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“Are you wet everywhere, pet?” He asked it as he gathered both her wrists into one of his hands, securing them at the small of her back. He started up her thigh with his other hand, fishing beneath her skirt for the treasure of her sweet, hot core. She started to writhe, her movements seeming both protest and plea. He decided to heed the latter. The last ninety-six hours had been as much a hell for her, he’d bet solid money on it. She needed this last connection as badly as he did.

“Oh,” she stammered again. “Ahhh!” She yelped as he found the line of her panties. He tilted his face and caught her bottom lip with his teeth.

“Sssshhh, honey.” He grinned, certain he could taste her rising lust on her mouth. “Unless you
want
everyone to know what I’m doing to you in here? What I’m about to do?”

“No!” She retorted it as her hips bucked, just as his fingers wafted over the warmth of her pussy. “I mean
no
, Mark! You can’t! We…can’t…do—”

He shook his head. “
No
isn’t a safe word, Rose. Neither is
can’t
. Besides, you still haven’t given me an answer to my question, have you?” He tugged her panties down with two jerks, then slipped a finger between her moist curls, right into the heart of her steaming, tight sex. “I’ve had to go and find the answer for myself. And what have I discovered? Ohhh, you
are
wet everywhere, my love. Very much so.”

“Yes.” It was a strangle of sound now. Her head fell back as her face betrayed what her mind wouldn’t yet accept. “B-but that doesn’t mean we should—
Oh
!”

Her cry came as he pulled out his finger, only to deliver a firm swat across her whole mound.

He brought his hand down harder. “One spank for making me answer my own question.” He gave the command with his lips still against hers. “And another for making me seek the answer to my own question. Third and last, you’ll take a hard swat for protesting your Sir when he wants to give you a fucking to remember him by.”

He gave her the third blow with even more force, and she reacted with a long, needy whimper. Christ, she floored him. This woman was custom molded in heaven to be a submissive. The very tint of her skin changed, a delicious flush now illuminating her from within. He finally released her lips though he lingered close, mingling his breaths with hers, transfixed by watching her arousal transform her.

“Now…pop quiz,” he challenged. “What does a good subbie say when her discipline is done?”

She swallowed deeply, then whispered back, “Thank you, Sir.”

He crushed his lips to hers. “My good little student.”

To his shock, a little wince creased her features. “Yes,” she said, returning the intensity of his stare now, letting him see the sorrow in hers. “Yours. Always.” Tears threatened the rest. “Damn it—”

“No.” He issued the retaliation from tight teeth. He released her hands to clutch the back of her head. “Stop it, Rose. Not now. Reality is still thirty-thousand feet below us. You won’t think about that. You’ll focus on this, on us, on remembering every second of this. Do you understand?” He gripped her harder when all he received was a fast little nod. “I don’t think I heard that, pet.”

“Yes.” With the admission came the heavy-lidded gaze and parted lips that told him she meant it, that she was slowly dipping into the misty, magical mental state to which he loved taking her the most. “Yes, Sir.”

He returned a rough hum of approval, and she melted even more in his arms. He felt his mind careen with hers, spiraling higher into that incredible place where he was full, uninhibited Dom.
Her
Dom. God, how he loved her for this. The power filled him, pumping into his veins and muscles, making him grip her harder, causing her to writhe and tremble in delicious little waves.

Her movement made her underwear slip farther down, loosening at her knees, then plummeting to her ankles. “Take them off the rest of the way,” Mark ordered. “Then give them to me.”

He watched her bend in compliance, hissing as her cheek slid along his crotch, especially when she stopped and nipped at the pounding ridge there. With a rush of impatience, he pulled her up. He yanked the panties from her grip, loving the heat in her stare as he lifted them to his nose.

“Ambrosia.” He breathed deeply, the scent of her sex hitting him like an exotic drug. She let out a jagged sigh. “You smell like passion and fire, pet. Like sweet, exquisite surrender. And completely like
mine
.”

