‘I’m going to show you something.’ I began easing her hand further up my thigh. ‘I’m going to show you exactly how much power you have.’
‘But I—’ She broke off as I pressed her palm down over my fly, her eyes going wide.
The heat of her hand seeped through the wool of my trousers, her touch electric, making my pulse race.
Tension held her arm rigid, but I didn’t let her go and I didn’t look away.
‘Feel that?’ I pressed her palm down harder. Fuck, I liked her touching me and apparently so did my cock. ‘That’s me getting hard for you.’
Colour crept into her cheeks, which was better than the pale look that had been there before.
‘No one can see,’ I went on. ‘No one knows you’ve got your hand on my dick and that you’re making me hard, but you know. You’ve got the power, sweetheart. You’ve got the power to make me lose my mind right here in front of all these people.’
She said nothing, her eyes dark as a midnight sky and studded with stars.
I knew I was overstepping the mark here and had no idea what she’d do in response. But then boundaries had never been my thing and I did like to live dangerously.
It was risky to give her the control like this too—something I always kept hold of, both in the bedroom and out of it. But she needed some guidance. And it wasn’t like I’d actually lose it.
No other woman had managed that so there was no reason this one should.
Then again, her palm was very warm and I was getting harder. Christ, I hadn’t got laid in over a week and my damn dick was desperate for some action.
I considered unzipping my fly and dragging her hand inside my boxers, getting her to wrap those slender fingers around my cock. But me being insistent wasn’t the point. Showing her what kind of power she had was.
So instead, I removed my hand from over hers, making it plain to her that she had a choice. She could choose to pull back or she could choose to keep her palm right where it was. The power was with her.
It was disturbing how much I hoped she’d leave it where it was.
A second passed. Neither of us spoke, and I was ready for her to jerk her hand from my crotch.
But she didn’t.
And, just like that, I couldn’t breathe, all my awareness narrowing to the warmth of her palm over my fly, the slight pressure of it settling on my aching dick.
Our other hands were still linked on the table-top but I’d stopped stroking her palm and was now gripping her fingers with more force.
Jesus, the feel of her hand and the wide-eyed way she was looking at me were affecting me more than I’d expected. And I wasn’t sure I liked it. Yet I couldn’t be the one to pull away, not now. Not after I’d made such a fucking performance of giving her the power.
Her cheeks were a deep rose and her hand on my crotch moved. But not away. Instead, she began to carefully explore my hard-on through the wool of my trousers.
The lightness of her touch and the hesitant way she touched me, all cautious and wary, was so fucking hot it stole the remaining breath from my lungs.
She was looking very serious, a crease between her reddish brows, as if my cock was a problem she needed to solve or a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out.
I’d never had a woman touch me the way she was touching me and I had no idea why that was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever experienced, but it was.
‘How is this going to go, sweetheart?’ My voice had got rougher but I made no effort to smooth it out or hide the hunger I knew had to be burning in my gaze. She had to keep her attention on me and only seeing what she was doing to me was going to do it. ‘You want to jerk me off right here? Make me come in front of everyone in this restaurant?’
The bright lights in her eyes flared. Under the table, her thumb brushed slowly over the head of my dick and I jerked in my chair, the sensation electric.
She noticed and her mouth opened in surprise. ‘That’s...me?’
Of course it was her. Did she really have no idea?
Stupid question. She was gazing at me with amazement, even a touch of wonder. So no, she had no idea. No idea at all.
The desire inside me changed, became something thicker, hotter.
Women looked at me with lust, but never with wonder. As if I was a brand-new discovery they’d made and were excited and curious about. Or a puzzle they couldn’t wait to solve.
No, women loved the orgasms I gave them, but it wasn’t me they were interested in. Which was fine and exactly what I wanted. Yet this, now, with Vita...
You need her to stop touching you.
Ridiculous thought. I wasn’t so far gone that a hand job under the table and the look on a woman’s face would undo me. Sure, I’d given her the control, but I was still master of myself.
‘Yes,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘That’s all you.’
The contained, slightly stern look had gone from her expression and the stars in her eyes were dancing. She looked amazed. Christ, the way she was looking at me, the way she was touching me... It was hot. Fucking hot.
‘But I...’ She stopped, frowning. Then made another cautious pass over the head of my cock with her thumb, watching me intently as she did so.
I hissed as a bright flare of pleasure licked up my spine and, for the briefest moment, one corner of her mouth curled. As if she was pleased with herself.
And immediately I knew that if she didn’t take her hand off me I was going to go over, haul her out of her seat and find somewhere private where I could show her exactly how pleased with herself I could make her.
‘Sweetheart,’ I forced out. ‘In about five seconds this particular story is going to end with me coming all over your hand. So, if you don’t want that, I suggest you stop touching me.’
Her eyes went round, the colour in her cheeks creeping down her neck. ‘But what if...? What if I wanted to keep touching you?’ Her voice got lower, huskier. ‘In front of all these people?’
Fuck. She’d taken the control I’d given her and she was bloody running with it.
Little vixen.
