by Angel Payne
“Well, why do you keep pushing me?”
“Because, damn it.” He’d done the stealthy-lion thing again. He was just a foot away, arms curled at forty-five-degree angles, veins standing out on his huge muscles. Again that damn invisible-tether look. “Because I see what you don’t.” His lips barely moved with the words. His gaze urgently raked her face. “Because you’re worth so much more than you see, than you allow yourself to be given, than what you believe—”
“Don’t.” It spilled from her, as hot and humiliating as her tears. “Don’t you dare make me go there. I’ve been there already, Senator, remember? And before Owen Dearborn, I’d been there a few thousand other times too.” A bitter laugh broke free. “Mother always phrased it best. ‘It’s best you stop reaching for the fruit on the high branches, Rosalind. Your arms aren’t long enough.’ Well, I now know what fruit is appropriate for me. And it’s fine. I’m fine.”
“And you’re wrong.”
Just three words. But he stamped them with the same ferocious force overcoming his whole body as he grabbed her by the elbows. “You’re wrong, Rose. She’s wrong.”
He gripped her much harder than he had that afternoon. The pressure, along with the heat flowing off him like sun flares, should’ve sent alarms through her. A normal woman would’ve evaluated the situation and been at least a little scared.
But Rose was wet. Aching. Her lips parted as her body hit the Override button on her brain. Every inch of her tingled in greeting to his nearness. She throbbed in need of his power. Her sex pulsed. Her heart fluttered. Her very skin came alive with craving…
More.
“What are you going to do?” Her dry rasp swirled through the inches of air between them. “Pin me to a wall again? Hold me down until I’m brainwashed to your will?”
Please hold me down again…
He didn’t do that.
Actually, he…smiled.
Slowly. Knowingly. Confidently.
In the three seconds he took to curl it, everything changed between them. The air shifted, as if the moon pulled rank and called the tide back out to sea, where it could break free without the limits of the shore.
Ridiculous.
Beyond ridiculous.
Did you really just compare the man to the sun and the moon?
Rose, Rose, Rose.
He’s forbidden fruit, girl. Don’t play this high. You’re going to fall and get hurt!
“No,” he finally said, dipping the molten heat of his stare along the length of her body. “We’ve done the wall already, pet. And it clearly didn’t make a difference in your mindset.”
He tugged her closer. Her breath caught. Her head spun. “I…I hadn’t thought that was the…intention.”
The last syllable was nothing but a sigh, a breath mingling with his, as he dipped his head and lips near. “So you’ve been thinking about it?”
“Thinking about wh-what?”
“The wall. This afternoon. Being trapped. Being controlled. By me.”
“Of course not!” She turned her face away. He followed without hesitation or mercy, pressing his mouth against her cheek, scuffing her skin with his beard, scratching deeper into her mind, whether she wanted it or not.
“I think you’re lying. I think you’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. Just like I have.”
His confession messed her thoughts more. “What are you doing to me? Why do you want to do this to me? We can’t… I can’t…” She choked to a stop as his mouth traced closer, thickening the mental fog. She couldn’t go back to that place again. She wouldn’t. “Please…Senator… Mark…” She huffed. What the hell did she even call him anymore?
“Sir will do, Rose. I love the word when it comes off your lips. Especially when they’re this flushed and beautiful.”
He raised a hand and ran a slow thumb along her mouth. Confusion stormed her mind, body, senses. “F-For one thing, m-my lips aren’t beautiful…and…and—”
“And that’s a perfect place to start.”
He didn’t give her a second to breathe, let alone argue. Not when he took her mouth in one bold sweep of passion. He opened her at once, filling her with his tongue and even his teeth, shredding all the logic she had left. Rose tried to break free, but he seemed to expect that too. He buried his hand in her hair, securing her in place as he plunged, sucked, crushed, commanded—until, when he finally did break away, she actually gasped from the loss.
But he stole that too. Her gasp climbed into a shocked cry as he hoisted her into his arms and then strode deeper into the gym with her.
“What the hell?”
