Naked Canvas (An Alpha Billionaire Romance)

by Grey, Sadie

  The vibration between my legs escalated. Dominic must have turned it up. My frantic need for release was overwhelming, but I could feel myself holding back. A part of my brain screamed at me to stop. It told me not to enjoy this. It told me that I should feel ashamed at how I was acting. That I should feel ashamed of how I was feeling.

  I could feel the orgasm building in me. My body stood teetering on the edge but refused to take the plunge.

  “Surrender yourself,” Dominic said over the noise of the machine.

  I lowered my head and concentrated on the sensations I was feeling. I gyrated my hips against the ridge, forcing it further inside me and against my throbbing clit. My breath shuddered from me in ragged breaths. I was so close, but my orgasm was a rising tidal wave that refused to crash.

  “Surrender,” he said again.

  My body hovered in a quivering limbo, riding wave after wave of intense desire. I gritted my teeth against it, reveling in it and fighting it at the same time.

  The vibrating stopped.

  Silence engulfed me. The absence of movement between my legs was like not being able to breathe. My need was a rampaging beast demanding release. I pumped my hips against the ridge but it couldn’t compare to the vibration of the machine. An agonized wail cut through the stillness and I realized the sound was coming from me.

  I looked up at Dominic. I could feel the desperation written on my face. Between heaving gulps of air, I begged him. “Please don’t stop!”

  He smiled a grim smile. “Do you want to come?”

  “Yes,” I moaned. “Please. Please.” I was almost sobbing I was so desperate.

  “Then you have to surrender.”

  I thrashed against my bindings. “Please, just let me come,” I begged breathlessly.

  “Surrender.”

  Something broke inside of me.

  “I surrender, Mr. Bell,” I howled. “I surrender.”

  Electricity exploded between my legs. The ridge vibrated with a savage intensity, harder than it had before. Every nerve ending in my body was set ablaze and pleasure shook me like an earthquake. I clenched my jaw and my body began to shake.

  I looked into his eyes and I plummeted over the edge. A low animal moan escaped my throat as my orgasm screamed through me with insane force. Nothing in the world existed except the crashing tidal wave of bliss thrilling my body. I writhed and bucked against the saddle and I felt myself gushing against it.

  The motors of the machine beneath me slowed down and stopped. I continued to shake and spasm. The feel of the ridge between my legs was too much now. My body was too sensitive. I tried to collapse off of it but my trembling legs were too weak and my hands were still tied to the saddle.

  Dominic appeared before me and quickly untied my bindings. As soon as my hands were free, I threw my arms around him and he lifted me from the machine. I couldn’t stand. Tremors still shook my body.

  He held me up with one arm around my hips. I felt him remove the clamps from my breasts and loosen the buckles of the corset with his free hand. Then he pulled me tight against him. I pressed my face into his shoulder and wept.

  He held me like that until my body stopped shaking and I could finally catch my breath. His touch was gentle. He stroked my back and my neck and whispered soothing words into my ear.

  “You were amazing. Simply amazing.”

  The small part of my brain that was still functioning beamed with pride at pleasing him.

  He picked me up in his arms and carried me to his bed. I sank gratefully into the soft nest of covers. He leaned over me. I thought he wanted to kiss me or something more. I put an unsteady hand against his chest.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “I’m not asking you to. Just get some rest.” His lips pressed against my forehead.

  “That was wow,” I said. “Just wow.” My voice sounded sleepy and thick in my ears.

  “I told you. Amazing things can happen when you surrender.”

  I nodded. “I know I’m still on the clock, but I think I need a moment.”

  He smiled a warm smile. “That’s fine,” he said. He gently brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek. “Rest up.”

  “How much time is left?”

  “Don’t worry about that now.”

  “Tell me.” I could already feel myself drifting into sleep. From far away, I heard his voice.

  “Twenty-three hours to go.”

  Chapter 10

  My body awoke in stages. The lights flickered on in my brain, but my limbs remained still. Warmth and comfort cradled me in a lover’s embrace. Every part of me was relaxed and at ease. A deep feeling of satisfaction wove through every fiber of my being. I stretched like a cat beneath the soft sheets and almost purred at the delicious feeling.

  My eyes fluttered open. An unfamiliar ceiling of crisscrossed steel beams hung over me. This was not my bed. Reality snapped back into place and the events from earlier in the day crashed over me.

  I was at Dominic’s. He had dressed me up like his kinky sex slave and photographed me. The memory was shaded with guilt and shame. I had never opened up that way in front of anyone before. I had never felt so desperate and out of control. And I had never come so hard in all my life.

