Chapter 18 Mara
Mara
Le Bernardin glowed in soft gold. Empty tables were set with crystal that caught the warm light. Emilio had arranged it all. The whole restaurant was closed just for us.
"The entire restaurant?" I look around the lavish space. "How did you—"
"Money opens doors." He sounds pleased as he watches me. "Sometimes it's the only language that matters."
The ma?tre d’ appears with polished confidence. "Mr. Rosetti, everything has been prepared according to your specifications."
We sit at a corner table, private with a clear view of the entrance. I can’t quite believe we went from that motel room to this temple of food.
"You didn't have to do this," I say as Emilio settles across from me, his dark eyes watching my face in the candlelight.
"Yes, I did." He reaches across the table and brushes my fingers. "After what happened with Matteo, after what I said... I needed you to understand something."
"Which is?"
"That choosing you wasn't desperation or obsession." His thumb traces my knuckles. "It was the sanest decision I've ever made."
The sommelier brings a bottle of wine and explains where it came from. I barely hear him, too focused on how Emilio's touch sends a thrill up my arm, how his eyes never leave mine.
When we're alone again, the first course arrives. I look at him in the soft light: dark jeans and a black cashmere sweater that fits his slim build. Other rich men dress to show off, but Emilio moves as if he has nothing to prove.
"Tell me about Paris," he says as we begin eating. "The gallery opening where you wore the red dress."
My fork pauses. "I forgot you were watching."
"Always." No shame, no apology. "You stood by the Monet for twenty-three minutes. What were you thinking about?"
I remember that Paris gallery, thinking about the man who taught me to see beauty. "You, probably. I was thinking about you."
His lip curves. "Even while you were running from me."
"Especially then." I sip wine that tastes rich and complex. "You were everywhere I went, Emilio. Every beautiful thing reminded me of what I'd walked away from."
The next course arrives, but I barely taste it. My mind races for a way to change our dynamic. I want some of the power I had in that penthouse, when I made him watch without touching.
An idea takes shape. Risky, dangerous, but exactly right for this moment.
Under the white tablecloth, I take off my heels. The carpet feels thick under my stockinged feet as I stretch my leg toward his chair, testing boundaries.
"You're distracted," Emilio notes as I push food around my plate.
"Just thinking." I let my foot touch his leg, brushing my toe against the wool.
His breath catches slightly, but his face doesn't change. Years of discipline, and I've found a crack in his armor with just the arch of my foot against his calf.
"About what?" His voice stays steady, but I notice a slight roughness.
"About how surreal this is." I trace patterns on his leg through the fabric, watching his pupils dilate despite his calm expression. "Yesterday we were in a motel with thin walls. Tonight..."
"Tonight you remember what it feels like to be treasured." He reaches across the table, fingers intertwining with mine as my foot slides higher, finding the firm muscle of his thigh. "What it means to be with someone who sees you as worth any expense, any risk."
I press my toes more firmly against his leg, feeling the tension in his body as he tries to stay composed. "Is that what this is? Treasuring me?"
"Among other things." His grip on my hand tightens as my foot continues, finding the growing hardness beneath his zipper. The hitch in his breath fills me with satisfaction.
I curl my foot, toes flexing and pressing against the outline of him, and watch the tremor wash over his face, a tightening at the jaw, a flicker in the careful mask.
His nails dig crescents into the back of my hand until I almost want to wince, but I don’t even entertain the thought; I welcome it, a souvenir of how he’s unraveling for me.
For once, I am the storm he can’t predict.
I savor every detail of his body’s betraying heat, the way he holds himself rigid, a man who’s always in control forced to beg for mercy with nothing but the tremor in his hands.
My pulse is a hummingbird’s riot, but I let my face betray nothing, just a small, pleased smile as I stroke him, slow and deliberate.
The illusion of control, always his favorite tool, is now mine.
I could make him beg in front of the entire room, and he knows it.
That knowledge is a secret between us, intimate as anything we’ve ever said aloud.
“Jesus, Mara.” His voice is barely audible, a strangled syllable tasting of plea. There’s no menace in it, just surrender.
I lean in as I pour myself a new measure of wine, letting the deep red flicker in the candlelight. “Something wrong?” My foot presses more firmly, rolling over the ridge of him, the friction unmistakable. “You look…tense.”
He chokes on a laugh, half-moan, half-despair, and his other hand dives under the table, wrapping around my ankle with a grip that would leave bruises if I weren’t so intent on outlasting him.
