by Cox, Chloe
“Roman,” she groaned, “Please, just do it.”
She hadn’t even been aware that she was going to say it. Roman paused, one hand holding her left leg around his waist, the other holding her shirt wide open so he had free reign of her breasts, and he fixed her with that look.
“You think that is begging?” he said, the only other sound the sound of his zipper unfurling. “I will make you beg.”
He locked eyes with her, and she lost sight of all else. Then his hips rose as if they were a tide all unto their own, and he pierced her straight through, his erection buried deep inside her. Lola shrieked as he drove her up against the wall, her blouse and sweater bundling together, dragging against the stone; she folded her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead to his.
He thrust upwards again and again, her whole body jolting with each and every stroke, her shoulders rubbing red against the rough stone and her lips hurting as she pressed them close together, unwilling to scream and hear it echo throughout the sleepy museum.
His fingers dug into the undersides of her thighs as he held her up against the wall, and with each thrust the head of his cock dragged across her g-spot, driving her ever higher. She thrashed against him, the sudden flare in feeling, already so fucking close to the edge, leaving her wild and a little crazy. Roman just held her tighter, pinned her harder, and drove himself in and out with a restraint that drove her insane.
And then he stopped.
“Oh, what the fuck,” she cried, and tried to move against him. His grip on her only tightened.
“No,” he said, breathing hard. “Beg.”
She squirmed in his grip, feeling full to the brim, her mind focused on only one thing: release.
“You’re such a—”
“Beg.”
He hoisted her up higher, and she hit him around his shoulders, grabbing handfuls of hair.
“Please, Roman,” she said, “You jerk, I’m begging you. Please.”
He actually laughed. “Hmm?”
“Please fuck me,” she said. “I need you to fuck me, Roman.”
He pulled his head away from hers and met her gaze. “Don’t forget it,” he said, and buried himself inside her.
chapter 18
“Put this on,” Lola said, shoving a dry-cleaning bag in Roman’s general direction. He assumed it held a suit.
He barely registered it. Lola was running around in nothing but a towel, a towel that did not quite fit securely across the top, and which kept threatening to fall away entirely. He was rooting for gravity.
Then he remembered he didn’t need to root for anything.
Lola scooted by, mumbling something about a dress, and Roman grabbed the errant corner of her towel.
Naked Lola.
“Roman!” Lola said, turning around and not even attempting to cover up. “We have the rehearsal dinner in less than an hour.”
“Rehearsal dinner,” he mused, walking toward her slowly. “Is that not supposed to follow a wedding rehearsal? And yet we had none. Your customs confuse me,” he said.
“It’s traditional,” she said, her voice losing volume as he approached her naked body. “A rehearsal dinner is traditional.”
“Nothing has been traditional so far, has it?” he said.
“It’s for Volare,” she whispered. He was quite close to her now. “It’s for them…to have…fun…”
“And us?” he said, his hands encircling her waist. “Are we to have any fun?”
She lowered her eyes, a submissive gesture he loved to see from her.
“We still have Harold Jeels and the press on our ass,” she said. “It’s supposed to look real, Roman. It’s supposed to look like…”
Roman tightened his grip on her waist but said nothing, knowing what she had left unsaid. “Look real.” The phrase bothered him. With members of the public, of the press, who were already starting to lose interest? Easy enough. With Volare? Doable.
With Lola?
Everything had been in somewhat of a holding pattern in the past few days. Then pictures of the two of them arguing outside the Cloisters had surfaced online, Dagmar had declared Volare the only secure venue for the wedding, and Roman had been unable to get in touch with Chance. The wedding was in one week. One. Week.
“I did not say you could move,” he said harshly. Lola froze. “Why the one week delay? Why not—”
She huffed impatiently. “Dagmar told you, you just weren’t listening. She has to throw them off or something, since they took those pictures of us fighting outside the Cloisters. And she has to organize the vendors. Look, I don’t—“
“Don’t interrupt me,” he said.
Silence.
She was getting better at this.
She was not a sub that all Doms would want. But she was a sub he would want. Did want.
Couldn’t bear to leave.
He had received a call about construction in L.A. earlier in the day. Nearly completed. He would have to decide soon whether to stay or to go. He could no longer remember why it had ever seemed possible that he could simply pick up and leave for six months, a year. Maybe longer.
“You are stressed,” she said, her voice softer. She was close to him, her white skin luminous in the soft light from the bathroom that had become hers. He had accepted that she would stay in his room, but he slept on that ridiculous mattress in the hall, stubbornly refusing to concede her point and answer the unspoken question. She couldn’t have him in her bed all night, even if he couldn’t tell her why.
Now she reached up and cupped his cheek, her hands soft and warm. The way she looked at him, her big green eyes gone soft and wide, all her empathy and understanding spilling out, there for him to take—begging him to take it…
It undid him.
“What are you so worried about, Roman?”
He didn’t answer. Her eyes on him made him feel…raw. Like she could see the things he tried to hide. Like her gaze strafed away his defenses. He hated it—and he loved it.
Only Samantha had made him feel like that. Samantha had made that feel safe.
