by Brynley Bush
Although I don’t have a burning desire to be cuffed to a pole in the wilderness, neither do I have a burning desire to escape Roman. This is most likely our last day together, and I want to give him whatever he wants, whatever he demands this one last time.
Primitive instinct has me running for about five minutes, but my heart’s not in it, and I’m almost relieved when I feel the slight sting of the paintball on the back of my thigh. The world tilts as Roman scoops me up like I’m a sack of flour and tosses me over his shoulder.
“You can put me down,” I protest. “I’m not going to run away.”
“I’m not sure of that after the last few days,” he says darkly. “Besides, this satisfies my caveman instincts. There’s nothing more alpha male than slinging a woman over your shoulder and dragging her off to have your way with her.”
I snicker, and he whacks my bottom. “Show some respect,” he instructs, but I can hear the laughter in his voice.
Five minutes later, I’m cuffed to a post, and a finger of dread creeps up my spine as I realize I have no idea what bounty Roman intends to claim. For all I know he plans to whip me or use some other diabolical implement of torture I don’t even know about but unwittingly agreed to when I’d so innocently and stupidly filled out my hard-and-soft-limits work sheet.
My heart beats erratically as he comes to stand next to me, the toy bag dangling from his fingertips as he runs his hand possessively down my back and over the curve of my ass, squeezing it roughly. The wicked glint in his eyes does not ease my mind.
Logan starts at the end where Desiree is cuffed, Stefan standing next to her. “What will you claim from your submissive?” Logan asks Stefan.
The burly Dom smacks Desiree’s round bottom. “I’m going to claim what I shot first today—her delectable ass.” Desiree stiffens, but I can see she’s turned on by the way she’s trying to clench her thighs together. He nudges her feet apart, chastising her good-naturedly to be patient. “But I’ll wait to claim that until we’re back in our suite,” he adds, and she sags with relief.
Logan moves on to Luke, who pulls out a small whip similar to the one that had been used on me during Western Night and says with his eyes gleaming, “I believe I’ll play with my prey right here.”
He trails the leather strands across Tessa’s back, and I almost hyperventilate. I struggle against the restraints, some primitive instinct compelling me to go save her. Roman presses his hand firmly against my back, stilling me. The authoritative action somehow halts my panic, and I watch Luke almost lovingly whip Tessa’s body, each lick of the leather strands sending her up on her toes as her breathing becomes faster and her eyes glaze over. Tessa, whom I’m starting to realize is as uninhibited as I am inhibited, revels in it, her head thrown back as Luke brings her to orgasm with nothing but the implement. Huh. How is that possible? Although the flogger terrifies me, I wonder if it’s possible that it could actually feel good. Doubtful. But, I think with a tiny pang of regret, I’ll probably never find out.
Then it’s our turn, and I’m sucking air into my lungs, reminding myself that I can handle whatever Roman decides.
“What do you want from your submissive?” Logan asks.
Roman fists his hand in my hair, turning my head so our eyes meet.
“The truth. Off camera.”
Chapter Fifteen
Roman
The atmosphere on the ride back to the hotel is markedly different from the atmosphere on the way to the games. The submissives are tired, and some of them are snuggled in their Doms’ laps while others are clearly nervous or excited or both about what the remainder of the evening holds for them. Ava is quiet, and I can tell by the way she keeps worrying her bottom lip that she’s part of the apprehensive group.
“Remember what I told you about biting your lip,” I murmur in her ear. The heat that flares in her eyes makes my cock stir to life. Not that it would take much. It’s been five long days for me as well as her, and being around Ava, even a pissed-off and brooding Ava, is a powerful aphrodisiac. I take her face between my hands and rub my thumbs from the corners of her soft, full lips to her cheeks before taking her mouth gently. She sighs and melts into the kiss, and I feel a flicker of hope that maybe what we have doesn’t have to be over. Even if we’re voted off the games, maybe she’ll consider staying on with me in a full-time submissive relationship.
