No, he hadn’t liked displaying me; now that the heat of the moment had passed, he was baring his teeth. “Given them far too much of you.” He reached over to the table and pressed a button on the remote.

We were concealed once more.

Chapter 36

The thunderous applause continued, even after the glass was blacked out.

Yet I couldn’t regret anything once I heard Sevastyan’s voice suffused with pride: “My fantasy made flesh. I should never have doubted you to know your own mind.” He gingerly pulled out of me, zipping himself back up as he moved to face me.

He brushed damp hair from my brow, his expression alternately possessive and . . . awed.

But when I shivered, he turned all businesslike. With swift, efficient movements, he released my raised knee and removed my ankle cuffs, then reached for my br**sts, for the clamps.

He unscrewed a bolt, loosening the metal at one end. “This will hurt, love,” he murmured as he eased it off my left nipple.

Blood rushed into it. I had to choke back a cry.

He took the throbbing peak into his mouth, stroking with his tongue to help with the pain. The right one was worse because I knew what to expect. The instant the clamp was off, he moved to that nipple. “Shh, love,” he soothed against the tip, “there, it’s almost over. . . .”

With my next shiver, he broke away, returning with a white, fluffy robe over his arm. He held it at the ready as he freed my cuffs from the ceiling chain. I collapsed into his waiting arms, cocooned by the pillow of the robe.

I trembled against him as he removed one wrist cuff and kissed the damp skin beneath it. He repeated his kiss with the other. “You’re free now.”

Such loaded words; I’d already been freed. He’d described this kind of behavior as a descent. It was just the opposite. With this man, I had flown. I’d soared. In a way, to submit . . . was to ascend.

Maybe I was still flying. Everything seemed muted and soft, the lights dimmer.

“How do you feel?”

“Little dizzy,” I said in a scratchy voice. “What happens now?” There would be time enough to disbelieve what I’d just done. But tonight I was just going to roll with it.

“I’m taking you home.” He guided my limp arms into the robe sleeves. “I expect you to relax and worry about nothing while I cosset you.”

I could deal with that.

He bundled me up, cradling me against his chest, then carried me from our room.

Would we have to see those people? Go through the ballroom? When I stiffened, he said, “We’re going out a private exit, love. The car’s waiting.”

Even when we were ensconced in the back of the limo and under way, Sevastyan didn’t release me, keeping me on his lap. He removed my mask and his own, then reached into the cooler for a bottle of orange juice. “Drink.” He held it up to my lips.

I quirked a brow. “No warm milk?”

“You have no idea how hard your body worked tonight. I want you to come down softly.”

I took a sip of the juice—had to be the best I’d ever tasted. It was everything I could do not to chug it like a frat boy on a keg nozzle. “What do you mean by coming down?”

He eased closer to lick a drop of juice from my lip, making my lids grow even heavier. “Your blood is flooded with endorphins. That’s why you felt—”

“High?”

“Precisely. But what goes up must come down.”

“You’ll be here to catch me when I fall?”

He curled his forefinger under my chin. “Vsegda.” Always.

Tonight we’d gotten one thing figured out. Surely hurdles had been cleared. Now we would make strides together.

I kissed the crooked bridge of his nose, then buried my face against his chest. I ran my fingers through his thick hair, clutching it as I hugged this big, brave man close. I’d never felt so cherished. So protected.

He was my guardian angel, my friend, my dream lover.

Aleksandr Sevastyan was everything. Everything.

He pulled me back to meet my gaze, his hooded eyes like gold coins. “Revelation?”

I whispered back, “Obsessed.”

At the town house, he kept me in his arms, sweeping me inside and up to our bathroom. The light was low, the whirlpool bath already bubbling.

When he peeled the robe from me and lowered me into the water, I wanted back in his arms. As if he disliked the distance just as much, he hastily stripped, then slid in beside me. He sat on the submerged bench, pulling me back into his lap, my shoulder against his chest.

“I could get used to this,” I sighed. I’d read about kink aftercare and how important it was, but hadn’t grasped how much I would need it. I felt like I’d been broken down to the most primal levels and now had to readjust to everything.

It was like lingering at the edges of a drug-induced high, produced from the cleanest-burning drugs imaginable.

He started kneading my shoulders. “I intend for you to get used to it. Tonight, I take care of you.”

I felt his shaft stiffening beneath me and grinned to myself—more of him, this very night? And his massage! Kneading . . . kneading . . . So. Freaking. Good.

Once his big hands had rendered me into a heap of bliss, he began shampooing my hair, massaging my scalp until I was on the verge of drooling for the second time this night.

After rinsing the strands with a sprayer, he worked conditioner through them. I turned to watch him over my shoulder. His face was drawn with absorption, as if he truly wanted to get this right, to bathe me and care for me, just so. That melted my heart.

He caught me staring up at him like a fool. “Are you enjoying this part?”

“I loathe it.”

He chuckled. I’d actually made him laugh? His lips were curling. Still not a full smile, but close.

His lightheartedness signaled so much to me, and I grew even more optimistic about our future. “You never thought I’d go through with it, did you?”

“I admit it.” Finished with my hair, he smoothed the length over one of my shoulders, then grazed bath oil over my sore upper back.

“Any regrets?”

“I decided that if you were willing to go through that—your first real time—then you must want it badly.” His c*ck pulsed against my bottom—because he was replaying those scenes? “I took you to a place that I thought of as sordid. And you saw beauty everywhere and felt hope. Maybe that club is what you make of it? What you bring to it.”

“I believe that, especially now.”

