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  “Don’t!” His hand clamps down on my hip hard, holds me in place.

  I cry out then, and it’s a sound I don’t think I’ve ever made before. Half-pleasured, half-distraught, it hangs in the air around us for several long, tense seconds. And then he’s wrapping his arms around me. Burying his face against my neck. Pressing wet, openmouthed kisses against the fragile skin there.

  Immediately, I feel less bereft.

  “Trust me,” he says.

  Any other time I would laugh at him. Trust him? I don’t trust anyone, let alone the writer sent to pry into my life for a magazine article. But right after he asks it of me, his teeth nip sharply at the join of my neck and shoulder and my whole body goes limp. And I know that even if I don’t trust him—even if I never trust him—I’m still going to surrender to him.

  Still going to give him anything—everything—that he asks of me.

  Chapter 13

  Who are you?

  The words are on the tip of my tongue. There are so many other questions I need to ask, so many others I’ve waited months to have the answers to. And yet, right here, right now—when my hands shake with desire and my dick aches with the need to be inside of her—this is the question that matters most to me.

  Who is Veronica Romero? More, who does she think she is? I’ve only known her a few days and yet already I’ve figured out that how she perceives herself is as different from how the world perceives her as it is from who she actually is.

  But as I stand here, burning with both questions—and with a need I can’t deny—I see her eyes in the reflection of the glass. They’re dark and hazy and far removed from the woman who stormed into this hotel room less than an hour ago.

  She’s in subspace now, weightless, unmoored, drowning in sensation. Instincts I didn’t even know I had tell me that I could push her a little harder, take her under a little more, and she’d answer my every question. Tell me anything and everything I need to know.

  And while that might be the easy route, that doesn’t mean it’s the right one. Taking advantage of her sensuality—of her trust—would make me an even bigger bastard than I already am. And while I’m willing to bend my rules quite a bit to get the answers I need, I’m not willing to break them completely.

  No matter how much I want those answers.

  No matter how much I want her.

  So instead of pushing Veronica toward the very subjects I’m growing more and more certain she doesn’t want to speak of, I lick my way down the slender column of her neck, pausing every few seconds to suck bruises into her tender skin.

  She smells good, tastes good—like honey and vanilla and the sweetest, ripest berries—and the need for more of her claws its way through me. The need for all of her. I bite down softly—I can’t help myself—and she moans a little. Arches into my hands, into my lips. The need grows fiercer and for several long seconds it’s all I can do not to yank my own pants down and push her panties out of the way so that I can slide inside of her. So that I can fuck her the way I’ve been dying to from the moment she walked out of that kitchen—out on me—last night.

  Only the knowledge that anyone passing by can look up and see us keeps me from doing just that. I don’t mind pushing her comfort zones a little, don’t mind doing whatever it takes to get her hot. But when Veronica Romero finally comes undone in my arms, when she finally drops the mask, I’m going to be the only one to see it.

  So instead of fucking her right here, while we’re both on display, I suck one last love bite into the delicate skin behind her ear before I pull back.

  She whimpers at the sudden distance between us. The sound has me growing even harder, has heat skating along my nerve endings even as I soothe her by stroking a hand down the center of her back. She shivers at the simple touch and I relish her reaction, relish the responsiveness that is so much a part of her even as I wonder where tonight—where this—is going to leave us in the cold light of day. Where it’s going to leave me and the project I’ve spent the last three years pouring my time and energy and heart into.

  But then she whimpers again, calls out my name, and any thought that isn’t her—that isn’t this—gets buried in this agony of want.

  I reach out to touch her—to put both of us out of our misery—but a little voice at the back of my head keeps me where I am, just out of her reach. Just out of her sight.

  “Tell me something about you that no one else knows.” The words are torn from me before I can think better of them, and once they’re out, they hang between us for several seconds in the sex-laced air.

  I wait for her to answer, but she just stands there, head bowed and body sagging forward as if she no longer has the strength to hold herself up. It’s such a marked difference from the woman she normally shows the world that I almost cave. Almost pull her into my arms and carry her to the bed where I can make love to her slowly, sweetly, with the care that I’m beginning to think has been sorely lacking in her life.

  If I thought it was what she wanted—what she needed—I would do just that. But if I’ve learned anything the last few days, it’s that coddling Veronica, giving in to her, is the last thing that will get me anywhere. She needs a firm hand, someone who won’t back down just because she’s a star. She needs someone who can set boundaries and keep them, even as she batters against them.

  Fuck, just thinking like that makes me uneasy. Makes me wonder what the fuck is happening here and if I need to back the fuck up. Because, before I met Veronica, I never thought about a woman in terms like these.

  I never paid any attention to power exchange and what it means in the bedroom.

  I sure as hell never imagined that I’d be locked in the middle of a game of sexual dominance with one of the sexiest women in the world.

  Yet here I am, determined—desperate, even—to give her what I know she needs.

  Because I am, I silently wait for her answer. Silently wait for the words that will free us both.

  It takes a while before they come, before she finally clears her throat and whispers, “I don’t like flowers.”