  It felt like a crazy dream. I thought I would be posing for him, and I suppose I had, in a way. But Dominic was asking more than that. He was dragging me way out of my safe little world, and I had no choice but to obey if I wanted to get paid.

  “You’re awake,” Dominic said in his deep baritone voice.

  He sat beside the bed watching me with blue eyes that positively burned in the sunlight flooding the room. His eyes flickered to my chest and I became acutely aware that I was wearing nothing at all. I pulled the sheet up to cover my nudity.

  “Where are my clothes, sir?” I asked.

  “Oh, you don’t have to call me ‘sir’ right now. I’ll tell you when to do that. And as for your clothes, I took the liberty of undressing you while you slept. I wanted you to be comfortable.”

  I thought back to the black leather corset with the shiny silver buckles. Despite the sadistic look of it, I had actually enjoyed the feeling of the soft leather gripping my skin. I wondered if he would let me keep it when this was all over.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked, smiling.

  “Good, I guess. How long was I out?”

  “Not too long. A couple of hours.”

  “You should have woken me up.” I sat up, still covering myself with the sheet, and tried to rub the sleep from my eyes. “You paid me to model for twenty-four hours. Not to sleep.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. We have a long day ahead of us. You’ll need your strength.”

  His words caused my stomach to flutter nervously. I could only imagine what he had planned next. I was scared and excited to find out.

  “Were you watching me sleep?” I asked.

  He flashed a grin. “A little. Would you like something to eat? Some coffee, maybe?”

  I was about to say no, but my stomach chose that moment to growl. I was ravenous.

  “Lunch sounds good,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I ordered some food while you were asleep. I hope you like Chinese.”

  He stood over the bed, waiting for me to get up. I stayed planted firmly beneath the sheets.

  “Can I have my clothes back?”

  “No need for that.”

  “Do you have a new outfit for me then or is this going to be a naked lunch?”

  He laughed. “I have a few things ready for you, but for now, this will suffice.” He plucked a pink silk robe from a hook on the wall and handed it to me.

  It reminded me of the robe I had worn on the day that we met. The robe I had taken off in front of a room full of students, baring my body for them and for Dominic. I took the robe from him gratefully.

  “Join me when you’re ready,” he said and strolled away from me, behind t
he paper screen that separated the bedroom area from the rest of the massive studio space.

  I slipped out from under the sheets and into the silk robe as soon as he was gone. I knew I shouldn’t be shy about him seeing my naked body anymore. Not only had he seen me naked more than once, but we’d had sex a few nights prior.

  I hadn’t been nearly so shy that night, although I blamed most of that on the wine. Still, old habits died hard, and I clutched the robe tightly around my chest.

  My bare feet padded across the cool wooden slats of the floor as I made my way to the kitchenette. Dominic stood at the counter with his back to me, shuffling paper containers of food out of a bag. My eyes traced the contours of his broad shoulders and muscled arms as he moved gracefully around the kitchen. The white shirt was form fitting enough to accentuate his lithe physique.

  He was built like a swimmer. Tall and long limbed. Toned, but not too bulky. I knew from personal experience how good it felt to be pressed up against that firm body and how he smelled like cinnamon and citrus.

  I sighed. I had promised myself that I was done with all that. I had even made him promise there would be no sex today. He could have my time and my obedience, but not my body. The rational part of me knew it was the right decision, but the animal part of my brain regretted forcing him to make that promise.

  I was still wildly attracted to him, even though I knew that getting mixed up with him any further would cause me nothing but trouble. He was a wildfire, and I refused to get burned.

  I stepped up to the counter beside him and looked at the variety of food spread out before me.

  “Such a gentleman, making a girl lunch,” I said.

  He turned around and spread his hands. “It’s not much. Generally, I prefer to actually cook, but this will have to do for now. I figured you needed to recharge your batteries, after this morning.”

  I blushed at the memory of riding the saddle-like contraption into blissful oblivion.

  “What was that thing?” I asked.

  “It’s called a sybian. I would ask if you enjoyed it, but I think I know the answer.”

  “Is that something you just had on hand or was that a part of Cavanaugh’s shopping list?”

  Dominic smiled sheepishly and ran a hand through his dark hair. “It was on Cavanaugh’s list.”

  I stifled a giggle with my hand at the thought of Cavanaugh with his starched suit and soft spoken manner trying to track down a list of sex toys throughout the city.

  “You’re terrible,” I said, laughing.

