TORTURE ME_ The Bandits MC(174)

“Anything else?” I asked.



He winked. “I might have a surprise planned for you. Then again, I might not.”



He kissed me lightly on my lips.



“For now, I’ll let you get back to work,” he said, and with that, he turned and left my office, just like that. He was gone as quickly as he had come in.



I walked back around my desk and sat down, puzzled. He had a surprise for me? I wondered what kind of surprise he had for me and hoped it would turn out to be a ring.



Gage Noll had changed my life so much over the last year. He bought a house for us to move into together, and the Kings of Hell had helped me move my things into it. They even helped with the unpacking, especially the books.



He paid off my mother’s debts and had her moved to a state-of-the-art facility. He even took over payments so that I didn’t have to worry about her anymore. She was doing better with her new treatments. I didn’t feel guilty every time I visited her anymore. In fact, I visited her more often because we were both doing better.



He’d backed away from the MC, taking a less active role. He’d handed more power over to his inner circle, handing down decisions and plans through them instead of having such a physical presence. He was still there for events and those sorts of things, but he’d been more focused on our relationship.



Plus, the nature of the MC seemed to have shifted over the last year. They had become more successful and less violent as they spent more of their time and energy on their business interests instead of trying to take control from other organizations. I wasn’t really sure exactly what they were doing. Since I had told Gage that I didn’t want anything to do with the MC really, he kept me out of the loop.



Our life was filled with romance and passion. Our new home was a beautiful old Victorian house. The upstairs master bathroom had a claw-footed tub that stood off of the ground and sat deep enough that I could stretch out in a hot bubble bath whenever I wanted, and Gage often had one ready for me when I came home from the university.



In the place of the MC, he’d picked up cooking, and he would often have exotic foods waiting for me from all over the world. He knew I loved exotic foods, and he did what he could to create an impressive variety night after night. He was a damn good cook, too.



“It better be a damn ring,” I said aloud, closing my laptop. I grabbed it and headed to my next lecture on Russian history.



On my way back from my last class of the day, I found Gage sitting in my office chair with his feet propped up on my desk. He wore the same black suit with shiny, black dress shoes instead of his usual worn out boots.



“Well, hello, Dr. Noll,” I teased as I entered my office.



“Hello, Ms. Danvers. Are you here for extra credit?” he joked right back.



“Stop,” I hissed. I felt my face flushing. “And yes, I could use some extra credit. What do I have to do to get an A?”



He smiled. “You don’t want to know what you have to do to get an A.” He took his feet off the desk and sat forward in the chair.



“Mmmm, but what if I said I did want to know, Dr. Noll? What would you tell me?” I continued teasing. I liked this game, pretending he was the professor. It had been a year, and I felt like there were still things he could teach me about my body and about pleasure in general.



“I would tell you that you need to read my new book, Ms. Danvers,” he continued playing along.



“Really? What’s it about?” I asked him, noticing that his hand rested on the cover of the book on my desk.



“It’s about discovering pleasure by letting our guards down and enjoying our bodies,” he said. “I’ll be happy to autograph a copy for you.”



“Funny,” I said. I didn’t have anything else to say or anywhere else I could take the joke.



“I thought so. Hey, maybe you could help me write that book, actually,” he said.



“Maybe. We’ll see. So, are we going to dinner, or what?” I asked, leaning across my desk to him.



“Maybe. I don’t know. Hey, what do you think your surprise is?” he asked as he stood up and started around the desk.



“It’s a surprise,” I told him. He knew damn well what I wanted it to be. I wanted his surprise to be a damn ring, a nice, fat, juicy diamond ring that looked just as good as he did in that suit.



“It’s no fun when you don’t play along,” he teased.



He put an arm around my waist and walked me out of my office.



“Come with me, Dr. Danvers. Our chariot awaits.”



Downstairs, stepping out of the history building, I saw that he had a car waiting for me, complete with a driver. I didn’t want to ask where he’d gotten the money or which one of us was paying for it. Asking questions with Gage was sometimes like looking a gift horse in the mouth. Sometimes things were just too good to be true. Or legal. And I had learned the hard way that I was better off not knowing which was which.