In Flight (Up In The Air #1)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mr. Dominant

I got caught up painting, and so lost track of time. When I noticed the time, I cursed. I was actually running late, which I never did. Now it had happened twice in two days.

That can’t become a habit, I thought. It was hell on my nerves.

I knew it wasn’t a date, but I still had to take some time and care with my hair and makeup, lining my eyes with a soft brown, and putting a double layer of black mascara on my lashes. The effect was dramatic for a bit of makeup. I added a light gold shadow to my eyes, and stained my lips with a dusky red.

I smoothed my hair out, and left it down and straight.

I wore a short black dress with violet flowers splashed across it. It was a little transparent, not see-through enough to need a slip underneath, just enough to hint at the figure beneath. It was sleeveless, with a scoop neck that showed more cleavage than I usually preferred.

The thin black lace bra I chose clearly outlined my nipples. I wouldn’t normally pair the two together, but it seemed appropriate for a night like this.

I found one of my lacy thongs that matched the flowers on my dress. Someone would probably be seeing my panties tonight, so why not have them match?

As I studied my reflection in the mirror, I reached a hand up, gripping my breast, massaging it and plucking at the nipple until it showed clearly through the thin dress.

What am I doing? I wondered, even as I inched my dress up to my hips, running a finger inside my panties. I’m late, I thought, but even so, began stroking myself.

My phone rang, and it startled me out of my strange little trance. I answered in a breathless voice. “Hello?”

“Where are you?” James’s voice bit at me with no preamble. He sounded harsh, almost angry.

I looked at the clock. It was 5:49 p.m. I was supposed to be at his house in eleven minutes.

“I was just about to head out. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes, if I don’t make any wrong turns.”

“What’s going on? You sound strange. And you’re going to be late. This is one of many reasons why I wanted to send a driver.”

“I’ll be right there.” I had started stroking myself again, the sound of his voice turning me on, even angry, perhaps because of that.

“What are you doing? Why do you sound so breathless?” he asked, his own voice changing to a purr.

Oh God, I thought, he knows what I’m doing. “Nothing,” I told him, but I hadn’t stopped.

“Are you touching yourself?” The purr had an edge to it now.

“No,” I said, because I just couldn’t admit it, even though I couldn’t stop. What came over me when I got into this man’s orbit?

“Do you remember what I said I’d do to you if you lied to me? I believe that’s three times now. Don’t make yourself come. Your cunt is mine, and so is your pleasure. You’re not allowed to come unless I say so.”

I just moaned.

This time his voice barked at me. “If you don’t get into your car this second, I’m coming there, and then I won’t let you come for hours.”

I was obeying, letting my dress drop and grabbing my purse, moving swiftly to my garage.

He didn’t say another word, just hung up on me. I pulled up the GPS on my phone and started to drive.

There was almost no traffic, so I made it there in an even fifteen minutes.

As I pulled up to the massive gates surrounding the palatial compound he called a house, they swung open immediately, then closed behind me.

I loved my car. It was a 2008 civic, a very reliable little car, and I’d gotten a great deal on it. But it sat out in the Vegas sun when I went on trips for several days a week, and the black paint job had become faded. I suddenly became conscious that a car like mine would stick out like a sore thumb in a place like this.

I tried to shrug it off. This affair was going to be brief and memorable, and I didn’t need to waste a second of it worrying about our drastic lifestyle differences.

I parked as close as I could get to the elaborately carved front door in the massive circular drive. There were no other cars in the driveway. I figured they were parked in the huge attached garage that seemed larger than my entire house.

The front door opened before I took even one of the steps that led up to it. I froze when I saw James.

He was shirtless, wearing just a pair of black athletic shorts with white stripes down the sides. His torso was a work of art, his golden skin ripped up by tight muscles along every inch of it’s long, lean length. I couldn’t see a hint of hair on it, and I had a feeling it wasn’t from waxing.

His shorts hung dangerously low on his lean hips. His hips and his sexy pelvic muscles stuck out starkly, shaped into a defined V, and I wanted to lick every inch of him. His shorts were baggy, and the shadows weren’t in my favor, so I couldn’t make anything else out below that but knees, calves, and feet. Even those were spectacularly sexy, long, with starkly defined muscles running along his calves.

“Get in here,” he said by way of greeting, his voice gravelly and rough. I’d been standing and just ogling him for a good five minutes.

I obeyed, just brushing past him. He sucked in a harsh breath at our almost contact.

“I had dinner ready, but that’s going to have to wait. You’re a little minx, you know that?”

I didn’t know that, so I just shook my head, looking around at his intimidating entryway.

I sooo don’t belong here, was my first thought, as I eyed up all the marble floors and clean columns, and the double stairway leading to the second floor. It was beautifully decorated in desert colors, with heavy, expensive looking vases and artwork.

“I gave my entire staff the night off, so we’re quite alone,” he told me, as though that was my concern. The thought of his staff hadn’t even occurred to me.

