Don't Ever Stop: A BDSM Billionaire Romance

by Rock, Vivie

  So perhaps, as weird as it was, I’d give it a go. As I read over the words in the email, all those delicious-sounding food-words, I actually felt my mouth begin to water. I felt something else too. A deep, warm thrill, somewhere in my core. It felt kind of amazing. Someone was telling me what to do; exactly how to live my life – what to eat, how much work to do, when to go to bed. I’d normally go to bed at eleven or even twelve, if I got distracted reading a good book, or watching a movie, and yet now, I had clear instructions. Mr. Cooper knew what was best for me, and he was expecting me to carry out his instructions to the letter.

  I felt another thrill at the thought he might be watching me somehow. Observing me to check I was obeying him. I’d never had this sort of attention from someone before. It felt oddly exciting.

  Tegan glanced over at my screen and I minimized my inbox, hiding the email, and bringing up a boring Word document about planning permission instead. It was for some non-story I’d been asked to research, just to keep me busy while I was still learning the ropes.

  Tegan looked away again, and continued typing. Why did I feel the need to hide Mr. Cooper’s email? Did I feel, deep down, that there was something wrong with it? Or did I enjoy knowing that I was keeping a secret? I wasn’t sure.

  I had thought, briefly, as I got into the elevator after leaving Mr. Cooper’s office this morning, that I might tell Patrick about this. But I’d very quickly decided against it. I’d felt myself pull away from Patrick once Mr. Cooper saw us in the street. I feel like, if we hadn’t seen him that night, we might have carried on drinking, and maybe I’d have ended up sharing a drunken kiss with him… But seeing my boss standing there, so tall and erect, his moody eyes fixed on me, had made me want to keep my distance from Patrick.

  I’d started thinking about Mr. Cooper, too. I’d started thinking about him every time I took a shower, and in the moments before I fell asleep in bed. I thought about him as I took the subway into work, feeling the seat vibrating beneath me, sending shivers up and down my thighs, across my abdomen, into the recesses between my legs.

  As I thought about him now, I felt the muscles in my ass begin to clench, and my thighs begin to tremble. I felt soft and warm between my legs, and found myself tightening and releasing my muslces, letting my groin rub gently, almost imperceptibly on my desk chair. I replayed the meeting I’d just had in Mr. Cooper’s office in my head. The glasshouse. The fainting. The red leather chair. Those eyes, looking down on me. Kinbaku. That word suddenly came back to me, from the book I’d seen lying on the dresser.

  I opened my internet browser, and typed it into Google. I clicked on the first result that came up, and read the following:

  Kinbaku is a form of Japanese erotic bondage involving ropes. It literally means ‘tight binding’, and is normally differentiated from shibari, as shibari describes the art and esthetic of the bondage, but kinbaku, in addition to this, refers to the sensual, sexual connections between binder and bound.

  I hid my internet browser and took a moment to catch my breath. Erotic bondage? Had I read the title of that book correctly?

  My heart was drumming in my chest. I felt so warm and wet between my legs, but I was scared, too. Terrified that I was uncovering something that shouldn’t be uncovered. That I was on the cusp of something far bigger than any of the idle gossip I’d been hearing around the office since I started.

  I needed some air. I’d go and get some lunch. I knew what I needed to have.

  Just then I noticed another email pop up. It was him. Shaking, I read it:

  Meet me at Tambara, at 7pm tomorrow night. I will buy you dinner, and give you an explanation.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Cards Are On The Table

  Tambara was the most expensive restaurant I had ever been to. I could tell that before I had even set foot in the place. It wasn’t the restaurant I saw Mr. Cooper outside the other day, when I was with Patrick. This one was even deeper into the pricey end of Midtown. The door of the restaurant did not have a menu outside, advertising its food. Instead, the restaurant name was presented in elegant gold lettering, and the archway leading inside was woven with hundreds of tiny, bright flowers, forming a sweet-smelling lattice to welcome its customers in. It must have needed re-weaving every couple of days, and was surely at least eight hours’ work. It was absolutely beautiful.

  I took in a deep breath of jasmine as I walked through the archway and into the restaurant.

