Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
But I couldn’t find it.
When I looked at the clock for the fourth time in less than ten minutes, I realized that the pressure was anticipation. And the warmth was a spark of excitement at seeing his name appear on my screen. After not hearing from him over the weekend, I went with my usual aloof, cold demeanor in the office and ignored his presence when I walked past him.
He didn’t say anything either, leaving me to wonder if he regretted his offer and planned to act like it never happened.
I guessed not.
Despite hating myself for it, I looked at the message again and smiled. “Ugh. Get it together, Aspen,” I chided myself and tossed the phone aside. But I still watched the clock while I worked.
At noon, I forced myself to finish typing an email. I forced myself to take my time walking to his office despite the thrumming pulse inside that said, go, go, go. I forced myself to take a deep breath at his door before knocking.
“Come in.”
I entered, attempting to hide behind my icy exterior, but knowing my eagerness dampened the effect.
“You’re late.”
“I wasn’t aware a time came with your demand,” I responded with an air of boredom that didn’t exist.
“You always take your lunch at noon. It was implied.”
“I didn’t realize you knew what time I always went to lunch.”
He scanned me from head to toe, melting more of my glacial shell. “Of course, I know.”
Needing a moment of reprieve from his stare, I turned and closed the door. “I had an email to finish.”
“Hmm…” he hummed, waiting for me to turn back. “Come eat. I ordered a strawberry and burrata salad with grilled chicken. I hope that’s okay.”
My mouth watered. “That’s fine.”
He rose from his desk and gestured to the seating area where everything was set up. I waited for him to choose his seat on the couch before I attempted to move to the chair away from it. Before I could sit, he shackled my wrist in his hand and pulled me down beside him.
“I want you next to me.” It came out as another order rather than an explanation.
I swallowed my objection and sat with wide-eyed wonder, stupidly dazed by his strong thigh grazing mine. Somewhere in my mind, a feminist woman screamed at me to stand up and smack him, but I couldn’t pay her any mind while I focused on Lucian laying out a napkin on my leg and passing me my plate.
“Eat,” he ordered. “I figured we could use this time to go over the details of our arrangement and to make sure you still want to continue.”
“I do.”
He paused, letting my urgent, bordering desperate, answer linger between us. “Good.” Then he picked a strawberry from my plate and held it to my closed lips, dragging it back and forth, coaxing them open. I hesitated before giving in. He released another rumbling hum, sending a surprising thrill down my spine. “Good girl.”
Despite offering to talk, silence lingered as he ate, continuing to pluck bites and feed me. He grabbed the last strawberry from my mostly empty plate and pressed it against my lips. I knew I’d accept his offer every time, but I still made him work to open my mouth—enjoying his flare of approval each time I did. Except, this time when I complied, he didn’t drop the ripe fruit on my waiting tongue. This time, he pushed inside with the berry, dragging his finger along my tongue.
“Suck,” he ordered.
Holding his dark gaze, I considered biting him instead. The faint twitch of his lips told me he saw the thought and challenged me to try. Instead, wanting to see how dark his eyes could get, I wrapped my lips around his long finger and sucked, dragging my teeth across his skin as he pulled out with a pop.
His jaw flexed and the column of his neck worked over a swallow while his eyes turned almost black, melting the same way I was between my legs.
“I drafted a contract,” he announced, pulling a stack of papers from the side table behind him.
I blinked, trying to go from sucking on his finger to the cold discussion of legalities.
“Not that it is formal or intended for anything legal. It is more about creating a written understanding to avoid…” He paused and winced before continuing. “Miscommunications between us.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, trying to decipher the added tension in his shoulders.
“The first page is stating the basics of our agreement and the gibberish of agreeing to any changes,” he explained, pushing the papers into my lap. “The next few pages include lists of various fetishes and kinks that you can check off as either experienced, willing to experience, curious about, or a hard limit.”
I skimmed the first page because my father taught me better than to sign a document without reading it myself, but quickly flipped to the next, and the next, and the next…