I walked up to one of the stairways, running a finger along the heavy dark wood of the rail. The room had the feel of a modern twist on a southwestern decor theme. It was tasteful and lovely, but I just felt overwhelmed.


I didn’t like the idea of being with someone this rich. Someone who I had nothing in common with. I forgot for a second what I was even doing there.

James stepped up behind me, not touching, but unbearably close, and I remembered then. Oh yeah, that.

“Where’s your bedroom?” I asked bluntly. Perhaps it would be less intimidating than what I had seen so far. I highly doubted it.

A strong hand fell on my nape, squeezing, then massaging. I leaned into the contact. Even his simplest touch was pleasurable.

He grabbed my hair there, pulling the strands together into a ponytail. He used it like a handle. Or a leash. He pulled me, not ungently, up the stairs by it. My chin lifted up with his handling. It was firm and controlling, but with no pain. Yet.

We passed by eight doors in the long hallway to his bedroom. His room was on the very end, the door already opened.

He took me just inside of it, stopping to let me take it all in.

The room was softly lit and colossal. Double doors opened into a well lit bathroom on the opposite side of the room. The walls were a medium taupe, the colors themed to the desert, similar to the rest of what I’d seen of the house.

His bed was massive. I’d never seen a bed like that. It had to have been custom made. It had a massive four poster frame, made up of heavy dark wood that was intricately carved and nearly reached the high ceiling.

It was topped by a heavy, latticed top of the same wood. It was patterned and carved into a piece of art. It was beautiful and frightening. It was a bed made for beauty and pleasure. And bondage and pain.

I picked out the more alarming little details slowly, as I took in the entire massive bedroom. Restraints were hanging, attached to the latticed top. And more were fastened to the posters themselves, laid out neatly against the crisp white sheets.

“Are those ropes?” I asked in a breathless voice. There was some kind of cushioned ramp in the middle of the bed, in a sandy beige that matched the carpet. I wasn’t sure what it was for.

“Yes,” he answered, and didn’t elaborate.

My eyes caught on the object they had perhaps been avoiding. A black riding crop lay on the ramp. “Is that a riding crop?” I asked, my voice catching, but I knew the answer.

“Yes,” he answered, moving for the first time since we’d entered the room, nudging me forward by his grip on my hair until I was several steps closer to the bed. “I have more toys that I want to use on you, but I didn’t want to intimidate you by laying them all out.”

I laughed, and it was a desperate kind of noise. So this was how he tried not to intimidate me?

“You need to pick a safe word,” he told me. It was an order.

I took a deep breath. “I assume you know I’ve never done any of this before?” It was a question.

“Yes,” he breathed, his voice thick and intense.

My mind went blank. “Sotnos,” I said finally. It was as though my mind had worked independently of my brain.

“Sotnos?” he asked archly. He imitated the accenting of the word perfectly on the first try.

“Yes.” I wouldn’t tell him why. I was shocked at myself for choosing it, though it made a sick kind of sense. But I certainly wouldn’t explain it to him.

He tugged on my hair, hard, tilting my head back and to the side until I looked at him. His gaze was hard. “There are rules in here. I become your master in here, and I will punish you when you defy me. I will read your reactions, and try not to go too far, but if I do, or if there’s something you just can’t handle, that’s the word you use.”

“What about outside of here? Didn’t you say you would punish me for lying to you? But we weren’t in here when I lied to you.”

He smiled at me, and it was wicked. “There are exceptions. I will never lie to you, and I expect you to learn to do the same. Tell me what your safe word means.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “No.”

“Would you rather take more lashes than just tell me what that means?”

I nodded. “Yes.” I tried to sound sure, but I wasn’t. I had no concept of how hard he would hit me, or how much it would hurt, but I had spent my formative years being conditioned for pain, and I couldn’t imagine that I wouldn’t have a higher tolerance for this than most.

He ran a tongue over his teeth. It was incredibly hot, watching that skilled tongue run across his straight white teeth. I hadn’t seen it before, but the teeth on the outside of his canines were a little sharp, almost faint fangs, the four teeth between them straight and perfect. Even his teeth were impossibly sexy.

Figures, I thought, almost resentfully.

“How about an exchange? Is there something I could give you in exchange for that information? Something you want to know about me? Something you want in general?” His voice had turned to velvet as he spoke.

I wasn’t even tempted. I was not talking about it. I shook my head. He gripped my hair, hard.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he said softly, then nudged me towards the bed. “We need to talk. We need to figure out this arrangement. But I can’t wait any more for this. Nothing has ever made me feel this wild before. I need to mark you. I need to own you. I need to punish you. I need to open you up and strip every detail out of you. And I will get you to tell me what that word means to you.”

The last two sentences made my heart beat the fastest. That was never going to happen, but I couldn’t find the voice to tell him that just now. I couldn’t find the breath. It was panting out of me in a harsh rhythm of mindless fear and anticipation.