Marrying the Master (19 page)

“I
advise you to relax,” he said, rubbing the lube into the sensitive flesh. She
had chills, her mind whipping back and forth, her body spasming randomly.

She
felt it. Textured rubber, pressed against the tight ring of her anus. He
twisted it against her, drilling into her slowly, surely. She hadn’t had anyone
near her ass in a long time, and her body fought against it, tensing and
relaxing, tensing and relaxing. Finally he slapped her thigh.

“Relax.”

Her
mind blanked. He pushed the plug in with a final
pop
, and the pain overwhelmed her, eventually lulling into dull
pleasure.

She
sighed.

“No,
Lola,” he whispered, “Your punishment isn’t over.”

He
didn’t know that she welcomed more pain, that she craved the
release—she’d been walking around scared of the inevitable emotional pain
that this situation promised her for so long that she’d learned to ignore it,
but that didn’t make it easier. When he’d struck her it had begun to release,
the physical draining the mental, and now she needed more.

“Yes,”
she said.

But
he didn’t hit her. Instead, she felt the tip of his cock push up against her
pussy, and she groaned.

That
kind of release would work, too.

He
pushed in slightly, and pulled out. Pushed in, pulled out. Her clit was
throbbing, and the anal plug was just a tease; she wanted to feel full of him
completely, to obliterate what remained of her thoughts. She tried to strain
toward him, but the restraints held her back. She rattled them again,
frustrated.

“To
the brink, Lola,” he said, and plunged into her fully.

She
screamed. His full length and the plug he’d pushed into her—she was
stretched, fuller than she’d been in ages. Complete. He pounded into her hard
and fast, pushing her right up to the edge—and then he was gone.

She
screamed again, this time in anger.

Her
fists clenched, her breath came in gasps, and her back arched as much as it
could on its own. In a few minutes, she came back down.

And
then he was back.

Fucking her to the brink, over and over, and leaving her
there, swollen and hungry and empty.

Until she screamed incoherently.
Until she begged.

“Don’t
hide from me again, Lola,” he said, teasing her swollen clit with one finger.

“Fuck
you,” she gasped. “You hypocrite.”

Everything
stopped.

She
couldn’t believe what she’d said. Couldn’t breathe for it. But it had been
true; she’d known it as the words had come out.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

Leather
slapping against leather, one of her ankles freed, then the other, Roman coming
around the front and his hands working even quicker there. Her wrists free,
nothing holding her in place except that she was afraid to move.

No
matter
;
Roman lifted her easily, slung her over his
shoulder, walked to the bed, and threw her down.

He
grabbed her legs behind the knees, keeping them spread in the air as he kneeled
over her, his erection bobbing, shining with her wetness.

“No
hiding, then,” he said, looking directly at her.

His
eyes were wide, bright pools of black, and for one long moment she felt like
she could fall into them—and then he was falling on her, driving inside
her, and all conscious thoughts were gone.

He
started slow, filling her even deeper than he had before, pushing her legs up
next to her head so he could go so deep that he hit the end of her.

She
screamed when that happened, too.

“One
hundred strokes, Lola,” he rasped.

This
time, though, he kept a hold of her. He settled his elbows in on either side of
her head, fixed his eyes on hers, and fucked them both up and over the edge.

He
recovered first.

He
always recovered first. It was against nature. Just once, Lola wanted to fuck
him senseless. She wanted him to know what it felt like. As it was, she let him
clean her off, let him slowly, gently remove the plug, let him rub her whole
body down with lavender oil until she felt like that boneless rapture would
last forever.

Finally,
she let him pick her up, the both of them stark naked while he carried her back
to the bedrooms.

His
bedroom.

He
set her down on his bed, the bed she’d slept in since she’d arrived,
the
bed he’d never once shared with her. He turned down the
smooth, soft sheets and tucked her in.

She
realized that, again, he wasn’t going to stay.

Her
hand shot out from between the sheets and grabbed his.

“I
know there’s something you’re not telling me,” she said.

Her
voice sounded parched, unused. She hadn’t realized what her body had been
through. He looked at her, his brow furrowed. Then he kissed her on the
forehead and left.

When
he came back a few minutes later, he had a glass of water.

“Drink,”
he said.

She
obeyed.

It
didn’t make her any less stubborn.

“I
told you to stop protecting me,” she said.

Roman
sat next to her, his bulk giving her warmth, his hands still free to stroke her
face.

“I
cannot,” he said. He was smiling, but sadly. “This is who I am.”

Lola
started to push herself up on her elbows, pissed off all over again, ready to
read him the riot act, when he put his hand on her chest and gently forced her
back down.

“Listen,”
he said.

He
brushed her hair away from her face again, traced the line of her jaw,
checked
to see if she was cold. She’d never seen him like
this. Never seen him so…concerned.

“Lola,”
he said, almost to himself, “I failed to protect a woman I loved.”

Her
heart stopped. Her breathing stopped. Everything: the world, it stopped
turning.

Did he mean…?

No. His wife.
His
real wife.

“You
mean Samantha?” Lola asked.

Roman
didn’t seem to notice. He only nodded. “Yes. Samantha.”

She
was almost about to speak, about to let out all the craziness, all the pent up
hopes and frustrations, when finally he spoke:

“I
failed to protect her,” he said, stroking her cheek, “and she died.”

