Don't Ever Stop: A BDSM Billionaire Romance (10 page)

I’m such an idiot! How much does this stuff cost?

Mr. Cooper grasped my wrist, hard, so hard it reminded me of the time I’d been given a Chinese burn in the school playground when I was ten. I remembered how red and sore my forearm was for an hour afterwards. Then he took the flask from my hands, took the other choko, and poured out a measure of saké for me. He filled my cup to only half the height I’d filled his. None of it spilled.

‘Well, Rose, cheers.’ He lifted his cup and clinked it against mine. He lifted his lips carefully to his almost-overflowing cup, and shot me an amused look as he took a sip.

I took a sip of my own drink, and was relieved to discover that I liked the taste. Actually, I
really
liked it. It was kind of like very dry white wine, or maybe sherry or port or one of those drinks my auntie always brings to our house at Christmas.

Mr. Cooper sat in silence, looking at me for a while, and I felt my cheeks begin to darken. I looked around awkwardly at the other diners. It was about half-full in here. Everyone looked very refined, eating their food with their chopsticks (oh no, chopsticks!) in small mouthfuls, conversing quietly and politely. I looked back at Mr. Cooper. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir, why did you invite me here tonight? What is it you wanted to explain?’

He bowed his head, as if choosing the right words, and then began to speak. ‘I haven’t known you for long, Rose,’ he said. ‘But I’ve come to care about you. I cared about you from the moment I saw you onstage, getting publicly humiliated by your colleague Jen. I knew right away that you were someone in need of protecting. Someone
worth
protecting.’

‘So you want to
protect
me?’ I asked incredulously. I knew I could be a little fragile sometimes, but I was strong, too. I certainly didn’t need some man there to look after me, to lock me away in a cabinet, like a glass ornament.

‘Not exactly, no,’ he said. ‘But I believe I can help you to protect yourself.’

‘What do you mean?’

His eyes widened, and his pupils suddenly grew so large it was as if both his irises were midnight black. ‘I like you, Rose,’ he said. ‘I like your feistiness, but I like your fragility too. I’m interested in your spirit.’

I took another sip of saké, and felt the alcoholic vapours travel up to my head. ‘My spirit?’

‘When I saw you in the glasshouse yesterday, the sunlight on your skin, so timid and yet so fierce, I knew you were special. When you fainted, and I had to carry you back through to the office, feeling the weight of you in my hands… I felt…’

At this moment, two waitresses appeared, with several trays of food between them. They began laying it down, in oranges and golds and reds and pinks. I spotted fresh, raw slices of salmon, glittering under the lights. Thick, sticky rice. Perfectly folded seaweed strips, encasing colorful rolls of finely chopped vegetables and crackling fish skin. Then there were the soups, the noodles, the salads. The table looked like a work of art, not dinner. I was scared to touch any of it in case I messed up its beauty.

Mr. Cooper picked up his chopsticks, and I did the same. He was holding his high up on the sticks, squeezing them only very gently between his fingers. I gripped the bottoms of the sticks for dear life, my knuckles going white with the pressure. I saw my boss pick up a salmon roll and place it delicately between his lips. I went for one that looked like cucumber, but it fell off my sticks.

‘I’d like you to eat at least one mouthful of everything on the table tonight,’ Mr. Cooper said. ‘No matter how squeamish you feel.’ He pointed to a crab’s claw, with it’s black-tipped pincers still attached, then to a glistening pool of fish eggs, and finally to a textured, wet, yellow lump, lying limply on top of a cube of rice. It looked like a jaundiced tongue, freshly plucked from a diseased mouth. ‘It’s sea urchin,’ Mr. Cooper said. ‘It’s a strong, powerful, mouthful of the sea.’ He looked at my grimace and smiled. ‘You should be thankful this restaurant doesn’t do sea cucumber entrails. They’re a real delicacy. I’d have definitely ordered those for you.’

I took a few bits of the safer-looking food to begin with and put them on my plate. I’d never been an adventurous eater. There was no way I’d eat
sea urchin
tonight. Just no way.

