by Nia Farrell
“I don’t have a condom with me,” he said. They were both clean and had the paperwork to prove it. “Remember, one word will stop me, dragă. I want to finish in your ass.”
Chapter Ten
“Do it, Master,” Ashley begged, pushing herself against him. “Please.”
Sebastian smiled. “So polite. Very well.”
He flexed his hips and entered her, slowly, carefully, until the head of his cock had breached the rings of muscle and a third of his shaft was buried in her warmth. Looking down to where they were joined, he felt his cock twitch its approval. The view was so fucking sexy, with her wet pussy gleaming, her clit begging for attention, and her ass gripping him, welcoming his length.
He tunneled in deeper, enjoying the way that she whimpered with need. When he had kept her on the edge long enough, Sebastian gave her the release that she so desperately craved, stimulating her clitoris until her body seized, then convulsed, her pelvic floor spasming, clenching him, her pussy drenching him. He found his own release, buried balls-deep inside her while she writhed on the massage table, caught in the throes of her climax.
“Holy shit,” she breathed when the last contraction had faded.
He chuckled. “I tried to go easy on you. There’s pet play tonight, if I can persuade you to join in rather than merely observe. If you have any concerns about being seen in fetishwear, the stylists and makeup artists here will transform you to the point that you won’t recognize yourself.”
She had all day to think about it. Because last night’s interrupted sleep had left her fatigued, after lunch, he made her take a nap—alone. Borrowing Sir Josef’s office, Sebastian connected his laptop to the resort staff’s private Wi-Fi, checked his emails, and scrolled through headlines of current events while he waited for her call.
Two hours later, his sleeping beauty awakened. The day had warmed from sixty degrees at breakfast to a very pleasant seventy-three. When he suggested a tour of the resort, he recommended another visit to wardrobe for 1930s daywear and gave her the choice of his M6, a Land Rover, or one of the vintage automobiles owned by the resort.
The last option really piqued her interest. “It’s 1930s weekend,” she mused. “It seems appropriate to take a car that fits the part.”
He thought that she might enjoy what he had arranged, but he never expected her reaction to her first sight of it, or what followed.
Lenore, one of Replay’s chauffeurs, was available to retrieve the car from the resort garage and meet them out front. Ashley wore a fetching dress that matched her eyes, camel leather pumps, a saucy broad-brimmed hat, and light blue embroidered gloves. Due to the heat of the day, he eschewed a jacket and wore summer-weight wool suit pants with suspenders bisecting his crisp white button-down shirt.
Seeing the expertly restored vintage automobile, Ashley curled her gloved fingers over his forearm and squeezed. “A Cord?” She spoke to him but her gaze was locked on the dark blue convertible, its distinctive chrome-plated side exhaust pipes gleaming in the sun. “Seriously. You just made my weekend. I get to ride in a Cord! Oh, my gosh!”
Sebastian smiled at her enthusiastic response. “It sounds as though you know a bit about cars.”
“I do. My dad was a mechanic and a gearhead. I grew up helping him in the garage, working after hours to restore whatever car, truck, or motorcycle he’d found to fix and sell. I was probably the only girl in my school who could drop oil, change tires, and check filters and fluids. He’d have loved this. Oh, my gosh.”
“I can take your picture with it, to send to him, if you’d like.”
Her smile faded, and she fought to keep her emotions in check. “He, um, he died last year. He was pulling a motorist out of a ditch after they’d skidded on a patch of black ice. Another driver hit the same ice, lost control, and killed him. We all went home for the funeral. My brother wasn’t handling it very well. He needed my mom, and so did my little sister, so Mom moved her and Lacey back permanently. I’m the only one left in California.”
He hated that his offer had evoked such sadness. He’d lost a father. He knew how it felt to have hers taken from her far too soon.
“And I am the only Moldovan here,” he said, another thing that they had in common. “Although I suspect that you get to visit your family more often than I do. I always hope to go home between semesters, but so far that hasn’t happened.”
