by Chloe Cox
Because no one — not even Tiffany — had been inside this room. No one had ever seen them, all of her friends, gathered in one place.
“I know it’s really weird,” she said into the silence. And immediately felt guilty for apologizing for her own art. And then anxious. And then the guilt started again.
Conor hadn’t said anything yet.
He was walking around the room, peering at the canvases of different sizes, in different states of crazy-portrait-completion. Moving some to get a better look at others, his eyes following the dust that floated through the beams of morning sunlight streaming through those big giant windows. Smiling, sometimes, suddenly.
Oh God, she thought. Oh sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph. How do you explain something like this? Not like I can tell him the truth. “Here are my imaginary friends, I promise I’m not a total loser.”
Fuuuu—
“I get it now,” Conor said, smiling down at picture she couldn’t see.
She could barely breathe.
“What?”
“Your videos,” Conor went on, and picked up a canvas of, well, a blue-skinned alien to whom she’d given a tragic backstory. Which sounded ridiculous, even to her, even as she felt fiercely protective over it.
“My videos?” she said.
“They’re not about the silly voices or the product placement or any of that shit. They’re about putting on one of these…” Conor hesitated, his brow furrowed as he looked around. “One of these skins,” he finished.
Sierra stifled a shocked laugh.
“That has to be the grossest way of putting it,” she whispered.
Conor shrugged.
“I can’t believe you watched my videos,” she said. She couldn’t believe any of this, really.
“I did some research on my client.”
She closed her eyes. Oh God. Of course he had.
“And what did your research tell you?”
“That you haven’t done one of those videos in three months.”
Sierra’s eyes flew open.
Conor was standing in the middle of her art room, right by the easel that still held a blank canvas, the sunlight hitting his eyes like it might hit the ocean on a totally cloudless day. So, blinding.
That must be why she stood there, stunned.
That, or the fact that those baby blues just saw right through her all over again. Sierra had dreaded trying to explain the paintings in this room. She hadn’t imagined it would be worse to have him just…get it. To have him see her, really see her.
At that moment Sierra felt more exposed than she had in her entire life, including the previous night, when Conor had her bare and bent over a bar table.
Conor’s brow knitted just a bit, his eyes holding her.
“So no video, no paintings, in three months,” he said. “Three months ago is about when the stalker showed up?”
Sierra’s mouth went dry. It had also been right around the time when she and Jared had found out the details of their father’s will. Those had been a rough couple of weeks.
“You looked right at this door when you came in here today,” Conor said. “You look at it whenever you’re freaked out or upset.”
“I do?”
His eyes narrowed. “Princess,” he said, walking towards her. “Would you do these if I weren’t here?”
“No,” she said, honestly. She hadn’t been in this room in those entire three months. That wasn’t Conor’s fault. Hell, she hadn’t even realized it had been three months until he pointed it out.
“Why haven’t you made another one?” he said.
And he came still closer. Touching distance, now.
He was relentless.
“I don’t know,” she said.
And almost immediately she knew that was a lie.
This room, the paintings in it — all of it felt so vulnerable. She’d never felt comfortable being her real self in public because in her experience people didn’t love it when she did that. Especially her family hadn’t been a fan. And this room was where she turned herself into versions of herself that she could show people. That they might like. It was a process she loved that was necessary for a reason she hated, but ultimately it was something that made her feel good.
But now she didn’t even feel safe doing that. Her world had gotten smaller since her asshole stalker showed up, to the point where she didn’t even feel safe feeling good. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“Does painting make you feel better?” Conor asked.
Helplessly, Sierra looked up at him. How did he do things like this? How did he see this? She felt like she was on one of those crazy rollercoasters without a safety strap.
“Tell me,” he said. “That’s an order, Princess.”
“Yes,” she said, all in a rush, like the word wanted to escape. “Yes, it makes me feel better.”
“Then do it again.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t…” Sierra bit her lip, wrestling with the feeling that was rising inside her. Conor was making her face this, finally. And she didn’t like what she was finding. “I don’t know how to feel like that anymore.”
Which was the freaking truth.
She didn’t know how to get to that place anymore. She didn’t know how to let go, anymore. Some faceless jerk with a boner for scaring women had taken that from her, and she didn’t know how to get it back.
“I don’t know how,” she repeated.
Suddenly there was Conor’s hand, his fingers under her chin. His hand was gentle as he lifted her gaze to meet his, but his eyes were hard and unyielding. They were most definitely Dom eyes.
“Get your coat, Princess,” he growled. “I just added something to your schedule.”
Nineteen
It happened really slowly and then all at fucking once.
Conor’s head had been swirling with logistics, circumstances, contingencies — the stuff he needed to do, the things he needed to find out to catch this son of a bitch and keep Sierra safe. He’d been on high alert since he walked onto that television set. All he’d wanted to do was get her home, and then figure out how to go after whoever Jared had hired to terrorize her, starting with figuring out who at the television station had been bribed to let that caller through.
