by Cox, Chloe
“Lola, where are you going?”
She had left a twenty and jumped down off her uncomfortable stool, totally ready to leave and go do some serious drinking / thinking at Stella’s place, and…there…was…Roman.
Like an immovable, muscular wall of hot.
“Oh shit, I think I’m tipsy,” Lola said, steadying herself with a hand on his chest.
His broad, hard chest.
Roman frowned. God, even his frown was sexy.
“We will have to sober you up first,” he said. “I have reserved a private room.”
“I only had one glass of wine,” she complained. “It…might have been a big glass.”
“And what have you eaten?”
“Shut up,” she said. She’d had that salad.
His arm stiffened around her waist, and drew her close. She stopped breathing momentarily, and that heated feeling swept over her. “No, Lola, you do not tell me to shut up,” he said. “And you do not abuse your body. That,” he said, leaning down to whisper in her ear, “is my right.”
Lola thought she would lose it all over again, right there. She closed her eyes and tried to remember all the very rational reasons she’d come up with to avoid this situation, but now she was drawing a blank. Her mind just kept coming back to how good he felt next to her. Stupid mind. Stupid body.
He didn’t wait for an answer, but took her hand and led her right past the hostess stand, where he waved blithely, and kept going. The restaurant was an eclectic blend of Catalan and Japanese—hence the wine, the tapas, the seafood, and the private rooms, or tatami rooms. The rice paper walls were decorated with ink painted scenes from Don Quixote, though Lola was pretty sure that wasn’t Catalonian, and there were generous wine carafes, chopsticks, and communal plates on every table. Roman led her to the last room at the end of the hall, far from the noise of the main restaurant area—a veneer of privacy, belied by the rice paper walls.
Roman slid the door aside and gestured. “After you.”
He had that look again.
That…look.
She was in trouble.
Instead of the usual flat cushions you’d find in American tatami, these rooms had a series of plush throw pillows, almost like a high end college dorm—like really expensive bean bag chairs, with the usual low table. Lola looked around, puzzled, and then collapse into a cloud of pillows. It was incredibly comfortable.
It was also incredibly suggestive. Like even the furniture wanted her to get laid again.
“Is this supposed to be…Moorish?” she asked, desperate to distract herself. The fabric designs had a definite geometric bent. “Wasn’t that, you know? Southern Iberian peninsula?
Roman grinned at her. “Of course you would notice. This restaurant, they are not so…how would you say? Historically accurate, as far as decorating goes.”
“Is the food good?”
“Excellent.”
He was still looking at her with that same dark intensity. She wanted to look away, but found she couldn’t. The man had super powers.
“So we have things to talk about,” she said softly.
“Indeed.”
A waiter knocked on the wood frame of the ridiculous rice paper walls, and slid the door back. He had another carafe of wine, a basket of fried little seafood critters, and some coffee. He set it down without a word, and Lola downed the coffee, black.
“Good decision,” Roman said.
“I figure I should be at my best.”
“You are always your best.”
Lola squirmed a little on her cushion. She was sitting with her legs folded under her, weirdly modest in front of Roman all of a sudden, and yet still she felt vulnerable. The heat rose from her chest to her cheeks, and she knew she was starting to blush. She was painfully conscious of Roman’s smooth skin, his dark eyes, his heavy shoulders straining the best intentions of his shirt. She would not be negotiating from a position of strength if this kept up.
Especially not if he kept saying things like that.
“Roman, this is hard for me,” she said. She didn’t—couldn’t—tell him the full truth. She didn’t even know what the full truth was. Was she still in love with him? Oh shit, she’d been denying all this time that she’d ever been truly in love with him. Could she be, if she didn’t know him well enough to know what was going on with him now? Had she ever known him well enough?
“It is hard for me too,” he said, and picked up a carafe of wine. Lola held her breath, not daring to believe he felt the same way she did, while he carefully aimed a stream of wine into his mouth from a foot or so away.
“Really?” she finally said.
“Yes. It is hard for me to keep my hands off of you. It is hard for me to restrain myself, and keep to my side of this table. It is hard for me not to tear off every dress you attempt to wear.”
She stopped breathing.
“Lola, I have a confession to make.”
Screw not breathing. She would love to be just not breathing. Now she was negative breathing.
Roman leaned forward, and took her hand in his. He turned hers over, and began to rub her palm with his thumb, his expression one of intense concentration, his touch unbelievably sensitive. “I have wanted you for a very long time. A very, very long time. It has been…inappropriate. Wrong. But I don’t care anymore.”
Roman held her motionless with his stare—with all the things it could mean. With all the things it reminded her of. He was the most intense man she had ever known, and being on the receiving end of that intensity, even fully clothed, was intoxicating. Lola knew she had to be careful, so careful, and yet it was so hard to remember how to do that. She could already feel her body giving way, no matter how much her mind screamed at her that this was how you got hurt.
Ben really had messed her up. That text had only reminded her of how easy it was to get hurt.
“What does that mean?” Lola managed.
