Chapter Six
“Make… make me…”
“Make you come.”
“I’m not getting naked again—”
“I’m not asking you to. I told you I would take good care of you. First, I want you to come back into the gallery with me.”
“The gallery?” I nodded. “Okay.”
His finger stroked once down my neck, and he turned to me with an irritated look.
“Oh,” he said. “I’d forgotten you didn’t have your collar.”
“I don’t wear a collar.”
“You will,” he said, waving his hand in the air as though it was a commonplace thing. “But now, I want to talk with you about this cake.”
Oh, crud on a muffin. The cake.
I’d almost forgotten about it in the minutes since Jake had looked at my body and told me to strip for him. Everything seemed like a daydream, but seeing the cake on its side pulled me back to reality with a sharp yank.
Right. A two thousand dollar mistake.
“You need to pick this up,” Jake said. His voice was even and low.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” A bright flush swept over the top part of my cheeks. My eyes watered with the heat.
“Don’t be ashamed. Apologize and find pleasure in picking it up.”
“Pleasure?” I stared down at the flattened cake. It had broken open in the top layer, and I saw that it was red velvet cake under the gold icing.
“First apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Then pick it up.”
I bent down and gingerly picked up the sides of the cake box. Some of the icing had spattered onto the carpet, but the cake was mostly still contained. I supported the bottom with one hand and stood up.
“Is there a trash can somewhere?” I asked. “Or… I mean…”
“Put it on that side table.”
I obeyed his instruction. All the while, his words whirled in my mind: I will make you come. His breath was a rasp that sent a tremor through me. I could hear my heartbeat behind his words. My pulse was racing.
“What are you thinking about?”
I looked up. On the wall above the side table, there was a mirror. I could see Jake’s reflection in it. He was staring at the back of my head intently.
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
“What was it?”
I blushed. I wasn’t going to tell him. No way.
“Were you thinking about me?”
“You’re arrogant, aren’t you?”
He whipped me around so fast that I tripped over my own feet. I stumbled and he caught me, pinning me back against the mirror. My hip was pressed against the side table. I couldn’t move.
“Me?”
He shot a glance down at the broken cake.
“This cake, who paid for it? Was it you?”
“N—no.”
“Who paid for this party? All of it?”
“You did.”
“I want to enjoy tonight. I want to enjoy everything that has been given to me, because I have paid for every last ounce of pleasure,” he said, his voice throttled down. The words resonated down through his chest.
“I have paid dearly for this. And I will take what I want, when I want.”
His arm reached around my back and pulled me up against his body. I cried out as he squeezed my hips. His fingers gripped my ass.
“You are a gift that I paid for,” he said. “You are a treasure. I want to treasure you.”
As he spoke, his hands pulled me even closer. They clasped my hips and caressed my shoulders. They tugged my thigh against him, and Lord, oh Lordy, he was hard. I melted inside as he rubbed slowly, sensuously, against the front of my body.
He was so tall that his lips brushed my hairline. Oh God, I hope I remembered to shampoo last night.
How crazy was I? If I had thought about it, I should have screamed my head off. I should have shoved him away. But desire burned through me so hot and bright that I ignored my rational side. Damn the consequences. I had been pure for my whole life, and now I needed this… this dark, sinful thing. I wanted his desire.
His lips brushed my skin only lightly at my forehead. His fingers, though, brushed over my mouth and pinched the line of my chin.
“Lacey, you sweet delicious thing.”
He reached out to the broken cake. He swept one finger through the gold icing and brought it up to my face.
“Suck it off.”
My eyes flickered back and forth from his iced finger to his stern face.
“Lacey, you’re being needlessly slow about following my orders.”
“It’s just… I’m just not sure about this. I mean—”
“Not sure?”
His eyes narrowed. His eyebrows slanted dark, twin bolts of black down his face.