  Inside, it was even more exquisite. The walls contained intricate wooden carvings, and the candlelight shone in such a way that gentle, shapely shadows danced across them, drawing the eye around the artwork in all directions. On each table was a beautiful cut-glass vase, containing sprigs of lavender, filling up the room with their sweet-smelling perfume.

  I could also smell cedar wood and spicy miso, fresh fish and the sharpness of lemon. It was a feast for the senses, and it was heavenly.

  The waitress, a beautifully-groomed Japanese woman, in a tight, seashell-pink kimono, walked me over to a private table in the corner. Mr. Cooper was already there. He watched me walk over to him, his expression hard and severe. When I sat down, he softened. ‘Rose,’ he said gently. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  The waitress handed me a menu, and I thanked her, feeling woefully out of place in this beautiful environment. I was wearing a fitted blue dress, made out of t-shirt material, with three-quarter length sleeves. It felt both too frumpy and too casual. I never seemed to get my outfits right. ‘Thanks for inviting me,’ I said pathetically, waving my menu around in the air out of embarrassment. Sometimes I really was a goofball. ‘So what’s the best dish here, then?’

  ‘I’ve already ordered for us,’ Mr. Cooper said. ‘You won’t be needing the menu.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ I put the menu down. I knew my boss was controlling what I ate, but surely not when I was out at a restaurant? I’ve never had the opportunity to go to a fancy place like this in my life. I was kind of disappointed I didn’t at least get to pick one thing off the menu.

  ‘I’ve been here before,’ he said, as if sensing my disappointment. ‘I know the best dishes.’ He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if savouring his surroundings, and then his gaze flicked back to me. ‘They make their own silken tofu here. The wasabi is grated fresh. The spicy miso with lobster is a specialty. I’ve ordered plenty. Don’t worry.’

  I felt embarrassed; I didn’t want him to think me ungrateful.

  The waitress appeared, said something which sounded Japanese to Mr. Cooper, and he nodded, handed her the menus back, and then said something in Japanese to her. ‘There are over 40 types of saké on the menu,’ he told me. ‘Wait until you try this one.’

  The waitress brought over a small ceramic flask, along with two small, cylindrical cups. She bowed and then walked away.

  ‘Juyondai,’ said Mr. Cooper, ‘is a much sought after, rare brand of saké. It’s produced by the Takagi Shuzo brewery, which was established in the seventeenth century. The brewery uses old methods but also experiments, making its output both traditional and ground-breaking. This saké here,’ he motioned at the flask, ‘is Ryugetsu Junmai Daiginjo Hyogo Toku A Yamada Nishiki.’ He paused. ‘Toku A is the highest grade of Yamada Nishiki that money can buy. You’ll see in a moment when we taste it. There are subtle hints of aniseed, but it’s floral too. Exquisitely delicate.’

  I’d never tried saké. I wasn’t even sure if I liked it. I knew it was made of fermented rice. That didn’t exactly entice me.

  ‘The flask is called a tokkuri,’ he said, ‘and the cups are called choko. It is tradition for members of a party to pour out the drinks for each other.’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘I thought we could do that.’ He pushed a choko towards me. ‘Why don’t you pour mine first?’

  I looked up at him, relieved that he at least looked amused, and wasn’t taking this scenario too seriously. But something about the way he was smiling told me he was enjoying watching me squirm, too. I reached for th
e tokkuri, and lifted it carefully, noticing that my hands were shaking. I looked up at Mr. Cooper, who looked down at the choko, and I began to pour. The saké trickled out. My hand was shaking so much that the flask trembled against the cup, making a rattling sound as I poured. ‘Sorry,’ I said mechanically, trying to be more careful, tilting the flask further away from the cup, but in doing so, pouring way too much saké out, and spilling some on the tablecloth. ‘Oh god, oh no. I’m really sorry, sir.’

  I’m such an idiot! How much does this stuff cost?

  Mr. Cooper grasped my wrist, hard, so hard it reminded me of the time I’d been given a Chinese burn in the school playground when I was ten. I remembered how red and sore my forearm was for an hour afterwards. Then he took the flask from my hands, took the other choko, and poured out a measure of saké for me. He filled my cup to only half the height I’d filled his. None of it spilled.

