Breathe (23 page)

She cried out as Elijah pulled back, then slammed forward one final time with a hoarse shout. The fire licked along her skin, heating her both inside and out.

Elijah pulled her close as they finally stilled, muscles lax, breathing hard. Something about the embrace was more intense than Samantha had anticipated, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it.

But for the moment, she had everything she needed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I
think whoever designed this might have been compensating for something.” Samantha eyed the impossibly tall marble-colored tower in front of them, an elegant column that stretched up to the sky.

Shielding her eyes against the neon sunlight of midday, she found that she couldn’t see the top of it. She eyed it with both wariness and excitement as Elijah dismissed their driver, then came to stand beside her.

“You’ll notice I don’t have a tower.” Elijah’s words were smug as he laced his fingers through her own. Samantha bit back a laugh as he pulled her to the door.

Confidence was one thing, but Elijah . . . she’d never met anyone so sure of himself.

“Is it a Dom thing?” she asked, curious, as he nodded to a security guard and led her into a small lobby. “And why are we the only ones here?”

“Is what a Dom thing?” Elijah led Samantha across the small lobby to a waiting elevator. Their footsteps were the only ones echoing on the empty floor. “And we’re the only ones here because I reserved the entire tower.”

Samantha closed her eyes in exasperation and discomfort.

She shuddered to think how much it must have cost to rent out an entire tourist landmark in a city like Vegas.

“Have you always been like this?” Samantha continued, letting herself be tugged into the spacious elevator. “Everything you do—you never hesitate. You always seem to know just what you want.”

She bit back the rest of the words that were on the tip of her tongue. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—tell him that she was envious of that confidence. That she thrilled to the taste of it when she submitted to him.

Samantha stilled when she felt Elijah’s hands closing around her waist. He turned her so that she was looking out the glass wall of the elevator, down at the city of Las Vegas, rapidly shrinking beneath them. Hands resting at her waist, he pressed a kiss into her hair, still damp from the shower.

The tenderness of the gesture made her heart race, pressing against her rib cage as if trying to escape.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a Dom thing, no,” Elijah said as Samantha drew in a shaky breath as the elevator rocketed higher, taking them closer to the top of the immensely tall building.

His hands at her waist squeezed gently to steady her.

“I’ve seen people who are not dominant who are even more confident than myself, or more than Alex or Luca,” Elijah continued.

The elevator drew to a smooth stop, the bell chiming as the doors opened.

They stepped into bright sunlight. Samantha winced and squinted, covering her eyes just as Elijah pressed something into her hands.

It was a pair of sleek tortoiseshell sunglasses. The label on the side was designer, and Samantha bit her lip at the thought of how much they had likely cost.

“I’d have been happy with a pair from Walmart, you know.” By this point, she knew that resistance was futile. She slid them on, adjusted them, found they fit perfectly. She was strangely touched that he’d chosen a pair that she would have picked for herself—well, if she ever spent more than twenty dollars on a pair of sunnies.

She looked up to find Elijah glowering down at her.

“What now?” It was windy on the top of the building, and she pulled the elastic from her hair, smoothed the windblown strands back, and secured it again.

“Cheap sunglasses can do more harm than good.” Pulling his own from his pocket, he slid them on. Samantha felt her mouth water as she looked at him. Though she didn’t sketch much, preferring to work with hot glass as her sole medium, she felt the urge to capture him as he was, the wind pressing against his hair, the sun slanting over his skin.
Billionaire at Play
—that’s what she would call it.

She was too shy to ask him to pose for her. She’d sculpted a nude of his torso, true enough, but it had been a joke.

The urge she had was to lay him bare on canvas. And if she got to the heart of him, she was afraid that she would reveal more of herself than she wanted to.

“Come.” Elijah took her hand and led her across the slate tiles that covered the roof of the building. She’d been too caught up in him to notice it before, and he’d ushered her inside the building so quickly she hadn’t had a chance to look up. But though they were on the roof, they still hadn’t reached their destination.

