Chapter Ten
Olympia
I lie back on the mattress, trembling as his mouth comes down on mine.
My heart is beating hard and fast, and the touch of his lips makes the breath catch in my throat.
He’s gentle, his kiss coaxing and hot, but it’s not me who’s surrendering and I can’t escape the intense satisfaction that coils tight inside me.
I used his own tactics against him, lying about marrying him, and he was the one who broke in the end, not me. No doubt he thinks he can make me do what he wants using sex, but if so, he’s in for a surprise.
My anger flickers as I open my mouth to let him in. He tastes of dark coffee and chocolate, and it’s delicious. I want to grab him, devour him, show him that the one thing I’m not is a tool for his use.
Ironically, it was talking to Ulysses that solidified my determination.
I’ve heard him be funny, frustrated, impatient, and furious, but I’ve never heard him be afraid.
I didn’t want to be the reason for that fear, but that choice was taken out of my hands by Rafael.
I didn’t want to tell Ulysses about the pregnancy like that either, but again, that was Rafael’s fault.
Then again, if Rafael hadn’t taken me, would I have ever confessed to Ulysses? I’d still be there in the villa beside the ocean, still, in many ways, a prisoner of my own fear and indecision.
I’m not there now though. Rafael took me away, made me search within myself to find the strength I didn’t know I had, and sure enough, it was there. Strength to save me and my baby, to stand up to him and maybe bend him to my will even as he’s trying to bend me to his.
I managed it last night, locking him out of his own bedroom, which was incredibly satisfying. I didn’t want to fall asleep in his far too comfortable bed so quickly, but I must have been more tired than I thought, because I did.
My dreams, though, were hot and fevered, and I woke up aching.
My body is Sleeping Beauty woken by a kiss and now hungry for nothing but more of them, everywhere, all over.
Especially when I’d pulled open the door to find him standing on the other side, holding a tray full of delicious-looking breakfast.
Yet it was he who made me even more hungry, dressed in worn jeans and a black T-shirt, his short black hair standing up as if he’d run a hand through it one too many times. His dark eyes met mine and I’d felt the need rise in me, watched it flare in his gaze, too.
I always planned for him to do this, to take me down onto the bed and kiss me senseless, but I’d also planned to be the one in control of it, to be in control of myself and to stay in control.
Yet as his hot mouth devastates me with a kiss so sensual I can’t resist placing my hands against his hard chest, I can feel that control slipping. His body is as hot as his mouth and I want to lick him all over, explore him the way I never got to do in Singapore.
‘Marry me, dragonfly,’ he whispers against my lips. ‘I’ll make you feel so good every night. You’ll never go to bed hungry.’
I want to tell him no, I’m not going to marry him and he’s a fool if he thinks I will, but that kiss of his…
hot chocolate, whisky, sex and sin, everything I’m craving and I can’t help but whisper in return, ‘Make me.’ And something in me wants him to.
Something in me wants him to convince me that marrying him would be a good thing.
I’m not immune to his promises. The thought of having him every night is… seductive. Too seductive.
His mouth trails kisses along my jaw and down my neck, and he gives a low laugh. ‘Is that a challenge?’
‘Yes,’ I breathe, the words escaping before I can stop them. ‘Convince me.’
He lifts his head, the look in his eyes scorching me to the bone. ‘Are you sure that’s what you want? I can be very convincing.’
I know exactly how convincing he can be and exactly how weak I am in the face of it.
But to hell with that. If there’s another way, a better way, to test my own strength against his I don’t know it.
I can’t compete with him anywhere else but this room, this bed, and there’s a piece of me that wants to test him and test myself too.
‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m a doormat, Rafael,’ I tell him huskily. ‘Or a sheltered virgin who knows nothing about the real world. I’ve been through things you can’t imagine.’
His gaze sharpens. ‘What things?’
Silly of me to mention that, because I don’t want to talk about it, not now and not here. So I reach up, sliding my fingers into the raw silk of his hair and holding on, pulling his mouth back where it belongs. On mine.
He is rigid in my grip for only a minute and then his mouth opens and he’s devouring me as hungrily as I’m devouring him. But he won’t have forgotten. What I’ve said has sparked his interest and I know what happens when his interest is sparked. He’ll get it out of me at some stage.