“I think you mean, what the hell, Sir?” He plunked her down on a padded sit-up bench.
“Wh-What?”
She might as well have spouted Swahili for all the care he gave the retort. She was too stunned to move, watching him stalk to a rack with a dozen jump ropes and then wrench half the inventory off their pegs. “Why are you… What’s…”
“Are you now ready to tell me you how beautiful your mouth is?”
He stood in front of her again. His legs were braced, and a pair of the jump ropes were now stretched between his hands. Despite his ominous stance, she glowered. “No! What do you think—”
“Suit yourself.”
His serene intonation gave her no clue about his intention. Before she blinked again, he twisted a rope around one of her wrists, crisscrossed it, and then captured the other arm too. He pulled that truss tight with one hand and then looped the second rope through the small gap between her wrists. Once he was able to hold her tight with one hand, he grabbed her waist with the other. His hold relayed pure strength, solid control, and no patience for a struggle. Still, Rose couldn’t believe she complied without a word as he turned her over and laid her flat on the bench. Her face was down, and her arms were stretched over her head. Mark looped the rope around the bench peg, securing her into that position.
“This is crazy. What do you think—”
“The subject isn’t me right now. It’s you.”
She pivoted her head to glare at him but was stopped short by his face, now tilted and just a few inches away again. And the look on it…was a transformation. A spell of golden magic. His mouth twitched with sexy-as-hell adoration. His eyes were twin hearths of warmth and wonderment. The bastard made it damn hard to figure out what she felt right now. Pure fury or pure fascination?
“What in all of hell are you doing?”
He actually looked like he fought back a chuckle. “Hmm. Not as interesting as your previous outbursts, but still enchanting. Especially because you’ll be issuing no more statements like it for a while.” She drew breath to tell him where he could go with that pomposity, but he jammed two fingers against her lips. “I said no more, Rose. Let me explain myself. I’m not going to hurt you. You know that as well; I don’t see a speck of real mortal fear in your face. What I’m asking right now is that you trust me. That you acknowledge I’ve been a few steps in life farther than you, that I see an important lesson you can learn here, but that restraining you may be the only way you’ll pay attention and absorb this knowledge.”
His features intensified as he stroked a hand down her back. “If you don’t agree, now or at any time, then you say the word. I’ll let you up, and things return to normal between us. But that word isn’t ‘no.’ Or ‘stop.’ You’ll have to work harder, think harder, than that. Your word is ‘worth.’ Since you find it impossible to think of the term, let alone apply it to yourself, then it’s a perfect word upon which you can focus.” He finally released his fingers from her lips as he slipped his other hand beneath her shirt. His touch was a series of light, magical strokes against her skin. “Is all this clear? Do you understand?”
Her breath only cooperated in shallow spurts. He was right. He wouldn’t physically hurt her. His touch on her back alone, steady but gentle, proved it. The only trouble was, she wanted him to press harder. She yearned for the raw, rough command he’d exerted this afternoon, trapping h
er against the wall. God, didn’t that make her some kind of sicko? She knew what they called it. Submissiveness. The kink thing. Weird. She wasn’t any of those things…was she? She was raised to be the perfect North Shore wife. She wasn’t supposed to know about things like that, let alone like them.
But maybe Owen had seen just that. Had realized the wicked mistake fate made in her. Maybe he’d just known, after that night when they’d finally been alone in the suite at the Fairmont, and she’d dared to let him see a little of her true desires…
Maybe he’d gotten it right way before everyone else.
She was wired wrong. Plain and simple.
“Rose.” He broke into her thoughts with the ramrod of a syllable. “Thoughts here. Right now. I won’t ask so politely next time.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Though she grumbled it, he actually smiled. Best of all, he turned his caress on her back into a stronger, rougher possession. “That just flows from you, doesn’t it?” He shook his head, as if bewildered. “Such a natural, and you don’t even know it. Oh, Rose. Sweet Rose.”
His gaze followed the path of his hand down to her lower back, sliding along the curve above her buttocks. He stopped for half a second before tucking his fingers beneath the band of her running shorts.
