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Roth reached in front of me, leaning close to whisper in my ear as he grabbed a piece of bread. “You’re close, aren’t you, baby? I know you are. I can feel your tight little pu**y clenching around my fingers. ” He slid his fingers into my channel, and I nearly aspirated my bite of salad, a wrenching tremor gripping me. “I should stop now, shouldn’t I? I wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself in my friend’s restaurant, would I?”

  I shook my head, but whether I meant no, don’t stop or no, don’t make me come, I wasn’t sure. My only other response was to stroke his length from root to tip and then clutch my fist around his head in short, shallow, squeezing strokes. I glanced sideways at him and was rewarded by an expression of tense concentration, as if he, too, was having to focus on holding back as much as I was.

  At that moment, though, he withdrew his fingers and slid them back in, then smeared my clit with my juices and circled slowly, and I was unable to hold back a sharp inhalation and a slight lift of my hips.

  “Stop, Roth,” I whispered, “Stop. Or I’ll come. ”

  Roth slowed but didn’t stop, and then Marco appeared in front of us with a plate of giant, cheese-dripping lasagna, another bowl of thick rigatoni and meat sauce, and a third plate of chicken parmesan with a small helping of linguini on the side. And, of course, Roth chose that moment to stroke me just so, just in the right spot with the perfect pressure, and I came. I couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t move, didn’t dare even breathe, and all I could do was feel the explosion rip through me, feeling my pu**y clench like a vise around his thick, sliding fingers, driving the climax higher and hotter. I squeezed Roth’s c**k and squeezed my fork and stared at the table, teeth grinding together and a scream bubbling at my lips.

  It was, possibly, the most potent orgasm I’d ever felt, made dirty and scandalous and all the more intense for taking place at a restaurant table in full view of the owner, who was listing the dishes and waxing eloquent on the food he was going to bring out next, and I was still coming, wave after wave crashing through me, making my belly tense and my thighs grip Roth’s hand with crushing pressure….

  I couldn’t stop a muffled squeak from escaping.

  “Signora? Are you okay?” Marco gave me an odd look.

  I nodded, fighting to draw breath. “Yeah—” I coughed to cover another gasp. “Yeah, I just…ahem. Got some salad…in the wrong…down the wrong tube. ” I lifted the half-eaten piece of bread in my hand as evidence, then realized my gaffe. “Bread. I meant bread. It’s—good. Oh…so good. ” The last phrase came out with shocking intensity, as yet another wave rocked through me, and now Marco was staring at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.

  Roth, of course, was perfectly composed, as if his fingers weren’t sliding in out of me in maddeningly slow penetration, driving what seemed to be a never-ending climax.

  “It is just garlic bread, signora, my wife’s recipe…if you like it so much, perhaps I could give you the recipe?” Marco glanced from me to Roth in back.

  “I—no, um—”

  “She’s just overwhelmed,” Roth put in. “It’s her first time in Little Italy. ”

  “Ah, well, that I understand,” Marco said. “The food here you cannot equal anywhere in the world, perhaps even in Italia. And, of course, you have chosen the best ristorante in Little Italy. ”

  The orgasm ebbing, I finally regained some kind of control, so I smiled at Marco. “This looks delicious, Marco. I can’t wait to try it all. ”

  “So, no more of the talking!” Marco gestured grandly at the plates of food. “Mangia!”

  I went for the lasagna first, and now that I was in control of my faculties again, I resumed stroking Roth with slow, subtle, feather-light touches, increasing my tempo as I felt him tense beside me, watched his fist grip his fork until it bent under his thumb, his other hand withdrawn from my folds and clutching my leg with iron strength. The pain of his grip on my thigh was worth the knowledge that he was barely holding back. His jaw was clenched, his torso angled forward, his thigh tensed under my arm, his breathing becoming ragged.

  His hips lifted once, and then he grabbed my wrist and jerked it away. “Enough,” he growled. He placed both hands flat on the table, head bent, breath coming in long, rasping growls, every muscle in his body tensed as he visibly struggled to hold back. After several long minutes, he finally relaxed and turned to glare at me. “I’m a thirty-six-year-old man, and I almost came in my pants. ”

  I smiled at him and shrugged. “Turnabout is fair play? You made me come in front of Marco. You think that wasn’t embarrassing?”

  “It’s different,” he said.

