Show and Tell: A Forbidden Flowers Story

by Lynne, Donya

  In the end, she felt that she’d honored both through the patient, compassionate hands of the hero, and Unchained remained her favorite book she’d written to date.

  Nibbling hors d’oeuvres and sipping champagne, Jenna maneuvered her way through the crowds who had come from all corners of New York high society to be a part of the evening. She stopped to chat to people she knew from the office when they crossed paths, but she couldn’t turn off her writer’s mind, seeing story inspiration in every conversation, display, sculpture, and painting.

  Two hours into the evening, she had left quite a trail of pictures on her social media page, cataloging her way through the museum from The Great Hall, to Egyptian Art, The American Wing, Medieval Art, and now found herself standing in front of a statue of a naked Perseus holding Medusa’s severed head in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts wing.

  She was just about to post her picture of the nude Perseus when a text notification popped up on her phone.

  It was from Warren.

  She opened it.

  “Found you,” it read.

  Below his message was a photo of her taking a picture of the statue. It had been taken from behind her to the right.

  He was here? Warren was at the Met?

  She began to look over her shoulder when hands gripped her firmly but gently around her upper arms.

  She sucked in her breath.

  “Don’t turn around.” His voice sounded even better in person, like warm honey instead of dark chocolate.

  Her head snapped back to the front as heat unspooled inside her belly and puddled between her legs. Good God, his effect on her was even stronger in person than on the phone.

  His gripped loosened. “Nice dress.” He smoothed his palms up to her shoulders.

  Her dress was backless, and her hair was pulled into a french twist, exposing her from nape to waist. The heat from his body warmed her skin as he stepped even closer, tracing the curves of her shoulders with his fingertips.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, skimming the tips of his fingers across the skin above her shoulder blades.

  His soft caresses felt nice, both invigorating and provocative. More importantly, he was finally touching her! After weeks of talking on the phone, soundwaves and cell towers no longer had to connect them across the miles that separated them. Only an inch or two stood between them now.

  Adrenaline pumped through her veins, making her shiver. Her pulse hammered with such force, she could hear the rhythmic whooshing sound of each heartbeat inside her ears.

  Knowing that all she had to do was turn around and he would be there made her feel like she had achieved a milestone. Kind of like graduating from high school or getting a promotion. She had paid her dues, done the work, and now she was receiving her reward.

  “Y-yes,” she answered.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good, because you’re more beautiful than I imagined, and it’s hard not to touch you.” The fingers of one hand trailed down her spine, sending pleasant sensations throughout her body.

  “Then don’t stop.” She was more than fine with his hands traveling over her skin.

  “Tsk, tsk . . .” He sighed as if he disapproved, letting his palm slide lower. He tapped the upper swell of her bottom with his fingers. “You do what I say, Jenna, not the other way around. And I will stop touching you when and if I want.”

  God, he was using his Dom voice. She almost swooned.

  She unconsciously bowed her head. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” It felt natural to fall into a more submissive role, like she’d been doing it for years instead of only weeks. And only over the phone.

  “Very good.” He wrapped one hand around her wrist and pressed a soft kiss against the back of her neck, making every hair on her body stand on end. “Much better.”

  The kiss felt like a reward. A gift for pleasing him. Or maybe he’d just wanted a reason to kiss her and her acquiescence was as good an excuse as any.

  He leaned closer, and she felt his breath on her ear when he said, “Why am I not surprised to find you staring at a statue of a naked man?”

  Her gaze leaped to Perseus’s disproportionately small and flaccid penis. The sculptor really should have been more generous for a hero like Perseus and given him a bigger shlong.

  “I guess I just have a thing for small penises.”

  Warren chuckled in her ear, and the sound created the same arousing storm in her core as it did on the phone. If only she could bottle the effect his voice had on her so she could enjoy it anytime she wanted.

  He made a noise, like I didn’t see that coming. “Well, you came to the right place.” His hand came up in her peripheral vision as he gestured toward Perseus’s miniature penis.

  “I bet Perseus was actually very well endowed,” she said. How couldn’t he have been? He was a mythological hero. Heroes didn’t have tiny dicks. “I’m sure the sculptor was just being polite.”

  The chuffing noise Warren made read like do I ever have a story to tell you. “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because ancient Greek sculptors used the size of a man’s genitalia to reveal what kind of man he was. Whether he was friend or foe, wise or reckless, leader or slave, the smaller the penis, the more powerful the man.”

  Her eyes narrowed dubiously on Perseus’s small member. “Is that true?”

  “Mm-hmm.” He drew closer and slid his hand halfway around her waist.

  Her gaze remained fixed on the comparatively tiny penito of the mighty son of Zeus. Surely a demigod who had killed Medusa before using her snake-covered head to slay the kraken deserved to be portrayed with an imposing phallus. Warren had to be pulling her leg.

  She scoffed. “Bullshit.”

