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  Her hips continued to rock, and he fumbled between her slick folds, his fingers questing for her clit. When he found it, two quick squeezes were all she needed before she shrilled her own release and collapsed, her knees no longer able to support her. The heavy weight of his body pinned her to the bed, as his knees gave out too.

  His arms still around her, he rolled them to their sides so they’d be able to breathe. His limp cock slid free, wringing one last shaking moan of pleasure from her.

  He tightened his hold, nearly crushing her lungs despite freeing her from his weight. His arms shook, his ragged breathing rasping hot and damp across the back of her neck where his face was pressed tight against the hollow of her shoulder.

  She froze, her brain refusing her interpretation of what she was feeling. She cataloged the sensations again, feeling moisture trickle down the back of her neck, and hearing his wet gulps of air as his chest shook with the effort of breathing.

  He was crying.

  “Rikard? Master?”

  He drew a deep, shuddering breath, then a second with more control. His arms loosened, and he lifted his head. Brushing one last kiss across her shoulder, he whispered, “Thank you.”

  “I enjoyed it, too.”

  He chuckled softly, the sound vibrating through her ribs where her back pressed against his chest. “That, too. But I meant for being willing to try. It’s been…a while.”

  “I’d think women would be throwing themselves at you, for the hot sex and fabulous food.”

  He bolted upright. “Shit! Dessert. It’s probably melted all over the kitchen table by now. I’ve got to go clean that up before it runs onto the floor.”

  Rolling out of bed, he hurried to take care of the culinary disaster, grabbing his leather pants off the dresser as he passed. Gayle heard his footsteps pound down the staircase, and a cry of horror when he entered the kitchen.

  She shook her head. “And, he cleans.”

  Figuring he’d be a while—he seemed the type to clean each individual swirl of wrought iron with a cotton swab—she put on the robe and walked back to the playroom to get her clothes. She got dressed, then headed downstairs.

  Rikard had shoved the table and chairs aside, and had built a levee of paper towels surrounding the vanilla lake on the kitchen floor to keep it from spreading. He was busy mopping the glass top of the table with yet more paper towels when Gayle poked her head in the doorway.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No. Thanks. I just have to get it all up before it crystallizes. The ice cream’s not so bad, it’s the caramel.” He paused to toss out his sodden towels and rip new ones off the roll. “This isn’t how I planned on ending our date, but there’s no point in you hanging around to watch me clean. I’ll be another half hour at this.”

  “Half an hour just to wipe up a spill?”

  “It’s the table and chairs. I love the look of the wrought iron, but it’s a bitch to clean. And with a milk-based spill, if I miss anything, pretty soon it’ll be stinking worse than a dead skunk.”

  She winced in sympathy, remembering the misplaced creamer for the coffee at work that had cleared half her floor with its stench. “Okay. You want me to call you?”

  He tossed out another handful of towels, and smiled over his shoulder at her. “Give me a call Tuesday night, and let me know how your audition went. We can set up our next date then.”

  She hesitated, wanting to kiss him goodbye, or at least give him a hug. But he was already scrubbing at the table top with his newest handful of paper towels, and she wasn’t sure how to safely cross the lake of melted ice cream to reach him. “Bye, then.”

  “Bye. Have a safe drive home.”

  She waited a moment longer, then turned and walked away. A detour through the music room to pick up her music, then on to the front door. She paused again after pulling it open, but he didn’t call out to her. Pushing through the safety door with more force than was necessary, she wished the hydraulics would let it slam behind her. Instead, it closed with a soft snick.

  “That was anticlimactic,” she muttered, throwing her purse and music on the front seat of her car. Then, thinking of her last sight of Rikard, she started to laugh. Low-slung black leather pants, high black leather gloves, a black leather mask … and a pile of sopping wet paper towels dripping vanilla ice cream over everything. She could hardly wait to tell Carrie. Her friend would really appreciate the irony.

