I followed his glance down. My ni**les were stiff against the fabric of the shirt I wore.

“Tell me, pet, why were you on the verge of a wet dream?”

I couldn’t resist him before; now, on this bed, hearing his rumbling, seductive voice, I feared I was defenseless. No! Be strong, Nat. “Why do you insist on calling me pet?”

“Maybe because you make a man want to collar and keep you.”

“Right.” I knew he was just being a smart-ass, but the idea gave me shivers.

“Tell me about your dream.”

“Why should I? You’ll just give me that disgusted look and go all icy again.”

“Icy? That’s the last thing I feel right now.”

I swallowed when he began unfastening the buttons on the shirt, spreading the lapels just shy of baring my br**sts.

“What are you doing?” I demanded. But I wanted them bared, wanted him to see them and desire me.

Hey, I was on vacation from my life, right? So why couldn’t this man be my fall holiday fling?

He took the starched edge of the shirt and lightly scraped it over my left nipple. Oh, God, oh, God . . .

“I caught just a glimpse of your ni**les when you were in the bath. Do you know that my mouth watered to suck them?” He’d wanted to put his mouth on them. Picturing that scrambled my thoughts.

Another scrape.

“Y-you need to stop that.” I hadn’t thought the tips could get harder. They tightened almost painfully.

“Yes, tell me to stop and to leave you alone.” Scrape. “Tell me that I frighten you, and I’m not to touch you.” Scrape.

I choked back a moan. “You don’t frighten me. And the only reason I don’t want you to touch me is because you won’t follow through, and I’ve been sexually tortured enough tonight.”

Including now, I’d been on the verge of orgasm three times—all because of this man.

He gave a low, sexy laugh. “You think I’ve tortured you? Maybe I should show you what real torture is.” His tone was forbidding; so why was my pu**y clenching with anticipation? “Then perhaps you would rail at me to find me in your bed.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s what I would have expected from you. And if you tell me to leave you, I will.”

“Answer me, Sevastyan. Is that what you want?”

He didn’t say a word; scrape.

“Ahh!” I licked my bottom lip, struggling for words. “You confuse me so much! Since you refuse to tell me anything, I’m going to tell you everything. I find you extremely attractive. When your eyes are like this, all gold and smoldering, you are pretty much irresistible to me. I think you were right; I did approach you in the bar because I wanted to have sex with you.”

His firm lips parted. Then he shook his head hard, as if to dislodge whatever idea had just taken hold. “You wouldn’t have done so if you knew me better. I am an enforcer, a contract killer, and I pity you for piquing the lusts of a man like me.”

In a soft voice, I said, “But you piqued mine too. So what do we do now?”

“If you knew the thoughts in my head, you would not be so welcoming. You wouldn’t like it in my bed. I have particular interests, and I demand obedience.”

“Obedience.” Was that my titillated tone? “Like my doing whatever you command?”

He nodded, eyes alight at the prospect.

Why did that sound so unbearably erotic? I’d never relished being ordered around at my jobs. But in this context—in bed with a domineering man—the idea excited me. “Why do you demand it?”

“I don’t like surprises. If you do as I say, there will be none.”

I nibbled my lip, giving this some thought. “What kind of interests?”

“I need to do filthy things to your body, Natalya. And I know I never can.” His voice was almost . . . forlorn.

Filthy? That sounded so freaking hot. “Why can’t you?”

“You are taboo to me. No woman is more so.”

Because I was the boss’s daughter? Was this why Sevastyan had been running hot and cold with me? “We’re in this cabin alone. No one ever has to know what goes on between us. Maybe we should try to get this out of our systems before we land.”

He looked like he was actually considering my proposal. “Have you ever relinquished control of your body to a man?”

Breathless, I shook my head. I’d wondered what it’d be like to be dominated; this man could relieve my curiosity. And that was the great thing about vacation flings: you could go crazy, do things you never would otherwise, and suffer zero consequences.

