Playing The Game

by Selina Seymour

Genres: Women's Fiction; Erotic & Steamy Romance

Synopsis

A story of sexual discovery and empowerment... Having been jilted by her boyfriend, a hitherto demure careerwoman with a high-powered job embarks on a sexual odyssey, aiming to prove her right to sexual freedom and that women can do exactly as they please. If you like Sylvia Day and Jodi Ellen Malpas, you'll love Selina Seymour!

Release date: February 7, 2013

Publisher: Piatkus

Print pages: 218

Sample

‘KATE …?’

‘I know.’

Steven flinched. Know? How could she know? They never knew until he told them. That was his way. He felt, for a moment, that he was losing control. He swung on his heel and looked at his reflection in the mirror. The sight pleased him and he frowned slightly: not because he saw any flaws, but because frowning, he knew, suited him.

Kate, on the other side of the room, also frowned – but at the flaws that were now etched in her memory for ever. Then, with strong, confident strides, she walked round the bed and stopped, beside Steven, in front of the full-length mirror.

They stood there, looking yet not looking at each other. Steven, accustomed to summoning his feelings when he wanted, began to experience the rare and unwelcome sensation of embarrassment. Kate’s face bore no hint of the emotion she felt. Her eyes were blank, refusing to acknowledge that treachery was staring at her. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘because I saw you.’

‘Ah.’ So he had lost, for the first time, the element of surprise. He shivered imperceptibly. ‘So you know that it’s over?’

‘Yes.’

Steven wanted to look elsewhere – anywhere but in the mirror. They were too close – yet their reflections seemed miles apart. He felt uneasy. Kate had distanced herself from him and she stood, small in stature, but wielding an unspoken, unnerving power. All he wanted from her now was anger, but there was none. Unnecessarily, he adjusted his tie. ‘Well … you knew that it was going to happen, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You knew what the score was?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re not angry?’

‘No.’

He couldn’t take it any longer. Abruptly, he pulled away from the mirror. ‘I’m … I’m sorry you had to find out that way.’

‘Are you?’

His words had tumbled out – meaningless platitudes. Now he found that he had meant them. ‘Yes,’ he said with feeling, ‘I am.’

‘Good.’

‘So … Kate … that’s it, then, isn’t it?’

‘Not quite.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I want you to do one last thing for me.’ For the first time, Kate smiled, her full moist lips parting to reveal gleaming, perfect teeth. And for the first time, Steven saw something threatening – almost predatory – in her expression. He had never, he supposed, stopped to consider her beauty and its various components. She had always been just Kate. Pretty little Kate. An adjunct to his perfection.

‘Oh!’ Steven shrugged. ‘Sure … anything. What?’

Still smiling, Kate went up to him. In one swift movement, she put both hands to his neck and pulled. Hard. His tie; his uniform; his armour fell to the floor.

‘Kate …!’

‘I want you to make love to me. Just this once. Just once more.’

‘But …’

‘And then you’ll never see me again.’

Steven stared at her, unable to fathom the expression on her face, nor the reason for her actions. Cute Kate had always been docile. Yet now, standing back from him, she was a creature alive with some strange passion; moved by some demon that impelled her to challenge him. Her expression, he now realised, was almost mocking. It excited him.

Kate saw his excitement. Again moving towards him, she smiled into his eyes and then sank to her knees. Her fingers, long talons newly and vividly burnished with red, teased him through the fabric of his trousers. He moaned gently, tilted his head backwards and thrust his pelvis forward.

‘Buttons,’ whispered Kate. ‘I like buttons.’ She started to undo them. ‘Nothing sharp. Nothing to hurt yourself with. Nothing that can scratch you …’

‘Kate!’ Steven’s eyes flew open, the momentary pain causing his sex to deflate in her hands. ‘Your nails! Be careful.’

Kate smiled up at him. ‘Oh, but I shall, my darling, I shall.’

Steven relaxed at her caressing tones, and smiled as she cupped his ball-sac in one hand and used her nails, gently now, to tease the area beneath it. ‘Oh yes,’ he sighed. His sex grew erect again, responding to Kate’s other hand. ‘Better. Much better. That’s good.’ His hands were now in her hair, rhythmically stroking the tumbling blonde mane almost as if he were trying to coax it, too, into life. He closed his eyes and rocked back and forth as her hand masturbated him gently. Then, as he lunged forward with increasing excitement, he moaned loudly as his cock sank into the warm wetness of her mouth. She took him deep into her – deeper than he’d ever been before. He was lost now, lost in the ecstasies of passion. His only thought was for his own pleasure – and for the satisfaction of having Kate on her knees before him.

But Steven couldn’t see Kate’s eyes. While her mouth worked rhythmically, automatically, the expression in her eyes was not one of unbridled pleasure, but of cool calculation.