  Chapter Seven

  Gayle picked up a pizza for dinner on her way home. All that vigorous exercise had made her ravenous. As she devoured the perfect balance of tomato sauce, crisp crust, and gooey cheese, she couldn’t help contrasting the meal with the gourmet fare Rikard had served her. One wasn’t better than the other, but they were definitely different.

  Once her hunger was satisfied, she called her friend Carrie for the promised gossip session. She sat down on her couch, kicked off her shoes, and put her feet up on the coffee table, ready for a lengthy call. True to her word, she told her friend everything, starting with Rikard answering the door dressed like a pirate, to the way he’d helped her with her audition piece, the fabulous lunch…and the sex. When she explained that Rikard had fisted her between the salad and entrée courses of their lunch, Carrie dropped her phone with a painfully loud clatter.

  Gayle held the phone away from her ear. “Ow.”

  “Sorry. I can’t believe you let him… Didn’t it hurt?”

  “God, no! It was…it was… I can’t describe what it was like. But it was the best orgasm I’d ever had. Up ‘til then, at least. It got even better, later.” She sprawled across her couch, the familiar hot pulse beginning between her legs. “I’m getting wet just thinking about it.”

  “But I still don’t understand how it happened. I know you, Gayle. You don’t usually even kiss a guy on the first date. How’d he get you to agree to…that?”

  She hesitated, thinking back to their lunch. The memory was strangely blurry. She remembered the taste of the strawberry salad, the blue and white dishes and white wrought iron table and chairs. She clearly remembered the beginning of her conversation with Rikard. But then it all got fuzzy.

  “We were talking, about what I expected from a Dominant/submissive relationship, and he gave me a challenge, to finish eating my salad without making a sound. The fisting was my reward for completing the challenge. But I’m not really sure how it happened… I was so turned on by then, I wasn’t really thinking clearly.”

  “Maybe he put something in your salad.”

  “No. He doesn’t need any help. He’s sexalicious.”

  “He’s certainly persuasive. I still can’t believe I let him talk me into hanging up without speaking to you when I called the second time.”

  Gayle smiled. So that’s why Carrie was fixating on how Gayle let herself be talked into sex. She was feeling guilty. Gayle hurried to set her friend’s mind at ease.

  “Well, I’d already told you I expected to be having sex, and not to disturb me when you called back. He was just reiterating that.”

  “I guess. So what happened after I called and you had tuna steaks?”

  “After lunch we went upstairs and played pirate.”

  “You hoisted his mainsail?”

  Gayle laughed. “No. He spun this wicked fantasy, about my being a proper Victorian lady captured by pirates. If I wanted to live, I had to become the pirate captain’s sex slave. He vowed he’d make me beg for his attention, and I vowed that as a proper Englishwoman, I would never beg.”

  “And…?” Carrie breathed.

  “And I begged. Oh, God, I begged. And then passed out because it was so good.” Her back and ass burned with remembered pleasure.

  “You passed out?”

  “Well, it’s not like I was unconscious. I was just flying, off in the stratosphere somewhere. If he’d tried hard enough, he could have roused me.”

  “That must’ve been the second time I called.”

  “Right. I woke up c
radled in his lap while he composed music. He fisted me again, which is when you called the last time, then we went upstairs and had sex in his guest room. And then I came home.”

  “You can’t just skip over all the details!”

  So Gayle recounted all the details that she could remember, and was willing to admit to. She explained what Rikard had been doing, exactly where his hand had been, and why she’d been so impatient when Carrie had called. She skipped their strange argument, and her resulting fear, and just described how they made love, the way he’d kissed her with such reverence before finally coming inside her. Then how it ended when he ran off to clean up the melting ice cream.

  “You’ll get a kick out of this. My last sight of him was in the kitchen, barefoot, his black leather pants slung low on his hips and barely laced, black leather mask, and his black leather gloves full of wadded-up paper towels dripping vanilla ice cream everywhere.” Gayle laughed merrily at the memory, but stopped when she realized Carrie wasn’t joining in. “Don’t you think that’s funny?”