  It’s a relatively unimportant fact compared to everything I want to know, and relatively impersonal, too—something that anyone could hear and not think twice about. I almost dismiss it, almost pull her tank top over her head as I demand more from her. But there’s something in the way she’s tensed up, in the way she’s braced herself like she’s waiting for a blow, that makes me think there’s more to the story than Veronica is letting on.

  So instead of brushing her answer off, I pitch my voice low and soft as I ask, “Why is that?”

  But she’s already talking again, deep in her own head as she continues, “I don’t know why people think giving someone flowers is romantic—once you cut them they’re just one more dead thing that smells terrible. One more thing that will decay and wither and eventually dry up and turn to dust.”

  There’s so much in that answer that I almost get lost in it all. Especially when I think back to her house yesterday, to the copious flower arrangements that popped up in nearly every public room and the extensive, manicured garden she spent hours being photographed in. Why have either if she dislikes them so intensely?

  That’s the question I want the answer to, but something tells me asking it straight out will shut her down completely. And so I dance around it, addressing the simplest part of her answer first. “You really don’t like the smell of flowers?”

  “Not most of them, no. The scent of roses actually makes me sick.”

  Why? The question is right there on the tip of my tongue like so many others. And like the other questions, it’s one more that I don’t ask. Instead I clarify, “Don’t people send you roses all the time?”

  She smiles a little then, but it’s all irony, no happiness at all. “They do, yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? You’ve never sent me flowers.”

  “And now I never will.”

  “I think it’s safe to say you were
n’t planning on it anyway,” she says with the husky laugh she’s known for the world over.

  She’s wrong, but I don’t bother to tell her that. I’m too busy trying to fit this newest piece of her into the puzzle.

  Is it physical? I wonder. Her reaction to roses? Psychological? How far back does it go? Does she even know what its roots are or is it something that’s always been there?

  She shivers a little, and I press myself against her, wrap her in my arms. She relaxes into me, lets me warm her for several long moments. Then, when she’s finally stopped trembling, she whispers, “Aren’t you going to turn off another light?”

  Right, the game. This is all about a game. About information.

  The reminder is what it takes to get me to pull away from her. To cross the room and turn off first one light, and then a second, because I sense that she was more honest with this question than she had any intention of being and she deserves the reward. And because with each moment that passes, my need to touch her—to be inside of her—grows.

  There are only two lamps left to turn off in the room now, only two questions left for me to ask her. But as I return to her, there’s only one question that matters.

  Grabbing her wrist, I tug hard, whirling her around to face me. And then I’m pressing her back against the glass, resting my hand on her collarbone as my fingers circle and stroke the delicate skin of her throat. Her eyes grow wide at the possessive hold, but she doesn’t try to shake me off. Doesn’t try to escape. Instead, she licks her lips. Swallows audibly. Stares at me with eyes gone the same night-violet as the sky outside my window.

  It’s the first time our eyes have met since this whole thing began.

  “Do you want this?” I demand, low and urgent.

  She nods slowly, her gaze holding mine like we’re missile locked together. Still, “I need to hear you say it.”

  “I—” Her voice breaks, her breath stuttering out in a rush.

  I wait, but she doesn’t try to speak again. Her silence disturbs me even as it drags me closer to the ragged edges of my self-control and I slide my hand up her throat to cup her jaw, rub my thumb roughly back and forth across her lips.

  “Do. You. Want. This?” I ask again, the words dark and strident in the tense silence of the room.

  “I want you.”

  It’s not an answer to the question I asked, but it’s enough for now. More than enough considering my willpower is in absolute ruins. My dick is throbbing with the need to make her come, my muscles burning from the restraint I’ve inflicted on them for so long.

  I reward her honesty by slipping my hand inside her panties and sliding two fingers along her slit. She gasps, trembles, sighs, and I use my free hand to yank her tank top and sports bra over her head in one fell swoop. And then she’s naked in front of me save her tiny red lace panties and my mouth is watering, actually watering, with the need to lick and kiss and bite every inch of her smooth, perfect skin. I want it so much—want her so much—that for long seconds I’m paralyzed, unsure of where to start.

  In the end, Veronica takes the choice from me as she cups a hand under one gorgeous, rose-tipped breast like an offering. It would take a stronger man than I to refuse, and I bend my head, pull her nipple into my mouth.

  She moans at the first touch of my lips, arches her back. Her fingers come up to my hair, burrow in, tug and I bite down just hard enough to sting a little. At the same time, I pinch her clit between my thumb and forefinger and she goes off, her body clenching rhythmically around my fingers in an orgasm that I build higher and higher with each flick of my tongue, each stroke of my thumb.

  When it’s over, when she’s come down just enough to release her killer grip on my hair and suck in a deep shuddering breath, I whirl her around, start walking her backward toward the bed on the other side of the room. But she only lets me take a few steps before she drops to her knees before me.

  I’m unprepared for the move, and for how quickly she gets my belt unfastened. Then she’s undoing my top button, lowering my zipper. Tugging my pants down my hips as she presses hot, wet kisses to my abdomen and hip.

  Her mouth feels good, so fucking good, that there’s a part of me that wants to just let her have her way. Wants to let her do to me whatever she chooses. But I worked her hard with our game, pushed her even harder, and I want the rest of the night to be about her. About bringing her pleasure. About getting her off.