But that was my fault. I had given it to her, after all. I simply hadn’t realised how it would affect me. How she would affect me.
‘Then you’d better be prepared for the consequences, hadn’t you?’ I didn’t bother to hide my own hunger. ‘I hope you’re ready for them.’
She didn’t look the least bit chastened. Instead, the crease between her brows deepened. Then she ran that goddamn teasing thumb down the length of my increasingly desperate dick and I had to jerk my hand away from hers on the table-top before I crushed it, slamming my palm down as another burst of pleasure shot through me.
The glasses jumped, the cutlery rattling.
Fucking hell. She was killing me.
‘Vita.’ Her name came out in a growl, my fingers gripping onto the tablecloth. ‘Seriously, darling. I’m not joking.’
Neither was she, that was obvious. The pale, scared look had vanished from her face, the darkness of her eyes intensifying, studying me as if she had me under a microscope.
I brought my hands to the arms of my chair, ready to push myself out of it. Ready to do what I’d promised and haul her out of there.
But then the waiter returned with our food and Vita snatched her hand from my crotch, her cheeks going from rosy to scarlet.
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or order her to put her hand back where it had been.
She didn’t look at me as the waiter presented her with her food, her attention on her plate while I tried to slow my heartbeat and subdue my raging hard-on.
An impossible task.
I couldn’t stop thinking about pushing her up against the nearest wall, ripping that awful dress off her and burying my cock deep inside her. Thoughts that weren’t exactly conducive to entertaining dinner conversation.
Christ, I’d never not been able to think of something to say, yet now I couldn’t think of a single thing. It was like the damn woman hadn’t only stolen my breath, she’d stolen half my fucking brain too.
Vita picked up her cutlery, not saying a goddamn word. And I was still so fucking hard I ached.
It made me furious.
How dare she get under my skin? How dare she play with me, get me hard, nearly make me lose it in public? How dare she take the control from me so completely I didn’t know how to fucking breathe, let alone what to do with myself?
So I did what I normally did in these situations. I took back the control.
Shoving my chair back, I got to my feet.
Her head jerked up, her fork lowering, surprise crossing her face. ‘Where are you going?’
I was already moving around the table, grabbing her elbow and pulling her to her feet. Her fork clattered onto her plate. ‘Leon,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Wait. What are you—?’
I looked down into her flushed face, making no effort to hide my anger or the desire that was eating me alive. ‘I told you there would be consequences.’
Then, without waiting for her to reply, I strode from the restaurant, dragging her along with me.
CHAPTER TEN
Vita
I STUMBLED HELPLESSLY after Leon, his grip on my arm firm enough to make pulling away difficult.
Not that I could have anyway.
My brain wasn’t working right. I was still struggling to process what had happened when he’d drawn my hand beneath the table and got me to touch him. What I’d felt when he’d put my fingers on his fly. Long, thick...
He’d looked at me as he held my hand down, the hungry gold glitter in his eyes making it plain he hadn’t been lying when he’d said I was making him hard.
The skinny, unattractive ‘I Love You Girl’. Gangly, ginger Vita.
Me. Me.
I knew I should have taken my hand off him when he’d released it, but the shock of discovery had held me fast. I’d wanted to feel for myself whether it was actually true, whether it was really me doing this to him or...
But there couldn’t have been anyone else. He’d looked at me the entire time and when I’d moved my hand on him I’d seen the flare in his eyes; felt him shudder and jerk; felt him get even harder.
He hadn’t been lying. It was me doing that to him. And in that moment all I’d felt was amazement. That my touch could affect him, could make him want me.
He’s a man. Any woman’s hand on his crotch would have made him hard. It’s not you.
Doubt whispered in my head, making me stumble, but Leon didn’t pause. He didn’t even slow. He pulled me out into the foyer and around a corner to where a short corridor led to the bathrooms.
Then he shoved me up against the wall.
I struggled to breathe, my heartbeat thudding, an unfamiliar excitement coiling in my veins. Strange. Shouldn’t I be furious at the way he was handling me?
Yet it wasn’t fury I felt as he put his hands on the wall on either side of my head and leaned down so we were nose to nose, his eyes burning into mine.
No, definitely not fury. Or even fear.
I was thrilled.
Simon had never looked at me like that. His interest had been entirely feigned and I’d been too young, too naive to understand the difference. But gazing up into Leon’s handsome face, I understood now.
He was staring at me as if he wanted to eat me alive.
It’s not you.
But it was so difficult to think about that when he was that close, the coiled threat of his tall, hard, muscled body making my knees go weak, surrounding me in his scent and his heat.
‘You,’ he growled, his rich voice roughened and deep, ‘have been a very naughty girl.’
Adrenaline flooded my veins; my pulse was going wild.
I lifted my chin. ‘Why? I didn’t do anything.’
‘Yes, you did. You got me hard. You nearly made me lose my goddamn mind.’
Wonder curled through me. I’d really done that to him?
You idiot. Most men get hard when you touch their dick.
Of course. It hadn’t been me in particular, had it?
