by Lauren Smith
“Little Mac, I told you to stay in the room.”
The last time she’d seen that expression, he’d been mad that she was pushing him on finishing his edits for her thesis paper.
She pushed away from the side of the pool, swimming into the center away from him. Royce was wearing navy-blue swim trunks, and he was bare-chested. The sight of him made her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. God, he looked perfect, with corded biceps and a six-pack that didn’t even look real. More like chiseled by a master sculptor.
He crossed his arms over his chest, scowling.
Finally, she found her voice. “I had to clear my head. I called the front desk, and he said the pool area was keycard protected. I thought it would be safe enough.”
“Safe enough? Safeenough? You think Vadym couldn’t book a hotel room and get his own damn keycard? Because he would if he knew we were here. No place is safe.” His voice deepened as he began to prowl around the edge of the pool until he reached the shallow end. He used the ladder to climb down into the pool, his movements slow and measured as he faced her, now chest-deep in the water. She treaded water, keeping a safe distance away. They both knew that since he’d spoken to her before he left that things had somehow changed. The barrier they liked to pretend was there between them—protecting them from crossing that dangerous, seductive line—was gone. Like an ancient wall that had crumbled to ruins, she could see him clearly across the destroyed barrier, mere feet away, within reach.
He’s what you’ve always wanted. And now you can have him. The wicked whisper coiled like a serpent around her heart, blinding her to reason and rationality.
“You promised to obey my orders if I let you come, Little Mac. Orders are supposed to keep you safe. You owe me your submission.”
“I thought I was safe,” she said. “Nothing happened.”
“Kenzie.” His burning eyes held her still. “Just because nothing happened doesn’t mean you’re safe. This man, Vadym, he knows about you now. And he’s one of the worst kind of men. These Mafia types—they don’t have souls. If he gets his hands on you”—Royce closed his eyes briefly—“I will never be able to find you again. That is a fate neither of us could survive.”
This time she didn’t see anger in his eyes, but the bright flash of fear. He’d been afraid for her, not angry. She swam closer, so close that her body stirred the water and currents against him.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
His gaze moved over her, and then he took one slow step , curling an arm around her waist and dragging her into his arms so that her body pressed flush to his. Their faces were almost touching, and the heat of his body against hers filled her with a delicious burning arousal.
“You’d better tell me to stop,” he warned. His voice was silky and seductive, but there was an edge to it that sent her senses spinning and her body humming to life the way she dreamed about in her darkest fantasies.
“Stop what?”
“This.”
He crushed her lips to his in a violent, raw claiming. It was punishing, overpowering, and she moaned helplessly, wondering how he could own her with only a kiss. But then, nothing about Royce had ever been simple. His playful professor side, his brooding tortured side, his hard-edged dominant side, and this man here in the pool who was more animal than anything else—she liked it all, liked every part of him. The complexity of his character shifted like the gems of a kaleidoscope, creating beautiful new mysteries each time they changed.
His tongue traced her lips, and she opened to him. Royce curled an arm around her neck, holding her captive, and she lifted her legs in the water, wrapping them around his waist. The hardness of his arousal rubbed against her, and flashes of white heat rolled through her, making her dizzy.
“Make me stop,” he begged in a raspy whisper. “Make me, Little Mac, before I lose my fucking mind and take you here in this pool.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“You should.” He nuzzled her throat, kissing her, licking the drops of water from her skin. “Because I came down here to punish you, to spank your ass until my hand is bright red and you can’t sit for a week, but now…” He gripped her ass, lifting her on his body so she rocked against him. “Now I just want to rip your suit to shreds and bury myself inside you over and over until you pass out with pleasure.”
Kenzie curled her arms around his neck, his desire for her electrifying her entire body. The moment she met Royce Devereaux, she’d known deep down that a part of her would always belong to him. Perhaps tonight he would finally take what was already his.
