Arrogant Master (Arrogant #2)(42)

"It wasn't intentional," I say. "I don't want us to be a 'was' just yet. Unless you do … "



       
         
       
        

"I'm not quite ready to be done with you yet. If I'm being honest."

"I knew you were testing me."

"Always."

"Your honesty is noted and appreciated." I want to lean across the wide bed and kiss every part of him from his deliciously curved jaw to the bow of his upper lip to his perfectly straight nose.

Instead, I refrain from ruining this moment by acting like some cutesy girlfriend because the next thing I know, he'd be calling Mathilde to pack my things and call me a cab.

"I'm still waiting on that notebook," he says. "Your deepest, darkest fantasy. I want to bring it to life for you. You've done that for me already, but I'd like to return the favor."

I bite my tongue, unsure of how to tell him this.

"I threw the notebook away." My hands fly over my face.

"You did what?" The low tone of his voice and the storm brewing in his eyes suggests he's angry enough to punish me, and that hasn't happened in a good, long while. He rolls to his side, facing me, and props himself up on his elbow.

I sit up in his bed, peering at him between my fingers. The day after we returned from Nashville I tossed it out after having spent all weekend asking myself what my ultimate fantasy might be and finally getting an answer.

"Why would you do that?" His dark brows meet in the middle.

"Because what I want … what the deepest part of me wants … " I draw in a long breath. "It's not something you're capable of giving me."

"I'm capable of giving you anything you want."

"Not this."

"I find that extremely hard to believe."

"Believe it."

"Tell me what it is. As your master, I'm ordering you." His expression darkens, and his hand slides between my inner thighs until it reaches my sex where he rubs me through my lace panties. "Tell me, Bellamy."

Just thinking about telling him makes me cringe because I know how he'll react. It won't be good. And I don't want him to look at me like some silly schoolgirl.

"Please don't make me say this." I clasp my hands together and playfully beg though my face is winced and blushing.

His eyes drag from mine toward the pillow between us, his hand motionless between my thighs now. "You don't feel like you can open up to me?"

"Not with this."

Lingering silence consumes the space between us, and Dane's expression falls somber.

"I was raised FLDS. I grew up at the Zion Ranch about fifty miles north of Claxon, Utah." He clears his throat, pulling his hand from me, his eyes still glued to the pillow. "My father had eight wives and fifty-six children. I was the twenty-first son. Beckham was the twenty-second. We were born six months apart to two different mothers." 

I'm still as a statue, clinging to his every word.

"When I was sixteen, my father came for Beckham and me and walked us out to one of the compound's Suburban's, which was already filled with five other young men, like myself." He swallows. "We were each given a sack lunch and a twenty-dollar bill and dropped off in the middle of the country. Most of us had never set foot outside the compound border."

"Dane." My hand flies to my mouth. I want to hold him, comfort him.

"Some of the lost boys headed straight for Vegas. Drugs. Prostitution. They did whatever they had to do." He shakes his head, keeping the far-off look in his eyes. "My brother and I got a job bussing tables and mopping floors at some rat's nest diner we came across on our walk into a nearby town."

He smirks.

"The owner of the diner, Leo Fickbaum, was a spirited old bastard. I suppose he took pity on us, so he put us up in this old 1955 Airstream he had sitting in his backyard. That's where we lived for a couple years. Working at the diner, living in a camper."

Dane's layers upon layers are momentarily translucent, and my aching heart is replaced with nothing but admiration.

"Uncle Leo, as we came to call him, came into some money after a few years from some inheritance," Dane continues. "He was a humble man. Didn't want much. Didn't need much. He was an old bachelor who never settled or had kids. Leo decided to give the money to Beck and I, but only if we promised to invest it."

I nod my head side to side. "Makes sense."

