by Paige North
We enter the art gallery with all its white walls and black-and-white photographs: portraits, landscapes, shadows and angles. There’re lots of people wearing severe black outfits—totally out of my element, and I suddenly feel alienated. Servers wander around with trays of champagne, and I eye them.
Right away, a svelte woman with square-framed glasses swans up to Cage. “He made it!” She talks to a short man with a white goatee and porkpie hat who’s come up behind her. “Cage made it!”
My “boyfriend” takes her by the hand and kisses it, then he shakes the hand of Trendy Man.
“Jennifer, Phineas, meet Karini,” he says.
“Karini,” Phineas says with glee. “What a beautiful name. Pleasure to meet you, darling.”
Ah—I sense a lesson presenting itself. This is a test to see how smooth and polished I can be whenever I meet Cage’s friends…or acquaintances…or whoever these people might be.
Jennifer only gauges me with suspicion, but since she’s standing way too close to Cage, I’m thinking she’s into him. That’s why she’s being judgy about me.
But I pull out all the stops from the book of Miss Manners, allowing Phineas to kiss my hand. Then I shake Jennifer’s.
She does hate me. I can tell.
“Cage,” she says, taking him by the arm. “You must see the Brooklyn collection.”
“Yes,” Phineas echoes. “You simply must.”
Cage grins down at me as if he has no idea about her interest, or maybe he doesn’t care. “Jennifer owns the gallery,” he says. “Phineas is the artist whose work is on display.”
I politely nod and seem interested while keeping my mouth shut. Better to come off as mysterious rather than embarrass Cage.
The couple leads us over to a teeny room with color pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge at different times of the day; they’re all lined up as if recording how the light moves over the structure hour after hour. Jennifer thinks it’s fascinating. Phineas preens.
I see a server approaching with the champagne, and I think about going for it before I see Cage catching me.
Okay, okay, I’ve had enough booze. But doesn’t he understand that I’m still a little nervous around these people and that I really want to do well for him?
As Jennifer oozes more compliments about the photos, someone comes in the room and tells Phineas that there’s an interested buyer. He’s off in a flash, but that leaves Jennifer, who keeps touching Cage’s other arm.
Excuse me? My boyfriend.
Maybe I’m making things too real now, because I’m the one who gets possessive. I snuggle up to him closer, just to show Jennifer that he’s off limits.
Cage’s arm stiffens, and I realize that I’ve failed this particular test, stepping over a line when I wasn’t supposed to, being too intimate.
But where is that line with Cage, and why does it always feel as if it’s moving?
After Phineas returns to fetch Jennifer, leaving Cage and me alone in the small room, my pseudo boyfriend looks down at me, his gaze darker than ever, his mood absolutely black.
Without him saying a word, I know rehearsal is done for the night.
Chapter 13
With my girlfriend lessons over, Cage sits in silence next to me on the limo ride home. I know exactly what I did wrong in the art gallery, and I think he knows that I didn’t just make a mistake when I cuddled up to him in front of Jennifer, his associate or whatever.
I did it on purpose because the lines got blurred. I’m getting in too deep.
The moment we get back into his apartment, he icily closes the door behind us. I face him in the entry. Neither of us says a word.
I can hear my heartbeat echoing everywhere inside of me as things get more intense. Finally, I’m the one who talks first. “Thank you for wining and dining and romancing me, Cage, but I need my beauty sleep.”
I take off down the hallway. He follows me, unhurried, although his tone is rough.
“What did you think you were doing back there?”
“Being your girlfriend. Wasn’t that what I was supposed to be doing?”
“You know damned well what the expectations were. Igor Vasiliev won’t appreciate public displays of affection or classless behavior like that.”
I turn the corner into my room. “Then exchange me for a more perfect model! Girlfriend 2.0!”
On my way across the thick carpet, I take off one heel, then the other. Then I go to the walk-in closet and flick on the light to illuminate the rows of hanging clothes, shoe racks, and wide drawers.