That had been his plan. Get her home, get to work.
But then he’d seen her looking at that room, the room he knew held all those paintings he’d never gotten a good look at. The room she’d been so protective of when the police had gone through her apartment.
And now, after seeing what was inside, seeing how personal and precious it was to her, and knowing her brother had taken it from her?
Priorities change.
Sierra was still standing in front of him, wearing the same thing she’d been wearing on that morning show. Some kind of summer dress, with flowing layers of white fabric that set off her tanned skin. She looked like a million bucks, and she had the whole morning.
Only now she also looked frozen. Afraid to move.
He knew she was feeling powerless, like this guy was a ghost. Like she’d never be free of any of it. The worst part was that Conor couldn’t tell her that it wasn’t magic, that there was a simple explanation of how this stalker knew where and how to get to her. He couldn’t tell her that Jared was the one behind it because he didn’t have any goddamn proof yet. But Sierra was still feeling like this.
Her words still echoed in his mind. I don’t know how to feel that way anymore. That wasn’t fucking fair. And no sub of his was going to forget how to feel.
But she was only his sub at the club.
The decision was pretty fucking easy after that.
“You heard me,” he said softly. “Get your coat.”
Sierra blinked up at him. She seemed to unfreeze slowly, her arms unwrapping from around her shoulders, her eyes coming alive.
Slowly, she nodded.
He watched as she collected her bag and a sw
eater. Held the door for her and told the new guy on the door they’d be back. Put her in the back of the car himself.
She was quiet the whole way.
So was he.
Middle of the day, no sleep, more bullshit. He couldn’t tell her the truth, and she couldn’t tell him how she felt. Words weren’t going to work for either of them. Conor had wanted to hold her all night, but he couldn’t. This would have to do.
The glare from the river hit the windshield as he pulled down the service road off Beacon, not risking the front door this time. Checked the mirror, instinctively, but they were alone. No one followed.
He brought them to a smooth stop, right by the back door. Then he looked in the rearview mirror, locking eyes with her the way he had that very first night.
“Do you know where you are?” he said.
He watched her take a big breath. Watched her sigh, watched it shudder through her.
“Yes,” she said.
Conor got out of the car in one swift motion, a sense of urgency growing inside him. Tension in his belly, between his shoulders, at the base of his cock. The thing in his chest stretching, pressing against the cage of his ribs.
He opened her door, savoring this last gesture before he had her inside.
Sierra looked up at him as she got out, her hand in his, and Conor realized he needed this as much as she did. He needed to know she was in his hands, under his command, or this thing in his chest wouldn’t settle.
Without a word, he keyed in the combination to the electronic back door lock, opened the door, and held it for the Princess.
“Get in,” he said.
The second she was inside she would be something else.
His sub.
Sierra stepped over the threshold of Club Volare and knew that something was about to happen. And it still took her breath away when it did.
The back door closed behind them with a bang just as Conor pushed her against the wall of the vestibule. Like a switch flicking on, his big body was on top of hers, his hands lifting her arms above her head, his leg between hers. He pinned her there, breathing hard, and took a moment to look at her.
Just a moment. One hand on her face, holding her.
And then he took her mouth with his. That kiss, that devouring fucking kiss, his hand moving to her neck as they moved together, breathed together. It undid her.
She arched into him, her mind blanking as his hand dropped to her breast. He casually toyed with her nipple before pulling away with a growl in his throat.
Sierra stood there, breathless. Helpless.
Conor looked at her.
He really looked at her. Not just seeing, but telling. A look of determination and purpose and absolute fucking certainty. Like there was something he wanted, and nothing was going to stop him from getting it.
Just that look was enough to make her weak.
“Follow me,” he said.
He let her arms drop and walked away, down the hall, towards the stairs. Sierra’s body followed automatically, hurriedly. She trotted along after him with her heart pounding and her mind…
Her mind was doing a million things at once.
These stairs, for instance. Last time she’d been on them, Conor had been carrying her over his shoulder, with her dress up around her waist and her thighs wet.
That time he’d taken her to his room, and she wondered, with a thrill of excitement, if that’s where he was taking her again. The room he was staying in, anyway. It had felt weirdly intimate, like seeing a guy’s room in college, seeing how he decorated it. Seeing what mattered to him, what was important.
There had been that photo, with the man Sierra thought she’d seen before.
Suddenly she hesitated, a slight construction in her throat as she climbed the last of the stairs. Conor hadn’t wanted her to see that photo, and now he was taking her to…not his room, apparently, based on the floor. The truth was she didn’t know much about him. Nothing about his past. How could it be that she felt such a primal connection with a man she didn’t really know?
