Across the long span of a sweeping wooden desk, Rome sits in his casual black shirt, one arm slung over the back of a wing-back throne, looking every inch the man in charge, domination radiating from his very skin.
I swallow, and he watches the nervous action playing inside the slender column of my neck. His hot gaze roams around my body, indecent, intimidating, and tangible.
The hairs on my arms lift.
“Out now,” he orders.
I almost whimper.
Not wanting to leave, hating his reaction to merely order me away like one of his pets, I grit my teeth. Feel shame. Feel sad. With that, I turn on my heels to leave with my head still high, but his dismissal chews on my strength.
I hope he chokes on it.
“Not you.”
What?
I spin, quickly stepping aside as Turin Two, Kong, and two Guards leave the room, one after the other, and meet Rome’s dark gaze once more.
I missed you.
The Guard behind me shuffles. “Sire?”
“Must I repeat myself...” Rome’s eyes penetrate me. “Everyone out while I eat.”
The nerves in my throat expand, blocking air. I open my mouth, inhaling hard, before saying, “I should not have been listening, my king. That was…” Rude. Improper. Disrespectful— “Disrespectful.”
A slow grin spreads across his lips. “Don't apologise.” He pushes back from the table and widens his thighs, taking up so much space it is any surprise he fits at all. The chair is huge. The table, too. This hall is not for Common. “I said if you needed me, you could ask, and I would come to you.”
Liar. The thought comes, and I almost say it aloud. What is becoming of me? I feel wild and out of control. “That would have been a bit hard when you were hundreds of miles away for the past two weeks.”
Woah.
“You're angry.”
Warranted! Since you just left! Stifling the truth, I shake my head stiffly. “No. I have no right to feel anything like that toward you, my king. I told you I wanted to be your Silk Girl, and you gave me Meaningful Purpose. I have no right to be angry with you in the slightest.”
He chuckles. “Really?”
Am I amusing to him?
My lips curl in frustration. “Well, yes. I am then. But I'm not here for you or me. I am here because of Iris, so what will you do with her?”
His smile falls, and my eyes widen.
“Does it scare you how apathetically I will execute her?” His tone is anything but amused now. “Do you see the black hole in my chest? Is that why you will happily leave me for a peaceful, pathetic life with the babies?”
I shuffle my feet. “I don’t understand.”
He stares at me, unsmiling. “Come here.”
My hands start to shake. Have I pushed this too far? I am pregnant, which means I am untouchable. Is that why I am so quick to misbehave?
“Now!”
Shit. I force my feet forward, walking slowly around the giant table that seems more like a wall to me. I circle it and stop a foot away from Rome, eye to eye with him as he leans back, authority rippling through his relaxed posture.
His eyes pierce me, and I squirm. An angry sound comes from the armrest as he squeezes the leather. “Lay your little body over my lap.” He rolls up his sleeves, displaying thick forearms larger than my thighs and angry veins that ripple his scars and tattoos. He is a monster, and stunning, and I am completely at his mercy.
I can’t breathe. “My king?
“You walk in here” —he grips my wrist and pulls me to lay, face down, on his lap. “This tiny human with all this attitude. Asking for attention. Here it is.” His hand slaps my backside, and I buck into his thigh as a yelp bounces from my lips and a defiant moan builds in my throat.
I don’t want to want this.
He is spanking me
I’ve done the wrong thing.
I moan, long and rough.
“Yes.” His voice is liquid silk. “That’s what I thought.”
Slap.
Moan.
Feeding his fingers up the back of my leg, they dip beneath my skirting and trail up to my thighs. I roll backward into their warm caress. He meets my centre.
“Fuck,” he hisses, the pads of his fingers stroking the damp spot, circling it. “You are so mine.”
I try to remember why I’m here. “I don't need attention. I need answers, my king.”
He rubs my throbbing pussy through my knickers, firm circles that confuse me and that send my hips chasing the motion. “Answers to all the questions you should not have inside your pathetic conditioned mind.”
His words find a mark inside my heart, but his fingers draw whimpers of delight through my lips. “What?”
“I can smell your arousal.” The fabric between my thighs is soaked as he pushes it aside, dips his finger between my folds, and penetrates me.
I cry out in relief.
My muscles work and ripple along the length of his finger as he slides in and out of me, so deep and full, then empty and wanting. He controls me.
“I want this on my tongue. It's been weeks, and I'm hard as rock for you.”
“You left...” The truth falls from me.
“You're just a silly little girl. Why wouldn’t I?”
The backs of my eyes burn. “You don't mean that.”
“You desire to be a Sired Mother. Nothing more.”
Of course. That is what we are taught to want, trained to want, the perfect retirement. A special place. His words don’t make sense.
“Every Silk Girl wants to be a Sired Moth—” My sentence is cut short when he pushes a second finger inside me.
“And you do, too,” he purrs, dark.
My eyes roll.
I ignore his words; they drown in my racing heartbeat, in the rushing of my blood to the place where his fingers work at a meticulous pace.
“Pathetic, wet, little girl.”
“Don’t call me pathetic!”
He growls, stands and scoops me up with one arm as he goes. Placing me on all fours on the table, he comes up behind me, grips the back of my dress in both big hands, and rips it down the centre, exposing my spine and backside.
A dark sound rumbles throughout the room, thickening the air I try to breathe: a hiss from his teeth, a groan from his throat. “Is that what you really want? What if you could choose? What would you do?”
“I— I don't know. That's a scary question. I only know what is required of me, not what I want.”
A huge hand lands on my upper back, covering the plane shoulder to shoulder, and pushes me down until my cheek stamps the cool table.
“Remember to be very still for your king.”
That is all he has to say…
My eyes widen on the shiny wooden surface that spans out in front of me, as I listen to him unfastening his belt and lowering his pants.
A hand grips my hip, long fingers reaching to hold my pelvis. “I will feel myself here when I’m inside you.” The thick, hot bulb of his cock rubs between my thighs, travelling up and down the slick valley.
I push back into him, wanting the stretch, to be filled. Needing all the nerves that prickle inside me to be touched, stroked, praised. Like he can do. I never knew it before, but now that I know, I want it.
He hums. “Good girl. Arching your back like a wanton, little Silk Girl. It will hurt, sweet thing. I’ll see your pussy stretched to its limits.”
His grip on me tightens as he pushes through my folds, opening me up in one long, thorough thrust inward. “Oh, fuck, Aster. My sweet Aster.”