I know the odds are good that we’ll be voted off tonight, particularly since I chose not to do a public scene. But I have to clear the air with Ava, for her sake and for mine, and we have to do it alone.
When we get back to the hotel, I take a quick shower and then order room service while Ava takes a significantly longer shower. When she emerges from the bathroom, she looks pink, soft, and utterly fuckable, with damp little tendrils of dark hair framing her heart-shaped face. We eat in near silence, the tension crackling in the air between us. When she’s polished off the pasta I’d ordered, along with half of the Caesar salad and several slices of bread, I say quietly, “I’m ready to collect my bounty, Avalon.”
She looks at me apprehensively, and then she sighs with resignation. “You said at the paintball field that you wanted the truth,” she says. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I want the truth from you. I want to know why you were so upset after Western Night, and whether you really want to stay and compete and win the Power Games, or whether you’re going to want to quit anytime I ask you to do something out of your comfort zone.”
She looks at me aghast. “You think I wanted to quit because I was outside my comfort zone? There isn’t a single thing that’s happened in the past two weeks that hasn’t been outside my comfort zone!”
“I don’t know why you wanted to quit,” I respond rationally. “That’s why I want you to tell me. The foundation of a good D/s relationship is trust and honesty. It’s integral.”
She looks down, toying with the napkin still in her lap. “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she admits in a small voice. “I probably overreacted during the last scene because the thing is…” She trails off, looks out the window, takes a deep breath, and then turns her gaze back to me. “The thing is…” She glances down again.
“Dammit, Ava, what?” I growl. “Whatever it is that you’re afraid to tell me, we’ll deal with it. Did I hit some psychological trigger?” My voice hardens. “Are you involved with Emmett?”
She shakes her head. If it’s not either of those things, surely it can’t be that bad.
“Are you some kind of undercover agent?” I tease, trying to alleviate the misery in her eyes.
“Worse,” she whispers. “I’m a virgin.”
She couldn’t have rendered me more speechless. I stare at her, completely stunned by her revelation as my mind tries to process the impossibility of what she’s saying. I have never met a woman as responsive as Ava, or one who comes as hard or as honestly as she does. She certainly doesn’t act like someone who’s never had sex before. But Emmett’s words echo in my mind. “Ava isn’t like the other submissives. Just because something appears to be a certain way doesn’t mean that’s how it is.” Things slowly click into place—her disarming innocence, her inexperience, how easily she’s embarrassed, how tight she is even with just my finger inside her, her hurt and anger at being forced to bring herself to orgasm in front of a crowd of cheering strangers.
Fuck. Emmett’s right; I’m a complete bastard.
“Christ, Ava!” I get to my feet and pace in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the Strip. I turn back to her and say angrily, “Why didn’t you tell me? It seems like that would have been important to mention.” Dammit, how could she have not told me this before?
“Well, I did put intercourse as a hard limit,” she says slightly indignantly.
God. The things I’ve done to her! The clamps, the crop, the plug… Her words right before I helped her onto the saddle come back to haunt me. “I don’t want to do this.” But I’d made
her do it anyway, thinking it was just typical submissive nervousness. But my anger at myself isn’t doing either one of us any good. I take a deep breath and sit down on the love seat next to her, enveloping her hands in mine.
“I’m sorry, Ava. I didn’t know, or I never would have put you on that saddle.”
“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I know you didn’t know. Besides, what were you going to do? Sign me up as a saloon girl instead?” She smiles wanly.
I’m still having trouble processing that she’s a virgin. It seems so improbable. “You’ve really never made love? Never had a man inside you?” I clarify.
She shakes her head, blushing.
“How is that even possible?” I ask incredulously. “You’re twenty-two years old. You’re absolutely beautiful. How has some boy not stolen your heart?”