‘Thank you for buying all of this stuff,’ I said between mouthfuls, aware that Mr. Cooper must have spent hundreds of dollars on this meal, and that we’d never even get through half of it between just the two of us.

Mr. Cooper picked up a crab’s claw, and sucked the tender flesh out of it. My stomach churned at the thought I was going to be expected to do the same at some point very soon. ‘Rose,’ he said, laying down the claw, ‘I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say. All I ask is that you listen. You don’t have to agree with me. But when I’ve finished, I want you to tell me what you think.’

I was beginning to feel very anxious. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what my boss had to say.

‘You saw a book in my office yesterday, lying on the dresser. I’d been in the middle of tidying my office when you knocked on the door. I hadn’t meant for you to see it. But now that you have, I’d like to tell you the truth. I’m an honest man, God help me, and I’d like to be completely open with you.’ He drank some more of his saké, not just a delicate sip this time, but a proper mouthful. ‘I’m interested in Eastern culture. In its philosophies, cuisine, spirituality, art… I’ve spent a lot of time travelling to the East, particularly to Japan, through my work, and during that time I’ve had my mind opened and learnt about a lot of new things.’

It was my turn to take a big mouthful of my drink now.

‘The book you saw was about
kinbaku
. This is the aspect of Japanese culture that I am most interested in. It involves ropes, and tying beautifully intricate knots across the human body. I’m interested in the way that binding up the female form makes it into a completely new work of art in itself. And the way that the relationship between man and woman changes when he places these tight knots around her body.’

I felt a saké buzz developing in my brain, and felt the blood rushing to my cheeks.

‘You’re beautiful, Rose,’ he said. ‘You’re not like the other women I see all day at the office. I’ve been observing the way that you are; so quiet and submissive, and yet never weak. You’re like me, in many respects. Except that I am dominant. I don’t like to submit. I like to be in control, to watch the people around me surrender.’

He pushed the plate of sea urchin towards me, and my eyes widened. I shook my head, but Mr. Cooper’s gaze remained firm, resolute, and then, somewhere deep inside him, I could see the start of a simmering anger. I didn’t want to upset him. I took the sea urchin with my chopsticks, and slowly, excruciatingly slowly, raised it to my lips. I tried to think of other things, of how funny this story might be when relayed to Patrick later on (though I knew I’d never tell him a word of this), how warm it was beginning to feel in the room, how despite being warm I could feel the hairs on my arm standing on end. But there was no distracting myself from it. I was about to eat this wet, yellow, tongue-resembling mass. I opened my mouth, put it in, and chewed. I tried to hide my gag reflexes as the rubbery flesh squeaked between my teeth.

Mr. Cooper watched me, his eyes bright now, enjoying the spectacle of watching me eat.

Something about the mixture of my revulsion, and his enjoyment, felt almost exciting to me. He liked watching me suffer. He liked it, because he knew I was doing it for
him
.

‘I’d like to see you surrender, Rose,’ he told me quietly. ‘I’d like to show you how it feels to be dominated, in the most beautiful, artistic way possible.’ He took another drink, and then his back straightened, and he coughed. ‘But I’m aware that I’m your boss. I know about the ethics of this. I’ve been wrestling with it ever since yesterday. I want you to know that this stays between us. If you say no, if you’re disgusted by what I’ve said to you just now, then I understand. You’ll still have your job at Global. I’ll still take an interest in your career. I want you to be happy, Rose.’ He spoke more quietly now. ‘But I want to dominate you too.’

He scooped up a bit of rice and some bright pink fish eggs, and let them explode on his tongue. ‘So there you have it,’ he said. ‘My cards are well and truly on the table. What is your decision, Rose?’

CHAPTER TWENTY

Answering Back

I couldn’t believe what my boss had just said. I mean, sure, Redmond Cooper was a powerful man. He was a rich man. Heck, he was an
unbelievably
handsome man. But he couldn’t just come out with things like that. Especially not to his employees. A brand new employee at that. I was pissed. Really pissed.

I marched out of the restaurant, and began heading towards the subway stop. It was getting dark now. I needed to get home.

