Chapter Ten
He had a selection of racquets. Choosing an oversized Prince, she tested the strings to make sure it would perform up to her standards. It surprised her, his decision to do this instead of taking her to some dungeon he had hidden on his sprawling estate and spending the day at the same intensity level as last night. She wasn’t ungrateful, since her system appeared to be working on overload now.
The sports bra was white, as was the skirt. Being a tennis skirt, it just made it past the cheeks of her ass. Maybe he thought it would distract her. He was in for a surprise. When it came to winning, her focus was absolute.
When she stepped out of the room into the hallway, she found Sarah waiting for her. His house staff person looked in her fifties, with remarkably blonde hair tied back from her shoulders. She had hazel eyes and small interlocking silver heart earrings dangling from her lobes. A wedding band with a modest setting and a diamond anniversary band rested on a finger that, like the rest of her knuckles, displayed the swellings of early arthritis. Wearing a comfortable cotton blouse that rested at the swell of her hips over a neat pair of jeans, she appeared prepared to clean and cook, or step in as an appropriately casual hostess. The blouse was hand-embroidered with a floral design on the tips of the collar.
“Ma’am, Mr. Winterman asked me to show you the way to the tennis courts. He apologizes. He received a phone call in his office and had to take it.”
Which explained the surprise of his sudden absence, when he hadn’t given her room to breathe since she’d arrived. “Tell him to take as long as he likes.” Then, on a sudden impulse, she asked, “May I see his room?”
When the woman hesitated, Marguerite put out a hand, summoning her most practiced proprietress smile. “With you, of course. The house is so beautifully decorated, I just want to see the pieces he’s placed in his own space. And since I have a few moments before he can join me…”
“Of course. I’m sure that would be fine.” Reassured, the housekeeper changed direction, took her down the hall and across the landing. Outside the windows the sun was sparkling on the Gulf, the live oaks on the lawn framing it with imbalanced perfection, their gnarled branches shadowing a garden bench, a hammock. Marguerite glanced off the other side of the landing, toward the front entranceway, and saw a ficus tree adorned with fairy lights she hadn’t noticed coming in the night before. There appeared to be a glittering of glass ornaments on it.
“Did…Tyler do that?”
“No, of course not.” Sarah chuckled. “Everyone wonders about that because it doesn’t really match the rest of the house decor, does it? That was done by my grandchildren. Mr. Winterman let them come out for the day when they visited on Christmas break this year. They wanted to decorate it with some cheap little crystal ornaments we found in one of the storage sheds and a string or two of Christmas lights. I was going to take it down after they left, for I certainly didn’t think it matched all these pieces Mr. Winterman has so carefully chosen but he told me to leave it. That he liked it. And then informed me that he’d recently read in a Woman’s Day article that such things were very fashionable, particularly when concerned with ‘decorating on a dime’.”
Marguerite was amused at the woman’s impression of Tyler’s masculine voice. “So do you ever get the urge to slap him?”
“Constantly. Almost as much as I get the urge to mother him. I suppose they go hand in hand.” Sarah beamed. “Sometimes I come upon him here first thing in the morning. He’ll have his coffee and be sitting on the landing in his pajamas, his feet between the railings dangling down like a little boy’s while he watches the sun come up. Of course, once you get above those feet nothing else reminds you of a little boy.” She gave Marguerite a mischievous glance that made Marguerite bite her lips against a smile. ‘Good morning, Sarah,’ he’ll say with a smile, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to be sitting there. Then again it’d be almost a sin to have that view in the morning and not take time to pay tribute to it.”
“You’re obviously fond of him.”
“He’s a gentleman, in a world where they’re hard to come by. Both meanings, you know. Gentleman and gentle man. Like my Robert.” Sarah pushed open a door. “This is his room, Miss Perruquet. I’m sorry but I do feel like I should stay.”
“I enjoy your company,” Marguerite reassured her, stepping in and appreciating the woman’s sense of responsibility, her protectiveness. It was a rare commodity and one of the many reasons she valued Chloe and Gen so much.