  ‘Well, Rose, cheers.’ He lifted his cup and clinked it against mine. He lifted his lips carefully to his almost-overflowing cup, and shot me an amused look as he took a sip.

  I took a sip of my own drink, and was relieved to discover that I liked the taste. Actually, I really liked it. It was kind of like very dry white wine, or maybe sherry or port or one of those drinks my auntie always brings to our house at Christmas.

  Mr. Cooper sat in silence, looking at me for a while, and I felt my cheeks begin to darken. I looked around awkwardly at the other diners. It was about half-full in here. Everyone looked very refined, eating their food with their chopsticks (oh no, chopsticks!) in small mouthfuls, conversing quietly and politely. I looked back at Mr. Cooper. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir, why did you invite me here tonight? What is it you wanted to explain?’

  He bowed his head, as if choosing the right words, and then began to speak. ‘I haven’t known you for long, Rose,’ he said. ‘But I’ve come to care about you. I cared about you from the moment I saw you onstage, getting publicly humiliated by your colleague Jen. I knew right away that you were someone in need of protecting. Someone worth protecting.’

  ‘So you want to protect me?’ I asked incredulously. I knew I could be a little fragile sometimes, but I was strong, too. I certainly didn’t need some man there to look after me, to lock me away in a cabinet, like a glass ornament.

  ‘Not exactly, no,’ he said. ‘But I believe I can help you to protect yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  His eyes widened, and his pupils suddenly grew so large it was as if both his irises were midnight black. ‘I like you, Rose,’ he said. ‘I like your feistiness, but I like your fragility too. I’m interested in your spirit.’

  I took another sip of saké, and felt the alcoholic vapours travel up to my head. ‘My spirit?’

  ‘When I saw you in the glasshouse yesterday, the sunlight on your skin, so timid and yet so fierce, I knew you were special. When you fainted, and I had to carry you back through to the office, feeling the weight of you in my hands… I felt…’

  At this moment, two waitresses appeared, with several trays of food between them. They began laying it down, in oranges and golds and reds and pinks. I spotted fresh, raw slices of salmon, glittering under the lights. Thick, sticky rice. Perfectly folded seaweed strips, encasing colorful rolls of finely chopped vegetables and crackling fish skin. Then there were the soups, the noodles, the salads. The table looked like a work of art, not dinner. I was scared to touch any of it in case I messed up its beauty.

  Mr. Cooper picked up his chopsticks, and I did the same. He was holding his high up on the sticks, squeezing them only very gently between his fingers. I gripped the bottoms of the sticks for dear life, my knuckles going white with the pressure. I saw my boss pick up a salmon roll and place it delicately between his lips. I went for one that looked like cucumber, but it fell off my sticks.

  ‘I’d like you to eatat least one mouthful of everything on the table tonight,’ Mr. Cooper said. ‘No matter how squeamish you feel.’ He pointed to a crab’s claw, with it’s black-tipped pincers still attached, then to a glistening pool of fish eggs, and finally to a textured, wet, yellow lump, lying limply on top of a cube of rice. It looked like a jaundiced tongue, freshly plucked from a diseased mouth. ‘It’s sea urchin,’ Mr. Cooper said. ‘It’s a strong, powerful, mouthful of the sea.’ He looked at my grimace and smiled. ‘You should be thankful this restaurant doesn’t do sea cucumber entrails. They’re a real delicacy. I’d have definitely ordered those for you.’

  I took a few bits of the safer-looking food to begin with and put them on my plate. I’d never been an adventurous eater. There was no way I’d eat sea urchin tonight. Just no way.

  ‘Thank you for buying all of this stuff,’ I said between mouthfuls, aware that Mr. Cooper must have spent hundreds of dollars on this meal, and that we’d never even get through half of it between just the two of us.

  Mr. Cooper picked up a crab’s claw, and sucked the tender flesh out of it. My stomach churned at the thought I was going to be expected to do the same at some point very soon. ‘Rose,’ he said, laying down the claw, ‘I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say. All I ask is that you listen. You don’t have to agree with me. But when I’ve finished, I want you to tell me what you think.’

