by Angel Payne
“What?” His voice was a husky, mesmeric cadence in her head. She loved it. She hated it. She wanted the one command he wouldn’t give. “What is it, Dasha?” he pressed. “Tell me what you feel. Tell me what I do to you.”
She swallowed. “T-tah-tingles,” she stammered. Form the words. You can do this. Probably. Hopefully. “And…tremors. Even my skin is shaking. Tiny earthquakes, everywhere.”
“Good,” he praised. “Good, baby. What else?”
“You—you make me need it. God, David, please!”
“I make you need what?” He slowed by just a half beat, purposely waiting. Then commanding with deep deliberation, “Say it. Give me the words. All of it, Dasha.”
His emphasis dipped only a little. But that tiny scoop delved into a giant pool of meaning. All of it, Dasha. He was asking—no, ordering—something different with this second union of their bodies. Something deeper than what he did to her physically. He wanted to know what was going on in her head, her heart. And that was a white flag she couldn’t give.
She rolled her face to the side, avoiding his gaze. “Please—can’t we just—”
At once, he went still. “Just what?”
Maybe a coy come-on would distract him from the scary stuff. She grabbed his ass and playfully bit her lip. “Please, Sir. Let’s just have a little fun.”
She always knew he wasn’t like other men. He proved it the next second by pulling out of her and rocking back on his knees. She gasped in shock, but he leveled back a stare as silken as one of his Italian ties. “I want to give you what you need, sweetheart, but we’re not going any further without the words.”
Dasha blinked in deeper amazement as he peeled the condom off his cock, which was clearly still ready to go at her. She almost laughed but realized there wasn’t a chance in hell David would join her. Instead, he gave her the stare she always referred to as “sharpened murder dagger.”
Then, unbelievably, the bastard rose with more sinewy grace than a knight-errant finishing off a kill. Only she didn’t recall any medieval hero reaching back to offer a hand of assistance to his prey. Not that she was calling him a hero. A few terms came to mind but definitely not hero. She drove that point home by giving him nothing except her glower.
“Let me get this straight,” she snapped. “You’ll help me get to my feet, but you won’t help me when I’m pinned on the floor underneath you, begging you to—to—”
“To what?” It was a sincere request, given in that new voice she’d never heard from him before tonight.
New voice. She mentally chalked it up as a new addition on a fast-growing list.
Still with that maddening calm, David stepped to the waste can, throwing in the condom and her ruined panties. He slid his pants back on and zipped up in silence. And yeah, he still stole her breath with every confident movement. Damn him.
As he got back into his shirt, he tilted a softer look down to her. “I didn’t make the request to torment you, Dasha.”
“Request?” She huffed. “Is that what you call it?” She balled up, pulling her knees to her chin. But he wasn’t going to let her get away with such an easy retreat. He crouched in front of her, lifting her chin with his finger.
“I didn’t make you answer me, did I?”
She nailed him a nice, are-you-fucking-serious glare. “You didn’t make it that easy to take the pass!”
To her deepening fury, he dropped his hand, rested his elbows on both knees, and chuckled. “If I’d wanted to make you dread your reticence, I would’ve done so. Have no doubt about that.”
Dasha didn’t give a peep of retort to that. His promise, given with such knowing confidence, actually stopped her heart for a moment, which did the strangest things to the juices still making acquaintance in her pussy. Death by arousal, anyone?
“Fine,” she finally said. “So you granted me mercy—”
“Damn straight I did.”
“But from what?” Now she did look away. “Deliberately pushing me like that… What were you trying to accomplish? We were having a wonderful time—well, at least I thought we were—but then you pushed in with the mind-fuck, and—” She looked back when half a snicker spilled from him. “All right, what? What’s so funny? Is that all part of your domination thing? To screw a girl’s thoughts as you’re screwing other things?”
David mellowed his humor to a smile, though, oddly, his stare became a cutlass of intensity. When he reached and thumbed some hair off her cheek, she started wishing for his arrogance again. She knew that part of him. Could predict it. And yeah, could somewhat control it.