Her gaze turned wistful. “My schedule doesn’t let me go home and visit like I’d wish.”
He nodded, fully understanding. “The offer is still open, if you want to send pictures to your family.”
Ashley shook off her sadness and pasted on a smile. “Sure,” she said. “That would be great. Thank you.”
She posed beside the car and behind the wheel. Sebastian showed her the images, then sent them to the cell phone number that she provided.
“Now, are you ready to go for a ride?” he asked.
Her answering smile was blinding. “Absolutely.”
Ashley filled him in on the car’s details as they drove. Thirty years ahead of its time, the Cord had front-wheel drive, hidden headlights, a disappearing convertible top, and a supercharged V8 engine. The interior was as innovative as the car’s engineering, with an aircraft-inspired instrument panel that lit up at night, thanks to a luminous dye applied to the edges of the glass dials. The resort’s other chauffeur Geoffrey had explained the Bendix electric hand shifter on the steering column before he’d driven it the first time.
“Cords were just taking off when the Great Depression hit in 1929,” she told him. “They made a short-lived comeback in the mid-1930s as a lower priced alternative to Duesenbergs.”
Her love of cars was obvious. Her enthusiasm, genuine.
“I know you’ve been doing films, but have you ever thought of hosting a classic car show? You’d be perfect. I would watch it.”
She blushed just a bit. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind—although I’d rather see you host a talk show. Dr. Oz could use some serious competition.”
He glanced at her. She was serious.
“You could even put a BDSM twist on some of it, how to do safe, sane kink. With all the different fetishes out there, you could probably do a series just on the lifestyle. You’d be teaching the world instead of a lecture hall of students, but you have what it takes to make it work.”
She was eyeing him intently now, as if taking his measure. He wondered what she saw.
“What it takes?” he asked.
“You’re intelligent. Attractive. Articulate. Exotic. Trust me, women will eat up that accent of yours. Not to mention, you’re phenomenally fit. I don’t know if you have a personal trainer, but whoever’s responsible for that Adonis’s belt and those washboard abs has my thanks.”
“My mother,” he said. “With her gymnastics background, she made certain that all of her children exercised daily, mind and body. We had to read, and we had to do something physical. I never fit in with children my own age, so team sports were out. Instead, I swam and used the gym. My father’s work ethic and my mother’s work-out ethic are still very much a part of me.”
“I know the feeling,” she said. “I’m driven to achieve, like my dad. My grandfather and his brother started the family garage after they came home from World War II. My dad worked for them. Eventually, he took over the business and tripled its size. As for me being like my mom? Let’s see. She’s resilient. Brave. Wise. Giving. She sacrificed a lot for me to pursue my dream. I’m fairly resilient, and I like to think that I’m brave, but she seems better at the wisdom part of things.”
She started to say something but stopped herself.
“Patience,” he admonished, turning onto another dirt road that ended at the new Roman villa. “Wisdom comes with age and experience. You’re only twenty-five. You’re going to make mistakes. All of us do. What’s important is that we don’t repeat them. Learn the lesson and move on.”
Any further conversation was silenced by her first sight of the R
oman villa. The construction site was cordoned off with yellow warning tape. At odds with a structure that evoked antiquity, a pair of portable toilets used by the crews sat on one side.
“This should be open soon,” he told her. “There’s an arena behind the house where the gladiators will fight, with banquets and orgies held inside.”
“This is amazing,” she whispered. “God, I’d love to come back for that.”
“You should,” he agreed. “Just let Sir Piers know, and he will make it so.”
Her initial excitement fled from her face, replaced by regret. “I wish.” She exhaled a sigh. Looking over, she met his gaze, swallowed her pride, and confessed, “I’m afraid that this trip is all I can manage right now. The movie that we filmed here took nearly all of my savings. I’m to the point, I’m considering selling my house and downsizing. I can write this trip off taxes because it’s research for the role, but beyond that….”