"Beck had all these grand ideas," he says. "But I suggested that we invest it in ourselves first. We got our G.E.D.s and attended a local community college, studying alternative and renewable energy. Within three years, we bought out a fledgling solar panel company based out of Salt Lake City, expanded it, and renamed it Townsend Energy Holdings."

"And now here you are." A smile resides in my tone. I'm sure there's more to his story, but he's never opened up to me like this before, so I won't dare go prying just yet.

"I don't enjoy discussing my past," he says. "It's difficult at times, and I tend to give the condensed version."

"Understandable."

"But now that I've opened up to you," he says. "Common courtesy would suggest you should return the favor."

Wow. All that just so he could get me to tell him my deep, dark secret.

"It's not dark," I say. I'm not sure how I can listen to him pour his heart out about his younger years and then deliver some silly fantasy of mine. It's certainly not an equal exchange.

"Okay." His fingers slip between my thighs again, massaging me with quick, steady circles as he moves closer to me. "Tell."

"You're going to laugh."

"I promise I will not laugh."

His hands slide around my hips, grabbing a handful of flesh and rolling me over top of him where the girth of his hardness presses through his satin pajama bottoms. He rocks my hips over his, teasing me the way he does so well.

"What is it, Bellamy? What is the one thing you desire more than anything in the world?"

My hips grind against him, and I gather my hair at the nap of my neck, dragging it over my shoulder as our eyes lock.

"Sex with love."

He stops, his hands locked on my outer thighs, and his jaw firming.

"See, I knew this would happen. I knew you'd look at me like that." My face burns. I try to climb off of him, but he refuses to release me. "It's not something you can give me. I know that. I tried to tell you – "



       
         
       
        

"Look at me."

I stop squirming and flick my gaze his way, bracing myself for some speech about how he's not capable of love and how this was never supposed to be an emotional arrangement.

And he would be correct.

It wasn't supposed to be an emotional arrangement.

"I told you it's not something you could give me," I say. "Because that's not something you can just do for someone. It has to happen naturally. And you may have given me everything I could possibly ever dream of, but that's the one thing you can't."

We're locked in a gaze, and I wish he'd say something.

"I'm okay with that," I lie, wishing this conversation had never happened.

"Are you? Or are you just saying that?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," he sits up, keeping me in his lap. "It does matter."

I wait, straddling him and feeling his bulge between my legs. He should be tying me up now, flipping me over, and plunging inside me until we collapse. That's what we do. That's what he likes.

Dane says nothing as his fingers drag beneath the waistband of my panties as he sits up and presses his mouth onto mine. My eyes close, and I focus on the softness of his lips and the slow, gentle exchange. He slides my robe off my shoulders and unfastens my bra, taking his time. With his hands sliding down my bare back, he grabs my hips and slides me underneath him.

Our lips fuse even still. Soft, tender kisses I haven't got the courage to question.

He reaches to his nightstand and clicks off the lamp before pulling the drawer. I assume he's reaching for a toy or something, but instead, I heard the rustling of a foil packet in the dark. He pulls his engorged cock out in one fluid movement then sheaths himself before returning to cover me.

And that's what he's doing.

He's covering me.

The cocoon between his arms feels safe, protective, and warm. My legs spread, widening for him as he readies himself at my entrance. He captures my bottom lip in his as he plunges inside me, releasing a soft groan that reverberates through his chest and onto mine. My hands slide up his back.

This is the first time I've ever actually touched him during sex. My hands are free, and he's not scolding me. His skin is soft and smooth, and his muscles ripple beneath my palms as his entire body moves in rhythm with mine. Dane's hands curl into fists, gripping the sheets behind my head as he pushes himself deeper inside me.

I gasp, digging my fingers into his back.

His lips leave my swollen mouth and travel to my neck, and I brace myself for bites that never come. Instead, he peppers soft kisses over every square inch until I'm covered in goose bumps. When he returns to my open, waiting mouth, his hands slide down my arms until he finds my fingers and interlaces his with mine, lifting them above my head.