Chapter 12
Gage was having my masquerade gown designed.
He’d stuffed most of my closet with custom made clothing from some of the top designers in the world.
Every button and bead had been added down to his specifications.
If I were going to be his trophy wife, then he’d outfit me like one.
Considering the charity ball was less than a week away, he’d put a rush on my dress, no doubt paying a ridiculously high premium.
“Not even a teensy little hint?” I needled him, lying on top of his body because I still couldn’t sit without pain after the punishment he’d issued the previous night.
“You’ll see it Friday night.” His warm hands drifted over my naked backside, his caresses downright hypnotic.
The same hands that delivered excruciating pain were also the same hands that moved over my skin in a way that made me feel treasured and loved.
I buried my nose in the crook of his neck, suddenly overcome.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.” Maybe I was having a woman moment. In fact, that particular curse was due any day.
“Are you worried you’ll lose your privileges?”
The issue had crossed my mind a few times, but I couldn’t say I’d thought about it tonight. Not with the way he’d…God…
He’d made love to me.
“You had honest intentions, Kayla, so I won’t punish you further by taking your car or phone away.”
“Thank you, Master.”
His chest went still as if he were holding his breath. “Are you still angry with me?”
“No, Master. I just wish…” I swallowed hard before forging ahead, knowing he’d want me to share what troubled me. “I wish we had more moments like these.”
Moments where we lost an endless amount of time, tangled as one in the darkness of our bedroom, bodies swallowed in the sheets. These kinds of nights were few and far between.
He grabbed my hips, pulled, and urged me to my knees. “I vow to you right now that we’ll have more of these moments, Kayla.” Nudging my opening with his cock, he shuddered a breath into my hair. “Ride me.”
“Again?”
“Did I stutter?”
With a slow downward thrust, I sheathed his cock.
“Look at me,” he said, fisting my hair with both hands. He pulled my head up by force, too impatient for me to unbury my face on my own. “Don’t forget that I’m calling the shots here. You being on top means nothing.”
I wouldn’t dare to be so foolish. He’d allowed me the sacred privilege of control twice since I’d known him—only because I’d tied him to the bed in a role reversal he probably still regretted to this day.
But truthfully, Gage had wielded power over me both times, because that’s who he was. Even gagged and tied, he’d owned me.
And he always would.
“I don’t want fast and hard,” he said, fingers loosening in my hair. “Fuck me slowly.”
Undulating my hips, I dropped my forehead against his, and our gazes locked together as surely as our bodies did. His breath became my own, and the adoration in his eyes hit me square in the chest, stealing my life-force.
“I have no fucking words for how good you feel right now,” he said, sliding his hands along my cheeks. Gage could do tender when he wanted to—when he wasn’t preoccupied with taking me by force or delivering a punishment.
Sometimes, he loved me like a normal man.
Fuck, I was going to cry and ruin this moment. I shuttered my eyes against the threat of tears, but it was too late. He swiped at the moisture creeping out from underneath my lashes.
“Baby, eyes on me.”
Exhaling the sob I’d been holding back, I opened my eyes, and confusion overshadowed his blue gaze.
“Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.” And I truly didn’t. Maybe his tenderness on the tail of such brutality did me in. Or maybe I just needed him too much, and a tiny part of me wept over the hold he had on me.
Cradling my cheeks, he nipped at my lips before drawing me into a kiss that destroyed me.
Our tongues came together in sync with our bodies.
The salt of my tears infused our taste buds with a spectrum of emotions, cleansing us of past hurts.
We kissed and fucked in perfect harmony, each note falling into place, every high and low executed with mastery.
He let go of my face with a groan, grabbed my hips, and yanked me down until I took his cock to the hilt. “I’ll never get enough. Your body enchants me—”
Another upward thrust hit my G-spot, and I cried out with a delicious shudder.
“Your smile lights my world, baby. And your stubbornness…hell, you can’t help but challenge the bastard in me.” As if to punctuate his words, he dug his fingers into my tender ass. “I know loving me isn’t easy, but you do it so damn well.”
The tears would never stop at this rate. I clutched his hair and fucked the fuck out of him, mindless of the way his hands gouged my red and welted flesh. His touch guided me, punished me, but above all else, he held me to him with fierce possession.
He’d never let me go, and the certainty of that knowledge swaddled my heart in absolution.
“No more doubts,” I cried, lips damp against his skin.
“No more doubts,” he agreed, then he sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re making me lose my shit. I’m gonna come, and if you don’t come with me, I’ll spank the fuck out of your ass.”
That was all I needed—the mental picture of his authoritative hand on my bottom. I fell apart within the confines of his embrace…no, we fell apart in each other’s arms, groaning and grunting and moaning incoherent nothings as we grasped for that wondrous high together.