Free Unholy Promises by Roxy Harte Page B

man and I was privy to national security secrets. I was a fool.
    “Let me go!” I panicked; heart feeling like it would explode.
    “Relax,” his deep, heavily accented voice, commanded me. Are you joking, my brain screamed back? Then his lips were on mine, softly brushing skin-to-skin, just barely, so that I had to open my eyes to make sure he really was touching his lips to mine. His eyes comforted mine as he promised, “You are safe, safe with me.”
    My panicked brain screeched to a sudden halt, acknowledging this is what it feels like to be alive.
    “Tell me what you want.” With deft skill, Luka pulled me back into the moment.
    “I don’t know,” I whispered, but I lied, knowing exactly what I wanted to do next; and as if he’d read my mind, he complied. My skin sighed as he fanned the throngs of a suede flogger over my shoulders. The suede cascaded over my sensitive flesh as softly as silk. Trailing the flogger with delicate skill, my skin was rewarded with a feather-light caress. Shoulders, back, arms shoulder to wrist, followed by teasing my nipples to tight painful buds; his lips followed the suede caress, not to kiss or lick each nipple, but to bite down, sucking hard, while his teeth jerked out a very real moan.
    Something fierce and primal exploded in my mind then, and I tucked myself tighter into my mind, seeking escape from the discomfort, finding relief in the pulse of my blood whooshing through my brain, but as his teeth twisted and pulled, I heard myself begging,
    “Please. Please whip me.” But the voice didn’t seem to belong to me at all, and I was powerless to stop that other part of me.
    “Not yet, sweetheart. Not yet.”
    I closed my eyes against the agony of his refusal, needing more, hating the soft whimpers coming from deep inside my throat, but I was no longer in control; base need was. I’d never felt anything so all-consuming as the need to feel more pain. “Please.”
    “Not yet,” he mumbled around a nipple. The suede thongs teased down my back and over my hips, a barely there swat, swat, did-I-imagine-it-I-wanted-it-so-bad swats, taunting with their feather-light touch. His lips sucking, teasing, no longer inflicting pain.
    “Kiss me.”
    “No.”
    I opened my eyes to find smoldering embers reading my soul. Turning my head, I see Matilda, confirming that Matilda still watched, then my vision blurred as the flogger bit into my back…

    I awake from the dream with a sigh on my lips. Considering Liam’s mouth is closed over my left nipple, I assume he accredits the sound of pleasure to his ministrations. He would be sorely disappointed to learn that the ghost of one long dead was the true benefactor. Luka never fails to join me in my dreams, my one escape in a life I have so little control over, my ghost responsible for my rest, for my sanity.
    Did I love Luka? You would think by my loneliness I did, but who knows. I stopped equating sex with love a long time ago, even before Luka. In my business, one never knows which enemy will be tomorrow’s bedfellow, best to not fall in love. Yes, the sex was great with Luka, but there have been other men I’ve cared for. I don’t remember them so well. Luka, I can’t forget.
    For a day, I respected Liam. Okay, maybe more than a day, probably closer to a week, but then I started reading more into subtle timing coincidences. Liam always being at the scene of the crime, for example. Just a little too convenient for my blood, even though The Agency wasn’t blinking an eye; but by the time I suspected him, I’d slept with him. A lot. Sex helps relieve job stress. I’m not making an excuse for my promiscuity, just a simple truth. When I have so much adrenaline running through my veins I feel like I’m going to explode from the inside out, there are few better choices. It comes down to drugs, alcohol, sex. Sex is my mind-numbing drug of choice.
    I had thought my involvement with Liam very discreet, low key; I should not have been