Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Harper
Song- THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND, Bad Omens.
Hudson hadn't even fully pulled out of my parents' driveway before I was jumping in my own car and racing back to Sterling Ranch.
I didn't say goodbye properly. I didn't check my hair. I didn't grab the overnight bag I'd packed like a sensible adult. I just grabbed my keys, kissed my mom on the cheek, told her I'd call her tomorrow, and drove.
I've been stashing more and more clothes at Ace's lately, so I don't even need to get changed. My toothbrush is in his bathroom. My shampoo is in his shower. My favorite mug has migrated to the left side of his kitchen cupboard like it belongs there. Because it does.
All I want is Ace.
He owes me an orgasm. And I owe him an apology for showing up at his bar with Hudson earlier. That situation needs addressing before it festers, because I saw the look on his face when Hudson's hand touched my back, and I never want to see it again.
I park next to his truck and sprint out of the car, grabbing my purse. I don't even get to knock. The door swings open, and my breath catches.
For a few seconds, I just stare at him.
Gray sweatpants. Shirtless. Backward hat. The tattoos that are there just for me. Eight pack. The V-line disappearing below the waistband. The sweatpants sitting so low on his hips that my brain short-circuits.
I've died and gone to heaven with my panties soaked.
He smirks, resting one arm on the doorframe, like he knows exactly what he looks like and exactly what it's doing to me.
"Well? You coming in? Or just going to stare at me?"
I shake my head and look into those brown eyes, crossing my arms over my chest.
"I might just stare for a little while longer."
He laughs, leans forward, and grabs my hand, yanking me inside. The door closes behind me, and he presses my back against it, tipping my chin up with his thumb. His body is warm and bare and inches away from mine.
"Hi, Goldie," he whispers against my lips.
"Acey," I breathe.
His lips hover over mine. Close enough that I can feel the heat of his mouth. He doesn't kiss me.
"Stop teasing me. Please," I say, looking at him through my lashes.
His hand slides down my side and cups my ass, squeezing hard enough to make me yelp.
"Is there something you wanted, darlin'?"
I bite my lip. "You."
He nods. His hand glides down my left arm, his fingers tracing the inside of my wrist.
And then he stops dead on my hand.
His face goes blank. Completely, totally blank. The warmth evaporates. The smirk disappears. What's left is flat and still and unreadable, and my stomach drops through the floor because I already know what he's found.
The ring. Hudson's ring. Still on my finger.
I forgot. I jumped in the car so fast that I forgot to take it off. I was so desperate to get here, so focused on him, that I didn't even think.
His eyes lift from the ring to my face. One eyebrow arches. He doesn't say a word.
"Ace. I'm sorry. I literally jumped in my car and drove straight here. I didn't think."
Nothing. His jaw is set. His eyes are dark. Not angry. Something else. Something that makes my pulse hammer and my thighs press together.
He slides the engagement ring off my finger and holds it between us, right in my face. The diamond catches the light from the hallway, and it looks obscene. A reminder of everything fake in my life, held up by the only thing that's real.
"You thought you could come here wearing another man's ring and not pay the consequences, Goldie?"
My mouth opens, but I snap it shut. This was not my finest moment. Fake engagement or not.
He shoves the ring in his pocket and points to the stairs behind me.
"Upstairs. Now. I want you naked, on your knees, in the center of the room. You don't say a word. You don't move. Not until I tell you to." His voice is low.
I glance at the floor, and he tips my chin back up, forcing me to look at him.
"Do you understand why you need to be punished, pretty girl?"
I squeeze my thighs together because even though I'm in trouble, Ace's punishments are never really punishments. He would never hurt me. Not in a way I don't want.
He just likes to play.
"I understand, Ace. I'm sorry."
He blows out a breath. "I don't want your apologies, baby. I want you naked."
A smile twitches at my lips. My ass is going to be so red I won't sit down tomorrow. And I'm already buzzing with anticipation.
He taps my ass as I dodge past him. I take the stairs two at a time, my heart hammering, a grin spreading across my face that I'm grateful he can't see.
His footsteps don't follow.