Sir Piers had given him some basic information on Ashley Slade when he proposed to pair them. Sebastian’s teaching schedule hadn’t allowed him to do much more than a cursory search, pulling up her biography online and perusing the list of her acting credits. Her breakup with her co-star was headline news. Now she said that she had risked everything to make A Royal Affair. Had her then-lover and co-producer Cade Madden done the same, or had he merely used Ashley to get what he wanted?
The thought roused Sebastian’s protective side. Hearing that she might be forced to sell her home made him acutely aware of the feelings that he had for this remarkable young woman. He had no business wanting more with someone he didn’t dare be seen with, yet that’s exactly what was happening.
He was only supposed to have her for the weekend.
There’s no way he could keep her.
Parting ways should be easy, but nothing this weekend was proving simple. The truth was, he was infatuated with Ashley Slade. And he knew, the longer they were together, the harder it was going to be to say goodbye.
Chapter Eleven
They continued the rest of the tour with the barest minimum of conversation, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Upon their return to Replay One, the resort’s main building, Ashley informed Sebastian that she had decided to dine in.
“I’d appreciate your company, if you have no other plans,” she said. Her pleading look suggested that more than food would be involved. If she needed to talk, he was certainly willing to listen, and he had no other pressing business to attend to.
“It will be my pleasure.”
Valet parking took care of his car. He escorted Ashley to her suite, where they discussed menu options and placed their order. While they waited, Ashley finally opened back up.
“A Royal Affair had such potential,” Ashley whispered, her blue eyes scanning the far wall, as if she hoped to find written on it the answers to the questions swirling in her head. “It was based on a real scandal, The Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a piece designed for Louis the Fifteenth’s mistress, except he died before taking delivery. The jeweler hadn’t been paid. He tried to sell the piece to Marie Antoinette, but she refused. Eventually, a confidence woman ran a scam, using her lover and her husband to make it look like Marie agreed to buy it after all—except the letters from the queen were forged. Payment was never made, and the diamond necklace disappeared. It turned out, the husband took it to England, where it was broken up and the individual diamonds were sold.”
Sebastian had seen the film only because he knew people in it. Aubrey Wolfe had portrayed Mozart. Her Dominant, the resort’s Austrian-born psychiatrist Sir Josef, had played Mozart’s father. A number of Replay Doms and submissives had appeared as costumed extras. The end product barely resembled her description.
“I thought that the original script was perfect, but some of the producers wanted less intrigue and more entertainment. By the time it was done, we had rewritten history.”
And created a movie that was doomed to fail.
She blamed herself. He knew it. She carried the weight of it on her slim shoulders as clearly as a yoke. He couldn’t share her burden, but with luck, he might be able to help her shed it or at least lighten the load.
“I believed you as Marie Antoinette,” he said firmly, taking heart when she smiled despite herself. “I enjoyed watching the scenes filmed here and spotting familiar faces in the crowd. And,” he added, “while the score had little original material in it, it certainly deserves an Academy Award.”
Ashley warmed to his words, opening like a flower in the sun. “Thank you.” When she finally turned and met his gaze, he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes before she dashed them away with her fingertips. “Sorry. I’m so used to people bashing it, it’s nice to hear a compliment. It’s even better when it’s sincere.”
He shifted into Dom mode and let her see it. “I may not say what you want to hear, but you can believe what I tell you, dragă. Do you understand?”
She wet her lips and swallowed hard. “Yes, Master Sorin.”
“I can see that you blame yourself for the film’s failure, but the success of any film depends on a large number of factors, does it not?”
“Yes.” Her voice was small as a schoolgirl’s.
“And of all the things that make a success, none of them rested solely in your hands except your performance. Is that correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts!” he snapped. “Just answer the questions! You put everything that you had to give into bringing Marie Antoinette to life. Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she answered unequivocally, conviction ringing in her voice.
