Marrying the Master (13 page)

Roman
slid the door aside and gestured. “After you.”

He
had that look again.

That…look
.

She
was in trouble.

Instead
of the usual flat cushions you’d find in American tatami, these rooms had a
series of plush throw pillows, almost like a
high end
college dorm—like really expensive bean bag chairs, with the usual low
table. Lola looked around, puzzled, and then collapse into a cloud of pillows.
It was incredibly comfortable.

It
was also incredibly suggestive. Like even the furniture wanted her to get laid
again.

“Is
this supposed to be…Moorish?” she asked, desperate to distract herself. The
fabric designs had a definite geometric bent. “Wasn’t that, you know? Southern
Iberian
peninsula
?

Roman
grinned at her. “Of course you would notice. This restaurant, they are not
so…how would you say? Historically accurate, as far as decorating goes.”

“Is
the food good?”

“Excellent.”

He
was still looking at her with that same dark intensity. She wanted to look
away, but found she couldn’t. The man had super powers.

“So
we have things to talk about,” she said softly.

“Indeed.”

A waiter
knocked on the wood frame of the ridiculous rice paper walls, and slid the door
back. He had another carafe of wine, a basket of fried little seafood critters,
and some coffee. He set it down without a word, and Lola downed the coffee,
black.

“Good
decision,” Roman said.

“I
figure I should be at my best.”

“You
are always your best.”

Lola
squirmed a little on her cushion. She was sitting with her legs folded under
her, weirdly modest in front of Roman all of a sudden, and yet still she felt
vulnerable. The heat rose from her chest to her cheeks, and she knew she was
starting to blush. She was painfully conscious of Roman’s smooth skin, his dark
eyes, his heavy shoulders straining the best intentions of his shirt. She would
not be negotiating from a position of strength if this kept up.

Especially
not if he kept saying things like that.

“Roman,
this is hard for me,” she said. She didn’t—couldn’t—tell him the
full truth. She didn’t even know what the full truth
was
. Was she still in love with him? Oh shit, she’d been denying
all this time that she’d ever been truly in love with him. Could she be, if she
didn’t know him well enough to know what was going on with him now? Had she
ever known him well enough?

“It
is hard for me too,” he said, and picked up a carafe of wine. Lola held her
breath, not daring to believe he felt the same way she did, while he carefully
aimed a stream of wine into his mouth from a foot or so away.

“Really?”
she finally said.

“Yes.
It is hard for me to keep my hands off of you. It is hard for me to restrain
myself, and keep to my side of this table. It is hard for me not to tear off
every dress you attempt to wear.”

She
stopped breathing.

“Lola,
I have a confession to make.”

Screw
not breathing. She would love to be just not breathing. Now she was negative
breathing.

Roman
leaned forward, and took her hand in his. He turned hers over, and began to rub
her palm with his thumb, his expression one of intense concentration, his touch
unbelievably sensitive. “I have wanted you for a very long time.
A very, very long time.
It has been…inappropriate. Wrong.
But I don’t care anymore.”

Roman
held her motionless with his stare—with all the things it could mean.
With all the things it reminded her of. He was the most intense man she had
ever known, and being on the receiving end of that intensity, even fully
clothed, was intoxicating. Lola knew she had to be careful, so careful, and yet
it was so hard to remember how to do that. She could already feel her body
giving way, no matter how much her mind screamed at her that this was how you
got hurt.

Ben
really had messed her up. That text had only reminded her of how easy it was to
get hurt.

“What
does that mean?” Lola managed.

“It
means I need to have you,” he said very low. His hand closed around hers. “It
means I need to have you as my submissive, Lola. I have never wanted anyone the
way I want you.”

Anyone?

Even his wife?

She
couldn’t bring herself to say it. The thought alone seemed terrible, something
she should banish from her mind. No good could come of thinking that way.

The
noise of the restaurant behind them faded away, and left only a pulsing thud in
her ears. Her heart was going insane. Her mind was going insane. Her entire
body, every nerve ending, every sense,
every
muscle
fiber: all of them screamed YES.

She
had to close her eyes.

“I
have to know you won’t lie to me again,” she said. “I know it sounds dramatic,
but I just…I can’t go through that again.”

She
opened her eyes to find Roman’s classical face screwed up in agony. What had
she said? She hadn’t—

“You
include me with Ben?” he said, his voice rough.

Oh
shit. She hadn’t meant to make that connection explicit, but, well, Roman was
smart. The smartest man she’d ever met. The only one who could match her on the
New York Times crossword—and English wasn’t even his first language.

Of
course he’d figured that out.

“That’s
simplistic,” she said carefully. “But you lied to me about Catie, and the whole
Sizzle thing, and after Ben, that’s just a really raw wound. I—I don’t
think I can resist you if you really want me, Roman, but I know that you can
hurt me. Please don’t.”

There
was a silence. She couldn’t bear it.

She
broke first, and said, “Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, I
don’t know what
we
were thinking,
obviously
this is completely insane—”

She
didn’t get to finish, because Roman stood up and walked around to her side of
table. He knelt in front of her, his hands immediately framing her face, his
body heavy over hers, all of it feeling so treacherously
right
.