Kate felt a tremor running through Steven’s body, an involuntary shudder that heralded the imminence of orgasm. She backed off and got to her feet. With one hand gently massaging his cock, she stroked his face with the other. ‘I want you to come inside me,’ she whispered. ‘I want to keep a part of you within me.’

Steven watched, eyes ablaze with lust, as she removed her silk dress in one swift movement. She was naked underneath it. She smiled at him. Steven, unaware that, still half-dressed, he looked almost comical, mistook her expression for adoration. As Kate sank backwards on to the bed, he ripped off his shirt and fumbled at his trousers, wincing as the coarse material brushed against his erection.

Kate knew from experience that he would now lunge at her, that his only thought was to sink into her as quickly and as deeply as possible. He had never asked her what she wanted, or how she wanted it. Often he had plunged into her before she was ready, while she was still dry, causing her to wince with pain. But this time she had made herself ready; this time she had plenty of fuel with which to warm herself. And that fuel was anger. For the first time in her life she was using her anger positively, transferring it into energy. Sexual energy. And for the benefit of no one but herself.

Steven launched himself on to her. As his cock cleaved into her, brutally parting her lips, she grunted with satisfaction. Well-lubricated with her own juices, she was more than ready for him. But her eyes, like his, were closed. And her mind, like his, was focused entirely on her own satisfaction. As he thrust into her, Kate moved her legs from underneath him. And then his eyes flew open in surprise as she clamped them around his buttocks, forcing him more deeply into her, binding him to her and keeping him inside her until she was racked by the orgasm that had been prompted by anger, fuelled by deceit and finally released by the knowledge that within the secret folded design of her sex she held the key to power.

Kate laughed out loud at the memory. Steven hadn’t wanted to leave. He had said he’d made a mistake, that he really hadn’t meant to dump her for Paola. What he had meant, of course, was that he’d never realised Kate could be so good in bed and that he wanted to sample a few more of her unexpected delights before dumping her. Kate had no doubt that he would, in the end, dump her. Lying back and stretching luxuriously, she thought back to their first meeting and the business acquaintance who had introduced her to the darkly handsome, dangerous Steven. ‘Admire,’ the acquaintance had said, ‘but don’t touch.’ But Kate had touched. She had also fallen wildly in love with Steven – and fallen for the oldest self-deception in the world. Now, she merely smiled at her naivety. But then, six months ago, she had decided that she would be the one to change him. She would love him unconditionally and he, in turn, would fall in love with her and abandon, forever, the string of women who had been his version of a love-life.

Silly Kate, she thought now. Imagine confusing love with sex. Smiling again, she reached for her wine glass. The cool liquid soothed her. It felt good, almost sensual, as she swallowed it slowly. Then she raised one naked leg and pressed the wine glass against it. That, too, felt good. She ran the glass slowly up to her knee, enjoying the sensation of the chill of the glass against the heat of her flesh. She was still high on the afterglow of sex. Smiling wickedly to herself, she dipped two fingers into the wine glass and pressed them against her legs. Her labia were wet already, sticky from the intermingling of her own juices with Steven’s come. But the wine added a freshness and a momentary coolness. Idly, she wondered what it would be like to have someone pour wine all over her mound and lick it off. The very thought brought a rush of blood to her head – and a surge of excitement between her legs.

Kate sipped her wine again. There was no hurry for anything now. She felt relaxed, contented with the thought of sex, rather than the actuality of it. Then she frowned. It was Saturday night, and she and Steven had been going to the opera. Now, obviously, they weren’t. The old Kate, she mused, would have stayed at home with a book or the television for company, not daring to venture out to such a public place, so patently on her own. But the old Kate was no more; she had been replaced, suddenly and dramatically, by a wanton creature faced with a world of possibilities. A world of sexual possibilities. The old, foolish Kate had been a slave to the myth – her high-powered career notwithstanding – that one day a man would sweep her off her feet.

Again she laughed out loud. It had taken her thirty-three years to realise the truth. She was an independent being, a sexual animal. She had huge reserves of sexual energy she was only just beginning to tap. And from now on she would dedicate herself, once again, to being swept off her feet. But this time there would be a huge difference: she would seek to be bowled over, not by love, but by the weapons that men carried between their legs. She wanted them to surrender those weapons to her; to feel them driving into her, relentlessly, powerfully, endlessly. She wanted to be fucked. She wanted to play men at their own game. And if the men she found were unable to provide her with what she wanted then she would have different men. More men. Any men. She would have as many men as she wanted. She could have several men at once; plugging her orifices and filling her with everything she had ever wanted. And even if they thought they were dominating her they would be wrong. They would be indulging in their fantasies. And Kate would be living reality.