I reach the bedroom. Close the door. Strip everything off in record time. Folded on the chair because even in the middle of being punished, I'm not leaving my clothes on his floor. He'd find a way to punish me for that, too.
I kneel in the center of the room. The hardwood is cool under my knees. The house is quiet. Just the hum of the air conditioning and my own breathing, which is already coming faster than it should.
I wait.
One minute. Two. My knees start to ache against the wood. I resist the urge to shift my weight. He said don't move. He meant it.
Three minutes. I can hear him downstairs. The fridge opens. Closes. A glass is set on the counter. He's making me wait on purpose. Letting the anticipation build. Letting me kneel here and think about what I did and what's coming.
Four minutes. My thighs are trembling. Not from the position. From the waiting. From the not knowing.
Five minutes. Footsteps on the stairs. He's counting them. He knows exactly how many steps it takes. He knows I'm counting them too.
The bedroom door opens.
I keep my eyes on the floor. Hands on my thighs. Back straight. The way he likes me. The way I learned a long time ago makes him lose his mind.
My pulse is in my throat.
He walks behind me. I feel the heat of him at my back, close but not touching. I forget how to breathe when his breath is on the top of my head.
He circles. Like he's inspecting something he owns. I keep my gaze down, but I can see his feet moving past me and then stopping in front of me.
"Look at me," he orders.
I lift my eyes.
He's standing over me. Sweatpants. Backward hat. Arms at his sides. Looking down at me with an expression that makes every nerve ending in my body fire at once.
“Now I’d like to do a little show and tell for you,” he says.
And then he drops his sweatpants to the floor, kicking them to one side. He flicks on the warm side light, his hand on his hard cock.
I frown. He's holding something between his thumb and forefinger, but the light is behind him, and I can't quite see it.
He steps closer, and my breath catches in my throat.
Hudson's engagement ring. The diamond glinting.
But it's not on his finger. It's not in his palm.
It's threaded onto a small surgical steel ring that connects with a ball. The other three piercings are still the curved barbells.
My engagement ring is on one of his piercings on his dick.
My brain stalls. I look up at him. Back at the ring. Back at him. My jaw almost on the damn floor.
"Ace." My voice comes out strangled. "What did you do?"
"What does it look like I did, darlin’?"
"It looks like you put a twenty-thousand-dollar engagement ring on your dick."
"Correct."
"That ring doesn’t belong to me."
He laughs. "Nope. You’re right about that."
I cannot stop staring.
He crouches down in front of me, with that devastating, infuriating, I-dare-you-to-be-mad-about-it smirk that I fell in love with when I was fifteen years old.
"Here's how I see it, pretty girl. You walked into my house wearing another man's ring.
On my finger." He taps my left hand where it rests on my thigh.
"So now it lives on me. Somewhere more appropriate.
And every time I fuck you, you're going to feel it.
And you're going to remember exactly who you belong to. "
The sound that comes out of me is not a word. It's not a moan. It's something from a part of my brain that has completely abandoned logic and is running on pure, feral instinct.
"And when Hudson asks where his ring went?" I manage.
"Tell him it's in a very safe place."
"Ace." I warn.
"You can tell him it's being well looked after."
"ACE."
He grins. The kind of grin that makes me want to strangle him and climb him like a tree in the same breath.
"Are you mad?" he asks. He already knows the answer.
"I am furious," I lie.
It’s kind of hot. Absolutely insane. Still hot.
"You're turned on."
"I am furious." I counter.
"Your nipples say otherwise."
I look down. He's right. Traitors.
He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His expression shifts. Softens just enough that I can see the real thing underneath the game.
"I don't like seeing his ring on you, Harper," he says quietly.
"I know it isn't real. I know you don't want him.
But seeing that diamond on your hand, something in me breaks a little bit.
So yeah. I took it. And I put it somewhere that makes it mine.
Because everything about you is mine. And I need that ring to know it too. "
My chest cracks open. I hate doing this to him. All I want to do is make this man happy, yet every single time I try and get it right, I mess it up.
"You're ridiculous," I whisper.
"I'm yours."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
He laughs and leans in, pressing his forehead to mine with his hand tangled in my hair.
"Now," he says, his voice dropping back into that register that liquefies my spine. "I believe we were discussing your punishment."