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He went silent, and I knew this was my chance, my one chance to demur.
No
. Two letters, a single syllable, a single breath. Easy to say, so easy. Yet it didn’t come out.
 

Because…fuck it. I
did
want it. I wanted anything he could do to me. Everything he’d done so far had been…incredible. So why not this?
 

“Tell me you want it, Kyrie. Tell me what you want me to do.” Roth’s voice was an insistent murmur in my ear.
 

His finger slid in, moved deeper, brushed against the tight bud of knotted muscle, and I felt myself tense, felt my heartbeat hammer harder. The decision was already made. At every step, with every new thing he asked of me, I fought him. Said no at first, acted like I didn’t want what he intended. Yet I always gave in, always realized I did want it. I did want him.
 

 
“Do it, Roth.” My voice was stronger than I felt. “Touch me.”

“Where, Kyrie? Touch you where? I want to hear the words.” His fingertip pressed in, a slight pressure, just enough to tantalize me.

The vibrator was buried deep inside me, buzzing crazily, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do a damn thing except want him to push that finger in and bring me to completion.
 

“In…in my ass. Put your finger in my ass, Roth. Do it. Please.” Was that my voice? That husky, demanding rasp?
 

Roth growled. “Like…this?” As he said the words, he pressed gently and with increasing pressure.
 

I forced myself to relax, to take it. “Yeah. Like that. Just like that. Oh…shit.”
 

“So tight,” Roth murmured. “So fucking tight.”
 

I barely held back a shriek as he slid his finger into me up to the first knuckle. And then he wrapped his other hand around mine and forced me to get the vibrator moving, and his tongue dragged over my nipple and flicked it, and I was helpless, screaming, coming just like that, and he was wiggling his finger deeper and the vibrator was thrusting into me hard and fast, guided by both our hands, and I was clutching at him with my one free hand, seeking him, needing him. I found his hair, curled my fingers into a fist and held on, rode the tidal wave of climax with shriek after shriek, my voice going hoarse at the end, my hips rolling.
 

Breath left me, dizziness washed over me, and then my body went utterly limp. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move my tongue inside my mouth. Couldn’t move my hands or my legs. I couldn’t even twitch.

I felt him draw the vibrator out of me, and his finger, and then he left the bed. Faintly, I heard water running. I was a puddle of jelly, boneless, helpless. Unconsciousness flooded through me, but just before it did, I felt the bed dip. Felt his presence beside me. Felt fingers tugging at the blindfold, taking it off me. I felt his skin against mine.

“Sleep, Kyrie. Sleep now.” HIs voice was low, nearly inaudible, and gentle. Tender.

It was still a command, and I obeyed.
 

But not before I realized he had me tucked against his chest, his arms around my waist, one hand threading his fingers through my tangled hair.

7

REMOVING THE BLINDFOLD

I woke up slowly, gradually, and intermittently. My first sensation was one of warmth, and then of the kind of drowsy, all-consuming, cocoon-like comfort that makes you never want to move again, except to burrow deeper into the blankets. My next sensation was one of…I wasn’t even sure. Something…off. Some strange and unfamiliar sensation. I tried to suss it out without opening my eyes, without really moving or altering my breathing. What was it? It was connected to my sense of soul-deep comfort. The warmth, the softness. I burrowed into the blankets, seeking to go deeper, back to sleep, and that was when I realized what it was: skin. Muscle. A faint
thumpthump….thumpthump
under my ear. I wasn’t lying on a pillow. I was naked, and I was tangled up in sheets and blankets and arms and legs and flesh.
 

Roth.

In bed.

With me.
 

I didn’t have my blindfold on.

I tried not to freak out. What was going on? Had he fallen asleep by accident? That didn’t seem like him.
 

“You don’t have to pretend to be asleep, Kyrie. I knew the moment you woke up.” His voice was in my ear, sleep-thick and muzzy.
 

“You’re in bed with me.”

“Yes.”
 

“I’m not wearing the blindfold.”

“No.” A pause. Then his massive paw-like hand cupped my cheek. “Open your eyes, Kyrie. It’s time.”

