Marrying the Master (6 page)

Lola
furrowed her brow, and looked at him with concern.
Concern
. God, what he could do with her submission.

“I
don’t understand,” she said.

“I
kept secrets from you because I wanted to protect you,” Roman bit the words
off, his arms tense with the effort of restraint. “And this made you think that
I do not take you seriously. That is incorrect. You are…you
deserve
to be part owner. I should have
done
this years
ago. I am only correcting an
oversight, but I hope you will understand the sentiment behind it.”

Their
eyes met, and it was as though the rest of the world fell away, and Roman’s
entire awareness contracted down into a single, fine point concentrated on
Lola. He knew her so well he could see her mind working, could see her running
through possibilities and permutations and figuring out how to feel about what
he’d just said. Figuring out what it meant. Roman held himself rigid. He found
her mind as sexy as her body.

“I
see,” she said. Slowly she looked him up and down, and Roman’s animal lust
traced the path of her gaze. Every muscle in his body screamed for him to take
her.

“Roman?”
she said, and looked up through those long lashes. “Stop protecting me.”

Roman’s
pulse roared in his ears, a primal call that he struggled to ignore.

“Do
you know what you are saying?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Maybe.”

And
Lola lowered her eyelashes, her body language unmistakably submissive. Roman
had never seen her like this. Had never seen her like this with
him
.

“Lola,”
he said.

They
were interrupted by the telephone. Neither of them turned away as
Ford
picked it up, speaking quickly and quietly.
Roman was transfixed by the sight of Lola
, head bowed, in
front of him. She was no naïf; she knew what this meant. What her body was
saying to him.

She
knew
.

“Guys?”

“What?”
Roman didn’t turn away from her. Lola didn’t turn away from him.

Ford
continued, “Harold Jeels is on his way up. You need to avoid him until you’re
legal. You also need to get your marriage license
today
so that you can make it official tomorrow. And you need to
find a way to make this convincing—not just to the press, but to the
other Volare members, as well. I don’t like telling you to lie, but everyone
needs to believe this. Harold Jeels will ask questions and I don’t want to give
him any ammunition when he’s obviously prepared to go to war with a bullshit
law that only stands because nobody ever bothered to repeal it. He’s fucking
nuts.”

“We
must convince Volare, as well?” Roman asked.

Ford
gave a wry smile. “Somehow I don’t think it will be that hard. Now get the hell
out of here and go to the city clerk’s office to get that license. My assistant
will show you the back stairs.”

Roman
kept
touching
her, and every time he
did, her brain blew another fuse.

Roman’s
hand rested on the small of her back, on her waist, on her arm, guiding her,
prodding her, telling her where to go. As soon as Ford mentioned that Harold
Jeels was on the way, Roman had gone into “determined protector” mode. When
Roman had glanced out to the front lobby and seen reporters, he’d gone full
caveman
. He’d immediately put his body between hers and
anyone else. It seemed like he didn’t want to go more than a second without
some kind of contact.

Lola
wasn’t complaining. But she
was
worrying.

What
had happened in Ford’s office? Never mind what had happened in Roman’s
head—what was behind those smoldering looks he’d given her—what the
hell had happened in
her
head? She’d
felt herself slipping into a submissive role in a way that she hadn’t experienced
since Ben. It had just come
naturally,
just her
reflexive response to something Roman was putting out.

In
fact, it wasn’t really like it had been with Ben. She hadn’t had to think about
it at all.

Roman
had just looked at her and she’d felt warm.

She’d
really convinced herself that she could handle this. She’d worked with Roman
every day for years and managed to avoid—or suppress—this exact
feeling. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d avoided
more than a feeling; she’d also avoided almost all personal discussion with
Roman. This was the first time in years they’d talked about their relationship,
whatever it was.

He’d
said he wanted to protect her. She’d wondered what that meant, she wondered how
far he’d go, and then she’d wondered if he’d protect her from himself. If he had
been protecting her from himself, from
his famous sexual appetites and emotional reserve.

Just
the thought left her breathless.

His
touch, just the slightest touch, lit her on fire. She was sure he must notice.
How could he not notice?

But
he’d been focused on outward threats. Roman had actually made her wear his suit
coat over her head as he put her in a cab, like some kind of white collar
criminal doing a perp walk, and he was unwilling to let her go once they
arrived at the city clerk’s office. He’d practically carried her inside.

“Roman,
I’m ok,” she finally said, exasperated. They were waiting while the clerk
checked out all their forms and identification. Roman was still hovering
protectively over her, as though a reporter might jump out from behind the line
of people waiting to file for various permits.

“They
won’t get near you again,” he said firmly. “I promise you that.”

“Well,
they know where I live, so I’m pretty sure they will.”

“No.
You will move in with me.”

Lola
looked up to see if he were joking. He wasn’t. And
she was
distracted just by the sight of him
. His dark olive skin managed to look
good under fluorescent lighting, and the muscles in his neck writhed as he
ground his jaw in frustration. She knew he didn’t want to wait around out in
the open like this. The idea that he wanted to get her back to his apartment…

Don’t read into it, Theroux.

“Do
you really think that’s a good idea?” she managed.

“It
is the only idea. You will be my wife; of course you will live with me.”

“Well,
in name only,” she said. He looked down at her, his dark eyes unreadable, and a
now familiar tingle spread through out her body.

He’d
never looked at her like that before. And now, in the past two days…

“Mr.
Casta, Miss Theroux? Your license is ready, you just have to wait twenty four
hours.” The clerk peered up at Roman with owlish eyes and smiled. “Are you
the
Roman Casta? From
Sizzle
?”