Instead of pushing me away, he drags me closer, anchoring my foot to his erection, encouraging the pressure that's making his jaw clench with desperation.
“You’re playing with fire,” he grinds out, his thumb pressing into the jump of my pulse. His words are hoarse, a little wild, as if he’s been running for miles.
I resist the urge to gloat. Instead, I lace my voice with velvet. “Good thing I like getting burned.”
My toes find the head of his cock, rigid and impossibly hard, branding its heat through the thin fabric.
I push harder, slow and merciless. His head drops forward, brow creased in agony and anticipation.
The predator who stalked me through continents and code is reduced to this: a trembling, helpless thing under my heel.
The waiter returns, gliding to the edge of our table like a ghost, and for a moment I retreat, offering Emilio the courtesy of a composed facade.
The server’s hands are quick and practiced, delivering the next course with a muted flourish and vanishing again, leaving us alone in our private sphere of tension.
Emilio barely manages to murmur a thanks, voice steady but gaze glassy, his chest rising and falling with a breathlessness he can’t conceal.
I lift my fork and taste the food. Delicate, perfect, utterly wasted on my numb tongue.
I’m deliriously drunk on the power, the knowledge I can break him with nothing but a touch.
The instant the waiter is gone, Emilio tries to recover, but I see the way his hand hovers under the table, reluctant to let go of my ankle, to relinquish even a second of contact.
I start again, slow torturous strokes, heel digging in, arch flexing to caress him in rhythm.
He’s putty under my ministrations, his dignity in shreds but his pride refusing to quit.
“The staff,” he manages through gritted teeth.
“What about them?” I let my heel roll up, toes curling against the growing wetness at his crotch. “They’re trained for discretion. That’s what you pay them for, right?”
My foot moves faster, the friction hard, his hips stuttering against my toes. I taste victory in the way his jaw flexes, in the small gasp he bites down, in the panic of his fingers squeezing my ankle.
“That’s it,” I whisper, watching his pupils blow wide, obsidian eclipsing the gray. “Let go, Emilio. You can lose control. Just this once.”
He shakes his head in tiny, defiant shakes, always the martyr, always the hero, but I don’t let up.
The rhythm is relentless, my movements assured.
I watch him fight, see the white-hot struggle to stay silent, to hide the storm I’ve set loose inside him.
Sweat glistens at his brow. In this moment, everything he’s built, his empire of code, his fortress of secrecy, his decades of discipline, counts for nothing. He is mine, and he knows it.
“Mara,” he rasps. My name is barely a sound, more prayer than warning. “If you don’t—”
I press harder, the head of his cock straining against the dampening wool, and let my expression show sweet, merciless delight.
“You’ll what?” I prompt. “Cry for help? Shatter the glass? Make a scene and let everyone see what happens when the Ghost gets caught?”
He sucks in a breath, a shudder tearing through him. “You’re going to make me—”
“I know exactly what I’m going to make you do.” I slow the rhythm, just a hint, keeping him hovering at the precipice. I want to watch him suffer for it, this beautiful, damning need. “The only question is whether you can stay silent when you come.”
His face contorts, battle lost. He sits absolutely still, every muscle rigid.
His eyes flash, searching my face for mercy, but there’s none to be found.
I feel a surge of heat, then a violent pulse beneath my foot.
He slams my foot under the table, clutching it so tight I think I’ll lose feeling, and his body bucks, once, twice.
His breath catches on a low, clipped moan.
For two, three seconds, everything in the world stops.
He doesn’t cry out, doesn’t collapse. Instead, he locks eyes with me, glassy and wild, and lets the pleasure batter him behind clenched teeth.
The aftershocks shake him, wave after wave, until he’s spent.
The only evidence is the flush creeping up his neck, the damp patch darkening the fabric, and the shudder in his exhale when he finally releases my leg.
The silence is sacred.
For a while, he just sits there, chest rising and falling quickly as he feels the aftershocks. When he finally talks, his voice is rough, almost hard to recognize.
"Fuck."
I slowly move my foot away, enjoying his shiver, and slip back into my heels with care. "Consider it a down payment on my gratitude."
He looks at me with surprised admiration and a clear promise of payback. "You realize I'll have to return the favor." His voice hints at something dark. "Tenfold."
The waiter comes with our next course, unaware of what just happened. Or maybe he is—he avoids looking at Emilio's lap as he sets the plates with professional skill.
"Is everything to your satisfaction?" the waiter asks.
Emilio smiles like a predator as he looks at me, his pupils still wide. "Absolutely perfect."