I blinked my eyes open. His chest was tanned gold, scattered with a smattering of blond hair. The sheets were rucked around his hips, and I saw a hint of an Armani Exchange logo peeking out. I took a breath, shifted slightly. His hand was on my back, his arm wrapped under my head.
 

We were…cuddling.

I had never, not ever once,
cuddled
with a guy, during, before, or after sex. Not on the couch while watching a movie, not in a car, not in a movie theater, not in bed, not standing up or sitting down. I didn’t cuddle. Guys didn’t try. Even Steven, who I’d been the most serious about, who I’d dated for the longest amount of time, hadn’t really cuddled with me. We’d never spooned, never spent the night together. We did what we did together, and then he left, or I did.
 

Now, here I was, cuddling with
Roth
.
 

This, more than any other moment so far, had me terrified of what was developing between us.
 

The fear came from the fact that I’d never felt safer, never felt more comfortable, more at peace. I
liked
cuddling. I liked feeling his arm around me. Feeling his chest under my ear, against my cheek. His leg thrown over mine.
 

I was delaying. Roth, however, was still and quiet, simply waiting.
 

I tilted my head up, pulled back slightly so I could take him in.
 

Holy shit.
He was nothing short of male perfection. Sharp, high cheekbones, a strong jaw, luscious, kissable lips curved in a faint smile, eyes the color of a clear winter morning sky, palest blue. Blond hair sweeping over his forehead and across his temple, messy and effortlessly gorgeous. As we lay face to face, my toes barely brushed his knees. I could run my big toe over his shin, if I stretched.
 

I felt my heart swell and crack. Of course he was the most ruggedly, powerfully beautiful man I’d ever seen. Of course he would be. Of course he would stare at me with eyes so understanding and expressive and intelligent that I couldn’t and wouldn’t dare look away. I licked my lips, feeling a driving need to bolt, to run into the bathroom and lock the door and have a breakdown sitting on the closed toilet seat.
 

“You’re beautiful,” I blurted.
 

“Thank you.” He ran his thumb over my cheekbone. “Speak your fears, Kyrie.”

“This. Us. Everything. You. You scare me. Because you’re…amazing. I didn’t want you to be…so incredible. I wanted you to be a rich arrogant asshole. I wanted you to force yourself on me as repayment so I could hate you. I wanted you to be ugly and cruel so I could walk away.” Where were these brutally honest words coming from? Somewhere deep inside me, where truth resides. “But you’re not. You’re compelling and confident and understanding and smart and fucking gorgeous. You look like some kind of…Viking warrior. A Norse king. Is that stupid? It is. It’s stupid.” I blushed, my cheeks hot, and squeezed my eyes shut, tilted my head down, and buried my face against his chest.

“It’s not. Nothing you say is stupid.” His voice was raw and close, an intimate murmur that had such power over me. “I’m glad you find me attractive, Kyrie. I wouldn’t want this to be one-sided.”

“One-sided?” I risked a peek up at him. His blue gaze was hot, open. Searing.

“Yes, Kyrie. I’ve known a thousand women. All of them beautiful, intelligent, willing. Some of them were famous, some not.” Why was he telling me this? I didn’t want to know how many women he’d fucked. Of course a man of his skill with a woman’s body would have had to learn it somehow, but I didn’t want to think about it. “None of them, Kyrie, were as breathtaking as you are. You are so beautiful it makes it literally difficult for me to breathe sometimes. You make it impossible for me to keep my hands off you, to keep from kissing you. A while back you asked why you. That’s why.”

“I—really?”
 

“Yes, Kyrie. I am not a man prone to exaggeration, or flattery. When I look at you…I become weak. Yet the strength I see in you makes me want to hold you and protect you so you don’t have to be so strong. And…I have this need to possess you. To own you.” He shifted, rolling toward me, leaning over me slightly, weight on one elbow, his hand still holding the side of my face. “Do you have any idea how hard these last few days have been? How badly I’ve wanted to just…rip all your clothes from you and bury my cock inside you? Watching you come, feeling your pussy clench around my fingers…that has been such sweet torture. Watching your lovely face as you come for me and not being able to feel you around my cock…that has been an ecstasy of agony. I
need
you, Kyrie. You’re mine. You belong to me. Waiting…it has been all but impossible.”