Yes. This was his room. It was not just the simple, mission style bed of polished dark wood and matching armoire that looked as if it contained an entertainment center behind its doors. It was the more personal items her sharp eyes caught here that she’d missed in the other room. Several scripts piled on the bureau for review. Receipts from his wallet. A photograph showing a ballerina bent over in a graceful pose, accepting a bouquet of roses from the orchestra maestro while she was on stage.
“Who is the dancer?”
“Mr. Winterman’s wife.”
Marguerite turned from the photograph, startled, and the housekeeper blanched, realizing the source of her consternation. “Oh, no, not his current wife. She’s his ex-wife. Somewhat. Oh, dear, I’m not sure if that’s the right description.”
“Somewhat?” Then Marguerite saw a small heart-shaped box next to the picture. Through the crystal top, she could see three rings, the man’s lying diagonally on top of the woman’s wedding set, linking them.
“I shouldn’t have brought you in here. I’m so sorry, Miss Perruquet. I…”
“You haven’t abused his trust,” Marguerite said firmly, facing her. “I won’t abuse the knowledge, but if you don’t feel it would jeopardize your position I would like to know what ‘somewhat’ means.”
Sarah pursed her lips, apparently mulling it over, and Marguerite gave her the time to do so with the patience that many a sub had both cursed and blessed her for.
At last, she spoke. “All right. I’ll tell you. For the same reason I agreed to bring you here in the first place. Mr. Winterman gave us very specific instructions on Friday morning. He told me, ‘Anything she asks for, other than to leave—’” a smile touched her lips, “‘she’s to have.’ He’s different about you.”
Marguerite tried to appear unaffected by that knowledge. “I’m sure Tyler often offers his hospitality to women.”
“His hospitality, but not that. Not an open door.” She shook her head. “I’ve raised my children, I have a husband. No matter the things that go on in this house, certain things remain the same. I know when a man is trying especially hard to make an impression on a woman. And I know enough about Mr. Winterman to know if he’s trying so hard for you, then you must be extraordinary.”
“Now that I don’t think he’d appreciate you telling me.”
“Perhaps not.” Sarah nodded. “But he’s got so much charm, I thought you might appreciate having an edge on him.”
It startled a wave of amusement out of Marguerite. “I appreciate every weapon I can get,” she agreed. “His wife?”
“Oh.” The light went out of the housekeeper’s eyes and she looked toward the picture. A frown marred her brow and she stepped past Marguerite to straighten the runner on the dresser that Tyler had apparently knocked off kilter when he laid the stack of scripts there. “Mr. Winterman’s wife was a dancer, an extraordinary one. European. Very…fragile. Temperamental. All the things you’ve heard about prima ballerinas—with her, they were true. But she loved him so much, depended on him so much. He…” She paused, as if reconsidering her decision to speak.
“He…” Marguerite prompted. She knew she was prying, encouraging the woman when she shouldn’t, but in the past twelve hours Tyler had spun her on her axis. It seemed she’d been in retreat mode the whole time. She wanted to know more about him. While she knew the hazards of that desire, she was too far into the danger zone now to back away from a little additional knowledge. And while she could rationalize and tell herself it was to increase her arsenal of defenses, she wanted to know him . Those shadows in his eyes at breakfast had bothered her.
Sarah folded her hands before her. “He wasn’t always in the career field he’s in now. He worked for the government. He left active duty some time ago, though I think he still does some work for them occasionally, mostly out of Washington. When he worked for them full time, he was assigned to Panama during that terrible time with Noriega. He was also involved in the Gulf War. When he came back from those conflicts, something had happened. You could tell from his eyes he saw things the rest of us didn’t ever want to see. I thank God for men and women like him who are willing to see it and take care of it so the rest of us don’t have to do so. But a part of him was shattered. He needed…he needed a woman’s understanding and love, because he was in a very bad place in his heart. And she had always depended on him emotionally.” The housekeeper’s glance shifted away briefly. “They had the type of relationship you often see in this house.”
A submissive. Of course. So Tyler’s Dominant side had been a part of him so long it had even been part of his marriage.
“She didn’t know how to help him, couldn’t even understand it.” Sarah shook her head. “It broke my heart to watch them. She thought that he should just be able to be home, watch her dance and that would make his heart happy again. Two years later she left him, confused. He let her go, too heartsick to help her find him again because he couldn’t find himself. As I said, she was a fragile creature. It took him about eighteen months after that, after she went back to Europe, but he straightened things out for himself and went after her.”