There was another part of the building even higher, resembling a turret on a castle. It speared the brilliant blue sky . . . and launched a roller coaster, one that, though small, was still terrifying, being as it was seemingly miles off the ground.

“No way. Elijah, I can’t do this.” Samantha planted her feet on the ground. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but surely only an idiot would think that riding that thing was a good idea. “I’ll stay right here.”

Elijah raised his eyebrows at her in a manner that had rapidly become endearing and familiar, and Samantha knew that she was about to have her mind changed for her.

“As I was saying,” he started, and Samantha narrowed her eyes at him, not sure what he was up to. “Having extreme confidence doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is dominant. But every Dominant that I know has nearly unbreakable confidence.”

“Talk in circles much?” Samantha muttered, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She sucked in a deep breath when Elijah strode forward, caught her chin in the palm of his hand, and looked down into her eyes.

“A Dom must have confidence in him- or herself, or else it’s unthinkable to ask a submissive to place their trust in them.”

Samantha found herself caught in the pull of that brilliant blue stare. Her mouth went dry.

“So you’re saying that I can borrow your confidence for a while?” Her voice was light, her tone joking, but she found that there was a note of seriousness in her question.

The hand holding her chin squeezed gently, then released. Elijah stepped back, looking down at her with a neutral expression. Did she imagine that she saw a glimpse of tenderness there?

“Only until you find your own.”

•   •   •

E
lijah watched as Samantha’s expression shuttered. What was she hiding? he wondered. The need to find out was clawing at him.

And yet he wasn’t ready to risk sending them back to square one, or, worse, to a place beyond repair. He found that he still possessed a measure of patience, to wait for Samantha to feel ready to confide in him.

Lacing his fingers through hers, he tugged her in the direction of the tower. Pushing limits was what a Dom did, both in the bedroom and out, and he was hoping that the roller-coaster ride would loosen her tongue so that they could find a new level of pleasure together.

“Elijah, please, no.” His stubborn little redhead planted her feet and looked up at him beseechingly. She looked so damn cute it was all he could do not to grab her and kiss her.

He suspected that she would breathe flames if he told her what he was thinking, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Samantha, are you afraid of heights?” The way she’d looked out his bathroom window at the soaring lights of Vegas told him that she wasn’t, but he wanted to hear it from her lips.

Her brow furrowed, and he knew she was trying to think of a way around his question.

“No,” she finally admitted, pinching her lips together. “But that’s not the point.”

He simply waited, looking at her with the calm that had come from years of practicing self-discipline.

She looked away from him, looked back, and finally just sighed.

“I’m not the kind of person who just does stuff like this.” He could tell that she was trying to compose herself, and Elijah felt a surge of triumph. He could see from the suddenly glassy sheen in her eyes that the roller coaster was bringing some sort of emotions forward. Though he hadn’t intended for the emotional purge to come
before
they’d gone on the ride, he was satisfied nonetheless.

“And what kind of person does do stuff like this?” Elijah fastened his stare on Samantha’s face, not wanting to miss a nuance of her expression.

She scowled, but beneath the scowl was . . . longing?

“Samantha?” he prompted, thoroughly intrigued. The little cat was just full of twists and turns. She fascinated him as no other woman ever had, not even Tara.

“People who have fun, okay? People who have fun do things like this!”

Elijah was certain she wasn’t aware that she’d shouted. Her hands were balled into fists, and she bounced on the tips of her toes with agitation.

“And why aren’t you a person who has fun?” He leaned in close, until their faces were only a whisper away from each other. He watched as she tried to look to the side, to break eye contact, but at such close range she couldn’t.

She squirmed, then pressed her lips together stubbornly. Elijah rocked back on his heels, considering how to punish her.

“All right.” Inhaling deeply, he reached for the dominance inside him. It was almost like an actor reaching for character, he’d once thought, except that he knew dominance was more a part of him than a character could ever be part of an actor.

