrained to an elevated T-handled, padded bar. His large, open hands gripped her hips. His skin was darker than hers—a golden brown. She could see his thick, long thumb sinking into the pinkened flesh of a buttock. He flung her back and forth onto his cock with fluid, mechanical ease.
Emma recalled what he’d said about the glider. The mechanism must have been locked into immobility while he’d flogged her, but he’d unfastened it. The device had been designed for this, for the exclusive purpose of allowing him total control of a woman’s body while he fucked her. Astrid would have glided back and forth on the frictionless track with a twitch of his hand. Instead, Vanni hammered her onto his cock. He switched his grip, grasping two metal handles attached to the kneeling bench. Astrid rocketed back and forth against him, screaming in uninhibited, frantic pleasure.
Time seemed to collapse for Emma, and yet the moment went on forever. She still couldn’t really see him totally with the bedroom door blocking him, despite her straining, curious gaze. As their excitement grew and time wore on, however, he moved forward slightly. Her breath burned in her lungs as she soaked in the partial image of him. She glimpsed the front of trim, thrusting hips and a ridged, taut abdomen. She saw his muscular forearms and flashes of a large, glistening, driving cock. She couldn’t even see his face, and yet . . .
He was so beautiful.