by Livia Grant
Her breathing is quick and ragged.
“No, my bet is you’ll enjoy every minute of tonight.”
She moans, but then grits, “Won’t that be hard to measure?”
“Okay, how about this for a wager? I’ll bet you enjoy yourself so much, you’ll let me do one of the things you listed on the back of your card as a hard limit.”
She lets out a strangled laugh. “No way.”
“No way you’ll make the bet or no way I’ll win it?” I penetrate her with two fingers and she shimmies those hips, another needy sound falling from her lips.
“No way you’ll win.” She’s panting, squirming against my hold.
This time I’m the one who chuckles. I ease my fingers out of her and release her wrists. When I turn her to face me, I pick up her hands once more and kiss away the red prints I left on her pale skin.
“So, it’s a bet?” I flash my most charming smile.
She takes the power back by coming at me, pressing her lips over mine. It starts off aggressive, but then she goes soft, moving her mouth over my lips like she needs to taste me. When she pulls back, she shakes her hair from her face. “Yeah, it’s a bet.”
Chapter 3
Mariana
I knew I’d be out of my element here, but not in this way. I thought I’d bluff my way through. Or grit my teeth and bear it. I never imagined having my desires laid bare with my body. Desires I didn’t even know I had.
My legs shake as I stand before Mr. Blackheart, agreeing to something more dangerous than what I’ve already wagered on. And it’s not the bet part that scares me.
It’s what he does to me.
What he makes me feel.
I haven’t had time for a relationship. Running the restaurant was an eighty hour a week job. I hooked up with men now and then, but mostly I was mama to them. That’s why I knew I couldn’t be in a relationship. I didn’t have any energy left to be some man’s mommy. I was already taking care of my employees and my parents and worrying about my sister from afar.
I rub my lips together, the sizzle of our kiss still buzzing there. His taste—so benign and compelling at once.
“Is your name really Mr. Blackheart?”
He laughs. “No.” He picks up my hand and brings it to his lips, like an old-fashioned introduction. “Victor Jannakos, at your service.” A Greek name. That fits with the dark curls and sturdy jaw.
“I sort of thought it was the other way around.”
He smirks. “It is.” A debonair shrug. “But it goes both ways. I’m definitely going to take care of you, baby. I want you to know that.”
I resist the way my insides swoon at his bold declaration.
“And you? Brooklyn’s not your name.”
I had absolutely no intention of revealing my name to anyone here. Not that I have a career to protect or any real reason for privacy, but just because I wasn’t planning on making friends. But I find it impossible not to give it to him. It’s like I want him to know it. I settle for just my first name. “Mariana.”
“Thank you,” he says, as if it’s a gift I bestowed upon him. Which, I guess, it is. “Let’s go find you a pet costume.”
I want to roll my eyes because pet play sounds like the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of, but everything’s different with his confident step beside me. He twines his fingers with mine and brings our hands to the small of my back, creating the mixed sensation of being escorted by a gentleman and being held prisoner. It’s not at all an unpleasant experience, just as being pinned to the wall and having my pussy slapped was far more enjoyable than I might have imagined.
He leads me to a costume shop where he introduces me to Jayla, the woman who provides costumes and props. Victor asks for a collar and leash, and a tight patent leather bustier. While Jayla gets my measurements, he excuses himself, returning with a tail he informs me he purchased from the implement counter outside the costume shop.
Yeah, a fucking tail. I don’t know much about this shit, but it’s like a butt plug with a furry black cat’s tail attached. I eye it with distaste because A) I don’t want that thing in my ass and B) Putting it in would require me to take off my panties. Which I’m not at all keen to do.
He smirks, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and nudges me to the fitting room. “Put on the bustier and keep your panties on. I’ll insert the tail myself.”
Something lifts in my core.
It can’t be excitement. But there’s a fluttering quality to my belly I haven’t had with a man before.
