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.
“You’re teasing me, Kyrie. Testing me.” He glared at me, head tilted down, jaw hard, looking primal and dangerous. “It’s not smart.”
I lifted one knee, and the sheet fell away; Roth growled. I ran my middle finger up the seam of my core. Roth’s growl turned feral.
“Last warning, Kyrie.”
I didn’t need the warning. He was a man on the edge. I was playing with fire, and I knew it. But I was aching. Unsatisfied. For all that I’d come hard last night…three times? Four?…I was unsatisfied. I’d made do with my own fingers and battery-operated toys for a long time before Roth sent for me, and it just didn’t do the trick. I could get off, but that wasn’t enough. Merely achieving orgasm wasn’t enough. Even with Roth’s hands and fingers making me come, it wasn’t enough. I needed the connection. I needed to be filled. Held. Touched. Wanted. Loved.
And Roth knew it.
I still ached, deep inside where his tongue and fingers couldn’t reach. An ache that no amount of skillful cunnilingus could sate. I needed the man. Especially now that I’d seen his face, seen the heated glare in his eyes, seen the slight tremble of need in his hands.
I dipped my finger inside me, withdrew it.
“Fuck.” Roth’s curse was an angry rumble. He straightened, let go of the doorframe, and then, faster than my eyes could track, he was lunging forward, crawling across the bed. Hovering over me. Eyes inches from mine. “Don’t fuck with me, Kyrie. If you want to do this right now, we’ll do it right now. I’m barely holding back. The fact that I have an enormous amount of self-control is all that’s protecting you from your own foolishness.”
“Foolishness?” I breathed. “I thought this was what you wanted?”
“What? Games? Teasing? No. I want honesty. I want your desire, and I want to know what you’re thinking. What I don’t want is power-play games.” He grabbed my wrists in one hand and pinned them above my head. “You want to know the power you have over me?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then ask me a question. Anything.”
“What is your first name?”
His eyes went hard. “Valentine. My name is Valentine.”
“Valentine Roth.” It fit him so perfectly.
“Yes.” His grip on my wrists was tight, iron-hard, and almost painful. His knees were between my thighs, forcing them apart. “Now. What else?”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
Ten years older than me. Should I be worried about that? I knew, instinctively, that I didn’t give a shit how old he was. I just wanted to know if he’d tell me.
He was breathing hard, as if revealing so much about himself was physically difficult, even painful. I saw actual pain in his eyes, perhaps even fear. As if he’d exposed himself to me and was now waiting for the repercussions.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice small and quiet.
“For what?” He seemed honestly confused.
“Letting me see you. Telling me your name.” I think he expected me to struggle against his hold on my wrists, but I didn’t.
Instead, I lifted up and kissed him, sucked his lower lip between my teeth. I devoured his leonine rumble of surprise and pleasure and kept kissing him. His tongue slid between my teeth, his weight lowered so our bodies touched, and I felt his jeans rough against my skin, felt the bulge behind his zipper scraping on my lower belly.
“I want you, Valentine.” I flicked my eyes open and met his own. “Make love to me. Touch me. Come inside me. Do anything you want.” I couldn’t resist my desire anymore.
I didn’t know what this meant, where it was going, but I didn’t care. This was the last vestige of my control over my own life, over myself, and I’d just given it to him.
“Anything I want?”
“Yeah, anything.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to offer a man like me.”
“I know.”
“And still you offer it?”
I nodded, not taking my eyes off his. “I do. Make love to me, your way.” I was shaking all over, nervous, scared, excited.
Being Roth, he did the last thing I expected. He pulled away, slid off the bed. “Then I choose to wait. I will have you, Kyrie, and I will have you soon. But not here. Not now. I want you in my bed. I’m going to make you scream, and weep, and beg me for me. And I’m going to do it where no one has ever been: my bed.”