Right?

Did I have the nerve to try this? I recalled when I was twelve, the neighboring farm boy had dared me to jump off a train trestle into the creek below. Atop the tracks, I’d been terrified, shaking like a fledgling. But I’d forced myself to step off that ledge into nothing.

Into a free fall.

I remembered screaming with fear all the way down. Then I remembered kicking up through the water and breaking the surface, triumphant, to cast that boy a suck it grin.

All the terror had been worth it, just for that reward. Would the same prove true tonight?

“Could you give me absolute obedience, Natalie?”

Gut check. Could I step off the ledge once more? My honest answer: “I won’t know until we try.” I reached for his chest, stroking over a tattoo. His muscles rippled to my touch.

When my thumb brushed his flat nipple, he inhaled sharply. “I’ve warned you of what I’ll expect, I’ve warned you about what kind of man I am. And you still push? I’ll give you a taste that will send you fleeing from me. This will be out of your system—because you will fear me. . . .”

Chapter 8

Fear him? I swallowed audibly. Did I dare go along with this?

“Spread your thighs,” he commanded, rising above me.

It seemed I was still under the influence—of him; I tentatively opened my legs.

He positioned himself between them. Clutching the shirt lapels in his fists, he snatched open the rest of the buttons, yanking the shirt from me—until my na**d br**sts quivered before his predator’s gaze.

My body was completely bared and defenseless, and his behavior should have made me nervous. Instead, I had to concentrate to keep my h*ps from undulating.

“If you want more, then put your hands behind your neck.”

I blinked up at him. “What?” Make my position even more vulnerable?

“Do it, and do not move them. Sdavaisya.” Surrender.

“I-I don’t know.”

“I didn’t ask.”

I hesitated, but then curiosity and this aching horniness demanded I do as he said.

When I laced my fingers at my nape, he said, “Good girl.” For long moments, he stared at me with such a possessive gaze, it was almost palpable. Finally his hands descended on me, gripping my waist. When his fingers almost touched, I was struck by how much larger he was than I, how much larger he was than anybody I’d ever fooled around with. Would he think me too small?

He rubbed his rough palms up my sides, pronouncing me “ideal’niy.” It meant perfect, or, more specifically, unimprovable.

I sighed with pleasure. “I thought you didn’t like the way I look.”

He raised his face, all consternation. “When did I ever give you that impression, pet?”

“Far from your type? Ring a bell?”

“I meant that—literally. You are different from the women I’ve been with.” More to himself, he said, “Night and day.”

I imagined him with cool, statuesque beauties from the north, felt like a runt in comparison. That feeling was short-lived—because he moved his attention to my br**sts.

Cupping them from the bottom, he nearly circled them with his big hands. Avoiding my ni**les, he kneaded with a practiced touch that was just this side of rough. But I loved it, arching to him.

Again and again, he palmed me, plumping the mounds until the rest of my body begged for contact—which he seemed determined to withhold.

“What are you doing to me?”

“Sexually torturing you.” He tightened his grip on my br**sts.

They began to swell, the skin heating and reddening. My ni**les stiffened and distended, until the sight of them was lurid, turning me on even more. I looked from them to his transfixed gaze, then back. Still he massaged; still my flesh swelled.

When I felt his heavy breaths on the sensitive tips, I squirmed with a perfect mix of misery and delight. I noticed the sheets were damp beneath me and realized I was going to come like this. My eyes went wide with discovery. I could orgasm without a single touch on my neglected pu**y.

I thought I’d known what my body was capable of, yet now it was behaving in unfamiliar ways. He seemed to know what it could do better than I did.

Never lessening his grip, he leaned down, letting his breaths torment the peaks even more. Avoiding contact with them, he darted his tongue to flick kisses along the sides, all around the tips.

If he touched my ni**les I would scream. If he didn’t touch my ni**les I would scream. “Sevastyan, kiss them!” I was panting with distress, writhing from this excruciating arousal. I twined my fingers behind my neck, but I didn’t know how much longer I could last before I touched myself. “Do something.”

