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After that thought, her mind went to blissful mist. His thrusts took over her body. She wanted this nirvana to last forever. To make the storm rage on, the clock stand still, the world be
this
. Every cell in her body opened for him, reached for him, convulsing on waves that intensified with each passing second. Mindless sounds spilled from her lips as the sensations crashed together, faster and faster, falling onto and into her like pulsing, pounding rain. The storm flooded her, slamming at the dam between sanity and mindlessness. It wasn’t long before fissures grew in that dam, wider and wider, promising to burst her open. She panted with need for it. She was going to burst. She was going to—

“Not yet, Rose. Hold it back. Let it grow a little more.”

Was he kidding? “I can’t! Too…much! So…much!”

“Yes you can. Not. Yet. Rose!”

“Please!”

He spanked her with fierce, passionate force. “You’re mine tonight. Your body is mine. Your orgasm is mine. Hold it back, damn it.”

“Shit!” She gripped the bedcover so hard she was bound to tear the damn thing apart in a second. “I think I hate you.”

“I think I adore you.” He relented his hold on her thighs, scraping forward to clutch her waist now, forcing her body back onto his like they were gears on a locomotive. “Christ, I love fucking you.”

The cracks in her composure split even more. “Please,” she cried. “Oh please, Sir. I need to—”

“Yes.”
Finally
the word she craved, needed. “Yes, honey. Come now. Come for me good!”

Good
was just the beginning of what her detonation felt like.
Amazing
barely did it justice. If her brain had any function left, it might’ve seized something like
volcanic
. She was a shifted landscape, an opened vista, the terrain of her psyche heaved up and turned into something new as she dissolved into the nothingness of raw sensation, pure light, magnificent heat, convulsing pleasure. She was exposed to him in ways that had nothing to do with surrendering her body. This was about more, in so many precious ways. He’d known that. Oh God, how he’d known.

The sobs came again, taking over as he halted at the apex of a thrust. He shuddered against her just before his cock tightened, then erupted, searing her with the heat of his seed, which she felt even through the latex sheath.

“Rose! Yes!”

It was the last thing he said for many long minutes, driving into her, grinding with insatiable, athletic grace. She dissolved beneath the storm of him, yearning for the mist of mindlessness to go on forever…at the same time, bracing herself for the moment that it didn’t.

That instant came faster than she expected. And ten times worse than what she’d prepared for.

If her mind tumbled over a cliff before, it careened into a pit now. Everything was black, without direction, a no-man’s land between the beauty of what they’d just shared and the confusion of why she even looked at it that way. What had she just done? What had she allowed
him
to do? And worse, why did it turn her inside out like nothing before, made her feel alive, afire, and perfect for the first time in her life?

Worst of all, how would she face a future of never knowing it again?

The truth plunged her deeper into the blackness.

Her sobs careened into nonstop weeping.

It took Mark less than a minute to pull out and lie down next to her. He reached for her with one hand while getting rid of the condom with his other. When that was done, he rolled to his back, his body coated in a sheen that looked too damn gorgeous to be sweat, then pulled her atop him. Rose burrowed close despite the voice inside now screaming at her to push back, to get as far away from him as the bed allowed. She needed to raise the shields again. She needed to start now. She had to chase down the emotional sentry who’d gone running with Mark’s sensual invasion, sitting back to watch the show with amusement while her body and mind surrendered to his rule. If she got everything back in place now, maybe the damage to her composure could still be saved a little.

She wasn’t fast enough. The shivers began anew. Every muscle in her body fell into paralysis from the assault. Mark stroked one hand at her temple, scraping back her hair with gentle, nurturing motions that tore open her emotional floodgates again. Within a few minutes, she’d soaked his chest with her salty storm.

“Crap.” She finally raised her head and sniffled. “I’m a mess.”

“You’re supposed to be.” He tucked her head back into his shoulder. “It’s your first sub drop, honey.”

She frowned. “Sub what?”

“Sub drop,” he repeated. “Kink shorthand for a real biological sequence. Your body and your mind have been on high steam for over an hour. And after the release valve finally got punched—” His tone warmed with the innuendo. “Well, there was nowhere for you to go but down.”

