But Maimanne Naturelle was still speaking to her.
Or was it…Paipanne Naturelle?
Technically, she had just made that one up—though in the primal parts of her, buried deep between her animal instincts and her soul’s songs, she connected with the presence as if it were masculine.
And she felt it connecting back.
Watching her.
Reaching out to her.
Was it the he who was up on the third floor, waiting for her?
And if it was, should she be afraid of going up to meet him alone? Did she need to set up a safe call thing with Requiemme, perhaps? Four weeks of missing the hell out of her Sir had made her a very curious girl about the world of Domination, submission, and power play. She knew all about safe calls now, which ranked on the milder side of the subjects to which her studies had taken her to. Subjects that pounded across her mind like scary hail as she continued to vacillate in the building’s pretty courtyard.
At last, she shook her head firmly, deciding against the safe call. In the same moment, she came to other decisions.
She had gone cuckoo. At the very least, persnickety and paranoid. Next thing she knew, there would be voices in her head along with the daunting pressure in her senses. But her reasoning was a case of imbezak on crack. This was not the Adam nor Eve District. This was not even the sketchy outskirts of Faisant. Moreover, Emme was right here with the car and a burly driver. If anything went wrong, even during this courtesy stop-in…
Nothing will go wrong.
Nothing will go wrong.
The mantra provided a catchy off-beat to her steady footfalls up the stairs. By the time she reached the top, she was a little out of breath but a great deal better in the head. The power of affirmations was a mightier force than she imagined…
Until it was not.
Until she opened the big door in front of her and beheld an ornate desk in front of a wall that was wallpapered in black and gray fleurs de lis. The only thing interrupting that pattern was a black medallion, at least a meter in circumference, hanging from thick gold chains. Embossed into the large sphere was a distinct design that she had beheld for the first time only last month. In the heart of Montmartre. In the moments before her eyes were opened to a whole new world of interpersonal dynamics.
Before Brickham had shown her exactly what the BDSM triskelion stood for.
Brickham.
She stepped inside despite how her pulse sprinted, her chest throbbed, and her body shook.
She walked toward the desk, illuminated from beneath in purple and from above in red. There was no banishing him from her thoughts anymore. Definitely not here. Absolutely not now.
Brickham.
He was a cataclysm in her mind, forceful and sensual, taking her hand to guide her through colored depths just like these. Leading her into a room with smells so similar to the ones around her now. Polished leather and fruity lubricants. Earthy rope and unforgiving steel. So many heady intoxicants…
Except for one.
The most important one.
The aroma of sex.
Of hungry mouths as they moaned and tasted. Greedy fingers as they groped and penetrated. Slick skin as it glided and undulated, smacked and fucked…
Brickham.
Brickham!
For the first time in four weeks, she couldn’t battle the word on her lips anymore. It spilled from her lips as heavy tears brimmed from her eyes. The drops poured down her cheeks and then salted her lips.
And once it was there, spoken into existence in this dark and beautiful place, she never wanted to stop it again.
She sobbed it. Pleaded it. Snarled it.
But most of all, loved it.
Over and over again.
Until she fell to her knees in front of the desk, unable to stop saying the perfect, powerful syllables of the perfect, powerful man who had left this island and taken her whole damn heart with him.
Clang.
She startled but gave in to no shriek. Whatever had fallen to the floor in front of her was not that large. Probably an ill-fastened part of an overhead light. She was grateful for it, actually. The owner of this place was owed a visit from his royal family that did not start with his princess in a blubbering heap on the floor.
But as she rose to rest on her haunches, still swiping beneath her eyes, her vision finally cleared.
And her breathing fully stopped.
As she recognized the exact source of her bizarre sensations from outside.
She had been summoned by a force of nature.
The towering, devastating mountain of a man who loomed over her, giant hand still outstretched because of the object he had allowed to tumble from it.
A heart-shaped cookie cutter. With a hand-scribbled note now taped securely to it.
Steel hearts were meant to be filled by those they cut.
Her note. The one she had tucked into his suitcase along with their special memento.
“Brickham.”
It was her most wobbly inflection of the whole litany, but she cared not. It was the last time she planned on saying it, and the earthquake in her voice felt like a perfect fit with this surreal fantasy. Part of her expected to wake up any second, still back in the town car, being nudged into consciousness by Requiemme. But that brought an odd sense of freedom.
If this was her dream, then she could say and do whatever she damn well wanted.
“Oh…Sir.”
And oh, how she truly wanted to say that.
Just before she indulged the doing part.
She began by hooking her first two fingers into one of the holes in his sinfully soft black jeans. When she found a perfectly placed rip in one of the legs, she curled her other hand into it. She now had leverage to inch her way up his body. All of his hard ridges and mighty muscles felt so blissfully hard and real, enough that she pressed herself as tightly against them as she could during her sensual climb.
As was the way in wonderful dreams, he wore no shirt at all. So once she climbed high enough to explore him there, she did. The molded ridges of his torso became trembling response zones to her splayed fingertips. His snags of breath puffed out in matching time, wordless urges for her to keep touching him like this. So she did. Endlessly. Greedily. Marveling, over and over, at the perfection of him. The flawless magic of this.
“Creator’s glory.” She found air of her own to mold into words. “Brickham. My Sir,” she worshipfully uttered. “You are so—”
And then, even words were impossible—as her mouth was suddenly smashed beneath his, taken in a torrid kiss.
Taken? Oh, no.
He was not just taking her. He was conquering her, forcing her to take the whole sweep of his plunging tongue. He was consuming her, sucking every decibel of her moans and pitches of her passion back into the savage depths of his mouth. He was penetrating her, ravaging everything she gave him like a possessed demon.
Like a man who had not kissed his woman in four weeks.
“Oh,” she blurted as soon as they found the mental capacity to drag apart. “Oh, my Sir. You are so…real.”
Brickham, who had already found both her butt cheeks with his wide hands, dug his grip in deeper. He hitched her off her feet and then carried her over to the desk. “Real is very much the idea, Pixie.” After placing her on the desk, he spread her legs so he could settle between them. But his gaze, as intense and vibrant as the rising storm she had sensed outside, never left her face. “As real as I can be for you, each and every day, from now on.”
He leaned in, kissing her softly this time, but Jayd hardly comprehended the peck. As soon as he was done, her whole jaw dropped open.