New Beginnings (84 page)

Moving behind me, he pressed his erection firmly into my bottom. “I see you as mine.”

His hands settled possessively on my hips as I tried desperately to rein in my reaction to him. He was seeking the upper hand, and I was letting him have it without question. That was so unlike me.

“Yours?” I fisted my hands at my sides to curb the urge to touch him. He was addictive. One taste, and I wanted more. “I’m not a possession. I’m a woman. You either want to be
with
me, as in be my partner and my equal, or this won’t go any further.” I couldn’t believe I was challenging the man who could end my entire career with a single sentence. Was I crazy to think I had any negotiating power in this relationship?

I was about to find out.

Deacon

No woman had
ever
challenged me the way she did.

Growing up the eldest son of
the
Demetrius Starkis had meant people respected me because they feared my old man. After I became a force to be reckoned with in my own right, women simply did as I asked without question. Except for Mia. She was the only exception.

“You want me to be your
equal
partner?” I couldn’t supress my amusement. In the balance of power, I would always come out on top.

“That’s what I want.”

She was trying so hard to stand her ground and show me she was too smart and strong to be manipulated, but I already knew that. I’d taken months to get to know her because she intrigued me. She was gorgeous, but she was also compassionate and talented and loving. She wrote incredible short stories and poems that she’d attached to some of her emails—at my insistence. They’d given me a glimpse into her soul, convincing me I’d found the one person who could make me want to forsake all others.

If anyone had asked, I would have said I was content with my life. I’d loved spending time with many beautiful women. Then I’d met Mia, and everything changed. I started seeing blondes exclusively. I stopped kissing my dates. I stopped pleasuring them orally. When a woman insisted on pleasuring me, I closed my eyes and pretended it was
her.
I’d still had a lot of sex in the three months since I’d first seen Mia’s pictures, but in my mind, I had been with her every time.

“Deacon?”

I’d obviously been lost in my thoughts about how long I’d been waiting for the moment she would finally be mine. “You will be my lover, the object of my unwavering affection.” I kissed her cheek and ran my hands up and down her arms, raising thrill bumps on the first pass. “I will take care of you. I will protect you. I will adore you.”

“Deacon, I—”

“Ssssh…” I brushed her hair aside so my lips could travel up the smooth column of her neck. “You will never want for anything, theia.”
My goddess.
“As long as you are faithful to me and never give me reason to distrust you, we will be happy together.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“We’re compatible.” Unlike dating services that matched people based on random questions, I’d been very specific with mine, gathering answers that told me she was a woman who would stand by my side no matter what happened.

She laughed. “I don’t know how you can say that. I wouldn’t have a clue how to fit into your world.”

It was true that mine was a life of privilege. I’d grown up in mansions, attended exclusive private schools, and had vacation properties spread out over every continent. I had been bred for success from the time I was old enough to speak. We’d had maids, butlers, and chauffeurs, but the one thing I’d never had was a person I felt I belonged to, who belonged to me. That was what I wanted with Mia.

“Just be yourself,” I said.

Mia was stunning, and she carried herself with the grace and elegance of a debutante thanks to her years of training as a model. She would captivate the men in my social circle as quickly as the women would learn to despise her because she wasn’t shallow and petty like them. She was real. Genuine. Authentic. That was the reason I was falling in love with her.

“That’s easy for you to say. You fit in anywhere. You’re welcome everywhere. People must fall all over themselves to cater to you.” She shuddered, prompting me to close my arms around her. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

I couldn’t let her consider fleeing, not when I was so close to making her mine. “If you let me in, your life will never be the same.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I chuckled because I valued her honesty. It was a rare quality in a world where most were so intent on pleasing me that they were afraid to state their own opinions or feelings.

“You don’t have to be afraid of this or of me.”

I set my chin on her shoulder and flattened my hand over her stomach. She was toned with lush curves, which made her the perfect swimsuit or lingerie model, but I knew before long, I would have to break it to her that she couldn’t model lingerie or swimwear anymore. She was mine, and the only person who could admire her near-naked body was me.

“But I am.” She turned in my arms. “You’re not the kind of man I could walk away from—”

“No, I’m not.” Leaving me wasn’t an option. “And I’ll never give you reason to want to walk away. I’ll give you everything.” I kissed her tenderly, expressing with that kiss everything I knew she wasn’t ready to hear. “I’ll be your everything.”

She gasped when I slid my hand under her shirt and popped open the front clasp of her bra. Cupping her breast, I rolled her nipple while grazing her jaw with my late-evening stubble. “I want to mark you. I want the world to know you’re mine.” My lips trailed down to her neck, biting and sucking until she was tearing my shirt loose of my pants.

“Deacon, no, stop.” She flattened her palms against my chest. “I can’t have marks on me—the show.”

Of course, she was right. It was juvenile of me to want to mark her in such a crass way. Even as a teenager, I hadn’t engaged in such tasteless behavior, but something about Mia made me want to claim her in the most basic way. “Hmmm, I know. You’re right.” I peeled off her tank top, reaching for the buttons on her shorts.

“Wait,” she said, grasping my wrists. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

I smiled, cradling her beautiful face. I felt like the luckiest man in the world. Not because my family was one of the wealthiest in the world or because the business I’d built from the ground up was one of the most profitable retailers in the country.
She
made me feel lucky.

“I want you, Mia. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. But not now.”

She looked surprised and a little hurt. “Not now?”

“I’ve been thinking about this a long time. No way will our first time be bent over my desk, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to pleasure you, to give you a taste of what’s to come.”

“Oh…” Her tongue slid across her lush lower lip.

“Don’t think. Just relax and enjoy.” I unfastened her shorts and pushed them over her hips. “Kick them aside.” I waited for her to comply.

