“Don’t you like it?” Derrick asked with concern in his voice. “We can order something else.”
“I love it.” I pressed my knees together under the table as I met his gaze.
On the table was a rose identical to the dozen he'd brought me when he picked me up. He would pick it up every so often and stroke the petals over my cheek or arm. Those teasing caresses had me on edge, ready to beg him for a deeper touch, but there was more going on here than just a precursor to sex.
“I’m just..." I struggled to find the right word.
He leaned in and kissed me. I whimpered against his mouth, muscles quivering as he put his hand on my knee. “I want to push this dress up over your ass and fuck you here and now, you know that?”
Heat exploded under my skin. I was already wet, but now, as my pussy contracted, I could feel the dampness seeping into my lace panties.
“Stop…please.”
He lifted his head and studied me, then brushed his lips across mine in the faintest ghost of a kiss. “For now.”
As he backed away, I grabbed my water and gulped, my throat painfully tight.
When I looked up at him, he had a velvet box in his hand.
My heart stopped fluttering, finally. Instead, it skipped several beats.
He opened the box and held it out for me. Even as I watched, something flickered across his face. It was so quick I didn’t have time to interpret what it meant, and then it was gone. Had his eyes softened for a moment, held something other than just lust? I must have been mistaken. Or maybe the little bit of champagne was playing tricks on me. Whatever it was his expression was back to being even and unreadable. His lips curved in the sort of pleasant smile that one would expect from a man about to propose to his girlfriend.
“Jessica Ellis, will you marry me?”
And there it was. No flowery sentiments, just four significant words.
Of course, there were three other words neither of us had said to each other and never would.
I stared at the ring, a large, flawless round diamond on a band of yellow gold. It was stunning, the sort of ring any woman would envy.
And yet I couldn’t stop the words from echoing in my head: if only it was real.
My lips twitched, and I swallowed. I knew what to say. It was in my contract, after all. “Yes, Derrick. I’ll marry you.”
He took the ring out and lifted my hand, holding my eyes as he slid it onto my finger. As he stood, the other restaurant patrons applauded, a few cheering as he kissed me before returning to his seat.
If only…
* * *
“Derrick!”
Despite his teasing comments about pushing my dress up and fucking me the second we got inside his place, he’d done the opposite, seduced me slowly, almost sweetly.
Now, as he dragged his tongue over my pussy, I tangled my fingers in his hair and arched against him, desperate for release. “Please!”
“Please, what?” He pushed a finger inside me and licked me again, groaning roughly as I clenched around him. “Tell me, baby…what do you want?”
“Make me come,” I said, my voice breaking. I was desperate for it, so desperate.
“Make me come…?” The taunting lilt was accompanied by a deliberately light stroke that was more torture than pleasure.
“Make me come, please, sir!”
“Good girl…” He screwed his fingers into me and twisted them, knuckles rubbing against my g-spot.
I exploded, calling out his name as pleasure so hot it burned raced along my nerves. He moved up my body, gripped my knee, and pushed up, thrusting into me with a single motion. One orgasm rolled into a second, my muscles gripping his dick as I whimpered and buried my face against his chest, nearly overwhelmed by everything that’d happened, that was happening.