  I frowned. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Well, yes. You come, you don’t have to deal with a mess. ” He shifted his hips as if uncomfortable. “I’m somewhat…damp…as it is. ”

  I stuck my fingers under the waist of his jeans to touch his boxers, and felt a large wet circle of pre-come. I grinned at him, withdrawing my hand and threading my fingers through his. “It’s just a little bit. No big deal. ”

  He gave me a sigh and a shake of his head. “I hadn’t meant to actually make you come. I meant to torture you some more, but the way you come is simply too sexy to resist, and feeling you come around my fingers in the middle of my friend’s restaurant…not making a sound or giving anything away…it was impossible to stop. ”

  I waited until he had a mouthful of wine before leaning in to whisper in his ear. “It was still torture. Anything less than your c**k inside me is torture. I don’t need to come anymore, Valentine. I just need to feel you inside me. ”

  He swallowed—with difficulty, it seemed— and set his goblet down hard. “If you have any intention of finishing your meal, you’d better keep such sentiments to yourself. ”

  I shivered at the blazing heat in his eyes as he delivered the threat. “Oh, yeah? Are you gonna carry me off over your shoulder, caveman-style?”

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  “I might. ” He took another swallow of wine, a bite of pasta, another swallow of wine, and a bite of bread. “Eat. You’ll need your strength, love. I guarantee you that. ”

  I ate, feeling a clench in my core at the implication in his words. I couldn’t help pushing him. “You wouldn’t really, though. You’re too dignified for that. ”

  He only spared me a brief glance. “Wouldn’t what?”

  “Carry me off caveman-style. ”

  “Oh, no?” Roth quirked an eyebrow at me, as if amused, then glanced away, toward the kitchen. “MARCO!”

  Marco came scurrying. “Signore?”

  “Box this up for us. Cork the wine as well. ” He glanced at me, his eyes sparking pale blue fire. “Something has…come up. ”

  “Certainly, of course. May I ask, is everything—”

  “It is wonderful, as always, Marco. Kyrie and I merely have some…personal business to attend to. ”

  Marco shifted in place uncomfortably, perhaps realizing what Roth meant. “Of course, sir. Un momento, per favore. ” He bustled away quickly, calling out in Italian.

  Roth, meanwhile, merely continued to eat leisurely, chasing each bite with a small sip of wine. I tried to emulate him, acting unconcerned and casual, but I was entirely unsuccessful. I wasn’t afraid, per se, knowing he would never actually hurt me, but I was nervous, anxious, wondering if he really was about to sling me over his shoulder like some kind of ape-man. That would be embarrassing, to say the least.

  I ate a few more bites and finished the thick ruby wine in my glass, just as Marco was returning with carryout cartons. He swiftly and efficiently boxed up the food, stacking the containers in a paper bag, then stuffed the cork into the bottle of wine and placed that in the bag as well. He made a face of disapproval as he corked the bottle.

  “This wine, signore, it should not sit this way for long, it must breathe—”

  Roth slid smoothly out of the booth and stood up, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, Ma
rco. I understand. Thank you. ” He pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of his blazer, rifled through the bills, and then, with an impatient huff, simply tossed the entire stack on the table.

  I saw, at one quick glance, at least five or six hundred-dollar bills, and that was merely what was on the bottom. There had to be a thousand dollars there, I surmised. Before I could process another thought, Roth had replaced his wallet and was turning to me. I moved out of the booth and stood up, straightened my dress, and moved toward the door.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. ” Roth’s voice was quiet yet laced with potency.

  “Roth—”

  He didn’t let me finish. He stepped in front of me, ducked his shoulder, and swept me up. I shrieked in protest as my belly hit his shoulder, but then we were moving through the low, narrow hallway and out the door. I caught a glimpse of Marco, watching, stunned, by the booth, the stack of bills forgotten in his hand.

  Outside, the night was warm and still, the driving wind from earlier in the day having abated. I had barely a second to process the sounds of New York—horns, voices, air brakes squealing, sirens in the distance— and the smell of the alley—garlic and cooking food undercut by the sour-sickly tang of garbage—and then Roth was opening the passenger door with one hand, my entire weight on his shoulder, his arm across my thighs holding me in place.

  “Put me down!” I hissed. “I believe you, okay?”

  “Too late for that. ” He gave my ass a hard smack, hard enough to make me gasp as the sting of his palm shot through me. “Far too late. ” Another smack, on the other side, this one hard enough to startle me into an undignified squeak of protest.

