He stood between her legs and steadily watched her. His dark eyes narrowed and impaled her, but there was no way that Natalie could read the thoughts in his head. His gaze was hard, moving from her hot cheeks, down to her breasts that she feared were inadequate, and then to her hand where it trembled as it covered her mound.
His stare was bold--as if it contained ownership--and as he assessed her, Natalie felt he could see everything on the inside of her as well as the outside.
He allowed her hand to remain covering herself, but she knew it wasn't going to last.
She was right.
The moment of slow inspection over, he turned away from her, reached for a condom from the bedside table and sheathed himself with it in seconds. Pushing back between her thighs, he brushed her hand away from her body and lifted her legs and hooked them around his back in a move that was both forceful and precise. He brought himself to the entrance of her soft, wet opening and pushed the broad head of his penis to the quivering heat that awaited him.
He paused as a bead of sweat slipped down the side of his face and reached for her wrists. Manacling them in his hands, he fastened them over her head to the bed and stared down into her eyes. "I've never wanted anything as much as I want you." He circled his hips, rotated them against her and slipped an inch inside of her.
Her eyes flared both from the stretching sensation and the shock of his words and she began to pant in response as she waited for his further intrusion. His hands bit into her wrists with a heavy, forceful clasp that was all-consuming, all-powerful. Her heart beat a vicious tattoo at his display of strength and control, and a wild spiral of desire mixed with trepidation spread through her veins. She took a deep, sustaining breath and pushed against him slightly, testing the strength he was using.
His nostrils flared and he sank another threatening inch inside while he held her eyes. "You trying to get away from me?" he growled through bared teeth in a voice thickened with lust.
"No," she said on an exhaled breath, relaxing her arms back against the bed where he held them in his unyielding grip.
He surged all the way inside with a clean, forceful thrust that made her gasp. Shock reverberated through her as she tried to adjust. His eyes held hers while he stayed still, and a look lit his features that resembled a cross between pure satisfaction and unadulterated relief. "You're never getting away from me."
Natalie was drowning in a mixture of emotions and sexual heat unlike anything she'd ever felt before. She felt completely stretched, and the pleasure it induced was beyond anything she'd ever experienced in her life. She pushed her pelvis against him, dying for his thrusts--yet daring to defy him at the same time, feeling a need for some small measure of self-preservation, to show her independence. "I don't belong to you."
He pulled out of her body and slammed back in with a dagger-like pump of his hips that reverberated through her. "You think now's a good time to antagonize me?" he punched out in a menacing hiss.
She lifted her hips and begged for another stroke. "I'm not trying to antagonize you," she lied on a pant.
He began pumping at her steadily, sliding in and out with repeated thrusts of his hips, and his mouth fell to hers, silencing her with his tongue. He began stroking her in tandem with the kisses he was giving her, long, deep and forceful.
Natalie felt herself slipping down the tunnel toward orgasm. Her body began to tighten and she became almost frantic, her head turning from him and breaking free from his mouth as she gasped for air.
One sinewy hand released her wrist and gripped her by the chin, moving her face so she was looking directly at him. They breathed together raggedly while his strokes became more rigid. Her lids began to slide down, but his fingers bit into her chin. "Open them."
She tried to focus on him as the sensations became too strong to fight against. His eyes were mesmerizing, full of tortured impatience and incendiary heat. She began sinking, her body tightening, as his strokes became deeper, stronger, as he watched her and wouldn't let her out from under his spell.
She began to tip over the edge as a kaleidoscope of colors rushed through her brain and ecstasy held her in its grip. She just felt her eyes close as he pushed against her roughly, one pump, two pumps, three pumps--and then he was groaning, deep from his diaphragm and she knew he was following her over the edge.
He held still inside her as they both slowly began to come down, their bodies relaxing from the grip that their combined orgasms had induced. His head fell to her shoulder, and slowly, their breathing evened out.
They stayed that way for only a matter of minutes until he lifted his head and looked at her.
His dark eyes impaled hers and his voice when he spoke was a menacing threat that intoxicated her with its smoldering heat. "You're mine--all mine. Nobody else gets to touch you. This tight little pussy," he pushed against her, "is mine." His hand left her chin and moved to grip a breast where he squeezed it, just short of pain. "These perfect little tits--they're mine." His callused fingers pinched her nipple. "These nipples--mine." His thumb began stroking back and forth and her nipple pebbled under his touch as his words and manner brought out an exquisite need to submit yet again.
"You understand, Natalie? There are two rules in our--" He hesitated. "Agreement. I take care of you--total care--and you belong to me, body and soul. Outside of bed--you want something--you'll have it. Inside this bedroom--or anywhere else sex is involved--I say 'jump' and your pretty little lips need to beg me to tell you 'how high.' Got that?"
She swallowed deeply, his demands bringing a barrage of emotions to the surface that enticed her to acquiesce. "Do I--do I have a choice?"
"Do you want a choice?"
The memory of her so recent orgasm washed over her as she looked back into his beautiful, compelling eyes. "Will you always make me feel the way you just did?"
His gaze was direct. Determined. "Yes."
"Then, no," she whispered, "I don't think I do."
****
A week later, Natalie sat across from Marco in an upscale, though subdued, restaurant in an old brownstone building on the west end of town. Her finger made a circular motion over the rim of her wineglass as she looked around the room and tried to take her mind off the heat radiating directly at her from across the table. "It's beautiful in here." She cleared her throat softly and bit her bottom lip, turning back to face him. "Really beautiful."
He watched her from across the table as if they were the only two people in the world. She had his sole attention and it was unnerving. "What do you like so much about it?" he questioned as he glanced around the room and then back to her.