  “No, it’s true. The ancient Greeks regarded a small flaccid penis as the ideal in male beauty. In fact, it was a badge of honor.” The front of his body pressed lightly against the back of hers, allowing her to feel his badge of honor quite nicely. And his wasn’t small or flaccid.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “To us, it is. We think bigger is better, because that’s what we’ve been programmed to believe. But the ancient Greeks saw bigger as inferior. They depicted their enemies, not their heroes, with excessively large and erect genitals, sometimes grotesquely big.” He laughed softly, letting his hand span farther around her waist, then lower, over her hip. “Ironic, isn’t it? They sculpted their heroes with full, ample muscles, robust bodies, and powerful statures, then gave them tiny genitals. Then they turned around and sculpted their enemies with huge cocks, which they considered vulgar, depraved, and barbaric.”

  She still wasn’t sure whether to believe him, but what he’d said would certainly explain why Greek statues—and even Renaissance paintings—all showed naked men with the equivalent of a cocktail wiener and a pair of marbles between their legs. “Did you just make that up?”

  He brushed his lips over the shell of her ear. “No.”

  “You do know that as soon as I get home, I’m going to research all this.”

  “Go ahead. You’ll find that in ancient Greece, a man’s virility and value came from his intellectual prowess, not that of his dick.” He stepped slightly to the left but stayed behind her, placing his palm on her back. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

  “What is?” All she had to do was turn her head, and she would be able to see him out of her peripheral vision.

  “That our perception of a man’s power has become the exact opposite of what it once was. Back then”—he raised his free hand, gesturing toward Perseus, revealing the black sleeve of his tuxedo over a bright-white cuff accented by a black onyx cuff link—“that was the symbol of an upstanding, authoritative man. Now . . . this is.” He took her hand and placed it between his legs as if they were in the privacy of her apartment rather than surrounded by more than a thousand guests at the Met.

  She sucked in her breath and started to pull h
er hand away, then stopped. He had to be at least ten times bigger than Perseus’s puny penis.

  He angled his body toward hers, careful to stay behind her so she couldn’t see his face while obscuring her hand from prying eyes. To casual passersby, they looked like nothing more than a couple having an intimate conversation about a statue.

  However, a more observant onlooker would have seen just how stunned she was by what lay beneath her palm. He was exceptional. Full, thick, and above average in length from what she could tell.

  Her palm slid slowly down, then back up, trying to gauge just how big he was.

  His cock twitched, and he sucked in a ragged inhale.

  “Careful,” he said, his voice a low warning.

  “Hey, you’re the one who put my hand there.”

  “Yes, but maybe you should save your inspection for another time.” He gently removed her hand as if to say that was all she got. “My point is, it isn’t a large cock that ensnares, captivates, and persuades a woman into submission. A woman can’t be owned by a generous phallus. A man has to own her mind before he can claim ownership of her body.”

  She could still feel the outline of his erection against her hand. The adrenaline of that brief exploration still heated her blood.

  But he was right. It wasn’t his cock, his body, or even his face that excited her. It was the way he affected her thoughts . . . her mind. Masterful, seductive, sensual. He made her feel things beyond the physical. After a month of increasingly intimate phone conversations, she didn’t need to see him or even touch him to know she would let him do anything he wanted to her.

  He pressed closer. “And once a man owns a woman’s mind and body, he doesn’t need his dick to keep her satisfied. His finger pressed against her clit”—his hand slid dangerously low on her abdomen—“rubbing slow, firm circles is sufficient. Or his tongue, a dildo, or vibrator. Or, as you and I have found quite copiously, his words.”

  She nodded, imagining him doing everything he’d mentioned to her. Fingering her. Licking her. Playing with her. Talking her to yet another climax the way he had so many times already.

  He brought his mouth around to her other ear. “But it all starts with the mind.”

  She nodded again, breathing so hard that her breasts nearly burst through the snug bodice of her dress with each inhale.

  “And how does a man own a woman’s mind?” he said, his voice a low, seductive purr. “By gaining her trust. And how does he gain her trust?” He inched away, giving her space. “By being trustworthy. By being honest and respectful. By treating her with dignity and honor. By asking for permission and listening to what she wants. By trusting her as much as he wants her to trust him.”

  He rested his confident hands on her shoulders. “Do you trust me, Jenna?”

  In all their phone calls, Warren had never once given her any reason to doubt him. He made her feel irrationally comfortable and safe. But she still didn’t know him. Really know him.

  “It’s okay if you don’t,” he added, as if reading her mind. “I know there’s still a lot you don’t know about me. That we don’t know about each other.”

  She took a shaky breath. “I want to.”

  “And I want you to. And it’s okay to make me earn it.” His hands drifted down her upper arms to her elbows. “Do you want me to?” he asked. “Do you want me to earn your trust?”

  “Yes.” The word whispered out of her, and she almost gave in to the temptation to turn around and look at him. “What about you? Do you trust me?”