She gasped into his mouth as he tossed the panties into the sink and then captured her lips again. This time he kissed her with brutal force, stabbing his tongue into the depths of her throat, letting her know exactly what he planned to do next. She was a miniearthquake in his arms when he set her free, her lips parted, her eyes closed, her nostrils flared. “Yes,” he hissed. “Yes, pet. Give it all to me!”

The plane’s intercom dinged, and one of the attendants announced they’d be descending for Chicago soon. “Shit!” Rose sobbed.

“You’re not going anywhere.” As if concurring, his dick all but tore its way free from the jeans he’d worn for “comfort.” He ripped at the button, then the fly, clenching the moan back into his throat as his hard, heavy length sprang free. Without wasting time, he jammed her skirt back up with both hands. He grunted with pleasure as his touch met the generous curves of her thighs, the pulsing heat of her pussy. Swiping fingers through the folds beneath her pubic hair, he found her soaked and swollen. She let out an awkward snort of her own, obviously muting her own lusty cry, and it had to be the sexiest damn thing he’d ever heard.

“Touch me too,” he said into her ear. “Put your hand around me. Guide my cock into your cunt, pet.”

Her fingers were heaven. They dragged at his base first, exploring him, one of her fingers tracing the thick vein at the underside. When he encouraged her with a hard gasp, she wrapped and stroked until she got to his hood, where his throbbing head was already covered in generous precum.

“You’re wet too.”

“It means I can’t wait to be inside you.” He bit hard on the back of her nape to keep himself from exploding in her hand. “Honey, I didn’t bring a condom. Has there been anyone for you since Owen?”

She gave a wry smile and shook her head. “You don’t even have to worry about him, Sir.”

He popped a wide stare. “So you were a virgin when we…”

“No, no.” Her cheeks bloomed. “But let’s say it’d been a while before that.”

“Oh, Rosalind.” He kissed her fast to ensure her his chastising tone wasn’t meant for her. She got the point, gripping his cock harder, giving him so much of herself even down to the magic of her fingertips. “There’s been no one for me since Heather,” he told her, letting her press his head past her curls, between her folds. “There’ll be no one after you.”

Her face crumpled. Soft tears fell from her passion-filled gaze. “I love you, Sir. That won’t change. That’ll never change!”

“And I love you, pet.”

And then he was gone. Devoured by her body. Consumed by her heat. Drowned in her love.

As soon as he was buried in her core, Rose wrapped her arms around his neck. He hiked both her thighs around his waist, using the angle to get even deeper, to take them both even higher. He heard the flight crew bustling around on the other side of the door, oblivious to the No-Fires code he and Rose were blatantly violating in this little compartment. He had to grind their pace instead of pound it, increasing the friction to her clit more than he ever had before. Within minutes she started to gasp and shudder, her fingernails digging into his scalp and nape, wordlessly begging him for release. No, Mark vowed. Not yet. Not without one last precious gift of submission from her.

He turned his mouth against her ear and released a deep growl. “Beg me for it. Tell me what you need.”

She burrowed her face into his neck and whispered her reply. “Please let me come, Master. I need to come for you.”

Master.

A joyous smile ignited him with the sound of it. So much better than
Senator.

“Yes, pet. Master says you can come.”

Her orgasm hit two seconds later. It turned her pussy into a vise around him, milking his raging fireball of a release. He dug his hands into her ass as he pumped his seed into her, as an equally amazing thought crossed his mind. If they got lucky, he’d just planted a baby inside her too. And if they had to move to goddamn Timbuktu to raise the child, he’d throw on a loincloth and be the happiest bastard on the globe for it.

But right now they were headed for Chicago. The attendant shattered their reverie with her pestering
ding
again, directing everyone on board to get back into their seats and prepare for the landing at O’Hare. With a quiet curse, he set Rose down and helped her get cleaned up. When she reached for her underwear, however, he shook his head.

“I’m keeping these. Special last-time souvenir.” He jammed them into his pocket.

She giggled and shook her head as he unlocked the door, acting as recon for their escape from the bathroom. He nodded to her, then grabbed her hand and led her out. But when they got back into the cabin, he tugged her into the seat next to his. If only for a few minutes more, she still belonged at his side. And right now, he didn’t give a flying fuck who saw that or who knew.

