Chapter Fifteen
Ralston sensed her softening. He felt it. He saw it. Just as he saw the moment when she forced herself to reclaim her role of dominance.
“Ca suffit.” Her tone was low, but the thread of authority was unmistakable.
“Oui, Madame,” he replied, lowering his hands to his sides.
He’d have given anything to keep touching her. To explore every texture and detail of her body and soul. Instead, he dropped his gaze and held his breath until the air seared his lungs. Despite the roaring need inside him, he would do nothing she didn’t order him to do.
“Hands behind your head.”
“Oui, Madam.”
There was a pause during which he felt her gaze moving over his body.
“Tres bien,” she murmured. The admiration in her tone sent tingles of pleasure through his body, making him yearn and hunger. His will strained against the bonds of his position.
As though seeing his growing distress, she addressed him in a voice that was both gently intimate and full of purpose. “In this room, I am in command,” she reminded him. “Your time belongs to me. Your will belongs to me. Your…pleasures belong to me.”
Sparks ignited beneath his skin and a swirl of anticipation filled his belly.
He still wanted her. Intensely.
But he needed something else more.
When he’d decided to come to the Lyon’s Den tonight, he hadn’t been completely certain what he intended. Discovering that Miss Dickson was the woman in the mask had been shocking and unsettling, but as soon as he’d stepped into this room, it didn’t matter.
Knowing her identity didn’t change what he wanted.
In this room, he’d discovered the freedom to experience what it felt like to give himself into someone else’s hands.
All his life he’d been weighed down by expectations and obligations and responsibilities that required him to consider the dukedom, the family legacy, the opinions of everyone but himself.
He’d been so buried beneath duty he barely knew himself.
It was a terrifying revelation.
And though he wasn’t certain how this time with her was meant to address any of that, he knew with a soul-deep confidence that it felt right. Perhaps it was because he knew it was momentary. He knew he could stop it at any time. Walk out of that room. Never come back.
He wouldn’t.
He needed this. This time when he had no decisions to make, no one to take care of or to manage, no authority…
In the moments before her arrival, as he’d waited on his knees for the first indication of her presence, he’d realized something else, as well. Despite his posture, his readiness, his acceptance…there had still been a thread of resistance within him. A thin line of tension and denial.
It had felt wrong. As if he were trying to tighten his grip on something he was meant to release. Something he’d been holding onto with subtle desperation from the very beginning of these visits. It was a deeply ingrained expectation of control.
As soon as he’d been able to identify it, he’d let it go.
His focus, which had been searching the shadows for the first sight of her, had immediately softened and redirected to the floor in front of him. His hands had relaxed on his thighs and his breath had evened to a steady rhythm as he gave himself permission to truly surrender.
In doing so, he felt as though he’d been released from a cage and could finally fully embrace everything he was.
Every secret craving and curiosity and desire was his to explore.
And the most fascinating part was that all he had to do was follow her instruction.
He didn’t have to choose or analyze or study and decide.
He did not have to exert his will or make insistences or force anything into the shape he required.
Under her authority, his only responsibility was to do as she commanded.
And damn him if he didn’t bloody love where she forced him to go.
He belonged to her.
Charlotte Dickson.
She could’ve had a very different reaction to his behavior at the ball earlier. She could have avoided this room, denied everything, refused to ever speak with him again.
But here she was.
Did that mean she wanted this time with him as much as he did?
Did she do this for others?
The thought rippled through him in a chilling wave of jealousy.
“Mon grand,” her voice was a dark whisper as she took a step closer to him. If he wanted, he could reach out and touch her. Slide his hand up her lace-covered arm. Press his palm over her beating heart. Wrap his arm around her to bring her body to his.
He didn’t. He remained still, eyes downcast.
“What has upset you? Speak freely,” she added.
It didn’t even occur to him to be surprised that she knew.
Though she’d said he could speak freely, he recalled her prior dictates on what he was and wasn’t allowed to do in this room.
“May I ask you a question, Madame?”
There was a long pause of silence. No doubt she worried if he might pry into her true identity. He wouldn’t. The guise they adhered to was too important to him. But he had to know.
“Do you meet with other men like this?”
Her body stiffened. Then she started to circle around him. Whenever she did that, it set him slightly off balance, made his reach out with the senses available to him to pinpoint her location, set his skin to humming with the anticipation as he wondered where and if she’d touch him.
He fucking loved the uncertainty. The unsettling state of standing there exposed to her scrutiny while he couldn’t see her…was invigorating in the oddest way.
“Do you think you are entitled to such information?” she asked from behind his right shoulder.
“No, Madame,” he replied quickly and meant it. He acknowledged that she had no fealty to him. She was free to do as she wished. Here, if not out there where society’s rules caged them both. He had no right to know of her activities when he was not in this room.
But something inside him—something that had been formed long ago and was intrinsic to his being—wanted her to be his and his alone.
He needed to believe this was special—that he was unique.
That this meant as much to her as it did to him, though he couldn’t begin to put into words what that was exactly.
“Would it upset you to discover I spend time with others?” she whispered against his nape, her breath warm and her words a velvet caress.
“Oui, Madame.” His own voice was a ragged confession.
“Should I tell you of things I might do with someone else?”
Ralston tensed, his fingers aching with how hard they were clasped behind his head, his shoulders and thighs trembling in his effort to hold himself passive.
“Answer,” she prompted when he didn’t reply.
“No.” The denial dropped heavily from his lips. “I would not like to know.”
She sighed. The sound was light and airy. He almost missed it. But immediately after, he felt her fingertips drift down the taut hollow of his spine, then follow the edge of his breeches around his side as she stepped back in front of him.
“Bien,” she murmured huskily as she curled her finger beneath his waistband. “Because I do not meet with anyone else. And neither shall you.”
Forgetting himself in a rush of relief and desire, Ralston lifted his gaze to meet hers—dark amber and golden fire. Though it was a grave infraction, he couldn’t look away. Nor could he stop the rough groan from escaping his throat when she gave a tug on his breeches and stepped closer to him.
Holding his stare, she brought her other hand to his face. But instead of pressing her cool palm to his skin, she used the lightest drift of her finger to trace the line of his jaw from ear to chin where she exerted the slightest pressure.
He instinctively opened his mouth, parting his lips and teeth on a harsh exhale.
Looking into his eyes, she stated clearly and forcefully, “In this room, you belong to me.” Her tongue slid across her reddened bottom lip, making it glisten. “Beyond this room…if you wish to keep seeing me, you belong to only yourself. Tu comprends?”
He understood. Deeply. Intently. And with a rush of satisfaction so profound, he felt nearly consumed by it.
Unable to reply while she continued to exert pressure against his chin, he nodded instead.
Her smile was slow, seductive. Dangerous. And then her gaze slid down to his mouth.
For a moment, his heart stopped beating.
“Kiss me, mon grand.”