Just as I’m about to return the shoes to their place, Cage fills the entrance.
I turn to look at him, and his gaze burns into me. My pulse quavers.
His tie, collar, and jacket are undone. He’s hot and cold, both temperatures dominating me already.
“Never walk away from me,” he says with controlled heat.
“God, Cage.” I sound so brave. “One second you’re pushing me away, the next you’re hauling me back in. Which is it?”
The darkness returns in him with a dangerous flash in his eyes, and I suck in a breath. Fright and excitement—I don’t know which I’m feeling. But as he takes a step forward, my nerves get the better of me, and I throw a shoe at him.
The heel thuds off of his hard chest, and he merely looks down at where it lands on the floor, then back at me.
The darkness is seething in him now. My blood is boiling and dancing.
He takes another step toward me, and I let the other shoe fly.
This time he easily lifts his arm to dodge it.
“If you’re going to be a baby and throw things, you better improve your aim, Karini.”
“You’re such a prick.”
“Don’t you think,” he says tightly, “that you’re the one who should be punished for tonight, not me?”
Based on what happened between us last night, I think I know what kind of punishment he means, and my pussy clenches. Yes, please show me a lesson just like that…
He must see the permission in my eyes and in the eager way I can hardly breathe, because he pounces, using one hand to tear at the front of my dress, ripping it and making me stumble and gasp. A shot of heat juices my pussy.
I look down at the shreds of black lace on me, then suck in another breath as he tears at more of the dress.
I stand there with my strapless bra and matching black panties exposed, fighting for air while my clit pounds.
Cage is devouring me with his gaze. The sheer size of him arouses me beyond all reason, and I thoughtlessly reach for him, grasping his shirt and yanking it out of his trousers. I do it so hard that buttons pop off.
Punish me for that! I think as he keeps eating me up with his gaze. Do it!
It’s as if the darkness in him explodes, and he yanks down my bra, my breasts popping out. He turns me around, toward all the hanging clothing, and I grope at the dresses and nighties on their hangers. I latch onto them as he strips the rest of the torn dress off me, then the bra, then my panties.
They all lie in shreds on the floor as I wait, panting, so wet and throbbing that I think I might die.
Naked, stripped away of everything that used to cover me, I know without a doubt that he’s gotten to the real me underneath.
He drags his large hands down my bare back, then cups my ass, bringing me to my toes as I pull at the clothing to keep from falling.
Falling hard.
I moan as he kneads my cheeks and presses his mouth down against my ear.
“You need to be a better student, baby,” he says, his moist, hot words tickling me.
I manage to speak. “Just keep teaching me.”
He laughs cruelly and urges his long fingers back between my legs, feeling my wet pussy, skimming my entrance on his naughty way.
“Oh!”
“There,” he whispers against me. “You’re already learning to obey my every move.”
He’s turned on, and that turns me on even more as he plays with
me, dipping his fingers into me, making silent, wicked promises and getting me drenched and desperate. The muscles in my belly spasm, working their way up to something bigger.
When Cage stops finger-teasing me for a moment, I nearly cry out in protest. But he’s only let go so he can strip something off of him. He brings his hand around to the front of my pussy, and before my next flailing heartbeat, I feel him thread a length of something silky between my legs.
His tie…
He grasps it from the back, then begins to move it back and forth, stroking through my slick folds. The smooth-rough texture grazes my clit, and I start to slip down to the ground, leaving the hangers and the clothes knocking against each other on the way.
He’s with me as I drop to my knees, my legs spread wide. I’m pressed back against him now, and I grope behind me, pulling at his clothes as he keeps working me with the tie, building that fire in me, crazy flames that lick and burn.
Just as the heat is rising, threatening, pounding its way through me, he stops again.
I give another frustrated cry, yanking at his jacket.