And that included his own daughter.

Who looked up and flashed a huge grin at them both.

He scooped Rose’s hand into his as she caught Dasha’s look too. His little submissive blinked like she’d just been shown a crazy magic trick, but the moment was over as fast as it occurred. Dasha was now busy giggling at some joke between Pennington and Moridian as the three of them buckled in. Mark shook his head and chuckled. The way those two men fawned over her was, from his point of view, sharpened at times on a stone of solid strange, but he couldn’t deny that Dasha had never glowed more in her life. If the pair wanted to keep dueling for her love like a couple of dandies in heat, then so be it. After all, especially now, he was the last one to throw stones at
anyone’s
unconventional courting methods.

He turned his attention back to the woman who proved those words more true than anyone. He didn’t look out the window, even as they landed and taxied to the gate. The minutes screamed by, and he wished that maybe, just maybe, if he kept staring at her and gripping her, something would change. Fate would really throw him the big brass fucking ring. She’d look at him and tell him Timbuktu didn’t sound like a bad idea. Better yet, she’d grin and say, “Shane who?” Best of all, she’d get up out of that seat, keeping her fingers curled in his, and say with a smile, “Please take me home, Master.”

The fantasy—and the hope—faded from his heart as she slipped her hand back.

He craved one last glance, one final gaze, but her face was already ducked away. Her shoulders were hunched, even as she stood and jerked through the motions of reorganizing things in her bag.

It was unavoidable. He reached out again, clamping her elbow. “Rose.”

She pressed her fingers atop his. “Be happy, okay?” she whispered. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Goddamn it!” He cleared his throat and sucked in a breath. “
You
make me happy!”

He forced himself into silence as she fell back into her seat, curling in on herself. If he forced this issue, if he continued beating her with all of it, then he was just as much a selfish dickwad as her brother. He had to respect what she’d decided, no matter how much this felt like a limb amputation, Civil War-style. No morphine. No clean tools. No mercy. No sanity left at the end.

“All right,” he finally muttered. “All right.”

He refused to say good-bye. Because despite everything, even now, he was still a tenacious, optimistic, odds-fucking fool.

Chapter Eighteen

Rose’s hands, clutched in her lap, were drenched with her tears by the time she raised her head again. Her motive for the move was purely selfish. She needed one last look. Even if she could only gaze at his proud, broad back, she’d have one last drop of his presence to last her until the heartache set in and—

Fear gashed into her. He’d already gotten off the plane. Just about everyone else had too. How long had she been sitting here?

Worst of all, how far had he gotten during those wasted minutes?

“Shit!”

She surged to her feet, grabbing her purse and racing up the plane’s center aisle. The flight attendant yelled after her, protesting about the laptop and carry-on she’d left behind, but she barely heard through the ringing in her ears. She needed to see him again. She needed to—

“Oh God.” She stopped short, her feet feeling like concrete blocks. Her words were more sobs than syllables. They came from the depths of an understanding that had come so damn late…
too damn late
. She’d slept through the alarm, hadn’t she? She now had the answer, but destiny had rescinded its offer.

“I don’t need to
see
him. I need to be with him. I need
him
.”

“And he needs you, Rose.”

She gasped. The words had come from a face that looked so much like his. From lips as strong and conviction-filled as his. From eyes that glowed with tawny warmth like his.

“D-Dasha,” she stammered. “I’m so confused!”

The young woman laughed. “Yeah. Love will do that to you.”

She winced. “Shit. So…you know?”

Dasha took her hands. “Rose. He’s my
dad
. I’ve known since about thirty seconds after you walked into the classroom last week.” Her grip tightened. “And I think it’s wonderful. And there are
a lot
of other people who will agree with me.”

Joy and love dueled against disbelief and doubt in her heart. “Oh, hell. We’re not a magazine-cover couple. I’ve got quirks. A lot of them.”

She’d hardly gotten that out when Dasha let out a long, loud giggle. She finished it by pulling her into a fierce hug. “Girlfriend, you don’t know the half of my quirks.”

Rose still shook her head. “What do I do?”