Lola
didn’t know what to say. She let the silence settle between them, searching
Roman’s face for a clue. There wasn’t one; he kept looking at her, like…like…

“Roman,
she had a congenital heart defect,” she whispered.

He
smiled sadly. “Yes. But stress was an exacerbating factor. No, let me explain,”
he said, putting a finger to her lips and shaking his head. “I was not careful,
not as I should have been. I allowed Samantha to become involved in my
businesses. Some were in her name, for taxes or permits or…it does not even
matter. I listened to lawyers. She agreed. But it exposed her to liability. So
a competitor, he wanted to put pressure on me for a bid, so he sued Samantha.
It involved the trust that cared for her parents. I would have taken care of
anything and everything, we all knew, but Sam, she was not built for that kind
of thing. Sam was a writer, a poet. Did you know that?”

Lola
grabbed his hand, wanting to feel it warm, held in hers.

“Yes,
Roman. I knew that.”

Roman
squeezed her hand back. “She was, in a way, a stereotype.
Always
so fragile, so anxious.
Not suited for the life I led, in retrospect. It
doesn’t matter why or how—I failed. She paid. And I could never take it
if something like that ever happened to you,” he said.

He
never looked away. She couldn’t have if she’d tried.

She
didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what he wanted, what he meant. The only
thing she could hear for a long time was the beating of her own heart, the
rushing of her own blood.

And
then, all at once, she sat up and kissed him.

He
was stiff, surprised, caught off-guard. She kept kissing him. His lips, his mouth,
his body—eventually they betrayed him, just the way he always managed to
get Lola’s to betray her.

He
fell into the kiss, long and languid, balanced above her, so careful not to
crush her. Soon she convinced him not to be so gentle.

Soon
he was naked.

Soon
she had him inside her again, coaxing them both up, in sync, together, watching
him the whole way through.

It
was wordless, careless, and powerful.

And
later, when Lola woke up, he wasn’t there.

The
trip to L.A. confirmed it: Roman would not be moving away from Lola, at least
not anytime soon.

It
had been only two days, two days filled with meetings and tours of the nearly
completed construction of soon-to-be Volare LA, a stylish modification of a
formerly residential compound in Venice Beach, two days where he might have, at
another time in life, been amply distracted by the sort of beauty that was
commonplace in L.A.

Two
days of wanting Lola so badly he could almost taste her, and not having her.

It
had pissed him off.

So
much so that he barely heard Chance when he called. Only later, sitting
bleary-eyed in the limo after taking the red eye to New York, did he remember
the specifics and think,
Shit
.
Chance doesn’t want Lola to know he’s
coming home.

You did not tell Chance that you
married his cousin.

You did not tell Chance that you are
fucking his cousin.

It
didn’t seem like the type of conversation to have over the phone. Neither, for
that matter, were any of the many conversations he might choose to have with
Lola.

He
didn’t call her.

But
he did think. Mostly he thought about her, and not “them”—he thought
about her skin, how it had an almost iridescent glow in moonlight, how it
always smelled sweet, how it took on a shine when she’d begun to sweat. He
thought about the way her body stretched right before she contracted in an
orgasm. He thought about the way she tasted.

He
thought about how good it had felt to hold her, that last time. He thought
about what a fantastically stupid idea it had been to step outside the scene he
had so painstakingly created, and he thought about how he had been helpless to
do otherwise: she had been there, wanting him, asking of him, and he had been
powerless to say no. He might never be able to say no to her.

He
wanted her more than he could remember wanting anyone or anything since
Samantha.

Samantha.

He
made himself a drink in the back of the limo; it was late for him, but early
for New York. Normal rules did not apply.

Normal
rules did not apply: he could say that about the Lola situation.

He
could almost taste her again, every time he licked his lips. It felt as though
he’d been waiting ages to feel her, to see her. Two days. He didn’t care. He
jabbed at the elevator buttons with rising impatience, loosening his tie on the
ride up, his cock already twitching to life.

The
door opened on the foyer to his apartment and he charged through it with a
sudden burst of energy, ready to bury
himself
inside
her.

He
knew where she’d be; he’d forfeited the use of his own bed almost immediately
when she’d moved in without even thinking about it. He didn’t think about it
now; it didn’t seem important. A motel by the airport would have been as
desirable if that’s where she’d been sleeping.

He
rushed down the stairs, not bothering to keep quiet, although he knew from
experience that it didn’t matter much in this place—it was large enough
that the sheer volume of space dampened sound. Still, he found himself slowing,
walking with light, quiet steps as he approached what was once only his
bedroom. He’d found himself thinking of it as hers, as crazy as that was; he’d
never been totally attached to any room after Sam, so yes, it had become
Lola’s. Nothing was really his.

Except,
as he slowly opened the door to take in the sight of a nude, sleeping Lola, a
soft white sheet half covering her beautiful body, he thought:
Yes. Mine.

He
stopped, transfixed by the sight of her.

He
had never told anyone about his feelings of responsibility—of
guilt—about Samantha’s death, about his failure to protect her. He had
never even said it aloud to himself; he’d just let it fester at the heart of
him.

But
now he’d told Lola. He still didn’t know why. But he did know this: he
felt…lighter. It had confirmed, obviously, everything he felt about his need to
protect Lola, even from himself. But now that he felt that she understood, it
was easier. He’d always been confident that she knew he didn’t involve himself
romantically, but now that she had some inkling as to why…