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“It’s the curiosity. The risk.” There were so many more things he’d ask of her when they visited Vieille Rivière, his favorite private restaurant in New Orleans. “The reward you’re hoping for later. It might hurt. Tomorrow morning perhaps you’ll notice a small scratch that will remind you of this evening. If nothing else, it’s an experience you won’t get with anyone else. You’re hungry for that, aren’t you, sweet Hope? The opportunity to live, to explore?”
“Yes,” she murmured. “But it will hurt.”
“Especially when you press the thorn against your clit.”
Her skin went scarlet, then drained of color.
“Then you’ll be so aroused you’ll wonder how you’ll make it to my house without an orgasm. You may even consider giving into the temptation of excusing yourself to the ladies’ room, but since you’ll be on a video with me while you’re in there, you won’t have the opportunity.”
“You can’t mean that!”
“Which part? Forbidding you to masturbate? Or the part where you’ll be on the phone with me?”
“Either.” She scowled. The lines trenched between her eyebrows would scare a lesser man.
“For clarity, I meant both.”
The server joined them. “Everything okay, Mr. Sterling?”
“Fine. Thank you, Stephen.”
“Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” With that, the man left them alone again.
“Meet my gaze,” Rafe instructed Hope. “I want to see each of your reactions.”
She had to scoot around a little.
“I’m waiting.”
Hope drew her lower lip between her teeth as she pressed the stem against her skin.
“How is that?”
She whimpered. Slowly, she moved her hand higher. Breathless, she stopped and looked at him.
“Make sure you have a thorn pointed toward your pussy.” Her almost imperceptible movements and tiny sighs told him she would, indeed, enjoy his vampire gloves—dozens of tiny spiked nubs burrowing into her at the same time.
She turned the stem a little. “I’m nervous.”
“Good.”
“Good?” Her eyebrows were drawn together in shock and question.
“Fear is powerful, isn’t it? Your insides are trembling. Fight or flight has been triggered. Everything inside you is rebelling at my request. Everything you’ve learned is warning you not to do it. Yet you know—or at least suspect—that the high you will experience will make any fleeting pain worth it.”
From the way she frowned at him, she didn’t want him to be right.
“What’s going on inside you? Has your heart rate increased? Palms a little damp? Hot shivers? Cold? Are you trembling?”
“Yes. All that.”
“And to think, you could just be having dinner alone. Or worse, with some man who bored you, talking about current events, discussing your day at work.” He took a sip of his drink, appreciating the dryness and notes of vanilla. “There’s some risk, for sure. You could be caught. Myrna might see you and kick us out of here, perhaps ban us from all her restaurants. You might be so turned on that you have a difficult time containing your reaction. Maybe our server will suspect what you’re doing and pretend not to notice. At any rate, you’re tempted.” Would she do it? Ms. Malloy was a perfect lady, and wondering if she would color outside the lines was a tantalizing prospect. If she did, her acquiescence would fuel his masturbatory fantasies for days, maybe weeks.
She took her sweet time deciding, and that made her surrender that much sweeter.
Hope moved her hand a little and bit down hard on her lip as she forced the thorn against her cunt. Rafe could have exploded in that instant. It wasn’t just her shocked, rapturous expression. It was more. Her obedience. Her thirst to receive what he offered. “Sweet God, Hope.” Beneath the tablecloth, he moved his hand on top of hers and pressed, digging the thorn in harder, imagining it snagging her silken panties.
“Rafe…”
He held it against her another few seconds, until she inched back. Then he released his grip.
With her shoulders shaking, she dragged in a few shallow breaths. “That’s… It didn’t hurt like I thought it would. Maybe because of my underwear? But…” She placed the rose back on the table. A single petal fell from it. “The idea of what we did, I mean, in public.” She crossed her legs. “It was hot. And you’re right about what was going on in my brain. The…”
