Breathe (21 page)

She needed to feel safe. He was secure enough with his dominance to give her this before he challenged and pushed her. But he would push—hard and soon.

Elijah placed her gently back on her feet. Pulling the plug in the tub, he reached for another heated towel, wrapping it around her when the water dipped to their hips.

“My first ever business was a convenience store back in Harley.” Elijah scooped Samantha into his arms and carried her up the steps that led out of the tub, then out of the bathroom and to the bedroom. When he slid her down his body to stand, he felt his erection begin to stir anew, awakened by the feel of her soft, naked skin sliding over his.

But this wasn’t the time for that. This was the time to urge her forward, to try to gently move her past whatever she was holding back.

“You owned a convenience store?” The look on her face was disbelieving, and Elijah hid a chuckle as he dropped his own towel and strode naked to his bureau. After putting on a pair of lounge pants and a T-shirt, he pulled another T-shirt from a drawerful of neatly folded cotton, then returned and helped Samantha put it on.

“A convenience store doesn’t really fit the tycoon stereotype,” Samantha mused as she relaxed and let him work her arms through the sleeves of the shirt. Satisfaction washed over him. She enjoyed being dressed, as if she were his doll, which was fortunate, because he enjoyed doing it.

“What does fit the stereotype, then?” Elijah skimmed his hands over her hips as he pulled the shirt down over her torso. Though he imagined she thought she was being sneaky about it, he saw her nuzzle her nose into the ribbed collar and inhale.

The simple gesture made dominance of the most primitive kind roar through him. And though he fully intended to obtain her full submission, it worried him that he was allowing himself to grow attached to her.

Then the nymph with the sea goddess eyes turned to him and flashed that mile-wide grin, and he knew he would risk it. He had no choice.

“You know. Fancy cars, expensive wine. Bathtubs so big you could swim in them.” Her saucy grin had him aching to lay her over his knee for some “punishment.”

He’d save it for later. He could see by the set of her muscles that she was relaxing a bit, and he didn’t want to disrupt it.

He needed to focus, not something he’d ever had trouble doing until meeting Samantha. His instincts told him that he needed to reveal just a little bit more of himself, and she would give him something back.

“When I was a teenager, I got involved with the wrong group of friends.” Elijah turned Samantha so that her back nestled against his chest. He didn’t want to hide from her, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak about this with those probing eyes on him.

“I started experimenting with drugs, with alcohol . . . with girls.” He felt his own body stiffen, remembering how easily he could have done something so simple and so careless as getting a young, small-town girl pregnant.

It had happened to so many of his high school friends. And many of them had made it work.

But it hadn’t been what he’d wanted. Even back then, before he’d known any better, he’d had a hunger for more.

“Doesn’t sound so different from a lot of kids,” she said.

He read the quick tension in her body and wondered whether she had done the same, or whether she’d gone the opposite way and shunned every vice.

“No, but the difference was that I had parents who cared.” Elijah stroked his hands through her tangles of damp hair, finger combing it. “They approached one of their longtime friends, asked if he would give me a job to keep me out of trouble. Chief could barely afford to pay himself a salary, but he did it.”

“Chief?” Samantha tried to turn around, but he held her still. His memories of the old man still hurt, and just as his submissive wasn’t ready to share with her Dom, neither was it always easy for the Dom to spill his guts. “That’s not a name you hear every day.”

“He was part Cheyenne. He moved to Harley from the middle of a cornfield in Kansas on a whim. Ran his little store for almost thirty years. When he died, I managed to scrape together enough to buy it from the bank. That was my first business.” One that had cost him more sleepless nights than he’d been able to count, as he sweated not just to pay back the loan from one of the other men in town, but to make the store prosper.

Adding to the pressure he’d felt to make the store succeed just to pay back his debts, he’d felt that he owed it to Chief. The man had become his surrogate father when his own parents died in a boating accident when he was barely an adult. When Chief died, it had been like losing another parent.