But he didn’t. Instead he continued to kiss her, drinking of her lips like she was a bottle of fine scotch, savoring each second. Then he lifted his head. The gentleness that had softened the previously stern line of his mouth made her all the more hungry for him, but not just in a carnal way. She wanted to see him, see that expression all the time, as long as it was just for her.
“Little Mac, you’re going to kill me.” With great reluctance, he let her go. She slipped away from him in the water, and for a moment she almost went under because she was too busy drowning in his eyes to remember to tread water.
“Let’s get you upstairs. I’m starving, and you didn’t order any food yet.”
Kenzie was a little too stunned to speak. She climbed out of the pool after him. He offered one of the fluffy white towels from a rack against the wall and collected her goggles from the side of the pool.
“Do you swim to chase your demons away?” Royce asked as they walked to the elevator doors.
She tilted her head. “Demons?”
“The way you were swimming, it was like something was chasing you.”
“Oh.” She flushed. “I just…I can’t stop seeing that night in your house, like awful flashes from a horror movie. I wanted to exhaust myself so I could forget.”
“Did it work?” Royce asked as he dried off with his own towel.
“A little bit,” she admitted, but she couldn’t tell him that kissing him had banished it almost completely. She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she would get from that. All she knew was that by kissing her professor, she’d crossed the line. A line she’d sworn she would never cross.
When they got back to the hotel room, the smell of food hit Kenzie’s nose, and her stomach rumbled. Hans came out of his room through the connecting doorway and gave Royce a questioning look.
“Everyone have a nice swim?” he asked.
Kenzie smiled at him. “Yeah. Sorry I wasn’t here when you got back.” It was clear he was being protective. Hell, he probably figured Royce had gone down there to paddle her ass, but he hadn’t.
“Good. I ordered dinner. Borscht, kulebiaka, and pelmeni.” He nodded to the small coffee table in front of the massive TV.
Kenzie grabbed a change of clothes and then dashed in the bathroom, getting back into her jeans and sweater. She ran a comb through her wet hair and plaited it into a braid before she emerged from the bathroom. Royce was outside waiting, his own clothes in his arms. Their eyes met as they traded places, and she blushed as she let him pass.
Back in the living room, Hans lifted up a bowl of a red substance. “Borscht. Beetroot soup with a dollop of sour cream and dill.”
He held it out and she took it, lifting it to inhale the scent. She’d heard of borscht before but not the others he’d mentioned. She peered at a plate that looked to be dumplings. “What are those?”
“Pelmeni. Basically meat-stuffed dumplings. Looks like they served it in a tomato sauce.” Hans plucked a pelmeni out with a fork and ate it. “Yep, tomato sauce. Not too spicy.” Then he pointed out a sort of puffy pastry-like food. “That’s kulebiaka. Good stuff, puff pastry wrapped around fish, hard-boiled eggs, rice, onion, and chopped dill.”
Kenzie wrinkled her nose. “You lost me at pastry and fish.”
Hans’s booming laugh was irresistible, and she giggled along with him.
Royce emerged from the bathroom wearing jeans and
a black sweater. He pushed up the sleeves, baring his muscled forearms, and he grinned when he saw the food.
“Pelmenis!” The light on such a gorgeous, panty-dropping face was devastatingly attractive. Kenzie was certain if he ever reacted to her with that sexy, charming enthusiasm, she would die on the spot. She and Royce took seats on the couch, Hans in the chair, and they dug into the food.
“How did the gun thing go?” Kenzie asked after a minute.
“The ‘gun thing’ went well.” Hans pointed to black heavy-duty hard plastic cases propped against the wall by the closet. “But if we’re lucky, we won’t need to use them.”
“Did you find anything out about this Vadym guy?” she asked as she dipped her spoon into the borscht.
Hans and Royce exchanged meaningful looks, but neither spoke.
“Seriously, guys? Just tell me. I can handle it.”
Royce set his plate down and leaned back, stretching one arm around the back of the sofa. “Vadym doesn’t just smuggle fossils. He smuggles people too.”
“And by smuggling, you mean…” She did want to say the words, too horrified if they were true.