I watched him back away yet again, jeans strained from the erection behind his zipper. This time, I didn’t let him get away. I followed him, scooting off the bed and catching him by the belt loops before he got too far. “I like the sound of that.” I looked up at him. “But I want to see…this. I want to feel you first.” I tugged at the button of his jeans.
His eyes met mine, and he nodded. “As you wish.”
I lowered his zipper, then pulled his jeans down around his thighs. I breathed in, let it out. I tore my gaze from his and curled my fingers under the pale gray elastic waistband of his boxer-briefs. Hesitated. And then I tugged the elastic away from his body and pulled his underwear down, baring him to me.
I knew he was big. Of course he’d be big. But…holy shit on a shingle. I didn’t expect him to be that big. His cock was long and standing straight up, the tip rising past his navel. So thick. He was so hard it looked painful, his balls tight against him. He’d stretch me, that was for sure. For now, though, all I wanted was to feel him in my hands, to make him come, to give him relief.
I wrapped one hand around him, and he was so thick my thumb and middle finger couldn’t meet around his girth. Jesus. Sweet baby Jesus. I slid my fist down his length and back up, my hand barely brushing his flesh. He breathed out through his nose, eyes narrowing, jaw clenching. I cupped my other hand around his taut sac, sliding my fist down and twisting gently, watching his expression as I touched him. He licked his lips and blinked several times, breathing hard, eyes fixed on me.
“Don’t start what you won’t finish, Kyrie.”
I let my lips curve up in a grin. “I would never do that, Valentine.”
His brows lowered, jaw squaring as he clenched his teeth. As gently as I could, I squeezed his balls, a caressing pressure. Slid my middle finger onto his taint and applied pressure. He rumbled in his chest, fists clenched at his sides. I kept my eyes locked on his as I stroked his considerable length ever so slowly, then leaned in, closer, closer, opened my mouth as wide as it would go. Curled my lips in over my teeth and took his broad head into my mouth. I closed my lips around him, just beneath the groove at the base of his tip. He made a sound that was suspiciously close to a moan as I lowered my mouth around him, still stroking slowly at the root of his cock. I could only take a few inches of him before I felt him at the back of my throat, and then I drew away. I let my saliva coat his flesh, returning my gaze to his as I rubbed my palm over his head, smearing my spit over him, making him slick and slippery. I fisted his length, replacing my lips around his thick, soft, springy head, tasting pre-come on my tongue. I drew off again, licked the pre-come away with a fat swipe of my tongue, twisting and plunging my fist around him, squeezing his sac in time with my sliding fist, pressing up against his taint.
Roth’s thighs trembled, and I felt his knees dip. He threaded both hands into my hair, gripping handfuls and tugging firmly. He didn’t push me onto him or try to force me to do anything, he just tugged my hair in his fists. A reminder of his strength, of his control, a reminder that he was allowing me to do this.
There was no desire in me to play for control, to play games. I only wanted to feel him come.
I mouthed him again, taking him deep, letting his tip nudge the back of my throat and then backing away, pumping at his root with ever-increasing speed. I loved the way the increase of my tempo around his cock made his knees bend and dip, and I loved, too, the way his fists in my hair tightened involuntarily as he neared his climax.
I bobbed on him, sucking hard, feeling his sac tense and tighten, feeling his gloriously thick cock throb, and I knew he was close. I prepared myself for the gush of his release against my throat, but it never came.
Instead, I felt myself pushed backward, felt him above me, heard his breath in scraping gasps, felt his entire body trembling as he held back. “No. Not like that, not the first time.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not how I want it.”
“Did I…do something wrong?”
“No, Kyrie. No. Not at all. I love the feel of your sweet mouth on my cock. But I don’t want to come in your mouth just yet.”
I still had a firm grip on his cock, and I slid my fist down his length, staring up at him. “Okay. Like this, then.”
He ducked his head, gathering himself. “You really want this?”
I nodded. “Yes. I want to feel you come. You’ve made me come so many times now, and it’s my turn.”