Inwardly
Lola groaned. The last thing they needed was to have their quickie fake wedding
staked out. She still couldn’t believe this was of interest to the rest of the
world—hadn’t anything actually important happened this week? Was a
discreet high-end sex club really that big a deal?

The
little clerk was looking at Roman with a mixture of awe and lust, so apparently
it was. Lola did not like it.

“No,”
Lola said coldly.

Roman
gave the clerk a charming, slow smile, and slipped some money over the desk.
“Please, keep our secret. If you do, I will be very grateful.”

Lola
glared. She had seen Roman flirt before, and she’d even seen him in scenes with
other women before. She’d never liked it, and she’d usually found an excuse to
be in a different room so she didn’t have to see too much of it, but this time
she didn’t have that luxury. And this time he was supposed to be her husband. Fiancé.
Whatever.

“Roman?”
she said as he led her out of the stuffy little office. “We’re going to have to
talk about how we act in public.”

Abruptly
he stopped and brought her to heel, her hand still in his. He looked down at
her fiercely, obviously thinking hard about something.

“Yes,”
he said. “We will.”

And
he pulled her into a sudden, simmering kiss.

Lola
melted into him, helpless to do otherwise. His kiss was deep and ruthless, his
tongue coaxing a low moan from her throat while his fingers weaved into her
hair. Before she knew it her hands were on his chest, her fingers grabbing at
his lapels, and her clit was throbbing, driving her to get more of the man in any
way she could. He took her from controlled and classy to wanting and wanton in
less than half a second.

Roman
pulled away, his eyes burning in satisfaction. “We will have to do
that
in public,” he said. “You will
simply have to get used to it.”

Oh God.

Lola
was in a daze as she walked down the broad marble stairs. She ran her tongue
over her swollen lips and wondered what that kiss would feel like on other
parts of her body. She sat in the cab at his side, eyes closed, sure he could
tell that desire pulsed in her, that her clit was painfully swollen from just a
kiss. She was afraid to look at him, afraid to talk to him. He would
know
.

He
led her in silence through the familiar lobby of the hotel and up the private
elevator that led to his apartment, a duplex that was adjacent to and below
Club Volare, which was on the top floor. Her mind was in overdrive—would
it be so bad if he knew? Was that just the rationalization of an unbelievably
horny mind?

He’d
done that to her with one kiss.

One.
Kiss. And she’d been willing to do anything he wanted.
Anything
at all.
She would have offered her submission right there in the hallway
of the city clerk’s office, in front of anyone and everyone, if only it meant
that he’d fuck her.

Her
mind reeled at the thought. She’d been so hurt by Roman’s lies, equating them
with Ben’s lies without thinking, but now she wondered if that was just the
break up talking, if her anger at Roman had really been about her anger at
being betrayed. Discovering that Ben had been cheating on her with his ex-wife
for months had been absolutely devastating, and the resulting break up had
haunted her like a damn poltergeist. Just when she thought she was getting over
it, the memory would rise up to totally fuck up her day. She’d thought she
could never trust a man again, certainly not enough to submit, and then she’d
found out that Roman had lied to her, too.

But
her body hadn’t gotten the message. Her body had just announced that she could
most certainly still submit—to Roman.

That
she most certainly still trusted Roman, at least as far as BDSM went.

She
almost wanted to cry in relief, and then again in frustration. She’d begun to
think she’d never trust a man again, that she’d just be broken for the rest of
her life, and now, because of a kiss from Roman, she knew she wasn’t a lost
cause. She wasn’t broken.

Too
bad Roman was the one man she knew who would never love her.

But
it didn’t matter—it was like a dam had broken. All of the old feelings
that she’d resisted for all these years threatened to overwhelm her. Drown her.
She could barely speak.

Roman
opened the door to his private apartment and pulled her inside, his shoulders
relaxing now that she was finally in the safety of his home.

‘Home’
didn’t really do it justice. Lola had been here a few times before, but she
would never get over the shock of the view. The city lay before her, the floor
to ceiling windows facing south and west, revealing a beautiful view of the
park and downtown with just a hint of blue in the hazy distance. This was only
the public area, or semi-public. She knew there was another floor below.

Not
for the first time, Lola wondered what Roman felt when he looked at what he’d built
here in New York. She didn’t know much about where he’d come from, just small
snippets over the years, some things filled in by Chance. He’d been on his own
as kid, an actual Dickensian sort of orphan, and had worked his way up picking
through trash and cleaning gutters in Spain, eventually employing other kids in
his business. Twenty hard-scrabbling, entrepreneurial years after that, he’d
put himself through school and had the beginnings of a real estate empire, then
had sold most of it just before the crash. She didn’t blame him for not wanting
to talk about where he’d come from, but she never stopped wanting to hear about
it.

Lola
watched him shrug his suit coat off in one athletic movement, his muscles roiling
under his finely tailored shirt. He paced—he always paced when he
thought, his body always needing to find some outlet—walking a circuit of
the large circular living room, surveying his territory.

He
stopped in the center of the room and looked at her, still leaning against the
wall in the foyer like an idiot. He made her weak.

“I
will prepare the spare room,” he said.

The spare room.
Lola had heard about this from the women Roman had periodic
arrangements with: he was the best Dom in the city, but it was play only. Women
could stay over, but he never shared a bed. He would hold them, provide
aftercare, but never, ever did he sleep—actually
sleep
—with a woman.