  Somehow I find the strength to wrap my hands around her shoulders, to try to pull her up.

  She’s having none of it, though, not this time. She might be floating in subspace, but that doesn’t preclude her need to give me pleasure. In fact, I’m pretty sure it enhances it as she fights me a little, pushing my hands off her shoulders and sliding my boxers down low enough to free my cock. Then she leans forward and takes me in her mouth.

  I nearly lose it at the first stroke of Veronica’s tongue on the underside of my dick. My hands tangle in her miles of blond hair, my hips stutter forward of their own volition. This isn’t how I planned it, isn’t what I wanted for tonight—for her—but as she cups my ass in her hands, pulls me closer, deeper, I lose the ability to think about anything but how good her mouth feels on my cock and how hot she looks on her knees in front of me.

  The wall opposite us is mirrored and I can’t help watching as she pulls me deep. Can’t help staring at the way her hair cascades down her naked back and her red lace panties bare the full, sexy curves of her lower ass. The only thing hotter is the way I can see her face at the same time, can see the way her cheeks flush and her jaw strains as she takes me in.

  She looks so good, feels so fucking good, that it’s all I can do to keep from blowing down her throat before things have a chance to really get started.

  With that thought in mind, I tug on her hair, try to get her to pull back a little, but she refuses to yield. Instead, she sucks harder, swallowing me down until the head of my cock brushes the back of her throat.

  “Fuck, Veronica. Baby.” I pull my hips back, try to make it easier for her, but she just follows me, head bobbing a little as she slides me in and out of her throat. At the same time, she runs her tongue along the bottom of my cock, stroking me again and again and again, until my eyes are crossing and my knees are weak.

  And still I try to hold back, still I try not to slam my hips forward, try not to wreck her voice—try not to wreck her. But Veronica is having none of it. She uses one hand to keep me in place—to keep me deep as her throat works around me—and uses the other to stroke my balls, my taint. Add to that the way she moans, low and long and slow, and I’m lost.

  Slamming my hips forward, I tighten my hands in her hair to hold her in place as I finally take what she’s been offering. What I’ve been dying for from the moment she first walked into that restaurant three days ago.

  I fuck her mouth hard and fast, take everything that she’s offering and demanding even more. Work my way into her mouth, her throat. Slam into her again and again and again, caught up in the way she looks, in the way she feels, in the way she makes me feel.

  So good.

  So. Fucking. Good.

  My teeth clench, my jaw locks, and I lose myself for a minute—for several minutes—in the moist, sexy heat of her mouth. In the soft, desperate moans that come from deep in her throat and reverberate all along my dick. In the way her cherry-red lips form a perfect O as she takes me in, slides me back and forth, swallows me down, again and again and again.

  She looks sexy, beautiful, as caught up in the moment as I am. But her eyes are closed, her long, golden lashes brushing against her cheeks, and suddenly I want nothing more than to see her eyes. To know that she’s enjoying this as much as I am.

  “Look at me!” I demand, my voice low and guttural—more animal than human as desperation claws at my insides.

  She must understand what I’m saying though, because her lids fly open and then I’m staring straight into her fucked-out eyes. They’re blurry, out of it, her pupils blo
wn so wide that all I can see of her irises are two thin, purple rings.

  Her obvious arousal only turns me on more, has me fucking into her harder, faster, deeper, until release is all I can think about. All that I want. For one brief moment, I wonder who’s actually in control here—her or me. It’s an uncomfortable thought, one that has my hands twisting in her hair, pulling her closer, harder, trying to make her take me impossibly deeper.

  Somehow she does it.

  The knowledge cuts my last tenuous tie to sanity—or maybe it’s the way she wiggles her tongue along the sensitive spot on the underside of my cock that does me in. Either way, pleasure slams through me—hot, intense, all-consuming. It starts in my spine, skates along my nerve endings. It tightens my muscles, has my hands clenching and my teeth grinding together before rolling through my stomach, my balls, the base of my cock. And then I’m coming, spurting inside of her, cum jetting furiously down her throat as the intensity of it all nearly drives me to my knees.

  And still I keep thrusting, still I keep fucking into Veronica’s mouth again and again and again.

  She takes it all, cheeks hot, lips swollen, eyes drenched with tears from taking me so deep for so long. Her throat works convulsively as she swallows me down and still I burn. Still I don’t let up until she whimpers, her mouth finally going slack around me.

  Her discomfort gets to me like nothing else could and I pull out in a rush, give her sore mouth and jaw a chance to recover. But I’m not close to being done, not close to being sated. There’s a part of me that doesn’t think I ever will be as long as she’s around.

  The thought disturbs me, so I bury it in a rush of desire as I yank her to her feet. I’m not gentle as I spin her around and shove her—facedown—onto the end of the bed. But she doesn’t want gentle from me and, right now, I don’t think I could give it even if she did. I should be spent after the orgasm I just had, should be completely done, but all it takes is watching her squirm onto her knees, her lush ass wiggling with the movement, to keep me hard and make me even harder.