I absorb that bit of information and decide I don’t even want to think about all the women whom Darius has touched in the room. Though even as the thought crosses my mind, I’m not as bothered as I think I should be. He’s not with any of those women now. He is back in his playroom with me. “But you’re back here now. Why?”
“Because here I can give you what you need.”
I want to say, Is that so? But I know better. Darius has proven many times to know what I need before I know it myself. I stop for a moment, scanning the walls, wondering just how secluded this place is. “Why don’t I see another door, other than the one we came through?”
“Because there isn’t one,” he says, standing statue-still, assessing my mood, I’m sure. “When I built the club, I had this secret room built, too, and any woman who has come here with me arrives blindfolded.”
“Seriously?” I frown at him. “Your dates agreed to that?”
He nods as if that’s the only answer I need.
“But I’m not blindfolded?” I gently point out.
He watches me long enough that I think he’s not going to answer. Then, “No, you’re not.”
I can see by the hardness in his eyes that he’s sure-as-shit thinking about something pretty heavy, but his silence tells me he’s not going to say anything more. I begin examining the room again and warmth slides through my body as I pass a wooden spanking bench. I drag my fingers across the smooth, shiny wood. “So…” I keep walking around the large space, sliding my hands over the leather paddles and a wooden one, too, before I’m in front of him again. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because you wanted to come here.”
I give him a sassy smile. “I don’t remember saying that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
And right there, staring deeply at him, I know, and he knows that he’s right. I did want this. I craved the way he used to touch me. The slaps on my ass he’d give me. The rough way he handled my body, like he needed to own it. The passion that he exuded when he touched me. Darius knows how to fuck a woman. But fucking him comes with everything in this room. Because he isn’t a sweet lover. He’s dirty, raw, and it’s all that I had been missing.
One second passes…
And another…
Then he addresses me. “Take off your clothes.”
It’s an order, I know that.
It’s a test, and my stripping naked for him is my agreement.
Keeping my eyes on him, I slowly undress, removing each article of clothing until the warm air is caressing my taut nipples.
He stays leaning against the door, glancing down my body and then back up, until those powerful eyes reach mine again. “I want this to be very clear,” he states, pinning me with his hard stare. “In this room you are mine in any and every way I want you. If you don’t like the sounds of that, then this doesn’t go any further.”
I nod, unable to speak, my heart hammering in my ears.
He takes a step toward me and it takes all my strength not to step back. All that power coming toward me is nothing I’ve ever seen from him. It’s as if he knows my body in ways that I don’t even know my body, like I’m a book and he isn’t reading my pages, he’s erasing them to rewrite them.
He stops in front of me and arches a brow. “Nervous?”
“Yes.” I don’t bother lying. We both know it’s true.
“Good.” His eyes are soft, trusting, before he’s leaning in and whispering in my ear, “Stay honest with me.” When he leans away, I’m so wet it’s becoming uncomfortable and my knees weaken. “If you say, Stop, No, or anything that indicates you don’t like what I’m doing, I’ll stop. It’s that simple.”
“I trust you,” I whisper, somehow knowing that’s what he needs to hear.
The side of his mouth lifts. It holds a devilish edge. “Again, good, that makes this all the more fun.” He’s watching me in ways I don’t recognize. It’s intense and controlled yet so passionate it shouldn’t be hindered. He leans in then, sliding his fingers through my hair until he’s gripping the strands tight. Then he’s taking me away in a kiss that makes me forget everything but the feeling of his lips against mine.
It’s beautiful. It’s raw. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever known.
When he breaks away, I’m breathless, and it takes me a few seconds to open my eyes to see him walking away from me. God, I’m so exposed, naked, while I’m watching him take off his jacket and his tie. I’m feeling nervous butterflies flutter in my belly when he begins rolling up his sleeves. I tangle my fingers together to stop them from shaking as he opens a drawer, and I notice that he takes out something black. I’m trying to see what he’s got when I realize he’s taken out a pair of high-heeled shoes from another drawer. I know he’s done this with other women, but as he returns to me and places the shoes at my feet, and after I slip into them, I can’t help but think for one second that it’s odd he has the right shoe size. My heart likes to think that maybe every woman he’s been with has looked like me. But as he rises to stare at me, I can’t think anything else.
He becomes everything.