She wore hot pink lace panties, a pair I recognized from our last collection.

“I’m going to make you feel things you’ve never felt before,” I whispered as I nudged her feet apart with mine. “I’m going to own your body and control your pleasure.”

Just as she was about to protest, I slipped my hand inside her panties and circled her engorged nub with my thumb. She was more than ready, and I had no doubt that with some gentle prodding, she would go off like a rocket.

“You like that, don’t you, my love?”

She didn’t respond, nor did she have to. I saw it in the way her eyes drifted closed as her head rolled back in the ultimate act of surrender.

“Beautiful, so beautiful.” Watching her enjoy the pleasure I gave took my breath away. “Brace your hands on the desk behind you and spread your legs wider.”

She looked down at her flushed body and heaving breasts, probably thinking she looked wanton and desperate. She was oblivious to how stunning she was. “I don’t think we should be doing this here.” Her eyes flicked to the door. “What if someone walks in?”

I was amused by her concern. No one other than her would dare enter my private quarters without knocking, but I would validate her fear and put her mind at ease. Anything to make her believe that I would put her first—always.

Crossing to the door, I turned the lock. “Better?”

“I, uh, guess so.”

“I told you, you have nothing to fear. Do you trust me?”

“I think so,” she whispered.

“I will not make love to you tonight. This is all about your pleasure, about me getting to know you better.” Before long, I would know her body better than she did. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Her teeth sank into her bottom lip before her eyes scanned my body from head to toe. “You have too many clothes on.”

I treated her to a smile. “If I take my clothes off now, I won’t be able to honor the promise I made to you, and I always honor my promises. Especially to you.”

Her eyes softened, and I could tell I was earning her trust. She wasn’t a woman to trade love and sex for material things. She gave freely, but only when she was in love, and for me, the reward would be worth the wait.

I reached into the pen dispenser behind her and grabbed a pair of scissors. She watched as I glided the blade down her chest, between her breasts, and over her stomach. Her breath hitched when I reached her hip and kept going.

“This relationship is about trust,” I whispered, snipping the lace stretched across one of her hips before moving to the other. “You did as I asked by keeping our communication a secret for months, not even telling your best friend. That must have been difficult for you, but you proved to me that I can trust you. Now I’m going to prove that you can trust me.”

“I’m afraid to trust you completely.” She looked so vulnerable, her blue eyes radiant and filled with untold emotions. “There’s so much about you I don’t know, but what I do know scares me.”

I stepped back, trying not to get distracted by her perfection. This was an important conversation, one we had to have before we took our relationship to the next level. Without her trust, I had nothing. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

“I’m afraid I’ll fall for you and you’ll break my heart.”

More than anything, I wanted to hold her and tell her that would never happen, but only time would prove my sincerity to her. “What’s the alternative?”

“To leave here now and spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been.” Her hands were still planted on the desk behind her, her firm breasts jutting out to tease me.

“Can you live with that?” I crossed my arms as I tried to resist temptation. “Can you live with the regret?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly.

“Then what do you plan to do?”

She seemed to consider her options. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice. No one is holding you here against your will.”

If she tried to leave, I would use every trick in my arsenal to convince her to stay though.

“I know that.”

“But you need to understand something.” I paused to ensure I had her undivided attention. “Although I do not intend to make love to you tonight, I will give you pleasure with the expectation that you are mine. Exclusively. I don’t share. Ever. Is that understood?”

She met my eyes with a flash of defiance, followed closely by submission. “Yes.”

“I will never again hear you utter nonsense about ‘dating other people’?” I used air quotes to accentuate the words I had found so absurd. She’d actually suggested I share her. Never. Going. To. Happen. “You will date me. You will make love to me. And only me. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I smiled to let her know I was pleased. “Now, where were we?” I closed the distance between us, but just as I was about to touch her, she grabbed my wrist.

“Is this how it’s going to be? You withhold pleasure until I bend to your will? You use sex, my own body, as a weapon against me?”

I peeled her fingers off my wrist, my expression unyielding. “I am not withholding pleasure. I am merely setting the terms for our arrangement so there is no confusion about what either of us expects from the other.”

“You’ve talked a lot about what you expect from me, but you’ve never assured me I can expect the same from you.”

“A mere oversight on my part.” I brushed my body against hers, taunting her as my soft cotton shirt teased her nipples into hard peaks. “I assure you I will not share myself with anyone else.” She shuddered involuntarily, pleasing me immeasurably. “My body is yours for the taking. As is my heart.” I’d never said that to another woman, and she seemed to understand the significance of it.

Her wide eyes captured mine. “You’re saying everything I want to hear, but—”

“You still doubt me.” I skimmed her high cheekbones with my lips. “I understand. If I were you, I would have doubts too. Only time will prove I do mean what I say. With each day, you will trust me a little more until finally you won’t be able to remember a time when you didn’t trust me with your life.”

“With my life?” she asked, seeming surprised. “I don’t know that I could trust anyone with my life.”

Tracing an index finger over the ridges and planes of her body, I said, “I don’t believe that. I think you trust Eleni with your life… your parents, your brother? No?”

“I guess you’re right.” Her breath hitched as my finger traced a line from one hip bone to the other. “But I always assumed it would be different with a lover.”

“Ah, but I will be more than your lover.” I slid my finger between her slick folds, back and forth, at a leisurely pace until her breath came in short bursts. “I will be your husband, the father of your children, your family.”

She choked out a laugh as I eased one finger, then another, inside her tight channel. “You’re crazy, Starkis. You don’t even know me.”

“I do know you, better than I know almost anyone.” I inhaled deeply, relishing the musky scent of her arousal. “You’ve shared personal things with me: secrets, fears, hopes, dreams. Few people know you as well as I do, and I don’t take the time to get to know most people as well as I have you.”