“Where?” He slid his shins beneath his body, sitting up, staring down at my naked body as I lay beneath him. “Tell me where you want me to come.”
“Anywhere you want.”
He straddled me, sliding forward. I leaned up, took him in my mouth, tasted him, then lay back down. “On my stomach?” I said. “On my tits? You tell me where you want to come. I want to know what you want.”
I moved my fist around him, feeling him tense and jerk, and stroked him even faster.
Roth’s breathing grated past his clenched teeth. “I want to come inside you, Kyrie. Not this.”
“Then put your cock inside me,” I said.
He shook his head. “No. Not yet. In my bed. Only there.”
“Then take me there.” He growled and then wrenched himself away, backing up against the wall, his chest heaving. I followed, wrapped both hands around him, and stroked him gently. Pressed my lips to his and kissed him, demanding, needing. “Please come, Valentine. Come for me.”
He sighed into my mouth and then pressed his forehead to mine. I watched my hands moving on his thick, straining cock, stroking, twisting, plunging. “Kyrie…I’m close.”
“Good,” I whispered. “Give it to me.”
He groaned, thrusting his hips, driving his cock into my grip. I wrapped my hand around his head and stroked his length with my other hand.
“God…Kyrie…I’m coming, right now.” I felt wet warmth fill my palm, and I kept caressing his length, slowly, gently, milking him.
“Kyrie….” His voice was so low it was almost inaudible. When he was softening in my hands, I let go of him, lifted up on my toes, and kissed him once more. He watched me with glazed, hooded eyes. “You do something to me, Kyrie. You make me lose control.” He put a hand to my face, gripped my chin between finger and thumb.
I held his come in my hand, feeling it drip between my fingers. “Well…maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”
He sighed. “In my life, it is.” He shook his head, dismissing the topic. “You are amazing, Kyrie. Go wash up and get dressed. We have a busy day ahead of us.”
He leaned in, kissed me on the lips swiftly, and then backed away, zipping and buttoning his jeans. I waited until I heard the door latch behind him, and then I washed my hands in the bathroom sink before turning on the shower. I washed, shaved myself from armpits to ankles, and let my mind wander.
Valentine Roth. What a name. And what a man. So fucking gorgeous. He could be a superstar actor with his looks. An A-list actor, or a rock star. But he wasn’t. He was a reclusive businessman, über-rich, successful, and intensively, reclusively private.
Something else niggled at me about Roth. He looked familiar; I just couldn’t figure out where I’d seen him.
As soon as I was done in the shower, I wrapped a towel around my body and another around my hair, then perched on the edge of my bed with my phone, typing his name into Google. Nothing. Not a single photograph, no Wikipedia entry, not a single scrap of publicly available information. That, to me, smacked of interference. I mean, I was a nobody, but if you typed my name into Google, you’d find, if you scrolled far enough, at least a Facebook profile, the thumbnail-sized selfie photograph of me, taken on a weekend trip to Chicago with Layla. You could find at least basic info on me, just by a few searches and clicks, and I was no one at all, public-wise. Yet there was nothing at all on Valentine Roth, who had to be in a microscopically small percentage of the population in terms of wealth. Something told me he had paid an exorbitant amount of money to keep himself out of the public eye, to hide any photographs or the like.
So it wasn’t that. I’d never seen him in any gossip rags or on TMZ. But I had seen him before. I knew it. But where? I couldn’t figure it out, no matter how hard I tried to remember.
Eventually, I gave up and got dressed.
I put on a pink-and-black lace push-up bra and a pair of black underwear. Over it, I put on a simple but flattering black sundress and a pair of strappy sandals. I didn’t spend a lot of time on my hair or makeup, just brushing my hair until it shone and fell in golden waves around my shoulders. I snapped a ponytail elastic on my wrist, and applied some light mascara, blush, and lip stain. He said we’d have a busy day, so I wanted to be ready for anything.
Especially the kind of anything that would lead to seeing Valentine Roth totally naked.