“Like this?” With a sinister look, he blew on one tip, then the other.

A cry broke from my lips, my back bowing to get me closer to that frustrating stimulation.

“Still.” He pinned me down, giving my br**sts an even harsher squeeze. “Submit to me.”

Just the word submit made me tremble, made my clitoris throb. Until I was helpless not to touch it. Releasing my hold at my neck, I trailed my hand down.

“Ah-ah.” He snatched my hip, shoving me to my side, baring my ass to him.

“What are you—”

With one of his callused hands caging my neck to hold me in place, he used his other to slap my bottom. With enough force to startle me. “If you don’t obey me, you’ll be punished. Understand?” Another harsh slap.

He’d told me I would fear him; with each swat, alarm began building inside me. I swallowed hard against the hand at my throat.

“Understand?” His palm cracked across my ass again.

“Ow!” That one hadn’t been a love tap either. “Yes!”

“Say, ‘I understand, Sevastyan.’”

“I-I understand, Sevastyan.” But I didn’t. His eyes were flashing with excitement, his chest heaving; the tip of his bulging c*ck had moistened the material of his pants. He got that turned on from whipping me?

Did I? Obedience was one thing, but this was corporal. Yet I was as wet as I’d ever been, my ass tingling so deliciously that I craved another slap.

Which couldn’t be right. How could I crave something I should fear?

Between breaths, he said, “Don’t like a man giving you a correction?”

My body screamed, Yes! But my mind resisted. The truth? “I’m undecided.”

That made him scowl anew. “Hands, Natalya.”

When I twined them behind me, he positioned me on my back again. Grasping my br**sts once more, he lowered his head, mouth almost to my nipple.

Suck it. Make me come. “Please, your mouth.” I could hardly utter my thoughts. “Your tongue.”

“If you were mine, I’d pierce these. Force you to wear my gold.”

Pierce. Mine. Force. His gold.

Every word was dripping with domination. He was talking about piercing me—and merely imagining it made me undulate up to his clothed crotch for relief. But he kept that beautiful bulge in his pants from touching me.

His hot hands continued to squeeze. Just when I thought my tits couldn’t get any bigger, any pinker, any more sensitive, when I was rocking my h*ps in abandon, he rubbed his stubbled chin over one nipple.

“Sevastyan!” I was almost levitating with pleasure, babbling, “Please, please, please.”

“What would you give me to suckle you?”

Easy. “Anything.”

Voice rough with lust, he demanded, “Would you be my slave? I’d want to bind you, make you helpless. I’d use you in unspeakable ways.”

As long as he made me feel like this—with my ass on fire and my br**sts so swollen I could hardly think of anything but my own inflamed flesh. “Yes, yes!”

“You’d feel the bite of leather across your br**sts, its sting between your legs.”

I arched to him. “Okay!”

His grip tightened even more. “This was supposed to punish you, to punish me. But you f**king love it. You need it, even if you don’t know how badly.”

My head thrashed, and I murmured over and over, “I love it, need it.”

“Put your hands over your mouth. Muffle your scream.”

My what? Still, I did as he said.

In Russian, he muttered, “God help us both.” Then he sucked one of my engorged ni**les between his firm lips, into the waiting heat of his mouth.

His wet tongue lashed the peak as his teeth grazed—

My orgasm ripped through me. Violent, scorching, startling. Melting me as waves of pleasure contracted my untouched pu**y—clenching inside, clenching so hard. Bucking my hips, I pressed my hands tight over my mouth to muffle my ecstatic screams.

The release was so intense, two tears spilled down my temples.

He sucked my other nipple, and the waves returned, my core convulsing.

Rapture . . .

When I was spent, he released me and drew back on his knees. I struggled to catch my breath and marshal my thoughts—failed on both counts—so I gave him a tentative grin.