He fixes me with a stern look, a look that I’ve started to think of as his dom look. “How did I let you start calling me that? Look at you, already twisting me around your finger.”
“What, this finger?” I put a finger in my mouth and suck it slowly.
His eyes narrow with heat and rake my body. Then he gives his head a little shake. “No use, princess. As tempting as your sweet, reddened little ass is, I decide whether you come or not, and you’re not coming tonight.”
I harrumph and clench the sheets. “How am I supposed to go to sleep when I’m so horny?”
Dieter kisses me on the forehead. “You’ll find a way. Go brush your teeth.” And he hauls me unceremoniously out of bed. Holding a forefinger under my nose he adds, “No touching yourself when you’re alone, either.”
I gape at him. “This is so unfair.” But he swats me on the behind, and I squeal and scurry off to the bathroom.
Chapter Eight
I fall asleep with my mind wandering through the conversation I had with Dieter, and I wake in the morning with a strange mix of lightness and restlessness coursing through my body. Lightness because there seems to be a great, emotional weight off my chest, and restlessness because I’ve never been more sexually frustrated in my life.
Dieter. His hands. His voice. Everything about him turns me on in the strangest ways. I thought I understood sex from the encounters I’ve had. Skinny band boys in black T-shirts who offer cigarettes after the act. The guy you have nothing in common with except an attraction that consumes you both but then quickly dissipates. Dieter doesn’t approach sex in a way that’s familiar to me at all, though I’m responding to him more powerfully than I have to anyone.
Did I reveal too much, though? Act too desperate or pathetic? His assurance that he wanted to know the truth about how I was thinking and what I was feeling soothed me at the time, but now I feel silly. I want to cram all the words back in my mouth and uncry all the tears I sobbed into his shirtfront. I also feel appalled that I became so wet and needy when he called me a bratty little girl and put me over his knee and spanked me.
But then I remember, it’s Dieter. He wouldn’t make me feel stupid for opening up to him, and he wanted me to cry, and get turned on, and then comfort me afterwards. My mind begins replaying the feel of his hands caressing my burning skin, and an ache begins between my legs.
My hands clench the sheets. All right, I’m starting to understand the transformative release of offering my worries and fears and vulnerability to a strong person who accepts them with large, open hands, but what’s the deal with not being allowed to come? I give a frustrated groan and get out of bed. I need coffee and distraction.
As I pass the bathroom Dieter comes out in a cloud of steam, a towel wrapped around his hips. He’s got another in his hand, rubbing it over his hair, and his torso is damp and reddened by the hot water. I can’t prevent my sharp intake of breath. He looks magnificent, the bastard.
When he sees me looking at him, he smiles slowly. “You’re up early, babygirl. Couldn’t sleep?”
I raise my eyes from where they’re lingering on his broad chest and there’s a self-satisfied glint in his eyes.
“I, uh...” I scowl. “Stop looking at me like that.”
He steps forward, dropping the towel from his hand. There are beads of water on his chest that I want to lick up, but I distrust that predatory gleam in his eyes. “Like what?” he asks, moving in close.
“You know,” I say, backing slowly away. “Like you’re happy I’m suffering.” He presses me against the wall and places his hands either side of my head. His smile is wolfish.
“Suffering? Sore, are we?”
“No. I’m—” I break off, refusing to admit to how deranged my desire for him is making me feel. But I needn’t have bothered. He understands instantly, and his eyes flash with sarcastic cruelty.
“Oh, horny is it? Did you not get what you wanted for a change?”
Bodyguard Dieter would never speak to me like that. Dom Dieter, though, is apparently having a very good time. My inner brat arcs up. “No, but you did, didn’t you?” I accuse. His proximity and the heat coming off him are sending my nerves haywire. “And how thorough you were.”
He looks down at me, thoughtful. His eyes travel over my standard morning uniform of oversized sweater and tiny pajama shorts. “What I want?” he murmurs, as if to himself.
“I haven’t even begun to show you what I want.”
I swallow.
“Did you touch yourself, princess?”
“No.”
His smile widens. His mouth is so close to mine. “Good girl.”
A thrill runs through me, as delicious as it is traitorous. Submission is weakness, isn’t it? Or is putting myself into the hands of one strong, capable man who has earned my respect actually brave? The pleasure I feel hearing him say good girl is like nothing I’ve ever known before. I wonder if this is what it is to be a sub, that golden feeling when you know you’ve done something that pleases your dom. I could get used to that. I could become hooked on that. It’s heady and exotic, and goes far deeper than mere sexual arousal.
He crooks his finger under my chin and tilts my face up to his. The wolfish look in his eyes becomes something tender. “Adrienne, can I kiss you?”