“Why have you waited? You said it yourself: You own me. So why not take what is yours?” I watched his eyes, his expression, as he thought about his answer.
 

“Because you deserve better than that. I’ve had a lifetime of meaningless sex. So have you. I want more for you, and
from
you. I can take a thousand orgasms from you. I can kiss you and touch you and tear your clothes off you, and I don’t need and won’t ask for your permission. But for that? To bring this between us to the next level? I want you to give that to me of your own will. I want to own you completely. I want you to give that last bit of yourself to me because you
want
to be owned by me. And I will wait for that day to come.”

“What if I never can, never do? What if that day never comes?” I stared up at him, feeling his presence like a sheltering mountain, and knew the question was little more than me playing devil’s advocate.

His eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched. “Do not toy with me, Kyrie.” Abruptly, he softened. His free hand slid down my arm, came to rest casually and possessively on my hip. “You’ve already given in to me. Do you remember last night? Do you remember what you not only let me do, but
asked
me to do? Were those the actions of a woman holding herself back?”

I gulped a deep breath. “No. I remember. But that’s…that was different.”

“Oh? How so?” He roamed down my thigh with his palm, then back up to my waist. “I don’t think it is. I put my finger in your asshole, Kyrie. You don’t get more vulnerable than that. You’re telling me you’d let me do that to you, but you wouldn’t let me make love to you? You’re telling me you don’t want that?”

“I’m not saying that—”

“Then what are you saying, Kyrie? Say what you mean.”

“I don’t—I don’t know.”
 

“You’re afraid of what you’re feeling.”

“Yes,” I admitted.

He let out a soft breath and then dipped down, pressed his lips to mine, gently, so gently. “I’ll give you time.” He pushed away, slid out of the bed, stood up. “But be honest with yourself. Sort out what you’re feeling, and why you’re afraid of it. When you have that figured out, talk to me about it. In the meantime, shower and get dressed. Eliza will have breakfast ready in forty-five minutes.”

I watched Roth as he gathered his clothes. My mouth was dry, and my body tensed. He was around six-four, and he was lean, toned, muscular. His body was honed, artfully sculpted. I licked my lips, unable and unwilling to look away as he slid thick, long, powerful legs into a pair of distressed jeans, watched his rippling six-pack abs shift as he turned his plain black T-shirt inside-right, lifted it over his head. The sleeves stretched around his biceps and pecs, clung to his sides. He was barefoot, and for some reason the sight of his bare feet with the jeans made me tingle and shiver. It was intimate somehow.
 

He stuffed his hands in his hip pockets, leaned against the frame of the open door leading to the living room. His eyes were hooded, sleepy still, and his hair was sexily mussed, looking just-fucked. I wanted to climb out of the bed, tear the clothes off him, and lick him all over, run my fingers through the grooves of his abs and trace the indent of his V-cut, slide my thighs over his and ride him until he couldn’t move. I was hungry for him. Now that I’d seen him, I knew what I’d been missing. His powerful, virile body and angular, masculine beauty only increased his control over me, only made his impossibly potent effect on me that much more irresistible.
 

“Keep looking at me like that, Kyrie, and we’ll miss breakfast, and you won’t get a shower.” He withdrew his hands from his pockets, backed out the door but then stopped, gripping the frame in his brutally strong hands. “Tempt me, my sexy little vixen, and I can’t be held responsible for what I do to you.”

I realized I was posing. The sheet was pooled around my thighs, leaving my upper body bare, breasts heavy and nipples peaked, thighs pressed together to give a teasing glimpse at my core. My hands were tangled in my hair, as if frozen in the act of running my fingers through my locks. My lips were parted, my eyes heavy-lidded, and I was breathing deeply, each breath swelling my chest. It wasn’t an intentional pose, but now that I was aware of it, I held it.
 

And then I decided to see how far my own control over him went.

I ran my tongue over my lower lip, arched my spine to thrust my tits out, tilted my head back, and combed my fingers through my tangled hair. Let my hands drift down over my chest, paused to caress my nipples, then down to my stomach. I watched him through lowered lashes, my lower lip caught between my teeth. He squeezed the doorframe until I heard wood creak, and he lowered his body as if bracing himself, as if about to fling himself forward. I slid my hand down under the sheet, between my thighs.