“They never…”
“No.” Sarah stroked a hand over the bed, as if she touched the man who slept there, her hazel eyes sad, loving. “He never divorced her, you see. And she never asked for one. But before he could reconcile with her, she killed herself. Right after a stunning performance of Swan Lake where the troupe was called back for five curtain calls. They said it was the most poignant dancing she’d ever done. When her Odette died, there wasn’t a dry eye in the entire theater.”
“Dear Goddess.” The words were spoken before Marguerite could think to hold them back. “Tyler… What did he do?”
“He buried her, mourned her and picked up the pieces. I thought for a while he’d never reach out to a woman again. But after about three years he started having lady guests.”
“Like Leila.”
The housekeeper didn’t look surprised that she knew about Leila. But if Tyler held D/s parties here regularly, there probably wasn’t much about Tyler’s current or past relationships that startled her. Yet she had called Tyler a gentleman and meant it. Which meant Sarah was an extraordinary housekeeper. Or she worked for an extraordinary man, a sly whisper from her subconscious that Marguerite chose to ignore.
“Miss Leila was a good thing for his heart. She laughs so easily and enjoys the types of things Mr. Winterman enjoys.” Again that tactful wording. “She was a strong woman. I guess…” a faint blush tinged her cheeks. “I thought all women who did that type of thing were like Mrs. Winterman. Somewhat dependent, needy. I realized then that it was just a part of Mrs. Winterman.
“We all have our ghosts that haunt us.” Her gaze went to another photograph, this one on the wall. It was a photo from what Marguerite now guessed was Panama. A soldier surrounded by children, reaching up for candy. “Sometimes when I come in and see him sitting on that landing, I know he’s been sitting there half the night, watching the water, waiting for the sun come up. He’s managed to heal himself, but it was a near thing. He put the pieces back together by himself. And most people couldn’t have done that.”
After a moment of silence between the two women, Marguerite spoke. “No, they couldn’t. Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate your honesty. And I promise, regardless of what Tyler and I inflict on each other, I’ll try not to use the things you’ve told me to hurt him.”
Sarah gestured, letting Marguerite precede her from the room. As she closed the door, she paused with her hand on the knob. “Miss Perruquet, regardless of the instructions Mr. Winterman left me, I didn’t plan to tell you such personal things about him.”
“So why did you?”
“I’m not sure.” The housekeeper considered Marguerite. Marguerite was thankful she kept her eyes on her face, not on the rather revealing outfit. “I just felt it was the right thing to do.”
After that surprising statement Sarah led Marguerite out of the room, down the stairs and back through the kitchen. “The tennis courts are out this entrance. Just follow the path through the gardens and you’ll see them below the pool house. Mr. Winterman also told me to give you this note to take with you.” She handed Marguerite a folded piece of heavy, cream-colored stationery from the kitchen table. “He said to read it when you reached the orchid area. You’ll recognize it. There’s a small greenhouse for the more exotic ones. He has the hardier species planted in a bed just beside it. You’ll also find a statue of Aphrodite there and a fountain pool with koi fish. Now, you and Mr. Winterman be sure to come back in for lunch soon. I’m making up chocolate chip cookies for dessert and snacks. You’ll know they’re ready because you can smell them all the way into the gardens. It usually brings Robert in, no matter how far afield he’s wandered.”
Marguerite nodded, not sure whether to be amused or disturbed at the dichotomy, a motherly admonishment offered as she stepped out in a tennis outfit that hardly covered her bare ass.
The gardens were Southern landscaping at its finest, foliage arranged in artful wild clusters of white and deep fuchsia azaleas, oleanders, ginger plants with salmon-colored, pink and yellow fragrant blossoms. Everything carefully planted and arranged to look natural and yet not cluttered. And throughout the garden was one of the most amazing collections of bronze statuary she’d ever seen. A lone soldier. A dog lying down, asleep. Dancers. So many dancers, slender bodies reaching, stretching, appearing as if they danced for the joy of the sun-drenched day and the flowers around them.
