It seemed like too much to ask, and yet, the thought of laying down her burdens for just a few hours was unreasonably attractive. “Okay.”
His voice near her neck was almost a whisper, “You have to say, ‘I submit.’”
She sucked in a breath to argue about those words, but he was right. She was arguing just to argue.
Rox swallowed hard to get rid of the worried lump in her throat and choked out, “I submit.”
He dragged his hands down her skin and wrapped her in his arms. “Thank you. It’s a gift, for you to give up control to me.”
She nodded, feeling smaller and more helpless in his burly arms than she ever had before. His biceps, pressing on her upper arms, seemed larger, more powerful, like he could grab her weaker body and break her into pieces if he felt like it.
He said, “You need to pick a safe word.”
“I don’t know what that is. I don’t know anything about this.” Her voice was still a bit soprano with panic.
He said, “A word to signal true distress, a failsafe that you will say if you are overwhelmed, if you want me to stop everything and untie you.”
“Oh, okay. That seems fair.” Her voice felt a little stronger.
“You need to pick one.”
“Um, can’t you pick one?”
“No. You have to do this.”
“Okay. Um. Caveat?”
“Latin for a warning. That is an excellent one. Would you like one that means that you are in some discomfort, that means not to stop, but to be careful or to modify what I am doing?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
“And it would be?” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“Sub modo,” she said.
“Sub modo, to modify a contract with agreement of all parties. Good. Now turn around.” He stepped back enough for her to pivot.
Rox turned around, but he was still standing so close to her. The cold, stone wall was right behind her, and she leaned back against it. Chill passed through her clothes and trailed along her spine and butt like a ghost.
“Good.” He touched her chin, lifting her face with his fingers.
He positioned her head where he wanted it, tilting her face a little to the right.
This kind of control, this micromanaging, felt alien. She was used to managing people. She was used to working with him.
This vulnerability felt like an invasion into her mind.
He kissed her, gently, almost lovingly.
She really shouldn’t think things like lovingly. Like Wren had said, Cash was all about fun and games. This control thing, this dominance-submission thing, must be just another game to him.
His lips caressed hers, and she melted against him.
He nudged her backward with his mouth, bracing himself with his hand on the wall behind her, and pressed his body against hers. Luckily, she was still wearing her high heels, so he didn’t have to bend down ridiculously far.
Her hands crept up, finding first the strong cords of his abdominals around his waist, then the smooth rounds of his pecs and shoulders.
He was even kissing her differently tonight.
Usually, or at least before, when he had kissed her, his mouth had devoured her, an expression of passion and lust. It had only been a few weeks since the first time he had kissed her in his bedroom, when she had tried to rip that bandage off of his cheek.
Tonight, his lips caressed hers, lightly sucked at her lower lip, and his tongue stroked hers, but it all seemed deliberate, calculated. The bandage on his cheek didn’t brush her face at all.
He traced her arms to her wrists and lifted her hands away from his neck, placing them at her sides and pressing her hands against her thighs.
“I want—” she began, her lips still against his.
“Let me,” he growled.
He held her hands against her own soft thighs and kissed her, his mouth straying to her jaw and shoulder but returning to her lips.
She wanted her arms around him. She wanted to touch him and finally lick those tattoos that flamed along his left side from his muscled shoulder to his corded thigh.
His broad chest pushed against her, pressing her back against the wall. Cold stole through her blouse, freezing her back and butt.
He stepped back and pulled her with him, leading her with his hands and his lips.
She followed him, walking blindly.
In the center of the room, Cash settled his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “I’m going to undress you now.”
She nodded, even though she had a feeling that she didn’t need to.
He took his own shirts off first, unbuttoning the neck of his dress shirt and pulling it and his undershirt over his head, baring the dark flames of the tattoo on the left side of his body and the three shields arranged on his right forearm. His body undulated with muscle as he stripped, all those thick ropes of muscle moving under his skin like he was dancing. He pressed the bandage back onto his cheek after the shirts had snagged it.