He laughs, throws the tie away, then shucks off his jacket. I feel the hardness of his wide chest against my back. I pray that he’s going to take off his shirt, too, giving me access to all those smooth muscles, every primal inch of him…
He firmly takes hold of me and brings me to my back on the carpet. As I try to catch my breath, I restlessly shift my hips, running my gaze over his naked, rippling torso. He never stops watching me as he reaches for a closet drawer, then tugs it open.
“What’re you doing?” I ask.
“Quiet,” he commands.
He’s not playing. Those demons are driving him again, and a nasty thrill overtakes me. I know now more than ever before that I have demons, too.
I lift my arms over my head, and Cage stops reaching into the drawer for a second. His eyes are on my breasts—my full tits with their stimulated pink tips.
A sense of power rushes me at the knowledge that I can dominate him in this one small way—by showing him how excited he makes me. By making his eyes go hazy with lust.
But then I spread my legs so he can see how wet I get down there from submitting in every other way.
A growl rumbles from his throat, the darkness rising in him, and when he pulls a fistful of white silk stockings out of the drawer, I know I’m in for it.
Finally.
“You obviously need to be controlled.” He drops most of the stockings, hanging onto just one pair. “You should be tied up like the gift you are.”
My pulse accelerates, pounding through every part of me. My pussy is getting the brunt of my excitement, throbbing, creaming.
My gaze travels to where some of my clothes hang. There are decorative poles on each side of the racks.
Something to tie me to…
Another gush soaks my pussy as Cage expertly pulls my ankles over to where I was just looking. My bottom lightly scrapes over the carpet, burning my skin and lighting fire to my nerve endings. He positions me so that one foot is by one pole and the other foot is by another, spreading me so that I’m fully exposed.
I’m beside myself with fear and ecstasy as he ties one of my ankles to the post, then the other to the second one. I mewl and shift as my legs straddle him. I raise my arms over my head again, inviting him to bind me there, too, just as he did last night with my negligee.
He leans back on his haunches, the veins in his neck livid and pumping as he hungrily looks at my pussy. Then he drags his gaze back to my face.
“Are you still willing to learn?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper harshly. “Please!”
Another nerve-screaming moment passes as I see a tug-of-war in him. But when I wiggle my hips in agitation, it’s over.
He growls again, rougher this time, and I sob in relief and rapture. With the devil in his gaze, he wraps my wrists with another stocking, then ties it off, leaving me willingly vulnerable and beating for him.
As he undoes his belt, then his fly, I encourage him by making soft, needy noises, biting my lip to keep myself from completely begging him.
He takes out his big, stiff cock, and before I can shriek in anticipation, he slides his hands under me and hauls my entire body up toward him. I gasp as I land on his lap, my pussy against his belly, his shaft nestled between my folds and the crevice of my bottom. His hands hold me up.
Instinctively I squirm again, and the forbidden sensation of his dick in a place where I never thought one would be drives me insane.
“Baby,” he whispers, and I can hear all the demons scratching his voice.
Then, out of nowhere, he kisses me, deeply, desperately, and my lust melts just enough to expose the yearning inside of myself—the need to have him kiss me like this for the rest of my life…
But then his mouth grows more demanding on mine. He nips at me, almost as if he knows that he’s revealed a part of himself that never should’ve come to light, and he’s punishing me for that, too.
I want to dig my hands in his hair, run my palms over his firm body, but I can’t because of my bound hands. And when he cuts off the kiss and loops my arms over his head so that they’re dangling together behind his shoulders, I’m helpless to touch him anywhere.
I start to protest, but he shuts me up with another ruthless kiss—a hungry one that’s all lips and teeth and urgency. Then he clutches my hair and brings me away from his mouth so that my chin is up in the air.
In that hot moment, the sting of carpet burn on my ass combines with the feel of his cock between my crevice and my ultra-parted legs, and I whisper, “Please do it. Please.”