“Human trafficking,” Hans said.
Kenzie suddenly lost her appetite. “Oh God.” She couldn’t imagine the living hell those people suffered. And then she remembered that Vadym knew about her, knew where she lived—everything. It was just like Royce had said. She really was in danger.
“Kenzie.” Royce spoke her name in a gentle whisper. “Breathe, babe. You’re turning blue.”
Her lips parted, and air rushed into her lungs. “Will he come after me?”
“No,” Royce growled, his brown eyes glowing with fire. “He’ll never touch you.”
Despite the assurance in his voice, she saw a shadow in his eyes, a hint of something he was holding back.
“You’re keeping something from me. What is it?”
“We know where he’ll be tomorrow night. At a club, a BDSM club. Hans and I are going to go there and put a stop to all this.”
“Okay…” Kenzie waited for whatever it was he still wasn’t telling her.
“There is a catch. I need a submissive to enter the club. No unattached Doms allowed.” Royce moved a hand behind her on the couch so his fingertips stroked the back of her neck soothingly. “I need a submissive to get in, and you want to help. Do you want to come with us?”
“What?” Was he asking her to go as his sub? Fear and excitement dueled inside her, and her heart pounded in her ears hard enough that she almost couldn’t hear anyone over the roaring.
“Little Mac, you okay?” Royce was staring at her as though he feared she might collapse.
“I’m fine.” The word escaped breathlessly as she pulled at the end of her braid, embracing the sting of the tug because it helped clear her mind.
“You’ll be safe, I promise. Hans will be there too.”
Sure, the idea of a crazed Russian mobster was scary, but that wasn’t the only thing she was afraid of. She was afraid of becoming Royce’s sub. The intimacy of a BDSM relationship, even if they were just pretending, could be overpowering and overwhelming. Things between her and Royce had changed so much already. Being his sub would cement that change forever. Neither of them would ever be able to deny or forget what would happen at this club.
“I think I should go and clean the guns,” Hans muttered. He set the empty plate down, got up from his chair, and took the two gun cases into the other room. Royce still hadn’t taken his eyes off Kenzie, but he reached for a bottle of vodka and poured her a small shot.
“Drink this.” He held it out and she downed it, wincing at the burn.
“Thanks, I needed that,” she said, still unable to meet his gaze.
“Little Mac, look at me.” He caught her chin to turn her head his way. She stared up at him, seeing those burning brown eyes, the hint of stubble that was like a sexy shadow on his jaw.
“You can do this. It’s just like in class—I give you an order and you obey, no questions, no sass. The only difference is that you’ll be in revealing clothes, probably cuffed, collared, and…”
“And…?” Kenzie had a sense she knew what was coming.
“And I might have to be intimate with you. Probably not full-on sex, but there might be something else required to prove our ‘legitimacy’ if it comes to that.”
Something else? Like what? Her mind filled with an electric and erotic array of images of her on her knees, sucking on his cock, or him pleasing her with his mouth, using his hands on her, stroking, grinding, penetrating. There was an entire world of dark, erotic fantasies contained in those two simple words—something else.
“I wouldn’t ask this of you, Little Mac, but…” His expression became even more sober. “You respond to that life. There’s no point in denying it. I’ve seen it firsthand. You respond to that edge, that raw carnality. I think you could make the most exquisite sub if you were with a Dom you trusted.”
Kenzie saw his eyes track her movements with an almost predatory fixation.
“What… What would I have to do? I’ve never really done anything like…what you do.”
Royce stroked her chin, then his thumb slid up to her mouth, and he brushed the pad over her bottom lip.
“My subs call me sir. They ask no questions, but if you have one, you ask permission to speak, and I may deny or approve that request. I prefer my subs to sit at my feet or on my lap when I’m with other Doms.”
Kenzie couldn’t get the image out of her mind. Her kneeling at his feet, his hands in her hair, stroking her like a pet. It didn’t seem all that degrading. Rather, it made her feel hot.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
“I…” Suddenly tongue-tied, she felt unable to confess her fantasies.
