Page 24 of His to Keep
“Can you go back in the spring? Now that you have a job?”
I shake my head. “Student teaching placements only start in the fall. Besides, I can’t work and teach at the same time. The hours are the same.”
“So what’s your plan?” His voice sounds oddly disapproving and I feel myself stiffening.
“This is starting to feel like an interrogation.”
His jaw clenches tightly. “I’m just…concerned.”
That has my hackles rising even more. “You don’t need to be concerned about my schooling. I promise it won’t affect my ability to do my job.”
“Rebecca.” His voice is sharp and I look up, unable to ignore the commanding tone. His brown eyes have grown fiery, trapping my gaze in his. “I would be concerned about any employees plans for the future, particularly where their education is concerned.”
“Oh.” That shouldn’t hurt my feelings but something pulses in my chest at his words.
Suddenly, I feel the firm pressure of his fingers on my chin as he tilts my face up. His eyes are even darker now. “But it’s more than that. I’m not concerned because you’re my assistant. You get that, right? I’m concerned because it’syou.”
I stare up at him, suppressing the shiver that wants to run through me at the intensity of his voice. “You are?” I whisper.
His fingers tighten on my chin. “Of course I am. I care about you.” His jaw clenches, anger flashing in his expression. “And it pisses me off that your dom isn’t helping you.”
I blink, surprised. “Why would he help me?”
He looks even angrier now. “Because you’re his responsibility.”
“No, I’m not.” I’m shaking my head fast, not liking the sound of that at all. “I told you, it’s not like that with us.”
He leans in, too close. Close enough for me to feel the body heat radiating off him. “If you were mine, this wouldn’t have happened. I’d take care of you.”
That shouldn’t sound so good to me. Hell, isn’t the whole reason I left home to escape from a controlling man who thought he knew what was best for me? But Luke’s words don’t sound anything like my father’s. I get the strangest feeling that letting Luke take care of me wouldn’t be so bad at all.
I brush his hand away, too overwhelmed to think straight with him sitting so close. “But I’m not yours,” I whisper.
“You damn well should be,” he growls, not backing up in the slightest.
“You’re my boss.”
His hand returns, this time brushing a strand of hair behind my ears. It’s so gentle, a complete contradiction to the fire burning in his eyes. “I could be more than that.”
“Luke—”
“You wouldn’t have to work,” he says, eyes darting down to my mouth. “I would take care of you. You could go back to school.”
I jerk back. “So I would be…what? Your mistress? Your whore?”
He blanches. “What? No. Ofcoursenot. God, don’t ever say that about yourself.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me,” I snap. “A rich guy putting me up, paying for my school. In exchange for what? Me tied to your bed at night?”
He growls, leaning in to invade my space again. “Make no mistake, Miss Fields, I absolutely do want you tied to my bed. But it won’t be in payment for anything. It will be because you want it so bad you’ll feel like you’ll die if you don’t get it.”
Holy. Shit. The command in his voice, the pure lust and desire swimming in his eyes, his words. It’s all too much.
Then he leans closer, running his nose lightly along my neck, causing goosebumps to erupt on every inch of skin on my body. “If I had my way, you’d be begging for my ropes and chains. For the pain only I can give you. For the feel of me deep inside your body.”
The noise I make is close to a whimper. He’s barely touched me and already he has all my nerve endings lighting up with need. The idea of begging suddenly seems entirely reasonable. I’d do much, much more to get him to keep making me feel like this.
Still, I manage to hold onto at least a fraction of my sense. “I didn’t just leave Chicago for school,” I whisper.