They both held their breaths. Rose almost held back her next words. Giving voice to them… It would likely take them across an unseen bridge, deeper down the sensual path he’d let her peek at this afternoon. She was terrified. And yet, it would’ve been easier to hold a burning match behind her lips.
“A natural…at what?”
When he gave her nothing but another enigmatic tilt of his lips, she frowned.
“Are you really not going to let me up unless I do what you say?”
His stare traveled down her body. His study was slower this time. Deliberate. “That’s the plan.”
She could hear herself breathing now. “Unless I say stop.”
“Unless you say worth.”
“Whatever. I can use it at any time, right?”
“I don’t think you will.”
He molded his hand around one of her butt cheeks. Rose gasped, jerking away by sheer instinct, shooting a what-the-hell gape again.
He didn’t relent his hold by a centimeter.
She still didn’t utter a word.
“You have a lovely ass too, Rose. It fits perfectly against my palm. And it’s getting warmer. Everything down here is.”
He was right about that too. Oh God, he was right. As he curled his fingers against her skin, kneading one buttock and then the other, deep shivers of pure heat spiraled into her upper thighs, down to her knees and her toes, and then back up again, centering in a pool of liquid magma right between her thighs. It was all she could do not to buck and squirm, simultaneously wanting to flee him and beg him for more.
She whipped her face away, digging her forehead into the bench pad. If her ass was that hot, everything from her neck up must be the shade of ripe turnips. “Oh God!”
He dug his fingers in a little harder, nipping the meat of her ass. “Not what I want to hear, pet.” Though the words chastised, his tone was nearly a knight’s courting croon. “Turn your face back to me so I can see you say the words. ‘My mouth is beautiful.’”
She was so tempted to give him a snarl, the safe word, or both. But part of her, a growing part, wanted to simply lie there in silence, pushing his patience, wondering what he’d do if she did. The part refusing to be without his warm, knowing touch ever again.
“Fine!” She flipped her face back toward him. “My mouth is beautiful.” She deliberately rushed it. “Pleased with yourself?”
Ridiculous question. The man beamed. “Of course. But I’m more than happy to share my pleasure, honey.”
He’d barely drawled it all before dipping his fingers deeper between her legs. The contact with her sex only lasted a second but hit her like the tap of a wizard’s wand. Every nerve in her clit pulsed. Energy zapped through her body. A cry escaped before she could help it.
“Easy, sweet Rose. We’re not done yet.”
The hell we aren’t.
“I—this—I can’t—”
“Of course you can. And you will.” He coaxed her head back down by pulling the elastic band free from her ponytail and then spidering his hand against her head. “Next you’re going to tell me, ‘My body is beautiful.’”
“This—this is crazy! What if somebody comes in here and—”
“That’s my concern, not yours.” He worked more magic into her scalp and ass with his kneading, exploring hands. “Now don’t you have something you’d like to tell me?”
She huffed. Again he pinched her ass in reprimand, once on each cheek. The brief pain acted like a switch in her brain. Her attention funneled on him—on what he’d requested of her. No, on what he’d ordered of her. And how much she yearned now to obey. To once more bring that incredible, radiant smile to his face…
“I…my body…is beautiful.”
She didn’t rush it this time.
Because it didn’t feel stupid this time.
It felt…
Amazing.
Like it could be the truth.
“Rose.” His reply was low and husky. “Your body is beautiful.”
Just like that, he pulled her across another unseen bridge—and then burned that passage down behind them. Rose saw it in the transition in his face, his jaw jutting and nostrils flaring. She felt it in her most intimate core, deep inside, sending tiny streams of need down into her pussy. She shook from the inside out. Moaned aloud from its force.
He made things worse—and better—when he withdrew the hand in her hair and dipped it beneath her shorts as well.
“Lovely.” He cupped an ass cheek in each hand. For the first time, Rose resisted her bonds. His touch was torment and enchantment, sending a thousand tingles through her body. Her skin didn’t feel like enough coverage for her feelings anymore. She bucked and writhed, sure she was going to fall apart.
