Page 15 of Naughty Bedtime Stories

He arched a brow at her sudden bluntness. “And yet you attended one of my private events?”

“You ordered me here,” she said, not backing down now, using the little bits she’d learned from Jacob now to make sure that message was relayed through Marcus. She’d come too far, promised herself to make tonight count. “I thought compliance was expected.”

His lips lifted in a slow smile of understanding. “Indeed,” he agreed, intrigue shimmering in his eyes. “Jacob didn’t tell me you understood our ‘play’ so well.”

Her heart thundered in her chest. “I don’t,” she said, the moment of truth here. “But I’d like to learn.”

His eyes darkened, smoldering with interest. “I can see what Jacob has always found so intriguing about you, Darla.”

The words radiated through her. He and Jacob had talked about her in present tense, and Jacobstill wanted her. But why hadn’t he contacted her directly? Was this some sort of test? Before she could formulate any semblance of a coherent thought, he gave a short incline of his head, making it clear their conversation, for now, was over.

“Now,” he said. “I have a special task I must attend to, so you enjoy the wine, and I will return momentarily.” His voice lowered, taking on a seductive quality that made her heart flutter wildly all over again. “You are among some of my most intimate acquaintances here. I do believe I will count you as one of them in the very near future.”

He turned and walked away, leaving her staring after him, in no doubt of where she stood. If she wanted Marcus to train her, to invite her into the Society, he would, but realization seeped into the fantasy, the escape. Marcus was straight-up sex; he was safe.

Whereas sex with Jacob didn’t scare her; Jacob himself did. Jacob was about emotions and vulnerability. Being with Marcus would give her pleasure, but it wasn’t really the answer to what haunted her. Jacob was. He was here; she felt it clear to her bones, felt it in the awareness prickling along her nerve endings. And already she felt as naked and vulnerable as the day she was born.

Fifteen minutes after Marcus had left her to mingle, Darla was in a conversation with an attractive blonde who said she was a close “friend” of Marcus’s when it happened. That low hum of awareness, of the certainty Jacob was near, turned to a powerful tingle on the back of her neck so forcefully, it was darn near a command to turn and search her surroundings. Discreetly, she glanced around her, trying to remain engaged in the conversation, but knowing on some soul-deep level Jacob was here. He was here, and he was watching her.

Compelled to look up, she saw him standing alone at the center of the balcony a good distance away to the right of the piano player. She sucked in a breath at his masculine beauty, at the way he commanded the room without so much as a word, at how he commanded her, as Marcus could never command her.

God, he was gorgeous—tall and broad, his black pants and a black, button-down shirt accentuating a body she could call nothing, if not a chiseled, muscular work of art. Their eyes locked, the air between them crackling with electricity she felt clear to her toes. Seconds ticked by, a silent message between them, as he backed into the shadows, and she knew he intended her to come to him.

With supreme effort, Darla turned to her female companion and made enough small talk to properly excuse herself. Slipping her slim blue purse strap onto her shoulder, she found the hallway to her right beneath the balcony and took the stairs upward. At the top, she followed a dimly lit hallway to what looked like a cellar door, theonlydoor. Darla stopped outside it, and with only a moment of hesitation, knocked. The door opened an inch in invitation.

Biting her bottom lip, she tentatively pushed the wooden surface until she could step inside.

Surprise rushed over her at what could easily be called a “pleasure chamber.” Candles—a good fifty or more—flickered around what appeared to be stone walls. In one corner was some sort of pedestal with a gold bar forming an arch over the top of it. Against one wall was what looked like something out of an Egyptian drawing—a type of bed with curling leather arms on each side. The door creaked shut, and the lock slid into place behind her.

Chapter Three

Jacob had told himself his need for Darla, this incessant burn that had been sated with no other woman, no sexual adventure, would prove a facade, a fantasy. It would end when he saw her again, but it had only begun. He felt her burning through his body, searing him inside out. He wanted to bury himself inside her, to punish her with each hard thrust of his cock for daring to offer herself to Marcus.

He flipped the last of two locks into place on the front entrance to the room, the scent of her filling the room, insinuating into his nostrils—sunflowers, those damn sweet sunflowers that had always driven him insane and had managed, in his too-frequent fantasies of her, to slide into his memory banks even in her absence. The aroma thickened his cock, like he wasn’t hard just being in the same damn building with her as it was, like he wasn’t already aching for her, cursing her formaking himache for her.

No other woman stole his control as she did, even with his knowing all too well that she couldn’t handle what he was, who he was. Yet, she thought she could handle Marcus, thought to delve into the dark side for his friend when she had only pushedhimaway.

Jacob reached for her before she could turn. He didn’t give her time to adjust to his presence, to talk. He didn’t want to talk; he was too damn mad to have civil conversation. She gasped in surprise as he turned her to him, and the sound rushed over him with the same fire as a shot of whiskey rasping along his throat.

“Jacob,” she whispered, trying for that conversation he didn’t want to have. She was close, so damn close he wanted to crush her to him, to feel her soft body melt into his, to punish her with his mouth, remind her who she really belonged to.

“You offered yourself to Marcus,” he hissed, anger sizzling the edge of the words, anger he wanted her to know,to feel.Her purse fell to the floor, and Jacob kicked it aside, maneuvered her until she was against the door. He pressed his hands to the wall above her, wanting to take her right now and fuck her like she wanted Marcus to fuck her, with nothing but blind lust. “You turned me away, but you have one meeting with Marcus, and you fucking ask him to become your Master?”

“No!” she insisted, her green eyes flashing at him. “No, I didn’t—and I…” Her hand reached for him.

He shackled her wrist. “You touch me when and how I say you do, if I decide you get to touch me at all.”

A stricken look flooded her face. She wasn’t like other women. He’d never denied her touching him until that night he’d tied her up, and that was meant for pleasure. He’d never wanted to do anything but pleasure her.

“I didn’t offer myself to Marcus,” she declared, but her voice was low, shaky, without the conviction of honesty.

“Don’t lie to me, Darla,” he growled through clenched teeth. “You’d like to learn,you said to him. If that’s not an offer, I don’t know what is.”

Her throat bobbed. Delicate and ivory perfect. It called to his mouth, and it pissed him offbecause he still wanted her.

“Marcus made it crystal clear that you didn’t believe I could handle your world,” she said. “I wanted to be sure you knew I could. I didn’t know what else to do.”

He wasn’t sure what part of him clenched tighter with her admission—his gut or his heart. All too easily, she’d offered herself to Marcus. “So you thought offering to fuck Marcus was the answer?”

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