“I meant what I said earlier. You know your own mind. I’d forgotten that along the way.”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted one of my arms, washing it from fingertips to shoulder before bathing my ticklish underarm. “In Nebraska I witnessed your drive when you set your mind to something. I saw how hard you worked; at everything, you tried so damned hard.” He saw to my other arm. “I wanted to know how you could keep at it, with no guarantee of success.”

“But you couldn’t talk to me to ask.”

“Could only watch you from afar.” He reached for one of my br**sts, thumbing my nipple. “Are these sore?”

I could barely keep my eyes open as he stroked me. “A little. But I kind of like it. A constant reminder of the things we did.”

He made a sound of approval. “We’ve established that you’re hot-blooded—and you know your own mind. Yet you were a virgin?”

When he moved to my other breast, my lids slid shut. “I had some bad experiences.”

Dropping his hands, he tensed around me, gritting out one word: “Names.”

My eyes went wide. “No, no, not like that! I had some unfortunate, clumsy experiences, I should say.”

“I don’t understand.”

So I told him about the guy who spooged into his condom. “He fled after that, never to be heard from again. I wasted weeks on that guy.”

“Now that I know what he’d been so close to experiencing, I could almost pity him.”

Awww. “I dated another guy for a couple of months, but I’m pretty sure he was a subbie. There were a few others who just weren’t worth the bother.”

Looking back, I could see that I’d been waiting for a man’s man—one older than me, a lot more dominant, with some rough and dangerous edges. In other words, not your typical UNL student.

“Their loss is my gain.”

I trailed my nails over his forearm. “I didn’t want to be a virgin. Do you know how challenging it was to be sex-positive and progressive on a college campus and still be virginal? At my age? It was like a dirty little secret.”

In a grave tone, he said, “I’m glad I was able to be of service with that.”

Grinning, I turned to face him better, hanging my legs over his outer thigh. “So what’s your story?”

“Story?” He seemed disconcerted that the conversation had steered toward him.

“This is where we trade dating tales.”

He gave me an I-got-nothing look.

“You really haven’t spent a lot of time with women outside of sex, have you?”

“Not at all.” He began massaging my feet, working bath oil up my surprisingly sore calves.

“How did you usually find, well, bedmates? I don’t suppose there were mafiya mixers?”

He raised his brows at that. “I would go to a bar or a scene club and wait for a woman to approach,” he said without conceit, just stating the facts. “I’d stay for the time span of a few drinks; the situation would either resolve itself or not.”

My face flushed when I realized I’d been one of those approaching women. “So when I hit on you that first night, you equated me with them?”

He shrugged.

“You didn’t date any of the women you slept with? No going to a movie or out for coffee?” I couldn’t picture him doing either.

“Never.”

“Aside from our dinners on the road, was tonight your first real date?”

“Yes.” As I hid my surprise, he added, “How am I doing?”

My heart fluttered. “Judges’ scores of ten.”

He frowned. “I shouldn’t have admitted that to you, I suppose.”

“No, you should have. I love”—everything I learn about you—“hearing new things about you.”

“My first date, your first flogging,” he said with amusement.

“I adored what you did to me.”

“Tonight I realized that I can torment you and treasure you. For you, it can be one and the same.” His hands began ascending my legs. “And there’s much more to show you.”

My breaths shallowed. “I want to see it all.”

“I’m having supplies delivered tomorrow. We’ll take it slowly, but be prepared for wherever this leads us.”

“You really knew your way around this stuff.” Though I spread my thighs in welcome, he simply teased me with those light circles. “How long have you been doing it?”

“Awhile.”

Evasive much? “Now will you tell me about your particular interests?” With his fingers at work, I fought to keep my concentration. “When did you recognize them?”

He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it.

“Please tell me. I’d like to know, since I benefited from those interests so much.”

“I will, one day. For now, I don’t want to think that far back into the past.” How far back? “Know this: before you, I participated, but now I see those encounters for what they truly were.”

“What?”

His gaze held mine. “Practice.”

“For me?”

“For you.”

I couldn’t stop the slow grin that spread over my face.

His eyes dipped to it, darkening. “There will be rules, Natalie.” He reached between my thighs at last, palming me with a sure grip. “This is mine. I’m the only one who gets to pet you here. I plan to keep you well pleased, but if you ever need to come, you wait for me—or for my command.”

“So I’m never to play with myself in front of a camera for you?” I wriggled over his erection, making him inhale sharply.

“I’ll order you to do that again—at a time when I can properly enjoy it. I was in a meeting that day when I stole a look at you.” Against my damp neck, he said, “I shot hard as rock, had to rush out of the building. The phone shook in my hand the entire way back to you.”

His words sent a thrill through me. “Then I’ll await your command.”

“And my permission. You’re not to come at all until you ask for—and receive—permission from me.”

“I can live with that. Any other rules?”

“Yes, one.” He pinched my chin. “Don’t ever look at another man with lust, unless you want him dead.”

I knew he meant that literally.

“You belong to me alone. No man could feel more possessive of a woman than I do you.” His eyes mesmerized me, as if he could see into my soul. Right now, I felt more vulnerable with Sevastyan than I had in front of an audience of dozens. “Do you understand me?”

Gazing up at him, I nodded.

“Horosho.” Good. “I think that deserves a reward.” He settled me on the submerged bench—alone. Before I could protest he’d risen from the water.

Drops sluiced down those magnificent muscles, over his entrancing tattoos. Just the sight of his body made my achy ni**les grow even harder, my pu**y wetter.

After spreading another plush robe over the flat marble expanse at the edge of the tub, he lifted me to my feet. “Go to your knees and forearms on the robe.” He helped me climb up.