He tortures me a little more by stroking his hand from my back up my waist, then cupping my breast. He plays with my nipple, slowing everything down, sending jolts of need through me.
Dammit, I want to touch him back, but I can’t…
A tiny, thwarted cry wells up in me as he lightly runs his fingertips down the center of my stomach, my belly. He comes perilously close to my pubic hair but stops short of it, brushing back and forth against my tender skin. Thanks to the bindings on my ankles, my folds are so spread open that my clit feels raw as it palpitates.
I’m burning everywhere for him.
“I want…” I start to say.
“What?”
As he reaches down to tickle my clit, I sob. He only growls again then grips me by the hips, lifting me onto his cock. I groan loudly as he fills me, then I try to bring my legs in to wrap around him, but I can’t. I only strain at my ankle bindings as I lean backward, arching. He lets me slump back onto the carpet, and the momentum brings my tied hands over my head again.
He braces his hands on the floor on either side of me, hovering over me as he drives his cock into me again, bringing my hips up in a suspended, erotic moment. My prone, helpless position gets me hotter, hotter, as he slips out of me, then thrusts into me again.
My brain fogs up as he fucks me, fucks me smoothly and mercilessly, the stockings pulling at my ankles every time he pushes into me. My bared clit is screaming now, and I’m about to snap, everything taut inside me, bands stretching then relaxing with every thrust.
I start to tremble inside with the rising heat, and the tremble turns into an uncontrollable shiver.
“Baby,” he says with every increasing stroke. “Shit, you’re hotter than I ever… Fuck.”
His words die off as he loses himself, his thrusts becoming more insistent as he watches me, his breathing chopped, his skin slick against mine.
I can’t hold myself back anymore. It’s too much. I…
A quaking trill within me sputters, then busts into sparks, then spirals through me, up and up until it screams, then bursts apart. I come loudly, calling his name, but it doesn’t stop there. Just as I’m winding down, another spiral pops up and out of me, and, god, I don’t think this is going to stop as another one attacks, exploding and tearing me apart.
Then everything goes dark until Cage
blasts wet heat into me as well, bathing me, completing me as he collapses on top of me.
I want to hold him tightly against me, but I’m still bound.
Restricted in so many ways from showing him how much I need him…
Chapter 14
Time passes, seconds…minutes. You can hear a pin drop as Cage finally pulls away from me, his breathing ragged.
I feel as if those pins are prickling over the skin of my bottom, which is tender, still stinging from the burn of the carpet from when he fucked me. I’m also aching between my legs with the intimate, raw sensation of having him inside me again tonight, stretching me to my limits, making my pussy’s muscles tremor in the aftermath.
Cage remains silent as he unbinds my wrists, then my ankles, then reaches up to tug one of my nightdresses down from its place on a rack. The sound of disturbed hangers clatters through the closet as he hands the fabric to me.
As I sit up and hold the nightie in disbelief, I’m burning with what I think is embarrassment…or maybe it’s desperation to have him do to me again what he just did.
He stands, still ignoring me as he zips himself into his trousers. All I can do is gape at him. It’s not because of his tanned, muscled, beautiful torso either. It’s because he’s more withdrawn than ever before, and I don’t get it.
“That was…” I start to say.
“I didn’t intend it to go that far.”
His words are so unfiltered that I flinch. But then I shake my head. “You didn’t go too far. I…I liked it. In case you couldn’t tell.”
“Okay,” he mumbles.
He’s still acting strange, and when he begins to walk away, I stop him by asking, “What’s going on, Cage?”
There’s a hopeful second when I think he might want to tell me, that he’s merely restraining himself and all it’ll take for him to break is one more touch from me.
But then he says, “You’ll want to get some sleep. I’ll be going in to work early tomorrow, and I’ll be texting you with links about conversational topics that Igor Vasiliev might enjoy during dinner. You’ll want to be prepared to talk about them during our next rehearsal.”
