Page 27 of Wanted
“Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head at himself. Drinking the rest of the water bottle was a poor substitute for what he really wanted—Anna, lying on her back, with the playground of her body laid bare for him to conquer.
Chapter 6
Pony/Anna
Breakfast was two eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee. Fresh from her shower, it was impossibly hard for Pony to sit at the table and watch while he cooked it. She was supposed to do the cooking. Not because she was good at it, or because she liked it—she didn’t particularly, although she had felt pride on the rare occasions when Ethen had compliment one of her meals—but because he was serving her. It should have been the other way around.
Also, the chair was devilishly hard and although the worst of the heat and throb from her paddling had long since faded, sitting on this unforgiving seat briefly rekindled the burn and just made the lingering tenderness hurt.
“Can I help?” she asked.
His back to her while he worked at the stove, Marcus calmly replied, “While I think it’s fabulous that you feel comfortable enough with me to even make that offer, what did I tell you the last time you asked?”
Oh yeah. She had already asked. She’d forgotten.
Menagerie girls weren’t supposed to fidget, but she had to get the nervousness out somehow and though she did try to still it, her fingers stubbornly picked and picked at the cloth of her sweatpants. She wasn’t any good at being waited on. She hated the uselessness. She wanted to do something.
Looking for something to clean, she spotted the blanket he’d swaddled her on the couch with last night still lying where she’d left it. It was literally the only thing she could see out of place in the whole of his house, and she stood to fetch and fold it.
“Sit your butt back down,” he said without turning around.
“But I was—”
He set down the plastic spatula he’d been using to scramble the eggs and plucked a wooden spoon from the utensil crock by the stove. He turned around, but she had already shut her mouth.
Still calm, without a trace of irritation or anger, he said, “You’re not the world’s slave, and when you leave here, I don’t want you hooking up with the first asshole you meet. That means you need to learn when to serve and when to sit while other people do things for you.”
Right. She eyed the wooden spoon and prayed he’d be content with just lecturing her.
He waited, and when she didn’t argue, he put the spoon down on the counter and went back to his eggs. Releasing the anxious breath she’d been holding, Pony squirmed, but stopped almost immediately. Her butt was too sore to wiggle about. How did brats do it? Why would they do it? There was absolutely no appeal to the dull ache that her inadvertent writhing had rekindled in the deep muscle of her flesh. And yet, there was no denying that the look he’d given her while he’d wordlessly threatened her with the spoon had sent another hot rush of arousal spilling down through her core to soak into her pants.
She touched her stomach, pressing down as if she could still the fluttery spasms twitching through her sex, but it wasn’t her stomach where she wanted most to be touched. And it certainly wasn’t her hand that she wanted most to feel.
She pressed harder, catching her forehead in her palm as she braced her elbow on the table and tried not to ignite in another heat wave of mortification. He’d had her touch herself. Right there in front of him, and though he’d walked away immediately afterward, she’d known he’d liked what he’d seen. He’d liked how wet he’d made her.
She did too.
She knotted her fingers in the excess folds of her shirt, locking them in place so she wouldn’t be tempted to reach down and do it again. Menagerie girls weren’t for themselves. Their bodies, their pleasure, their pain—all of it belonged to Ethen. He decided what, where, when, and how. In the beginning, she’d really liked that. She’d liked walking with him in the park, in broad daylight, never knowing if the mood would strike him and he’d pull her off the path far enough to be out of sight, before backing her up against a tree or bending her over behind a bush and making his use of her.
She’d liked the ecstasy of his whispered command, ‘Come’ burning in her ear.
She’d even liked the unbearable erotic frustration if he chose to finish before her, leaving her perched on that razor’s edge of unfulfilled passion without allowing her release.
But this… this had been different. Marcus had wanted her. At least, he’d seemed to, and even though he’d walked away, he’d done so leaving no doubt anywhere in her mind that her obedience had pleased him.
She’d liked that.
The whole time on the treadmill she’d been able to think about nothing except the tented glimpse she’d caught in his pants as he’d gone upstairs and what she might have been allowed to do if only he hadn’t left just then. What she would have done had he asked her to ease his hunger instead. Or maybe, had he asked her to masturbate for him, like he had last night. She’d have done it, right in front of him if he’d wanted her to. For a moment, just thinking about it, she felt beautiful.
She rubbed her stomach, feeling again that blossom of heat slowly building while her pussy fluttered its wanton little spasms.
Her breakfast plate came into abrupt view, startling her as Marcus set it on the table in front of her. He set a fork down next to it, and then sat down at the head of the table beside her.
“Eat,” he said.
A man of many words he was not, but she didn’t mind.
Untangling her fingers from her shirt, she dutifully picked up her fork and began to eat.