  “He wore the mask the whole time?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s his Master mask. When he wears it, he’s Master Rikard. Without it, he’s just Rikard.”

  “You’ve seen what he looks like without it, right? He’s not hiding anything.”

  “When we met for coffee. He’s a total hunk.”

  “He cooks, he cleans, he gives you half a dozen orgasms before getting his own, and he’s a total hunk. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  “Uh…nothing?”

  “How old is he?”

  “I don’t know…late twenties, early thirties.”

  “Why isn’t he already taken? Someone that good doesn’t stay on the market unless there’s a serious problem with him.”

  “Oh. Well, he was. His girlfriend was killed in a car accident four years ago. I think he’s only just beginning to date again.”

  “So you’re competing with a ghost? Is he still in love with her?”

  Gayle thought back to Rikard’s agonized confession. “Yeah. Big time.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Enjoy the sex, because that’s all you’re getting from this guy.”

  “Maybe.” Remembering that moment on the couch when she’d realized she was still with Master Rikard instead of just Rikard, she was inclined to agree. But then there was their final lovemaking. “Or maybe not. He cried when we made love.”

  “He cried? Really? How come?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s got to mean he’s emotionally involved, doesn’t it?”

  “Or else it reminded him of his dead girlfriend, and how much he loved her.”

  Gayle sighed. That was also a possibility. “I guess I’ll have to wait and find out if he can have a relationship, or if it’ll just be about the sex. But the sex was so good…”

  “A relationship would be better.”

  “You’re right. As usual. Guess that’s why I keep you around, huh?”

  “Nah, you keep me around because I know where all the bodies are buried.”

  Together, they said, “In the graveyard,” then laughed at the familiar refrain that had amused them since they were college roommates.

  “But Gayle, if he does the Bluebeard thing and tells you there’s a locked room in his house you can’t go into, for God’s sake don’t check to see if it’s a shrine to his ex. Just get out, while you can.”

  * * * * *

  When Tuesday night rolled around, Gayle arrived early at the theater. She took her time filling out the audition form, and ended up assigned the fifth spot. Close enough to the beginning that she didn’t have too much time for nerves to tighten her throat, but with a few other songs first to get a feel for how the accompanist played. He was good, but nowhere near as talented as Rikard.

  Gayle handed her sheet music to the accompanist, and took her place at center stage. Closing her eyes briefly, she imagined Rikard sitting in the darkness at the back of the theater, hidden in the shadows underneath the overhanging balcony.

  She sang to him, letting her voice fill with all of her emotions, the way he’d shown her during their date. He was the one whom she couldn’t get out of her head, thinking of him constantly. And now that he’d brought her body to life, she’d die without his masterful touch.

  There was a moment of silence when she finished her song, and she inclined her head in the slightest of grateful bows. Her competition had stopped talking and humming in preparation of their own auditions to listen to her, the best compliment they could give her.

  She darted a glance at the director as she walked back to the piano. He was nodding, a faint smile on his face. The accompanist was also smiling, holding out her music to her.

  “Good job.”

  “Thanks.”

  He traded a look with the director, then added, “You should probably stick around to the end of the auditions.”

  “Okay.”

  She walked off stage, her knees starting to wobble as she descended the steps. She managed to stagger back to the eighth row before she collapsed into a seat. Then the delayed reaction of her audition hit, and she began to shake, her heart pounding and every breath a struggle through her tight throat. She couldn’t have left the theater if she’d wanted to.

  By the time the eighteenth auditionee had performed, her reaction had run its course. She settled back to watch the remaining candidates, idly critiquing their performances and judging which she would choose if she was casting the show.

  A pair of young women who auditioned one after the other had sweet voices, but couldn’t project past the third row without microphones. A young man allowed his nerves to throw him out of tune, growing worse as he realized his mistake, until the dissonance between his voice and the piano made her cringe. A blonde woman sang Rizzo’s solo from Grease, her stylized movements and perfect delivery indicating she’d performed the role many times in the past.