“It means I need to have you,” he said very low. His hand closed around hers. “It means I need to have you as my submissive, Lola. I have never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
Anyone?
Even his wife?
She couldn’t bring herself to say it. The thought alone seemed terrible, something she should banish from her mind. No good could come of thinking that way.
The noise of the restaurant behind them faded away, and left only a pulsing thud in her ears. Her heart was going insane. Her mind was going insane. Her entire body, every nerve ending, every sense, every muscle fiber: all of them screamed YES.
She had to close her eyes.
“I have to know you won’t lie to me again,” she said. “I know it sounds dramatic, but I just…I can’t go through that again.”
She opened her eyes to find Roman’s classical face screwed up in agony. What had she said? She hadn’t—
“You include me with Ben?” he said, his voice rough.
Oh shit. She hadn’t meant to make that connection explicit, but, well, Roman was smart. The smartest man she’d ever met. The only one who could match her on the New York Times crossword—and English wasn’t even his first language.
Of course he’d figured that out.
“That’s simplistic,” she said carefully. “But you lied to me about Catie, and the whole Sizzle thing, and after Ben, that’s just a really raw wound. I—I don’t think I can resist you if you really want me, Roman, but I know that you can hurt me. Please don’t.”
There was a silence. She couldn’t bear it.
She broke first, and said, “Oh God, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, I don’t know what we were thinking, obviously this is completely insane—”
She didn’t get to finish, because Roman stood up and walked around to her side of table. He knelt in front of her, his hands immediately framing her face, his body heavy over hers, all of it feeling so treacherously right.
“Lola,” he said. His eyes searched hers, and his voice was thick. “Please, believe me. I
lied to you, but because my thought was to protect you. I know that was wrong. I am sorry. The idea that I would hurt you…” Now it was Roman’s turn to close his eyes. Lola had never seen him like this. She’d never seen him look…devastated.
“I didn’t mean you’d done it on purpose,” she said.
“No,” he said, fiercely. “Do not make excuses for my behavior. But what we have done…what we have known of each other…already, it is changed, Lola.”
She couldn’t hold back any longer. She raised her own hand, her finger tips touching the base of his neck, the dip where his collar bones met. He had changed into a more casual suit, no tie, his collar open.
He was so effortlessly gorgeous.
“Yes,” she choked.
“You are my submissive now, Lola, while we are in…this situation. For however long. I do not know. But it is, whether or not we acknowledge it. It will keep happening.”
His fingers began to move now, tracing the line of her jaw, down to her neck, down the center of her chest, until he met the fabric of her dress—another dress she found she wanted him to ruin.
“Yes,” she said.
“Remember you have the ultimate power, Lola,” he said, his hand trailing down her stomach, circling back to graze her breast. She closed her eyes, again, and tried to concentrate: she knew that to be true, intellectually, knew that the submissive held the power, the ultimate ability to say no. But did she really believe it, in this case?
Did it matter?
It was her one chance to have any semblance of power in this situation. Because otherwise she was defenseless against Roman Casta.
“Yes,” she said, eyes opening, Roman’s face hovering over her. Gently, so gently, he was pushing her down amongst the cushions, his body poised over hers. She said more forcefully, “Yes, I will be your submissive. Formally.”
“Club safewords?” he said, pushing her flat on her back.
“Red, yellow, green. Yes.”
“Hard lines?”
“None.”
Roman hissed, and his hands, once gentle, became rough. He roamed over the surface of her body, clad only in her form fitting cream sleeve dress, as though he was surveying a land that now definitively belonged to him.
He said, “Everyone has hard lines.”
“Don’t lie to me. Don’t…don’t be with anyone else.”
Roman let his fingers fan out, moving away from her breast to her stomach, the whole of her body available to him as she lay, ridiculously, on those cushions. She was breathing hard, each gasp, each catch of her breath obvious to them both with the rise and fall of her chest. He knew exactly what he did to her.
“Agreed. And for you: you are mine, only. You are mine. No one else touches you.”
She breathed deeply. She didn’t want to admit it, but the idea of Roman with anyone else made her feel sick, and not because of STDs—they both had access to each other’s medical records at Volare, and she knew they were both fine, and he knew she was on birth control.
“So, exclusivity,” she said.
He slid his hand down the length of her to her thigh, and then up between her legs.
“No one else,” he said savagely. “I cannot bear the idea of anyone else…”
His fingers came into contact with her underwear, a thong with this dress, and he cursed just as she arched into him involuntarily.
“What are these,” he said, already beginning to pull them over her hips. “Nothing between you and me, if I want it. Wear them at your own risk.”
He was taking her underwear off. Again. Lola put her hands up to cover her face, and lifted her hips to help him. She was incredibly turned on, incredibly wet, and somehow ashamed.
“Roman, please, we need terms,” she managed to force out.
“We have them.”
“I’m not a slave.”
“I’ve never wanted a slave. I want you, beneath me.”
Oh, Jesus.
“And this is…this is just sex.”
He was silent for a moment. A terrible, terrible moment, when she almost hoped…
“There is nothing ‘just’ about the sex we have.”