Her head was a mess as she followed Conor from the back stairs out to the landing on the second floor. Still a mess as he opened the door to the largest play room she’d ever seen, an airy, cavernous place with dark wood paneling and a single, ominous looking bench in the center of the room.
And still a mess right up until he pulled her inside and kissed her.
Everything burned away.
What had been slowly building as she climbed those stairs ignited, heat rising from her clit to her throat like someone had just breathed life into her. She was barely in the door, her hands grasping at his shoulders, knowing she had no idea where her body was in space except where she was touching him.
And soon, that was all over.
Fuck.
His kiss was less gentle this time, more urgent. More hungry. More animal. His hand in her hair, at the back of her head, holding her in place. His other hand wherever he wanted it. Sierra had the sense of something building between them, of some large, unseen, untamed thing in Conor, and the more she melted into him, the more she woke it up.
By the time he pulled away, his eyes dark for the first time, the way he looked at her was purely animal.
“Your body is mine,” he rasped. “And in this room, I’ll show you how to feel. Understood?”
Her breath shuddered in her chest.
“Yes,” she said. “Sir.”
Conor took a deep breath, gripping her chin in his hand, his eyes staring into hers.
“Strip,” he said.
And he left her there like that, standing just inside the door, facing the room where he would do whatever he wanted to her. Leaving her breathless, all over again.
It took her a second to get moving while Conor did whatever he was doing. She could hear him behind her, off to the side, opening things, closing things, getting whatever he needed. She didn’t dare look. Didn’t dare do anything other than slip the straps of her dress over her shoulders, unzip, step out.
It wasn’t until she was standing there naked that she heard the sounds wafting up the main stairs, and in through the open door. That she realized she was still in public, almost. That she realized Conor was going to do whatever he wanted with her, probably something involving that bench in the very middle of the room.
Her breath hitched as he placed his hand on her from behind, in the space between her neck and shoulder. Holding her in place, almost, his face brushing against the top of her head, the rough denim of his black jeans pressed against her ass. On her lower back, she felt the hard swell of his erection, and it sent an electric shiver through her body.
She remembered what that had felt like, inside her. She remembered how it had blotted out the fucking sun.
His hand moved to her throat and Sierra leaned her head back automatically, instinctively. The way he touched her — what it did to her — didn’t make any sense. His hand on her throat could control her with the lightest touch, and she could feel her pulse in the lips between her legs, a rhythm that beat in on any thoughts her mind was foolish enough to try to think.
She felt him inhale, his hands moving to her breasts for a quick, proprietary squeeze, and then he was tying a blindfold around her eyes.
A blindfold.
Sierra remembered to breathe. Conor’s hands roamed over her with that same sense of ownership, but faster, with more urgency. The muscles in her stomach fluttered as she felt that same building pressure, that sense of a wave about to break, or something about to be unleashed.
“Walk,” he growled in her ear.
And she just did it.
Walk ahead, naked, blind.
It was a profoundly unnatural thing to walk freely when blindfolded, and she just did it. Her body trusted him more than Sierra had ever trusted anyone in her life.
“Stop,” he said. “Hands out.”
Tentatively, she reached out. Her fingers brushed over pebbled leather. She smoothed her hands over it, movin
g them as far as she could, feeling out the thing in front of her.
It felt like a pommel horse, almost. She remembered it had looked like one, too. It had been facing her the wide way, and now, as she inched closer, she felt the cool leather against her hips, and the tops of her thighs.
“Bend over it,” came Conor’s voice. “Grab the handles.”
She could picture him watching her, from behind, his arms crossed. Evaluating. She found herself moving with a precision she never had in real life, conscious of every movement, every sensation. Her hands spread out as she bent over, searching out handles.
“Quicker than that,” came the growl.
Closer now.
Sierra scrambled, her hands grasping at two handles that she could only hold when bent fully over the pommel horse looking thing.
“Quicker.”
And this time he didn’t wait.
Two big hands digging into the flesh of her hips from behind, lifting her up there, pitching her over the bench. She gasped, balanced precariously as for one incredible second she thought he was going to drive into her from there. Instead he lifted up one leg, then the other, placing her knees in…stirrups?
And then came the restraints.
So quickly now she barely had time to process one, then the other. Her left leg, her right, strapped down at the calf. Then her wrists in rapid succession. Then something smooth and hard pressed up against her pubis, something she couldn’t identify, grazing her mons.
And then, for a moment, nothing.
Just the silence of the room, the darkness, and the knowledge that Conor was somewhere close. She was bent, tied, and spread, exposed fully to him. To anyone. And as that knowledge sunk in, everything else fell away. There was only Conor, and what he would do next.
She heard it first.
The sound of a zipper, unzipping. Close to her face. Close enough that she raised her head, questioning.
God, she’d thought about this. Fantasized about it. Being tied down, helpless, knowing all she could do was take him?
Sierra swallowed, the pressure between her legs pulsing, pulsing.