Burn (Breathless 3)

“Now, tell me more about you. You’re an artist, obviously.”

She nodded, not even tasting the food she put in her mouth. The steak smelled delicious and was so tender she could cut it with her fork. But the moment she put it on her tongue, the taste didn’t register. She was too preoccupied with Ash, and the proposition he’d put before her.

“Are you able to make a living at it?” he asked.

It was a personal question, but then Ash didn’t seem the sort of man who worried too much about propriety or boundaries.

“More so now,” she said ruefully. “I’ve been able to make it. It’s not always easy. But I’ve tried regular nine-to-five jobs. I don’t have a passion for it. Not like I do for my art. I’ve sold a few pieces here and there and I design jewelry and sell it over the Internet. I make enough to pay my rent. Most times,” she added with a grimace. “This month was lean for me. Internet orders, which are usually steady, were down and I hadn’t sold any of the art I display in a gallery in the last six weeks. That’s why I went to the pawnshop to sell my mother’s jewelry. I hated it, but I didn’t see another way of paying my bills. I could have gotten a loan, but that doesn’t do me any good if I don’t have the money to pay it and the interest off.”

“Where the hell was Michael in all of this?” Ash demanded.

She blinked at the ferocity in his gaze, the anger she saw brimming in his eyes.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Ash’s lips twitched in annoyance. “You were having financial trouble, which forced you to choose between selling your mother’s jewelry, something that obviously means a lot to you, or not being able to pay your rent and ending up without a place to live. Michael should have helped you.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not like that. I don’t want him to support me. He makes good money, but our relationship wasn’t about that. I couldn’t take money from him. It would be too much like he was paying me for sex.”

Ash looked even more annoyed. “You have some fucked-up reasoning, Josie. If it was a choice between you being on the streets or taking money from a man who damn well should have protected you better then there’s no question that he should have provided for you. You shouldn’t have had to ask. If he was involved with you, if he was your Dom and he knew what he should about you then he would have known that you were in trouble. He should have known you were in a fucking pawnshop hocking jewelry to make ends meet. And he damn sure should have stepped in and taken care of you. If he treated you like he was supposed to, you wouldn’t feel uncomfortable with him helping you. You should have complete trust in the man you’ve given yourself to. And he should cherish that gift by making sure you have no worries, financial or otherwise.”

“Guess I never looked at it that way,” she murmured.

“You will,” he said.

The determination in his voice made her go still. He was so sure of himself. Of her. Of there being an eventual “us.”

“How is your food?” he asked, shifting the conversation in a completely different direction.

She stared down at her plate, realizing the steak was halffinished and she had no memory of eating what was gone.

“It’s good,” she said quickly. “Excellent actually. I’ve never eaten here before. It’s too rich for my blood. What made you choose it?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I own the hotel, so it’s only natural that I’d have a restaurant in it that I love to eat at. I’m glad the steak was to your liking.”

Her jaw went slack. “You own this hotel?”

His eyebrow went up. “You sound surprised. I told you that my partners and I own several hotels.”

“I guess I thought you meant like a hotel chain or something small. This hotel is . . .” She grasped for the right word to keep from sounding like a complete moron.

“It’s what?” he asked.

“It’s so glitzy and obviously caters to the wealthy. I guess I thought you owned something on a much smaller scale,” she murmured.

“Does that bother you?”

She shook her head. “No. It just took me by surprise. I mean you look like you’re wealthy, but maybe I wasn’t thinking you were this successful.”

“And you think that if you agree to what I’ve proposed that it makes you a gold digger?”

He nailed it with one shot. The man was far too adept at reading her mind.

“Let’s just say that I’m not in your league. Anyone looking at the two of us would immediately label me an opportunist. No one would ever believe that I wasn’t with you for the money.”

“And would you be?” he asked bluntly.

She couldn’t suppress her reaction. Her lips thinned and the corners dropped down in a frown.

“Of course not! I don’t want or need you to support me, Ash. I don’t want your money. I want . . .”

She broke off in horror at what she’d almost said. But Ash didn’t miss it and his gaze became all the more intense.

“What do you want?”

“You,” she whispered. “Just you.”

Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes and a slow smile worked over his mouth.

“Then you need to deal, Josie. Because with me comes all that I can give you, and it will not make me happy if you refuse anything I choose to give you or do for you. As long as you and I know the score, I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks and neither should you.”

She licked her lips, his earlier words coming back to her. She had wanted to question him then, but the moment hadn’t seemed right and then the food arrived. But the question was burning on her lips, and she had to know.

“You said earlier . . . I mean, when you said you’d give but that you’d take. A lot. What did you mean by that?”

“Everything,” he said bluntly. “You in my bed. You in my space. You under my protection. I’d take everything, Josie, and you’d give it.”

“That doesn’t seem very equal,” she murmured.

“Nothing I can ever give you could compare to your gift of submission. The gift of your trust. Nothing is more valuable than that, and you can’t put a price tag on that kind of gift. I’d spend all my time catching up, because hell no it’s not equal. What you’d give me far surpasses anything I could give you.”

“Wouldn’t you also be giving me yourself? I mean you said I’d give myself to you, but you’d give me you in return, right?”