She realised, with a start, that she had lost track of time. With an annoyed glance at the alarm clock, she rose from the bed and wandered, slightly unsteadily, into the bathroom. She had drunk too much wine. She had also lost some of the feeling in her legs. Her blood, her being, her very soul seemed now to be concentrated between her legs. Stepping into the shower, she welcomed the sharp needles of water on her face, her breasts, running down her back. She reached for the shower gel and began to wash herself. But not there. She wanted still to smell of sex. She wanted to go to the opera and still be aware of her body. She wanted to sit in one of the very expensive seats she had booked wearing a short black dress, a pair of shoes – and nothing else. She wanted to be dirty.

Verdi. She had never before wondered why Verdi was her favourite composer. Now, as she sat in the darkened auditorium,, she realised why. His music was unbelievably, almost shatteringly sensuous. It teased the senses in a way that no other music did. It played with you. Listening to it with your eyes closed, thought Kate, was the next best thing to sex.

She wasn’t quite sure at what point she realised it was sex. Somehow, her imagination had run riot and had interfered with the reality of what she was hearing. Nabucco, the tale of banishment from Israel, had become something else in her mind. The heart-rending, sometimes mournful, sometimes shudderingly climactic music had overtaken her senses and in her mind the virgins and the Hebrews were not mourning the loss of their homeland but were playing an elaborate courting ritual. Their sad voices, rising to a defiant crescendo, became instead the actual act of sex; quiet foreplay, gentle cajoling, sudden, violent penetration and then a rhythmic pounding that washed everything away except the glory of the moment.

Kate was swelteringly hot, both because the huge auditorium was jam-packed full, and also because she had worked herself up into such a state that she had become overcome by lust. Opening her eyes, she tried to focus on the stage. Instead, she looked down with horror at her skirt; it had ridden right up to her crotch. Her alarm was intensified by the fact that she could smell herself; sweat, sperm and her own juices, both old and new, contributed towards the heady, raw smell of sex that was suddenly overpowering. She felt at once exhausted, excited and embarrassed.

She also knew she was being watched. The seat next to her – Steven’s seat – was empty, and on the other side was the aisle. But two seats away sat a man who was looking at her with undisguised lust. Catching his eye, Kate quickly looked away. Was this really her, she wondered? Had the demure, sensible, high-powered career girl Kate really been openly masturbating in a renowned, majestic opera house? Under her lashes, she looked back at the man. He was still staring at her. Boldly, she stared back. He was dark, extremely good-looking and had a wolfish grin on his face. As Kate met his eyes for the second time, his grin widened. It spoke more of arousal than of amusement. Kate flet a spasm of desire shoot through her. She was already so highly charged that she knew it wouldn’t take much more to push her over the top. And then the music started again. It was the beautiful, haunting slaves’ chorus that never failed to move her. It started quietly, like a smooth, tantalising caress. She knew it would get louder, more forceful, yet maintaining the same throbbing, sensual rhythm.

She closed her eyes again. She didn’t know what to do: give in to her mounting pleasure or try to fight it. She wished she had something in her lap that would take her mind off her desires. Desperately trying to pull down her skirt, she brushed her hand against her sodden mound and realised two things: it was far, far too late to take her mind off sex – and she did have something to play with. Heedless now of the man near her, she parted first her legs and then swollen, tender lips. Her clitoris was already hard, and responded to her touch by sending a shuddering wave of ecstasy through her entire body.

The music was louder now. The slaves were rising up, their voices deep and powerful, calling out to her, filling her ears with their longing. Enveloped in a haze of lust, Kate knew she was with them now. But they weren’t calling out for their native soil, they were calling to her. Free of their manacles, they were naked and all around her. Kate was turning in time to the music: at first slowly, then more quickly as urgency filled the air. Except she wasn’t Kate any more, she was a virgin from the opera and the slaves were about to ravish her. Her white gown was torn from her body and there were hands stroking her: rough, calloused workers’ hands. They were at her neck, her breasts, they were teasing her taut nipples. Then a hand went between her legs, stroking her clitoris and arousing her as she had never been aroused before. And she was begging them. She was begging them to mount her, to take her savagely with their oversized, engorged pricks. She was shouting at them to pound into her in time with the music, to rock back and forth, to match her screams of desire. They had swept her off her feet now; her legs were wrapped round the waist of the largest slave and his massive cock was scything in and out of her as she clung to him. And then the chorus reached its climax; a heart-rending, blissful crescendo that took over all her senses and then left her sprawling, exhausted, spent and satisfied.

At first Kate didn’t know where she was when she opened her eyes. She blinked several times at the scene in front of her, unable to separate fantasy from reality. Then she realised she had been satisfied. The seat beneath her was damp, the hem of her dres. . .