Permanent Marker (11 page)

“More.” He dug his fingers into her soft skin, fully intending to leave marks. “I need more, honey. Spread your legs wider. Tighten your muscles inside. Pull me deeper.
Deeper
. Take every inch, Rose!”

Her face twisted tight as she struggled to obey. It was a more stunning sight than any sunset this island could conjure. When she cried out from the extra depth he gained, he gritted his teeth in a pleased smile.

“Good,” he murmured. “Very good. You’re so good for me.” As reward, he reached and loosened the belt, coaxing her arms forward. “Hang on tight, pet. This is going to be a great ride.”

Her arms flung around his shoulders. The belt was still looped around one of her wrists, so the leather smacked his back with her motion. He groaned with the hot, stinging bite of it. The breeze became gusts now. Water spanked the sides of the pool. He kept time, taking her so hard that their bodies slapped. The smell of rain touched the air. Fitting. His senses were a storm already. He buried his face in Rose’s neck, losing himself in her racing heartbeat, her tight body, and her panting, needing submission.

“Give it to me,” he ordered into her ear. “Shatter for me, pet. Scream with it. Surrender to it.”

Two more thrusts, and she was a ball of thorough obedience. Her cry, high and keening, hit the air like lightning and his balls like wildfire. As she shuddered with her orgasm, her walls convulsing around him, the flames shot up his shaft. His orgasm hit in a wild, hard rush. Silver specks danced in his vision. He couldn’t think, and for a second, that panicked him. He’d never been unable to keep control, to be aware of outside elements as he took a sub to completion, especially in a chaise lounge on an island resort with a spring storm approaching.

But Rose was no ordinary submissive.

Rose was no ordinary anything.

As equilibrium returned, he actually chuckled at the thought. The description had come upon him so easily, and he wasn’t about to take back a word of it. Because it was all true.

Rose arched her neck, shuddering from the little movement of his mouth. “Holy. Shit.” It came out on a pair of gasps. “Are you
laughing?
I can…barely…think.”

He kissed the ridge beneath her ear. “Because you, my sweet, submissive girl, didn’t just come out of the kinkster closet. You tumbled.”

She snorted. “I was pushed.”

He moved his lips along her jaw, nibbling his way to her mouth. “We’re at an impasse, hmm?” After giving her a swift kiss, he flashed an enigmatic smile. “Maybe we’ll need a do-over, then.”

She turned her face at that, looking delectable even in her confusion. When she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, he took the chance to run gentle fingers over her wrist. The skin was still scuffed, but would likely clear up in a few hours. He pulled his fingers back, then replaced them with his mouth. No kisses this time. He licked her skin instead. Yet just as her breath jolted a little faster, spurring his tiny laves into broader swipes, fat raindrops began plopping on them.

“Pool party’s over, pet.” He adjusted her blouse back into place. Trusting that her skirt would drop down of its own accord when she stood—or maybe not, and that was all the better—he rose and yanked on his pants, barely zipping before he picked up his briefs and her shoes, then reached for her. “Come.” At her second of hesitation, he quipped, “I’d make some excuse about not wanting you to get wet, but I have a hunch you’d see through me.”

That thawed her quiet awkwardness a little. As they walked into the villa, she replied, “It’s perfect timing, anyhow. Now nobody will question the state of my clothes.”

He stopped when they got inside. “Why would anyone question your clothes?”

It was a rhetorical question. He practically read the answer in the glance she gave the door, but he was going to make her voice it, anyhow. “It’s not a short walk back to my room, Senator. And it’s not too late yet. People will still be up. And—”

“And what if I kept you here until it
is
too late?”

He cupped her shoulder. She wrenched and turned. He allowed it, but if she thought he was going to let her lunge out that door, dismissing what they’d just done like nothing more than a summer storm, the woman was delusional.

He watched her shoulders hunch as she crossed her arms. Her whole bearing edged back toward watchful caution. He wanted to shake her—to knock free the bricks of those walls he could see her erecting again.

She set free a resigned sigh. “Is this where you tell me we need to talk?”

Mark shifted forward, planting a wide stance behind her. He peeled off his shirt, so when she glanced back—and he suspected she would—she’d have to confront him in nothing but his skin, conviction, and command. Devious? Yes. But necessary? Also affirmative. There were more ways to knock down her bricks than the obvious.