“Because my heart has never been up for grabs. And no one really interested me until…” She trails off, averting her gaze. I bring it back with a firm finger under her chin.
“Until what?” I press.
“Until you,” she whispers.
Well, damn. Her confession sucks the air out of my lungs. I sit back, pure male satisfaction puffing my chest out and making me grin like an idiot.
But the fact remains that I fucked up. As her Dom, I was supposed to protect her, and I failed utterly. Even though she hasn’t been completely honest with me, I should have read her body language, listened to her when she told me she didn’t want to participate. Of course, that’s what her safe word is for. I run my fingers through my hair distractedly. Granted, a submissive using her safe word on this show has much more significant ramifications than using it during a regular scene; safe-wording here gets you voted off. Still, she could have—no, she should have given me a heads-up she was close to her limit.
“Why didn’t you say yellow?” I demand.
She looks at me blankly.
“Before the scene Friday night,” I prompt. “If you didn’t want to use your safe word because it would have meant we’d be off the show, why didn’t you at least say yellow so we could have stopped and talked about it? I have a responsibility as the Dominant to take control, but you have a responsibility as the submissive to say stop or at least slow down if you’re pushed too far.”
She shrugs. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“How could you not know?” I demand disbelievingly.
“Well, there’s something else I should probably tell you,” she says reluctantly.
I look at her expectantly, waiting. She flushes under my scrutiny.
“I’m not a submissive.”
I stare at her uncomprehendingly, although I suppose I should have seen that coming. After all, she just told me she’s a complete innocent.
“I’ve never done any of this before,” she says in a rush, as if she has to get it all out as soon as possible before she loses her nerve. “Emmett’s a Dom, but you were right. He isn’t my Dom. He got accepted on the show, and I’d just lost my apartment and my summer internship, and I had no money and no place to live, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. So he signed me up to come on the show with him. We thought we’d be able to compete as a team, and I could just fake it. I’m not really submissive.”
“I’ll have to disagree with you there, sweetheart,” I say with a small smile. “You are definitely submissive, whether you realize it or not.”
She’s looking at me with confusion and denial in her expressive green eyes. “No, I’m not!” she insists. “It’s why I freaked out on the saddle.”
“You freaked out in the saddle because I left you up there alone, and we hadn’t built our relationship to the point where you trusted me to know what you could handle or to the point where your desire to please me superseded your own discomfort. That has to be earned, particularly since you’re so new to this, and it was my fault for not seeing that.”
She’s still looking at me in disbelief. I take her wrists in one hand, holding her still. I slowly circle her breast with my other hand, smiling at her sharp intake of breath. “But you like it when I restrain you, and you get aroused when I play with you and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s a statement, not a question, and she doesn’t deny it. I lazily trail my finger up the valley of her breasts to lightly circle her throat. “You like being under my control and at the mercy of my imagination. You crave what I can give you. For all the barricades you’ve built around yourself, you like being exposed and vulnerable to me, helpless to stop me from taking what I want and giving you what you need.” Her pulse beats wildly beneath my hand, but she doesn’t say anything.
I move my hand to her lips, my fingers gently prying her jaw open so I can slip my thumb into her mouth, pressing it against her tongue. Her lips close over my thumb automatically as she sucks. “You want to give in to me, to give me what I demand.” Her eyes bore into mine. “You have a taste for being dominated, Avalon,” I rasp.
I pull my thumb from the silky heat of her mouth and sigh. “But you don’t belong here. It’s probably for the best that we’ll most likely get voted off tomorrow.”
“Then make love to me tonight,” she says.
I stare at her incredulously.
“You want me. You told me you did the night of the striptease,” she presses, her voice tremulous. “Were you telling me the truth?”
“Jesus, Ava, of course I was. I’m a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them. I meant every word I said. I’ve never wanted anything more than to sink myself into you and make you come a thousand times and a thousand ways. I did then, and I do now.”
“Then—”
I interrupt her. “But I’m not going to take advantage of you.”