“Keep talking,” he encouraged. “I couldn’t be making my point better myself.”
“Huh?”
He slid his hand to her nape. “Most women—most people—wouldn’t have considered that a mind-fuck.”
“What?”
She jerked, but he held her fast. “As a matter of fact, most people enjoy getting asked to unveil their desires, to voice what they want without restraint. And you?” He tilted his head again. “You, my beautiful thing, are amazing at listening to needs, to fulfilling desires…”
“But?” She filled in the implied word.
“But when it comes time to ask for something you want…” His face tightened. “There’s a disconnect button.”
Again, she attempted to pull back. Again, David held her in place. “Disconnect button?” She snorted. “My ass there is!”
“Your ass is one of my new obsessions, but let’s leave my plans for it out of the discussion until we talk about your head.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my—”
“Oh yeah? Dasha, you almost fell off the stage in the first set of shoes Valentina designed for the tour, and yet you didn’t tell her to alter them for fear of hurting her feelings. You constantly let the dancers have the better suites at hotels. While we’re on that subject, you’d rather freeze in your own room than make a simple call for an extra blanket. Two nights ago, the restaurant brought you salmon instead of chicken, and you refused to send it back.”
He finally pulled back, looking again like a damn CG hero. Cocky. Sexy. Infuriating. Dasha clung to the last tag to fire her comeback. “Valentina spent three weeks working on those shoes, okay? There are eight dancers on this tour and one of me; do the math on the rooms assignment. As far as the blanket, I haven’t caught pneumonia yet, right? And the salmon was delicious, so it was win-win.”
“Win-win.” His repetition came on tight lips. “So that’s what you call it. And it’s win-win every time you smile through one of your dad’s classic flake-outs too?”
Pain clamped her chest. Dasha huddled tighter. If she scrunched tight enough, maybe the horrid, hot agony would leave her alone. “Damn you, David. That’s not fair.”
“Right. And what the senator does to you is fair?”
“My father has nothing to do with this.”
“Your father has everything to do with this.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re lying to him, Dasha. Every time you swallow down your hurt at his no-shows and tell him everything’s fine and make up excuses for his neglect, when it’s secretly tearing you up…those are lies. To him and to you.”
She had no luck on blocking out the pain. It invaded with its usual, ruthless vigor. “You can’t know what it’s like for him! Mom died right after he got into the Senate. There was nobody there for him—”
“There was nobody there for you either!”
He had more than that to fire off, she was sure of it. But David locked it back so hard, she heard his teeth smash together.
Finally, he let out a hard huff. “Look, I’m not denying how tough it’s been for him. But the loss was also yours.”
“But I had my music to help me through, and a lot of friends. Dad…he had a shitload of bills to vote on and a state full of people relying on him.”
“So you weren’t allowed to rely on him too?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.
”
His jaw scissored. “And there’s our issue.”
She managed a frustrated frown. “Excuse me?”
“It’s what you’re not saying that’s gotten us here.” He said it as he brushed her cheek again, the movement so tender…and sad. And scaring her. “And it’s what will stop us cold from going any further too.”
It sounded very much like a good-bye.
Now she was really scared.
“David, what are you saying?”
“I’m not going to keep playing therapist here,” he stated. “But I also can’t be with someone who thinks she has to edit her truth for fear of it being wrong. D/s is also sometimes called Total Power Exchange—and there’s a reason I seek it in my sexual relationships, D. It’s not just about a great fuck.”
“And you think that’s all I’m after?”
“I know it’s not what you’re after.” His anger was oddly comforting. Maybe this wasn’t good-bye. “But listen to what I said. Total. Power. Exchange. D, I’m going to ask you to give your body to me in ways you never imagined. And I know you’ll rely on me to keep you safe. But how can I rely on you in return?”
She frowned. “I…don’t understand.”