“Hm.” The explanation made complete sense. But it didn’t make the plummet any easier to endure. She closed her eyes in bliss as he started the finger combing treatment again.

“Many submissives don’t ever get used to it,” he continued. “And if you don’t either, that’s okay too. We’ll just make sure you’re in a comfy place to fall every time.”

His hand never stopped, but Rose’s breathing hitched. There he went again, using phrases like that. Stacking words and tones into a mental bridge that led to tomorrow, to the next day, to the next week, and beyond that. But they were weeks and months and tomorrows that could never be. It had nothing to do with the fact that they’d be more than half a world apart by this time next month. They already lived in different universes, and nothing would change that. He needed a woman who could fly in the stars of his realm. He needed a companion who knew what do at his side in public as well as at his feet in private. Most of all, he deserved a woman who could give him her heart and soul, as well as her body.

But wasn’t that what you just did, Ro?

She trembled harder, as the answer to that resonated through her.

Yes, damn it. Yes. And it was the best experience of your life.

It was also the last time she’d let it happen. The last time either of them could let it happen.

Surely Mark saw that too. He wasn’t a stupid man. But he was also a determined, exasperating dreamer. His near-blind idealism was one of the most famous traits of his character. Until now, she’d always thought the media had just blown that out of proportion. She was fast learning that for once, their accounts might have exercised restraint.

A sigh spilled from her.

Mark’s hand stilled against her head. “What is it, honey?”

She gazed at her fingers, lightly resting against his pec. “Please stop doing that.” Before he could get in a note of protest, she went on, “You know what I’m talking about. We can’t think about ‘every time’ between us. There…shouldn’t have been a
this
time.” She nuzzled his skin, breathing in the wild, masculine scent of him. “But I’m glad there was. Thank you.”

His tense silence was broken only by the patter of rain against the pool outside. He finally answered her in a tight mutter. “We’re not going to talk about this right now.”

She sighed again. “That won’t make it go away. Or our lives, or what—”

“Go to sleep, Rose.”

“Shoving it under the rug won’t make it disappear.”

“
Go to sleep
, Rose.”

She turned the sigh into a huff. But after that, she said nothing. Weariness became a heavier blanket by the second. And morning was coming, as it always did. In the light of day, he’d have to look at things differently. In a few hours, the world would be real again. Until then, she’d let herself believe his fantasy, just a little while longer. She’d let herself be the transformed cinder girl and linger at the ball just a few minutes more—especially because this dance wasn’t going to end with a magical glass slipper and a carriage ride back to the palace.

After tonight, she had the rest of her life to remember that sometimes, pumpkins just had to remain pumpkins. It wasn’t physically possible to turn them into princesses, and making them into pie only meant the prince ate them up before he decided they weren’t the right flavor after all.

Sometimes
happily ever after
just had to remain a pretty line in a fantasy story.

Chapter Eleven

The exhaustion of the sub drop claimed her within minutes. She didn’t even rouse when Mark slipped from bed to grab a washcloth, soak it with cold water, then press it to the light welts he’d left on her ass. He cursed himself for not being more prepared with at least a cream for her skin, but that also forced him to admit he never expected things to go as far as they had tonight. He’d known he wanted to take her, to be inside her, to command her in every way he could, but he would’ve banked on a snowstorm hitting the island before predicting how deeply Rose would surrender to his hand…or how gorgeous she’d been in doing so. How fully she’d blossomed, before his eyes, into the beauty of her submissiveness.

And still she didn’t get it.

She’d completely ditched every lesson she’d just learned. Rose still thought this was a part of herself she could file away like last year’s tax return, not a vital piece of herself she’d never be able to forget again.

Foolish, frightened, stubborn…incredible woman.

The litany rolled through his head, which now rested on the pillow next to hers. She was still lost to slumber, mahogany lashes fanned against her creamy skin, tangled hair dappled in the silver of the dawn. He swallowed quietly as he could, studying her face, which seemed carefully composed even in her dreams. If she allowed herself to dream.

