Mr. Black's Proposal (10 page)

“
That’s
how I’d bring you to your knees,” he said. His eyes glittered with triumphant joy.

“Too easy,” I said, gasping for air. “I thought—I thought you said you wanted a girl who was a challenge.”

“You’re the best challenge I’ve ever faced,” Lucas said. “Maybe the only challenge.”

“That’s a little arrogant.”

His smile was dazzling.

“You know me.”

I was still breathing hard, but as I looked up at him, I knew only one thing could knock that silly grin off his face.

“Will you fuck me now?”

We lay on the floor of Lucas’s apartment.

“God, look at us,” I said. “We didn’t even make it to the bedroom.”

“What do they say? The wildest horses make the sweetest rides. Once they’re tamed, of course.”

He risked a quick hug from behind me. I tilted my head back against his chest and looked up into his grinning face.

“So I’m a horse in this scenario?”

“Yes. My mare.”

“I don’t know if I want to be a horse,” I said.

He drew one hand across my stomach, sending flames through my core. I felt myself clench but I held tightly still. I didn’t want him to know how much he affected me. But he growled into my ear and I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through my body.

“What about if I saddle you up and ride you hard?”

“Mmm, maybe. What do I get if I behave nicely and don’t buck you off?”

“A nice rubdown of your flanks.”

“
Flanks
?”

He laughed and pulled his arms around me, drawing me in.

“I have a party planned for this coming weekend,” Lucas said. “I want you to come.”

“I just came,” I joked. “All over your fingers and cock. Maybe you forgot.”

“I mean,” Lucas said, his mouth twisting a bit, “I want you to come as my girlfriend.”

I smiled.
That
was a proposal I could say yes to.

Epilogue - A Few Months Later

Steph

Spring came and went, and all of New York City ripened in the hot, humid summer. Business doubled, and doubled again. We opened up another bakery and started renting out warehouse space. I was busy in the best way, but I made sure to leave some free time in my schedule.

Because all my free time was taken up by Lucas.

I’d never known how wild you could be in the bedroom, but it seemed like every day brought another new surprise. He was generous in bed, generous and creative. I found myself opening up like I couldn’t believe. We tried new things. Some of them worked. Some didn’t. We giggled a lot.

The press began to refer to me as Lucas Black’s “long-term girlfriend” after only a week. After a month, the paparazzi stopped trying to get new photos of us. We were old news, it seemed. I liked that.

Then June rolled around. And one morning, on my birthday, I woke up in Lucas Black’s bedroom with my wrists and ankles tied to each of the four bedposts.

Lucas was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello?”

The white silk sheets were soft against my skin, but the red rope knotted around my limbs was as strong as a steel cable. I tugged inward, but my arms and legs were spread wide apart. I’d never woken up to any surprise like this before.

“Happy birthday, gorgeous.”

He walked into the room carrying a bowl of strawberries. He was wearing a black silk pajama suit I’d picked out for him during one of our shopping trips. His golden hair was growing longer, and it fell forward now, covering one eye. He tossed it back with a shrug.

“Strawberries?”

He bent forward as if he was going to kiss me on the mouth, but then his head dipped and he caught my nipple between his lips, sucking hard. A piercing thrill sliced through me.

“
Ahh
!”

I gasped as his tongue softened against my hardened nipple. He caressed me with his mouth, his lips tenderly bruising the sensitive flesh. When he sat back up on the bed, I instinctively curled sideways toward him. The rope stopped me, catching my wrists before I could move.

“Lucas, what is all this?”

“I thought I should bring you breakfast that would match your outfit.”

I was wearing a red lace lingerie set he’d gotten me. The strawberries were just as fire-engine red. He picked one out of the white bowl and lifted it to my mouth.

“Eat,” he said, and the word was as delicious as the fruit. I let my eyes close as the juice from the strawberry exploded over my tongue.

When I finished, I licked my lips. His breath made my eyelids open again. He was looking straight at me, his face only inches from mine. I arched against my bindings, but I couldn’t move far enough to kiss him. I let out a whimper.

“Does this feel okay?” Lucas asked. He leaned forward and examined my wrist bindings. His fingertips slid over my wrists, searing my skin. Every touch of his made me ache between my thighs.

“Yes,” I said.

“Have another strawberry.”

He put the berry to my lips. I licked his fingers clean. His piercing blue eyes hazed over as I flicked my tongue against the pad of his thumb.

“Jesus, Steph.”

His eyes refocused and he reached down to grab something. When his hand came up, my eyes widened. It was a vibrator. He turned it on. The low buzz vibrated the air.

“Lucas, what are you doing?”

“Giving you your first birthday present.”

Lucas slid down between my legs. My knees drew together instinctively, but the rope tied to my ankles wouldn’t let me clench them tight. With a firm hand, he pushed my thighs apart, shoving the red fabric of my panties up roughly. My muscles burned as he brought his mouth down against my already-aching clit. With the tip of his tongue, he flicked the slick nub and pressed the vibrator up against my entrance. The vibrations carried through everywhere, all at once.

“
Ohhh
!”

The orgasm was instantaneous. I arched against the ropes. Lucas pushed down on my hip with his hand, pinning me against the bed. He didn’t stop. His tongue retreated and he sucked hard, pulsing his mouth against my clit as he shoved the vibrator into my soaking wet slit.