  “All right! I’m sorry!” In the spirit of the moment, I pounded on his back with my fists, the only correct thing to do when slung over a man’s shoulder.

  “Sorry?” He sounded genuinely amused. “You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. You simply challenged me out of the last of my self-control. ” He smoothed his palm over my still-stinging ass, and then gave me a third hard slap, this one bordering on actual pain.

  And then he pulled me down, catching me in his arms and setting me with easy grace onto the passenger seat, handling me as if I were a sleepy, recalcitrant child. He even buckled me in, ignoring my indignant glare. He had the Bentley roaring out into traffic, and this time he drove recklessly, swinging out around slower moving cars, into oncoming traffic once, gunning the engine when there was an open space in the line of traffic.

  I clutched at the armrest with white knuckles. “Roth, you don’t have to—”

  “Not a word from you, Kyrie. ” He didn’t look at me, his voice retaining quiet intensity. “One word out of you, and I’ll snap. I’ll pull into the nearest alley and f**k you where you sit. You’re flushed and nervous and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and you smell like expensive wine and good food and pu**y. I’m barely holding onto my restraint right now, so if you want our first time together to have anything like romance to it, then just shut it. All right, love?”

  I only nodded and held on as Roth drove us through the thick late-evening traffic back to his building. He pulled into his private garage, touching a button to open the door as we approached. He had the car turned off and my door open before I could unbuckle, his hand in mine pulling me to my feet and tugging me to the elevator. As soon as the elevator doors opened, he slammed me up against the wall, hard enough to knock the breath from me momentarily. He turned a key, and the elevator lurched upward. His mouth crashed into mine, hungry and devouring, his tongue sweeping at the seam of my lips. His hands cupped my face with a gentility at odds with the fierce need of his kiss, and then his palms skated over my shoulders and down my waist to grip my hips, pulling me against him, pressing his erection hard against me. I moaned into his mouth, and his fingers clawed into the firm flesh of my hips, bunching up the cotton of my dress to grip the thick globes of my ass with both hands, his fingers hard and insistent and demanding. I gasped at the way his hands clutched at me, as if he couldn’t bear to hold back any longer, as if the last of his control had been exhausted.

  “Roth…”. I whispered, pulling my mouth from his just enough to move my lips on his. “I’m not afraid. I want everything. ”

  The elevator doors slid open, and Roth spun me around, swept an arm under my thighs and lifted me, carried me across the hall and into his room, kicking the door closed with his heel. The glass walls let in city light and the burning squares of amber glow from the high-rises across the street. Still holding me in his arms, Roth somehow dug in his pocket, found his phone, swiped his thumb to unlock it and tap an app, touched another button, and the glass tinted to opacity. The room went dark, pitch-black in an instant. Suddenly, my other senses heightened. I felt his brawny arms under my legs and around my back, his abs tensed against my side, his hands firm and gentle. I smelled our dinner on his clothes, wine on his breath, the familiar spice of his cologne on his skin.

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  His voice broke the silence, low and rough. “You want everything, Kyrie?”

  “Yes, Valentine. Everything. ”

  “Do you have any clue what you’re asking for, darling?”

  “I think I have an idea. ”

  I felt his lips on mine, a rough quick kiss. “I don’t think you do. ” He moved across the room with me, and I heard his foot bump the bed. He stopped, leaned over, and set me down. I could feel his overwhelming presence, though I could see nothing. “You can still leave, Kyrie. This is your very last opportunity. ”

  I reached up, found him with my hands, slid my palms over his shoulders, and pulled him down to me. “I’m where I choose to be, Valentine. ”

  His growl of approval washed over me. “Good answer. ” His mouth covered mine, and our tongues tangled. “Tell me, who do you belong to, Kyrie?”

  “You. ”

  “Say it. ”

  “I’m yours. ”

  “Try again. ” His weight settled on the bed, his hands beside my face, his knees on either side of mine.

  I knew instinctively then the words he wanted to hear. I felt no hesitation in saying them. “I belong to you, Valentine. You own me. ”

  “Yes. You’re mine. ” I heard his voice moving from my face down to my chest as he bent to press his lips to my skin, somehow finding, with unerring accuracy, in the darkness the hot, flushed skin of my cle**age.