He would keep the convenience store alive as a memorial to all three, even if it never made another cent.

“From Arkansas to Vegas, huh?” Samantha sounded engaged, but didn’t volunteer any other information. She was proving even more resistant to opening up to him than he’d anticipated.

There might be some punishment coming for her after all, then. And damned if the thought didn’t make his cock swell.

“The only other people I’ve told that story to are Luca and Alex.” This time he let her turn in his arms when she wiggled. He sucked in a breath when her curious fingers danced over the tattoo that decorated his biceps, the one he and his friends had chosen together when they’d opened In Vino Veritas.

He waited, reading the internal struggle in the lines of her body. She huffed out a breath, looked evasively from side to side, and then finally laid her cheek against his chest.

The simple gesture quickened his pulse.

“The sister I told you about . . . she has type 1 diabetes,” Samantha said quietly.

Elijah already knew this, from the digging he’d done on her, but she hadn’t told him herself.

“Her medical needs are expensive, and she doesn’t have insurance.”

Elijah didn’t have to be a Dom to hear the shame in her voice.
Shame?
Frustration he could understand. Even anger, to some extent. But he wondered where the shame was coming from.

He was dying to push her further, to persuade her to tell him everything. But he’d learned from long experience that he needed to be patient.

It was time to encourage that positive behavior with a reward. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning when he thought of what Samantha’s reaction would be if she knew he intended to train her like a puppy.

“Do me a favor,” he started, placing his hands on her shoulders and turning her to face the door. Then he led her down the hall and to the elevator.

She eyed him warily when he pressed the button to open the door.

“Where are we going? I’m not dressed.” A gasp escaped Samantha’s lips when Elijah, having reached his limit with her sassiness, spun her and pressed her against the cool plaster of the wall beside the elevator.

“What—?” Her words caught in her throat as Elijah pulled her wrists behind her back with one hand and hooked the hem of the oversized shirt over their entwined fingers with the other.

Her ass was pale and jiggled just the slightest bit as her breath heaved in and out. Elijah smoothed his hand over the soft curves and savored the sensation when she pushed back into the touch.

Elijah cupped his hand slightly, pulled back, then let it land on her ass. Samantha’s cry mingled with the sharp crack that sounded in the otherwise silent air, and he watched as the flush of pink spread over that perfect skin.

“Wh-why?” She tried to look back over her shoulder at him, but he tangled his fingers in her hair and turned her back to press her cheek against the wall.

“Keep talking,” he taunted as, releasing her hair, he laid his palm on her ass again. She jolted, and he traced gentle fingertips over skin that he was sure was on fire.

He watched as she glared from the corner of her eye, opened her mouth—probably to yell at him—then swallowed whatever it was she’d intended to say.

“Good girl.” Leaning in close, pressing his erection into the small of her back, he pushed his hips forward, letting her feel how aroused he was.

“I’ve gone easy on you, because you’re so new to this.” He flexed his hips again and enjoyed the small whimper that escaped her lips. “But if you keep on questioning me, it makes me think you need a little incentive to learn to behave.”

He pulled away from her abruptly, flexing his fingers, watching as her body drew tight with anticipation. Pain play was never his favorite, and Samantha wasn’t any kind of pain slut, either.

But a little spanking as discipline—and the chance to watch that gorgeous creamy skin ignite by his hand—was undeniably hot.

“I think we’ll do five more.” He grinned at Samantha’s choked cry, then let his palm fly again.

By the time the last blow had landed, she was trembling, her skin the color of rosé wine. She was still glaring over her shoulder at him, but the way she was moving her hips and panting told him that she’d enjoyed it as much as he had.

“Gotta be sure.” Elijah slid his hand between her naked legs, pushed two fingers inside her, felt her buck against the intrusion.

He released her and held his fingers up to eye level. They were coated with her wetness.

“That’s my girl.” Bending to plant a kiss to the nape of her neck, Elijah pulled her away from the wall and wrapped her in his arms for a hug. She hissed when his crotch pressed against the tender skin of her bottom.