“Ahhhhh! Oh God! Ohhhh! Lucas!”

I writhed from side to side, thrashing against the ropes, as wave after wave of sensation blew through my body like a hurricane. The air in the room was buzzing, a thick buzz. And there were screams—someone was screaming.

I
was screaming.

My panties were soaked and he was still licking me, licking hard and sucking, and my hips came up instinctively, seeking out his mouth.

The last shivers of my orgasm hadn’t yet retreated before I could feel the rise of the next one. Lucas wasn’t stopping at all. He was using the vibrator just inside of my entrance, thrusting it shallowly in and out of me. His tongue worked my throbbing clit over and over, faster and faster.

“Please—” I said. “
Please please please, oh yes, yes, please, oh please
—”

I didn’t know what I was begging for, but when Lucas thrust the vibrator deep into me, it hit a spot that pushed me farther forward, the ache jumping up in my core like an insistent need that wanted relief, only relief. And then I felt his finger against my back entrance, thick and urging.

“Yes—” I gasped, and then he thrust his finger knuckle-deep into me. I felt so full with his fingers in me, full and hot and clenching. The vibrator thrummed against my nerve endings and he thrust in again, again, always sucking at my clit. Another explosion went off, and then my back arched against the silk sheets and all I could think of was yes. Yes.

Yes.

“I don’t want to be older,” I said.

“You don’t have to be. Just lie.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. My mother’s been fifty-two for six years now.”

I laughed and rolled over, putting my hand against Lucas’s broad chest. He drew me close to him. Next to us on the bed lay the red ropes in a crumpled heap. I picked one up and twirled the end idly.

“I was worried about this,” I said. The tip of the rope swirled in the air like a snake trying to charm me.

“About what?” Lucas kissed the top of my head, and I looked up at him.

“I didn’t want you to have control over me. And here you are tying me up to a bed.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Kind of.”

Lucas tipped my chin up with his thumb.

“Steph, you control everything around me.” He pulled my hand to his chest. “Feel this. What do you feel?”

“Your heartbeat.”

“You control this.”

“Oh, come on.” I rolled my eyes sideways.

“You do. One smile makes my heart skip. One touch makes my pulse jump.”

He moved my hand from his heart down to his cock. It throbbed under my palm.

“One look from you,” he said, grinning, “makes me hard.”

“Lucas—”

“You have me in the palm of your hand. Can’t I give you a few orders every once in a while? Just to keep things even?”

I smiled.

“That sounds fair.”

“Oh!” he said. “I have another present for you.”

“Another!” I bit my lip and tallied up the orgasms. “What will that be, the sixth present today?”

“Seventh. And this present is different.”

He pulled his arm out from under me and turned away, reaching down over the bed. I heard the click of a cabinet.

“Don’t look. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes, smiling. I could smell the heady scent of Lucas’s body. I nuzzled against the muscled planes of his back.

“No looking!”

“I’m not!” I said, grinning and keeping my eyes clenched shut. I heard the flick of a lighter.

“Okay,” he said.

I opened my eyes. In front of me was a chocolate cupcake with a single candle on it.

A cupcake for my birthday.

Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Oh,
Lucas
…”

“Happy birthday to you…” Lucas started singing. “Happy birthday to you…”

I laughed, and suddenly I was crying and laughing at the same time, happy tears streaming down my cheeks. Lucas pulled me into a hug and finished his song slowly, softly.

“Happy birthday, dear Stephanie…”

His eyes shone the brightest blue, and I could see the flame from the candle flickering in those irises.

“Happy birthday to you.”

I took a breath and blew out the candle. Smoke ribboned out into the air until Lucas pinched the wick and pulled the candle out. He raised the cupcake to my lips and I took a bite. It was delicious, dark and sweet.

“Did you make a wish?” Lucas asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what it is?”

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Then it won’t come true.”

“Okay then,” he said. “What about your other present?”

“
Another
present?”

“This one’s better.”

“Better than a cupcake on my birthday?”

“I hope so.”

He reached into his pajama pocket, and all of a sudden there was no sound in the room, nothing at all but his breath and mine and the little diamond ring in the palm of his hand.

“Lucas?”

My voice was softer than normal, and I didn’t know if it was because my heart was beating so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else in the room.

“Stephanie, I want to give you this as a present.”

“Is that what I think it is?”

I looked into Lucas’s face, only a few inches from mine. He smiled a kind smile that reached his eyes and made his eyelashes crinkle.

“This is a present for you. It’s our future together.”

“Our future?”

The tears were coming again now, twinkling in the light on the ends of my eyelashes. Or maybe it was the diamond. All of a sudden his hand was holding mine and my pulse was racing.

“I can’t give you any more than that, Stephanie. But I want to give you all of it. I want to live all of my years with you. I want to hold you in my arms and watch you fall asleep after a hard day at work. You remember that day I was taking photos of you?”

I nodded, wiping away the tears. How were there so many of them?

“Here.”

Lucas handed me a printed out photo. I burst into laughter. It was me in my business suit, growling like a tiger at the camera. My hair was a mess and my smile took up half my face.

“You make me smile,” I said.

“That was the day I realized exactly that. All I want… the only thing that makes me happy… is making you happy. Maybe I’m selfish.”