He made no apologies as he came in her mouth, even as she struggled to take him all in. He made no apologies for the tightening of his fist in her hair, for the fact that he had come so quickly and so hard, causing her to gag and swallow furiously several times before he collapsed back on the sofa, before she relaxed her mouth, released his well-worked cock, and rested her head in his lap, gasping for breath. For a time that could have been seconds, could have been hours, he leaned back against the sofa with his eyes closed, drifting. At some point the white-knuckled grip he’d had in her hair relaxed and opened and he began to stroke the cascading locks that were softer than silk, a repetitive motion that calmed him, took him away from himself as nothing had in a very long time. When he came back to the present, he could feel her warm, even breathing against his bare groin and, even though it couldn’t have been long, his cock was already responding to the thought of what this woman had just done to him, what she had allowed him to do to her, all against his better judgment. Okay, no matter what she said, she was still a prostitute – had to be. But she was a gift, a feisty, cheeky, sexy gift, who seemed to intuit exactly what he needed, and at least for now, she was all his. How pathetic was he that he grasped at such a gift, allowing himself refuge in something so contrived, something that was escapism and nothing else? Still, the long holiday weekend looming before him suddenly didn’t seem quite so endless.

When he leaned forward and kissed her head, she moaned softly and looked up at him. He managed to partially do up his fly against a package that was already reasserting its dominion, then he stood and lifted her once again. Since she couldn’t slip her arms around his neck, she buried her face against his shoulder, and he could feel her muscles tensing against him as he mounted the stairs, her weight strangely balancing his own. In his room, he lowered her onto the mattress of the big four-poster bed, then he untied her feet, carefully massaging the circulation back into her ankles and calves before he moved to do the same to her hands. All the while she moaned her pleasure and relief, eyelids fluttering, lips parted and swollen, a tantalizing reminder of what she could do with that delicious mouth. ‘That’s better,’ she sighed. ‘Oh God, that’s so much better. What the …?’ Her eyes burst open and she squirmed as he bound the ribbon back around her wrists and tied them above her head to the bed frame.

‘I like you bound,’ he said, pausing to drop a kiss on each of her heavy nipples when he finished. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the little moan that escaped her throat was not total disagreement. With the other ribbon, he tied one ankle to one post at the foot of the bed, then yanked off his loosened tie and secured the other to the opposite post so that this time her legs were wide open and she was helplessly exposed and yielded for his explorations. Surveying his efforts, he then took a fluffy white pillow and eased it beneath her bottom, forcing her hips forward so that she opened like ripe fruit in a display case, succulent and swollen, offered up just for him.

For a moment, he knelt between her legs, not touching, just looking and admiring the pouting, feminine landscape glistening with her arousal. When she wriggled slightly and whimpered, he looked up into

her bright eyes shaded with thick lashes, dilated pupils holding his gaze with anxious curiosity. ‘Most Christmas gifts come with operating directions. Since you didn’t, well,’ he slid a hand up the inside of her thigh until his thumb slightly grazed the pebbled hardness just below her pubic curls and she sucked a tight breath and bucked against his touch, ‘I’ll just have to experiment, won’t I?’ With that, he slipped two fingers between her soft folds and her whole body quivered as he opened her, his eyes locked on her slick mother of pearl pout, heavy and swollen.

‘Do you remember when you were a child and you got gifts for Christmas or your birthday, and you just had to figure out how they worked, what made them do the amazing things they did?’ He ran the edge of his thumb over her hardness and she shivered and clenched at his fingers.

‘I remember, yes!’ she gasped, and ground her bottom against the pillow.

‘I’ve always wanted to know what it looks like when a woman comes. I mean what it looks like up close and personal down where everything’s swollen and slick and ready to burst.’ He withdrew his fingers, now slippery with her lust, and eased them upward around her folds, splaying, tweaking, stroking. ‘I’m guessing sucking my cock like you did turned you on some because you’re clearly aroused.’ He lifted his wet fingers into her field of vision to demonstrate, and then still watching those china blue eyes, he flicked his tongue out, licking the taste of her, feeling his cock surge in response, hearing her soft, kitten-like mew. ‘Do you know,’ he said, fingering her open again, ‘you’re the colour of ripe cherries when you’re aroused?’ He slid two fingers back up inside her and she bit her lip and shivered. ‘And you feel, my God, you feel like wet, warm silk tightening around me each time I stroke you.’ He demonstrated by

pushing into her knuckle deep and scissoring his fingers. She arched her back and lifted her hips to match his movement. ‘I’m torturing myself imagining what that tight, wet grip will feel like when I fuck you. And from the feel of you,’ he raked her clitoris and she whimpered, ‘I’d say the torture is mutual. In fact, I’d imagine you really do need to come after taking me in your mouth like you did.’

Without warning, he leaned in and ran his tongue up from where his fingers splayed her all the way to her clit, her tidal pool scent rich and intoxicating. With a deep inhale of her need, he clamped down on her clitoris, licked it, drew his lips tight around it and then bit, pulling back just as she yelped and bucked and all but hyperventilated when she came. ‘Ah, exquisite,’ he breathed. ‘Your orgasm is like tiny little earthquakes making that whole ripe fruit girly landscape of yours tremble and clench, so tight, oh so tight. Have you ever watched yourself come?’

‘No, I haven’t.’ Her words were clipped, distracted as she rode the last of her orgasm, bucking against the thrust and press of his fingers, first two and then three.

‘A pity,’ he said. ‘You really should. I can’t tell you how sexy you are when you come, especially when you’re desperate for a good release, after you’ve felt the extent of my lust.’

Still stroking he arched above her, stretching to reach for the drawer of the nightstand where he kept the condoms he very rarely needed. ‘In all honesty,’ he withdrew his hand and she groaned her frustration watching with anxious eyes as he undid his trousers and released his cock into the condom, ‘I doubt that you can even imagine the extent of my lust.’ With that, he shoved into her hard, and she growled out loud like a wild animal in the hunt, her grip on his cock nearly sending him over before he was ready.

As he shifted his hips to deepen his position, he ran his hands up over her breasts then settled his weight on his elbows, and she spoke with a hiss of breath. ‘Oh, I think I can imagine the extent of your lust just fine.’ With that her grip tightened again, and he began to thrust.

It was the frustration of needing to feel more of her against him that caused him to withdraw long enough to untie her

legs before he sank back into her tight slick depths. With a groan that felt like it came from the very core of her, she wrapped herself around him and gripped him even tighter. Her breath was fast and furious, the purr of pleasure became a growl of desperation as she matched him thrust for thrust, tight and swollen and slippery.

He took her mouth, tasting the residue of his own lust still lingering there on her tongue, and that drove him until the weight of his need was practically unbearable. ‘You’re my gift,’ he spoke between lavings of his tongue as it danced with hers. ‘So come for me. Come for me now. I want to feel you when you come.’

More than likely it wasn’t so much his command as it was her own overwhelming need, but the cry that erupted from her throat as she clenched and convulsed was raw and guttural and he matched it, unable to hold out any longer in the grip of her release, stunned that he could come again so hard so soon.

As he fumbled to untie her arms to wind them around his neck, she giggled softly in his ear. ‘I guess you’re convinced then that I’m not hiding a gun.’

He shoved the duvet back and pulled her under it with him. ‘What’s your name?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘My gift surely has to have a name.’

For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer him, then she sighed softly and wriggled down close to him. ‘Moira. My name’s Moira.’

‘Moira,’ he whispered, kissing the pulse in her neck. ‘Get some rest, Moira, or Santa won’t come.’

She offered a throaty giggle. ‘I think he already did. Twice.’