“You’re going to be a bit sore for a while. That’s going to help remind you of what will happen if you get too sassy.”

She hissed. He chuckled, releasing her.

Samantha spun to face him, her hands clutching the hem of the T-shirt, her eyes sparking.

“So you’re going to spank me every time I question you?” Her voice was incredulous.

Elijah smiled, a slow, dangerous curve of the lips.

“Some Doms would.” Her face paled beneath his stare. “But for reasons I don’t quite understand, I like that you’re spunky. You can express your opinion, but you must do it respectfully.”

Elijah turned and stepped through the yawning elevator door, then held out a hand, inviting her to join him. She planted her hands on her hips, a stance far more aggressive than the look on her face.

“You can’t punish me for asking a question.” Her voice was bewildered. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Reaching out, Elijah tugged her into the elevator. He stroked a finger down her cheek, smiling when she shivered at the touch.

“I won’t punish you for some questions, so long as they are polite. I will spank you, or give you whatever other torture I dream up, if you push at me in a way that says you don’t trust me to lead you.” Sliding his hand past her breasts and down her torso to squeeze her tender butt, he pulled back and grinned down into her disconcerted face.

He waved the fingers that he’d plunged inside her in front of Samantha’s face. Though the moisture had dried, the scent of her arousal was still a perfume in the air.

“Besides . . . I have proof that you like it.”

•   •   •

S
amantha was silent as the elevator descended, and all while Elijah led her out of the building and across the large span of grass that was the backyard of In Vino Veritas. He waited for the small shed in the back corner to fall in her sight line. If she didn’t notice it soon, the noise was sure to draw her attention.

For now, Samantha was entranced by the small paradise that was the landscaped beauty of the backyard of Veritas. “This is lovely,” she said.

Elijah felt a surge of pride at her appreciation. He’d done a lot of it himself, enjoying the planning, the sweating, even the dirt as he made the view from his windows beautiful.

It made him feel less like he was living above one of his businesses. Made it feel more like home.

Elijah led Samantha to the door of the shed. It wasn’t particularly elegant, building a hot glass studio in his backyard, but it had been the obvious solution.

He would give her privacy while she was working . . . but he still wanted her close.

Elijah was nothing if not practical.

He wasn’t sure what he would do with the shed and the equipment inside it . . . after they had parted ways. Donate it, maybe. But that was a worry for another time.

“I left something in this shed. I would like you to go get it for me.”

Samantha looked back over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes at him. “What is it?”

“You looking for another spanking?” He held back a grin when she blanched, schooling his features into a stern expression.

He saw her hesitate, then start across the yard. He waited until she had opened the door that still smelled of fresh paint, waited for her startled inhalation of breath before he crossed to stand behind her.

He was looking forward to her reaction.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“H
oly shit,” Samantha yelped. After a stunned pause she charged into the shed. She circled the room once, not sure what to look at first.

“How did you know what to get?” With a stunned glance back at Elijah, Samantha’s eyes followed the flue that extended down from the ceiling and landed on a Kokomo pot furnace.

A freaking Kokomo pot furnace
. Those things were hellishly expensive. Add to that the top-of-the-line tools—the steel blowpipes, the pontils, the shaping tools. And the sacks of glass melt. And the colorants.

And the soundproofing
, she thought as she registered the intense heat in the room and the roar of the furnaces. She hadn’t heard even a hint of the deafening sound of the furnaces from outside.

He had spent a fortune on a top-notch art studio for her. She just couldn’t believe it was because he wanted one of her sculptures that badly.

“I did some research. Looking at you naked distracts the hell out of me, but I still want a sculpture from your hands.” Elijah’s voice was husky, and Samantha felt heat pool low in her belly when she looked over her shoulder and found him coming toward her.

For once Samantha had no words, her mouth becoming dry as cotton as he approached. She could have told herself that it was because of the heat in the room, but she knew that was a lie.