I couldn’t have said why that felt like such a disappointment, not when it wasn’t supposed to matter. I wasn’t the desperate seventeen-year-old who only wanted to be beautiful and as loved as her sister. Not any more.
I tried to calm my raging heartbeat. ‘You would have been hard regardless of who was touching you, Leon. It wasn’t anything I did.’
He leaned closer, our noses almost touching, so close I could see the light brown of his irises and the seams of gold running through them. ‘You think that happens with every woman I take out on a date? That I get her to touch me under the table then have to stop and drag her out of the restaurant because I’m so fucking desperate?’ The raw heat in his eyes shocked me. ‘No, little vixen. No, that doesn’t happen to me, not unless I let it. And I wasn’t planning on letting it.’ He shifted even closer, surrounding me. ‘Except you did something, and I don’t know what it was, but you need to understand one thing. I’m in charge now, sweetheart, and I get to say what happens next. And since you nearly made me lose my mind out there, I’m going to make you lose yours.’
It couldn’t be true, could it? Could I have really made this impossibly gorgeous man lose his mind? Simply by touching him?
It was dangerous to believe him, but...I didn’t think he was lying.
Excitement hit me, shivering over my skin, and then I finally took in the last part of his sentence. He was going to make me lose my mind?
‘No, you won’t,’ I shot back. ‘No one makes me lose my mind if I don’t want them to.’
He smiled, slowly and devastatingly sexily, with a feral edge that made my breath catch. ‘We’ll see about that. I told you there’d be consequences, didn’t I? Time to show you what they are.’
I blinked, realising something that I should have before I’d opened my stupid mouth: I’d just issued him with a challenge. And he wasn’t the type of man who let a challenge go unanswered.
Helpless anticipation coiled in my gut.
What had I done? I didn’t actually want him to touch me, did I?
Leon moved, taking my wrist and raising it to his mouth, his lips brushing over the sensitive skin on the underside of it.
And all I could do was shudder, his kiss burning like a brand, raising goosebumps all over my body.
You should stop him. You don’t want to do this. Not again.
I knew that. I knew what the terrible excitement and the ache that began to pulse between my thighs meant. I knew where it led. And yes, if I’d been thinking straight I would have stopped him.
But I wasn’t thinking straight. Had a man ever looked at me this way? Like he was desperate? Like he couldn’t wait to touch me?
Desire was rising inside me, a desire I thought I’d cut from my life, buried beneath compounds and test tubes and microscopes. Dizzying, intoxicating.
My breath came shorter, faster, my skin prickling and sensitive.
It had been so long since anyone had touched me. So long. And he was so beautiful, everything I’d once craved.
That’s why he’s dangerous.
Slowly, Leon raised my wrist above my head and pinned it to the wall, shifting his body in closer, making me so very aware of the bare inches that separated us. ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Are you ready to answer for what you did to me out there?’
Another shudder shook me. I didn’t know why, but I loved the dominant way he was holding me. Loved how caged and crowded I was by all that hard, hot muscle.
I tested his grip on my wrist and his fingers closed tighter. A thrill bolted the length of my spine.
‘Yes,’ I said huskily. ‘But it won’t work
. A bunch of chemicals won’t make me lose my mind.’
Fire leapt in his eyes. Fire that was burning for me.
‘You think that’s all this is? Chemicals?’ His voice was low and rough and soft as velvet.
‘Yes, of course. Testosterone. Oestrogen—’ I broke off, a shocked gasp escaping me as he lifted his free hand from beside my head and lowered it, his fingertips brushing over my skin just above the neckline of my dress.
It felt like he’d trailed fire over my bare flesh.
‘You were saying?’ His hand brushed lower, following the swell of my breast, his fingertips finding the hardened tip of my nipple and stroking it through the fabric.
I gasped again as a bolt of what felt like lightning arrowed the length of my body, grounding between my thighs and coiling there in a pulsing, aching kind of heat. ‘Oe-oestrogen,’ I forced out, struggling to remember what I’d been saying. Something about chemicals... ‘Dopamine. N-norepinephrine...’
‘That’s very interesting.’ His finger brushed over my nipple again, sending another electric bolt of sensation down my spine. ‘So all you’re feeling now is just a few chemicals, huh?’
I could barely make my voice work. ‘Y-yes.’
‘Easy to resist then, hmm?’
That maddening finger circled my nipple yet again and I inhaled sharply.
God, we were in public. Someone might have heard me and even now be coming to investigate. They’d find us standing here, see his hand on my breast, doing...things to me.
‘D-don’t,’ I said, panting. ‘Anyone could come.’
‘They might,’ he agreed, lazily circling again with his finger, drawing another helpless sound from me. ‘But the only person coming will be you.’
‘Leon—’
He bent, his mouth near my ear. ‘I want to watch you. I want to see you come apart under my hand, little scientist. And you will, understand?’
Pure excitement shot through me, though I had no idea why the thought of him watching was quite so thrilling.
‘Why do you want to see that?’ I managed to ask.
‘Because I do.’ His fingers closed on my nipple through the fabric of my dress and pinched lightly. ‘Because I want you to lose your mind for me.’
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