  Finally, the last candidate completed his audition, and the director stood to address the two-dozen people who’d been asked to remain.

  “Steve has some handouts for you. I’d like to hear you read them, please. Number five. The witch’s speech.”

  Gayle returned to the stage, picking up the paper from the pianist. It contained five short paragraphs, from different characters. She read over the witch’s speech to the baker, settled her body to mimic the witch’s stance, and read it for real.

  “Thank you. Number nine. The baker’s wife.”

  Gayle walked off stage as the next woman came up, returning to her seat in the audience.

  The director and pianist conferred briefly after the last person had given their reading, then the director announced his choices.

  “The baker, number fourteen. The baker’s wife, number thirty-two. The witch, number five.”

  Gayle didn’t hear the rest of the casting announcements. All she could think of was that she’d scored her favorite part in the show. And that she couldn’t wait to tell Rikard.

  As soon as she got home, she called him.

  “Hello, Gayle. How’d it go?”

  “I got the part! The witch. I got it!”

  “That’s fabulous.”

  “I’m so excited. I’m sure it’s because you helped me with the audition song. Would you like to go out and celebrate?”

  Rikard paused. “Now?”

  “Well, no, it doesn’t have to be now. It’s late, and tomorrow’s a workday. But later this week.”

  “Okay. You can come here tomorrow night, and I’ll make you a celebratory dinner. Then we can have a…private celebration. Unless you have rehearsal tomorrow?”

  “No, rehearsals don’t start until next week.”

  “Fine, then. I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner.” His voice dropped to a low, seductive purr. “Congratulations, Gayle. I knew you could do it.”

  * * * * *

  Wednesday night, Gayle went straight from work to Rikard’s house. She didn’t wear anything special, since her tropical-print circ
le skirt and teal blue microfiber blouse were both comfortable and flattering, and she’d thought this would be more of a friendly celebration than a sex date. So she was surprised when Rikard answered the door wearing his leather mask and pants again, although this time coupled with a black tunic top that laced up the chest.

  “Did I misunderstand? I thought it was going to be just Rikard tonight, not Master Rikard,” Gayle asked.

  “But it was Master Rikard who helped you with your song.” Rikard captured her hand in his gloved one and drew her into the house. “Besides, you deserve to be spoiled and pampered for your success, and Master Rikard is far better at that than just Rikard.”

  His lips curved, and good humor laced his voice, as though he found speaking of himself as two separate people extremely amusing. Then he led her into the kitchen, and all thoughts of protest evaporated.

  Tray after tray of tapas covered the glass tabletop. Some fillings were pinkish, some golden brown, some a deep russet. Then there were the small bowls filled with hot sauces in every shade from bright red to dark brown, sour cream, and a green chili paste.

  “You must have spent all day cooking!”

  “It was for a worthy cause.” Smiling, he held out a chair for her.

  She sat. He offered her a crisp damask napkin, snapping it open and holding it out for her. Disappearing behind her, he returned carrying two goblets and a bottle of white wine. Then he took his own chair, opened his own napkin, and gestured to the expanse of food on the table.

  “What would you like to try first? Seafood? Beef? Chicken? Vegetarian?”

  Gayle shook her head, overwhelmed by all the possibilities. “You choose.”

  He selected a neatly rolled white-and-pink offering, and held it to her lips. “Try this. Crabmeat.”

  She relaxed and let him feed her, enjoying the complete pampering of delicious food and exquisite service. All of the tapas were good, but some prompted her to close her eyes and groan with pleasure as she savored their flavor. She worried at first that she was taking advantage of Rikard’s generosity, but his soft smile and the gleam in his blue eyes proved he was enjoying the meal as much as she was. The final offerings, combining cinnamon and a rich chocolate sauce, were positively heavenly.