  I was beginning to feel very anxious. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what my boss had to say.

  ‘You saw a book in my office yesterday, lying on the dresser. I’d been in the middle of tidying my office when you knocked on the door. I hadn’t meant for you to see it. But now that you have, I’d like to tell you the truth. I’m an honest man, God help me, and I’d like to be completely open with you.’ He drank some more of his saké, not just a delicate sip this time, but a proper mouthful. ‘I’m interested in Eastern culture. In its philosophies, cuisine, spirituality, art… I’ve spent a lot of time travelling to the East, particularly to Japan, through my work, and during that time I’ve had my mind opened and learnt about a lot of new things.’

  It was my turn to take a big mouthful of my drink now.

  ‘The book you saw was about kinbaku. This is the aspect of Japanese culture that I am most interested in. It involves ropes, and tying beautifully intricate knots across the human body. I’m interested in the way that binding up the female form makes it into a completely new work of art in itself. And the way that the relationship between man and woman changes when he places these tight knots around her body.’

  I felt a saké buzz developing in my brain, and felt the blood rushing to my cheeks.

  ‘You’re beautiful, Rose,’ he said. ‘You’re not like the other women I see all day at the office. I’ve been observing the way that you are; so quiet and submissive, and yet never weak. You’re like me, in many respects. Except that I am dominant. I don’t like to submit. I like to be in control, to watch the people around me surrender.’

  He pushed the plate of sea urchin towards me, and my eyes widened. I shook my head, but Mr. Cooper’s gaze remained firm, resolute, and then, somewhere deep inside him, I could see the start of a simmering anger. I didn’t want to upset him. I took the sea urchin with my chopsticks, and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, raised it to my lips. I tried to think of other things, of how funny this story might be when relayed to Patrick later on (though I knew I’d never tell him a word of this), how warm it was beginning to feel in the room, how despite being warm I could feel the hairs on my arm standing on end. But there was no distracting myself from it. I was about to eat this wet, yellow, tongue-resembling mass. I opened my mouth, put it in, and chewed. I tried to hide my gag reflexes as the rubbery flesh squeaked between my teeth.

  Mr. Cooper watched me, his eyes bright now, enjoying the spectacle of watching me eat.

  Something about the mixture of my revulsion, and his enjoyment, felt almost exciting to me. He liked watching me suffer. He liked it, because he knew I was doing it for him.

  ‘I’d like to see you surrender, Rose,’ he told me quietly. ‘I’d li
ke to show you how it feels to be dominated, in the most beautiful, artistic way possible.’ He took another drink, and then his back straightened, and he coughed. ‘But I’m aware that I’m your boss. I know about the ethics of this. I’ve been wrestling with it ever since yesterday. I want you to know that this stays between us. If you say no, if you’re disgusted by what I’ve said to you just now, then I understand. You’ll still have your job at Global. I’ll still take an interest in your career. I want you to be happy, Rose.’ He spoke more quietly now. ‘But I want to dominate you too.’

  He scooped up a bit of rice and some bright pink fish eggs, and let them explode on his tongue. ‘So there you have it,’ he said. ‘My cards are well and truly on the table. What is your decision, Rose?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Answering Back

  I couldn’t believe what my boss had just said. I mean, sure, Redmond Cooper was a powerful man. He was a rich man. Heck, he was an unbelievably handsome man. But he couldn’t just come out with things like that. Especially not to his employees. A brand new employee at that. I was pissed. Really pissed.

  I marched out of the restaurant, and began heading towards the subway stop. It was getting dark now. I needed to get home.

  ‘Rose! Wait!’ I heard Mr. Cooper calling from the other end of the street.

  Hearing his voice just made me angrier, and I kept on marching. I was so fuelled up with adrenaline that I went straight past the subway stop. My legs wouldn’t stop going. I felt like maybe I was going to walk all night. I would leave this city, and end up in a new one, then another and another, and I’d keep on walking, until finally I collapsed.