She challenged him in ways he’d never expected.

And she was worth every exasperating moment.

Rose sighed and stirred.

He smiled tenderly as his subbie stretched like a cat, throwing her arms over her head. The action tugged the covers off her chest, giving him a nice eyeful of her generous swells. His mouth literally watered as he took in the dusky areolae and the pert prizes nestled in the centers. He longed to lean over and coax both nipples into submission, but he held back. He figured that once the air hit her bare skin, she’d—

“Shit!”

Bolt up and gape at him like that.

He bent an elbow and rested his head on his hand. If he didn’t smile too broadly, maybe she’d keep neglecting to take the sheet with her. “Hi.”

“Uh, hi.”

Damn. She remembered all too fast. She used one hand to drag up the sheet, tugging her knees up too. With the other hand, she scraped back her hair. “I forgot where I was.”

“You weren’t looking too upset about it, sleeping beauty.” At her humorless laugh, he probed, “What?”

She shook her head, seeming nervous. “Last night before I fell asleep, I was actually thinking—well, feeling—more like Cinderella.”

Most women invoked that particular fairy tale with breathless glee. Instead, the sad threads in her tone made his chest tighten. “Sooty Cinderella or sparkling Cinderella?”

She shrugged. “A little of each, I guess. Loving the sparkle, but knowing I’d have to wake up from it soon.”

He’d expected that. But that didn’t make it less maddening to hear. “No.” He hooked a hand into the crook of her elbow, gripping harder when she tried to pull away. “Damn it, Rose. You
are
awake.”

That at least got her to look at him. Her stare burned with a thousand questions, but most importantly, a little hope. “Yes,” he repeated. “Don’t you see? For the first time in your life, you’ve accepted who you are. Submitting to me didn’t make you weaker, honey. It gave you back your strength.” He lifted his hand to her face, palming her jaw. “And it gave me back mine too. And I’m so thankful.”

Her skin trembled beneath his touch. Her features contorted as if a boulder had landed on her shoulders. He watched every inch of her conflict, of the crossroads at which she stood. The safe comfort of yesterday’s Rose, or the exhilarating terror of today’s Rose?

Damn it. He refused to let her revert to the cinders. The past wasn’t an option for either of them.

“Mark,” she whispered. “Please.”

“No.
Rosalind
.” He flattened her torso against the fabric headboard. With the motion, he also rolled so he crouched in front of her, cupping her cheeks. “Choose the strength. Choose this. Choose how good this can be.”

Her gaze searched into him, big and vulnerable. But in those velvet depths, little rips of hesitation began to show. Behind those rips, there was light…more glimmers…a little more anticipation.

She swallowed.

He held his breath.

Her chin quavered. But then she gave him a rasp that spun his hope into euphoria. “I can’t!”

“You
can
.”

“Help me. No,
make
me. Please…”

It was all he needed to hear. He mashed his mouth to hers, not using a shred of gentleness about it. He sucked in her sweet taste, rejoicing in her plaintive mewl, hardening at her aroused shudder.
Fuck yes
; this was so right, and every cell in his being confirmed it. He stabbed his tongue to hers again and again, marveling at how she synched herself with his rhythm, at how perfect her hands felt around his neck, clawing his scalp. Heat thickened the air between them, turning the bunched sheets into an infuriating barrier. Like a man with a fever, Mark ripped them away. The comparison wasn’t that far off. In the space of her delicious little plea, Rose had infected his blood like a jungle virus, and he never wanted an antidote.

He dipped both hands between her thighs and parted them with one shove. Rose gasped, her tongue slipping along her bottom lip. In an instant he envisioned the length of his cock sliding into her sweet, berry-colored mouth. It turned his next words from a firm command into a raw growl.

“I’m not taking my time with this, honey. Listen close. The safe word is
worth
. Use it if you need to, but only if you
need
to. You’ve turned your will over to me. I won’t abuse that, but I
will
push it. You need to be willing. And if you’re willing, then you’ll be obedient. Do you understand?”