She shuddered. Well, that was true.
He came closer, his voice low and urgent. “Lola, do you agree?”
As though there was ever any question. As though she had a choice.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now strip.”
chapter 10
Lola’s eyes flew open. Roman had just ordered her to strip, in a semi-private dining room in a very public restaurant.
“Wait, what?” she said.
His eyes sparkled, and there was a devilish smile at the corners of his mouth. “Take off your dress. I told you this morning that I would punish you for hiding from me. I meant it. You will eat in the nude.”
“But we have other things to talk about.”
“Being naked does not prevent your mouth from working,” he said, smiling in obvious amusement. “In fact, I’m rather counting on that fact, in more ways than one.”
“But there are waiters—”
“Now.”
The tone in his voice was unmistakable. Even the party in the next room heard it and automatically stopped their conversation. It was the Dom voice, not to be disobeyed.
It made her quiver.
It had been so long since she was on the receiving end of an order like that.
She swallowed hard and said, “Yes, Master Roman.” And found that she enjoyed the way it sounded.
His eyes narrowed, and she could tell she’d gotten to him. She liked that even more.
Slowly Lola sat up, letting her red hair fall down around her shoulders. She arched her back and reached behind her to unzip, and saw Roman’s eyes immediately drawn to her breasts. He had retreated slightly to give her room, but was still within easy reach of her.
They hadn’t touched the appetizers.
She unzipped her dress as slowly as she dared, never taking her eyes off Roman. She wanted to see if the heat built in him the same way it did in her. She wanted to see that he had meant what he said. That she could feel safe, knowing he was as addicted to this as she was.
Her dress fell over her shoulders, and he crushed a pair of chopsticks in his fist.
“Keep going,” he demanded.
She tugged the fabric down to her waist, baring her breasts. She paused at his sudden intake of breath, relishing the moment: she was past the point of no return now. A waiter could come by at any moment. The people in the next room could be listening. She was getting naked for Roman in the middle of a restaurant.
“Keep. Going,” he said again.
Lola took a deep breath and raised her bottom up off her legs, just enough to shimmy the dress down to her knees, and then a quick pull and she was naked, but for her shoes.
“Give it to me,” Roman said, hand out.
Lola hesitated. He’d have her clothes. No way for her to cover up at a moment’s notice, no place to hide.
“I will spank you again,” he said. “And I will do it here. Give them here.”
She handed over the dress.
He smiled, folding the dress neatly and placing it behind him. He looked her up and down very slowly, his face an open display of appreciation.
“My God,” he whispered. “I may need to have you photographed.”
Lola bit her lip. She could feel her nipples hardening into fine little points, and she was sure she was blushing in more than once place.
“Now, what else did you want to talk about?” Roman said, brandishing the remaining set of chopsticks above the platter of appetizers. It wasn’t just fried little fish and crabs, there were cuts of sashimi, figs wrapped in cured meats, and about four things she couldn’t immediately identify.
A peal of laughter from the next room cut through the momentary silence, and Lola was suddenly reminded of her predicament. She hadn’t ever submitted like this, in public, to anyone. She was unbelievably turned on, but also�
�frightened.
“Roman,” she whispered, “Is this really a good idea? I’m naked, and—”
He silenced her by reaching across the table and pinching her nipple with his chopsticks as though it were just another morsel. It was a sharp sensation, the kind of thing that balanced deliriously on the border between pleasure and pain, and thus intensified both. Her pulse quickened.
“I do not think you have had very good doms, Lola,” Roman said. “You are such a natural submissive, and you have not even known it. There has been no one to show you.”
“Roman…”
“Yes, they might hear you.”
Lola listened: the silence indicated that they had. Hadn’t it?
“We said we’d be exclusive,” she breathed.
Roman smiled, and tweaked her nipple with the chopsticks. “No one else will touch you as long as I have a say in it, Lola. But I am only human. I will show you off.”
Lola felt drunk. She’d chugged coffee, just in case she’d been tipsy, but nothing could sober her up from this. Roman Casta, talking about showing her off. About how much he wanted her. About the things he was going to do to her.
“Lola,” he said, beckoning with his free hand. “Come here, and tell me what you wanted to talk about.”
She crawled over to him—crawled, where did that come from? It was instinctive, naked, on these ridiculous cushions—and he quickly pulled her onto his lap. Her nakedness felt all the more total next to his expensive clothing; it was like an outward expression of their power arrangement. She felt like a coveted possession.
“Um. I wanted to talk to you about an idea,” she said. He had threaded one arm around her and had abandoned the chopsticks and appetizers to fondle her absently while she talked. It made talking about even simple things a bit of a challenge. “Stella thinks we should have a big wedding ceremony. For the papers. For publicity.”
He was rolling her nipple between his fingers again, and smiling at the evident effect it had on her.
“What a coincidence,” he said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Ford thinks we will have to run a public relations campaign. That should serve both purposes.”
“Hmm?”
He dropped his hand to her thighs, and pushed between her legs, flicking at her vulva. She started, and tightened her arm around his neck.