“Lola,”
he said. His eyes searched hers, and his voice was thick. “Please, believe me.
I lied to you, but because my thought was to protect you. I know that was
wrong.
I am sorry
. The idea that I
would hurt you…” Now it was Roman’s turn to close his eyes. Lola had never seen
him like this. She’d never seen him look…devastated.

“I
didn’t mean you’d done it on purpose,” she said.

“
No
,” he said, fiercely. “Do not make
excuses for my behavior. But what we have done…what we have known of each
other…already, it is changed, Lola.”

She
couldn’t hold back any longer. She raised her own hand, her
finger
tips
touching the base of his neck, the dip where his collar bones met.
He had changed into a more casual suit, no tie,
his
collar open.

He
was so effortlessly gorgeous.

“Yes,”
she choked.

“You
are my submissive now, Lola, while we are in…this situation.
For
however long.
I do not know. But it
is
,
whether or not we acknowledge it. It will keep happening.”

His
fingers began to move now, tracing the line of her jaw, down to her neck, down
the center of her chest, until he met the fabric of her dress—another
dress she found she wanted him to ruin.

“Yes,”
she said.

“Remember
you have the ultimate power, Lola,” he said, his hand trailing down her
stomach, circling back to graze her breast. She closed her eyes, again, and
tried to concentrate: she knew that to be true, intellectually, knew that the
submissive held the power, the ultimate ability to say no. But did she really
believe it, in this case?

Did
it matter?

It
was her one chance to have any semblance of power in this situation.
Because otherwise she was defenseless against Roman Casta.

“Yes,”
she said, eyes opening, Roman’s face hovering over her. Gently, so gently, he
was pushing her down amongst the cushions, his body poised over hers. She said
more forcefully, “Yes, I will be your submissive. Formally.”

“Club
safewords?” he said, pushing her flat on her back.

“Red,
yellow, green. Yes.”

“Hard
lines?”

“None.”

Roman
hissed, and his hands, once gentle, became rough. He roamed over the surface of
her body, clad only in her form fitting cream sleeve dress, as though he was
surveying a land that now definitively belonged to him.

He
said, “Everyone has hard lines.”

“Don’t
lie to me. Don’t…don’t be with anyone else.”

Roman
let his fingers fan out, moving away from her breast to her stomach, the whole
of her body available to him as she lay, ridiculously, on those cushions. She
was breathing hard, each gasp, each catch of her breath obvious to them both
with the rise and fall of her chest. He knew exactly what he did to her.

“Agreed.
And for you: you are mine, only. You are
mine
.
No one else touches you.”

She
breathed deeply. She didn’t want to admit it, but the idea of Roman with anyone
else made her feel sick, and not because of STDs—they both had access to
each other’s medical records at Volare, and she knew they were both fine, and
he knew she was on birth control.

“So,
exclusivity,” she said.

He
slid his hand down the length of her to her thigh, and then up between her
legs.

“No
one else,” he said savagely. “I cannot bear the idea of anyone else…”

His
fingers came into contact with her underwear, a thong with this dress, and he
cursed just as she arched into him involuntarily.

“What
are
these
,” he said, already
beginning to pull them over her hips. “Nothing between you and me, if I want
it. Wear them at your own risk.”

He
was taking her underwear off. Again. Lola put her hands up to cover her face,
and lifted her hips to help him. She was incredibly turned on, incredibly wet,
and somehow ashamed.

“Roman,
please, we need terms,” she managed to force out.

“We
have them.”

“I’m
not a slave.”

“I’ve
never wanted a slave. I want you, beneath me.”

Oh,
Jesus.

“And
this is…this is just sex.”

He
was silent for a moment. A terrible, terrible moment, when she almost hoped…

“There
is nothing ‘just’ about the sex we have.”

She
shuddered. Well, that was true.

He
came closer, his voice low and urgent. “Lola, do you agree?”

As
though there was ever any question. As though she had a choice.

“Yes.”

“Good.
Now strip.”

Lola’s
eyes flew open. Roman had just ordered her to strip, in a semi-private dining
room in a very public restaurant.

“Wait,
what?” she said.

His
eyes sparkled, and there was a devilish smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Take off your dress. I told you this morning that I would punish you for
hiding from me. I meant it. You will eat in the nude.”

“But
we have other things to talk about.”

“Being
naked does not prevent your mouth from working,” he said, smiling in obvious
amusement. “In fact, I’m rather counting on that fact, in more ways than one.”

“But
there are waiters—”

“
Now
.”

The
tone in his voice was unmistakable. Even the party in the next room heard it
and automatically stopped their conversation. It was the Dom voice, not to be
disobeyed.

It
made her quiver.

It
had been so long since she was on the receiving end of an order like that.

She
swallowed hard and said, “Yes, Master Roman.” And found that she enjoyed the
way it sounded.

His
eyes narrowed, and she could tell she’d gotten to him. She liked that even
more.

Slowly
Lola sat up, letting her red hair fall down around her shoulders. She arched
her back and reached behind her to unzip, and saw Roman’s eyes immediately
drawn to her breasts. He had retreated slightly to give her room, but was still
within easy reach of her.

They
hadn’t touched the appetizers.

She
unzipped her dress as slowly as she dared, never taking her eyes off Roman. She
wanted to see if the heat built in him the same way it did in her. She wanted
to see that he had meant what he said. That she could feel safe, knowing he was
as addicted to this as she was.