The care lavished on his property, not as an absent landlord throwing around money but as a man who enjoyed living here, who desired and perhaps needed a sanctuary more than most, was obvious. She pictured him sitting on the bench she sank down on now, a book in hand, studying his orchids, opening up the top of the greenhouse to sift their soil in his hands or bending to examine the ones in the outdoor bed. It would all seem like a Cary Grant cliché except she’d already seen the shift of the waters, the flashes of temperament, wells of sorrow, glints of humor sparkling.
The bench was in the shadow of a life-sized bronze statue of Aphrodite as Sarah had noted, ruling in queenly serenity over a pool sprinkled with floating lilies and containing gold and silver koi. After a moment of study, Marguerite opened her note. He’d scented the paper with orange peel fragrance and done the script in calligraphy. The note had been sealed with a brown wax like chocolate. Lifting it to her nose, she confirmed that it smelled like chocolate. The stem of a tiny lavender wildflower had been captured in the wax, a flower from breakfast. She shook her head, thinking a man this practiced in seduction should be labeled a dangerous weapon to protect any woman within twenty yards of him.
I can see you from my office. Put your hand beneath your skirt and play with your pussy for me. Distract me enough and you may have half a chance of scoring one game on me.
She glanced toward the house and saw that the gardenias to her right shielded her from the house’s first-level windows. So Tyler was on the second level. From the sun’s angle, she couldn’t see him. The light reflected against the glass, making them into mirrors.
One game? She was going to trounce him in straight sets, let punishing him on the courts be her outlet for the tension of the whole past week. A tension that strangely felt not so near at hand as she sat within his carefully cultivated gardens. His native orchids were graceful ladies within ten feet of her. With petals of so many shapes and colors, yellow, pink, purple, white, as delicate as thin paper, they fluttered from the wind stirred by the fountain of water that emerged from the platform under Aphrodite’s bare feet.
Putting her tennis racquet to the side, she tentatively opened her legs. She’d run her hands over her body before to titillate a sub and done some things for herself at home. Just not…this.
Concentrating, she summoned an image. Tyler, standing in the kitchen in the loose cotton pants, low on his hips. The firm mouth, which she’d felt taking control of her clit before she’d been lost to dreams. His long-fingered hand lying next to his plate, his gold watch against his tanned skin.
Her fingers crept between her legs, stroked. Her clit responded eagerly, startling her. She widened her legs farther, just a bit. Even so, the short pleated skirt would now give a clear view to anyone approaching her.
Tyler at The Zone, his lips beneath her ear. His hands on her breasts, tugging the nipple chain ruthlessly. Her fingers played among petals of flesh that were getting slick with dew. She unfolded, straightening out on the bench, her head resting on the back as she imagined welcoming Tyler in between her thighs. Wrapping her legs around his muscular hips, clutching his neck, biting into his shoulder as he thrust into her. Just imagining it made her pussy ripple, weep and spasm for what she could not have. What she was denying herself. Her other hand moved up her stomach, over the tight fit of the sports bra to her right nipple. Found it aching for the pinch of her fingertips. She remembered his words about a woman’s breasts and thought he might be right. She was wanton, drunk on sun and the smell of flowers, her body dancing like the bronze statues, celebrating the feeling of life and desire surging through her.
Her position had moved her forward so the skirt was rucked up, her bare ass on the bench’s smooth surface. Feeling the hardness, she thought it was like the unyielding line of his jaw, his tough body as he demanded things from her she was terrified to give.
When she opened her eyes he was standing there, wearing just the shorts. A muscular god, as bronze and perfect as any of the artwork. But alive, so charged with energy that the electric static of it buzzed off her skin.
He’ll take me down to the ground now , she thought, looking at his aroused features. Fuck me whether I want him to or not. He won’t give a damn about the rules. And she would let him, because her body would go where her heart could not. And it would shatter her.
She scrambled up, pulling the skirt down, her cheeks flushed. All of her flushed.
“Did I say stop?” He lifted a brow. She shook her head but didn’t move. “You asked to see my room,” he commented after a moment of silence.
“I did. I wanted…” She didn’t want Sarah in trouble, so she made herself say it. “I wanted to know more about who you are, Tyler.”
He seemed to consider that, inclined his head. “Then I’m flattered.”
“Your room. You don’t usually sleep with your subs.”