“I have to know when I’m pushing a limit for you, when I’ve gone too far. I can’t doubt for a second that you’re holding back or that you’re afraid of ruining things or that you’re thinking about the hard day I might have had, and just want to please me…” He stopped then, probably noting how her face continued to tighten. “Any of this sound familiar?”
Dasha looked away for a second. “All right,” she admitted. “Yes, you’re right.”
“I don’t want to be right. I want to be real. I want us to be real. The success of D/s relies on honesty, even when it’s hard. Even when it’s not a perfect political sound bite. You have to trust that your Other brings their full truth to the table all the time, every time.”
She looked back up. Instantly, she was lost in his gaze, his radiating intensity. “And I will,” she told him. “I will, David.”
He leaned in, relentless with his closeness now. “Really?” His brows went tight, his gaze a dark silver lake. “I barely tapped on the walls of your limits tonight, and you started flinging bricks back at me.” He shifted his hands to encircle both of hers. “If we’re going to go any further, then the bricks have to become dust, Dasha, not weapons. I’m not the enemy.”
To her shock, the backs of her eyes started to sting. “I know.”
“I think part of you does.” He gently pulled her into his lap. “You just gotta convince the rest of you to join the party.”
She nodded, slipping her hand beneath his half-buttoned shirt, feeling the warm, steady throb of his heart—and trying to calm the torment of hers. The last time she’d experienced this, she’d been waiting in the wings at Lincoln Center, waiting to perform for Dad, the president, and three thousand invited dignitaries and VIPs. Translation: she’d been terrified out of her mind.
Still, she swallowed and forced her next words out. “I’m going to try. I promise.”
One side of his mouth curled upward, giving him the look of a sweet but devious satyr. “I think that’s a wonderful promise.” Then he brought that mouth to hers in a kiss that stole her senses…and held a million promises of its own.
* * * *
Two weeks later, Dasha downsized that expectation. By about a million.
It wasn’t that numbers weren’t on her mind. They’d finished the next seven cities of the tour. She’d done twice as many photo shoots, given four times that many interviews, had lost track of the number of corporate sponsors she’d met and schmoozed with. Her head was a basket of lottery balls, it was so filled with numbers.
Which made the contrasting zero she got from David a more torturous mystery by the day.
Zero: the number of times he’d touched her after they’d left her dressing room at the Garden.
Zero: the number of glances he’d given her beyond his typical, encouraging winks.
Zero: the amount of interest he’d expressed, even when she e-researched a hundred BDSM articles and blogs in front of him.
Zero: the thoughts she was barely able to give anything else after getting all that knowledge and aching to talk about it with him. And aching in other parts of herself too…to make it all happen with him.
Five hundred: the number of occasions she thought about wringing his beautiful, horrible neck.
She tried, rather unsuccessfully, not to entertain such thoughts as she entered the Viceroy Miami Hotel suite they’d deemed the tour crew office. Okay, she barged in more than entered, but semantics fed the least of her tension as she threw down her key card and all but one of her shopping bags, then threw a glare around the room.
The empty room.
Ugh. One splashy entrance of fury, now wasted. She was actually late for the four p.m. meet-up David had requested, but a bunch of fans had recognized her during the shopping trip in Bal Harbour, and she couldn’t refuse their autograph requests. The driver told her David was okay with the delay…
And maybe you should stop trying to read his mind, since that’s been such a success for you the last two weeks.
Nevertheless, that was exactly what she did with the sudden solitude. Once more she hit the mental Back button, replaying those last moments from New York, trying to see how they’d gotten from her heartfelt promise and that tender kiss to…this. Whatever this was.
Ivory Berber cushioned her heavy steps across the spacious living room. She’d told him she’d try to open her heart and meant it. She’d accepted his kiss and treasured it. She’d thought they’d work together on her emotional “bricks,” though she had less than half a clue what David had meant—but she knew she’d work at it for him.