Lola felt safe—until he remembered. Until he remembered what he—what this—would inevitably do to her.
She pressed up against him, the warmth of her penetrating his clothes. He could smell her. The peach shampoo she used, the Chanel she always wore, the scent of her sex, always lingering. That light from the bathroom filtered through her red hair, turning it every shade of fire, and settled on her soft face. She had no idea what she did to him.
What she’d always done to him.
“Lola,” he said, letting his head fall toward hers.
“You can tell me,” she said.
He couldn’t. “No, Lola,” he said. His voice sounded strangled. “This is only mine.”
She laid her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around him, pulling her naked body as tight against him as she could. She felt good to him like that. Felt right.
“Ok,” she said, and she pressed her lips to his chest, kissing him through his clothing. “Whatever you need.”
Whatever you need.
He saw the shadow of a dimple in her cheek and felt her smile more than saw it, heard it in her voice. “Or are you just getting worked up about what I’m going to do at this dinner?” she asked. “It’s a Volare event, after all; I’m sure there’ll be…distractions…”
She looked up at him with that teasing smile, biting her lip. He saw through her, just as she saw through him, and he knew she was only trying to distract him from whatever was on his mind.
It worked.
“What do you mean, distractions?” he said.
“Oh, you know,” she said, pushing off his chest and sauntering towards the bathroom, her perfect, plump ass drawing his eye like a magnet. “I’m sure people will get out of hand. It will be hard to resist. They’ll all be watching us. Some will be watching me. That Salvador guy has been—”
He caught up with her just before she reached the bathroom, one
hand slipping around her waist where he could press it flat against her belly, the other grabbing her wrist. Slowly he brought her wrist around to the small of her back, and watched her back arch with that slow, supple grace.
Just the feel of her skin against his…
She made him insane.
“No one else watches you,” he said.
She laughed. “Roman, it’s Volare. It’s a sex club. We run it. How could you not—”
He ran his hand down her lower belly to cup her sex. “No.”
Her breathing became ragged, but she soldiered on. “It’s not like they haven’t seen me in scenes before…”
“No.”
The idea of Lola and anyone else, even from afar, even if they didn’t even touch her—it made him crazy. Ever since he’d allowed himself to touch her, she had become his. His alone.
“No,” he said again, and let her wrist go. He slid his hand along the curves of her body, feeling every inch, wanting every inch, until he got to her breasts. He indulged himself with her nipples, playing with them, kneading the flesh, holding off just to torment himself a little longer.
He could lose himself like this, caressing her stomach there, kissing her neck here, could lose himself in the feel and pull of Lola, the sounds of Lola’s pleasure, the look on her face…
“Get on the bed,” he said.
He followed her, shedding his clothes as he went. The look on her face when she saw his erection tested his self-control. He wanted to watch her this time, and wanted her to watch him. Wanted her to know that she was his, and his alone.
“Spread for me,” he said.
Oh Jesus God, she was beautiful. It hurt him, somewhere deep in his chest, just to look at her.
He had meant to go slowly, but the closer he came to her the stronger her pull, and as he lowered himself over her he found he couldn’t stop himself. He plunged into her, finding her wet and hungry for him. He couldn’t go deep enough in her, driving in harder and harder, looking for a way to bury himself totally.
That she screamed out his name helped.
That he felt her inner muscles begin to shudder, begin to suck him in further, helped.
He pushed off, rising above her, not breaking his stroke but needing to see her face: her brow was furrowed, her mouth open, her hands scratching at his shoulders and his face.
“Mine,” Lola said.
He fell upon her, biting her neck and leaving his mark as he pumped into her.
Later, after they had cleaned themselves up, already late for their own rehearsal dinner, as Lola fixed his tie for him, he thought, What the hell is happening to me?
chapter 19
Stella Spencer had outdone herself, with a little bit of help from Dagmar. The two women had managed to turn the main room at Volare into what looked like a fantasy movie set interior. Specifically, it looked like the inside of a luxurious tent, complete with samovars, lamps, a few hookahs, and various bits of BDSM equipment strewn here and there among the low tables.
“Stella?” Lola asked. “This almost has a…sheikh theme, you might say.”
Stella giggled. She’d already had a glass or two of champagne, and she’d been a lightweight since at least college.
“Maybe,” she said.
“What did Bashir say?”
“Um…”
“Never mind, I can guess.”
“Actually,” Stella said, blushing all the way to her roots, “I kind of doubt that.”
Lola laughed, happy for her friend. No matter how stupidly complicated Lola’s sex life got, it always made her feel good to think about how Stella had finally gotten what she deserved—a smoking hot sheikh who was completely crazy about her. It made it seem like sometimes things went right in the world.
Lola needed some of that at the moment.
The party—rehearsal dinner, technically, even without a rehearsal, or without any idea how Dagmar was going to pull off a wedding in this same place in a week’s time—was in full swing, and Lola was already beginning to miss Roman.
It was ridiculous.
