Page 320 of Rosetti Family New York
"You're distracted," Emilio notes as I push food around my plate.
"Just thinking." I let my foot touch his leg, brushing my toe against the wool.
His breath catches slightly, but his face doesn't change. Years of discipline, and I've found a crack in his armor with just the arch of my foot against his calf.
"About what?" His voice stays steady, but I notice a slight roughness.
"About how surreal this is." I trace patterns on his leg through the fabric, watching his pupils dilate despite his calm expression. "Yesterday we were in a motel with thin walls. Tonight..."
"Tonight you remember what it feels like to be treasured." He reaches across the table, fingers intertwining with mine as my foot slides higher, finding the firm muscle of his thigh. "What it means to be with someone who sees you as worth any expense, any risk."
I press my toes more firmly against his leg, feeling the tension in his body as he tries to stay composed. "Is that what this is? Treasuring me?"
"Among other things." His grip on my hand tightens as my foot continues, finding the growing hardness beneath his zipper. The hitch in his breath fills me with satisfaction.
I curl my foot, toes flexing and pressing against the outline of him, and watch the tremor wash over his face, a tightening at the jaw, a flicker in the careful mask. His nails dig crescents into the back of my hand until I almost want to wince, but I don’t even entertain the thought; I welcome it, a souvenir of how he’s unraveling for me. For once, I am the storm he can’t predict.
I savor every detail of his body’s betraying heat, the way he holds himself rigid, a man who’s always in control forced to beg for mercy with nothing but the tremor in his hands. My pulse is a hummingbird’s riot, but I let my face betray nothing, just a small, pleased smile as I stroke him, slow and deliberate. The illusion of control, always his favorite tool, is now mine. I couldmake him beg in front of the entire room, and he knows it. That knowledge is a secret between us, intimate as anything we’ve ever said aloud.
“Jesus, Mara.” His voice is barely audible, a strangled syllable tasting of plea. There’s no menace in it, just surrender.
I lean in as I pour myself a new measure of wine, letting the deep red flicker in the candlelight. “Something wrong?” My foot presses more firmly, rolling over the ridge of him, the friction unmistakable. “You look…tense.”
He chokes on a laugh, half-moan, half-despair, and his other hand dives under the table, wrapping around my ankle with a grip that would leave bruises if I weren’t so intent on outlasting him. Instead of pushing me away, he drags me closer, anchoring my foot to his erection, encouraging the pressure that's making his jaw clench with desperation.
“You’re playing with fire,” he grinds out, his thumb pressing into the jump of my pulse. His words are hoarse, a little wild, as if he’s been running for miles.
I resist the urge to gloat. Instead, I lace my voice with velvet. “Good thing I like getting burned.”
My toes find the head of his cock, rigid and impossibly hard, branding its heat through the thin fabric. I push harder, slow and merciless. His head drops forward, brow creased in agony and anticipation. The predator who stalked me through continents and code is reduced to this: a trembling, helpless thing under my heel.
The waiter returns, gliding to the edge of our table like a ghost, and for a moment I retreat, offering Emilio the courtesy of a composed facade. The server’s hands are quick and practiced, delivering the next course with a muted flourish and vanishing again, leaving us alone in our private sphere of tension.
Emilio barely manages to murmur a thanks, voice steady but gaze glassy, his chest rising and falling with a breathlessness hecan’t conceal. I lift my fork and taste the food. Delicate, perfect, utterly wasted on my numb tongue. I’m deliriously drunk on the power, the knowledge I can break him with nothing but a touch.
The instant the waiter is gone, Emilio tries to recover, but I see the way his hand hovers under the table, reluctant to let go of my ankle, to relinquish even a second of contact. I start again, slow torturous strokes, heel digging in, arch flexing to caress him in rhythm. He’s putty under my ministrations, his dignity in shreds but his pride refusing to quit.
“The staff,” he manages through gritted teeth.
“What about them?” I let my heel roll up, toes curling against the growing wetness at his crotch. “They’re trained for discretion. That’s what you pay them for, right?”
My foot moves faster, the friction hard, his hips stuttering against my toes. I taste victory in the way his jaw flexes, in the small gasp he bites down, in the panic of his fingers squeezing my ankle.
“That’s it,” I whisper, watching his pupils blow wide, obsidian eclipsing the gray. “Let go, Emilio. You can lose control. Just this once.”
He shakes his head in tiny, defiant shakes, always the martyr, always the hero, but I don’t let up. The rhythm is relentless, my movements assured. I watch him fight, see the white-hot struggle to stay silent, to hide the storm I’ve set loose inside him. Sweat glistens at his brow. In this moment, everything he’s built, his empire of code, his fortress of secrecy, his decades of discipline, counts for nothing. He is mine, and he knows it.
“Mara,” he rasps. My name is barely a sound, more prayer than warning. “If you don’t—”
I press harder, the head of his cock straining against the dampening wool, and let my expression show sweet, merciless delight.
“You’ll what?” I prompt. “Cry for help? Shatter the glass? Make a scene and let everyone see what happens when the Ghost gets caught?”
He sucks in a breath, a shudder tearing through him. “You’re going to make me—”
“I know exactly what I’m going to make you do.” I slow the rhythm, just a hint, keeping him hovering at the precipice. I want to watch him suffer for it, this beautiful, damning need. “The only question is whether you can stay silent when you come.”
His face contorts, battle lost. He sits absolutely still, every muscle rigid. His eyes flash, searching my face for mercy, but there’s none to be found. I feel a surge of heat, then a violent pulse beneath my foot. He slams my foot under the table, clutching it so tight I think I’ll lose feeling, and his body bucks, once, twice. His breath catches on a low, clipped moan. For two, three seconds, everything in the world stops.
