Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
LULU
Holy. Fucking. Christ.
He looks like a devil, standing behind me in the low light of the room, watching me in the mirror. He’s so big, so tall and broad, and watching his tattooed hands move over my pale skin sends a shiver through me, making my core ache and my thighs clench.
With a knowing smirk, he leans down and presses his lips to the top of my shoulder, and then he’s gone, gathering a long length of rope.
He starts at my front, blocking the view of the mirror from me. He loops the soft purple rope around my neck and shoulders, in almost a harness, and knots it just between my breasts, then presses a kiss on my sternum above the knot.
“May I touch you?” I ask him in a rough whisper.
“No.” His icy gaze holds mine. “You may not.”
I roll my lips in and press them in a line. That almost pushes me into yellow territory.
I love touching him.
I love that I’m one of the only people in his life who’s allowed to.
But I’ll be patient and trust his process. His body is strung tight tonight. He’s not the calm and collected man I’m used to.
I’d like to know what set this off in him, but I keep my mouth shut, my arms at my sides, and enjoy watching him move.
His forearms flex as he ties the knots. His dark eyebrows pull together, making a line form between them, and I want to reach up and soothe it with my thumb, but I stay strong, taking him in.
When he’s finished looping this soft rope around me, he steps aside, revealing me in the mirror, and I see my jaw drop.
Wow.
He’s looped it so perfectly around my breasts, my chest, and shoulders, it looks like a beautiful work of art. The room suddenly fills with soft piano music, and I glance at Rome as he rubs his hand over his lips, taking me in as he walks to stand behind me, looking at me in the mirror.
“Color?”
“So fucking bright green.”
His lips tip up in a half smile before he lifts his hand and brushes his fingertips over my nipple, making it pebble.
“Unbelievable,” he murmurs, pressing his lips on the ball of my shoulder. “Incredible.” He drifts over to my spine, just below my neck, and skims his teeth over my flesh. “Goddamn delicious.”
I sigh at his touch, loving the way he feels.
Suddenly, he spanks my ass, startling me. It’s hard enough to make my skin heat but not hard enough to make me cry out.
He tips up an eyebrow in the mirror.
“Green.”
He moves back to the table and chooses another rope, this one red and thicker than the last one.
He unravels it before stepping behind me and looping it around my waist. He weaves it through the bottom of the purple strands and then down around my hips, his knuckles teasing and tormenting me with every pass of the rope.
He has to run it under my crotch, to the side of my pussy, and back up again, but he pauses and brushes his fingers through my slit, making me groan.
“So wet already,” he murmurs and kisses my back. “So warm.”
I whimper, and he keeps tying the knots. They’re so beautiful. I don’t even want to think about all of the practice he had to do to make it this perfect.
Don’t go there.
This man is twenty years older than you. He’s had a lot of life experience. Shut your brain off, Eloise.
“Firefly.”
My gaze whips up to his in the mirror.
“Why are you frowning?”
I blink rapidly and school my face. “Sorry, I was in my head.”
His eyes narrow, and he tips his head to the side. Then his hand is between my legs again, but not in my slit. He’s cupping my thigh, near the crease where my leg meets torso, and I bite my lip.
“Color,” he demands, his voice harder than before, his eyes colder than earlier.
“Green,” I whisper, but his eyes narrow. “Very green.”
His hand moves up, and suddenly, he plunges his two middle fingers inside me, and I cry out, arching into him.
“Christ, you’re fucking gorgeous,” he mutters, watching us in the mirror. “I want you to stay here with me, baby. At this moment.”
I swallow hard as my walls contract around his thick fingers, so wanting to come. Needing it.
“Not yet,” he whispers against my ear. “How close are you?”
“So close. Rome, please.”
He pulls his hand away and shoves the fingers that were just inside me into my mouth.
“Clean me up so I don’t get the ropes dirty.”
My tongue swirls around his fingers, licking him clean. I won’t mention that the ropes will be dirty from my wet pussy anyway, and the smirk on his handsome face tells me he’s thinking the same thing.
And he doesn’t care.
When I’ve licked myself off him, his hand drifts down my neck, down my torso over the ropes. I hope he’s going to return to my core, to massage that ache out of me, but he simply grins and then lets go.
Damn him!
He chuckles and grabs another length of rope, this one orange, and he weaves it through the purple and starts to loop it down my right leg.
Holy shit, that’s pretty.
Rome squats next to me and kisses my hip, my thigh, as his fingers deftly work that beautiful orange down my leg. I’ve always been self-conscious about my thighs because they’re … shapely, and I have cellulite.
But Rome is worshipping that leg right now, and I feel my breath speeding up, just a little, and my eyes have blown wide in the mirror.
My mind is emptying.
I almost feel like I’m floating.
Rome’s fingers skim up my leg, around to my ass, which also has ropes zigzagged around it. He slaps me again, but I don’t startle this time.
I bite my lip.
My face flushes.
This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me.
“Color.”
“Green.”
Is that my voice? So raspy. It sounds like I’m in a trance, and suddenly, Rome is right in front of me, his hands cradling my face as he stares down into my eyes with such intensity, it almost brings tears.
“I’m right here,” he reminds me.
“Green,” I repeat.
He kisses me softly, then moves to my ear.
“You’re slipping into subspace, baby. That’s right where I want you. But I need you to stay with me for a while yet. I need you to keep responding to me.”
“Okay.”