She watched her friends and acquaintances flirt and drink and chase each other around the smoking oil lamps and well-laid tables, and all she could think about was Roman. She couldn’t believe she’d said “mine” like that right when he was about to come. He’d said it to her before, all kink-ified, and she’d known he’d meant it in that animal way—only she knew how true it really was.
Did he know what she’d meant? How could he if she didn’t just come out and say it?
And even though they’d just had sex, she wanted him again. Would it ever stop? Would she ever be able to look at him and retain full brain function at the same time?
She watched him through the shimmer of two smoking braziers as he laughed at some story from Jake, the light dancing off of his bronze skin, and thought: Nope. Probably not.
Look at the man.
Lola put a hand to her neck and rubbed at the bite marks that Roman had left there not even a few hours ago. His mark. She loved it. Roman looked across the room and saw, and heat swept through her.
“Oh hey, food’s ready,” Stella said at her side. Lola jumped—she’d been lost in Roman. Again.
She shook her head and tried to regain some semblance of control while Stella wound through the crowd, clinking her champagne glass and making way for the servers.
“Everyone sit down,” she said, trying to take some of the giggle out of her voice as she looked around at the many piles of cushions. “Or you know, recline, or whatever. Dinner’s here, is the point!”
Lola smiled as Bashir wrapped his arms around Stella from behind, and Stella squealed. She could only guess at what the sheikh was whispering to his future wife, but it was met with Stella’s clear approval.
Not for the first time, Lola found herself envying their intimacy, and she inwardly scolded herself for being so negative.
“What are you thinking?”
Lola whirled around to find Roman studying her intently. Great. Why did he always ask her that question when she couldn’t tell him the truth without things getting incredibly weird?
“Nothing I can tell you,” she said honestly.
He wrinkled that perfect forehead in concern, and not a little bit of pique. “What could there possibly be that you could not tell me?” he said.
Lola wanted to laugh at his adorable male naïveté, but thought better of it. That would require it’s own explanation, after all. Instead, she just smiled up at him and said, “Allow me a little bit of feminine mystique, won’t you?”
He reached out and hooked a finger in the fabric of her wrap dress, smiling slightly, but with just a hint of worry. “You have all of that, Lola,” he said.
“Hey, everyone! We’re about to get into toasts and all that, so…you know, throw back a drink or something, because it’s about to get weird.”
Bashir laughed and dragged a very tipsy Stella into his lap, while the rest of the room cheered. Everyone was a bit more drunk than Lola had anticipated. Apparently Roman had the same thought, because he whispered something to Jake and the more extreme pieces of equipment began to roll out of the room at the hands of various volunteers.
“Lola, come,” Roman said, holding out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her down in his lap. “Bashir had the right idea.”
Lola couldn’t keep herself from smiling, or from rubbing her hands against his chest, even through that now damnable shirt she’d helped him put on earlier in the evening. She’d loved doing that—she loved helping him get ready, making him breakfast when he’d let her, taking care of him. She knew she should be careful about that, knew it was dangerous to let herself think it meant anything, but…
“I’m tired of being careful,” she whispered.
Roman’s arms tightened around her.
She hadn’t meant for him to hear.
Across the glowing brazier that served as a grill for their group of cushions, Lola saw Jake Jayson begin to stand up. H
e was there with Catie, the woman who had, nominally, been the source of so much strife between her and Roman—Catie, the woman who had initially infiltrated Volare for the chance to get a big tabloid exclusive. Catie had needed the money to pay for her grandmother’s care, and she had, in the end, come around and confessed—mostly because she’d fallen completely in love with Jake—but the whole thing still reminded Lola that there was at least one time when she hadn’t been able to trust Roman.
He said he’d been protecting you.
She believed him. But was that enough?
Who are you kidding—enough for what? It wasn’t like Roman was begging her to be his real wife. It wasn’t like this was a real relationship.
Lola closed her eyes and tried to compose herself while Jake clinked his glass in that characteristic aristocratic way of his.
“I’m told I need to tell a story about the groom,” Jake began. “I’ve never been a best man before, and I imagine after this I won’t have to worry about being one again.”
Jake looked over at the two of them, and Lola thought she saw…no, she couldn’t be sure. The man was unreadable, as always, but there was a hint of something. Jake was one of the only people who knew that this wedding—or their relationship, or whatever it was—was fake, and yet Lola knew him well. Jake hated deception. Hated lying. Had this thing about integrity.
Lola hadn’t thought about what they’d asked him to do until just that moment. And yet, the look he gave them…
“I wasn’t sure what kind of story might be appropriate for this setting,” Jake was saying. Already there was a smattering of laughter. No one really knew what was appropriate at a Volare wedding. “But I think I have a story that might, in a way, be about the bride and groom. It’s about how Volare got started.”
The room quieted down, and even Lola perked up. Most people hadn’t known that there was a story to Volare’s founding beyond the fact that Roman and Chance had wanted a club of their own. Lola had known there was something more to it, but only from the look that Chance had gotten on his face when she’d asked about it—something that had told her not to ask about it again.
Now it appeared that Jake knew. Lola felt Roman tense all around, and turned to look at him. He was rigid, his jaw pulsing. She took his hand in both of hers, and pressed them together.