“No.”
“Why?” And why me ?
His attention moved briefly to the fountain, again that odd evasion. “Last night was different. I usually don’t sleep easy, angel. It’s more courteous to let the lady in question have a good night’s sleep. How about you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t sleep with anyone.”
Until you. For she’d wanted him there last night, clutched to her in her dreams as she’d been unable to do with her restrained arms.
His gaze lowered. “Lift the front of your skirt.”
As she obeyed, he walked toward her, taking his time, appraising her. When he reached her, he put one hand at her bare waist, his other moving between her legs. Her free hand caught onto his shoulder as a ripple of reaction unbalanced her, her lips parting in surprise at how strong the instant surge of arousal was. Already somewhat slippery just from the act of having his hand on her hip, knowing she was bare beneath the clothes, his touch brought forth enough liquid heat that he made a guttural noise of approval. No matter what the terms of this weekend, at the moment, she felt like she belonged to Tyler Winterman. Underneath his much too knowledgeable attention, his sure fingers, the sense of powerful sexual male was too all-encompassing to deny. Her instincts overwhelmed rationality. And with the sun warming her back, his hands caressing between her legs, she couldn’t find it in her to panic or rebel.
“I don’t mind you looking in my room. But I didn’t tell you to stop touching yourself. You should have waited for my permission.”
“I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t.
Taking his hand away, he guided her to the edge of the garden, ducking under the waterfall of blossoms of a weeping cherry, a curtain of white touched with pink. “Put your hands on the trunk, your back facing me.” At her hesitation, he reached out, touched her cheek. “I’m going to spank you. Just as a reminder of whose Will you obey. With my hand. I will never use anything else to strike you, and your beautiful ass will be the only place I do so.”
“I didn’t ask for that restriction.”
“No, you didn’t. But pain isn’t my way of Mastery over women.” His gaze coursed over her, the sternness in his voice modulated by a devastating tenderness. “And just the suggestion of it has you trembling.”
“I am not.” Her voice broke.
He took her arm, turned her toward the tree. “Palms on the trunk, angel. Let’s check off another box on that sheet of yours.”
She obeyed at that, reluctantly, her breath catching in her throat, caught on something there she couldn’t swallow past. Her fingers dug into the rough bark. He was subjecting her to the easiest type of punishment to take. He could have taunted her for being apprehensive about something that was nowhere near as severe as what she’d doled out to her own subs, but he didn’t. Partly because they both knew it wasn’t about pain. He knew the very act was pushing enough of her panic buttons.
His hands slid down her back, pushing her forward. His other palm on her stomach beneath the skirt brought her out so her arms had to stretch to keep her palms flat on the tree as he directed.
“Lift on your toes, Marguerite. High as you can get.”
She did and felt air as he lifted the back panel of the skirt. He tucked the edge in her waistband, getting it out of the way. Moving his palm on her belly so his two fingers were low enough that they rested on her clit, he massaged her there as she quivered on her toes, her legs spread open. Her body was beginning to ripple with overwhelming desire even as the coldness in the pit of her belly dug its claws into her vital organs.
The flat of his hand struck the bare curve of her buttock, the most fleshy part so it wobbled, sending frissons of sensation across the whole area. It didn’t really hurt but of course that wasn’t what she had feared about it. He did it again and changed sides, striking her across both buttocks.
The icy ball dissipated under the clever manipulation of his fingers on her clit as he did his spanking. The strain on her back tendons increased as she tried to stay up on her toes for him. Urgent arousal unsated from this morning was grasping her, a need to come all over those fingers that somehow knew her body. She wanted to take the hand striking her, suck and bite at the flesh that was creating a stinging sensation across hers.
He hadn’t given her time to get too panic-stricken over it, springing it on her as he did, but he’d also taken the time to explain and reassure her in an odd way. And now, what she never would have expected, the stinging slaps were arousing a reaction of genuine, strong lust with the most shameless desire to lift her hips up further to his touch. It happened to her subs of course but she’d not expected it in herself. The bark bit into her fingers as she curled into it.
He stopped, rubbed his hand in slow circles, kneading her buttock, his fingers tracing her wet labia and clit. “Don’t come, angel. You don’t have permission to come.”