“Then why do you blame yourself for circumstances beyond your control? You did everything you could to make it a success, but you were overruled. Your voice was silenced. Tell me now, dragă. Say that it was not your fault.”
“It—it wasn’t my fault…?”
“You sound unsure. What part of this do you not see?”
“I should have fought harder,” she said wearily. “I should have….” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I should have done something!”
“Dragă, you fought. You were forced to compromise, forced to capitulate. Do you honestly believe that fighting harder would have changed anything?”
“Honestly? No,” she admitted. “Probably not.”
“It seems to me that fighting would have only delayed the inevitable and likely have caused future problems for you. Before this movie, were you considered hard to work with?”
“No.” She sat a bit straighter, her spine stiffened with pride. “I have a good reputation when it comes to my craft.”
“And did this film change that?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her brow creasing with concern. “I suppose I’ll know more after my next audition.”
“I shall do what I can to prepare you for it,” he promised. “We have the two scenes tonight, but I believe that tomorrow holds what you need. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I do. As much as I’m looking forward to the vampire scene tonight, I know that the interrogations will come closer to what the heroine experienced. I want to do it justice.”
“And you will,” he hummed. “You shall. Now, you have tensed again. Can you feel it?”
She nodded.
“All that massage work from this morning will come undone if you are not careful. Is this true?”
“Yes,” she answered, a bit too glumly for his liking. She’d just made the choice of knee time or a spanking easy for him.
Sebastian rose from the davenport they shared and reseated himself in the matching chair.
“Dragă, I want you here—” he pointed to the ottoman in front of him “—on your knees, with your chest on the ottoman. Now!” he barked when she remained glued to her seat.
Ashley scrambled to accommodate. Kneeling on the side that he had indicated, she draped herself across the top.
“How is your back?” he asked.
“Good,” she squeaked.
&nbs
p; “I am going to spank you,” he said. “You need it. You need release, and you need the catharsis of tears. A spanking will give you both. Now, what are your safewords?”
She’d had time to think about it. “China to slow. Singapore to stop. Slow boat and no canes,” she explained.
Sebastian allowed the barest hint of a smile. “No canes? How disappointing. Oh, well. Once more. What are your safewords?”
“China to slow. Singapore to stop.”
“Good girl. When we begin, you will keep count, and you will thank me.”
He caught the hem of her skirt. Lifting it to her waist, he found the waistband of her loose-cut panties, pulled them to her knees, worked them off the rest of the way, and tossed them to the side.
Her ass was perfectly toned from the hours that she’d spent in the gym, maintaining the figure that Hollywood demanded, doing as much as her back allowed. He wished now that he’d had her wear a jeweled plug on their tour of the resort. He would have enjoyed making it sparkle.
He consoled himself with rubbing her bottom, helping her settle in and lose some of the tension that had him concerned. The first deep breath that he heard her release, he hauled back his hand and spanked her.
“One!” she yelped, surprised by the strength of the blow. “Thank you, Master Sorin.”
He rubbed the sting and swatted the other cheek.
“Two. Thank you, Master Sorin.”
He kept going, soothing her between strokes, not stopping until his hand had turned her ass the perfect shade of red and she had dissolved into tears. “Come, little one,” he crooned, helping her up and pulling her onto his lap. “Let me hold you for a while.”
She snuggled against his chest, welcoming the touch of his hand, stroking her hair, caressing her skin, drying her face. A knock on the door announced the arrival of their dinner.
“We must let them in, dragă,” he crooned in her ear. “You stay here. I will go. Coming!” he added, tossing the word over his shoulder.
He eased her onto the chair and made certain that she was settled before answering the door. The cart that was wheeled in held side salads, soup, two china plates covered by domed lids, and a decanter of fruited water. There was no alcohol tonight, with playtime looming. As soon as they finished, they would be headed back to wardrobe.