  And then he was off the bed, moving away. I saw the glow of his cell phone, heard the clicking of a digital keyboard as he sent a message. To whom or why I couldn’t fathom and I didn’t really care, except for wanting him back, wanting his hands on my skin, wanting to feel him take my clothes off and kiss me and drive his big hard c**k into me. I couldn’t wait another moment to feel him, to taste him, to have him.

  I heard the sound of him setting his phone down, a moment or two of silence, and the thump of shoes being tossed aside. Another sound, one I couldn’t decipher. Roth picking something up, possibly, from a dish? I wasn’t sure. Then I heard a click-scrape, and saw a jet of flame illuminating Roth’s hand holding a lighter, a hint of his arm, and a tall white candle in a silver holder. I lay on the bed, watching as Roth moved around the room, touching the lit wick to at least a dozen unlit candles. In moments, his bedroom was lit by the soft amber glow of flickering candlelight.

  He crossed the room slowly, moving with a predatory grace. “Stand up, Kyrie. ” I stood, trembling with eager anxiety, staring up at him, trying to act fearless, when in fact my heart was shuddering madly in my chest. “You…you’re breathtaking, Kyrie. So beautiful. ” His voice was a reverent murmur.

  He reached out and touched my cheekbone, his finger warm, slightly rough. His fingertip scraped ever so gently across my cheek, up over my ear, brushing a loose tendril of hair away, mimicking the way he’d first touched me. That day felt so long ago, as if weeks or months had passed, rather than mere days. I remained motionless
in front of him, watching the way his eyes roved over me, the way he seemed to be embracing this moment, taking me in, all of me, really seeing me, into me, knowing me. And I knew him. I’d seen parts of his heart, part of who he was. Enough to know he was real, he was different, he was something incomparable, and I was ready and waiting and deliriously unprepared for what was about to happen between us.

  He blinked once, his gaze moving from my face down to my br**sts. I took a deep breath, and he watched my chest swell. Roth grabbed the zipper of my dress between finger and thumb, drew it down slowly. No part of him was touching me, but I felt his gaze as a caress. The zipper lowered, and my dress loosened. Roth brushed a palm over my shoulder, sliding the sleeve of my dress away. He did it again on the other side, and I shrugged my shoulders, brought my arms together in front of me, letting the dress fall down around me, billowing to pool at my feet, leaving me clad in my bra and nothing else.

  He reached behind me and unhooked my bra, tossing it aside. My ni**les stiffened, hardening to taut peaks under his hot gaze. I expected him to touch me, but he didn’t. He leaned past me, lifting something off the bed. A small garment of red silk and a scrap of black lace.

  Roth took my wrists in one of his hands and lifted my arms over my head. He slid the red silk over my arms, guiding my hands through, tugging the garment down into place. He adjusted my br**sts in the bustier so they were barely covered, the tops of my areolae peeking out, the silk hem coming to rest just above my navel.

  He ran his eyes over me from head to toe, shaking his head slightly. “How can you be so perfect, Kyrie?” I could only shrug. He held up the long scrap of black lace in both hands. “Are you ready?”

  In response I held out my hands, wrists together, offering myself.

  10

  OWNED

  Roth tied the lace around my wrists, loose enough that it didn’t hurt, but tight enough that I was well and truly bound. Tied up. Totally at his mercy. I tested the bonds, and knew that I was held fast.

  Despite knowing I was perfectly safe with Valentine Roth, I felt a shimmer of fear. I’d never been tied up before. I’d never been so completely within a man’s thrall before. In that moment, I knew I would do almost anything he asked of me. And I was okay with that, because I knew he wouldn’t ask me to do anything I wouldn’t want, wouldn’t enjoy.

  A growl left his lips, and he reached for me, grabbing my ass and jerking me against him, cupping the back of my neck and my ass to hold me flush against him, his jeans rough against my skin, his c**k thick behind the denim, hard and straining. Roth plundered my mouth with his, a kiss so furiously desperate that I was left breathless when he pulled away. He palmed both cheeks of my ass and lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, draped my bound hands behind his head, leaning down to kiss him, demanding his passion with my own kiss. He took a step, another, and then leaned forward, letting my weight drop me to the bed, my wrists at the back of his neck pulling him to me, keeping the kiss unbroken, mouths moving, our lips tasting and teeth nipping, tongues merging and tangling, and I felt heat in my belly, an ache that had never been sated, a desire made volcanically potent by his torturous teasing with fingers and mouth, never giving me the fullness of his body.