A Billionaire for Christmas

At five-seven, Raji was used to being one of the taller women around and eye-to-eye with a lot of men, even more so when she wore a little heel.

But, damn.

His Venetian half-mask was lying on the floor beside the door, and the light from the sconces flickered over his strong cheekbones and jaw.

She looked way, way up at him and said, “Yep, this is a surprise.”

Peyton grabbed Raji around her waist and whirled her against a wall. He grabbed both her wrists and pressed them over her head, and he bent. His mouth grabbed hers, sucking at her lips, and his tongue invaded her mouth.

She opened to him, melting where he held her and letting him kiss her more deeply.

He broke off. Energy and need and passion filled his blue-green eyes, and the wildness was like a bolt of electricity through Raji. It was practically a Pavlovian response, now. He looked at her with lust in his eyes, and she went wet between her legs.

Peyton asked her, “Do you trust me?”

She had no other thought in her entire body. “Yes.”

“In here, you’re mine tonight.”

“I’m always yours,” she said.

He smiled, a hungry, wolfish smile. “You need to choose a safeword, something that you will say if you want me to stop, something specific and unusual.”

“Hemorrhagic stroke,” Raji said.

Damn, that was too much on her mind.

“And something to say if you want me to slow down, to back up, to let you breathe a bit, metaphorically.”

“Only metaphorically?” she clarified.

“I’m not into breath play,” he said. “Too limiting.”

“Okay, I didn’t even know that was a thing, but all right. How about ischemic stroke?”

“Good. So ischemic stroke is our ‘yellow’ word, and hemorrhagic stroke means ‘stop.’ We are agreed?”

“Yes,” Raji said. “Hemorrhagic stroke and ischemic stroke.”

“Good.” He stepped back, and she almost stumbled. “Take off your clothes.”

Raji complied, hanging her black dress over a thing composed of bars and padded seats that she had no idea how one or two people would sit on.

When she looked up, Peyton had stripped to the waist, baring his broad chest and the flat stones of his abs. His black slacks hung on his narrow hips. Matching Nordic armband tattoos ringed his biceps. More tattoos like woven ribbons emblazoned with runes crawled over his shoulders and pectoral muscles.

He said, “Everything. The mask, too.”

Raji shimmied out of her pantyhose and her black underwear and bra. She laid the silver filigree mask on top of it all, the crystals glittering in the light.

“Now you kneel,” he said. “You sit back on your heels, your hands clasped behind your back.”

Raji did as she was told, trying to look graceful, but her legs and back were sore from standing over back-to-back-to-back surgeries the last few days. That’s the problem when you’re a fucking good surgeon: the higher-ups assign you the harder cases because, most of the time, you won’t kill the patient.

Most of the time.

Raji’s feet ached, and she tried not to think about yesterday’s ten-hour surgery at all.

Peyton was watching her, one eyebrow down. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, now that I’m here with you.” She would make it so.

He walked around her. “All right. Shoulders back, chin up—”

Raji did her best.

“—spine straight, eyes down.”

Before she looked down at her knees, she saw Peyton select a riding crop from an umbrella stand full of them.

The riding crop was a whole new level of kinky in their relationship.

Raji breathed more evenly. She wasn’t sure where this was going, but a small part of the back of her brain noted that all her attention was currently focused on the fact that Peyton was holding that slim, black whip and not anything else.

Leather touched her chin, pressing up, and Raji let her chin lift an inch.

Peyton said, “Better.”

She concentrated on sitting up straight and holding in her stomach.

He caressed her hair as he walked by, a gentle stroke that soothed her.

Raji closed her eyes.

“This is called presenting,” Peyton said. “You present yourself to me this way.”

She nodded.

“It indicates that you are submitting to me,” he said.

Raji nodded again.

“It means that you are mine. I can do anything I want to you, whatever pleases me, unless you say one of your safe words.”

She nodded. Yes, oh yes.

“You should say, ‘I submit.’”

“I submit,” Raji said, not even hesitating.

Peyton ran his knuckles under her chin. “Good girl.”

Raji knew that this was all a game, but she wanted desperately to play it.

He said, “Take my hand.”

She glanced up. Peyton’s left hand dangled right in front of her, ready to help her up.

The suggestion was that she needed him even to stand up, that she was so weak and helpless that she couldn’t stand on her own two feet without him helping her.

And he was right. At least for that night, he was all too right.

Raji slid her fingers into his, and he lifted her hand, steadying her, as she climbed to her feet.