  He squeezed her elbows. “I’m getting there. I certainly want to, especially now that I’ve seen you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I like what I see almost as much as I like the woman I’ve come to know over the phone.”

  Good answer.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked.

  He could start earning her trust right now by telling her how he’d found her.

  He made a sound like, that’s easy. “You didn’t exactly make it hard for me. All I had to do was follow your posts.”

  “My posts?” She glanced down at her phone.

  He skimmed his fingers back up to her shoulders. “When I saw Lillian Bangs posting pictures from inside the Met tonight, I thought, ‘Could my defiant Jenna really be here? Could she and I really be in the same place at the same time?’”

  He slid his fingertips under the fabric of her dress at her waist. Just the tips, but the simple intrusion deepened her arousal as if he’d caressed the inside of her upper thigh.

  “So I started following your trail, finding each sculpture you posted. Each installation of pottery, ancient weapon, or painting. I caught up to you in the wing for Medieval Art, then followed you here, admiring the way you moved in this beautiful dress and these lovely shoes. It was surprisingly erotic watching you stroll from one display to the next, casually taking pictures and posting them. Almost poetic really. Innocently seductive . . . and so provocative that I found myself needing something I haven’t needed in a long, long time.”

  Her breaths came in shallow beats. “And what was that?”

  In a voice that simmered like water on the verge of boiling, he replied, “The need to play. And play hard.”

  She swallowed thickly and pressed her lips together, feeling a little unsteady on her feet.

  His voice dropped even lower as he drew his mouth back down to her ear and said, “So . . . Ms. Bangs . . . I have just one question for you.”

  Jenna’s heart was about to beat out of her chest.

  He brushed his lips over the side of her neck, making her knees go weak, then whispered slowly, “How far are you willing to go?”

  There it was. The question she’d spent a month pondering.

  She wanted to say that she still didn’t know how far she wanted to take things, but the truth was she had been on board with going all in from that very first phone call. Bumping into him tonight had only confirmed her feelings.

  He kissed her nape once, twice, letting his lips linger. “This is the last time I’ll ask, Jenna. How far do you want to take this? Do we move forward and see where things go”—he pulled her against him so she could feel the full power of his erection and all that it implied against the upper curve of her rump—“or do we say it was fun while it lasted and part ways? Because after seeing you tonight, I won’t be content with just phone calls from now on. I’d rather stop and save myself the frustration than drag things on over the phone if you don’t want to take the next step.”

  She stared at Perseus’s meager penis. He’d been a hero. He’d killed Medusa and saved Andromeda from the Kraken. The man standing behind her was no hero. She didn’t even know his last name, what he looked like, or where he worked, but she knew she wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  “I don’t want this to stop.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  She looked down at his hand. Dark hair dusted the backs of his knuckles, and his fingers were long and nicely proportionated, capped with clean, trimmed nails. It was all she could see of him, but it was enough to make her know she wanted to see more. She wanted to see the whole man, top to bottom.

  “I want it all. Anything and everything you can give me. I want it.”

  His hold on her tightened, and he kissed the back of her head. “Good.” She heard the pleased smile in his voice as he tucked his nose into her hair and said, “So do I.”

  He held her a moment longer, then released her. “Now, I want you to slowly count to sixty before turning around.”

  “What?” She had thought that as soon as she told him she wanted to move forward that he would let her see him.

  “You heard me.” His voice came from farther away.

  “But—”

  “If you turn around before counting to sixty, Jenna, I will be very disappointed.”

  Wait . . . was he leaving? Was he not going to let her see his face?

  She reflexively began to turn around, then for
ced herself to stop, and even though it went against every urge and instinct in her body, she did as he’d instructed, counting out the seconds, feeling like they would never end. When she finally reached sixty, she spun around, hoping he would still be there. He wasn’t.

  But apparently, he could still see her, because a moment later, her phone pinged with a new text.

  “It’s nice to know that you CAN follow orders.”

  Before she could collect herself enough to send a reply, another message pinged through.

  “Go home. I’ll be calling you in an hour.”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. Light the way to the exit.

  “What if I’m not ready to go home?” she texted back, already on her way to retrieve her shawl from the coat check.

  “You’re ready.”

  Hmph. He was certainly sure of himself.

  After she reached the coat counter and handed over her ticket, she texted him back. “Are you always going to be like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Bossy.”

  She took her shawl from the clerk.

  “Stop arguing and go home, Ms. Bangs.”

  Before stepping outside, she quickly texted him again. “What do you want to talk to me about that you couldn’t have told me in front of Perseus?”

  “Things.”

  “What kinds of things?” She pushed through the doors and hurried down the miles of concrete steps toward Fifth Avenue like she was Cinderella rushing to her carriage before it turned back into a pumpkin, then hopped into a cab waiting at the curb just as his next text pinged its arrival.

  “All the things I wanted to do to you tonight. Naughty things. Dirty things. Things done in dark corners, service elevators, and back hallways.”