A serrated sigh fell from her. She wrapped her arms close as she stopped at the suite’s huge windows. Forty-eight floors down, the lights of Biscayne Boulevard sparkled in the twilight, a silver-and-chartreuse strand winding along the water. One of the sliders to the balcony was opened by a couple feet, adding a sultry touch of late July warmth to the arctic blasts of the hotel’s air-co. She smiled a little, recognizing David had done it for her, as he knew how much she hated icebox hotel air.
“You’re back. Good.”
She spun even though his statement came on a silken tone. She tried to stash her emotions, but just the sight of him tore those barricades down in a second. His classic mouth was bordered by a fringe of dark stubble. His hair, slightly damp from sweat, spiked in a bunch of sexy directions. The rest of him, encased in a snug black tank and matching training pants, looked pretty freaking fine too. She frantically tried to get the barricades back up. Down they crashed again as he flipped his exercise towel over a shoulder and closed the door with a backward kick. He did both without taking his gaze off her.
“Really?” she finally got out. “And why is that?”
“There’s a stack of glossies for the radio station promos tomorrow. I need your sig on them.”
“Oh.” Only by sheer force did she keep her disappointment from bleeding on her flippancy. “Fine. Cool. Whatever.” She thrust the bag into his hand on her way to the desk. “Hand me a Sharpie while you open your present.”
“Present?” The Composure King cracked a little. His tone warmed like honey in the sun. “What’s the occasion? Did I forget my own birthday?”
“No.” She sat down at the desk. Eyes on the pictures. Eyes on the pictures. “Not your birthday.”
“Wow. It’s beautiful. Italian silk in red. These are my favorite ties.”
She concentrated on regulating her breathing. And restraining her retort to her head. You think I don’t know that?
“So…if not my birthday…why?”
Because maybe it’ll pull open whatever door I slammed in you?
The arctic air-co kicked on again. Cars honked on the boulevard. All that noise filled the atmosphere—paling in comparison to the cacophony of tension betwee
n them.
Finally, David dug into that pause with a muttered oath. Then gritted, “Fine. I’m not going to drag it out of you, Dasha. Let me get your pen, and you can be on your way—”
“Fuck you!”
She instantly longed to pull back the words, never uttered in the five years between them. Until she saw the glints in David’s eyes, stabbing her from across the room, almost as if congratulating her.
“Fuck you,” she repeated, fighting for an even keel to her voice. The effort was hell, considering her barricades were rubble now. “Okay, David? Are you happy? I’m pissed as hell at you. How’s that for a reason? How dare you! Haven’t you noticed a second of my confusion these last two weeks? My agony? How I’ve been trying to understand things better, to learn what you need from me as a submissive and a lover?”
His gaze gleamed silver bright now. “I’ve noticed every second.”
“Then what the hell? You’ve just chosen to, what, wait me out on this?”
He took a long breath, but damn him, that maddening poise stayed intact. But then Dasha looked closer. A vein pulsed in his jaw. When he spoke again, his tone was strung a degree tighter.
“Hadn’t been my first choice. But a lot of times, the right one isn’t.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” She bolted up, needing to pace. To give him a physical demonstration of her fury and frustration. “I don’t get this bullshit, David. And nowhere, in anything I’ve read, does it say I have to put up with it.”
The twitch disappeared as he tilted his head. “You’re completely right,” he said with steely calm. “But that’s been your choice to make.”
Dasha wondered, for a strange second, if the reason he stared so hard at her was the bruise she certainly sported across her forehead now, the one from beating her head against his wall of cryptic crap. “Damn it, David!”
As fast as the words left her, he shot a hand out and vise-gripped it around her arm. “You want to cut through the shit?” His voice went from Zen to savage in the same stunning heartbeat. “Then let’s do that, Dasha.”
Suddenly, he’d flipped the workout towel off his shoulder and had it around her nape. He twisted her in place with it, their faces now inches apart. “The choice is yours, Dasha. But you’re going to make it right here, right now. I’ve been waiting for you to finally come to me, freely and on your own, and it’s been a goddamn torture session. So yeah, I’m sick and tired of this bullshit too.”