‘Rose! Wait!’ I heard Mr. Cooper calling from the other end of the street.

Hearing his voice just made me angrier, and I kept on marching. I was so fuelled up with adrenaline that I went straight past the subway stop. My legs wouldn’t stop going. I felt like maybe I was going to walk all night. I would leave this city, and end up in a new one, then another and another, and I’d keep on walking, until finally I collapsed.

‘Rose!’

I took a left after the bank, and took a shortcut towards the plaza. I don’t know why, but I felt like I needed to be back at that fountain again. The place where I’d made the wish. Liberty. Peace. Strength. I remembered the coin I’d thrown into the water. What a load of rubbish. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed myself to get sucked in by this guy, to accept the job at Global, thinking Mr. Cooper had seen some kind of untapped potential in me. Of course he hadn’t. He just thought I was a sap. Somebody he could easily humiliate. I was just a joke to him.

I felt the familiar prickling in my tear ducts as I walked faster, heading towards the fountain. It wasn’t long before tears were streaming down my face. I reached for the edge of the fountain, the safety of the stone wall, and I grabbed on to its rough surface, my body crumbling down onto it. I knelt on the floor, my knees grazing the concrete, my forehead resting against stone, and I cried. I cried because I hated this situation. I hated my boss for saying the things he’d said to me. I hated myself for not punching him in the face. And I hated myself most of all because I knew, deep down, that something about his proposition had excited me. I’d been having these thoughts, more and more frequently about my boss now, taking charge of me, pressing his body against mine, commanding me with his enormous power–

‘Rose.’

Mr. Cooper was behind me.

‘Rose, I’m sorry.’

I could smell his aftershave. Feel his warmth. He was so close to me.

‘Please get up, Rose. Let’s talk about this sensibly.’

I found myself obeying his instructions, lifting myself up off my knees, climbing to my feet, feeling his warmth against my back, waiting, waiting, and then finally turning, seeing his shadowy figure, standing over me.

‘Rose.’

I noticed that I was shivering. I hadn’t brought a jacket with me. I wished he’d stop saying my name.

I raised my chin and allowed myself to look up at him. ‘Mr. Cooper,’ I said. ‘You can’t treat people like that. It’s just plain wrong, not to mention completely arrogant.’ I couldn’t believe I was speaking to my boss like this, but I couldn’t stop. ‘It’s an abuse of your position. You could get in real trouble for–’ At this moment, I felt the heat of my anger rising up inside me, making me red hot, at the same time as I was shivering with cold. I felt feverish with fury, and I was shaking. I stepped back, as if to get away from the demon before me, but the saké had made me unsteady, and I tripped on my back foot.

Mr. Cooper reached out with lightning reflexes, grabbing me by the arms, and pulling me up straight. ‘You okay?’ he asked, worried.

I looked up at him and nodded. Despite it being a little dark outside, his eyes were shining bright. I could see a real sincerity in them. Whether or not this man was a complete idiot (and he was), at least he was a sincere one.

‘I’m okay,’ I said.

I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest. I was so angry, and yet feeling him here, so close to me, grasping my arms so tight, I felt like I could just fall into him.

His arms grasped me harder, and the look in his eyes became more intense.

I could feel his breath on my cheek now. He was so tall, so far away from me, yet his breath was so strong. I wondered if his heart was beating as hard as mine.

I raised my chin a little further, felt his breath moving across my lips. His hands gripped my arms a little tighter, pushed them from my sides to behind my back. His grip was so firm I felt like he might stop the blood supply. I could feel my wrists tingling.

His lips moved down to my ears.

‘Thank you, Rose,’ he whispered, his voice shaking. ‘Thank you for being you.’

My lips felt suddenly dry, like they were aware they were about to receive a kiss, but instead of kissing me, Mr. Cooper just gripped my wrists tighter, pinning my arms behind my back completely, so that I was helpless before him.

He pressed his body against me. I could feel the sharp angles and taut muscles of his body. I wanted to push myself into it, to feel it against my bare skin. I could barely breathe.