I throw him what I hope is a devastating smile and strut into the dressing room, where I pull my dress off with trembling fingers. The bustier is sexy. It shoves my breasts up and together and flattens out my tummy. I leave on my panties, thigh-high back-seam nylons, and heels, and strut back out.
Victor gives an appreciative growl and snaps the collar around my neck. He takes the thin length of leather attached to the collar and feeds the handle end between my teeth so I’m carrying my own leash.
It’s somewhat brilliant on his part—he must guess how much I’d hate to be led around by him, and yet by making me carry it myself, I still look like an obedient dog. Or cat. Whatever I’m supposed to be. Kitten, I think. Minus the ears.
And I’m still all a-flutter thinking about that tail he’s going to put in my ass.
I throw my shoulders back and cue the old Sheena Easton song Strut in my head as I swing my hips and prance on my heels through the club. I scan the club for Sara, and see her with an amused-looking man who looks like he’d been a boy scout and would coach Little League for his kids. Sara’s cheeks are flushed and her eyes are riveted on his face as he appears to be giving her instructions that involve some kind of padded sawhorse.
I really don’t want to know what they involve. Which is good, because I need all my focus just to get through my own trials here.
Victor places a light hand on my lower back, directing me with the subtle guidance of a ballroom dancer. The slight change in pressure tells me when to turn, shows me where he wants me. We end up in front of a sofa. I wait to be invited to sit, but it never happens.
Instead, he plops down and pulls me over his lap, spanking my ass with hard, even strokes.
I squawk immediately. “Ow! Hey, that hurts!” What the fuck? I thought he said he wasn’t into giving pain if I wasn’t into receiving.
Maybe he needs a refresher on how to spank softly because this fucking burns. I attempt to throw myself off his lap, but he’s not having it. He bands an arm of steel around my waist and throws his leg over mine to keep me pinned over his knee while his hand crashes down over and over again. The thin satin of my panties does nothing to cushion his punishment.
After twenty-three—yes, I counted—he stops and rests his large palm on my twitching ass. It’s burning and I’m pissed as hell. For some reason, my pussy drips like he just used a vibrator on me.
“What the fuck?” I demand, shoving my hair out of my face as I twist around to glare at him.
He glowers and it occurs to me that the punishment was real, although what I did wrong, I can’t fathom.
“What was that for?”
His jaw flexes. It’s an extremely handsome jaw. Square like Clark Kent’s, only with a five o’clock shadow appearing. “That was for making every man in here stare at you.” He pulls me up to straddle his lap, facing him.
My mouth falls open with indignation. “You’re the one who frequents a place like this.” I throw my arm wide—I am Italian, after all—to indicate the club. “Aren’t you into public sex and-and-and exhibitionism or whatever else goes on here?”
His brows slash down. “Not where you’re concerned. Not at all. In fact, I wanted to bash in every lust-filled face we passed.”
A hand-grenade of warmth explodes in my chest, and I can’t stop my lips from curling up.
Eyes still flashing, he grabs my nape and yanks my mouth down to his. It’s less a kiss than a claiming. A public marking. He’s tel
ling every man here I belong to him.
At least for the night.
Apparently, this brand of possessiveness is exactly what I’ve been missing my whole life, because I grind down on him, rubbing my damp panties over the bulge in his pants, excited beyond belief. Every inch of my skin tingles, my breasts ache against the confines of the bustier.
When he finally releases me, my lips feel bruised, swollen from the punishing kiss. The skin around my mouth is chafed from his stubble.
He sits back, lids drooping and brings his thumb to my clit, pressing down on it through my panties. “What am I gonna do with you?” His voice is rough.
“Well, don’t do that again.” I wiggle my ass and he chuckles, a deep rumble from his broad chest.
“The spanking or the kiss?”
“The spanking.” I can’t believe it. I think I’m actually pouting. I didn’t know I had it in me.
He cocks a brow. “Now you know what happens when you make me jealous.” He says it like this thing will be going on longer than just tonight. Like he’s setting up rules for the relationship.
