“What would you like to drink? I can make you a cocktail. There’s champagne. Scotch…” His voice trailed off.
“Do you have tequila?” This promised to be a tequila kind of night.
“Of course.” He poured me a generous shot of Patron over ice and brought it to me with a lime wedge. The simple sight of his ample fingers wrapped around the glass was erotic.
I squeezed the citrus into my glass and took a smooth, intoxicating sip. This was an enormous step up from the Cuervo my family drank on special occasions.
The sips I took on an empty stomach made me bold. I used liquid bravery to say what I was thinking.
“I thought about you. About us. All day long. The punishment you gave me last night. I couldn’t get it out of my mind,” I said.
“Are you telling me you tried to forget them?” Roberto took a deep drink of his red wine, and I watched his throat work on a swallow. He set the glass down and gazed at me intensely. “Because I won’t let you.”
His eyes were deep, azure pools.
I took them as a sign that I had my abuela’s blessing for whatever happened tonight. I’d leap right in.
Even if I couldn’t see my way to the bottom of us. Roberto and me.
He said, “Now that we’ve had each other, Eva, I know.”
“Know what?” I asked.
“Take another sip of your drink, princess. You’re going to need it.” His mouth curved upward with the slightest hint of a smile.
I took a small sip of the clear liquid; its burn trickled down my throat.
Roberto eyed me, more reticent than I’d ever seen him.
“What?” I set my glass down and looked at him. “What is it?”
“Tell me, Eva. Did you feel it here when I laid my hand across your bottom?”
He stepped towards me, sliding his hand possessively up my thigh, reaching its apex, and I shifted, uncertain about where this conversation was headed, but hoping was going in the direction my dirty mind said it was.
“I did.” Thank God for Patron. A small amount made me brave enough to share my feelings. “It made me want you in my mouth.” Sober Eva could not have this conversation.
But the short, sexy chit chat was nothing compared to the words Roberto said after kissing me senseless one more time. “It’s time to start training you for your initiation ritual, Eva. It’s the only way you can become truly mine.”
I took a teetering step backwards in my heels. “Roberto, you’re freaking me out a little. What do you mean ‘ritual?’” I twisted the satiny fabric of my dress in my hands and it gave me not an ounce of comfort.
“Kneel before me.”
“Kneel?” I picked my glass up and took a large swig. My head swam, but it wasn’t from the alcohol. I barely knew this guy and so far I liked him a lot.
Initiation? Training? What the fuck?
I needed to sit down.
Or maybe run.
He walked to the window and stared out at the perfect view of the emerald river below. It flowed at the base of the hill and the lights from the Inn threw glow spots on the water so it resembled a liquid Christmas tree.
I should be scared, but I’m not. “So last night was more than hanky, panky, spanky? You want me to bow down to you? Submit?”
“I’m a dominant.” His mouth bowed into a soft, irresistible smile. “Good news, Eva, there’s no doubt that you’re a submissive. You’re my blessing, and you’re going to help break the curse.”
14
Eva
The heavy tumbler twinkled in the firelight when I held it up to Roberto and asked, “You say I’m a submissive. Why?”
Roberto took the glass from me and I wondered how something as simple as looking at the back of his hand could get me hot. It was solid. Enormous. The bones so much bigger than mine.
He wanted to spank me with it again?
“Because you like it when I control you and you’ll agree to surrender to me. You’ll devote yourself to me, and in return I’ll do the same.”
After dad died, the free grief counselor at hospice told me to delay important decisions during the first year. Don’t sell your home (didn’t have one), don’t change jobs (my job got me locked in a shed), no major financial transactions (didn’t have cash to transact).
This felt like a big deal, agreeing to behave according to his will. It wasn’t on any list of big decisions I’d seen.
“Let’s back up and talk about the controlling part.” I played at the inside of my cheek with my tongue. “Are we talking whips and chains, or slap and a tickle? I’m not well versed in kink, but pretty sure the spectrum covers a wide range of pain and pleasure and everything in between.”
Roberto came to my side with a freshened glass of sipping tequila in his hand, he held it up and said, “Open your mouth, Eva.”
The simple command makes it hard to concentrate on anything but the thudding of my heart, which beat like a marathon runner’s.
His gaze was molten with some emotion I didn’t recognize, only that it burned me from the inside out when he said again, “Open.”
I couldn’t resist. He had me in some kind of trance, powerless to refuse him. Slowly, I opened my mouth halfway. Roberto dipped a finger in my tequila and put the droplets on my taste buds. It flamed my tongue, and I closed my lips around his finger, watching his nostrils flare as I made a soft suck around it with my mouth.
He stepped towards me, closing the distance between our bodies, “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He stroked the fall of my hair. “Following my directions like a good girl. For once.”
Those two simple words, “good girl” made my chest ache, bittersweet, and I admit to myself, he’s right, I’ll do anything to hear him say it again.
I dropped to his feet.
“What are you doing, Eva?” His voice, amused. Not exactly the reaction I was going for.
“I’m being submissive. Am I not doing it right?”
“You don’t need to cower at my feet.”
It’s difficult going from the floor to a standing position in Louboutin, but somehow, I managed. My clumsy rise from the ground did nothing to lessen my embarrassment over my failed, first attempt at subbing.
“Look, Roberto. I don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m doing here. You’re going to have help me out a little if you want me to try this.” I’d be damned if I’d be some sort of half-baked submissive. I didn’t wear this dress and these heels for nothing.
“First off, Eva. You can start by following orders, not giving them. You’ll do as I say, not the other way around.” His words were stern, but his eyes were soft. “That’s the beauty of this for you. You only have to do as you’re told.”
Damn. That shut me right up.
For about half a millisecond.
“Orders? I’m not following orders! You’re not the boss of me!” Both of my hands were on my hips, and the tequila in my blood amplified my righteous indignation. “You might be the boss in your family, but I’m Eva Montoya, and I kowtow to no man.”
“Oh, you’ll toe the line, alright. Not only that, you’re going to enjoy doing it.” There was a coldness to his voice, and for the first time during this bizarre conversation, nerves fluttered in my belly, but something inside me wanted to poke the bear.