He gasped. “You clever little minx,” he groaned. “God, that’s good. You really are going to make short work of me.”
A flash of sadness went through her at the reminder he would soon be leaving her. Still, she wanted to give him his due. She lifted her mouth and turned again, sliding him deep at the more hospitable angle.
“No. I will hold it,” he said roughly when she tried to replace her hand with his in order to pump his cock while she sucked. He groaned when she sunk him deep and bumped her lips against his forefinger. “I should turn your bottom red for being so blessed good at this.”
She glanced up at him in a startled query, her mouth full of his throbbing flesh, her cheeks hollowed out from sucking so hard.
“Fuck,” he said savagely, urging her with his clutching hand until she bobbed up and down on his cock at a rapid pace, her jaw and lips aching from the sustained pressure. “I can take almost anything, but not your eyes,” she heard him mutter darkly.
She felt him swell impossibly large a few moments later. He began to come, ejaculating on her tongue. It was difficult to keep up. The vibrator made controlling even her own salivation a challenge, and now she added Lucien’s copious emissions. Still, she loved it: the feeling of his cock throbbing against her tongue as he came, his singular taste filling her mouth, his grunts of sharp pleasure, the sound poignant to her somehow. Beautiful. He was the definition of power to her. She loved that moment when his strength swelled and broke, and she held him close while he shook in bliss.
“No, ma chère. No,” he mumbled in a tight voice a moment later as she licked and sucked him clean. “It’s like stimulating a raw nerve doing that.”
She blinked, coming back to herself. Reluctantly, she began to slide him out of her mouth. His penis was already overly sensitive in a post-climactic state. The vibrator combined with the enthusiastic cleaning with her lips and tongue was too much for the nerves in his satiated flesh. Much to her surprise, he halted her, however, holding her down with the hand on the back of her head. His expression was amused and self-deprecating when she met his stare.
“It feels like too much, but it feels good, too,” he said. “You could probably have me coming again in the underside of five minutes. A man doesn't stand a chance with that mouth of yours, Elise.” His cock twitched between her smile. She tickled him lightly with the vibrator and his eyes flashed.
She was more than game, if he was.
His phone rang again in the distance. Lucien closed his eyes briefly in regret and released his hold on her head.
“I should go, as much as I might wish otherwise.”
Elise slowly, reluctantly slid her mouth off him. She bent her head to remove the buzzing vibrator and set it aside. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to him. Elise’s throat tightened as she breathed his scent and luxuriated in his embrace.
“It meant more to me than you know, the way you expressed your desire,” he said near her skin as he kissed her temple. “You are always difficult to resist, but when you’re open and honest? Impossible.”
A strange mixture of feeling rushed through her: embarrassment that she’d made herself so vulnerable, but also gratefulness that he’d recognized how difficult it’d been for her . . . and pleasure that she’d pleased him.
Out of sheer habit, she opened her mouth to say something like, It was my pleasure, or worse yet, It wasn’t a big deal. But no, she wouldn’t diminish either the challenge she’d faced or the gift she’d given Lucien.
She just looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. He blinked. The next thing she knew, he was kissing the daylights out of her and all rational thought vacated her brain.
“Why do you always have to make things so hard, Elise?” he said next to her lips a moment later.
“Because you always make things such a challenge for me?”
His mouth curved into a smile.
“I never knew walking out a door could be so difficult until this moment,” he said soberly. He dropped his hands, frowning. “You will do what I said? Every night at eleven thirty?”
Her cheeks heated. “Yes.”
“Good. I will enjoy picturing you, knowing you are testing yourself with only my voice in your head to instruct you. I hope in addition to what I said, you’ll also hear me saying how lovely you are,” he murmured, stroking her cheek. “How irresistible. It’ll make me feel as if we’re together, knowing you’re hearing me in your mind, even if we are an ocean apart,” he said before he stood and pulled up his clothing.
She pulled her dress up over her breasts, all the while thinking to herself that she heard his patient, guiding voice in her head with increasing frequency even without his instructions tonight. She’d begun to internalize his steadfast reassurance. He was cultivating the courage and confidence in herself that she so craved.
Elise was beginning to suspect that was what Lucien had intended all along.
* * *
The next night she returned to the penthouse late. Thursday nights were often packed with late-nighters at Fusion. Although the kitchen closed before the bar, they still prepared dishes later on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights than they did earlier in the week. Denise had needed to leave early, and Elise had volunteered to stay. She didn’t mind. She enjoyed her work, and it kept her distracted from Lucien’s absence.
The penthouse felt depressingly empty when she entered a little after eleven. She’d already eaten her dinner at Fusion, so she headed straight back to the bedroom. On the way to the bathroom to change, her gaze lingered on the large, three-drawer nightstand next to Lucien’s bed. He’d put the vibrator she was supposed to use at eleven thirty in the top drawer, she recalled, her cheeks flushing with heat at the memory of his instructions. She edged toward the polished mahogany cabinet.