Of course, there won’t be any relationship, but I still like the way it sounds.
He palms my ass, squeezing both cheeks roughly. “I do believe I have a date with this ass.”
I grind some more on him, trying to get some relief. My clit throbs, and I’m starting to get a restless, needy feeling.
He picks up the tail and unzips his duffel bag.
The flutters are back, along with a tightness between my ribs. I totally don’t want this.
And I also can’t wait.
He takes out some kind of alcohol prep pads and rips one open, rubbing it all over the stainless steel plug that goes with the tail. Then he pops open a tube of lube. “Okay, beautiful.” He slaps my ass. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” He nudges me around on his lap so I face out. “Now bend over, baby, and put your hands on the floor.”
I don’t move, partly because my brain is still computing the position and partly because I have a feeling I already know what it will look like.
He pushes my torso over and grasps my hips as I plummet. I catch myself with my hands on his ankles, ass up and spread across his lap.
Holy shit—it’s like the wheelbarrow position for sex. Never in a million years would I have thought of a position like this. I hate it. At least until he slips a digit inside the gusset of my panties and starts stroking with the same firm, commanding strokes he’s used all along.
I melt. Like, turn into a puddle of syrup, melt, at the same time a desperate need ratchets up in my core.
I squeeze his ankles, arching my back and holding my head up, just like the kitty I’m supposed to be.
“Good kitten,” he praises.
I’m annoyed. And turned on. He tugs my panties to the side and I shriek when one of his fingers presses against my anus. It’s cool and slippery, coated with lubricant. He rubs it in a slow circle.
I make some kind of crazy childbearing sound. Like “uhn-uhn-uhn” as I claw at his ankles.
He screws something cold and metal into my pussy, and I’m relieved for a moment, thinking I’d misunderstood about where the tail goes. But then he pulls it out and pushes the bulbous end against my back pucker.
“No,” I pant, squeezing my anus and attempting to wriggle off his lip.
His hand crashes down on my ass, the sound loud like the crack of a whip.
“Ow!”
“Relax, baby. I’m going to make it good for you. I promise.”
I really don’t see how that’s possible, but he doesn’t wait for my compliance. Instead, he presses the horrible plug forward. It stretches me, and I don’t like the burning sensation.
He grabs a handful of my ass, kneading it hard, then releases and slaps again. Without removing or advancing the plug, he gets to work on my pussy, alternately rubbing my clit, then penetrating me until I’m panting, writhing—no, humping—on his lap, trying to get some relief.
“I know you’re not used to trusting a man to pleasure you, baby, but I’m going to show you what it’s like.”
I don’t know where he’s coming up with this stuff. He doesn’t know me any better than any other stranger in this room, and yet he’s right. I’m definitely not used to trusting a man to please me. And his assertion that he’s going to show me something about pleasure winds my crank even more.
I push my ass back at him and the damn plug sinks deeper.
I gasp at the stretching sensation, but it feels like he’s added more lube. It slips in before I can even resist it, and once it’s seated, it’s not nearly so bad.
“That’s it, baby.” He twists the plug in me, still rubbing my clit. He starts working me with both hands. One twisting and plunging the plug in and out of my ass, the other teasing my clit and finger-fucking me.
I can’t take it.
It’s so much sensation I think I’ll explode.
Pleasure winds up, tightens. A crying chant comes from my throat. I’m doing pushups on his legs, no regard to how absolutely ridiculous I must look.
“Come for me, baby.” He slaps my ass, then returns to finger-fucking me. It’s a crazy circuit of pleasure. Ass-pump. Clit twiddle. Finger-fuck. Slap. He varies the time he spends on each, keeping me guessing, keeping me needy, no, fucking desperate.
“Victor!” I scream and he shoves several fingers inside me at once, pumping them in tempo with the plug in my ass.
I don’t just crest the peak of orgasm, I triple flip over it, my body catapulting into tremors and shudders, my mind splintering. Crazy screeching comes from my throat. My muscles clench around his fingers, pulling them in as my anus constricts.