“You’re not. I’m asking you. Begging you if I have to. I want this, Roman. More than I’ve ever wanted anything before. Tomorrow we’ll go our separate ways. I’ll go back to my life, and you’ll go back to yours.” Her hands are featherlight on my chest, distracting me. “Please. Give me this one night.”
I CAN TELL the precise moment that Roman decides to give me what I’m asking for. His eyes darken with heated dominance, and before I can fully process what’s happening, the floor falls away, and I’m in his arms as he carries me into the bedroom and lays me down on the big four-poster bed, the hard length of his body braced over mine.
“Be sure you want this,” he warns. “I won’t ask you again.”
“I’m sure. I want this,” I say breathlessly. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I hadn’t particularly been saving myself for any specific reason; the hold I’ve kept on my virginity has been more a result of lack of opportunity and interest than anything else, but I suddenly want nothing more than to give myself to Roman. When I go back to my life of numb survival tomorrow, at least I’ll have this night with the man who broke through my walls and made me feel things I’d never dreamed of.
Except my heart is thumping, and I’m shaking. This is it. I’ve never been more excited, or more nervous.
In one fluid movement, he pulls off the T-shirt he’s wearing and tosses it onto a chair. He is magnificently, heart-stoppingly beautiful. His dark hair is disheveled, his jaw firm, his gray-blue eyes blazing with conquest. And his chest and abs! There simply aren’t words. My mouth goes dry at the spectacular sight of his muscles that look like they’ve been carved in granite by the gods and polished with stars.
I inhale sharply as he sinks down on the bed next to me, tugging the oversize T-shirt I’m wearing over my head as his eyes feast on my naked breasts.
“You are breathtaking,” he whispers. “A moon goddess who lost her way and somehow tumbled into my bed.”
My lips part as his mouth descends on mine. He kisses me gently, his tongue licking over my lips softly before dipping inside, tasting me unhurriedly, and then curling up to lick some more. I sigh with pleasure. I love kissing Roman; I could do this all night. When his tongue dips in again, I take it hungrily, sucking him into my mouth with an intensi
ty that’s been building in me since the night of the striptease. I grip his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin as he deepens the kiss.
He breaks the kiss and trails little butterfly kisses down the column of my neck and over my chest. He palms one breast as he takes the other stiff peak into his mouth and sucks it, sending a tug of pleasure rippling through my entire body. His fingers surround one rigid tip, and he twists, smiling as I jolt at the white-hot heat that sears straight to my core. He toys with my nipple, plucking and tugging and tweaking as he nips and sucks my other breast until I’m thrashing beneath him, frantic for more. My body strains toward him, aching for him to quench the fire that he set in my veins.
“The things I’m going to do to you,” he murmurs, his lips trailing down my stomach. His tongue circles my navel, and my muscles contract helplessly.
“I do like the things you do to me,” I agree in a strangled voice as his lips continue their exploration. He takes his time, tasting and kissing every inch of my chest and torso, traveling languidly over the blade of my hip bone and across the quivering plane of my pelvis. My back arches as his mouth latches on to my sex. He grips my hips firmly with both hands as his tongue spears into me, making me groan.
“Roman,” I moan, my fingers tangling in his hair as his tongue finds my clit and strokes it lazily.
“I love the smell of you,” he says, his thumbs spreading me so he can torture me more deliberately. He flicks against the hardened nub that’s now openly exposed. “Almost as much as I love how you taste.”
I’m not sure whether his words or his tongue is going to make me come first. His hands cup my buttocks, tilting my hips up to him so he can devour me more. My core aches as he drives me higher, his tongue alternately brushing my sensitive clit and piercing into me. My legs stiffen, and my thighs clench with the growing pressure of the orgasm that’s beginning to build. I start to whimper, and his mouth leaves my cleft.
“No!” I protest, my hips still bucking toward him. “Please.”