But that’s not now and so I lose myself in the heated glory of his kiss. His weight on me is heavy, yet not uncomfortable. It’s a barrier between me and the world, a brick wall protecting me. Hard and strong and impenetrable.
I spread my legs so he can settle between them, the hard ridge of his cock pressing down right where it feels so good, making me want to writhe against him, intensify my pleasure.
‘Ah, dragonfly,’ he whispers against my neck. ‘If I give you what you want right now, that’ll leave me with nothing to bargain with.’
‘So?’ I whisper back. ‘It’ll cost you nothing.’
‘I know exactly what it’ll cost me.’ He presses a hot kiss on my throat then lifts his head and reaches for the drawer in the bedside table, pulling it open and extracting a handful of silky fabric.
‘And sadly for you, I’m a much better businessman than that.
’ He stares down at me, his dark eyes blazing, and I don’t miss the challenge in them.
‘You want me to convince you then here’s my first argument.
’ He holds up the fabric. ‘Submit yourself to me, dragonfly. Submit and I’ll give you everything you ever wanted. ’
My heart is hammering as I glance at the handful of silk. They’re scarves, soft-looking and brightly coloured, and I suspect I know what he wants to do with them.
Well, I wanted to test myself against him, didn’t I?
A whisper of trepidation chases across my skin, but not because of what he wants to do to me.
It’s more because I can feel the intense throb between my thighs and I fear that I want this very much.
Too much. What could he make me agree to if I do this for him?
What would I give up for the pleasure he can give me?
Do you care?
I don’t like the thought of being bound, it makes me think of myself all those years ago and how my foster mother would tie me up and put me in a closet every night because she didn’t want me wandering.
I still remember the suffocating blackness of that closet and how the plastic of the zip ties would dig into my wrists, making it hard for me to sleep, and how sometimes I’d panic, feeling as if I was being buried alive.
But this isn’t the same. There is no blackness, only the cold morning sun coming through the windows, and the ties are silk, not plastic, and the man who wants to bind me is looking at me as if there is nothing more important than me giving him this.
And it is a gift. He’s not taking it from me the way my abusive foster parents did or forcing me to do it.
He’s asking me and challenging me at the same time, and how can I help but give this to him?
Those memories of being bound are terrible, of me feeling weak and helpless and small. Of knowing that I didn’t matter to the people who were supposed to care for me. That I was alone in the world except for the brother who’d been taken away from me.
But right here, right now, Rafael can give me new memories. Better memories. Memories of pleasure, because I have no doubt this will give me pleasure. Memories of him looking at me as if I was the most beautiful, the most precious thing in the universe to him.
This won’t trap you. This will set you free.
I meet his hot gaze and I don’t flinch away.
And I raise my hands, my wrists pressed together.
The look in his eyes flares and I can see the triumph and satisfaction flicker across his beautiful features, as well as a fleeting relief.
He was hoping for this and it makes me feel good that I’ve pleased him.
‘First,’ he murmurs and shifts, taking the hem of my dress and sliding it up. I help him, my heartbeat accelerating as he uncovers me, pulling the dress off and over my head. He gets rid of my underwear and then I’m lying on the bed naked as he takes my hands and winds the silk around my wrists.
I’m breathing fast and he’s watching me, gauging my reactions, and I know suddenly and completely that if I was afraid he would stop. I wouldn’t even have to say the words. He’d know just by looking at me.
Slowly he lifts my bound wrists above my head and back, and, with a deft movement, ties them to the headboard of the bed.
Then he stares down at me and the hunger in his dark eyes robs me of breath.
I’m naked and bound, and at his mercy, and yet I don’t feel powerless.
I don’t feel weak. He’s staring at me as if I’m a feast set out for his pleasure and he doesn’t know where to start because everything looks good to him.
It’s incredibly erotic.
He lifts a hand and runs it gently down my body, stroking my skin, mapping my curves.
Light touches, teasing touches. Then he stretches himself over me, on his hands and knees, looking down into my eyes as he lifts a hand and cups one breast. My breathing gets faster and he continues to watch me as he teases my hardening nipple with his thumb, circling it then pinching gently.
‘Such a beautiful dragonfly,’ he murmurs as he touches me.
‘Do you like this? Do you like being mine?’