When it passes, I let out a low, broken sob.
“Come here, baby.” Somehow, he gets me upright, pulls me into his arms.
I’m like a drunk person, slow to focus, limbs floppy.
He nuzzles my neck and tucks me in tight, in a way I never knew I liked.
Victor
Mariana trembles in my arms, her orgasm so intense she’s in outer space. I honestly never believed she’d let herself go so easily with me. I don’t even know what I did to deserve her trust, except insist upon it.
It brings up a fierce sense of both pride and protectiveness in me. I would do anything to ensure I don’t let her down now.
I know she’s feeling vulnerable, and I want to be sure she doesn’t crash. I wish I had some chocolate to feed her.
I’d go get her the second drink she never got, but I don’t want to move her from my embrace yet.
I stroke her nape, burrow my fingers into her thick, glossy hair.
“What are you doing in D.C., baby?” I go for keeping the walls down between us in a different way. Give her body time to come down and settle before I take her on another ride.
She doesn’t answer for a moment. I’m not sure she’s capable. But then she mumbles. “I came to visit my sister. She works for NASA.”
“You’re proud of her.”
“Damn straight. I worked hard to put her through college.”
I rub her back. “How’d you do it?”
“Restaurant biz. We just sold it. That’s why I have time on my hands.”
My throat closes at the we even though I know she wouldn’t be here playing with me if there was a man in the picture. But even so, I imagine an ex. Someone she had to sell the business to make a clean split with. “Who’s we?” I demand, even though I have no right to know.
She leans into me, her body languid and warm. She smells like cinnamon and vanilla. I lick along her collarbone, tasting her skin.
“My parents and I. I ran their Italian restaurant since high school. This year they announced they were ready to retire. Everyone thought I’d buy out their half, but…” She shakes her head, looking lost.
I fucking hate that expression on her. I want to do whatever I can to take it away.
“You didn’t want to?” I prompt.
She sighs. “I don
’t know what I want.” She meets my gaze and lifts her shoulders. “But now I have some time to figure it out.”
I nod. “You’ve put your family first for a long time.”
Her eyes widen and she catches her breath. “Yes, that’s it, exactly. And I was happy to do it. But now it’s like, I don’t even know who I am. I don’t know what I’m capable of besides making schedules, and managing cooks and waitstaff.”
I run my knuckle down her bare breastbone, between her cleavage. Her heart rate has steadied and her body temperature is coming back to normal. “You seem like the kind of woman who could do anything she put her mind to.”
She nods. “I know. So it’s just figuring out what I want to put my mind to.”
Stay in D.C. Work for me.
It’s frightening how quickly those words pop into my mind. But that’s the craziest idea I’ve had. I’ve sworn off relationships, and I don’t even know this woman. Besides, you don’t mix sex with business. Especially not with employees.
And yet the idea is there in my mind. Not having her as an employee so much as a partner.
She’s definitely partner material. Business partner. Life partner.
I can see her schmoozing my high-end customers, making the women feel at ease when they hire my security firm, finding the right fit of bodyguard to client.
But she doesn’t even live here.
Yeah, but nothing’s keeping her in Brooklyn, either, the voice in my head argues.
She twists to fully face me. “What about you? What do you do?”
“Guess.”
A sexy smile plays around her mouth. “Well, I don’t think you’re a stockbroker. Or a politician.”
“You’re right.”
She leans back, eyes traveling across my shoulders, as if measuring my size will give her the answer. “Honestly, you look more like a boxer than a businessman. Please tell me what you do is legal.”
I give a short bark of laughter. “It is. But you’re right—I was a boxer growing up. Had plenty of fights on the streets, too. I didn’t grow up with money or opportunity. But I was determined to make a different life than the one I had. I was dyslexic, so school didn’t come easily for me. Considering my only real assets were my fists, I decided to make a living from them. Started as a bouncer for a club at age sixteen. Now I have my own security firm.”
