“So, what? I’m a cop’s kid and therefore, I must always follow the rules?”
“In a nutshell. Yes.”
He’s still laughing and his face brightens like the sun. I can’t seem to stop either. I take a drink from my wineglass to calm myself. “Fuck you,” I say. “I can be bad if I want to be.”
“If you’re bad, I’ll have to punish you… again,” he says. My face flushes. I can almost feel his hands on my ass again.
“Is that what it’s like… being with you? I mean, all the Dom play is nice but?—”
“It’s more than that. If you’re with me, I can be more than just your lover. I’m already your teacher. I would be your protector. Your… everything.”
I blink as my heart thrums in my chest. “How do you know I want you to be that?”
He smiles at me slyly and drinks his wine.
“Ah. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” he says quickly. “I definitely would. It seems to me that’s the thing you need the most, more than this job, more than merely a boyfriend. You need someone to cover you.”
“You talk a big game,” I say. “I might be trouble, though.”
“You probably are,” he says with a chuckle. “I imagine you’re probably more trouble for me than I’ll ever be to you. Lucky for you, I love a challenge.”
I kind of hate how true that might actually be. Especially now. Especially with my possibly holding the keys to his freedom.
Dinner comes and suddenly, everything is relaxed. We eat and talk and for a while, I forget. By the time they’re taking our plates away, I’m looking across the table at him. He seems to be glowing under these amber lights.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a man more than I do right now.
“You’re staring,” he says to me as he empties his wine glass.
“I am.”
“Can I ask why?”
I look down at what’s left of the wine in my glass. We’ve had two glasses each. Hardly enough to qualify as too much drink. Yet here I am feeling as light as air.
“You know,” he says, “Sasha’s spending the night at a friend’s house. What do you think about having dessert there tonight?”
My mind says not to do this… but I can’t seem to hear it very well right now.
“Sounds fun.”
16
ROMAN
Maybe it’s the warm air and the wine and the smell of her perfume. All I know is that we’re connecting in the same way we did that first night. Perhaps even more.
We walk into the foyer of my home, and she pauses and looks up at the high ceilings and the chandelier that hangs right before the stairs leading up to the second floor.
“Your home is beautiful.”
She turns, her red heels clipping softly against the marble floors and her lithe frame moving as smoothly as a ballerina’s. I watch her turn and she looks up at me, her crystal blue eyes sparkling.
“Thank you,” I say. I look down at her perfectly-shaped, rose-colored lips. I’m dying to taste them.
“Now you’re staring,” she says.