He paused a moment, still staring intently into her eyes. “You get me. All of me. What I choose to give you. Nothing more. And you have to understand that. If that bothers you, then you have to deal or make a decision because I can’t give you more.”

She digested his words for a long moment and then glanced back up at him, her brow creased as she plunged ahead with her next question, or rather, condition. He might not take it very well, but she couldn’t even consider this if he refused.

“I won’t share you with another woman,” she said. “I mean if we do this, I won’t tolerate you being with another woman. I don’t know how this works. If you have other women like me. But I don’t want to ever worry that you’re with someone else. Because if I give you everything you’re demanding, especially my trust, then I’d expect you to be faithful to me for however long this lasts.”

“I have no intention of sleeping with another woman or even being with another woman if I have you. Why would I need someone else if you’ve submitted to me and are in my bed? I’d never give you that kind of disrespect, Josie. Of everything else I give you, respect would be the uppermost. I’d care for you, protect you and cherish you. No other woman would get those things from me.”

She wasn’t at all sure what to say to that. He sounded so . . . decisive. As if their relationship were already a fait accompli.

He leaned forward, his gaze growing more intense, his tone . . . persuasive. As if he wanted very much for her to render her decision now instead of taking time to think it over.

“One thing you need to realize. I’m not more than you, Josie. I get that there is an inequality in power in the relationship. The scales are tipped in my direction. But that doesn’t mean I’m more. Never more. You are everything in this equation. You don’t lower your gaze. You don’t ever feel like you’re less, because that’s going to piss me off. You don’t kneel unless that’s what I want when you’re sucking my dick. I make the decisions. You submit to me. But that doesn’t make me more and you less. It makes you everything. And your power over me is far greater than any perceived power I have over you. You talk about what I give you and what you give me. Without me, you’ll be fine. You can make it on your own. You’ve proven that. But without you, I have nothing because money, wealth, power, it doesn’t mean anything without someone to share it with. So maybe my need of you is greater than your need of me. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do everything in my power to make you need me every bit as much as I need you.”

Her eyes widened at his impassioned speech. Holy crap, did he mean that? All of it? “You need me?” she whispered.

He released her hand and leaned back, dragging his own hand through his hair in agitation. “I can’t explain it. This thing, whatever it is between us. But yeah, I need you. I’m not even sure need is the right word because it’s such an inadequate word for the insane urge I have to be with you. To have you. To have your submission. It’s never been like that with another woman. It’s something I want. It’s something I desire. It’s something I enjoy. But with you I need it and if I don’t have it, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. So yeah, I need you, Josie. And that’s putting it mildly. And if that scares you, I’m sorry, but I can’t be any other way with you. I’m shooting you straight. I’ll try not to overwhelm you, but I only know one way with you. Full-on, no holding back.”

She was speechless. She had no idea how to even respond. This was crazy. All of it. They’d only seen each other twice before tonight. How could he possibly have determined that she was someone he needed when they knew next to nothing about each other? For that matter, how could she feel like she needed him?

“Another thing you need to know,” he said before she could respond. “I don’t deal in fantasies, Josie. I deal with reality. And maybe your fantasy is my reality and that’s okay as long as you realize at the end of the day the fantasy becomes reality. What we do is real. It’s here. Solid. It’s not going away tomorrow or the next day. You need to be sure you can deal with that because yeah, I’ll give you the fantasy but it’s going to be real. No made-up shit you only dream about in your head. Are you prepared for that? Can you deal with this being real and permanent?”

“But how? I mean I understand where you’re coming from about the line between fantasy and reality. I get that Michael obviously wanted a game. It wasn’t real with him, and I realized I didn’t want to play a game. But if I’m not even sure of what I want, how can you be expected to know?”

He smiled and reached over to slide his palm over her hand again. “That’s my job. Yours is to submit, to give freely of yourself. My job is to be in tune with your needs and desires, to know them better than my own.”

“It sounds too good to be true,” she admitted. “You say this isn’t fantasy. That it would be real with you, but it sounds like fantasy.”

“You won’t know unless you take the plunge. But believe me when I say this is no game. If you submit to me, you’ll know it’s real. No playacting. No silly games. You’ll feel that to your bones. I guarantee it.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes. To take the plunge as he labeled it. But it would be stupid of her not to take time to think about it, preferably when he wasn’t sitting across from her seducing her with every look, every touch and every word that came out of his mouth.

There was no doubt that he called to a part of her soul that had never been stirred. He made her want things she’d never considered. She knew without a doubt that a relationship with him would be far different than what she’d had with Michael. And she wasn’t entirely certain she could handle that. Ash was an overwhelming presence. He in turns frightened her and intrigued her.

“I’ll think about it,” she said in a quiet voice. “I need time, Ash. This is . . . heavy. It’s a huge decision and one I can’t make lightly. I wouldn’t want to disrespect you by agreeing and then immediately balking at the terms of our relationship. If I agree then I have to know that I’m capable of giving you all the things you want.”

“I’ll give you time,” he said. “I hope that you won’t take too long, but also know there is no time limit on your decision. I’m not going to take up with another woman in a week because you haven’t given me your decision. You need to know there is no other woman. No one I’m considering. The other thing you need to know is that I don’t make this offer lightly. In fact, I’ve never asked another woman for this kind of relationship.”