“Sshhh. Breathe. Breathe.”
How was it that his voice saved her from the very torture he inflicted?
“Focus on me, Rose. Listen to my voice. Focus on what I want you to say next.”
Huh?
He wanted her to say more, to actually form words, when he rolled his thumbs deeper into the crevice between her legs and started spreading her there?
“Oh,” she whispered. “Ohhhh…” No. She couldn’t do anything beyond that. Impossible. Forget it.
“‘My desire is beautiful.’” He directed it just as he opened her wider, pulling open the flesh of her sex so he could lightly stroke her there. “That’s what you’ll say next, pet.”
“M-My—”
He found the button at her core. Flicked the sensitive strip of flesh.
Her cry became a scream.
“Beautiful. Truly beautiful, Rose. Do you want more?”
“God, yes. Please. Yes!”
“Then give me the words. Say it. ‘My desire is beautiful.’”
Damn him.
Bless him.
She licked her lips and tore through her senses for a couple of rational thoughts to string together. “My…my desire…is beautiful.”
“Oh yes, honey. It is.”
He slid a second finger against her pulsing nub. This time he didn’t release the pressure. Rose’s head jackknifed back. Her sex turned to lighter fuel, and his fingers were matches. Everything was white heat and pure need. She pitched herself back as far as she could but didn’t get very far, tethered in place by his deftly tied knots. Another cry ripped past her locked teeth.
“More, honey?” His own voice was tight and rough. He pivoted to kneel behind her, pulling her shorts down as he went, giving him uninhibited access to her dripping sex. “You need me to go faster? You want me to touch you harder? Do you need my fingers here, on your wet clit…your aching pussy?”
He unraveled the rest of her with the words. Her inhibitio
n spun free from the spindle of her mind, dissolving into rasps of arousal and joy. “Yes. Yes. Yes please, Sir.”
She heard his hiss, which seemed a mixture of joy and shock in itself, before his touch took on an urgent life of its own. “Very, very good, Rose. Now, just one more, sweetheart. Let me hear you say it. ‘My surrender is beautiful.’”
Was he serious? “I…I— Ohhhh…mmmm…” She was ready. So ready. Her walls clenched all the way to her womb. She needed release…freedom from this ache…
“Give it to me, pet. Now. Say it to me and mean it—and when you’re done, you’re going to come hard. Do you understand, Rose?”
Chapter Five
His heart beat in time to Rose’s frantic nods. Despite that, every sound from his own body was mute to him. With one slice of his brain still heeding the door, he focused the rest on her. Every nuance of her breath. The flush of her skin. The tension of her wrists against the rope, even the rhythm of how she tossed her hair on her back. He gauged everything about her…
Everything.
She intoxicated him.
She obliterated him.
She’d awakened him.
His Dom was back. Even if just for this exquisite, extraordinary moment…he was Master once more. At one with his sweet sub. Honored by her incredible gift. Determined to give it back to her with pleasure she’d never fathomed.
Slowly, with unalterable authority, he directed her again. “Say. It. You can do it, Rose.” He stroked the pouting lips of her perfect cunt, knowing the action teased her clit in all the right ways. “Say it for me, pet.”
She felt like heaven. Her skin, soft and moist beneath his thumbs, vibrated. With every twitch, his cock kicked harder at his sweats. But as much as he craved release, this wasn’t about his body. It was about the beast in his brain, the creature who’d lain dormant for far too long, rejoicing in its fiery rebirth.
“My…surrender…is beautiful.”
“Yessss.”
He blended his hiss to her rasp as he plunged a thumb into her tight tunnel. He needed to feel her from the inside out as he proved her words perfectly true. “You remember what I want you to do now, Rose?” He watched her try to nod as the rest of her body took over, hips gyrating, her ass a mesmerizing landscape. He curled his other hand against her sex. The hard, hot ridge of her clit was his greeting committee. As he teased that quivering bundle of nerves, she keened and shivered.