“You have two choices. You can explain that comment further—and I expect a full answer. Or we can get on the roller coaster. The owner ensured that the most skilled operator would be waiting for us and we’ll have a spectacular view of the city.” He winked at her, making sure that his grin was over the top, designed to make her smile. “Plus the sex after an adrenaline rush like that is out of this world.”

He watched as Samantha’s cheeks flushed. She shuffled her feet, then finally squeezed her eyes shut and held her free hand out to him.

“Let’s go before I lose my nerve.”

Riding an impulse, Elijah bent and scooped Samantha over his shoulder. She shrieked and slapped her hands against the backs of his thighs as he carried her across the roof to the tower.

“You have got to stop doing that!” Samantha was breathless and gorgeous when he set her down, making sure to slide her along his body as he did. His cock was hard from the feel of her womanly curves against him—not, admittedly, an uncommon occurrence.

But now was not the time to jump her. He’d have to make up for it later. But he couldn’t resist laying his hand over the curve of her ass.

“Samantha, I’d like you to meet Ted.” Elijah gestured to the man who stood just inside the door to the tower. Samantha whirled, startled to find someone else there.

Blushing, she tried to bat at Elijah’s hand. He kept it where it was. Ted had been employed at this hotel for years. He’d surely seen worse.

“It’s my pleasure, miss.” Ted took Samantha’s hand and, dipping his head, kissed it. The flush on her cheeks deepened, and Elijah smiled to himself.

He would have bet his sizable fortune that she was remembering the moment in his plane when he’d introduced her to Mattias. When he’d ordered her to strip naked and had commanded Mattias to play with her breasts.

It was tempting to revisit the scenario—and he was sure that Ted wouldn’t mind at all—but there would be time for play later.

“Nice to meet you, too.” Samantha looked from Ted to Elijah hesitantly, looking suddenly uncertain. Though she followed them into the second elevator, Elijah could read the tension coming off of her in waves.

It troubled him. As her Dom, at least for the month, he considered it his responsibility to push her out of her comfort zone. But the last thing he wanted was to scare her to death.

“Are you sure you’re okay with heights?” Maybe he’d read her wrong, though he didn’t think so.

“No. I mean yes—heights are fine,” she said as she nibbled on her lower lip. When the elevator reached the top, Elijah cast a look at Ted, communicating that he wanted a moment alone. Once Ted had stepped out, he turned back toward her.

“What’s bothering you? And don’t try to get out of it.” He scowled, though he was really feeling more concern than anger.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes narrowed. “You said if I went on the ride with you I wouldn’t have to tell you.”

Interestingly, her distress seemed to increase as she was faced with the notion of spilling her problems.

“So far you haven’t gotten on that ride with me. And the way you’re acting is telling me that you might not after all.” Elijah raised an eyebrow and waited.

Samantha twisted her fingers together, looking down. Elijah had topped a lot of submissives, but never before had he seen such avoidance.

“I just— Growing up, I had to be the responsible one.” Her lips pressed together in a firm line, and he knew that it must have taken a lot for her to say even that much. “Having fun was not an option. And when I finally left home, I wasn’t looking for fun so much as peace. It just feels wrong to have this kind of fun.”

Elijah felt his heart ache. Whatever the little cat’s big secret was, it affected her deeply.

He could offer her distraction at the moment.

“It’s just a roller-coaster ride, Samantha.” Lifting her fingers to his lips, Elijah mimicked the gesture that Ted had made only moments before. “It’s a beautiful day. We have the entire tower roller coaster to ourselves. You’re going to have the best view possible of the city . . . and it’s going to be the second best three minutes of your life.”

“Second best?” Samantha’s expression was puzzled as she looked over at him. He smirked, holding the elevator door open. And—finally—she laughed. “We’ll see. Maybe it’ll be even better.”

Bratty little sub.
With a point to prove, Elijah cupped his hands beneath Samantha’s ass and pressed her against the open elevator door with just enough force to make her breath catch. Before she could fully recover, he rocked his hips into the soft flesh of her pelvis and cupped his hand around her throat just before diving in for a hot, hard kiss.