  “I know. But I didn’t do it to torture him, I promise. He offered to gather all those things for me. Although, to be fair, I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into.”

  “Cause he’s not a pervert, like you,” I said, still smiling.

  “I prefer the term ‘open minded.’ Amazing things can happen when you open yourself up to the possibilities of the universe.”

  “And what possibilities will I be opening myself up to next?”

  “Well, for now, it’s the possibility that this Chinese food might be absolutely terrible. My regular place wasn’t open this early.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring in a private chef, with all your money.”

  He smiled. “I promise next time I’ll have the whole thing catered.”

  I was about to protest that there wouldn’t be a next time, but he cut me off.

  “Dig in before it gets cold. I don’t know what you like so I got a bunch of different stuff. Take your pick.” He gestured at the containers lined up across the counter. It looked like he had ordered one of everything off the menu. The mixture of spicy aromas made my stomach rumble in an unladylike fashion.

  I grabbed a container almost at random. Some kind of chicken and veggies in a brown sauce. I sat down at the small table and tucked in. Dominic sat across from me with a paper carton of his own.

  We settled into a comfortable silence. For a while, it almost felt like we were a normal couple having lunch and enjoying the presence of each other’s company. The glaring red numbers on the wall caught my eye and shattered that illusion.

  The twenty-four hour countdown was now at 20:14. I was his obedient slave for the next twenty hours. The thought soured my stomach and all the warmth I felt towards him was gone.

  I sighed and pushed my food away. “What are we doing here, Dominic?”

  He glanced up at me, his mouth half full of noodles. “Having lunch.”

  “No,” I said, gesturing at the studio around us. “I mean, what are we doing here? Today? This whole arrangement?”

  He put his fork down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You’re modeling for me. Gillian interrupted us the other night—”

  “Don’t remind me of that bitch,” I interrupted.

  “Fine, but I never got a chance to finish working with you.”

  “And that’s it?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not done with you.”

  “You understand that no matter what happens today, I’m done with you. I mean, you get that, right?”

  He shrugged. “I’m trying not to think too far past today. After that, we’ll see.”

  I shook my head. “No, we won’t. You need to listen to me.” I stood up from the table and paced around the kitchenette. “Look, I agreed to this because of the money. End of story.”

  He stiffened in his seat. “I’m aware of that. It’s a fair trade for your time and for your company.”

  “Be honest with me,” I said. “Is this whole arrangement just a way of getting me to fall for you?”

  He looked down at his hands clasped on the table in front of him.

  “Is it?” I asked again.

  His voice was soft. Almost a whisper. “Would that be so bad?”

  “Look, we had a one night stand. It was fun, but it was a one-time thing. That’s it.”

  “It was more than that. I think there’s something between us. I know you feel it. Only you’re too afraid to admit it.”

  “You don’t get to tell me how I feel,” I said, my voice rising. “You can tell me what to do. You can tell me what to wear. But you can’t tell me what to feel.”

  “Then how do you feel?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “I feel like whatever spark we might have had is dead. It died when I ran out of here naked and humiliated.”

  “I already apologized for that. And that wasn’t even my fault.”

  I shook my head. “It was your fault. When your past comes back to haunt you, when it comes back to haunt me, then it’s your fault. And that’s just something I don’t want to deal with. My life is complicated enough without you making it worse.”

  “Look,” he said. “If I could go back and change the past, I would. I wish you could understand that some things are just out of our control. And when things don’t go as planned, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “You can downplay it all you want. What happened the other night was a giant mistake. What’s happening today is just business. Nothing more.”

  He nodded slowly. “I can accept that. For now. But we still have work to do.”

  “Something other than you trying to win me back?”

  “Yes, definitely.”

  “Okay, so tell me. Why do you want me as your model?”

  “I see something inside you,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, your dick.”

  He rose quickly to his feet, sending his chair clattering to the floor behind him. He grabbed me firmly by the shoulders, and his eyes burned into mine. The muscles of his neck were tense, causing the tendons to stand out.

  “Do you think so little of me?” he asked softly. “Do you think I just want to fuck you?”

  I tried to meet his gaze but it was like trying to look into the sun. My eyes lowered. “No. I don’t know. I just don’t understand.”

  He loosened his grip on my shoulders.<
br />
  “Imagine a pristine block of marble,” he said. “Beautiful in its own right, certainly. But with the potential for so much more. In the right hands, a simple block of stone can be turned into something breathtaking.”

  He lifted my chin with a gentle finger until our eyes met again.