of his neck and run my fingertips under the neck of his shirt. I skim the pads of my thumbs over his cheekbones. His lips. His jaw. He must feel how much I need this, because he helps me, taking the uncoordinated rhythm of my hips and making it steady under his palms.
Touching him with my hands isn’t enough. I need him to know, need to tell him how I feel. I chase my touches with kisses. Please stay with me, I beg the curve at the side of his jaw with a brushed kiss. Please don’t ever leave, I plead to his bottom lip. Please, I pray to his tongue, kissing him as hard as he kisses me. Be mine.
Leo wraps a hand around the back of my neck and traps me in place so he can kiss me back. It’s a claiming, his kiss, but he’s not done when he pulls back. No. He’s not done. He peels down the neckline of my gown, peels down the bra underneath, and toys with my nipple until it rises against the cooler air of the dining room.
Then he leans forward and bites.
He’s left other marks with his teeth.
These are different.
Leo makes it hurt, makes it sting, and I grind down on his cock in a wild attempt to escape the pain. Or to increase it. I can’t stop pulsing around him, can’t, can’t, can’t, and he makes a noise against my skin that’s a brutal prayer. It answers mine. I’m not leaving, that sound says, because I will never leave what belongs to me, and you are mine.
It overwhelms me. It undoes me. I wanted to keep my makeup nice for him, I didn’t want to be a mess, but a fresh wave of tears spills out of me. Leo licks the marks he made and holds me closer so I can ride him and cry at the same time. I bury my face in the shoulder of his jacket and he runs his hand over the nape of my neck and fucks me back.
“Come for me like this,” he murmurs into my ear, and yes—yes. This means as much to him as it does to me. The sheer feeling in his voice shoves me over the edge into a gasping, sobbing orgasm and he curses low into my ear and comes too. There’s so much of him, so much heat, and he holds me hard against him while his cock jerks inside me.
I collapse against him as he catches his breath, but Leo’s not finished with me. He maneuvers a hand under my skirt and finds my clit with his thumb. “No,” I say into his neck. “I can’t take anymore.”
“But I can’t get enough,” he says. “I need to feel it, darling.”
Then I don’t have any choice but to come again while he’s still hard, still inside. I’m sticky with him, hidden under my dress.
He gives me time to come down, then lifts me off his shoulder and dabs at my face with his napkin. Puts my dress back in place. Leo helps me to my feet and escorts me around the table like a true gentleman. He slides my chair out for me, but I hesitate, looking back over my shoulder at him. “Your cum is going to get all over my dress.”
He smiles, a beautiful, sharp thing. “Good.”
I sit.
It’s only when he’s back in his seat that I scan the room and my heart gives a startled punch. “Leo, the door’s been open this whole time.”
He raises his eyebrows, pretending surprise. “We can only hope no one saw.”
It’s so polite in such a dirty way that I laugh, which of course gets more of him on my dress. I don’t care at all.
Dinner is three more courses, fancy and delicious and nothing compared to him. He’s gorgeous in the candlelight and darkly funny while he steers us through the conversation until I’m drunk on the sound of his voice. He watches me eat a miniature chocolate cake for dessert with rapt attention. A maid comes to clear the dishes, and I brace myself for the long walk back to his bedroom.
Instead, Gerard comes in with a slim black box in his hands. He gives it to Leo without a word, then disappears again.
“For you.” Leo offers me the box. He leans his forearms on the table as soon as it’s in my hands, but he catches himself and sits up straight. Like he doesn’t want me