“We can get there by talking. Or any other means necessary.”

“Get where?” She turned, then gaped. “Uh, okay. Look…Sena—”

“Oh, no. Don’t you go there. You’re not hiding me behind the ‘Senator’ thing. Not now.” He closed on her by another step. “You’re still dealing with me as a man, Rose. As Mark. As Sir. And you’re dealing with yourself and what you’ve just discovered about yourself. No sweeping this under the rug. No pretending it didn’t happen.” He leaned in, pulling her arms apart now, holding them at her sides. “No forgetting how you came apart for me. How you flew. How we both did.”

The energy of her sob filled the air before the sound of it. “Damn it! You don’t understand!” Despite the dismissal, she gripped his forearms like driftwood in a flood. “I have to forget, okay? I can’t fly. I’ll fall. Can’t you see that? I’ll fall far, and it’ll hurt. And I won’t be able to heal the damage this time. I won’t be…able to…”

The tears took over her voice, and her pain took over his heart. He enveloped her hands in his own and slid them up around his neck, swearing if he ever met the people responsible for this disgusting mental programming, he hoped it was in a crowd. In close quarters, he doubted the bridge between his rage and his fists would stay intact.

“You won’t fall, sweetheart.” He tucked her head into his chest. “I swear it. I won’t let you.”

She softened, just a little, against him. She fit there so perfectly, smelling of rain and vanilla and sex, surrounding his senses, unchaining his soul.

“Rose,” he whispered. “
Rosalind
. Sweet pet…” The last of it died in the beginning of their kiss, a consummation of tongues and lips and need. A mewl swirled up her throat, unfastening his self-restraint by a dozen more latches. He ended the kiss by twisting a hand into her hair and pulling hard. She hissed as her head arched back, a sound mixed of pain and pleasure, and that drove him to sink his teeth into the flawless column of her neck.

“Y-you have to s-stop calling me th-that,” she stammered.

He went for the sleek line of her jugular. “Hmm. All right. If you really don’t like it…”

“I love it.” She tunneled her fingers into his hair. “Which is why you need to stop.”

He growled against her skin. “That, my
pet
, is called topping from the bottom. And if you’re not careful, it’ll get you punished.”

Her hands stilled against his scalp. She tugged her head back, tilting her gaze, catching his eyes with a look he’d not seen from her before. Her face quirked with mischief. Holy hell, was the little minx playing with him? Testing him? Every entrancing veil in her gaze said yes. But he saw she assessed herself as well, wondering if she could trust what he’d been trying to ram into her head since last night, if she could really believe her desire was beautiful, acceptable.

Mark’s reaction made itself known from his waist down. If she didn’t know his stance on defiance before, she sure as hell felt it now. He hadn’t buttoned up completely, and now his cock threatened to take down his zipper on its own.

To make matters worse, she sucked in her bottom lip by a few coy degrees. “Punishment? For topping from
what
bottom? I’m not on the bottom.”

He tossed his head back, laughing loud. “And that wasn’t very careful!”

She smiled a little, getting ready to pop off a victorious giggle, until he bent over and flung her all the way over his shoulder.

“Aggghhh!”

He gripped her thigh with a savoring snarl. “Beautiful scream. Go ahead and give me another, honey. My ears don’t care, but my cock’s listening loud and clear.”

“Damn it! Senator! Wait—
Owww
!”

Her finishing howl came with the smack he dropped to the curve of her ass. “Call me Senator again, and it’ll hurt twice as much. You were warned, Rose. And as long as we’re at it—” He added another spank, though this one was less intense. “That’s a reminder about the not so little attempt to top.”

“I didn’t know that’s what it was!” Her protest was filled with genuine outrage. But her body conveyed another message. There wasn’t an ounce of resistance in her muscles, even as he took her to the bedroom with purposeful strides.

“Right.” He drew out the word in disbelief, just as Dante had an hour ago. He forced his face to convey the same thing as he flipped her over, tossing her to the center of the bed. It was damn hard to hold his scowl. She was so adorable. He gazed at her, damp and sputtering, her skirt nearly hiked to her waist again, giving him tantalizing peeks at her bare mound. She gaped at him with eyes that burned with dark bronze radiance.