“You can’t be shy. Not with me. It’s part of the rules, Little Mac. A question is asked, and you must answer.” He moved his hand to the back of her neck, holding her still as he gazed deep into her eyes. Her breath caught as he ran his eyes slowly over her body. “Fuck, I can’t tell you how much I want this. How I want you to call me sir and be at my mercy.” He seemed to be talking more to himself than anyone else.
“Dr. Devereaux…” She suddenly needed to put a barrier between them, even a small one.
“Sir,” he corrected. “You’d better practice now.”
“Sir,” she amended, her heart skittering in her chest.
“You want to start small? Something you can handle?” he asked. She knew her body betrayed her when she nodded. His mouth kicked up in a grin.
“Then for the next few minutes, you submit to me with no resistance, or I deliver punishment like I did at the billiard table. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. If I scare you, but you think you can continue, remember to say yellow. Red means no. It’s absolute and final, so you’d better mean it.”
She remembered the rules.
“Got it…sir,” she said.
He chuckled. “You don’t have to say it every time, just when you address me with a question. You will know if you made a mistake.” He let go of her neck and reached for her long braid, tugging gently on it. “Your first command—undo the braid. Thread your fingers through the strands. Do it slow.”
He watched her, his hungry gaze making her body hum as she slipped the hair from the tie in her braid and began to undo the plait. Then she combed her fingers through the wet strands.
“In a D/s relationship, the partners care for each other always. That means you rely on me for food, for clothes, even to bathe if I wish, while the game is played.” He retrieved a bowl of fruit that had come with the meal. He picked up a blueberry and held it to her lips. She knew instinctively what he wanted. She opened her mouth, and he slipped the berry inside. The sweet taste of it exploded on her tongue, and she couldn’t resist sighing. He shifted on the couch as she made that single sound.
“Thank me when I give you food.”
“Than
k you, sir,” she whispered, captivated by the intensity of his stare.
“Good,” he praised, his voice silken. “Now straddle my lap and share the sweet taste of the blueberry with me.”
She slid onto the couch, straddling him. Her knees bumped the back of the couch, and her pelvis pressed against his. She couldn’t believe she was on Royce’s lap, taking orders from him, but then, after she’d kissed him in the pool all of this seemed inevitable. She and Royce were like two neutron stars finally colliding after millennia of spinning around one another’s orbits. The explosion, when it finally happened, would either destroy them both or turn everything into silver and gold.
“Share with me,” he said in a low gruff voice, like a wolf close to biting her. “Kill me with your sweetness, Little Mac.”
With a sudden sense of fear that she would lose out on even one minute of kissing him, she lowered her head to his. Her perilous attraction to him only pushed her onward.
These violent delights have violent ends. Isn’t that how Romeo and Juliet goes?
10
She kissed him, unleashing everything she’d buried inside her. Everything she was ashamed of. All of the dark desires. The secret needs she’d hidden even from herself. All of it poured out of her and through her, infusing that kiss with the hot wave of her own inhibitions unbinding. For so long she’d held her life in perfect balance, keeping out of trouble and free from complications. But now she craved the danger she’d fed with her recklessness.
Royce was the one man who could upset her fine edge of discipline and send her world tumbling. She didn’t care. Consequences be damned. The burning connection of their mouths consumed her until there was only this man, this glorious kiss.
A soft whisper of pain made her gasp as he fisted a hand in her hair and pulled her head back from his. Their eyes held like a key settling into a lock. Everything inside her went wondrously still. Kenzie clung to that feeling, digging her nails into his shoulders, afraid it would shatter this perfect feeling if he let go of her.
“I used to imagine closing my office door when we worked late,” he said, his voice low and throaty. “I wanted to shove everything off my desk and bend you over it.” His words were ragged, as though he was barely in control. He tugged a little on her hair, punctuating the words bend you over, and her channel quivered in anticipation and arousal.