“What the— I was just—”

“Wondering why you weren’t on the bottom.” He curled fists to his hips, standing at the foot of the bed. “Which fit perfectly with my own dilemma, wondering why you keep denying the magic of who you can be. So here you are, Rose.”

She pushed on her elbows. Then gave a moue of resignation. “On the bottom.”

“On the bed,” he clarified. “On the
bottom
comes next, unless you take the invitation now to get up and leave. The choice is still very much yours. But let me be clear. We’re beyond talking about this. And I’m beyond chasing you. If you stay, you give up the choice to run from me, at least for tonight. If you stay, you’re giving yourself—and your control—to me, for the entire night. If you stay, I’m going to do everything in my power to seduce you, command you, and fuck you into seeing the gift of who you are, what you want, what you need. I’m going to do it as many times as it takes, until you believe me.” He savored the disconcerted flutter of her lashes, and the way her breathing intensified. “You’ll sleep eventually because you need to for instruction tomorrow, but you’ll do it at my side, in my arms. Everything clear?”

Her face showed a kaleidoscope of feelings as he finished the ultimatum. And yeah, ultimatum was the best way of putting it. Fuck subtlety. He was done with that, if they could even get away with the label for where they’d been so far. What they’d even tasted so far with each other was worth honesty in its most ruthless form. This woman…fed him. Satiated an awesome, long-dormant beast in him. And whether she accepted the truth of it or not, he’d awakened an answering animal in her too. He wanted more of that creature. He wanted to give
her
more. What she could discover beneath his touch…the fathoms of herself, of her beauty…
hell
. He was going to be hard-pressed to teach her all of it in the week they had left, but he was sure as hell willing to try.

But if he had to shove his beast down again, he needed to know now.

Otherwise, his Dom was going to break free completely—and enjoy a nice, extended stay in the magnificent landscape of Rose Fabian’s mind, body, and soul.

Chapter Ten

Rose tried to look away from him. God, she needed some balance. Just a second of escape from the maelstrom of her senses, for which
he
was responsible. But her stare kept gravitating to him alone.

He reminded her of a caged, enraged lion. Yet his words had made things clear.
She
held the key to that cage. If she got up and walked out now, his confinement would remain intact. Those precious, pounding, consuming moments outside would remain a secret forever, for the two of them alone. A beautiful, inescapable memory. A night she’d undoubtedly play over and over for the rest of her life, remembering the man who’d seen into the untamed depths of her soul, shone his golden gaze on it, and made her feel, for once… Perfect.

The word became a taunt in her head as she fell to the coverlet and threw both arms over her face. Why the hell had she given in? Why had she come here tonight? Why, damn it, had he given her a taste of perfect, knowing she couldn’t choose more for all the right, logical, sane reasons and knowing she’d throw them all away to get just one more bite.

She balled her hands, swiped them across her stinging eyes, and rose to a sitting position. She tucked both legs tucked beneath the ass that still stung a little from his whacks.

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

Mark’s voice, full of gravel and command, brought back how he’d made her feel out by the pool. Drenched in his power. Lost in his control. Reveling in the open flood of his lust. And yes, even loving how he’d bound her. Ohhhh, yeah. Loving that part the most. In confusing, terrifying, I’m-going-to-lose-myself-completely ways.

Now she was really scared.

The conclusion beat harder into her blood as he climbed onto the bed with her, one leg after the other. Rose swallowed. Were his thighs always built like a racehorse, or did she just notice now because he flexed them with such authority?

He pulled her up next to him so their kneeling poses matched. He kept his hands on her shoulders, kneading her skin with deep, assessing strokes. “You’re trembling.”

“Y-yeah.”

“Are you cold?”

She pulled in a breath. His scent filled her head, wild and wet, like the storm gathering force outside. “No.”

He inhaled too. Then he trailed his fingertips down her arms, stopping at her wrists. “It turns me on.”

His voice was a serration of sound, sending quivers into the extremes of her body. When she raised her gaze over the balanced ridges of his abdomen, she stopped at the solid planes of his pecs. His nipples were rock hard with arousal.